Rover tracks and Martian sand as seen from the rear hazcam of NASA's Curiosity rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
After a couple of years of racing towards Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons), now it’s time for the Curiosity rover to get a better look at its Martian surroundings. The rover has reached its stated science destination and mission planners say now is the time to stop the driving and get deep into the science.
NASA is on the hunt for signs of habitability on the Red Planet, and officials hope that the layers of this big mountain will yield a wealth of information on Martian history.
“This first look at rocks we believe to underlie Mount Sharp is exciting because it will begin to form a picture of the environment at the time the mountain formed, and what led to its growth,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s deputy project scientist in a press release from late September.
As Curiosity drills and analyzes rocks at its feet, it continues to send back stunning pictures of its surroundings. Check out a sample from this week below.
Mars Curiosity peers over a craggy ridge on Oct. 7, 2014 (Sol 771). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSMartian hills beckon in this photo from the Curiosity rover taken Oct. 7, 2014, on Sol 771. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSClose-up of a brush instrument on the Mars Curiosity rover on Oct. 3 (Sol 767). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSCracked terrain underfoot seen by the Martian Curiosity rover on Oct. 7, 2014 (Sol 771). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA invites you to send your name to Mars via the first Orion test flight in December 2014. Deadline for submissions is Oct 31, 2014. Join over 170,000 others! See link below. Credit: NASA
NASA invites you to send your name to Mars. And the adventure starts via the first Orion test flight dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) scheduled for blastoff on December 4, 2014, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Today NASA announced that the public can submit their names for inclusion on a dime-sized microchip that will travel on spacecraft voyaging to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, including Mars.
Join over 170,000 others who have already signed up in just the first few hours!
Since the Orion EFT-1 mission is set to launch in less than two months, the deadline to submit your name is soon: Oct 31, 2014.
“NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and working hard to send people to Mars in the future,” said Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager, in a NASA statement.
“When we set foot on the Red Planet, we’ll be exploring for all of humanity. Flying these names will enable people to be part of our journey.”
How can you sign up to fly on Orion EFT-1? Is there a certificate?
NASA has made it easy to sign up and you can also print out an elegant looking ‘Boarding Pass’
Click on this weblink posted online by NASA today: http://go.usa.gov/vcpz
Orion EFT-1 Boarding Pass sample. Credit: NASA
According to the websites counter, over 170,000 people have already signed up today!
And NASA says your journey doesn’t end with EFT-1!
“After returning to Earth, the names will fly on future NASA exploration flights and missions to Mars. With each flight, selected individuals will accrue more miles as members of a global space-faring society,” according to a NASA statement.
So, what are you waiting for?
Remember the deadline is Oct 31, 2014!
NASA’s Orion Program manager Mark Geyer discusses Orion EFT-1 mission. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
What are the goals of the Orion EFT-1 mission?
Orion will launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The two-orbit, four and a half hour EFT-1 flight around Earth will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years. It will test the avionics and electronic systems inside the Orion spacecraft.
NASA’s completed Orion EFT 1 crew module loaded on wheeled transporter during move to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHFS) on Sept. 11, 2014, at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Then the spacecraft will travel back through the atmosphere at speeds approaching 20,000 mph and temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit to test the heat shield, before splashing down for a parachute assisted landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket launching NASA’s Orion’s EFT-1 in Dec. 2014 being hoisted vertical at SLC-37B on the morning of Oct. 1, 2014. Credit: Jeff Seibert/Wired4Space
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Learn more about Orion, Space Taxis and NASA Human and Robotic Spaceflight at Ken’s upcoming presentations:
Oct 14: “What’s the Future of America’s Human Spaceflight Program with Orion and Commercial Astronaut Taxis” & “Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Princeton University, Amateur Astronomers Assoc of Princeton (AAAP), Princeton, NJ, 7:30 PM
Oct 23/24: “Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launch from Virginia”; Rodeway Inn, Chincoteague, VA
Five orbiters from India, the European Union and the United States will nestle behind the Mars as comet Siding Springs passes at a speed of 200,000 km/hr (125,000 mph). At right, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter, the Chelyabinsk Asteroid over Russia. (Credits: NASA,ESA, ISRO)
It was 20 years ago this past July when images of Jupiter being pummeled by a comet caught the world’s attention. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had flown too close to Jupiter. It was captured by the giant planet’s gravity and torn into a string of beads. One by one the comet fragments impacted Jupiter — leaving blemishes on its atmosphere, each several times larger than Earth in size.
Until that event, no one had seen a comet impact a planet. Now, Mars will see a very close passage of the comet Siding Spring on October 19th. When the comet was first discovered, astronomers quickly realized that it was heading straight at Mars. In fact, it appeared it was going to be a bulls-eye hit — except for the margin of error in calculating a comet’s trajectory from 1 billion kilometers (620 million miles, 7 AU) away.
It took several months of analysis for a cataclysmic impact on Mars to be ruled out. So now today, Mars faces just a cosmic close shave. But this comet packs enough energy that an impact would have globally altered Mars’ surface and atmosphere.
So what should we Earthlings gather from this and other events like it? Are we next? Why or why not should we be prepared for impacts from these mile wide objects?
For one, ask any dinosaur and you will have your answer.
An illustration of the Siding Spring comet in comparison to the Comet 67P atop Los Angeles. The original image was the focus of Bob King’s article – “What Comets, Parking Lots and Charcoal Have in Common“. (Credit: ESA, anosmicovni)
One can say that Mars was spared as were the five orbiting spacecraft from India (Mars Orbiter Mission), the European Union (Mars Express) and the United States (MOD, MRO, MAVEN). We have Scottish-Australian astronomer Robert McNaught to thank for discovering the comet on January 3, 2013, using the half meter (20 inch) Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring, Australia.
Initially the margin of error in the trajectory was large, but a series of observations gradually reduced the error. By late summer 2014, Mars was in the clear and astronomers could confidently say the comet would pass close but not impact. Furthermore, as observations accumulated — including estimates of the outpouring of gases and dust — comet Siding Spring shrunk in size, i.e. the estimates of potentially tens of kilometers were down to now 700 meters (4/10th of a mile) in diameter. Estimates of the gas and dust production are low and the size of the tail and coma — the spherical gas cloud surrounding the solid body — are small and only the outer edge of both will interact with Mars’ atmosphere.
The mass, velocity and kinetic energy of celestial bodies can be deceiving. It is useful to compare the Siding Spring comet to common or man-made objects.
Yet, this is a close call for Mars. We could not rule out a collision for over six months. While this comet is small, it is moving relative to Mars at a speed of 200,000 kilometers/hour (125,000 mph, 56 km/sec). This small body packs a wallop. From high school science or intro college Physics, many of us know that the kinetic energy of an object increases by the square of the velocity. Double the velocity and the energy of the object goes up by 4, increase by 3 – energy increases by 9.
So the close shave for Mars is yet another wake up call for the “intelligent” space faring beings of the planet Earth. A wake up call because the close passage of a comet could have just as easily involved Earth. Astronomers would have warned the world of a comet heading straight for us, one that could wipe out 70% of all life as happened 65 million years ago to the dinosaurs. Replace dinosaur with humans and you have the full picture.
Time would have been of the essence. The space faring nations of the world — those of the EU, and Russia, the USA, Japan and others — would have gathered and attempted to conceive some spacecrafts with likely nuclear weapons that could be built and launched within a few months. Probably several vehicles with weapons would be launched at once, leaving Earth as soon as possible. Intercepting a comet or asteroid further out would give the impulse from the explosions more time to push the incoming body away from the Earth.
There is no way that humanity could sit on their collective hands and wait for astronomers to observe and measure for months until they could claim that it would just be a close call for Earth. We could imagine the panic it would cause. Recall the scenes from Carl Sagan’s movie Contact with people of every persuasion expressing at 120 decibels their hopes and fears. Even a small comet or asteroid, only a half kilometer – a third of a mile in diameter would be a cataclysmic event for Mars or Earth.
But yet, in the time that has since transpired from discovery of the comet Siding Spring (1/3/2013), the Chelyabinsk asteroid (~20 m/65 ft) exploded in an air burst that injured 1500 people in Russia. The telescope that discovered Comet Siding Spring was decommissioned in late 2013 and the Southern Near-Earth Object Survey was shutdown. This has left the southern skies without a dedicated telescope for finding near-Earth asteroids. And proposals such as the Sentinel project by the B612 Foundation remain underfunded.
We know of the dangers from small celestial bodies such as comets or asteroids. Government organizations in the United States and groups at the United Nations are discussing plans. There is plenty of time to find and protect the Earth but not necessarily time to waste.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo lands after its 54th test flight on Oct. 7, 2014. Credit: Scaled Composites / Jason DiVenere
Virgin Galactic has finished yet another stepping-stone to its first commercial spaceflight. The New Mexico-based company sent SpaceShipTwo aloft on a test of the re-entry system Oct. 7, making a safe landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
The company is among a handful of firms competing to bring well-heeled tourists into suborbital space. There are more than 700 people signed up to take a flight on SpaceShipTwo, with tickets running at $250,000 per seat. The spacecraft is put into the air using a carrier aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo, then separates for a brief flight in space. Exact timing for the first flight has not been disclosed yet, but it is expected to be in the coming months.
“SpaceShipTwo is safely back on the ground after her 54th test flight, including her tenth test of the feather system,” wrote Virgin Galactic in a tweet yesterday (Oct. 7). “Coupled with several good, full duration ground tests of SS2’s rocket motor in recent weeks, today’s flight brings spaceflight closer.”
Feathered Flight during Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo’s third powered flight on January 10, 2014, over the Mojave desert. This image was taken by MARS Scientific as part of the Mobile Aerospace Reconnaissance System optical tracking system.
It’s been a long road to space for Virgin Galactic, which last week commemorated the 10th anniversary of the predecessor prototype spacecraft (SpaceShipOne) making a second flight into suborbital space Oct. 4, 2004, to win the Ansari X-Prize — the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight in 1961.
The spacecraft was built by Scaled Composites and today is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan subsequently designed SpaceShipTwo, but has since retired.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has pushed back the first spaceflight of the new spacecraft several times over the years. In recent statements he has said he was hoping the spacecraft would be ready early next year, but in an NBC news report from last week he simply said SpaceShipTwo is “on the verge” of starting flights.
More pictures from yesterday’s test flight are below.
Photo of a spacewalker at work on the International Space Station on Oct. 7, 2014. "I don't have words to describe what we did today, but this photo gives a pretty good impression!" wrote European Space Agency astronaut (and spacewalk participant) Alexander Gerst on Twitter as a caption to this photo. Credit: Alexander Gerst / Twitter
What happens when you send two prolific social media astronauts out on a spacewalk? The best photos ever. Reid Wiseman (NASA) and Alexander Gerst (European Space Agency) both participated in their first extra-vehicular activity yesterday, and sent back amazing pictures of what the view looked like outside their visors.
Their comments are also fun: “reasonably INSANE” and “learning to fly” are among the phrases they put on Twitter, which you can see in the photo gallery below. The spacewalkers accomplished the major task of yesterday’s spacewalk, placing a failed International Space Station pump module in a permanent location, and doing a couple of minor maintenance tasks.
And here’s a bonus for those who scrolled to the end of this post — the first Vine video posted real-time during a spacewalk! This comes courtesy of NASA’s account. Click on the video to access the audio, which is Reid Wiseman exclaiming on the view over southern South America.
Lunar eclipse timelapse into totality. Taken from Palmyra, New Jersey on the Delaware River near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Night began with stormy clouds and transitioned to clearer skies as the eclipse progressed. Sequence from approx 4AM EDT to 7AM sunrise. Credit and copyright: Frank Miller.
