No Escape / 2015

Pak Army

Tuffam: NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Internationa...

Tuffam: NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Internationa...: NASA Television to Air Launch of Next International Space Station Crew The next three crew members bound for the International Space Sta...

Erika (Atlantic Ocean)

NASA's GPM Satellite Analyzes Tropical Storm Erika's Rainfall

see vedio 

The Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM core satellite has provided meteorologists with a look at the towering thunderstorms and heavy rainfall occurring in Tropical Storm Erika as it moves through the Caribbean Sea.
On August 27, 2015, there were many warnings and watches in effect as Tropical Storm Erika continued to rain on Leeward Islands. A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for Anguilla, Saba and St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra, U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands. A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for Guadeloupe, the northern coast of the Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to the border of Haiti, the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Tropical Storm Erika, the fifth named storm of the season, entered the northeast Caribbean early on the morning of August 27 as it passed through the Leeward Islands between Guadeloupe and Antigua. Fortunately, there were no reports of damage thanks in part to the effects of inhibiting wind shear, which kept the storm from strengthening.
Erika originated as a wave of low pressure that was first detected on Friday, August 21 midway between the West Coast of Africa and the Cape Verde Islands. The wave then tracked westward across the tropical mid Atlantic where it eventually intensified enough to become a tropical storm, Tropical Storm Erika, about three days later on the evening of August 24 (local time, EDT).
At this point, Erika was located about 955 miles due east of the Leeward Islands.  However, despite being over warm water, Erika struggled to intensify as it approached the Leeward Islands over the next few days thanks to an upper-level tough of low pressure near Hispaniola in the north central Caribbean, which created westerly wind shear that disrupted the storm's circulation.
Two instruments aboard GPM captured an image of Erika at 17:26 UTC (1:26 p.m. EDT) on August 26 as the storm was nearing the Leeward Islands. Rain rates derived from the GPM Microwave Imager or GMI captured rain rates in outer area and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar or DPR instrument captured rain rates in the inner area. GPM showed rainfall of up to 52.8 mm (2.0 inches) per hour.
The images revealed that the low-level center of circulation was displaced well to the northwest of the storm's rain field, which contains areas of embedded convection (thunderstorms) necessary strengthen and maintain the storm.  However, for the storm to intensify, those areas of convection need to be located close to the storm's core, which is not the case here due to the effects of wind shear.  At about the time of this image, the National Hurricane Center reported that Erika's maximum sustained winds were near 45 mph, making it a weak tropical storm, and that Erika was experiencing moderate northwesterly wind shear as it moved westward near 17 mph.
At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the DPR data was used to create a 3-D rendering of Erika. That 3-D image showed thunderstorm cloud tops reaching to just over 14 km (8.6 miles).
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Erika was located near latitude 16.4 North, longitude 63.3 West.  Erika is moving toward the west near 16 mph (26 kph).see full story

 

NASA Television to Air Launch of Next International Space Station Crew

The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to launch to the orbital outpost Wednesday, Sept. 2.
NASA Television launch coverage will begin at 11:45 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:37 a.m. Wednesday (10:37 a.m. Baikonur time). Mogensen and Aimbetov are short duration crew members while Volkov will spend six months on the orbital complex.
The trio will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, which will rendezvous with the space station and dock two days later to the Poisk module at 3:42 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 3 a.m.
The hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened at about 6:15 a.m. on Sept. 4, at which time the newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos, as well as Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. NASA TV coverage of the hatch opening will begin at 5:45 a.m.
This will be the first time nine crew members are aboard the station simultaneously since November 2013. Padalka, Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth on Saturday, Sept. 12, leaving Kelly in command of Expedition 45. The change of command ceremony in which Padalka will hand over command of the space station to Kelly will be broadcast on NASA TV on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 2:40 p.m.
Kelly and Kornienko will return in March 2016 after spending a year on the station collecting valuable biomedical data that will improve our understanding of the effects of long duration space travel and aid in NASA’s journey to Mars.
Together, the Expedition 45 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.
For the full schedule of prelaunch, launch and docking coverage, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Follow the space station crew members on Instagram and Twitter at:

http://instagram.com/iss

and

http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station 

-end-

Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
kathryn.hambleton@nasa.gov
Dan Huot
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov

Last Updated: Aug. 27, 2015

Editor: Gina Anderson

Tags:  Expedition 45, International Space Station

 

 

Hubble Finds That the Nearest Quasar Is Powered by a Double Black Hole

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found that Markarian 231 (Mrk 231), the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar, is powered by two central black holes furiously whirling about each other

