As I Write And As I Share, My Main Three Priorities In A More Converged Manner Are 1. Biology, 2. Neurology,

Wow, quite a career!

Ever want to ask a real life astronaut a question? Here’s your chance!

Astronaut Jeanette Epps will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Friday, May 5 from 10am - 11am ET here on NASA’s Tumblr. See the questions she’s answered by visiting nasa.tumblr.com/tagged/answertime!

NASA astronaut Jeanette J. Epps (Ph.D.) was selected as an astronaut in 2009. She has been assigned to her first spaceflight, which is scheduled to launch in May 2018. Her training included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in International Space Station systems, spacewalk training, robotics, T‐38 flight training and wilderness survival training.

Before becoming an astronaut, Epps worked as a Technical Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Born in Syracuse, New York. Enjoys traveling, reading, running, mentoring, scuba diving and family.

She has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from LeMoyne College, as well as a Master of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland. 

Follow Jeanette on Twitter at @Astro_Jeanette and follow NASA on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.

Happy to announce that the Trilogy for Pathway to the Stars: Parts 1, 2, and 3, has now been released in one 6" x 9" volume, with a little "Teaser" from Pathway to the Stars: Part 4, Universal Party, at the end. I am currently working on Part 4 during any free moments that come my way. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NC8W6V5 https://www.instagram.com/p/BtaV1Arlvfk/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=h2icug9jmfw0

Meet Fermi: Our Eyes on the Gamma-Ray Sky

Black holes, cosmic rays, neutron stars and even new kinds of physics — for 10 years, data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have helped unravel some of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos. And Fermi is far from finished!

On June 11, 2008, at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the countdown started for Fermi, which was called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) at the time. 

The telescope was renamed after launch to honor Enrico Fermi, an Italian-American pioneer in high-energy physics who also helped develop the first nuclear reactor. 

Fermi has had many other things named after him, like Fermi’s Paradox, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the synthetic element fermium.

Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

The Fermi telescope measures some of the highest energy bursts of light in the universe; watching the sky to help scientists answer all sorts of questions about some of the most powerful objects in the universe. 

Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which can view 20% of the sky at a time and makes a new image of the whole gamma-ray sky every three hours. Fermi’s other instrument is the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor. It sees even more of the sky at lower energies and is designed to detect brief flashes of gamma-rays from the cosmos and Earth.

This sky map below is from 2013 and shows all of the high energy gamma rays observed by the LAT during Fermi’s first five years in space.  The bright glowing band along the map’s center is our own Milky Way galaxy!

So what are gamma rays? 

Well, they’re a form of light. But light with so much energy and with such short wavelengths that we can’t see them with the naked eye. Gamma rays require a ton of energy to produce — from things like subatomic particles (such as protons) smashing into each other. 

Here on Earth, you can get them in nuclear reactors and lightning strikes. Here’s a glimpse of the Seattle skyline if you could pop on a pair of gamma-ray goggles. That purple streak? That’s still the Milky Way, which is consistently the brightest source of gamma rays in our sky.

In space, you find that kind of energy in places like black holes and neutron stars. The raindrop-looking animation below shows a big flare of gamma rays that Fermi spotted coming from something called a blazar, which is a kind of quasar, which is different from a pulsar… actually, let’s back this up a little bit.

One of the sources of gamma rays that Fermi spots are pulsars. Pulsars are a kind of neutron star, which is a kind of star that used to be a lot bigger, but collapsed into something that’s smaller and a lot denser. Pulsars send out beams of gamma rays. But the thing about pulsars is that they rotate. 

So Fermi only sees a beam of gamma rays from a pulsar when it’s pointed towards Earth. Kind of like how you only periodically see the beam from a lighthouse. These flashes of light are very regular. You could almost set your watch by them!

Quasars are supermassive black holes surrounded by disks of gas. As the gas falls into the black hole, it releases massive amount of energy, including — you guessed it — gamma rays. Blazars are quasars that send out beams of gamma rays and other forms of light — right in our direction. 

When Fermi sees them, it’s basically looking straight down this tunnel of light, almost all the way back to the black hole. This means we can learn about the kinds of conditions in that environment when the rays were emitted. Fermi has found about 5,500 individual sources of gamma rays, and the bulk of them have been blazars, which is pretty nifty.

But gamma rays also have many other sources. We’ve seen them coming from supernovas where stars die and from star factories where stars are born. They’re created in lightning storms here on Earth, and our own Sun can toss them out in solar flares. 

Gamma rays were in the news last year because of something Fermi spotted at almost the same time as the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo on August 17, 2017. Fermi, LIGO, Virgo, and numerous other observatories spotted the merger of two neutron stars. It was the first time that gravitational waves and light were confirmed to come from the same source.

Fermi has been looking at the sky for almost 10 years now, and it’s helped scientists advance our understanding of the universe in many ways. And the longer it looks, the more we’ll learn. Discover more about how we’ll be celebrating Fermi’s achievements all year.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

I love this kind of news!

“Voyager Spacecraft Fires Up Thrusters for First Time Since 1980”

 NASA scientists have recently fired up the thrusters on the Voyager 1 Spacecraft - the farthest spacecraft from Earth - in an effort to reorient its antenna towards Earth.  Originally, scientists would have used the attitude control thrusters aboard the spacecraft to make the adjustments, however these have been wearing out during the voyage. Instead, NASA scientists tried using Voyager’s ‘trajectory correction maneuver’ thrusters, located on the back side of the spacecraft.  Since these hadn’t been fired in 27 years, engineers were thrilled when they received an answer 19 hours and 35 minutes later that the four thrusters had worked perfectly.  "The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test. The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all,“ said Todd Barber, a propulsion engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Read more about this fascinating story at: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/01/us/voyager-1-thrusters-fired-first-time-since-1980/index.html

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScl)

I hope the new year puts the light into our eyes, allows the embers of the fire to glow within our spirits, and brings clarity to our minds, willing and making good things happen that bring joy to our lives and the lives of others we meet along the way. – Matt Opdyke #scifiauthor

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4D1wnTg9EUo?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque

I am pleased to announce the release of FTB Pathway Publications - Pathway to the Stars: Part 6.1, Trilogy!!! Enjoy the continuation of the journey!

#Christmas with @k1mberly0 and #matthewopdyke #strongfemalelead #strongmalerolemodel #physiology #neuroscience #physics #theoreticalphysics #biotechnology #nanotechnology #longevity #CRISPR #politicalsciencefiction #furtherthanbefore #authorsofinstagram #scifi #sciencefictionnovels https://www.amazon.com/author/matthewopdyke https://www.instagram.com/p/BqnJwmYgEIL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1sphrn7bybdvh

What are white dwarfs?

Some curiosities about white dwarfs, a stellar corpse and the future of the sun.

Where a star ends up at the end of its life depends on the mass it was born with. Stars that have a lot of mass may end their lives as black holes or neutron stars.

A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a planetary nebula.

In 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun will enter what is known as the Red Giant phase of its evolution. This will begin once all hydrogen is exhausted in the core and the inert helium ash that has built up there becomes unstable and collapses under its own weight. This will cause the core to heat up and get denser, causing the Sun to grow in size.

It is calculated that the expanding Sun will grow large enough to encompass the orbit’s of Mercury, Venus, and maybe even Earth.

A typical white dwarf is about as massive as the Sun, yet only slightly bigger than the Earth. This makes white dwarfs one of the densest forms of matter, surpassed only by neutron stars and black holes.

The gravity on the surface of a white dwarf is 350,000 times that of gravity on Earth. 

White dwarfs reach this incredible density because they are so collapsed that their electrons are smashed together, forming what is called “degenerate matter.” This means that a more massive white dwarf has a smaller radius than its less massive counterpart. Burning stars balance the inward push of gravity with the outward push from fusion, but in a white dwarf, electrons must squeeze tightly together to create that outward-pressing force. As such, having shed much of its mass during the red giant phase, no white dwarf can exceed 1.4 times the mass of the sun.

While many white dwarfs fade away into relative obscurity, eventually radiating away all of their energy and becoming a black dwarf, those that have companions may suffer a different fate.

If the white dwarf is part of a binary system, it may be able to pull material from its companion onto its surface. Increasing the mass can have some interesting results.

One possibility is that adding more mass to the white dwarf could cause it to collapse into a much denser neutron star.

A far more explosive result is the Type 1a supernova. As the white dwarf pulls material from a companion star, the temperature increases, eventually triggering a runaway reaction that detonates in a violent supernova that destroys the white dwarf. This process is known as a single-degenerate model of a Type 1a supernova. 

If the companion is another white dwarf instead of an active star, the two stellar corpses merge together to kick off the fireworks. This process is known as a double-degenerate model of a Type 1a supernova.

At other times, the white dwarf may pull just enough material from its companion to briefly ignite in a nova, a far smaller explosion. Because the white dwarf remains intact, it can repeat the process several times when it reaches the critical point, briefly breathing life back into the dying star over and over again. 

Image credit: www.aoi.com.au/ NASA/ ESA/ Hubble/  Wikimedia Commons/ Fsgregs/ quora.com/ quora.com/ NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger/ ESO/ ESO/ Chandra X-ray Observatory

Source: NASA/ NASA/ space.com

Pathway to the Stars: Part 9, Allure & Spacecraft "We cannot engage in human progression as solo artists, alone, and expect long-term and optimal results. While we can inspire momentum for a time, while working diligently, ultimately the laws of chaos will prevail unless we work together to preserve our world, our solar system, and our Universe." ~ Eliza Williams Vesha has completed her Virtual Universe training, and now she becomes immersed in missions and callings as never before! Enjoy as she tackles issues where society seems muddled in the chains of self-bondage, rather than moving forward with a bright and beautiful future for all. Joanne revisits a problem that can affect Eliza Williams' hopes for the future. Among Eliza's many goals within the Solar System to that end, related to space travel, is the construction of spacecraft being built just above Pluto! Enjoy this Space Opera as Eliza continues her quest to nurture humanity into a space-faring, world-preserving, and Universe-exploring civilization! She believes that the most significant step toward moving forward is kindness, and that kindness is the greatest strength we have! ISBN: 978-1951321093 LCCN: 2019918425eBook: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B081XLG9JV Paperback: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/195132109X For more info: https://www.mjopublications.com https://smile.amazon.com/author/matthewopdyke Tags: #sciencefiction #scifi #spaceopera #fantasy #stem #astronomy #sentience #spacecraft #spaceelevator #wellbeing #author #matthewjopdyke #ebook #paperback #amazon

A new Chandra image shows the location of several elements produced by the explosion of a massive star.

Cassiopeia A is a well-known supernova remnant located about 11,000 light years from Earth.

Supernova remnants and the elements they produce are very hot — millions of degrees — and glow strongly in X-ray light.

Chandra’s sharp X-ray vision allows scientists to determine both the amount and location of these crucial elements objects like Cas A produce.

Where do most of the elements essential for life on Earth come from? The answer: inside the furnaces of stars and the explosions that mark the end of some stars’ lives.Astronomers have long studied exploded stars and their remains — known as “supernova remnants” — to better understand exactly how stars produce and then disseminate many of the elements observed on Earth, and in the cosmos at large.Due to its unique evolutionary status, Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is one of the most intensely studied of these supernova remnants. A new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the location of different elements in the remains of the explosion: silicon (red), sulfur (yellow), calcium (green) and iron (purple). Each of these elements produces X-rays within narrow energy ranges, allowing maps of their location to be created. The blast wave from the explosion is seen as the blue outer ring.

X-ray telescopes such as Chandra are important to study supernova remnants and the elements they produce because these events generate extremely high temperatures — millions of degrees — even thousands of years after the explosion. This means that many supernova remnants, including Cas A, glow most strongly at X-ray wavelengths that are undetectable with other types of telescopes.Chandra’s sharp X-ray vision allows astronomers to gather detailed information about the elements that objects like Cas A produce. For example, they are not only able to identify many of the elements that are present, but how much of each are being expelled into interstellar space.

Much more reading/info/video:  http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/casa_life/