Did you see it? On October 8, 2014, early risers in North and South America, east Asia, Australia and the Pacific saw unique and rare views of the Hunter’s Moon as was eclipsed by Earth’s shadow. We’ve got so many great pictures to share from our Flickr group and from social media! In some shots, the fully eclipsed Moon glows with a coppery red hue, and in others the partially eclipsed Moon appears to have a bite taken out of its bright surface. Some images pair the Moon with a faint planet Uranus.
This is the second and final total lunar eclipse of 2014, and the second of four in a quartet series of lunar eclipses known as a tetrad — a series of 4 consecutive total eclipses occurring at approximately six month intervals. The next total eclipse will be on April 4, 2015, with another occurring on Sept. 28, 2015.
Enjoy the images below!
Montage of the various views of the Moon during the lunar eclipse on October 8, 2014. Credit and copyright: Chuck Manges.Near-totality eclipsed Moon, in Pisces, with Uranus at left. Delta Psc is that brightest star at upper-right of Moon. Imaged near Calabash, North Carolina. Credit and copyright: Tavi Greiner.The red ‘blood Moon’ of the October 8, 2014, lunar eclipse, as seen from the Mare Island Observatory. Credit and copyright: Clifton Reed.The eclipsed Moon sets over the Andes (Mts. Lopez and Capilla, Bariloche). Credit and copyright: Guillermo Abramson.Total Lunar Eclipse through the clouds as seen from Weatherly, PA on October 8, 2014. Credit and copyright: Tom Wildoner.‘Eclipse on the edge,’ shot from the front of the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada. Credit and copyright: David Dickinson.Last moments of the eclipse as seen from Calama, Chile. Credit and copyright: srta Andrea on Flickr.The October 8th, 2014, lunar eclipse from Houston, Texas, taken with a 500m lens featuring a statue of Sam Houston. Credit and copyright: Sergio Garcia Rill.Image of the lunar eclipse taken just before the midpoint of totality. Taken with a modified Canon 450D + Celestron C6-N telescope. f/4 ISO400 4s exposure. Credit and copyright: Fred Locklear.Lunar Eclipse on 10-08-2014 Huffman Dam, Dayton, Ohio Canon 6D, 80mm refractor,2x Barlow (1200mm) ISO 6400, 2 sec exposure. Credit and copyright: John Chumack/Galactic Images.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
The night sky over Horseshoe Bend, near Page Arizona. Credit and copyright: Jack Fusco.
As the Milky Way now begins to set earlier in the evening here in the northern hemisphere, that doesn’t mean the photos of our night sky are any less stunning. This lovely shot for #TerrestrialTuesday by photographer Jack Fusco was taken this week at Horseshoe Bend in Arizona, a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River.
“During the day, the walk to Horseshoe Bend was full of tourists from all over the world,” Jack explained on Flickr. “At night, we sat alone and stared up at a brilliant star filled sky and only heard coyotes in the distance. It was an absolutely incredible location during the day and at night. This was shot with no Moon at the sky, so the area was at it’s absolute darkest. I was a little nervous setting up my gear for this shot as my tripod was just a few inches from a 1000ft drop down to the river. It was certainly an experience I’ll never forget.”
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
That ‘amazing astro-shot that isn’t’ is making the rounds of ‘ye ole web again.
You know the one. “See an Amazing Image of an Eclipse… From SPACE!!!” screams the breathless headline, with the all-too-perfect image of totality over the limb of the Earth, with the Milky Way thrown in behind it for good measure.
As the old saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Sure, the pic is a fake, and it’s been debunked many, many times since it was first released into the wild a few years back. But never let reality get in the way of a good viral meme. As eclipse season 2 of 2 gets underway tonight with a total lunar eclipse followed by a partial solar eclipse on October 23rd both visible from North America, the image is once again making its rounds. But there’s a long history of authentic captures of eclipses from space that are just as compelling. We’ve compiled just such a roll call of real images of eclipses seen from space:
A partial solar eclipse as captured by SDO. Credit: NASA/SDO.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Launched in 2010, The Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO is NASA’s premier orbiting solar observatory. But unlike Sun-staring satellites based in low Earth orbit, SDO’s geosynchronous orbit assures that it tends to see a cycle of partial solar eclipses twice a year, roughly around the equinoxes. And like many satellites, SDO also passes into the Earth’s shadow as well, offering unique views of a solar eclipse by the limb of the Earth from its vantage point.
The Moon ‘photobombs’ the view of Hinode. Credit: NASA/JAXA.
Hinode:
A joint mission between NASA and JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) launched in 2006, Hinode observes the Sun from low Earth orbit. As a consequence, it nearly has a similar vantage point as terrestrial viewers and frequently nabs passages of the Moon as solar eclipses occur. Such events, however, are fleeting; moving at about eight kilometres per second, such eclipses last only seconds in duration!
Catching the passage of the Moon during a brief partial eclipse. Credit: ESA.
Proba-2:
Like Hinode, Proba-2 is the European Space Agency’s flagship solar observing spacecraft based in low Earth orbit. It also catches sight of the occasional solar eclipse, and these fleeting passages of the Moon in front of the Earth happen in quick multiple cycles. Recent images from Proba-2 are available online.
Eclipses from the ISS:
The International Space Station isn’t equipped to observe the Sun per se, but astronauts and cosmonauts aboard have managed to catch views of solar eclipses in an unusual way, as the umbra of the Moon crosses the surface of the Earth. Such a view also takes the motion of the ISS in low Earth orbit into account. Cosmonauts aboard the late Mir space station also caught sight of the August 11th, 1999, total solar eclipse over Europe.
NASA’ s GOES-WEST spies the umbra of the Moon. Credit: NASA-GOES.
NASA-GOES:
Weather satellites can, and do, occasionally catch sight of the inky black dot of the Moon’s penumbra crossing the disk of the Earth. GOES-West snapped the above image of the November 13th, 2012, solar eclipse. The umbra of the Moon’s shadow races about 1700 kilometres per hour from west to east during an eclipse, and we can expect some interesting images in 2017 when the next total solar eclipse crosses the United States on August 21st, 2017.
An ‘Apollo eclipse!’ Credit: NASA.
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project:
The final mission of Apollo program, the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, also yielded an unusual and little known effort to observe the Sun. The idea was to use the Apollo command module as a “coronagraph” and have cosmonauts image the Sun from the Soyuz as the Apollo spacecraft blocked it out after undocking. Unfortunately, the Apollo thrusters smeared the exposure, and it became a less than iconic— though unusual — view from the space age.
A partial solar eclipse snapped by the crew of Gemini XII. Credit: NASA.
Gemini XII and the first eclipse seen from space:
On November 12th, 1966, a total solar eclipse graced South America. Astronauts James Lovell Jr. and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. were also in orbit at the time, and managed to snap the first image of a solar eclipse from space. Gemini XII was the last flight of the program, and the astronauts initially thought they’d missed the eclipse after a short trajectory burn.
The 2012 transit of Venus as seen from the ISS. Credit: NASA/Don Pettit.
ISS Astronauts catch a transit of Venus:
We were fortunate that the International Space Station had its very own amateur astronomer in residence in 2012 to witness the historic transit of Venus from space. NASA astronaut Don Pettit knew that the transit would occur during his rotation, and packed a full-aperture white light solar filter for the occasion. Of course, a planetary transit meets the very loosest definition of a partial eclipse, but it’s a unique capture nonetheless.
Kaguya:
Japan’s SELENE-Kaguya spacecraft entered orbit around the Moon in 2007 and provided some outstanding imagery of our solitary natural neighbor. On February 10th, 2009, it also managed to catch a high definition view of the Earth eclipsing the Sun as seen from lunar orbit. A rare catch, such an event occurs during every lunar eclipse as seen from the Earth.
Curiosity captures a misshapen eclipse from the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL.
An unusual eclipse… seen from Mars:
We’re fortunate to live in an epoch in time and space where total solar eclipses can occur as seen from the Earth. But bizarre eclipses and transits can also be seen from Mars. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers have witnessed brief transits of the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos across the face of the Sun, and in 2010, the Curiosity rover recorded the passage of Phobos in front of the Sun in a bizarre-potato shaped “annular eclipse”. But beyond just the “coolness” factor, the event also helped researchers refine our understanding of orbital path of the Martian moon.
The future: It’s also interesting to think of what sort of astronomical wonders await travelers as we venture out across the solar system. For example, no human has yet to stand on the Moon and witness a solar eclipse. Or how about a ring plane passage through Saturn’s rings, thus far only witnessed via the robotic eyes of Cassini? Of course, for the best views of Saturn’s rings, we recommend a vacation stay on Iapetus, the only major Saturnian moon whose orbit is inclined to the ring plane. And stick around ‘til November 10th, 2084, and you can witness a transit of Earth, the Moon and Phobos as seen from the slopes of Elysium Mons on Mars:
Hopefully, they’ll have perfected that whole Futurama “head-in-a-jar” thing by then…
XCOR engineer Brandon Litt inspects a Lynx wing spar. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike Massee
EDIT Oct. 8, 12:14 p.m. EDT: This article has been amended at XCOR’s request to remove a reference to a specific deal.
Ready, set … launch? That’s what XCOR is hoping to accomplish as the company continues building its Lynx spacecraft prototype.
The company announced this week that it has mated the cockpit to the fuselage on the prototype — which they classify as a major milestone in construction. Check out pictures of the team at work below.
“The team at XCOR has been working a long time to reach this goal,” stated XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “We always knew there would be a day when we could see a spacecraft forming in our hangar. Today is that day. These pictures show our ongoing journey to make commercial space flight a reality.”
The company is also testing Lynx’s propulsion system and is starting to bond other components together to the spacecraft prototype, such as the landing gear.
View of the Lynx cockpit, fuselage and strakes. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike MasseeRay Fitting, an XCOR shop technician, with a liquid oxygen pump for the Lynx spacecraft. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike MasseeView of the Lynx cockpit, fuselage and strakes. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike MasseeXCOR engineer Mark Street signing off on the Lynx cockpit structure before the structure is mated with the fuselage. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike MasseeXCOR engineer Mark Street inspecting the Lynx cockpit. Credit: XCOR Aerospace / Mike Massee
Artist's impression of cosmic rays striking Earth (Simon Swordy/University of Chicago, NASA)
Quick, do you have an Android phone in your pocket? A few small changes and you could help physicists probe more of the curious nature of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that emanate from outside our solar system.
Just download an app, cover up your phone’s camera with duct tape, then place it somewhere (running idle) with the screen facing up. If a particle “event” happens, the information will be logged in a central database.
The project (called Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory or DECO) aims to record secondary particles called muons that occur when cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists believe cosmic rays are created in black holes and supernovas, but more studies are needed.
Screenshot of an Android app developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aims to capture cosmic rays. Credit: Justin Vandenbroucke
Researchers at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), led by Justin Vandenbroucke, note that there are things about cosmic rays that confuse physicists. Their paths in space change as they go across magnetic fields, and it makes searching for other astronomy events difficult. That’s where they hope the phone study will be useful.
“Smartphone cameras use silicon chips that work through what is called the photoelectric effect, in which particles of light, or photons, hit a silicon surface and release an electric charge,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in a press release.
“The same is true for muons. When a muon strikes the semiconductor that underpins a smartphone camera, it liberates an electric charge and creates a signature in pixels that can be logged, stored and analyzed.”
For more details on how to run and use the app, consult this page (it’s the second item).
