How did you do in last week’s Universe Puzzle? Did you figure out an answer, but didn’t write up your reasons why it was the best?
Do you enjoy these puzzles? What do you particularly like? Dislike? Would like to see changed? Would like to see more of? Let me know please!
Once again, this week’s puzzle requires you to cudgel your brains a bit and do some lateral thinking (five minutes spent googling likely won’t be enough). But, as with all Universe Puzzles, this is a puzzle on a “Universal” topic – astronomy and astronomers; space, satellites, missions, and astronauts; planets, moons, telescopes, and so on.
Say you’re at a friend’s place for a party. They’re playing some 60’s rock music, and a catchy song comes round. You wonder who the band is, and someone says “it’s the most famous 60’s band that you’ve never heard of!” (perhaps it’s Herman’s Hermits).
Well, this week’s Universe Puzzle is:
Who is the most famous astronaut you’ve never heard of?
And for ‘astronaut’ let’s include cosmonauts, taikonauts, and so on.
Be sure to explain your pick.
Update: answer posted below.
There certainly is not just one best answer!
You, dear commenters, are the judges: which of the answers below do you think is the best?
Universe Puzzle will be taking a bit of break, so there won’t be one next week. However, I really would appreciate your feedback: which of the 13 puzzles so far did you most like? which did you least like? what sort of puzzles would you like to see in future?
The STS-132 crew arrived Monday evening at Kennedy Space Center. Image credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.
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As the space shuttle crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center for Thursday’s scheduled launch of the STS-132 mission, already on board space shuttle Atlantis is a piece of physicist Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree. A 4-inch-long wood sample from the original tree that supposedly inspired Newton’s theory of gravity, along with a picture of Newton, will be taken into orbit by British-born astronaut Piers Sellers, a member of the crew for this next mission to the International Space Station. The wood is part of the collection of the Royal Society archives in London, and will be returned there following the flight. “We’re delighted to take this piece of Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree to orbit,” said Sellers in an article from AFP. “While it’s up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn’t fall.”
*Of course, that is not quite correct.
The piece of Newton’s tree is will still be experiencing gravity, and in fact, will be falling the entire time it is in orbit. It will be in free fall along with the shuttle and space station as it orbits the Earth. A free-falling object falls under the sole influence of gravity, and in the case of the shuttle (or any object in orbit), its orbital motion keeps it moving fast enough that it doesn’t fall back to Earth — unless its acceleration changes.
SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510. Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
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Like a location from Star Wars, this galaxy cluster is far, far away and with origins a long, long time ago. With the ungainly name of SXDF-XCLJ0218-0510, this cluster is actually the most distant cluster of galaxies ever seen. It is a whopping 9.6 billion light years away, and X-ray and infrared observations show that the cluster hosts predominantly old, massive galaxies. This means the galaxies formed when the universe was still very young, so finding this cluster and being able to see it is providing new information not only about early galaxy evolution but also about history of the universe as a whole.
An international team of astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the University of Tokyo and the Kyoto University discovered this cluster using the Subaru telescope along with the XMM-Newton space observatory to look in different wavelengths.
Using the Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrometer (MOIRCS) on the Subaru telescope, the team was able to look in near-infrared wavelengths, where the galaxies are most luminous.
“The MOIRCS instrument has an extremely powerful capability of measuring distances to galaxies. This is what made our challenging observation possible,” said Masayuki Tanaka from the University of Tokyo. “Although we confirmed only several massive galaxies at that distance, there is convincing evidence that the cluster is a real, gravitationally bound cluster.”
Like a contour map, the arrows in the image above indicate galaxies that are likely located at the same distance, clustered around the center of the image. The contours indicate the X-ray emission of the cluster. Galaxies with confirmed distance measurements of 9.6 billion light years are circled. The combination of the X-ray detection and the collection of massive galaxies unequivocally proves a real, gravitationally bound cluster.
That the individual galaxies are indeed held together by gravity is confirmed by observations in a very different wavelength regime: The matter between the galaxies in clusters is heated to extreme temperatures and emits light at much shorter wavelengths than visible to the human eye. The team therefore used the XMM-Newton space observatory to look for this radiation in X-rays.
“Despite the difficulties in collecting X-ray photons with a small effective telescope size similar to the size of a backyard telescope, we detected a clear signature of hot gas in the cluster,” said Alexis Finoguenov from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics.
The combination of these different observations in what are invisible wavelengths to the human eye led to the pioneering discovery of the galaxy cluster at a distance of 9.6 billion light years – some 400 million light years further into the past than the previously most distant cluster known.
An analysis of the data collected about the individual galaxies shows that the cluster contains already an abundance of evolved, massive galaxies that formed some two billion years earlier. As the dynamical processes for galaxy aging are slow, presence of these galaxies requires the cluster assembly through merger of massive galaxy groups, each nourishing its dominant galaxy. The cluster is therefore an ideal laboratory for studying the evolution of galaxies, when the universe was only about a third of its present age.
As distant galaxy clusters are also important tracers of the large scale structure and primordial density fluctuations in the universe, similar observations in the future will lead to important information for cosmologists. The results obtained so far demonstrate that current near infrared facilities are capable of providing a detailed analysis of distant galaxy populations and that the combination with X-ray data is a powerful new tool. The team therefore is continuing the search for more distant clusters.
Big Impact-Triggered Dust Avalanche seen by the HIRSE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (ESP_017229_2110) Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
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The HiRISE team from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured a few avalanches on Mars, some actually while in progress. But this latest landslide is a little different. Above is a dust avalanche that created a streak on the slopes of Olympus Mons, the solar system’s largest volcano. While scientists believe some of the previous avalanches seen on Mars occur due to the expansion and contraction of ice from seasonal temperature differences, this one was caused by an impact event. This HiRISE image was taken on March 31, 2010 and reveals a small, pristine impact crater (blue arrow). “It shows a fuzzy source area, which resembles the airblast patterns seen at many other recent impact sites,” said Alfred McEwen, Principal Investigator for HiRISE. “The crater is only about 4.5 meters across, meaning the bolide was only about a half a meter wide, so it didn’t take much to trigger this landslide.”
CTX images from Nov. 18, 2007 and Feb. 14, 2010. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
MRO’s Context Camera (CTX) took an image of this area on Nov. 18, 2007 (left) and the adjacent image on Feb. 14, 2010, which shows a large new avalanche. HiRISE then took the follow-up image in March. McEwen said slope streaks , or dust avalanches are common on Mars, but this one is unusually wide and began from an unusual extended or “fuzzy” source area. This made HiRISE team conclude that an impact event occurred sometime between the dates of the CTX images and triggered the large dust avalanche.
“Sometimes, these dust avalanches are easily triggered,” McEwen told Universe Today. “We’ve seen them caused just by dust devils. The dark area was created by an atmospheric blast associated with the impact event, with the bolide coming in at about 10 km per second that distributes the dust. You can see that the upper most fresh dust on the surface is bright, so this landslide disturbed either bare substrate or compacted, older dust.
Color image of the impact-triggered dust avalanche. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Planetary scientists say that landslides or avalanches on Mars can also be caused by small Mars-quakes or the sublimation of carbon dioxide frost which dislodges rocks.
Sources: HiRISE, phone conversation with Alfred McEwen.
Saturn's rings, made dark in part as the planet casts its shadow across them, cut a striking figure before Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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There’s nothing up the sleeves of the Cassini imaging team in this image; it is real! Is the moon Titan being cut in half by Saturn’s rings? What is actually happening here is that the middle part of the rings are made dark as Saturn casts its shadow across them. Cassini was just in the right place at the right time, making it appear as though Titan is being sliced in half! The night side of the planet is to the left, out of the frame of the image. Illuminated Titan can be seen above, below and through gaps in the rings. Click the image for a larger version.
As an added benefit in this shot, Mimas (396 kilometers, 246 miles across) is near the bottom of the image, and Atlas (30 kilometers, 19 miles across) can barely be detected near the thin F ring just above the center right of the image. Lit terrain seen here is the area between the leading hemisphere and Saturn-facing side of Titan (5,150 kilometers, 3,200 miles across). This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.
Below are a few more magical images from Cassini:
Here the moon Enceladus appears strung along a wispy ring of Saturn, likely the G ring. Look close and Enceladus’ plumes are visible, too.
Enceladus and a wispy ring. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Pandora and Epimetheus sit on Saturn's rings. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Two of Saturn’s small moons appear to be sitting on Satun’s thin F ring in this image.
From the CICLOPS website:
Pandora (81 kilometers, 50 miles across) is on the left, and Epimetheus (113 kilometers, 70 miles across) is on the right. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Both moons are closer to Cassini than the rings are. Pandora is slightly closer to Cassini than Epimetheus here.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 23, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (808,000 miles) from Pandora and Epimetheus. Image scale is 8 kilometers (5 miles) per pixel.
The latest from Spaceflightnow.com’s TWIS team: Counting down to the last scheduled launch of shuttle Atlantis, a space robot race between the U.S. and Japan, plans to bring a piece of Mars to Earth, and attack of the Zombie Sat!
We keep finding all these exoplanets. Our detection methods still only pick out the bigger ones, but we’re getting better at this all the time. One day in the not-too-distant future it is conceivable that we will find one with a surface gravity in the 1G range – orbiting its star in, what we anthropomorphically call, the Goldilocks zone where water can exist in liquid phase.
So let’s say we find such a planet and then direct all our SETI gear towards it. We start detecting faint morse-code like beeps – inscrutable, but clearly of artificial origin. Knowing us, we’ll send out a probe. Knowing us, there will be a letter campaign demanding that we adhere to the Prime Directive and consequently this deep space probe will include some newly developed cloaking technology, so that it will arrive at the Goldilocks planet invisible and undetectable.
The probe takes quite a while to get there and, in transit, receives indications that the alien civilization is steadily advancing its technology as black and white sitcoms start coming through – and as all that is relayed back to us we are able to begin translating their communications into a range of ‘dialects’.
By the time the probe has arrived and settles into an invisible orbit, it’s apparent a problem is emerging on the planet. Many of its inhabitants have begun expressing concern that their advancing technology is beginning to have planetary effects, with respect to land clearing and atmospheric carbon loading.
From our distant and detached viewpoint we are able to see that anyone on the planet who thinks they live in a stable and unchanging environment just isn’t paying attention. There was a volcano just the other week and their geologists keep finding ancient impact craters which have revised whole ecosystems in their planet’s past.
It becomes apparent that the planet’s inhabitants are too close the issues to be able to make a dispassionate assessment about what’s happening – or what to do about it. They are right that their technological advancement has bumped up the CO2 levels from 280ppm to over 380ppm within only 150 years – and to a level much higher than anything detectable in their ice core data, which goes back half a million years. But that’s about where the definitive data ends.
Credit: Rahstorf. NASA data is from the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis. Hadley Centre data is from the Met Office Hadley Centre, UK.
Advocates for change draw graphs showing temperatures are rising, while conservatives argue this is just cherry-picking data from narrow time periods. After all, a brief rise might be lost in the background noise of a longer monitoring period – and just how reliable is 150 year old data anyway? Other more pragmatic individuals point to the benefits gained from their advanced technology, noting that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet (or at least the equivalent alien cuisine).
Back on Earth our future selves smile wryly, having seen it all before. As well as interstellar probes and cloaking devices, we have developed a reliable form of Asimovian psychohistory. With this, it’s easy enough to calculate that the statistical probability of a global population adopting a coordinated risk management strategy in the absence of definitive, face-slapping evidence of an approaching calamity is exactly (datum removed to prevent corrupting the timeline).
Our readers had questions about our series “13 Things That Saved Apollo 13,” and NASA engineer Jerry Woodfill has graciously answered them. Below is the final round of Q & A with Jerry; but if you missed them, here are part 1 and part 2. Again, our sincere thanks to Jerry Woodfill for not only answering all these questions — in great detail — but for being the impetus and inspiration of the entire series to help us all celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13.
Question from Dennis Cottle: I am wondering how much information was held back from one division to another in NASA regarding safety aspects of vehicles and for that matter the entire mission . In other words did the left hand have any idea what the right hand was doing in regards to safety?
Jerry Woodfill: One of the greatest achievements of Apollo was the management structure, i.e., how a program involving three main NASA Centers (Manned Spacecraft Center, Marshall Spaceflight Center, and Kennedy Space Center) with dozens of divisions among their civil servants and contractors could achieve a lunar landing. No, I didn’t experience any “holding back of safety information”, but I can vouch for the idea that the right hand DID KNOW what the left hand was doing.
I contend that this is the case because of my experience as the Caution and Warning Project Engineer for both the Command/Service Module and the Lunar Module. Despite Universe Today granting me the unspeakable privilege of explaining Apollo 13, at the time (1965-1972), I was a very-very low level engineer. Yet, when it came to how the management system regarded my opinion and input, I was treated with the same respect and consideration as the Apollo Program Manager. This was the brilliance of the program, intimately involving everyone’s contribution. Such a posture led to ferreting out safety issues. If someone was trying to hide something, another group would relish the opportunity to shine a laser light on the item.
Here are examples: I remember sitting at my desk talking by phone with a Grumman engineer about the status of the lander’s warning electronics. When I looked up, there was Apollo astronaut Jack Lousma standing before me. Jack had a question about one of the caution and warning alarms. On another occasion, the head of the entire Lunar Lander Project at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Owen Morris, called me directly asking how the warning system detected a “run-away” thruster. (Owen was at least five levels above my station at the Manned Spacecraft Center.) Not only do these examples speak to the openness of the Apollo teaming effort, they also reveal how intimately knowledgeable were all levels of workers, from Astronaut to Program Manager. The example of the Apollo 13 team’s fix of the CO2 filter problem, given in the duct tape account, likewise demonstrates the teamwork. Any of us might be consulted to assist. There was nothing hidden from one-another.
I always felt Grumman got a “bad rap” in the movie “Apollo 13” which was altogether undeserved. This regarded the scene about using the descent engine in a novel way for the rescue. Contrary to that scene, the Grumman guys were altogether thorough, cooperative, and excellent engineers…proactive to almost a fault. I’d have treated that scene differently from my experience with the Bethpage GAEC engineers.
Let me cite another example. After the Apollo One tragedy, I was asked to lead a NASA/Grumman team to review what changes need be made to the lander’s warning system. I’d travel to Long Island once a week to meet with the instrumentation group. Earlier, I’d had this thought about one of the Caution and Warning alarms, the Landing Radar Temperature alarm. The way the sensor functioned might cause it to ring a nuisance alarm. This might occur during Armstrong and Aldrin’s moon-walk, leaving the lander unoccupied. My concern was, if the thermal environmental near that sensor behaved “inappropriately”, the alarm would sound, aborting the EVA.
Rushing back to the LM, they’d discover a system no longer used after touchdown had sounded an alarm. This would have wasted, perhaps, an hour of their time. (Can you imagine what an hour of EVA time was worth on Apollo 11’s brief two and one-half hour walk?) I simply mentioned this to Jimmy Riorden, the Grumman manager. He set his guys to work, and they verified my concern. Furthermore, they suggested and implemented a fix, saving the program millions of dollars based on Armstrong and Aldrin’s hourly moonwalk cost. That’s the kind of cooperation that I experienced working with Grumman. This was the norm, not an exception.
Question from ND: To quote from the article, part 5: “While a fix had been planned for Apollo 14, time did not permit its implementation on Apollo 13’s Saturn V.”
But did it really need to be the hindsight of the Apollo 13 launch to know that this was a dangerous thing to do? Was delaying the Apollo 13 launch not an option?
Jerry Woodfill: I’m trying to be generous in giving opinions about those things which proved to be detrimental to Apollo. This is because I wasn’t involved in many of the situations I’ve been asked to discuss. So my answer should be classified as conjecture. In such cases, I’m trying to share examples from my experience where I made a decision which later proved to be the wrong one. The same mechanism which led to Apollo 13’s Oxygen Tank’s explosion probably speaks to your question. Nancy detailed all the series of WRONG THINGS, which, at the time, were considered to be the RIGHT THINGS which led to the explosion.
Yes, in looking back, for sure, the better thing, as you suggest, would be fix the problem and delay the launch. Yet, I’m sure those who made the decision to press forward believed they were justified in moving forward. I have saved most of my notes from day-to-day issues I dealt with on the lander’s warning system from 1966 forward. There are scores of the kinds of decisions I approved. These are like the decision to postpone the pogo fix until Apollo 14.
In fact, the configurations for my warning system differed for LM-1, LM-2, and LM-3 and subsequent landers. LM-5 landed on the Moon. This was the nature of Apollo engineering. I can still review each decision I made with regard to delaying an improvement. Sometimes it was based on meeting a schedule. In other instances, an analysis revealed the problem simply had no impact on the type of mission the LM would have.
Trying to reconstruct my justifications for a system I knew intimately is extremely difficult, even with my notes. So I really can’t confidently address your question other than to say it was probably based on the same kinds of decisions I made, whether good or bad. However, I do recall researching the second stage POGO problem months ago which led to it being included among the “13 Things…” Below is some of what I found:
Mitigating Pogo on Liquid-Fueled Rockets, Aerospace Corporation Crosslink magazine, Winter 2004 edition : Later missions included anti-pogo modifications, which had been under development since before Apollo 13, that solved the problem. The modifications were the addition of a helium gas reservoir in the center engine liquid oxygen line to dampen pressure oscillations in the line, plus an automatic cutoff for the center engine in case this failed, and simplified propellant valves on all five second-stage engines.
Perhaps, the following sentence in the above summary is the explanation: “…but on Apollo 13 (POGO) had been amplified by an unexpected interaction with the cavitation in the turbo-pumps.”
Question from Cydonia: I always thought, that idea to use SPS and turn 13 around right after explosion was fiction of Apollo 13 movie. Somebody could explain to me, how could SPS be used to do that? They would need to change delta v for some 20 km/s! Doesn’t they?They used whole Saturn V to get half of that. What’s the math to make such maneuver possible?
Jerry Woodfill: Cydonia, recently an excellent paper (referenced in Part 6 of “13 things…) touched briefly on your question. Here is the link to that paper.
Here is information from the paper referring to your question:
B. Direct Return to Earth.
Soon after the incident Mission Control personnel examined direct return to Earth aborts that did not include a lunar fly-by. These burns had to be performed with the SM SPS before ~61 hours GET, when the spacecraft entered the lunar sphere of gravitational influence. Landings in both the Pacific and Atlantic could be made. A direct return to Earth (no lunar fly-by) with a landing at 118 hours GET could only be accomplished by jettisoning the LM and performing a 6,079 foot/second SM SPS burn (Table 2). Abort maneuver data for this burn was already on-board the spacecraft as a part of normal mission procedures. However, this option was unacceptable due to possible damage to the SPS and the necessity of using LM systems and consumables (power, water, oxygen, etc.) for crew survival.
Question from G2309: I’m really enjoying these posts I’ve always found the story fascinating. But what I don’t understand why they didn’t just replace the damaged tank rather than repair it. I understand the tank must be expensive but not compared to the cost of a failed space flight. ‘they couldn’t detect what damage might have occurred on the inside so why take the risk?
Jerry Woodfill: Since Tank 2, despite being “jarred,” exhibited no significant problems in retests, (see the four items below) the consensus was no damage was done. Below are the findings of the NASA Apollo 13 Investigation. I’ve included them as the justification given to your question about “why take the risk?” Indeed, on hindsight, the answer would be in the negative, i.e., don’t take the risk.
1.) It was decided that if the tank could be filled, the leak in the fill line would not be a problem in flight, since it was felt that even a loose tube resulting in an electrical short between the capacitance plates of the quantity gage would result in an energy level too low to cause any other damage.
2.) Replacement of the oxygen shelf in the CM would have been difficult and would have taken at least 45 hours. In addition, shelf replacement would have had the potential of damaging or degrading other elements of the SM in the course of replacement activity. Therefore, the decision was made to test the ability to fill oxygen tank no. 2 on March 30, 1970, twelve days prior to the scheduled Saturday, April 11, launch, so as to be in a position to decide on shelf replacement well before the launch date. Accordingly, flow tests with GOX were run on oxygen tank no. 2 and on oxygen tank no. 1 for comparison. No problems were encountered, and the flow rates in the two tanks were similar. In addition, Beech was asked to test the electrical energy level reached in the event ofa short circuit between plates of the quantity probe capacitance gage. This test showed that very low energy levels would result. On the filling test, oxygen tanks no. 1 and no. 2 were filled with LOX to about 20 percent of capacity on March 30 with no difficulty. Tank no. 1 emptied in the normal manner, but emptying oxygen tank no. 2 again required pressure cycling with the heaters turned on 4-22
3.) As the launch date approached, the oxygen tank no. 2 detanking problem was considered by the Apollo organization. At this point, the “shelf drop” incident on October 21, 1968, at NR was not considered and it was felt that the apparently normal de-tanking which had occurred in 1967 at Beech was not pertinent because it was believed that a different procedure was used by Beech. In fact, however, the last portion of the procedure was quite similar, although a slightly lower GOX pressure was utilized.
4.) Throughout these considerations, which involved technical and management personnel of KSC, MSC, NR, Beech, and NASA Headquarters, emphasis was directed toward the possibility and consequences of a loose fill tube; very little attention was paid to the extended operation of heaters and fans except to note that they apparently operated during and after the detanking sequences. Many of the principals in the discussions were not aware of the extended heater operations. Those that did know the details of the procedure did not consider the possibility of damage due to excessive heat within the tank, and therefore did not advise management officials of any possible consequences of the unusually long heater operations.
Question from Spoodle 58: In your opinion, as you have built the equipment to get man into space, do you think we as a species are being too cautious in our approach to exploring space? Or are we afraid of incidents like Apollo 13 happening again or worse like the shuttle Columbia, or do you think we should just get out there like the explorers of Earth in middle ages, take on space, take on the risk of being in space not just leaving robots and probes doing the work but to get some real people out there?
Jerry Woodfill: I like your question because it is one all of us at NASA continually ask ourselves. This results in a culture which does attempt to learn from past mistakes. It’s like the idea of sins of “omission an commission.” What did I fail to see about Apollo One, Columbia, or Challenger that could have avoided the tragedy? This is a question each of us who worked in any capacity on these vehicles and missions ask ourselves. I know I did.
When we speak of NASA, we are speaking collectively, not of the individuals that comprise the agency. But the thousands of individual employees, (I’m one of them.) are responsible for what you have asked. It’s always easy to hide behind the collective name for us NASA, but actually, it comes down to a single employee or small group who either did something exceptionally beneficial, or, woefully, hurtful. From time-to-time I’ve been in both groups. Over 45 years of NASA employment, I could cite many examples in each category. But most have been satisfactorily reported by the press such that changes have been made for the better.
An example would be the Columbia tragedy. Now, each tile and thermal surface is carefully examined post-launch to insure integrity of the reentry system prior to the orbiter’s return. For Apollo, an extra Oxygen Tank was added independent from the pair which failed. Additionally, a battery with 400 amp hours capacity was added as a backup should the fuel cell system failed. These changes were directly a result of reviewing the mishap so that fixes would be implemented to prevent a recurrence.
On September 12, 1962, I, a Rice junior Electrical Engineering student, listened in Rice Stadium to President John Kennedy. It led to my NASA career. Listen especially carefully about why, as you put it, we should taking on space and taking on the risks:
(This is a video of Jerry Woodfill reciting President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University)
Also, there were several people who had questions about why the damaged Service Module wasn’t jettisoned immediately following the accident (or as soon as it was ascertained that the tank had ruptured).
Jerry Woodfill: I want to congratulate the readers of “13 Things…” Before Nancy suggested I reply to the questions as well as added queries, many of you had already given the right analysis. This was among them: The answer was, “not wanting to expose the heat shield to the severe hot and cold space environment for many days.”
Like the use of the lander’s descent engine, in a new way, the heat shield had not experienced such an extended thermal environment. The thought was, “Why add the risk?” Of course, some would argue that trying to steer the assemblage was extremely difficult with the attached service module. This placed the center of gravity in a cumbersome location for Jim Lovell’s steering via the lander’s thrusters. In fact, at first, Jim had difficulty avoiding what is known as “gimbal-lock”, a condition like a bicycle rider losing balance and falling over. But Jim triumphed over the steering problem faster than most of us can adapt to a new video game joy-stick.
The galactic bubble RCW 120. Image credit: ESA/PACS/SPIRE/HOBYS Consortia
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Just days before the first anniversary of the Herschel space observatory’s launch, the first full science results – along with some very pretty images – were released at a symposium in the Netherlands. “Herschel is a new eye on a part of the cosmos that has been dark and buried for a long time,” said the mission’s NASA project scientist, Paul Goldsmith at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Above, Herschel’s observation of the star-forming cloud RCW 120 has revealed not only the huge blue bubble of gas, but also the small white spot is what some astronomers have called an “impossible” star.
It already contains eight to 10 times the mass of the sun and is still surrounded by an additional 2,000 solar masses of gas and dust from which it can feed further.
“This star can only grow bigger,” says Annie Zavagno, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France. Massive stars are rare and short-lived. To catch one during formation presents a golden opportunity to solve a long-standing paradox in astronomy. “According to our current understanding, you should not be able to form stars larger than eight solar masses,” says Zavagno.
A region the the galactic center in the Eagle constellation. Credits: ESA/Hi-GAL Consortium
This image is taken looking towards a region of the Galaxy in the Eagle constellation, closer to the Galactic center than our Sun. Here, we see the outstanding end-products of the stellar assembly line. At the center and the left of the image, the two massive star-forming regions G29.9 and W43 are clearly visible. These mini-starbursts are forming, as we speak, hundreds and hundreds of stars of all sizes: from those similar to our Sun, to monsters several tens of times heavier than our Sun.
These newborn large stars are catastrophically disrupting their original gas embryos by kicking away their surroundings and excavating giant cavities in the Galaxy. This is clearly visible in the ‘fluffy chimney’ below W43.
Click the images for larger versions.
Learn more in this video released by the ESA, or see this ESA website
You want details on this subject? Astronaut Mike Massimino has got ’em. The best line in the video comes from Mass: “This is the deepest, darkest secret about spaceflight. People always ask us about UFOs and aliens, and we’ve got nothing for them. But they don’t know about this,” this being that astronauts have a positioning trainer and aligning camera to teach them how to go to the bathroom in space.
Who knew that the terms “docking” and “aligning” have multiple uses in space?
