MESSENGER captures image of curious "hollows" around a crater peak
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The latest featured image from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, soon to complete its first year in orbit around Mercury, shows the central peak of the 78-mile (138-km) – wide crater Eminescu surrounded by more of those brightly-colored surface features dubbed “hollows”. Actually tinted a light blue color, hollows may be signs of an erosion process unique to Mercury because of its composition and close proximity to the Sun.
First noted in September of last year, hollows have now been identified in many areas across Mercury. They showed up in previous images as only bright spots, but once MESSENGER established orbit in March of 2011 and began high-resolution imaging of Mercury’s surface it became clear that these features were something totally new.
The lack of craters within hollows seems to indicate that they are relatively young features. In fact, they may be part of a process that continues even now.
“Analysis of the images and estimates of the rate at which the hollows may be growing led to the conclusion that they could be actively forming today,” said David Blewett of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
One hypothesis is that the hollows are formed by the sublimation of subsurface material exposed during the creation of craters, around which they are most commonly seen. Being so close to the Sun (29 million miles/46 million km at closest) and lacking a protective atmosphere like Earth’s, Mercury is constantly being scoured by the powerful solar wind. This relentless stream of charged particles may literally be “sandblasting” exposed volatile materials off the planet’s surface!
The image above shows an area approximately 41 miles (66 km) across. It has been rotated to enhance perspective; see the original image and caption here.
Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Take a good close look at the Moon today and consider this; Two new Moon’s just reached orbit.
NASA is ringing in the New Year with a double dose of champagne toasts celebrating the back to back triumphal insertions of a pair of tiny probes into tandem lunar orbits this weekend that seek to unravel the hidden mysteries lurking deep inside the Moon and figure out how the inner solar system formed eons ago.
Following closely on the heels of her twin sister, NASA’s GRAIL-B spacecraft ignited her main braking rockets precisely as planned on New Year’s Day (Jan.1) to go into a formation flying orbit around the Moon, chasing behind GRAIL-A which arrived on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31).
“Now we have them both in orbit. What a great feeling!!!!” NASA manager Jim Green told Universe Today just minutes after the thruster firing was done. Green is NASA’s Director of Planetary Science and witnessed the events inside Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Ca.
“It’s the best New Year’s ever!!” Green gushed with glee.
GRAIL-B spacecraft entered Lunar Orbit on New Year’s Day 2012. Artist concept of GRAIL-B performing its lunar orbit insertion burn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The new lunar arrivals of GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B capped a perfect year for NASA’s Planetary Science research in 2011.
“2011 began the Year of the Solar System – which is a Mars year (~670 Earth days long)… and includes Grail B insertion, Dawn leaving Vesta this summer … And the landing of MSL! ,” Green said.
NASA’s GRAIL-A & GRAIL-B are orbiting the Moon in this image taken on Jan. 2, 2012 after Lunar Orbit Insertions on New Year’s Weekend. Click to enlarge.
Credit: Ken Kremer
“Cheers in JPL mission control as everything is looking good for GRAIL-B. It’s going to be a great 2012!!” JPL tweeted shortly after confirming the burn successfully placed GRAIL-B into the desired elliptical orbit.
After years of hard work, GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of MIT told Universe Today that she was very “relieved”, soon after hearing the good news at JPL Mission Control.
“Since GRAIL was originally selected I’ve believed this day would come,” Zuber told me shortly after the GRAIL-B engine firing was declared a success on New Year’s Day.
“But it’s difficult to convey just how relieved I am right now. Time for the Science Team to start their engines !”
Artist's concept depicts how the science instrument on the mirror image twin GRAIL spacecraft will send signals to each other to map the Moon's gravity and then transmit the data to Earth. Credit: NASA
At 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) on New Year’s Day, the main thruster aboard GRAIL-B automatically commenced firing to slow down the spacecraft’s approach speed by about 430 MPH (691 kph) and allow it to be captured into orbit by the Moon’s gravity. The preprogrammed maneuver lasted about 39 minutes and was nearly identical to the GRAIL-A firing 25 hours earlier.
The hydrazine fueled main thrusters placed the dynamic spacecraft duo into near-polar, highly elliptical orbits.
Over the next two months, engineers will trim the orbits of both spacecraft to a near-polar, near-circular formation flying orientation. Their altitudes will be lowered to about 34 miles (55 kilometers) and the orbital periods trimmed from their initial 11.5 hour duration to about two hours.
The science phase begins in March 2012. For 82 days, the mirror image GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B probes will be flying in tandem with an average separation of about 200 kilometers as the Moon rotates beneath.
“GRAIL is a Journey to the Center of the Moon,” Zuber explained at a media briefing. “It will use exceedingly precise measurements of gravity to reveal what the inside of the Moon is like.”
As one satellite follows the other, in the same orbit, they will perform high precision range-rate measurements to precisely measure the changing distance between each other to within 1 micron, the width of a red blood cell, using a Ka-band instrument.
When the first satellite goes over a higher mass concentration, or higher gravity, it will speed up slightly. And that will increase the distance. Then as the second satellite goes over, that distance will close again.
The data returned will be translated into gravitational field maps of the Moon that will help unravel information about the makeup of the Moon’s mysterious core and interior composition. GRAIL will gather three complete gravity maps over the three month mission.
“There have been many missions that have gone to the Moon, orbited the Moon, landed on the Moon, brought back samples of the Moon,” said Zuber. “But the missing piece of the puzzle in trying to understand the Moon is what the deep interior is like.”
“Is there a core? How did the core form? How did the interior convect? What are the impact basins on the near-side flooded with magma and give us this Man-in-the-Moon shape whereas the back side of the Moon doesn’t have any of this? These are all mysteries that despite the fact we’ve studied the Moon before, we don’t understand how that has happened. GRAIL is a mission that is going to tell us that.”
“We think the answer is locked in the interior,” Zuber elaborated.
How will the twins be oriented in orbit to gather the data ?
“The probes will be pointed at one another to make the highly precise measurements,” said GRAIL co-investigator Sami Asmar of JPL to Universe Today. “The concept has heritage from the US/German GRACE earth orbiting satellites which mapped Earth’s gravity field. GRACE required the use of GPS satellites for exactly knowing the position, but there is no GPS at the Moon. So GRAIL was altered to compensate for no GPS at the Moon.”
GRAIL will map the gravity field by 100 to 1000 times better than ever before.
“We will learn more about the interior of the Moon with GRAIL than all previous lunar missions combined,” says Ed Weiler, the recently retired NASA Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC.
The GRAIL twins blasted off from Florida mounted side by side atop a Delta II booster on September 10, 2011 and took a circuitous 3.5 month low energy path to the Moon to minimize the overall costs.
So when you next look at the sky tonight and in the coming weeks just imagine those mirror image GRAIL twins circling about seeeking to determine how we all came to be !
GRAIL Project manager David Lehman cuts the cake for team members at JPL to celebrate 2 for 2 at the Moon. Credit: NASA/Jim GreenGRAIL team at JPL toasts success as twin spacecraft both went into orbit around the Moon on New Year’s weekend.
GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B flying in tandem using a precision formation-flying technique. Credit: NASA
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Cheers erupted after the first of NASA’s twin $496 Million Moon Mapping probes entered orbit on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31) upon completion of the 40 minute main engine burn essential for insertion into lunar orbit. The small GRAIL spacecraft will map the lunar interior with unprecedented precision to deduce the Moon’s hidden interior composition.
“Engines stopped. It’s in a great initial orbit!!!! ”
NASA’s Jim Green told Universe Today, just moments after verification of a successful engine burn and injection of the GRAIL-A spacecraft into an initial eliptical orbit. Green is the Director of Planetary Science at NASA HQ and was stationed inside Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Ca (see photos below).
“Pop the bubbly & toast the moon! NASA’s GRAIL-A spacecraft is in lunar orbit,” NASA tweeted shortly after verifying the critical firing was done. “Burn complete! GRAIL-A is now orbiting the moon and awaiting the arrival of its twin GRAIL-B on New Year’s Day.”
The firing of the hydrazine fueled thruster was concluded at 5 PM EST (2 PM PST) today, Dec. 31, 2011 and was the capstone to a stupendous year for science at NASA.
“2011 was definitely the best year ever for NASA Planetary Science,” Green told me today. “2011 was the “Year of the Solar System”.
“GRAIL-A is in a highly elliptical polar orbit that takes about 11.5 hours to complete.”
“We see about the first eight to ten minutes of the start of the burn as it heads towards the Moon’s southern hemisphere, continues as GRAIL goes behind the moon and the burn ends about eight minutes or so after it exits and reappears over the north polar region.”
“So we watch the beginning of the burn and the end of the burn via the Deep Space Network (DSN). The same thing will be repeated about 25 hours later with GRAIL-B on New Year’s Day [Jan 1, 2012],” Green explained.
The orbit is approximately 56-miles (90-kilometers) by 5,197-miles (8,363-kilometers around the moon. The probe barreled towards the moon at 4400 MPH and skimmed to within about 68 miles over the South Pole.
“My resolution for the new year is to unlock lunar mysteries and understand how the moon, Earth and other rocky planets evolved,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Now, with GRAIL-A successfully placed in orbit around the moon, we are one step closer to achieving that goal.”
Zuber witnessed the events in Mission Control along with JPL Director Charles Elachi (see photos).
GRAIL team at JPL Mission Control celebrates successful insertion of GRAIL-A into Lunar Orbit of New Year’s Eve. From Left: David Lehman, GRAIL Project Manager of JPL, Prof Maria Zuber, GRAIL Principal Investigator of MIT, Charles Elachi, JPL Director. Credit: NASA/Jim Green
The mirror twin, known as GRAIL-B, was less than 30,000 miles (48,000 km) from the moon as GRAIL A achieved orbit and closing at a rate of 896 mph (1,442 kph). GRAIL-B’s insertion burn is slated to begin on New Year’s Day at 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST) and will last about 39 minutes.
GRAIL-B is about 25 hours behind GRAIL-A, allowing the teams enough time to rest and prepare, said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at JPL.
“With GRAIL-A in lunar orbit we are halfway home,” said Lehman. “Tomorrow may be New Year’s everywhere else, but it’s another work day around the moon and here at JPL for the GRAIL team.”
GRAIL-A spacecraft achieved Lunar Orbit Insertion on New Year’s Eve. Artists concept shows twin GRAIL spacecraft orbiting the Moon. GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B flying in tandem using a precision formation-flying technique. Credit: Lockheed Martin
Engineers will then gradually lower the tandem flying satellites into a near-polar near-circular orbital altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers) with an average separation of about 200 km. The 82 day science phase will begin in March 2012.
“GRAIL will globally map the moon’s gravity field to high precision to deduce information about the interior structure, density and composition of the lunar interior. We’ll evaluate whether there even is a solid or liquid core or a mixture and advance the understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon and the solar system,” explained GRAIL co-investigator Sami Asmar to Universe Today. Asmar is from JPL.
New names for the dynamic duo may be announced on New Year’s Day. Zuber said that the winning names of a student essay contest drew more than 1000 entries.
The GRAIL team is making a major public outreach effort to involve school kids in the mission and inspire them to study science. Each spacecraft carries 4 MoonKAM cameras. Middle school students will help select the targets.
“Over 2100 Middle schools have already signed up to participate in the MoonKAM project,” Zuber told reporters.
“We’ve had a great response to the MoonKAM project and we’re still accepting applications.”
MoonKAM is sponsored by Dr. Sally Ride, America’s first female astronaut. The first images are expected after the science mission begins in March 2012.
The GRAIL twins blasted off from Florida on September 10, 2011 for a 3.5 month low energy path to the moon so a smaller booster rocket could be used to cut costs.
GRAIL team at JPL Mission Control await GRAIL-A Lunar Orbit Insertion on New Year’s Eve. David Lehman, GRAIL Project Manager of JPL, Prof Maria Zuber, GRAIL Principal Investigator of MIT. Credit: NASA/Jim GreenGRAIL Science and Launch teams inside clean room at Astrotech. Credit: Ken KremerGRAIL-A and GRAIL-B twin spacecraft inside clean room at Astrotech
GRAIL Co-Investigator Sami Asmar (left) from JPL and Ken Kremer discuss science objectives inside Astrotech clean room prior to encapsulation for launch. Credit: Ken Kremer
Dawn Orbiting Vesta. NASA's Dawn spacecraft achieved orbit at the giant asteroid Vesta in July 2011. The depiction of Vesta is based on images obtained by Dawn's framing cameras. Dawn is an international collaboration of the US, Germany and Italy. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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A year ago, 2011 was proclaimed as the “Year of the Solar System” by NASA’s Planetary Science division. And what a year of excitement it was indeed for the planetary science community, amateur astronomers and the general public alike !
NASA successfully delivered astounding results on all fronts – On the Story of How We Came to Be.
“2011 was definitely the best year ever for NASA Planetary Science!” said Jim Green in an exclusive interview with Universe Today. Green is the Director of Planetary Science for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ. “The Search for Life is a significant priority for NASA.”
This past year was without doubt simply breathtaking in scope in terms of new missions, new discoveries and extraordinary technical achievements. The comprehensive list of celestial targets investigated in 2011 spanned virtually every type of object in our solar system – from the innermost planet to the outermost reaches nearly touching interplanetary space.
There was even a stunningly evocative picture showing “All of Humanity” – especially appropriate now in this Holiday season ! You and all of Humanity are here !
-- Earth & Moon Portrait by Juno from 6 Million miles away --
First Photo transmitted from Jupiter Bound Juno shows Earth (on the left) and the Moon (on the right). Taken on Aug. 26, 2011 when spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away from Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Three brand new missions were launched and ongoing missions orbited a planet and an asteroid and flew past a comet.
“NASA has never had the pace of so many planetary launches in such a short time,” said Green.
And three missions here were awarded ‘Best of 2011’ for innovation !
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Dawn and MESSENGER named “Best of What’s New” in 2011 by Popular Science magazine. 3 NASA Planetary Science missions received the innovation award for 2011 from Popular Science magazine. Artist concept shows mosaic of MESSENGER, Mars Science Laboratory and Dawn missions. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here’s the Top NASA Planetary Science Stories of 2011 – ‘The Year of the Solar System’ – in chronological order
1. Stardust-NExT Fly By of Comet Tempel 1
Starting from the first moments of 2011 at the dawn of Jan. 1, hopes were already running high for planetary scientists and engineers busily engaged in setting up a romantic celestial date in space between a volatile icy comet and an aging, thrusting probe on Valentine’s Day.
The comet chasing Stardust-Next spacecraft successfully zoomed past Comet Tempel 1 on Feb. 14 at 10.9 km/sec (24,000 MPH) after flying over 6 Billion kilometers (3.5 Billion mi).
6 Views of Comet Tempel 1 and Deep Impact crater during Stardust-NExT flyby on Feb. 14, 2011
Arrows show location of man-made crater created in 2005 by NASA’s prior Deep Impact comet mission and newly imaged as Stardust-NExT zoomed past comet in 2011. The images progress in time during closest approach to comet beginning at upper left and moving clockwise to lower left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland. Post process and annotations by Marco Di Lorenzo & Kenneth Kremer
The craft approached within 178 km (111mi) and snapped 72 astonishingly detailed high resolution science images over barely 8 minutes. It also fulfilled the teams highest hopes by photographing the human-made crater created on Tempel 1 in 2005 by a cosmic collision with a penetrator hurled by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft. The probe previously flew by Comet Wild 2 in 2004 and returned cometary coma particles to Earth in 2006
Tempel 1 is the first comet to be visited by two spaceships from Earth and provided the first-ever opportunity to compare observations on two successive passages around the Sun.
Don Brownlee, the original Principal Investigator, summarized the results for Universe Today; “A great bonus of the mission was the ability to flyby two comets and take images and measurements. The wonderfully successful flyby of Comet Tempel 1 was a great cap to the 12 year mission and provided a great deal of new information to study the diversity among comets.”
“The new images of Tempel showed features that form a link between seemingly disparate surface features of the 4 comets imaged by spacecraft. Combining data on the same comet from the Deep Impact and Stardust missions has provided important new insights in to how comet surfaces evolve over time and how they release gas and dust into space”.
2. MESSENGER at Mercury
On March 18, the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, spacecraft became the first spacecraft inserted into orbit around Mercury, the innermost planet.
So far MESSENGER has completed 1 solar day – 176 Earth days- circling above Mercury. The probe has collected a treasure trove of new data from the seven instruments onboard yielding a scientific bonanza; these include global imagery of most of the surface, measurements of the planet’s surface chemical composition, topographic evidence for significant amounts of water ice, magnetic field and interactions with the solar wind.
“MESSENGER discovered that Mercury has an enormous core, larger than Earth’s. We are trying to understand why that is and why Mercury’s density is similar to Earth’s,” Jim Green explained to Universe Today.
The First Solar Day
After its first Mercury solar day (176 Earth days) in orbit, MESSENGER has nearly completed two of its main global imaging campaigns: a monochrome map at 250 m/pixel and an eight-color, 1-km/pixel color map. Small gaps will be filled in during the next solar day. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
“The primary mission lasts 2 solar days, equivalent to 4 Mercury years.”
“NASA has granted a 1 year mission extension, for a total of 8 Mercury years. This will allow the team to understand the environment at Mercury during Solar Maximum for the first time. All prior spacecraft observations were closer to solar minimum,” said Green.
MESSENGER was launched in 2004 and the goal is to produce the first global scientific observations of Mercury and piece together the puzzle of how Mercury fits in with the origin and evolution of our solar system.
NASA’s Mariner 10 was the only previous robotic probe to explore Mercury, during three flyby’s back in the mid-1970’s early in the space age.
3. Dawn Asteroid Orbiter
The Dawn spacecraft achieved orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta in July 2011 after a four year interplanetary cruise and began transmitting the history making first ever close-up observations of the mysteriously diverse and alien world that is nothing short of a ‘Space Spectacular’.
“We do not have a good analog to Vesta anywhere else in the Solar System,” Chris Russell said to Universe Today. Russell, from UCLA, is the scientific Principal Investigator for Dawn.
Before Dawn, Vesta was just another fuzzy blob in the most powerful telescopes. Dawn has completely unveiled Vesta as a remarkably dichotomous, heavily battered and pockmarked world that’s littered with thousands of craters, mountains and landslides and ringed by mystifying grooves and troughs. It will unlock details about the elemental abundances, chemical composition and interior structure of this marvelously intriguing body.
Cataclysmic collisions eons ago excavated Vesta so it lacks a south pole. Dawn discovered that what unexpectedly remains is an enormous mountain some 16 miles (25 kilometers) high, twice the height of Mt. Everest.
Dawn is now about midway through its 1 year mission at Vesta which ends in July 2012 with a departure for Ceres, the largest asteroid. So far the framing cameras have snapped more than 10,000 never-before-seen images.
“What can be more exciting than to explore an alien world that until recently was virtually unknown!. ” Dr. Marc Rayman said to Universe Today. Rayman is Dawn’s Chief Engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
“Dawn is NASA at its best: ambitious, exciting, innovative, and productive.”
4. Juno Jupiter Orbiter
The solar powered Juno spacecraft was launched on Aug. 5 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, to embark on a five year, 2.8 billion kilometer (1.7 Billion mi) trek to Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet. It was the first of three NASA planetary science liftoffs scheduled in 2011.
Juno Jupiter Orbiter soars skyward to Jupiter on Aug. 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer
Juno’s goal is to map to the depths of the planets interior and elucidate the ingredients of Jupiter’s genesis hidden deep inside. These measurements will help answer how Jupiter’s birth and evolution applies to the formation of the other eight planets.
The 4 ton spacecraft will arrive at the gas giant in July 2016 and fire its braking rockets to go into a polar orbit and circle the planet 33 times over about one year.
The suite of nine instruments will scan the gas giant to find out more about the planets origins, interior structure and atmosphere, measure the amount of water and ammonia, observe the aurora, map the intense magnetic field and search for the existence of a solid planetary core.
“Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “It is by far the oldest planet, contains more material than all the other planets, asteroids and comets combined and carries deep inside it the story of not only the solar system but of us. Juno is going there as our emissary — to interpret what Jupiter has to say.”
5. Opportunity reaches Endeavour Crater on Mars
The long lived Opportunity rover finally arrived at the rim of the vast 14 mile (22 kilometer) wide Endeavour Crater in mid-August 2011 following an epic three year trek across treacherous dune fields – a feat once thought unimaginable. All told, Opportunity has driven more than 34 km ( 21 mi) since landing on the Red Planet way back in 2004 for a mere 90 sol mission.
Endeavour Crater Panorama from Opportunity Mars Rover in August 2011
Opportunity arrived at the rim of Endeavour on Sol 2681, August 9, 2011 after a three year trek. The robot photographed segments of the huge craters eroded rim in this panoramic vista. Endeavour Crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Kenneth Kremer
In November, the rover discovered the most scientifically compelling evidence yet for the flow of liquid water on ancient Mars in the form of a water related mineral vein at a spot dubbed “Homestake” along an eroded ridge of Endeavour’s rim.
Read my story about the Homestake discovery here, along with our panoramic mosaic showing the location – created by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo and published by Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on 12 Dec. 2011.
Watch for my upcoming story detailing Opportunity’s accomplishments in 2011.
6. GRAIL Moon Mappers
The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL mission is comprised of twin spacecraft tasked to map the moon’s gravity and study the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core.
Twin GRAIL Probes GO for Lunar Orbit Insertion on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day
GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field and interior composition. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The dynamic duo lifted off from Cape Canaveral on September 10, 2011 atop the last Delta II rocket that will likely soar to space from Florida. After a three month voyage of more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) since blastoff, the two mirror image GRAIL spacecraft dubbed Grail-A and GRAIL-B are sailing on a trajectory placing them on a course over the Moon’s south pole on New Year’s weekend.
Each spacecraft will fire the braking rockets for about 40 minutes for insertion into Lunar Orbit about 25 hours apart on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Engineers will then gradually lower the satellites to a near-polar near-circular orbital altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).
The spacecraft will fly in tandem and the 82 day science phase will begin in March 2012.
“GRAIL is a Journey to the Center of the Moon”, says Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “GRAIL will rewrite the book on the formation of the moon and the beginning of us.”
“By globally mapping the moon’s gravity field to high precision scientists can deduce information about the interior structure, density and composition of the lunar interior. We’ll evaluate whether there even is a solid or liquid core or a mixture and advance the understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon and the solar system,” explained co-investigator Sami Asmar to Universe Today. Asmar is from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
7. Curiosity Mars Rover
The Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover soared skywards on Nov. 26, the last of 2011’s three planetary science missions. Curiosity is the newest, largest and most technologically sophisticated robotic surveyor that NASA has ever assembled.
“MSL packs the most bang for the buck yet sent to Mars.” John Grotzinger, the Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist of the California Institute of Technology, told Universe Today.
The three meter long robot is the first astrobiology mission since the Viking landers in the 1970’s and specifically tasked to hunt for the ‘Ingredients of Life’ on Mars – the most Earth-like planet in our Solar System.
Video caption: Action packed animation depicts sequences of Curiosity departing Earth, the nail biting terror of the never before used entry, descent and landing on the Martian surface and then looking for signs of life at Gale Crater during her minimum two year expedition across hitherto unseen and unexplored Martian landscapes, mountains and craters. Credit: NASA
Curiosity will gather and analyze samples of Martian dirt in pursuit of the tell-tale signatures of life in the form of organic molecules – the carbon based building blocks of life as we know it.
NASA is targeting Curiosity to a pinpoint touch down inside the 154 km (96 mile) wide Gale Crater on Aug. 6, 2012. The crater exhibits exposures of phyllosilicates and other minerals that may have preserved evidence of ancient or extant Martian life and is dominated by a towering 3 mile (5 km) high mountain.
“10 science instruments are all aimed at a mountain whose stratigraphic layering records the major breakpoints in the history of Mars’ environments over likely hundreds of millions of years, including those that may have been habitable for life,” Grotzinger told me.
Titan Upfront
The colorful globe of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes in front of the planet and its rings in this true color snapshot from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science InstituteCuriosity Mars Science Laboratory Rover and Ken Kremer - inside the Cleanroom at the Kennedy Space Center. Last View of Curiosity just prior to folding and encapsulation for launch. Credit: Ken Kremer
This past year Ken was incredibly fortunate to witness the ongoing efforts of many of these magnificent endeavors.
GRAIL probes uses precision formation-flying technique to map Lunar Gravity. The twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft provide scientists the exact measurements required as well as flow of information not interrupted when the spacecraft are at the lunar farside, not seen from Earth. The result should be the most accurate gravity map of the moon ever made. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, including the size of a possible inner core, and it should provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. GRAIL is a part of NASA's Discovery Program. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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In less than three days, NASA will deliver a double barreled New Year’s package to our Moon when an unprecedented pair of science satellites fire up their critical braking thrusters for insertion into lunar orbit on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
NASA’s dynamic duo of GRAIL probes are “GO” for Lunar Orbit Insertion said the mission team at a briefing for reporters today, Dec. 28. GRAIL’s goal is to exquisitely map the moons interior from the gritty outer crust to the depths of the mysterious core with unparalled precision.
“GRAIL is a Journey to the Center of the Moon”, said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge at the press briefing.
This newfound knowledge will fundamentally alter our understanding of how the moon and other rocky bodies in our solar system – including Earth – formed and evolved over 4.5 Billion years time.
After a three month voyage of more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) since launching from Florida on Sept. 10, 2011, NASA’s twin GRAIL spacecraft, dubbed Grail-A and GRAIL-B, are now on final approach and are rapidly closing in on the Moon following a trajectory that will hurl them low over the south pole and into an initially near polar elliptical lunar orbit lasting 11.5 hours.
GRAIL's trajectory to moon since Sept. 10, 2011 blastoff
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As of today, Dec. 28, GRAIL-A is 65,860 miles (106,000 kilometers) from the moon and closing at a speed of 745 mph (1,200 kph). GRAIL-B is 79,540 miles (128,000 kilometers) from the moon and closing at a speed of 763 mph (1,228 kph).
The lunar bound probes are formally named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) and each one is the size of a washing machine.
The long-duration trajectory was actually beneficial to the mission controllers and the science team because it permitted more time to assess the spacecraft’s health and check out the probes single science instrument – the Ultra Stable Oscillator – and allow it to equilibrate to a stable operating temperature long before it starts making the crucial science measurements.
NASA’s twin GRAIL A & B Moon mapping probes
The GRAIL satellites are now streaking to the Moon and their arrival for orbit insertion is just days away and hours apart on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 2012. This picture shows how they looked, mounted side by side, during launch preparations inside the clean room at Astrotech Space Operations facility in Florida prior to blasting off for the Moon on Sept. 10, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer
The duo will arrive 25 hours apart and be placed into orbit starting at 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21 p.m. EST) for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST) on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B, said David Lehman, project manager for GRAIL at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
“The GRAIL A burn will last 40 minutes and the GRAIL-B burn will last 38 minutes. One hour after the burn we will know the results and make an announcement,” Lehman explained.
The thrusters must fire on time and for the full duration for the probes to achieve orbit. The braking maneuver is preprogrammed and done completely automatically.
Over the next few weeks, the altitude of the spacecraft will be gradually lowered to 34 miles (55 kilometers) into a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an orbital period of two hours. The science phase will then begin in March 2012.
“So far there have been over 100 missions to the Moon and hundreds of pounds of rock have been returned. But there is still a lot we don’t know about the Moon even after the Apollo lunar landings,” explained Zuber.
“We don’t know why the near side of the Moon is different from the far side. In fact we know more about Mars than the Moon.”
GRAIL’s science collection phase will last 82 days. The two spacecraft will transmit radio signals that will precisely measure the distance between them to within a few microns, less than the width of a human hair.
Artist concept of twin GRAIL spacecraft flying in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. Credit: NASA/JPL
As they orbit in tandem, the moons gravity will change – increasing and decreasing due to the influence of both visible surface features such as mountains and craters and unknown concentrations of masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. This will cause the relative velocity and the distance between the probes to change.
The resulting data will be translated into a high-resolution map of the Moon’s gravitational field and also enable determinations of the moon’s inner composition.
The GRAIL mission may be extended for another 6 months if the solar powered probes survive a power draining and potentially deadly lunar eclipse due in June 2012.
Engineers would significantly lower the orbit to an altitude of barely 15 to 20 miles above the surface to gain even further insights into the lunar interior.
The twin probes are also equipped with 4 cameras each – named MoonKAM – that will be used by middle school students to photograph student selected targets.
The MoonKAM project is led Dr. Sally Ride, America’s first woman astronaut as a way to motivate kids to study math and science.
JPL manages the GRAIL mission for NASA.
Stay tuned for Universe Today updates amidst the News Year’s festivities.
Blastoff of twin GRAIL A and B lunar gravity mapping spacecraft on a Delta II Heavy rocket on Sept. 10 from Pad 17B Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:08 a.m. EDT. Credit: Ken Kremer
Dr. Alan Stern preparing for a high-altitude test flight in A two-seater, NASA WB-57 aircraft. Photo Credit: SOuthwest Research Institute.
[/caption]Some of you may know, we recently launched a new “Ask” feature here at Universe Today. Our inaugural launch features Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. We collected your questions in our initial post and passed them along to Dr. Stern who graciously took the time to answer them.
Here are the questions picked by you, the readers, and Dr. Stern’s responses. We’d like to thank our readers for making this kick-off a success, as well as Dr. Stern for his participation.
1.)Many sci-fi authors have dreamed of putting some sort of telescope on the surface of Pluto to take advantage of the relative darkness and extreme cold encountered on this distant dwarf planet. How feasible would it be, judging from what we’re learning from the New Horizons expedition, to actually land a spacecraft, or a telescope, on Pluto’s surface? If such a telescope where deployed, how much more effective, if at all, could it be than an instrument like the JWST?
Alan Stern:“Space astronomy has revolutionized the way we look at the universe and is fundamental to modern astrophysics.” There are benefits to getting telescopes out of the atmosphere, and even benefits to getting out of Earth orbit, as in the case of Kepler and someday maybe JWST.
With regard to taking advantage of Pluto’s cold temperature – we’ve gotten really good at cooling down space telescopes. “There would be a benefit to placing a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon, but there’s no real practical reasons to place a telescope on Pluto—particularly given the cost of getting there, other than it being cool.”
2.)Kuiper objects differentiate strongly in color suggesting compositional or perhaps formation differences. Interestingly the color distribution correlates with the two different cold and hot Kuiper populations. Assuming the spectral analysis capability of New Horizon works for identifying the follow up Kuiper objects beyond Pluto-Charon, and given the putative possibility of choosing between several such targets, what type of target would the mission aim for? Would it try to cover as much diversity of objects as possible or is there a certain class of objects that could be important to concentrate on?
A.S: “We have to find Kuiper belt objects within our spacecraft’s fuel supply.” Stern elaborated, stating, “Predictions from our computer models tell us to expect to be able to have perhaps six possible candidates, to choose from, but so far we’ve just begun to search for these and though we’re finding KBOs, none we’ve found are yet are within the fuel supply.”
Stern also added, “Keep in mind our search for candidates isn’t easy – these are 27th magnitude objects which are roughly 50,000 times fainter than Pluto. What we’ll use to select between candidates once we have them are color, orbits, moons, rotational speeds – basically what combination of properties give us the most science for our fuel budget. The longer we wait after the Pluto flyby in July 2015 to make a decision, the more fuel will be consumed, so the “sweet spot” would be to have preliminary candidates in early 2015.”
(UT Note: New Horizons will perform its Pluto flyby in mid-2015 ).
3.)Given the limited funds available, Which do you recommend (Europa or Enceladus) as a suitable target for a mission in the 2025 time-frame in terms of value for money, scientific return, and practicality, and what kind of mission do you propose (lander vs. orbiter) ?
A.S: “Every scientist has their own judgment of what would make a good outer system flagship mission, or the best world to perform a series of missions that would equal a flagship mission.” Dr. Stern’s opinion is to explore Titan first, with Enceladus as a secondary target of that mission and Europa last, stating “Titan is the belle of the ball”, citing Titan’s active liquid cycle and thick atmosphere. Stern also added that he believes a mission to Titan would provide the most science per budget dollar.
4.)Four of the craft escaping the Solar System – Pioneers 10 & 11 and Voyagers 1 & 2 – have on board some sort of “message” to any possible extraterrestrials in the unlikely event they find it. Why was not some sort of message like that included on New Horizons, which may be the last (in our lifetimes) craft to also escape the Solar System?
A.S “There are several mementos onboard New Horizons, but no Voyager-like message.” Dr. Stern discussed a promise he made to his team that New Horizons would not be canceled and that he wanted his team focused on the science of the mission. Stern also pointed out that the process of deciding what to place on the Voyager plaques became mired in political correctness, (should the humans have been clothed? What cultures and races should be represented, etc.)
By separating the “icing from the cake”. Stern and his team have been able to concentrate on their main objective—to execute the New Horizons mission for about twenty cents on the dollar, as compared to the Voyager missions. Stern concluded with, “I’m proud that we got this done and that New Horizons is operating perfectly now way out there between Uranus and Neptune and flying almost a million kilometers per day toward the Pluto system.”
5.)Are any present or foreseeable technologies being considered for exploring the depths of our four “gas giant” planets?
A.S “There are no serious proposals to put a probe into one of the giant planets now, or even any call for such in the recent decadal survey for planetary missions. Keep in mind, though, that the Juno mission (now en route to Jupiter ) will use powerful remote sensing techniques to probe Jupiter from orbit around it to greater depths than the Galileo probe (which actually entered Jupiter’s atmosphere).”
6.) Why was it considered “urgent” to get to Pluto before the atmosphere refroze?
A.S “We have three “Group 1″ objectives for New Horizons. Map the surface, map the composition, and assay the atmosphere.” Stern referred to the objectives as a “three legged stool” in that no one objective could be omitted and still justify the mission, adding “so we need to accomplish that.. we need to get there before the atmosphere collapses”. Stern also referred to Pluto’s atmosphere as “very different from any other planet yet studied”, hence its inclusion as one of the three “Group 1” objectives.
7.)The Dawn mission to Vesta has shown us a body that was much less round than expected. Do you think it is possible that New Horizons will surprise us about Pluto, to the same degree? Please compare the expectations of the New Horizons fly by, to the early images of Vesta from Dawn.
A.S “With New Horizons being the first mission to Pluto, we will be surprised—after all, we’re always surprised on first reconnaissance flybys”. Stern added, “With Mariner 10, we discovered Mercury was all core, with Voyager we discovered volcanos and geysers across the outer solar system, and of course we were surprised when craters and river valleys were discovered by early Mars probes.”
Regarding Pluto, Stern stated “Pluto is the first discovered and soon to be reconnoitered of the most plentiful class of planets, while I’m not big on making predictions, I will say that what we will find will certainly be, well, wonderful.”
9.)Can new horizons now take more detailed photos of Pluto than HST? If not, when does it get close enough?
A.S “Great question! We actually thought about that a lot when designing New Horizons. One of our instruments, LORRI (Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager – http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/spacecraft/sciencePay.html) will provide us with views better than HST around April of 2015, and we expect to have about twenty weeks (10 weeks before, 10 weeks after the Pluto flyby) when we “own” the Pluto system — and I can guarantee the best images we hope to make should be as good as Landsat images of Earth!”
That wraps up our interview with Dr. Alan Stern. Once again, we at Universe Today would like to thank Dr. Stern for his gracious participation. If you’d like to learn more about the New Horizons mission to Pluto and The Kuiper Belt, visit: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
Next month, we’ll be having an “Ask an Astronaut” feature with Mike Fossum, Commander of Expedition 29 on the International Space Station. Stay tuned!
Comet Lovejoy on 22 Dec. 2011 from the International Space Station. Comet Lovejoy is visible near Earth’s horizon in this nighttime image photographed by NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, Expedition 30 commander, onboard the International Space Station on Dec. 22, 2011. Credit: NASA/Dan Burbank
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Check out this absolutely stunning collection of new Comet Lovejoy photos taken by space station commander Dan Burbank just before the Christmas holidays on Dec. 22, 2011 – what an amazing holiday treat, the Chrtistmas Comet!
Burbank shot these exquisitely detailed nighttime images showing the comet near the Earth’s horizon and framed with a gorgeously rich star field, all while floating aboard the International Space Station (ISS) some 400 kilometers (250 miles) above all of us – and absent any atmospheric interferences and distortions !
Burbank is a NASA astronaut and commander of ISS Expedition 30.
The comet has put on a spectacular show for observers in the Earth’s southern hemisphere despite prognostications of a fiery death as it careened through the suns corona during perihelion on Dec. 16 at a distance of 140,000 kilometers (87,000 mi).
Astronaut Burbank launched to the ISS on Nov. 13 along with Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin aboard the Soyuz TMA-22 capsule from the Baikonur Cosmosdrome. The trio docked on Nov. 16 for a more than 4 month stay.
Comet Lovejoy was only discovered on 27 November 2011, by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy and classified as a Kreutz sungrazer. It has put on an unexpected and magnificent Christmas Comet holiday show.
Burbank first caught an accidental glimpse of Comet Lovejoy on Dec. 21 and snapped an initial set of beautiful comet photos from the Cupola observation dome aboard the ISS.
And – there’s still time to create an Asteroid Vesta themed winter holiday greeting card, here
Prelaunch photo of Soyuz-TMA-22/Expedition 29/30 crew - NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin Credit: Roscosmos
Crater in Shadow on Vesta. This new image from Dawn in its low altitude mapping orbit on Dec. 13 shows part of the rim of a fresh crater on Vesta located in an area known as the Heavily Cratered Terrain in the northern hemisphere at around 17 degrees latitude and 77 degrees longitude. It was obtained at an altitude of 119 miles (191 km) and covers an area 11 mi x 11 mi (18 km x 18 km). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has swooped down to the closest orbit above the monster asteroid Vesta that the craft’s cameras and spectrometers will ever glimpse and the probe has begun transmitting these highest resolution pictures to anxiously waiting scientists back on Earth.
Dawn arrived at its Low Altitude Mapping Orbit, known as LAMO, on Dec. 12, 2011 and will continue circling scarcely 130 miles (210 kilometers) above Vesta for at least the next 10 weeks. Each orbit takes about 4.3 hours.
NASA has now released the first batch of crisp new close-ups images taken by the Framing Camera on Dec. 13 showing the stippled and lumpy surface in an exquisitely fine detail never seen before.
The photo montage below shows side by side views of the same portion of the Vestan surface at ever increasing resolution and clarity from ever lower altitudes.
Closer and Closer to the Vesta Surface
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spiraled closer and closer to the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta since arriving in mid-2011. The two images on the left represent an identical area, first observed during Dawn's survey orbit (far left image). The picture in the center is from Dawn's high-altitude mapping orbit (HAMO) from an altitude of about 430 miles (700 km) with about 230 feet (70 meters-per-pixel) resolution. The image at right was obtained on Dec. 13 from the low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO) at an altitude of 124 miles (199 km) above the surface and has a resolution of 75 feet (23 m) per pixel. It shows small impact craters or slumping at the steep-flanked mountain in the image center that can be identified in the two images to the left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
The high resolution image gallery reveals fine scale highlights such as multitudes of small craters, grooves and lineaments, landslides and slumping, ejecta from past colossal impacts, and small outcrops of bright and dark materials.
The science team, led by Principal Investigator Prof Chris Russell of UCLA, believes that Vesta is actually more like a planet than an asteroid based on the data obtained thus far.
“Vesta is the smallest terrestrial planet in our Solar System”, Russell told Universe Today. “We do not have a good analog to Vesta anywhere else in the Solar System.”
The primary science objectives at the LAMO orbit are to measure the elemental abundances on the surface of Vesta with the US built gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) and to probe the interior structure of the asteroid by measuring the gravity field.
Vesta is a proto-planet formed just a few million years after the birth of the solar system whose evolution into a larger planet was stopped cold by the massive gravitational influence of the planet Jupiter.
Scientists are plowing through thousands of images and millions of spectral measurements to glean clues about the origin and evolution of the solar system that have been preserved on the hitherto unexplored world.
Buried Craters on Vesta
This Dec. 13 image from Dawn spacecraft in its low altitude mapping orbit shows many buried craters located within the equatorial trough region of Vesta. This area bears traces of the material thrown out by the impact that created the Rheasilvia basin in the asteroid’s south polar region. Lineated features are visible in a variety of shapes and sizes from an altitude of 117 miles (189 km) over an area of 11 mi x 11 mi (18 km x 18 km). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
“Vesta is a transitional body between a small asteroid and a planet and is unique in many ways,” says mission scientist Vishnu Reddy of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. “Vesta is unlike any other asteroid we have visited so far.”
After completing the LAMO measurements, Dawn will again spiral back to a higher altitude for further data gathering especially at the unseen North Pole which is in darkness now.
Dawn will continue orbiting Vesta until July 2012 when it will fire up its ion propulsion system and depart for Ceres, the largest body in the main Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
“What can be more exciting than to explore an alien world that until recently was virtually unknown!” Dr. Marc Rayman told Universe Today. Rayman is Dawn’s Chief Engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
Equatorial Trough in Dark and Bright on Vesta
This image was one of the first obtained by Dawn in its low altitude mapping orbit and shows a part of one of the long troughs at the equator of Vesta. Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA
“Dawn continues to gather gamma ray spectra and neutron spectra,” Rayman reports. “The bonus imaging at LAMO is yielding pictures more than three times better than those acquired in the high altitude mapping orbit (HAMO). Every week at this low altitude, Dawn will use its ion propulsion system to fine tune its orbit. The first of these weekly orbit adjustments was performed on December 17.”
The framing cameras eere built by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany.
A treasure trove of spectacular Vesta close-ups are streaming at this moment to the home planet and we’ll have many more goodies to show.
Artist's conception of New Horizons during its flyby of Pluto in 2015. Credit:Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)
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First there was the recent story about evidence for a possible subsurface ocean on Pluto, of all places. Now there is a new report regarding evidence for complex molecules on its surface, from scientists at Southwest Research Institute and Nebraska Wesleyan University. Little enigmatic Pluto is starting to get even more interesting…
The findings come from the Hubble Space Telescope, using the new and highly sensitive Cosmic Origins Spectrograph which indicate that there is a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on the surface. This absorbing material is thought to likely be complex hydrocarbons and/or nitriles. The results have been published in the Astronomical Journal.
Pluto’s surface is known to be coated with ices composed of methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen (it is extremely cold there!). The putative molecules can be produced by sunlight or cosmic rays interacting with those ices.
“This is an exciting finding because complex Plutonian hydrocarbons and other molecules that could be responsible for the ultraviolet spectral features we found with Hubble may, among other things, be responsible for giving Pluto its ruddy color,” said project leader Dr. Alan Stern.
The team also found evidence for surface changes in the ultraviolet spectrum, comparing current observations to those from the 1990s. The cause may be an increase in the pressure of Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere or different terrain which is being viewed at different times.
In a unique first for Universe Today, Dr. Alan Stern was the first researcher to be asked questions from readers via the comments section of this recent interview article by Ray Sanders. His answers to the top five questions (as ranked by “likes” on the discussion posts) will be posted soon in a subsequent article. Stern is also the principal investigator for the New Horizons spacecraft currently en route to Pluto.
A copy of the paper by Stern et al. is available here.
With all of the new discoveries already being made about Pluto, it should be very interesting when New Horizons gets there in 2015, providing us with the first close-up look of this fascinating little world.
As 2011 is drawing to a close, the festive season is here and many of us are winding down and looking forward to the holidays. But this is a great time to look ahead to 2012 and pencil into our calendar and diaries the top astronomical events we don’t want to miss next year.
2012 is going to be a great year for astronomy observing, with some rare and exciting things taking place and a good outlook with some of the regular annual events.
So what top wonders should we expect to see and what will 2012 bring?
Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter Venus & Jupiter Conjunction Credit: Anthony Arrigo UtahSkies.org
On March 15th the Planets Venus and Jupiter will be within 3 degrees and very close to each other in the early evening sky. This will be quite a spectacle as both planets are very bright (Venus being the brightest) and the pair will burn brightly together like a pair of alien eyes watching us after the Sun sets.
This conjunction (where planets group close together as seen from Earth) will be a fantastic visual and photographic opportunity, as it’s not often you get the brightest Planets in our Solar System so close together.
Transit of Venus Transit of Venus Credit: Australian Space Alliance
For many, the transit of Venus is the year’s most anticipated astronomical event and it takes place on June 5th – 6th. The Planet Venus will pass between the Earth and the Sun and you will see Venus (a small black circle) slowly move across, or “transit” the disc of the Sun.
Transits of Venus are very rare and only a few have been witnessed since the dawn of the telescope. Be sure not to miss this very rare event as the next one isn’t visible for over another 100 years from now in 2117 and the next after that is in 2125.
The full transit of Venus in 2012 will be visible in North America, the northwest part of South America, Western Pacific, North East Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Other parts of the world will see a partial transit such as observers in the UK, who will only be able to see the last part of the transit as the Sun rises.
First contact will be at 22:09 UT and final contact will be at 04:49 UT
Take note! You have to use the right equipment for viewing the Sun, such as eclipse glasses, solar filters, or projection through a telescope. Never ever look directly at the Sun and never look at it through a normal telescope or binoculars – You will be permanently blinded! The transit of Venus will be a very popular event, so contact your local astronomy group and see if they are holding an event to celebrate this rare occasion.
Meteor Showers Don't Miss the Major 2012 Meteor Showers Credit: Shooting Star Wallpapers
2011 was a poor year for meteor showers due to the presence of a largely illuminated Moon on all of the major showers; this prevented all but the brightest meteors being seen.
In contrast 2012 brings a welcome respite from the glare of the Moon as it gives little or no interference with this year’s major showers. The only other issue left to contend with is the weather, but if you have clear skies on the evenings of these celestial fireworks, you are in for a treat.
The Quadrantid Meteor Shower peak is narrow and just before dawn on January 4th this shower is expected to have a peak rate (ZHR) of around 80 meteors per hour.
The Perseid Meteor Shower peak is fairly broad with activity increasing on the evenings of the August 9th and 10th with the showers peak on the morning of the 12th. Perseids are the most popular meteor shower of the year as it tends to be warm and the shower has very bright meteors and fireballs, with rates of 100+ an hour at its peak.
The Geminid Meteor Shower is probably the best meteor shower of the year with high rates of slow bright meteors. The peak is very broad and rates of 100+ meteors per hour can be seen. The best time to look out for Geminids is on the evenings of the 12th to 14th December, but they can be seen much earlier or later than the peak.
If you want to find out more and enjoy the meteor showers of 2012, why not join in with a meteorwatch and visit meteorwatch.org
Jupiter and the Moon Occultation of Jupiter by the Moon on July 15th as seen from Southern England Credit: Adrian West
European observers are in for a very rare treat as the Moon briefly hides the planet Jupiter on the morning of July 15th. This “lunar occultation” can be seen from southern England and parts of Europe at approximately 1:50am UT (dependant on location) and the planet re-emerges from the dark lunar limb at approximately 3:10am UT.
This is a great chance to watch this rare and bright event, and it will also be a fantastic imaging opportunity.
Annular Eclipse Annular Eclipse Credit: Kitt Peak Observatory
American observers will have treat on May 20th with an annular eclipse of the Sun. The eclipse will be visible from many western US states and a partial eclipse visible from most of North America.
Because the Moon’s orbit is not a perfect circle and is slightly elliptical, it moves closer and further away from us slightly in its orbit by 13% and on July 15th it is at its furthest point away from the Earth as it passes in front of the Sun.
Normally the Moon covers the entire disc of the Sun and creates a total solar eclipse, but because the Moon is at its furthest point in its orbit on the 15th, we get an annular eclipse, where we can still see a ring of bright light around the Sun, but we don’t get totality.
The eclipse starts roughly at 6:20pm local time for the Western US states and lasts for four and a half minutes.
As mentioned earlier; never, ever look at the Sun without proper protection such as eclipse glasses or filters for equipment! This can damage your eyes and permanently blind you. This is the same for cameras; the sensitive chips inside can be damaged.
The World Not Ending
End Of The World
Finally we get to December 21st, in which astronomy-minded folks will celebrate the solstice. But in case you haven’t heard, some have prophesied the end of the world, saying the Mayan calendar ends. This has been the subject of much discussion, comedy and media coverage, and it has even been made into films.
Will the Antichrist press the red button and will there be the Rapture? Will the Earth reverse its magnetic poles, or will we get wiped out by a solar flare, rogue comet or asteroid?
Nope, probably not. You can read our entire series which explains why this whole 2012 end-of-the-world craze is complete hokum.
All I know is 2012 is going to be a great year for astronomy with some very interesting, rare events taking place, with many more regular events to see, as well.
