Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has captured a vast region of space containing the Heart nebula and Soul nebula.The infrared picture above is composed of 1,147 frames totaling exposure time of three and a half hours.

On the left, it is the Heart nebula designated IC 1805, named after its resemblance to human heart. The Soul nebula on the right also known as Embryo nebula designated IC 1848 is named after its resemblance to symbolic heart with two lobes. In my opinion, I think the Soul nebula resemble our hearts better. Anyway, these two nebulae are massive star making factories lying about 6,000 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. They stretch out nearly 580 light-years across. For comparison, Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across.

Heart nebula in visible lights by Adam Block and Tim Puckett

Soul nebula taken in visible lights(Sulphur II, H-alpha and Oxygen III) by Gregg L. Ruppel

Visible lights emitted by stars inside the cloud could not penetrate through it but infrared lights could. The infrared vision of WISE enables us to look through the cloud and gives us the insights of star making processes.

There are also two galaxies from the left to right at the centre bottom of the first picture. The left spiral galaxy is called Maffei 2 and the elliptical galaxy to its right is called Maffei 1.

Some statistics of WISE

• 960,000 images have been beamed back to Earth
• Observed more than 60,000 asteroids, 10,000 of them newly discovered, about 50 belong to Near Earth Objects (NEO)
• 800 Trojans observed, estimate to have observed half of 4500 known Trojans by the end of mission
• 72 comets observed, a dozen of them newly discovered

WISE will have completed its first sky map by July 2010 and spent the remaining three months for a second map. The public WISE catalog will be started to release in summer 2011. Wikipedia contains a section about the project history of WISE which I find quite interesting.

An annular solar eclipse taken by Hartwig Luenthen on 01 August 2008

On 26 January 2009, we celebrate Chinese New Year, the Ox Year. This year, we are “favored” a partial solar eclipse here in Malaysia. I said “favored” as if we were in centuries ago, a solar eclipse meant a terrible nightmare to the Chinese. Not in these days, we are now equipped with scientific minds, a solar eclipse now means a wonder from the sky.

Now, let’s cut straight into the title. Go to this NASA website and look out for your location. You will be given exact time when the solar eclipse will start and reach the maximum and finally end. Check out Solar Eclipse 2009 too. There’s useful information like the coverage of the obscured sun, basic skills to look at the sun, sunglasses making and so on. This booklet is made by Miss Lau at National Planetarium in Malaysia.

Make sure you are well equipped with solar filter before looking at the sun. The damage to the eyes but the strong rays of light from the sun is irreversible!

Wish everybody enjoys the Chinese New Year! This maybe my last year celebrating CNY in Malaysia until another 4 years with my family members if I go to US for tertiary education.

Alright, it’s just your name. Just sumbit your name to the website below, you’ll be given a certificate to show your support of the mission. The names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) spacecraft.

LRO’s objectives are to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. This will be a historic mission.

The deadline of submission of names is 28 June 2008.

http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/

The mother earth is undergoing disastrous changing. It’s obvious enough that everyone of us can feel it. For instance, the climate warming strongly affected the crops, which in return we have to pay for 20% more. Now, we pay back for what we had done to the earth.

My hosting service provider – Exabytes emailed me some interesting way to keep the earth green. Read them here.

The earth scientists at JPL, NASA also have some words.

“My father was a biologist who brought his family from Cuba to the United States. I still remember as a boy long walks with him on the beach as he pointed out the different organisms and the beauty of our planet. Those long walks instilled in me a love for understanding our planet, and more importantly, the desire to make sure we are good stewards of the precious gift we call planet Earth.”

- Jorge Vazquez, Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center task scientist

“At NASA, every day is Earth Day. After all our explorations of the universe, we are still awed by our own miracle planet and reminded daily that we have only one Earth. But we also see warning signs posted all over our home. Oceans are warming and rising, glaciers are retreating, our atmosphere carries pollution to all nations, forests are disappearing and our out-of-control population growth is crushing the environment. Yet Earth is a tough old gal, and we still control our collective future. Earth Day is a time for us to pause and consider how each of us, all of us, can work together as trustees of our home, Earth, to benefit our collective future.”

- Bill Patzert, climatologist

“At the moment I am working with a number of JPL colleagues on the topic of global change and the role that JPL and NASA can play in this process. The considerable talent and expertise of the people I have the opportunity to work with in conjunction with their and JPL’s sincere intentions to contribute to this very important global problem make Earth Day particularly meaningful and going to ‘work’ extremely fun!”

- Duane Waliser, senior research scientist

“I study Earth science because I want to know: ‘What will the future bring?’”

- Tony Mannucci, Ionospheric and Atmospheric Remote Sensing Group

“NASA and international space agencies are collaborating to study the polar regions of Earth in ways that have never been done in the past. Observations gathered by satellites as well as field parties on the ground have shown that the vast expanses of ice in Greenland and Antarctica are melting away in response to climate warming. We are now putting all our efforts to be able to predict how ice will melt in the coming century because ice melt raises global sea level and the impact this will have on coastal populations will be significant–some populations will have to leave their homes and move inland.”

- Eric Rignot, senior research scientist

“I have been working at JPL for 10 years, mainly on developing and using radar satellites to study vegetation all over the world. Radars allow us to measure vegetation changes and some characteristics of its structure, such as height and biomass (the amount of material in the forest). This enables measurement of the impact of climate change on vegetation. How do they contribute to the atmosphere (example: oxygen, carbon dioxide) and other life forms (human and animals) on Earth? Are forests destroyed? Can they survive climate change?”

- Marc Simard, senior scientist, radar systems

STS-122 mission is to deliever the Columbus, the European Space Agency’s new laboratory. Columbus will be installed on Harmony Node 2 which was delivered by the STS-120 mission. Harmony allows the addition of European laboratory (Columbus) and Japanese laboratory (Kibo) which will be transfered during STS-123.

The weather is not that great as forecasted so their chance to lift off is 30%. They’re going to launch on 8 Feb 2007 at 7:45pm UT. Good luck to them!

Did I mention that the every crew’s badge is so nicely designed?

More mission information at NASA

• Complete the International Space Station and retire the Space Shuttle by 2010
• Begin robotic missions to the moon by 2008 and return people there by 2020
• Continue robotic exploration of Mars and the Solar System
• Develop a crew exploration vehicle and other technologies required to send people beyond low Earth orbit.

Though nearly 50 years old, NASA is only beginning the most exciting part of its existence.

Source:NASA