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Space News Update — January 27, 2015 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Five Things about NASA's SMAP

Story 2:

Gullies on Vesta Suggest Past Water-Mobilized Flows

Story 3:

Big Earth-Buzzing Asteroid Has Its Own Moon

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

NASA-TV Highlights

Space Calendar

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Five Things about NASA's SMAP

Artist's rendering of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. The width of the region scanned on Earth's surface

during each orbit is about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, scheduled for launch on Jan. 29, will measure the moisture in

Earth's soil with greater accuracy and higher resolution than any preceding mission, producing a global map of

soil moisture every three days.

The instrument's three main parts are a radar, a radiometer and the largest rotating mesh antenna ever

deployed in space.

Remote sensing instruments are called “active” when they emit their own signals and “passive” when they

record signals that already exist. The mission's science instrument ropes together a sensor of each type to

corral the highest-resolution, most accurate measurements ever made of soil moisture -- a tiny fraction of

Earth's water that has a disproportionately large effect on weather and agriculture

Here are five quick facts about the spacecraft and what it studies.

1. Soil moisture is a tiny fraction of water with a big punch. Only 0.001 percent of Earth's total water is

lodged in the top few feet of soil. That tiny percentage, however, affects all living things on land and plays an

important role in moving water, carbon and heat between land and atmosphere.

2. Soil moisture can compound water risks. A flood follows a heavy rainfall -- but only if the ground

cannot soak up the rain. Waterlogged soil makes a region more flood-prone. Going to the opposite extreme, a

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drought can parch soil to such an extent that plants are unable to grow even after a few rains have fallen.

Knowing soil moisture allows hydrologists to make better decisions related to the risk of flooding and drought,

such as how much water to retain in reservoirs.

3. Soil moisture controls the on-off switch for carbon dioxide cleanup. The world's vast northern

forests remove carbon dioxide from the air as they grow, helping to clean up our emissions from burning fossil

fuels. But when the ground freezes, that process switches off. Carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere

until the ground thaws in the spring and plants begin growing again. Knowing where and for how long the

ground is frozen or thawed is an important part of understanding the role of the northern forests in reducing

greenhouse warming. SMAP will map frozen and thawed soils north of 45 degrees north latitude (about the

latitude of Minneapolis), around the globe.

4. SMAP is a twofer. The spacecraft's radiometer produces an accurate reading of how much moisture is in

the top two inches (five centimeters) of soil, but it has low spatial resolution, that is, one measurement covers

a large area. A radar instrument produces an image with higher spatial resolution, but it can't measure soil

moisture as accurately as a radiometer. Through sophisticated data processing, SMAP combines observations

from the two instruments into a very accurate measurement with high spatial resolution.

5. SMAP has a huge, folding, spinning antenna. At 19 feet 8 inches (6 meters) in diameter, SMAP's

rotating mesh antenna dwarfs the size of the instruments and spacecraft and is the largest rotating antenna of

its kind that NASA has yet deployed. But the entire dish furls into a cylinder one foot (diameter) by four feet

(30 by 120 centimeters) to fit inside the rocket’s fairing for launch, and it weighs only 128 pounds (about 58

kilograms). "We call it the spinning lasso," said Wendy Edelstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

Pasadena, California, the SMAP instrument manager. Like the cowboy's lariat, the antenna is attached on one

side to an arm with a crook in its elbow. It spins around the arm at about 14 revolutions per minute (one

complete rotation every four seconds).

Source: NASA Return to Contents

2. Gullies on Vesta Suggest Past Water-Mobilized Flows

Last week, NASA's Soil Moisture

Active Passive satellite was

transported across Vandenberg

Air Force Base in California to

Space Launch Complex 2, where

it will be mated to a Delta II

rocket for launch.

Image Credit:

NASA/Randy Beaudoin

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This image shows Cornelia Crater on the large asteroid Vesta. The crater is about 4 to 5 million years old. On the right is

an inset image showing an example of curved gullies, indicated by the short white arrows, and a fan-shaped deposit,

indicated by long white arrows. The inset image is about 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) wide. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-

Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Protoplanet Vesta, visited by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2013, was once thought to be completely

dry, incapable of retaining water because of the low temperatures and pressures at its surface. However, a

new study shows evidence that Vesta may have had short-lived flows of water-mobilized material on its

surface, based on data from Dawn.

