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Hello! My name is Ian O'Neill and I've been writing for the Universe Today since December 2007. I am a solar physics doctor, but my space interests are wide-ranging. Since becoming a science writer I have been drawn to the more extreme astrophysics concepts (like black hole dynamics), high energy physics (getting excited about the LHC!) and general space colonization efforts. I am also heavily involved with the Mars Homestead project (run by the Mars Foundation), an international organization to advance our settlement concepts on Mars. I also run my own space physics blog: Astroengine.com, be sure to check it out!
A charred Soyuz descent module after landing 400 km off-course on April 19th 2008. Credit: NASA
[/caption]Back in April, the world was captivated by what happened to the crew of Soyuz TMA-11. It was supposed to be a routine trip from the International Space Station to the Kazakhstan landing site, but the crew return capsule endured a ballistic re-entry (i.e. an uncontrolled re-entry occurring steeper than planned) and a hard landing 400 km off-target. Fortunately cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, US astronaut Peggy Whitson and South Korean spaceflight participant Yi So-yeon survived the landing, but endured significant stress (plus Yi So-yeon had to receive medical attention to her back). Several days of media confusion ensued as misinformation was circulated by Russian officials, accusations of incompetence were directed at the crew (by the Russian space agency), and then (my personal favourite) a senior space agency manager put forward his theory on what had gone wrong: Having more women than men on board the spaceship was a bad omen.
So, what really happened above the atmosphere of Russia? It appears Russian engineers are beginning to understand what initiated the ballistic re-entry (without an omen in sight)…
While the rest of the world tried to work out who was to blame for the April 19th hard landing, engineers were busy trying to figure out what actually went wrong with Soyuz TMA-11. For a while now there has been a focus on the explosive bolts that possibly failed to fully separate the service module from the descent module as the craft began to enter the upper atmosphere. A rather heroic spacewalk was even carried out to remove one of the bolts from Soyuz TMA-12 whilst attached to the space station in July 2008. It was placed (carefully) in a blast-proof container and brought back to Earth for analysis.
Russian space officials have said the problem with the explosive bolts (or “pyrobolts”) has been solved and re-entries can go on as normal. However, an instrument will be attached to the outside of the space station, near to where the Soyuz vehicles dock. The installation is scheduled for a December 23rd spacewalk. If the problem has been solved, why investigate the issue further? The reality is that Russian scientists are still trying to understand what causes the Soyuz pyrobolts to misfire; after all, the ballistic re-entry is not exclusive to the April 2008 descent, it also happened in October 2007 during the re-entry of Soyuz TMA-10.
According to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate, scientists in the Russian space agency have converged on a common theory, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) hypothesis. EMI is thought to be caused by the flow of space plasma around the hull of the station, causing interference with the pyrobolts in the docked Soyuz vehicles. One effect could be the hardening of the explosives igniter wire, meaning a higher electrical current is needed to trigger the small explosives. Another effect of EMI could cause “the slurry of combustible material around the wire [to] migrate away from the wire, so there’s a gap between the slurry and the wire,” Gerstenmaier said.
Therefore, the hull-mounted instrument (called a Langmuir probe) will be used to measure the electric potential of the plasma flowing around the station near the Soyuz dock. This will help the scientist on the ground gauge the significance of the two space plasma EMI hypotheses, while they continue to study the pyrobolt brought back from TMA-12. It will be interesting to hear what they find out…
The X9-class solar flare of Dec. 5, 2006, observed by the Solar X-Ray Imager aboard NOAAs GOES-13 satellite (NASA)
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In 2006, one of the largest solar flares observed for 30 years erupted, saturating X-ray cameras on board observatories orbiting Earth. The December 5th event was a powerful X-ray flare, registering “X9” on the scale of powerful “X-class” flares. Even though flares weighing in at X20+ have been observed, the X9 is a rare event all the same. However, this 2006 flare is fast becoming known not only for its energetic characteristics. Shortly after the flare, solar astronomers expected to see a flood of interplanetary ions being ejected by the Sun. However, they detected something else; not only a particle they weren’t expecting, but a particle that shouldn’t be there…
When a blast the size of a hundred million nuclear bombs detonates, you wouldn’t expect anything to be intact at ground-zero, would you? In the case of solar flares, a huge amount of magnetic energy is unleashed through a process known as reconnection, quickly accelerating and heating solar plasma. Depending on the conditions, different solar flare energies are possible, but in the case of the Dec. 5th 2006 flare, solar plasma was rapidly and violently accelerated, unleashing X-ray radiation. At the flare site, within the knotted and twisted magnetic flux, plasma temperatures can soar to 10-20 million Kelvin (occasionally, for the biggest flares, 100 million Kelvin). In these conditions, nothing stays intact. Any atoms in the local area become stripped of their electrons, leaving an energetic soup of ionized particles (like protons and helium nuclei) and electrons.
So you can imagine the surprise of a group of solar physicists using data from the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft orbiting the Sun (one ahead of the Earth’s orbit, and one behind), when they detected a jet of pure neutral hydrogen atoms emanating from the flare.
“We’ve detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech,. “What a surprise! These atoms could be telling us something new about what happens inside flares.”
“No other elements were present, not even helium (the sun’s second most abundant atomic species). Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes.”
STEREO particle counts after the flare (NASA)Measurements of radio emissions indicated that a shock wave had been generated low in the solar atmosphere during the flare, revealing the interaction of incoming solar ions. Physicists waited for an hour for the incoming ions (the time calculated for ions to travel from the Sun to the STEREO spacecraft), but instead the stream of neutral atoms arrived. The stream of hydrogen lasted for 90 minutes, and then it went quiet for 30 minutes only for the expected ions to flood the sensors as predicted.
At first glance, the impossible had been achieved; a solar flare had somehow manufactured, then sorted the neutral hydrogen from the soup of plasma and shot it into space. But this produced a very perplexing puzzle: neutral hydrogen, lots of it, has been detected as a result of a solar flare, and yet these atoms cannot exist in the extreme environment surrounding the flare site. What gives?
Actually, these hydrogen atoms were not generated inside the flare, they formed after the flare as the products from the explosion spiralled into interplanetary space.
“We believe they began their journey to Earth in pieces, as protons and electrons,” said Mewaldt. “Before they escaped the sun’s atmosphere, however, some of the protons recaptured an electron, forming intact hydrogen atoms. The atoms left the sun in a fast, straight shot before they could be broken apart again.”
The reason why these neutral atoms appeared at STEREO faster than the ion cloud is because the neutral hydrogen did not get influenced (slowed down) by the Sun’s magnetic field; the atoms shot out, in a straight line, rather than being deflected by magnetic flux. And how did they form? Physicists believe the protons “recaptured” the free electrons in the space between the flare and detector through the well known mechanisms radiative recombination and charge exchange.
Now, solar physicists want to replicate these findings to see whether these hydrogen jets are a common feature of solar flares… but they might have to wait a while, the Sun is still enjoying its quiet spell...
An artist impression of an exomoon orbiting an exoplanet, could the exoplanet's wobble help astronomers? (Andy McLatchie)
[/caption]It looks like astronomers have already grown tired of taking direct observations of exoplanets, been there, done that. So they are now pushing for the next great discovery: the detection of exomoons orbiting exoplanets. In a new study, a British astronomer wants to use a technique more commonly associated with the indirect observation of exoplanets. This technique watches a candidate star to see if it wobbles. The wobble is caused by the gravitational pull of the orbiting exoplanet, revealing its presence.
Now, according to David Kipping, the presence of exomoons can also be detected via the “wobble method”. Track an exoplanet during its orbit around a star to see its own wobble due to the gravitational interaction between the exoplanet/exomoon system. As if we needed any more convincing that this is not already an ‘all kinds of awesome’ project, Kipping has another motivation behind watching exoplanets wobble. He wants to find Earth-like exomoons with the potential for extraterrestrial life…
If you sat me in a room and asked me for ten years over and over again: “If you were an astronomer, and you had infinite funds, what would you want to discover?“, I don’t think I would ever arrive at the answer: the natural satellites orbiting exoplanets.” However, now I have read an article about it and studied the abstracts of a few papers, it doesn’t seem like such a strange proposition.
David Kipping, an astronomer working at the University College London (UCL), has acquired funding to investigate his method of measuring the wobble of exoplanets to reveal the presence of exomoons, and to measure their mass and distance from the exoplanet.
“Until now astronomers have only looked at the changes in the position of a planet as it orbits its star. This has made it difficult to confirm the presence of a moon as these changes can be caused by other phenomena, such as a smaller planet,” said Kipping. “By adopting this new method and looking at variations in a planet’s position and velocity each time it passes in front of its star, we gain far more reliable information and have the ability to detect an Earth-mass moon around a Neptune-mass gas planet.”
Kipping’s work appeared in the December 11th Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and could help the search for exomoons that lie within the habitable zone. Of the 300+ exoplanets observed so far, 30 are within the habitable zones of their host stars, but the planets themselves are large gas giants, several times the size of Jupiter. These gas giants are therefore assumed to be hostile for the formation for life (life as we know it in any case) and so have been discounted as habitable exoplanets.
But what if these exoplanets in the habitable zone have Earth-like exomoons orbiting them? Could they be detected? It would appear so.
Prof. Keith Mason, Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), added, “It’s very exciting that we can now gather so much information about distant moons as well as distant planets. If some of these gas giants found outside our Solar System have moons, like Jupiter and Saturn, there’s a real possibility that some of them could be Earth-like.”
Watch this space for an announcement of the first Earth-like exomoon to be discovered, at the rate of current technological advancement in astronomy, we could be looking at our first Earth-like exoplanet exomoon sooner than we anticipated…
The mysterous dark matter is used to explain the characteristics of galaxies, but are WIMPs overrated? (Addison-Wesley Longman)
[/caption]Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are thought to dominate dark matter and huge efforts are under way to detect them. By their definition, WIMPs are massive theoretical particles, and they are very weakly interacting with normal matter. WIMPs are therefore notoriously difficult to detect, if they exist that is.
However, some physicists aren’t so confident that WIMPs are key to the hunt for dark matter. In a new study, two US researchers have re-opened the debate about dark matter, suggesting the bulk of it could be composed of heavier, strongly interacting particles, or possibly smaller, even more weakly interacting particles than WIMP theory. The physicists also go as far as suggesting that the Universe would be an even more interesting place where WIMP-less dark matter dominates…
“We know little about dark matter, since we can’t measure it directly,” said Jonathan Feng, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine. “But there are theories and models. WIMPs are attractive because they happen to appear in many popular theories of new particles and interactions. But what if there are other well-motivated possibilities for dark matter besides WIMPs?”
Feng, with co-author Jason Kumar, published a paper in Physical Review Letters called “Dark-Matter Particles without Weak-Scale Masses or Weak Interactions,” and the results have called into question the validity of focusing on WIMPs as the main component of the dark matter thought to make up the majority of mass in our Universe. The problem with dark matter, as stated by Feng, is that we cannot measure (observe) it directly and we therefore have little clue what it is. We know it’s there, the motion of galaxies and galactic clusters indicate a gravitational influence of something other than what we can see (i.e. luminous matter), but dark matter does not interact via the electromagnetic force, making it a particularly difficult entity to study.
There are strong theoretical reasons to believe WIMPs are at the centre of dark matter studies, but Feng and Kumar have composed models that suggest other weakly, and strongly, interacting particles can explain some of the phenomena we are observing.
“WIMPs are a very specific example of dark matter, but there is a broader class of particles,” Feng added. “We found that some of the models also predicted the right amount of dark matter for the universe, but with dark matter that was much more strongly or weakly interacting than WIMPs. We are wondering if almost-exclusive attention for WIMPs is really warranted.”
Indeed, a lot of attention is focused on WIMP theory, what if dark matter researchers are being blinkered by one theory at the detriment of a more subtle explanation? One of the key points raised is that there is strong evidence supporting dark matter candidates with a mass of around 1 GeV. This finding comes from the DAMA (Dark Matter) project at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories, Italy, that investigates the signal from possible dark matter interactions in the galactic halo. WIMPS are far bigger, with a mass of 100 GeV. Could this signal be from a far lighter weakly interacting dark matter candidate?
There are also suggestions from other research that strongly interacting particles are annihilating all the time, generating high energy photons that can be observed pervading the entire Universe. Although this is theory, Feng is optimistic about energetic photon experiments.
However, re-analysing the WIMP dominance over dark matter creates some interesting scenarios for the Universe. By considering WIMP-less dark matter, some rather exotic explanations begin to form.
“There are theories that there is a shadow world behind ours. It is a mirror world that is like ours, but doesn’t interact with ours,” Feng said. “With WIMP dark matter, that possibility is remote.”
“WIMP-less dark matter requires new forces that we don’t really know much about. If you could have evidence of this type of dark matter, it might be a hint that this shadow world exists.”
A shadow world may sound a little eccentric, but it is also built of viable theories just as the generally accepted WIMP theory is. This new study is certainly a reminder that dark matter is an unknown quantity, and researchers should be open to other particles and not just WIMPS…
Obama is in for a rough ride to get the economy back on track, but NASA cutbacks are not the answer
[/caption]There’s no denying it, President-elect Barack Obama will have one of the toughest jobs in presidential history. The challenges the 44th President of the United States will face are deep and varied. Everything from the economy to housing, from health care to warfare, from energy to security; everything appears to be in a state of “crisis”. So, of the incoming administration’s priorities, getting man back to the Moon is low on the list. Unfortunately, the exploration of space is often viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity, policy changes interfere with long-term projects, and the NASA budget can become an easy target for cutbacks.
It will come as no surprise then, that news is surfacing about some friction between Obama’s new administration and the existing top brass in NASA. Some reports point to direct non-cooperation by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, an allegation that both NASA and the Obama transition team deny. Regardless, there is tension building, especially when it is becoming clear that the transition team may be eyeing up NASA budget cuts, postponing the Constellation program, possibly putting long-term US manned access to space at serious risk.
A space exploration crisis is on the horizon, but what damage would it cause?
Writing about NASA’s endeavours in space can be a frustrating experience. On the one hand, the US space agency is responsible for mankind’s biggest space-faring achievements. NASA has always led and the world has followed. NASA pushes back the frontiers of manned and robotic exploration, and now the agency’s expertise is being passed down to commercial spaceflight companies (such as SpaceX support through COTS contracts) to fill in the void behind NASA’s advances.
We are reaching an age where other nations are investing in space exploration too. The European Space Agency (ESA) is rapidly growing, Russia has one of the most robust launch systems on the planet, China is making huge leaps in manned spaceflight, India has sent a probe to the Moon; the list is growing by the month. Therefore, the US is beginning to feel competition from the international community, and although the US won’t be toppled as #1 in space any time soon, what about a decade from now? Will the playing field turn against NASA’s dominance in Earth orbit and beyond? Fortunately the US has close collaborative ties with ESA and Russia, but what happens if this situation changes?
NASA recently extended their use of the Russian Soyuz vehicle to fill in US manned access to space during the “5-year gap” between Shuttle decommissioning in 2010 and (proposed) Constellation launch in 2015. Although it is reassuring to know astronauts will still be able to fly with cosmonauts to-and-from the International Space Station (ISS) beyond 2010, what happens if relations between the US and Russia chill even further (the South Ossetia conflict is a prime example of how the politics between the two nations can freeze solid)? The Russian government could very quickly pull the plug on US manned access to space.
Artist impression of the SpaceX Dragon approaching the space station (SpaceX)And so, all eyes on US space companies accelerating their development of alternative means of transportation. Elon Musk’s SpaceX for example, is a front-runner when it comes to commercial manned spaceflight. In a recent interview I conducted with SpaceX, Diane Murphy (Vice-President of Marketing and Communications) was very optimistic about SpaceX’s Dragon module providing the answer to manned spaceflight. “I think we’ll surprise them [NASA] with how quickly we are moving so they can use us for crew as well. We’ll be ready!” she told me. Judging by the speed at which the company is developing, it certainly seems to be a possibility.
But, for now, we are stuck in an awkward position. NASA gets a minuscule budget when compared with other government departments. The US government has underfunded the agency for many years, and the funds it does receive are constantly open to erosion by changing administrations and space policy. Now Barack Obama’s administration must balance the needs of NASA with the worsening financial crisis hitting the world, so a transition team has been sent to look into NASA business to understand where work needs to be done.
Now it seems as if tensions are coming to a head. According to reports in the Orlando Sentinel, Michael Griffin, who was attending a book launch with members of the Obama transition team (including ex-NASA senior administrator Lori Garver), accused Garver as being “unqualified” to be assessing whether funds should be cut from the development of the Constellation Program. According to witnesses at the book launch, Garver tried to reason with Griffin saying, “Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood.”
Griffin apparently disliked this assertion and said, “If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar. Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood.”
Associates who attended the book launch said the exchange between Griffin and Garver was not an argument, it was simply “a discussion about stuff.” Still, whatever tone the discussion was pitched at, there seem to be problems brewing. To calm rumours that he was not cooperating, Griffin wrote an email to NASA employees saying, “This report, largely supported by anonymous sources and hearsay, is simply wrong. We are fully cooperating with the [transition] team members.”
Hemorrhaging the NASA budget? Stern cites the MSL as a prime example of damaging overspending (NASA)This could be the symptom of recent accusations by Alan Stern, ex-NASA Associate Administrator for Science, that there was a “cancer” in the administration’s management structure. According to Stern, the result of this “cancer” is zero-accountability for project budget overspending and wasteful practices. His words came when NASA announced it would be removing a sample storage box from the Mars Science Laboratory after it had been developed and constructed (thereby throwing away $2 million), then followed by an announcement about a two year postponement of the mission. Needless to say, Stern is highly critical of the mission, prompting him to say that the “Mars Program is slowly committing suicide before our very eyes.”
Putting government underfunding, and alleged NASA mismanagement to one side, it appears to be a continuing misconception that the exploration of space (whether it be manned or robotic) is an academic endeavour. Personally, I’d argue that manned exploration of space is essential for the long-term survival of our species, but politics only thinks about the next four-year term in office. Although politics is a fantastic motivator for space exploration in some cases (cue: Apollo Program during the Cold War in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s) to fulfil short-term goals, during periods of social and economic upheaval, space exploration becomes an unnecessary luxury and policies become a lot more introverted.
To finish off, let’s look at the European Space Agency. Although ESA is a completely different entity from NASA–it is not politically-driven (although some leaders want it to be), it is a consortium of many nations and its budget is smaller than NASA’s–its outlook for Europe’s efforts in space are far more optimistic. Rather than trying to cut funding to save money, ESA appears to have a renewed vigour toward using space exploration as a means to stimulate the economy:
These decisions have particular relevance at the present time, showing as they do Europe’s determination to invest in space as a key sector providing for innovation, economic growth, strategic independence and the preparation of the future. – ESA press release
To avoid any regrets in space policy, the upcoming US administration needs to look hard at ESA’s motivation. Investment in space provides independence, economic growth and preparation for the future. Alas, by making cutbacks to the Constellation Program, the US will start depending on Russia for manned access to space (if a commercial alternative isn’t available in time), economic influence of a manned space program will be cancelled out, and as for the future? Well, we’ll just have to hope for the best.
2008 has been a landmark year for space science and physics endeavour. We’ve peered deep into the cosmos and fitted new pieces into some of the most intriguing universal puzzles. We’ve explored other planets with technology we wouldn’t have recognised a decade ago. We’ve assembled some of the most complex experiments to test theories of the very small and the very big. 2008 has built strong foundations for the future of the exploration of the Universe in so many ways…
This week, Time Magazine published the top 10 “Scientific Discoveries” of 2008. Technically, as many readers pointed out, a few of the entries are not “discoveries”, they are “achievements”. Although this might have been the case, space exploration and physics dominated, with the #1 slot going to the LHC and #2 slot going to the Phoenix Mars Lander (#4 and #6 went to the Chinese spacewalk and exoplanets respectively). After reading the superb suggestion put forward by Astrofiend (thanks!), it was the push I needed to want to create a Universe Today version of a “Top 10” for 2008 (I’d love to do a top 20, but I have to find some time for Christmas shopping).
This top ten will focus on the last 12 months of Universe Today articles, so take a journey through the year’s events in space science and physics to find your favourite scientific endeavour of 2008. If you can’t find the article, just leave the name of the specific endeavour and we’ll do the rest. Please leave all nominations in the comments box below…
You have one week to get your nominations in (so your deadline is December 19th), and I’ll compile the list of winners hopefully in time for Christmas. The nominations will be considered not only according to popularity, but also chosen by your unbiased Universe Today team…
Direct observation of an exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut - Number 6 in the top 10 (NASA/HST)
[/caption]2008 has been an astounding year of scientific discovery. To celebrate this fact, Time Magazine has listed the “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries” where space exploration and physics dominate. Other disciplines are also listed; including zoology, microbiology, technology and biochemistry, but the number 1 slot goes to the most ambitious physics experiment of our time. Can you guess what it is? Also, of all our endeavours in space, can you pick out three that Time Magazine has singled out as being the most important?
As we approach the end of the year, ready to welcome in 2009, it is good to take stock and celebrate the mind-blowing achievements mankind has accomplished. Read on for the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008…
The best thing about writing for a leading space news blog is that you gain wonderful overview to all our endeavours in astronomy, space flight, physics, politics (yes, space exploration has everything to do with politics), space commercialization and science in general. 2008 has been such a rich year for space exploration; we’ve landed probes on other worlds, studied other worlds orbiting distant stars, peered deep into the quantum world, learnt profound things about our own planet, developed cutting-edge instrumentation and redefined the human existence in the cosmos. We might not have all the answers (in fact, I think we are only just beginning to scratch the surface of our understanding of the Universe), but we have embarked on an enlightening journey on which we hope to build strong foundations for the next year of scientific discovery.
In an effort to assemble some of the most profound scientific endeavours of this year, Time Magazine has somehow narrowed the focus down to just 10 discoveries. Out of the ten, four are space and physics related, so here they are:
Considering there have never been any direct observations of exoplanets before November 2008–although we have known about the presence of worlds orbiting other stars for many years via indirect methods–this has been a revolutionary year for exoplanet hunters.
4. China Soars into Space: First taikonaut carries out successful spacewalk Zhai Zhigang exits the Shenzhou-7 capsule with Earth overhead (Xinhua/BBC)Following hot on the heels of one of the biggest Olympic Games in Beijing, China launched a three-man crew into space to make history. The taikonauts inside Shenzhou-7 were blasted into space by a Long March II-F rocket on September 25th.
Despite early controversy surrounding recorded spaceship transmissions before the rocket had even launched, and then the sustained efforts by conspiracy theorists to convince the world that the whole thing was staged, mission commander Zhai Zhigang did indeed become the first ever Chinese citizen to carry out a spacewalk. Zhai spent 16 minutes outside of the capsule, attached by an umbilical cable, to triumphantly wave the Chinese flag and retrieve a test sample of solid lubricant attached to the outside of the module. His crew mate Liu Boming was also able to do some spacewalking.
Probably the most incredible thing about the first Chinese spacewalk wasn’t necessarily the spacewalk itself, it was the speed at which China managed to achieve this goal in such a short space of time. The first one-man mission into space was in 2003, the second in 2005, and the third was this year. Getting man into space is no easy task, to build an entire manned program in such a short space of time, from the ground-up, is an outstanding achievement.
2. The North Pole – of Mars: The Phoenix Mars Lander Capturing the world's attention: Phoenix (NASA/UA)Phoenix studied the surface of the Red Planet for five months. It was intended to only last for three. In that time, this robotic explorer captured the hearts and minds of the world; everybody seemed to be talking about the daily trials and tribulations of this highly successful mission. Perhaps it was because of the constant news updates via the University of Arizona website, or the rapid micro-blogging via Twitter; whatever the reason, Phoenix was a short-lived space celebrity.
