A new image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how a few monstrous stars in a stellar nebula can create a community of smaller stars. The image is of the Carina Nebula, a well known nebula located 10,000 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy. It contains the massive star Eta Carinae, which could explode as a supernova within our lifetime. It's surrounded by clouds of dust and gas which have been collapsed by radiation streaming off Eta Carinae to create new stars. As you get further from Eta Carinae, this process creates smaller and smaller stars.
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Astronomers from the US and France have mapped out the motion of a stars in the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), and found that they're actually part of the galaxy's main disk. This means that this spiral galaxy is actually three times larger - 220,000 light years across - than astronomers had previously estimated. It was previously believed that these stars were part of a halo that surrounded Andromeda, but weren't actually part of its disk. This discovery hadn't been made until now because detecting the motion of these stars requires very precise observations.
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Warfare has been the driving force for many technological advances. The Atlas booster, one of rocketry's stars, arose from such a conflict and now continues a stellar performance in launching military and peace oriented payloads. In the book Atlas The Ultimate Weapon Chuck Walker, together with Joel Powell, present a detailed history of the Atlas development program together with the views of the people who advanced this very successful rocket technology.
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An international team of astronomers have found evidence that certain kinds of gamma-ray bursts, which are associated with Type 1C supernovae (aka hypernovae), could be caused when carbon/oxygen stars collapse into black holes. Type 1C supernovae occur when massive stars shed their outer layers of hydrogen and helium, or lose them to binary companions. As it collapses, material blasts out the top and bottom in powerful jets. The team was able to confirm this model by using Keck and the Subaru Telescope to analyze a recent hypernova that matched their predictions perfectly.
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The space shuttle Discovery has returned to NASA's massive Vehicle Assembly Building to get a new, modified external fuel tank for its upcoming mission. The redesigned fuel tank has a heater on board that should help to minimize frost and ice buildup that could fall off and strike the shuttle during launch. Discovery will roll back out to the launch pad in mid-June, carrying its Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello. NASA is targeting to launch Discovery on July 13, 2005.
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Only when the Apollo astronauts finally stepped out onto the surface of the Moon was the mystery of its dark patches finally revealed - they're ancient impact basins that filled with lava 700 million years after the formation of the Earth and Moon. Scientists now think this late heavy bombardment might have come from a time when the giant planets in the Solar System were changing orbits; Jupiter moved inward, while Saturn, Uranus and Neptune headed away from the Sun. The gravitational side-effect of this shuffling sent a rain of smaller objects that struck the Moon and other planets in the Solar System.
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Cassini has turned up an unusual "hotspot" on Titan that astronomers don't have an explanation for... yet. The 483-km (300-mile) wide region can been seen in both visible light and infrared. This spot could be from an asteroid impact, cryovolcanism, or some kind of atmospheric process - maybe a crater is holding clouds in place, or unusual materials on the surface. Cassini will visit Titan during its nighttime in July, 2006, and view the region again in infrared to see it it's actually hot.
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Professional astronomers have got some powerful equipment at their disposal: Hubble, Keck, and Spitzer, just to name a few. But many discoveries rely on the work of amateurs, using equipment you could buy at your local telescope shop. And recently, amateurs helped discover a planet orbiting another star 15 thousand light-years away. Grant Christie is an amateur astronomer from Auckland New Zealand, and is part of the team that made the discovery.
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Based on new observations from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Saturn could act as a mirror to help determine when massive X-ray flares are going off on the Sun. Chandra observed Saturn before and then during a flare and could clearly see X-rays reflected back. A similar situation also happens with Jupiter, so scientists could use the two planets as remote sensing tools to monitor events on the opposite side of the Sun.
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NASA's Opportunity rover is still working its way free from the sand trap it ran into a few weeks ago. Since it began trying to escape the dune, Opportunity has only moved 30 cm (11 inches), but operators think it's just a matter of time before the rover finds more solid ground to grip onto. Once the rover gets free, it will turn around and analyze the sand dune to help figure out why this one was so sticky compared to the dozens it already drove over without any problem.
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This photograph of Saturn taken by Cassini shows its rings bending down just before they pass behind the planet. This is actually an optical effect caused by Saturn's atmosphere, which acts like a lens to refract the light. The image was obtained using Cassini's near-infrared filter which samples a wavelength that makes methane gas invisible, allowing the spacecraft to "see" through Saturn's atmosphere.
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NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled so far in our Solar System that it's reached the heliosheath. This is an area just past the termination shock region, where the solar wind crashes into the thin interstellar gas of the galaxy. It was difficult to detect exactly when Voyager 1 passed through the termination shock and into the heliosheath, because we have no data about interstellar space yet, just calculations.
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One of the most intense bursts of solar radiation in more than 50 years happened in mid-January this year, and scientists are still mulling over the implications for current space weather theories. Another interesting aspect of this flare is how quickly it traveled through the solar system. Normally a proton shower associated with a flare takes several hours to reach the Earth, but we were hit with the first particles in just 15 minutes. This could have important implications for future space weather warning systems, to keep astronauts safe from solar storms.
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Wormholes are a mainstay in science fiction, providing our heroes with a quick and easy way to instantly travel around the Universe. Enter a wormhole near the Earth and you come out on the other side of the galaxy. Even though science fiction made them popular, wormholes had their origins in science - distorting spacetime like this was theoretically possible. But according to Dr. Stephen Hsu from the University of Oregon building a wormhole is probably impossible.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has obtained the most detailed images ever taken of Saturn's rings, including new details about its B ring, of which little was known previously. Cassini went behind Saturn's rings on May 3, 2005, and this gave scientists on Earth a chance to probe the ringst. Cassini sent a series of radio signals as it traveled behind the rings; the weaker the signal, the more dense the material in the rings. This allowed scientists to determine the thickness and size of particles at each point in the rings.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The week might begin with a full Moon, but we'll have plenty to explore as we learn about the anti-twilight arch and the "Belt of Venus". We'll watch as the Moon occults Antares, locate globular clusters, visit the planets and pinpoint asteroids. The weekend brings early dark skies along with challenges for all observers, so get ready to grab a comet by the tail, because...
Here's what's up!
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Astronomers have analyzed the dusty discs of newly forming planets around other stars, and have discovered that rocky planets (like our own Earth) form much further from their parent stars than previous theories suggested. Protoplanetary dust that gets to close to its parent star completely evaporates, and never gets the chance to clump together into larger objects. The team made these new, more precise measurements using powerful instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope and the giant Keck Observatory.
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Two amateur astronomers from New Zealand, working with a team of astronomers from around the world have helped to discover an extrasolar planet 15,000 light years from Earth. They used a technique known as gravitational microlensing, which occurs when a massive object (like a star or even a black hole) passes in front of a more distant star; its gravity bends and focuses light like a lens. The team noticed that the closer star had a strange pattern of distortion to its light that indicated a planet. This method could be used to find much smaller, even Earth-sized, planets.
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A Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sunday, carrying the DIRECTV 8 broadcast satellite into orbit. The rocket launched at 1759 UTC (1:59 p.m. EDT), and the Breeze M upper stage continued to place it into a geosynchronous transfer orbit 9 hours and 15 minutes later. DIRECTV 8 will augment the existing broadcast satellites stationed above 101 degrees west longitude.
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At the end of a hard day's work, taking time to enjoy the accomplishments somehow makes the blood, sweat and tears less than what they were. When the trials and labours of building a space faring infrastructure are complete, then the opportunity to relax and enjoy this capability will surely lighten the memories of its development as well. Michel Van Pelt in his book, Space Tourism gives us a glimpse of how this leisure activity may take shape and he also highlights some of the hard work needed to get there.
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Researchers have discovered that the structure of the Sun's lower atmosphere, or chromosphere, can be used to predict the speed and intensity of solar winds - the stream of electrified gas constantly blowing off the Sun. This was unexpected, because the solar wind comes from the corona, or outer layer, while the chromosphere is much deeper into the Sun. By learning how to predict the strength and speed of the solar wind, scientists will be able to protect electrical equipment, satellites and space explorers.
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Cassini recently took this image of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus above the planet's sweeping rings. Although the rings are made largely of ice, they've become dirty because of contamination from meteoritic dust gathered over hundreds of millions of years. Enceladus, on the other hand, looks comparatively pristine. There must be some process that continues to resurface Enceladus, to keep it from turning the same dusty colour.
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A weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was launched atop a Boeing Delta II rocket on Thursday, after several days of delays. The Delta II and its NOAA-18 cargo blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1022 UTC (6:22 am EDT). The satellite separated from its booster approximately 65 minutes later. Flight controllers confirmed that the satellite has entered its proper polar orbit, and deployed its solar array boom and antennas.
