Universe Today

February 2, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

A Pure Disk Galaxy Is A Perfect Picture

The bright galaxy NGC 3621, captured here using the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, appears to be a fine example of a classical spiral. But it is in fact rather unusual: it does not have a central bulge and is therefore described as a pure-disc galaxy.

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What could be more eye-catching than a picture perfect pure disk galaxy? In itself it is untouched – not yet combined with a neighboring elliptical or rouge spiral. This is the way we dream of seeing a distant companion… a virgin galaxy awaiting further growth. In a Universe dominated by clusters of galaxies and violent collisions, just how often does a thin, flat plate of stars occur?

According to the ESO Press Release, NGC 3621 is a spiral galaxy about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be seen well in moderate-sized telescopes. This picture was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The data were selected from the ESO archive by Joe DePasquale as part of the Hidden Treasures competition. Joe’s picture of NGC 3621 was ranked fourth in the competition.

This galaxy has a flat pancake shape, indicating that it hasn’t yet come face to face with another galaxy as such a galactic collision would have disturbed the thin disc of stars, creating a small bulge in its center. Most astronomers think that galaxies grow by merging with other galaxies, in a process called hierarchical galaxy formation. Over time, this should create large bulges in the centers of spirals. Recent research, however, has suggested that bulgeless, or pure-disc, spiral galaxies like NGC 3621 are actually fairly common. But just how common?

This galaxy is of further interest to astronomers because its relative proximity allows them to study a wide range of astronomical objects within it, including stellar nurseries, dust clouds, and pulsating stars called Cepheid variables, which astronomers use as distance markers in the Universe. In the late 1990s, NGC 3621 was one of 18 galaxies selected for a Key Project of the Hubble Space Telescope: to observe Cepheid variables and measure the rate of expansion of the Universe to a higher accuracy than had been possible before. In the successful project, 69 Cepheid variables were observed in this galaxy alone.

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This sequence gives a close-up view of the spiral galaxy NGC 3621. This picture was taken using the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. NGC 3621 is about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be well seen in moderate-sized telescopes. The data from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile used to make this image were selected from the ESO archive by Joe DePasquale as part of the Hidden Treasures competition.

One of the fascinating things in viewing this image (for me, at least) is seeing all the star-forming regions on the periphery of the galaxy itself. It reminds me of the NGC objects we see in both M31 and M33 (another pure disk galaxy, too). While smaller backyard telescopes are never going to be able to resolve these kinds of details, I can’t help but wonder what larger, professional level equipment can do on a visual level. While I’m at it, my mind also wonders about what we’ve learned recently of the reliability of Cepheid variables as indicators of distance, too. Is this the end all of information? Nah. Because we’re living in a “pure disk” galaxy. Yeah. You heard me right… The Milky Way fits the model, too!

According to a study done by Juntai Shen (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), et al: “Bulges are commonly believed to form in the dynamical violence of galaxy collisions and mergers. Here we model the stellar kinematics of the Bulge Radial Velocity Assay (BRAVA), and find no sign that the Milky Way contains a classical bulge formed by scrambling pre-existing disks of stars in major mergers. Rather, the bulge appears to be a bar, seen somewhat end-on, as hinted from its asymmetric boxy shape. We construct a simple but realistic N-body model of the Galaxy that self-consistently develops a bar. The bar immediately buckles and thickens in the vertical direction. As seen from the Sun, the result resembles the boxy bulge of our Galaxy. The model fits the BRAVA stellar kinematic data covering the whole bulge strikingly well with no need for a merger-made classical bulge. The bar in our best fit model has a half-length of ~ 4kpc and extends 20 degrees from the Sun-Galactic Center line. We use the new kinematic constraints to show that any classical bulge contribution cannot be larger than ~ 8% of the disk mass. Thus the Galactic bulge is a part of the disk and not a separate component made in a prior merger. Giant, pure-disk galaxies like our own present a major challenge to the standard picture in which galaxy formation is dominated by hierarchical clustering and galaxy mergers.”