"Nobody expected to find evidence of water on Vesta. The surface is very cold and there is no atmosphere, so

any water on the surface evaporates," said Jennifer Scully, postgraduate researcher at the University of

California, Los Angeles. "However, Vesta is proving to be a very interesting and complex planetary body."

The study has broad implications for planetary science.

"These results, and many others from the Dawn mission, show that Vesta is home to many processes that

were previously thought to be exclusive to planets," said UCLA's Christopher Russell, principal investigator for

the Dawn mission. "We look forward to uncovering even more insights and mysteries when Dawn studies

Ceres."

Dawn is currently in the spotlight because it is approaching dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main

asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It will be captured into orbit around Ceres on March 6. Yet data from

Dawn's exploration of Vesta continue to capture the interest of the scientific community.

Scully and colleagues, publishing in the journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters," identified a small

number of young craters on Vesta with curved gullies and fan-shaped ("lobate") deposits.

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"We're not suggesting that there was a river-like flow of water. We're suggesting a process similar to debris

flows, where a small amount of water mobilizes the sandy and rocky particles into a flow," Scully said.

The curved gullies are significantly different from those formed by the flow of purely dry material, scientists

said. "These features on Vesta share many characteristics with those formed by debris flows on Earth and

Mars," Scully said.

The gullies are fairly narrow, on average about 100 feet (30 meters) wide. The average length of the gullies is

a little over half a mile (900 meters). Cornelia Crater, with a width of 9 miles (15 kilometers), contains some of

the best examples of the curved gullies and fan-shaped deposits.

The leading theory to explain the source of the curved gullies is that Vesta has small, localized patches of ice

in its subsurface. No one knows the origin of this ice, but one possibility is that ice-rich bodies, such as

comets, left part of their ice deep in the subsurface following impact. A later impact would form a crater and

heat up some of the ice patches, releasing water onto the walls of the crater.

"If present today, the ice would be buried too deeply to be detected by any of Dawn’s instruments," Scully

said. "However, the craters with curved gullies are associated with pitted terrain, which has been

independently suggested as evidence for loss of volatile gases from Vesta." Also, evidence from Dawn's visible

and infrared mapping spectrometer and gamma ray and neutron detector indicates that there is hydrated

material within some rocks on Vesta’s surface, suggesting that Vesta is not entirely dry.

It appears the water mobilized sandy and rocky particles to flow down the crater walls, carving out the gullies

and leaving behind the fan-shaped deposits after evaporation. The craters with curvy gullies appear to be less

than a few hundred million years old, which is still young compared to Vesta's age of 4.6 billion years.

Laboratory experiments performed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, indicate that

there could be enough time for curved gullies to form on Vesta before all of the water evaporated. “The sandy

and rocky particles in the flow help to slow the rate of evaporation,” Scully said.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

3. Big Earth-Buzzing Asteroid Has Its Own Moon

As NASA's Dawn spacecraft travels to its next destination, this mosaic synthesizes some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. The towering mountain at the south pole - more than twice the height of Mount Everest - is visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the "snowman" can be seen at the top left. Source: NASA

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Radar image showing the near-Earth asteroid 2004 BL86 and its moon flying past Earth on Jan. 26, 2015. Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The mountain-size asteroid that gave Earth a close shave Monday (Jan. 26) has its own moon, new radar

images of the object reveal.

Asteroid 2004 BL86 cruised within 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) of Earth Monday morning — about 3

times the distance between our planet and the moon. And the space rock wasn't alone: A companion is clearly

visible in an asteroid flyby movie compiled from 20 images taken Monday by NASA's Deep Space Network

antenna in Goldstone, California.

The radar images "show the primary body is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small

moon approximately 230 feet (70 m) across," NASA officials said in a statement. "In the near-Earth population,

about 16 percent of asteroids that are about 655 feet (200 m) or larger are a binary (the primary asteroid with

a smaller asteroid moon orbiting it) or even triple systems (two moons)."

The resolution of the new images is about 13 feet (4 m) per pixel, they added.

The size measurement for 2004 BL86 is a signficant revision; before Monday's flyby, scientists had estimated

the space rock's diameter to be about 1,800 feet (550 m).

Earth was never in any danger during Monday's encounter, which scientists had known about well in advance.

