Galaxy clusters MACS J0717+3745 colliding about five billion light-years away from Earth. This is a composite image of visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope (background), X-ray data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue) and radio waves from the Very Large Array (red).Credit: Van Weeren, et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA
Shock waves! Fast-moving particles! Magnetic fields! This image has it all. Behold the merging galaxy clusters MACS J0717+3745 about five billion light-years from our planet.
That funny red thing you see in the center is new data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array showing a spot where “shocks caused by the collisions are accelerating particles that then interact with magnetic fields and emit the radio waves,” officials at the National Radio Astronomical Observatory stated.
“The complex shape of this region is unique; we’ve never spotted anything like this before,” stated Reinout van Weeren, an Einstein Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “The shape probably is the result of the multiple ongoing collisions.”
This is a composite image of new exposures from VLA and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, with an older image from the Hubble Space Telescope. And if you take a second look, there’s also a black hole: “The straight, elongated radio-emitting object is a foreground galaxy whose central black hole is accelerating jets of particles in two directions,” NRAO added. “The red object at bottom-left is a radio galaxy that probably is falling into the cluster.”
Astronomers presented their findings at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week in Boston.
NASA astronaut Ed White floats outside of the Gemini 4 spacecraft June 3, 1965. Credit: NASA
In five decades of spacewalks, we challenge you to find a set of photos that more fully represents the potential of the tumbling gymnastics you can do during a spacewalk.
NASA astronaut Ed White stepped out of his Gemini 4 spacecraft 49 years ago today, equipped in a spacesuit and attached to his spacecraft by nothing more than a tether. These incredible pictures (taken by commander Jim McDivitt) give a sense of how White moved around, propelled by a small maneuvering unit in his hand.
After about 20 minutes of orbital exercises, White was ordered back to the spacecraft. “It’s the saddest moment of my life,” he said. In a NASA oral history interview in 1999, McDivitt later recalled the trouble they had getting him back inside:
NASA astronaut Ed White testing maneuverability during a 23-minute spacewalk on Gemini 4, June 3, 1965. Credit: NASA
I was kind of anxious to have him get back inside the spacecraft, because I’d like to do this in the daylight, not in the dark. But by the time he got back in, it was dark. So, when we went to close the hatch, it wouldn’t close. It wouldn’t lock. And so, in the dark I was trying to fiddle around over on the side where I couldn’t see anything, trying to get my glove down in this little slot to push the gears together. And finally, we got that done and got it latched.
It was the first time any American had done this — but White was not the first in the world. That honor belongs to Alexei Leonov, who pushed out of Vokshod 2 in March 1965. (The Soviet spacewalk was actually quite terrifying, as Leonov had to reduce the pressure in his spacesuit to get back inside the spacecraft.)
Even after White’s triumph, there was much to learn about spacewalking. Several astronauts in later Gemini missions struggled with doing tasks outside the spacecraft because there were not enough handholds to keep a grip in microgravity. It took until Gemini 12 for a combination of astronaut training and spacecraft design to make spacewalking a more controlled procedure — just in time for the Apollo moon program of the 1960s and 1970s.
Below the video about Gemini 4 are several more pictures of White’s adventures in space. Gemini 4 was White’s only spaceflight. He died in a launch pad fire for Apollo 1 on Jan. 27, 1967.
NASA astronaut Ed White during a spacewalk June 3, 1965. In his hand, the Gemini 4 astronaut carries a Hand Held Self Maneuvering Unit (HHSMU) to help him maneuver in microgravity. Credit: NASANASA astronaut Ed White during a 23-minute spacewalk on Gemini 4 June 3, 1965. Credit: NASAAttached by a tether, Gemini 4 astronaut Ed White tests out spacewalking June 4, 1965. Credit: NASA
The May 15th, 2014 occultation of Saturn by the Moon as seen from Australia. (Credit: Byuki/Silveryway).
Some terms in astronomy definitely have a PR problem, and are perhaps due for an overhaul. One such awkward term is occultation, which simply means that one celestial body is passing in front of another from an observer’s vantage point, nothing more, and nothing less. I know, the word ‘occult’ is in there, raising many a non-astronomically minded eyebrow and evoking astronomy’s hoary astrological past. You can even use it as a verb in this sense, as in to ‘occult’ one body with another. A planet or asteroid can occult a star, your cat can occult your laptop’s screen, and the Moon can occult a star or planet, as occurs on Tuesday, June 10th when the waxing gibbous Moon occults the planet Saturn for observers across the southern Indian Ocean region.
