The largest solar flare recorded in nearly five years was triggered by interactions between five rotating sunspots, say researchers who studied observations of the flaring region of the Sun taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory over a period of five days. The flare occurred at 1.44am on February 15,2011, when the Sun released the largest recorded solar flare since December 2006 and the first flare of the current solar cycle to be classified as the most powerful “X-class”.
Continue reading “Interacting Sunspots Spawn Gigantic Solar Flare”
GOCE Data Close Up: Around the World in Lumpy, Geoidy 3-D
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Grab your red/cyan 3-D glasses and take a look at these marvelous new anaglyphs created by Nathanial Burton-Bradford from the latest data from GOCE satellite, showing Earth’s gravity field – or geoid. The geoid is essentially a map of the shape our world would be its surface were covered by water and if gravity were the only thing shaping this global ocean’s surface. These exaggerated views (the surface in the images of the geoid is amplified by a factor 7,000) show the most accurate model of how gravity varies across the planet. Nathanial was able to obtain high-resolution video from Dr. Rune Floberghagen of the GOCE team from which he extracted appropriate frames in order to construct hi-res anaglyph images of numerous longitudes across the globe.
In our previous article about GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer), we showed the entire globe and how it looks like a spinning potato. Nathanial’s anaglyphs show close-ups of various parts of the globe. Above is Australia and Asia. Take a trip around the GOCE geoid 3-D world below. Remember, use the red/cyan 3-D glasses to get the full effect!
Thanks to Nathanial Burton-Bradford for sharing his images. See more at his Flickr page.
Where In The Universe Challenge #145
It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Name where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the telescope or spacecraft responsible for the image. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!
UPDATE: Answer now posted below!
This is planet Earth, specifically the Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, a part of the Sahara Desert, taken by the Landsat 7 satellite. Landsat 7 used a combination of infrared, near-infrared and visible light to better distinguish between the various rock types found in the region. Sand appears in shades of yellow and tan, while granite rocks appear brick red, and blue areas are likely salts. This area has a bone-dry climate with scant rainfall, but is not just a sea of sand like the rest of the Sahara Desert. Instead, the rocky plateau rises above the surrounding sand. Rich in geologic and human history, Tassili n’Ajjer is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, and covers 27,800 square miles (72,000 square kilometers) in southeastern Algeria.
This image is part of a special collection of images put out by NASA for Earth Day. See the entire collection at this link.
Enceladus and Saturn are Linked by Electromagnetic Currents
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The geysers and jets of Enceladus have just become more intriguing. A glowing patch of ultraviolet light near Saturn’s north pole appears to be evidence of a magnetic connection between the planet and the icy, geyser-spewing moon. Data from the Cassini spacecraft have revealed that the jets of gas and icy grains that emanate from the south pole of Enceladus become electrically charged and form an ionosphere, and the motion of Enceladus and its ionosphere through a magnetic bubble that surrounds Saturn acts like a dynamo, setting up a newly-discovered electrical current system that links the moon to the planet.
This video demonstrates the hiss-like radio noise generated by electrons moving along magnetic field lines from Enceladus to a glowing patch of ultraviolet light on Saturn.
Cassini’s Plasma Spectrometer’s electron spectrometer, (CAPS-ELS) has detected the beams of electrons that flow back and forth between Saturn and Enceladus. Magnetic field lines, invisible to the human eye but detectable by the fields and particles instruments on the spacecraft, arc from Saturn’s north polar region to south polar region. Enceladus resides in the arc of a set of the field lines and feeds charged particles into the Saturn atmosphere. The finding is part of a paper published in Nature.
From data Cassini collected in 2008, scientists saw a glowing patch of ultraviolet light emissions near Saturn’s north pole that marked the presence of a circuit between the two bodies, even though the moon is 240,000 kilometers (150,000 miles) away from the planet.
The patch occurs at the end of a magnetic field line connecting Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The area, known as an auroral footprint, is the spot where energetic electrons dive into the planet’s atmosphere, following magnetic field lines that arc between the planet’s north and south polar regions.
“The footprint discovery at Saturn is one of the most important fields and particle revelations from Cassini and ultimately may help us understand Saturn’s strange magnetic field,” said Marcia Burton, a Cassini fields and particles scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It gives us the first visual connection between Saturn and one of its moons.”
The auroral footprint measures approximately 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) by less than 400 kilometers (250 miles), covering an area comparable to California or Sweden. At its brightest, the footprint shone with an ultraviolet light intensity far less than Saturn’s polar auroral rings, but comparable to the faintest aurora visible at Earth without a telescope in the visible light spectrum. Scientists have not found a matching footprint at the southern end of the magnetic field line.
Scientists already knew that the giant planet Jupiter is linked to three of its moons by charged current systems set up by the satellites orbiting inside its giant magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere, and that these current systems form glowing spots in the planet’s upper atmosphere. The latest discovery at Enceladus shows that similar processes take place at the Saturnian system too.
“This now looks like a universal process — Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanic object in the solar system, and produces a bright spot in Jupiter’s aurora, “ said Dr. Andrew Coates from the University College in London, a co-author of the new paper. “Now, we see the same thing at Saturn — the variable and majestic water-rich Enceladus plumes, probably driven by cryovolcanism, cause electron beams which create a significant spot in Saturn’s aurora too.”
Sources: University College, London, NASA
Hubble Comes of Age With Dramatic New Image
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Hubble has now turned 21, and unlike human young adults, we don’t have to worry about it staying up all night carousing at orbital drinking establishments. Instead the space telescope celebrates by doing what is has done best the past two decades, taking a marvelous image. This dramatic look at Arp 273 shows the very photogenic group of interacting galaxies that glow bright with intense star formation, perhaps triggered by a little carousing the two galaxies are doing with each other as they approach and interact.
Arp 273 lies in the constellation Andromeda and is roughly 300 million light-years away from Earth. The image shows a tenuous tidal bridge of material between the two galaxies that are actually separated by tens of thousands of light-years from each other. But still, the gravitational pull between the two is causing distortions: visible in the larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, is a distorted disc. The swathe of blue stars across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young stars.
These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light. A series of uncommon spiral patterns in the large galaxy are a telltale sign of interaction, say the Hubble astronomers. The large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature that is seen when interacting galaxies actually pass through one another, so astronomers believe the smaller companion actually dived deeply, but off-center, through UGC 1810.
The smaller, nearly edge-on companion below is known as UGC 1813. It also shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus.
The larger galaxy has a mass that is about five times that of the smaller galaxy. In unequal pairs such as this, the relatively rapid passage of a companion galaxy produces the lopsided or asymmetric structure in the main spiral. Also in such encounters, the starburst activity typically begins earlier in the minor galaxy than in the major galaxy. These effects could be due to the fact that the smaller galaxies have consumed less of the gas present in their nucleus, from which new stars are born.
The image was taken on December 17, 2010, with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
Happy Birthday Hubble! (and many more…)
See more information on this image at ESA’s Hubble website, or NASA’s HubbleSite
Red Suns and Black Trees: Shedding a New Light on Alien Plants
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The grass may definitely not be greener on some alien worlds, suggests a new study from the UK. For example, planets in double-star systems could have grey or black vegetation.
Researcher Jack O’Malley-James of the University of St Andrews in Scotland worked out how photosynthesis in plants is affected by the color of the light they receive. On Earth, most plants have evolved to be green in order to take advantage of the yellowish color of the sunlight that’s received on the surface of our planet. (Our Sun, classified as a “Population I yellow dwarf star”, would look bright white from space but our atmosphere makes it appear yellow.) There are lots of other stars like our Sun in the Universe, and many of them are in multiple systems sharing orbits with other types of stars…red dwarfs, blue stars, red giants, white dwarfs…stars come in many different colors depending on their composition, age, size and temperature. We may be used to yellow but nature really has no preference! (Although red dwarfs happen to be the garden variety star in our own galaxy.)
Planets that orbit within these multiple systems and exist within the habitable “Goldilocks” zone (and we are finding more and more candidates every day!) could evolve plants that depend on suns with different colors than ours. Green does a good job powering photosynthesis here, but on a planet orbiting a red dwarf and Sun-like star plants could very well be grey or black to absorb more light energy, according to O’Malley-James.
“Our simulations suggest that planets in multi-star systems may host exotic forms of the more familiar plants we see on Earth. Plants with dim red dwarf suns for example, may appear black to our eyes, absorbing across the entire visible wavelength range in order to use as much of the available light as possible.”
– Jack O’Malley-James, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews
The study takes into consideration many different combinations of star varieties and how any potential life-sustaining planets could orbit them.