But a known asteroid as big as 2004 BL86 won't come so close to Earth again until 2027, when a space rock

called 1999 AN10 zooms past our planet.

To date, researchers have discovered and tracked just over 12,000 near-Earth asteroids — just a tiny fraction

of the total population, which is thought to number in the millions. But more than 95 percent of the potential

civilization-enders out there — space rocks more than 0.6 miles (1 km) wide — have been found, and none of

them pose any threat in the foreseeable future.

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered in January 2004 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR)

survey in New Mexico.

Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, rotation state, surface features and

surface roughness, and for improving the calculation of asteroid orbits. Radar measurements of asteroid

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distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than if radar

observations weren't available.

NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S.

has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects (NEOs).

To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.

In addition to the resources NASA puts into understanding asteroids, it also partners with other U.S.

government agencies, university-based astronomers, and space science institutes across the country, often

with grants, interagency transfers and other contracts from NASA, and also with international space agencies

and institutions that are working to track and better understand these objects.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages and funds the search, study

and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the

Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of

the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In 2016, NASA will launch a robotic probe to one of the most potentially hazardous of the known NEOs. The

OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform

reconnaissance on any newly discovered threatening objects. Aside from monitoring potential threats, the

study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity to learn more about the origins of our solar

system, the source of water on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that led to the development of

life.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will provide overall mission management, systems

engineering, and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will

build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space

Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in

Washington.

NASA also continues to advance the journey to Mars through progress on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM),

which will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to

Mars. This includes advanced Solar Electric Propulsion -- an efficient way to move heavy cargo using solar

power, which could help pre-position cargo for future human missions to the Red Planet. As part of ARM, a

robotic spacecraft will rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid and redirect an asteroid mass to a stable orbit

around the moon. Astronauts will explore the asteroid mass in the 2020’s, helping test modern spaceflight

capabilities like new spacesuits and sample return techniques. Astronauts at NASA's Johnson Space Center in

Houston have already begun to practice the capabilities needed for the mission.

Source: Space.com and NASA Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Source: Sky and Telescope Return to Contents

Tuesday, January 27

If I had to choose just one deep-sky object

to demonstrate the appeal of binocular

astronomy, it would probably be the

Pleiades," writes Gary Seronik. The Pleiades

are certainly a nice sight overall. But the

cluster also holds a secret in its center: the

8th-magnitude double star South 437, barely

resolvable with 10× glasses.

Algol shines at its minimum brightness,

magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a

couple hours tonight centered on 10:42 p.m.

EST.

Wednesday, January 28

Look for the Pleiades over the Moon at

nightfall, as shown above. The scene rotates

clockwise as the evening advances.

Thursday, January 29

The Moon shines near Aldebaran and the

Hyades at dusk, as shown to the right.

Friday, January 30

The waxing gibbous Moon shines above Orion this evening. It's near Zeta Tauri, the fainter of the two

stars that mark the tips of Taurus's long horns.

Algol is at minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on

7:31 p.m. EST.

Saturday, January 31

With a small telescope, you can watch Jupiter's inner moon Io fade away into eclipse by Jupiter's shadow around 10:45 p.m. EST (7:45 p.m. PST). Io will be just barely off Jupiter's western limb when

the eclipse happens. That's because we're only 6 days from Jupiter's opposition.

Watch the waxing gibbous Moon walk eastward across the

evening constellations this week.

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ISS Sighting Opportunities (from Denver)

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)

Tuesday, January 27

4 p.m. - NASA SMAP Mission Prelaunch News Conference – VAFB/KSC (all channels)

4:45 p.m. - NASA ELaNa CubeSat News Conference – VAFB/KSC (all channels)

Wednesday, January 28

9:25 a.m. - ISS Expedition 42 In-Flight Interviews with the Air Force Times and the Houston Chronicle with

ISS Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA and Flight Engineer Samantha

Cristoforetti of ESA (all channels)

12:30 p.m. - SMAP NASA Social (Includes SMAP Mission/Applied Science Briefing) – VAFB/KSC (all

channels)

1 p.m. - STEM in 30: Composites (all channels)

4 p.m. - STEM in 30: Composites - NASM (all channels)

Thursday, January 29

7 a.m. - SMAP Mission Live Launch Coverage and Commentary (NTV-1 (Public), NTV-3 (Media))

