An artist's illustration of a planetary nebula engulfing its orbiting planets (image credit: Regulus36/deviantart, adjusted by DM to mitigate compression effects).
Textbooks often cite that planetary nebulae (PNe, plural) represent an endstate for lower-mass single stars. But conversely, recent research suggests that most PNe stem from binary systems. The lowest mass star theorized to form the typical PN is near 1 solar mass, and thus without a companion the Sun may not surpass the mass limit required to generate the hot glowing (ionized) nebula typically tied to PNe. New research continues to question our original understanding of how the Sun’s life may end.
A new study spearheaded by G. Jacoby aimed in part to test that binary hypothesis by searching for PNe in star clusters occupying M31. The team remarked that, “while the binary interaction model explains some of the anomalies associated with the observed planetary nebula population, this theory awaits final confirmation.”
“The traditional theory states that the progenitors of PNe are low- to intermediate-mass single stars … However, this theory does not provide a natural explanation for the non-spherical morphologies observed for the great majority of PNe, nor their low rate of formation. For these and other inconsistencies, a new paradigm has been developed, wherein most PNe are shaped via the interaction … with a binary companion,” said Jacoby et al. 2013. Continue reading “Astronomers Hint that our Sun won’t Terminate as the Typical Planetary Nebula”
A crane lifts the Orion EFT-1 crew module from its birdcage processing stand for transfer it to a dolly for continued assembly inside the Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as workers monitor progress. Orion’s first unpiloted test flight is scheduled to launch in 2014. Credit: NASA/Frankie Martin
NASA is picking up the construction pace on the inaugural space-bound Orion crew capsule at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida – and accelerating towards blastoff on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1 mission (EFT-1) slated for September 2014 atop a mammoth Delta 4 Heavy Booster which will one day lead to deep space human forays to Asteroids and Mars.
Orion was at the center of an impressive and loud beehive of action packed assembly activities by technicians during my recent exclusive tour of the spacecraft to inspect ongoing progress inside the renovated Orion manufacturing assembly facility in the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC.
“We plan to power up Orion for the first time this summer,” said Scott Wilson in an exclusive interview with Universe Today beside the Orion vehicle. Wilson is Orion’s Production Operations manager for NASA at KSC.
The Orion EFT-1 flight is a critical first step towards achieving NASA’s new goal of capturing and retrieving a Near Earth Asteroid for eventual visit by astronauts flying aboard an Orion vehicle by 2021 – if NASA’s budget request is approved.
An artist concept shows Orion as it will appear in space for the Exploration Flight Test-1 attached to a Delta IV second stage. Credit: NASA
KSC will have a leading role in NASA’s asteroid retrieval project that could occur some four years earlier than President Obama’s targeted goal of 2025 for a human journey to an asteroid.
Capturing an asteroid and dispatching astronauts aboard Orion to collect precious rock samples will aid our scientific understanding of the formation of the Solar System as well as bolster Planetary Defense strategies – the importance of which is gathering steam following the unforeseen Russian meteor strike in February which injured over 1200 people and damaged over 3000 buildings.
Dozens of highly skilled workers were busily cutting metal, drilling holes, bolting screws and attaching a wide range of mechanical and electrical components and bracketry to the Orion pressure vessel’s primary structure as Universe Today conducted a walk around of the EFT-1 capsule, Service Module and assorted assembly gear inside the O&C.
Orion EFT-1 crew cabin and full scale mural showing Orion Crew Module atop Service Module inside the O & C Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Lockheed Martin is the primary contractor for Orion. A growing number of employees hired by Lockheed and United Space Alliance (USA) are “working 2 shifts per day 7 days a week to complete the assembly work by year’s end,” said Jules Schneider, Orion Project manager for Lockheed Martin at KSC, during an exclusive interview with Universe Today.
I watched as the workers were boring hundreds of precision holes and carefully tightening the high strength steel bolts to attach the top to bottom ring segments made of titanium to the main load paths on the pressure vessel.
“We are installing lots of wiring to support ground test instrumentation for the strain gauges as well as microphones and accelerometers.”
“The simulated back shell panels are being installed now as guides,” said Wilson. “The real back shell panels and heat shield will be installed onto the structure later this year.”
“The heat shield is the biggest one ever built, 5 meters in diameter. Its bigger than Apollo and Mars Science Lab. It varies in thickness from about 1 to 3 inches depending on the expected heating.”
“We are making good progress on the Orion Service module too. The outer panels will be installed soon,” Wilson explained.
The olive green colored crew module was clamped inside the birdcage-like Structural Assembly Jig during my visit. The Jig has multiple degrees of freedom to maneuver the capsule and more easily enable the detailed assembly work.
“The technicians are installing strain gauges and secondary structure components to get it ready for the upcoming structural loads test,” said Schneider.
“After that we need to finish installing all the remaining parts of the primary structure and a significant portion of the secondary structure.”
For the next stage of processing, the EFT-1 crew module has been lifted out of the birdcage Jig and moved onto an adjacent dedicated work station for loads testing at the Operations and Checkout building.
As reported in my earlier article the Orion pressure vessel sustained three ‘hairline” cracks in the lower half of the aft bulkhead during proof pressure testing of the vessel and welds at the O & C.
I was observing as the technicians were carefully milling out the miniscule bulkhead fractures.
Workers have now installed custom built replacement brackets and reinforcing doublers on the aft bulkhead.
“We will do the protocol loads test with pressure using about 9 different load cases the vehicle will see during the EFT-1 flight. Chute deployment and jettison motor deployment is a driving load case,” said Schneider.
“We will also squeeze the capsule,” said Wilson.
“That structural loads testing of the integrated structure will take about 6 to 8 weeks. There are thousands of gauges on the vehicle to collect data,” Schneider elaborated.
“The test data will be compared to the analytical modeling to see where we are at and how well it matched the predictions – it’s like acceptance testing.”
“After we finish the structural loads tests we can than start the assembly and integration of all the other subsystems.”
“When we are done with the ground testing program then we remove all the ground test instrumentation and start installing all the actual flight systems including harnesses and instrumentation, the plumbing and everything else,” Schneider explained.
Orion hardware built by contractors and subcontractors from virtually every state all across the U.S is being delivered to KSC for installation onto EFT-1. Orion is a nationwide human spaceflight project.
Concept of Spacecraft with Asteroid Capture Mechanism Deployed. Credit: NASA.
During the unmanned Orion EFT-1 mission, the capsule will fly on a two orbit test flight to an altitude of 3,600 miles above Earth’s surface, farther than any human spacecraft has gone in 40 years.
It will then fire braking rockets to plunge back to Earth, re-enter the atmosphere at about 20,000 MPH and test numerous spacecrafts systems, the heat shield and all three parachutes for an ocean splashdown.
Meanwhile other Orion EFT-1 components such as the emergency Launch Abort System (LAS) and Service Module are coming together – read my Orion follow-up reports.
Humans have not ventured beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo Moon landings ended in 1972. Orion will change that.
Learn more about Orion, Antares, SpaceX, Curiosity and NASA robotic and human spaceflight missions at Ken’s upcoming lecture presentations:
April 20/21 : “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus “The Space Shuttle Finale and the Future of NASA – Orion, SpaceX, Antares and more!” NEAF Astronomy Forum, Rockland Community College, Suffern, NY. 3-4 PM Sat & Sunday. Display table all day.
April 28: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus the Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Antares, Orion and more. Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, NJ, 130 PM
Orion EFT-1 crew cabin construction ongoing at the Kennedy Space Center which is due to blastoff in September 2014 atop a Delta 4 Heavy rocket. Credit: Ken Kremer
If that title seems like an obvious statement to you, it’s ok… it seems pretty obvious to me too. But there are those who have been suggesting — for quite some time, actually — that earthquakes can be triggered or strengthened by solar activity; that, in fact, exceptionally powerful solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other outpourings from our home star can cause the planet’s crust to shift, shake, and shudder.
Except that that’s simply not true — at least, not according to a recent study by researchers from the USGS.
“Recently there’s been a lot of interest in this subject from the popular press, probably because of a couple of larger and very devastating earthquakes. This motivated us to investigate for ourselves whether or not it was true.”
– Jeffrey Love, USGS Research Geophysicist
Even when an earthquake may have been found to occur on the same day as increased solar activity, at other times during even stronger quakes the Sun may have been relatively quiet, and vice versa.
Damage in Anchorage from an earthquake on March 27, 1964. Solar activity at the time was unexceptional. (U.S. Army photo)
“There have been some earthquakes like the 9.5 magnitude Chile quake in 1960 where, sure enough, there were more sunspots and more geomagnetic activity than on average,” said Dr. Love. “But then for the Alaska earthquake in 1964 everything was lower than normal. There’s no obvious pattern between solar activity and seismicity, so our results were inconclusive.”
Basically, even though our planet orbits within the Sun’s outer atmosphere and we are subject to the space weather it creates — and there’s still a lot to be learned about that — observations do not indicate any connection between sunspots, flares, and CMEs and the shifting of our planet’s crust (regardless of what some may like to suggest.)
“It’s natural for scientists to want to see relationships between things,” said Love. “Of course, that doesn’t mean that a relationship actually exists!”
The team’s findings were published in the March 16, 2013 online edition of Geophysical Research Letters.
Narrow-angle camera image of Titan from Cassini (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
In this image acquired on January 5, Cassini’s near-infrared vision pierced Titan’s opaque clouds to get a glimpse of the dark dune fields across a region called Senkyo.
The vast sea of dunes is composed of solid hydrocarbon particles that have precipitated out of Titan’s atmosphere. Also visible over Titan’s southern pole are the rising clouds of the recently-formed polar vortex.
For a closer look at Titan’s dunes (and to find out what the name Senkyo means) keep reading…
In the image above north on Titan is up and rotated 18 degrees to the right. It was taken using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 938 nanometers.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Titan.
Titan’s hydrocarbon dunes are found across the moon in a wide swath within 30 degrees of the equator and are each about a kilometer wide and tens to hundreds of kilometers long… and in some cases stand over 100 meters tall. (Source: Astronomy Now.)
Radar image of Titan’s dunes acquired on Jan. 13, 2007. This view is 160 kilometers (100 miles) high by 150 kilometers (90 miles) wide. (NASA/JPL)
Observations of the dunes with Cassini and ESA’s Huygens probe during its descent onto Titan’s surface have shown that the moon experiences seasonally-shifting equatorial winds during equinoxes, similar to what occurs over the Indian Ocean between monsoon seasons.
The name Senkyo refers to the Japanese realm of serenity and freedom from wordly cares and death… in line with the IAU convention of naming albedo features on Titan after mythological enchanted places.
Click here for an earlier view of Senkyo, and follow the Cassini mission here.
Color-composite of Titan made from raw Cassini images acquired on April 13, 2013 (added 4/17) NASA/JPL/SSI. Composite by J. Major.
Curiosity and Mount Sharp - Parting Shot ahead of Solar Conjunction. Enjoy this parting view of Curiosity's elevated robotic arm and drill are staring at you - back dropped with her ultimate destination - Mount Sharp - in this panoramic vista of Yellowknife Bay basin snapped on March 23, Sol 223, by the rover's navigation camera system. The raw images were stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/KenKremer (kenkremer.com). See video below explaining Mars Solar Conjunction
Curiosity and Mount Sharp – Parting Shot ahead of Mars Solar Conjunction
Enjoy this parting view of Curiosity’s elevated robotic arm and drill staring at you; back dropped with her ultimate destination – Mount Sharp – in this panoramic vista of Yellowknife Bay basin snapped on March 23, Sol 223, by the rover’s navigation camera system. The raw images were stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/KenKremer (kenkremer.com)
See video below explaining Mars Solar Conjunction[/caption]
Earth’s science invasion fleet at Mars is taking a break from speaking with their handlers back on Earth.
Why ? Because as happens every 26 months, the sun has gotten directly in the way of Mars and Earth.
Earth, Mars and the Sun are lined up in nearly a straight line. The geometry is normal and it’s called ‘Mars Solar Conjunction’.
Conjunction officially started on April 4 and lasts until around May 1.
From our perspective here on Earth, Mars will be passing behind the Sun.
Watch this brief NASA JPL video for an explanation of Mars Solar Conjunction.
Therefore the Terran fleet will be on its own for the next month since the sun will be blocking nearly all communications.
In fact since the sun can disrupt and garble communications, mission controllers will be pretty much suspending transmissions and commands so as not to inadvertently create serious problems that could damage the fleet in a worst case scenario.
Right now there are a trio of orbiters and a duo of rovers from NASA and ESA exploring Mars.
The spacecraft include the Curiosity (MSL) and Opportunity (MER) rovers from NASA. Also the Mars Express orbiter from ESA and the Mars Odyssey (MO) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) from NASA.
Geometry of Mars Solar Conjunction
Because several of these robotic assets have been at Mars for nearly 10 years and longer, the engineering teams have a lot of experience with handling them during the month long conjunction period.
“This is our sixth conjunction for Odyssey,” said Chris Potts of JPL, mission manager for NASA’s Mars Odyssey, which has been orbiting Mars since 2001. “We have plenty of useful experience dealing with them, though each conjunction is a little different.”
But there is something new this go round.
“The biggest difference for this 2013 conjunction is having Curiosity on Mars,” Potts said. Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter relay almost all data coming from Curiosity and the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, as well as conducting the orbiters’ own science observations.
The rovers and orbiters can continue working and collecting science images and spectral data.
But that data will all be stored in the on board memory for a post-conjunction playback starting sometime in May.
Learn more about Curiosity’s groundbreaking discoveries and NASA missions at Ken’s upcoming lecture presentations:
April 20/21 : “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus Orion, SpaceX, Antares, the Space Shuttle and more! NEAF Astronomy Forum, Suffern, NY
April 28: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus the Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Antares, Orion and more. Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, NJ, 130 PM
Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa's frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk)
According to research by NASA astronomers using the next-generation optics of the 10-meter Keck II telescope, Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Europa has hydrogen peroxide across much of the surface of its leading hemisphere, a compound that could potentially provide energy for life if it has found its way into the moon’s subsurface ocean.
“Europa has the liquid water and elements, and we think that compounds like peroxide might be an important part of the energy requirement,” said JPL scientist Kevin Hand, the paper’s lead author. “The availability of oxidants like peroxide on Earth was a critical part of the rise of complex, multicellular life.”
The paper, co-authored by Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, analyzed data in the near-infrared range of light from Europa using the Keck II Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, over four nights in September 2011. The highest concentration of peroxide found was on the side of Europa that always leads in its orbit around Jupiter, with a peroxide abundance of 0.12 percent relative to water. (For perspective, this is roughly 20 times more diluted than the hydrogen peroxide mixture available at drug stores.) The concentration of peroxide in Europa’s ice then drops off to nearly zero on the hemisphere of Europa that faces backward in its orbit.
Hydrogen peroxide was first detected on Europa by NASA’s Galileo mission, which explored the Jupiter system from 1995 to 2003, but Galileo observations were of a limited region. The new Keck data show that peroxide is widespread across much of the surface of Europa, and the highest concentrations are reached in regions where Europa’s ice is nearly pure water with very little sulfur contamination.
This color composite view combines violet, green, and infrared images of Europa acquired by Galileo in 1997 for a view of the moon in natural color (left) and in enhanced color (right). Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
The peroxide is created by the intense radiation processing of Europa’s surface ice that comes from the moon’s location within Jupiter’s strong magnetic field.
“The Galileo measurements gave us tantalizing hints of what might be happening all over the surface of Europa, and we’ve now been able to quantify that with our Keck telescope observations,” Brown said. “What we still don’t know is how the surface and the ocean mix, which would provide a mechanism for any life to use the peroxide.”
The scientists think hydrogen peroxide is an important factor for the habitability of the global liquid water ocean under Europa’s icy crust because hydrogen peroxide decays to oxygen when mixed into liquid water. “At Europa, abundant compounds like peroxide could help to satisfy the chemical energy requirement needed for life within the ocean, if the peroxide is mixed into the ocean,” said Hand.
What’s notable to add, on March 26, 2013, the U.S. President signed a bill that would increase the budget for NASA’s planetary science program as well as provide $75 million for the exploration of Europa. Exactly how the funds will be used isn’t clear — perhaps for components on the proposed Europa Clipper mission? — but it’s a step in the right direction for learning more about this increasingly intriguing world. Read more on SETI’s Destination: Europa blog.
Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon as imaged by Luis Argerich as from near Buenos Aires, Argentina on March (Credit: Nightscape photography. Used with permission).
As Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system, we’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers.
Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon is set to become a binocular object low to the southeast at dawn for low northern latitudes in the first week of April. And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ Day hoax, despite the comet’s name. Comet Lemmon (with two m’s) was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Sky Survey (MLSS) based outside of Tucson, Arizona on March 23, 2012. MLSS is part of the Catalina Sky Survey which searches for Near Earth Asteroids. We’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers as Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system.
The comet is on an extremely long elliptical orbit, with a period of over 11,000 years. Comet Lemmon just passed perihelion at 0.74 astronomical units from the Sun on March 24th.
Animation of Comet Lemmon as it passes the star Gamma Crucis on January 17th. (Courtesy of Luis Argerich. Used with permission).
Southern hemisphere observers have been getting some great views of Comet Lemmon since the beginning of this year. It passed only three degrees from the south celestial pole on February 5th, and since that time has been racing up the “0 Hour” line in right ascension. If that location sounds familiar, that’s because another notable comet, 2011 L4 PanSTARRS has been doing the same. In fact, astrophotographers in the southern hemisphere were able to catch both comets in the same field of view last month.
Another celestial body occupies 0 Hour neighborhood this time of year. The Sun just passed the vernal equinox marking the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere and Fall in the southern on March 19th.
And like PanSTARRS, Comet Lemmon has a very steep orbit inclined 82.6° relative to the ecliptic.
The steep path and current position of Comet Lemmon. (Credit: NASA/JPL’ Small-Body Database Browser).
Comet Lemmon broke naked-eye visibility reaching +6th magnitude in late February and has thus far closely matched expectations. Current reports place it at magnitude +4 to +5 as it crosses northward through the constellation Cetus. Predictions place the maximum post-perihelion brightness between magnitudes +3 and +5 in early April, and thus far, Comet Lemmon seems to be performing right down the middle of this range.
Brightness graph for Comet Lemmon for the months surrounding perihelion. (Created by author).
Southern observers have caught a diffuse greenish 30” in diameter nucleus on time exposures accompanied by a short, spikey tail. Keep in mind, the quoted brightness of a comet is extended over its entire surface area. Thus, while a +4th magnitude star may be easily visible in the dawn, a 3rd or even 2nd magnitude comet may be invisible to the unaided eye. Anyone who attempted to spot Comet PanSTARRS in the dusk last month knows how notoriously fickle it actually was. Binoculars are your friend in this endeavor. Begin slowly sweeping the southeast horizon about an hour before local sunrise looking for a fuzzy “star” that refuses to reach focus. Comet Lemmon will get progressively easier in the dawn sky for latitudes successively farther north as the month of April progresses.
The apparent path of Comet Lemmon for April 10th through the 30th looking east about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
Comet Lemmon will continue to gain elevation as it crosses from Cetus into the constellation Pisces on April 13th. An interesting grouping occurs as the planet Mercury passes only a few degrees from the comet from April 15th to April 17th. Having just past greatest elongation on March 31st, Mercury will shine at magnitude -0.1 and make a good guide to locate the comet in brightening dawn skies. The pair is joined by the waning crescent Moon on the mornings of April 7th and 8th which may also provide for the first sighting opportunities from low north latitudes around these dates.
Mercury meets Comet Lemmon on April 15th as seen about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
The Moon reaches New phase on Wednesday, April 10th at 5:35AM EDT/9:35 UT. It will be out of the morning sky for the next couple of weeks until it reaches Full on April 25th, at which point it will undergo the first eclipse of 2013, a very shallow partial. (More on that later this month!)
Comet Lemmon will then slide across the celestial equator on April 20th and cross the plane of the ecliptic on April 22nd as it heads up into the constellation Andromeda in mid-May. We’re expecting Comet Lemmon to be a fine binocular object for late April, but perhaps not as widely observed due to its morning position as PanSTARRS was in the dusk.
By mid-May, Comet Lemmon will have dipped back down below +6th magnitude and faded out of interest to all but a few deep sky enthusiasts. Comet Lemmon will pass within 10° of the north celestial pole on August 9th, headed back out into the icy depths of the solar system not to return for another 11,000-odd years.
It’s interesting to see how these two springtime comets will effect observers expectations for the passage of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON. Will this in fact be the touted “Comet of the Century?” Much hinges on whether ISON survives its November 28th perihelion only 1,166,000 kilometers from the center of our Sun (that’s 0.68 solar-radii or about 3 times the Earth-Moon distance from the surface of the Sun). If so, we could be in for a fine “Christmas Comet” rivaling the passage of Comet Lovejoy in late 2011. On the other hand, a disintegration of Comet ISON would be more akin to the fizzle of Comet Elenin earlier in 2011.
In the meantime, enjoy Comet Lemmon as an Act 2 in the 2013 Three Act “Year of the Comet!”
ISS Commander Chris Hadfield plans surprise Easter egg hunt for station crew today. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
ISS Commander Chris Hadfield plans surprise Easter egg hunt for station crew today – Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield Updated with more astounding ‘Easter from Space’ photos by Chris Hadfield !
Dont miss the scrumptious ‘Easter Finale’ – below
Thank you Chris ![/caption]
Hush, hush !
Don’t’ tell his crew, but Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has secretly planned a delightful space station surprise sure to also warm the hearts of Earth’s children celebrating the joyous occasion of this Easter Sunday – and there’s delicious photos below too.
They’re going on an Easter egg hunt !
“Don’t tell my crew, but I brought them Easter Eggs :)”, tweeted Hadfield from the ISS – where he currently serves as Commander of the Expedition 35 crew.
And Hadfield sends his greetings and ‘Easter from Space’ photos to all of us down here on the good Earth on this Holy Day.
“Good Morning, Earth! A fine Easter Sunday morning to you, from the crew of the International Space Station.”
You can follow along with Hadfield’s adventures from space as – @Cmdr_Hadfield
A Full Moon. It may not be made of chocolate, but it makes for a wonderfully natural Easter egg. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
Occasionally, Mission Control relents and lets the astronauts have fun, taking a break from their out of this world chores.
But given the weightless of space, it’s not obvious how they’ll accomplish the traditional Easter egg roll. Perhaps we’ll hear about that later.
And there’s no word back yet on Easter Bunny sightings.
Well, to get ready Hadfield has been busy stashing assorted Easter goodies & gifts in the gazillion nooks and crannies aboard the ISS – and snapping fun photos for all the kids to play along.
“Sometimes the best place to hide an item is floating right above your nose. Or in this case, your sleep pod.”
This sleep pod apparently makes for a great hiding spot for floating Easter eggs and gift baskets on the ISS. Credit: NASA
Hadfield just couldn’t resist the temptation of some weightless juggling – and he’s not telling if they went .. splat !!
“It appears that I’m as bad at juggling in weightlessness as I am on Earth. Hopefully I’m better at hiding them… ”
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield attempts to juggle Easter eggs aboard the International Space Station. Do they go splat ??. Credit: NASA
Time will tell whether the crew of six guys are indeed clever enough to figure out all the secret hiding spots.
The Easter egg hunt could be especially trying for the three ‘new guys’ who just arrived on Thursday, March 28, on the Russian Soyuz express capsule – comprising of Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. They join Hadfield, astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko who will stay aboard the station until May.
In the meantime, Hadfield is playfully diverting everyone’s concentration with gorgeous shots of Earth, like the Easter sunrise glinting across North America’s heartland – below.
An Easter sunrise glints across the Great Lakes. Heartland watershed. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
And the Canadian Space Agency has now passed along an Easter greeting card.
Astronaut and cosmonaut crews have a decade’s long tradition of celebrating religious holidays in space. Probably the most famous occasion was when the three man American crew of Apollo 8 read scriptures from Genesis marking the first time in history that humans were orbiting the Moon – back in 1968.
All in all it’s been a busy week aboard the massive orbiting lab complex.
On Tuesday, March 26, the SpaceXDragon capsule departed the station, loaded with a long awaited trove of science goodies and successfully splashed down in the ocean. Two days later the trio of new space men arriving aboard the Soyuz restored the ISS to its full crew complement of six.
Since arriving at the station just before Christmas 2012, Hadfield has been doing a stellar job enlightening folks about what it’s like to live and work in space in fun and understandable ways.
Easter Finale: The Sun, a bright point of light surrounded by profound blackness, our world glowing in-between. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
…………….
Learn more about the ISS, Curiosity, SpaceX, Antares, and NASA missions at Ken’s upcoming lecture presentations:
April 20/21 : “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus Orion, SpaceX, Antares, ISS, the Space Shuttle and more! NEAF Astronomy Forum, Suffern, NY
April 28: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus the Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Antares, Orion and more. Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, NJ, 130 PM
A April Fools Day conjunction of Pluto & Jupiter, the likes of which you'll never see! (Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS(Jupiter) & NASA?ESA & M. Buie of the SWRI (Pluto)
The first day of April is always a traditional time for pranks and puns, and astronomers and scientists aren’t above an April Fools’ Day shenanigan or two. Hey, I gotta admit, as a freelance science journalist, even my radar will be up tomorrow as I’m sure that someone will try to slide some wowzers by the credulous media, as they always have in the past. If the aliens wanted to conquer the Earth it’s wide open to ‘em on April 1st, I’m just sayin’. Who would believe the tweets were for real, as they landed ray guns ablaze on the White House lawn? Trust us; you won’t see such April Fools’ hi-jinks from Universe Today. If you read it here, the alien invasion is for real, and you can begin stockpiling food and ammo appropriately in the best tradition of Falling Skies.
Here are just some of the classic astronomical April Fools’ jokes perpetrated in the past:
In 1974, John Gribbin published The Jupiter Effect, claiming that a Grand Alignment of the planets would spell doomsday for the Earth on March 10th, 1982. On April 1st 1976, Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore made an announcement along a similar vein to BBC listeners. A rare conjunction of the planets Pluto (which was still classified as a planet at the time) & Jupiter would weaken the gravitational field of the Earth at precisely 9:47AM. This would cause the law of gravity to become temporarily suspended, and cause things to fly about. Big hint: Pluto was nowhere near the gas giant at the time. Not that it would matter or have any consequence for the Earth! Although the hoax was quickly revealed, that didn’t stop several listeners from calling in and reporting observed results from the fake Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational effect!
The first star party? Galileo shows off the sky in Saint Mark’s square in Venice. Note the lack of adaptive optics. (Illustration in the Public Domain).
Many questionable astrophysical papers have been spotted in the wild trying to sneak past the guardians-that-be over the years on & around April 1st. On April Fools’ past, we’ve learned that Schrödinger’s Cat is not alone, the supposed discovery of the “bigon” particle, and that the “non-detection of the tooth fairy” has been reported. Hey, never let it be said that science geeks lack a sense of humor. What’s especially amazing is when one of these tall tales actually makes it past the credulous media and into print!
One of our favorites hit the servers last year on March 30th just in time to gain traction for April Fools’ Day with the cryptic title On the influence of the Illuminati in astronomical adaptive optics. OK, I’ll admit we didn’t question the veracity of the claim for oh, like, maybe a tenth of a second. For those without enlightenment into the world of Woo, the Illuminati are purported to be the shadow cult organization going back to the Middle Ages that’s supposed to be behind, well, every nefarious plot in modern society. “They put the eye over the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, man…” as some true believers will claim. And while they didn’t have adaptive optics technology way back in Galileo’s time, the mock study does assert a tenuous link between the Illuminati and the “astronomical rise” of Brittany Spears and Lady Gaga.
Phobos (above) and Deimos (bottom) close up; no Martian construction projects noted. (Credit: NASA).
Are Martians secretly hollowing out a base on the Moons of Barsoom? The Moons of Mars were also the setting for an April Fools’ prank in 1959. The Martian moons are bizarre in their own right. Orbiting at 6,000 & 20,060 kilometres above the surface of the Red Planet, Phobos & Deimos are almost certainly captured asteroids. In fact, Phobos orbits its primary closer than any other moon in the solar system. Phobos will crash into Mars millions of years in the future.
The hoax was perpetrated when Walter Scott Houston, posing as Dr. Arthur Hayall of the fictitious University of the Sierras made a claim in the Great Plains Observer that Phobos & Deimos were in fact artificial satellites. Though the joke ran its course, the idea has cropped up in fringe circles over the years. Russian scientist Iosif Shklovsky made a similar allusion years later, asserting that the low density of Phobos indicated that was hollow (!) Mariner 9 returned the first close-up views of Phobos in 1971, showing a decidedly asteroid-looking appearance. Of course, this hasn’t stopped the likes of folks like Richard Hoagland (he of the face on Mars) from resurrecting the outlandish claim, all of which started as a practical joke. And of course, with the advent of the Internet, you don’t have to wait until April 1st to receive modern day hoax emails proclaiming “MARS WILL APPEAR AS BIG AS THE FULL MOON!!!” which now apparently happens every August.
A moon for Mercury… (or not!) (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University/APL/Carnegie Institution of Washington).
Spurious moons are apparently the “low-hanging fruit” of astronomical April Fools’ pranks. In 2012, an image of a purported moon of the planet Mercury’s as discovered by the MESSENGER spacecraft appeared in the JPL Photojournal. The captioning declared the moon had been named Caduceus and was 70 metres in diameter. Perhaps such a prank is appealing because there’s nothing immediately outlandish about the idea. New moons get discovered periodically on first reconnaissance missions past planets. For a brief time in 1974, Mariner 10 project scientists did indeed think they had discovered a Mercurial moon. Reading on through the press release, however, revealed that a collision course of MESSENGER with the moon was set to cause it to “arrive at Earth by 2014.” The “moon” also bared a suspicious resemblance to the asteroid 243 Ida as seen by the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft in 1993.
Some April Fools’ hoaxes have presented ideas that have actually gained scientific traction in reality over the years. On March 31st, 2005, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website contained the teaser “Water on Mars!” for its next presentation to follow on the next day. A flurry of discussion followed; was there a discovery from the Spirit & Opportunity rovers forthcoming? We should’ve checked the calendar first. The next day, APOD featured water… in a glass, sitting atop a Mars bar. What’s ironic is that recent announcements from the Mars Science Laboratory support the idea of ancient water on the Red Planet, so the MSL may well have had the last laugh.
Sulfate-rich sandstone imaged by Opportunity (left) and Curiosity (right). Both hint at ancient surface water on Mars. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/MSSS).
The Museum of Hoaxes also hosts a list of astronomy & space-themed April Fools’ Day pranks that have been perpetrated over the years. From a Soviet space capsule landing outside of Kankakee, Illinois to life discovered on Jupiter in 1996, it’s all enshrined for the curious. One of our faves is Google’s 2004 announcement that they were accepting applications at a new research center… based on the Moon in Copernicus crater. The ability to survive “with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes,” was cited as a prerequisite, but a sushi chef and two massage therapists would be on site. At least the assignment wouldn’t be totally austere!
Closeup of Copernicus crater region… note the distinct lack of soy lattes! (Photo by author).
What astronomical hi-jinks await us tomorrow as we flip our calendars over to April 1st, 2013? Feel free to tell us here at Universe Today of your true tales of April Fools’ astronomy pranks past & present that you’ve spotted in the wild. Think twice before re-tweeting that link tomorrow, and don’t believe those reports of “nearby gamma-ray bursts of doom” or “alien invasions…” or at least, wait until you’ve seen the “greens of their eyes!”
Astronomers have found a star system with two planets like Mercury, but bigger. Our own Mercury could supply clues to their composition and formation. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory.Carnegie Institution of Washington).