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NASA has announced that its next Centennial Challenge will invite teams to try and extract air from lunar soil: the MoonROx (Moon Regolith Oxygen) challenge. Specifically, the teams will need to build a piece of hardware within mass and power requirements that can extract 5 kg (11 lbs) of oxygen out of simulated lunar soil within an 8 hour period. The first team to succeed will win $250,000 USD. The competition expires June 1, 2008, if nobody is able to take the prize.
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When high-energy cosmic ray particles crash into the Earth's atmosphere, they produce some of the brightest radio flashes ever seen in the sky. And they had largely gone unnoticed until now. A new detector called LOPES uses prototype antennas which will eventually be built into the largest radio telescope in the world to watch the sky for these radio flashes. By studying these flashes, astronomers may gain some insights into the nature and origin of these cosmic rays.
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NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft turned its gaze on its satellite neighbours recently, and took pictures of both Mars Odyssey and the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Mars Express was photographed from about 250 km (155 miles) away, while Mars Odyssey was only 90 km (56 miles) away. In both cases, the spacecraft were moving quickly relative to each other, so the timing had to be perfect to actually capture anything with Surveyor's camera.
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Cosmologists from Princeton are working on new tests that could help to explain the nature of "dark energy", a mysterious force accelerating the expansion of the Universe. It could be an unknown form of energy, or it could be that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity breaks down at very large scales. The researchers will track the rate at which galaxy clusters have grown in time. If this growth is consistent, it'll mean that dark energy is at work; otherwise, it could mean problems with Einstein's predictions.
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Canadian astronomers using the MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) Space Telescope have detected that a giant extrasolar planet has forced its parent star into a lock-step orbit. This interaction is between the star tau Bootis and its "hot Jupiter" planet discovered in 1997. MOST was able to detect subtle variations in the star's brightness that correspond with the planet's orbit. It's likely that the planet has forced the outer layer of tau Bootis' atmosphere so that it rotates to keep the same side facing.
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Astronauts almost unanimously speak about the wonders of their trip into space. Immediately thereafter they qualify their descriptions by bemoaning their inability to adequately convey their feelings. However, Story Musgrave, in the compact disc Cosmic Fireflies attempts to redress this deficiency.
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Near the end of 2004, astronomers found a 320 metre (1000 feet) wide space rock that seemed to have the highest chance ever reported of actually striking the Earth - on April 13, 2029. Further observations have demonstrated that the asteroid will miss... phew. But when it streaks by in about 24 years, it will come so close - 30,000 km (18,600 miles) - that observers on the ground will easily see it with the unaided eye. It will get as bright as a 3rd magnitude star, and be visible from Africa, Europe and Asia.
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A team of amateur Canadian astronomers took the helm at the powerful Gemini 8-metre telescope atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea for an hour. The time was awarded as part of a nationwide contest in Canada. The winning team from Quebec proposed that Gemini analyze a star called RY Tau, which is in a class of T Tauri stars. These are young, low mass stars which have only just recently emerged from their stellar cocoon of gas and dust. Professional astronomers working with Gemini were impressed at the calibre of proposals they received from amateurs.
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Just a few weeks after smashing a chunk off Drygalski ice tongue, iceberg B-15A is still wreaking havoc off the coast of Antarctica. Now it's about to crash into the Aviator Glacier - a 25 km (16 mile) long spear of ice stretching into the ocean. The European Space Agency's Envisat Earth observation satellite captured this image of B-15A just a few kilometres away from the crash. B-15A is the world's largest free floating object, which has been afloat for more than 5 years now, since it calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! "Lunacy" has returned again - and with it familiar features and new ways of looking at them. On Thursday, the Moon will occult Jupiter for a portion of the Earth and make a dazzling close pass for the rest. There will be bright stars, double stars and even an asteroid to explore - so keep those binoculars and telescopes handy, because...
Here's what's up!
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Knowledge keeps on growing. In early times, like the cavemen era, people put their hands near fire and understood 'hot'. Today spinning photons bring a new perspective to information transfer. Roger Penrose in his book, The Road to Reality associates state of the art observations with near magical acts of mathematics to bring to us a very thorough yet readable guide to understanding both the micro and large scale structures and occurrences about us.
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Mars' southern polar ice cap is completely off-centre. Researchers working with NASA think they have an answer to this lopsided mystery: the weather. Mars' southern hemisphere seems to be much colder and stormier than its northern hemisphere, and the southern icecap is only 1/10 the size of its northern counterpart. The researchers have discovered that Mars has two regional climates on either side of the pole, which are caused by two large craters that create a low-pressure system that sits over the southern ice cap and keeps it in one location.
