Universe Today
Second Boom Set to Deploy
The European Space Agency is moving forward to deploy the second of Mars' Express radar booms. The 20-metre (65 foot) boom is set to unfurl between June 13 and June 21. The deployment was delayed because of a problem with the first boom, which didn't unfold perfectly, so engineers had to devise a solution to warm it in the Sun to get it to fully lock into place. Once its three booms are extended, Mars Express will be able to search for underground sources of water and ice on the Red Planet.
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Audio: Homing Beacon for an Asteroid
Asteroids have been roughing up the Earth since it formed 4.6 billion years ago. Hundreds of thousands of potentially devastating asteroids are still out there, and whizzing past our planet all the time. Eventually, inevitably, one is going to score a direct hit and cause catastrophic damage. But what if we could get a better idea of where all these asteroids are or even learn to shift their orbits? Dr Edward Lu is a NASA astronaut, and a member of the B612 Foundation - an organization raising awareness about the threat of these asteroids and some potential solutions.
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What's Up This Week - June 6 - June 12, 2005
Greetings, fellow Skywatchers! The week begins with a New Moon and an opportunity to study the rich galactic region around the M84 and M86. The June Arietid meteor shower peaks and we'll check in on Comet 9/P Tempel 1. As the Moon returns, we'll keep watch on the planets as they move toward a splendid conjunction, begin our studies of the M13, practice radio astronomy with everyday equipment and round out the week with the Ophiuchid meteor shower. Hope for clear skies and get out your binoculars and telescopes, because...
Here's what's up!
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Here's what's up!
Book Review: The Real Space Cowboys
Diaries hold the accounts of some of the dearest, most precious moments of our lives. The pleasure of a first kiss, the euphoria of wining a medal or the satisfaction from a commendation all get entered. Ed Buckbee, with Wally Schirra, in their book The Real Space Cowboys share emotional highlights of their own and others from the early U.S. space program. Given that they both have many years of first hand involvement, there are many exciting, warm and funny moments to share just like in reviewing an old diary.
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Supernova Left No Core Behind
When supernova 1987A blew up in the Large Magellanic Cloud, it was the closest supernova in over 300 years, and a great opportunity to study this rare occurrence close up. A neutron star or black hole should have formed at the centre of the expanding ring of debris, but so far, nobody can find it. A neutron star could be there, but it just isn't emitting any radiation, or sucking in any material from its surroundings, so it's invisible from here. If the neutron star had an accretion rate of even 1/5th the mass of the Moon every year, we'd be able to detect it.
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Opportunity Rolls Free from the Dune
When Opportunity got its wheels stuck in a sand dune more than a month ago, operators had no idea it would be so difficult to get it moving again. So they were relieved this weekend when Opportunity finally maneuvered its way out. It was very difficult for the rover to get any traction in the ripple-shaped dune, and its spinning wheels traveled the equivalent of 191 metres (629 feet). Scientists now want to analyze the sand dune to understand why this one bogged down the rover, unlike dozens of other dunes it's rolled across without a problem.
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Strange Ozone Hole this Year
Even through large levels of ozone were destroyed in the Earth's atmosphere this winter, NASA's Aura spacecraft detected that the ozone layer is actually looking quite healthy above the arctic, and did its job stopping harmful ultraviolet radiation. This strange paradox is explained by a very unusual winter in the Arctic, where stratospheric winds brought in large quantities of ozone from the Earth's middle latitudes. This was the first winter monitored by Aura, which was launched in 2004.
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View Through the Rings
Cassini took this beautiful photograph of Saturn, shrouded behind its own rings. This image was taken in visible light on April 26, 2005, when Cassini was approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Saturn. The photograph not only shows the A, B, and C rings, but they're also casting shadows onto the planet's atmosphere.
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Mars Phoenix Mission Prepares for 2007 Launch
NASA announced today that it has begun preparing the Mars Phoenix lander spacecraft for its August 2007 launch to the Red Planet. This means the development of the spacecraft has passed a major milestone in its development. If all goes well, Phoenix will land in the far-northern plains on Mars, and search for possible indications of present or past life. The total cost, including launch will be $386 million USD.
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Following the Dust Trail
On March 13, 1986, the ESA probe, Giotto, had a close encounter - a close encounter with a visitor from the Oort cloud spewing 18 metric tons of gas every second and pouring 30 metric tons of dust from its nucleus. It's name? Comet Halley... And following its trail was one of the world's foremost experts on cometary dust properties - Dr. Jochen Kissel. "Historically comets have always been unusual bodies, as they seemed to appear out of the nothing and also disappear like that. " But the real mystery is the dust.
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Recent Blast was Probably a Neutron Star Collision
When astronomers started analyzing the recent gamma ray burst GRB050509b, they knew right away that they were seeing something very important. This cosmic explosion lasted less than 1/30th of a second, but it provided astronomers with an X-ray afterglow for the first time ever, and pointed them towards a likely cause: the collision of two neutron stars, or a neutron star with a black hole.
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New Jupiter Mission Moves Forward
NASA announced today that it's pressing forward with a new mission to Jupiter called Juno, which will launch no later than 2010. This will be the second of NASA's New Frontiers Programs (the New Horizons Pluto mission will be the first). The $700 million spacecraft will travel to Jupiter, and then orbit the giant planet searching for an ice-rock core, determine the amounts of water and ammonia present in its atmosphere and study its winds and magnetic field.
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A Simulation of the Whole Universe
An international team of researchers have developed a computer program that simulates the growth and expansion of the Universe after the Big Bang, including the formation of galaxies, clusters and quasars. The "Millennium Simulation" used 10 billion virtual particles of matter, and traced their movements in a 2 billion light-year cube of space as the Universe evolved. This simulated area contained 20 million virtual galaxies, and accounted for dark energy expanding the Universe, cold dark matter, and regular matter.
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Quasar Image Revises Theories About Their Jets
Researchers using the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope found something unusual about the jet of material streaming away from a powerful quasar that may leave theorists scratching their heads. Quasars are thought to be jets blasting away from supermassive black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies. The team was expecting magnetic forces to twist the jet and keep material aligned in the middle, but they found just the opposite; the jet is scattered in the centre and more aligned at its edges.
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Amalthea is Just a Pile of Icy Rubble
By studying data gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, researchers have come to the conclusion that Amalthea, one of Jupiter's moons, is probably just a jumble of icy rubble, held together by gravity. Scientists originally believed it was made of rock, but Galileo helped to discover that its density is actually lower than water. It probably formed further out in the solar system, but was then captured into a stable orbit by Jupiter's immense gravity.
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Ancient Floods on Mars
The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft took this image of an ancient outflow channel in the Ares Vallis region of Mars. This immense channel is 1400 km (870 miles) long, and eventually empties into Chryse Planitia; where the Mars Pathfinder mission landed in 1997. The bumpy "islands" are individual blocks of rocks and hills that were harder for the rushing water to weather down, so they remain in the channel.
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Measuring the Shape of Stars
The faster a star spins, the more it flattens out, changing from a sphere to something more egg-shaped. Since stars are points of light in the sky, it's difficult to determine their shape, but astronomers are now using gravitational lensing to get a sense of the shape of stars. This depends on the light from a distant star being deflected by the gravity of something closer. In a recent lensing event, where a closer star eclipsed a more distant star, astronomers were able to detect that the background star was slightly elongated. This is impressive considering the distant star was 16,000 light-years away.
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Soyuz Launches Foton-M Spacecraft
An unmanned Foton-M spacecraft was launched today on board a Russian Soyuz-U from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This is a special research satellite for the European Space Agency, which has 39 experiments on board ranging from fluid physics to exobiology. The spacecraft will stay in orbit for 16 days before returning the contents back to Earth safely. The capsule and experiments will be recovered quickly after landing and the time sensitive experiments will be rushed back to researchers in Europe.
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What's Up This Week - May 30 - June 5, 2005
Greetings fellow Skywatchers! With early dark skies this week, now would be a great opportunity to work on some serious galactic studies in the well-placed constellations of Crater and Corvus. The Moon will make a splendid close pass at Mars, occulting it for some viewers and we'll have two meteor showers to enjoy. It's time to get out the telescopes, because...
Here's what's up!
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Here's what's up!
Book Review: Four Astronomy Books for Kids
Sharing a passion just makes it sweeter. Getting cosy together under the stars, exploring constellations, going, 'ohh' when a meteor streaks overhead warms people emotionally and physically. Making this more endearing is the opportunity to share with the younger generation who are so eager to learn. Satisfying this eagerness isn't always easy however. Bringing sense to a collection of bright dots can prove daunting. The following describes four excellent books to help share a passion of the stars and to awaken a curiosity that may go on for a lifetime.
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Monstrous Stars Spawn a Community of Smaller Stars
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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Andromeda is Three Times Larger Than Previously Believed
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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Book Review: Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon
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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Carbon/Oxygen Stars Could Explode as Gamma Ray Bursts
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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Shuttle Getting an Upgraded Fuel Tank
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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Dark Spots on the Moon Show a Turbulent Solar System
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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Mysterious Spot on Titan Puzzles Astronomers
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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Podcast: Amateurs Help Find a Planet
Audio: Amateurs Help Find a Planet
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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Saturn Reflects X-Rays from the Sun
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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Opportunity Still Working Itself Free from the Sand
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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A Bend in the Rings
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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Voyager 1 Enters the Heliosheath
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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Powerful Flare Shook Up Our Understanding of the Sun
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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Audio: Unlikely Wormholes
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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Cassini Determines the Density of Saturn's Rings
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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Podcast: Unlikely Wormholes
What's Up This Week - May 23 - May 29, 2005
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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Here's what's up!
Rocky Planets Form Further Away Than Previously Thought
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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Amateurs Help Discover Extrasolar Planet
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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Proton Launches DIRECTV Satellite
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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Book Review: Space Tourism - Adventures in Earth Orbit and Beyond
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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Solar Astronomers Getting Better at Predicting Solar Wind
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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Enceladus Above Saturn's Rings
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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Weather Satellite Launches After Several Delays
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 Competition to Get Air from Lunar Soil
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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Cosmic Rays Cause the Brightest Radio Flashes
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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Actual Photo of Mars Odyssey in Orbit
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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