ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli shot some 3-D video during his 6 months on board the International Space Station (Dec 2010 to May 2011) and the footage has now been put together into a “tour” of the space station. Nespoli and the crew used ESA’s Erasmus Recording Binocular (ERB-2) stereoscopic camera, capturing “day-in-the-life” activiites on the ISS, from educational activities, to scientific experiments and physical training, also demonstrating the way astronauts move in weightlessness through the various modules. So, grab your red/blue 3-D glasses to watch the video.
Several views of the UARS satellite in orbit, as seen from the ground with a 14" telescope. Credit: Thierry Legault Emmanual Rietsch
The huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will be plummeting to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry this week, but here’s an incredible video from astrophotographer extraordinaire Thierry Legault who shot footage of UARS with his 14-inch telescope. Legault was in Northern France (Dunkerque) last week to attempt to capture views of the satellite, and had success on September 15, 2011 between 04:42:14 and 04:44:02 UTC, just 8-9 days before its atmospheric reentry, when it was at an altitude of only 250 km. The tumbling, uncontrolled nature of the satellite is obvious in this video, and various components are visible, such as the body itself and the solar arrays.
NASA has now refined its prediction for when this bus-sized satellite will fall to Earth. The 20-year-old defunct satellite now has a predicted re-entry Time of about 20:36 UTC on September 23, 2011, plus or minus 20 hours, according the the UARS Reentry Twitter feed. So, heads up!
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This is a day earlier than previously anticipated. Pieces of the 6.5-ton satellite are expected to survive the fiery plunge and hit our planet, but NASA does not know exactly where. There was word today that increased activity from the Sun has hastened the decay of the satellite’s orbit.
Legault said his images show the satellite at a 316 km distance to the observer. The angular speed at culmination: 1.36°/s. The speed of the sequence is accelerated two times with regard to real time (20 fps vs 10 fps). The satellite is tumbling, perhaps because of a collision with satellite debris a few years ago.
Here is the equipment Legault used: Celestron EdgeHD 14” Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (at a focal length of 8500mm) on automatic tracking system, as described on this page. Camera: Lumenera Skynyx L2-2.
Thanks to Legault for sharing his video and images with Universe Today! See more info at Legault’s website.
Map of the UARS orbital path. Credit: @UARS_Reentry Twitter feed.
NASA says there are about 26 components that are big enough to survive and make it down to Earth, the largest weighing more than 150 kg (330 pounds.)
What are you chances of getting hit by debris? Nick Johnson, chief scientist with NASA’s Orbital Debris Program, said that numerically, it comes out to a chance of 1 in 3,200 that any one person anywhere in the world might be struck by a piece of debris. That might sound high, but if you factor in that there are 7 billion people on Earth and that a large part of Earth is covered by water, the liklihood is actually very small. The chance that any one person on Earth getting hit by debris has been estimated at about 1 in 21 trillion.
We’ll provide more updates on the UARS story. For those who would like to catch a last glimpse of UARS streaking across the night sky for yourself should check Heaven’s Above or SpaceWeather’s Satellite Tracker for flyby times in your area.
Soyuz Lands with the Moon as backdrop. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Video Caption: Soyuz Trio Lands in Kazakhstan – The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Ron Garan and his fellow Expedition 28 flight engineers returned safely to Earth on Sept. 16 with a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. Garan and cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko, and Alexander Samokutyaev had been on the International Space Station since April 6. Their journey home was delayed just over a week by the failure of the Progress 44 cargo craft to reach the station. Remaining on the orbiting laboratory is NASA’s Mike Fossum and his two Expedition 28/29 colleagues, Russian Sergei Volkov, and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency
Check out this collection of dramatic videos of the departure, descent and safe touchdown of the trio of Russian and American space flyers aboard the Soyuz TMA 21 spacecraft in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan on Sept. 16, 2011.
The first video above is a compilation of all the key events from the Soyuz spacecraft undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) to landing and gives the complete picture. Be sure to watch the Soyuz flying away like a bird with the gorgeous Earth in the background. Observe the crew being extracted like fish from the capsule.
The rest of the videos are shorter and break down the story to focus on the key individual events of the crews remaining final hours aboard the station and in space.
This video records the “Change of Command” as Mike Fossum takes over the helm of the ISS
Video Caption: NASA’s Fossum Given ISS Command – In a ceremony conducted 230 miles above the Earth on Sept. 14, the “helm” of the International Space Station was handed over by Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko to NASA astronaut, Mike Fossum, who takes command of the orbiting laboratory on Expedition 29.
