Posted on by Jason Major

NASA Trailer Achieves Crowdfunding Goal to Run Before Star Trek: Into Darkness

Here’s one bit of NASA outreach that won’t be affected by suspensions or sequesters: an edited version of “We Are The Explorers,” a video highlighting the past successes and future goals of the space administration — created by NASA and featuring an inspiring narration by Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen — will be screened in several major U.S. cities during the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness thanks to an overwhelmingly successful crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo.com.

Now that the initial goal of $33,000 has been met and the 30-second ad spot can be purchased, the team responsible for the campaign (Aerospace Industries Association of America) will use any funds donated during the next 29 days to reach its next target: getting the ad in at least one theater in every state in America for two weeks. In order for that to happen, a grand total of $94,000 will need to be reached.

Want to help make it so? Find out more about how you can contribute:

According to the Indiegogo campaign page, “If we raise our funding total to $94,000, students, young people, and the general public will see this video from coast to coast. This new goal will expand our reach from 59 movie theater screens to 750 screens!”

That means a lot more chances that the spot will run at the theater where you go to see the new Star Trek film when it comes out on May 17. (Because you know you’re going to go see it, let’s be honest. It’s Star Trek.)

And because it’s Indiegogo you’ll get a “perk” depending on the amount you contribute, ranging from digital copies of the final spot to DVD copies of the excellent HBO series “From Earth to the Moon” (while supplies last.) Because the initial goal has been met, some perks are already sold out… but then, contributing to something as important as space exploration isn’t about the stuff you get, it’s about the message you can give.

“This is more than a fundraiser, it’s a demonstration of support for space exploration programs. By donating to this campaign, you’re making a very powerful statement about the widespread enthusiam that exists for space programs. A crowdfunding campaign is the best vehicle to deliver this message. By reaching our goal, we not only enable a first-of-its-kind ad campaign, we also demonstrate that countless people support a strong space program that’s in development.”

You can contribute here, and be sure to spread the word too. That way, when you’re looking at the video on the big screen, when you see them putting Al Shepard’s gloves on, when you see the fiery exhaust of the Saturn rocket and you hear Cullen’s voice rumble “we are the explorers,” you can know that you helped make it happen — and that somewhere in that same theater a young mind may very well be inspired to continue the exploration.

Maybe that mind might even be be your own.

“Our next destination awaits. We don’t know what new discoveries lie ahead, but this is the very reason we must go.“

This crowdfunding campaign is the work of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) of America. This campaign is not endorsed by NASA nor is it conducted at their direction or request. Note: by donating you acknowledge that donations are not tax deductible.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astronomers Watch as a Black Hole Eats a Rogue Planet

Screen capture from the ESA video.

In Star Wars, the Millennium Falcon narrowly escaped being devoured by an exogorth (space slug) slumbering inside an asteroid crater. An unsuspecting rogue giant planet wasn’t as lucky. Astronomers using the Integral space observatory were able to watch as the planet was eaten by a black hole that had been inactive for decades. It woke up just in time to make a meal out of the unwary planet.

“The observation was completely unexpected, from a galaxy that has been quiet for at least 20–30 years,” says Marek Nikolajuk of the University of Bialystok, Poland, lead author of the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Nikolajuk and his team added that the event is a preview of a similar feeding event that is expected to take place with the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy.

The discovery in galaxy NGC 4845, 47 million light-years away, was made by Integral, with follow-up observations from ESA’s XMM-Newton, NASA’s Swift and Japan’s MAXI X-ray monitor on the International Space Station.

Astronomers were using Integral to study a different galaxy when they noticed a bright X-ray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-of-view. Using XMM-Newton, the origin was confirmed as NGC 4845, a galaxy never before detected at high energies.

Along with Swift and MAXI, the emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year.

By analyzing the characteristics of the flare, the astronomers could determine that the emission came from a halo of material around the galaxy’s central black hole as it tore apart and fed on an object of 14–30 Jupiter masses, and so the astronomers say the object was either a super-Jupiter or a brown dwarf.

This object appears to have been ‘wandering,’ which would fit the description of recent studies that have suggested that free-floating planetary-mass objects of this kind may occur in large numbers in galaxies, ejected from their parent solar systems by gravitational interactions.

The black hole in the center of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass of around 300,000 times that of our own Sun. The astronomers said it also appears to enjoy playing with its food: the way the emission brightened and decayed shows there was a delay of 2–3 months between the object being disrupted and the heating of the debris in the vicinity of the black hole.

“This is the first time where we have seen the disruption of a substellar object by a black hole,” said co-author Roland Walter of the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland. “We estimate that only its external layers were eaten by the black hole, amounting to about 10% of the object’s total mass, and that a denser core has been left orbiting the black hole.”

The flaring event in NGC 4845 might be similar to what is expected to happen with the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy, perhaps even this year, when an approaching Earth-mass gas cloud is expected to meet its demise.

Along with the object seen being eaten by the black hole in NGC 4845, these events will tell astronomers more about what happens to the demise of different types of objects as they encounter black holes of varying sizes.

“Estimates are that events like these may be detectable every few years in galaxies around us, and if we spot them, Integral, along with other high-energy space observatories, will be able to watch them play out just as it did with NGC 4845,” said Christoph Winkler, ESA’s Integral project scientist.

The team’s paper: Tidal disruption of a super-Jupiter in NGC 4845

Source: ESA

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

The Man Who Sold The Moon … And Other ‘Lunarcy’

One man claims to own the moon. Another promises to create effective lunar habitats. And yet another, a former astronaut, paints pictures of its surface.

Lunarcy! is a movie that chronicles our obsession with the Moon. It’s currently making the rounds at independent theatres, but before long it will be easy to watch it on cable, or even Netflix and Amazon.

The film chronicles the efforts of half a dozen people working, in their own way, to bring the notion of regular Moon exploration closer to reality. There’s Alan Bean, the Apollo 12 moonwalker who now paints scenes of lunar exploration. Or Dennis Hope, who has staked a claim on the entire Moon and has sold plots to interested homesteaders.

At the story’s center, however, is an ordinary man called Christopher Carson who is convinced he could be the first person to colonize the Moon — if he could only obtain enough money. Director Simon Ennis follows his efforts to get funds and awareness, sprinkling the rest of the movie with other lunar-loving people.

Universe Today caught up with Ennis, who answered our questions by e-mail.

1) What was your aim with filming/presenting Lunarcy?

As with any film, the aim is to make something that is entertaining, informative and moving. Something that can capture people’s imagination in some way.

2) Why is the moon so attractive to the people in you interviewed?

They all had different reasons. Some want to live there, some are inspired by it, for Dennis Hope (the man who owns it), he saw a business opportunity. Others are interested in space exploration in general and the Moon seems the most practical first step. Apollo astronaut Alan Bean has been there, so his attraction should be obvious.

3) One of your greatest challenges must have been trying to present some of the characters — people such as Christopher Carson, who has been ignored in his belief that living on the moon is possible — in a way that helps the audience feel understanding for their cause. How did you try to do that?

I don’t think that was much of a challenge actually. I only included subjects in the film who I felt a very strong affinity for, whose goals, quests or projects were ones that caught my imagination and that I could get behind myself. Considering that I felt understanding for the “cause”, I figured that would naturally come through to the audience.

4) A minor theme in Lunarcy! is presenting the moon as a viable place to do business — selling plots of land or colonizing it, for example. We also have companies that are looking to mine asteroids. But often, these plans meet with ridicule, as Newt Gingrich discovered when he promised a moon base. What, in your view, will it take for off-earth private ventures such as these to succeed?

I think they will ultimately succeed when they become financially viable industries. For that to happen, I suspect that some of the billionaire space enthusiasts (e.g. [SpaceX‘s Elon] Musk, [Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, etc) will have to invest their own funds to get various projects going and to show that they’re not only possible but viable. So far SpaceX seems to be doing just this.

5) What else would you like to add?

Lunarcy! will premiere on EPIX on April 3 and will be available on Netflix and Amazon at the beginning of July.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

MAVEN’s Magnetometer Will Look Back in Time

Artist depiction of the MAVEN spacecraft. Credit: NASA

The next mission to the Red Planet, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) will be the first spacecraft ever to make direct measurements of the Martian atmosphere. MAVEN will carry eight science instruments, including a magnetometer that will investigate what remains of Mars’ magnetic “shield,” and will, in essence, help to look back in time at what may have happened to a planet once thought to have an abundance of liquid water but is now a frozen desert. The magnetometer will play a key role in studying the planet’s atmosphere and interactions with solar wind, helping answer the question of why Mars lost much of its atmosphere.

“The magnetometer helps us see where the atmosphere is protected by mini-magnetospheres and where it’s open to solar wind,” said Jack Connerney, a co-investigator for the mission. “We can study the solar wind impact and how efficient it is at stripping the atmosphere.”


By measuring sections of the planet’s magnetic field, the magnetometer could help scientists create a bigger picture of the planet’s overall atmosphere.

MAVEN is the first mission to Mars specifically designed to help scientists understand the past – and also the ongoing — escape of CO2 and other gases into space. MAVEN will orbit Mars for at least one Earth-year, about a half of a Martian year. MAVEN will provide information on how and how fast atmospheric gases are being lost to space today, and infer from those detailed studies what happened in the past.

Studying how the Martian atmosphere was lost to space can reveal clues about the impact that change had on the Martian climate, geologic, and geochemical conditions over time, all of which are important in understanding whether Mars had an environment able to support life.

MAVEN is scheduled to launch in 2013, with a launch window from Nov. 18 to Dec 7, 2013. Mars Orbit Insertion will be in mid-September2014.

Find out more about MAVEN at the mission website.

Posted on by Jason Major

Astronaut Photos Create a Map of the World

A map of the world made up of the locations of ISS astronaut photos (Nathan Bergey/open.nasa.gov)

If you could spend a few months — or even a few days — living aboard the ISS, what would you take pictures of? Earth, most likely, with your favorite landforms and your family’s and friends’ hometowns ranking high on the list. After a while, I’m sure plenty of other Earthly features would become photo targets — weather, aurorae, world cities at night, etc. — but ultimately, over the course of your stay in orbit, you would be able to see a trend in the pictures you take, and where you took them.

And over the span of 35 missions across more than 12 years, the graph above shows the trend of all the astronauts’ pictures. Look familiar?

Nighttime photo of the Nile delta region taken from the ISS (NASA)
Nighttime photo of the Nile delta region taken from the ISS (NASA)

Created by open-source NASA data aficionado Nate Bergey, the image above is a map made up of  over a million points (1,129,177, to be exact) each representing the global coordinates of an JSC-archived photograph taken from the ISS.

Clearly the continents are astronauts’ favored photo subjects, with the populous urban areas of North America, Europe,  Egypt and the Middle East, as well as the western and southern coasts of South America standing out.

“This makes sense, photos of clouds over an otherwise blank ocean get old after a while,” Nate Bergey wrote on his blog, open.nasa.gov. “I’m sure every astronaut has taken at least one photograph of the town they grew up in.”

Of course, the map doesn’t create an image of the entire globe. This is because the points denote actual over-ground coordinates of the Station (not necessarily what the photos themselves are of) and “the ISS stays between about 50° and -50° latitude as it orbits the Earth,” as noted by Bergey.

A map of the world with the points overlaid onto it, color-coded by mission, shows the difference:

all_iss_missions_map.preview

Bergey also notes the proliferation of purple-colored dots… these indicate the hundreds of images taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit during Expedition 30/31, when he created incredible time-lapse videos of the Earth from the ISS.

One of many long-exposure images taken by Don Pettit aboard the ISS (NASA/JSC). See more here.
One of many long-exposure images taken by Don Pettit aboard the ISS (NASA/JSC). See more here.

With such a unique and lofty perspective of our world, it’s no wonder that astronauts spend so much time snapping photos — I can’t say I’d be able to tear myself away from the window myself! Read more about Nate Bergey’s project and how he created his map on his open.NASA blog here.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Jungle Sunset

A big Sun sets behind the trees in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Credit and copyright: Joseph Brimacombe.

They say that perspective is everything. In this case perspective and filters are what makes this such a great astrophoto! We’ve been following Joseph Brimacombe’s astrophotography for years, and have come to appreciate his ‘perspective!” This great zoom shot of the setting Sun was taken on March 31, 2013 using a calcium K-line Filter, using a a 60 mm Lunt CaK Solar Telescope at F/8.3 and a Skynyx 2-2 camera. It’s a single shot, but below, you can watch a negative version of the Sun sink below the horizon in a video of 1,350 frames shown at double speed.

Jungle Sunset Calcium K-line Filter: Long Video – March 31, 2013 from Joseph Brimacombe on Vimeo.

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.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

How to Reconstruct the Life of a Star

This image of Cep OB 3b was created by combining the light from four separate observations taken through different filters on the 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak. The brightest yellow star near the center of the image is a foreground star, lying between us and the young cluster. The other bright stars are the massive young stars of the cluster that are heating the gas and dust in the cloud and blowing out cavities. Image processing was done by Dr. Travis Rector. Credit: NOAO.

It takes time to understand the life of stars. A star like our Sun takes tens of millions of years to form, and so much like archeologists who reconstruct ancient cities from shards of debris strewn over time, astronomers must reconstruct the birth process of stars indirectly, by observing stars in different stages of the process and inferring the changes that take place.

One of the best places to study the lives of stars is in star clusters. These regions that are rich with young stars provide astronomers much information that is relevant to the study of stars in general, but within a cluster, stars can form during a wide range of time, as a new study of the star cluster named Cep OB3b has shown.

“By studying nearby massive young clusters like Cep OB3b, we can gain a greater understanding of the environments out of which planets form,” said Thomas Allen from the University of Toledo, who is one of the authors of the new paper.

Located in the northern constellation of Cepheus, CepOB3b is similar in some ways to the famous cluster found in the Orion Nebula. But unlike the Orion Nebula, there is relatively little dust and gas obscuring our view of Cep OB3b. Its massive, hot stars have blown out cavities in the gaseous cloud with their intense ultraviolet radiation which mercilessly destroys everything in its path. Cep OB3b may show us what the Orion Nebular Cluster will look like in the future.

Allen and an international team of astronomers have found that the total number of young stars in the cluster is as high as 3,000. Infrared observations of the stars from the NASA Spitzer satellite show about 1,000 stars that are surrounded by disks of gas and dust from which solar systems may form. As the stars age, the disks disappear as the dust and gas get converted into planets or are dispersed into space.

But these observations pointed to a new mystery. Although the stars in Cep OB3b are thought to be about three million years old, in some parts of the cluster most of the stars had lost their disks, suggesting that the stars in those parts were older. This suggests that the cluster is surrounded by older stars, potential relics of previous clusters that have since expanded and dispersed.

To search for evidence for these relic clusters, Allen used the Mosaic camera on the 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to observe wide field images of CepOB3b. These images show hot gas and its interaction with the stars and permit the team to study a curious cavity in the gas for evidence of older, yet still juvenile, stars that have lost their disks of gas and dust.

With these data, the team is searching for the previous generations of star formation in the region surrounding Cep OB3b, and piecing together the history of star formation in this magnificent region. When finished, this may provide clues how previous generations may have influenced the current generation of stars and planets forming in Cep OB3b.

Source:NOAO

Posted on by David Dickinson

Comet Lemmon: A Preview Guide for April

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon as imaged by Luis Argerich as from near Buenos Aires, Argentina on March (Credit: Nightscape photography. Used with permission).

As Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system, we’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers. 

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon is set to become a binocular object low to the southeast at dawn for low northern latitudes in the first week of April. And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ Day hoax, despite the comet’s name. Comet Lemmon (with two m’s) was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Sky Survey (MLSS) based outside of Tucson, Arizona on March 23, 2012. MLSS is part of the Catalina Sky Survey which searches for Near Earth Asteroids. We’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers as Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system.

The comet is on an extremely long elliptical orbit, with a period of over 11,000 years. Comet Lemmon just passed perihelion at 0.74 astronomical units from the Sun on March 24th.

Animation of Comet Lemmon as it passes the star Gamma Crucis on January 17th. (Courtesy of Luis Argerich. Used with permission).
Animation of Comet Lemmon as it passes the star Gamma Crucis on January 17th. (Courtesy of Luis Argerich. Used with permission).

Southern hemisphere observers have been getting some great views of Comet Lemmon since the beginning of this year. It passed only three degrees from the south celestial pole on February 5th, and since that time has been racing up the “0 Hour” line in right ascension. If that location sounds familiar, that’s because another notable comet, 2011 L4 PanSTARRS has been doing the same. In fact, astrophotographers in the southern hemisphere were able to catch both comets in the same field of view last month.

Another celestial body occupies 0 Hour neighborhood this time of year. The Sun just passed the vernal equinox marking the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere and Fall in the southern on March 19th.

And like PanSTARRS, Comet Lemmon has a very steep orbit inclined 82.6° relative to the ecliptic.

The steep path and current position of Comet Lemmon. (Credit: NASA/JPL' Small-Body Database Browser).
The steep path and current position of Comet Lemmon. (Credit: NASA/JPL’ Small-Body Database Browser).

Comet Lemmon broke naked-eye visibility reaching +6th magnitude in late February and has thus far closely matched expectations. Current reports place it at magnitude +4 to +5 as it crosses northward through the constellation Cetus. Predictions place the maximum post-perihelion brightness between magnitudes +3 and +5 in early April, and thus far, Comet Lemmon seems to be performing right down the middle of this range.

Brightness graph for Comet Lemmon for the months surrounding perihelion. (Created by author).
Brightness graph for Comet Lemmon for the months surrounding perihelion. (Created by author).