Move over, NGC 3621… We’re both commoners.

Many thanks to the European Southern Observatory (ESO) for providing the press release and awesome images!

February 1, 2011December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Cassini Provides Stunning New Looks at Several Moons

Saturn's moon Helene. Credit: NASA//JPL/SSI, image enhanced by Stu Atkinson

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The Cassini spacecraft recently had a mini ‘grand tour’ of several of Saturn’s moons and just sent back some great images of Helene, Mimas, Enceladus and Dione. Above is an amazing view of the Trojan moon Helene, which is only 32 kilometers (20 miles across) and shares an orbit with Dione. Cassini came withing 28,000 km (17,398 miles) of Helene. Thanks to Stu Atkinson for an enhanced version of this raw Cassini image. See one of the original raw images of Helene here.

This image of Saturn's moon Enceladus was obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 31, 2011. It shows the famous jets erupting from the south polar terrain of Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Cassini captured several images of the plumes spewing from Enceladus, and other closeup views of the moon’s terrain.

Closeup of Enceladus from approximately 78,015 kilometers away. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

This view shows the bright, icy Mimas in front of Saturn's delicate rings. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

A crescent Dione was seen by Cassini on January 29, 2011 from approximately 767,922 kilometers away. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

See more of the latest raw images at the Cassini website.

February 1, 2011December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Mission Complete: NEOWISE Concludes Hunt for Near-Earth Objects

During its one-year mission, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mapped the entire sky in infrared light. Among the multitudes of astronomical bodies that have been discovered by the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission are 20 comets. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

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The WISE spacecraft has completed a special mission called NEOWISE, looking for small bodies in the solar system, and has discovered a plethora of previously unknown objects. The NEOWISE mission found 20 comets, more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs). More data from NEOWISE also have the potential to reveal a brown dwarf even closer to us than our closest known star, Proxima Centauri, if such an object does exist. Likewise, if there is a hidden gas-giant planet in the outer reaches of our solar system, data from WISE and NEOWISE could detect it.

“WISE has unearthed a mother lode of amazing sources, and we’re having a great time figuring out their nature,” said Edward (Ned) Wright, the principal investigator of WISE at UCLA.

“Even just one year of observations from the NEOWISE project has significantly increased our catalog of data on NEOs and the other small bodies of the solar systems,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s program executive for the NEO Observation Program.

The NEOs are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 45 million kilometers (28 million miles) of Earth’s path around the sun.

The NEOWISE mission made use of the the WISE spacecraft, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer that launched in December 2009. WISE scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light about 1.5 times. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets close to Earth.

However, in early October 2010, after completing its prime science mission, the spacecraft ran out of the frozen coolant that keeps its instrumentation cold. But two of its four infrared cameras remained operational, which were still optimal for asteroid hunting, so NASA extended the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission by four months, with the primary purpose of hunting for more asteroids and comets, and to finish one complete scan of the main asteroid belt.

Now that NEOWISE has successfully completed a full sweep of the main asteroid belt, the WISE spacecraft will go into hibernation mode and remain in polar orbit around Earth, where it could be called back into service in the future.

In addition to discovering new asteroids and comets, NEOWISE also confirmed the presence of objects in the main belt that had already been detected. In just one year, it observed about 153,000 rocky bodies out of approximately 500,000 known objects. Those include the 33,000 that NEOWISE discovered.

NEOWISE also observed known objects closer and farther to us than the main belt, including roughly 2,000 asteroids that orbit along with Jupiter, hundreds of NEOs and more than 100 comets.

These observations will be key to determining the objects’ sizes and compositions. Visible-light data alone reveal how much sunlight reflects off an asteroid, whereas infrared data is much more directly related to the object’s size. By combining visible and infrared measurements, astronomers also can learn about the compositions of the rocky bodies — for example, whether they are solid or crumbly. The findings will lead to a much-improved picture of the various asteroid populations.