The occultation footprint for the June 10th event. The solid lines denote where the occultation occurs after sunset. Created using Occult 4.0.
Of course, most of us will see a near miss worldwide. This is parallax in motion, as differing vantage points on the surface of the planet Earth see the Moon against a different starry background.
And we’re currently in the midst of a cycle of occultations of the planet Saturn in 2014, as the Moon occults it 11 times this year, nearly once for every lunation. The Moon actually occults planets 22 times in 2014, 24 if you count the occultations of 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta on September 28th, with Saturn getting covered by the Moon once again on the same date! Saturn tops the list in the number of times it’s occulted by the Moon this year, as it’s the slowest moving of the planets and fails to hustle out of the Moon’s way until November, after which a series of occultations of the ringed planet won’t resume again until December 9th, 2018.
Four selected views of the occultation/conjunction of the Moon and Saturn on June 10th worldwide. (Credit: Stellarium).
The shadow footprint of the June 10th occultation just makes landfall over southwestern Australia near Perth, a slice of Antarctica, and a scattering of southern Indian Ocean islands and the southern tip of South Africa in and around Cape Town. Note that the phase of the Moon is changing by about 30 degrees of ecliptic longitude as well during each successive occultation of Saturn. Next week’s event occurs as the Moon is at a 93% waxing gibbous illuminated phase this month and soon will occur when the Moon is a crescent. What’s especially interesting is the dark limb of the Moon is always the leading edge during waxing phases; this means that any stars or planets in its way get hidden (or ingress) under its shady nighttime edge.
Looking to the southeast from latitude 30 degrees north from the US east coast at 10 PM EDT. Created using Starry Night Education software.
Central conjunction for Saturn and the Moon actually occurs at around 19:00 Universal Time on June 10th. The Moon rises at around 6:00 PM local on this date, and North American observers will see Saturn 4 degrees from the limb of the Moon and at an elevation of 28 degrees above the horizon at dusk. Unfortunately, the best occultation of Saturn by the Moon for North America in 2014 occurs in the daytime on August 31st, though you can indeed catch Saturn in the broad daylight through a telescope with good sky transparency if you know exactly where to look for it… a nearby daytime Moon certainly helps!
Unlike stellar occultations, blockages of planets by the Moon are leisurely events, and lend themselves to some pretty amazing video sequences. You can actually get a sense of the motion of the Moon as you watch it slowly cover the planet’s disk, in real time. It might also be fun to catch the occultation of Saturn’s brightest moon, +9th magnitude Titan. Hey, a moon occulting a moon, a sort of cosmic irony…
Saturn spends all of 2014 in the astronomical constellation of Libra. The Moon moves on to Full on Friday the 13th — triskaidekaphobics take note — at 4:13 UT/00:13 AM EDT. This is the closest Full Moon to the northward solstice which occurs on June 21st at 10:51 UT/6:51 AM EDT, meaning that while the Sun rides high in the sky during the day, the rising Full Moon transits low to the south at night. In the southern hemisphere, the reverse is true in June.
The June Full Moon is also known as per ye ole Farmer’s Almanac as the Strawberry or Rose Moon.
So there you have it, occultations were evoked no less than 21 times in the writing of this post. We need a modern, hip, internet ready meme to supplant the term occultation… y’know, like “ring of fire” for and annular eclipse or minimoon for an apogee moon, etc… blockage? Covering? Enveloping? Let us know what you think!
King of the Nerds promotional poster. Credit: TBS/Facebook
So you know the difference between a bat’leth and a Batmobile, or you can win any board game you get your hands on, or you can easily rhyme off 20 alien species who were in Star Wars. And whatever your nerd or geek cred skills, you’re interested in competition — in showing off what you can do and becoming the best among friends.
If this sounds like attributes similar to what you have, there’s a T.V. show out there for you. It’s called King of the Nerds and it’s casting its third season.
I had the pleasure of watching the last season closely because my former classmate at the University of North Dakota, Kayla LaFrance, participated and won!
I saw a range of colorful competitions, such as playing a modified game of Quidditch or racing go-karts around a darkened track. There were celebrity judges and appearances; as a Star Trek fan, my personal favourite was George Takei (Sulu on the original series). And there were also a disorienting set of skills among the competitors, who had knowledge of anything from space to languages to engineering to even debating skills.
While participating appears to be its own reward, the prize for the winner is a cool $100,000. If this perks your interest, the producers say that applicants should e-mail [email protected] to apply, including your name, phone number, and a brief summary of why you should be on King of the Nerds.
Eligibility is limited to U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older, according to the Facebook page. There are eight episodes ordered for TBS and the show will air in early 2015.
(And by the way, Kayla has no idea I’m writing this article. It’ll be a surprise to her.)
Meet Dragon V2 - SpaceX CEO Elon pulls the curtain off manned Dragon V2 on May 29, 2014 for worldwide unveiling of SpaceX's new astronaut transporter for NASA. Credit: SpaceX
Caption: Animation of SpaceX Dragon V2 astronaut transporter. Credit: SpaceX
Would you like to meet and fly aboard SpaceX’s next generation manned Dragon V2 spacecraft?
Well hop aboard for a ride, take a seat and prepare for the thrill of a lifetime to the International Space Station (ISS) and back.
Watch the cool animation above to see exactly ‘How it Works!’
Now you can experience the opening salvo in the exciting new chapter of ‘Commercial Human Spaceflight.’
The commercial crew effort is led by a trio of private American aerospace company’s (SpaceX, Boeing & Sierra Nevada) in an intimate partnership with NASA to get American’s back in space on American rockets from American Soil – rather than being totally dependent on Russian rocket technology and Soyuz capsules for astronaut rides to orbit.
“We need to have our own capability to get our crews to space. Commercial crew is really, really, really important,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told me in an exclusive interview.
Billionaire entrepreneur and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk let the curtain to the future drop on Thursday, May 29 to reveal his company’s new manned Dragon V2 astronaut transporter for all the world to see during a live streaming webcast direct from SpaceX’s state-of-the-art design and manufacturing facility and Headquarters in Hawthorne, CA.
And with a flair worthy of the premiere of a blockbuster Hollywood Science Fiction movie he unveiled the gum-dropped shaped Dragon V2 – and the lively animation. Although its not known if he’ll provide the crews with musical entertainment during the trip too.
As you’ll quickly notice watching the animation, the sleek styled V2 manned Dragon is a far cry ahead of the current V1 cargo Dragon.
“We wanted to take a big step in spacecraft technology. It is a big leap forward in technology and takes things to the next level,” said Musk.
The top of the V2 is equipped to open up and expose a docking probe so it’s able to dock autonomously at the ISS – and at the same port as NASA’s now retired space shuttle orbiters.
‘Catching a Dragon by the tail’- with the Canadian built robot arm as the stations astronauts like to say and berthing it at an Earth-facing port on the Harmony module, will be a thing of the past.
“No robotic arm necessary!” Musk explained.
SpaceX Dragon V2 docks at the ISS. Credit: SpaceX
And for departure there’s another big difference – powerful SuperDraco landing rockets for pinpoint touchdown accuracy rather than an ocean splashdown.
The animation shows a thrilling land landing back at the Kennedy Space Center launch base.
“An important characteristic of that is its ability to land anywhere on land, propulsively. It can land anywhere on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter,” Musk said.
“I think that’s what a spaceship should be able to do.”
Musk and SpaceX are not alone aiming to get Americans back to space.
Boeing and Sierra Nevada are competing with SpaceX to build the next generation spaceship to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS by 2017 using seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a public/private partnership.
The BoeingCST-100 and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser ‘space taxis’ are also vying for funding in the next round of contracts to be awarded by NASA around late summer 2014.
Read my earlier “Dragon V2” unveiling event articles – here, here and here.
Enjoy!
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils SpaceX Dragon V2 next generation astronaut spacecraft on May 29, 2014. Credit: Robert Fisher/America Space
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
The 'face' on Mars, a popular landform in Cydonia Region on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
Intrigued by the thought of alien artifacts on Mars, with structures like a Martian-built statue of a giant face surrounded by pyramids or even cities? Better check the math on that. Better yet, Stuart Robbins has already checked that math and BOOM! it doesn’t check out.
So called “Mars anomalists” like Richard Hoagland have already been debunked mightily by folks like Phil Plait, but Robbins — who hosts the “Exposing Pseudo Astronomy” podcast — takes it to a whole new level. He’s just put out a video version of his podcast about claims about the Cydonia region on Mars, some of the math behind it, an exploration of the “null hypothesis” (what the results would be if it were purely random), and draws conclusions based on the latest orbital imagery of Mars.
Hoagland and others claim some of the features in Cydonia display special geometry and numbers that are encoded within them. And, the only way those numbers and that geometry could be there is if it was created by some sort of intelligence, i.e aliens. Robbins provides detailed explanations of the mathematical simulations and the arguments against these claims.
“What the Mars anomalists do is a really good example of cherry picking/the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy,” Robbins told Universe Today. He concludes the video by basically saying, “Hey! Space exploration is still awesome and cool, and you really don’t NEED the pseudoscience to make it amazing and rewarding.”
Artist's impression of "mega-Earth" Kepler 10c. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
Can you imagine a world that is 17 times as massive as Earth, but still rocky? Or two planets that are doomed to be swallowed up by their parent star in just a blink of astronomical time?
While these scenarios sound like science fiction, these are real-life finds released today (June 2) at the American Astronomical Association meeting in Boston.
Here’s a rundown of the finds about these planets in our ever-more-amazing universe.
‘Mega-Earth’ Kepler-10c
Spinning around its star every 45 days is Kepler-10c, which is about 2.3 times as large as Earth but a heavyweight, at 17 times more massive. The planet was discovered by the prolific NASA Kepler space telescope (which was sidelined after a reaction wheel failed last year, but now has been tasked with a new planet-hunting mandate.)
While initially astronomers thought Kepler-10c was a “mini-Neptune”, or a world that is similar to that planet in our solar system, its mass measured by the HARPS-North instrument on the Galileo National Telescope showed it was a rocky world. What’s more, astronomers believe the planet did not “let go” of any atmosphere over time, which implies the planet’s past is similar to what it was today.
Here’s the other neat thing: astronomers found that the system was 11 billion years old, at a time when the universe was young (it was formed 13.7 billion years ago) and the elements needed to make rocky planets were scarce. This implies that rocky planets could have formed earlier than previously thought.
“I was wrong that old stars do not have rocky planets, which has consequences about the Fermi Paradox,” the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’s (CfA) Dimitar Sasselov said in a webcast press conference today (June 2). The Fermi Paradox, simply put, refers to the question of why we can’t see civilizations since they are assumed to have spread quite a ways since the universe was formed.
Artist’s impression of Kepler-56b being torn apart by its star about 130 million years from today. Its sibling planet, Kepler-56c, will last until 155 million years from now. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
‘We’re doomed!’ Kepler-56b and Kepler-56c
If there was anybody in the vicinity of these two planets, you’d want to move out of the way fairly quickly — at least when talking about astronomical time. Both of these planets, whose orbits are within the equivalent distance of Mercury to the sun, are expected to be swallowed up by their star in 130 million years (for Kepler-56b) and 155 million years (Kepler-56c). It’s the first time two doomed planets have been found in a single system.
“Possibly the core of planet will be left behind and you [will] see this dead corpse floating behind in the universe,” said CfA’s Gongjie Li in the press conference.
There are two factors behind this: the size of the star will enlarge as it gets older (which is typical among stars) and the tidal forces between the planets and their star will also cause them to slow down in their orbits and rip apart. Interestingly enough, another gas giant planet called Kepler-56d will remain safe from most of the chaos since its orbit is equivalent to the asteroid belt in our own solar system.
“Looking at this system is like foreseeing our own solar system,” added Li, referring to the fact that in another five billion years or so our sun will enlarge and swallow Mercury and Venus at the least, boiling off all the oceans on our planet and killing anything left.
Artist’s conception of an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
Windy City: Why living near a red dwarf might be a bad idea
One fertile ground for exoplanet discoveries — particularly when looking for planets about Earth’s size in the habitable zone — is red dwarfs, because they are smaller and therefore have less light to obscure any rocky worlds orbiting nearby. A new study warns that they could be less friendly to life than previously believed.
CfA’s Ofer Cohen said that red dwarfs can have intense stellar winds, when looking at the model of a known red dwarf with three planets around it: KOI 1422.02, KOI 2626.01, KOI 584.01. Even a magnetic field the size of Earth would not be able to protect the planet from being stripped of its atmosphere assuming a certain intensity of stellar flares.
A member of the audience pointed out that the red dwarf star under study likely has stronger winds than 95% of all red dwarfs, however. Cohen acknowledged that, but added “the main effect is not the stellar activity, but these giants are close to the star.” All the same, this could require a more nuanced understanding of the habitable zone around these stars, he added.
Artist’s impression of exoplanets. Credit: J. Jauch
Heavy metal: Figuring out how much planets have
In astronomical terms, any elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are considered to be “metallic”. Past research found that metal-rich stars tend to have hot Jupiter exoplanets, while the smaller planets have a larger span of metal possibilities.
A team led by CfA’s Lars Buchhave surveyed more than 400 stars with 600 exoplanets, and found that planets smaller than 1.7 times the size of Earth are more likely to be rocky, while those than are 3.9 times the size of Earth or larger are likely gassy.
In between is a zone called “gas dwarfs”, which are planets 1.7 and 3.9 times the size of Earth that likely have hydrogen and helium atmospheres blanketing their surface.
Also intriguing: the researchers discovered that planets far away from their stars can get larger before picking up a lot of gas and becoming a “gas dwarf”, presumably because there isn’t as much gas material out there.
The team also discovered that stars with smaller, Earth-like worlds metallicities like our sun, while stars with “gas dwarfs” have more metals, and stars with gas giants have even more metals. But bear in mind these are for planets close to their host star, which are easiest for Kepler to find. Buchhave plans to do work for planets further away.
And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to [email protected], and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.
A coal-fired plant in Glenrock, Wyoming. Image Credit: Greg Goebel
At the end of his first year in office, President Obama made a bold promise: the United States would cut its greenhouse gas emissions substantially by 2020.
Unfortunately it was a risky pledge that hinged on Congress. After President Obama was unable to get his major climate change proposal through Congress in his first term, it seemed as though his pledge to the rest of the World and planet Earth might disintegrate into thin air.
But today, President Obama announced plans to bypass Congress entirely. By using his executive authority under the Clean Air Act, he proposed an Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. It’s one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change.
“The shift to a cleaner-energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way,” President Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address, previewing Monday’s announcement. “But a low-carbon, clean-energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come. America will build that engine. America will build the future, a future that’s cleaner, more prosperous and full of good jobs.”
The regulation targets the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States: coal-fired power plants. So naturally it has already met huge opposition.
“The administration has set out to kill coal and its 800,000 jobs,” said Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the nation’s top coal-producing state, in response to President Obama’s Saturday address. “If it succeeds in death by regulation, we’ll all be paying a lot more money for electricity — if we can get it. Our pocketbook will be lighter, but our country will be darker.”
But rather than forcing coal plants to immediately shutdown, the E.P.A. will allow States several years to retire existing plants. They estimate that by 2030, 30 percent of U.S. electricity will still come from coal, down from about 40 percent today.
The regulation also gives a wide range of options to achieve the pollution cuts. States are encouraged to reduce emissions by making changes across the electricity systems. They’re encouraged to install new wind and solar generation technology. This will create a huge demand for designing and building energy-efficient technology.
The plan is flexible. “That’s what makes it ambitious, but achievable,” said Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator, in a speech this morning. “That’s how we can keep our energy affordable and reliable. The glue that holds this plan together — and the key to making it work — is that each state’s goal is tailored to its own circumstances, and states have the flexibility to reach their goal in whatever way works best for them.”
The proposal will also help the economy, not hurt it. The E.P.A. estimates that the regulation will cost $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion annually, but will lead to economic benefits of $55 billion to $93 billion throughout the regulation’s lifetime.
The proposal unveiled today is only a draft, open to public comment. Already it has received criticism and praise from industry groups and environmentalists alike. President Obama plans to finalize the regulation by June 2015 so that it will be in place before he leaves office.
To see why Universe Today writes on climate change, and even climate policy, please read a past article on the subject.
A sun pillar among the clouds at sunset create the look of second Sun on May 31, 2014. Credit: Dave Walker.
Sunset on Tatooine? Nah, just an unusual combination of a dazzling orange sunset, clouds and a sun pillar that creates an “echo” effect of the setting Sun. As seen by astrophotographer Dave Walker in the UK on May 31, 2014.
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