Space tornadoes span a volume approximately the size of Earth or larger. Credit: Keiling, Glassmeier and Amm
[/caption]
If you think tornadoes on Earth are scary, newly found “space tornadoes” sound downright horrifying. But they are likely the power source behind the beautiful Northern and Southern Lights. A new finding by a cluster of five space probes – the THEMIS, or Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms show that electrical funnels which span a volume as large as Earth produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes. THEMIS recorded the extent and power of these electrical funnels as the probes passed through them during their orbit of Earth. Ground measurements showed that the space tornadoes channel the electrical current into the ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras on Earth.
Space tornadoes are rotating plasmas of hot, ionized gas flowing at speeds of more than a million miles per hour, far faster than the 200 m.p.h. winds of terrestrial tornadoes, according to Andreas Keiling, a research space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.
Keiling works on THEMIS, which was built and is now operated by UC Berkeley. The five space probes were launched by NASA in February 2007 to solve a decades-long mystery about the origin of magnetic storms that power the Northern and Southern Lights. Electric currents in the funnels power auroras. Credit: Keiling, Glassmeier, and Amm
Both terrestrial and space tornadoes consist of funnel-shaped structures. Space tornadoes, however, generate huge amounts of electrical currents inside the funnel. These currents flow along twisted magnetic field lines from space into the ionosphere where they power several processes, most notably bright auroras such as the Northern Lights, Keiling said.
While these intense currents do not cause any direct harm to humans, on the ground they can damage man-made structures, such as power transformers.
The THEMIS spacecraft observed these tornadoes, or “flow vortices,” at a distance of about 40,000 miles from Earth. Simultaneous measurements by THEMIS ground observatories confirmed the tornadoes’ connection to the ionosphere.
Keiling’s colleagues include Karl-Heinz Glassmeier of the Institute for Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics (IGEP, TU) in Braunschweig, Germany, and Olaf Amm of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
The findings were presented today at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, Austria.
Solar Collecting Satellite. Image courtesy of Mafic Studios.
[/caption]
One of the largest utility companies in the US has decided to look towards space to find more power. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) in California announced a proposed agreement with startup company Solaren Corporation to provide 200 mega watts of space based solar power (SBSP) starting in 2016. PG&E is now seeking approval from California state regulators for permission to sign this agreement. While PG&E is not making any financial investment at this time, the announcement shows that SBSP is being taken seriously as a viable energy source. PG&E and the two other California utilities are required by the state to source 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010 and 30 percent by 2017. None are producing the required amount so far.
Solaren Corporation is a small, 8-year-old company based in California whose executives have experience working for Boeing and Lockheed Martin. According to PG&E’s website, Solaren says it plans to generate the power using solar panels in earth orbit, then convert it to radio frequency energy for transmission to a receiving station in California. From there, the energy will be converted to electricity and fed into PG&E’s power grid
The proposed agreement is for the delivery of 200MW starting in 2016 for 15 years.
Earlier this year Universe Today interviewed Peter Sage from Space Energy, another SBSP company. Sage said in a statement released today that this announcement is a
“huge step forward for both Solaren and Space Energy as it highlights to the investment community that utility firms are willing to recognize Space-Based Solar Power as a credible and viable source of energy.” Sage added that while the 200 mega watts Solaren is planning to provide represents only 20% of the planned capacity of one of Space Energy’s satellites, it successfully validates the overall business case for SBSP within the larger energy industry.
The U.S. Department of Energy and NASA began seriously studying the concept of solar power satellites in the 1970s, again in the 1990’s and in 2007, a major study by the Defense Department’s National Security Space Office gave the concept another boost, concluding that “there is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship … and overall national security for those nations who construct and possess a SBSP capability.”
It seems like a win-win situation for PG&E. They told their customers, “If Solaren succeeds, PG&E’s customers have a great opportunity to benefit from affordable clean energy. There is no risk to PG&E customers; PG&E has contracted only to pay for power that Solaren delivers.”
PG&E has 5.1 million electric customer accounts and 4.2 million natural-gas customer accounts in Northern and Central California.
Diagram of the Earths orbit around the Sun. Credit: NASA/H. Zell
[/caption]
How did our Moon form? The leading hypothesis, the Giant Impact Theory, proposes that in the formative years of the Solar System, a Mars-sized protoplanet crashed into Earth. Debris from the collision, a mixture of material from both bodies, spun out into Earth orbit and coalesced into the Moon. Soon, this theory will be tested, perhaps answering the question of how our Moon was born. Two identical NASA spacecraft are preparing to enter areas in space known as the Lagrangian points where remains of this mystery protoplanet may be hiding. The spacecraft duo, called Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or Stereo, will pass by the L4 and L5 points where the gravity of the sun and Earth combine to form gravitational wells where asteroids and space dust tend to gather.
During their journey, the two spacecraft will use a wide-field-of-view telescope to look for asteroids orbiting the region. Scientists will be able to identify if a dot of light is an asteroid because it will shift its position against stars in the background as it moves in its orbit.
The Giant Impact Theory explains many aspects of lunar geology including the size of the Moon’s core and the density and isotopic composition of moon rocks. A modification of the Giant Impact Theory is the “Theia hypothesis,” a brainchild of Princeton theorists Edward Belbruno and Richard Gott.
“About 4.5 billion years ago when the planets were still growing,” said Michael Kaiser, Stereo project scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, “a hypothetical world called Theia may have been nudged out of L4 or L5 by the increasing gravity of other developing planets like Venus, sending it on a collision course with Earth. The resulting impact blasted the outer layers of Theia and Earth into orbit, which eventually coalesced under their own gravity to form the moon.”
The 18th-century mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange realized there were five such wells in the sun-Earth system. The twin probes are approaching L4 and L5.
“These points may hold small asteroids, which could be leftovers from a Mars-sized planet that formed billions of years ago,” said Kaiser. Deployment of STEREO Spacecraft Panels. Credit: 2002-Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Credit: Dr C.J.Eyles, University of Birmingham
The theory explains puzzling properties of the moon, such as its relatively small iron core. At the time of the giant impact, Theia and Earth would have been large enough to be molten, enabling heavier elements, like iron, to sink to the center to form their cores. An impact would have stripped away the outer layers of the two worlds, containing mostly lighter elements like silicon. The moon eventually formed from this material.
Stereo’s primary mission is to give three-dimensional views of space weather by observing the sun from the two points where the spacecraft are located. Images and other data are then combined for study and analysis. Space weather produces disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing wide-spread blackouts. It also can affect communications and navigation systems. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.
Europe’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is headed into orbit, after a successful launch at 10:21 a.m. EDT (14:21 GMT) on Tuesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
The successful liftoff came after delays stretching back to last September, but Tuesday’s launch went off without any complications.
“It was a nice liftoff,” said Mission Scientist Mark Drinkwater.
Monday’s launch failed to progress when the doors of the launch service tower simply did not open. That after a previous failure last September, when problems cropped up with the guidance and navigation subsystems on the Russian Breeze KM rocket.
GOCE is the first of a new family of ESA satellites, called Earth Explorers, designed to study our planet and its environment in order to improve our knowledge and understanding of Earth-system processes and their evolution, to characterize the challenges of global climate change. Its specific mission is to map Earth’s gravity field with unprecedented accuracy, providing insight into ocean circulation, sea-level change, climate change, volcanism and earthquakes.
Europe’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) seems to be stuck on the pad.
The climate change satellite was expected to launch out of Russia at 14:21 GMT (10:21 EDT) today, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The weather was fine and mission managers were optimistic with seconds to liftoff — and then, everything froze. With seven seconds left on the countdown clock, an unexpected hold went into place and ESA broadcasters simply stopped talking.
Update, 12:30 p.m. EDT: The ESA has announced that launch failed when the doors of the launch service tower did not open. The tower was held in position and did not move back as required for a launch. An investigation is under way, and the agency intends to try again tomorrow at the same time (15:21 CET; 14:21 GMT; 10:21 a.m. EDT).
