Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Why An Astronaut Asked 15 Year Old Abby to Help Get The Word Out

Expedition 36/37 flight engineer Luca Parmitano will -- in an unprecedented move -- send updates from space through a Minnesota teenager. Credit: NASA/Lauren Harnett

It seems an unlikely scenario: a teenager from Minnesota helping Italy’s next astronaut talk to the public about spaceflight. But for Luca Parmitano, who has mentored Abigail “Abby” Harrison for two years, it’s a way to reach out to a young audience. For Abby, it brings her closer to her dream of becoming an astronaut herself.

Parmitano does have the official outreach team available through the Italian Space Agency (which is part of the European Space Agency) and NASA, he acknowledged. Official mission reports will proceed as usual through those agencies’ press releases and social media accounts.

He’s pursuing this partnership with Abby, however, to have an additional “channel” targeted directly at children and teenagers, Parmitano told Universe Today:

It’s very simple. I thought one of the most important things that I can do in my job is talking to young people, youngsters, and try to inspire them try to guide them towards choosing a career path that goes towards science, technology, exploration of all sorts.

My message is to try to find something that you like, and to pursue it, and don’t wait for things to happe, but make it happen yourself. At one point, talking to Abby — this fantastic young girl who is so enthusiastic — I thought maybe she would be much better at communicating with kids than I could. I’m 36 years old. Maybe I don’t realize it, but I may be disconnected from the age group.

Parmitano is no social media pushover himself, though. The first-time flyer has a “landing page” website at LucaParmitano.com giving one-stop shopping for his Twitter, Facebook and Google pages. And just last week, he did a Google+ hangout with his protégé. (You can watch the whole thing below.)

Abby, at the tender age of 15, has amassed qualifications of her own. The Minnesota teenager is a Space Camp alumnus. She’s planning to learn Russian — an important language for the space program — and is already taking lessons in Mandarin. Her Twitter account has about 6,500 followers. And she’s raising money on Rockethub to see Parmitano’s launch in Kazakhstan next month and do outreach afterwards. With 19 days left, Abby’s approaching half of her $35,000 goal.

The aspiring Mars astronaut has a huge list of activities planned during Parmitano’s mission. She’ll share daily updates from the astronaut on her blog (AstronautAbby.com) and various social media profiles. She proposes an “Ask Luca” series where readers will be able to send questions to the Italian astronaut.

There also will be articles to write, Skype classroom chats to do, and a conference tour — including the International Mars Society Convention in August. Besides the social media updates, Abby is in the midst of booking appearances at conferences and scheduling chats with classrooms. There are more than 20 schools who have signed up for her to be a speaker, either in-person or by Skype.

“That is great, because I won’t be able to be there,” Parmitano said with a laugh.

It was two chance connections that brought him together with Abby. In 2011, Abby and her mother flew to Florida to see the penultimate launch of the space shuttle, mission STS-134. Abby’s mother, Nicole, briefly talked to Parmitano at a tweetup. Then Abby herself met Parmitano at the airport while waiting for the flight home.

Abigail Harrison, who calls herself "Astronaut Abby", will give updates from Luca Parmitano's mission. Credit: Abigail Harrison/Nicole Harrison
Abigail Harrison, who calls herself “Astronaut Abby”, will give updates from Luca Parmitano’s mission. Credit: Abigail Harrison/Nicole Harrison

The teenager and astronaut, who both had space dreams from young childhood, made a professional connection. Parmitano agreed to be Abby’s mentor. The two kept in touch in the years following, then Abby proposed her outreach program to compliment ESA’s activities.

“The main difference [over ESA’s outreach] is when it’s my program, it’s kid to kid. I’m trying to show that by working hard, you can do great things, and I’m an example of that,” Harrison said. “As an aspiring astronaut, you can meet amazing people and have amazing experiences.”

As a rookie, Parmitano said he is looking forward to the experiences his first spaceflight will bring, no matter who is watching. He joked that Italy does not really pay attention to him as an astronaut — the media flock to Samantha Cristoforetti, Italy’s first female astronaut, who is expected to reach station on Expedition 42/43.

“From Day 1, since we were selected, every news magazine went crazy for the female astronaut — and by the way, there’s another guy. I started introducing myself as ‘the other guy.’ ”

But the mission is still a notable one for Italy. Parmitano is the first assigned to a flight from the European Space Agency’s latest class of six astronauts, who call themselves The Shenanigans. The Italian Space Agency got this chance due to a substantial hardware contribution to the station program: a modified multipurpose logistics module (Leonardo) that was adapted for use as a laboratory on station. It and two other MPLMs (Raffaello and Donatello) ferried cargo on shuttle flights to use on station, too.

Parmitano will perform the first Italian spacewalk — two of them are planned, in fact. He and crewmate Chris Cassidy (a former Navy SEAL who spoke with Universe Today last month) are scheduled to go outside in July to swap out experiments, put up a blanket to shield part of the station from space exposure, and install new orbital replacement units to upgrade certain ISS functions.

Expedition 35/36 astronaut Luca Parmitano will perform two spacewalks during his mission. Credit: NASA/Lauren Harnett
Expedition 36/37 astronaut Luca Parmitano will perform two spacewalks during his mission. Credit: NASA/Lauren Harnett

In between, of course, Parmitano has dozens of experiments to work through — contributions from various station partners ranging from Japan to Canada.

An Italian one he speaks of frequently involves him deliberately setting controlled fires on station. Called ICE-GA (Italian Combustion Experiment for Green Air), it’s intended to seek renewable fuels that are less polluting than what we use today. Results will be used for future space fuels, and also on the ground to reduce toxic emissions.

Despite his high-flying duties, Parmitano plays down any adulation from Abby.

“She’s a tremendous young lady, and she has enthusiasm to sell, and maturity way beyond her age,” he said. “It’s really an honor for me to be called her mentor. I learn from her more than she learned from me.”

As for how Abby plans to get to Mars, first she is figuring out what interests her to narrow down her university choices.

Abby, who is entering her junior year in high school next year, is conscious that time away from school is hard to do when starting to think about university applications. She’s working out alternative scheduling arrangements with her teachers and keeping them apprised of what could be a busy speaking schedule in the coming months.

She’s still mulling her options for university — perhaps the United States Air Force Academy, or maybe studying geology at the University of Colorado. Along the way, she’ll keep in contact with Parmitano.

“How important it is to work hard was really the main subject of our discussion [at the airport],” Abby said, “and how if you have a dream and you set a goal, you can achieve it with hard work.”

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots

A false-color image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, of a huge hurricane at Saturn's north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Checking out the above pictures of a Saturn hurricane, one can’t help but wonder: how close was the Cassini spacecraft to spiralling down into gassy nothingness?

These dizzying images of a hurricane on Saturn, of course, came as the spacecraft zoomed overhead at a safe distance. NASA’s goal in examining this huge hurricane is to figure out its mechanisms and to compare it to what happens on our home planet.

Hurricanes on Earth munch on water vapor to keep spinning. On Saturn, there’s no vast pool of water to draw from, but there’s still enough water vapor in the clouds to help scientists understand more about how hurricanes on Earth begin, and continue.

“We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth,” stated Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapor in Saturn’s hydrogen atmosphere.”

A false-color view of Saturn's storm, as seen through Cassini's wide-angle camera. The blue bands at the edge are Saturn's rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
A false-color view of Saturn’s storm, as seen through Cassini’s wide-angle camera. You can see the eye in dark red, the jet stream in yellowish-green, and low-lying clouds in orange. The blue bands at the edge are Saturn’s rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

There’s one big change in hurricane activity you’d observe if suddenly shifted from Earth to Saturn: this behemoth — 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, about 20 times its Earthly counterparts — spins a heckuva lot faster.

In the eye, winds in the wall speed more than four times faster than what you’d find on Earth. The hurricane also sticks around at the north pole. On Earth, hurricanes head north (and eventually dissipate) due to wind forces generated by the planet’s rotation.

“The polar hurricane has nowhere else to go, and that’s likely why it’s stuck at the pole,” stated Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

Cassini initially spotted the storm in 2004 through its heat-seeking infrared camera, when the north pole was shrouded in darkness during winter.

The spacecraft first caught the storm in visible light in 2009, when NASA controllers altered Cassini’s orbit so that it could view the poles.

Saturn, of course, is not the only gas giant in the solar system with massive hurricanes. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been raging since before humans first spotted it in the 1600s. It appears to be shrinking, and could become circular by 2040.

Neptune also has hurricanes that can reach speeds of 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) an hour despite its cold nature; it even had a Great Dark Spot spotted during Voyager’s flypast in 1989 that later faded from view. Uranus, which scientists previously believed was quiet, is a pretty stormy place as well.

Check out this YouTube video for more details on how Saturn’s storm works.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Experts Urge Removal of Space Debris From Orbit

Space debris has been identified as a growing risk for satellites and other space infrastructure. Credit: NASA

Action is needed soon to remove the largest pieces of space debris from orbit before the amount of junk destroys massive amounts of critical space infrastructure, according to a panel at the Sixth European Conference on Space Debris.

“Whatever we are going to do, whatever we have to do, is an expensive solution,” said Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency space debris office, in a panel this week that was broadcast on ESA’s website.

“We have to compare the costs to solving the problem in an early stage as opposed to losing the infrastructure in orbit in the not-too-distant future.”

The panel estimated that there is $1.3 billion (1 billion Euros) worth of space satellite infrastructure that must be protected. The 200 most crucial satellites identified by the space community have an insured value of $169.5 million (130 million Euros), Klinkrad added.

Critical infrastructure, though not specified exactly by the panel, can include communication satellites and military eyes in the sky. Also at risk is that largest of human outposts in space — the International Space Station.

A view of the International Space Station as seen by the last departing space shuttle crew, STS-135. Credit: NASA
A view of the International Space Station as seen by the last departing space shuttle crew, STS-135. Credit: NASA

The conference concluded that without further action — even without launching any new rockets — it’s quite possible there could be a runaway effect of collisions producing debris within a few decades. Even a tiny object could act like a hand grenade in orbit if it smashes into a satellite, Klinkrad said.

A recent example of the problem: a piece of Chinese space debris smashed into a Russian satellite in March. It didn’t destroy the satellite, but altered its orbit.

To mitigate the situation, representatives suggested removing 5 to 10 large pieces of debris every year. They added they are uncertain about how soon a large problem would occur, but noted that the number of small objects is definitively increasing annually according to measurements done by the Walter Baade 6.5-meter Magellan Telescope.

“[It’s] something we haven’t know until now. We have been suspecting it is the case … this is a new result which is very important.”

While highlighting the risk, the European representatives of the panel added they are not standing idly by. Already, there are regulatory changes that could slow the problem for future launches — although there still will be cleanup to do from five past decades of space exploration.

Artist's conception of DEOS (German orbital servicing mission). Credit: Astrium
Artist’s conception of DEOS (German orbital servicing mission). Credit: Astrium

A few of the points brought up:

– German officials are working on an in-orbit satellite servicing solution called DEOS. “The DEOS project will for the first time demonstrate technologies for the controlled in-orbit disposal of a defective satellite,” Astrium, the prime contractor for the definition phase, wrote in a press release in 2012. “In addition, DEOS will practice how to complete maintenance tasks – refuelling in particular – that extend the service life of satellites.”

– France’s Parliament passed the Space Operations Act in December 2010. “Its chief objective is to ensure that the technical risks associated with space activities are properly mitigated, without compromising private contractors’ competitiveness,” French space agency CNES wrote on its website. “The government provides a financial guarantee to compensate damages to people, property or the environment.”

– A United Nations subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is working on space sustainability guidelines that will include space debris and space operations practices. More details should be released in June, although Claudio Portelli (a representative from Italy’s space agency) warned he did not expect any debris removal proposals to emerge from this work.

For more technical details on the space debris problem, check out the webcast of the ESA space debris conference.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Stonehenge Was An Ancient Burial Ground For the Rich: Study

Stonehenge. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The site of Stonehenge — that mysterious collection of British rocks that could have served as a calendar using the stars — was also a graveyard for the elite, according to new research.

A British group led by the University College London looked at 63 bodies surrounding the historical site. They determined these people were part of a group of elite families that brought their relatives to Stonehenge for burial over more than 200 years, starting from 2,900 BC.

The bodies were buried long before the rocks visible today were erected, though.

“The first Stonehenge began its life as a huge graveyard,” stated UCL’s Parker Pearson, who led the study. “The original monument was a large circular enclosure built 500 years before the Stonehenge we know today, with the remains of many of the cremated bodies originally marked by the bluestones of Stonehenge. We have also discovered that the second Stonehenge was built 200 years earlier than thought, around 2500 BC.”

The findings were broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 in March.

A separate study, that will be broadcast on BBC 4 Monday (April 29), shows that humans were in the area of Stonehenge about 3,000 years before it was constructed — making human occupancy about 5,000 years than previously thought.

According to media reports, a team from the United Kingdom’s Open University spotted evidence of human activity about a mile from Stonehenge, in nearby Amesbury.

Archaeologists found an extinct species of cow, called a wild auroch, on the site as well, supposing that it was some sort of migration route that attracted human hunters.

Source: University College London

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

How Do You Measure A Planet Near A Tiny Star?

Artist's conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When you sit back and think about how far away exoplanets are — and how faint — it’s a scientific feat that we can find these distant worlds outside our Solar System at all. It’s even harder to learn about the world if the exoplanet is orbiting a dim star — say, about two-thirds the size of the Sun — that is faint through even the largest telescope.

In response to this problem, there’s one science team that thinks it’s found a way to solve it. Their research bumped a planet from the habitable zone to the not-so-friendly zone of a star. Here’s how it happened:

The usual way to measure a distant star is this: look at the light. A Sun-sized star, for example, would have its light waves measured at different wavelengths. Scientists then match what they see to spectra (light bands) that are created artificially.

This method doesn’t work so well for smaller stars, though. “The challenge is that small stars are incredibly difficult to characterize,” stated Sarah Ballard, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Washington, in a press release. Worse, these small guys make up about two-thirds of the stars in the universe.

Red Dwarf star and planet. Artists impression (NASA)
Red Dwarf star and planet. Artists impression (NASA)

Ballard led a multi-university team describing a “characterization by proxy” method accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and now available online.

The science team based their work on previous research performed by astronomer Tabetha Boyajian, who is currently at Yale University.

Boyajian combined the resources of several telescopes that measured wavelengths of light, wavelengths that are slightly longer than visible light. This technique allowed the interferometer (the combined telescopes) to figure out the size of stars that are close by.

With that data on hand, Ballard and her colleagues looked out into the universe. Their target was Kepler-61b (Kepler Object 1361.01), a “candidate” planet about double the size of Earth spotted by the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The candidate, if proven, is orbiting a low-mass star 900 light-years away that is hard to measure in a telescope.

Kepler space telescope's field of view. Credit: NASA
Kepler space telescope’s field of view. Credit: NASA

Next, the scientists picked four nearby stars that have similar light patterns, reasoning that they would be spectroscopially close enough to Kepler-61b’s parent star to make accurate measurements. The four stars are located in Ursa Major and Cygnus, ranging between 12 to 25 light years away from Earth.

When the scientists compared the measurements to Kepler 61’s star, a surprise emerged.

“Kepler-61 turned out to be bigger and hotter than expected,” the University of Washington stated. “This in turn recalibrated planet Kepler-61b’s relative size upward as well — meaning it, too, would be hotter than previously thought and no longer a resident of the star’s habitable zone.”

The newly refined planetary radius for Kepler-61b is 2.15 times the radius of Earth (plus or minus 0.13 radii). Astronomers estimate it orbits its star about once every 59.9 days and has a temperature of 273 Kelvin (plus or minus 13 Kelvin.)

Artist's impression of the habitable zone around variously sized stars. Credit: NASA
Artist’s impression of the habitable zone around variously sized stars. Credit: NASA

Just to wrap up, here’s a note about how likely it is that Kepler-61b is actually a planet — and not a planetary candidate.

The candidate was first described in this 2011 scientific paper. Kepler-61b is just one in a long list of 1,235 planetary candidates catalogued in that paper, all discovered in just four months — between May 2 and Sept. 16, 2009.

While the NASA Exoplanet Archive still lists Kepler-61b as a candidate planet — one that must be confirmed by independent observations — this 2011 paper says that most Kepler candidates have a strong possibility of being actual planets because the Kepler software is technologically apt.

In other words, Ballard and her co-authors write in the research, Kepler-61b is very likely to be a planet itself — with only 4.8 percent possibility of being a “false positive”, to be exact.

Source: University of Washington

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Success! Progress Spacecraft Overcomes Stuck Antenna, Arrives at Station

Progress 51 on final approach to the International Space Station. The stuck antenna is visible below the crosshairs. Credit: NASA TV (screencap)

A software fix solved a sticky antenna problem on an unmanned cargo ship, a problem that threatened to interfere with the approach and docking to the International Space Station Friday.

Progress 51 successfully docked with the massive orbiting complex at 8:35 a.m. EDT (12:35 p.m. GMT) Friday without the need of assistance from the station crew, which was standing by to take over the docking just in case.

