Space and astronomy news
If you go out hiking this weekend and somehow find yourself hopelessly lost in the wilderness, but suddenly remember you have a compass with you, you can use it to find north because the needle always points towards the Earth’s geographic north pole, which never changes… right?
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. And this video from MinutePhysics explains why.
(But still bring a compass with you. They do come in handy.)
Astronauts have tried to explain the view of Earth from space, with many saying that there just aren’t the words to describe how beautiful it is. In the latest episode of the “Science Garage,” recent ISS astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Hadfield might do the best job so far of relating not only the “incredible and unwrapping perspective of looking at the Earth,” but how it changed their perspective of humanity. Hadfield compares coming into the cupola of the International Space Station as being like “entering the Sistine Chapel.”
Watch below:
Mysterious red sprite lightning is intriguing: sprites occur only at high altitudes above thunderstorms, only last for a thousandth of a second and emit light in the red portion of the visible spectrum. Therefore, studying sprites has been notoriously difficult for atmospheric scientists. Astrophotographer Jason Ahrns has had the chance to be part of a sprite observing campaign, and with a special airplane from the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Research Aircraft Facility in Boulder, Colorado, has been on flights to try and observe red sprite lightning from the air.
Jason had some success on a recent flight, and was able to capture a sprite (above) on high speed film. Below you can see a movie of it at 10,000 frames per second:
Pretty amazing!
Scientists say that while sprites have likely occurred on Earth for millions of years, they were first discovered and documented only by accident in 1989 when a researcher studying stars was calibrating a camera pointed at the distant atmosphere where sprites occur.
Sprites usually appear as several clusters of red tendrils above a lighting flash followed by a breakup into smaller streaks. The brightest region of a sprite is typically seen at altitudes of 65-75 km (40-45 miles), but often as high as 90 km (55 miles) into the atmosphere.
Some of the latest research shows that only a specific type of lightning is the trigger that initiates sprites aloft.
You can read more (and see more images) about Jason’s experiences with sprites at his website.
Prepare yourself for some goosebumps. The Mercury spacecraft MESSENGER took this series of images of Earth eight years ago today as it swung by the planet (again) en route to its final destination.
Few humans have seen the Earth as an entire orb. Only a handful of missions, all in the Apollo era, have ventured beyond low Earth orbit. The people who traveled furthest were Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert during Apollo 13, when their spacecraft (which had been crippled by an explosion) looped around the moon on the way home.
MESSENGER is happily traveling around Mercury these days and recently recorded a cool series of images showing the planet as a colorful, spinning sphere. The spacecraft — the first to do an extended stay around that planet — has shown scientists a lot of things, including the discovery of water ice and organics.
Thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day for reminding us of this video.
Since the launch of its first satellite in 1972, the eight NASA/USGS Landsat satellites have made the longest continuous observations of Earth’s surface, providing invaluable data for research in agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, global change research, as well as important emergency response and disaster relief information. In addition, having such a long span of data allows us to easily see the expansion of human development in many areas — unprecedented before-and-after views of city growth seen from space.
These images, taken over the course of the Landsat program, illustrate the visible impact of over three decades of human development:
See more of these images on NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Flickr album here.
The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1972, the launch of ERTS-1 (Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later renamed Landsat 1) started the era of a series of satellites that have since continuously acquired space-based land remote sensing data.
The latest satellite in the Landsat series, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) — now named Landsat 8 — was launched on February 11, 2013. Landsat 8 data is now available free to the public online here.
Read more on the USGS Landsat mission page here.
Image credits: USGS/NASA
A pair of NASA astronauts donned their spacesuits for key fit check evaluations inside a test version of the Boeing Company’s CST-100 commercial ‘space taxi’ which was unveiled this week for the world’s first glimpse of the cabin’s interior.
Boeing is among a trio of American aerospace firms, including SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp, seeking to restore America’s capability to fly humans to Earth orbit and the space station using seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
Astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik conducted a day long series of technical evaluations inside a fully outfitted, full scale mock up of the CST-100, while wearing NASA’s iconic orange launch-and-entry flight suits from the space shuttle era.
During the tests, Boeing technicians monitored the astronauts ergonomic ability to work in the seats and move around during hands on use of the capsules equipment, display consoles and storage compartments.
The purpose of the testing at Boeing’s Houston Product Support Center is to see what works well and what needs modifications before fixing the final capsule design for construction.
“It’s an upgrade,” said astronaut Serena Aunon at the evaluation. “It is an American vehicle, of course it is an upgrade.”
Former NASA Astronaut Chris Ferguson, the commander of the final shuttle flight (STS-135) by Atlantis, is leading Boeing’s test effort as the director of Boeing’s Crew and Mission Operations.
“These are our customers. They’re the ones who will take our spacecraft into flight, and if we’re not building it the way they want it we’re doing something wrong,” said Ferguson.
“We’ll probably make one more go-around and make sure that everything is just the way they like it.”
The CST-100 is designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts, or a mix of cargo and crew, on missions to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) around the middle of this decade.
Although it resembles Boeing’s Apollo-era capsules from the outside, the interior employs state of the art modern technology including sky blue LED lighting and tablet technology.
Check out this video showing the astronauts and engineers during the CST-100 testing
Nevertheless Boeing’s design goal is to keep the flight technology as simple as possible.
“What you’re not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches,” said Ferguson. “When these guys go up in this, they’re primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft, they’re primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don’t want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive.”
The CST-100 crew transporter will fly to orbit atop the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) from Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Boeing is aiming for an initial three day manned orbital test flight of the CST-100 during 2016, says John Mulholland, Boeing vice president and program manger for Commercial Programs.
The 1st docking mission to the ISS would follow in 2017 – depending on the very uncertain funding that Congress approves for NASA.
The Atlas V was also chosen to launch one of Boeing’s commercial crew competitors, namely the Dream Chaser mini shuttle built by Sierra Nevada Corp.
NASA’s CCP program is fostering the development of the CST-100 as well as the SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser to replace America’s capability to launch humans to space that was lost following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters two years ago in July 2011.
Since 2011, every American astronaut has been 100% dependent on the Russians and their Soyuz capsule to hitch a ride to the ISS.
“We pay one of our [ISS] partners, the Russians, $71 million a seat to fly,” says Ed Mango, CCP’s program manager. “What we want to do is give that to an American company to fly our crews into space.”
Simultaneously NASA and its industry partners are designing and building the Orion crew capsule and SLS heavy lift booster to send humans to the Moon and deep space destinations including Near Earth Asteroids and Mars.
Astronaut Karen Nyberg shared this image on her Twitter feed, showing the view from the International Space Station on July 21, 2013 with thunderstorms brewing over Los Angeles and San Diego, California. City lights are peering through the clouds, while lightning brightens the dark storm clouds. A solar array from a Russian spacecraft docked to the ISS appears at the bottom of the image.
Incredible view.
If you’ve ever been involved in one, you know that even a minor vehicle accident is a confusing and scary event. Trying to desperately regain control of your own movement as you’re suddenly subjected to forces beyond your control is stressful and terrifying… now imagine it happening at 17,500 mph and 230 miles up and you’ve got an idea of what the upcoming film “Gravity” is about.
Still can’t quite picture it? Check out the latest trailer below:
Directed and written by Alfonso Cuarón and co-written with his son Jonas, “Gravity” is the story of two astronauts (played by George Clooney and Sandra Bullock) whose shuttle is destroyed by a run-in with space junk during an EVA, stranding them both in orbit.
If that wasn’t bad enough, their oxygen is running out and they have lost communication with the ground. Cast adrift in orbit, they have to figure out how to survive and get back home.
It’s like “Open Water” in space. Without the sharks. (Let’s hope things turn out better for them!)
I enjoy sci-fi and I especially enjoy when they try to get the “sci” part right. How do things move in microgravity? (Hint: really fast.) What happens when stuff smashes together? What would happen to the human body in that situation? And, most importantly for any movie, how do the people involved handle the experience?
Above all, “Gravity” is still a movie so it has to take us on a two-hour, candy-munching, soda-slurping ride. Based on this latest trailer, I’m confident that they’ve done their homework on the mechanics of movement in orbit… now let’s see if Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) has once again worked his storytelling magic to bring the characters to free-falling life.
A Warner Bros. Pictures production, “Gravity” will be released in IMAX 3D and 2D this October. See the official movie site here.
ADDED 7/25: Here’s a new clip, titled “I’ve Got You”:
Video ©2013 Warner Bros. Entertainment. All rights reserved.
So along with the rest of the world, you smiled. You waved. You went outside on July 19, wherever you were, and looked upwards and out into the solar system knowing that our robotic representative Cassini would be capturing a few pixels’ worth of photons bouncing off our planet when they eventually reached Saturn, 900 million miles away. But did Cassini actually capture any photons coming from where you were? The image above will tell you.
Assembled by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo (where the enormous 305-meter radio telescope is located) this image shows what side of Earth was facing Cassini when its “pale blue dot” images were obtained, at approximately 22:47 UTC (Cassini time.)
Didn’t make it into Cassini’s photo? That’s ok… maybe MESSENGER had already caught you earlier that very same day:
Before Cassini took its images — several hours before, in fact — the MESSENGER spacecraft was holding some photo shoots of its own from 61 million miles in the other direction!
The image above shows the side of Earth that was facing Mercury on the morning of July 19, 2013, when MESSENGER was acquiring images in our direction during a hunt for any possible satellites of the innermost planet.
Earth was as bright (-4.8 magnitude) as the maximum brightness of Venus at the moment the image was taken from Mercury.
Of course, in both series of images specific details of our planet can’t be made out — Earth was barely more than a pixel in size (regardless of any bloom caused by apparent brightness.) Clouds, countries, continents, oceans… the entire population of our world, reduced to a single point of light — a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
For both portrayals, high-resolution black and white images from the GOES East and Meteosat meteorological satellites were combined with color information from NASA Visible Earth to generate true-color images of our planet as it would have looked to each respective imaging spacecraft… if they had the impossibly-precise optics to resolve Earth from such distances, of course.
But it’s ok that they don’t… we can still use our imaginations.
Read more here on the PHL’s news release.
Image credits: PHL @ UPR Arecibo, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington, NERC Satellite Station, Dundee University, Scotland. Thanks to Prof. Abel Méndez (PHL/UCR) for the heads-up on these.
The Day the Earth Smiled: Sneak Preview
In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn’s rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
See below our wider context mosaic of the Earth, Saturn and its majestic rings[/caption]
Breathtaking raw images of the Earth and Saturn system snapped by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on July 19 during the worldwide ‘Wave at Saturn’ campaign are streaming back across 1 billion miles of interplanetary space.
Science team members are now busily processing the images to create individual color composites and a panoramic view of the ‘pale blue dot’ and the entire Saturnian system.
NASA just released the first individual color composite focusing on Earth – see above. And its spectacular!
See below our preliminary mosaic showing the Earth in context with nearly half of Saturn and floating in between its incomparably majestic rings.
To capture all of Saturn and its wide swath of rings, Cassini’s wide angle camera snapped a mosaic of 33 footprints.
“At each footprint, images were taken in different spectral filters for a total of 323 images,” says Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team leader of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
Cassini took the pictures of Earth between 2:27 and 2:42 p.m. PDT on Friday, July 19 from a distance of about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from the home to every human being that has ever lived.
The images show the Earth and the Moon as dots barely about a pixel wide but do reveal the ‘pale blue dot’ that is home to all of humanity and our whitish colored neighbor.
Coincidentally, the first humans (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) set foot on the Moon 44 years ago nearly to the day of Cassini’s new images on July 20, 1969.
Distant views of the Earth from our robotic explorers, especially from the outer reaches of our Solar System, are few and far between, and are therefore events for space and astronomy enthusiasts and everyone else to savor.
“One of the most exciting Cassini events in 2013 will be the unusual opportunity on July 19 to image the whole Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun,” explained Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
“With Saturn covering the harsh light of the sun, we will be gathering unique ring science and also catching a glimpse of our very own home planet.”
Cassini previously took an absolutely fabulous mosaic of Saturn and Earth back in 2006 that stands as one of the landmark images of the space age.
Besides being picturesque, such mosaics also serve science. For example, the 2006 image “revealed that the dusty E ring, which is fed by the water-ice plume of the moon Enceladus, had unexpectedly large variations in brightness and color around its orbit,” says Spilker.
“We’ll want to see how that looks seven Earth years and a Saturnian season later, giving us clues to the forces at work in the Saturn system. We’ll do this analysis by collecting data from our visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, composite infrared mapping spectrometer and ultraviolet imaging spectrograph in addition to the imaging cameras.”
“July 19 marked the first time people on Earth had advance notice their planet’s portrait was being taken from interplanetary distances,” says NASA.
I waved fondly at Saturn and hope you had the chance to wave at Saturn from all across the globe. NASA reports that nearly 20,000 participated in organized events. Countless others waved too.
Cassini was launched in 1997 and achieved orbit at Saturn in 2004. The mission is scheduled to continue until 2017 when it will commit a suicide death dive into the gas giant.
“We can’t see individual continents or people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary of who we were on July 19,” said Spilker in a NASA statement.
“Cassini’s picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth.”