8:50 a.m. - Live NASA Edge coverage of the launch of SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) Mission (NTV-2

(Education))

Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears

Tue Jan 27, 5:11 AM 2 min 38° 38 above ESE 13 above SE

Tue Jan 27, 6:46 AM < 1 min 10° 10 above WSW 10 above SW

Wed Jan 28, 5:54 AM 2 min 20° 20 above SW 11 above S

Thu Jan 29, 5:05 AM < 1 min 16° 16 above SSE 11 above SSE

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Space Calendar

Jan 27 - Comet 132P/Helin-Roman-Alu At Opposition (1.850 AU)

Jan 27 - Comet 102P/Shoemaker At Opposition (3.011 AU)

Jan 27 - Asteroid 2015 BQ Near-Earth Flyby (0.072 AU)

Jan 27 - Asteroid 2015 BM Near-Earth Flyby (0.087 AU)

Jan 27 - Asteroid 228029 MANIAC Closest Approach To Earth (2.005 AU)

Jan 27 - Asteroid 48300 Kronk Closest Approach To Earth (2.064 AU)

Jan 28 - Comet P/2014 V1 (PANSTARRS) Perihelion (2.521 AU)

Jan 28 - Comet P/2010 N1 (WISE) At Opposition (2.978 AU)

Jan 28 - Comet C/2012 U1 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (5.007 AU)

Jan 28 - Asteroid 69263 Big Ben Closest Approach To Earth (0.941 AU)

Jan 28 - Asteroid 916 America Closest Approach To Earth (1.578 AU)

Jan 28 - Asteroid 128 Nemesis Closest Approach To Earth (1.860 AU)

Jan 29 - Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP)/ GRIFEX/ ExoCube/ FIREBIRD C & D Delta 2 Launch

Jan 29 - Comet 156P/Russell-LINEAR Closest Approach To Earth (2.134 AU)

Jan 29 - Comet P/2007 R2 (Gibbs) At Opposition (2.506 AU)

Jan 29 - Comet 172P/Yeung At Opposition (3.414 AU)

Jan 29 - Comet 65P/Gunn At Opposition (3.646 AU)

Jan 29 - Asteroid 2015 BE92 Near-Earth Flyby (0.008 AU)

Jan 29 - Asteroid 2015 BG92 Near-Earth Flyby (0.029 AU)

Jan 29 - Asteroid 2014 BA3 Closest Approach To Earth (0.534 AU)

Jan 29 - Asteroid 4758 Hermitage Closest Approach To Earth (2.645 AU)

Jan 30 - Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke Perihelion (1.239 AU)

Jan 30 - Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) Perihelion (1.290 AU)

Jan 30 - Comet P/2013 T2 (Schwartz) At Opposition (3.297 AU)

Jan 30 - Comet P/2006 G1 (McNaught) At Opposition (4.046 AU)

Jan 30 - Comet 1P/Halley At Opposition (33.006 AU)

Jan 30 - Asteroid 3 Juno At Opposition (7.8 Magnitude)

Jan 30 - Asteroid 2015 BE Near-Earth Flyby (0.083 AU)

Jan 30 - Asteroid 4450 Pan Closest Approach To Earth (0.409 AU)

Jan 30 - Asteroid 24997 Petergabriel Closest Approach To Earth (1.696 AU)

Jan 30 - Asteroid 9777 Enterprise Closest Approach To Earth (1.947 AU)

Jan 31 - Cassini, Orbital Trim Maneuver #402 (OTM-402)

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Oldest Planetary System Discovered, Improving the Chances for Intelligent Life

Everywhere

An artist rendition of Kepler-444 planetary system, which hosts five planets, all smaller than Earth. Credit: Tiago

Campante, University of Birmingham, UK.

Using data from the Kepler space telescope, an international group of astronomers has discovered the oldest

known planetary system in the galaxy – an 11 billion-year-old system of five rocky planets that are all smaller

than Earth. The team says this discovery suggests that Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the

Universe’s 13.8-billion-year history, increasing the possibility for the existence of ancient life – and potentially

advanced intelligent life — in our galaxy.

“The fact that rocky planets were already forming in the galaxy 11 billion years ago suggests that habitable

Earth-like planets have probably been around for a very long time, much longer than the age of our Solar

System,” said Dr. Travis Metcalfe, Senior Research Scientist Space Science Institute, who was part of the team

that used the unique method of asteroseismology to determine the age of the star.

The star, named Kepler-444, is about 25 percent smaller than our Sun and is 117 light-years from Earth. The

system of five known planets is very compact, and all five planets orbit the parent star in less than 10 days, or

within 0:08 AU, roughly one-fifth the size of Mercury’s orbit.

“The star is slightly cooler than the Sun (around 5000 K at the surface, compared to 5800 K),” Metcalfe told

Universe Today, “but the planets in this system are still expected to be highly irradiated and inhospitable to

life,” with little to no atmospheres.

The team wrote in their paper that the system’s habitable zone lies 0:47 AU from the parent star and so all

planets orbit well interior to the inner edge of Kepler-444’s ‘Goldilocks zone.’

The team was led by Tiago Campante, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham in the UK.

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The planets were found by analyzing four years of Kepler data, as the spacecraft had nearly continuous

observations of Kepler-444 during Kepler’s active mission. The space telescope took high-precision

measurements of changes in brightness in stars in its field of view. There are tiny changes in brightness when

planets pass in front of their stars.

Transit signals indicated five planets orbiting Kepler-444, although this star has a binary companion, an M-

dwarf, and it was a tedious process to tease out all the data to determine what were planets and not other

stars, as well as which star the planets were orbiting.

Metcalfe said the the job of “validating” the planets by ruling out all of the other possible “false positive”

scenarios is always a big challenge for Kepler targets.

But asteroseismology was used to directly measure the precise age of the star. Asteroseismology, or stellar

seismology is basically listening to a star by measuring sound waves. The sound waves travel into the star and

bring information back up to the surface. The waves cause oscillations that Kepler observes as a rapid

flickering of the star’s brightness.

How can this help determine a star’s age?

“As a star ages, it converts hydrogen into helium in the core,” Metcalfe said via email. “This changes the mean

density of the star over time, and asteroseismology provides a very precise measure of the mean density

(from the regular spacing of the individual oscillation frequencies).”

Metcalfe said that in this case, the uncertainty on the age of the star (and thus the planets, which formed

essentially at the same time) is only 9%, compared to a typical uncertainty of 30-50% from other methods

based on rotation (gyrochronology) or other properties of the star.

The team also noted in their paper that this finding may also help to pinpoint the beginning of the era of

planet formation.

“I think this system has a lot to teach us about planet formation and the long-term evolution of planetary

systems,” said Darin Ragozzine, a member of the team, who specializes in multi-transiting systems. “With an

age of 11.2 billion years, it means that this system formed near the beginning of the age of the Universe.”

The team wrote that this finding implies that small, Earth-size, planets may have readily formed at early

epochs in the Universe’s history, even when metals were more scarce.

“By the time Earth formed, this star and its planetary system were already older than our planet is today,”

Ragozzine told Universe Today. “We don’t know for sure if this system has stayed the same the whole time,

but it is amazing to think that the little inner planet has gone around the star about a trillion times!”

This research was published today in the Astrophysical Journal.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

A Hubble Sweep of the Dust Filaments of NGC 4217

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: R. Schoofs

In this image the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope takes a close look at the spiral galaxy NGC 4217, located 60 million

light-years away from Earth. The galaxy is seen almost perfectly edge on and is a perfect candidate for studying the

nature of extraplanar dust structures — the patterns of gas and dust above and below the plane on the galaxy, seen here

as brown wisps coming off NGC 4217.

These tentacle-like filaments are visible in the Hubble image only because the contrast with their surroundings is so high.

This implies that the structures are denser than their surroundings. The image shows dozens of dust structures some of

which reach as far as 7,000 light-years away from the central plane. Typically the structures have a length of about 1,000

light-years and are about 400 light-years in width.

Some of the dust filaments are round or irregular clouds, others are vertical columns, loop-like structures or vertical

cones. These structures can help astronomers to identify the mechanisms responsible for the ejection of gas and dust

from the galactic plane of spiral galaxies and reveal information on the transport of the interstellar medium to large

distances away from galactic disks.

The properties of the observed dust structures in NGC 4217 suggest that the gas and dust were driven out of the mid-

plane of the galaxy by powerful stellar winds resulting from supernovae — explosions that mark the deaths of massive

stars.

Source: NASA Return to Contents