Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond.
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The latest crew has arrived to the International Space Station! Cosmonaut and Expedition 34/35 Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko, Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA and Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency docked their Soyuz TMA-07M at 14:09 UTC (9:09 a.m. EST) to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the ISS. We extend special congratulations to Hadfield, as we have been featuring him in our series about his training for the mission. He told us how much he is looking forward to his 5-month mission in space. “After a lot of lucky coincidences and a lot of hard work I get to be one of those who stays for an extended period off the planet. I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.
Hatches are expected to open at 16:15 UTC (11:15 am EST) after checking for leaks, etc. The new crew will be welcomed by Expedition 34 commander Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy, who have been on board since Oct. 23.
NASA says the crew will begin with a relatively light schedule and a break for the holidays of Christmas, New Years and the Russian Christmas holiday on January 6. But they’ll be busy during their mission with the arrival of Russian and European Space Agency resupply and two commercial companies, SpaceX and Orbital are scheduled to send their cargo ships to the ISS in March and April.
Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin are scheduled to leave the ISS in the middle of March, and at that point, Hadfield will become commander of Expedition 35, the first Canadian to to command the ISS.
Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko during their final Soyuz sim on Earth. Credit: NASA
The location of Tau Ceti in the night sky. Credit: University of Hertfordshire
Look up in the sky tonight towards the southeast in the constellation Cetus. There’s a naked-eye star named Tau Ceti that lies about 12 light-years away from Earth, and astronomers have discovered a system of at least five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, including one in the star’s habitable zone.
While the recent discovery of a Earth-sized planet around the triple star system Alpha Centauri is the closest planet that has been discovered at just 4.3 light years away, this new discovery is the closest single sun-like star that we know of to host of an entire system of planets. The five planets are estimated to have masses between two and six times the mass of the Earth, making it the lowest-mass planetary system yet detected. The planet in the habitable zone of the star has a mass around five times that of Earth, making it the smallest planet found to be orbiting in the habitable zone of any Sun-like star.
“This discovery is in keeping with our emerging view that virtually every star has planets, and that the galaxy must have many such potentially habitable Earth-sized planets,” said astronomer Steve Vogt from UC Santa Cruz, coauthor of the paper describing the discovery. “We are now beginning to understand that nature seems to overwhelmingly prefer systems that have multiple planets with orbits of less than 100 days. This is quite unlike our own solar system, where there is nothing with an orbit inside that of Mercury. So our solar system is, in some sense, a bit of a freak and not the most typical kind of system that Nature cooks up.”
An artist’s impression of the Tau Ceti system. (Image by J. Pinfield for the RoPACS network at the University of Hertfordshire.)
Tau Ceti has long been a target of both detailed astronomical study and hopeful science fiction, since it is among one of the 20 closest stars to Earth. It is also easily visible to the naked eye and can be seen from both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. During the 1960’s, Project Ozma, led by SETI’s Frank Drake, probed Tau Ceti for signs of life by studying interstellar radio waves with the Green Bank radio telescope. Science fiction authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert used Tau Ceti as destinations and focal points in their books.
Scientists know this star has a dusty debris disk at least 10 times more massive than our solar system’s Kuiper Belt, and it has been observed long enough that no planets larger than Jupiter have been found.
An international team of astronomers from the United Kingdom, Chile, United States, and Australia, combined more than six-thousand observations from the UCLES spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope, the HIRES spectrograph on the Keck Telescope, and reanalysis of spectra taken with the HARPS spectrograph available through the European Southern Observatory public archive.
Using new techniques, the team found a method to detect signals half the size of previous observations, greatly improving the sensitivity of searches for small planets.
“We pioneered new data modeling techniques by adding artificial signals to the data and testing our recovery of the signals with a variety of different approaches,” said lead author Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire. “This significantly improved our noise modeling techniques and increased our ability to find low-mass planets.”
Tau Ceti e is the planet in the habitable zone, and its year is about half as long as ours. An independent study of the data from the system done by Abel Méndez at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo says that the fifth planet, Tau Ceti f, may also be in the habitable zone.
While over 800 planets have been discovered orbiting other worlds, planets in orbit around the nearest Sun-like stars are particularly valuable to study, the team said.
“Tau Ceti is one of our nearest cosmic neighbors and so bright that we may be able to study the atmospheres of these planets in the not-too-distant future. Planetary systems found around nearby stars close to our Sun indicate that these systems are common in our Milky Way galaxy,” said James Jenkins of Universidad de Chile, a visiting fellow at the University of Hertfordshire.