Hatch Closure and Bidding Farewell
Video Caption: Hatch Closes as Soyuz Crew Bids Farewell – The Expedition 28 crew of Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev, NASA Flight Engineer Ron Garan and off-going station Commander Andrey Borisenko said their goodbyes to the remaining residents of the International Space Station before closing the hatch on their vehicle and preparing to undock for their return home to Earth on Sept. 16
This video highlights the ISS undocking sequence
Video Caption: Soyuz Undocks from ISS – The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft that’ll carry Commander Alexander Samokutyaev, NASA Flight Engineer Ron Garan and off-going station Commander Andrey Borisenko back to Earth undocks from the International Space Station and begins its return journey home.
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Read Ken’s Soyuz landing story for further details:
Expedition 28 Soyuz Crew Lands Safely in Kazakhstan
I’ve got a poster that says, “All I Needed to Know About Life, I Learned from Star Trek.” Why? Because it’s true. We all know we need to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to always keep your phaser on stun. Oh, and always follow the Prime Directive, too.
It was 45 years ago today that the first Star Trek original series show premiered on television. To celebrate, I’m NOT wearing a red shirt, and I’ll share videos of the intro from the original series, above, and below, a blooper reel from the 1960’s. It’s sure to make any Trekkie smile. Continue reading “45 Years Ago Today, Star Trek Beamed Into Our Lives”
The future of NASA’s human space flight looks exciting and bright in this new video. Only time will tell if the ISS program, COTS, CCDev2, Orion and SLS can come together to create the perfect storm of what could be an incredible future. Great expectations? You bet. But isn’t that what NASA is all about? Now if Congress can just get that message and figure it out.
Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form. Credit: Hubble/ESA
[/caption]Don’t you know that you are a shooting star… Thanks to the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of scientists led by astronomer Patrick Hartigan of Rice University in Houston, USA, has done something pretty incredible. Using photos and information gathered from the last 14 years of observations, they’ve sewn together an unprecedented look at young jets ejected from three stars. Be prepared to be “blown” away…
The time-lapse sequence of “moving pictures” offers us an opportunity to witness activity that takes place over several years in just a few seconds. Active jets can remain volatile for periods of up to 100,000 years and these movies reveal details never seen – like knots of gas brightening and dimming – and collisions between fast-moving and slow-moving material. These insights allow scientists to form a clearer picture of stellar birth.
“For the first time we can actually observe how these jets interact with their surroundings by watching these time-lapse movies,” said Hartigan. “Those interactions tell us how young stars influence the environments out of which they form. With movies like these, we can now compare observations of jets with those produced by computer simulations and laboratory experiments to see which aspects of the interactions we understand and which we don’t understand.”
As a star forms in its collapsing cloud of cold gas, it gushes out streams of material in short bursts, pushing out from its poles at speeds of up to about 600,000 miles an hour. As the star ages, it spins material and its gravity attracts even more, creating a disc which may eventually become protoplanetary. The fast moving jets may be restricted by the neophyte star’s magnetic fields and could cease when the material runs out. However, by looking at this supposition in action, new questions arise. It would appear that the dust and gas move at different speeds.
“The bulk motion of the jet is about 300 kilometers per second,” Hartigan said. “That’s really fast, but it’s kind of like watching a stock car race; if all the cars are going the same speed, it’s fairly boring. The interesting stuff happens when things are jumbling around, blowing past one another or slamming into slower moving parts and causing shockwaves.”
But the “action” doesn’t stop there. In viewing these sequential shockwaves, the team was at a loss to understand the dynamics behind the collisions. By enlisting the aid of colleagues familiar with the physics of nuclear explosions, they quickly discovered a recognizable pattern.
“The fluid dynamicists immediately picked up on an aspect of the physics that astronomers typically overlook, and that led to a different interpretation for some of the features we were seeing,” Hartigan explained. “The scientists from each discipline bring their own unique perspectives to the project, and having that range of expertise has proved invaluable for learning about this critical phase of stellar evolution.”
Hartigan began using Hubble to collect still frames of stellar jets in 1994 and his findings are so complex he has employed the aid of experts in fluid dynamics from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, and General Atomics in San Diego, California, as well as computer specialists from the University of Rochester in New York. The Hubble sequence movies have been such a scientific success that Hartigan’s team is now conducting laboratory experiments at the Omega Laser facility in New York to understand how supersonic jets interact with their environment.
“Our collaboration has exploited not just large laser facilities such as Omega, but also computer simulations that were developed for research into nuclear fusion,” explains Paula Rosen of the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, a co-author of the research. “Using these experimental methods has enabled us to identify aspects of the physics that the astronomers overlooked — it is exciting to know that what we do in the laboratory here on Earth can shed light on complex phenomena in stellar jets over a thousand light-years away. In future, even larger lasers, like the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, will be able explore the nuclear processes that take place within stars.”
And all the world will love you just as long… as long as you are… a shooting star!
NPR (National Public Radio) put together this video from 1980s-era NASA video with commentary by astronauts of various missions. The edited footage comes from VHS tape (you do remember that, right?) and is a playful “instructional video” and a look at life in space on board the space shuttle.
It’s been a summer of storms across the US, and timelapse photographer Randy Halverson has taken advantage of it! Randy alerted us that he’s just put out a new video following his incredible Plains Milky Way timelapse from earlier this year. His new one is “Tempest Milky Way” which features the storms and skies of the Midwest US. Randy said he wanted to combine “good storm and star shots,” but that the opportunity doesn’t come along very often. “The storm has to be moving the right speed and the lightning can overexpose the long exposures.” But Randy’s photography and editing prowess shines in “Tempest Milky Way.”
A few things to watch: Look for a Whitetail buck (briefly) at the 1:57 mark (“It was caught on 20 frames, and was there for about 10 minutes. It was only 50 yards from the camera, dolly and light,” Randy said.)
At about 2:28 an airplane flies under the oncoming storm.
At the 3:24 mark, a meteor reflects on the water of the small lake. Look for many other meteors in the timelapse, too.
This is a wonderful video, augmented with great music, not to be missed!
Kick back and watch the clouds go by — on Mars! Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog has put together a very nifty video from Mars Express data, showing clouds in motion over Mars. Emily has just learned a new technique called ‘tweening’ to create smooth animation videos from a series of images that are not at a very high frame rate. She explains more about the technique on her blog post here and has promised a two-part “how to” explainer for those interested in learning how to do this for yourself.
The cloudy area shown on Mars is within Noachis Terra to the west of Hellas basin, around 45 degrees south, 38 east.
Example Of LIVE Image From Bareket Observatory - Viewer Located Inside This Article
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Are you ready for some excitement? How would you like to watch a LIVE broadcast of Comet C2009 P1 Garradd right here on Universe Today?! Thanks to our good friends at Bareket Observatory and clear skies in Israel, we can do just that! Step inside to our virtual observatory…
Before you get upset and think there’s something wrong, there are a few things you must remember about watching a live telescope broadcast. If there are clouds – you will see no image. If the camera isn’t turned on and broadcasting – you will only see the blue “frame” below where the image is meant to be. Because the data load is so huge from the incoming images, it limits itself to refreshing about every 30 to 60 seconds. This means the image will appear static, then reset itself. If you watch for a period of perhaps 10 minutes or so, you will notice appreciable movement against the background stars. The tracking is set on the nucleus of the comet, so the comet won’t appear to move – the background stars will each time it refreshes. There can also be unforeseen glitches, (such as viewer overload) so please be patient! Last… There will be no image until the broadcast time. You don’t have to click anywhere else – when the broadcast is happening it will be right here where you see the frame below.
The live broadcast of Comet Garradd will take place on Monday, August 22 – 2100-0300 local Israel time (UTC+3). To give you some help figuring times, here’s a very brief listing that’s in absolutely no particular order:
Shanghai – Tue 2:00 AM – Tue 8:00 AM
Sydney – Tue 4:00 AM – Tue 10:00 AM
Zurich – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
Moscow – Mon 10:00 PM – Tue 4:00 AM
Rome – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
London – Mon 7:00 PM – Tue 1:00 AM
New York – Mon 2:00 PM – Mon 8:00 PM
Mexico City – Mon 1:00 PM – Mon 7:00 PM
Vancouver – Mon 11:00 AM – Mon 5:00 PM
Honolulu – Mon 8:00 AM – Mon 2:00 PM
New Delhi – Mon 11:30 PM – Tue 5:30 AM
Johannesburg – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
Tokyo – Tue 3:00 AM – Tue 9:00 AM
Denver – Mon 12:00 Noon – Mon 6:00 PM
San Francisco – Mon 11:00 AM – Mon 5:00 PM
San Juan – Mon 2:00 PM – Mon 8:00 PM
Anchorage – Mon 10:00 AM – Mon 4:00 PM
That having been said, the frame right below these words will be your virtual eyepiece!
Feel free to “take” any images you want and stitch together a video – or post ’em to your favorites sites. If you enjoyed the broadcast, won’t you take a few minutes and thank the hardworking, generous crew at Bareket Observatory? I am very sure they would appreciate it!