The finding suggests that quasars—the brilliant cores of active galaxies – may commonly host two central supermassive black holes, which fall into orbit about one another as a result of the merger between two galaxies. Like a pair of whirling skaters, the black-hole duo generates tremendous amounts of energy that makes the core of the host galaxy outshine the glow of its population of billions of stars, which scientists then identify as quasars.
Scientists looked at Hubble archival observations of ultraviolet radiation emitted from the center of Mrk 231 to discover what they describe as “extreme and surprising properties.”
If only one black hole were present in the center of the quasar, the whole accretion disk made of surrounding hot gas would glow in ultraviolet rays. Instead, the ultraviolet glow of the dusty disk abruptly drops off toward the center. This provides observational evidence that the disk has a big donut hole encircling the central black hole. The best explanation for the donut hole in the disk, based on dynamical models, is that the center of the disk is carved out by the action of two black holes orbiting each other. The second, smaller black hole orbits in the inner edge of the accretion disk, and has its own mini-disk with an ultraviolet glow.
“We are extremely excited about this finding because it not only shows the existence of a close binary black hole in Mrk 231, but also paves a new way to systematically search binary black holes via the nature of their ultraviolet light emission,” said Youjun Lu of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“The structure of our universe, such as those giant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, grows by merging smaller systems into larger ones, and binary black holes are natural consequences of these mergers of galaxies,” added co-investigator Xinyu Dai of the University of Oklahoma.
The central black hole is estimated to be 150 million times the mass of our sun, and the companion weighs in at 4 million solar masses. The dynamic duo completes an orbit around each other every 1.2 years.
The lower-mass black hole is the remnant of a smaller galaxy that merged with Mrk 231. Evidence of a recent merger comes from the host galaxy’s asymmetry, and the long tidal tails of young blue stars.
The result of the merger has been to make Mrk 231 an energetic starburst galaxy with a star formation rate 100 times greater than that of our Milky Way galaxy. The infalling gas fuels the black holes’ “engine”, triggering outflows and gas turbulence that incites a firestorm of star birth.
The binary black holes are predicted to spiral together and collide within a few hundred thousand years.
Mrk 231 is located 600 million light-years away.
The results were published in the August 14, 2015 edition of The Astrophysical Journal.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington.
For images and more information about the study and the Hubble Space Telescope, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
http://hubblesite.org/news/2015/31

Robert Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

Last Updated: Aug. 27, 2015

Editor: Karl Hille

Tags:  Black Holes, Goddard Space Flight Center, Hubble Space Telescope, Universe

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Riyadh: Deaths from the MERS coronavirus have surged in Saudi Arabia ahead of the Hajj pilgrimage, with 19 fatalities recorded in a week, according to health ministry statistics.

A total of 502 people have died in the kingdom since the virus first appeared in 2012, according to updated figures posted on the ministry´s website, including 19, all Saudis, since last Thursday.

The number of MERS infections has also surged to 1,171 cases, the website said.

A surge in infections forced health authorities to shut the emergency ward at a main hospital in Riyadh last week, after at least 46 people, including medical staff, contracted the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Saudi Arabia, preparing to host more than two million Muslims from all over the world next month for the Hajj.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less infectious cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus that appeared in Asia in 2003 and killed hundreds of people, mostly in China.

Its symptoms can include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. There are no approved vaccines against MERS, which is believed to originate in camels.

Rangers and police personnel in a joint operation recovered arms from a graveyard in Khajji ground of the metropolis on Friday.

KARACHI: Rangers and police personnel in a joint operation recovered arms from a graveyard in Khajji ground of the metropolis on Friday.

Rangers and police carried out an operation in Rizvia society on information provided by detained suspect Fariduddin Abbasi, a former employee of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Fariduddin, affiliated with a political party, is in Rangers custody on 90-day remand.

The arms buried in the graveyard and recovered by the paramilitary force and police include two Kalashnikovs, cartridges and ‘Awan’ bombs.

Colorful Calendar Celebrates 12th Anniversary of NASA's Spitzer

Celebrate the 12th anniversary of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope with a new digital calendar showcasing some of the mission's most notable discoveries and popular cosmic eye candy.
The digital calendar is online at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/spitzer/20150820/Spitzer12thAnniversaryCalendar.pdf
The calendar follows the life of the mission, with each month highlighting top infrared images and discoveries from successive years -- everything from a dying star resembling the eye of a monster to a star-studded, swirling galaxy. The final month includes a brand new image of the glittery star-making factory known as the Monkey Head nebula.
"You can't fully represent Spitzer's scientific bounty in only 12 images," said Michael Werner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the mission's project scientist and a Spitzer team member since 1977. "But these gems demonstrate Spitzer's unique perspectives on both the nearest, and the most distant, objects in the universe."
Spitzer, which launched into space on August 25, 2003, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is still going strong. It continues to use its ultra-sensitive infrared vision to probe asteroids, comets, exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) and some of the farthest known galaxies. Recently, Spitzer helped discover the closest known rocky exoplanet to us, named HD219134b, at 21 light-years away.
In fact, Spitzer's exoplanet studies continue to surprise the astronomy community. The telescope wasn't originally designed to study exoplanets, but as luck -- and some creative engineering -- would have it, Spitzer has turned out to be a critical tool in the field, probing the climates and compositions of these exotic worlds. This pioneering work began in 2005, when Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from an exoplanet.
Other top discoveries from the mission so far include:
 -- Recipe for "comet soup." Spitzer observed the aftermath of the collision between NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft and comet Tempel 1, finding that cometary material in our own solar system resembles that around nearby stars.
-- The largest known ring around Saturn, a wispy, fine structure with 300 times the diameter of Saturn.
-- First exoplanet weather map of temperature variations over the surface of a gas exoplanet. Results suggested the presence of fierce winds.
-- Asteroid and planetary smashups. Spitzer has found evidence for several rocky collisions in other solar systems, including one thought to involve two large asteroids.
-- The hidden lairs of newborn stars. Spitzer's infrared images have provided unprecedented views into the hidden cradles where young stars grow up, revolutionizing our understanding of stellar birth.
-- Buckyballs in space. Buckyballs are soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules that have important technological applications on Earth.
-- One of the most remote planets known, lying about 13,000 light-years away, deep within our galaxy. Spitzer continues to help in the search for exoplanets using a state-of-the-art method called microlensing.
-- Massive clusters of galaxies. Spitzer has identified many more distant galaxy clusters than were previously known.
-- "Big baby" galaxies. Spitzer and Hubble has found remote galaxies that were much more massive and mature than expected.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about Spitzer, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

http://spitzer.caltech.edu

Elizabeth Landau / Whitney Clavin
818-354-6425 / 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov / whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
2015-274

Last Updated: Aug. 21, 2015

Editor: Tony Greicius

 

Nasa says the world is not going to end in September

Space agency kills off internet rumour by confirming an asteroid strike will not wipe out humanity in the next few weeks, or years, or decades

Good news for those with plans for October and beyond: the Earth will still be in existence.
Nasa has confirmed – after rumours swept the internet about an imminent asteroid strike expected between 15 and 28 September – that the two-week period in question will be entirely free of Earth-destroying space attacks.
The likelihood of any known potentially hazardous asteroid striking the planet within the next 100 years stands at 0.01%, the space agency said in a statement.

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but with a Big Rip

Read more

Persistent rumours on “numerous recent blogs and web postings” that an errant asteroid is due to wipe out not just Puerto Rico, but the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States and Mexico, as well as Central and South America, persuaded Nasa scientists that they needed to speak up, the statement says.
“There is no scientific basis – not one shred of evidence – that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates,” said Paul Chodas, manager of Nasa’s near-Earth object office at the jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“If there were any object large enough to do that type of destruction in September, we would have seen something of it by now.”
It is not the first time Nasa has punctured the excitement of doom-mongers. In 2012, it dismissed claims that the comet Elenin was on its way to destroy mankind, calling it a “trail of piffling particles”.
The space agency was also proved right in its assertion that the world would not end on 21 December 2012, as the Mayan calendar came to an end, heralding the apocalypse.
“There is no existing evidence that an asteroid or any other celestial object is on a trajectory that will impact Earth,” Chodas said. “In fact, not a single one of the known objects has any credible chance of hitting our planet over the next century.”
The jet propulsion lab’s asteroid watch website helpfully lists the next five close approaches by asteroids to the Earth. Of these, the riskiest will pass within 1,689,811 km (1,050,000 miles) of our planet on 21 August. Which is today. So be careful out there.see full story

Ground operations in NWA’s Shawal Valley begin: ISPR

RAWALPINDI: Director General, Inter Services Public Relations, Asim Saleem Bajwa, announced the beginning of ground operations in Shawal Valley of North Waziristan on Thursday night.

According to DG ISPR, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif has directed for accomplishment of military objectives as soon as possible.

Bajwa also tweeted that the COAS also ordered ideal coordination between air and ground assaults for maximum outcome.Ground operations in NWA’s Shawal Valley begin: ISPR