A fine apparition of the planet Mercury graces the dawn skies this week, leading up to its greatest elongation from the Sun for 2013.
It seems that nearly every appearance of the planet Mercury is touted as the “best” these days. Such was the case with the inner-most world’s dusk showing early last month. Truth is, all elongations of Mercury (and Venus, for that matter) are not created equal, and visibility of each apparition isn’t the same for observers worldwide. We’ll show you why.
Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 days. With an orbit interior to our own, it never strays far from the Sun in the sky and thus can only appear low in the dawn or dusk. Its orbit is also elliptical, with an eccentricity of 0.206, the greatest of any planet in our solar system. This means that greatest elongations can vary considerably, from 17.9° away from the Sun in the sky near perihelion of the planet to 28.7° near aphelion. And although reaching greatest elongation near aphelion means the tiny world is above the muck of the horizon, it also means it’s also intrinsically a bit fainter; Mercury can vary in brightness from magnitude -0.2 at a perihelic-elongation to half a magnitude fainter at +0.3 for an aphelic-elongation.
A comparison of elongations of Mercury as seen from the Earth at perihelion versus aphelion. (Created by the author).
But there’s more. Compounding this situation is the angle of the ecliptic, or the imaginary plane of the orbit of the Earth. Near the March equinox the ecliptic rides high in the dusk to the west and low in the dawn to the east for northern hemisphere observers. In the southern hemisphere, the reverse is true. It’s a strange sight for a northerner to head “Down Under” and watch the Sun rise in the east, transit to the north and set to the west!
The path of Mercury looking east ~45 minutes prior to sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north from March 26th through April 30th, (Created by the author using Starry Night).
Thus what may be a terrible apparition of Mercury for one hemisphere may be a grand one for another, as is the case this week. Yes, northern observers can catch the fleeting world, if they know exactly where to look for it. For observers based at longitude 40° north, Mercury will never peak above an altitude of 10° in the dawn sky. Observers based near 35° south will however see the planet reach its maximum possible elevation of over 25° degrees above the horizon.
We would qualify this as “The best dawn appearance of Mercury for 2013… as seen from the southern hemisphere.” Greatest elongations of Mercury occur in pairs, with dusk-to-dawn apparitions about 45 days apart as the planet passes between us and the Sun, followed by a longer period of about 70 days as the world loops back around behind the Sun. The orbit of Mercury is tilted about 7° with respect to our own. Otherwise, we would see a transit of the planetevery inferior conjunction, as last occurred on November 8th, 2006 and will happen next on May 9th, 2016.
The path of Mercury from March 26th through April 26th looking east from latitude 35 degrees south ~45 minutes prior to sunrise. (Created by the author using Starry Night).
Mercury will show a maximum illumination area of 38.5” square arc seconds as seen from the Earth March 30th on just before reaching its greatest elongation west of the Sun on March 31st on Easter Day at 22:00 UT/18:00EDT. Through a telescope, Mercury will display a 7.7” diameter disk with a 50% illuminated “half-Moon” phase. Mercury reaches greatest elongation just 28 hours prior to aphelion which occurs on April 2nd, the closest this has occurred date-wise since April 8th, 2006. This won’t be matched again until March 24th, 2020. Shining at magnitude +0.3, Mercury will then race ahead of the Earth on its inside track and will begin to gradually sink lower on successive mornings in early April. The morning of April 8th may well offer the last good chance to spy the tiny world when the old crescent Moon passes just 8° degrees north of the planet within two days of reaching New phase on April 10th. Mercury reaches superior conjunction opposite to the Earth and on the far side of the Sun on May 11th, 2013, and will again head into the dusk skies for its next greatest eastern elongation on June 12th.
From our Earthly vantage point, Mercury completes 3.15 orbits of the Sun a year. This means that we see 6 greatest elongations on average most years, 3 westerns (dawn) and 3 easterns (dusk). The most elongations of Mercury that you can have in a calendar year are 7, which occurred in 2011 and will happen again in 2015. It’s fascinating to think that until the advent of the Space Age, the orbit and the rough size of Mercury was all we knew about the planet. It would take the first flyby of the Mariner 10 spacecraft to give us a close up view of Mercury in 1974. The precession of the orbit of Mercury was a mystery until explained by Einsteinian physics, and still stands as one of the great proofs of general relativity. Today, we have a permanent ambassador around Mercury, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft. MESSENGER has mapped to world in detail, sampled its tenuous exosphere, and observed hints of ancient volcanic activity. MESSENGER will be followed by the joint European Space Agency/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission BepiColombo set to launch in 2015 which will arrive at Mercury in 2022. All fascinating things to ponder as you search for the diminutive world low in the dawn skies this coming Easter weekend!