NEOWISE took longer to survey the whole asteroid belt than WISE took to scan the entire sky because most of the asteroids are moving in the same direction around the sun as the spacecraft moves while it orbits Earth. The spacecraft field of view had to catch up to, and lap, the movement of the asteroids in order to see them all.

“You can think of Earth and the asteroids as racehorses moving along in a track,” said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We’re moving along together around the sun, but the main belt asteroids are like horses on the outer part of the track. They take longer to orbit than us, so we eventually lap them.”

NEOWISE data on the asteroid and comet orbits are catalogued at the NASA-funded International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for information about all solar system bodies at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. The science team is analyzing the infrared observations now and will publish new findings in the coming months.

The first batch of observations from the WISE mission will be available to the public and astronomical community in April.

Source: NASA

February 1, 2011April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

First Images from Europe-Wide Giant Radio Observatory

A patch of the sky 15 degrees wide (as large as a thousand full moons) taken in a single shot by LOFAR. The image reveals the stunning variety of objects which surround the quasar 3C196. Credit: ASTRON and LOFAR

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An array of radio telescopes has connected for the first time to its various locations across Europe, creating the largest telescope in the world at almost 1000 km wide. With the connection, the LOFAR telescope has delivered its first ‘radio pictures’. The images of the 3C196 quasar, a black hole in a distant galaxy, were taken in January 2011 by the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT). LOFAR is a network of radio telescopes designed to study the sky at the lowest radio frequencies accessible from the surface of the Earth with unprecedented resolution.

The UK based telescope at Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire, was added to the network, and is the western most ‘telescope station’ in LOFAR.

“This is a very significant event for the LOFAR project and a great demonstration of what the UK is contributing”, said Derek McKay-Bukowski, STFC/SEPnet Project Manager at LOFAR Chilbolton. “The new images are three times sharper than has been previously possible with LOFAR. LOFAR works like a giant zoom lens – the more radio telescopes we add, and the further apart they are, the better the resolution and sensitivity. This means we can see smaller and fainter objects in the sky which will help us to answer exciting questions about cosmology and astrophysics.”

A close up of the quasar 3C196 (Credit: ASTRON and LOFAR)

“This is fantastic”, said Professor Rob Fender, LOFAR-UK Leader from the University of Southampton. “Combining the LOFAR signals together is a very important milestone for this truly international facility. For the first time, the signals from LOFAR radio telescopes in the Netherlands, France, Germany and the United Kingdom have been successfully combined in the LOFAR BlueGene/P supercomputer in the Netherlands. The connection between the Chilbolton telescope and the supercomputer requires an internet speed of 10 gigabits per second – over 1000 times faster than the typical home broadband speeds,” said Professor Fender. “Getting that connection working without a hitch was a great feat requiring close collaboration between STFC, industry, universities around the country, and our international partners.”

“The images show a patch of the sky 15 degrees wide (as large as a thousand full moons) centred on the quasar 3C196”, said Dr Philip Best, Deputy LOFAR-UK leader from the University of Edinburgh. “In visible light, quasar 3C196 (even through the Hubble Space Telescope) is a single point. By adding the international stations like the one at Chilbolton we reveal two main bright spots. This shows how the International LOFAR Telescope will help us learn about distant objects in much more detail.”

LOFAR was designed and built by ASTRON in the Netherlands and is currently being extended across Europe. As well as deep cosmology, LOFAR will be used to monitor the Sun’s activity, study planets, and understand more about lightning and geomagnetic storms. LOFAR will also contribute to UK and European preparations for the planned global next generation radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

Source: STFC

February 1, 2011April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Travel Destination: World’s First Dark Sky Island

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Looking for a great vacation spot with those all-important dark skies for astronomical observing? A small island in the English Channel off the French coast of Normandy might be just what you are looking for. The Channel Island of Sark has been officially recognized for the quality of its night sky by the International Dark-sky Association (IDA), who have designated it as the world’s first dark sky island, the latest in a select group of dark sky places around the world.

What makes the Sark skies so dark? The island has no public street lighting, there are no paved roads and cars, so effectively, there is no light pollution in the skies. Those who have been there say the night sky is very dark, with the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon, meteors streaking overhead, and countless stars on display.

The people who live there have made dark skies one of their priorities. Through a long process of community consultation, a comprehensive lighting management plan was created by Jim Patterson of the Institute of Lighting Engineers, and many local residents and businesses have altered their lighting to make them more dark sky friendly, ensuring that as little light as possible spills upwards where it can drown out starlight.

Roger Davies, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said, “This is a great achievement for Sark. People around the world are become increasingly fascinated by astronomy as we discover more about our universe, and the creation of the world’s first dark sky island in the British Isles can only help to increase that appetite. I hope this leads to many more people experiencing the wonders of a truly dark sky.”

For more information on Sark, see the island’s website.

For more information on the International Dark-sky association: http://www.darksky.org/

Source: Royal Observatory Greenwich

February 1, 2011April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

All-Student Crew Lands at Mars Research Station

The all-student crew 99 at the Mars Desert Research Station. Credit: MDRS

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Headline from the future? Actually, it’s happening now, although not quite on Mars, but about as close as humans can currently get. Six college students are the latest crew to embark on a two-week stint at the Mars Desert Research Station, a simulated Mars habitat set up by the Mars Society located in the San Rafael Swell of Utah. Looking across the very Mars-like red, rocky, panoramic vistas outside the habitat, participants might think they are on the Red Planet. And this latest crew, the 99th for MDRS, will be testing a microbial detection system and an EVA optimization method using an iPad.

The MDRS Campus in Utah, with the Habitat, observatory and greenhab.

The students — all graduate students or about to be – are from different colleges but came together in the summer of 2010 at the NASA Academy at the Ames Research Center in California, a 10-week immersive research internship.

“At the NASA Academy, we worked on a group project called LAMBDA – the Life and Microbial Detection Apparatus,” participant Max Fagin, from Dartmouth University, told Universe Today. “We wanted to do some follow-up work, in looking at microbial fuel cells, which run off the metabolic activity of bacteria — technology that could be applied to sewage reclamation plants in order to generate power.”

Fagin said the technology has been around a while, but they are trying to adapt it to detect microbes in soil samples, similar to what the Viking mission did in the 1970’s.

“We put a sample into the device and based on the power that is generated you can determine whether that power is coming from microbial activity or organic activity,” Fagin said.

They finished the summer internship with a good theoretical analysis and a non-working prototype, but wanted to field test their research, as well as continue work on other individual projects.

Donna Viola, a senior undergraduate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, had been on two crew rotations on the MDRS previously and suggested to her fellow NASA Academy team that they apply as a group to the MDRS where they could test LAMBDA in actual conditions, with actual soil samples in the field where there may be potentially extremophile forms of life to find.

The team was accepted and began their crew rotation at MDRS on January 29. They will be there until February 12, all the while in complete Mars simulation. Crew members must wear a space suit when going outside the Habitat; they eat only space-travel type food (along with vegetables grown on-site in a greenhouse); power is provided by batteries or a power generation system; and there is also a water recycling system.

Viola is the Commander, Heidi Beemer is the team geologist and Executive Commander, Kevin Newman is the Engineer, Andie Gilkey is the team scientist and Health and Safety Officer, Chief Biologist, Sukrit Ranjan is the team astronomer and Fagin is the EVA Engineer.

See the crew biographies.

14 students total were part of the NASA Ames Academy, and even though only 6 are at the MDRS, the rest are serving as ground and mission support.

The last six weeks the team has been updating the LAMBDA device and making it field worthy, integrating it with the control system, and testing it.

While at MDRS, the crew has a few other projects, such as working on a proposed combination EVA planner and EVA monitor that runs on an iPad. “It monitors the astronauts’ health, vital signs, how much energy they are consuming, whether they should speed up or slow down – it’s basically an EVA optimizer,” Fagin said.

The Musk Observatory located at the Mars Desert Research Station

They will also fly a payload on a high altitude balloon that tests the feasibility of using balloon borne payloads on Mars. “There are no FAA regulations on Mars, so on Mars you could build a weather station on a balloon – such as on a 10 km tether and reel it in and out to get very nice vertical cuts of the atmospheric profiles of wind velocity and direction and dust profiles,” Fagin explained. “And also you could do astronomy by launching a small telescope. But we can’t do the tether part because they are here on Earth so we’ll be using a balloon and have to retrieve it.” They will also be flying a generic meteorological payloads and doing astronomical projects at the observatory on site, the Musk Observatory, which has a 14-inch telescope.

During their stay, the crew is required to send daily reports and dispatches from the commander, engineers, crew scientists, and journalists through the MDRS website which provides updates on the status of science experiments, updates on crew health and morale, and on the habitat and how it is faring. There is also a live webcam of different parts of the station.

MDRS is the second research station to be built by the Mars Society. The first was the Arctic station (FMARS) on Devon Island, built in 2000. Stations to be built in Europe (European Mars Analog Research Station / Euro MARS) and Australia (Australia Mars Analog Research Station / MARS Oz) are currently in the planning stages.

The goal of these analog research stations is to develop key knowledge, field tactics and equipment needed to prepare for the human exploration of Mars, testing habitat design features and tools, and to assess crew selection protocols. Utah is much warmer than Mars, the desert location is optimal because of its Mars-like terrain and appearance.

Find out more information on participating in the MDRS.

The first dispatches from the LAMBDA crew report how they are getting acclimated to the habitat and the equipment, as well as preparing for doing their actual science research.

Fagin said without the NASA Academy at Ames, this group of students wouldn’t be together at the MDRS today.

“This grew out of everything we did at the NASA Academy,” he said. “Without those experiences we would have no idea how to approach the situation, wouldn’t understand the science or engineering that needs to go into such a project, and certainly wouldn’t have the team-working abilities to do this if we hadn’t developed them while we were at the NASA Academy.”

Learn more about the NASA Ames Academy.

Universe Today hopes to provide an update on the LAMBDA crew’s activities.

February 1, 2011December 24, 2015 by Mark Mortimer

The Wright Stuff

Space holds the future of our species. While we’ve been flying for just barely over a century, we’ve also been rocketing upward for nearly as long. As these technologies advanced so did related opportunities. Space tourism is one such and Derek Webber in his book “The Wright Stuff– The Century of Effort Behind Your Ticket to Space” shows how it was such a logical progression and holds such promise from where we stand today. Through his words we see how private citizens may soon be able to enjoy and contribute to our specie’s future.

The Wright brothers first flew their human controlled aircraft in December of 1903. The author uses this as the starting point and the namesake of his book. In a lively, active voice he carries the reader along a quick, somewhat routine history of flight and rocketry. However, where most historical journeys, especially in the field of aerospace, focus upon events and technology this book espouses the individual or sometimes a couple as with the brothers Wright.

In somewhat jocular fashion, the author anoints a ‘Wright Stuff Award’ to individuals that he thinks have most significantly contributed to space tourism. Some recipients are obvious such as the Wright brothers and Sergei Korolev who respectively advanced flight and rocketry. Other recipients may cause a few surprises such as former President George Bush and Chesley Bonestell. Yet, it is clear the author’s intent is to show that major contributions to the field of space tourism have arisen from a disparate source of promoters and nurturers.

The real relevance of the book comes with its final chapter entitled Tourists. In it, the author introduces the reader to non-government individuals who have taken advantage of a spare seat or two and used government equipment, principally the Soyuz spacecraft, to journey into space. Their flights were principally for personal pleasure. The first few were sponsored. Most of the later used personal fortunes. Nearly all are still alive today. These, the book says, are the original tourists and they are the ones shown to be as much benefactors as champions of human space flight.

While the early part of this book stressed the individual and their accomplishments, the very last section extends tourism into the future. In it, the author runs through a cacophony of current companies, developers and pioneers who are vibrantly competing against each other to offer reasonable and attractive space travel packages. Some seem to have much promise such as Virgin Space with its new space port and White Knight 2 vehicle. Others have just started test flights while still others are in the planning stages. All however show themselves to be part of a busy business sector aiming to offer, at a reasonable cost, a few hours travel into or very close to space.

With the historical progression and the review of current organizations, the
author has shown that space tourism has solid groundwork and that supporting infrastructure continues to flourish. The book doesn’t however address some base questions. The principle one is that so much of the current industry is still Earth focused. People fly up to the edge of space, see the curvature of the Earth and fly back down. As such it would be a small step in moving our species spaceward but space travel would still be a long way down the road. As well, the book doesn’t deal with much substantiation of the business case for space tourism. There is mention of the Commission on the Future of the US Aerospace Industry. But, placing the future of our species at the vagaries of discretionary spending seems at best opportunistic. Thus while the book shows progress, the progress may be fleeting rather than a permanent capability.

This book does present a brash, bold and optimistic view of space tourism. Derek Webber’s “The Wright Stuff– The Century of Effort Behind Your Ticket to Space” looks at positive contributions through humankind’s brief history of flight and insights a positive feel into space tourism. There would be no surprise if after reading this book, the reader began saving for their own future ride into space.

Click here to read more reviews or buy this book from Amazon.com.

January 31, 2011December 24, 2015 by Jason Rhian

Re-Discovery; Orbiter makes second trip out to the launch pad for STS-133

Discovery, resplendent in her xenon glow, heads to the launch pad for her date with history. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

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CAPE CANAVERAL – Space shuttle Discovery was wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on one of the massive crawler-transporters toward launch complex 39A – and its final mission – STS-133, currently scheduled for launch on February 24 at 4:50 p.m. EST (21:50 GMT). This marks the second trip out to the launch pad for Discovery; the orbiter had to be taken back to the VAB for scans and repairs.

Discovery was first wheeled out to LC 39A on Sept. 20, 2010. The Nov. 5 launch attempt was aborted due to a leaky Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP). When engineers were checking out this problem, they discovered another, a section of popped up foam on the shuttle’s external tank. Foam has been a concern ever since a briefcase-sized piece of foam led to the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

1174122029_tnzMx-L — In this image, Discovery rolls past the turn basin at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo Credit Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

Further inspection showed that the cracks extended all the way down to the aluminum skin of the external tank. As engineers looked further more and more of these cracks were discovered around what is known as the “intertank” region. Engineers did what repairs that they could out at the launch pad. Then the large, orange tank was filled with the super-cooled fuel that powers the shuttle into orbit. When tanking occurs, the tank can shrink by as much as half-an-inch.

Discovery, bathed in xenon lights heads toward her date with history. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian

With the realization that this shrinkage could severely impact the cracks, 89 sensors were placed around this area to monitor the effect of fueling the external tank. To properly check any potential impact the tanking had, scans would need to be conducted and that meant a trip back to the VAB. So Discovery was rolled back to the VAB for X-Rays and other scans.

Once the area was given a thorough inspection, more cracks were found and further repairs were required. But during this time NASA had discovered what was causing these small cracks to occur and Discovery was set to head back out to the launch pad for her date with history.

Reflected in the turn basin, the space shuttle Discovery heads off into the distance. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian

Discovery began its slow methodical trek out to the launch pad at 8 p.m. EDT. The trip takes several hours to reach its destination, as the pondering crawler-transporter that hauls the spacecraft out to the launch pad moves at a blistering one mile an hour.

Discovery’s final mission is a resupply flight to the International Space Station. The orbiter will ferry a modified cargo carrier, the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module along with much-needed supplies and the first human-like robot to fly into space – Robonaut-2. The crew consists of commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Michael Barratt, Alvin Drew, Nicole Stott and Steve Bowen.

Bowen is a last-minute replacement for Tim Kopra, who broke his hip in a bicycle accident earlier this month.

Shuttle Discovery makes her way to launch complex 39A for her upcoming launch of the STS-133 crew to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian

Discovery inside the VAB before rollout. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today. — Discovery inside the VAB before rollout. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today

Discovery heading to the launchpad. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today — Discovery heading to the launchpad on January 31, 2011. Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today

January 31, 2011December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Satellite View: Huge Storm Heads Across the US

The GOES-13 satellite captured this image on Jan. 31, 2011 of a major winter storm covering a large portion of the US. Image Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project

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The roads are a skating rink where I live! This visible image was captured by the GOES-13 satellite on January 31, 2011 and it shows the low pressure area bringing snowfall to the Midwest US. Heavy snow is expected today in portions of northern Iowa, southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Snowfall from the system extends from Michigan west to Montana, Idaho, Utah and Arizona. A mix of rain and snow also stretches into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and it is all moving east. This system appears to be as large as 1/3rd of the Continental U.S.

Meanwhile, in another hemisphere on the other side of the world a huge tropical cyclone threatens parts of Australia that has already been suffering from flooding.

of Tropical Cyclone Yasi taken at 6:29 a.m. PST (9:29 a.m. EST) on Jan. 31, 2011. Areas colored purple represent the storm's coldest cloud-top temperatures and areas of heaviest precipitation. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The northeastern Australian state of Queensland is now bracing for what could become one of the largest tropical cyclones the state has ever seen.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this infrared image of Yasi on Jan. 31, 2011, at 6:29 a.m. PST (9:29 a.m. EST). The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Yasi’s cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions.

The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red.

At the approximate time this image was taken, Yasi had maximum sustained winds near 90 knots (166 kilometers per hour, or 103 mph), equivalent to a Category Two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. It was centered about 1,400 kilometers (875 miles) east of Cairns, Australia, moving west at about 19 knots per hour (35 kilometers per hour, or 22 mph). Cyclone-force winds extend out to 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the center.

Yasi is forecast to move west, then southwestward, into an area of low vertical wind shear (strong wind shear can weaken a storm). Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Yasi to continue to strengthen over the next 36 hours. The Center forecasts a landfall just south of Cairns as a large 100-plus knot-per-hour (185 kilometers per hour, or 115 mph) system by around midnight local time on Wednesday, Feb. 2.

Sources: JPL, NASA Earth Observatory

January 31, 2011December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

More Space Anniversaries: Apollo 14 and Ham

Chimpanzee Ham after the successful Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) suborbital flight. Credit: NASA

Forty years ago today, the Apollo 14 crew launched on their Saturn V rocket, the 6th human flight to the Moon and the third that landed. Following the heart-stopping problems of Apollo 13, almost ten months elapsed before Commander Alan Shepard (the first American in space), Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell set off on January 31, 1971. They reached the Moon on February 5, and Shepard and Mitchell walked the Fra Mauro highlands, originally been the target of the aborted Apollo 13 mission. The two astronauts had to scrap a planned rock-collecting trip to the 1,000 foot wide Cone Crater when they became disoriented and almost got lost. Interestingly, recent images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed they were only a little over 30 yards from the crater’s rim when they gave up the search. But they did have many successes as well.

You can read more about Apollo 14 on this NASA website.

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Also on this date 50 years ago was the flight that made Alan Shepard’s suborbital Mercury flight possible: the Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) mission carrying Ham, a four-year-old male chimpanzee. The suborbital flight lasted a total of 16 minutes and 39 seconds, and carried the spacecraft 422 nautical miles from the launch site at Cape Canaveral, FL, reaching a maximum altitude of 157 statute miles. The flight reached all its objectives, paving the way for human flights.

When you think about it, 10 years from Ham to Apollo 14 is pretty amazing. But we’re not likely to ever see anything like that again.