In a previous article, we crushed that idea that the Universe is perfect for life. It’s not. Almost the entire Universe is a horrible and hostile place, apart from a fraction of a mostly harmless planet in a backwater corner of the Milky Way.
While living here on Earth takes about 80 years to kill you, there are other places in the Universe at the very other end of the spectrum. Places that would kill you in a fraction of a fraction of a second. And nothing is more lethal than supernovae and remnants they leave behind: neutron stars.
We’ve done a few articles about neutron stars and their different flavours, so there should be some familiar terrain here.
Artist concept of a neutron star. Credit: NASA
As you know, neutron stars are formed when stars more massive than our Sun explode as supernovae. When these stars die, they no longer have the light pressure pushing outward to counteract the massive gravity pulling inward.
This enormous inward force is so strong that it overcomes the repulsive force that keeps atoms from collapsing. Protons and electrons are forced into the same space, becoming neutrons. The whole thing is just made of neutrons. Did the star have hydrogen, helium, carbon and iron before? That’s too bad, because now it’s all neutrons.
You get pulsars when neutron stars first form. When all that former star is compressed into a teeny tiny package. The conservation of angular motion spins the star up to tremendous velocities, sometimes hundreds of times a second.
But when neutron stars form, about one in ten does something really really strange, becoming one of the most mysterious and terrifying objects in the Universe. They become magnetars. You’ve probably heard the name, but what are they?
As I said, magnetars are neutron stars, formed from supernovae. But something unusual happens as they form, spinning up their magnetic field to an intense level. In fact, astronomers aren’t exactly sure what happens to make them so strong.
This artist’s impression shows the magnetar in the very rich and young star cluster Westerlund 1. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
One idea is that if you get the spin, temperature and magnetic field of a neutron star into a perfect sweet spot, it sets off a dynamo mechanism that amplifies the magnetic field by a factor of a thousand.
But a more recent discovery gives a tantalizing clue for how they form. Astronomers discovered a rogue magnetar on an escape trajectory out of the Milky Way. We’ve seen stars like this, and they’re ejected when one star in a binary system detonates as a supernova. In other words, this magnetar used to be part of a binary pair.
And while they were partners, the two stars orbited one another closer than the Earth orbits the Sun. This close, they could transfer material back and forth. The larger star began to die first, puffing out and transferring material to the smaller star. This increased mass spun the smaller star up to the point that it grew larger and spewed material back at the first star.
The initially smaller star detonated as a supernova first, ejecting the other star into this escape trajectory, and then the second went off, but instead of forming a regular neutron star, all these binary interactions turned it into a magnetar. There you go, mystery maybe solved?
The strength of the magnetic field around a magnetar completely boggles the imagination. The magnetic field of the Earth’s core is about 25 gauss, and here on the surface, we experience less than half a gauss. A regular bar magnet is about 100 gauss. Just a regular neutron star has a magnetic field of a trillion gauss. Magnetars are 1,000 times more powerful than that, with a magnetic field of a quadrillion gauss.
What if you could get close to a magnetar? Well, within about 1,000 kilometers of a magnetar, the magnetic field is so strong it messes with the electrons in your atoms. You would literally be torn apart at an atomic level. Even the atoms themselves are deformed into rod-like shapes, no longer usable by your precious life’s chemistry.
But you wouldn’t notice because you’d already be dead from the intense radiation streaming from the magnetar, and all the lethal particles orbiting the star and trapped in its magnetic field.
Artist’s conception of a starquake cracking the surface of a neutron star. Credit: Darlene McElroy of LANL
One of the most fascinating aspects of magnetars is how they can have starquakes. You know, earthquakes, but on stars… starquakes. When neutron stars form, they can have a delicious murder crust on the outside, surrounding the degenerate death matter inside. This crust of neutrons can crack, like the tectonic plates on Earth. As this happens, the magnetar releases a blast of radiation that we can see clear across the Milky Way.
In fact, the most powerful starquake ever recorded came from a magnetar called SGR 1806-20, located about 50,000 light years away. In a tenth of a second, one of these starquakes released more energy than the Sun gives off in 100,000 years. And this wasn’t even a supernova, it was merely a crack on the magnetar’s surface.
Magnetars are awesome, and provide the absolute opposite end of the spectrum for a safe and habitable Universe. Fortunately, they’re really far away and you won’t have to worry about them ever getting close.
Artist's concept of KIC 8462852, which has experienced unusual changes in luminosity over the past few years. Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
Last fall, astronomers were surprised when the Kepler mission reported some anomalous readings from KIC 8462852 (aka. Tabby’s Star). After noticing a strange and sudden drop in brightness, speculation began as to what could be causing it – with some going so far as to suggest that it was an alien megastructure. Naturally, the speculation didn’t last long, as further observations revealed no signs of intelligent life or artificial structures.
But the mystery of the strange dimming has not gone away. What’s more, in a paper posted this past Friday to arXiv, Benjamin T. Montet and Joshua D. Simon (astronomers from the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech and the Carnegie Institute of Science, respectively) have shown how an analysis of the star’s long-term behavior has only deepened the mystery further.
To recap, dips in brightness are quite common when observing distant stars. In fact, this is one of the primary techniques employed by the Kepler mission and other telescopes to determine if planets are orbiting a star (known as Transit Method). However, the “light curve” of Tabby’s Star – named after the lead author of the study that first detailed the phenomena (Tabetha S. Boyajian) – was particularly pronounced and unusual.
Freeman Dyson theorized that eventually, a civilization would be able to build a megastructure around its star to capture all its energy. Credit: SentientDevelopments.com
According to the study, the star would experience a ~20% dip in brightness, which would last for between 5 and 80 days. This was not consistent with a transitting planet, and Boyajian and her colleagues hypothesized that it was due to a swarm of cold, dusty comet fragments in a highly eccentric orbit accounted for the dimming.
However, others speculated that it could be the result of an alien megastructure known as Dyson Sphere (or Swarm), a series of structures that encompass a star in whole or in part. However, the SETI Institute quickly weighed in and indicated that radio reconnaissance of KIC 8462852 found no evidence of technology-related radio signals from the star.
Other suggestions were made as well, but as Dr. Simon of the Carnegie Institute of Science explained via email, they fell short. “Because the brief dimming events identified by Boyajian et al. were unprecedented, they sparked a wide range of ideas to explain them,” he said. “So far, none of the proposals have been very compelling – in general, they can explain some of the behavior of KIC 8462852, but not all of it.”
To put the observations made last Fall into a larger context, Montet and Simon decided to examine the full-frame photometeric images of KIC 8462852 obtained by Kepler over the last four years. What they found was that the total brightness of the star had been diminishing quite astonishingly during that time, a fact which only deepens the mystery of the star’s light curve.
Photometry of KIC8462852 obtained by the Kepler mission, showing a period of more rapid decline during the later period of observation. Credit: Montet & Simon 2016
As Dr. Montet told Universe Today via email:
“Every 30 minutes, Kepler measures the brightness of 160,000 stars in its field of view (100 square degrees, or approximately as big as your hand at arm’s length). The Kepler data processing pipeline intentionally removes long-term trends, because they are hard to separate from instrumental effects and they make the search for planets harder. Once a month though, they download the full frame, so the brightness of every object in the field can be measured. From this data, we can separate the instrumental effects from astrophysical effects by seeing how the brightness of any particular star changes relative to all its neighboring stars.”
Specifically, they found that over the course of the first 1000 days of observation, the star experienced a relatively consistent drop in brightness of 0.341% ± 0.041%, which worked out to a total dimming of 0.9%. However, during the next 200 days, the star dimmed much more rapidly, with its total stellar flux dropping by more than 2%.
For the final 200 days, the star’s magnitude once again consistent and similar to what it was during the first 1000 – roughly equivalent to 0.341%. What is impressive about this is the highly anomalous nature of it, and how it only makes the star seem stranger. As Simon put it:
“Our results show that over the four years KIC 8462852 was observed by Kepler, it steadily dimmed. For the first 2.7 years of the Kepler mission the star faded by about 0.9%. Its brightness then decreased much faster for the next six months, declining by almost 2.5% more, for a total brightness change of around 3%. We haven’t yet found any other Kepler stars that faded by that much over the four-year mission, or that decreased by 2.5% in six months.”
Artist’s conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Of the over 150,000 stars monitored by the Kepler mission, Tabby’s Starr is the only one known to exhibit this type of behavior. In addition, Monetet and Cahill compared the results they obtained to data from 193 nearby stars that had been observed by Kepler, as well as data obtained on 355 stars with similar stellar parameters.
From this rather large sampling, they found that a 0.6% change in luminosity over a four year period – which worked out to about 0.341% per year – was quite common. But none ever experienced the rapid decline of more than 2% that KIC 8462852 experienced during that 200 days interval, or the cumulative fading of 3% that it experienced overall.
Montet and Cahill looked for possible explanations, considering whether the rapid decline could be caused by a cloud of transiting circumstellar material. But whereas some phenomena can explain the long-term trend, and other the short-term trend, no one explanation can account for it all. As Montet explained:
“We propose in our paper that a cloud of gas and dust from the remnants of a planetesimal after a collision in the outer solar system of this star could explain the 2.5% dip of the star (as it passes along our line of sight). Additionally, if some clumps of matter from this collision were collided into high-eccentricity comet-like orbits, they could explain the flickering from Boyajian et al., but this model doesn’t do a nice job of explaining the long-term dimming. Other researchers are working to develop different models to explain what we see, but they’re still working on these models and haven’t submitted them for publication yet. Broadly speaking, all three effects we observe cannot be explained by any known stellar phenomenon, so it’s almost certainly the result of some material along our line of sight passing between us and the star. We just have to figure out what!”
So the question remains, what accounts for this strange dimming effect around this star? Is there yet some singular stellar phenomena that could account for it all? Or is this just the result of good timing, with astronomers being fortunate enough to see a combination of a things at work in the same period? Hard to say, and the only way we will know for sure is to keep our eye on this strangely dimming star.
And in the meantime, will the alien enthusiasts not see this as a possible resolution to the Fermi Paradox? Most likely!
A brilliant early Perseid meteor from the night of August 8th over Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. Image credit and copyright: Frankie Lucena.
Out camping under the August sky? The coming week gives us a good reason to stay up late, as the Perseid meteor shower graces the summer sky. An ‘old faithful’ of annual meteor showers, the Perseids are always sure to produce.
The 2016 Perseids present a few challenges, though persistent observers should still see a descent show. The Perseids are typically active from July 17th to August 24th, with the peak arriving this year right around 13:00 to 15:30 Universal Time on Friday, August 12th. This will place the radiant for the Perseids high in the sky after local midnight for observers in the northern Pacific, though observers worldwide should be vigilant over the next week. Meteor showers don’t read predictions and prognostications, and an arrival of the peak just a few hours early would place North America in the cross-hairs this coming Friday. The Perseids typically produce an average Zenithal Hourly Rate of 60-200 per hour, and the International Meteor Organization predicts a ZHR of 150 for 2016.
Looking to the northeast from latitude 50 degrees north at 1AM local on the morning of August 12th. Image credit: Stellarium.
The nemesis of the 2016 is the Moon, which reaches Full on August 18th, six days after the shower’s peak. The time to start watching this shower is now, before the waxing Moon becomes a factor. The farther north you are, the earlier the Moon sets this week:
Moonset on the evening of August 11/12th:
Latitude versus Moonset ( in local daylight saving time)
20 degrees north – 1:30 AM
30 degrees north – 1:14 AM
40 degrees north – 0:56 AM
50 degrees north – 0:30 AM
Early morning is almost always the best time to watch any meteor shower, as the Earth-bound observer faces in to the meteor stream head on. The December Geminids only recently surpassed the Perseids in annual intensity in the past few years.
The orientation of the Earth’s shadow versus the Sun, Moon and the radiant of the Perseids at the start of the projected peak on August 12th. Image credit: Orbitron.
The radiant of the Perseids drifts through the constellations of Cassiopeia, Perseus and Camelopardalis from late July to mid-August. The Perseids could just as easily have received the tongue-twisting moniker of the ‘Cassiopeiaids’ or the ‘August Camelopardalids.’ The source of the Perseids is comet Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle discovered by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle in 1862. Comet Swift-Tuttle reached perihelion on 1992, and visits the inner solar system once again in 2126.
The Perseids are also sometimes referred as the “Tears of Saint Lawrence” who was martyred on a hot grid iron on August 10th, 258 AD.
The Perseids have been especially active in recent decades, following the perihelion passage of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Meteor showers come and go. For example, the Andromedids were a shower of epic storm proportions until the late 19th century. We have records of the Perseids back to 36AD, but on some (hopefully) far off date, the debris path of Comet Swift-Tuttle will fail to intersect the Earth’s orbit annually, and the Perseids will become a distant memory. During previous years, the Perseids exhibited a peak of ZHR= 95 (2015), 68 (2014), 110 (2013), 121 (2012) and 58 (2011). Keep in mind, the Perseids have also sometimes displayed a twin peak during previous years, as well.
The best instrument to observe the Perseids with is a pair of old fashioned, ‘Mk-1 eyeballs.’ Simply lay back, warm drink in hand, and watch. Remember, the quoted ZHR is an ideal rate that we all strive for, though there are strategies to maximize your chances of catching a meteor. Watching early in the morning when the radiant rides highest (around sunrise in the case of the Perseids), seeking out dark skies, and enlisting a friend to watch in an opposite direction can raise your hourly meteor count.
An early Perseid captured by Chris-Lyons. Image credit and copyright: Chris Lyons.
Keep a pair of binoculars handy to examine any persistent glowing trains and lingering smoke trails from bright fireballs. Monitoring the FM band for the pings of accompanying radio meteors can add another dimension to an observation session. The ionized trail of a meteor can very occasionally reflect the signal of a distant radio station, bringing it through clear for a few seconds before fading out.
Also, keep an ear out for an even stranger phenomenon, as bright meteors are sometimes accompanied by a hissing or crackling sound. Long thought to be a psychological phenomenon, a team of Japanese astronomers managed to catch recordings of this strange effect during the 1988 Perseid meteors.
Imaging meteors is also pretty straight forward. Simply tripod mount a DSLR with a wide field lens, take some test exposures of the sky to get the ISO, f-stop and exposure combination just right, and begin taking exposures 30 seconds to five minutes long. An intervalometer can automate the process, freeing you up to kick back and watch the show.
The massive Saturn V rocket launches the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon on July 16, 1969. Image: NASA
A bag that travelled to the Moon and back is at the heart of a legal dispute involving NASA and a woman named Nancy Carlson. Carlson currently owns the bag and obtained it legally. But NASA is in possession of the bag, and the US Attorney’s Office wants the courts to quash Carlson’s purchase of the bag, so they can retain ownership of this important piece of space memorabilia.
The lawsuit over the lunar sample bags was first reported by Roxana Hegeman of the Associated Press, and covered by Robert Pearlman at collectspace.com.
The story of the Apollo 11 bag is bit of a tangled web. To understand it, we have to look at a third figure, Max Ary. Ary was the founder and long-time director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. In 2005, Ary was convicted for stealing and selling museum artifacts.
Hundreds of space artifacts and memorabilia, some on loan from NASA, had gone missing. In 2003, the Apollo 11 bag was found in a box in Ary’s garage during the execution of a search warrant as part of the case against him. However, the bag was misidentified due to a spreadsheet error, and sold to Carlson at a government auction for $995.
Sample collection on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. is shown collecting samples with the Lunar Roving Vehicle in the left background. Image: NASA
NASA only found out about the Apollo 11 bag after Carlson purchased it. Carlson sent it to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to be authenticated. Once NASA realized what the bag was, they set the legal process in motion to set aside the forfeiture and sale. The US Attorney’s office argued that NASA was not properly notified of the bag’s forfeiture because it was not labelled properly.
NASA’s attorney’s wrote “NASA was denied the opportunity to assert its interest in the lunar bag. Had NASA been given notice of the forfeiture action and/or had all the facts about the lunar bag been known, the lunar [sample return] bag would never have gone to a government auction.”
The attorneys added that “The true identity and ownership of the lunar bag are now known. The failure to give proper notice to NASA can be corrected by setting aside the forfeiture and rescinding its sale,” they stated. “These are unusual circumstances that warrant the particular relief sought.”
If this seems like quite a bit of fuss over a bag, remember that this bag travelled to the Moon and back, making it very rare. Apollo 11 astronauts used it to collect the first samples from the Moon, and dust fragments from the Moon are embedded in its fabric. It’s a very valuable historic and scientific artifact. The government said in a statement that the bag is “a rare artifact, if not a national treasure.”
Carlson, who obtained the bag legally at an auction, is an attorney and is now suing NASA for “unwarranted seizure of my personal property… without any legal provocation.” This after she voluntarily submitted the bag to NASA for authentication, and after NASA offered to reimburse her purchase price and an additional $1,000 dollars “in appreciation for your assistance in returning the bag” and “to offset any inconvenience you may have suffered.”
There’s no question that artifacts like these belong in NASA’s public collection, and on display in a museum. But Carlson obtained the bag through a legal auction. Maybe, as the bag’s purchaser, Carlson is hoping that NASA will tender a larger offer for return of the bag, and she can make some profit. That’s pure speculation of course. Perhaps she’s just very keen on owning this piece of history.
As for Max Ary, the man who set all this in motion years ago, he is now out of prison and maintains his innocence. Ary collected other space artifacts and memorabilia and sold them from his home, and he claims that it was just a mix up. He was convicted though, and he served just over 2 years of his 3 year prison sentence. He was also ordered to pay $132,000 in restitution.
The Sagittarius Cluster, aka. Messier 22. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Hewholooks
Welcome back to Messier Monday! In our ongoing tribute to the great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at the Sagittarius Cluster (aka. Messier 22). Enjoy!
Back in the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of these objects so that others wouldn’t make the same mistake. Consisting of 100 objects, this “Messier Catalog” would come to be viewed by posterity as a major milestone in the study of Deep Space Objects.
One of these objects is the Sagittarius Cluster, otherwise known as Messier 22 (and NGC 6656). This elliptical globular cluster, is located in the constellation Sagittarius, near the Galactic bulge region. It is one of the brightest globulars visible in the night sky, and was therefore one of the first of its kind to be discovered and later studied.
Description:
Located around 10,400 light years from our Solar System, in the direction of Sagittarius, M22 occupied a volume of space that is 200 light years in diameter and is receding away from us at 149 kilometers per second. M22 has a lot in common with many other clusters of its type, which includes being a gravitationally bound sphere of stars, and that most of its stars are all about the same age – about 12 billion years old.
Messier 22, showing its proximity to Messier 28 and Kaus Borealis. Credit: Wikisky
It is part of our galactic halo, and may once have been part of a galaxy that our Milky Way cannibalized. But it’s there that the similarities end. For example, it consists of at least 70,000 individual stars, only 32 of which are variable stars. It also spans an incredible 32 arc minutes in the sky and ranks as the fourth brightness of all the known globular clusters in our galaxy.
And four must be its lucky number, because it is also one of only four globular clusters known to contain a planetary nebula. Recent Hubble Space Telescope investigations of Messier 22 have led to the discovery of an astonishing discovery. For starters, in 1999, astronomers discovered six planet-sized objects floating around inside the cluster that were about 80 times the mass of Earth!
Using a technique known as microlensing, which measures the way gravity bends the light of the background stars, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to determine the existence of the gas giant. Even though the Hubble can’t resolve them because the angle at which the light bends is about 100 times smaller than the telescope’s angular resolution, scientist know they are there because the gravity “powers up” the starlight, making it brighter each time a body passes in front of it.
Because a microlensing event is very rare and totally unpredictable, the Hubble team needed to monitor 83,000 stars every three days for nearly four months. Luckily, a sharp peak in brightness was all the proof they needed that they were on the right track.
The center of the globular cluster Messier 22, also known as M22, as observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/HST/NASA
Said Kailash Sahu, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, of the discovery in 2007: “Hubble’s excellent sharpness allowed us to make this remarkable new type of observation, successfully demonstrating our ability to see very small objects. This holds tremendous potential for further searches for dark, low-mass objects.”
During their study time, the Hubble team caught six microlensing events that lasted less than 20 hours and one which endured for 18 days. By calculating the times of the eclipses and the spikes in brightness, astronomers could then estimate the mass of the object passing in front of the star. These wandering rogues might be planets torn away from their parent stars by the huge amounts of gravitational influence from so many closely packed suns – or (in the case of the long event) simply a smaller mass star passing in front of another.
They could be brown dwarfs, or even a totally new type of object. As co-investigator Nino Panagia of the European Space Agency and Space Telescope Science Institute said: “Since we know that globular clusters like M22 are very old, this result opens new and exciting opportunities for the discovery and study of planet-like objects that formed in the early universe,”
Two black holes were also discovered in M22 and confirmed by the Chandra X-ray telescope in 2012. The objects have between 10 and 20 solar masses, and their discovery suggests that there may be 5 to 100 black holes within the cluster (and maybe some multiple black holes as well). The presence of black holes and their interaction with the stars of M22 could explain the cluster’s unusually large central region.
Optical images of M22 and the candidate companion stars to the radio sources M22-VLA1 and M22-VLA2. Credit: Doug Matthews/Adam Block/NOA/AURA/NSF/HST/NASA/ESA
Other objects of interesting include two black holes – M22-VLA1 and M22-VLA2 – both of which are part of binary star systems. Each has a companion star and is pulling matter from it. This gas and dust, in turn, forms an accretion disk around each black hole, creating emissions that scientists used to confirm their existence.
Messier 22 is one of only four known globular clusters that contain a planetary nebula. This nebula – catalogued as GJJC1 or IRAS 18333-2357 – is rather small and young, being only 3 arcseconds in diameter and 6,000 years old. It was discovered in 1986 using the infrared satellite IRAS, and identified as a planetary nebula in 1989.
History of Observation:
Chances are, magnificent Messier 22 was probably the first globular cluster to ever be recorded in the history of astronomy, most likely by Abraham Ihle in 1665. Over the years it has been included in many historic observations, including Edmund Halley’s list of 6 objects published 1715, and observed by De Chéseaux (his Number 17) and Le Gentil, as well as by Abbe Nicholas Louis de la Caille, who included it in his catalog of southern objects (as Lacaille I.12).
Atlas image mosaic of Messier 22 obtained as part of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Credit:UoM/IPAC/Caltech/NASA/NSF
However, it was Charles Messier who made it famous when he cataloged it as M22 on June 5th, 1764. As he said of the object at the time:
“I have observed a nebula situated a bit below the ecliptic, between the head and the bow of Sagittarius, near the star of seventh magnitude, the twenty-fifth of that constellation, according to the catalog of Flamsteed. That nebula didn’t appear to me to contain any star, although I have examined it with a good Gregorian telescope which magnified 104 times: it is round, and one sees it very well with an ordinary refractor of 3 feet and a half; its diameter is about 6 minutes of arc. I have determined its position by comparing with the star Lambda Sagittarii: its right ascension has been concluded as 275d 28′ 39″, and its declination as 24d 6′ 11”. It was Abraham Ihle, a German, who discovered this nebula in 1665, when observing Saturn. M. le Gentil has examined it also, and he has made an engraving of the configuration in the volume of the Memoirs of the Academy, for the year 1759, page 470. He observed it on August 29, 1747, under good weather, with a refractor of 18 feet length: He also observed it on July 17, and on other days. “It always appeared to me,” he says, “very irregular in its figure, hair and distributing in space of rays of light all over its diameter.”
While Messier’s description is a wonder, let us remember that he was a comet hunter by profession. Once more, it was the observer Admiral Smythto whom we are indebted for the most detailed and vivid description of the cluster:
“A fine globular cluster, outlying that astral stream, the Via Lactea [Milky Way], in the space between the Archer’s head and bow, not far from the point of the winter solstice, and midway between Mu and Sigma Sagittarii. It consists of very minute and thickly condensed particles of light, with a group of small stars preceding by 3m, somewhat in a crucial form. Halley ascribes the discovery of this in 1665, to Abraham Ihle, the German; but it has been thought this name should have been Abraham Hill, who was one of the first council of the Royal Society, and was wont to dabble with astronomy. Hevelius, however, appears to have noticed it previous to 1665, so that neither Ihle nor Hill can be supported.
“In August, 1747, it was carefully drawn by Le Gentil, as seen with an 18-foot telescope, which drawing appears in the Mémoires de l’Académie for 1759. In this figure three stars accompany the cluster, and he remarks that two years afterwards he did not see the preceding and central one: I, however, saw it very plainly in 1835. In the description he says, “Elle m’a toujours parue tres-irrégulière dans sa figure, chevelue, et rependant des espèces de rayons de lumière tout autout de son diamètre.” This passage, I quote, “as in duty bound;” but from familiarity with the object itself, I cannot say that I clearly understand how or why his telescope exhibited these “espèces de rayons.” Messier, who registered it in 1764, says nothing about them, merely observing that it is a nebula without a star, of a round form; and Sir William Herschel, who first resolved it, merely describes it as a circular cluster, with an estimated profundity of the 344th order. Sir John Herschel recommends it as a capital test for trying the space-penetrating power of a telescope.
“This object is a fine specimen of the compression on which the nebula-theory is built. The globular systems of stars appear thicker in the middle than they would do if these stars were all at equal distances from each other; they must, therefore, be condensed toward the centre. That the stars should be accidentally disposed is too improbable a supposition to be admitted; whence Sir William Herschel supposes that they are thus brought together by their mutual attractions, and that the gradual condensation towards the centre must be received as proof of a central power of such kind.”
The location of Messier 22 in the night sky. Credit: IAU/Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg)
Locating Messier 22:
From its position almost on the ecliptic plane, bright globular cluster M22 is easy to find in optics of all sizes. The most important clue is simply identifying the Sagittarius “teapot” shape. Once you’ve located it, just choose the “lid” star, Lambda (Kaus Borealis) and look about a fingerwidth (2 degrees) due northeast. In binoculars, if you center on Lambda, M22 will appear in the 10:00 region of your field of view.
In a finderscope, you will need to hop from Lambda northeast to 24 Sagittari and you’ll see it as a faint fuzzy nearby also to the northeast. From a dark sky location, Messier Object 22 can also sometimes be spotted with the unaided eye! No matter what size optics you use, this large, very luminous ball of stars is quite appealing. A joy to binocular users and an exercise in resolution to telescopes.
And here are the quick facts to help you get started:
Object Name: Messier 22 Alternative Designations: M22, NGC 6656 Object Type: Class VII Globular Star Cluster Constellation: Sagittarius Right Ascension: 18 : 36.4 (h:m) Declination: -23 : 54 (deg:m) Distance: 10.4 (kly) Visual Brightness: 5.1 (mag) Apparent Dimension: 32.0 (arc min)
Go on… Magnificent Messier 22 is waiting for you to appreciate it!
Image of the results obtained by colliding lead ions in the ALICE detector. Credit: CERN
This summer in Chicago, from August 3rd until the 10th, theorists and experimental physicists from around the world will be participating in the International Conference of High Energy Physics (ICHEP). One of the highlights of this conference comes from CERN Laboratories, where particle physicists are showcasing the wealth of new data that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced so far this year.
But amidst all the excitement that comes from being able to peer into the more than 100 latest results, some bad news also had to be shared. Thanks to all the new data provided by the LHC, the chance that a new elementary particle was discovered – a possibility that had begun to appear likely eight months ago – has now faded. Too bad, because the existence of this new particle would have been groundbreaking!
The indications of this particle first appeared back in December of 2015, when teams of physicists using two of CERN’s particle detectors (ATLAS and CMS) noted that the collisions performed by the LHC were producing more pairs of photons than expected, and with a combined energy of 750 gigaelectronvolts. While the most likely explanation was a statistical fluke, there was another tantalizing possibility – that they were seeing evidence of a new particle.
The ATLAS instrument, one of two general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Credit: CERN
If this particle were in fact real, then it was likely to be a heavier version of the Higgs boson. This particle, which gives other elementary particles their mass, had been discovered in 2012 by researchers at CERN. But whereas the discover of the Higgs boson confirmed the Standard Model of Particle Physics (which has been the scientific convention for the past 50 years), the possible existence of this particle was inconsistent with it.
Another, perhaps even more exciting, theory was that the particle was the long-sought-after gravitron, the theoretical particle that acts as the “force carrier” for gravity. If indeed it was this particle, then scientists would finally have a way for explaining how General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics go together – something that has eluded them for decades and inhibited the development of a Theory of Everything (ToE).
For this reason, there has been a fair degree of excitement in the scientific community, with over 500 scientific papers produced on the subject. However, thanks to the massive amounts of data provided in the past few months, the CERN researchers were forced to announce on Friday at ICEP 2016 that there was no new evidence of a particle to be had.
The results were presented by representatives of the teams that first noticed the unusual data last December. Representing CERN’s ATLAS detector, which first noted the photon pairs, was Bruno Lenzi. Meanwhile, Chiara Rovelli representing the competing team that uses the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), which confirmed the readings.
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is a general-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Credit: CERN
As they showed, the readings which indicated a bump in photon pairs last December have since gone into the flatline, removing any doubt as to whether or not it was a fluke. However, as Tiziano Campores – a spokesman for C.M.S. – was quoted by the New York Times as saying on the eve of the announcement, the teams had always been clear about this not being a likely possibility:
“We don’t see anything. In fact, there is even a small deficit exactly at that point. It’s disappointing because so much hype has been made about it. [But] we have always been very cool about it.”
These results were also stated in a paper submitted to CERN by the C.M.S. team on the same day. And CERN Laboratories echoed these statement in a recent press release which addressed the latest data-haul being presented at ICEP 2016:
“In particular, the intriguing hint of a possible resonance at 750 GeV decaying into photon pairs, which caused considerable interest from the 2015 data, has not reappeared in the much larger 2016 data set and thus appears to be a statistical fluctuation.”
This was all disappointing news, since the discovery of a new particle could have shed some light on the many questions arising out of the discovery of the Higgs boson. Ever since it was first observed in 2012, and later confirmed, scientists have been struggling to understand how it is that the very thing that gives other particles their mass could be so “light”.
The Large Hadron Collider – which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012 – appears to have confirmed the Standard Model yet again. Credit: CERN
Despite being the heaviest elementary particle – with a mass of 125 billion electron volts – quantum theory predicted that the Higgs boson had to be trillions of times heavier. In order to explain this, theoretical physicists have been wondering if in fact there are some other forces at work that keep the Higgs boson’s mass at bay – i.e. some new particles. While no new exotic particles have been discovered just yet, the results so far have still been encouraging.
For instance, they showed that LHC experiments have already recorded about five times more data in the past eight months than they did in all of last year. They also offered scientists a glimpse of how subatomic particles behave at energies of 13 trillion electronvolts (13 TeV), a new level that was reached last year. This energy level has been made possible from the upgrades performed on the LHC during its two-year hiatus; prior to which, it was functioning at only half-power.
Another thing worth bragging about was the fact that the LHC surpassed all previous performance records this past June, reaching a peak luminosity of 1 billion collisions per second. Being able to conduct experiments at this energy level, and involving this many collisions, has provided LHC researchers with a large enough data set that they are able to conduct more precise measurements of Standard Model processes.
In particular, they will be able to look for anomalous particle interactions at high mass, which constitutes an indirect test for physics beyond the Standard Model – specifically new particles predicted by the theory of Supersymmetry and others. And while they have yet to discover any new exotic particles, the results so far have still been encouraging, mainly because they show that the LHC is producing more results than ever.
Data representation from the CMS experiment, showing the decay of protons into two photons (dashed yellow lines and green towers). Credit: CERN
And while discovering something that could explain the questions arising from the discovery of the Higgs bosons would have been a major breakthrough, many agree that it was simply too soon to get our hopes up. As Fabiola Gianotti, the Director-General at CERN, said:
“We’re just at the beginning of the journey. The superb performance of the LHC accelerator, experiments and computing bodes extremely well for a detailed and comprehensive exploration of the several TeV energy scale, and significant progress in our understanding of fundamental physics.”
For the time being, it seems we are all going to have to be patient and wait on more scientific results to be produced. And we can all take solace in the fact that, at least for now, the Standard Model still appears to be the correct one. Clearly, there are no short cuts when it comes to figuring out how the Universe works and how all its fundamental forces fit together.
Hull of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Structural Test Article (STA)- the first Starliner to be built in the company’s modernized Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Hull of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Structural Test Article (STA)- the first Starliner to be built in the company’s modernized Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The next generation of America’s human spaceships is rapidly taking shape and “making fantastic progress” at the Kennedy Space Center as Boeing and NASA showcased the start of assembly of the first flightworthy version of the aerospace giants Starliner crew taxi vehicle to the media last week. Starliner will ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) by early 2018.
“We are making fantastic progress across the board,” John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Programs, told Universe Today at the July 26 media event in Boeing’s new Starliner factory.
“It so nice to move from design to firm configuration, which was an incredibly important milestone, to now moving into the integrated qual phase of the campaign.”
Boeing is swiftly making tangible progress towards once again flying Americans astronauts to space from American soil as was quite visibly demonstrated when the firm showed off their spanking new Starliner ‘clean-floor factory’ to the media last week, including Universe Today – and it’s already humming with activity by simultaneously building two full scale Starliner crew vehicles.
“We are on track to support launch by the end of 2017 [of the uncrewed orbital test flight],” Mulholland told me.
“The Structural Test Article (STA) crew module is almost ready to be delivered to the test site in California. The service module is already delivered at the test site. So we are ready to move into the qualification campaign.”
“We are also in the middle of component qualification and qualifying more than one component every week as we really progress into assembly, integration and test of flight design spacecrafts.”
Starliner is being manufactured in what is officially known as Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility (C3PF) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida under contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
And the Boeing CST-100 Starliner assembly line aiming to send our astronauts to low Earth orbit and the space station is now operating full speed ahead at KSC.
Formerly known as Orbiter Processing Facility-3, or OPF-3, the facility was previously used as a servicing hanger to prepare NASA’s space shuttle orbiters for flight.
NASA, industry and news media representatives visit the modernized high bay in Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett
The facility has now been completely renovated and refurbished by removing about 11,000 tons of massive steel work platforms that once enshrouded the space shuttle orbiters for servicing and refurbishment for flight – and been transformed into Boeings gleaming white C3PF Starliner manufacturing facility.
Components for the first Starliner that will actually fly in space – known as Spacecraft 1 – began arriving recently at the C3PF. These include the upper and lower domes, as well as the docking hatch for the spacecrafts pressure vessel.
“You can see the beginning of Spacecraft 1. To build it all of the major structural elements are here,” Mulholland explained.
“The lower dome will be populated and get to first power on early next year. We are really looking forward to that. Then we will mate that to the upper dome and start in on the ground qualification on Spacecraft 1.”
Altogether Boeing is fabricating three Starliner flight spacecraft.
“We will start building Spacecraft 2 in the Fall of this year. And then we will start Spacecraft 3 early next year.”
“So we will have three Starliner spacecraft flight crew module builds as we move into the flight campaign.”
The honeycombed upper dome of a Boeing Starliner spacecraft on a work stand inside the company’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The upper dome is part of Spacecraft 1 , the first flightworthy Starliner being developed in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Technicians are outfitting these individual components of the pressure vessel with wiring and lines, avionics and other systems, before they are bolted together.
Spacecraft 1 is actually the second Starliner being manufactured at the Kennedy Space Center.
The first full scale Starliner vehicle to be built is known as the Structural Test Article (STA) and is nearing completion.
The lower dome of the Boeing Starliner Spacecraft 1 assembly being outfitted with flight systems like wiring, lines, avionics in the firm’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Notably Spacecraft 1 will be the first Starliner to fly in the company’s pad abort test.
“Spacecraft 1 will go into the ground campaign and then the pad abort,” Mulholland stated.
“The test is designed to prove the launch abort system planned for the spacecraft will be able to lift astronauts away from danger in the event of an emergency during launch operations,” says NASA.
The Pad Abort test is currently slated for October 2017 in New Mexico. Boeing will fly an uncrewed orbital flight test in December 2017 and a crewed orbital flight test in February 2018.
“Spacecraft 3 will be the first to fly in orbit on the uncrewed flight test by the end of 2017,” Mulholland confirmed.
‘Spacecraft 2 will go through a several month long thermal vac testing and EMI and EMC in California in the middle of next year and then go into the crewed flight test [in 2018].”
The rather distinctive, olive colored aluminum domes are manufactured using a weldless spin forming process by Spincraft, based in North Billerica, Massachusetts.
They take on their honeycombed look after being machined for the purposes of reducing weight and increasing strength to handle the extreme stresses of spaceflight. The lower dome is machined by Janicki Industries in Layton, Utah, and the upper dome is machined by Major Tool & Machine in Indianapolis.
Overhead view of the docking hatch for the Boeing Starliner Spacecraft 1 assembly which technicians will soon join to the upper dome in the firm’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Engineers bolted together the upper and lower domes of Boeings maiden Starliner crew module in early May to form the complete hull of the pressure vessel for the Structural Test Article (STA).
Altogether they are held together by 216 bolts. They have to line up perfectly. And the seals are checked to make sure there are no leaks, which could be deadly in space.
Boeing expects to finish fabricating the STA by August.
The completed Starliner STA will then be transported to Boeing’s facility in Huntington Beach, California for a period of critical stress testing that verifies the capabilities and worthiness of the spacecraft.
“Boeing’s testing facility in Huntington Beach, California has all the facilities to do the structural testing and apply loads. They are set up to test spacecraft,” said Danom Buck, manager of Boeing’s Manufacturing and Engineering team at KSC, during an interview in the C3PF.
“At Huntington Beach we will test for all of the load cases that the vehicle will fly in and land in – so all of the worst stressing cases.”
“So we have predicted loads and will compare that to what we actually see in testing and see whether that matches what we predicted.”
Boeing has also vastly updated the mockup Starliner to reflect the latest spacecraft advances and assist in manufacturing the three planned flight units.
Bastian Technologies built many of the components for the mockup and signed as new 18-month new Mentor-Protégé Program agreement with Boeing and NASA at the media event.
The mock up “is used as a hands-on way to test the design, accessibility and human factors during the early design and development phase of the program. The mock-up is currently being used for rapid fire engineering verification activities, ergonomic evaluations [including the seats and display panels], and crew ingress and egress training,” says NASA.
Looking inside the newly upgraded Starliner mockup with display panel, astronauts seats, gear and hatch at top that will dock to the new International Docking Adapter (IDA) on the ISS. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
The Boeing CST 100 Starliner is one of two private astronaut capsules – along with the SpaceX Crew Dragon – being developed under a commercial partnership contract with NASA to end our sole reliance on Russia for crew launches back and forth to the International Space Station (ISS).
The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is to restore America’s capability to launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil to the ISS, as soon as possible.
Boeing was awarded a $4.2 Billion contract in September 2014 by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to complete development and manufacture of the CST-100 Starliner space taxi under the agency’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program and NASA’s Launch America initiative.
Since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle program in 2011, the US was been 100% dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsule for astronauts rides to the ISS at a cost exceeding $70 million per seat.
Starliners will launch to space atop the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from pad 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The Boeing Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket similar to the one carrying the NROL-61 surveillance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Space Launch Complex-41 on July 28, 2016 at 8:37 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Ken Kremer Boeing ‘Starliner’ commercial crew space taxi manufacturing facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Exterior view depicts mural for the Boeing Company’s recently named CST-100 ‘Starliner’ commercial crew transportation spacecraft on the company’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility (C3PF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer /kenkremer.com
John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Programs, and Ken Kremer, Universe Today, discuss status and assembly of 1st flightworthy Boeing Starliner by the new Starliner mockup in the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility high bay at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Starliner will transport US astronauts to the ISS by 2018. Credit: Julian Leek
Spaceport America in New Mexico. Credit: Foster and Partners.
Let yourself imagine a spaceport. I bet you put a grand concourse in the center with a fine selection of rockets descending and ascending together with space planes making their final approaches or taking off to worlds who knows where? Perhaps just behind snaking off toward the horizon is a common asphalt road with autonomous electric cars whizzing their passengers to and from the concourse. And assuredly there’s an above ground or below ground rail system that provides convenient access to those in the nearby city. At least that’s what my imagination pictures.
While my idea of space transportation may seem somewhat farfetched, the idea of a spaceport isn’t. Actually the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States of America has already licensed 10 spaceports or Launch Site Operators as they call them. Interestingly the same FAA also licenses 12 Active Launch providers.
Curious that NASA isn’t on the list of licensed Active Launchers. I wonder if they will be allowed to launch their new Space Launch System. Anyway, there’s been another treat for us in that the FAA has recently approved a commercial venture to the Moon. Can this be any more exciting? It seems that we’ve made the grade with space ports launchers and we’ve become a space faring species. There’s nothing farfetched about this reality.
Let’s dig a little deeper. The commercial company is Moon Express. It’s not surprising that they’ve sought approval as their ultimate goal is to win the Google Lunar X Prize. Presumably if they purchase a launch from the United States then they need a licensed one. And the launch company will only loft the Moon Express robot to the Moon with permission.
Illustration of Moon Express MX-1 lunar lander. Credit: Moon Express
Now this is where things get a bit interesting. Moon Express has mentioned that they will use Rocket Lab to hurl their robot to the Moon. But Rocket Lab launches from New Zealand and they aren’t on the FAA list of Active Launchers. You may understand more by perusing the licensing. It seems that any United States citizen must comply with the rules wherever in the world they launch. Nevertheless it seems that we can sleep with warm hearts as apparently our space faring dreams are coming to fruition.
Yet I wonder if all really is the lotus lands that it seems. For one, why does the FAA or any government on Earth have any jurisdictional rights on accessing the Moon? Did the Chang’e 3 team need permission before they flew? I think not.
Further, does granting permission make the granter liable? Do you have any memories of the furor over the Skylab vessel re-entering on top of Australia in 1979? And whether the United States was found liable? I guess this is where 51 USC Code 50914 comes in. It shows that the licensing is apparently all about managing the risk. Does this imply that the existing judicial structure on Earth is inappropriate for space? Can you imagine the fun that journalists would have if they heard of a theft occurring on the International Space Station? Who would investigate? Who would oversee the trial and make judgement? There are some big questions remaining to be answered before people can sit idly watching rockets roar up from a spaceport with their loved ones safely tucked in.
Nevertheless while uncertainties remain, we are seeing progress. We see the basis of an international legal system. We see space transportation infrastructure that serves the customer rather than the scientist. We see individuals achieving feats that previously were the sole domain of governments. So I say, “Yes imagine your spaceport! Believe in the ability to travel far above Earth and into the furthest reaches of our solar system. Believe in a future of our making.”
It’s impossible to do an article about Uranus without opening up the back door to a spit storm of potty humour. I get it, there’s something just hilarious about talking about your, mine and everyone’s anus. And even if you use the more sanitized and sterile term urine-us, it’s still pretty dirty, in an unwashed New York stairwell kind of way. You’re in us? No.
This is a no-win solution. It’s a Kobayashi Maru scenario here. We’re all doomed.
Can we call a truce? I dare you commentators, to keep the YouTube comments as pure and clean as driven snow, so we can focus on the super interesting science. Think of the children.
Let’s set the stage, I’m going to let planetary astronomer Kevin Grazier give you the proper pronunciation to clear our minds and let us move forward with grace and civility.
Kevin Grazier:
Strictly speaking, it’s pronounced Youranous, is the pronunciation.
As you probably know, Uranus… I mean Ouranus. No, I can’t do it, my brainwashing is too far along. Save yourselves!. Anyway, Uranus is the 7th planet from the Sun, and the 3rd largest planet in the Solar System. Jupiter and Saturn get all the spacecraft and Hubble space telescopes, but Uranus is an incredibly worthwhile target to visit.
Diameter comparison of Uranus and Earth. Approximate scale is 90 km/px. Credit: NASA
It’s almost exactly 4 times larger than Earth and has its own set of strange dusty rings – perhaps left over from a shattered moon. It has at least 27 moons, that we know of, and many more interesting features that would fascinate astronomers, if we had a spacecraft there, which we don’t. Which is ridiculous. We’ve only made one close flyby of Uranus by Voyager II back in 1986.
We’ve seen Pluto up close, but there are no plans to visit Uranus? Madness.
Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison), Keck Observatory.
Anyway, perhaps one of the strangest aspects of Uranus is its tilt. The planet is flipped over on its side, like a Weeble, that wouldn’t unwobble.
Actually, all the planets in the Solar System have some level of axial tilt. The Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the Sun’s equator. Mars is 25 degrees, and even Mercury is 2.1 degrees tilted. These tilts are everywhere.
But Uranus is 97.8 degrees. That’s just 0.2 degrees shy of a 90s boy band.
You might be wondering, why have it be more than 90 degrees. High school geometry tells me that 97.8 degrees is the same as 82.2 degrees. And that’s true. But astronomers define the angle as greater than 90 degrees when you take its direction of rotation into account. When you describe it as turning in the same direction as the rest of the planets in the Solar System, then you have to measure it this way.
What could have done that to Uranus, how could it have happened?
The fact that Uranus is flipped over on its side tells us that the calm clockwork motion of the Solar System hasn’t always been this way. Shortly after the formation of the Sun and planets, our neighborhood was a violent place.
The early planets smashed into each other, pushed one another into new orbits. Some planets could have been spun out of the Solar System entirely, while others might have been driven into the Sun. Our own Moon was likely formed when a Mars-sized object crashed into the Earth. Other moons might have been captured from three body interactions between worlds. It was mayhem.
The Solar System that you see today contains the survivors. Everything that wasn’t delivered a death blow.
And something really tried to deliver a death blow to Uranus, very early after it formed. We know this because the moons of Uranus orbit at the same tilt as the planet’s axis. This means that something smashed into Uranus while it was still surrounded by the disk of gas and dust that its moons formed from.
When the massive collision happened, the planet flipped over, wrenching this disk with it. The moons formed within this new configuration.
Astronomers think it was more complicated than that, however. If it was a single, massive collision, models suggest the planet would just flip over entirely, and end up rotating backwards from the other planets in the Solar System.
It’s more likely that another collision or even a series of collisions put the brakes on Uranus’ end over end roll, putting it into its current configuration. It boggles the mind to think about what must have happened.
Uranus’ tilt drastically affects the amount of sunlight the hemispheres receive during its orbit. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)
Having such a huge axial tilt makes a big different to Uranus. As it travels around the Sun in its 84-year orbit, the planet still has its poles pointed at fixed locations in space. This means that it spends 42 years with its northern hemisphere roughly pointed towards the Sun, and 42 years with its southern hemisphere in sunlight.
If you could stand on the north pole of Uranus, the Sun would be directly overhead in the middle of summer, and then it would make bigger and bigger circles until it dipped below the horizon a few decades later. Then you wouldn’t see it for a few decades until it finally reappeared again. It would be very very strange.
Of course, it’s a gas planet, so you can’t stand on it. If you could stand on it, we’d all be marveling at your ability to stand on planets.
Here we are in our calm, ordered Solar System, everything’s business as usual. But if you look around, you realize it’s pretty amazing that our planet is even here. Poor sideways Uranus is a testament to our good luck.
North Koreans dance under a flashcard display of a satellite during the Arirang Mass Games celebrations in Pyonyang, July 26, 2013. Credit: AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
Space exploration was once considered the province of two superpowers, with only tertiary participation from other nations. But since the turn of the century, more and more nations are joining in. China and India, for example, have placed landers on the Moon, satellites around Mars, and are even working on a space station. And as if that weren’t enough, private industry is also making its presence felt, largely through SpaceX and Blue Origins‘ development of reusable rockets.
But in the latest announcement to come out of the world’s last Stalinist regime, it seems that North Korea also hopes to join the 100 mile-high club (the space race, not the other thing!) In a recent interview with the Associated Press, a North Korean official indicated that the country is busy working on a five year plan that will put more satellites into orbit by 2020, and mount a mission to the moon within 10 years time.
According to the official – Hyon Kwang Il, the director of the scientific research department of North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration – the 5-year plan is focused on the deployment of more Earth observations satellites, as well as what will be the country’s first geostationary communications satellite.
Visitors takes photos of an illuminated model of a globe at the Sci-Tech Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. Credit: Kim Kwang Hyon/AP
He further indicated that universities in North Korea are expanding their programs to train rocket scientists, with the ultimate purpose of mounting an unmanned Moon mission sometime in the 2020s. If this statement is to be believed, then this plan would constitute significant steps being taken by the isolated regime to establish a foothold in space.
As Hyon indicated in an interview with AP on July 28th, this will all be taking place despite the ongoing embargo and attempts to stifle North Korea’s technological ambitions:
“Even though the U.S. and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of the DPRK on the moon… We are planning to develop the Earth observation satellites and to solve communications problems by developing geostationary satellites. All of this work will be the basis for the flight to the moon.”
Considering the announcements to come out of this isolated, totalitarian state in the past – i.e. having a cure for HIV, Ebola and cancer, finding a unicorn lair, and having invisible phones – you might be asking yourself, “how seriously should I take this?” The answer: with cautious skepticism. Granted, North Korea’s state-controlled media frequently releases propaganda statements that are so outlandish that they make us laugh out loud.
Still, this latest claim does not seem so farfetched. Already, North Korea has deployed two Earth observation satellites as part of its Kwangmyongsong program, which began in earnest in 1998. Back in February, the fifth satellite in this program (Kwangmyongsong-5) was successfully launched into orbit. And while this was only the second successful launch, it does show that country is developing a certain degree of competency when it comes to space technology.
Image released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of the rocket said to be carrying North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, Feb. 7, 2016. Credit: AP
The Unha rockets that were used to deliver the satellites into orbit are also considered to be capable. An expandable carrier rocket, the Unha relies on a delivery system that is similar to the Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile (which is a modified version of the Russian Scud). What’s more, recent satellite images of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station (located in the northeastern North Pyongan Province) has revealed that an enlarged launch tower is under construction.
This could be an indication that an enlarged version (Unha-X) might be under development, which is consistent with propaganda posters that are also advertising the new rocket. And this past Wednesday, the country test-fired what was believed to be a medium-range ballistic missile into the seas off Japan, which is the fourth reported weapons launch to take place in the past two weeks. Clearly, the regime is working to develop its rocket capabilities, which is essential to any space program.
Beyond that, the success other nations have had in recent years conducting unmanned mission to the Moon – like China’s Chang’e program – could serve as an indication that the North Korean regime is entirely serious about planting a flag there as well. “Our country has started to accomplish our plan and we have started to gain a lot of successes,” said Hyon. “No matter what anyone thinks, our country will launch more satellites.”
Seriousness or not, whether or not North Korea can actually achieve their more ambitious goal of reaching the Moon in a decade remains to be seen. And it will only come with a whole lot of time, effort, and the country burning through another significant chunk of its GDP (as with its nuclear tests). In the meantime, we better get used to the idea of Low-Earth Orbit getting a bit more crowded!
And in the meantime, be sure to enjoy this video from the Onion, which presents what is only a semi-satirical take on the regime’s space plans:
