Alan Stern’s 2006 Nissan 350Z and Percival Lowell’s 1912 car in front of the Lowell Observatory. Percival Lowell’s car nicknamed his car “Big Red,” and Stern’s car is nicknamed “New Red.” Credit: Lowell Observatory
Many of the rocket and space flight enthusiasts I know are also car buffs. If you fit into that category, here’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss: a chance to own the car that New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern drove all the way to Pluto.
Well, technically, he drove his shiny red Nissan 350Z the entire time the New Horizons’ spacecraft was making a beeline for the icy dwarf planet. But Stern has now donated this car to the Lowell Observatory, the facility where Pluto was discovered. The car is being auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to support “Lowell’s mission of scientific research and education.” You can make your bid now, as bids are being accepted from December 15-24, and the winner will not only have the privilege of owning the car, but also enjoy a dinner with Stern.
New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern and the Nissan sports car he has donated to the Lowell Observatory for a fundraiser. Credit: Lowell Observatory.
Stern bought the car in 2006, the year New Horizons launched (it has a bumper sticker that says “My other vehicle is on its way to Pluto”) and he continued driving it until earlier this year, well past the spacecraft’s flyby of Pluto in July 2015.
It is a two-door model with red exterior and carbon interior, and has just over 77,000 miles on it, which, as Stern points out, is almost 10 times fewer miles than New Horizons clocked on its first day of flight. A November 9, 2016 appraisal states the vehicle is in excellent shape and has a life expectancy of 300,000 miles.
“It was Percival Lowell’s perseverance and dedication that resulted in the discovery of Pluto and, ultimately, resulted in the flight of New Horizons to explore this distant, small planet,” Stern said in a press release from the Lowell Observatory. “New Horizons was, and is, the best aspect of my career so far, so I wanted to donate this car to Lowell Observatory as a fundraising vehicle to recognize the fact that New Horizons could not have happened without the historic and pioneering work that took place at Lowell Observatory early in the last century.”
Bumper sticker on Alan Stern’s car. Credit: Lowell Observatory.
Stern was the impetus behind New Horizons, billed as the fastest spacecraft ever launched, so he calls the Nissan 350Z his “second fastest vehicle.” He still oversees the New Horizons mission, as the spacecraft continues on its journey through the Kuiper Belt. It will fly past another object, named 2014 MU69, which Stern said is an ancient KBO that formed where it orbits now.
“It’s the type of object scientists have been hoping to study for decades, and this will be the most distant world we’ve ever been able to see up close,” Stern told me during an interview for my upcoming book, “Incredible Stories From Space.” Chapter 1 tells the stories of the New Horizons mission, including many stories from Stern.
With a penchant for both creating and driving state-of-the-art vehicles, Stern revealed earlier this year that his new car is a Tesla.
Lowell director Jeff Hall said, “It’s been a real pleasure working with Alan over the past few years leading up to and past the Pluto flyby. He’s been tremendously supportive of Lowell, and his donation of his car for us to auction is a sterling example of this. We’re thrilled by this gesture, and we look forward to meeting the lucky winner.”
The Lowell Observatory was founded in 1894 by Percival Lowell and has been home to many important discoveries including the detection of the large recessional velocities (redshift) of galaxies by Vesto Slipher in 1912-1914 (a result that led to the realization the universe is expanding), and the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. Today, Lowell’s 14 astronomers use ground-based telescopes around the world, telescopes in space, and NASA planetary spacecraft to conduct research in astronomy and planetary science. Lowell is a private, non-profit research institution and is located near Flagstaff, Arizona.
Artist's impression of the top view of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope complex. Credit: tmt.org
Ever since it was approved for construction, the Thirty Meter Telescope has been the subject of controversy. A proposed astronomical observatory that is planned to be built on Mauna Kea – Hawaii’s famous dormant volcano and the home of the Mauna Kea Observatories – the construction of this facility has been delayed multiple times due to resistance from the local community.
Stressing the impact the facility will have on local wild life, the associated noise and traffic, and the fact that the proposed site is on land sacred to Hawaii’s indigenous people, there are many locals who have protested the facility’s construction. But after multiple delays, and the cancellation of the facility’s building permits, it appears that public support may be firmly behind the creation of the TMT.
Planning for the Thirty Meter Telescope began in 2000, when astronomers began considering the construction of telescopes that measured more than 20 meters in diameter. In time, the University of California and Caltech began conducting a series of studies, which would eventually culminate in the plans for the TMT. Site proposals also began to be considered by the TMT board, which led to the selection of Mauna Kea in 2009.
Mauna Kea summit as seen from the northeast. Credit: University of Hawaii.
However, after opposition and protests halted construction on three occasions – on Oct. 14th, 2014, then again on April 2th and June 24th of 2015 – the State Supreme Court of Hawaii invalidated the TMT’s building permits. Since that time, multiple polls have been conducted to gauge public support for the project. Whereas a previous one, which was conducting in Oct. 2015, indicated that 59% of Big Island residents supported it (and 39% opposed it) the most recent poll yielded different results.