The Soyuz TMA-07M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012 carrying the Expedition 34 crew to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
Heading off just as the Sun was setting amid frigid conditions at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a trio of international explorers launched to space, on their way to the International Space Station. Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, Tom Marshburn of NASA, Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) launched Wednesday at 12:12 UTC (7:12 a.m. EST, 6:12 p.m. Baikonur time). Their Soyuz TMA-07M performed flawlessly, and the crew is expected to dock with the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the space station at 14:12 UTC (9:12 a.m. EST) on Friday, Dec. 21.
See the launch video below:
Temperatures were below freezing, with a windchill reported of -34 C at launch time. But as Hadfield told Universe Today, the Soyuz rocket is just as robust and one of the most reliable rockets ever. “The Soyuz launches all-weather, -40 degrees to +40 degrees,” Hadfield said. “It is rugged, built on experience, and it is not delicate. I trust it with my life.”
Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko will join their Expedition 34 crewmates already on board the ISS — Commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin — to bring the crew back to the standard size of six.
Two minutes into flight, the Soyuz rocket’s four liquid-fueled first stage boosters were jettisoned. Via NASA TV.
Hadfield will make history on March 15, 2013 as he will become the first Canadian astronaut to take command of the ISS.
The focus of Expedition 34/35 is scientific research, with the astronauts serving as subjects for human physiology tests, including examinations of astronaut bone loss.
While not officially decided yet, Hadfield indicated a spacewalk may be in order for him and one of his ISS crewmates to perform some needed maintenance outside the space station.
Expedition 34 NASA Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), top, NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn and Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko wave farewell from the bottom of the Soyuz rocket. Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)
During their stay, the crew will be busy welcoming both a Russian Progress and ESA’s ATV cargo ships, as well as two commercial resupply missions from SpaceX and the first flight of Orbital Science’s Cygnus spacecraft.
The crew also will also be conducting a wide range of physical science, Earth observation, human research and technology demonstration investigations. Experiments will investigate how fire behaves in space, which could help improve engine fuel efficiency and fire suppression methods in space and on Earth. Other research will look at fluids that change physical properties in the presence of a magnet, which could improve bridge and building designs to better withstand earthquakes. With the help of cameras set up by the crew, students on Earth are capturing photos of our planet.
“One last kiss before I go – love under glass with my wife. It’s launch morning, I slept well, feel great,” Hadfield Tweeted this morning before launch.
Expedition 34/35: Canadian Space Agency Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA. The crew launches on Dec. 19, 2012 at 12:12 UTC (7:12 a.m. EST). For the second half of the mission, Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been sharing with us how much there is to learn and the training necessary for living on the International Space Station for five months. But astronauts and cosmonauts also have to learn how to fly on the Russian Soyuz, too, as right now, there’s no other ride to the space station.
“Soyuz is a wonderful spaceship,” Hadfield told Universe Today. “It has been refined and honed and perfected for decades, as if they took an early sculpture of something and have continuously whittled away at it to make it more and more purpose-built and improved.”
A view of Hadfield inside the Soyuz simulator. Credit: NASA
The most modern version, the TMA-M, is as good as they’ve ever made it, Hadfield said, with great modifications and improvements in avionics, sensors, computing power.
“So, it is a very capable, well-designed vehicle; a tough vehicle,” he said. “That is heartening and reassuring. It has the full ability to do almost everything on its own, but also full ability for us to take over and do almost everything manually if we need to.”
“There is an unbelievable thrill in getting into your own spaceship. This is the same hatch we’ll use on the launch pad,” Hadfield said via Twitter.
It is so robust that with just a stopwatch, the crews can bring it safely back to Earth and land within a 10-km circle of where they want to touch down.
All the training is in Russian. “Russian digital motion control theory is complex,” Hadfield said. “It took a full year of intensive one-on-one study to become ready to start flying the Soyuz.” This video shows Hadfield working in the simulator:
Hadfield said that not only does he have great respect for the Soyuz, but for the training provided by the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos.
“They simulate it well, and they load us up to our limit of what they teach us,” he said, “getting into the very esoteric and complex things that can happen.”
For example, in full-up simulations where the crew are in the pressure suits, the trainers will do things like fill the cockpit with smoke as if there was a fire on board, so the “dashboard” can’t be seen, and the crew needs to know how to keep flying.
“Centrifuges make you dizzy while they accelerate & decelerate, & REALLY mess you up when you move your head. Otherwise OK,” Hadfield Tweeted.
In this video, Hadfield explains the Soyuz centrifuge, the largest human-rated centrifuge in the world, that puts the astronauts and cosmonauts in the same environment – G-force-wise – that they will be in during the harrowing descent when they return home, plummeting through Earth’s atmosphere and experience 4-8 times the force of Earth’s gravity.
“You need to be able to understand how that feels on your body and whether you are going to be able to work in that environment,” Hadfield said.
“Hatch to Another World – what it looks like to climb into a Soyuz spaceship. We then crawl down into our seats,” Hadfield said, via Twitter.
The Soyuz rocket is just as robust and one of the most reliable rockets ever. “The Soyuz launches all-weather, -40 degrees to +40 degrees,” Hadfield said. “It is rugged, built on experience, it is not delicate. I trust it with my life.”
“It takes these 32 engines to get these 3 humans safely above the air. And that’s just the start,” Hadfield said via Twitter.
“My Soyuz Checklists – from L to R: Launch/Entry, Malfunctions, Orbital Flight. Colour-coded for easy spaceflight,” said Hadfield via Twitter.
Hadfield talks about the Russian technology for the rocket and spaceship he will be flying in:
Hadfield’s son and daughter-in-law gave him a Soyuz-like pre-flight Christmas present:
“My first Soyuz simulator! Summer 1964, nearly 5 years old. Never too early to start training,” Hadfield shared on Twitter.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has delivered a glorious view of Saturn, taken while the spacecraft was in Saturn’s shadow. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
The Cassini team has done it again. A new 60-image mosaic of Saturn shows a back-lit view of the giant ringed world in several wavelengths, making Saturn look like a colorful holiday ornament. In October, the Cassini spacecraft was deliberately positioned within Saturn’s shadow, and the cameras were turned toward Saturn and with the Sun behind the planet.
“Of all the many glorious images we have received from Saturn, none are more strikingly unusual than those taken from Saturn’s shadow,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini’s imaging team lead based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “They unveil a rare splendor seldom seen anywhere else in our solar system.”
“Looking back towards the Sun is a geometry referred to by planetary scientists as “high solar phase;” near the center of the target’s shadow is the highest phase possible,” the Cassini team explained. Not only does this produce a stunning image, but it is very scientifically advantageous as well, as it can reveal details about both the rings and atmosphere that cannot be seen in lower solar phase.
This is a rare view, as the last time the Cassini spacecraft was able to take a backlit view of Saturn and the rings was 2006. Also captured in this image are two of Saturn’s moons: Enceladus and Tethys. Both appear on the left side of the planet, below the rings. Enceladus is closer to the rings; Tethys is below and to the left.
The black area at the top of Saturn is the planet’s shadow on the rings.
Both NASA and ESA have released videos looking back at the year 2012 in space. With Curiosity on Mars, the Flight of the Dragon, Venus Transit, ATV’s trips to the ISS, the flight of Vega, and much more, it was quite a year.
“This shot is a composite of about 700 frames from a time-lapse I took in Big Sur, CA. I found 61 frames with meteors in them. (Some frames had two or three meteors.) Then I stacked the frames and created masks for each meteor. This is my final shot!” Credit: Ken Brandon.
“The Beacon: If you look closely you can see me looking up into the sky. Not a perfect shot but a lucky one. Credit to friend for firing the camera.” Credit: dwissman611 on Flickr.
Prolific astrophotographer John Chumack compiled this video of the Geminid Meteor Shower 2012, and in a minute and a half, shows over 400 meteors he captured on video!
Geminid meteor composite from 36 frames. Credit: Mark Ezell.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
The planned path of the GRAIL spacecrafts’ final orbit. Credit: NASA
“So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you,” said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory after the twin GRAIL spacecraft completed a planned formation-flying double impact into the southern face of 2.5-kilometer- (1.5-mile-) tall mountain on a crater rim near the Moon’s north pole. Mission team members estimate the two spacecraft were traveling at a speed of 1.7 kilometers per second (3,760 mph), and likely broke apart on impact. NASA said that most of what remains of the washing machine-sized spacecraft are probably buried in shallow craters, and the size of those craters will hopefully be determined when NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is able to image the impact site in about two weeks.
NASA has honored the GRAIL team’s request to name Ebb and Flow’s impact sites after astronaut Sally Ride, who passed away earlier this year. She was America’s first woman in space and a member of the GRAIL mission team.
A simulation of the GRAIL impacts:
Impact occurred at 10:28:51 UTC (5:28:51 p.m. EST) and 10:29:21 UTC (5:29:21 p.m. EST). Right now it is night at the impact site, so sunlight should return within two weeks, enabling imaging of the site. LRO also took “before” images of the site during previous daylight orbits.
The impact marked a successful end to the GRAIL(Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory)mission, which in just a 90-day prime mission generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body — including Earth — and determined the inner crust of the Moon is nearly pulverized.
“Ebb and Flow have removed a veil from the Moon,” said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber during a televised commentary of the impacts today, adding that the mission will enable discoveries for years to come.
Data from GRAIL’s extended mission and main science instruments are still being analyzed, and the findings will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.
GRAIL was NASA’s first planetary mission to carry cameras fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Ride, who died in July after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, led GRAIL’s MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) Program through her company, Sally Ride Science. The camera took more than 115,000 total images of the lunar surface, and imaging targets were proposed by middle school students from across the country and the resulting images returned for them to study.
“Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today,” said Zuber. “As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride’s contributions by naming this corner of the Moon after her.”
Last Friday, Ebb and Flow, the two spacecraft comprising NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, were commanded to descend into a lower orbit that would result in an impact Monday on a mountain near the Moon’s north pole.
Fifty minutes prior to impact, the spacecraft fired their engines until the propellant was depleted. The maneuver was designed to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in the tanks. This will help NASA engineers validate computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.
Screenshot of engineering data showing trajectory of the two GRAIL spacecraft about 2 minutes before Ebb’s impact. Via NASA TV.
“Ebb fired its engines for 4 minutes 3 seconds, and Flow fired its for 5 minutes 7 seconds,” Lehman. “It was one final important set of data from a mission that was filled with great science and engineering data.”
Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow had been orbiting the moon since Jan. 1, 2012. The probes were intentionally crashed into the lunar surface because they did not have sufficient altitude or fuel to continue science operations.
Thanks to Steve Cariddi from “The Year in Space,” we have more copies of the wonderful Year in Space Wall Calendar! And the new edition for 2013 is HUGE, and is filled with amazing pictures, cool history and handy space facts for the upcoming year. They make great gifts, too! In fact, Wall Calendar was recently named “Science Geek Gift of the Year” over at Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log.
There are more than 100 gorgeous photos of space, Moon phases for every day, daily space facts and historical references. And the calendar is ginormous, much larger than a traditional wall calendar.
Every month you’ll see:
– An in-depth exploration of human space flight, planetary exploration, or deep sky wonders
– Multiple images and detailed captions
– A mini-biography of famous astronomer, scientist, or astronaut related to the topic
– Background info and fun facts
– A sky summary of where to find naked-eye planets
– Space history dates
– Major holidays (U.S. and Canada)
– Daily Moon phases graphically displayed
And thanks to Steve, we’ve got 5 MORE copies of The Year in Space: 2013 Calendar to give away to Universe Today readers – a $12.95 value.
In order to be entered into the drawing, just put your email address into the box below before Friday, December 21nd, 2012. We’ll send you a confirmation email, so you’ll need to click that to be successfully entered.
We’re only going to use these email addresses for Universe Today giveaways/contests and announcements. We won’t be using them for any other purpose, and we definitely won’t be selling the addresses to anyone else. Once you’re on the giveaway notification list, you’ll be able to unsubscribe any time you like.
The Soyuz rocket is erected into position after being rolled out to the launch pad by train on Monday, December 17, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)
Early today the Soyuz rocket and Soyuz TMA-07M capsule were rolled out to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for the December 19 launch of the Expedition 34/35 crew. On board will be Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA, Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency who will spend five months aboard the International Space Station.
We’ve been highlighting some of the training Hadfield has been through the past two and a half years, and per tradition, Hadfield and his crewmates were not present at the rollout today. Instead they were getting their hair cut. “I’m not superstitious,” Hadfield said, “but I’m all for traditions, especially ones that serve a good purpose. I’ll need short hair while I’m on the space station.”
The launch is scheduled for 12:12 UTC (7:12 a.m. EST) on Wednesday, beginning a two-day journey to the station.
See more images and a video of the rollout below:
The flags representing Kazakhstan and the nations of the three crewmembers who will launch in the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft are shown at the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. From left to right are the flags of Russia, the United States, Canada and Kazakhstan. Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)
During a call with the media last week, Hadfield also discussed another tradition, started by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 on the first human space flight. Gagarin stopped to urinate on the right rear tire of the transport bus that brought him to the launchpad, and since then all cosmonauts and astronauts, (reportedly both male and female) have urinated on the right rear tire of their transport buses before boarding their spacecraft.
“It’s a good idea because you are about to get into a rocket ship with a long time until you get to the next toilet,” Hadfield said. “So, it’s just a good idea — just like anyone going on a long trip — making sure everyone goes to the bathroom first. I’m all for traditions that help get people ready for doing things that are demanding, and which lend a sense of significance to them.”
Chris Hadfield, Roman Romanenko and Tom Marshburn At the Integration Facility at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 14, 2012. Credit: Roscosmos.
The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train on Monday, December 17, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi).
The Soyuz rocket preparing to leave the hanger, to be rolled out to the launch pad by train on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA
Hadfield getting a haircut before launch. Via Twitter.