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Astronomers working with the Canadian Microvariability & Oscillations of STars (MOST) space telescope have been able to indirectly probe the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. The planet, HD209458b, was imaged earlier this year by NASA's Spitzer space telescope; it's a "hot jupiter", orbiting very close to its parent star. MOST will watch how its parent star changes in brightness as the planet passes in front and behind, and should be able to provide details about its temperature, pressure, and even cloud cover.
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NASA engineers are using a duplicate version of the Mars rovers here on Earth to try and test strategies Opportunity could use to dig its way out of a sand dune. The rover bogged down during a drive on April 26, and controllers have asked it to just stay put while they work on the best way to escape. The team is experimenting with a mixture that they think mimics the composition of the sand in the dune, and hope to put what they've learned to the test next week.
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While Cassini scientists are studying Titan's atmosphere, the Huygens team is analyzing its surface. The European Space Agency has released a mosaic of images that show Titan's surface and the region the probe landed on January 14. The Descent Imager Spectral Radiometer (DISR) took a series of "image triplets" as it descended towards Titan's surface. Image specialists have looked for common elements in the pictures, and then used them to build up this mosaic.
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Scientists have had an opportunity study much of the data sent back by Cassini about the composition of Titan's atmosphere - it's more familiar than you would think. The thick atmosphere is rich in organic compounds, which are similar to conditions that might have been found early in the Earth's history. The Cassini science team also found a vortex above Titan's north pole, which is very similar to the situation on Earth that leads to the ozone hole. Titan has no ozone, but this polar vortex isolates gas during winter and could allow complex chemistry to occur.
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Imagine a solar powered sail that could propel a space craft through the vacuum of space like a wind that drives a sail here on Earth. The energy of photons steaming from the Sun alone would provide the thrust. NASA and other space agencies are taking the idea seriously and are working on various prototype technologies. Edward Montgomory is the Technology Area Manager of Solar Sail Propulsion at NASA. They just tested a 20-meter (66 foot) sail at the Glenn research center's Plum Brook facility in Sandusky, Ohio.
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Take a good look at Saturn's moon Iapetus and it has a few striking features that set it apart from every other object in the solar system. For one thing, it seems to have two faces: one white, like freshly fallen snow, and the other dark like volcanic rock. But even stranger, Iapetus has a seam. Right at the equator, and going halfway around the planet, it's probably 20 km (12 miles) high - as if the moon was cut in half and then smashed back together. Planetary geologists have assumed this seam is volcanic in origin, but Paulo C.C. Freire of the Arecibo Observatory has another suggestion. In the distant past, Iapetus gobbled up one of Saturn's rings.
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Cassini took this image of two of Saturn's moons, Dione and Tethys, perched together near the planet's rings. Dione is the upper moon in the picture, and occults part of Saturn's rings. This image shows the contrast between the moons: Dione looks much smoother than Tethys' crater battered surface. The photo was taken on March 19, 2005, when Cassini was approximately 2.7 million km (1.7 million miles) from Saturn.
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After a brief glitch last week, the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has successfully deployed the first of its MARSIS booms to its full length. The 20 metre (66 foot) boom is composed of 13 segments, but one joint didn't fully lock into place. Controllers turned the cold side of the boom into the Sun, which heated it up, and forced it into place. With the first boom complete, controllers will extend its two additional booms within a few weeks, so Mars Express can begin searching for underground sources of water.
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I heard on the radio today someone bemoaning the fact that, after 18 years, they will no longer have new Star Trek episodes to watch. The current and apparently final rendition is Star Trek Enterprise that, as a prequel, fills in the Star Trek time line between the discovery of the warp drive engine and the original series with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and company. Though there won't be new episodes, lots of fun can still be had from (re) watching the old Star Trek episodes, including those in the new collection Star Trek Enterprise - Season 1.
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Usually it's the biggest things that get the news, but an international team of researchers have demonstrated that the tiny might be just as important. They spotted the smallest coronal mass ejection (CME) ever seen on the surface of the Sun, produced from a region not much bigger than the Earth. This sounds big, but it's a fraction of the size of those huge CMEs we normally see in pictures of the Sun. Amazingly, the magnetic field lines in this pint-sized CME were 10x more twisted than their larger cousins.
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Monday's gamma ray burst might have been just what astronomers have been hoping to see for decades - the birth of a new black hole. GRB 050509B was a short gamma ray burst, lasting only 50 milliseconds, which means it could be the result of a collision between two neutron stars, or even two black holes. NASA's Swift observatory detected the explosion, tracked its location, and focused its large telescope within a minute of its occurrence.
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