Separation of the third stage during the Sentinel-1 launch in April 2014. Credit: Arianespace/European Space Agency /Roscosmos (YouTube/screenshot)
Imagine clinging on to the side of a rocket, somehow able to hang on despite the high speeds and diminishing oxygen. Looking down, this is what you’ll see — the view in the video above. This incredible sequence shows Sentinel-1a during its initial climb to orbit last week and, if you wait long enough, you can even see the separation of the third stage.
“Arianespace’s successful Soyuz Flight VS07 — which deployed Sentinel-1A to Sun-synchronous orbit — gave the world a front-row seat in space,” the company stated on YouTube. “Cameras mounted on the Soyuz’ Fregat upper stage captured the spectacular footage … as Sentinel-1A was separated at approximately 700 km [434 miles] above the Earth to commence its life in orbit.”
Sentinel-1a is the first of a series of environmental monitoring satellites overseen by the European Space Agency, a set that promises views of the Earth in high-definition.
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.
Hosts: Fraser Cain and Scott Lewis Astronomers: David Dickinson, Gary Gonella, Roy Salisbury, Sharin Ahmed, Stuart Forman, Mike Simmons
and some gorgeous pics from Cory Schmitz in the Southern Hemisphere
Scott also shares pics from the viewers
Curiosity maneuvers into ‘Kimbeley’ and scans scientifically intriguing Martian rock outcrops in search of next drilling location exhibiting several shallow hills in foreground and dramatic Gale crater rim backdrop. Rover tracks at right in this colorized Navcam photomosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 589, April 3, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com
Curiosity maneuvers into ‘Kimbeley’ and scans scientifically intriguing Martian rock outcrops in search of next drilling location exhibiting several shallow hills in foreground and dramatic Gale crater rim backdrop. Rover tracks at right in this colorized Navcam photomosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 589, April 3, 2014.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com[/caption]
NASA’s car sized Curiosity rover has arrived at a scientifically enticing science destination at “The Kimberley Waypoint” where researchers hope to carry out the next drilling operation into alien Martian terrain in search of further clues about ancient Red Planet environments that may have been favorable for life.
“We are officially in ‘The Kimberley’ now,” Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, told Universe Today.
Since arriving in the Kimberley region, Curiosity’s earth-bound handlers have been maneuvering the 1 ton robot to thoroughly survey the destination dubbed “The Kimberley”.
Why was Kimberley chosen as a science destination?
“The Kimberley” has interesting, complex stratigraphy,” Grotzinger told me.
The team moved the six wheeled robot further this week in search of a suitable location to conduct the next drilling operation. The terrain is replete with diverse rock types and extensive outcrops.
I asked Grotzinger if today’s (April 5) location at ‘The Kimberley’ is the intended drill site?
“It’s a possible drill site,” Grotzinger replied.
“Pending further evaluation,” he noted.
Curiosity scans scientifically intriguing rock outcrops of Martian terrain at ‘The Kimberley’ waypoint in search of next drilling location, beside low hill at right. Mastcam color photomosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 590, April 4, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Curiosity drove the final stretch of some 98 feet (30 meters) on Wednesday, April 2, required to arrive at a major stopping waypoint planned since early 2013 for up close study of the Red Planet’s rocks.
Along the recent dune filled path to ‘The Kimberley’, Curiosity snapped breathtaking landscapes around the irresistible ‘Junda’ outcrop, much like a tourist.
See our photomosaics showing the spectacularly inviting terrain around Kimberly and Junda, above and below, by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer.
Martian landscape with rows of curved rock outcrops at ‘Kimberly’ in the foreground and spectacular Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover pulled into Kimberly waypoint dominated by layered rock outcrops as likely drilling site. This colorized navcam camera photomosaic was assembled from imagery taken on Sol 576 (Mar. 20, 2014). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com
The state-of-the-art robot now sits at a vantage point at “The Kimberley” enabling a detailed photographic survey of the rock exposures and surroundings with the high resolution Mastcam cameras.
The new imagery will be used to select the most scientifically productive drilling locations.
“It is named after a remote region of western Australia,” Grotzinger informed me.
The team chose Kimberley because its lies at the intersection of four different types of rocks, including striated rocks overlain by others and deposited in a decipherable geological relationship to each other.
Researchers directed Curiosity on a pinpoint drive to ‘Kimberley’ after high resolution imagery and mineral mapping spectrometry gathered by NASA’s powerful telescopic cameras aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling overhead piqued their interest.
Curiosity looks back at Martian sand dunes and rover tracks after passing by Junda outcrop (right) on Sol 548 (Feb. 19, 2014) with Gale Crater rim and Mount Sharp on the distant horizon. Navcam colorized photomosaic. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
“This is the spot on the map we’ve been headed for, on a little rise that gives us a great view for context imaging of the outcrops at the Kimberley,” said Melissa Rice, Curiosity science planning lead, of Caltech.
The team expects Curiosity to investigate Kimberley for several weeks of observations, including sample-drilling and onboard laboratory analysis of the area’s rocks with the CheMin and SAM miniaturized chemistry labs.
If drilling is warranted, Kimberley would be the site of Curiosity’s first drilling operation since boring into the ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ outcrop targets during the spring of 2013 at Yellowknife Bay.
The robot has conducted cleaning activities of SAM, CheMin and the CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in anticipation of boring into the Martian outcrops and delivering powdery, pulverized samples of cored Martian rocks to SAM and CheMin – waiting patiently inside the robots belly to eat something exciting from the Red Planet.
Curiosity departed the Yellowknife Bay region in July 2013 where she discovered a habitable zone and thereby accomplished the primary goal of the mission.
To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 137,000 images.
The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.
Curiosity has some 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp.
She may arrive at the lower reaches of Mount Sharp sometime in the latter half of 2014, but must first pass through a potentially treacherous dune field.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Chang’e-3, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Learn more at Ken’s upcoming presentations at the NEAF convention on April 12/13 and at Washington Crossing State Park, NJ on April 6.
Map of Curiosity Mars Rover’s Drives to ‘the Kimberley’ Waypoint. This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover during March and April 2014 in its approach to and arrival at a waypoint called “the Kimberley,” which rover team scientists chose in 2013 as the location for the mission’s next major investigations. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google+, Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.
Host: Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer) Guests: Morgan Rehnberg, Scott Lewis, Nancy Atkinson, Dave Dickinson
We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google+, Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.
Aurora and starry skies at Mount Kirkjufell, Iceland on April 2, 2014. Credit and copyright: Nanut Bovorn.
Wow! Mount Kirkjufell is a well-known and often-photographed landmark, and there are many who say it is the most beautiful mountain in Iceland. Photographer Nanut Bovorn captured Kirkjufell in all its glory on April 2, 2014, surrounded by starry skies and an incredible aurora. Simply stunning.
Below is another image taken the same night which also shows the beautiful landscape that surrounds Kirkjufell, with a stream and waterfalls, all under the beautiful nights skies in Iceland.
Mount Kirkjufell sits on a little peninsula and is 463 meters high.
Mount Kirkjufell in Iceland surrounded by the aurora on April 2, 2014. Credit and copyright: Nanut Bovorn.
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.
Hubble Space Telescope image of the El Gordo galaxy cluster. This and other gigantic galaxy clusters are challenging the most common theory of the evolution of structure in the Universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Jee (University of California, Davis)
The Hubble Space Telescope has a new calculation for the huge El Gordo galaxy cluster: 3 million billion times the mass of the Sun. This is even 43 per cent more massive than past estimates that examined the complex in X-rays, NASA stated.
“A fraction of this mass is locked up in several hundred galaxies that inhabit the cluster and a larger fraction is in hot gas that fills the entire volume of the cluster. The rest is tied up in dark matter, an invisible form of matter that makes up the bulk of the mass of the universe,” the Space Telescope Science Institute stated.
“Though galaxy clusters as massive are found in the nearby universe, such as the so-called Bullet Cluster, nothing like this has ever been seen to exist so far back in time, when the universe was roughly half of its current age of 13.8 billion years. The team suspects such monsters are rare in the early universe, based on current cosmological models.”
An intriguing signal could be due to "dark matter annihilations" pops up on the left of this data gathered by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The image on left shows the galactic center in gamma rays with energies between 1 and 3.16 GeV. Red indicates the most activity, and the labels are for pulsars. The image at right has all these gamma-ray sources removed. Credit: T. Linden, Univ. of Chicago
Sometimes a strange signal comes from the dark and it takes a while to figure out what that signal means. In this case, scientists analyzing high-energy gamma rays emanating from the galaxy’s center found an unexplained source of emission that they say is “consistent with some forms of dark matter.”
The data came courtesy of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and was analyzed by a group of independent scientists. They found that by removing all known sources of gamma rays, they were left with gamma-ray emissions that so far, they cannot explain. More observations will be needed to characterize these emissions, they cautioned.
Also, the location of the radiation at the galaxy’s center is an interesting spot, since scientists believe that’s where dark matter would lurk since the insofar invisible substance would be the base of normal structures like galaxies.
“The new maps allow us to analyze the excess and test whether more conventional explanations, such as the presence of undiscovered pulsars or cosmic-ray collisions on gas clouds, can account for it,” stated Dan Hooper, an astrophysicist at Fermilab and lead author of the study.
