Space to Ground: Celestial Visitor: Oct. 18, 2024

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

What is said in the film

Welcome to space to ground, I’m kayla lafrance. For more than two decades, the international space station has evolved into an advanced microgravity laboratory for human space operations and science. As we approach the 26th anniversary of the launch of the orbiting laboratory next month , we want to take time to celebrate humanity’s lab in space. The space station offers researchers worldwide the opportunity to utilize the unique environmental conditions of low earth orbit at any given time, crews in space and teams on the ground are supporting experiments across every major scientific field in the pursuit of discoveries about us, earth, and the universe around us. There has been more than 4,000 experiments from over 5,000 researchers in over 100 countries conducted aboard the space station.

Now more than ever, discoveries and developments are taking shape. Mission managers continue to monitor weather conditions near the splashdown zones off the coast of florida ahead of returning nasa’s spacex crew-8 mission from the international space station. After several targeted undocking dates were slipped due to unfavorable weather conditions, the crew-8 astronauts spent an additional week aboard orbiting laboratory as ground teams continued to track the current forecasts. As always, we invite you to follow nasa for the latest information about the crew-8 return. Live coverage will be provided on nasa+, the nasa app, and the agency’s website.

While keeping an eye on the weather below, the crew aboard the space station has been witness to spectacular views of active space weather and a celestial visitor. Avid photographers, nasa astronauts don pettit and matt dominick have been using their evening down time to photograph the dazzling aurora events that were triggered by a large, g4 geomagnetic storm. For the 2nd time this year a coronal mass ejection of plasma clouds and charged particles bombarded earths atmosphere sending northern light watches across global. While most people gazed up at the night sky to see the lights, the crew aboard the space station had a unique view as they traveled above, and through them. Along with the dancing lights, dominick was able to photograph a celestial visitor from the window of the crew-8 dragon spacecraft.

Comet tsuchinshan–atlas, with it’s 18 million miles long tail, is back in the inner solar system on its 80,000 year orbital tour. While over 45 million miles away, the comet should be visible here on earth with binoculars, and under good conditions, with the naked eye in the evening for several weeks. And that’s space to ground for this week. Thanks for watching.

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