New Horizons Mission to Pluto

Artist's impression of the New Horizons spacecraft in orbit around Pluto (Charon is seen in the background). Credit: NASA/JPL

Humans have been sending spacecraft to other planets, as well as asteroid and comets, for decades. But rarely have any of these ventured into the outer reaches of our Solar System. In fact, the last time a probe reached beyond the orbit of Saturn to explore the worlds of Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and beyond was with the Voyager 2 mission, which concluded back in 1989.

But with the New Horizons mission, humanity is once again peering into the outer Solar System and learning much about its planets, dwarf planets, planetoids, moons and assorted objects. And as of July 14th, 2015, it made its historic rendezvous with Pluto, a world that has continued to surprise and mystify astronomers since it was first discovered.

Background:

In 1980, after Voyager 1‘s flyby of Saturn, NASA scientists began to consider the possibility of using Saturn to slingshot the probe towards Pluto to conduct a flyby by 1986. This would not be the case, as NASA decided instead to conduct a flyby of Saturn’s moon of Titan – which they considered to be a more scientific objective – thus making a slingshot towards Pluto impossible.

Because no mission to Pluto was planned by any space agency at the time, it would be years before any missions to Pluto could be contemplated. However, after Voyager 2′s flyby of Neptune and Triton in 1989, scientists once again began contemplating a mission that would take a spacecraft to Pluto for the sake of studying the Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs).

Voyager 2. Credit: NASA
Artist’s impression of the Voyager spacecraft in flight. Credit: NASA/JPL

In May 1989, a group of scientists, including Alan Stern and Fran Bagenal, formed an alliance called the “Pluto Underground”. Committed to the idea of mounting an exploratory mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, this group began lobbying NASA and the US government to make it this plan a reality. Combined with pressure from the scientific community at large, NASA began looking into mission concepts by 1990.

During the course of the late 1990s, a number of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) were discovered, confirming the existence of the Kuiper Belt and spurring interest in a mission to the region. This led NASA to instruct the JPL to re-purpose the mission as a Pluto and KBO flyby. However, the mission was scrapped by 2000, owing to budget constraints.

Backlash over the cancellation led NASA’s Science Mission Directorate to create the New Frontiers program which began accepting mission proposals. Stamatios “Tom” Krimigis, head of the Applied Physics Laboratory’s (APL) space division, came together with Alan Stern to form the New Horizons team. Their proposal was selected from a number of submissions, and officially selected for funding by the New Frontiers program in Nov. 2001.

Despite additional squabbles over funding with the Bush administration, renewed pressure from the scientific community allowed the New Horizons team managed to secure their funding by the summer of 2002. With a commitment of $650 million for the next fourteen years, Stern’s team was finally able to start building the spacecraft and its instruments.

Engineers working on the New Horizons spacecraft's Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) instrument. Credit: NASA
Engineers working on the New Horizons spacecraft’s Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) instrument. Credit: NASA

Mission Profile:

New Horizons was planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System, and was originally slated for launch in January 2006 and arrival at Pluto in 2015. Alan Stern was selected as the mission’s principal investigator, and construction of the spacecraft was handled primarily by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, with various contractor facilities involved in the navigation of the spacecraft.

Meanwhile, the US Naval Observatory (USNO) Flagstaff Station – in conjunction with NASA and JPL – was responsible for performing navigational position data and related celestial frames. Coincidentally, the UNSO Flagstaff station was where the photographic plates that led to the discovery of Pluto’s moon Charon came from.

In addition to its compliment of scientific instruments (listed below), there are several cultural artifacts traveling aboard the spacecraft. These include a collection of 434,738 names stored on a compact disc, a piece of Scaled Composites’s SpaceShipOne, and a flag of the USA, along with other mementos. In addition, about 30 g (1 oz) of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes are aboard the spacecraft, to commemorate his discovery of Pluto in 1930.

The New Horizons spacecraft takes off on Jan. 19, 2006 from the Kennedy Space Center for its planned close encounter with Pluto. Credit: NIKON/Scott Andrews/NASA
The New Horizons spacecraft takes off on Jan. 19, 2006 from the Kennedy Space Center for its planned close encounter with Pluto. Credit: NIKON/Scott Andrews/NASA

Instrumentation:

The New Horizons science payload consists of seven instruments. They are (in alphabetically order):

  • Alice: An ultraviolet imaging spectrometer responsible for analyzing composition and structure of Pluto’s atmosphere and looks for atmospheres around Charon and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs).
  • LORRI: (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) a telescopic camera that obtains encounter data at long distances, maps Pluto’s farside and provides high resolution geologic data.
  • PEPSSI: (Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation) an energetic particle spectrometer which measures the composition and density of plasma (ions) escaping from Pluto’s atmosphere.
  • Ralph: A visible and infrared imager/spectrometer that provides color, composition and thermal maps.
  • REX: (Radio Science EXperiment) a device that measures atmospheric composition and temperature; passive radiometer.
  • SDC: (Student Dust Counter) built and operated by students, this instrument measures the space dust peppering New Horizons during its voyage across the solar system.
  • SWAP: (Solar Wind Around Pluto) a solar wind and plasma spectrometer that measures atmospheric “escape rate” and observes Pluto’s interaction with solar wind.
Instruments New Horizons will use to characterize Pluto are REX (atmospheric composition and temperature; PEPSSI (composition of plasma escaping Pluto's atmosphere); SWAP (solar wind); LORRI (close up camera for mapping, geological data); Star Dust Counter (student experiment measuring space dust during the voyage); Ralph (visible and IR imager/spectrometer for surface composition and thermal maps and Alice (composition of atmosphere and search for atmosphere around Charon). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
The instruments New Horizons will use to characterize Pluto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Launch:

Due to a series of weather-related delays, the New Horizons mission launched on January 19th, 2006, two days later than originally scheduled. The spacecraft took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, at 15:00 EST (19:00 UTC) atop an Atlas V 551 rocket. This was the first launch of this particular rocket configuration, which has a third stage added to increase the heliocentric (escape) speed.

The spacecraft left Earth faster than any spacecraft to date, achieving a launch velocity of 16.5 km/s. It took only nine hours to reach the Moon’s orbit, passing lunar orbit before midnight (EST) on the same day it was launched. It has not, however, broken Voyager 1‘s record – which is currently traveling at 17.145 km/s (61,720 km/h, 38,350 mph) relative to the Sun – for being the fastest spacecraft to leave the Solar System.

Inner Solar System:

Between January and March, 2006, mission controllers guided the probe through a series of trajectory-correction maneuvers (TCMs). During the week of February 20th, 2006, controllers conducted in-flight tests on three of the major on board science instruments. On April 7th, the spacecraft passed the orbit of Mars, moving at roughly 21 km/s (76,000 km/h; 47,000 mph) away from the Sun.

At this point in its journey, the spacecraft had reached a distance of 243 million kilometers from the Sun, and approximately 93.4 million km from Earth. On June 13th, 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft passed the tiny asteroid 132524 APL at a distance of 101,867 km (63,297 mi) when it was closest.

Using the Ralph instrument, New Horizons was able to capture images of the asteroid, estimating to be 2.5 km (1.6 mi) in diameter. The spacecraft also successfully tracked the asteroid from June 10th-12th, 2006, allowing the mission team to test the spacecraft’s ability to track rapidly moving objects.

First images of Pluto in September 2006. Credit: NASA
First images of Pluto taken by New Horizons in September 2006. Credit: NASA

From September 21st-24th, New Horizons managed to capture its first images of Pluto while testing the LORRI instruments. These images, which were taken from a distance of approximately 4,200,000,000 km (2.6×109 mi) or 28.07 AU and released on November 28th, confirmed the spacecraft’s ability to track distant targets.

Outer Solar System:

On September 4th, 2006, New Horizons took its first pictures of Jupiter at a distance of 291 million kilometers (181 million miles). The following January, it conducted more detailed surveys of the system, capturing an infrared image of the moon Callisto, and several black and white images of Jupiter itself.

By February 28th, 2007, at 23:17 EST (03:17, UTC) New Horizons made its closest approach to Europa, at a distance of 2,964,860 km (1,842,278 mi). At 01:53:40 EST (05:43:40 UTC), the spacecraft made its flyby of Jupiter, at a distance of 2.3 million km (1.4 million mi) and received a gravity assist.

The Jupiter flyby increased New Horizons‘ speed by 4 km/s (14,000 km/h; 9,000 mph), accelerating the probe to a velocity of 23 km/s (83,000 km/h; 51,000 mph) relative to the Sun and shortening its voyage to Pluto by three years.

The encounter with Jupiter not only provided NASA with the opportunity to photograph the planet using the latest equipment, it also served as a dress rehearsal for the spacecraft’s encounter with Pluto. As well as testing the imaging instruments, it also allowed the mission team to test the communications link and the spacecraft’s memory buffer.

Black and white image of Jupiter viewed by LORRI in January 2007
Black and white image of Jupiter viewed by LORRI in January 2007. Credit: NASA/John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

One of the main goals during the Jupiter encounter was observing its atmospheric conditions and analyzing the structure and composition of its clouds. Heat-induced lightning strikes in the polar regions and evidence of violent storm activity were both observed. In addition, the Little Red Spot,  was imaged from up close for the first time. The New Horizons spacecraft also took detailed images of Jupiter’s faint ring system. Traveling through Jupiter’s magnetosphere, the spacecraft also managed to collect valuable particle readings.

The flyby of the Jovian systems also gave scientists the opportunity to examine the structure and motion of Io’s famous lava plumes. New Horizons measured the plumes coming from the Tvashtar volcano, which reached an altitude of up to 330 km from the surface, while infrared signatures confirmed the presence of 36 more volcanoes on the moon.

Callisto’s surface was also analyzed with LEISA, revealing how lighting and viewing conditions affect infrared spectrum readings of its surface water ice. Data gathered on minor moons such as Amalthea also allowed NASA scientists to refine their orbit solutions.

After passing Jupiter, New Horizons spent most of its journey towards Pluto in hibernation mode. During this time, New Horizons crossed the orbit of Saturn (June 8, 2008) and Uranus on (March 18, 2011). In June 2014, the spacecraft emerged from hibernation and the team began conducting instrument calibrations and a course correction,. By August 24th, 2014, it crossed Neptune’s orbit on its way to Pluto.

Capturing Callisto
New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) captured these two images of Jupiter’s outermost large moon, Callisto, during its flyby in February 2007. Credit: NASA/JPL

Rendezvous with Pluto:

Distant-encounter operations at Pluto began on January 4th, 2015. Between January 25th to 31st, the approaching probe took several images of Pluto, which were released by NASA on February 12th. These photos, which were taken at a distance of more than 203,000,000 km (126,000,000 mi) showed Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

Investigators compiled a series of images of the moons Nix and Hydra taken from January 27th through February 8th, 2015, beginning at a range of 201,000,000 km (125,000,000 mi), while Kerberos and Styx were captured by photos taken on April 25.

On July 4th, 2015, NASA lost contact with New Horizons after it experienced a software anomaly and went into safe mode. On the following day, NASA announced that they had determined it to be the result of a timing flaw in a command sequence. By July 6th, the glitch had been fixed and the probe had exited safe mode and began making its approach.

The New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto at 07:49:57 EDT (11:49:57 UTC) on July 14th, 2015, and then Charon at 08:03:50 EDT (12:03:50 UTC). Telemetries confirming a successful flyby and a healthy spacecraft reached Earth on 20:52:37 EDT (00:52:37 UTC).

During the flyby, the probe captured the clearest pictures of Pluto to date, and full analyses of the data obtained is expected to take years to process. The spacecraft is currently traveling at a speed of 14.52 km/s (9.02 mi/s) relative to the Sun and at 13.77 km/s (8.56 mi/s) relative to Pluto.

Full trajectory of New Horizons space probe (sideview). Credit: pluto.jhuapl.edu
Full trajectory of New Horizons space probe (sideview). Credit: pluto.jhuapl.edu

Future Objectives:

With its flyby of Pluto now complete, the New Horizons probe is now on its way towards the Kuiper Belt. The goal here is to study one or two other Kuiper Belt Objects, provided suitable KBOs are close to New Horizons‘ flight path.

Three objects have since been selected as potential targets, which were provisionally designated PT1 (“potential target 1”), PT2 and PT3 by the New Horizons team. These have since been re-designated as 2014 MU69 (PT1), 2014 OS393 (PT2), and 2014 PN70 (PT3).

All of these objects have an estimated diameter of 30–55 km, are too small to be seen by ground telescopes, and are 43–44 AU from the Sun, which would put the encounters in the 2018–2019 period. All are members of the “cold” (low-inclination, low-eccentricity) classical Kuiper Belt, and thus very different from Pluto.

Even though it was launched far faster than any outward probe before it, New Horizons will never overtake either Voyager 1 or Voyager 2 as the most distant human-made object from Earth. But then again, it doesn’t need to, given that what it was sent out to study all lies closer to home.

What’s more, the probe has provided astronomers with extensive and updated data on many of planets and moons in our Solar System – not the least of which are the Jovian and Plutonian systems. And last, but certainly not least, New Horizons is the first spacecraft to have it made it out to such a distance since the Voyager program.

And so we say so long and good luck to New Horizons, not to mention thanks for providing us with the best images of Pluto anyone has ever seen! We can only hope she fares well as she makes its way into the Kuiper Belt and advances our knowledge of the outer Solar System even farther.

We have many interesting articles about the New Horizons spacecraft and Pluto here on Universe Today. For example, here are some Interesting Facts About PlutoHow Long Does it Take to Get to Pluto, Why Pluto is No Longer Considered a Planet, and Is There Life on Pluto?

For more information on the Kuiper Belt, check out What is The Kuiper Belt? and NASA’s Solar System Exploration entry on the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.

Astronomy Cast also has some fascinating episodes on Pluto, including On Pluto’s Doorstep – Live Hangout with New Horizons Team

And be sure to check out the New Horizons mission homepage at NASA.

Weekly Space Hangout – June 26, 2015: Paul Sutter, CCAPP Visiting Fellow

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)

Special Guest: This week we welcome Paul Sutter, the CCAPP Visiting Fellow who works on the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure.

Guests:
Jolene Creighton (@jolene723 / fromquarkstoquasars.com)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein / briankoberlein.com)
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg )
Alessondra Springmann (@sondy)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – June 26, 2015: Paul Sutter, CCAPP Visiting Fellow”

What Does NASA Stand For?

NASA Logo. Credit: NASA

Chances are that if you have lived on this planet for the past half-century, you’ve heard of NASA. As the agency that is in charge of America’s space program, they put a man on the Moon, launched the Hubble Telescope, helped establish the International Space Station, and sent dozens of probes and shuttles into space.

But do you know what the acronym NASA actually stands for? Well, NASA stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. As such, it oversees America’s spaceflight capabilities and conducts valuable research in space. NASA also has various programs on Earth dedicated to flight, hence why the term “Aeronautics” appears in the agency’s name.

Continue reading “What Does NASA Stand For?”

What Was Here Before the Solar System?

What Was Here Before the Solar System?

The Solar System is 4.5 billion years old, but the Universe is much older. What was here before our Solar System formed?

The Solar System is old. Like, dial-up-fax-machine-old. 4.6 billion years to be specific. The Solar System has nothing on the Universe. It’s been around for 13.8 billion years, give or take a few hundred million. That means the Universe is three times older than the Solar System.

Astronomers think the Milky Way, is about 13.2 billion years old; almost as old as the Universe itself. It formed when smaller dwarf galaxies merged together to create the grand spiral we know today. It turns out the Milky Way has about 8.6 billion years of unaccounted time. Billions and billions of years to get up to all kinds of mischief before the Solar System showed up to keep an eye on things.

Our Galaxy takes 220 million years to rotate, so it’s done this about 60 times in total. As it turns, it swirls and mixes material together like a giant space blender. Clouds of gas and dust come together into vast star forming regions, massive stars have gone supernova, and then the clusters themselves have been torn up again, churning the stars into the Milky Way. This happens in the galaxy’s spiral arms, where the areas of higher density lead to regions of star formation.

So let’s go back, more than 4.6 billion years, before there was an Earth, a Sun, or even a Solar System. Our entire region was gas and dust, probably within one of the spiral arms. Want to know what it looked like? Some of your favorite pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope should help.

Here’s the Orion, Eagle, and the Tarantula Nebulae. These are star forming regions. They’re clouds of hydrogen left over from Big Bang, with dust expended by aging stars, and seeded with heavier elements formed by supernovae.

Astrophoto: The Orion Nebula by Vasco Soeiro
The Orion Nebula. Image Credit: Vasco Soeiro

After a few million years, regions of higher density began forming into stars, both large and small. Let’s take a look at a star-forming nebula again. See the dark knots? Those are newly forming stars surrounded by gas and dust in the stellar nursery.

You’re seeing many many stars, some are enormous monsters, others are more like our Sun, and some smaller red dwarfs. Most will eventually have planets surrounding them – and maybe, eventually life? If this was the environment, where are all those other stars?

Why do I feel so alone? Where are all our brothers and sisters? Where’s all the other stuff that’s in that picture? Where’s all my stuff?

TRAPPIST First Light Image of the Tarantula Nebula.  Credit:  ESO
TRAPPIST First Light Image of the Tarantula Nebula. Credit: ESO

Apparently nature hates a messy room and a cozy stellar nest. The nebula that made the Sun was either absorbed into the stars, or blown away by the powerful stellar winds from the largest stars. Eventually they cleared out the nebula, like a fans blowing out a smoky room.

At the earliest point, our solar nebula looked like the Eagle Nebula, after millions of years, it was more like the Pleiades Star Cluster, with bright stars surrounded by hazy nebulosity. It was the gravitational forces of the Milky Way which tore the members of our solar nursery into a structure like the Hyades Cluster. Finally, gravitational interactions tore our cluster apart, so our sibling stars were lost forever in the churning arms of the Milky Way.

We’ll never know exactly what was here before the Solar System; that evidence has long been blown away into space. But we can see other places in the Milky Way that give us a rough idea of what it might have looked like at various stages in its evolution.

What should we call our original star forming nebula? Give our own nebula a name in the comments below.

How Long Will Our Spacecraft Survive?

How Long Will Our Spacecraft Survive?

There are many hazards out there, eager to disrupt and dismantle the mighty machines we send out into space. How long can they survive to perform their important missions?

Every few months, an eager new spacecraft arrives on the launch pad, ready for its date with destiny. If we don’t blow it all to bits with a launch vehicle failure, it’ll be gently placed into orbit with surgical precision. Then it’ll carry out a noble mission of exploring the Solar System, analyzing the Earth, or ensuring we have an infinite number of radio stations in our cars, allowing us to never be satisfied with any of them.

Space is hostile. Not just to fragile hu-mans, but also to our anthropomorphized Number Five is alive robotic spacecraft which we uncaringly send to do our bidding. There are many hazards out there, eager to disrupt and dismantle our stalwart electronic companions. Oblivion feeds voraciously on our ever trusting space scouts and their tiny delicate robotic hearts, so many well before their time.

How long have they got? How long will our spacecraft survive as we cast them on their suicide missions to “go look at stuff on behalf of the mighty human empire”? When spacecraft are hurled into the void, all mission planners know they’re living on borrowed time.

The intrepid Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were only expected to operate for 3 months. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope carried a tank of expendable helium coolant to let it see the dimmest objects in the infrared spectrum.

Sometimes the spacecraft wear down for unexpected reasons, like electronic glitches, or parts wearing out. Hubble was equipped with rotating gyroscopes that eventually wore out over time, making it more difficult to steer at its targets, and only an intervention by rescue and repair allowed the mission to keep going.

In general, a spacecraft is expected to last a few months to a few years. Spirit and Opportunity only had a planned mission of 3 months. It took Spirit more than 6 dauntless years to finally succumb to the hostile Martian environment. Opportunity is still kicking more than a decade later, thanks to some very careful driving and gusts of Martian wind clearing off its solar panels which didn’t surprise anybody.

Artist impression of Rosetta and Asteroid 2867 Steins. Credit:  ESA
Artist impression of Rosetta and Asteroid 2867 Steins. Credit: ESA

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft needed to survive for 10 years in a dormant state before its encounter with Comet 67/P. It’s expected to last until the end of 2015. Then its orbit will carry it too far from the Sun to operate its solar panels, then it’ll go to sleep one last time.

As a testament to luck and remarkable feats of engineering, some survive much longer than anyone ever expected. NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft, launched in 1977, are still going and communicating with Earth. It’s believed they’ll survive until 2025, when their radioisotope thermoelectric generators stop producing power.

At which point they’ll return to the Earth at the heart of a massive alien spacecraft and scare the bejeebus out of us.

… And I know what you’re thinking. Once our spacecraft stop functioning, they’ll still exist. Perhaps getting close enough to another source of solar energy to start transmitting again.

So, how long will our spacecraft hold together in something roughly robot-probe shaped? Any spacecraft orbiting a planet or Moon won’t last long geologically before they’re given a rocky kiss of death with help from a big group hug from gravity.

This might take a decade, a hundred years or a million. Eventually, that spacecraft is racing towards a well distributed grave on its new home.

Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA
Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA

A spacecraft that’s orbiting the Sun should last much longer. However, a gravitational threesome with a planet or large asteroid could drag it into a solar death spiral or hurl it into a planet. There are asteroids whipping around from the formation of the Solar System, and they haven’t crashed into anything… yet.

A lucky spacecraft might last hundreds of millions, or even billions of years. Our little robot friends that leave the gravitational pull of the Solar System have a chance of making it for the long haul.

Once they’re out in interstellar space, there will be very few micrometeorites to punch little holes in them. Unless they happen to run into another star – and that’s very unlikely – they’ll travel through space until they’re worn away over billions of years, and who knows what that means for future alien archaeology students. The golden records on the Voyager spacecraft were designed to still be playable for a billion years in space.

Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s tough to keep a spacecraft operating in space. It’s a really hostile place, ready to fry their little silicon brains, scuttle them with a micrometeorite, or just erode them away over an incomprehensible length of time.

Are horrible space agency fiends tossing our trusting big eyed robot pals to their doom on one-way missions into the abyss? Don’t worry viewers, I have it on good authority this is what the robots want.

Beloved astronaut Chris Hadfield said if Voyager had stayed at home where it’s safe, it would’ve been sad forever, because it never would have discovered things. I think he’s right, Voyager is as happy as it could be exploring the parts of our Universe the rest of us aren’t able to go and see for ourselves.

What’s your favorite spacecraft survivor story? Tell us in the comments below.

Hubble Telescope Celebrates 25 Years in Space With Spectacular New Image

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble’s 25th year in orbit and a quarter of a century of new discoveries, stunning images and outstanding science. Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team.

Images from space don’t get any prettier than this. A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope was released today to commemorate a quarter century of exploring the Solar System and beyond since the launch of the telescope on April 24, 1990. It shows a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina. NASA describes the new image as a “brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resemble a glittering fireworks display.”

The Hubble Teams are giving away a few “gifts” to everyone to celebrate this silver anniversary — see below!

“Hubble has completely transformed our view of the universe, revealing the true beauty and richness of the cosmos” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This vista of starry fireworks and glowing gas is a fitting image for our celebration of 25 years of amazing Hubble science.”

The cluster is named after Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund who discovered the grouping in the 1960s.

You can get access to larger versions of the image here at ESA’s Hubble website, or at NASA’s HubbleSite.

There are anniversary events occurring around the US and the world. Here is a listing of at the Hubble anniversary site, where people can also find science articles, educational resources, downloadable presentations, and more:

And here’s a downloadable 25th anniversary gift for everyone: Hubble is offering a free ebook of 25 of Hubble’s most significant images, which can be found at this link or at iTunes.

See a stunning gallery of all the ‘anniversary’ images that have been released by the Hubble teams over the last 25 years at this Flickr gallery.

And finally, here’s an excellent visualization of a flight to the star cluster Westerlund 2:

How Quickly Does a Supernova Happen?

How Quickly Does a Supernova Happen?

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it can explode as a supernova. How quickly does this process happen?

Our Sun will die a slow sad death, billions of years from now when it runs out of magic sunjuice. Sure, it’ll be a dramatic red giant for a bit, but then it’ll settle down as a white dwarf. Build a picket fence, relax on the porch with some refreshing sunjuice lemonade. Gently drifting into its twilight years, and slowly cooling down until it becomes the background temperature of the Universe.

If our Sun had less mass, it would suffer an even slower fate. So then, unsurprisingly, if it had more mass it would die more quickly. In fact, stars with several times the mass of our Sun will die as a supernova, exploding in an instant. Often we talk about things that take billions of years to happen on the Guide to Space. So what about a supernova? Any guesses on how fast that happens?

There are actually several different kinds of supernovae out there, and they have different mechanisms and different durations. But I’m going to focus on a core collapse supernova, the “regular unleaded” of supernovae. Stars between 8 and about 50 times the mass of the Sun exhaust the hydrogen fuel in their cores quickly, in few short million years.

Just like our Sun, they convert hydrogen into helium through fusion, releasing a tremendous amounts of energy which pushes against the star’s gravity trying to collapse in on itself. Once the massive star runs out of hydrogen in its core, it switches to helium, then carbon, then neon, all the way up the periodic table of elements until it reaches iron. The problem is that iron doesn’t produce energy through the fusion process, so there’s nothing holding back the mass of the star from collapsing inward.
… and boom, supernova.

The outer edges of the core collapse inward at 70,000 meters per second, about 23% the speed of light. In just a quarter of a second, infalling material bounces off the iron core of the star, creating a shockwave of matter propagating outward. This shockwave can take a couple of hours to reach the surface.

Type II Supernovae
SN 1987A, an example of a Type II-P Supernova

As the wave passes through, it creates exotic new elements the original star could never form in its core. And this is where we get all get rich. All gold, silver, platinum, uranium and anything higher than iron on the periodic table of elements are created here. A supernova will then take a few months to reach its brightest point, potentially putting out as much energy as the rest of its galaxy combined.

Supernova 1987A, named to commemorate the induction of the first woman into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the amazing Aretha Franklin. Well, actually, that’s not true, it was the first supernova we saw in 1987. But we should really name supernovae after things like that. Still, 1987A went off relatively nearby, and took 85 days to reach its peak brightness. Slowly declining over the next 2 years. Powerful telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope can still see the shockwave expanding in space, decades later.

Evolution of a Type Ia supernova. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
Evolution of a Type Ia supernova. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

Our “regular flavor” core collapse supernova is just one type of exploding star. The type 1a supernovae are created when a white dwarf star sucks material off a binary partner like a gigantic parasitic twin, until it reaches 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, and then it explodes. In just a few days, these supernovae peak and fade much more rapidly than our core collapse friends.

So, how long does a supernova take to explode? A few million years for the star to die, less than a quarter of a second for its core to collapse, a few hours for the shockwave to reach the surface of the star, a few months to brighten, and then just few years to fade away.

Which star would you like to explode? Tell us in the comments below.

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Gallery: Behind the Scenes Images of the Final Hubble Servicing Mission

Hubble Servicing Mission astronaut training in the water of the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, Texas, February 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Photographer Michael Soluri was granted unprecedented access to document the people and events behind the final Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4, STS-125, which launched in 2009. He has published these images in a new book, “Infinite Worlds: People & Places of Space Exploration.” Soluri has provided Universe Today with an exclusive gallery of images from the book, and also told us about his experiences in being able to follow for three years the behind the scenes lead-up to the mission.

Read his account and see more images below. You can read our full review of Infinite Worlds here.

K. Megan McArthur (PH.D.), the  STS-125 Hubble SM4 Robotic Arm engineer during final servicing mission to Hubble, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
K. Megan McArthur (PH.D.), the STS-125 Hubble SM4 Robotic Arm engineer during final servicing mission to Hubble, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

From a very early age following the space program and over the decades as a documentary photographer on location at various NASA flight centers, I always felt something was missing: an honest, unscripted visual sense of the people behind the scenes that make human and robotic space flight possible.

Yes, it’s always inspiring to experience and photograph a rocket launch with remote equipment or from 3 miles away. However, the access pattern over time has been the same. Writers and photographers herded together into controlled situations that in the end capture the same shot. Given security issues, this is understandable and the results over the decades are predictable.

To achieve the results experienced in Infinite Worlds required earning the trust of both the crew as well as Hubble and shuttle flight management. That trust contributed to being asked by the STS-125 crew to coach them in making better more visually communicative images of their experiences at Hubble. It also enabled me to be a part of and be accepted into the many worlds of that mission during good times and challenging ones.

The edited results comprise my book and exhibitions. Looking back on that journey, I am humbled by the mutual respect and trust extended to me by a remarkable, “made in the USA” labor force that for the most part no longer exists.

Michael Soluri

Mark Turczyn, Hubble Space Telescope Senior Systems Engineer.  In 'Infinite Worlds' he said, ""Every time we ran out of time … we created more." Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Mark Turczyn, Hubble Space Telescope Senior Systems Engineer. In ‘Infinite Worlds’ he said, “”Every time we ran out of time … we created more.” Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Office white-board of Mark Turczyn, HST Senior Systems Engineer. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Office white-board of Mark Turczyn, HST Senior Systems Engineer. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Greg Cecil, a Thermal Protection Systems Technician, replaced and caulked damaged tiles on the cockpit area of the space shuttle. He is currently a middle school science teacher. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Greg Cecil, a Thermal Protection Systems Technician, replaced and caulked damaged tiles on the cockpit area of the space shuttle. He is currently a middle school science teacher. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Christy Hansen, EVA Task Lead and STS-125 SM4 astronaut Drew Feustel in cargo bay of Atlantis in July 2008. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Christy Hansen, EVA Task Lead and STS-125 SM4 astronaut Drew Feustel in cargo bay of Atlantis in July 2008. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Four of the "space-walking" astronauts and their mission trainers reviewing one of the tool boxes they will be accessing in the cargo bay of the shuttle during the last service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Four of the “space-walking” astronauts and their mission trainers reviewing one of the tool boxes they will be accessing in the cargo bay of the shuttle during the last service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Mini Power Drill System, designed at NASA Goddard SpaceFlight Center used by astronauts on the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Mini Power Drill System, designed at NASA Goddard SpaceFlight Center used by astronauts on the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

The astronaut EVA crew of Hubble SM4 - last servicing mission to the Hubble by a space shuttle crew. From left to right: John Grunsfeld, Drew Feustel, Michael Good, and Mike Massimino. Image taken at Goddard Space Flight Center, July 2008. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
The astronaut EVA crew of Hubble SM4 – last servicing mission to the Hubble by a space shuttle crew. From left to right: John Grunsfeld, Drew Feustel, Michael Good, and Mike Massimino. Image taken at Goddard Space Flight Center, July 2008. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

John Grunsfeld, just before entering shuttle Atlantis for his fifth mission in space and his third to the Hubble Space Telescope. Grunsfeld wrote "Climbing Mountains" for Infinite Worlds. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
John Grunsfeld, just before entering shuttle Atlantis for his fifth mission in space and his third to the Hubble Space Telescope. Grunsfeld wrote “Climbing Mountains” for Infinite Worlds. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Atlantis just after roll out and pad lock down at Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for the STS-125  Hubble Servicing Mission.  March 31, 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Atlantis just after roll out and pad lock down at Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for the STS-125 Hubble Servicing Mission. March 31, 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Jill McGuire, Manager, Hubble SM4 Crew Aids and Tools,  in Mission control in Houson during EVA 4, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Jill McGuire, Manager, Hubble SM4 Crew Aids and Tools, in Mission control in Houson during EVA 4, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Self Portrait by John Grunsfeld and shuttle Atlantis on the Hubble Space Telescope -- orbiting Earth. Image courtesy Michael Soluri.
Self Portrait by John Grunsfeld and shuttle Atlantis on the Hubble Space Telescope — orbiting Earth. Image courtesy Michael Soluri.

Several of Soluri’s images of the SM4’s EVA tools and photos by the Atlantis crew are part of an exhibition at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity, on view at the Air and Space Museum through June 8. There’s also an online exhibition. Smithsonian Associates is the presenting organization.

Soluri will give a presentation and do a book signing on April 11, 2015 at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden. Soluri will be joined by four individuals who played key roles in Service Mission SM4: astronaut Scott Altman, the STS-125 shuttle commander; David Leckrone, senior project scientist; Christy Hansen, EVA spacewalk flight controller and astronaut instructor; and Hubble systems engineer Ed Rezac. More information on that event can be found here.

Book Review: “Infinite Worlds: People & Places of Space Exploration” by Michael Soluri

Infinite Worlds - People & Places of Space Exploration: by Michael Soluri, Foreword by John Glenn. Cover image courtesy of Michael Soluri and Simon & Schuster.

On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched from Kennedy Space Center into low Earth orbit. Hubble was the first telescope designed to operate in space, so it was able to avoid interference from Earth’s atmosphere – an inconvenience that had limited astronomers since they first looked up to the skies. However, scientists quickly realized that something was wrong; the images were blurry. Despite being among the most precisely ground instruments ever made, the primary mirror in the Hubble was about 2,200 nanometers too flat at the perimeter (for reference, the width of a typical sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers). Luckily, there was a solution.

Hubble was designed to be serviced in space. As NASA writes on the telescope’s website, “a series of small mirrors could be used to intercept the light reflecting off the mirror, correct for the flaw, and bounce the light to the telescope’s science instruments.” A series of five missions lasting from 1993 to 2009 was devised to correct the mirror and perform various upgrades. Despite being the first of their kind, the missions were declared a resounding success – and they enabled the Hubble Space Telescope to remain operational to this day. Many of Hubble’s images are among the most incredible ever produced by mankind, yet few people know anything about the remarkable men and women who made them possible.

ohn Grunsfeld, just before entering shuttle Atlantis for his fifth mission in space and his third to the Hubble Space Telescope. Grunsfeld wrote "Climbing Mountains" for Infinite Worlds. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
ohn Grunsfeld, just before entering shuttle Atlantis for his fifth mission in space and his third to the Hubble Space Telescope. Grunsfeld wrote “Climbing Mountains” for Infinite Worlds. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

See an exclusive gallery of images from the book here.

Infinite Worlds: People & Places of Space Exploration, the latest book from photographer Michael Soluri, documents the people who worked on the last of these repair missions, STS-125 (also known as Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 [HST-SM4]). The nearly two-week journey aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis saw the successful installation of two new instruments and the repair of two others. Like the four other shuttle crews that came before them, the men and women aboard STS-125 enabled Hubble to see deeper and farther into the past than ever before.

Michael Massimino, a veteran of the earlier STS-109 mission, is one of these people. Massimino and Soluri became fast friends after a chance encounter, when Soluri asked: “What is the quality of light really like in space?” Following their discussion, Massimino asked Soluri to teach him and the rest of the crew how to take photographs that would better communicate their experiences in space. Astronauts are always taking pictures, but the lighting in space is, understandably, not always ideal. Like Soluri himself in Infinite Worlds, the astronauts repairing Hubble were looking for better ways to communicate the beauty of space travel through photography.

Soluri was granted unprecedented access to document the people and events behind the mission throughout a period of more than four years. The photographs in the book “give deserved attention to a few of the many thousands of people who worked on the Space Shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope programs,” reads an inspiring foreword by John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Infinite Worlds reveals a side of space travel that most of us would never otherwise see, including the training sessions, tools, and trials that make success possible. NASA, notorious for keeping their employees tightly scripted and inaccessible, rarely grants such access – and with the closing of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011, such intimacy may never be seen again.

Jill McGuire, Manager, Hubble SM4 Crew Aids and Tools,  in Mission control in Houson during EVA 4, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.
Jill McGuire, Manager, Hubble SM4 Crew Aids and Tools, in Mission control in Houson during EVA 4, May 2009. Credit and copyright: Michael Soluri.

Science is a cooperative discipline, but most people only ever see the results. The tireless work of thousands of individuals is often taken for granted and forgotten. Although many people still hold the false idea that scientific accomplishments are made by individual geniuses working in an armchair, now more than ever before we are entering an age where science is performed by large teams working cooperatively. To mention just one example, CERN hosts scientists of more than 100 nationalities. As Jill McGuire, a manager at Goddard Space Flight Center, writes about the field in the book, “the best way to move forward in the business was to get my hands dirty by working with the skilled machinists and technicians in the branch to learn everything I could.”

Infinite Worlds grants readers an exhilarating glimpse into this cooperative world. One particularly inspiring section follows the immediate buildup to the launch of STS-125. The transcript of the pre-launch quality check is paralleled by images of the situation as it happened. Black and white photographs from both cockpit and control room highlight the tension behind “the most risky thing NASA does,” according to Space Shuttle Launch Director Michael Leinbach. He continues, “they were real people with real families, real children, real lives.” Infinite Worlds reminds us of this: the work behind every scientific breakthrough is not magic, but rather the result of talented and dedicated individuals.

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch and look to the future, a book like Infinite Worlds is more relevant now than ever before. The beautiful photographs in Soluri’s book tell two kindred stories: not only the heroic report of repairing a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment, but also a unique glimpse at the inspiring men and women who made it all possible. Whether humanity’s next missions are to Mars, Europa, or elsewhere, one thing will remain constant – we will only reach the stars through the work of exceptional people.

Infinite Worlds is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, iBooks, and Google Play.

Learn more about Michael Soluri at his website.

Several of Soluri’s images of the SM4’s EVA tools and photos by the Atlantis crew are part of an exhibition at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity, on view at the Air and Space Museum through June 8. There’s also an online exhibition.

Soluri will give a presentation and do a book signing on April 11, 2015 at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden. Soluri will be joined by four individuals who played key roles in Service Mission SM4: astronaut Scott Altman, the STS-125 shuttle commander; David Leckrone, senior project scientist; Christy Hansen, EVA spacewalk flight controller and astronaut instructor; and Hubble systems engineer Ed Rezac. More information on that event can be found here.