Posted on by Astronomy Cast

Podcast: The Hubble Space Telescope

Our understanding of the cosmos has been revolutionized by the Hubble Space Telescope. The breathtaking familiar photos, like the Pillars of Creation, pale in comparison to the astounding amount of science data returned to Earth. Hubble’s getting old, though, serviced several times already, and due for another mission later this year. Let’s relive the historic observatory’s amazing life so far, and see what the future holds.

Click here to download the episode

The Hubble Space Telescope – Show notes and transcript

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Posted on by Fraser Cain

Scientific Data Recovered from a Hard Drive that Crashed With Columbia

It would be amazing to think that anything could have survived the fiery destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up above Texas on February 1st, 2003, killing all 7 astronauts. Amazingly, tiny worms survived the break up and crash. And now, data recovery experts announced they were able to salvage scientific data from a charred hard drive.

The announcement was made last week by data recovery company Kroll Ontrack Inc. When they received a smashed up hard drive from NASA, it just looked like a hunk of metal. But after painstaking work, they were able to recover 99% of the information stored on the hard drive.

The hard drive was part of study of the critical viscosity of xenon gas. As the data were being gathered on board Columbia as part of its mission, they were being transmitted back down to Earth. They had only transmitted part of the data, enough to tell researchers that the experiment was working. They were going to wait until Columbia landed to get the rest. Of course, Columbia never landed.

What NASA sent to Kroll Ontrack was almost unrecognizable as a hard drive. Jon Edwards, a senior clean room engineer at the company said that the circuit board on the drive was burned beyond recognition and that all its components had fallen off. Every piece of plastic on the 400 MB Seagate hard drive had melted, and the chips were burned.

Unfortunately, two other drives that crashed with Columbia were so damaged that no data could could be extracted from them. One of the Seagate’s keys to its survival is that it was actually quite old and had a much lower data capacity. The 400 MB drive was about 8 years old in 2003. It had much more fault tolerance and durability that current hard drive capacity.

Engineers were able to remove the hard drive platters from the destroyed drive and transfer them to a new drive. From there they were able to reconstruct 99% of the data.

Original Source: Scientific American

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Revealing The Undiscovered – Van Den Bergh 149/50 and Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 by Tom Davis

Van Den Bergh 149/50 and Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 by Tom Davis

Over the past few weeks we’ve taken a look at some pretty incredible regions of space through astrophotography – Wolf Rayet stars, Thackeray’s Globules, tidal interactions and even giant dust clouds bursting with star birth. This time, let’s take a look at something so obscure that it might even be the first time that it’s been photographed…

What you’re looking at van den Bergh 149 (RA 22 09 08.5 Dec +72 53 05), van den Bergh 150 (RA 22 09 40.1 Dec +73 23 27) , and dark nebula LDN1235; Cepheus. According to image author, Tom Davis: “These two reflection nebulae are rarely imaged and this image may well be a premiere for amateur astroimaging. vdB 149 is the blue reflection nebula on the center left; vdB150 the center right. The darker nebula just “above” vdB150 is Lynds Dark Nebula 1235. It is likely an Extended Red Emission nebula (ERE). These ERE are galactic dark nebulae at high latitudes that become visible through illumination by the interstellar radiation field. ERE is a dust-luminescence process, which appears in a broad band extending in wavelength across the R-band (Schedler). This image is a composite-hybrid between two images taken with telescopes of different focal lengths. These nebulae have very low surface brightness and pose a significant challenge in imaging them. There are even fainter wisps of dust that make up the sky background. These small clouds are yet uncataloged as far as I can find through research. ”

In 1966, Sidney Van Den Bergh produced his own catalog of bright nebula with embedded stars. It contains information for “all BD and CD stars north of -33 deg which are surrounded by reflection nebulosity visible on both the blue and red prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. The nearer reflection nebulae lie predominantly along Gould’s Belt, whereas the more distant ones are concentrated to the galactic plane. The data outline 13 associations of reflection nebulae, some of which coincide with known OB or T associations. Attention is drawn to the fact that most reflection nebulae are illuminated by the integrated light of the Milky Way. The integrated radiation will be more intense above and below the galactic plane then in the galactic plane where the nuclear bulge of the Galaxy and most of the disk are obscured by interstellar absorption.”

Ninth magnitude vdB 149 first appeared in scientific literature around 1957 during a search for cepheids in galactic clusters done by Sidney Van Den Berg. Later, in 1960, it was also picked up by Halton Arp and more formally in 1966 when Van Den Berg did his “Study of Reflection Nebulae” utilizing the Palomar Sky Survey plates. It is also the 159th reflection nebula corresponding to HD 224403 (GLON=116.6, GLAT=-00.22) is introduced by R. Racine in his study of stars in Reflection Nebulae in 1968 where photometric and spectroscopic observations were done for fifteen distinct regions.

However, 8.4 magnitude vdB 150 holds a much more colorful history, having been noted in 1918 by Annie Jump Cannon and Edward Pickering. Annie picked it up again in 1925 during the extended Henry Draper Catalog Study and again in 1949 in a commemorative work done with Walton Mayall. From there, it laid dormant until 1991 and 1995 when revisited again by the Astrographic Catalogue for spectral type, proper motion and position. It holds its place in basic data as HD 210806 — Star in Nebula.

Like the Van Den Bergh catalogs of bright nebula where curtains of gas and dust conjoin with stars, the Lynds Dark Nebula catalog was developed in much the same way – compiled from studies of the red and blue prints from the Palomar Sky Survey. “The range in declination is from +90 to -33 degrees. A cloud had to be visible on both the red and the blue photographs in order to be recorded. It is therefore very probable that the more tenuous clouds which may be transparent in the red are not included herein. Lynds states that it was often difficult to detect a cloud that absorbed less than 0.75 magnitudes. Many of the small dark nebulae termed `Bok Globules‘ are not included in this catalog because they are apparent as dark objects projected against the bright background of an emission nebulosity: only objects which, on the basis of stellar density fluctuations, indicated the presence of absorption are contained here.”

Do these regions meet and produce new anomalies which need further study? I’d say that’s affirmative. It’s a well known fact LDN 1235 contains a variable star and that Lynd’s dark nebulae have differing turbulent velocities. There are areas where the opacity is weak and may very well have reached excitation temperatures – the density decreases and the temperature increases along the outward edges. Although it’s only conjecture on my part, I’d say that photographic studies like those done by Tom Davis are extremely important in the long term. They provide photographic record of changes not captured by professional observatories and will eventually become a source of future reference.

One that both amateur and professionals can study and enjoy…

This week’s awesome image is done by MRO member, Tom Davis. They were taken with an Astro Systeme Austria N12 f/3.5 Astrograph (LUM) and Takahashi FSQ-106 f/5 Astrograph (RGB) KAI-11000M – Total Exposure 10.6+ hours; LRGB 260:120:120:120 minutes, unbinned – April-May 2008; Inkom, ID, USA.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Help Find the Mars Polar Lander

NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander is just a few weeks away from landing on the surface of Mars. NASA really hopes that this spacecraft doesn’t fallow in the doomed path of the previous Mars Polar Lander. What happened to the Mars Polar Lander? Nobody knows. NASA assumes it’s smashed up somewhere on the surface of the Red Planet. Now you can help search for it, by looking through high resolution images of the potential crash site.

The Mars Polar Lander should have landed on the Red Planet back in 1999. But instead of touching down gently on the surface of the planet, it just stopped sending back signals once it reached the Martian atmosphere. After an investigation into the crash, the best theory is that the vibration of the lander’s legs extending tricked the software into thinking it was on firm ground, and not 40 metres above the surface. The software cut off the main engine, and the lander plummeted down to the ground – a fall it couldn’t survive.

The spacecraft in orbit around Mars didn’t have the resolution to see the tiny lander on the surface of Mars. But the next generation Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter does have the resolution. If the lander is down there – in one piece, or in a field of debris – MRO’s high-resolution camera might be able to turn it up.

The problem is that there’s an immense amount of ground to cover, so the team responsible for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s main camera system is looking for some help. They’ve made images of the entire potential debris area.

To get started, familiarize yourself with different kinds of debris and objects seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Here’s a link (warning… it’s a 15 MB PDF). I really recommend you check out that file, it’s quite an impressive collection of spacecraft debris strewn around Mars.

And then you can start looking through high resolution images of the potential debris area looking for anything that looks like a crashed lander, parachute, backplane, etc. Feel free to report any Martians you see as well.

Click here to access that page that links to all the image sets.

You can then post comments onto the blog for any possible objects you see.

And let’s hope Mars Phoenix Lander lives up to its name, and helps the mission rise from the ashes to learn more about the subsurface ice on Mars.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Celestron SkyScout Scope 90 Review

When I first saw the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90 appear, I knew that some day, some how I was going to have to get my hands on one of these refractor telescopes. I am fascinated with my Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium and the thought of adding an easy-to-use telescope to it as as system was simply irresistible. My only thought was would this be the Celestron quality I’ve always known and loved… or would it be a disappointment?

The day the big box from Celestron arrived, my hands itched to take out the telescope and mount inside and see what it could do. Of course, the “astronomer’s curse” was in full force at the time and we all know that anyone who gets a new telescope has to endure at least a few days of clouds and rain before they’re allowed to use it. I was no exception. I kept watching the box and watching the skies; one of these nights, the SkyScout Scope 90 would be mine.

The moment the first sunny day arrived, the box was on the table and I was ready with a fresh, open mind; ready to see just how intuitive assembly would be and how the scope felt to my hands. With the neatly packed interior displayed, by some odd coincidence my hands chose to open the section that contained the mount and tripod first. Inwardly, I cringed. I’ve had a tremendous amount of experience with inexpensive telescopes and one of the major flaws with all of them is the mount and tripod. Please don’t tell me this is the same.

Please.

I needn’t have worried. The moment the Celestron altazimuth mount was freed from its styrofoam and plastic, I knew that my faith in Celestron was well placed. What I was holding in my hands might be lightweight – but it was in no respect cheap. Smooth, 1.5″ polished stainless steel legs were ended with well-attached feet. A critical link, the mechanism that tightens the tripod legs when extended, was rock solid and not prone to stripping out like competitor mounts. What’s more, the Celestron-quality altazimuth mount was already attached – fully assembled. While most of us (including me) are perfectly capable of assembling a mount and/or attaching it to the tripod, this extra Celestron feature scored heavily in their favor.

Why? The answer is simple.

For any of us who dis-assemble and re-assemble a scope frequently, you know the more often it is done, the harder it becomes on the parts. It’s also very wearing on some types of mounts and tripods to transport them fully assembled as well – one wrong move can mean stripped fittings and a forever “loose” scope. Not so in the case of the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90. This is one that is meant to be transported assembled and its anodized aluminum machinations are solid quality. You aren’t going to strip this Celestron mount out just by using it.

Next up? Scope rings. Here again we have a critical assembly part. Easily attached and Celestron quality. While the scope rings might seem like a minor thing, have you ever tried holding your optical tube steady with one hand while closing the scope rings and tightening them down with the other? Yeah. You get the picture. No one wants to take a chance at dropping their optical tube assembly and Celestron has thought about that. The tube rings have grips! In my estimation, this isn’t a minor point. This is a major convenience. By adding a “grip” feature on the tube rings, Celestron has made it easy for one person to set up the SkyScout Scope 90 – a person of any age and capability.

And now, the optical tube assembly itself. When the plastic came off, I discovered plastic underneath. Yes, it was a shock to discover the optical tube was plastic, but, this scope is under $300. Having faith in Celestron design, and also remembering how shocked I was that my first big dobsonian was cardboard, I hooked it up to the rings and was pleasantly surprised to find the dew shield is integrated. Well, hey! There’s another nice and thoughtful feature. The SkyScout Scope 90 is going to save you some money (and headaches) in the long run by already having a dew shield built right in!

Next up? Time to add the 6X30 finderscope to the quick release bracket. Here again is another very well thought out features by Celestron. For those not familiar with telescope terminology, a quick release dovetail is a type of slide that allows you to put on and take off the finderscope without messing up its alignment. A definite plus for those who transport their telescope and perfectly compatible with other types of finders – such as a red dot or green laser finder. I was also very pleased with the 6X30 image correct finder. It delivers upright images that are less confusing to the beginning astronomer and perfect for the daylight wildlife observer. To me, this is perfect aperture – capable of revealing fainter marker stars – but not so many as to be confusing with average star charts. The Celestron 6X30 finder was also very easily aligned and very secure in its housing. Both the quick release bracket and finderscope are high quality and should never need replacing. Score more points for the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90!

Now for the SkyScout Scope bracket. Viola. Again, the bracket attaches easily and securely and the Celestron SkyScout fits in it like a glove. Secure pegs match perfectly with the base of the SkyScout and an easy grip knob is provided should you wish to lock the personal planetarium down. Again, a perfect fit and easy alignment means no hassle on the user’s part and another big point in favor of this scope.

So how did it feel with all the bells and whistles attached? I went in prepared to be skeptical of having balance issues and within seconds was grinning like a fool. The pan handle control works like a charm and the clutch insures smooth and easy operation without feeling like the assembly is overloaded. On the contrary! The whole Celestron SkyScout Scope 90 balanced like a charm and there was no position that I put the scope in that felt unstable. I like confident equipment.

Are you ready for an optics test? I am. While I wasn’t too impressed with the included diagonal and 10mm eyepiece, the Celestron 40mm is the same quality that has graced my eyepiece case for two decades. Don’t get me wrong, for the diagonal and 10mm are perfectly acceptable, but I guarantee you’ll be using the included 40mm eyepiece in more than just the SkyScout Scope 90! The 40mm eyepiece is outstanding quality with good eye relief and field of view. While newcomers are terribly tempted to have that “high magnification” factor, Celestron has done you a favor in the eyepieces they choose to include. For the 90mm aperture Celestron SkyScout 90 at f/7, this particular eyepiece will give you bright, low power images that amaze you with richness of field. For lunar or planetary work, the included 10mm is right down at the limit of usable magnification. Trust Celestron, they honestly knew the two best eyepieces to pick for this telescope – not just ones to include

Terrestrial viewing? Superb. Very little color fringing and tack sharp images. Astronomical viewing? Outstanding. My first target was Saturn at low power. Crisp, clean, and well focused. (Although I haven’t mentioned it yet, the Celestron rack and pinion focuser on the SkyScout Scope 90 is also high quality. It’s very capable of fine adjustments and feels like it will last a lifetime. No slop!) What a delight to listen to the SkyScout Personal Planetarium tell me all about it while I was viewing! Oddly enough, others wanted to listen as well, so it was no problem to put a small, powered speaker right on the sturdy accessory tray. Next up? Mizar and Alcor – then Cor Caroli. Far from a tough split in either case, but the color correction is superb. How about deep sky? In the 40mm eyepiece both M81 and M82 were easily framed against their starry background and bright enough to be seen without aversion. What a pleasure! Other galaxies like M65 and M66 were easy. Even M51 and M104 were beginning to show structure and globular clusters like M3 and M5 some resolution. No vignetting… Just crisp, clean images. The plastic OTA? Guess what… Not only does it make the whole assembly lighter, but also promotes quicker cool down times.

Over the days – and away from the public eye – I continued to put the SkyScout Scope 90 to the test. These were the little things that only a backyard astronomer could appreciate – like knowing which star was Alpha Cancri so I could easily starhop to M67, or purposefully choosing difficult doubles like Porrima or Epsilon Bootes. Again and again, the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90 surprised me. Not only is it capable of the Messier objects, but a handsome portion of the NGC catalog as well. It performs well on the planets, and beyond the call of duty on the Moon.

All in all, you cannot go wrong with the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90. It’s extremely easy to assemble and its durability shines right through. Even if you never couple it with a Celestron SkyScout, the 90 will make an awesome beginner’s scope that won’t (unlike competitor’s similarly priced brands) fall apart in the user’s hands. No wonder Celestron guarantees it for two years! At only 18 lbs. it makes a great travel companion and for a great many users will provide a lifetime of fascination. I know I don’t want to let mine go.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Scientist Says Texting is More Expensive Than Downloading From Hubble

Does your cell phone bill ever reach astronomical proportions? Maybe you’re doing too much texting. One space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Nigel Bannister from the University of Leicester looked at the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble and compared it with the cost of sending a text. His calculations? “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.”

Bannister says, “The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5 pence (about .10 USD). There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that’s 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that’s £374.49 ($734.25 USD) per MB – or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.”

Dr Bannister said NASA provided the numbers of £8.85 ($17.33 USD) per megabyte for the transmission of data from HST to the Earth.

“This doesn’t include the cost of the ground stations and the time of the personnel along the way, but it is an unambiguous number for that part of the process. So that’s £8.85 to get each MB from Hubble, to the first point of contact on the ground, but no further. Hence we need to go a little bit further to estimate exactly how much it costs to transmit data from Hubble to the end user – i.e. to the data archive which scientists can access. This is difficult, so I had to make some conservative assumptions.”

Dr. Bannister estimated the cost of the data from Hubble could vary between £8.85 and £85 per MB- much cheaper than the £374.49 per MB cost of transmitting one MB of text.

Surprised by the results, Bannister said, “Hubble is by no means a cheap mission – but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!”

Original News Source: Physorg.com

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

“Tricorder” Checks for Unwanted ISS Microbes

Astronauts on board the space station now have their very own tricorder. While this 21st century version isn’t as versatile as its 24th century counterpart made famous in the Star Trek television series, it will help keep the ISS crew healthy. The real name of this device is LOCAD-PTS, short for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System. It’s a handheld biological lab specifically designed to detect and identify microbes on space station surfaces.

Wherever there are humans, there are also microbes. Biologists estimate that every human body has at least a trillion hitchhiking microbes, accounting for as much as 2% of a person’s total mass. Most live in harmony with native human cells, but others cause illnesses.

LOCAD can currently detect E. coli, salmonella and fungi. Science@ NASA reports that some fungi can actually decompose electronics, and the ISS is full of electronics essential to maintaining the space station.

LOCAD uses specialized cartridges to find different types of microbes. By the end of the year new cartridges will be sent to the station that can detect staphylococcus and streptococcus.
Eventually scientists hope to have cartridges to detect all kinds of micro-organisms and chemical compounds, so that the device could be used to diagnose what kind of “bug” an astronaut might have if they become ill.

While the Star Trek tricorder could check vital signs and find alien life, LOCAD can be used on lunar missions, long duration stays on other planets, and also here on Earth to keep track of tiny lifeforms.

LOCAD actually looks more like the tricorder from Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Here’s an image of the tricorder from the original Star Trek in the 1960’s.

Original News Source: Science@NASA

Posted on by Fraser Cain

That’s WMAP, Seen from Earth



Okay, now astronomers are just showing off. See the three little multicolored dots in the upper right of this image? That’s NASA’s WMAP satellite, seen from a distance of 1.5 million km. The photograph was taken from the 2.2 meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile. Apart from demonstrating some impressive imagine power and technique, the astronomers are testing out new tracking techniques for ESA’s upcoming Gaia space observatory.

The technique for finding your place in the Universe is called astrometry. Star Trek’s Enterprise would rely on this kind of information to navigate from star to star. In reality, though, astronomers compile this information to understand the Solar System’s position in relation to the rest of the Milky Way.

The last mission focused on this process was ESA’s Hipparcos mission, which wrapped up in the year 1993. Hipparcos measured the distance to 120,000 stars with great accuracy, as well as another 400,000 stars with less accuracy.

ESA’s new mission, due for launch in 2011, is called Gaia, and will travel to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrangian point. From this vantage point, it’ll create a precise three-dimensional map of stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and beyond. All in all, it will eventually create a catalogue of 1 billion stars.

When Gaia finally launches, knowing its position accurately in the Solar System is everything. And so, astronomers on Earth will need to be able to track its position in the sky, and relay this data back to the spacecraft, so it can make its calculations.

By demonstrating that they can already track the WMAP spacecraft, currently at the L2 Lagrangian point, the astronomers have proven that they should be able to watch Gaia as well. In fact, Gaia should be brighter than WMAP.

You might be wondering why the WMAP image shows three different colours. The astronomers photographed the region three times in black and white, and then artificially coloured them red, blue and green. Since the stars don’t move, the three colours add up to make them appear white. The moving WMAP is clearly different from the background.

Original Source: ESA Image of the Week

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Learning to Breathe Mars Air (Video)

Talk about dedication! Volunteers in Russia are testing the ability of humans to breathe argon-enriched air, as part of a research program that simulates a manned trip to Mars. Researchers want to know if humans can survive breathing air similar to that found on Mars. Of the experiment one Russian scientist said, “Our experiments show that argon combined with the right portion of oxygen is safe for humans. I tested it on myself and I’m OK, and volunteers are also doing fine.” Somehow, I’m not convinced about the rationale and safety of this test. This is preliminary research for the Russian Mars 500 project, which will simulate a manned Mars mission next year.

People will spend 520 days locked in a bunker-like habitation module, creating an environment like a real mission to Mars, which would take about that same amount of time, with round trip and a month spent on Mars.

For the current research, volunteers stayed inside a sealed capsule for ten days at a time, breathing a combination of argon, nitrogen, and oxygen. The TV news report below seems to advocate this type of research, saying that Western researchers “still use mice” for such experiments.

Especially reassuring is the scientist who keeps telling the test subjects, “Breathe calmly!” Take a look:

Original News Source: You Tube