In some instances different portions of a planet may be illuminated by a differently-colored star in a pair…what sorts of variations in plant (and subsequently, animal) evolution could arise then?
And it’s not just the colors of plants that could evolve differently. “For planets orbiting two stars like our own, harmful radiation from intense stellar flares could lead to plants that develop their own UV-blocking sunscreens, or photosynthesizing microorganisms that can move in response to a sudden flare,” said O’Malley-James.
Kermit may have been right all along…being green might really not be easy!
Read more on the Royal Astronomical Society’s news release or on the University of St Andrews website.
Top image credit: Jason Major
Launch Date Set for Particle Detector Mission; Endeavour’s Final Flight,
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The launch date for the long-awaited Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) to the International Space Station has been set for Friday, April 29, at 3:47 p.m. EDT on from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 14-day STS-134 mission is shuttle Endeavour’s final scheduled flight. After a flight readiness review today, NASA and contractor managers determined the shuttle and station’s equipment, support systems and personnel are ready to go.
The other notable aspect of the mission is that Mark Kelly is commanding, and his wife, Representative Gabrielle Giffords is tentatively expected to attend the launch, just months after she was shot in the head. This certainly will bring a unique aspect to the launch, at least for the media coverage, drawing attention to the mission to those who might not normally take notice.
For those who always pay attention to shuttle missions, however, two aspects make this mission noteworthy: the AMS and Endeavour’s final mission. The mission will also feature the last four spacewalks by a shuttle crew.
The AMS is designed to measure cosmic rays to search for various types of unusual matter, such as dark matter and antimatter. The instrument’s experiments will help researchers study the formation of the universe.
Also during the flight, Endeavour also will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 3, a platform that carries spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired from service. During the scheduled spacewalks, astronauts will do maintenance work, install new components, and perform a complex series of tasks to top off the ammonia in one of the station’s photovoltaic thermal control system cooling loops.
The crew consists of Kelly, Pilot Greg H. Johnson, NASA Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Andrew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff and European Space Agency Mission Specialist Roberto Vittori. They are scheduled to arrive at Kennedy on Tuesday, April 26, for final launch preparations.
STS-134 is the 134th shuttle mission, Endeavour’s 25th flight and the 36th shuttle mission to the station.
Universe Today will be on hand live to cover the launch from Kennedy Space Center, and provide updates as the mission progresses.
Gallery: 10 Years of Canadarm2, Construction Crane in Space
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On April 19, 2001, space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-100 mission launched to the space station, and in the payload bay was Canadarm2, a larger, more robust successor to the shuttle’s Canadarm. The Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) is a sophisticated “construction crane,” and is responsible for much of the successful building of the ISS — module by module — in space.
“She is without a doubt one of the most critical components on board station having participated in the construction of the spacecraft that is on orbit today,” said Mike Suffredini, Program Manager of the International Space Station. “Twenty-nine missions have been supported by Canadarm2, two of them capturing and berthing the HTV vehicle, and in all that time with absolutely flawless performance. Without her we couldn’t have gotten to where we are today.”
See a gallery of images of Canadarm2’s 10 years in the space construction business.
Canadarm2 was installed on the ISS by astronaut Chris Hadfield during the first spacewalk by a Canadian. Canadarm2 has unloaded hundreds of tons of equipment and supplies ferried by the shuttle and assisted almost 100 spacewalks. Endeavour’s last flight later this month will mark Canadarm2’s 28th Shuttle mission.
The Canadian Space Agency says that Canadarm2’s role on the ISS will expand as the orbital lab nears completion: in addition to performing routine maintenance, the robotic arm will make more frequent “cosmic catches,” where it will capture, dock and later release visiting spacecraft, as it has done with the HTV. When the space shuttle retires, reusable commercial spacecraft, like SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital’s Cygnus, will be used to bring supplies and equipment to the ISS. Canadarm2 will capture each of these visiting vehicles. In late 2011 and early 2012, Canadarm2 will capture a series of 6 commercial spacecraft in just 7 months, beginning with the Dragon spacecraft, currently scheduled to arrive in October 2011.
