Posted on by David Warmflash

Not Giving Up Yet: ESA Resumes Effort to Communicate with Phobos-Grunt

Artist concept of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. Credit Roscosmos.

[/caption]

Editor’s note: Dr. David Warmflash, principal science lead for the US team from the LIFE experiment on board the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, provides an update on the mission for Universe Today.

Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft is in no better position than it was a month ago, when it reached low Earth orbit on November 9 yet failed to ignite the upper stage engine that was to propel it to Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two small moons. Indeed, with an orbit measuring 204.823 kilometers at perigee (the low point) and 294.567 kilometers at apogee as of today, the spacecraft is well on its well to a fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere in early January if it cannot be rescued in the intervening time. But the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, is not ready to give up on the probe yet, and have asked ESA to resume trying to contact Phobos-Grunt.

Despite success in contacting Grunt and getting it to send telemetry two weeks ago using a modified antenna in Perth Australia, subsequent attempts to command the spacecraft to boost her orbit failed.

Then last week, after modifying another antenna, this one in Maspalomas on the Canary Islands, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that efforts to track and communicate with the spacecraft would end. As a result, any remaining hope that the craft might at least be boosted to a more stable orbit to allow for diagnoses and eventual repair faded away.

Maspalomas station hosts a 15-metre antenna with reception in S- and X-Band and transmission in S-band. It is located on the campus of the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial (INTA), in the southern part of the Canary Islands' Gran Canaria, at Montaña Blanca.Credit: ESA

But, in response to requests from the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), ESA now has decided to renew tracking and communications efforts from the Maspalomas station. Located off of the northwest coast of Africa, Maspalomas is well-situated with respect to Phobos-Grunt’s course around Earth. Since fewer communication attempts have been made from Maspalomas as compared with Perth, ESA and Roscosmos may be thinking that not all potential tricks to get the geometry right have been exhausted. Thus, new attempts to hail the unpiloted science probe began on Monday and will continue through Friday, December 9th. Presumably, ESA would continue to support the mission beyond Friday, if anything happens suggesting that Phobos-Grunt has received the instructions and is capable of responding, even in part.

Designed to land on the surface of Phobos, the Grunt spacecraft carries about 50 kilograms of scientific equipment built to make celestial and geophysical measurements, and to conduct mineralogical and chemical analysis of the regolith (crushed rock and dust) of the tiny moon. The chemical analysis that is to be conducted includes a search for organic matter, the building material for life. Studies to be conducted on the Phobosian surface potentially could elucidate the origins of Phobos and the other Martian moon, Deimos. Additionally, the presence of organic matter on Phobos would suggest that the surface of Mars itself contains organics. Despite findings by NASA’s Viking landing crafts in the 1970s suggesting that the surface of Mars lacks organic material, studies by more recent probes suggest that compounds known as perchlorates –detected by Viking but dismissed as contaminants from Earth– may have been native to Mars. This issue will be investigated further when NASA’s Curiosity rover arrives on the Red Planet several months from now.

The Planetary Society’s Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE) capsule, on board the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. Credit:The Planetary Society

Grunt also carries Yinhou-1, a Chinese probe that is to orbit Mars for 2 years. After releasing Yinhou-1 into Mars orbit and landing on Phobos, Grunt is designed to launch a return capsule, carrying a 200 gram sample of regolith back to Earth. Also traveling within the return capsule is the Planetary Society’s Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE), designed to investigate how readily living forms could spread between neighboring planets.

Although prospects for this ambitious mission still look bleak, Alexander Zakharov of Russia’s Space Research Institute, who was instrumental in getting the LIFE experiment onto the Grunt mission, has suggested that a new Grunt mission might be launched, presumably on time for the next launch window to Mars, which opens in approximately 26 months.

Meanwhile, today, NASA’s space debris chief said that Phobos-Grunt would pose no threat to Earth when it reenters the atmosphere.

Although the window for a trip to Mars is about to close, should control over Phobos-Grunt be restored, it might be kept in a higher orbit for two years, or sent to an alternate destination, such as Earth’s own Moon, or an asteroid.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Staking Out A Vampire Star

These super-sharp images of the unusual vampire double star system SS Leporis were created from observations made with the VLT Interferometer at ESO’s Paranal Observatory using the PIONIER instrument. The system consists of a red giant star orbiting a hotter companion. Note that the stars have been artificially coloured to match their known temperatures. Credit: ESO/PIONIER/IPAG

[/caption]

How do you peer into the dark heart of a vampire star? Try combining four telescopes! At ESO’s Paranal Observatory they created a virtual telescope 130 metres across with vision 50 times sharper than the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and observed a very unusual event… the transfer of mass from one star to another. While you might assume this to be a violent action, it turns out that it’s a gradual drain. Apparently SS Leporis stands for “super slow”.

“We can now combine light from four VLT telescopes and create super-sharp images much more quickly than before,” says Nicolas Blind (IPAG, Grenoble, France), who is the lead author on the paper presenting the results, “The images are so sharp that we can not only watch the stars orbiting around each other, but also measure the size of the larger of the two stars.”

This stellar duo, cataloged as SS Leporis, are only separated by slightly more than one AU and have an orbital period of 260 days. Of the two, the more massive and cooler member expands to a size of about Mercury’s orbit. It’s this very action of being pushed closer that draws the hot companion to feed on its host – consuming almost half of its mass. Weird? You bet.

“We knew that this double star was unusual, and that material was flowing from one star to the other,” says co-author Henri Boffin, from ESO. “What we found, however, is that the way in which the mass transfer most likely took place is completely different from previous models of the process. The ‘bite’ of the vampire star is very gentle but highly effective.”

The technique of combining telescopes gives us an incredibly candid image – one which shows us the larger star isn’t quite as large as surmised. Rather than clarifying the picture, it complicates. Just how did a red giant lose matter to its companion? Researchers are guessing that rather than streaming material from one star to another, that stellar winds may have released mass – only to be collected by the companion vampire star.

“These observations have demonstrated the new snapshot imaging capability of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. They pave the way for many further fascinating studies of interacting double stars,” concludes co-author Jean-Philippe Berger.

Where’s van Helsing when you need him?

Original Story Source: ESO Press Release For Further Reading: An Incisive Look At The Symbiotic Star SS Leoporis.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Popular Astronomy App Supports Astronomers Without Borders

The constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius (highligted) as mythical figures, near the center of the Milky Way. Credit: Southern Stars.com

he constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius (highlited) as mythical figures, near the center of the Milky Way. Credit: Southern Stars.com

You can support a great organization, Astronomers Without Borders, by purchasing a popular astronomy app for Apple and Mac devices. SkySafari 3 is a “revolutionary” app that can completely cover your observing/educational needs. During a special promotion that is available until December 8, 40% of proceeds from all SkySafari sales will be donated to Astronomers Without Borders to support their global programs. Some significant discounts are also being offered, so you can get a great price and help build AWB’s worldwide astronomy community at the same time.

You’ve probably heard of some of AWB’s project, such as The World at Night, Global Astronomy Month, and 100 Hours of Astronomy. AWB nobly works to foster understanding and goodwill across national and cultural boundaries by creating relationships through the universal appeal of astronomy. They provide and share resources, information and inspiration.

With all the great work they are doing, AWB needs some help to continue their outreach. “Interest and demand have really outstripped our start-up, volunteer, grass-roots organization,” AWB President Mike Simmons told Universe Today. “So we’re starting a fund-raising campaign that we hope will get us over the hump so we can keep up with all the opportunities there are.”

If you are considering getting an astronomy app for yourself or someone else for the holidays, consider SkySafari 3, the latest version of this popular app – and you can support AWB at the same time. But hurry – this offer ends on Dec. 8, 2011.

You can also support AWB even if you don’t need an app.

More info:
Continue reading “Popular Astronomy App Supports Astronomers Without Borders”

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Pinning The Tails On Galaxy Clusters

A visible light image of the FGC 1287 group of galaxies in Abell 1367. This is based on a composite of images taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey through three colour filters. The white contours show the neutral hydrogen distribution. The huge gas tail emanates from the edge on spiral galaxy FGC 1287. Two other members of the group have associated neutral hydrogen here marked by contour lines.

[/caption]

When it comes to understanding how galaxies behave both inside and outside of galaxy clusters, it would seem that we still have quite a lot to learn. Tom Scott from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada, Spain, and a group of international astronomers have been busy with the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in the USA, checking out an assortment of galaxies associated with galaxy cluster Abell 1367. What they have found is unexpectedly long one-sided gaseous tails in two sets of galaxies… the longest of their type ever observed.

Located in the constellation of Leo and about 300 million light years away, galaxies CGCG 097-026 and FGC1287 are displaying gaseous tail structures that may rearrange thinking on how stripping of materials behaves. Current thinking has hot gases trapped within the galaxy cluster’s gravitational field – with incoming galaxies being depleted of their cold hydrogen gases when captured by the gravitational influence. Through this impact, galaxies added to the cluster generally tend to lose their star-forming abilities and begin to quickly age. Astronomers assume this is why less aggressive galaxy structures tend to be found in lower density environments. However, thanks to Scott’s research, astronomers might be able to assume that galaxies can be robbed of their gases before entering a clustered environment.

“When we looked at the data, we were amazed to see these tail structures” says Tom Scott. “The projected lengths of the gaseous tails are 9 to 10 times that of the size of the parent galaxies, i.e., 520,000 and 815,000 light years respectively. In both cases the amount of cold hydrogen gas in the tails is approximately the same as that remaining in the galaxy’s disk. In other words, these galaxies have already left behind half of their fuel for star formation before entering the sphere of influence of the cluster.”

As stated, the commonly accepted theory for gaseous tail structures is interaction with the hot, gaseous medium located within the cluster’s influence – a process known as ram-pressure stripping. But this case is different. Galaxies CGCG 097-026 and FGC1287 aren’t being perturbed by the nearby cluster just yet… But they are still displaying long tails of material.

“We considered the various physical processes proposed by theorists in the past to describe gas removal from galaxies, but no one seems to be able to explain our observations” says Luca Cortese, researcher at ESO-Garching, Germany, and co-author of this work. “Whereas in the case of CGCG97-026, the gravitational interaction between the various members of the group could explain what we see, FGC1287 is completely different from any case we have seen before.”

Right now, ram-pressure stripping isn’t the answer – and gravitational interactions don’t seem to fit the picture, either. It’s leaving scientists at a loss to explain these long tails and lack of stellar disturbance.

“Although the mechanism responsible for this extraordinary gas tail remains to be determined, our discovery highlights how much there still is to learn about environmental effects in galaxy groups” says team member Elias Brinks, a scientist at the University of Hertfordshire. “This discovery might open a new chapter in our understanding of environmental effects on galaxy evolution.”

Original Story Source: Royal Astronomical Society News Release. For Further Reading: Two long tails in the outskirts of Abell 1367.

Posted on by Amy Shira Teitel

Astronomers Find the Most Supermassive Black Holes Yet

[/caption]

For years, astronomer Karl Gebhardt and graduate student Jeremy Murphy at The University of Texas at Austin have been hunting for black holes — the dense concentration of matter at the centre of galaxies. Earlier this year, they made a record-breaking discovery. They found a black hole weighing 6.7 billion times the mass of our Sun in the centre of the galaxy M87.

But now they shattered their own record. Combining new data from multiple observations, they’ve found not one but two supermassive black holes that each weigh as much as 10 billion Suns.

“They just keep getting bigger,” Gebhardt said.

An artist's impression of the black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy. Image credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA illustration by Lynette Cook

Black holes are made of extremely densely packed matter. They produce such a strong gravitational field that even light cannot escape. Because they can’t be seen directly, astronomers find black holes by plotting the orbits of stars around these giant invisible masses. The shape and size of these stars’ orbits can determine the mass of the black hole.

Exploding stars called supernovae often leave behind black holes, but these only weigh as much as the single star. Black holes billions of times the mass of our Sun have grown to be so big. Most likely, an ordinary black hole consumed another, captured huge numbers of stars and the massive amount of gas that they contain, or be the result of two galaxies colliding. The larger the collision, the more massive the black hole.

The supermassive black holes Gebhardt and Murphy have found are at the centres of two galaxies more than 300 million light years from Earth. One weighing 9.7 billion solar masses is located in the elliptical galaxy NGC 3842, the brightest galaxy in the Leo cluster of galaxies 320 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. The other is as large or larger and sits in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in the Coma cluster about 336 million light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Coma Berenices.

Each of these black holes has an event horizon — the point of no return where nothing, not even light can escape their gravity — 200 times larger than the orbit of Earth (or five times the orbit of Pluto). That’s a mind-boggling 29,929,600,000 kilometres or 18,597,391,235 miles. Beyond the event horizon, each has a gravitational influence that extends over 4,000 light years in every direction.

The illustration shows the relationship between the mass of a galaxy's central black hole and the mass of its central bulge. Recent discoveries of supermassive black holes may mean that the black holes in all nearby massive galaxies are more massive than we think. This could signal a change in our understanding of the relationship between a black hole and its surrounding galaxy. Image credit: Tim Jones/UT-Austin after K. Cordes & S. Brown (STScI)

For comparison, the black hole at the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy has an event horizon only one-fifth the orbit of Mercury — about 11,600,000 kilometres or 7,207,905 miles. These supermassive black holes are 2,500 times more massive than our own.

Gebhardt and Murphy found the supermassive black holes by combining data from multiple sources. Observations from the Gemini and Keck telescopes revealed the smallest, innermost parts of these galaxies while data from the George and Cynthia Mitchell Spectrograph on the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope revealed their largest, outmost regions.

Putting everything together to deduce the black holes’ mass was a challenge. “We needed computer simulations that can accommodate such huge changes in scale,” Gebhardt said. “This can only be done on a supercomputer.”

But the payoff doesn’t end with finding these massive galactic centre. The discovery has much more important implications. It “tells us something fundamental about how galaxies form” Gebhardt said.

These black holes could be the dark remnants of previously bright galaxies called quasars. The early universe was full of quasars, some thought to have been powered by black holes 10 billion Solar masses or more. Astronomers have been wondering where these supermassive galactic centres have since disappeared to.

Gebhardt and Murphy might have found a key piece in solving the mystery. Their two supermassive black holes might shed light on how black holes and their galaxies have interacted since the early universe. They may be a missing link between ancient quasars and modern supermassive black holes.

Source: McDonald Observatory Press Release.

Where Have All the Quasars Gone?

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Carnival of Space #226

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by our very own Ray Sanders at his very own website, Dear Astronomer.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #226 and this week’s spacey goodness.

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 and email to the above address.

Posted on by VirtualAstro

Coming Attraction: Geminid Meteor Shower 2011

Credit: Wally Pacholka

[/caption]
It’s the finale of this year’s meteor showers: The Geminids will start appearing on Dec. 7 and should reach peak activity around the 13th and 14th. This shower could put on a display of up to 100+ meteors (shooting stars) per hour under good viewing conditions.

However, conditions this year are not ideal with the presence of a waning gibbous Moon (which will be up from mid-evening until morning). But seeing meteors every few minutes is quite possible. Geminid meteors are often slow and bright with persistent coloured trails which can linger for a while after the meteor has burned up.

There is something unusual about the Geminid meteor shower, as normally meteor showers are caused by the Earth ploughing through the debris streams created by comets and their tails. But the object that created the specific stream of debris associated with the Geminids is not a dusty icy comet, but a rocky asteroid called Phaethon 3200.

Phaethon 3200 belongs to a group of asteroids whose orbit cross the Earth’s. It turns out to be an unusual member of that group: Not only does it pass closer to the Sun than the others but it also has a different colour, suggesting a different composition to most asteroids.

Credit: Adrian West

One of the curious things about the Geminid particles is that they are more solid than meteoroids known to come from comets. This is good for meteor watchers; giving us brighter meteors.

Observations by astronomers over decades have shown that meteor rates have increased as we reach denser parts of the stream.

It is not known exactly when the asteroid was deflected into its current orbit, but if it was originally a comet it would have taken a long time for all the ices to have been lost. However, it is possible that it may have been a stony asteroid with pockets of ice.

We are unsure of the origins and appearance of Phaethon 3200, but its orbit has left us with a unique legacy every December, with little steaks of light known as the Geminid meteor shower.

You will only need your eyes to watch the meteor shower, you do not need telescopes binoculars etc, but you will need to be patient and comfortable. See this handy guide on how to observe meteors

During a meteor shower, meteors originate from a point in the sky called the radiant and this gives rise to the showers name e.g. The Geminids radiant is in Gemini, Perseids radiant is in Perseus etc.

Don’t be mislead by thinking you have to look in a particular part of or direction of the sky, as meteors will appear anywhere and will do so at random. You will notice that if you trace back their path or trajectory it will bring you to the meteor showers radiant. The exception to this rule is when you see a sporadic or rogue meteor.

Tell your friends, tell your familly and tell everyone to look up and join in with the Geminid meteorwatch on the 12th to the 14th December 2011. Use the #meteorwatch hashtag on twitter and visit meteorwatch.org for tips and guides on how to see and enjoy the Geminids and other meteor showers.

Credit: Wally Pacholka

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Rainbow of Colors Reveal Asteroid Vesta as More Like a Planet

'Rainbow-Colored Palette' of Southern Hemisphere of Asteroid Vesta from NASA Dawn Orbiter. This mosaic using color data obtained by the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows Vesta's southern hemisphere in false color, centered on the Rheasilvia impact basin, about 290 miles (467 kilometers) in diameter with a central mound reaching about 14 miles (23 kilometers) high. The black hole in the middle is data that have been omitted due to the angle between the sun, Vesta and the spacecraft. The green areas suggest the presence of the iron-rich mineral pyroxene or large-sized particles. This mosaic was assembled using images obtained during Dawn's approach to Vesta, at a resolution of 480 meters per pixel. The German Aerospace Center and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research provided the Framing Camera instrument and funding as international partners on the mission team. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

[/caption]

The giant Asteroid Vesta is among the most colorful bodies in our entire solar system and it appears to be much more like a terrestrial planet than a mere asteroid, say scientists deciphering stunning new images and measurements of Vesta received from NASA’s revolutionary Dawn spacecraft. The space probe only recently began circling about the huge asteroid in July after a four year interplanetary journey.

Vesta is a heavily battered and rugged world that’s littered with craters and mysterious grooves and troughs. It is the second most massive object in the Asteroid Belt and formed at nearly the same time as the Solar System some 4.5 Billion years ago.

“The framing cameras show Vesta is one of the most colorful objects in the solar system,” said mission scientist Vishnu Reddy of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. “Vesta is unlike any other asteroid we have visited so far.”

Scientists presented the new images and findings from Dawn at the American Geophysical Union meeting this week in San Francisco.

Dawn is the first man-made probe to go into orbit around Vesta.

Comparative View of Terrains on Vesta - Oppia Crater
This image of Oppia Crater combines two separate views of the giant asteroid Vesta obtained by Dawn's framing camera. The far-left image uses near-infrared filters where red is used to represent 750 nanometers, green represents 920 nanometers and blue represents 980 nanometers. The image on the right is an image with colors assigned by scientists, representing different rock or mineral types on Vesta. The data reveal a world of many varied, well-separated layers and ingredients. The reddish color suggests a steep visible spectral slope, and areas of fresh landslides in the inner walls of the crater show deeper green colors. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

“Vesta is a transitional body between a small asteroid and a planet and is unique in many ways,” Reddy said. “We do not know why Vesta is so special.”

Although many asteroids look like potatoes, Reddy said Vesta reminds him more of an avocado.

Asteroid Vesta is revealed as a ‘rainbow-colored palette’ in a new image mosaic (above) showcasing this alien world of highly diverse rock and mineral types of many well-separated layers and ingredients.

Researchers assigned different colors as markers to represent different rock compositions in the stunning new mosaic of the asteroid’s southern hemisphere.

The green areas in the mosaic suggest the presence of the iron-rich mineral pyroxene or large-sized particles, according to Eleonora Ammannito, from the Visible and Infrared (VIR) spectrometer team of the Italian Space Agency. The ragged surface materials are a mixture of rapidly cooled surface rocks and a deeper layer that cooled more slowly.

What could the other colors represent?

“The surface is very much consistent with the variability in the HED (Howardite-Eucritic-Diogenite) meteorites,” Prof. Chris Russell, Dawn Principal Investigator (UCLA) told Universe Today in an exclusive interview.

“There is Diogenite in varying amounts.”

“The different colors represent in part different ratios of Diogenite to Eucritic material. Other color variation may be due to particle sizes and to aging,” Russell told me.

No evidence of volcanic materials has been detected so far, said David Williams, Dawn participating scientist of Arizona State University, Tucson.

Fresh Impact Craters on Asteroid Vesta
The fresh impact craters in this view are located in the south polar region, which has been partly covered by landslides from the adjacent crater. This would suggest that a layer of loose material covers the Vesta surface. This image combines two separate views of the giant asteroid Vesta obtained by Dawn’s framing camera. The far-left image uses near-infrared filters where red is used to represent 750 nanometers, green represents 920 nanometers and blue represents 980 nanometers. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Before Dawn arrived, researchers expected to observe indications of volcanic activity. So, the lack of findings of volcanism is somewhat surprising. Williams said that past volcanic activity may be masked due to the extensive battering and resultant mixing of the surface regolith.

“More than 10,000 high resolution images of Vesta have been snapped to date by the framing cameras on Dawn,” Dr. Marc Rayman told Universe Today. Rayman is Dawn’s Chief Engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Dawn will spend a year in orbit at Vesta and investigate the asteroid at different altitudes with three on-board science instruments from the US, Germany and Italy.

The probe will soon finish spiraling down to her lowest mapping orbit known as LAMO (Low Altitude Mapping Orbit), approximately 130 miles (210 kilometers) above Vesta’s surface.

“Dawn remains on course to begin its scientific observations in LAMO on December 12,” said Rayman.

The German Aerospace Center and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research provided the Framing Camera instrument and funding as international partners on the mission team. The Visible and Infrared Mapping camera was provided by the Italian Space Agency.

In July 2012, Rayman and the engineering team will fire up Dawn’s ion propulsion system, break orbit and head to Ceres, the largest asteroid and what a number of scientists consider to be a planet itself.

Ceres is believed to harbor thick caches of water ice and therefore could be a potential candidate for life.

Southern Hemisphere of Vesta -Rheasilvia and Older Basin
Colorized shaded-relief map showing location of 375-kilometer-wide Older impact basin that is overlapping with the more recent 500 km (300 mi) wide Rheasilvia impact structure at asteroid Vesta’s South Pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Asteroid Vesta from Dawn - Exquisite Clarity from a formerly Fuzzy Blob
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on July 24, 2011. It was taken from a distance of about 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers). Before Dawn, Vesta was just a fuzzy blob in the most powerful telescopes. Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 15, and will spend a year orbiting the body before firing up the ion propulsion system to break orbit and speed to Ceres, the largest Asteroid. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Read continuing features about Dawn by Ken Kremer starting here:

Vrooming over Vivid Vestan Vistas in Vibrant 3 D – Video
NASA Planetary Science Trio Honored as ‘Best of What’s New’ in 2011- Curiosity/Dawn/MESSENGER
Dawn Discovers Surprise 2nd Giant South Pole Impact Basin at Strikingly Dichotomous Vesta
Amazing New View of the Mt. Everest of Vesta
Dramatic 3 D Imagery Showcases Vesta’s Pockmarked, Mountainous and Groovy Terrain
Rheasilvia – Super Mysterious South Pole Basin at Vesta
Space Spectacular — Rotation Movies of Vesta
3 D Alien Snowman Graces Vesta
NASA Unveils Thrilling First Full Frame Images of Vesta from Dawn
Dawn Spirals Down Closer to Vesta’s South Pole Impact Basin
First Ever Vesta Vistas from Orbit – in 2D and 3D
Dawn Exceeds Wildest Expectations as First Ever Spacecraft to Orbit a Protoplanet – Vesta

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Armadillo Aerospace Successfully Lauches a Sounding Rocket from Spaceport America

View of Earth above Spaceport America from Armadillo Aerospace STIG-A flight at apogee. Credit: Armadillo Aerospace

Over the weekend Armadillo Aerospace successfully launched an advanced sounding rocket from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The launch took place on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. (MST), and the STIG A rocket reached its expected sub-orbital altitude of 41.91 km (137,500 feet). Below is an image of Earth taken by a camera on board the rocket.

This latest launch is the thirteenth vertical launch test from the Spaceport America Vertical Launch Complex since 2006.

[/caption]

“This successful test of our “STIG A” reusable sub-orbital rocket technology represents major progress for the Armadillo Aerospace flight test program,” said Neil Milburn, Vice President of Program Management at Armadillo Aerospace. “The flight successfully demonstrated many of the technologies that we need for our manned sub-orbital program.”

The STIG is a long, sleek rocket designed for lower drag, high speed, high altitude flights. This rocket is aerodynamically optimized for high altitude flights with long 15 inches (38 cm) diameter cylindrical tanks instead of larger spherical tanks.

Armadillo requested that the test flight be a non-public, unpublished event, as the company is testing proprietary advanced launch technologies.

The company is one of the leading developers of reusable rocket-powered vehicles and plans to provide a platform for civilian access to suborbital space via a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. Armadillo Aerospace has flown over 200 flight tests with over a dozen different vehicles.

Armadillo Aerospace's STIG A rocket launches from Spaceport America. Credit: Space Adventures

On board the rocket was an experiment designed, built, tested, integrated, and performed by a team of undergraduate students at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the College of Engineering at Purdue University. The experiment studied a liquid and gas flow process that is sensitive to the gravity and acceleration levels encountered during spaceflight.
“Spaceport America has been an ideal launch facility for this kind of vehicle R&D testing activity,” said John Carmack, President and CTO of Armadillo Aerospace.

Officials from the spaceport were please at the launch’s success as well.

“Spaceport America continues to set the precedent for safe, efficient, effective service for commercial spaceflight customers,” said NMSA Executive Director Christine Anderson. “We are extremely pleased to support Armadillo Aerospace as they conduct their high altitude vehicle flight testing, and look forward to hosting their NASA-funded suborbital research launches.”

Source: Spaceport America

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Carbon “Super Earths” – Diamond Planets

Iron, carbon, and oxygen subjected to intense temperatures and pressures form a pocket of iron oxide (bottom, center) and a darker pocket of diamond (bottom, right). Electron micrograph courtesy of Ohio State University

[/caption]During a laboratory experiment at Ohio State University, researchers were simulating the pressures and conditions necessary to form diamonds in the Earth’s mantle when they came across a surprise… A carbon “Super Earth” could exist. While endeavoring to understand how carbon might behave in other solar systems, they wondered if planets high in this element could be pressurized to the point of producing this valuable gemstone. Their findings point to the possibility that the Milky Way could indeed be home to stars where planets might consist of up to 50% diamond.

The research team is headed by Wendy Panero, associate professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State, and doctoral student Cayman Unterborn. As part of their investigation they incorporated their findings from earlier experiments into a computer modeling simulation. This was then used to create scenarios where planets existed with a higher carbon content than Earth..

The result: “It’s possible for planets that are as big as fifteen times the mass of the Earth to be half made of diamond,” Unterborn said. He presented the study Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

“Our results are striking, in that they suggest carbon-rich planets can form with a core and a mantle, just as Earth did,” Panero added. “However, the cores would likely be very carbon-rich – much like steel – and the mantle would also be dominated by carbon, much in the form of diamond.”

At the center of our planet is an assumed molten iron core, overlaid with a mantle of silica-based minerals. This basic building block of Earth is what condensed from the materials in our solar cloud. In an alternate situation, a planet could form in a carbon-rich environment, thereby having a different planet structure – and a different potential for life. (Fortunately for us, our molten interior provides geothermal energy!) On a diamond planet, the heat would dissipate quickly – leading to a frozen core. On this basis, a diamond planet would have no geothermal resources, lack plate tectonics and wouldn’t be able to support either an atmosphere or a magnetic field.

“We think a diamond planet must be a very cold, dark place,” Panero said.

How did they come up with their findings? Panero and former graduate student Jason Kabbes took a miniature sample of iron, carbon, and oxygen and subjected it to pressures of 65 gigapascals and temperatures of 2,400 Kelvin (close to 9.5 million pounds per square inch and 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit – conditions similar to the Earth’s deep interior). As they observed the experiment microscopically, they saw oxygen bonding with iron to create rust… but what was left turned to pure carbon and eventually formed diamond. This led them to wonder about planetary formation implications.

“To date, more than five hundred planets have been discovered outside of our solar system, yet we know very little about their internal compositions,” said Unterborn, who is an astronomer by training.

“We’re looking at how volatile elements like hydrogen and carbon interact inside the Earth, because when they bond with oxygen, you get atmospheres, you get oceans – you get life,” Panero said. “The ultimate goal is to compile a suite of conditions that are necessary for an ocean to form on a planet.”

But don’t confuse their findings with recent, unrelated studies which involves the remnants of an expired star from a binary system. The OSU team’s finding simply suggest this type of planet could form in our galaxy, but how many or where they might be is still very open to interpretation. It’s a question that’s being investigated by Unterborn and Ohio State astronomer Jennifer Johnson.

Because diamonds are forever…

Original Story Source: Ohio State Research News.