Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity on the Move! HiRISE Spies Rover Tracks on Mars

The beginning of Curiosity’s journeys. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Yes, the Curiosity rover is on the move, evidenced by the rover tracks seen from above by the outstanding HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. If you look closely, visible are the rover’s wheels and even the camera mast. While this image’s color has been enhanced to show the surface details better, this is still an amazing view of Curiosity’s activities, displaying the incredible resolving power of the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.

“These are great pictures that help us see context,” said Curiosity mission manager Mike Watkins at a press conference today. “Plus they’re just amazing photos.”

The two “blue” marks (blue is, of course, false color) seen near the site where the rover landed were formed when reddish surface dust was blown away by the rover’s descent stage, revealing darker basaltic sands underneath. Similarly, the tracks appear darker where the rover’s wheels disturbed the top layer of dust.

Below is another great view showing Curiosity’s parachute and backshell in color, highlighting the color variations in the parachute, along with a map of where Curiosity has been and will be going.

Curiosity’s parachute and backshell in color. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Map of Curiosity’s travels so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity overlaid on the HiRISE image, showing where Curiosity has driving through the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars, which equals Sept. 4, 2012 here on Earth.

The route starts at Bradbury Landing, Curiosity’s landing site. Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol numbers of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 200 meters (656 feet).

By Sol 29, Curiosity had driven at total of 358 feet (109 meters). While scientists say the rover can travel up to a hundred meters a day, the team has been putting the rover through tests of the robotic arms and other instruments.

The first area of real interest that the team wants to study is the Glenelg area, farther east. The science team said the Glenelg region should provide a good target for Curiosity’s first analysis of powder collected by drilling into a rock.

How long will it take to get to Glenelg? It is about 400 meters away, and the rover is about a quarter of the way there so far.

“If you drove every day and didn’t do the context science it would take a couple of weeks to drive to Glenelg, at 30-40 meters a day,” said Matt Robinson, lead engineer for Curiosity’s robotic arm testing and operations. “But I think we will stop and do the context science. My guess is it will be a few weeks before we get to Glenelg.

The drive to Mt. Sharp, which is about 8 km away, will take much longer, months, maybe even a year.

“If we use our full driving mode and do up to one hundred meters a day, and not stop, it would take about 3 months,” said Robinson, “but we might only be driving for one-half to one-third of the time, it depends on how interesting the terrain is along the way.”

This scene shows the surroundings of the location where NASA Mars rover Curiosity arrived on the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012). It is a mosaic of images taken by Curiosity’s Navigation Camera (Navcam) following the Sol 29 drive of 100 feet (30.5 meters). Tracks from the drive are visible in the image. For scale, Curiosity leaves parallel tracks about 9 feet (2.7 meters) apart. At this location on Sol 30, Curiosity began a series of activities to test and characterize the rover’s robotic arm and the tools on the arm.

The panorama is centered to the north-northeast, with south-southwest at both ends.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The view of Curiosity’s surroundings is fascinating to both Mars enthusiasts and the scienctists.
Joy Crisp, the deputy project scientist for the mission said two main things have intrigued her. “One is the Mastcam imaging of Mt. Sharp, seeing structures and layers. The other is the amazing rock textures. Some rocks have light-toned grains mixed in a dark matrix. We need to examine rocks like those more thoroughly.”

“That’s what’s been exciting, to see things we haven’t seen before on Mars,” Crisp added.

See more info and larger versions of these images at this NASA webpage.

Posted on by Jason Major

NASA’s Colossal Crawler Gets Souped-Up for SLS

Shuttle Discovery riding one of KSC’s crawler-transporters to Launch Pad 39B in June 2005 (NASA)

One of NASA’s two iconic crawler-transporters — the 2,750-ton monster vehicles that have delivered rockets from Saturns to Shuttles to launch pads at Kennedy Space Center for nearly half a century — is getting an upgrade in preparation for NASA’s new future in space flight.

131 feet long, 113 feet wide and with a breakneck top speed of 2 mph (they’re strong, not fast!) NASA’s colossal crawler-transporters are the only machines capable of hauling fully-fueled rockets the size of office buildings safely between the Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch pads at Kennedy Space Center. Each 3.5-mile one-way trip takes around 6 hours.

Now that the shuttles are retired and each in or destined for its permanent occupation as a relic of human spaceflight, the crawler-transporters have not been doing much crawling or transporting down the 130-foot-wide, Tennessee river-rock-coated lanes at KSC… but that’s soon to change.

According to an article posted Sept. 5 on TransportationNation.org, crawler 2 (CT-2) is getting a 6-million-pound upgrade, bringing its carrying capacity from 12 million pounds to 18 million. This will allow the vehicle to bear the weight of a new generation of heavy-lift rockets, including NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

Read: SLS: NASA’s Next Big Thing

In addition to carrying capacity CT-2 will also be getting new brakes, exhausts, hydraulics and computer systems.

Part of a $2 billion plan to upgrade Kennedy Space Center for a future with both NASA and commercial spaceflight partners, the crawler will have two of its onboard power engines replaced — but the original generators that power its eight enormous tread belts will remain, having been thoroughly inspected and deemed to be “in pristine condition” according to the article by Matthew Peddie.

When constructed in the early 1960s, the crawler-transporters were the largest tracked vehicles ever made and cost $14 million — that’s about $100 million today. But were they to be built from scratch now they’d likely cost even more, as the US “is no longer the industrial powerhouse it was in the 1960s.”

Still, it’s good to know that these hardworking behemoths will keep bringing rockets to the pad, even after the shuttles have been permanently parked.

“When they built the crawler, they overbuilt it, and that’s a great thing because it’s able to last all these years. I think it’s a great machine that could last another 50 years if it needed to,” said Bob Myers, systems engineer for the crawler.

You can see some really great full panoramas of the CT-2 at the NASATech website, where photographer John O’Connor took three different panoramic views while the transporter was inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC in Highbay 1. There’s even a pan close-up of the giant cleats that move the transporter.

Read the full article on TransportationNation.org here, and find out more about the crawler-transporters here and here.

Since the Apollo years the transporters have traveled an accumulated 2,526 miles, about the same distance as a one-way highway trip from KSC to Los Angeles.

Inset image: the Apollo 11 Saturn V, tower and mobile launch platform atop the crawler-transporter during rollout on May 20, 1969. (NASA) Bottom image: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the site of the CT-2 upgrade in August 2012. Each of the crawler’s 456 tread shoes weighs about one ton. (NASA)

Posted on by Jenny Winder

A Jodrell Odyssey – Part 1 – The Discovery Centre

Caption: The Lovell Telescope from The Discovery Centre Cafe. Credit: Howard Barlow for the University of Manchester

Ever get the feeling you are being watched? Visit Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, England and that feeling is doubled and intensified by two inescapable presences. First there is the vast 76 meter Lovell Telescope that dominates the site and the second is the spirit of the man who built it.

Sir Bernard Lovell came to Jodrell Bank in 1945, looking for a place away from the city, where the trams were interfering with the research he was carrying out into cosmic rays at the University of Manchester and it was here that he built his observatory. From the beginning he wanted to engage people with the work he was doing and the telescope he was building, that locals called “Lovell’s Contraption”. That dedication to public engagement and education continues to this day.

The new Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre opened in April 2011 and is watched over by the Director, Dr Teresa Anderson who studied for her physics degree at Manchester, took her PhD at the University of Edinburgh before returning to Jodrell to develop and build the new Centre. She is a woman who can stretch a budget till it squeals. She has managed to take the modest funds allocated to her and create an innovative, imaginative experience for visitors. Teresa is rightly proud of the site’s accessibility as well as its policy of using green energy.

She also has a wonderful eye for detail. The entrance to the Planet Pavilion is decorated with an embossed depiction of the 408 Mhz (radio continuum) map of the Milky Way. This building houses the gift shop and an inviting Cafe based on the theme of time. An array of different clocks on the wall show the passage of time on Earth, Venus (retrograde) Mars, Jupiter and a black hole. On the opposite wall is a timeline showing how far into the past we travel when viewing objects from Earth, one and a half seconds back in time when looking at the Moon, 8 minutes to the Sun and on back to the Big Bang. The glass doors give a stunning view of the Lovell telescope and open onto an outdoor dining area.

The reception area houses a display about the Lovell telescope and here staff post the latest astronomy related news bulletins, there is also a receiver that used to be installed on the Lovell which is currently on loan to the Centre. The cryogenic system used in receiver has to be cooled down to minus 260 degrees Celsius to reduce thermal noise from the receiver itself and engineers have just 20 minutes to get it up to the focus tower at the top of the dish and installed before is heats up.

Caption: Visitors at the Planet Pavilion. Credit: Howard Barlow for the University of Manchester.

A starlit passage echoing with the voices of Sir Bernard Lovell and Neil Armstrong leads you to a room where an early image of the CMB from the Planck mission is colourfully displayed around the walls (Jodrell constructed some low noise amplifiers for the mission) with a collection of touchscreen information points below that allow visitors to take part in quizzes and learn more. A beautiful clockwork orrery in the centre of the room has the IAU constellation maps including the 13 zodiac constellations (including Ophiuchus) which Teresa says, with a wry smile, causes some controversy with people who believe in astrology.

Outside is dominated by the Lovell Telescope. All the pathways are wheelchair and pushchair friendly and information boards are dotted along the circular pathway surrounding the dish giving information about the site, the telescope and the work it does. An acrylic sculpture of the Sun at the foot of the Lovell marks the centre of the Spaced Out project, the world’s largest scale model of the Solar System that stretches across the UK from Cornwall to the Shetland Isles.

The Space Pavilion’s glass front is adorned with Pulsar trace and is home to a wonderful hands-on science centre where you can print out a souvenir trace of what the Lovell is observing live or listen to the sound of the Big Bang, or touch a meteorite. There is a nice interactive touchscreen that introduces you to some of the people who work at the site and lets you ask them questions, an exhibit that explores the invisible universe of the different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and a film pod that runs science animations as well as archive film of Jodrell’s history. The building is also the heart of the year round education programmes that offer children of all ages, a unique learning experience and opportunity to experiment with live science. There is a flexible space that can be used as a lecture hall or host events and is home to the popular Ask a Scientist sessions and where an inflatable planetarium can be erected for visiting groups.

Caption: Space Pavilion at The Discovery Centre. Credit: Howard Barlow for the University of Manchester.

Outside again there are 35 acres of gardens to explore, including the newly opened Galaxy Garden designed by TV gardener Chris Beardshaw with willow spirals, island flowerbeds planted to illustrate astronomical themes such as light or star formation, a meadow with over 70 species of native wildflowers and a chalk depiction of our spiral galaxy craved into a hillside. The arboretum was created by Sir Bernard Lovell, also an internationally renowned arboriculturist, and contains 2,000 species of trees and shrubs.

There is a planet path and children can borrow backpacks that contain a map, instructions and activities they can try at each planet on the way. One of the outdoor exhibits always popular and crawling with children are the Whispering Dishes that have been kept from the original centre. This reusing of resources is very much a tradition at Jodrell, The motors used to move the Lovell scope were taken from two battleships HMS Revenge and Royal Sovereign, and a supermarket till receipt dispenser is now used to print out the live trace from the telescope.

Teresa is very keen to encourage more people to enjoy astronomy, and they host spectacular rock concerts featuring bands such as Flaming Lips and Elbow, against the backdrop of the Lovell scope with a surrounding science fair. Jodrell is also the home to the very popular, annual Stargazing Live series for BBC TV, three nights of live astronomy programmes hosted by Prof. Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain. The Centre is always keen to encourage more girls and women to become involved in physics and astronomy. Currently Teresa is overseeing The Girls Night Out (under the stars) on Sat 27th October 2012 being planned by her team, with talks by female astrophysicists, a chance to see Moon rocks under a microscope and they can also enjoy cocktails and cupcakes alongside the telescopes.

Over tea outside the Cafe, Teresa talked fondly of Sir Bernard and his vision and close involvement and support both of the Centre, and of Teresa herself. He will be sadly missed by everyone at Jodrell. She is justly proud that she was the principal author of the proposal that led to the Department of Culture Media and Sport including Jodrell Bank on the UK’s list for World Heritage Site Status. She gets a very determined look in her eye that I’m sure the funding committee knows well, when she talks of her many plans for future displays, projects and exhibits. I think Sir Bernard’s legacy is in safe hands.

(Part 2 of Jodrell Odyssey will go behind the scenes in a full, privileged access tour of this cutting-edge science facility)

Find out more about the Discovery Centre here

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

See Armstrong’s Hands and Eyes on the Moon

You see those gloves? Those gloves grasped the lunar ladder as Neil Armstrong hopped down to the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969. Tinged with blue silicon rubber fingertips to help Armstrong feel his way, those gloves carried experiments, and tools, and touched Moon dust. They were the first gloves used while walking on the Moon.

They’ve been in storage for more than a decade. But right now — for at least the next two weeks — they are sitting in a special display case at the Smithsonian’s airport annex in Washington. The National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is showing them to the public in honour of Armstrong, who died at the age of 82 on Aug. 25.

Oh yeah, and you can also check out the helmet that Neil Armstrong used as he described the lunar surface to millions of awe-struck listeners on live television. (The gold-plated visor he used on the surface is not being lowered again due to concerns about damaging it, but it’s inside the helmet.) No big deal.

Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.

This is probably your last chance to catch these artifacts before at least 2017. Armstrong’s spacesuit has been in storage since 2001 in a special temperature and humidity-controlled facility, to protect it from damage. The museum has tentative plans to display it again when it renovates the Apollo gallery in the main museum building on the Washington Mall. That said, his crewmate Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit is on display there right now.

Photos by Dane Penland, courtesy of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Comet Pan-STARRS: How Bright Will it Get?

Comet PanSTARRS on September 4, 2012 as seen from Puerto Rico. Credit: Efrain Morales/Jaicoa Observatory.

Early next year, a comet will come fairly close to Earth and the Sun — traveling within the orbit of Mercury — and it has the potential to be visible to the naked eye. Amateur and professional astronomers alike have been keeping watch on Comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS (or PanSTARRS for short), trying to ascertain just how bright this comet may become. It will come within 45 million kilometers (28 million miles) of the Sun on March 9, 2013, which is close enough for quite a bit of cometary ice to vaporize and form a bright coma and tail.

But just how bright, no one can say for sure. Comets have been known to be very unpredictable (remember the breakup of Comet Elenin?) but some estimates have said this comet could become a naked-eye object, as bright as Vega or Arcturus next March.

Right now it is at about Magnitude 12, and skywatchers in the southern hemisphere observers will have a great view as this comet gets closer and brighter, as it will remain high in the sky. But right now, skywatchers in the northern latitudes are saying farewell to Comet PANSTARRS, as it becomes low on the horizon. Astrophotographer Efrain Morales from Puerto Rico took the image above on September 4th, 2012 at 00:31 UTC. “It was very difficult to image due to the forest tree tops and sunset light but I was able to capture it at high magnification,” Efrain told us. (He used an LX200ACF 12 inch, OTA, CGE mount, F10, ST402xmi Ccd, Astronomik Ir/UV filter at 2 minutes. )

Observers in the mid-northern latitudes won’t be able to see the comet again until after its perihelion, unfortunately. And after that, we may never see Comet PanSTARRS again.

The discovery of the comet was made in June 2011 with the 1.8 meter (70.7 inch) Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System or Pan-STARRS telescope on Mount Haleakala. PanSTARRS is looking to image the entire sky several times a month to hunt for Earth-approaching comets and asteroids that could pose a danger to our planet.

Richard Wainscoat and graduate student Marco Micheli confirmed the object was a comet using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea.

“The comet has an orbit that is close to parabolic,” Wainscoat said, “meaning that this may be the first time it will ever come close to the Sun, and that it may never return.”

Astronomers at the PanSTARRS telescope say that making brightness predictions for new comets is difficult because astronomers do not know how much ice they contain. Because sublimation of ice (conversion from solid to gas) is the source of cometary activity and a major contributor to a comet’s overall eventual brightness, this means that more accurate brightness predictions will not be possible until the comet becomes more active as it approaches the sun and astronomers get a better idea of how icy it is.

It will be an adventure to follow the comet’s close approach, and we hope our readers and astrophotographers in the southern hemisphere will keep us posted!

See our previous article about this comet.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Huge Eruption on the Sun Revisited in Spectacular HD

This one may truly knock your socks off. Remember the spectacular filament eruption on the Sun on August 31 that we posted last week? The folks from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio now have put out a video of the eruption in high definition, and it is definitely worth watching to witness the awesome power of the Sun. The new video also includes data from STEREO and SOHO — as well as the data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory — so the tremendous Coronal Mass Ejection is visible as it travels outward from the Sun. Wow.

Below is an image of the filament eruption that includes a scale model of Earth. As the @NASAGoddard Twitter feed posted: “Reason #1 why it’s a REALLY good thing that the sun is 93,000,000 miles 150 million km) from Earth…. [mind blowing photo]”

The image above includes an image of Earth to show the size of the filament eruption compared to the size of Earth. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Thanks to Scott Wiessinger and the Scientific Visualization Studio for the great video and images.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Phases of the Moon App for iPhone and Android

Phases of the Moon

Want to know the current phase of the Moon at all times? Perhaps you need to do some stargazing or astrophotography, or you really need to debunk some nonsense theories about full Moon madness… then check out our handy mobile app – available on iPhone or Android.

We’ve just done a major update to the app, extending the support to iPhone, and completely rebuilding the Android edition to be smoother and more stable on the wide range of devices.

This latest version of the app is running a full model of the Moon’s orbit and phases, displaying a scientifically accurate simulation of the Moon’s exact phase, size, distance and amount of illumination.

You can swipe the Moon back and forth to see how the Moon’s distance and illumination change over time, or jump to the next full Moon, or see the Moon’s phase at any point in the future. The Android version is especially smooth, and kind of hypnotic as you change the phase.

Here are the features:

  • Beautiful images of the Moon were made by NASA from data collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
  • Full internal simulation of the Moon’s position and phase. See the current date, phase name, distance and illumination percentage.
  • Swipe left and right to move forward or backwards in time to see what the Moon will look like in the future or past.
  • Click a button to take you to the next full Moon.
  • You can also access a calendar that shows you the phase of the Moon for any date in the future.

You can purchase a copy for $.99 on either Google Play or the iTunes Store, and help support Universe Today.

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Bradbury Landing on Mars Chronicled in 3-D

Image Caption:3-D View from Bradbury Landing- from Navcam cameras.. See the full panorama below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Now you can enjoy the thrills of Curiosity’s touchdown site at Bradbury Landing as if you there – chronicled in stunning 3 D !! Check out this glorious 360-degree stereo panorama just released by JPL.

The pano was assembled by JPL from individual right and left eye images snapped by the rover’s mast mounted navigation cameras on sols 2 and 12 of the mission – Aug. 8 and 18, 2012.

So whip out your handy-dandy, red-blue (cyan) anaglyph glasses and start exploring the magnificent home of NASA’s newest Mars rover inside Gale Crater.

Image Caption: Complete 360 degree Panoramic 3-D View from Bradbury Landing by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The mosaic shows Curiosity’s eventual mountain destination – Mount Sharp – to its visible peak at the right, as well as the eroded rim of Gale Crater and a rover partial self portrait. Curiosity cannot see the actual summit from the floor of Gale Crater at Bradbury landing.

In about a year, the 1 ton behemoth will begin climbing up the side of Mount Sharp – a layered mountain some 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) high that contains deposits of hydrated minerals.

Curiosity will investigate and sample soils and rocks with her powerful suite of 10 state of the art science instruments.

See below JPL’s individual right and left eye pano’s from which the 3-D mosaic was created.

Image Caption: Complete 360 degree Panoramic left eye View from Bradbury Landing by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover – from Navcam cameras. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Caption: Complete 360 degree Panoramic right eye View from Bradbury Landing by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover- from Navcam cameras. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rover has now departed Bradbury landing and begun her long Martian Trek on an easterly path to Glenelg – her first stop designated for a lengthy science investigation.

Glenelg lies at the intersection of three distinct types of geologic terrain.

So far Curiosity has driven 358 feet (109 meters) and is in excellent health.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Timelapse from Thierry Legault: One Night on the Pic-du-Midi Observatory

Here’s a really unique video from one of our favorite astrophotographers, Thierry Legault. Thierry sent us a full HD time-lapse of the full sky during one full night (August 7-8) over the Pic-du-Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees. At 2,877 meters in altitude, this is the highest observatory in France. The video is taken with a fisheye lens, and so the view creates what appears to be a tiny little world (Planet Pic-du-Midi, perhaps?). Visible are Saturn and Mars, then the Moon, Jupiter and Venus. And a passage of the ISS and an Iridium flare complete the planet-like scene. “The rotation of the sky around Polaris is easily noticeable,” Thierry wrote to Universe Today, “as well as the movement of circumpolar constellations such as Big Dipper. The main dome is the 1-meter telescope, I was there with three friends to learn how to use this telescope for future planetary missions. This telescope was used in the 60’s to prepare the Apollo lunar missions because of the quality of its optics and the very good seeing of this site.”

Continue reading “Timelapse from Thierry Legault: One Night on the Pic-du-Midi Observatory”

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Watch This: Solar Prominence Achieves Liftoff

And we have liftoff! The Solar Dynamics Observatory has been providing images and video of some beautiful prominences and filaments over the past few days, and today the spacecraft captured a large prominence lifting off over the North Western limb of the Sun. A huge ball of plasma explodes from the surface and blooms into an arc loop that achieves enough energy to escape the Sun’s gravity.

The SDO team explains what the video shows:

Continue reading “Watch This: Solar Prominence Achieves Liftoff”