Posted on by John Williams

A Moving Martian Topography In 3-D

An anaglyph of the moving topography of Nili Patera on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Get your 3-D glasses (the red-and-green kind) ready, we’re going on a trip to Mars.

Let your gaze drift across this anaglyph of the dunes of Nili Patera taken from NASA’s HiRISE camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE images many targets twice, within seconds of each other, so scientists can see a location from different angles. The images are used to make more accurate maps. Only problem is, dunes move, making the job of a Mars mapper a little difficult.

Besides making a beautiful, but sometimes eye-bending, picture, the images are also used to make digital elevation models or DEMs. These DEMs can be precise within centimeters. If the pair of images are taken in an area that doesn’t change much, scientists can get a good elevation model. Scientists also get lucky when images are taken in quick succession as in the case of Nili Patera, a huge caldera near the Martian equator within the dark Syrtis Major Planum.

The dunes in this field of sand are active. By comparing the height of the moving dunes using the DEM, scientists find that these dunes are similar to Antarctic dunes which are driven by strong, sustained winds. One of the most surprising finds, according to the HiRISE website, is the notion that the dunes remain stable. Their entire volumes are made up of mobile sand. Similar to Earth, winds on Mars are capable of moving large amounts of sand meaning not only does wind drive dune migration but also landscaping such as sand blasting.

A close-up color version of one of the dunes in Nili Patera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: HiRISE

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astronomers Directly Image Distant Exoplanet

False color, near infrared image of the Kappa Andromedae system, by the Subaru Telescope. Almost all of the light of the host star has been removed by the dark, software-generated disk in the center. Credit: NAOJ/Subaru/J. Carson (College of Charleston)/T. Currie (University Toronto)

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii have found a super-Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting a massive star about 170 light years away from Earth. Not only have they detected the planet, but they’ve also taken a direct image of it. This is exciting because only a handful of exo-planets have been imaged directly. But the other interesting aspect of this newly-found planet is that it orbits its star at a distance comparable to Neptune in our own solar system. Astronomers say this is a strong indication that the planet formed in a manner similar to how it is believed smaller, rocky planets form: from a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust which surrounded the star during its earliest stages.

The star, Kappa Andromedae, is a naked-eye object that can be seen in the constellation Andromeda, and it has a mass 2.5 times that of the Sun, making it the highest mass star to ever host a directly observed planet. The observations were made by a team of astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of Toronto and the College of Charleston, part of the SEEDS project (Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru.)

“Our team identified a faint object located very close to Kappa Andromedae in January that looks much like other young, massive directly imaged planets but does not look like a star,” said Thayne Currie. co-author of the paper from the University of Toronto. “It’s likely a directly imaged planet.”

A “signal-to-noise ratio map” generated from the left image. The whiteness of each speckle indicates the probability that we are dealing not with an artefact (“noise”), but with the trace of a real object (“signal”). The white feature toward the upper left, representing a high signal-to-noise value, indicates the high-confidence, super-Jupiter detection. Credit: NAOJ/Subaru/J. Carson (College of Charleston)/T. Currie (University Toronto)

Kappa Andromedae (k And) is a very young star, with an estimated age of 30 million years (in comparison our Sun is around 5 billion years old). The planet, called k And b (“Kappa Andromedae b), is about 10% larger than Jupiter, but it is a heavy world — it has a mass of about 13 times that of Jupiter.

This means that it could very well be either a planet or a very lightweight brown dwarf, an object that is intermediate between planets and stars. However, the astronomers are leaning towards the circumstantial evidence which indicates that it is likely to be a planet.

Since stars are much brighter than their planets –typically by a factor of a billion or more – exoplanets are usually lost in the star’s glare when using traditional observational techniques. The Subaru team used a different technique called angular differential imaging, which combines a time-series of individual images in a manner that allows for the otherwise overwhelming glare of the host star to be removed.

In the infrared image, above, the tiny point of light that is the planet Kappa And b. Since the planet orbits the star at some distance, the SEEDS observing team was able to distinguish the object’s faint light by effectively covering up the light of the star.

The large mass of both the host star and gas giant provide a sharp contrast with our own solar system. Observers and theorists have argued recently that large stars like Kappa Andromedae are likely to have large planets, perhaps following a simple scaled-up model of our own solar system. But experts predict that there is a limit to such extrapolations; if a star is too massive, its powerful radiation may disrupt the normal planet formation process that would otherwise occur. The discovery of the super-Jupiter around Kappa Andromedae demonstrates that stars as large as 2.5 solar masses are still fully capable of producing planets within their primordial circumstellar disks. This is key information for researchers working on models of planet formation.

The astronomers will continue observations of the light emitted by k And b across a broad range of wavelengths in hopes of gaining a better understanding the planet’s atmospheric chemistry, as well as determining if other planets are in this system.

Read the team’s paper: Direct imaging of a `super-Jupiter’ around a massive star

Source: Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: November 19-25, 2012



Crater Curtius courtesy of Damian Peach

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s going to be a great week to study the Moon – and bright Jupiter is just begging for some quality eyepiece time. Need more? Then why don’t we study some very interesting variable stars, too? It’s all out there… Just waiting on you!

Monday, November 19 – Now we’re ready for some serious lunar study. Our first order of business will be to identify crater Curtius. Directly in the center of the Moon is a dark-floored area known as the Sinus Medii. South of it will be two conspicuously large craters – Hipparchus to the north and ancient Albategnius to the south. Trace along the terminator toward the south until you have almost reached its point (cusp) and you will see a black oval. This normal looking crater with the brilliant west wall is equally ancient crater Curtius. Because of its high southern latitude, we shall never see the entire interior of this crater – and neither has the Sun! It is believed the inner walls are quite steep, and so crater Curtius’ full interior has never been illuminated since its formation billions of years ago. Because it has remained dark, we can speculate there may be “lunar ice” (water ice possibly mixed with regolith) pocketed inside its many cracks and rilles which date back to the Moon’s formation!

Because our Moon has no atmosphere, the entire surface is exposed to the vacuum of space. When sunlit, the surface reaches up to 385 K, so any exposed lunar ice would vaporize and be lost because the Moon’s gravity could not hold it. The only way for ice to exist would be in a permanently shadowed area. Near Curtius is the Moon’s south pole, and imaging from the Clementine spacecraft showed around 15,000 square kilometers of area where such conditions could exist. So where did this ice come from? The lunar surface never ceases to be pelted by meteorites – most of which contain water-related ice. As we know, many craters were formed by just such impacts. Once hidden from the sunlight, this ice could continue to exist for millions of years.

Now turn your eyes or binoculars just west of bright Aldebaran and have a look at the Hyades Star Cluster. While Aldebaran appears to be part of this large, V-shaped group, it is not an actual member. The Hyades cluster is one of the nearest galactic clusters, and it is roughly 130 light-years away in the center. This moving group of stars is drifting slowly away towards Orion, and in another 50 million years it will require a telescope to view!

Tuesday, November 20 – Today celebrates another significant astronomer’s birth – Edwin Hubble. Born 1889, Hubble became the first American astronomer to identify Cepheid variables in M31 – which in turn established the extragalactic nature of the spiral nebulae. Continuing with the work of Carl Wirtz, and using Vesto Slipher’s redshifts, Hubble then could calculate the velocity-distance relation for galaxies. This has become known as “Hubble’s Law” and demonstrates the expansion of our Universe.

Tonight we’re going to ignore the Moon and head just a little more than a fistwidth west of the westernmost bright star in Cassiopeia to have a look at Delta Cephei (RA 22 29 10.27 Dec +58 24 54.7). This is the most famous of all variable stars and the granddaddy of all Cepheids. Discovered in 1784 by John Goodricke, its changes in magnitude are not due to a revolving companion – but rather the pulsations of the star itself.

Ranging over almost a full magnitude in 5 days, 8 hours and 48 minutes precisely, Delta’s changes can easily be followed by comparing it to nearby Zeta and Epsilon. When it is its dimmest, it will brighten rapidly in a period of about 36 hours – yet take 4 days to slowly dim again. Take time out of your busy night to watch Delta change and change again. It’s only 1000 light-years away, and doesn’t even require a telescope! (But even binoculars will show its optical companion.)

Wednesday, November 21 – Before we go star hopping this evening, let’s go south on the lunar globe in hopes of catching a very unusual event. On the southern edge of Mare Nubium is the old walled plain Pitatus. Power up. On the western edge you will see smaller and equally old Hesiodus. Almost central along their shared wall there is a break to watch for when the terminator is close. For a brief moment, sunrise on the Moon will pass through this break creating a beam of light across the crater floor in a beautiful phenomenon known as the “Hesiodus Sunrise Ray.” For a very brief moment, a shaft of sunlight will shine through this break and create an experience you will never forget. If the terminator has moved beyond it at your observing time, then look to the south for small Hesiodus A. This is an example of an extremely rare double concentric crater. This formation is caused by one impact followed by another, slightly smaller impact, at exactly the same location.

Now, let’s continue our stellar studies with the central-most star in the lazy “W” of Cassiopeia – Gamma…

At the beginning of the 20th century, the light from Gamma appeared to be steady, but in the mid-1930s it took an unexpected rise in brightness. In less than 2 years it jumped by a magnitude! Then, just as unexpectedly, it dropped back down again in roughly the same amount of time. A performance it repeated some 40 years later!

Gamma Cassiopeiae isn’t quite a giant and is still fairly young on the evolutionary scale. Spectral studies show violent changes and variations in the star’s structure. After its first recorded episode, it ejected a shell of gas which expanded Gamma’s size by over 200% – yet it doesn’t appear to be a candidate for a nova event. The best estimate now is that Gamma is around 100 light-years away and approaching us at a very slow rate. If conditions are good, you might be able to telescopically pick up its disparate 11th magnitude visual companion, discovered by Burnham in 1888. It shares the same proper motion – but doesn’t orbit this unusual variable star. For those who like a challenge, visit Gamma again on a dark night! Its shell left two bright (and difficult!) nebulae, IC 59 and IC 63, to which we will return at the end of the month.

Thursday, November 22 – Tonight when you’re studying the Moon, return to our landmark Copernicus and travel south along the western shore of Mare Cognitum, the “Sea That Has Become Known” and look along the terminator for the Montes Riphaeus – “The Mountains In The Middle of Nowhere.” But are they really mountains? Let’s take a closer look. At the widest, this unusual range spans about 38 kilometers and runs for a distance of around 177 kilometers. Less impressive than most lunar mountain ranges, some peaks reach up to 1250 meters high, making these summits about the same height as our volcano Mt. Kilauea. While we are considering volcanic activity, consider that these peaks are all that is left of Mare Cognitum’s walls after lava filled it in. At one time this may have been amongst the tallest of lunar features!

Once you’ve studied the Montes Riphaeus, you’ll begin noticing another lunar crater that looks a whole lot like a smaller version of Copernicus – the highly under-rated crater Bullialdus. Located close to the center of Mare Nubium, even binoculars can make out Bullialdus when near the terminator. If you’re scoping – power up – this one is fun! Very similar to Copernicus, Bullialdus’ has thick, terraced walls and a central peak. If you examine the area around it carefully, you can note it is a much newer crater than shallow Lubiniezsky to the north and almost non-existent Kies (a real challenge) to the south. On Bullialdus’ southern flank, it’s easy to make out its A and B craterlets, as well as the interesting little Koenig to the southwest.

Friday, November 23 – Tonight in 1885, the very first photograph of a meteor shower was taken. Also, the weather satellite TIROS II was launched on this day in 1960. Carried to orbit by a three-stage Delta rocket, the “Television Infrared Observation Satellite” was about the size of a barrel, testing experimental television techniques and infrared equipment. Operating for 376 days, Tiros II sent back thousands of pictures of Earth’s cloud cover and was successful in its experiments to control the orientation of the satellite spin and its infrared sensors. Oddly enough, a similar mission – Meteosat 1 – also became the first satellite put into orbit by the European Space Agency, in 1977 on this day. Where is all this leading? Why not try observing satellites on your own! Thanks to wonderful on-line tools from NASA you can be alerted by e-mail whenever a bright satellite makes a pass for your specific area. It’s fun!

When you are ready to sail again, we’ll head to the Moon and cross the the western edge of the second largest lunar sea – Mare Imbrium – as we head northeast for the “lighthouse” points set on either side of the landmark “Bay of Rainbows”. They guard the opening to Sinus Iridum and they have names. The easternmost is Promentorium LaPlace, named for Pierre LaPlace. Little more than 56 kilometers in diameter, it rises above the gray sands some 3019 meters; almost identical in height to Buttermilk Mountain near Aspen. Promontorium Heraclides to the west covers roughly the same area, yet rises to little more than half of LaPlace’s height.

Saturday, November 24 – Tonight grab your telescope and head for the Moon and take another look at a feature you might have missed earlier in the year. ! Look west of very bright punctuation of crater Aristarchus for less prominent crater Herodotus. Just to the north you will see a fine white thread known as Schroter’s Valley. This inconspicuous feature winds its way across the Aristarchus plain for about 160 kilometers and measures about 3 to 8 kilometers wide, and about 1 kilometer deep. Schroter’s Valley is an example of a collapsed lava tube. It may have broken open when lava crossed the surface – or it may have settled downwards when a major meteor strike caused a shock wave. What we are looking at is a long, narrow cave on the surface which is very apparent when the lighting is correct.

Ready to aim for a bullseye? Then head for the bright, reddish star Aldebaran. Set your eyes, scopes or binoculars there and let’s look into the “eye” of the Bull.

Known to the Arabs as Al Dabaran, or “the Follower,” Alpha Tauri took its name for the fact that it appears to follow the Pleiades across the sky. In Latin it was Stella Dominatrix, yet the old English knew it as Oculus Tauri, or very literally the “eye of Taurus.” No matter which source of ancient astronomy lore we explore, there are references to Aldeberan.

As the 13th brightest star in the sky, it almost appears from Earth to be a member of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster, but its association is merely coincidental, since it is about twice as close to us as the cluster. In reality, Aldeberan is on the small end as far as K5 stars go, and like many other orange giants could possibly be a variable. Aldeberan is also known to have five close companions, but they are faint and very difficult to observe with backyard equipment. At a distance of approximately 68 light-years, Alpha is slightly less than 45 times larger than our own Sun and approximately 425 times brighter. Because of its position along the ecliptic, Aldeberan is one of the very few stars of first magnitude that can be occulted by the Moon.

Sunday, November 25 – As the Moon nears Full, it becomes more and more difficult to study, but there are still some features that we can take a look at. Before we go to our binoculars or telescopes, just stop and take a look. Do you see the “Cow Jumping over the Moon”? It is strictly a visual phenomenon—a combination of dark maria which looks like the back, forelegs and hindlegs of the shadow of that mythical animal.

While Cassiopeia is in prime position for most northern observers, let’s return tonight for some additional studies. Starting with Delta, let’s hop to the northeast corner of our “flattened W” and identify 520 light-year distant Epsilon. For larger telescopes only, it will be a challenge to find this 12″ diameter, magnitude 13.5 planetary nebula I.1747 in the same field as magnitude 3.3 Epsilon!

Using both Delta and Epsilon as our “guide stars” let’s draw an imaginary line between the pair extending from southwest to northeast and continue the same distance until you stop at visible Iota. Now go to the eyepiece…

As a quadruple system, Iota will require a telescope and a night of steady seeing to split its three visible components. Approximately 160 light-years away, this challenging system will show little or no color to smaller telescopes, but to large aperture, the primary may appear slightly yellow and the companion stars a faint blue. At high magnification, the 8.2 magnitude “C” star will easily break away from the 4.5 primary, 7.2″ to the east-southeast. But look closely at that primary: hugging in very close (2.3″) to the west-southwest and looking like a bump on its side is the B star!

Dropping back to the lowest of powers, place Iota to the southwest edge of the eyepiece. It’s time to study two incredibly interesting stars that should appear in the same field of view to the northeast. When both of these stars are at their maximum, they are easily the brightest of stars in the field. Their names are SU (southernmost) and RZ (northernmost) Cassiopeiae and both are unique! SU is a pulsing Cepheid variable located about 1000 light-years away and will show a distinctive red coloration. RZ is a rapidly eclipsing binary that can change from magnitude 6.4 to magnitude 7.8 in less than two hours. Wow!

Until next week? Clear skies!

Posted on by Jason Major

Saturn. In color.

Color-composite of Saturn, made from raw Cassini images acquired in visible light channels on 18 Nov. 2012. (NASA/JPL/SSI. Composite by Jason Major.)

Looking for an awesome view of Saturn as it would look from 1,951,681 kilometers (1,212,718 miles) away? Here you go.

Just my and Cassini’s way of reminding everyone how beautiful our own Solar System is! Lest we forget.

Posted on by Jason Major

Saturn’s Fluctuating F Ring

Bright clumps of material spotted within Saturn’s ropy F ring (NASA/JPL/SSI)

Released today, this image acquired by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows some interesting structures forming within Saturn’s thinnest but most dynamic ring.

Of Saturn’s countless ring structures the F ring may very well be the most dynamic, if not the most fascinating. Orbiting Saturn just outside the edge of the A ring at a distance of 140,000 km (87,000 miles), the F ring is a hazy, ropy band of fine ice particles that shift, twist and occasionally gather into bright clumps… only to drift apart once more.

The F ring can range in width from 30 to 500 km (20-500 miles), depending on what’s going on in and outside of it.

The image above, originally captured by Cassini on June 28 and released today by the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS), shows a particularly bright clump of material at the outer edge of the F ring, as well as some finer structures and streamers forming within the inner bands. Due to the lighting geometry its thought that the clumps are mostly composed of dusty material.

Detail of the ghostly F ring structures (NASA/JPL/SSI)

The features seen here are likely due to the ring’s interactions with passing shepherd moons — such as the 148-km-wide Prometheus — or with small moonlets embedded within the ring itself. Mostly made of fine particles of dust and ice smaller than those found in smoke, the material orbiting within the F ring is extremely susceptible to external gravitational influences.

Original image scale is 4 km (3 miles) per pixel.

See more images from the entire Cassini mission on the CICLOPS site here (and for a look at more interesting ring dynamics check out these recent Cassini images of my personal favorite moon, Daphnis.)

 

Posted on by Jenny Winder

GOCE – How Low Can It Go?

Caption: GOCE over ice. Credits: ESA – AOES Medialab

Since March 2009, the European Space Agency (ESA) mission, Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has been orbiting Earth. It carries highly sensitive instrumentation able to detect tiny variations in the pull of gravity across the surface of the planet, allowing it to map our planet’s gravity with unrivaled precision, producing the most accurate gravity map of Earth. With the planned mission completed, the fuel consumption has been much lower than anticipated, enabling ESA to extend GOCE’s life and put it into an even lower orbit, improving the quality of the gravity model.

The GOCE spacecraft was designed to fly low and has spent most of its mission roughly 500km below most other Earth-observing missions, at an altitude of 255km. ESA’s Earth Scientific Advisory Committee recommended lowering the orbit by 20km at a rate of about 300m per day, starting in August. After coming down by 8.6 km, the satellite’s performance and orbit were assessed. Now, GOCE is again being lowered while continuing its gravity mapping. It is expected to reach 235 km by February.

Decreasing the altitude increases the spatial resolution and the precision of the data. The expected increase in data quality is so high (possibly 35%) that scientists are calling it GOCE’s ‘second mission. Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes has said “What the team of ESA engineers is now doing has not been done before and it poses a challenge. But it will also trigger new research in the field of gravity based on the high-resolution data we are expecting.”

Caption: The image on the left shows GOCE’s gravity measurements over northern Europe, acquired from its previous altitude. The image on the right depicts the expected measurements over the same area after the satellite has been lowered. Credits: ESA / GOCE+ Theme 2

The first ‘geoid’ based on GOCE’s gravity measurements was unveiled in June 2010. It is a crucial reference for conducting precise measurements of ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics. The mission has also been studying air density and wind in space, and its data was recently used to produce the first global high-resolution map of the boundary between Earth’s crust and mantle, called the Mohorovicic, or “Moho” discontinuity.

As the orbit drops, atmospheric drag increasingly pulls the satellite towards Earth, so GOCE has to use the tiny thrust of its ion engine to continuously compensate for any drag to stay aloft and maintain the stability it needs to measure Earth’s gravity. GOCE has enough xenon fuel for another 50 weeks of operations. When the fuel runs out the satellite will be pulled into the deep atmosphere where it will burn up

Find out more about the GOCE mission here

Posted on by Carnival of Space

Carnival of Space #276

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Universe Today’s very own John Williams at his very own Starry Critters website.

Click here to read Carnival of Space #276.

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to [email protected], and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Brighter Than the Moon: Camera Captures Brilliant Leonid Fireball

The Leonid Meteor shower is usually notorious for the bright fireballs it can produce, but this fireball exploded with unexpected brilliance. Fortunately, an all-sky camera captured the event. NASA said there were numerous reports of a bright fireball over northwest Alabama on Sunday, Nov. 18 at approximately 7:30 p.m. EST. A check of the southeastern cameras operated by NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office recorded the fireball, and its outburst was brighter than the Moon. If anyone happened to see this or capture anything similar with your camera, let us know!

Astrophotographers did manage to get some images of the Leonids over the weekend — which, other than this bright fireball — seemed to be relatively quiet. See images below:

A Leonid meteor over Trá Mór, Spiddal, Ireland on November 18, 2012 at 4:45 am local time. Credit: Trevor Durity

Trevor Durity captured a small Leonid fireball in the wee hours of the morning on Nov. 18. “One of the few meteors I saw,” Trevor wrote on Flickr. “Pure luck to have caught it … Appeared at first like a very bright shooting star – went about 10 degrees and blew up.”

Also in the picture are the Gemini twins Castor and Pollux to the top middle, M44 the Beehive Cluster to the lower left; and the bright star Procyon to the lower right of the twins, and Leo the Lion on the left hand side of the picture.

A lone Leonid was captured over Donegal, Ireland. Credit: Brendan Alexander.

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

Stunning New Timelapse: Storms and Stars at Joshua Tree

Here’s another gorgeous timelapse by Gavin Heffernan, who returned to Joshua Tree National Park in California for his third look at the incredible night sky. “It was an epic night,” Gavin told UT, “with storms at first, then some of the clearest skies I’ve ever seen.”

The sky is ablaze with activity; the rolling storm, the Milky Way in all its glory, plus meteors, satellites and aircraft passing overhead. Gavin and his Sunchaser Pictures team shot the footage with a Canon 7D and Canon 5D, with a 24mm/1.4 lens and a 28mm/1.8. Most intervals are 25 seconds, except the 1st, which is 30 second, Gavin said.

If you like this one, take a look at Gavin’s first and second visits to Joshua Tree, too.

JOSHUA TREE JOURNEY 3: STORM from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Surreal Images of Soyuz Landing in the Dark

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft is seen shortly after it landed on November 19, 2012 with the Expedition 33 crew. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft carrying Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan, and even though it was 7:56 a.m. Kazakhstan time (01:56 UTC Nov. 19, 8:56 p.m. EST on Nov. 18), it was still dark near the remote northern latitude town of Arkalyk (50°14’53.16″N). This was the first pre-dawn landing in darkness for a station crew since April 9, 2006, when Expedition 12 crew members returned. The overhead pictures from the scene have a surreal feel to them.

A problem with the Soyuz’ parachute – it deployed about 5 seconds later than planned – caused the crew to land several miles away from the planned landing site, but a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew in getting out of the spacecraft, which landed on its side. Frigid temperatures greeted the crew when the hatch was opened; it was about -12 C (12 F), said NASA TV commentator Rob Navias.

Another overhead view of the Soyuz. Note the soot on the snow from the landing. Credit: Ria Novosti//Maxim Shipenkov. See a slideshow of images here.

The return of Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko wraps up 127 days in space for the three since their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 15, including 125 days spent aboard the International Space Station.

Screenshot from NASA TV of the post-landing activities.

Earlier the crew bid farewell to their fellow crewmates, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy, and closed the hatches between the spacecraft at 2:15 p.m. When the Soyuz undocked from the station’s Rassvet module at 5:26 p.m. it marked the end of Expedition 33 and the beginning of Expedition 34 under the command of Ford.

The Expedition 33 crew sit in chairs outside the Soyuz Capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Three additional Expedition 34 flight engineers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Dec. 19 and dock to the station two days later for a five-month stay. Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.

Here’s the video of the landing, although there is no actual footage of the Soyuz touching down, since it was dark and the spacecraft landed well away from the planned landing spot.