Universe Today

February 24, 2013December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Russian Fireball Inspires Journey into the World of Meteorites

A polished slice of one of Russian meteorite samples. You can see round grains called chondrules and shock veins lined with melted rock. The meteorite is probably non-uniform. The preliminary analysis showed that the meteorite belongs to chemical type L or LL, petrologic type 5.

A little more than week ago a 7,000 ton, 50-foot (15-meter) wide meteoroid made an unexpected visit over Russia to become the biggest space rock to enter the atmosphere since the Tunguska impact in 1908. While scientists still debate whether it was asteroid or comet that sent a tree-flattening shockwave over the Tunguska River valley, we know exactly what fell last Friday.

Now is a fitting time to get more familiar with these extraterrestrial rocks that drop from out of nowhere.

The Russian meteoroid – the name given an asteroid fragment before it enters the atmosphere – became a brilliant meteor during its passage through the air. If a cosmic rock is big enough to withstand the searing heat and pressure of entry, fragments survive and fall to the ground as meteorites. Most of the meteors or “shooting stars” we see on a clear night are bits of rock the size of apple seeds. When they strike the upper atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles an hour, they vaporize in a flash of light. Case closed. But the one that boomed over the city of Chelyabinsk was big enough to to survive its last trip around the Sun and sprinkle the ground with meteorites.

The two main smoke trails left by the Russian meteorite as it passed over the city of Chelyabinsk. Credit: AP Photo/Chelyabinsk.ru — The two main smoke trails left by the Russian meteor as it passed over the city of Chelyabinsk. Credit: AP Photo/Chelyabinsk.ru

Ah, but the Russian fireball didn’t get off the hook that easy. The overwhelming air pressure at those speeds combined with re-entry temperatures around 3,000 degrees F (1,650 C) shattered the original space rock into many pieces. You can see the dual trails created by two of the larger hunks in the photo above.

Scientists at Urals Federal University in Yekaterinburg examined 53 small meteorite fragments deposited around a hole in ice-covered Chebarkul Lake 48 miles (77 km) west of Chelyabinsk the following day. Chemical analysis revealed the stones contained 10% iron-nickel metal along with other minerals commonly found in stony meteorites. Since then, hundreds of fragments have been dug out of the snow by people in surrounding villages. As specimens continue to be recovered and analyzed, here’s an overview — and a look at what we know — of these space rocks that pay us a visit from time to time.

Bright fireball breaking up over Yellow Springs, Ohio. Credit: John Chumack

How many times has a meteor taken your breath away? A brilliant fireball streaking across the night sky ranks among the most memorable astronomical sights most of us will ever see. Like objects in your side view mirror, meteors appear closer than they really are. And it’s all the more true when they’re exceptionally bright. Studies show however that meteors burn up at least 50 miles (80 km) overhead. If big enough to remain intact and land on the ground, the fragments go completely dark 5-12 miles (8-19 km) high during the “dark flight” phase. A meteor passing overhead would be at the minimum distance of about 50 miles (80 km) from the observer.

Since most sightings are well off toward one direction or another, you have to add your horizontal distance to the meteor’s height to get a true distance. While some meteors are bright enough to trick us into thinking they landed just over the next hill, nearly all are many miles away. Even the Russian meteor, which put on a grand show and blasted the city of Chelyabinsk with a powerful shock wave, dropped fragments dozens of miles to the west. We lack the context to appreciate meteor distances, perhaps unconsciously comparing what we see to an aerial fireworks display.

Very cute Youtube video of Sasha Zarezina, 8, who lives in a small Siberian village, as she hunts for meteorite fragments in the snow after Friday’s meteor over Russia. Credit: Ben Solomon/New York Times

An estimated 1,000 tons (907 metric tons) to more than 10,000 tons (9,070 MT) of material from outer space lands on Earth every day delivered free of charge from the main Asteroid Belt. Crack-ups between asteroids in the distant past are nudged by Jupiter into orbits that cross that of Earth’s. Most of the stuff rains down as micrometeoroids, bits of grit so small they’re barely touched by heating as they gently waft their way to the ground. Many larger pieces – genuine meteorites – make it to Earth but are missed by human eyes because they fall in remote mountains, deserts and oceans. Since over 70% of Earth’s surface’s is water, think of all the space rocks that must sink out of sight forever.

A fragment of the Sikhote-Alin iron meteorite that fell over eastern Russia (then the Soviet Union) on Feb. 12, 1947. Some of the dimpling are pockets on the meteorite's surface called regmeglypts. Credit: Bob King — A fragment of the Sikhote-Alin iron meteorite that fell over eastern Russia (then the Soviet Union) on Feb. 12, 1947. Credit: Bob King

About 6-8 times a year however, a meteorite-producing fireball streaks over a populated area of the world. Using eyewitness reports of time, direction of travel along with more modern tools like video surveillance cameras and Doppler weather radar, which can ping the tracks of falling meteorites, scientists and meteorite hunters have a great many clues on where to look for space rocks.

Since most meteorites break into pieces in mid-air, the fragments are dispersed over the ground in a large oval called the strewnfield. The little pieces fall first and land at the near end of the oval; the bigger chunks travel farthest and fall at the opposite end.

When a new potential meteorite falls, scientists are eager to get a hold of pieces as soon as possible. Back in the lab, they measure short-lived elements called radionuclides created when high-energy cosmic rays in space alter elements in the rock. Once the rock lands on Earth, creation of these altered elements stops. The proportions of radionuclides tell us how long the rock traveled through space after it was ejected by impact from its mother asteroid. If a meteorite could write a journal, this would be it.

Other tests that examine the decay of radioactive elements like uranium into lead tells us the age of the meteorite. Most are 4.57 billion years old. Hold a meteorite and you’ll be whisked back to a time before the planets even existed. Imagine no Earth, no Jupiter.

10x closeup of a very thin section through a chondrule in the meteorite NWA 4560. Crystals of olivine (bright colors) and pyroxene are visible. Credit: Bob King — 10x closeup of a very thin slice through a chondrule in the meteorite NWA 4560. Crystals of olivine (bright colors) and pyroxene (grays) are visible. Credit: Bob King

Many meteorites are jam-packed with tiny rocky spheres called chondrules. While their origin is still a topic of debate, chondrules (KON-drools) likely formed when blots of dust in the solar nebula were flash-heated by the young sun or perhaps by powerful bolts of static electricity. Sudden heating melted the motes into chondrules which quickly solidified. Later, chondrules agglomerated into larger bodies that ultimately grew into planets through mutual gravitational attraction. You can always count on gravity to get the job done. Oh, just so you know, meteorites are no more radioactive than many common Earth rocks. Both contain trace amounts of radioactive elements at trifling levels.

A stunning slice of the Glorieta pallasite meteorite cut thin enough to allow light to shine through its many olivine crystals. Click to see more of Mike's photos. Credit: Mike Miller — A stunning slice of the Glorieta pallasite meteorite cut thin enough to allow light to shine through its many olivine crystals. Click to see more of Mike’s photos. Credit: Mike Miller

Meteorites fall into three broad categories – irons (mostly metallic iron with smaller amounts of nickel), stones (composed of rocky silicates like olivine, pyroxene and plagioclase and iron-nickel metal in form of tiny flakes) and stony-irons (a mix of iron-nickel metal and silicates). The stony-irons are broadly subdivided into mesosiderites, chunky mixes of metal and rock, and pallasites.

Pallasites are the beauty queens of the meteorite world. They contain a mix of pure olivine crystals, better known as the semi-precious gemstone peridot, in a matrix of iron-nickel metal. Sliced and polished to a gleaming finish, a pallasite wouldn’t look out of place dangling from the neck of an Oscar winner. About 95% of all found or seen-to-fall meteorites are the stony variety, 4.4% are irons and 1% stony-irons.

A slice of the NWA 5205 meteorite from the Sahara Desert displays wall-to-wall chondrules. Credit: Bob King

Earth’s atmosphere is no friend to space rocks. Collecting them early prevents damage by the two things most responsible for keeping us alive: water and oxygen. Unless a meteorite lands in a dry desert environment like the Sahara or the “cold desert” of Antarctica, most are easy prey to the elements. I’ve seen meteorites collected and sliced open within a week after a fall that already show brown stains from rusting nickel-iron. Antarctica is off-limits to all but professional scientists, but thanks to amateur collectors’ efforts in the Sahara Desert, Oman and other regions, thousands of meteorites including some of the rarest types, have come to light in recent years.

Greg Hupe, renowned meteorite hunter, wears a big smile after finding a fresh 33.7g meteorite of the Mifflin, Wis. fall in 2010. Credit: Greg Hupe

Hunters share their finds with museums, universities and through outreach efforts in the schools. A portion of the material is sold to other collectors to finance future expeditions, pay for plane tickets and sit down to a good meal after the hunt. Finding a meteorite of your own is hard but rewarding work. If you’d like to have a go at it, here’s a basic checklist of qualities that separate space rocks from Earth rocks:

* Attracts a magnet. Most meteorites – even stony ones – contain iron.
* Most are covered with a matt-black, slightly bumpy fusion crust that colors dark brown with age. Look for hints of rounded chondrules or tiny bits of metal sticking up through the crust.
* Aerodynamic shape from its flight through the atmosphere, but be wary of stream-eroded rocks which appear superficially similar
* Some are dimpled with small thumbprint-like depressions called regmaglypts. These form when softer materials melt and stream away during atmospheric entry. Some meteorites also display hairline-thin, melted-rock flow lines rippling across their exteriors.

Beware of imitations! These are chunks of industrial slag that are often confused with real meteorites. Meteorites don't have bubbly surfaces. Credit: Bob King — Beware of imitations! These are chunks of industrial slag that are often confused with real meteorites. Meteorites don’t have bubbly surfaces. Credit: Bob King

Should your rock passes the above tests, file off an edge and look inside. If the interior is pale with shining flecks of pure metal (not mineral crystals), your chances are looking better. But the only way to be certain of your find is to send off a piece to a meteorite expert or lab that does meteorite analysis. Industrial slag with its bubbly crust and dark, smooth volcanic rocks called basalts are the most commonly found meteor-wrongs. We imagine that meteorites must have bubbly crust like a cheese pizza; after all, they’ve been oven-baked by the atmosphere, right? Nope. Heating only happens in the outer millimeter or two and crusts are generally quite smooth.

NWA 3147 is an achondrite eucrite meteorite most likely from the asteroid Vesta. You can see it has no chondrules. Credit: Bob King — Look Ma, no chondrules. NWA 3147 is an achondrite eucrite meteorite that probably originated from the asteroid Vesta. Credit: Bob King

Stony meteorites are further subdivided into two broad types – chondrites, like the Russian fall, and achondrites, so-called because they lack chondrules. Achondrites are igneous rocks formed from magma deep within an asteroid’s crust and lava flows on the surface. Some eucrites (YOU-crites), the most common type of achondrite, likely originated as fragments shot into space from impacts on Vesta. Measurements by NASA’s Dawn space mission, which orbited the asteroid from July 2011 to September 2012, have found great similarities between parts of Vesta’s crust and eucrites found on Earth.

We also have meteorites from Mars and the Moon. They got here the same way the rest of them did; long-ago impacts excavated crustal rocks and sent them flying into space. Since we’ve studied moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions and sampled Mars atmosphere with a variety of landers, we can compare minerals and gases found inside potential moon and Mars meteorites to confirm their identity.

Some of the 53 meteorites found around Chebarkul Lake. Many are coated with a thin crust of melted and blackened rock heating by the atmosphere. The sign reads: Meteorite Chebarkul. Credit: AP / The Urals Federal University Press Service, Alexander Khlopotov — Some of the 53 chondrite meteorites found around Chebarkul Lake. Many are coated with a thin crust of melted and blackened rock heating by the atmosphere. The sign reads: Meteorite Chebarkul. Credit: AP / The Urals Federal University Press Service, Alexander Khlopotov

Scientists study space rocks for clues of the Solar System’s origin and evolution. For the many of us, they provide a refreshing “big picture” perspective on our place in the Universe. I love to watch eyes light up with I pass around meteorites in my community education astronomy classes. Meteorites are one of the few ways students can “touch” outer space and feel the awesome span of time that separates the origin of the Solar System and present day life.

February 24, 2013December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

European Asteroid Smasher Could Bolster Planetary Defense

US-European Asteroid Impact and Deflection mission – AIDA.

Planetary Defense is a concept very few people heard of or took seriously – that is until last week’s humongous and totally unexpected meteor explosion over Russia sent millions of frightened residents ducking for cover, followed just hours later by Earth’s uncomfortably close shave with the 45 meter (150 ft) wide asteroid named 2012 DA14.

This ‘Cosmic Coincidence’ of potentially catastrophic space rocks zooming around Earth is a wakeup call that underscores the need to learn much more about the ever present threat from the vast array of unknown celestial debris in close proximity to Earth and get serious about Planetary Defense from asteroid impacts.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) proposed Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission, or AIDA, could significantly bolster both our basic knowledge about asteroids in our neighborhood and perhaps even begin testing Planetary Defense concepts and deflection strategies.

After two years of work, research teams from the US and Europe have selected the mission’s target – a so called ‘binary asteroid’ named Didymos – that AIDA will intercept and smash into at about the time of its closest approach to Earth in 2022 when it is just 11 million kilometers away.

“AIDA is not just an asteroid mission, it is also meant as a research platform open to all different mission users,” says Andres Galvez, ESA studies manager.

Asteroid Didymos could provide a great platform for a wide variety of research endeavors because it’s actually a complex two body system with a moon – and they orbit each other. The larger body is roughly 800 meters across, while the smaller one is about 150 meters wide.

So the smaller body is some 15 times bigger than the Russian meteor and 3 times the size of Asteroid 2012 DA14 which flew just 27,700 km (17,200 mi) above Earth’s surface on Feb. 15, 2013.

The low cost AIDA mission would be comprised of two spacecraft – a mother ship and a collider. Two ships for two targets.

The US collider is named the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART and would smash into the smaller body at about 6.25 km per second. The impact should change the pace at which the objects spin around each other.

ESA’s mothership is named Asteroid Impact Monitor, or AIM, and would carry out a detailed science survey of Didymos both before and after the violent collision.

“The project has value in many areas,” says Andy Cheng, AIDA lead at Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory, “from applied science and exploration to asteroid resource utilisation.” Cheng was a key member of NASA’s NEAR mission that first orbited and later landed on the near Earth Asteroid named Eros back in 2001.

Recall that back in 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact mission successfully lobbed a projectile into Comet Tempel 1 that unleashed a fiery explosion and spewing out vast quantities of material from the comet’s interior, including water and organics.

NASA’s Deep Impact images Comet Tempel 1 alive with light after colliding with the impactor spacecraft on July 4, 2005. ESA and NASA are now proposing the AIDA mission to smash into Asteroid Didymos. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

ESA has invited researchers to submit AIDA experiment proposals on a range of ideas including anything that deals with hypervelocity impacts, planetary science, planetary defense, human exploration or innovation in spacecraft operations. The deadline is 15 March.

“It is an exciting opportunity to do world-leading research of all kinds on a problem that is out of this world,” says Stephan Ulamec from the DLR German Aerospace Center. “And it helps us learn how to work together in international missions tackling the asteroid impact hazard.”

The Russian meteor exploded without warning in mid air with a force of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT, the equivalent of about 20–30 times the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Over 1200 people were injured in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region and some 4000 buildings were damaged at a cost exceeding tens of millions of dollars. A ground impact would have decimated cities like New York, Moscow or Beijing with millions likely killed.

ESA’s AIDA mission concept and NASA’s approved Osiris-REx asteroid sample return mission will begin the path to bolster our basic knowledge about asteroids and hopefully inform us on asteroid deflection and Planetary Defense strategies.

Ken Kremer

Near-Earth asteroid Eros imaged from NASA’s orbiting NEAR spacecraft. Credit: NASA

February 23, 2013April 26, 2016 by Dan Majaess

Nearby Ancient Star is Almost as Old as the Universe

A billion years after the big bang, hydrogen atoms were mysteriously torn apart into a soup of ions. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Felid (STScI)).

A metal-poor star located merely 190 light-years from the Sun is 14.46+-0.80 billion years old, which implies that the star is nearly as old as the Universe! Those results emerged from a new study led by Howard Bond. Such metal-poor stars are (super) important to astronomers because they set an independent lower limit for the age of the Universe, which can be used to corroborate age estimates inferred by other means.

In the past, analyses of globular clusters and the Hubble constant (expansion rate of the Universe) yielded vastly different ages for the Universe, and were offset by billions of years! Hence the importance of the star (designated HD 140283) studied by Bond and his coauthors.

“Within the errors, the age of HD 140283 does not conflict with the age of the Universe, 13.77 ± 0.06 billion years, based on the microwave background and Hubble constant, but it must have formed soon after the big bang.” the team noted.

Metal-poor stars can be used to constrain the age of the Universe because metal-content is typically a proxy for age. Heavier metals are generally formed in supernova explosions, which pollute the surrounding interstellar medium. Stars subsequently born from that medium are more enriched with metals than their predecessors, with each successive generation becoming increasingly enriched. Indeed, HD 140283 exhibits less than 1% the iron content of the Sun, which provides an indication of its sizable age.

HD 140283 had been used previously to constrain the age of the Universe, but uncertainties tied to its estimated distance (at that time) made the age determination somewhat imprecise. The team therefore decided to obtain a new and improved distance for HD 140283 using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), namely via the trigonometric parallax approach. The distance uncertainty for HD 140283 was significantly reduced by comparison to existing estimates, thus resulting in a more precise age estimate for the star.

Age estimate for HD 140283 is 14.46+-0.80 Gyr. On the y-axis is the star's pseudo-luminosity, on the x-axis its temperature. An evolutionary track was applied to infer the age (credit: adapted by D. Majaess from Fig 1 in Bond et al. 2013, arXiv). — HD 140283 is estimated to be 14.46+-0.80 billion years old. On the y-axis is the star’s pseudo-luminosity, on the x-axis its temperature. Computed evolutionary tracks (solid lines ranging from 13.4 to 14.4 billion years) were applied to infer the age (image credit: adapted from Fig 1 in Bond et al. 2013 by D. Majaess, arXiv).

The team applied the latest evolutionary tracks (basically, computer models that trace a star’s luminosity and temperature evolution as a function of time) to HD 140283 and derived an age of 14.46+-0.80 billion years (see figure above). Yet the associated uncertainty could be further mitigated by increasing the sample size of (very) metal-poor stars with precise distances, in concert with the unending task of improving computer models employed to delineate a star’s evolutionary track. An average computed from that sample would provide a firm lower-limit for the age of the Universe. The reliability of the age determined is likewise contingent on accurately determining the sample’s metal content. However, we may not have to wait long, as Don VandenBerg (UVic) kindly relayed to Universe Today to expect, “an expanded article on HD 140283, and the other [similar] targets for which we have improved parallaxes [distances].”

As noted at the outset, analyses of globular clusters and the Hubble constant yielded vastly different ages for the Universe. Hence the motivation for the Bond et al. 2013 study, which aimed to determine an age for the metal-poor star HD 140283 that could be compared with existing age estimates for the Universe. The discrepant ages stemmed partly from uncertainties in the cosmic distance scale, as the determination of the Hubble constant relied on establishing (accurate) distances to galaxies. Historical estimates for the Hubble constant ranged from 50-100 km/s/Mpc, which defines an age spread for the Universe of ~10 billion years.

Age estimates for globular clusters were previously larger than that inferred for the Age of the Universe from the Hubble constant (NASA, R. Gilliland (STScI), D. Malin (AAO)) — Age estimates for the Universe as inferred from globular clusters and the Hubble constant were previously in significant disagreement (image credit: NASA, R. Gilliland (STScI), D. Malin (AAO)).

The aforementioned spread in Hubble constant estimates was certainly unsatisfactory, and astronomers recognized that reliable results were needed. One of the key objectives envisioned for HST was to reduce uncertainties associated with the Hubble constant to <10%, thus providing an improved estimate for the age of the Universe. Present estimates for the Hubble constant, as tied to HST data, appear to span a smaller range (64-75 km/s/Mpc), with the mean implying an age near ~14 billion years.

Determining a reliable age for stars in globular clusters is likewise contingent on the availability of a reliable distance, and the team notes that “it is still unclear whether or not globular cluster ages are compatible with the age of the Universe [predicted from the Hubble constant and other means].” Globular clusters set a lower limit to the age of the Universe, and their age should be smaller than that inferred from the Hubble constant (& cosmological parameters).

In sum, the study reaffirms that there are old stars roaming the solar neighborhood which can be used to constrain the age of the Universe (~14 billion years). The Sun, by comparison, is ~4.5 billion years old.

The team’s findings will appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, and a preprint is available on arXiv. The coauthors on the study are E. Nelan, D. VandenBerg, G. Schaefer, and D. Harmer. The interested reader desiring complete information will find the following works pertinent: Pont et al. 1998, VandenBerg 2000, Freedman & Madore (2010), Tammann & Reindl 2012.

February 23, 2013December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Satellite Swarm — Including an Asteroid Hunter — Readies For Spaceflight

The Canadian asteroid-hunting NEOSSAT is among the fleet of satellites launched on Feb. 25, 2013.Credit: Canadian Space Agency

Early next week, an Indian rocket will launch into space carrying seven satellites on board. Among them will be a small but mighty asteroid-hunting telescope called NEOSSat. Built by the Canadian Space Agency, it will mainly focus on the Atira class of asteroids, which are made up of space rocks within Earth’s orbit, to figure out their size and distribution. The suitcase-sized NEOSSat will orbit approximately 800 kilometers above Earth, searching for near-Earth asteroids that are difficult to spot using ground-based telescopes.

Here’s a full rundown of what’s soaring to space on Monday (Feb. 25), if all goes to plan. Check out the launch from India at this link; it’s supposed to go into space around 7:25 a.m. Eastern (12:25 p.m. UTC).

– NEOSSat (Canada). Short for Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, the satellite is actually split into two different missions. For half the time, it will be keeping a sharp eye out for asteroids that may swing by Earth at some point. The telescope will spend its other science mission watching satellites and space debris in orbit, to better track their movements.

“NEOSSat will discover many asteroids much faster than can be done from the ground alone,” said Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary. “Its most exciting result, however, will probably be discovering new targets for exploration by both manned and unmanned space missions.”

– SARAL (India/France). This is by far the largest satellite of the fleet; the rest of the mini sats listed below are hitching a ride to share launch costs. The satellite is supposed to take altimeter measurements of water and ice to watch the movement of waves and to add more data into climate change databases, among other objectives.

– CanX-3 BRITE (Canada). The BRIght Target Explorer is billed as the smallest astronomical telescope, at just 8 inches (20 centimeters) across. Unlike bigger observatories that focus on very faint objects, BRITE will — as the name suggests — watch over brighter stars that we commonly use on Earth to connect the dots in constellations. Oddly enough, despite their prominence in our sky, these brighter stars are poorly studied, astronomers said.

– Sapphire (Canada). A military mission, this satellite will keep track of objects orbiting between 3,800 and 25,000 miles (6,000 and 40,000 kilometers) from Earth. The Canadians will share this information with their close military ally, the Americans.

– TUGSat-1 BRITE (Austria). This will be the first Austrian satellite. Like CanX-3, it will investigate bright stars by watching the changes in brightness using a technique called photometry (measuring visible light.) The satellite is equipped with a high-resolution CCD imager to take pictures.

– AAUSat 3 (Denmark). This satellite will test the capabilities of automatic identification of ships (AIS) technology, following the beacons that ships are required to send out with information about their cargo and destination. Most of the testing will focus on the water around Greenland.

– STRaND-1 (United Kingdom). This satellite is literally a screamer, as it will be broadcasting the sound of human screams into space to see if anyone nearby can hear them. (This is to test the oft-repeated phrase that in space, nobody can hear you scream.) Besides monitoring shrieks, the satellite makers will be testing how well the satellite is controlled by a smartphone. The acronym is short for Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator.

February 22, 2013December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Bright Jets Blast Out from a Newborn Star

A young star is spotted firing jets of material out into space (ESA/Hubble & NASA. Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine)

Like very young humans, very young stars also tend to make a big mess out of the stuff around them — except in the case of stars it’s not crayon on the walls and Legos on the floor (ouch!) but rather huge blasts of superheated material that are launched from their poles far out into space.

The image above, acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows one of these young stars caught in the act.

HL Tau is a relatively newborn star, formed “only” within the past several hundred thousand years. During that time it has scooped up vast amounts of gas and dust from the area around itself, forming a disc of hot, accelerated material that surrounds it. While most of this material eventually falls into the star, increasing its mass, some of it gets caught up in the star’s complex, rotating magnetic fields and is thrown out into space as high-speed jets.

As these jets plow thorough surrounding interstellar space they ram into nearby clouds of molecular gas, ionizing the material within them and causing them to glow brightly. These “shocks” are known as Herbig-Haro objects, after researchers George Herbig and Guillermo Haro who each discovered them independently in the early 1950s.

Detail of HH 151's jet — Detail of HH 151’s jet

In this Hubble image HH 151 is visible as a multiple-lobed cone of material fired away from HL Tau, with the leftover glows from previous outbursts dimly illuminating the rest of the scene.

The material within these jets can reach speeds of several hundred to a thousand kilometers a second. They can last anywhere from a few years to a few thousand years.

HH 151 is embedded within the larger star-forming region LDN 1551, located about 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. LDN 1551 is a stellar nursery full of dust, dark nebulae, newborn stars… and Herbig-Haro objects like HH 151.

(Hey, if baby stars are going to make a mess at least they can do it in the nursery.)

February 22, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Hieroglyphic-like Features Point to Past Subsurface Water on Mars

These unusual shapes on Mars surface are actually cones and inflated lava flows, Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Although these strange features on Mars look a bit like hieroglyphics or geoglyphs such as the mysterious Nazca lines on Earth, they are completely natural features, ones that are found on Earth too.

This is one of the latest images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Called ‘rootless cones,’ they form on lava flows that interact with subsurface water or ice. Their formation comes from an explosive interaction of lava with ground ice or water contained within the regolith beneath the flow. Vaporization of the water or ice when the hot lava comes in contact causes an explosive expansion of the water vapor, causing the lava to shoot upward, creating a rootless cone.

Dr. Alfred McEwen, HiRISE Principal Investigator, described the ancient lava flow as ‘inflated.’ “Lava inflation is a process where liquid is injected beneath the solid (thickening) crust and raises the whole surface, often raising it higher than the topography that controlled the initial lava emplacement,” he wrote on the HiRISE website.

The scene above is located in Amazonis Planitia on Mars, a vast region covered by flood lava. McEwen said if this image were in color, we’e see the surface is coated by a thin layer of reddish dust, which avalanches down steep slopes to make dark streaks.

Similar features are found in Iceland, where flowing lava encountered water-saturated substrates.

Rootless cones (a) on Mars and (b) in Iceland. The scale of the Martian and terrestrial cones are comparable. Credit: University of Hawaii/Mars Orbiter Camera/MSSS.

Just how big are these strange features on Mars and how old are they? “The cones are on the order of a hundred meters across and ten meters high,” Colin Dundas from the US Geological Survey told Universe Today. “The age of these specific cones isn’t known. They are on a mid- to late-Amazonian geologic unit, which means that they are young by Martian standards but could be as much as a few hundred million to over a billion years old.”

If subsurface water or ice was part of their formation, could it still be there, underground?

“The water or ice that led to the formation of these cones was likely within a few meters (or less) of the surface, and so it’s probably not there anymore,” Dundas said. “At this low latitude (22 degrees north), shallow ground ice is currently unstable, and should sublimate on timescales much less than the likely age of the cones.”

Dundas added that since ice stability varies as the obliquity changes, it’s even possible that ice has come and gone repeatedly since the lava erupted.

See more views of this region on Mars on the HiRISE website

February 22, 2013April 26, 2016 by David Dickinson

Comet PANSTARRS: How to See it in March 2013

Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS imaged from Argentina by Luis Argerich on February 13th, 2013. (Credit: Luis Argerich - Nightscape photography. Used with Permission).

Great ready. After much anticipation, we could have the first naked eye comet of 2013 for northern hemisphere observers in early March. As discussed earlier this week on Universe Today, 2013 may well be the Year of the Comet, with two bright comets currently putting on a show in the southern hemisphere and comet C/2012 S1 ISON set to perform the closing cometary act of 2013. But while comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon won’t be visible for northern hemisphere residents until April, Comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS (which we’ll refer to simply as “Comet PanSTARRS” from here on out) may well become a fine early evening object in the first two weeks of March.

That is, if it performs. Comets are often like cats. Though we love posting pictures of them on the Internet, they often stubbornly refuse to perform up to our expectations. Some comets have been solid performers, like Hale-Bopp in 1997. Others are often promoted to great fanfare like Comet Kohoutek in 1973-74, only to fizzle and fade into notoriety.
Continue reading “Comet PANSTARRS: How to See it in March 2013”

February 22, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Space Station Astronauts Hangout with Earthlings (and Universe Today!)

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield uses a camera to photograph the topography of a point on Earth from a window in the Cupola of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

It’s not often that people on Earth get to hangout with astronauts in space, but today NASA held the first-ever Google Plus Hangout from the International Space Station. It was a live event, and if you aren’t familiar yet with G+ Hangouts (you really should be by now!) they allow people to chat face-to-face while thousands more can tune in to watch the conversation live on Google+ or YouTube. NASA took questions live from Twitter and G+, but they also took questions submitted previously via You Tube, and we were proud to see that Fraser’s question that he submitted via You Tube was included in the Hangout! You can see the question and astronaut Chris Hadfield’s reply at about 42:00 in the video above.

Fraser asked how being on the ISS and the special conditions it has (microgravity, harsh exposures, distant objects, weird lighting ) affect photography — and as you know we feature A LOT of ISS photography here on UT.

Hadfield said photography from orbit is quite complex, but the “weird” part about it is that space is so incredibly black and dark. The difficulty is having the dark background of space against the brightness of Earth and trying to balanace that. The advantage is being able to use the really big lenses and have them be weightless — no tripod needed!.

“The best part is,” Hadfield added, “even though we are not photographers by trade, we have really good professional photographers as trainers and a vantage point that is absolutely unparallelled.”

February 22, 2013December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

In Reality, Nebulae Offer No Place for Spaceships to Hide

The nebulas in Battlestar: Blood and Chrome make for nice scenery, but they're a lot brighter than the truth, according to a Harvard astronomer. Credit: Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome/Machinima (screencap)

In the Battlestar: Galactica universe, nebulas are a nifty spot to hide from the Cylons that are plotting to kill humanity. There’s just one problem with the hypothesis, though — these diffuse areas of gas in our universe are actually very faint, even if you get close up. Probably too faint for a hiding spot.

Prequel Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome (released on DVD this week) shows the young William Adama flying around the universe with pretty nebulas in the background. That’s not anywhere near the truth, Harvard astronomer Peter Williams told Universe Today.

In an e-mail, Williams explained that bright nebulas are a common misperception seen in Star Wars, Star Trek and a host of other sci-fi series.

The big issue is that nebulae are just too faint for the human eye to see. And while it’s tempting to think that they’d look brighter from up close, in fact this isn’t actually true — they actually look just as bright from any distance! This is a law of optics, known in the jargon as the “conservation of surface brightness”. The key is that there are two competing effects in play. Imagine that you can see a nebula that’s, say, the size of the full moon.

Yes, if you get closer, your eye will receive more total power from the nebula. But the nebula will also look bigger, so that energy will be spread out over a larger visual area (technically: “solid angle”). The physics tells you that the power per solid angle in fact stays exactly the same, and this quantity is precisely the “brightness” of an object. So if nebula are too faint for to see from Earth with the naked eye — and they are — getting up close and personal doesn’t help any.

Those bright colors surrounding Battlestar's ships are not actually what you would see if nestled in a nebula, according to Harvard astronomer. Credit: Battlestar Galactica/SciFi (screencap) — The opening sequence in Battlestar: Galactica shows the ships hiding in a bright nebula. Credit: Battlestar Galactica/SciFi (screencap)

Further, Williams, explains, the bright colors we’re used to seeing in Hubble Space Telescope images are just an approximation of what a nebula actually looks like.

Reproduced images of nebulae don’t portray their colors accurately. As you may know, some astronomical images use “false color” to represent wavelengths of light that humans can’t even see. This does happen with images of nebulae, but nebulae really are colorful, and many nebula images try to reproduce those colors faithfully. No current reproduction, however, can be truly accurate.

The Crab Nebula. Image credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope.

The problem is that the colorful nebular emission comes from reactions that produce light at a few, specific wavelengths; meanwhile, our inks and pixels emit over much broader wavelength ranges. We can mix these broad ranges in ways that approximate the narrow ones, but the results aren’t quite the same.

For an entertaining look at the science of nebulas, Williams recommends this entertaining video by astronomer Phil Plait, a long-time friend of Universe Today who is best known for his Bad Astronomy blog (now at Slate). “If you were inside [the nebula and looked down], you wouldn’t see it,” Plait says in this 2008 clip.

Guess it’s time to find another spot to hide.

February 22, 2013June 5, 2022 by Ken Kremer

Historic Mars Rock Drilling Sample Set for Analysis by Curiosity Robot in Search of Organics

First Curiosity Drilling Sample in the Scoop. This image shows the first sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover's drill after transfer from the drill to the rover's scoop. The sample will now be sieved and portions delivered to the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument. The scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide. The image was taken by Curiosity's Mastcam 34 camera on Feb. 20, or Sol 193.The image has been white-balanced to show what the sample would look like if it were on Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Newly received images from the surface of Mars confirm that NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully extracted the 1st ever samples collected by drilling down inside a rock on another planet and transferred the pulverized alien powder to the robots processing scoop, thrilled mission scientists announced just hours after seeing visual corroboration.

Collecting the 1st particles bored from the interior of a rock on a planet beyond Earth marks a historic feat in humankind’s exploration of the cosmos – and is crucial for achieving Curiosity’s goal to determine whether Mars ever could have supported microbial life, past or present.

The essential next step is to feed carefully sieved portions of the precious gray colored material into the high powered duo of miniaturized analytical chemistry labs (CheMin & SAM) inside the rover, for thorough analysis and scrutiny of their mineral content and to search for signatures of organic molecules – the building blocks of life as we know it.

Curiosity is drilling into ancient bedrock and hunting for clues to the planet’s habitability over the eons and that preserve the historical record – perhaps including organics.

The rover team believes that this work area inside Gale Crater called Yellowknife Bay, experienced repeated percolation of flowing liquid water long ago when Mars was warmer and wetter – and therefore was potentially more hospitable to the possible evolution of life. See our Yellowknife Bay worksite and drill hole photo mosaics below by Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo, created from rover raw images.

Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182), shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169) where the robot is currently working. The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals - dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo — Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182), shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169) where the robot is currently working. The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals – dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)/Marco Di Lorenzo

“We collected about a tablespoon of powder, which meets our expectations and is a great result,” said JPL’s Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer for Curiosity, at a NASA media briefing on Feb. 20. “We are all very happy and relieved that the drilling was a complete success.”

The gray colored tailings from the rocky interior offer a startlingly fresh sight of Mars compared to the red-orangey veneer of rusty, oxidized dust we are so accustomed to seeing globally across what we humans have referred to for centuries as the “Red Planet”.

“For the first time we are examining ancient rocks that have not been exposed to the Martian surface environment, and weathering, and preserve the environment in which they formed,” said Joel Hurowitz, Curiosity sampling system scientist of JPL.

This is a key point because subsequent oxidation reactions can destroy organic molecules and thereby potential signs of habitability and life.

“The tailings are gray. All things being equal it’s better to have a gray color than red because oxidation is something that can destroy organic compounds,” said John Grotzinger, the Curiosity mission’s chief scientist of the California Institute of Technology.

On Feb. 8, 2013 (mission Sol 182), Curiosity used the rotary-percussion drill mounted on the tool turret at the end of the 7 foot (2.1 meter) long robotic arm to bore a circular hole about 0.63 inch (16 mm) wide and about 2.5 inches (64 mm) deep into a red colored slab of flat, fine-grained, veiny sedimentary bedrock named “John Klein” that formed in water.

“Curiosity’s first drill hole at the John Klein site is a historic moment for the MSL mission, JPL, NASA and the United States. This is the first time any robot, fixed or mobile, has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars,” said Louise Jandura, Curiosity’s chief engineer for the sampling system.

“In fact, this is the first time any rover has drilled into a rock to collect a sample anywhere but on Earth. In the five decade history of the space age this is indeed a rare event.”

“The rock drilling capability is a significant advancement. It allows us to go beyond the surface layer of the rock, unlocking a time capsule of evidence about the state of Mars going back 3 or 4 Billion years.”

“Using our roving geologist Curiosity, the scientists can choose the rock, get inside the rock and deliver the powdered sample to instruments on the rover for analysis.”

“We couldn’t all be happier as Curiosity drilled her first hole on Mars,” said Jandura.

Over the next few days, the powdery gray scoop material will be shaken and moved through Curiosity’s sample processing device known as CHIMRA, or Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis and sieved through ultra fine screens that filter out particles larger than 150 microns (0.006 inch) across – about the width of a human strand of hair.

Figure shows the location of CHIMRA on the turret of NASA's Curiosity rover, together with a cutaway view of the device. The CHIMRA, short for Collection and Handling for In-situ Martian Rock Analysis, processes samples from the rover's scoop or drill and delivers them to science instruments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech — Figure shows the location of CHIMRA on the turret of NASA’s Curiosity rover, together with a cutaway view of the device. The CHIMRA, short for Collection and Handling for In-situ Martian Rock Analysis, processes samples from the rover’s scoop or drill and delivers them to science instruments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Drilling goes to the heart of the mission. It is absolutely indispensable for collecting and conveying pristine portions of Martian rocks and soil to a trio of inlet ports on top of the rover deck leading into the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument .

The sieving process is designed to prevent clogging downstream into the chemistry labs.

The pair of state-of-the-art instruments will then test the gray rocky powder for a variety of inorganic minerals as well as both simple and complex organic molecules.

Samples will be dropped off first to CheMin and then SAM over the next few days. Results are expected soon.

The data so far indicate the drilled rock is either siltstone or mudstone with a basaltic bulk composition, said Hurowitz. The CheMin and SAM testing will be revealing.

The high powered drill was the last of Curiosity 10 instruments still to be checked out and put into full operation and completes the robots commissioning phase.

“This is a real big turning point for us as we had a passing of the key for the rover [from the engineering team] to the science team,” said Grotzinger.

Curiosity has discovered that Yellowknife Bay is loaded with hydrated mineral veins of calcium sulfate that precipitated from interaction with aqueous environments.

I asked how was the drill target hole selected?

“We wanted to be well centered in a large plate of bedrock where we knew we could place the drill into a stable location on an interesting rock,” Hurowitz told Universe Today.

“The drill did not specifically target the veins or nodular features visible in this rock. But these rocks are so shot through with these features that it’s hard to imagine that we would have been missed them somewhere along the travel of the drill.”

“We will find out what’s in the material once we get the materials analyzed by SAM and CheMin.

“We will consider additional drill targets if we think we missed a component of the rock.”

“We believe the white vein material is calcium sulfate based on data from ChemCam and APXS but we don’t yet know the hydration state.” Hurowitz told me.

Regarding the prospects for conducting additional sample drilling and soil scooping at Yellowknife Bay, Grotzinger told me, “We have to take it one step at a time.”

“We have to see what we find in the first sample. We are discovery driven and that will determine what we do next here,” Grotzinger said. “We have no quotas.”

The long term mission goal remains to drive to the lower reaches of Mount Sharp some 6 miles away and look for habitable environments in the sedimentary layers.

Curiosity executed a flawless and unprecedented nail-biting, pinpoint touchdown on Aug. 5, 2012 to begin her 2 year long primary mission inside Gale Crater. So far she has snapped over 45,000 images, traveled nearly 0.5 miles, conducted 25 analysis with the APXS spectrometer and fired over 12,000 laser shots with the ChemCam instrument.

Ken Kremer