To give the highly communicative lander the last word, MarsPhoenix on Twitter has recently announced: “Look who made Time Mag’s Top 10 list for Scientific Discoveries in 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5mwt2l”
In the run-up to the switch-on of the LHC in September, the world’s media focused its attention on the grandest physics experiment ever constructed. The LHC will ultimately probe deep into the world of subatomic particles to help to explain some of the fundamental questions of our Universe. Primarily, the LHC has been designed to hunt for the elusive Higgs boson, but the quest will influence many facets of science. From designing an ultra-fast method of data transmission to unfolding the theoretical microscopic dimensions curled up in space-time, the LHC is a diverse science, with applications we won’t fully appreciate for many years.
Unfortunately, as you may be wondering, the LHC hasn’t actually discovered anything yet, but the high-energy collisions of protons and other, larger subatomic particles, will revolutionize physics. I’d argue that the simple fact the multi-billion euro machine has been built is a discovery of how advanced our technological ability is becoming.
Endeavour leaving California at 7am Wednesday morning (NASA)
[/caption]Having flown out of Edwards Air Force Base in California early Wednesday morning, Space Shuttle Endeavour is stopping over at Fort Worth in Texas before making the final leg of its homeward-bound journey to Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday. This is a rare treat for the people of Fort Worth, and anyone who saw the 747/Shuttle duo touch down on the runway Wednesday afternoon will most likely be the last. It is highly unlikely another shuttle will land at Fort Worth ever again…
The weather couldn’t have been more contrasting than the mild California climate. Taking an overnight stay at Forth Worth in Texas before continuing its 747 piggyback ride to Kennedy Space Center tomorrow, Shuttle Endeavour needs to be kept warm through the 30°F freezing night. Plus, the spaceship will be given a VIP heavy guard for the duration.
Endeavour landed at the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base on Wednesday afternoon after an uneventful taxi ride from Edwards Air Force Base. It had been awaiting the delayed trip home since successful completion of its space station “home improvements” mission (STS-126) on November 30th. Endeavour was originally scheduled for a Sunday commute, but bad weather before Florida caused the extended stay.
So, tonight, the Shuttle has been tucked up warm before making the final leg of the trip (weather permitting). As it is so cold at Fort Worth, engineers have had to make special arrangements to keep the interior of Endeavour warm; whilst on the tarmac they pumped 80°F air into the orbiter. This was to preserve delicate seals and expensive equipment inside.
Although this mammoth taxi ride isn’t cheap (every time NASA performs this cross-country hop, it costs the agency approximately $1.8 million), the 747 pilots seem to enjoy the change in plans for the Shuttle landing site. “When they do occasionally land at Edwards, we always say ‘Shucks, they had to land at Edwards,” joked Frank Marlow, NASA 747 Pilot.
Since 1981, NASA has sent a 747 to the west coast 52 times to pick up the shuttle fleet. The last time a Space Shuttle landed at Fort Worth was in 1997. Alas, this will probably be the final time North Texas will see another shuttle before the fleet is decommissioned in 2010.
Endeavour successfully took off atop a 747 this morning under blue skies. Farewell Endeavour, it was a joy to have you visit (NASA)
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Update:Space Shuttle Endeavour left Edwards Air Force Base this morning at 7am, after a 10-day stop over in the Mojave Desert, 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Have a safe flight to Florida Endeavour, it was great to have you as a guest!
You’ve probably heard this announcement at the airport before: “Flight delayed due to bad weather.” Quickly followed by, “You can’t be serious!” from the red-faced guy behind you, slamming his briefcase to the floor, resulting in an angry hoard of commuters rushing to the ticket desk to blame the airline for the snow storm outside (because the natural phenomenon of snow is their fault).
However, at Edwards Air Force Base in California, another, more patient passenger awaits her flight back to Florida. But rather than the delay being a matter of minutes or hours, Space Shuttle Endeavour’s flight to Florida has been delayed by three days, and counting…
Endeavour had an astounding mission (STS-126) to the International Space Station last month. The shuttle carried a team of seven to perform one of the busiest 16-day orbital stop-overs yet. The crew completed several spacewalks to fix stiff solar alpha rotary joints, upgraded the station modules to accommodate six permanent station crew members and transported some cool educational experiments into space.
"I just heard some sort of explosion!" Nope, it was just that pesky space shuttle... (LA Times)All in all, STS-126 was an outright success. Even the confused spiders in the biology experiment payload performed with excellence, dealing with microgravity and spinning a web just like they did on Earth. Everything appeared to go pretty much without incident (apart from the loss of a $100,000 toolbag), that was until Endeavour was told to land 2000 miles off target due to bad weather over Florida. Rather than returning to home soil, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert in California (buzzing the locals on November 30th).
So alternative arrangements had to be made to ferry the shuttle back to Kennedy Space Center, and this included a customized NASA Boeing 747 jumbo jet taxi ride (with a fare of $1.8 million). Endeavour will enjoy a piggyback ride atop the aircraft, hopefully taking off first thing in the morning (Wednesday).
NASA is keeping a close eye on the weather front causing the problems; Endeavour was tentatively scheduled to fly home on Sunday, but poor weather between California and Florida pushed the delay further into the week. NASA does not allow the flying duo to pass through cloud or any inclement weather, so they are allowed to be picky about when to fly.
The stars in the centre of our galaxy. Our supermassive black hole IS in there, somewhere... (ESO)
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One the one hand, this might not be surprising news, but on the other, the implications are startling. A supermassive black hole (called Sagittarius A*) lives at the centre of the Milky Way. This is the conclusion of a 16 year observation campaign of a region right in the centre of our galaxy where 28 stars have been tracked, orbiting a common, invisible point.
Usually these stars would be obscured by the gas and dust in that region, but the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile has used its infrared telescopes to peer deep into the black hole’s lair. Judging by the orbital trajectories of these 28 stars, astronomers have not only been able to pinpoint the black hole’s location, they have also deduced its mass…
It has been long recognised that supermassive black holes probably occupy the centres of most galaxies, from dwarf galaxies to thin galactic disks to large spiral galaxies; the majority of galaxies appear to have them. But actually seeing a black hole is no easy task; astronomers depend on observing the effect a supermassive black hole has on the surrounding gas, dust and stars rather than seeing the object itself (after all, by definition, a black hole is black).
In 1992, astronomers using the ESO’s 3.5-metre New Technology Telescope in Chile turned their attentions on our very own galactic core to begin an unprecedented observation campaign. Since 2002, the 8.2-metre Very Large Telescope (VLT) was also put to use. 16 years later, with over 50 nights of total observation time, the results are in.
By tracking individual stars orbiting a common point, ESO researchers have derived the best empirical evidence yet for the existence of a 4 million solar mass black hole. All the stars are moving rapidly, one star even completed a full orbit within those 16 years, allowing astronomers to indirectly study the mysterious beast driving our galaxy.
“The centre of the Galaxy is a unique laboratory where we can study the fundamental processes of strong gravity, stellar dynamics and star formation that are of great relevance to all other galactic nuclei, with a level of detail that will never be possible beyond our Galaxy,” explains Reinhard Genzel, team leader of this research at the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich, Germany.
“Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our 16-year study, is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist,” Genzel continues. “The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Apart from being the most detailed study of Sagittarius A*’s neighbourhood (the techniques used in this study are six-times more precise than any study before it), the ESO astronomers also deduced the most precise measurement of the distance from the galactic centre to the Solar System; our supermassive black hole lies a safe 27,000 light years away.
A lot of information was gleaned about the individual stars too. “The stars in the innermost region are in random orbits, like a swarm of bees,” says Stefan Gillessen, first author of the paper published in The Astrophysical Journal. “However, further out, six of the 28 stars orbit the black hole in a disc. In this respect the new study has also confirmed explicitly earlier work in which the disc had been found, but only in a statistical sense. Ordered motion outside the central light-month, randomly oriented orbits inside – that’s how the dynamics of the young stars in the Galactic Centre are best described.”
Quite simply, the object influencing these stars must be a supermassive black hole, there is no other explanation out there. Does this mean black holes have an even firmer standing as a cosmological “fact” rather than “theory”? It would appear so…
