A 180° panorama of ant aurora display behind grain bins on a country road in Alberta, Canada. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer/Amazing Sky Photography.
Since I grew up on a farm, I know how lovely the night sky can be when you’re out in the country. But this new image from Alan Dyer is just astounding!
This 180-degree panorama shows an aurora display behind grain bins on a country road in Alberta, Canada. “The aurora adds more color to a sky also filled with green airglow,” Alan wrote on Flickr, “while at the ends of the roads are yellow glows of light pollution, from Strathmore and Calgary at left, and Bassano at right. For a few minutes there was also the sharp edge at left to the aurora rays, present in 3 frames of the panorama, so it is not an artifact of the stitching. The Big Dipper is left of centre, low in the north.”
Just gorgeous. Plus, it reminds me of home…
You can click on the image above to see larger versions.
#TerrestrialTuesday
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Thanks to the ubiquitousness of dashboard-mounted video cameras in Russia yet another bright object has been spotted lighting up the sky over Siberia, this time a “meteor-like object” seen on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 27.
The International Space Station as seen by the departing STS-134 crew aboard space shuttle Endeavour in May 2011. Credit: NASA
TORONTO, CANADA – NASA isn’t “reading too much” into a report that the Russians will spend $8 billion on the International Space Station through 2025, the head of the agency says. That date is five years past the international agreements to operate the space station.
The Russian announcement comes at a pivotal time for NASA, which is looking to extend operations on the station to at least 2024. Other space agency heads have not yet signed on. Russia is the major partner for NASA on the station, given it operates several modules and sends astronauts to and from Earth on Soyuz spacecraft.
When deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin made the funding announcement, said NASA administrator Charles Bolden, Rogozin was speaking of a budget request that is before the State Duma. The Duma is Russia’s lower house of government.
“I am told that’s why he said that,” Bolden said at a press conference yesterday (Sept. 29) for the International Astronomical Congress, citing a conversation he had with Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s human exploration associate administrator. “You shouldn’t read too much into that.”
Canadarm2, the huge robotic arm on the International Space Station, holds astronaut Stephen Robinson during the STS-114 mission. Credit: NASA
Other member agencies of the space station gave noncommittal responses when asked if they would sign on to an extension.
“The [European] member states will be invited to give their views on what [to do] after 2020,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, who heads the European Space Agency. He added that any extension would require a financial commitment, as an agreement without money is “only principles.”
Similarly, Canadian Space Agency chief Walter Natynczyk said the money allocated to his agency will bring them through to 2020, but “we will have a look at the entire value proposition when we put a case before the government of Canada.”
The Russian agreement with NASA came under scrutiny earlier this year as tensions erupted in Ukraine while Russian soldiers were in the country. This year, Ukrainian Crimea was annexed to Russia to the condemnation of several countries, including the United States.
While Bolden has said relations with the Russians for the space station are still healthy, NASA suspended most science ties with the country in April. In response, Rogozin wrote a frustrated tweet saying NASA should try to send its astronauts into space using a trampoline.
100 colorful planetary nebulae, at apparent size relative to one another. Image processing and collection by Judy Schmidt.
If you like planetary nebulas, you’re in luck. Multimedia artist Judy Schmidt has put together an amazing collection of 100 of these colorful glowing shells of gas and plasma, all at apparent size relative to one another. There’s even a giant-sized 10,000 pixel-wide version available on Flickr.
How many of these planetary nebulae can you identify?
Judy explained her inspiration for putting together this wonderful ‘poster’:
Inspired by insect illustration posters, this is a large collage of planetary nebulas I put together bit by bit as I processed them. All are presented north up and at apparent size relative to one another–I did not rotate or resize them in order to satisfy compositional aesthetics (if you spot any errors, let me know). Colors are aesthetic choices, especially since most planetary nebulas are imaged with narrowband filters.
Planetary nebulae are formed by certain types of stars at the end of their lives, and actually have nothing to do with planets. They were given the confusing name 300 years ago by William Herschel because in early, rudimentary telescopes, the puffed out balls of gas looked like planets.
Our own Sun will likely undergo a similar process, but not for another 5 billion years or so.