Southern observers have caught a diffuse greenish 30” in diameter nucleus on time exposures accompanied by a short, spikey tail. Keep in mind, the quoted brightness of a comet is extended over its entire surface area. Thus, while a +4th magnitude star may be easily visible in the dawn, a 3rd or even 2nd magnitude comet may be invisible to the unaided eye. Anyone who attempted to spot Comet PanSTARRS in the dusk last month knows how notoriously fickle it actually was. Binoculars are your friend in this endeavor. Begin slowly sweeping the southeast horizon about an hour before local sunrise looking for a fuzzy “star” that refuses to reach focus. Comet Lemmon will get progressively easier in the dawn sky for latitudes successively farther north as the month of April progresses.

The apparent path of Comet Lemmon for April looking southeast about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
The apparent path of Comet Lemmon for April 10th through the 30th looking east about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).

Comet Lemmon will continue to gain elevation as it crosses from Cetus into the constellation Pisces on April 13th. An interesting grouping occurs as the planet Mercury passes only a few degrees from the comet from April 15th to April 17th. Having just past greatest elongation on March 31st, Mercury will shine at magnitude -0.1 and make a good guide to locate the comet in brightening dawn skies. The pair is joined by the waning crescent Moon on the mornings of April 7th and 8th which may also provide for the first sighting opportunities from low north latitudes around these dates.

The apparent path of Comet Lemmon for April looking southeast about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
Mercury meets Comet Lemmon on April 15th as seen about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).

The Moon reaches New phase on Wednesday, April 10th at 5:35AM EDT/9:35 UT. It will be out of the morning sky for the next couple of weeks until it reaches Full on April 25th, at which point it will undergo the first eclipse of 2013, a very shallow partial. (More on that later this month!)

Comet Lemmon will then slide across the celestial equator on April 20th and cross the plane of the ecliptic on April 22nd as it heads up into the constellation Andromeda in mid-May. We’re expecting Comet Lemmon to be a fine binocular object for late April, but perhaps not as widely observed due to its morning position as PanSTARRS was in the dusk.

By mid-May, Comet Lemmon will have dipped back down below +6th magnitude and faded out of interest to all but a few deep sky enthusiasts. Comet Lemmon will pass within 10° of the north celestial pole on August 9th, headed back out into the icy depths of the solar system not to return for another 11,000-odd years.

It’s interesting to see how these two springtime comets will effect observers expectations for the passage of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON. Will this in fact be the touted “Comet of the Century?” Much hinges on whether ISON survives its November 28th perihelion only 1,166,000 kilometers from the center of our Sun (that’s 0.68 solar-radii or about 3 times the Earth-Moon distance from the surface of the Sun). If so, we could be in for a fine “Christmas Comet” rivaling the passage of Comet Lovejoy in late 2011. On the other hand, a disintegration of Comet ISON would be more akin to the fizzle of Comet Elenin earlier in 2011.

In the meantime, enjoy Comet Lemmon as an Act 2 in the 2013 Three Act “Year of the Comet!”

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Vistas: Comet PANSTARRS Meets the Aurora

The northern lights or aurora borealis swirls over a fjord in the Norwegian Sea near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminate the landscape. The Pleiades Star Cluster (the Seven Sisters) appears on the upper left. Credit and copyright: Babek A. Tafreshi.

I’m completely envious of this view! Not only is there a stunning winter vista of mountains and a fjord near Tromso, Norway, but in the peaceful evening twilight, Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) shows up. To top off the view, a sudden burst of aurora borealis makes an appearance! This view was captured by Babak Tafreshi on March 20, 2013.

See some of his stunning images below:

Click on each of the images for a larger view at Tafreshi’s website.

The northern lights or aurora borealis dances over a fjord mountains near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminate the the landscape. Bright planet Jupiter and the Pleiades Star Cluster (the Seven Sisters) appear over the mountains. Credit and copyright: Babak A. Tafreshi.
The northern lights or aurora borealis dances over a fjord mountains near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminate the the landscape. Bright planet Jupiter and the Pleiades Star Cluster (the Seven Sisters) appear over the mountains. Credit and copyright: Babak A. Tafreshi.
A fisheye view of the northern lights as it swirls over a fjord in the Norwegian Sea near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminates the the landscape. Credit: Babak A. Tafreshi.
A fisheye view of the northern lights as it swirls over a fjord in the Norwegian Sea near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminates the the landscape. Credit: Babak A. Tafreshi.

Comet and the Northern Lights from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo.