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For those who are upset that NASA will be relying on (and paying) the Russian Federal Space Agency to ferry US astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the space shuttle is retired, there’s now more to be in a tizzy about. NASA has signed a $335 million modification to the current ISS contract, adding additional flights into 2014. The previous contract allowed for crew transportation, rescue and related services until 2013. The new extension raises the price of a seat on the Soyuz to $55.8 million, from the $26.3 million per astronaut NASA is paying now, and $51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012.
From the NASA press release:
The firm-fixed price modification covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, crew rescue, and landing of a long-duration mission for six individual
station crew members.
In this contract modification, space station crew members will launch on four Soyuz vehicles in 2013 and return on two vehicles in 2013 and two in 2014.
Under the contract modification, the Soyuz flights will carry limited cargo associated with crew transportation to and from the station, and disposal of trash. The cargo allowed per person is approximately 110 pounds (50 kilograms) launched to the station, approximately 37 pounds (17 kilograms) returned to Earth, and trash disposal of approximately 66 pounds (30 kilograms).
Spectacular Predawn Liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery this morning (April 5) at 6:21 AM EDT from Launch Pad 39 A at the Kennedy Space Center on the STS 131 mission bound for the International Space Station with crew of 7 astronauts. My view with other onlookers from the famous Countdown Clock at the Press Site at KSC about 3 miles away from the pad at T Plus 4 Seconds ! Credit: Ken Kremer
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(Editor’s Note: Ken Kremer is at the Kennedy Space Center for Universe Today covering the flight of Discovery)
Today the astronauts completed the crucial inspection of the orbiters heat shield but cannot beam the video views back to analysts waiting in Houston because of a communications glitch.
Shortly after achieving orbit, the crew discovered a significant malfunction with the orbiters Ku-Band Antenna which the crew uses to transmit and receive information at high speed back and forth with the ground through the orbiting Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRSS) system.
The dish shaped antenna failed to complete its standard activation sequence. Troubleshooting and power cycling efforts by the astronauts and engineers on the ground have been unsuccessful thus far in resolving the problem.
In the Orbiter Processing Facility, the Ku-band communications antenna is stowed in the payload bay of Discovery before the bay's doors are closed. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann
The antenna is used for high data rate communications with the ground such as transmission of voice and video data and files including television. The shuttle’s radar system also uses the dish antenna during rendezvous operations with the station.
Loss of the antenna is not expected to affect the objectives or safety of the 13 day flight of STS 131. Discovery can safely rendezvous and dock with the ISS using several alternate communications systems – such as the S-band and UHF – and back up capabilities for the radar, all of which are functioning normally. The ISS is also equipped with a Ku-Band antenna that can transmit video of the docking including the belly flop on final approach.
NASA Kennedy Space Center spokesman Allard Beutel told me that, “We’re going to pretty much work with the idea that we will not get the Ku antenna back for this mission so teams are working plans accordingly.”
Inside the Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 3 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, space shuttle Discovery's payload bay doors are closing. Seen at center is the Ku-band antenna which is used on orbit to transmit and receive information from the ground through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system. The Ku-Band antenna has failed initial activation tests on the STS 131 mission. Voice and data can be transmitted by multiple alternate communications systems. Credit: NASA/Chris Rhodes
Today (April 6), the astronauts completed the now standard inspection of Discovery’s heat shield with the Orbiter Boom Sensing System (OBSS) on the shuttles robotic arm to carefully scrutinize the thermal protection system for any signs of damage. This critical task is essential to confirm the complete integrity of the heat shield which protects the orbiter and human crew from the scorching heat generated during re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere and ensures a safe landing back at KSC at the conclusion of the flight.
Normally, the video of the heat shield inspection data is quickly beamed back to the ground via the Ku-Band antenna for a rapid analysis by imagery experts at Mission Control in Houston. Due to the malfunctioning antenna, the crew recorded the data on five or six 40-minute tapes that will be down linked after docking on Wednesday, using the stations Ku-Band system. The Damage Assessment Team review will be delayed, but this issue will not affect the quality of data it reviews.
According to Flight Director Richard Jones the detailed examination of Discovery’s heat shield and nose cap went well and a preliminary review found no problems or areas for concern.