'Fu?nfla?nderblick Milchstrasse,' the Milky Way over a dark country sky in Switzerland. Credit and copyright: Christian Kamber.
Hey, it’s #MilkyWayMonday! This gorgeous photo of the Milky Way was taken by astrophotographer Christian Kamber near Fu?nfla?nderblick, Switzerland (you can see the region on a map here). This is a stack of 20 shots, made with Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop.
Lovely!
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.
Comet C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS photographed on September 26, 2014 by Rolando Ligustri. Like most comets, we see two tails. K1's dust tails points off to the left, it's gas or ion tail to the right. Credit: Rolando Ligustri
Thank you K1 PanSTARRS for hanging in there! Some comets crumble and fade away. Others linger a few months and move on. But after looping across the night sky for more than a year, this one is nowhere near quitting. Matter of fact, the best is yet to come.
This new visitor from the Oort Cloud making its first passage through the inner solar system, C/2012 K1 was discovered in May 2012 by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey telescope atop Mt. Haleakala in Hawaii at magnitude 19.7. Faint! On its the inbound journey from the Oort Cloud, C/2012 K1 approached with an orbit estimated in the millions of years. Perturbed by its interactions with the planets, its new orbit has been reduced to a mere ~400,000 years. That makes the many observing opportunities PanSTARRS K1 has provided that much more appreciated. No one alive now will ever see the comet again once this performance is over.
Comet C/2012 K1 PanSTARRS’ changing appearance over the past year. Credit upper left clockwise: Carl Hergenrother, Damian Peach, Chris Schur and Rolando Ligustri
Many amateur astronomers first picked up the comet’s trail in the spring of 2013 when it had brightened to around magnitude 13.5. My observing notes from June 2, 2013, read:
“Very small, about 20 arc seconds in diameter. Pretty faint at ~13.5 and moderately condensed but not too difficult at 142x . Well placed in Hercules.” Let’s just say it was a faint, fuzzy blob.
K1 PanSTARRS slowly brightened in Serpens last fall until it was lost in evening twilight. Come January this year it returned to the morning sky a little closer to Earth and Sun and a magnitude brighter. As winter snow gave way to frogs and flowers, the comet rocketedacross Corona Borealis, Bootes and Ursa Major. Its fat, well-condensed coma towed a pair of tails and grew bright enough to spot in binoculars at magnitude 8.5 in late May.
Skywatchers can find C/2012 K1 PanSTARRS in the morning sky in the Hydra and Puppis just before dawn when it’s highest in the southeastern sky. The map shows its location daily with stars to magnitude 8.5. The numbers next to some stars are standard Flamsteed atlas catalog numbers. Click for a larger version. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap
By July, it hid away in the solar glare a second time only to come back swinging in September’s pre-dawn sky. Now in the constellation Hydra and even closer to Earth, C/2012 K1 has further brightened to magnitude 7.5. Though low in the southeast at dawn, I was pleasantly surprised to see it several mornings ago. Through my 15-inch (37-cm) reflector at 64x I saw a fluffy, bright coma punctuated by a brighter, not-quite-stellar nucleus and a faint tail extending 1/4º to the northeast.
Mid-northern observers can watch the comet’s antics through mid-October. From then on, K1 will only be accessible from the far southern U.S. and points south as it makes the rounds of Pictor, Dorado and Horologium. After all this time you might think the comet is ready to depart Earth’s vicinity. Not even. C/2012 K1 will finally make its closest approach to our planet on Halloween (88.6 million miles – 143 million km) when it could easily shine at magnitude 6.5, making it very nearly a naked-eye comet.
PanSTARRS K1’s not giving up anytime soon. Southern skywatchers will keep it in view through the spring of 2015 before it returns to the deep chill from whence it came. After delighting skywatchers for nearly two years, it’ll be hard to let this one go.
It sounds like science fiction, but the time you experience between two events depends directly on the path you take through the universe. In other words, Einstein’s theory of special relativity postulates that a person traveling in a high-speed rocket would age more slowly than people back on Earth.
Although few physicists doubt Einstein was right, it’s crucial to verify time dilation to the best possible accuracy. Now, an international team of researchers, including Nobel laureate Theodor Hänsch, director of the Max Planck optics institute, has done just this.
Tests of special relativity date back to 1938. But once we started going to space regularly, we had to learn to deal with time dilation on a daily basis. GPS satellites, for example, are basically clocks in orbit. They travel at a whopping speed of 14,000 kilometers per hour well above the Earth’s surface at a distance of 20,000 kilometers. So relative to an atomic clock on the ground they lose about 7 microseconds per day, a number that has to be taken into account for them to work properly.
To test time dilation to a much higher precision, Benjamin Botermann of Johannes Gutenberg-University, Germany, and colleagues accelerated lithium ions to one-third the speed of light. Here the Doppler shift quickly comes into play. Any ions flying toward the observer will be blue shifted and any ions flying away from the observer will be red shifted.
The level at which the ions undergo a Doppler shift depends on their relative motion, with respect to the observer. But this also makes their clock run slow, which redshifts the light from the observer’s point of view — an effect that you should be able to measure in the lab.
So the team stimulated transitions in the ions using two lasers propagating in opposite directions. Then any shifts in the absorption frequency of the ions are dependent on the Doppler effect, which we can easily calculate, and the redshift due to time dilation.
The team verified their time dilation prediction to a few parts per billion, improving on previous limits. The findings were published on Sept. 16 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
A United Launch Alliance technician monitors the core booster elements of a Delta IV Heavy rocket after being integrated in preparation for Exploration Flight Test-1 at Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – Assembly of the powerful Delta IV rocket boosting the pathfinder version of NASA’s Orion crew capsule on its maiden test flight in December has been completed.
Orion is NASA’s next generation human rated vehicle that will eventually carry America’s astronauts beyond Earth on voyages venturing farther into deep space than ever before – beyond the Moon to Asteroids, Mars and other destinations in our Solar System.
The state-of-the-art Orion spacecraft is scheduled to launch on its inaugural uncrewed mission, dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), in December 2014 atop the Delta IV Heavy rocket. It replaces NASA’s now retired space shuttle orbiters.
The triple barreled Delta IV Heavy is currently the most powerful rocket in America’s fleet following the retirement of the NASA’s Space Shuttle program.
Engineers from the rocket’s manufacturer – United Launch Alliance (ULA) – took a major step forward towards Orion’s first flight when they completed the integration of the three primary core elements of the rockets first stage with the single engine upper stage.
These three RS-68 engines will power each of the attached Delta IV Heavy Common Booster Cores (CBCs) that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
All of the rocket integration work and preflight processing took place inside ULA’s Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF), at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Universe Today recently visited the Delta IV booster during an up close tour inside the HIF facility last week where the rocket was unveiled to the media in a horizontally stacked configuration. See my Delta IV photos herein.
The HIF building is located at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37), on Cape Canaveral, a short distance away from the launch pad where the Orion EFT-1 mission will lift off on Dec. 4.
“The day-to-day processing is performed by ULA,” said Merri Anne Stowe of NASA’s Fleet Systems Integration Branch of the Launch Services Program (LSP), in a NASA statement.
“NASA’s role is to keep a watchful eye on everything and be there to help if any issues come up.”
The first stage is comprised of a trio of three Delta IV Common Booster Cores (CBCs).
Side view shows trio of Common Booster Cores (CBCs) with RS-68 engines powering the Delta IV Heavy rocket resting horizontally in ULA’s HIF processing facility at Cape Canaveral that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014 from Launch Complex 37. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Each CBC measures 134 feet in length and 17 feet in diameter. They are equipped with an RS-68 engine powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants producing 656,000 pounds of thrust. Together they generate 1.96 million pounds of thrust.
This past spring I visited the HIF after the first two CBCs arrived by barge from their ULA assembly plant in Decatur, Alabama, located about 20 miles west of Huntsville.
The first CBC booster was attached to the center booster in June. The second one was attached in early August, according to ULA.
“After the three core stages went through their initial inspections and processing, the struts were attached, connecting the booster stages with the center core,” Stowe said. “All of this takes place horizontally.”
The Delta IV cryogenic second stage testing and attachment was completed in August and September. It measures 45 feet in length and 17 feet in diameter. It is equipped with a single RL10-B-2 engine, that also burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant and generates 25,000 pounds of thrust.
“The hardware for Exploration Flight Test-1 is coming together well,” Stowe noted in a NASA statement.
“We haven’t had to deal with any serious problems. All of the advance planning appears to be paying off.”
This same Delta IV upper stage will be used in the Block 1 version of NASA’s new heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS).
Be sure to read my recent article detailing the ribbon cutting ceremony opening the manufacture of the SLS core stage at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, LA. The SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built by humans, exceeding that of the iconic Saturn V rocket that sent humans to walk on the surface of the Moon.
Wide view of the new welding tool at the Vertical Assembly Center at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The Delta IV rocket will be rolled out to the SLC-37 Cape Canaveral launch pad this week.
Assembly of the Orion EFT-1 capsule and stacking atop the service module was also completed in September at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
NASA’s completed Orion EFT 1 crew module loaded on wheeled transporter during move to Launch Abort System Facility (LASF) on Sept. 11, 2014, at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
It was moved about 1 mile to its next stop on the way to SLC-37 – the KSC fueling facility named the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHFS). Read my Orion move story here.
The two-orbit, four and a half hour EFT-1 flight 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.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion, SLS, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, commercial space, Curiosity, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
NASA’s Orion EFT 1 crew module departs Neil Armstrong Operation and Checkout Building on Sept. 11, 2014 at the Kennedy Space Center, FL, beginning the long journey to the launch pad and planned liftoff on Dec. 4, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.comSpace journalists including Ken Kremer/Universe Today pose with the Delta IV Heavy rocket resting horizontally in ULA’s HIF processing facility at Cape Canaveral that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014 from Launch Complex 37. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission captures the limb of Mars with the Mars Color Camera from an altitude of 8449 km soon after achieving orbit on Sept. 23/24, 2014. . Credit: ISRO
India’s maiden interplanetary voyager, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has transmitted a breathtaking new image eyeing the limb of Mars and its atmosphere against the blackness of space.
The beautiful Martian image is only MOM’s second since successfully braking into orbit during the ‘history creating’ insertion maneuver days ago on Sept. 23/24.
The limb image was taken using MOM’s Mars Color Camera (MCC) from an altitude of 8449 kilometers and shows more of an ‘Orange Planet’ rather than a ‘Red Planet.’
“A shot of Martian atmosphere. I’m getting better at it. No pressure,” tweeted ISRO at MOM’s newly established twitter account after entering orbit.
The image has a spatial resolution of 439 meters and is centered around Lat: 20.01N and Lon:31.54E.
MOM’s goal is to study Mars atmosphere , surface environments, morphology, and mineralogy with a 15 kg (33 lb) suite of five indigenously built science instruments. It will also sniff for methane, a potential marker for biological activity.
“The view is nice up here,” ISRO tweeted.
MOM’s first image taken shortly after orbital arrival showed a heavily cratered region of the Red Planet taken by the MCC tri-color camera from a slightly lower altitude of 7300 kilometers with a spatial resolution of 376 meters.
ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures its first image of Mars from a height of 7300 km. Credit: ISRO
Following MOM’s successful Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) maneuver, India became the newest member of an elite club of only four entities who have launched probes that successfully investigated Mars – following the Soviet Union, the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Read my complete MOM meets Mars arrival story – here.
MOM is now circling Mars in a highly elliptical orbit whose nearest point to Mars (periapsis) is at 421.7 km and farthest point (apoapsis) at 76,993.6 km. The inclination of orbit with respect to the equatorial plane of Mars is 150 degree, as intended, ISRO reports.
The $73 million mission is expected to last at least six months.
MOM’s success follows closely on the heels of NASA’s MAVEN orbiter which also successfully achieved orbit barely two days earlier on Sept. 21 and could last 10 years or more.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Illustration of the Rosetta Missions Philae lander on final approach to a comet surface. (Photo: ESA)
ESA Rosetta mission planners have selected November 12th, one day later than initially planned, for the historic landing of Philae on a comet’s surface. The landing on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will be especially challenging for the washing machine-sized lander. While mission scientists consider their choice of comet for the mission to be an incredibly good one for scientific investigation and discovery, the irregular shape and rugged terrain also make for a risky landing. The whole landing is not unlike the challenge one faces in shooting a moving target in a carnival arcade game; however, this moving target is 20 kilometers below and it is also rotating.
