Fraser Cain, Author at Universe Today

November 15, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Chandra Sees Star Formation in NGC 281

Here’s a short little post about the star forming nebula NGC 281, captured by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This photograph is actually a composite of several wavelengths, imaged by ground and space-based observatories.

The optical data (red, orange and yellow) shows the clouds of gas and dust, and the dark lanes of obscuring dust where stars may be forming. The Chandra X-Ray data is in purple, and reveals more than 300 individual X-ray sources – most of them are associated with the central star forming region.

There’s another group of X-ray sources on the other side of the molecular cloud. Based on the elements in the region, astronomers think that a supernova went off in the region recently.

But really, it’s a pretty picture.

Original Source: Chandra News Release

November 15, 2007January 24, 2021 by Fraser Cain

Astrosphere for November 15th, 2007

Back to the astrosphere. Today’s image is M42, captured by Mike Salway. He thinks it’s the best one he’s ever taken of this complex object.

First, I’d like to announce the Carnival of Space #29. This week it’s held at Riding with Robots on the High Frontier. A big thanks to Bill Dunford for hosting it this week. If you’d like to participate in the Carnival of Space, you can email an entry to [email protected]. And we’d love to have you as a host. It’s a great way to meet other people in the space blogging community and raise awareness to your blog.

We just did an episode of Astronomy Cast about Uranus, and Astronomy.com’s blog notes it’s William Herschel’s birthday. I wish I could claim that was our plan all along.

Alan Boyle lists the winners of the Science Journalism Awards.

Astronomy Picture of the Day has an image of M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules. This is one of my favourite objects in the night sky, and it’s something I always show to people in my telescope.

I don’t have an easy way to categorize this, but I wanted to draw your attention to the wonderful USA Today’s Tech_Space blog, written by Angela Gunn.

Daily Galaxy has a list of 5 things you didn’t know satellites were watching.

Personal Spaceflight reports that there’s a new space tourism company in town.

Phil Plait gives that recent Earth-rise image taken by Kaguya some context. Now you know the craters the spacecraft is flying over.

November 15, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Radical New Steering Thruster Tested

With the shuttle and station in the news these days, it’s easy to forget there’s a whole other space program in the works: Constellation. Over the next decade, we’ll go back to the Moon – this time to stay. Although it’s inspired by the Apollo program, each piece of hardware is being updated with the latest technology. This week a radical new type of engine was tested at Northrop Grumman; an engine that could help steer spacecraft in space.

Northrop Grumman, one of the contractors on the NASA Constellation Program, announced this week that they’ve tested a new rocket called the TR408.

First a little history. The original Apollo program used thrusters powered by fuels that could be stored at room temperature, but they weren’t very powerful. Furthermore, they were made with toxic chemicals that could be a risk to astronauts and workers.

The new TR408 engine is a hybrid, which can run on almost any state of oxygen and methane. It could be all gas, for example, stored at room temperature. Or it could be all liquid, similar to the liquid oxygen/hydrogen that powers the space shuttle.

The engine was tested for more that 50 separate tests, and was able to generate a steady-state specific impulse of 340 seconds. Just to give you some context, the Apollo thrusters generated a specific impulse of 290 seconds. The shuttle’s liquid hydrogen/oxygen engine gets about 450 seconds.

Although the TR408 doesn’t match up to the efficiency of liquid hydrogen/oxygen, it looks like it’ll be a great compromise for the unique requirements of space travel.

There are more advantages. The TR408 is a very simple design, consisting of only two propellant valves, and no other moving parts. Less moving parts, means less things that can break. They should also be relatively inexpensive to build.

Northrup Grumman was awarded the contract to develop the engine for NASA 16 months ago, and they’re pleased with the progress so far.

Although this engine is designed for low thrust tasks, like steering a spacecraft, more powerful versions are in the works. NASA engineers recently tested a methane/liquid oxygen rocket for 103 seconds, and XCOR Aerospace is working on a version that was tested in a vacuum chamber.

Original Source: Northrop Grumman News Release

November 15, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Finally, Hubble’s View of Comet Holmes

All right, here’s the picture we’ve all been waiting for. Step aside ground-based observatories, papa Hubble’s here with images of Comet Holmes, which is now larger than the Sun. But don’t get fooled. That beautiful image on the left was taken by amateur astronomer Alan Dyer from Alberta, Canada. Hubble’s version on the right. It’s not as pretty, but it’s got inner bigness.