“The signal we find cannot be explained by currently proposed alternatives and is in close agreement with the predictions of very simple dark matter models.”
The scientists suggest that if WIMPs were destroying each other, this would be “a remarkable fit” for a dark matter signal. They again caution, though, that there could be other explanations for the phenomenon.
“Dark matter in this mass range can be probed by direct detection and by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), so if this is dark matter, we’re already learning about its interactions from the lack of detection so far,” stated co-author Tracy Slatyer, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“This is a very exciting signal, and while the case is not yet closed, in the future we might well look back and say this was where we saw dark matter annihilation for the first time.”
Climate change is now affecting every continent and ocean says the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international collaboration of more than 2,500 experts. If we don’t act soon to bring greenhouse gas emissions under control, the problems will only grow substantially worse. This isn’t a casual statement from a few fringe scientists: nearly 500 people had to sign off on the exact wording of the summary, including 66 expert authors, 271 officials from 115 countries, and 57 observers.
The report is the second of three installments of the IPCC’s fifth assessment of climate change. The first installment, released last year, covered the physical science of climate change. It stated with certainty that climate change is very real and that we are the cause. The new report focuses on the impacts of climate change and how to adapt to them. The third installment, which will come out in April, will focus on cutting greenhouse emissions.
Ice in the Arctic is collapsing, the oceans are rising, coral reefs are dying, fresh water supplies are diminishing, and the oceans are becoming more acidic, which is killing certain creatures and stunting the growth of others. Heat waves and heavy rains are escalating, food crops are being damaged, disease is spreading, human beings will be displaced due to flooding, animals are migrating toward the poles or going extinct, and the worst is yet to come.
The evidence the world is warming is indubitable.
And yet climate change deniers are still represented the world over. Most notably, the Heartland Institute weighed in on the report by focusing on the benefits of climate change. The group’s take on the matter reads like a crude April Fool’s joke.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed by Matt Ridley has also gained quite a bit of attention. An article in Climate Science Watch refers to his piece as “a laundry list of IPCC misrepresentations.” Ridley fails to cite the data presented in the latest report and even tries to claim that global warming will have net benefits.
From the sweeping opinion articles to the simple comments posted below online articles, the IPCC report is being tragically misinterpreted. One need only take a quick glance at the data to see that the world is warming and catastrophic effects are already occurring.
Climate change is global. It will not only affect the poorest nations but the world. “Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC in a news conference presenting the report.
Yes this report is sobering. But it also provides an opportunity. We have the power, the intelligence, and the moral duty to protect our home planet. We cannot reverse the damage. We might not even be able to stop it. But we can minimize it. There is still time.
We can act across all scales — local to global — to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But first we must learn to adapt to a changing environment. Many governments are well past the state of acknowledging climate change and are in fact starting to find solutions.
“I think that dealing effectively with climate change is just going to be something great nations do,” said Christopher Field, co-chairman of the working group that wrote the report and an earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford.
The state of New York recently ordered an electric utility serving Manhattan and its surrounding suburbs, to spend $1 billion upgrading its system to prevent future damage from flooding and other weather disruptions. In a reaction to the blackouts caused by Hurricane Sandy and the acceptance that more extreme weather is to come, the company will raise flood walls, bury vital equipment and determine whether or not emerging climate risks will demand different actions.
Utility regulators across the States are discussing whether to follow New York’s lead.
While greenhouse gas emissions have begun to decline slightly in many countries, including the United States, those gains are being swamped by emissions from other countries such as China and India. We must make greater efforts to adapt or the warming planet will be inevitable.
“There is no question that we live in a world already altered by climate change,” said Field. The time for action is now.
The successful liftoff of Sentinel-1A in April 2014. Credit: ESA-S.Corvaja, 2014
And we have liftoff — two times over! Launch fans got a double treat yesterday when two space missions successfully left Earth. First came a morning launch at 10:46 a.m. Eastern (2:46 p.m. UTC) when DMSP-19 (a satellite of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. You can watch the replay below the jump.
“The satellite launched today is equipped with a sophisticated sensor suite that can capture visible and infrared cloud cover; measure precipitation, surface temperature and soil moisture; and collect specialized global meteorological, oceanographic and solar-geophysical information in all weather conditions. DMSP-19 joins six other satellites in polar orbit providing weather information,” stated Lockheed Martin, the long-standing prime contractor of the program.
And just above this paragraph is the French Guiana launch of Sentinel-1A, the first half of a pair of environmental monitoring satellites that should show the Earth in high-definition to the European Space Agency and customers. Then below the jump you can see the successful separation of Sentinel-1A in space. The launch took place at 5:02 p.m. Eastern (9:02 p.m. UTC).