At 8:35 GMT (3:35 AM EST), the landing sequence will begin with release of Philae by Rosetta at an altitude of 20 kilometers above the comet. The expected time of touchdown is seven hours later – 15:35 GMT (10:35 AM EST). During the descent, Philae’s ROLIS camera will take a continuous series of photos. The comet will complete more than half a rotation during the descent; comet P67’s rotation rate is 12.4 hours. The landing site will actually be on the opposite side of the comet when Philae is released and will rotate around, and if all goes as planned, meet Philae at landing site J.
Before November 12th, mission planners will maintain the option of landing at Site C. If the alternate site is chosen, the descent will begin at 13:04 GMT also on November 12 but from an altitude of 12.5 kilometers, a 4 hour descent time.
NAVCAM image of the comet on 21 September, which includes a view of primary landing site J. Click for more details and link to context image. (Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM)
Rosetta will eject Philae with an initial velocity of approximately 2 1/2 kilometers per hour. Because the comet is so small, its gravity will add little additional speed to Philae as it falls to the surface. Philae is essentially on a ballistic trajectory and does not have any means to adjust its path.
The actions taken by Philae’s onboard computer begin only seconds from touchdown. It has a landing propulsion system but unlike conventional systems that slow down the vehicle for soft landing, Philae’s is designed to push the lander snugly onto the comet surface. There is no guarantee that Philae will land on a flat horizontal surface. A slope is probably more likely and the rocket will force the small lander’s three legs onto the slope.
A model of the comet P67/Churyumov-Gerasimenko created using images from the Rosetta OSIRIS narrow field camera. Mouse click on the image to start the animated GIF. (Credit: ESA)
Landing harpoons will be fired that are attached to cables that will be pulled in to also help Philae return upright and attach to the surface. Philae could actually bounce up or topple over if the rocket system and harpoons fail to do their job.
The Philae Lander anchoring harpoon with the integrated MUPUS-accelerometer and temperature sensor. (Credit: “Philae Lander Fact Sheet”, ESA)
However, under each of the three foot pads, there are ice screws that will attempt to drill and secure Philae to the surface. This will depend on the harpoons and/or rockets functioning as planned, otherwise the action of the drills could experience resistance from hard ground and simply push the lander up rather than secure it down. Philae also has a on-board gyro to maintain its attitude during descent, and an impact dampener on the neck of the vehicle which attaches the main body to the landing struts.
Ten landing sites were picked, then down-selected to five, and then finally on September 15th, they selected Site J on the head of the smaller lobe – the head of the rubber duck, with site C as a backup. Uncertainty in the release and the trajectory of the descent to the comet’s surface means that the planners needed to find a square kilometer area for landing. But comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko simply offered no site with that much flat area clear of cliffs and boulders. Philae will be released to land at Site J which offers some smooth terrain but only about a quarter of the area needed to assure a safe landing. Philae could end up landing on the edge of a cliff or atop a large boulder and topple over.
A ‘color’ view of Comet 67P, from a September 24, 2014 NavCam image. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam – Processing by Elisabetta Bonora & Marco Faccin.
The Rosetta ground control team will have no means of controlling and adjusting Philae during the descent. This is how it had to be because the light travel time for telecommunications from the spacecraft to Earth does not permit real-time control. The execution time and the command sequence will be delivered to Rosetta days before the November 12th landing. And ground control must maneuver Rosetta with Philae still attached to an exact point in space where the release of Philae must take place. Any inaccuracy in the initial release point will be translated all the way down to the surface and Philae would land some undesired distance away from Site J. However, ground controllers have a month and a half to practice simulations of the landing many times over with a model of the comet’s nucleus. With practice and more observational data between now and the landing, the initial conditions and model of the comet in the computer simulation will improve and raise the likelihood of a close landing to Site J.
Previous Universe Today articles on Rosetta’s Philae:
