Space and astronomy news
An intersection of two of my favorite entities (Minute Physics and Neil deGrasse Tyson) now covers a topic that has been on my mind lately: does the Universe — and therefore humanity — have a purpose?
deGrasse Tyson was asked by the Templeton Foundation to answer this question and poses here that if there is a purpose, the cosmic environment has a strange way of showing it.
What do you think?
We’ve written many articles to share the incredible astrophotography of Thierry Legault, and have also interviewed him extensively about his work. If you’ve enjoyed his imagery and stories, you’ll appreciate this new video interview from VICE which shows Legault at work, and allows him to tell his story in his own words.
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If you aren’t familiar with the work of Legault, he has taken images such as the space shuttle and space station as they transited across the Sun, the first-ever ground-based image of astronaut in spacewalk, and images of spy satellites in orbit. He lives in the suburbs of Paris, but will easily travel 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers — and sometimes to another continent — to capture a specific image.
And usually, the events he captures last only about a half-second and he never sees them live with his own eyes.
“For transits I have to calculate the place, and considering the width of the visibility path is usually between 5-10 kilometers, but I have to be close to the center of this path,” Legault explained in a previous interview with UT, “because if I am at the edge, it is just like a solar eclipse where the transit is shorter and shorter. And the edge of visibility line of the transit lasts very short. So the precision of where I have to be is within one kilometer.”
Legault studies maps, and has a radio synchronized watch to know very accurately when the transit event will happen.
“My camera has a continuous shuttering for 4 seconds, so I begin the sequence 2 seconds before the calculated time,” he said. “I don’t look through the camera – I never see the space station when it appears, I am just looking at my watch!”
For a transit event, he gets get a total of 16 images – 4 images every second, and only after he enlarges the images will he know if he succeeded or not.
“There is a kind of feeling that is short and intense — an adrenaline rush!” Legault said.
Enjoy the new video interview, and see Legault’s imagery at his website.
As humble as it may be, the International Space Station is our long-awaited outpost in space; a foothold and gateway to the cosmos. This stirring and poignant new ISS timelapse reminds us of our accomplishments so far while urging us on to keep exploring. This video was compiled by film-making student Giacomo Sardelli, who says, “People on Earth must understand that they have to get rid of the concept of borders on our planet if they want to follow the astronauts to new worlds in outer space.”
In the first part of the video, while the astronauts and cosmonauts are speaking, a day passes on Earth, from dawn to sunset. Then a “gateway” of sorts appears to open with a burst of light. “The ISS then gains speed and goes faster and faster, the astronauts are leaving our planet which they see spinning faster and faster, merging earth, oceans and people together, ready to follow them, Further Up Yonder,” writes Sardelli.
Beautiful.
Further Up Yonder from Giacomo Sardelli on Vimeo.
Light beams and the Milky Way. Credit: Peter Greig (St1nkyPete on Flickr)
This great shot of the Milky Way includes some mysterious beams of light. But astrophotographer Peter Greig supplies the festive explanation: “This is a shot I took in Soisdorf, Germany earlier this year,” he writes. “The beams of light on the right are coming from a carnival in a nearby village!”
This photo was taken on September 7, 2012 using a Canon EOS 550D.
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.
This timelapse is different than most because it allows you to see the actions of the South African Large Telescope (SALT) from a unique point of view: the camera is mounted on the mirror structure, but also visible is the awesome field of view. Dr. Bruno Letarte compiled this video from 3 consecutive nights observing in July 2012 showing SALT in action. He also provides a tour of the inside of the telescope as well.
Additionally, Letarte provides detailed info of what is being observed, what scientist or team is doing the observing, and additional details of what is actually happening. If you want a more traditional timelapse of the night sky, see below for Letarte’s Volume I of this pair of videos. It shows a stunningly beautiful look at the southern sky, and points out several of the constellations and other objects that are visible.
Continue reading “Timelapse From Inside a Telescope”
Back in October the partnering countries of the International Space Station announced an agreement to send two crew members to the International Space Station on a one-year mission designed to collect valuable scientific data needed to send humans to new destinations in the solar system. Today, NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced they have selected the first crew to be part of such a mission: NASA has selected Scott Kelly and Roscosmos has chosen Mikhail Kornienko.
Kelly and Kornienko begin their mission in the spring of 2015, launching on Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in spring 2015 and will land in Kazakhstan in spring 2016. Kelly and Kornienko have trained together before, as Kelly was a backup crew member for the station’s Expedition 23/24 crews, where Kornienko served as a flight engineer.
“Congratulations to Scott and Mikhail on their selection for this important mission,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Their skills and previous experience aboard the space station align with the mission’s requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly
Kelly is the twin brother of former astronaut Mark Kelly, who is married to Gabrielle Giffords, the former US Congresswoman who was shot by an assailant in January of 2011.
The goal of their yearlong expedition is to understand better how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space. Data from the 12-month expedition will help inform current assessments of crew performance and health and will determine better and validate countermeasures to reduce the risks associated with future exploration as NASA plans for missions around the moon, an asteroid and ultimately Mars.
“Selection of the candidate for the one year mission was thorough and difficult due to the number of suitable candidates from the Cosmonaut corps,” said head of Russian Federal Space Agency, Vladimir Popovkin. “We have chosen the most responsible, skilled and enthusiastic crew members to expand space exploration, and we have full confidence in them.”
Kelly, a captain in the U.S. Navy, is from Orange, N.J. He has degrees from the State University of New York Maritime College and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He served as a pilot on space shuttle mission STS-103 in 1999, commander on STS-118 in 2007, flight engineer on the International Space Station Expedition 25 in 2010 and commander of Expedition 26 in 2011. Kelly has logged more than 180 days in space.
Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko
Kornienko is from the Syzran, Kuibyshev region of Russia. He is a former paratrooper officer and graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute as a specialist in airborne systems. He has worked in the space industry since 1986 when he worked at Rocket and Space Corporation-Energia as a spacewalk handbook specialist. He was selected as an Energia test cosmonaut candidate in 1998 and trained as an International Space Station Expedition 8 backup crew member. Kornienko served as a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 23/24 crews in 2010 and has logged more than 176 days in space.
During the 12 years of permanent human presence aboard the International Space Station, scientists and researchers have gained valuable, and often surprising, data on the effects of microgravity on bone density, muscle mass, strength, vision and other aspects of human physiology. This yearlong stay will allow for greater analysis of these effects and trends.
Kelly and Kornienko will begin a two-year training program in the United States, Russia and other partner nations starting early next year.
Artist concept of an ExoMars rover. Credit: ESA
After NASA was forced to back out of the joint ExoMars mission with the European Space Agency due to budget constraints, it looked like the exciting rover-orbiter mission might not happen. However, ESA went elsewhere looking for help, and has now announced a tentative cooperative arrangement with Russia’s space agency where Roscosmos will provide the two launch vehicles for multi-vehicle European-Russian ExoMars missions in 2016 and 2018.
Plans are for the mission to have an orbiter for launch in 2016, plus an ESA-built rover mission in 2018. Roscosmos will provide Proton rockets for the launches of the two missions, as well as providing an instrument for both the orbiter and the rover as well as overseeing the landing of the rover. The orbiter would study Mars’ atmosphere and surface and the six-wheeled vehicle would look for signs of past or present life.
The orbiter would also provide telecommunications for the rover.
Frederic Nordland, ESA’s director of international relations, said the agreement would be finalized before the end of the year and that its principal characteristics are already known and accepted by both sides. The announcement was made at a meeting in Naples, Italy this week of ESA’s space leaders from the 10 different nations that comprise the organization. The leaders are discussing future objectives and priorities for Europe in space, with the aim of shaping the development of Europe’s space capability.
During the meeting, Poland officially joined ESA, becoming the 20th member of the European space organization. It joins the other member states of Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
ExoMars is now expected to cost ESA about 1.2 billion euros. So far, 850 million euros has been committed by the participating members, but officials remain confident the remaining funds can be raised.
ESA officials also said Russia’s Proton rocket might be used to launch Europe’s Juice mission to Jupiter in 2022, saving ESA’s science program some 170 million euros.
Sources: BBC, Space News
This new video shows exactly how the Moon will look to us on Earth during the entire year of 2013. While the Moon always keeps the same face to us, it’s not exactly the same face. Because of the tilt in its axis and shape of its orbit, we see the Moon from slightly different angles over the course of a month, and the year. Normally, we don’t see how the Moon “wobbles” in its orbit or as it moves closer and farther away from Earth. But seeing the entire year compressed down to 5 minutes, we can see the changes in libration, and axis tilt — as well as the most noticeable changes, the Moon’s phases.
In this new video from Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio, each frame represents one hour. In addition, as an improvement from their previous Moon visualization , this also shows other relevant information, including Moon orbit position, subearth and subsolar points, distance from the Earth.
At the SVS website, there is more information, including a Dial-A-Moon, where you can put in a certain date and find out how the Moon will look on a specific day.
“Thanks to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have excellent terrain maps of the Moon that can tell us the elevation at any point on the surface,” said Ernie Wright, who put this new video together. “I use those maps to make the Moon sphere bumpy in all the right places. That allows the rendering software to realistically simulate all the shadows and the ragged terminator (the dividing line between day and night).”
And if you’d like to have a handy bring-along app to find out anywhere what they Moon will be doing, check out Universe Today’s Phases of the Moon app, – available on iPhone or Android.
Source: NASA
Universe Today writer John Williams is a busy guy. Not only does he write about space and astronomy, he also has his own graphic design and web company called TerraZoom, is the curator of the award winning Starry Critters website, and is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador. A couple of years ago John created a card game called Hubble Star Cards, and the game won a Hubble Gold Star award in 2010 from NASA and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) for its inspiring use of the amazing imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. As the description says, “the vivid, stunning images motivate and engage children of all ages to learn about objects in space.”
Hubble Star Cards are now available in a high-quality, stunningly beautiful printed card set.
The cards are a just a bit larger than a normal card deck, at 3 inches by 5×5 inches, so the beautiful Hubble images are bigger and better.
They sell for $24.95, but Universe Today readers can get 15% off using UNIVERSE as a coupon code. Check them out at the Hubblestarcards.com website.
“Hubble has a unique ability to draw the public into exploring space,” says John. “Through beautiful images of planets, star clusters, pillars of dust, and galaxies, Hubble provides a crucial stepping stone in the process of scientific inquiry. Hubble Star Cards create a hand-held experience that opens the door to new questions and answers. You can actually hold the Universe, all of creation, in the palm of your hand and have fun learning about it at the same time.”
The game includes 60 cards categorized by planets, planetary nebulae, supernovae remnants, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies. The cards include an image, a basic description, a key to the type of object, location in the sky, constellation, and distance from Earth. Possible games include War, Go Fish, Sorting, Distances and Matching. Although targeted for students 8 and older, preschoolers have played many of the games just by using the amazing imagery as a guide.
Get more info about the Hubble Star Cards here.
Before she left the International Space Station this weekend, former ISS commander Suni Williams recorded an extensive guided tour of the orbital laboratory. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.
Suni Williams, Expedition 33 commander, works in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA