Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Carnival of Space #262

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Markus Hammonds over at Supernova Condensate.

Click here to read Carnival of Space #262.

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 Jason Major

“The Hobbit” Author Gets a Crater on Mercury

Here’s a little something to please fans of space, art and fantasy alike (and those who enjoy all three): on August 6 the International Astronomical Union approved names for 9 craters on Mercury, one of which is named for J.R.R. Tolkien, revered author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (among other seminal fantasy works.)

The crater Tolkien is approximately 30 miles (48 km) in diameter. All 9 newly-named craters are located in Mercury’s north polar region and exhibit radar evidence of water ice hidden in their shadowy pocketses.

IAU procedure for craters on Mercury has them named after “deceased artists, musicians, painters, and authors who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field and have been recognized as art historically significant figures for more than 50 years.” Find out who all 9 new craters are named for after the jump:

Egonu, for Uzo Egonu (1931-1996), a Nigerian-born painter who at 13 was sent to England to study art, first at a private school in Norfolk and later at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. Exile, alienation, and the pain of displaced peoples were recurrent themes in his work.

Gaudí­, after Antoni Gaudí­ (1852-1926), a Spanish architect whose work concentrated largely on the Catalan capital of Barcelona. He was very skilled with ceramics, stained glass, wrought-iron forging, and carpentry and integrated these crafts into his architecture.

Kandinsky, for Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), a Russian painter and art theorist credited with painting the first purely abstract works.

Petronius, for Titus Petronius (c. AD 27-66), a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian era.

Prokofiev, for Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who is considered one of the major composers of the 20th century. His best-known works include the ballet Romeo and Juliet — from which “Dance of the Knights” is taken — and Peter and the Wolf.

Tolkien, for John Ronald Reuel (J. R. R.) Tolkien (1892-1973), an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tryggvadóttir, for Nina Tryggvadóttir (1913-1968), one of Iceland’s most important abstract expressionist artists and one of very few Icelandic female artists of her generation. She primarily worked in painting, but she also created collages, stained glass work, and mosaics.

Qiu Ying, for Shifu Qiu Ying (1494-1552), a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique, a careful realist method in Chinese painting. He is regarded as one of the Four Great Masters of the Ming Dynasty.

Yoshikawa, for Eiji Yoshikawa (1892-1962), a Japanese historical novelist best known for his revisions of older classics including The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

“These designations expand the opportunities to recognize the contributions to the arts by the most creative individuals from many cultures and eras. The names of those individuals are now linked in perpetuity to the innermost planet.”

– Sean Solomon, MESSENGER Principal Investigator

The craters were imaged by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, currently in extended mission around Mercury. Learn more about the preciousss MESSENGER mission here. (Gollum! Gollum!)

Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington 

Posted on by Jason Major

New Satellites Will Tighten Knowledge of Earth’s Radiation Belts


Surrounding our planet like vast invisible donuts (the ones with the hole, not the jelly-filled kind) are the Van Allen radiation belts, regions where various charged subatomic particles get trapped by Earth’s magnetic fields, forming rings of plasma. We know that the particles that make up this plasma can have nasty effects on spacecraft electronics as well as human physiology, but there’s a lot that isn’t known about the belts. Two new satellites scheduled to launch on August 23 August 24 will help change that.

“Particles from the radiation belts can penetrate into spacecraft and disrupt electronics, short circuits or upset memory on computers. The particles are also dangerous to astronauts traveling through the region. We need models to help predict hazardous events in the belts and right now we are aren’t very good at that. RBSP will help solve that problem.”
– David Sibeck, RBSP project scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission will put a pair of identical satellites into eccentric orbits that take them from as low as 375 miles (603 km) to as far out as 20,000 miles (32,186 km). During their orbits the satellites will pass through both the stable inner and more variable outer Van Allen belts, one trailing the other. Along the way they’ll investigate the many particles that make up the belts and identify what sort of activity occurs in isolated locations and across larger areas.

“Definitely the biggest challenge that we face is the radiation environment that the probes are going to be flying through,” said Mission Systems Engineer Jim Stratton at APL. “Most spacecraft try to avoid the radiation belts — and we’re going to be flying right through the heart of them.”

Read: The Van Allen Belts and the Great Electron Escape

Each 8-sided RBSP satellite is approximately 6 feet (1.8 meters) across and weighs 1,475 pounds (669 kg).

The goal is to find out where the particles in the belts originate from — do they come from the solar wind? Or Earth’s own ionosphere? — as well as to find out what powers the belts’ variations in size and gives the particles their extreme speed and energy. Increased knowledge about Earth’s radiation belts will also help in the understanding of the plasma environment that pervades the entire Universe.