“Progress is safely docked! Big moment for the crew. Hooray!” wrote astronaut Chris Hadfield, the commander of Expedition 35, on Twitter moments after the spacecraft and station docked.

Watch all the action in the video, below:

Crew members are expected to start unloading the three tons of food, fuel, supplies and experiment on board later today (Friday), if all goes according to schedule.

The Russian supply ship has five antennas on board that are used for approaching the station for a docking using the KURS automated system. One of them refused to unfurl as usual after the spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (April 24).

As a backup, crew members could bring the spacecraft in using a manual system that also allows them to view the station from a camera inside Progress.

The International Space Station as seen through the eyes of Progress 51. Credit: NASA TV (screencap)
The International Space Station as seen through the eyes of Progress 51. Credit: NASA TV (screencap)

This particular antenna, NASA said, is normally used to help keep the vehicle properly oriented as it gets closer to the station.

When the Progress spacecraft and station are 65 feet (20 meters) apart, the antenna also provides data on the relative roll of the vehicle with respect to the station.

NASA initially told the crew it was expected to bring the spacecraft in manually. Shortly after 6 a.m. EDT (10 a.m. GMT), however, capsule communicator David Saint-Jacques radioed that NASA was confident a software patch created by Russian ground controllers would address the problem.

Progress 51’s final approach proceeded normally, but controllers took it a little slower than usual to ensure the automated system was working properly with the  fix. The approach started slightly early, allowing capture to occur at 8:25 a.m. EDT (12:25 p.m. GMT) — two minutes earlier than planned.

Ground control and the Expedition 35 crew then spent several minutes verifying that the antenna would not interfere with the docking port. With crew members saying they couldn’t hear any funny noises from inside the station, NASA went forward with the hard docking.

Follow updates from Expedition 35 at Universe Today, and live on NASA’s television channel online.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

When Typhoid (Briefly) Struck Apollo 16

Charles Duke in a light-hearted moment during Apollo 16. Credit: NASA

Astronaut pranks are, well, just a part of the job. Often they poke at a sore spot in the astronaut’s history, and Charles Duke found himself the subject of a particularly painful one in the 1970s.

Duke was in the final moments of preparations before climbing into the Apollo 16 spacecraft, which was exploring the Moon in this week in 1972. It was a serious moment as Duke and his crew were about to rocket off to the moon. Then Duke got a surprise, courtesy of backup commander Fred Haise, as Duke recalled in an interview with NASA in 1999.

We were up climbing into the command module on the launch pad, and [launch pad leader] Guenter Wendt and the team were up there. And so John gets in, and I’m the next in on the right side. And as I start to climb in, I reach in and I look over and taped to the back of my seat was a big thing, “Typhoid Mary suit—seat.” So, we had a … laugh over that. Yeah, Fred would never let me forget that.

Typhoid Mary referred to Mary Mallon, a cook who was put under quarantine for the latter half of her life in the 1900s — against her stringent objections. She was accused of passing along typhoid to several families for which she did cooking, even though she didn’t show any symptoms herself. At the time, typhoid had no cure. Her curious story has been the subject of a PBS show and numerous books.

The joke on Duke hearkened back to the ill-fated Apollo 13 two years before, when Duke’s son caught the German measles. Duke fell ill and unwittingly exposed several astronauts during his contagion period — including the upcoming Apollo 13 prime crew of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly.

Of the three crew members, Mattingly had not been exposed to the German measles. This led to Mattingly being yanked from the mission days before launch. Adding to the drama, Apollo 13 suffered an explosion in space that crippled the spacecraft and, without the extraordinary efforts of the astronauts and Mission Control, could have killed the crew.

Anyway, Apollo 13 came back safely, and in 1972 lessons had been learned from the mission. Haise, to his credit, wasn’t afraid to poke a little fun at the early havoc Duke’s illness wreaked on his crew.

What are your favorite astronaut pranks?

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Why Spacewalking Is All About The Hands

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough works outside the International Space Station in 2008. Credit: NASA

Think about your typical construction worker — there’s a lot of reaching, bending, stretching, lifting. How do you accomplish those tasks without gravity, as astronauts do on the International Space Station?

According to astronaut Shane Kimbrough — who should know, as he spent more than 12 hours “outside” doing station work and repairs during shuttle mission STS-126 in 2008 — instead of using your feet, you transfer most of the work to your hands. Your feet are basically used to brace yourself.

“You’re moving around, kind of walking with your hands, and pulling yourself in between the handholds and the rails,” he said to Universe Today, expanding on comments he made publicly at a conference last week.

Astronauts train for hours in a large pool known as the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, which includes a full-size model of the station modules inside. “You build up the [hand] strength in the NBL,” Kimbrough said, “with your hands fighting against the pressure of the spacesuit. If you didn’t do that, your hands would be fatigued [during a spacewalk.]”

It’s not a perfect training environment, though. “The big difference in the water is the drag it produces. You don’t realize you are floating, at times. If you’re moving along and walking with your hands down the rail, and you stop, you will immediately stop. In space, the mass of your spacesuit keeps going even if you stop. Your body will keep moving back and forth a few times, and using more energy when you need.”

Shane Kimbrough spent more than 12 hours outside the International Space Station during one mission. Credit: NASA
Shane Kimbrough spent more than 12 hours outside the International Space Station during one mission. Credit: NASA

During the shuttle era, astronauts tended to specialize in different areas of spaceflight — robotics and extra-vehicular activity (spacewalks) being some of the fields. The station, however, demands that astronauts be versed in both, Kimbrough said. Any crew could be called upon to do a repair on short notice, or to haul in a robotic spacecraft (like SpaceX’s Dragon) that arrives at station.

This means there’s a huge demand within NASA now for spacewalking expertise. Before stepping into the NBL, the astronauts run through the procedures in the classroom, and will get a look at the tools to make sure they understand their functions. Occasionally, a crew might pop on scuba suits to do a rough run of an expected spacewalk at the station, rehearsing where they should be and how they should position themselves.

A spacesuit really limits the astronaut’s range of motion, making the hours of training crucial. “For people like myself, with short arms, our work envelope is very small,” said Kimbrough, who is hoping for another flight assignment.

“It’s really out in front, not very far, in a circular motion. If you put your hand out in front, a small circle, that’s my work envelope. If I want to get something higher or lower, I can’t get there by reaching based on the way the [spacesuit] shoulder and arm operates. You maybe have to go sideways or upside down.”

November 3, 2007 – Canadarm2 played a big role in helping astronauts fix a torn solar array. The arm’s reach was extended by the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, and here, allowing astronaut Scott Parazynski analyses the solar panel while anchored to the boom. Credit: NASA
November 3, 2007 – Canadarm2 played a big role in helping astronauts fix a torn solar array. The arm’s reach was extended by the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, and here, allowing astronaut Scott Parazynski analyses the solar panel while anchored to the boom. Credit: NASA

Spacewalking is inherently a dangerous business. Many people remember a daring station-era spacewalk in 2007, when Scott Parazynski dangled on the end of a Canadarm2 extension to stitch together a torn — and live — solar array. For this spacewalk, a lot of procedures were put together on the fly.

NASA also has a computer program that can roughly simulate how the astronauts can get into various areas of the station, and this was extensively used before Parazynski’s spacewalk, Kimbrough said.

Kimbrough’s crew had a more messy problem as they worked to repair the broken solar array rotary joint (that controlled one of the station’s solar panel arrays) and do other station work. The grease guns the crew used in that mission periodically squirted way too much grease and covered everything. The work area, the spacesuits, the tools.

“It had to do with the thermal properties,” Kimbrough said. “It would go in between pretty hard, to not being so hard. So sometimes, the grease guns that were designed at the time leaked … they have been redesigned, a few modifications, and they’ve worked well since then.”

Kimbrough himself ran into a minor, but still surprising situation when at the end of a lengthy tether. It turned out that tether had a bit of zing to it. “I was working way out on the end of the truss, and it was nighttime and I felt somebody pulling me back and almost spinning me around. The force of it surprised me the most.”

Other astronauts had warned him about that ahead of time, Kimbrough said, but he didn’t realize how vehement the pull could be. “I was a believer after that,” he joked.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Historic Comet Smashup Brought Water to Jupiter’s Stratosphere

Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact site G. The comet collided with Jupiter in 1994. Credit: R. Evans, J. Trauger, H. Hammel and the HST Comet Science Team

A large comet that peppered Jupiter two decades ago brought water into the giant planet’s atmosphere, according to new research from the Herschel space observatory.

Shoemaker-Levy 9 astounded astronomers worldwide when its 21 fragments hit Jupiter in June 1994. The event was predicted and observatories were trained on Jupiter as the impact occurred. The dark splotches the comet left behind were even visible in small telescopes. But apparently, those weren’t the only effects of the collision.

Herschel’s infrared camera revealed there is two to three times more water in the southern hemisphere of the planet, where the comet slammed into the atmosphere, than in the northern hemisphere. Further, the water is concentrated in high altitudes, around the various sites where Shoemaker-Levy 9 left its mark.

It is possible, researchers acknowledged, that water could have come from interplanetary dust striking Jupiter, almost like a “steady rain.” If this were the case, however, scientists expect the water would be evenly distributed and also would have filtered to lower altitudes. Jupiter’s icy moons were also in the wrong locations, researchers said, to have sent water towards the massive planet.

Internal water rising up was ruled out because it cannot penetrate the “cold trap” between Jupiter’s stratosphere and cloud deck, the researchers added.

“According to our models, as much as 95 percent of the water in the stratosphere is due to the comet impact,” said  Thibault Cavalié of the Astrophysical Laboratory of Bordeaux, in France, who led the research.

Eight impact sites from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 are visible in this 1994 image. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope
Eight impact sites from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 are visible in this 1994 image. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope

While researchers have suspected for years that Jupiter’s water came from the comet — ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory saw the water there years ago — these new observations provide more direct evidence of Shoemaker-Levy 9’s effect. The results were published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Herschel’s find provides more fodder for two missions that are scheduled for Jupiter observations in the coming few years. The first goal for NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which is en route and will arrive in 2016, is to figure out how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Additionally, ESA’s Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission is expected to launch in 2022. “It will map the distribution of Jupiter’s atmospheric ingredients in even greater detail,” ESA stated.

While ESA did not link the finding to how water came to be on Earth, some researchers believe that it was comets that delivered the liquid on to our planet early in Earth’s history. Others, however, say that it was outgassing from volcanic rocks that added water to the surface.

Conventional theory dictates ice was in our solar system from when it was formed, and today we know that many planets have water in some form. Last year, for example, water ice and organics were spotted at Mercury’s north pole.

Mars appeared to be full of water in the ancient past, as evidenced by a huge, underground trench recently discovered by scientists. There is frozen water at the Martian poles, and both the Curiosity and Spirit/Opportunity rover missions have found evidence of flowing water on the surface in the past.

The outer solar system also has its share of water, including in all four giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) and (in ice form) on various moons. Even some exoplanets have water vapor in their atmospheres.

“All four giant planets in the outer solar system have water in their atmospheres, but there may be four different scenarios for how they got it,” added Cavalié. “For Jupiter, it is clear that Shoemaker-Levy 9 is by far the dominant source, even if other external sources may contribute also.”

Source: European Space Agency

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Defiance: What Happens After Aliens Arrive

The cast of Defiance. Credit: SyFy/Defiance.com

Wreckage, war and wrath are often the only results we see after aliens invade Earth, at least if you believe science fiction classics such as War of the Worlds. The new SyFy show Defiance, though, shows something a bit different: humans and aliens (Votans) trying to live side by side after the war.

Warning: minor spoilers ahead …

Now, this is no District 9. In 2046, the Votans roam around about as freely as the humans, although there’s a bit of ugly backstory that includes fighting and an uneasy truce. And no, this isn’t like Star Trek or Star Wars: the Votans and humans don’t work all that well together, at least not yet. Perhaps it’s too early in their history to think about it.

The show debuted on SyFy this month. Starring is Grant Bowler, previously of True Blood and Ugly Betty, as well as Dexter‘s Julie Benz.

“Nolan is an extreme pragmatist. He’s gone from war hero to scavenger and back again. He’s kind of the blunt instrument, if you like,” said Bowler of his human character in an NBC interview. Making things more interesting, Nolan has an alien adopted daughter and yes, they do actually get along (as well as most families do, anyway.)

When you have an hour on your hands, this one-hour discussion below about the show is well worth the watch. Don’t miss the part where Bowler talks about the challenge of working with “green screens”, which are essentially blank areas on set that are later filled with computer-generated graphics. Kind of disconcerting for an actor used to working on pre-arranged sets.

What other TV shows or movies featuring aliens can you recall that shows them living with humans after they get to Earth? Share them in the comments.