The Mileura Widefield Array – Low Frequency Demonstrator was awarded $4.9 million in funding from the National Science Foundation this week. A prototype of this radio telescope is being constructed in the Australian outback, away from radio interference. Once completed, the telescope will consist of 500 tiles – each of which contains 16 radio antennas. The observatory will look back to the earliest Universe, when there was only dark matter and primordial hydrogen. It should be able to see the first patches of higher density, as this gas pulled together to form the first stars and galaxies.
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Discovery Docks Safely with the Station
The space shuttle Discovery linked up with the International Space Station this morning after astronauts gave it a thorough inspection with the extended boom attached to the shuttle’s robotic arm. Just before docking, Commander Steve Lindsey piloted the shuttle into a back-flip, so that cameras on board the station could document any damage to its heat shield. So far, it looks like the shuttle made it into orbit unscathed, even though a few small pieces of foam were dislodged from the external fuel tank during launch.
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Secrets Revealed in Saturn’s Faintest Rings
New photos of Saturn’s E ring shows how it has a similar double-banded structure to Jupiter’s ring. Thanks to data gathered by Cassini, scientists now believe that the E ring particles originate from water geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The double-banded appearance occurs because there are actually less particles at the ring plane than there are above and below it. Scientists believe the double structure is created by the trajectory of particles ejected from Enceladus, or through ongoing interactions between the moon and the ring.
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Sky Shade Could Reveal Planets
Space telescopes designed to observe distant planets need to be powerful, but they also need some method of blocking the light from the parent star, which completely washes out any dimmer objects orbiting it. A strategy from CU-Boulder professor Webster Cash would use a large, daisy-shaped space shield to block the light from the star. A space telescope trailing the shade by thousands of kilometres would then be able to see much fainter objects surrounding the star.
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Discovery Blasts Off
The space shuttle Discovery roared into orbit from Cape Canaveral today, after two days of delays. The first launch in nearly a year, STS-121 carried 7 astronauts on a mission to visit the International Space Station, delivering supplies and testing out safety procedures. Even though a small crack was discovered in Discovery’s external tank, NASA officials decided it didn’t pose a risk to the shuttle, and they approved the launch. The shuttle will dock up with the station on Thursday.
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What’s Up this Week: July 3 – July 9, 2006
This week we travel across the Moon, probe Jupiter’s close approach, see the after effects of a recent supernova, and celebrate the lives of some prominent astronomers. All in all, it’s an exciting week, so get outside.
Here’s what’s up!
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NASA Renames New Exploration Vehicles
NASA announced its new names for the next generation of its human space exploration program, which will return astronauts to the surface of the Moon. The crew vehicle is named Ares I, and the cargo launcher is now named Ares V. The Ares I will carry just the crew exploration vehicle and astronauts into orbit, while the much larger Ares V will carry the cargo and equipment. Once in orbit, the crew exploration vehicle will link up with the cargo to travel on to the Moon.
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Four Supernova Remnants by Chandra
These four photographs of supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy were taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The youngest remnant is at the upper left (600 years old), while the oldest is at the bottom left (13,000 years old). These photos show how gas expelled by a dying star is heated to millions of degrees by shockwaves from the supernova explosion.
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Dark Matter Could Be a Galaxy in the Making
European astronomers have discovered a primordial “blob” of dark matter more than 10 billion light-years away. This gigantic object is twice as large as the Milky Way, but it only emits as much energy as 2 billion suns. The discovery was made using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope by surveying the sky in a narrow spectrum of radiation designed to highlight primordial hydrogen atoms. The astronomers think they’re seeing large quantities of gas falling into a clump of dark matter, which could go on to build a large galaxy like the Milky Way.
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Ozone Recovery is Going Slowly
Although the Earth’s ozone layer is on the mend, the recovery is going more slowly than expected. Scientists have developed a new computer model that takes existing atmospheric data and correctly reproduces the size and shape of the ozone hole above Antarctica for the past 27 years. The model then predicts into the future, forecasting that the ozone hole will stick around until 2068, and not 2050 as scientists originally believed.
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