Read: What Are The Radiation Belts?

Ultimately the information gathered by the RBSP mission will help in the design of future science and communications satellites as well as safer spacecraft for human explorers.

The satellites are slated to launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than 4:08 a.m. EDT on August 24.

Find out more about the RBSP mission here.

Video/rendering: NASA/GSFC.

Posted on by Jason Major

A Star’s Dying Scream May Be a Beacon for Physics

When a star suffered an untimely demise at the hands of a hidden black hole, astronomers detected its doleful, ululating wail — in the key of D-sharp, no less — from 3.9 billion light-years away. The resulting ultraluminous X-ray blast revealed the supermassive black hole’s presence at the center of a distant galaxy in March of 2011, and now that information could be used to study the real-life workings of black holes, general relativity, and a concept first proposed by Einstein in 1915.

Within the centers of many spiral galaxies (including our own) lie the undisputed monsters of the Universe: incredibly dense supermassive black holes, containing the equivalent masses of millions of Suns packed into areas smaller than the diameter of Mercury’s orbit. While some supermassive black holes (SMBHs) surround themselves with enormous orbiting disks of superheated material that will eventually spiral inwards to feed their insatiable appetites — all the while emitting ostentatious amounts of high-energy radiation in the process — others lurk in the darkness, perfectly camouflaged against the blackness of space and lacking such brilliant banquet spreads. If any object should find itself too close to one of these so-called “inactive” stellar corpses, it would be ripped to shreds by the intense tidal forces created by the black hole’s gravity, its material becoming an X-ray-bright accretion disk and particle jet for a brief time.

Such an event occurred in March 2011, when scientists using NASA’s Swift telescope detected a sudden flare of X-rays from a source located nearly 4 billion light-years away in the constellation Draco. The flare, called Swift J1644+57, showed the likely location of a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy, a black hole that had until then remained hidden until a star ventured too close and became an easy meal.

See an animation of the event below:

The resulting particle jet, created by material from the star that got caught up in the black hole’s intense magnetic field lines and was blown out into space in our direction (at 80-90% the speed of light!) is what initially attracted astronomers’ attention. But further research on Swift J1644+57 with other telescopes has revealed new information about the black hole and what happens when a star meets its end.

(Read: The Black Hole that Swallowed a Screaming Star)

In particular, researchers have identified what’s called a quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) embedded inside the accretion disk of Swift J1644+57. Warbling at 5 mhz, in effect it’s the low-frequency cry of a murdered star. Created by fluctuations in the frequencies of X-ray emissions, such a source near the event horizon of a supermassive black hole can provide clues to what’s happening in that poorly-understood region close to a black hole’s point-of-no-return.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity proposes that space itself around a massive rotating object — like a planet, star, or, in an extreme instance, a supermassive black hole — is dragged along for the ride (the Lense-Thirring effect.) While this is difficult to detect around less massive bodies a rapidly-rotating black hole would create a much more pronounced effect… and with a QPO as a benchmark within the SMBH’s disk the resulting precession of the Lense-Thirring effect could, theoretically, be measured.

If anything, further investigations of Swift J1644+57 could provide insight to the mechanics of general relativity in distant parts of the Universe, as well as billions of years in the past.

See the team’s original paper here, lead authored by R.C. Reis of the University of Michigan.

Thanks to Justin Vasel for his article on Astrobites.

Image: NASA. Video: NASA/GSFC

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

President Obama Calls with Congratulations for Mars Science Laboratory Team

US President Barack Obama called up the Mars Science Laboratory team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory today, August 13, congratulating them on the perfect landing of the Curiosity rover one week ago today.

“What you did on Mars was incredibly impressive,” the President said, “with those 76 pyrotechnics going on in perfect succession, the 500,000 lines of code working exactly the way you guys had ordered them, it’s really mind boggling what you’ve been able to accomplish. Being able to get that whole landing sequence to work the way you did, it’s a testimony to your team.”

Obama specifically congratulated Charles Elachi, the head of JPL, the entry, descent and landing lead, Adam Steltzner for the audacious Sky Crane system.

“What you accomplished embodied the American spirit and your passion and your commitment is making a difference and your hard work is now paying dividends, because our expectation is that Curiosity is going to be telling us things that we did not know before and laying the groundwork for an even more audacious undertaking in the future, and that’s a human mission to the Red Planet.”

Obama joked about letting him know right away if they find any Martians, and perhaps getting a Mohawk, just like Bobak Ferdowsi, a systems engineer in JPL’s mission control who became an unexpected “star of the show” on Sunday night’s webcast, for his American flag-themed stars and stripes Mohawk haircut.

“That’s going to be the new fashion at JPL,” Elachi replied.

“It does sound like NASA’s come a long way from the white shirts, black-rimmed glasses and the pocket protectors,” the President joked. “You guys are a little cooler than you used to be.”

Obama said his administration is putting a big focus on improving science, technology, engineering and math education; however, NASA and other science arms of the government are all facing massive cuts. Perhaps MSL has captured the President’s attention enough to, maybe, change his focus. Several people have sent messages to Obama via Twitter, such as this one:

A view of the crowd gathered at Times Square in New York City to watch the landing of Curiosity on Mars. Credit: @CSMuncyPhoto

Then Obama said, “I’m going to give you guys a personal commitment to protect these critical investments in science and technology, I thank you for devoting your lives to this cause and if, in fact, you do make contact with Martians, please let me know right away. I’ve got a lot of other things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go to the top of the list. Even if they’re just microbes, it will be pretty exciting.”

Obama said the incredible landing of Curiosity is the kind of thing that inspires kids across the country. “They are telling their moms and dads they want to be part of a Mars mission, maby even the first person to walk on Mars. That kind of inspiration is a by-product of the work that you have done.”

“You guys have done an outstanding job, you’ve made us all proud… you are examples of American know-how and ingenuity and we can’t wait to start hearing back from Curiosity and finding on what is going on.”

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophotos: The 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower from Around the World

Caption: Perseid Meteors with Lunar & Planetary Conjunction on August 12, 2012. Credit: John Chumack.

Here’s some great views of the Perseid Meteor Shower from Universe Today readers around the world. Over the weekend was the peak of the annual meteor shower that never seems to disappoint! We start with one of our “regulars,” John Chumack from his observatory in Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA. But there were also many other objects in John’s field of view, including the waning crescent Moon, Venus, and Orion rising over the observatory dome, the Pleaides, Hyades, and Jupiter, too. John used a odified Canon Rebel Xsi & 17mm lens at F4, ISO 400, and a 20 second exposure. See more of John’s wonderful astrophotos at his Flickr page or at his website, Galactic Images.

More beautiful shots below:

Caption: The Perseids on August 13, 2012. Credit: M. Rasid Tugral from Ankara, Turkey

M. Rasid Tugral from Ankara, Turkey sent in this great image from August 13. Tugral is an accomplished astrophotographer and teaches at the Middle East Technical University in the Department of Physics.

By Patrick Cullis (pcully on Flickr) in Colorado, USA, taken on August 12, 2012 using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Caption: Perseids on August 9, 2012. Credit: Nu Am (tazacanitu).

Another great shot from August 9, 2012 by Nu Am (tzacanitu on Flickr) “Out of the camera raw, re-dimensioned to 25% and saved as jpg. Canon 50D + Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF @17mm, tripod, ISO 400, 30seconds, f/4.”

Caption: 2012 Perseids on August 12, 2012. Credit: Kevin Jung.

A lovely capture of two Perseid meteors in one shot by Kevin Jung(Kevin’s Stuff on Flickr). “Two Perseid meteors show up in a 30 second image shot during the night of August 11/morning of August 12,” Kevin wrote from Lowell, Michigan, USA. He used a Canon EOS 40D. “Since there were some meteors in all parts of the sky, I just pointed my camera to the north with Perseus just to the right of the frame,” Kevin explained. “I used the intervelometer and took 30 second shots automatically. It was lucky that the skies cleared in time to see anything. We had clouds all day, and then weather system was slow to move out of the area. The started to break up around 10pm, but it was until after midnight when the skies cleared up (with the exception of a few areas).”

Thanks to everyone who shared their images!

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 Tammy Plotner

Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: August 13-19, 2012

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Even if you missed the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, there will still be plenty of “strays” to sparkle this week’s dark nights. For astronomy without a telescope, be sure to check out all the planetary alignments – and tell your friends! When you’re ready to learn more about what to view and when this week, then meet me in the back yard…

Monday, August 13 – Celestial scenery alert! If you’re out before dawn this morning, look for the very close pairing of Venus and the slender crescent Moon. For viewers in the north-eastern Asia area, this is an occultation event, so be sure to check resources for times and locations in your area! How about some more eye candy? Then check out the splendid alignment of Saturn, Mars and Spica just after sky dark. Look for the blue/white star to the west, accompanied by red Mars to the east and yellow Saturn even higher to the east. The trio will be roughly separated by the same distance from each other and the colors will be a welcome sight. Be sure to alert your family and friends to all the celestial action that doesn’t require a telescope today!

Tonight, begin with just your eyes as you gaze about four fingerwidths above the top of the Sagittarius “teapot dome” for an open window on the stars and mighty M24 (Right Ascension: 18 : 18.4 – Declination: -18 : 25)…

This huge, hazy patch of stars is in reality an area of space known as “Baade’s Window” – an area free of obscuring gas and dust. Cataloged by Messier in 1764 as object 24, even small binoculars will reveal the incredible vista of the “Sagittarius Star Cloud.” Although it’s actually not a cluster, but rather a clean view of an area of our own galaxy’s spiral arm, that will not lessen the impact when viewed through a telescope. Spanning a degree and a half of sky, it is one of the few areas in which even a novice can easily perceive areas of dark dust.

For larger telescopes, look for the dim, open cluster NGC 6603 (Right Ascension: 18 : 18.4 – Declination: -18 : 25) in the northeastern position of the Window. There are two very notable dark nebulae, B92 and B93, located in the northern segment as well. Near teardrop shaped B92 and its single central star, you should spot open cluster Collinder 469 and also Markarian 38 south of B93. You’ll find B86 near Gamma Sagittarii . At the southern edge of the star cloud, look for emission nebula IC 1283-1284, along with the reflection nebulae NGC 6589 (Right Ascension: 18 : 16.9 – Declination: -19 : 46) and NGC 6590 (Right Ascension: 18 : 17.0 – Declination: -19 : 53) and open cluster NGC 6595 (Right Ascension: 18 : 17.0 – Declination: -19 : 53). Still up for more? Then head west to see if you can find 12th-magnitude planetary nebula NGC 6567 (Right Ascension: 18 : 13.7 – Declination: -19 : 05).

Even if you don’t accept these challenges, you can still enjoy looking at a 560 light-year swatch of stars from one of the Milky Way’s loving arms! (If you’re out late, look for Mira… It was discovered by Fabricius on this date in 1596.)

Tuesday, August 14 – Celestial scenery alert! Be out just after sunset to catch a splendid stellar and planetary conjunction. To the west you’ll see bright Spica. Just above it, Mars. And just above that? Saturn! The trio are all separated by just a few degrees, so be sure to stop and enjoy!
Your first challenge for tonight will be to venture about three fingerwidths northeast of Lambda Sagittarii to visit a well-known but little visited galactic cluster – M25 (Right Ascension: 18 : 31.6 – Declination: -19 : 15).

First discovered by Cheseaux and then cataloged by Messier, it was observed and recorded by William Herschel, Johann Elert Bode, Admiral Smythe and T. W. Webb…but never added to the NGC catalog of John Herschel! Thanks to J.L.E. Dreyer, it did make the second Index Catalog as IC 4725.

Seen with even the slightest optical aid, this 5th magnitude cluster contains two G-type giants as well as a Delta Cephei-type variable with the designation of U, which changes about one magnitude in a period of less than a week. It’s very old for an open cluster, perhaps near 90 million years, and the light you see tonight left the cluster over 2000 years ago. While binoculars will see around a double handful of bright stars overlaying fainter members, telescopes will reveal more and more as aperture increases. At one time it was believed to have only about 30 members, but this was later revised to 86. But recent studies by Archinal and Hynes indicate it may have as many as 601 member stars!

Wednesday, August 15 – Celestial scenery alert! Get up before dawn to spot Mercury low on the eastern horizon, a very tiny crescent Moon to its west/southwest and brilliant Venus ruling above it all! To add to the mix, you’ll see the pairing of the Gemini Twins – Castor and Pollux – just about a handspan above Mercury and luminous Procyon about the same distance due south. If you missed your opportunity to view Spica, Mars and Saturn on Monday, don’t worry. The colorful trio is still around tonight just after sky dark to the west, but now you can see that Mars has moved slightly to the south. Ain’t celestial mechanics grand?!

Tonight we’ll head back to Scorpius to have a look at three pristine open clusters. Begin your starhop at the colorful southern Zeta pair and head north less than one degree for NGC 6231 (Right Ascension: 16 : 54.0 – Declination: -41 : 48).

Wonderfully bright in binoculars and well resolved to the telescope, this tight open cluster was first discovered by Hodierna before 1654. De Cheseaux cataloged it as object 9, Lacaille as II.13, Dunlop as 499, Melotte as 153, and Collinder as 315. No matter what catalog number you chose to put in your notes, you’ll find the 3.2 million year young cluster shining as the “Northern Jewelbox!” For high power fans, look for the brightest star in this group – it’s van den Bos 1833, a splendid binary.

About another degree north is loose open cluster Collinder 316, with its stars scattered widely across the sky. Caught on its eastern edge is another cluster known as Trumpler 24, a site where new variables might be found. This entire region is encased in a 90 arc minute faint emission nebula called IC 4628 (Right Ascension: 16 : 57.0 – Declination: -40 : 20) – making this low power journey through southern Scorpius a red hot summer treat!

Thursday, August 16 – If you did not get a chance to look at the Northern Jewelbox region in Scorpius, return again and sweep the area tonight. For those with larger telescopes, we’re going to hop about a degree and a half south of twin Nu for NGC 6242 (Right Ascension: 16 : 55.6 – Declination: -39 : 30).

Discovered by Lacaille and cataloged as I.4, it is also known as Dunlop 520, Melotte 155 and Collinder 317. At roughly magnitude 6, this open cluster is within binocular range, but truly needs a telescope to appreciate its fainter stars. While NGC 6242 might seem like nothing more than a pretty little cluster with a bright double star, it contains an x-ray binary which is a “runaway” black hole. It is surmised that it formed near the galactic center and was vaulted into an eccentric orbit when the progenitor star exploded. Its kinetic energy is much like a neutron star or a millisecond pulsar, and it was the first black hole confirmed to be in motion.

Now head a little more than a degree east-southeast for NGC 6268 (Right Ascension: 17 : 02.4 – Declination: -39 : 44). At a rough magnitude of 9, this small open cluster can be easily observed in smaller scopes and resolved in larger ones. The cluster itself is somewhat lopsided, with more of its members concentrated on the western half of its borders. While it, too, might not seem particularly interesting, this young cluster is highly evolved and contains some magnetic, chemically peculiar stars and Be class, or metal-weak, members.

Friday, August 17 – Today in 1966 Pioneer 7 was launched. It was the second in a series of satellites sent to monitor the solar wind, and study cosmic rays, interplanetary space, and magnetic fields. If you’re out early, be sure to take a look for the close pairing of Mars and Saturn and Spica. If you’ve had the opportunity to view them over the last few days, you can see how quickly Mars has moved! Instead of being in a line, the trio now… well… triangulates!

Tonight it’s New Moon! Let’s return to previous study star Lambda Scorpii and hop three fingerwidths northeast… We’re re-hunting the “Butterfly!”

Easily seen in binoculars and tremendous in the telescope, this brilliant magnitude 4 open cluster was first discovered by Hodierna before 1654 and independently discovered by de Cheseaux as his object 1, before being cataloged by Messier as M6 (Right Ascension: 17 : 40.1 – Declination: -32 : 13). Containing around 80 stars, the light you see tonight left its home in space around the year 473 A.D. It is believed to be around 95 million years old and contains a single yellow supergiant – the variable BM Scorpii. While most of M6?s stars are hot, blue main sequence, the unique shape of this cluster gives it not only visual appeal, but wonderful color contrast as well!

Now let’s head towards more unusual open clusters – this time in Cygnus. Starting with Gamma Cygni, locate a loose cluster involving Gamma, Do (Dolidze) 43. Now shift two degrees southwest to pick up Do 42 as well. Don’t confuse Do 42 with nearby M29 though, for the two look very similar. For fans of the “Double Cluster” in Perseus, you’ll like the next pairing! Shift another half degree southwest along the body of Cygnus to pick out Do 40 and Do 41. This pretty pair can be placed in the same low power field. By moving another half degree due west, you’ll find highly populated Do 39 and that, too, is a double treat. The brighter clump of stars in the same low power field is IC 4996 (Right Ascension: 20 : 16.5 – Declination: +37 : 38).

Now for two bright open clusters. The first, Ruprecht 173 is about a degree northwest of Epsilon Cygni. You’ll truly appreciate this heavily populated star cluster! The next is as easy as identifying the constellation of Lyra. Just southeast of bright Vega is a wonderful double for binoculars, Delta 1 and 2 – the easternmost most two stars in the lyre. This bright pair is part of an open cluster known as Stephenson 1.

Saturday, August 18 – On this day in 1868, Norman Lockyer was very busy as he was the first to see helium absorption lines in the Sun’s spectrum. Tonight we’ll take a walk from helium rich Lambda Scorpii about three fingerwidths east-northeast to an even more prominent area of stars that was known to Ptolemy as far back as 130 AD.

Astronomers throughout the ages have spent time with this cluster: Hodierna as Ha II.2; Halley in 1678 as number 29, Derham in 1733 as number 16, De Cheseaux as number 10, Lacaille as II.14; Bode as 41; once for William Herschel and again for John as h 3710; Dreyer as NGC 6475… But we know it best as Messier Object 7 (Right Ascension: 17 : 53.9 – Declination: -34 : 49).

Set against the backdrop of the Milky Way, even the smallest of binoculars will enjoy this bright open cluster while telescopes can resolve its 80 members. Roughly 800 light-years away, it contains many different spectral types in various stages of evolution, giving the cluster an apparent age of about 260 million years. Full of binaries and close doubles, an extreme test of tonight’s lighting conditions would be to see if you can spot the 11th magnitude globular cluster NGC 6453 (Right Ascension: 17 : 50.9 – Declination: -34 : 36) to the northwest!

And for last, the densely populated open cluster M11 (Right Ascension: 18 : 51.1 – Declination: -06 : 16). The “Wild Duck” cluster soars about a fist’s width northeast of M16. Dominated by a single 8th magnitude star, this conically-shaped 3,000 member assembly of stardust easily resolves into innumerable stars with any significant amount of magnification. Through intermediate aperture, this 6000 light-year distant, 250 million year old cluster takes on a new form as several hundred 13th and 14th magnitude members begin to spill outside its V-shaped bounds! Discovered by Gottfried Kirch of Berlin observatory in 1681, the cluster was first noted as stellar by William Derham in the first third of the 18th century. Charles Messier added it to his catalog May 30, 1764.

Sunday, August 19 – Born today in 1646, let’s have a look at John Flamsteed. He was an English astronomer with a passion for what he did. Despite a rather difficult childhood and no formal education, he went on to become the First Observer at the Royal Observatory and his catalog of 3000 stars was perhaps the most accurate yet published. Flamsteed star numbers are still in use. Also born on this day was Orville Wright, in 1871, and in 1891, Milton Humason, a colleague of Edwin Hubble at Mts. Wilson and Palomar. The latter was instrumental in measuring the faint spectra of galaxies, which in turn provided evidence for the expansion of the Universe.

This would be a great time for us to have a look at one of the summer’s most curious galaxies – NGC 6822 (Right Ascension: 19 : 44.9 – Declination: -14 : 48). This study is a telescopic challenge even for skilled observers. Set your sights roughly 2 degrees northeast of easy double 54 Sagittarii, and have a look at this distant dwarf galaxy bound to our own Milky Way by invisible gravitational attraction…

Named after its discoverer (E. E. Barnard – 1884), “Barnard’s Galaxy” is a not-so-nearby member of our local galaxy group. Discovered with a 6? refractor, this 1.7 million light-year distant galaxy is not easily found, but can be seen with very dark sky conditions and at the lowest possible power. Due to large apparent size, and overall faintness (magnitude 9), low power is essential in larger telescopes to give a better sense of the galaxy’s frontier. Observers using large scopes will see faint regions of glowing gas (HII regions) and unresolved concentrations of bright stars. To distinguish them, try a nebula filter to enhance the HII and downplay the star fields. Barnard’s Galaxy appears like a very faint open cluster overlaid with a sheen of nebulosity, but the practiced eye using the above technique will clearly see that the “shine” behind the stars is extragalactic in nature.

Now look less than a degree north-northwest to turn up pale blue-green NGC 6818 (Right Ascension: 19 : 44.0 – Declination: -14 : 09) – the “Little Gem” planetary. Easily found in any size scope, this bright and condensed nebula reveals its annular nature in larger scopes but hints at it in scopes as small as 6?. Use a super wide field long-focus eyepiece to frame them both!

Until next week? Wishing you clear skies!

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Ptolemy’s Cluster by Rolf Wahl Olsen

Looking like diamonds in the sky, this lovely astrophoto shows Ptolemy’s Cluster, or Messier 7, a very bright open star cluster easily visible with the naked eye near the tail of Scorpius. Taken by photographer Rolf Wahl Olsen — Sky Viking on Flickr — this beautiful, glittering cluster is about 980 light years away from Earth and has some 80 member stars within its diameter of about 25 light years. Astronomers have determined these young, bright stars are approximately 200 million years old.

The cluster is visible as a hazy patch in the sky, and was first described by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy in 130 AD.

Rolf said this image was taken with a bright 78% illuminated Moon nearby.

Image details:
Date: 31st May 2012
Exposure: LRGB: 48:24:24:24m, total 2hrs @ -28C
Telescope: 10″ Serrurier Truss Newtonian f/5
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from Sky Viking’s observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

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 Ken Kremer

Curiosity sees Mount Sharp Up Close and gets ‘Brain Transplant’

Image Caption: Mosaic of Mount Sharp inside Curiosity’s Gale Crater landing site. Gravelly rocks are strewn in the foreground, dark dune field lies beyond and then the first detailed view of the layered buttes and mesas of the sedimentary rock of Mount Sharp. Topsoil at right was excavated by the ‘sky crane’ landing thrusters. Gale Crater in the hazy distance. This mosaic was stitched from three full resolution Navcam images returned by Curiosity on Sol 2 (Aug 8) and colorized based on Mastcam images from the 34 millimeter camera. Processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

The Curiosity rover has beamed back the first detailed images of Mount Sharp, offering a stupendous initial view of her ultimate driving goal, and is now in the midst of a crucial “brain transplant” this weekend that will transform her into a fully operational rover.

The science team will direct the six-wheeled Curiosity to begin climbing Mount Sharp at some later date during the rovers’ two year primary mission after traversing and extensively investigating the floor of her landing site inside Gale Crater.

See our mosaic focusing on the base of Mount Sharp using three full resolution images snapped by the Navcam navigation camera located on the newly erected camera and instrument mast with colorization based on the 34 millimeter Mastcam color camera.

Curiosity came to rest almost flat on the martian surface, but with a slight 3 degree tilt down in the front and the images thus far are taken from that preprogrammed viewpoint, roughly some six miles or so from the base of Mount Sharp.

The terrain is strewn with small pebbles that may stem from a nearby alluvial fan through which liquid water flowed long ago, scientist think. Observations from orbit with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers of Mount Sharp, indicating a wet history. At higher elevations, scientists hope to discover a boundary layer and indications of what led to the “Great Dessication Event” and loss of liquid water on the ancient Martian surface.

This weekend Curiosity has also begun transmitting spectacular hi res Mastcam images that will far exceed anything else thus far. Here is the Mastcam 360 pano as assembled by NASA so far:

Image Caption: First Hi-Res Color Mosaic of Curiosity’s Mastcam Images. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

But before the car-sized robot can actually rove around, reach out with her 7 foot (2 meter) long instrument loaded arm and scoop up samples for analysis by the on board chemistry labs she needs the software smarts to accomplish the science tasks.

With all the initial post landing objectives accomplished, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., are spending 4 Sols, or Martian days, bracketing this weekend to upload a new software package named “R10” that is optimized for surface operations and will replace the current “R9” package.

“We designed the mission from the start to be able to upgrade the software as needed for different phases of the mission,” said Ben Cichy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., chief software engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory mission. “The flight software version Curiosity currently is using [R9] was really focused on landing the vehicle. It includes many capabilities we just don’t need any more. It gives us basic capabilities for operating the rover on the surface, but we have planned all along to switch over after landing to a version of flight software that is really optimized for surface operations.”

Software on both the primary and backup computers is being carefully upgraded in step by step stages. He said an initial “toe dip” on Friday to test the upgrade was the first step.

“R10 is optimized for surface operations and has what the science team wants. It’s being downloaded over the next four Sols to enable this fantastic mission,” Cichy said at a JPL news briefing on August 10. They will stand down on science for the next four Sols during the installation.

“Right now, we have the capability in our basic surface software to check out the health of the instruments, but we don’t really have the capability to go and make the full use of all this great hardware we shipped to Mars.”

“So the R10 software gives us the capability to use the robotic arm fully, to use the drill, to use the dust removal tool, to use the whole sampling chain and injest the samples and analyze them, all this exciting stuff this mission will do.”

“Curiosity is a Martian mega rover and born to drive ! R10 gives us the ability to drive autonomously and use images to detect hazards and drive safely.”

So far, the software upgrade is going as planned this weekend.

Curiosity made an unprecedented pinpoint landing inside Gale Crater on Aug. 5/6 using the rocket powered “Sky Crane” descent stage that lowered Curiosity by cables onto the Red Planet’s surface exactly as planned on the plains astride Mount Sharp just a few miles from the base of the gigantic mountain.

Mount Sharp covers much of the interior of the 96 mile wide (154 km) Gale Crater. The peak of the 3.4 mile (5.5 km) high layered mountain is taller than Mount Whitney in California.

For comparison, see Curiosity’s initial wider field post-landing shots of Mount Sharp in 2 D and 3 D from the lower resolution fish-eye Hazcam cameras, here

NASA’s 1 ton mega rover Curiosity is the biggest and most complex robot ever sent to the surface of another planet, sporting a payload of 10 state of the art science instruments weighing 15 times more than any prior roving vehicle. Curiosity’s goal is to determine if Mars was ever capable of supporting microbial life, past or present and to search for the signs of life in the form of organic molecules.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by Jason Major

Mystery Blur in Mars Image Explained

When Curiosity executed a perfect six-wheel landing on Mars on the morning of August 6 to the excitement of millions worldwide — not to mention quite a few engineers and scientists at JPL — it immediately began relaying images back to Earth. Although the initial views were low-resolution and taken through dusty lens covers, features of the local landscape around the rover could be discerned… distant hills, a pebbly surface, the rise of Gale Crater’s central peak — and a curious dark blur on the horizon that wasn’t visible in later images.

What could it have been? Another bit of lens dust? An image artifact? A piece of ancient Martian architecture that NASA demanded be erased from the image? As it turns out, it was most likely something even cooler (or at least real): the result of Curiosity’s descent stage crash-landing into the Martian surface.

Seen in an image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, the remnants of Curiosity’s descent to Mars are scattered around the landing site. The heat shield, parachute, back shell — and undeniably the star player of Curiosity’s EDL sequence, the descent stage and sky crane — all landed in relatively close proximity to where the rover touched down. As it turned out, Curiosity’s’s rear Hazcam happened to be aimed right where the sky crane landed after it severed Curiosity’s bridles and rocketed safely away — just as it had been shown in the landing animation.

See an infographic on Curiosity’s EDL timeline here.

Seen in the first images captured by Curiosity’s rear Hazcams just minutes after touchdown — but not in higher-resolution images acquired later — the dark blur is now thought to be a plume of dust and soil kicked up by the sky crane’s impact.

“We know that the cloud was real because we saw it in both the left and right rear Hazcams, so it wasn’t just a smudge on the lens cover or anything like that… and then 45 minutes later it was gone,” said Steven Sell, Deputy Operations for Entry, Descent and Landing at JPL, during an interview with Universe Today on Friday.

“When we were putting together the sequence of images of what would happen after touchdown, we specifically put in the Hazcam shots as soon as we could on the off chance that we would see something,” Sell said. “It was just one of those things where we had some choices we could make, and we said if we put these really close to landing maybe we’ll actually see part of the descent stage.”

Although capturing the sky crane or other part of the descent stage on camera was an intriguing idea, it wasn’t any particular goal of the mission.

“We know that the cloud was real because we saw it in both the left and right rear Hazcams, so it wasn’t just a smudge on the lens cover or anything like that.”

– Steven Sell, Deputy Operations for Entry, Descent and Landing at JPL in Pasadena, CA

“We literally weren’t even thinking about it,” Sell said. “It’s a total bonus that we were able to capture that.”

Unfortunately, the plume only appears in the initial Hazcam shots, which were taken through lens covers coated with dust from landing. It wasn’t until nearly an hour later that the covers were removed and clearer images were captured, and by then the plume was gone. Plus the Hazcams themselves are low-resolution by design — they’re more for navigation than landscape photography.

“Those cameras are not intended for doing that kind of science, or even any science at all,” said Sell. “They’re strictly engineering cameras.”

It’s been said that the best camera is the one you have with you, and in this case Curiosity’s best camera happened to be aimed in the right place at the right time. Plus the sky crane just so happened to land in view of the cameras that got turned on first, which wasn’t a guarantee.

“The descent stage had two possible directions to go: it could have gone forward or backward,” Sell explained. “The way it decides which way to go is whichever direction would take it more north. We knew that the science target is toward the south — the scientists want to study the mountain — and so we didn’t want to throw the descent stage toward the mountain.

Read: Curiosity’s First 360-Degree Color Panorama

“The good news is that the forward Hazcams were at a lower temperature upon landing, we knew they were going to be colder,” Sell said. “The cameras have to reach a certain temperature before they can take a picture, so we knew the rear Hazcams were going to get the picture first, and so the fact that the thing flew to the rear was another coincidence.”

About the same mass as the rover itself, the sky crane weighed about 800 kg (1700 lbs) at the time of impact  — including 100 kg of fuel — and hit going 100 mph. That’s going to kick up a good-sized plume (although exactly how large has yet to be determined.)

“It was one hell of an impact,” Sell said.

You can watch Steve Sell describe this and other data from the first few days of the MSL mission in the press conference held at JPL on Friday, August 10 below, and follow Sell on his Twitter feed here.


Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech. HiRISE image NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.