More info on the SSRMS and how it was built:
The Expedition 27 crew on board the ISS pay tribute to 10 years of the SSRMS:
Latest Images from Mercury: Bright Peaks, Swirling Craters and Weird Terrain
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The MESSENGER spacecraft is still happily orbiting Mercury since its orbit insertion in mid-March, and here are some of the latest images sent back from the first rock from the Sun. In this image, the central peaks inside a large crater named Asvaghosa show up as exceptionally bright. The MESSENGER team believes that their high reflectance appears to have been enhanced by the crater rays that cross the area, which originates from another crater. Asvaghosa is 90 km (56 mi.) in diameter, and was targeted for special, high-resolution observations, where MESSENGER’s cameras zero-in for the closest looks possible. While it is not possible to cover all of Mercury’s surface at this high of a resolution during the spacecraft’s one-year mission, several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.
See more below!
What a unique, swirling crater — and this high-resolution view of Bek crater (32 km (20 miles) in diameter) has me trying to imagine scaling the cliffs seen in this incredible vista. The MESSENGER team says that the sharp crater rim is in contrast to its subdued surroundings, where crater ejecta scoured the surface and left behind many secondary craters.
When scientists from the Mariner 10 team first saw this region around Petrarch crater, they called it “weird terrain.” The rugged terrain has an unusual “hilly and lineated” that may have been modified by converging seismic waves and/or ejecta from the formation of the Caloris basin, which is located on the opposite side of the planet. Now, MESSENGER viewed this area under differing lighting conditions than those seen during MESSENGER’s second flyby and Mariner 10’s first pass. The large, smooth area in the upper left is the floor of Petrarch.
See more of the latest images from MESSENGER on the mission’s gallery on their website.
Yuri Gagarin From the Earth to Mars Tribute
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50 Years ago, the dream of human spaceflight opened with the courageous blastoff of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin inside the Vostok 1 spacecraft on April 12, 1961. Gagarin was the first person to orbit the Earth. Less than a month later on May 5. 1961, Astronaut Alan Shepard bravely set forth on America’s first human spaceflight – Freedom 7.
Barely three weeks afterward on May 25, 1961, these momentous events of the early Space Age led directly to Project Apollo and the historic announcement by President Kennedy that the United States “would land a man on the moon” by the end of the 1960’s.
In honor of Yuri Gagarin, NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover explored a small and highly eroded crater dubbed “Vostok Crater” in 2005 during its journey in the Meridian Planum region on the Martian surface. Along the edge of the crater, researchers commanded Opportunity to use the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), to drill into a rock dubbed “Gagarin” on Sols 401 and 402 in March 2005.
I created the poster collage above as a tribute to the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin and his legacy which eventually led to the exploration of Mars by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers
Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004 for a planned 90 sol mission. By the time that Opportunity arrived at Vostok Crater, she had already lasted more than 4 times longer than expected and found that water existed on ancient Mars.
Opportunity is still alive today on Sol 2571, more than 28 times beyond its design lifetime !
Scientists are using the data gathered from “Gagarin Rock” and other locations explored by Opportunity to help elucidate the history of the past flow of liquid water on the red planet and determine whether the wet environmental conditions could ever have supported martian microbial life – past or present.
“The 50th anniversary of mankind’s first fledgling foray into the cosmos should serve as an important reminder of the spirit of adventure and exploration that has propelled mankind throughout history,” said Mars rover science team member James Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, in a statement. “We are a species of explorers; it is encoded into our very DNA.”
“Half a century ago Yuri Gagarin was lofted into a totally unknown, remote and hostile environment and in doing so opened up a new limitless frontier of possibilities for mankind,” Rice added. “A mere 23 days later another brave human, Alan Shepard, climbed aboard a rocket and ventured into the starry abyss. Their courage and vision continue to inspire and lead us into the unknown. Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future it will lead humanity on a voyage to Mars.”
Many people, including myself, were inspired by the Space Race to become scientists and engineers and hope that continues for the next generation of students today.
Read more about Yuri Gagarin and Opportunity in my related stories:
Yuri Gagarin and Vostok 1 Photo Album – 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight
Countdown to Yuri’s Night and the 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight !
Stirring Video Tributes to Yuri Gagarin
Opportunity Rover Completes Exploration of fascinating Santa Maria Crater
Map shows the long journey of Opportunity spanning the Meridiani Planum region from landing in Jan 2004 to recent stop at Santa Maria crater. Opportunity explored Vostok Crater in March 2005, about 1 year after landing as indicted by marker in yellow. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer