The intertoobs have been abuzz with Google’s seemingly unexplained latest doodle: A UFO beaming up one of Google’s “O”s. The plot thickened when Google’s Twitter account Tweeted the following: “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19.” What did it all mean? Was Google giving credence to UFO believers? Or referring to the wife of Japan’s new Prime Minister for her belief that she traveled to Venus on a UFO? Or perhaps honoring Voyager 1’s launch (Sept. 5, 1977) or space shuttle Discovery’s first landing on Sept. 5, 1984? None of the above, it turns out.
Google was paying homage to the 20th anniversary of 1980s Japanese video game, Zero Wing. According to CNET, apparently a villan from the game named Cats makes this somewhat famous declaration at the beginning of Zero Wing: “How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us.”
When you take all the numbers in the Google tweet and turn them into the corresponding letters of the alphabet, you get: “All your O are belong to us.”
The world can rest now. Google’s search page is now back to normal. And the Google techies are back to playing video games.
Christer Fugelsang during the third EVA of STS-128. Credit: NASA
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As the crew of the STS-128 mission pack up and prepare to get ready to undock from the International Space Station on Tuesday, it’s time to look back at the very successful mission that worked on space station construction. Here’s some of the best images of the mission.
Above, ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang works (and waves) during the third and final EVA of the mission. Fuglesang and NASA astronaut John “Danny” Olivas installed several items and did work to prepare for the installation of Node 3, which will take place next year.
Heavy lifting in space. Credit: NASA
Here’s Fuglesang again, doing a little heavy lifting during the first EVA of the mission while anchored to the Canadarm2’s foot restraint. He’s carrying a new Ammonia Tank Assembly which was installed on the P-1 Truss. The old empty tank, attached to the arm, will be brought back home in the space shuttle’s payload bay, and refurbished and reused. New ammonia tank installed. Credit: NASA
Here’s where the new Ammonia Tank Assembly was installed on the P-1 Truss. Danny Olivas is shown here putting the final touches on the first spacewalk activities. New freezer installed in the ISS. Credit: NASAMeanwhile, inside the ISS astronauts installed a new Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) rack in the Destiny laboratory. Will the ISS residents now be feasting on astronaut ice cream? This freezer can maintain a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius to preserve biological and medical specimens until they can be brought back to Earth. Shown here are Fuglesang (top foreground) and Tim Kopra (background), Kevin Ford (left foreground).
Nicole Stott during an EVA. Credit: NASA
Here, Nicole Stott works during the first EVA. In addition to adding the new Ammonia Tank Assembly, Stott and Olivas retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) and Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) from outside the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery’s payload bay for return to Earth. Stott will stay on board the ISS for Expedition 20 and 21. Part of the ISS backdropped by the limb of Earth. Credit: NASA
Beautiful! Part of the ISS is shown against the blackness of space and Earth’s horizon in this image photographed by one of the astronauts during the second EVA. View on Danny Olivas' helmet. Credit: NASA
I love these visor-reflection images, and this one is especially good. Danny Olivas used his digital still camera to take a picture of his own helmet visor during the second EVA. Visible in the reflections are various components of the station, along with Christer Fuglesang anchored to a Canadarm2 mobile foot restraint. Preparing tools for EVA. Credit: NASA
Every handyman loves tools, and NASA’s EVA tools top them all. Danny Olivas checks out a pistol grip power tool, getting it ready for use during the third EVA of the mission. Olivas participated in all three spacewalks. Earth and Moon from space. Credit: NASA
How much clearer is the view of the Moon without having to look through the atmosphere? Here, a gibbous moon is visible above Earth’s atmosphere, photographed by one of the STS-128 crew during flight day three. Olivas flexes his muscles. Credit: NASA
More great images from the EVAs. Above, Danny Olivas shows his strength during the second EVA and below, Nicole Stott is framed by parts of the ISS, with the solar arrays lit by the sun behind her. Stott and the ISS. Credit: NASA The astronauts from both crews on the ISS. Credit: NASA
The STS-128 and Expedition 20 crewmembers found a few moments on a day between two spacewalk days to pose for some portraits on the International Space Station. The red-clad crewmembers are with STS-128. They include, front row, from the left, astronauts Rick Sturckow, Jose Hernandez and Patrick Forrester; behind them in red, are astronauts Kevin Ford, John “Danny” Olivas, with European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang. At bottom left is Tim Kopra, who joined the station crew in July but now is scheduled to return to Earth in less than a week with the Discovery astronauts. Surrounding the Discovery crew, in clockwise fashion, are the members of Expedition 20 crew, astronaut Nicole Stott, Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, with cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and astronaut Michael Barratt. Nighttime launch of STS-128. Credit: NASA
The mission began on August 28 with the nighttime launch of space shuttle Discovery. Liftoff was at 11:59 p.m. (EDT).
The Earth is a water-dominated planet. (Image credit: Ian O'Neill)
Tides refer to the rise and fall of our oceans’ surfaces. It is caused by the attractive forces of the Moon and Sun’s gravitational fields as well as the centrifugal force due to the Earth’s spin. As the positions of these celestial bodies change, so do the surfaces’ heights. For example, when the Sun and Moon are aligned with the Earth, water levels in ocean surfaces fronting them are pulled and subsequently rise.
The Moon, although much smaller than the Sun, is much closer. Now, gravitational forces decrease rapidly as the distance between two masses widen. Thus, the Moon’s gravity has a larger effect on tides than the Sun. In fact, the Sun’s effect is only about half that of the Moon’s.
Since the total mass of the oceans does not change when this happens, part of it that was added to the high water regions must have come from somewhere. These mass-depleted regions then experience low water levels. Hence, if water on a beach near you is advancing, you can be sure that in other parts of the world, it is receding.
Most illustrations containing the Sun, Moon, Earth and tides depict tides to be most pronounced in regions near or at the equator. On the contrary, it is actually in these regions where the difference in high tide and low tide are not as great as those in other places in the world.
This is because the bulging of the oceans’ surface follows the Moon’s orbital plane. Now, this plane is not in line with the Earth’s equatorial plane. Instead, it actually makes a 23-degree angle relative to it. This essentially allows the water levels at the equator to seesaw within a relatively smaller range (compared to the ranges in other places) as the orbiting moon pulls the oceans’ water.
Not all tides are caused by the relative positions of these celestial bodies. Some bodies of water, like those that are relatively shallow compared to oceans, experience changing water levels because of variations in the surrounding atmospheric pressure. There are also other extreme situations wherein tides are manifested but have nothing to do with astronomical positioning.
A tidal wave or tsunami, for example, makes use of the word ‘tide’ and actually exhibits rise and fall of water levels (in fact, it is very noticeable). However, this phenomena is caused entirely by a displacement of a huge amount of water due to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, underwater explosions, and others. All these causes take place on the Earth’s surface and have nothing to do with the Moon or Sun.
A thorough study of tides was conducted by Isaac Newton and included in his published work entitled Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
We have some related articles here that may interest you:
Earthquakes are among the most devastating forces of nature. What we have are seven of the world’s most famous earthquakes, chronologically listed below. Not all included here are necessarily the strongest (in terms of magnitude) but they made the headlines when they hit. Here they are:
Shaanxi Earthquake of 1556
– This was the deadliest quake ever recorded. It claimed the lives of about 830,000 people. At that time, most inhabitants in the affected areas were living in Yaodongs or artificial caves. They were buried alive when the huge tremors caused the cliffs in which these caves were located in, to collapse.
San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
– Although its tremors were also felt in Southern Oregon, it is the resulting fire in San Francisco that had a more devastating impact on the economy. Is has been often compared recently to Hurricane Katrina because of its similar economic bearing.
The Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960
– Like the one that hit Asia in 2004, this 9.5-rated quake resulted in a massive tsunami reaching up to as high as 10.7 meters. This magnitude is the highest recorded ever. Although the tsunami originated in Cañete, Chile, the waves raced north-westward to Japan and the Philippines, wreaking havoc there.
Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964
– With a magnitude of 9.2, it is the second strongest earthquake to be ever recorded. It caused tsunamis, landslides, and resulted in major landscape changes. Some places near Kodiak is said to have been raised 9.1 meters high, while those near Portage were dropped by 2.4 meters. Here are more articles about Alaska earthquakes.
Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976
– This is the deadliest quake of the 20th Century, with the number of deaths hitting somewhere near 250,000. Weak building structures and the time this disaster struck (4 am) contributed a lot to that sickening number.
Bam Earthquake of 2003
– The death toll in this tremor reached over 26,000. Like the one in Tangshan, the use of poor construction materials was one of the leading culprits for the deaths. Most of the affected buildings were made of mud bricks.
Indian Ocean Earthquake of 2004
– The resulting tsunami that killed 230,000 people was caused by a subduction between the India and Burma plate. Its 30 m-high waves destroyed virtually everything in its path, making this quake not only one of the most famous earthquakes but also one of the famous natural disasters in history.
Excluding poor building infrastructure, we can see that high death tolls in these famous earthquakes result when the tremors are accompanied by tsunamis. This happens when the quake’s epicenter is found at the bottom of the ocean.
You can read more about famous earthqueakes here in Universe Today. Here are the links:
Graphic showing how changes in the Earth's eccentricity and tilt can lead to massive changes in maximum sunlight it receives, and therefore its climate.
Milankovitch cycles. Source: UCAR
A Milankovitch cycle is a cyclical movement related to the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. There are three of them: eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession. According to the Milankovitch Theory, these three cycles combine to affect the amount of solar heat that’s incident on the Earth’s surface and subsequently influence climatic patterns.
Eccentricity
The path of the Earth’s orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse. This elliptical shape changes from less elliptical (nearly a perfect circle) to more elliptical and back, and is due to the gravitational fields of neighboring planets (particularly the large ones – Jupiter and Saturn). The measure of the shape’s deviation from being a circle is called its eccentricity.
That is, the larger the eccentricity, the greater is its deviation from a circle. Thus, in terms of eccentricity, the Earth’s orbit undergoes a cyclical change from less eccentric to more eccentric and back. One complete cycle for this kind of variation lasts for about 100,000 years.
Axial Tilt
We know the earth is spinning around its own axis, which is the reason why we have night and day. However, this axis is not upright. Rather, it tilts at angles between 22.1-degrees and 24.5 degrees and back. These angles are measured between the angle of the axis to an imaginary line normal (perpendicular) to the Earth’s plane of orbit. A complete cycle for the axial tilt lasts for about 41,000 years.
Greater tilts mean that the hemispheres closer to the Sun, i.e., during summer, will experience a larger amount of heat than when the tilt is less. In other words, regions in the extreme upper and lower hemispheres will experience the hottest summers and the coldest winters during a maximum tilt.
Precession
Aside from the tilt, the axis also wobbles like a top. A complete wobble cycle is more or less 26,000 years. This motion is caused by tidal forces from the Sun and Moon.
Precession as well as tilting are the reasons why regions near and at the poles experience very long nights and very long days at certain times of the year. For example, in Norway, the Sun never completely descends beneath the horizon between late May to late July.
The Milankovitch Cycles are among the arguments fielded by detractors of the Global Warming concept. According to them, the Earth’s current warming is just a part of a series of cyclical events that take thousands of years to complete, and hence cannot be prevented.
You can read more about milankovitch cycle here in Universe Today. Here are the links:
Two newspapers in Bangladesh have issued a retraction after publishing an article taken from the popular but satirical website “The Onion” which claimed Neil Armstrong had been convinced by conspiracy theorists that the Moon landings were faked. The Daily Manab Zamin said Armstrong had shocked a news conference by saying he now knew it had been an “elaborate hoax.” The New Nation then picked up the story, and only later did they realize the Onion was not a genuine news site.
Both have now apologized to their readers for not checking the story. “We thought it was true so we printed it without checking,” associate editor Hasanuzzuman Khan told the AFP news agency.
“We didn’t know the Onion was not a real news site.”
The article said Armstrong had told a news conference he had been “forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos and reading several blog posts” by a conspiracy theorist.
Of course, like everything else on The Onion, the story was completely made up.
The two newspaper articles drew a lot of attention in Bangladesh, and was one of the top articles getting hits on the papers’ websites.
11 new HiRISE images are available to help search for the Mars Polar Lander. Credit: NASA/JPL
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We had an enthusiastic response to an article we ran in July about searching through images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to help find the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander. Now, Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog has sent out an alert that a dozen more images are available from the big release of images from HiRISE for additional searches for MPL, including the image above. See this page from the HiRISE site for a links to all the images. On this page, you’ll find an overview of the Mars Polar Lander, its disappearance, the search to find it, and why they want to find it. Emily also has a lengthy post with tips and instructions on how to search for particular objects in the HiRISE images. If you think you have found something of interest, post a comment on this page of the HiRISE Blog, or use this form to contact the HiRISE team. The UnmannedSpaceflight website has a thread discussing the search (serious searchers only).
Ok, phew, I think that’s all the links you’ll need! Let me know if I missed something….
The Raffaello module attached to the ISS during the STS-114 mission in 2005. Credit: NASA
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Apparently the International Space Station is going to get bigger. According to an article on Flight Global, NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) are preparing to sign an agreement to add another laboratory to the ISS by using a modified multipurpose logistics module (Raffaello) during the final Space Shuttle mission. It will be attached in September 2010 during Endeavour’s STS-133 mission. The idea had originally been rejected, but earlier this year ISS program manager Michael Suffredini said using an MPLM for an additional module was being reconsidered.
The Italian-designed and built – but NASA owned – logistics module will be able to bring up extra spare parts and science and equipment racks. The module has 16 equipment racks for its 9,400kg (20,600lb) of cargo that could be used for experiments.
The Italian Space Agency (ASI) will pay €22 million ($31.3 million) to upgrade the module, such as micrometeroid protection. In return the agency is guaranteed a seat on NASA’s next crew transport system and six ISS mission opportunities for its Italian astronauts. These are three short-duration missions and three six-month expeditions.
Flight Global reported that “ASI says it can ‘confirm that we are going to sign an agreement. One module will became a permanent element of the ISS. It will be an ASI activity with national funds co-ordinated with ESA as the main European partner of the ISS programme.'”
The crew for the final mission may have to be cut from seven to five in order to accommodate the added weight of the module.
Artists concept of a pair of O'Neill cylinders. Credit: NASA.
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The International Space Station is big. About the size of American football field, it has an acre of solar panels, includes 358 cubic meters (12,626 cubic ft) of habitable volume, and there is enough reflective outer surface that in the right conditions, it can be seen from Earth during the day. But with the ISS, we’re just getting warmed up with building structures in space. There are some ideas out there for even larger structures — so called megastructures in space. Here are a few proposals for future space stations and structures that one day could be built in Earth orbit.
The top image is called an O’Neill cylinder, and is a space habitat proposed by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill. What started out as a design challenge for his students became structures O’Neill used in his book that promoted the idea of humans living in space, The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. An O’Neill cylinder consists of two very large, counter-rotating cylinders, each 5 miles (8 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, that are connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. The rotation provides artificial gravity on the inner surfaces while the central axis of the habitat would be a zero gravity region, where recreational facilities could be located.
To save the huge cost of rocketing the materials from Earth, this habitat could be built with materials launched from the moon with a mass driver. Exterior view of a Stanford torus. Bottom center is the non-rotating primary solar mirror, which reflects sunlight onto the angled ring of secondary mirrors around the hub. Painting by Donald E. Davis
After O’Neill proposed his structure, a later NASA/Ames study at Stanford University developed an alternate version, the Stanford torus. This is torus, or donut-shaped ring, 1.8 km in diameter. This structure would be capable of housing 10,000 to 140,000 permanent residents, similar to a suburb here on Earth.
The structure would rotate once per minute to provide between 0.9g and 1.0g of artificial gravity on the inside of the outer ring from centripetal acceleration. The interior of the torus would be used as living space, and is large enough that a “natural” environment can be simulated, including trees and other plants. Sunlight would be provided inside the structure with a system of mirrors. Outside view of a Bernal Sphere.
A Bernal sphere is a another type of orbital space habitat intended as a long-term home for permanent residents. It was first proposed in 1929 by John Desmond Bernal, and is said to be one of the inspirations for Gerard O’Neill and his students. Bernal’s original proposal included a hollow spherical shell 1.6 km (1 mile) in diameter, filled with air for a target population of 20,000 to 30,000 people. The inside of the Bernal sphere.
Bernal predicted that as the human race grew, their material and energy needs would outpace what planet Earth could provide. Orbiting colonies could harness the Sun’s energy and provide extra living space for a burgeoning population.
Rotating the sphere twice a minute would generate an artificial gravity aproximate to Earth’s. An advantage of the sphere is that it has the smallest surface area for a given internal volume, so minimizing the amount of radiation shielding required.
Our next Future Friday will take a look at megastructures at the planetary scale.
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Ah, yes… Full Moon. Are you ready to howl? If you didn’t get a chance to watch the galiean moons do their dance last weekend, then be sure to catch the awesome video you’ll find inside! In the meantime, keep your ears alert for the rise of tonight’s “Full Corn Moon” and check out the Omicron gems. As the skies get darker, the Herschel challenges warm up – so dust off your optics and I’ll see you in the backyard…
Friday, September 4, 2009 – It’s a Full Moon tonight. Many cultures refer to this one in particular as the ‘‘Corn Moon,’’ because at this time of year most corn crops are ready for harvest. Tonight let’s harvest some bright lunar features as we trace the ray system of Tycho in the lunar south. Look for the bright points of Kepler and Aristarchus in the northwest quadrant. In the east, dazzling crater Proclus will light up the western shore of Mare Crisium. Just north of central, look for the two bright rings of Manlius and Menelaus.
Although the Moon will dominate tonight’s sky, we can still take a very unusual and beautiful journey to a bright and very colorful pair of stars known as Omicron 1 Cygni. Easily located about halfway between Alpha (Deneb) and Delta on the western side (RA 20 13 28 Dec +46 46 40), this is a pure delight in binoculars or any size telescope.
The striking gold color of 3.7-magnitude Omi 1 A is easily highlighted against the blue of its same-field companion, 5th magnitude Omi 1 B. Although this wide pairing is only an optical one, the K-type giant (A) is indeed a double star—an eclipsing variable about 150 times larger than or own Sun—and is surrounded by a gaseous corona more than double the size of the star itself. If you are using a scope, you can easily spot its blue tinted, 7th magnitude companion star about one-third the distance between the two giants. Although our true pair is some 2 billion kilometers apart, they are oriented nearly edge-on from our point of view, allowing the smaller star to be totally eclipsed during each revolution. This total eclipse lasts for 63 days and happens about every 10.4 years, but don’t stay up too late. . . We still have years to wait!
Saturday, September 5, 2009 – Tonight before the Moon commands the sky, let’s start with the brightest star in Vulpecula—Alpha. Although it is not a true binary star, it is quite attractive in the telescope, and an easy split for binoculars. Alpha itself is a 4.4-magnitude red giant, which makes a nice color contrast with the unrelated yellow field star that is 2 magnitudes dimmer.
Now head around a half degree northwest of Alpha (RA 20 19 29 Dec –70 51 36) for open cluster NGC 6800. Also known as Herschel VIII.21, this cluster is suitable for even smaller scopes but requires aperture to resolve completely. Discovered by Sir William in this month (10th) in 1784, you’ll like this ring-like arrangement of stars!
Now drop 2.7 degrees southwest of Alpha (RA 19 23 12 Dec +22 08 00) for yet another open cluster, NGC 6793. Discovered by Herschel in 1789 and logged as catalog object VIII.81, you’ll find a few more bright stars here. The challenge in this cluster is not so much being able to see it in a smaller telescope—but being able to discern a cluster from a star field! Try using the photo to help you distinguish it from the rest…
Sunday, September 6, 2009 – Today we celebrate many births. In 1891, it’s Yrjo Vaisala who produced telescope optics and discovered asteroids. In 1830, John Henry Dallmeyer, who was a master at making telescopes and eyepieces, was born. Last, in 1811, was James Melville Gilliss who founded the United States Naval Observatory.
Tonight we’ll return again to Vulpecula, but with a different goal in mind. What we’re after requires dark skies yet can be seen in either binoculars or a small telescope. Once you’ve found Alpha, begin about two finger-widths southeast, and right on the galactic equator you’ll find NGC 6823 (RA 19 43 10 Dec +23 17 54.). The first thing you will note is a fairly large, somewhat concentrated magnitude 7 open cluster.
Resolved in larger telescopes, the viewer may note these stars are the hot, blue-white variety. For good reason. NGC 6823 only formed about 2 billion years ago. Although it is some 6,000 light-years away and occupies around 50 light-years of space, it’s sharing the field with something more—a very large emission/reflection nebula, NGC 6820 (RA 19 42 27 Dec +23 05 14).
In the outer reaches of star cluster NGC 6823, new stars are being formed in masses of gas and dust as hot radiation is shed from the brightest of the stellar members of this pair. Fueled by emission, NGC 6820 isn’t always an easy visual object; it is faint and covers almost four times as much area as NGC 6823. But trace the edges very carefully, since the borders are much more illuminated than the central cluster region. Take the time to really observe this one! The processes going on here are very much like those in the ‘‘Trapezium’’ area of the Orion nebula. Be sure to mark your siting in your observing notes. NGC 6823 is Herschel VII.18 and NGC 6820 is also known as Marth 401!
Did you catch last week’s awesome Jupiter events? If not – then enjoy this great footage taken by the one and only Joe Brimacombe. (Not only is Dr. Joe cool… but he’s also one of the best observers I know!)
Perhaps you need another little nudge to get you out and observing, huh? Then here’s a list of Jupiter activities over the weekend:
Friday
00:58 UT, Io begins transit of Jupiter.
01:28 UT, Io’s shadow begins to cross Jupiter.
03:16 UT, Io ends transit of Jupiter.
03:48 UT, Io’s shadow leaves Jupiter’s disk.
22:10 UT, Io enters occultation behind Jupiter.
Saturday
01:00 UT, Io exits eclipse by Jupiter’s shadow.
02:36 UT, Europa exits eclipse by Jupiter’s shadow.
19:24 UT, Io begins transit of Jupiter.
19:58 UT, Io’s shadow begins to cross Jupiter.
21:42 UT, Io ends transit of Jupiter.
Sunday
16:36 UT, Io enters occultation behind Jupiter.
17:06 UT, Europa begins transit of Jupiter.
18:14 UT, Europa’s shadow begins to cross Jupiter.
This week’s awesome images are (in order of appearance): Full Moon (credit—NASA), Omicron 1 Cygni, NGC 6800, NGC 6793, NGCs 6823 (central) and 6820 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech) and Jupiter footage courtesy of Joe Brimacombe. We thank you so much!
