Seasons Greetings from the cosmos to Earth...brought to you by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NASA, ESA & Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris, France)
For the Holidays...
News story originally written on December 20, 2001
This image of the NGC 2080
nebula was taken by
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Because it is red and white and green, it looks like something that could be on front of a holiday card! The name of the nebula isn't quite so appropriate for the holiday season as it is nicknamed the "Ghost Head Nebula". Still, these holiday colors, produced by the light emitted by oxygen and hydrogen, help astronomers investigate the star-forming processes in nebulas such as NGC 2080.
Other holiday happenings include Houston, mission control, being transformed to "Santa Control" this Christmas Eve. NASA experts will help monitor Santa's speed and reindeer performance, helping Santa meet the extreme demands placed on him during this 24-hour period. "With three people living on the space station, we have a
unique vantage point to help Santa on his rounds," said Matt
Abbott, flight director. "We have Yury Onufrienko, Dan Bursch
and Carl Walz on board the station ready to help us out with
real-time Santa sightings, and our flight control team is
ready for this opportunity." "Santa Control, Houston" will be shown on NASA Television
during the NASA Video File December 24, which will air at
noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. EST.
All of us at Windows to the Universe would like to wish you a safe and peaceful holiday season.
You might also be interested in:
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was one of the most important exploration tools of the past two decades, and will continue to serve as a great resource well into the new millennium. The HST found numerous
...moreThe third crew's stay onboard the International Space Station (ISS) is coming to a close. Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin have been onboard the space
...moreIt was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. It seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. Either way, NASA led the way to a great century of discovery. Unfortunately,
...moreThe Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on October 29th at 2:19 p.m. EST. The weather was great as Discovery took 8 1/2 minutes to reach orbit. This was the United States' 123rd
...more A moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid, Eugenia. This is only the second time in history that a satellite has been seen circling an asteroid. A special mirror allowed scientists to find the moon
...more Will Russia ever put the service module for the International Space Station in space? NASA officials want an answer from the Russian government. The necessary service module is currently waiting to be
...moreA coronal mass ejection (CME) happened on the Sun early last month. The material that was thrown out from this explosion passed the ACE spacecraft. The SWICS instrument on ACE has produced a new and very
...more