Docking to the ISS is set for Wednesday, April 7 at 3:44 AM
The green "blob" is Hanny's Voorwerp. Credit: Dan Herbert, Peter Smith, Matt Jarvis, Galaxy Zoo Team, Isaac Newton Telescope
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The green “blob” is Hanny’s Voorwerp. Credit: Dan Herbert, Peter Smith, Matt Jarvis, Galaxy Zoo Team, Isaac Newton Telescope
A storybook astronomy mystery is now part of the most famous telescope in history. A team of astronomers secured time on the Hubble Space Telescope to observe Hanny’s Voorwerp, the unusual object found by Dutch teacher Hanny Van Arkel while she was scanning through images for the Galaxy Zoo project. Hubble will be trained on the Voorwerp during three separate observing sessions, the first of which occurred on April 4, 2010. “The WFC3 (Wide Field Camera 3) images were obtained (Sunday),” said Principal Investigator Bill Keel from the University of Alabama in an email to Universe Today “and I was able to pull the calibrated files over last night for a quick look. Combining pairs of offset images to reject cosmic rays optimally will take some further work, but we’re happy to start working with the data and see what emerges at each step.”
The Voorwerp (also known by the much less endearing name of SDSS J094103.80+344334.2) created a sensation among amateur, armchair and professional astronomers alike, almost immediately after Van Arkel saw the object in 2007 and posted a question on the Galaxy Zoo forum, asking “What is this?” All this took place just a month after the Galaxy Zoo project opened up their online citizen science shop, and the rest is history. But in case you haven’t heard the story yet, a quick rundown is that ‘voorwerp’ means ‘object’ in Dutch – and as of yet, no one has determined exactly what Hanny’s Voorwerp is.
The working hypothesis, according to the Galaxy Zoo team, is that Hanny’s Voorwerp might be a “light echo” of an event that occurred millions of years ago. The object itself consists of dust and gas which perhaps was illuminated by a quasar outburst within the nearby galaxy IC 2497 (see the images). The outburst has faded within the last 100,000 years but the light reached the dust and gas in time for our telescopes to see the effect. Hanny's Voorwerp. Credit: Matt Jarvis, William Herschel Telescope.
The Galaxy Zoo images come from observations done by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In evidence of the interest in this object, since 2007 Hanny’s Voorwerp has also been imaged by the Swift gamma-ray satellite, the Suzaku X-ray telescope, the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), the Issac Newton Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope, to name a few.
But now, the most famous telescope of all – with its new and updated instruments – will take a gander to see if the mysteries of the Voorwerp can be solved.
The team – which includes Keel, and fellow Galaxy “Zookeepers” Chris Lintott, Kevin Schawinski, Vardha Nicola Bennert, Daniel Thomas, and Hanny Van Arkel herself – submitted a proposal to the Space Telescope Science Institute back in 2008 and were among the proud and few from close to 1000 proposals submitted to be granted observing time on Hubble.
During the three observing sessions, three different Hubble instruments will be used.
“The observations use three instruments and would naturally be broken into three target visits,” said Keel, “some constrained to be at different times because of the required orientations on the sky –for example, to have both Hanny’s Voorwerp and IC 2497 in the narrow field of view of ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) with the monochromatic ramp filters.”
“The next observations will probably be the most visually striking,” Keel continued. “Two orbits’ worth of ACS images in narrow bands including [O III] an H-alpha emission, and are scheduled for April 12. The final visit in the program has 2 orbits of STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) spectroscopy around the nucleus of IC2497, and should be coming up by mid-June.”
The April 4 observations included three orbits of data from the WFC3.
So, even though the first images have now been seen, the team won’t be able to share their findings until all the observations have occurred and the data has been analyzed.
Hanny Van Arkel. Image courtesy of Hanny.
“I indeed can’t say much more than that we got the first data in our mailboxes,” Van Arkel said in an email to Universe Today. “The team is still working on it and until they’ve worked it out, I won’t even understand enough of it myself to explain anything on the matter. It is exciting however that the investigations have started and it’s nice to see how many curious people are sending me messages about it and ‘retweeting’ my quotes on Twitter. After almost two years, I’m very much looking forward to the outcome of all of this!”
Van Arkel isn’t the only one excited.
“Through a combination of geometry and weather,” Keel shared,”I saw HST sail by to our south less than two orbits after it finished this first data set. So I waved in what was probably a most unprofessional manner.”
And the rest of us will be waiting – and waving – until Hubble can tell us more about Hanny’s Voorwerp.
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If you’ve been out at night, when the air is clear, the Moon is on the other side of the world, and city lights are far, far away, you’ve almost certainly seen a dark nebula or two. In the southern hemisphere, you’ll have seen the Coalsack; anywhere in the world, the Great Rift, that divides much of the Milky Way in two.
And that’s the distinguishing feature of a dark nebula – it’s only dark because it’s surrounded by brighter parts of the sky, whether a great swathe of the Milky Way (stars and emission nebulae), or just a part of an emission nebula (the Horsehead Nebula is perhaps the most famous of this kind), or something in between.
In fact, in some cultures, it’s patterns of dark nebulae which make up the memorable sky, like the Emu in the Sky of many of the Australian aboriginal tribes.
Dark nebulae are dark principally because they contain dust, which is interstellar grains a few microns across (actually, their sizes range from a few tens of nanometers to millimeters), mostly dirty graphite, various ices (or icy mixtures), various silicates, some carbon-based goo, and mixtures of these. Most dark nebulae are associated with, or part of, giant molecular clouds, which are perhaps the most distinct phase of the interstellar medium; they can have masses up to a million sols and measure up to a few parsecs across. In shape, dark nebulae come in a bewildering range, from amorphous blobs, to almost round disks, to sinuous snake-like things, to what look like negative clouds.
When we see a spiral galaxy on its side (or nearly so), it’s often split by a dust lane, or nearly so … which is just all the dark nebulae in the disk of that galaxy viewed (nearly) edge on; M64, M65, M104, and NGC 891 are good examples.
When we raise an apple up to a height of one meter, we perform approximately one joule of work. So what is a joule?
Joule is the unit of energy used by the International Standard of Units (SI). It is defined as the amount of work done on a body by a one Newton force that moves the body over a distance of one meter. Wait a minute … is it a unit of energy or a unit of work?
Actually, it is a unit of both because the two are interrelated. Energy is just the ability of a body to do work. Conversely, work done on a body changes the energy of the body. Let’s go back to the apple example mentioned earlier to elaborate.
An apple is a favorite example to illustrate a one joule of work when using the definition given earlier (i.e., the amount of work done ….) because an apple weighs approximately one Newton. Thus, you’d have to exert a one Newton upward force to counteract its one Newton weight. Once you’ve lifted it up to a height of one meter, you would have performed one joule of work on it.
Now, how does energy fit into the picture? As you perform work on the apple, the energy of the apple (in this case, its potential energy) changes. At the top, the apple would have gained about one joule of potential energy.
Also, when the apple is one meter above its original position, say the floor, gravity would have gained the ability to do work on it. This ability, when measured in joules, is equivalent to one joule.
Meaning, when you release the apple, the force of gravity, which is simply just the weight of the body and equivalent to one Newton, would be able to perform one joule of work on it when the apple drops down from a height of one meter.
Mathematically, 1 joule = 1 Newton ⋅ meter. However, writing it as Newton ⋅ meter is discouraged since it can be easily confused with the unit of torque.
Particle physics experiments deal with large amounts of energies. That is why it is also known as high energy physics. If you liked our answer to the question, “What is a Joule?”, you might want to read the following articles from Universe Today:
When a nucleus undergoes radioactive decay – or decays, radioactively – it changes its state to one of a lower energy, and emits a particle (sometimes more than one), a gamma ray, or both (and one type of radioactive decay involves the absorption, or capture, of an electron as well emission of a particle).
Among radioactive materials which occur naturally here on Earth, two kinds of radioactive decay are common: alpha (α) and beta (β). They get their names from the most obvious particles emitted, an alpha particle (which is the nucleus of the stable isotope of helium called helium-4) or a beta particle (which is either an electron or a positron; the positron is the antimatter counterpart to the electron). In either kind of decay a photon with gamma ray energy may be emitted too, and in beta decay a neutrino is nearly always emitted (antineutrino if it’s electron-type beta decay, neutrino if positron-type).
In the lab, and out in space, there are atomic nuclei which undergo radioactive decay in other ways – by emitting a proton, for example; these types of decay occur in isotopes which have very short lives.
You’ve heard of Schrödinger’s poor cat, right? Well, not so poor, because it’s a thought experiment (no real cat involved), but it’s a good device for understanding something rather quirky about radioactive decay. You see, if you have a few billion atoms of a radioactive isotope, potassium-40 say, you can say with great certainty how many will decay in the next year. However, you cannot say which particular nuclei will decay!
Radioactive decay is very important for a wide range of human activities, from medicine to electricity production and beyond, and also to astronomers. For example, the characteristic light curve of Type Ia supernovae – which are used to estimate the age of the universe (among other things) – comes from the decay of a radioactive isotope of nickel (nickel-56, and its daughter isotope, cobalt-56), produced in copious quantities by the suicidal star.
There’s a lot of material, out there on the web, on radioactive decay; here are some good links for you to click on: Radioactive Decay in Supernova Remnants (NASA), Radioactive Decay (Carlton College), and Decay (an applet, Michigan State University).
“Dark matter”, in astronomy, usually means “cold, non-baryonic dark matter”. This is a form of mass which reacts with other matter via only gravity – and, possibly, the weak force – and which comprises approximately 80% of all matter in the universe. There is also “baryonic dark matter”, which is just ordinary matter, like dust, gas, rocks, and even stars that does not emit radiation yet detected by our telescopes (or absorb it, from more distant sources). And there is also “hot, non-baryonic dark matter”, which is just neutrinos.
The first hints of the existence of dark matter came from an analysis of the line-of-sight velocities of galaxies in the Coma cluster, by Fritz Zwicky, in the early 1930s. Zwicky found that the galaxies are moving much too fast for them to be held together in a cluster, by gravity, if the only mass in the cluster is that in the galaxies themselves (it’s pretty obvious that the galaxies form a bound system). Since Zwicky could find no evidence of mass in the Coma cluster, from the light detected by the telescopes he used, other than in the galaxies, he postulated that there is a lot of matter that is ‘dark’ – does not emit light.
Fast forward to the early 1970s, and the discovery of diffuse x-ray emission from the Perseus and Coma clusters.
Zwicky was right, the Coma cluster contains a great deal of mass outside the galaxies, and that matter does not emit light (it emits x-rays), because it is very hot. But this thin plasma is still not enough, mass-wise, to explain why the galaxies are gravitationally bound to the cluster (and the Coma cluster is nothing special; today we know of thousands of clusters just like it). Further, the plasma is also gravitationally bound to the cluster, but does not have enough mass itself to keep it there. Some more mass is needed, and that mass is dark matter.
Around the same time, Kent Ford and Vera Rubin made a similar discovery, concerning spiral galaxies; namely that they must contain a lot more matter than could be inferred from the stars, gas, and dust observed by various telescopes, in order for the galaxies to be rotating as fast as they are. Dark matter had been discovered in galaxies.
How many oceans are there in the world? This question may not be as easy to answer as you may think. First we need to see the origins of the word ocean. The Ancient Greeks gave us the word ocean and it described what was to them the outer sea that surrounded the known world. Even then the ancients later believed that there were only 7 seas, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Adriatic, the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
The number of oceans in the world varies on how you look at it. From the scientific point of view there is only one major ocean called the World Ocean and if you include inland seas such as the Black Sea and Caspian Sea there are 3. The scientific method of counting oceans looks at saline bodies of water that have oceanic crust.
Another way to look at it is to divide the world ocean by the different continents and other major geographic regions it touches. Using this method there are 5 oceans. There is the Atlantic Ocean which separates the American Continents from Europe and Africa. Then there is the Pacific which separates Asia and the Americas. The Southern Ocean is tricky but is named as such because it encircles Antarctica touches Australia and the southern end of South America. The Indian Ocean is named after Indian subcontinent. The Arctic Ocean is named for its location north of all the continents and being the North Pole. Originally only the Southern Ocean was not officially recognized so this only demonstrates how the designation can easily change.
The way you count the oceans can vary depending on your profession or understanding of the Ocean. Either way you look at the large bodies of salt water are very important. They are a major source of food, regulate the Earth’s climate and are the major source water for all life.
So in the end it becomes not so important to know how many oceans there are but what the ocean is and how important it is to life on this planet.
If you enjoyed this article there are several other articles on Universe Today that you will like and find interesting. There is a great article on sea floor spreading and another interesting piece on ancient oceans.
You can also find some great resources on oceans online. You can learn more about oceans currents and how they affect climate. You can also learn about Ocean Biomes on University of Richmond website.
You should also check out Astronomy Cast. Episode 143 talks about astrobiology.
This Hubble Space Telescope image of young brown dwarf 2M J044144 show it has a companion object at the 8 o'clock position that is estimated to be 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter.Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Todorov and K. Luhman (Penn State University)
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Big planet or companion brown dwarf? Using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have discovered an unusual object orbiting a brown dwarf, and its discovery could fuel additional debate about what exactly constitutes a planet. The object circles a nearby brown dwarf in the Taurus star-forming region with an orbit approximately 3.6 billion kilometers (2.25 billion miles) out, about the same as Saturn from our sun. The astronomers say it is the right size for a planet, but they believe the object formed in less than 1 million years — the approximate age of the brown dwarf — and much faster than the predicted time it takes to build planets according to conventional theories.
Kamen Todorov of Penn State University and his team conducted a survey of 32 young brown dwarfs in the Taurus region.
The object orbits the brown dwarf 2M J044144 and is about 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter. Brown dwarfs are objects that typically are tens of times the mass of Jupiter and are too small to sustain nuclear fusion to shine as stars do. Artist's conception of the binary system 2M J044144. Science Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Todorov and K. Luman (Penn State University) Artwork Credit: Gemini Observatory, courtesy of L. Cook
While there has been a lot of discussion in the context of the Pluto debate over how small an object can be and still be called a planet, this new observation addresses the question at the other end of the size spectrum: How small can an object be and still be a brown dwarf rather than a planet? This new companion is within the range of masses observed for planets around stars, but again, the astronomers aren’t sure if it is a planet or a companion brown dwarf star.
The answer is strongly connected to the mechanism by which the companion most likely formed.
The Hubble new release offers these three possible scenarios for how the object may have formed:
Dust in a circumstellar disk slowly agglomerates to form a rocky planet 10 times larger than Earth, which then accumulates a large gaseous envelope; a lump of gas in the disk quickly collapses to form an object the size of a gas giant planet; or, rather than forming in a disk, a companion forms directly from the collapse of the vast cloud of gas and dust in the same manner as a star (or brown dwarf).
If the last scenario is correct, then this discovery demonstrates that planetary-mass bodies can be made through the same mechanism that builds stars. This is the likely solution because the companion is too young to have formed by the first scenario, which is very slow. The second mechanism occurs rapidly, but the disk around the central brown dwarf probably did not contain enough material to make an object with a mass of 5-10 Jupiter masses.
“The most interesting implication of this result is that it shows that the process that makes binary stars extends all the way down to planetary masses. So it appears that nature is able to make planetary-mass companions through two very different mechanisms,” said team member Kevin Luhman of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State University.
If the mystery companion formed through cloud collapse and fragmentation, as stellar binary systems do, then it is not a planet by definition because planets build up inside disks.
The mass of the companion is estimated by comparing its brightness to the luminosities predicted by theoretical evolutionary models for objects at various masses for an age of 1 million years.
Further supporting evidence comes from the presence of a very nearby binary system that contains a small red star and a brown dwarf. Luhman thinks that all four objects may have formed in the same cloud collapse, making this in actuality a quadruple system.
“The configuration closely resembles quadruple star systems, suggesting that all of its components formed like stars,” he said.
The team’s research is being published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
"Beans Are Go" means a space shuttle has successfully launched. Credit: Kennedy Space Center
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Even though today’s space shuttle launch took place during the early morning hours (Kennedy Space Center local time) the post-launch celebration meal for the launch control team consisted of hearty helpings of beans and cornbread. But that’s nothing new. Every single successful space shuttle launch since the very beginning of the shuttle program has been followed by beans and cornbread. It’s a tradition.
Even though the the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center is one of the most unique “offices” in the world, like many other places of work, people bring in food to share with their co-workers. The story goes that when the launch teams were preparing for the very first shuttle flight in 1981, people would bring in covered dishes so the teams would have food during the long hours of tests and simulations. Norm Carlson, one of the test directors brought in a crockpot of beans along with some cornbread, and after the flawless STS-1 lift-off, the hungry team members rapidly consumed the delicious beans and cornbread. Norm Carlson serving up his beans. Credit: Kennedy Space Center
So, for the next flight, Carlson brought in two crockpots of beans and additional cornbread. Again, the beans and cornbread disappeared after STS-2.
“On each subsequent launch, Mr. Carlson kept bringing more crock pots filled with beans, and on each subsequent launch the beans would disappear in short order.
Finally, sensing that it was getting too difficult to bring in enough crock pots to feed everyone, Mr. Carlson switched to an 18 quart cooker, and set up shop on the fourth floor of the LCC, just above the firing rooms. The call “Beans are Go!” came to signal that the shuttle had successfully launched, and it was time to relax and unwind.”
The tradition continued, even after Carlson retired and now 60 gallons of beans are prepared for every launch as an official NASA function.
Since the phrase “full of beans” means having lots of energy and enthusiasm, it seems fitting that beans are part of the space shuttle tradition at KSC, and that tradition will undoubtedly live on along with the amazing legacy that the shuttle program encompasses. It seems almost unbelievable that perhaps only three more space shuttles will take flight.
The Inside KSC Blog provides what is thought to be the original recipe for Carlson’s beans:
Norm Carlson’s Space Beans Recipe
6 pounds Great Northern dried beans
10 pounds ham cut into cubes, plus ham bones
3 pounds chopped onions
2 stalks celery
1/2 shaker lemon pepper
1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke
Cover with water in an 18-quart electric cooker and cook 8-12 hours.