This poll, which was conducted in July of 2016 by Honolulu-based Ward Research, Inc. shows that 60% of Big Island residents now support moving ahead with construction, while 31% remain opposed. While not a huge change, it does indicate that support for the project now outweighs opposition by a 2 to 1 margin since the last time residents were asked, roughly nine months ago.
The first poll surveyed 613 Hawaii Big Island residents, aged 18 years and older and from a variety of backgrounds. The most recent poll surveyed 404 Hawaii residents at least 18 years old via both cellphone and landline (with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent).
The recent poll also indicated that the majority of respondents, ranging from 66% to 76%, believe that TMT will provide economic and educational opportunities, and that not moving forward would be bad for the island and its residents. Also of interest was the fact that support for TMT’s construction was split among Indigenous Hawaiians, with 46 percent of those polled in support and 45 percent opposed.
Artists concept of the Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory. Credit: TMT
As Ed Stone, the TMT Executive Director, said of the results in a recent press release:
“It was important for us to understand how Hawaii Island residents feel about the project, and the latest poll results demonstrate that opposition to TMT on Hawaii Island is decreasing. That’s significant and we are most grateful that the community’s support of the project remains high. The findings also show that the general public on Hawaii Island understands the benefits TMT will bring in terms of Hawaii’s economy and education, both of which are very important to TMT.”
What is perhaps most relevant is the fact that while this most-recent poll shows virtually no change in the amount of support, it does show that opposition has decreased. The reason for this is not clear, but according to Kealoha Pisciotta of the Mauna Kea Hui – which is litigating against TMT’s construction – the change is attributable to the PR efforts of TMT, which hired Honolulu-based PR firm to promote their agenda.
Pisciotta also stressed that the state Constitution of Hawaii protects the cultural and traditional practices that will be affected by this massive project, which is something residents don’t appear to understand. Faced with the promise of benefits – which includes TMT’s annual $1 million contribution to The Hawaii Island New Knowledge (THINK) Fund, which provides for STEM education.
Mauna Kea observed from space. Credit: NASA/EO
This is not to say that those polled rejected the concerns of those advocating for protection of Hawaiian heritage and culture. In fact, 89% of respondents – the largest return in the poll – indicated that “there should be a way for science and Hawaiian culture to co-exist”. While this is easier said than done, it does show that compromise is the most popular option, and could present a mutually-satisfactory way of moving forward.
What’s more, this is hardly the first time that Mauna Kea has been at the center of controversy. Ever since construction began on the Astronomy Precinct in 1967, there has been opposition from environmentalists and the Indigenous community. Not only is the Precinct located on land protected by the Historical Preservation Act of 1966 due to its significance to Hawaiian culture, it is also the habitat of an endangered species of bird (the Palila).
Nevertheless, Mauna Kea remains the preferred choice for the location of the TMT, though the board is evaluating alternative sites in case the project cannot move forward. Stone and his colleagues hope to resume construction of the TMT facility by April of 2018, and begin gathering images of the cosmos in the near-ultraviolet to mid-infrared by the 2020s.
The Moon occults Jupiter on July 15th, 2012. Image credit and copyright: Ziad el Zaatari.
So, are you catching sight of the waxing crescent Moon returning this week to the early PM sky? The start of lunation 1157 gives folks observing Ramadan here in Morocco a reason to celebrate, as it marks the end of dawn-to-dusk fasting. Follow that Moon, as it’s about to meet up with the king of the planets this weekend.
On July 9th, the 5-day old waxing crescent Moon will pass Jupiter. You can see ’em both Saturday night, high in the western sky at dusk. For a very few observers in the southern Indian Ocean and Antarctica, the Moon will actually occult (pass in front of) Jupiter, centered on 10:11 Universal Time (UT). The Moon will be 32% illuminated crescent during the pass, and Jupiter will present a disk 34” across, just over a month past quadrature on June 4th with a current elongation of 60 degrees east of the Sun. Jupiter just passed opposition for 2016 on March 8th, and is now headed towards solar conjunction on the far side of the Sun on September 26th.
The occultation footprint for the July 9th event. Image credit: Occult 4.2 software.
2016 Planetary Occultations
This is the first of four occultations of Jupiter by the Moon in 2016; the next occur over subsequent lunations on August 6th, September 2nd and 30th before the relative motions of the Moon and Jupiter carry them apart, not to meet again until October 31st, 2019. And though most observers will miss this weekend’s occultation, we’ll all get a good view of the pairing worldwide. Unfortunately, the view gets successively worse (though more central) for the next few lunations, as the occultations of Jupiter by the Moon occur close to the Sun.
Looking west on the evening of July 9th. Image credit: Stellarium.
Here’s another reason to celebrate and show off Jupiter at this weekend’s star party: NASA’s Juno spacecraft has just entered orbit around the gas giant world. This is only the second time a mission has orbited Jupiter (the first was Galileo) though lots have performed brief flybys, using the enormous pull of the planet for a gravitational boost en route to elsewhere. Juno is currently the only spacecraft in operation around Jove, and will conduct 36 looping science orbits around the planet before meeting its fiery end in February 2018.
A montage of daytime planets (and one Moon and one star). Image credit and copyright: Shahrin Ahmad (@shahgazer).
Yay, humans. Here’s another feat of visual athletics you can attempt this weekend: can you spy Jupiter near the waxing crescent Moon… in the daytime? It’s not that tough, if you know exactly where to look. Deep blue skies for maxim contrast are key, and don’t be afraid to cheat a bit and use binoculars or a wide-field DSLR shot to tease bashful Jupiter out of the daytime sky. Your best bet might be to start hunting for Jupiter 30 minutes prior to local sunset. Hey, if the Sun is still above the local horizon, it still counts! We’ve actually managed to nab Jupiter and Venus before sundown at public star parties on occasion, kicking things off a bit early.
Hunting for Jupiter in the daytime on July 9th. Image credit: Starry Night
Now for the ‘wow’ factor. The Moon is 3,474 kilometers across, and on average, 400,000 kilometers or 1.25 light seconds distant. Jupiter, at 140,000 kilometers across, is currently 5.9 Astronomical Units (AU) or 880 million kilometers away, 2,200 times more distant at 49 light minutes away. You could fit Jupiter and all of the other planets in the solar system – excluding Saturn’s rings — between the Earth and the Moon… not that you’d want such mayhem, of course. Hey; then, for the very first time in the history of human astronomy, Jupiter could occult our puny Moon…
Occultations are abruptly swift affairs in a glacially slow universe. The leading edge of the Moon moves about 30” a minute, taking 17 seconds to cover the disk of Jove. Follow Jupiter this summer, as it’ll pass just 4′ from Venus in the dusk sky on August 27th.
More to come on that soon. Here’s a final thought: has anyone ever tried to observe a radio occultation of Jupiter by the Moon? It’s certainly possible, as Jupiter is a prominent amateur radio source, crackling in the sky. And hey, the daytime sky thing wouldn’t be an issue…
We’d be thrilled to hear that, against all odds, someone on a remote windswept island or on a ship in the distant Indian Ocean actually managed to catch this weekend’s occultation!
An artist's drawing of Japan's Hitomi observatory. Image Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has lost contact with its X-ray Astronomy Satellite Hitomi (ASTRO-H.) Hitomi was launched on February 17th, for a 3-year mission to study black holes. But now that mission appears to be in jeopardy.
Hitomi is a collaboration between JAXA and NASA. Its mission was to investigate how galaxy clusters were formed and influenced by dark matter and dark energy, and to understand how super-massive black holes form and evolve at the center of galaxies. Hitomi was also to “unearth the physical laws governing extreme conditions in neutron stars and black holes,” according to JAXA.
Japan has managed two very short communications with Hitomi, but they were very brief, and JAXA has not been able to determine the nature of the problem. Now, JSpOC, the US Joint Space Operations Center, say they have detected debris in the vicinity of Hitomi, and in a press release this morning (March 29th), JAXA says “it is estimated that Hitomi separated to five pieces at about 10:42 a.m.”
Hitomi was going to be an important contribution to the fleet of space telescopes used by astrophysicists and cosmologists. It has a cutting edge instrument called the X-ray micro-calorimeter, which would have observed X-rays from space with the greatest sensitivity of any instrument so far. If all that is lost, it will be quite a blow.
There’s no definitive word yet on what exactly has happened to Hitomi. Japan is using ground stations in different parts of the world to try to communicate with their observatory. It’s important to note that there is no agreement that the craft has broken apart. The press releases are translations from Japanese to English, so the exact meaning of “separated to five pieces” is unclear.
It’s possible that there was a small explosion of some sort, and that some debris from that explosion is in the vicinity of Hitomi. It’s also possible that JAXA will re-establish communications with the craft as time goes on.
Other observatories have suffered serious problems, and have eventually been brought back under control and completed their missions. The ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) suffered serious problems at the beginning of its mission in 1995, entering emergency mode 3 times before all contact was lost. Eventually, SOHO was brought under control, and what was supposed to be a 2-year mission has lasted 20.
Universe Today will be following this story to see if Hitomi can be made operational. For readers wanting to know more about Hitomi’s mission, read JAXA’s excellent Hitomi press kit.
China has plans to build a new space telescope which should outperform Hubble. According to the Chinese English Language Daily, the new telescope will be similar to Hubble, but will have a field of view that is 300 times larger. The new telescope, which has not been named yet, will have the ability to dock with China’s modular space station, the Tiangong.
The China National Space Administration has come up with a solution to a problem that dogged the Hubble Telescope. Whenever the Hubble needed repairs or maintenance, a shuttle mission had to be planned so astronauts could service it. China will avoid this problem with its innovative solution. The Chinese telescope will keep its distance from the Tiangong, but if repairs or maintenance are needed, it can dock with Tiangong.
No date has been given for the launch of this new telescope, but its plans must be intertwined with plans for the modular Tiangong space station. Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011 and has served as a crewed laboratory and a technological test-bed. The Tiangong-2, which has room for a crew of 3 and life support for twenty days, is expected to be launched sometime in 2016. The Tiangong-3 will provide life support for 3 people for 40 days and will expand China’s capabilities in space. It’s not expected to launch until sometime in the 2020’s, so the space telescope will likely follow its launch.
An artist’s rendering of the Tiangong-1 module, China’s space station, which was launched to space in September, 2011. To the right is a Shenzhou spacecraft, preparing to dock with the module. Image Credit: CNSA
The telescope, according to the People’s Daily Online, will take 10 years to capture images of 40% of space, with a precision equal to Hubble’s. China hopes this data will allow it to make breakthroughs in the understanding of the origin, development, and evolution of the universe.
This all sounds great, but there’s a shortage of facts. When other countries and space agencies announce projects like this, they give dates and timelines, and details about the types of cameras and sensors. They talk about exactly what it is they plan to study and what results they hope to achieve. It’s difficult to say what level of detail has gone into the planning for this space telescope. It’s also difficult to say how the ‘scope will dock with the space station.
It may be that China is nervous about spying and doesn’t want to reveal any technical detail. Or it may be that China likes announcing things that make it look technologically advanced. (China is in a space race with India, and likes to boast of its prowess.) In any case, they’ve been talking about a space telescope for many years now. But a little more information would be nice.
Come on China. Give us more info. We’re not spies. We promise.
Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina photographed from high atop the Himalayas by Ajay Talwar with a 200mm lens on a tracking mount this morning Nov. 20, 2015. Credit: Ajay Talwar
If you love watching comets and live north of the equator, you’ve been holding your breath a l-o-n-g time for C/2013 US10 Catalina to make its northern debut. I’m thrilled to report the wait is over. The comet just passed perihelion on Nov. 15th and has begun its climb into morning twilight.
Map showing the sky facing southeast around the start of dawn. Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina leaps into the morning sky in eastern Virgo beginning this weekend at around magnitude +7. Comet positions are marked by small crosses every 5 days around 6 a.m. CST (12:00 Universal Time) for mid-northern latitudes (Minneapolis, specifically). Planet positions are shown for Nov. 21st. Stars to mag. +7. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap
The first post-perihelion photo, taken on Nov. 19th by astrophotographer Ajay Talwar from Devasthal Observatory high in the Indian Himalayas, show it as a starry dot with a hint of a tail only 1° above the eastern horizon at mid-twilight. Additional photos made on the following mornings show the comet inching up from the eastern horizon into better view. Estimates of its current brightness range from magnitude +6.8-7.0.
Sometimes black and white is better. This is the same chart as above but in a handier version for use at the telescope. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap
Talwar, who teaches astrophotography classesand is a regular contributor to The World at Night (TWAN), drove 9 hours from his home to the Himalaya mountains, then climbed up the observatory dome to get enough horizon to photograph the comet. The window of opportunity was very narrow; Talwar had only 10 minutes to bag his images before the comet was overwhelmed by zodiacal light and twilight glow. When asked if it was visible in binoculars, he thought it would be but had too little time to check despite bringing a pair along.
Ajay Talwar recorded the very first post-perihelion photo of Comet Catalina on Nov. 19th from Devasthal Observatory. Prior to perihelion, the comet was only visible from the southern hemisphere. Copyright: Ajay Talwar
A difficult object at the moment, once it frees itself from the horizon haze in about a week, Catalina should be easily visible in ordinary binoculars. Watch for it to gradually brighten through the end of the year, peaking around magnitude +5.5 — just barely naked eye — in late December and early January, when it will be well-placed high in the northeastern sky near the star Arcturus (see map). Matter of fact, on the first morning of the new year, it creeps only 1/2° southwest of the star for a splendid conjunction.
Even before perihelion, Comet Catalina was a beautiful thing. This photo was taken on October 1, 2015. Credit: Jose Chambo
Halloween 2013 was an auspicious one. That’s when Comet C/2013 US10 was first picked up by the Catalina Sky Survey. The “US10” part comes from initial observations that suggested it was an asteroid. Additional photos and observations instead revealed a fuzzy comet on a steeply tilted orbit headed for the inner Solar System after a long sojourn in the Oort Cloud.
Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina will slice through the plane of the Solar System at an angle of 149° never to return. It comes closest to Earth on Jan. 12, 2016. After that time, the comet will recede and fade. Credit: JPL Horizons
Its sunward journey has been nothing short of legendary, requiring several million years of inbound travel from the frigid fringe to the relative warmth of the inner Solar System. Catalina will pass closest to Earth on Jan. 12th at 66.9 million miles (107.7 million km) before buzzing off into interstellar space. Yes, interstellar. Perturbations by the planets have converted its orbit into a one-way ticket outta here.