GOCE is the first of a new family of ESA satellites, called Earth Explorers, designed to study our planet and its environment in order to improve our knowledge and understanding of Earth-system processes and their evolution, to characterize the challenges of global climate change.
The satellite is supposed to launch into a Sun-synchronous, near-circular polar orbit by a Russian Rockot vehicle – a converted SS-19 ballistic missile. Its specific mission is to map Earth’s gravity field with unprecedented accuracy, providing insight into ocean circulation, sea-level change, climate change, volcanism and earthquakes.
GOCE has been undergoing preparations for launch since it was taken out of storage around three weeks ago. Launch campaign activities included a series of mechanical and electrical tests, mating to the Upper Stage and finally encapsulation in the launcher fairing. A video of the anticipated fairing separation was produced pre-launch, and is available here.
Today’s go-ahead followed a successful countdown rehearsal conducted by ESA’s Mission Control Team, the Russian Mission Control Centre and the international tracking station network on Friday.
“We’ve been in this room for many hours and many days in the past. We want to do the real thing now,” said Paolo Laberinti, head of verification and testing, just moments before the seemingly foiled launch.
This isn’t the first time GOCE has encountered problems. The craft had to stand down from launch in September 2008 when problems were discovered with the guidance and navigation subsystems on the Russian Breeze KM rocket. GOCE had to be de-mated from the rocket and brought back into the clean room.
Stay tuned for updates to this post as the ESA releases details about the failure.
[/caption]
The launch of the Herschel and Planck spacecraft has been delayed from the original launch date of April 16. Right now, officials from the European Space Agency and Arianspace say the liftoff date will be delayed by a few weeks in order to carry out additional checks on the ground segment of the Herschel and Planck programs. Recent software updates for spacecraft operation procedures need to be validated. A new launch date will be announced at the end of March, but officials are hoping for time frame around April 29.
Launch configuration for the Herschel and Planck spacecraft. Credit: ESAPlanck, ESA’s microwave observatory that will study the relic radiation of the Big Bang, while the Herschel missions will study the formation of stars and galaxies. The two will be launched together on an Arian 5 rocket.
Planck is designed to image the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation Field over the whole sky, with unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution. It will provide a major source of information relevant to several cosmological and astrophysical issues, such as testing theories of the early universe and the origin of cosmic structure.
The Herschel Space Observatory (formerly called Far Infrared and Sub-millimetre Telescope or FIRST) has the largest single mirror ever built for a space telescope. At 3.5-meters in diameter the mirror will collect long-wavelength radiation from some of the coldest and most distant objects in the Universe. In addition, Herschel will be the only space observatory to cover a spectral range from the far infrared to sub-millimeter.
During the delay, preparation of the two spacecraft for launch continues as planned at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
I got some grief for calling the GOCE spacecraft ‘sexy’ last year, but I’m sticking with that description. What a gorgeous spacecraft! And the GOCE team has stuck with their spacecraft while it had to stand down from launch in September of 2008 when problems were discovered with the guidance and navigation subsystems on the Russian Breeze KM rocket. GOCE had to be de-mated from the rocket and brought back into the clean room last year, but now is back on the launch pad, and is scheduled to liftoff on Monday, March 16 at 14:21 GMT from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
GOCE, which stands for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer will investigate and map Earth’s gravitational field. It will also provide a high-resolution map of Earth’s geoid, which is the surface of equal gravitational potential defined by the gravity field. This will greatly improve our knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s internal structure, and will be used as a much-improved reference for ocean and climate studies, including sea-level changes, oceanic circulation and ice caps dynamics survey. Numerous applications are expected in climatology, oceanography and geophysics. GOCE at the launchpad in Russia. Credit: ESA
The 1 ton, 5 meter-long spacecraft will be in an extra low orbit (260 km, or 161 miles) and will experience drag from Earth’s upper atmosphere, so its smooth and lean (and sexy) surface helps reduce the friction. Adding to the sleek design is that the solar panels are attached to the long body of the satellite instead of sticking out and adding to the drag. However, the spacecraft will need a boost to its orbit occasionally, and has state of the art ion engines.
This view from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is the deepest and best-resolved portrait of the gamma-ray sky to date. The image shows how the sky appears at energies more than 150 million times greater than that of visible light. Among the signatures of bright pulsars and active galaxies is something familiar -- a faint path traced by the sun. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration
[/caption]
The Fermi Telescope is seeing a Universe ablaze with Gamma Rays! A new map combining nearly three months of data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos.
“Fermi has given us a deeper and better-resolved view of the gamma-ray sky than any previous space mission,” said Peter Michelson, the lead scientist for the spacecraft’s Large Area Telescope (LAT) at Stanford University. “We’re watching flares from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies and seeing pulsars, high-mass binary systems, and even a globular cluster in our own.”
The sources of these gamma rays come from within our solar system to galaxies billions of light-years away. To show the variety of the objects the LAT is seeing, the Fermi team created a “top ten” list comprising five sources within the Milky Way and five beyond our galaxy.
The top five sources within our galaxy are:
The Sun. Now near the minimum of its activity cycle, the sun would not be a particularly notable source except for one thing: It’s the only one that moves across the sky. The sun’s annual motion against the background sky is a reflection of Earth’s orbit around the sun.
“The gamma rays Fermi now sees from the sun actually come from high-speed particles colliding with the sun’s gas and light,” Thompson notes. “The sun is only a gamma-ray source when there’s a solar flare.” During the next few years, as solar activity increases, scientists expect the sun to produce growing numbers of high-energy flares, and no other instrument will be able to observe them in the LAT’s energy range.
LSI +61 303. This is a high-mass X-ray binary located 6,500 light-years away in Cassiopeia. This unusual system contains a hot B-type star and a neutron star and produces radio outbursts that recur every 26.5 days. Astronomers cannot yet account for the energy that powers these emissions.
PSR J1836+5925. This is a pulsar — a type of spinning neutron star that emits beams of radiation — located in the constellation Draco. It’s one of the new breed of pulsars discovered by Fermi that pulse only in gamma rays.
47 Tucanae. Also known as NGC 104, this is a sphere of ancient stars called a globular cluster. It lies 15,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Tucana. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on Fermi detects gamma-rays through matter (electrons) and antimatter (positrons) they produce after striking layers of tungsten. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Unidentified. More than 30 of the brightest gamma-ray sources Fermi sees have no obvious counterparts at other wavelengths. This one, designated 0FGL J1813.5-1248, was not seen by previous missions, and Fermi’s LAT sees it as variable. The source lies near the plane of the Milky Way in the constellation Serpens Cauda. As a result, it’s likely within our galaxy — but right now, astronomers don’t know much more than that.
The top five sources beyond our galaxy are:
NGC 1275. Also known as Perseus A, this galaxy at the heart of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster is known for its intense radio emissions. It lies 233 million light-years away. Hubble Space Telescope image of a blazar galaxy. Credit: NASA 3C 454.3. This is a type of active galaxy called a “blazar.” Like many active galaxies, a blazar emits oppositely directed jets of particles traveling near the speed of light as matter falls into a central supermassive black hole. For blazars, the galaxy happens to be oriented so that one jet is aimed right at us. Over the time period represented in this image, 3C 454.3 was the brightest blazar in the gamma-ray sky. It flares and fades, but for Fermi it’s never out of sight. The galaxy lies 7.2 billion light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.
PKS 1502+106. This blazar is located 10.1 billion light-years away in the constellation Boötes. It appeared suddenly, briefly outshone 3C 454.3, and then faded away.
PKS 0727-115. This object’s location in the plane of the Milky Way would lead one to expect that it’s a member of our galaxy, but it isn’t. Astronomers believe this source is a type of active galaxy called a quasar. It’s located 9.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Puppis.
Unidentified. This source, located in the southern constellation Columba, is designated 0FGL J0614.3-3330 and probably lies outside the Milky Way. “It was seen by the EGRET instrument on NASA’s earlier Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which operated throughout the 1990s, but the nature of this source remains a mystery,” Thompson says.
The LAT scans the entire sky every three hours when operating in survey mode, which is occupying most of the telescope’s observing time during Fermi’s first year of operations. These snapshots let scientists monitor rapidly changing sources.
The all-sky image released today shows us how the cosmos would look if our eyes could detect radiation 150 million times more energetic than visible light. The view merges LAT observations spanning 87 days, from August 4 to October 30, 2008.
Map of debris from satellite collision. Credit: Dan Deak and Spaceweather.com
[/caption]
Debris from the satellite collision that occurred on February 10th will soon start entering Earth’s atmosphere. 355 debris fragments from the collision between the Cosmos 2251 and the Iridium 33 satellites are being tracked by US Strategic Command, and one fragment will enter the atmosphere on March 12, followed by one on March 28th and another on March 30th. According to Spaceweather.com, these are likely centimeter-sized pieces that will disintegrate in the atmosphere, posing no threat to people on the ground. Each fragment is cataloged and tracked.
The Cosmos 2251 was bigger and possessed about one and a half times more mass than Iridium 33, and appears to have produced more than twice the number of fragments. “As of March 7th, there were 355 cataloged fragments of Cosmos 2251 and 159 fragments of Iridium 33,” says Daniel Deak who prepared the above orbit-map for Spaceweather.com. “The Cosmos fragments are not only more numerous, but also more widely scattered, ranging in altitude from 198 km to 1689 km. For comparison, Iridium fragments are confined to altitudes between 582 km and 1262 km.”
The extra scatter of Cosmos debris is not fully understood. Impact geometry could explain the spread, but no one knows exactly how the two complex vehicles struck one another. However, Cosmos 2251 was pressurized and might have ruptured and blown apart.
The upcoming shuttle mission is not in immediate danger from debris, although the risk of impact increased by 6%. The International Space Station also is not in danger. “NASA has recognized from the first day [of the collision] that the risks to both ISS and STS-119 have increased,” says Nick Johnson, Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at the Johnson Space Center. “However, those increases have been relatively minor in comparison to the background environment.”
[/caption]
Astronomers have now been able to see the very early stages of a gamma ray burst, thanks to the Swift satellite. The Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) on board the satellite provided an ultraviolet spectrum of a GRB just 251 seconds after its onset – the earliest ever captured. Further use of the instrument in this way will also allow distance and brightness of GRBs to be calculated within a few hundred seconds of their initial outburst, as well as gather new information about the causes of bursts and the galaxies they originate from.
“The UVOT’s wavelength range, coupled with the fact that Swift is a space observatory with a speedy response rate, unconstrained by time of day or weather, has allowed us to collect this early ultraviolet spectrum,” said Martin Still from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) at UCL.
“By looking at these earlier moments of gamma ray bursts,” said Paul Kuin, another member of the team, “we will not only be able to better calculate things such as the luminosity and distance of a burst, but to find out more about the galaxies that play host to them and the impact these explosions have on their environments. Once this new technique is applied to much brighter bursts, we’ll have a wealth of new data.” Artists concept of Swift. Credit: NASA
Massimiliano De Pasquale, a GRB scientist of the UVOT team, added, “The UVOT instrument is particularly suited to study bursts with an average to high redshift – a part of the ultraviolet spectrum that is difficult for even the very big ground-based telescopes to study. Using UVOT with Swift, we can now find redshifts for bursts that were difficult to capture in the past and find out more about their distant host galaxies, about ten billion light years away.”
Since its launch in 2004, the Swift satellite has provided the most comprehensive study so far of GRBs and their afterglows. Using the UVOT to obtain ultraviolet spectrums, the Swift team will be able to build on this study and even determine more about the host galaxies’ chemistry.
Paul Kuin said, “The new spectrum has not only allowed us to determine the distance of the gamma ray burst’s host galaxy but has revealed the density of its hydrogen clouds. Learning more about these far-away galaxies helps us to understand how they formed during the early universe. The gamma ray burst observed on this occasion originated in a galaxy 8 billion light years from Earth.”
Swift is a NASA mission in collaboration with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the UK and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The work was published on Friday 27th February in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical society.