You already know the story. Comet Holmes was a boring comet out near the orbit of Jupiter when it flared up on October 23rd. The coma of gas and dust expanded away from the comet, and now it extends to a volume larger than the Sun.

Of course, astronomers scrambled to turn the mighty Hubble Space Telescope to join in on the sky show. The space observatory’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 monitored the object for several days, capturing images on October 29, 31 and November 4.

The Hubble image on the right reveals the comet’s nucleus down to a resolution as small as 54 km (33 miles) across. The image was processed to reveal differences in dust distribution near the nucleus.

Astronomers found that there’s twice as much dust along the east-west direction as the north-south direction. This gives the comet a bowtie appearance. Even 12 days after the outburst, when this picture was captured, the nucleus is still surrounded by bright dust.

This isn’t the first time that Hubble has viewed Comet Holmes. Luckily, it actually captured an image back in June 15, 1999. Back then, there was no dust around the object, and Hubble couldn’t reveal the nucleus. By measuring its brightness, astronomers estimated that Holmes is approximately 3.4 km (2.1 miles) across.

Once Holmes settles down again, astronomers will use Hubble to make another accurate measurement of its brightness. By calculating the difference, astronomers will be able to figure out how much mass it lost during this outburst.

Original Source: Hubble News Release

November 14, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Planets Found Forming in the Pleiades Star Cluster

As you gaze up at the familiar Pleiades star cluster, here’s something new you can think about. Planets recently collided around two of the stars in the cluster, kicking up vast clouds of dust. New worlds are being formed, and destroyed, right before our very eyes. At least, if you’ve got the help from some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth, and in space.

This announcement was made by a team of astronomers using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Their findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

The Pleiades star cluster – located in the constellation Taurus – is one of the most famous objects in the night sky. Easily visible to the unaided eye, it’s even more spectacular in binoculars or a small telescope. Although it’s often referred to as the “seven sisters”, the cluster actually contains 1,400 stars, in various stages of formation.

One of the stars, known as HD 23514, has a little more mass than our Sun. The astronomers discovered that it’s surrounded by an enormous disk of hot dust particles. Astronomers think that this is the debris from a planetary collision.

It’s believed that these dust particles, the building blocks of planets, accumulate into comets and asteroid-size bodies and then clump together into larger and larger objects. This is a violent process, though. Some objects get bigger, and others collide, shattering into dust that astronomers can detect.

Astronomers think that this is a similar process that led to the formation of the Earth’s moon. At some point in the early Solar System, a Mars-sized object collided with the Earth. The debris from that collision became the Earth and the Moon.

Two stars in the Pleiades cluster, HD 23514 and BD +20 307, are thought to be in this stage of evolution. They’re between 100 and 400 million years old. Much younger stars can have this dust when they’re 10 million years old, but it’s usually dissipated by the time a star reaches 100 million years old. It takes enormous planetary collisions to get the dust spewing out again.

Original Source: UCLA News Release

November 14, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Harmony Module Moved to its Final Home

Astronauts on board the International Space Station used the station’s robotic arm to move the Italian-built Harmony module (aka Node 2) to its final location today. It’s now connected to the forward facing port of the US Destiny laboratory, making way for the upcoming European Columbus laboratory.

The Harmony module was delivered to the station during Discovery’s recent STS-120 mission. During the first spacewalk of the mission, the Harmony module was temporarily attached to the Unity module.

After Discovery returned to the Earth, the Expedition 16 crew relocated the space shuttle’s docking port, PMA2, from its current location on the Destiny module to the end of the Harmony module.

With all of that port shuffling out of the way, astronaut Daniel Tani used the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to move Harmony (and the attached docking port) to its final home, right at the front of ISS. This is where the shuttle will dock from here on out.

Harmony has been moved, but the astronauts still need to complete two more spacewalks on November 20th and 24th to fully outfit it.

The next launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, targeted for December 6th, will bring the European Columbus laboratory to the station. The astronaut crew of STS-122 will perform a series of spacewalks to connect the module to the starboard side of the Harmony module.

Original Source: ESA News Release

November 14, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Rosetta Flyby Shows the Earth’s Night Side

Right on schedule on November 13th, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft made its 2nd earthly flyby; testing its scientific instruments, and receiving a much needed gravitational assist. About two hours before its flyby, the spacecraft captured this image of the Earth’s night side, including Asia, Africa and Europe.

When it captured this image, Rosetta was about 80,000 km (50,000 miles) away from the Earth, above the Indian Ocean. It imaged the planet using its OSIRIS instrument.

You can make out the continents Asia, Africa and Europe by the lighted areas of population centres. With less electricity, Africa has large darkened regions. Australia is down at the lower right-hand side of the image, partly lit by the Sun.

Rosetta’s closest approach occurred at 20:57 GMT (3:57 pm EST) at a height of 5,295 km (3,290 miles) above a region of the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Chile.

The spacecraft has now completed 3 billion km of its 7.1 billion km journey to reach comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This was the third planetary swing-by for Rosetta and its second swing-by of Earth.

Now on its way out, Rosetta will focus its instruments on the Moon, and the Earth/Moon system. You can expect more cool images, and maybe even one with both the Earth and the Moon in a single frame. Now that would put things into perspective.

Rosetta will be back. It’s expected to make its third and finally flyby in November 2009. But not before it makes a visit to the asteroid belt, to study asteroid Steins in September 2008.

Original Source: ESA News Release

November 13, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Gigantic Delta 4-Heavy Blasts Off

On Saturday night, the largest US rocket blasted off, carrying a 2.3 tonne Defense Support Program satellite into orbit. This was the second time a Delta IV-Heavy rocket has ever lifted off. With three core boosters strapped together, it’s like three rockets launched at once.

The launch was made even more spectacular because it was held at night. Launched at 0150 GMT Sunday (20:50 EST on Saturday), the 70-metre tall (230 feet) rocket has three separate engines, each of which can generate more than 2,900 kiloNewtons (650,000 pounds) of force. They guzzle a tonne of propellant every second.

On board the rocket was the Defense Support Program 23 spacecraft; the last in a program of Earth observation satellites designed to spot enemy missile launches and nuclear explosions.

Although the Delta IV-Heavy can carry 13 tonnes into a geostationary transfer orbit, it’s not a commercial provider – just military and government satellites. Europe’s Ariane 5 ECA is the most powerful commercial provider, able to blast off with 10 tonnes.

The Delta IV-Heavy first flew back in 2004. Boeing had originally proposed it as the vehicle that could carry the next wave of space exploration vehicles into orbit. In the end, though, NASA decided to go with the new Ares vehicle for its post-shuttle program.

During that previous test flight, the Heavy encountered a problem with its fuel lines, which caused the engines to go out early, and left the rocket lower than its intended orbit.

Just to put the capabilities of the rocket in perspective, though, the Saturn 5 could put out three times the thrust.

Original Source: United Launch Alliance

November 13, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Oops, That Isn’t an Asteroid, it’s Rosetta

Remember when I mentioned that ESA’s Rosetta was inbound to make a flyby of the Earth on November 13th? Well, another group of astronomers were watching this “unknown” object, and thought that it was actually an asteroid that was going to be making a close flyby of our planet. The astronomers realized their mistake, but not after an alert was sent out to the astronomical community. Oops.

The alert was sent out by the Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse of asteroid information organized by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the International Astronomical Union.

Astronomers had been tracking the approaching object, designated 2007 VN84. After many observations from astronomers around the world, they calculated that it would pass us by at a distance of 1.89 radii (from the middle of the Earth).

It would have been huge news, but Denis Denisenko from Moscow’s Space Research Institute (IKI) realized that its flight path perfectly matched the upcoming Rosetta flyby.

Here’s a link to an animation, captured by astronomers in Germany, of Rosetta inbound to the Earth.

And so, just to set the record straight, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft made its flyby on Tuesday, November 13th at 20:57 GMT, passing just 5,301 km above the Pacific Ocean. This has given it the gravitational boost it needs to meet up with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Original Source: MPEC Alert

November 13, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Astrosphere for November 13th, 2007

For the photo, enjoy this image of galaxy M33, captured by RickJ.

Now, I’d like to draw your attention to the 28th Carnival of Space, hosted this week by the Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla.

We’re organizing the next episode of the Carnival of Space, so drop us an entry at [email protected]. And we’re always looking for new hosts to handle future carnivals.

I want to give you a last minute reminder to watch PBS Nova tonight for Judgment Day, Intelligent Design on Trial. You’ll need to check your local listings for time and channel; if you miss it tonight, I’m sure it’ll be on several times over the week. You can also watch the entire episode online at the PBS site.

Colony Worls reports on a new partnership between Russia and India for lunar research.

Selenian Boondocks has a great article about thrust augmented nozzles.

Astroprof reviews Sea Launch’s return to flight after their recent pad explosion.

The Stars my Destination reminds us that the Leonids are coming. The Leonids are coming!