Check this out! Look to the east at the start of dawn on Dec. 7th to see a remarkable pairing of comet, Venus and the waning lunar crescent with earthshine. Source: Stellarium
When using the maps above, keep in mind they show the comet’s changing position, but the constellations and planets can only be shown for the one date, Nov. 21st. Like the comet, they’ll also be slowly sliding upward in the coming days and mornings due to Earth’s revolution around the Sun; stars that are near the horizon on Nov. 21 at 5:30 or 6 a.m. will be considerably higher up in a darker sky by the same time in December. Adding the shift of the stars to that of the comet, Catalina gains about 1° of altitude per day in the coming two weeks.
When you go out to find Catalina in binoculars, note its location on the map and then use the stars as steppingstones, starting with a bright obvious one like Spica and “stepping” from there to the next until you arrive at the one closest to the comet.
I’m so looking forward to finding Catalina. Nothing like a potentially naked eye comet to warm up those cold December mornings. Mark your calendar for the morning of Dec. 7th, when this rare visitor will join Venus and the crescent Moon in the east at the start of morning twilight. See you in spirit at dawn!
Itching for some cometary action? After a fine winter’s performance from Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy, 2015 has seen a dearth of good northern hemisphere comets. That’s about to change, however, as Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina joins the planetary lineup currently gracing the dawn sky in early November. Currently located in the constellation Centaurus and shining at magnitude +6, Comet US10 Catalina has already put on a fine show for southern hemisphere observers over the last few months during Act I.
Currently buried in the dusk sky, Comet US10 Catalina is bashful right now, as it shares nearly the same right ascension with the Sun over the next few weeks, passing just eight degrees from our nearest star as seen from our Earthly vantage point on November 7th — and perhaps passing juuusst inside of the field of view for SOHO’s LASCO C3 camera — and into the dawn sky.
The altitude of Comet US10 Catalina in November and December at dawn as seen from latitude 30 degrees north. Image credit: Starry Night Education software.
The hunt is on come early November, as Comet US 10 Catalina vaults into the dawn sky. From 30 degrees north latitude here in Central Florida, the comet breaks 10 degrees elevation an hour prior to local sunrise right around November 20th. This should see the comet peaking in brightness right around magnitude +5 near perihelion the same week on November 16th.
The projected light curve of Comet US10 Catalina, with observations thus far (black dots) Image credit: Adapted from Seiichi Yoshida’s Weekly Information About Bright Comets
The angle of the comet’s orbit is favorable for northern hemisphere viewers in mid-November, as viewers start getting good looks in the early morning from latitude 30 degrees northward and the comet gains about a degree of elevation per day. This will bring it up out of the murk of twilight and into binocular view.
Mark your calendar for the morning of December 7th, as the crescent Moon, Venus and a (hopefully!) +5 magnitude comet US10 Catalina will all fit within a five degree circle.
The view on the morning of December 7th. Image credit: Starry Night Education software
Here are some key dates with celestial destiny for Comet US10 Catalina for the remainder of 2015:
October
20-Crosses into the constellation Hydra.
November
2-Crosses into the constellation Libra.
16-Crosses into the constellation Virgo.
16-Reaches perihelion at 0.823 AU (127.6 million kilometers) from Sun.
26-Crosses the ecliptic plane northward.
27-Passes less than one degree from the +4.5 magnitude star Lambda Virginis.
The celestial path of Comet US 10 Catalina through the end of 2015. Image Credit: Starry Night Education software
December
7-Fits inside a five degree circle with Venus and the waning crescent Moon.
8-Passes less than one degree from the +4 magnitude star Syrma (Iota Virginis).
17-Crosses the celestial equator northward.
24-Crosses into the constellation Boötes.
In January, Comet US10 Catalina starts the New Year passing less than a degree from the -0.05 magnitude star Arcturus. From there, the comet may drop below +6 magnitude and naked eye visibility by mid-month, just prior to its closest approach to the Earth at 0.725 AU (112.3 million kilometers) on January 17th. By February 1st, the comet may drop below +10th magnitude and binocular visibility, into the sole visual domain of large light bucket telescopes under dark skies.
Comet US10 Catalina imaged from Australia on July 21st, 2015. Image credit: Alan Tough
Or not. Comets and predictions of comet brightness are always notoriously fickle, and rely mainly on just how the comet performs near perihelion. Then there’s twilight extinction to contend with, and the fact that the precious magnitude of the comet is diffused over its extended surface area, often causing the comet to appear fainter visually than the quoted magnitude.
But do not despair. Comets frequently under-perform pre-perihelion passage, only to put on brilliant shows after. Astronomers discovered Comet US10 Catalina on Halloween 2013 from the Catalina Sky Survey based just outside of Tucson, Arizona. On a several million year orbit, all indications are that Comet US10 Catalina is a dynamically new Oort Cloud visitor and will probably get ejected from the solar system after this all-too brief fling with the Sun. Its max velocity at perihelion will be 46.4 kilometers per second, three times faster than the New Horizons spacecraft currently on an escape trajectory out of the solar system.
The odd ‘US10’ designation comes from the comet’s initial identification as an asteroidal object, later upgraded to cometary status. The comet’s high orbital inclination of 149 degrees assured two separate showings, as the comet approached the Sun as seen from the Earth’s southern hemisphere, only to then vault up over the northern hemisphere post-perihelion. As is often the case, the comet was closest to the Sun at exactly the wrong time: had perihelion occurred around May, the comet would’ve passed the Earth just 0.17 AU (15.8 million miles or 26.3 million kilometers) distant! That might’ve placed the comet in the negative magnitudes and perhaps earned it the title of ‘the Great Comet of 2015…’
The orbit of Comet US10 Catalina and the view during closest Earth approach. Image credit: NASA/JPL
But such was not to be.
Ah, but the next ‘big one’ could come at any time. In 2016, we’re tracking comet C/2013 X1 PanSTARRS, which will ‘perhaps’ become a fine binocular comet next summer…
More to come. Perhaps we’ll draft up an Act III for US10 Catalina in early January if it’s a top performer.
Flooded streets and houses in South Carolina. Credit: Hap Griffin
Video Caption: NASA/JAXA’s GPM satellite measured record rainfall that fell over the Carolinas from September 26 to October 5, 2015 from a plume of moisture from Hurricane Joaquin when it was located over the Bahamas and moved to Bermuda. The IMERG showed highest rainfall totals near 1,000 mm (39.3 inches) in a small area of South Carolina and rainfall between 700 and 900 mm (27.5 and 37.4 inches) over a large area of South Carolina. Credits: SSAI/NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce See below ground level images and videos of storm devastation Story updated with additional details/imagery from NASA and South Carolina
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley declared the historic and torrential rain fall to be a “1000 Year event” on Sunday, Oct. 4. “We have never seen anything like this.” Governor Haley and President Obama issued a “State of Emergency.”
Although the horrendous rains in South Carolina may nearly be done, the nor’easter caused damage estimated to be in the Billions of Dollars and at least 9 storm related deaths as of today, Monday, Oct. 5.
Rainfall totals ranging from 14 to 37 inches in local areas over the past week drenched a wide swath of the Palmetto state with never before seen flooding, according to NASA and NOAA. The most intense periods of rain fell over the weekend.
See herein a gallery of photos from friends and others living through the disaster in South Carolina.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly also captured dramatic images of Hurricane Joaquin – as I reported earlier here.
A slew of NASA and NOAA orbiting weather satellites are constantly tracking the fierce storms and providing the state and federal governments with the most up to date forecasts to aid officials and emergency responders in evaluating and managing the disaster in the most effective manner possible.
NASA’s GPM and a global fleet of other international weather monitoring satellites gathered measurements every 30 minutes from September 26 to October 5, 2015 that were combined into the eyepoppongly dramatic IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) color-coded video above. It tracks the massive growth, spread and direction of the storms and shows the historic levels of destructive precipitation generated by the lethal pair of powerful storms.
The NASA GPM video shows plumes of moisture from the Nor’Easter and Hurricane Joaquin as they gather force and moved over South Carolina and through the Caribbean around and over the Bahamas and later as Joaquin fortunately veered away from the US eastern seaboard towards Bermuda.
“The IMERG showed highest rainfall totals near 1,000 mm (39.3 inches) in a small area of South Carolina and rainfall between 700 and 900 mm (27.5 and 37.4 inches) over a large area of South Carolina,” says NASA’s Hal Pierce.
Here’s a NASA video with NASA scientist Dalia Kirschbaum describing how GPM can see inside a hurricane to makes rainfall and precipitation measurements in 3D:
Video caption: NASA scientist Dalia Kirschbaum explains how the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission’s Core observatory has an instrument that can see layer by layer through a storm.
The GPM precipitation measurements come from both of its advanced radar instruments – the dual-frequency precipitation (DPR) radar instrument (Ku and Ka band) and the GPM microwave imager (GMI), NASA scientist George Huffman told Universe Today.
The IMERG video is based on an algorithm that also carefully combines and calibrates measurements gathered every 30 minutes from the passive microwave sensors flying aboard a large international constellation of satellites from the US, Europe, Japan and India – and outlined in complete detail further below by NASA’s Huffman and Kirschbaum; exclusively for Universe Today.
The visualization of data was created by NASAs Goddard’s Space Flight Center and shows Hurricane Joaquin around the Bahamas “when it was a tropical storm. Red and green colors show rain and the ice and snow at the top of the storm is visualized in blue.”
“Understanding hurricane structure helps weather forecasters around the world determine a storm’s structure and where it may be going,” says Kirschbaum.
Hurricane Joaquin was still packing winds exceeding 125 mph this morning, but it has lost strength throughout the day.
Over 40,000 homes and businesses are without power today, Oct. 5, in South Carolina due to the unending rain and widespread catastrophic flooding. And many folks had to be evacuated.
Some cemeteries were uprooted with caskets seen floating down flooded streets.
Residents are warned to stay out of the flood waters and standing waters that can be carrying bacteria and diseases presenting a significant health hazard.
In the capitol city of Columbia, there was widespread flooding with severe damage to water mains that cut off drinking water to over 15,000 people.
The governor deployed over 1300 national guard troops to render assistance. Over 150 folks were rescued by helicopter, some from the rooftops of their homes and apartments.
Here’s a helicopter rescue:
Video: Helicopter Rescue at Lakewood Links in Sumter, SC on Oct 4, 2014. Credit: Sean Reyes
Scores of South Carolina residents were getting rescued by canoes and even boats where waters surged in places up to 25 feet above normal.
At least 9 dams have been breached statewide, as well as levees, requiring many thousands people more to be evacuated.
Dam at Swan Lake in South Carolina on Oct. 4, 2015. Credit: Edwin Corning
Governor Haley confirmed that over 550 roads were either closed, damaged or destroyed, including back roads and major interstate highways vital to the states and US national economy.
A 70 mile stretch of I-95, a major north-south artery traveled by millions including myself, was closed to all traffic on Sunday and remains closed today. And many side roads that could serve as potential detours are also closed.
Historically high water levels in some of the areas worst hit by flooding has finally receded. But in other areas water levels are rising.
In addition, the US Coast Guard says the cargo ship ‘El Faro’ with 33 people aboard is believed to have sunk because it ventured straight into Hurricane Joaquin. The ship’s crew included 28 Americans and 5 Polish sailors. It sank in the area popularly known as the ‘Bermida Triangle’ in water some 3 miles deep.
Today, the Coast Guard reported the discovery of a debris field over 25-square-miles wide. At least one crew member has already been found dead.
The El Faro set out from the port of Jacksonville on Tuesday when Joaquin was a tropical storm with 85 mph wind speed.
The last distress call on last Thursday morning, as the ship neared the eye of the Hurricane, then a Category 3. The ship was listing over 15 degrees surrounded by 30 foot high waves.
The hurricane quickly grew into a Cat 4 and no further word was heard from the ship. It may be 3 miles underwater at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
How and from which fleet of satellites does NASA obtain the orbital measurements used to create the high resolution, color-coded GPM IMERG visualizations?
“The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) creates a merged precipitation product from the GPM constellation of satellites. These satellites include DMSPs from the U.S. Department of Defense, GCOM-W from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Megha-Tropiques from the Centre National D’etudies Spatiales (CNES) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), NOAA series from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Suomi-NPP from NOAA-NASA, and MetOps from the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT),” NASA scientists George Huffman and Dalia Kirschbaum told me exclusively for Universe Today.
“All of the instruments (radiometers) onboard the constellation partners are intercalibrated with information from the GPM Core Observatory’s GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR). The data are gridded at 0.1°x0.1° lat./lon and provided in 30 minute time slices through morphing between satellite overpasses. The satellite estimates are then calibrated with rainfall gauge information.”
Here’s another GPM visualization of Hurricane Joaquin:
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Hurricane Joaquin captured on Oct. 2, 2015 by NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly NASA’s next generation Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) observatory inside the clean room at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, MD. Technicians at work on final processing during exclusive up-close inspection tour by Universe Today. GPM wasn successfully launched on February 27, 2014 and will provide global measurements of rain and snow every 3 hours. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Just. Wow. The motion of an alien world, reduced to a looping .gif. We truly live in an amazing age. A joint press release out of the Gemini Observatory and the University of Toronto demonstrates a stunning first: a sequence of direct images showing an exoplanet… in motion.
The world imaged is Beta Pictoris b, about 19 parsecs (63 light years) distant in the southern hemisphere constellation Pictor the Painter’s Easel. The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), working in concert with the Gemini South telescope based in Chile captured the sequence.
The images span an amazing period of a year and a half, starting in November 2013 and running through April of earlier this year. Beta Pictoris b has an estimated 22 year orbital period… hey, in the year 2035 or so, we’ll have a complete animation of its orbit!
Current estimates place Beta Pictoris b in the 7x Jupiter mass range, about plus or minus 4 Jupiter masses… and yes, the high end of that range is flirting with the lower boundary for a sub-stellar brown dwarf. Several exoplanet candidates blur this line, and we suspect that the ‘what is a planet debate?’ that has plagued low mass worlds will one day soon extend into the high end of the mass spectrum as well.
An annotated diagram of the Beta Pictoris system. Image credit: ESO/A.-M Lagrange et al.
Beta Pictoris has long been a target for exoplanetary research, as it is known to host a large and dynamic debris disk spanning 4,000 astronomical units across. The host star Beta Pictoris is 1.8 times as massive as our Sun, and 9 times as luminous. Beta Pic is also a very young star, at an estimated age of only 8-20 million years old. Clearly, we’re seeing a very young solar system in the act of formation.
Orbiting its host star 9 astronomical units distant, Beta Pictoris b has an orbit similar to Saturn’s. Place Beta Pictoris b in our own solar system, and it would easily be the brightest planet in the sky.
The Heavyweight world B Pictoris b vs planets in our solar system… note the rapid rotation rate! Image credit: ESO/I. Snellen (Leiden University)
“The images in the series represent the most accurate measurements of a planet’s position ever made,” says astronomer Maxwell Millar-Blanchaer of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto in a recent press release. ‘With the GPI, we’re able to see both the disk and the planet at the exact same time. With our combined knowledge of the disk and the planet we’re really able to get a sense of the planetary system’s architecture and how everything interacts.”
A recent paper released in the Astrophysical Journal described observations of Beta Pictoris b made with the Gemini Planet Imager. As with bodies in our own solar system, refinements in the orbit of Beta Pictoris b will enable astronomers to understand the dynamic relationship it has with its local environment. Already, the orbit of Beta Pictoris b appears inclined out of our line of sight in such a way that a transit of the stellar disk is unlikely to occur. This is the case with most exoplanets, which elude the detection hunters such as the Kepler space telescope. As a matter of fact, watching the animation, it looks like Beta Pictoris b will pass behind the occluding disk and out of view of the Gemini Planet Imager in the next few years.
The location of Beta Pictoris in the southern hemisphere sky. Image credit: Stellarium
“It’s remarkable that Gemini is not only able to directly image exoplanets but is also capable of effectively making movies of them orbiting their parent star,” Says National Science Foundation astronomy division program director Chris Davis in Monday’s press release. The NSF is one of five international partners that funds the Gemini telescope program. “Beta Pic is a special target. The disk of gas and dust from which planets are currently forming was one of the first observed and is a famous laboratory for the study of young solar systems.”
The Gemini Planet Imager is part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey (GPIES), which discovered its first exoplanet 51 Eridani b just last month. The survey will target 600 stars over the next three years. The current tally of known exoplanets currently sits at 1,958 and counting, with thousands more in the queue courtesy of Kepler awaiting confirmation.
And as new spacecraft such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) take to orbit in 2018, we wouldn’t be surprised if the tally of exoplanets hits five digits by the end of this decade.
An amazing view of a brave new world in motion. It’s truly a golden age of exoplanetary science, with more exciting discoveries to come!
How a galaxy appears in different wavelengths of light. Based on the results of a recent study light from the nearby Universe is fading across all of these wavelengths. Credit: ICRAR/GAMA and ESO
Brace yourselves: winter is coming. And by winter I mean the slow heat-death of the Universe, and by brace yourselves I mean don’t get terribly concerned because the process will take a very, very, very long time. (But still, it’s coming.)
Part of ESO’s VISTA telescope in Chile, one of seven telescopes used in the GAMA survey (ESO)
Based on findings from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, which used seven of the world’s most powerful telescopes to observe the sky in a wide array of electromagnetic wavelengths, the energy output of the nearby Universe (currently estimated to be ~13.82 billion years old) is currently half of what it was “only” 2 billion years ago — and it’s still decreasing.
“The Universe has basically plonked itself down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze,” said Professor Simon Driver from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, head of the nearly 100-member international research team.
As part of the GAMA survey 200,000 galaxies were observed in 21 different wavelengths, from ultraviolet to far-infrared, from both the ground and in space. It’s the largest multi-wavelength galaxy survey ever made.
Of course this is something scientists have known about for decades but what the survey shows is that the reduction in output is occurring across a wide range of wavelengths. The cooling is, on the whole, epidemic.
Watch a video below showing a fly-through 3D simulation of the GAMA survey:
“Just as we become less active in our old age, the same is happening with the Universe, and it’s well past its prime,” says Dr. Luke Davies, a member of the ICRAR research team, in the video.
But, unlike living carbon-based bags of mostly water like us, the Universe won’t ever actually die. And for a long time still galaxies will evolve, stars and planets will form, and life – wherever it may be found – will go on. But around it all the trend will be an inevitable dissipation of energy.
“It will just grow old forever, slowly converting less and less mass into energy as billions of years pass by,” Davies says, “until eventually it will become a cold, dark, and desolate place where all of the lights go out.”
Our own Solar System will be a quite different place by then, the Sun having cast off its outer layers – roasting Earth and the inner planets in the process – and spending its permanent retirement cooling off as a white dwarf. What will remain of Earthly organisms by then, including us? Will we have spread throughout the galaxy, bringing our planet’s evolutionary heritage with us to thrive elsewhere? Or will our cradle also be our grave? That’s entirely up to us. But one thing is certain: the Universe isn’t waiting around for us to decide what to do.
The findings were presented by Professor Driver on Aug. 10, 2015, at the IAU XXIX General Assembly in Honolulu, and have been submitted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
