Space and astronomy news
Do you know how much material falls onto Earth from space every day? How many different species there are in the ocean? How far the continents move every year? In honor of Earth Day here’s a very cool infographic that answers those questions about our planet — and 47 more!
Check out the full version below:
And for more interesting information about our planet, click here and here.
Infographic provided by Giraffe Childcare and Early Learning (Dublin, Ireland)
Orbital Sciences Antares rocket successfully launched on its maiden voyage at 5 pm EDT (21:00 UTC) on Sunday, April 21 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The test flight is serving as the precursor for a demonstration flight of its Cygnus resupply ship to the International Space Station later this year. About 10 minutes after launch, it placed a mass simulator payload to orbit designed to mimic the Cygnus spacecraft’s weight and characteristics. It is in orbit at 250 km (155 miles) in altitude and moving at27,350 km/hr (17,000 mph).
This is beyond awesome. Use your mouse wheel or the + and – buttons on this incredible interactive view of the Moon to zoom in; use your mouse to let the image take you where you want to go. Click on the button in the lower right to go full screen and you’ll feel like you are in lunar orbit.
This was created by @AstroMike247
Hat tip: Cory Schmitz
“The Life and Death of Stars” is a thorough and richly detailed book that will tell you all you want to know about stars. The author, Kenneth R. Lang, is Professor of Astronomy at Tufts University, and he clearly has the knowledge and explanatory ability of someone who has spent his life studying stars. Though its density may deter the casual reader, I found this book engrossing from beginning to end.
If you’ve just been recently bitten by the astronomy bug, this book may not be for you. A more introductory book might be a better choice. But if you’re craving a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of stars, this book will deliver. Make no mistake though; for most readers, it will require some commitment to read your way through this book.
I was never an astrophysics student, but this book seems to me to have a textbook like thoroughness, though not in a dry way. The chapters and topics flow along logically and clearly, with the help of numerous charts and illustrations. For instance, the book starts off with a thorough explanation of light. Since almost all that we know about stars we’ve learned by observing light, where else should a book on astrophysics begin?
From there, the book moves on to chapters titled “Transmutation of the Elements,” “New Stars Arise from the Darkness,” and “Stellar End States,” with other stops in between. The final chapter is titled “Birth, Life, and Death of the Universe.” At the very end of the book, Lang discusses the possible endings of the Universe, and how the mystery of Dark Matter and Dark Energy may dictate the end.
My own understanding of the behaviour and lifecycle of stars has grown enormously from reading this book, and yours will too. For example, if you know that stars form when interstellar gas clouds collapse from their own gravity, but don’t understand exactly how, then “The Life and Death of Stars” will tell you all the detail you’ll need to know. If you know that heavier elements are formed via nucleosynthesis, in the hearts of stars, but you don’t grasp the finer details of that process, then the explanation in this book will bring it to life for you.
Lang is not a populariser of astronomy. His strength is in detailed descriptions, delivered in a comprehensible way. However, he’s not opposed to the occasional poetic turn of phrase: “All stars are impermanent beacons that eventually will cease to shine, vanishing like a circle of fire turning to ash.” True that. He also quotes the Bhagavad Gita, and the poet Shelley.
One of the ways I gauge a book is by my own level of excitement and interest as I’m reading it. I also judge a book by its clarity of explanation and its flow. In both these respects, Lang delivers with this book. After reading it, I’ll definitely be checking out his other books.
“The Life and Death of Stars” broadened and deepened my understanding of all things stellar. It’s a fantastic book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to Universe Today readers who wish to expand their knowledge of astrophysics.
This Week’s Best Space Photos- April 19, 2013
I’m often asked by students in my community education astronomy classes whether any new elements have been found in outer space unknown on Earth. The answer to the question is no – nature uses the same 98 natural elements to fashion everything from the familiar stars and planets to those in the farthest galaxies we can see. Outside of an occasional compound or mineral, Earth is the place where you’ll find more exotic elements than anywhere else in the universe.
An element is a pure substance made of just one type of atom. What sets one element apart from another is the number of protons in the nuclei of its atoms. Any atom with six protons will always be carbon, 79 protons gold, 94 protons plutonium and 1 proton hydrogen. The proton number is also the element’s atomic number on the periodic table of elements. Elements in the table are arranged according to their atomic number.
The two most common elements are hydrogen and helium, numbers 1 and 2 in the periodic table; together they make up 98% of all the visible matter in the universe. The remaining 2% includes everything else from lightweight lithium (number 3) all the way up to californium (98), the heaviest natural element found on Earth and in the stars. Californium is unstable and “decays” into simpler elements. Although scientists make it in the lab by bombarding berkelium (97) with neutrons, trace amounts of this very rare element are found naturally in rich uranium deposits.
When I was in high school studying chemistry, the periodic table of elements ended at Lawrencium (103). At present there are 118 elements, the most recent one created in the lab being ununoctium (you-nah-NOC-tee-um). Matter of fact, all the elements beyond 98 are artificial, brought to life in nuclear reactors or in particle accelerator experiments. They live very short lives. With so many positively-charged protons pushing against one another in their nuclei, these elements quickly break apart into simpler ones in a process called radioactive decay.
Back at the time of the Big Bang, when the universe sprang into existence, only the simplest elements – hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium – were cooked up. You can’t build a planet from such fluffy stuff. It took the first generation of stars, which formed from these basic building blocks, to synthesize more complicated elements like carbon, oxygen, sulfur and the like via nuclear fusion in their cores.
When the stars exploded as supernovae, not only were these brand new elements blasted into space, but the enormous heat and pressure during the blast built even heavier elements like gold, copper, mercury and lead. All became incorporated in a second generation of stars. And a third.
The 2% of star-made elements, which include carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and silicon among others, went to build the planets and later became essential for life. We’re made of highly processed material you and I. The atoms of our beings have been in and out of the cores of several generations of stars. Think about this good and hard and you might just get in touch with your own “inner star”.
Let’s reframe the question about exotic materials in space not present on Earth. Instead of elements, if we look at compounds, we hit paydirt. A compound is also a pure substance but consists of two or more chemical elements joined together. Familiar compounds include water (two hydrogens joined to one oxygen) and salt (one sodium and one chlorine).
Astronomers have found about 220 compounds or molecules in outer space many of them with siblings on Earth but some alien. We don’t have to look far to find them since a few have been delivered right to our doorstep as rocky packages called meteorites. Here’s a short list of new minerals that formed within asteroids (where meteorites originate) under conditions very different from those found on Earth:
* Barringerite – a metallic compound made of iron, nickel and phosphorus
* Oldhamite – brown mineral made of calcium, magnesium and sulfur
* Kosmochlor – green mineral containing calcium, chromium, silicon and oxygen
How about new stuff on planets and comets? Astronomers have discovered compounds in the atmospheres of the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune like silane (silicon-hydrogen), arsine (arsenic-hydrogen) and phosphine (phosphorus-hydrogen) that don’t exist naturally on Earth. Humans have created all three in the lab and put them to good use in various industries including the manufacture of semi-conductors.
And then there’s Brownleeite, a manganese silicide found in 2003 in a dust particle shed by comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup. Moving beyond the solar system, astronomers see unusual long-chained carbon molecules in space that couldn’t form on Earth because oxygen would tear them apart. Space is their safe haven.
So, Earth is the location in the Universe where you’ll find more exotic elements than anywhere else. Thanks to human activity and the complicated molecules that wound together to form life, Earth’s the most exotic place in the universe.
Here’s a great – and beautiful! – example of what you can do with image stacking. Manoj Kesavan, an avid astrophotographer based at Massey University, New Zealand shot 300 images during 45 minutes at sunset (6:45 pm to 7.30 pm local time) from Palmerston North, New Zealand. “It’s a stack of 300 images, which means virtually putting all 300 photos on top of each other,” Kesavan explained via email. “So the cloud formation, movement and the transformation of sky color from blue to purple to red are captured on one single final image. And the saturation has been pumped up during the post processing.”
Kesavan said he shot this as part of an upcoming timelapse, using a Canon 7D using SIgma 10-20mm at 10mm, iso 100 & f8.
It’s a beautiful result and we look forward to seeing the timelapse! See more of Kesavan’s photography at his Facebook page or Flickr stream.
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.
Here’s the iconic Horsehead Nebula as we’ve not seen it before. As the Hubble team so poetically puts it, the nebula looks “like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam.” The new image of the Horsehead was photographed in celebration of the 23rd anniversary of the launch of Hubble aboard the space shuttle Discovery, on April 24, 1990.
Can you believe the Hubble Space Telescope has been in space for 23 years? … and it’s been churning out great images for almost 20 years since it was fixed in space during the first Hubble servicing mission in 1993.
This view shows the nebula in infrared wavelengths. When seen in optical light (see below), it appears dark and shadowy, but is “transparent and ethereal when seen in the infrared, represented here with visible shades. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that are easily seen in infrared light,” the Hubble team said.
Gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the tip of the jutting pillar contains a slightly higher density of hydrogen and helium, laced with dust. This casts a shadow that protects material behind it from being photo-evaporated, and a pillar structure forms. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead formation has about five million years left before it too disintegrates.
The Horsehead Nebula is part of a much larger complex in the constellation Orion. Known collectively as the Orion Molecular Cloud, it also houses other famous objects such as the Great Orion Nebula (M42), the Flame Nebula, and Barnard’s Loop. At about 1,500 light-years away, this complex is one of the nearest and most easily photographed regions in which massive stars are being formed.
Hubble’s pairing of infrared sensitivity and unparalleled resolution offers a tantalizing hint of what the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, set for launch in 2018, will be able to do.
Here’s a view in optical from Hubble:
For more details, see the HubbleSite
Our very own International Space Station is in the cosmic crosshairs.
As cosmonauts are to begin Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) this morning to perform routine maintenance, an article reminding us of the hazards of such activity came to us via NASA’s Orbital Debris Quarterly Newsletter.
The problem is Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) impacts. These are nothing new. Pits and tiny cratering has been observed during post-flight inspections of space shuttle orbiters. But this is the first time we’d seen talk of damage caused by tiny impacts on the exterior of the International Space Station.
The handrails are a particularly sensitive area of concern.
The study examined damage incurred on handrails exposed to the environment of space for years on end. These present a hazard to spacewalking astronauts who rely on the handles to move about. These craters often become spalled, presenting a sharp metal rim raised from the surface of the handle.
Of course, these razor sharp rims present a problem, especially to space suit gloves. One 34.8 centimeter long handrail returned on the final Space Shuttle mission STS-135 had six impact craters along its length. The handrail had been in service and exposed to the vacuum of space for 8.7 years.
Craters as large as 1.85 millimetres (mm) in diameter with raised lips of 0.33mm have been observed on post-inspection. In studies conducted by NASA engineers, craters with lip heights as little as 0.25mm have been sufficient to snag and tear spacesuit gloves.
There have also been reported incidents of glove tears during EVAs conducted from the ISS over the years. For example, the report cites a tear noticed by astronaut Rick Mastracchio during STS-118 that cut the EVA short.
To protect astronauts and cosmonauts during EVAs, the following measures have been instituted:
– Toughening space suit gloves by adding reinforcement to areas exposed to potential MMOD damage.
– Monitoring and analyzing MMOD impacts along handrails and maintaining a database of problem areas.
– Equipping spacewalkers with the ability to cover and/or repair hazardous MMOD areas during spacewalks.
The studies were carried out by the Johnson Space Center Hypervelocity Impact Technology Group in conjunction with a test facility at White Sands, New Mexico. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio can also be seen talking about the hazards of spacewalking on this video.
Today’s 6 hour EVA by cosmonauts Vinogradov & Romanenko begins at 14:06 UT 10:06AM EDT.
This will be the 32nd Russian EVA from the International Space Station and will use the Pirs hatch on Zvezda.
Tasks include retrieving and installing experiment packages and replacing a defective retro-reflector device on the station’s exterior. The device is a navigational aid necessary for the Albert Einstein ATV-4 mission headed to the ISS on June 5th.
Progress 51P is also scheduled to launch towards the ISS next week on April 24 for docking on April 26th.
Debris in Low Earth Orbit is becoming an increasing concern. The Chinese anti-satellite test in 2007 and the collision of Kosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 in 2009 have increased hazards to the ISS. Many fear that a tipping point, known as an ablation cascade, could eventually occur with one collision showering LEO with debris that in turn trigger many more. The ISS was only finished in 2011, and it would be a tragic loss to see it abandoned due to a catastrophic collision only years after completion.
More than once, ISS crew members have sat out a debris conjunction that was too close to call in their Soyuz life boats, ready to evacuate the station if necessary. DAMs (Debris Avoidance Maneuvers) are now common for the ISS throughout the year.
Several ideas have been proposed to deal with space debris. In the past year, NanoSail-2D demonstrated the ability to deploy a solar sail from a satellite for reentry at the end of a spacecraft’s life span. Such technology may be standard equipment on future satellites.
Expect reentries to increase as we near the solar maximum for cycle #24 in late 2013 & early 2014. This occurs because the exosphere of Earth “puffs out” due to increased solar activity and increases drag on satellites in low Earth orbit.
All food for thought as we watch today’s EVA… space travel is never routine!
The April 2013 edition of the Orbital Debris Quarterly News is available for free online.
The Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.
The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; 69b and 69c. Kepler-62e, 62f and 69c are the super-Earth-sized planets. (Read all the details in our full article here.)
The new planets brings the number of confirmed exoplanets to 861. According to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory, there are now nine potential habitable worlds outside of our solar system, with 18 more potentally habitable planetary candidates found by Kepler waiting to be confirmed. Additionally, astronomers predict there are 25 potentially habitable exomoons.
Here is some of the imagery (sorry, but they are artists concepts!), graphs and video used in today’s briefing about the new discoveries, as well as some some from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory:
Here’s a flythrough of the Kepler 62 system:
