Universe Today

NASA released the results on Dec. 31 from an $11.3 million federal air safety study. The agency previously withheld the report, and came under fire from Congress and news organizations for doing so. Earlier reports said NASA was concerned the data in the report would upset travelers and hurt airline profits. But today NASA administrator Mike Griffin and the head of NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance Bryan O’Connor said the release of the report was delayed to protect both pilot confidentiality and classified commercial aviation information.
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NASA engineers continue to repair a faulty electrical connector on Space Shuttle Atlantis’ external fuel tank which has delayed the launch of the STS-122 mission to the International Space Station. An update of the progress on that work will be presented at a mission management team meeting scheduled for Thursday, January 3 and mission managers will perhaps then be prepared to announce a proposed launch date for Atlantis.
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Beginning each New Year and lasting for nearly a week, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower sparkles across the night sky for nearly all viewers around the world. Its radiant belongs to an extinct constellation once known as Quadran Muralis, but any meteors will seem to come from the general direction of bright Arcturus and Boötes. This is a very narrow stream, which may have once belonged to a portion of the Aquarids, but recent scientific data points to a what may have been a cosmic collision. Read more…

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This week we're going to study some of the most ancient objects in the entire Universe; globular clusters. These relics of the early Universe contain hundreds of thousands of stars, held together by their mutual gravity. Since they formed together, they give astronomers a unique way to test various theories of stellar evolution.

Click here to download the episode

Globular Clusters - Show notes and transcript

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

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People as a group don't get credit for making great advances. Individuals are the ones who rise above the background noise of humanity, and their suggestions or offerings provide a new thrust for our civilization. Edison brought ready energy to peoples' houses; the Wright brothers brought ready transport across vast distances. Michael Belfiore in his book Rocketeers – How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space gives identity to some of today's individuals who are trying to rise above. His is the story of these individuals who want to enable the ready travel of people beyond Earth's atmosphere.
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On December 2^nd, 1995 a large joint ESA and NASA mission was launched to gain an insight to the dynamics of the Sun and its relationship with the space between the planets. 12 years on, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) continues to witness some of the largest explosions ever seen in the solar system, observes beautiful magnetic coronal arcs reach out into space and tracks comets as they fall to a fiery death. In the line of duty, SoHO even suffered a near-fatal shutdown (in 1998). As far as astronomy goes, this is a tough assignment.
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A 164-foot (50 meter) wide asteroid will be crossing the orbit of Mars at the end of January 2008. Currently, there is a 1-in-75 chance of the "Mars Crosser" hitting the Red Planet, and if it does, the 30,000 mile per hour speeding mass would generate a three megaton explosion (approximately the size of the terrestrial Tunguska impact over Siberia in 1908) and create a crater half-a-mile wide somewhere north of Meridiani Planum. So, the Mars Rover Opportunity will get a ringside seat should this once-in-a-thousand-year event occur…
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December 27 is a day to celebrate the life of astronomer Johannes Kepler, who was born on this date in 1571, and is best known for his three laws of planetary motion. But also, coming up in 2009, The International Year of Astronomy (IYA) will celebrate the work of Kepler as well. Not only did Galileo begin his observations with a telescope almost 400 years ago in 1609, but also in that year Kepler published his book New Astronomy or Astronomia Nova. This was the first published work that documented the scientific method.
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While finding a planet orbiting another star is incredibly exciting, it’s almost becoming commonplace. The current exoplanet count is up to 270. So now that astronomers know where these exoplanets are located, they are currently devising new techniques in order to study the planets in detail. Using a new method similar to how Polaroid sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare, an international team of scientists were able to infer the size of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, plus directly trace the planet’s orbit.
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A new Progress cargo carrier docked to the International Space Station’s Pirs docking compartment early Wednesday, bringing almost 2.5 tons of fuel, air, water and other supplies to the station and its three-member crew. One of the first items unpacked were fresh tomatoes and lettuce, to be used for an anticipated culinary treat of “space hamburgers� for the crew.
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There once was a galaxy known as ESO 593-IG 008. It was thought to be a relatively mild-mannered galaxy, even though scientists believed it was a collision of two different galaxies; one a barred spiral and the other an irregular galaxy. But now, an international team of astronomers has discovered that it actually is a stunning rare case of three interacting galaxies, with the third galaxy forming stars at a frantic rate.
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Please note that this is going to be the last edition of the What's Up series of articles on Universe Today. From here on out, Tammy's daily skywatching guide will be published in a book called the Night Sky Companion. Tammy is still writing for Universe Today, and will be posting articles about skywatching and events on a regular basis.

Monday, December 24 - Twas the night before Christmas in a sky filled with stars… And low on the horizon are the Yule Moon and Mars! That's right. It's the Full Yule Moon, and arriving at the same time Mars reaches opposition. For many viewers, the spectacular pair will rise with Mars less than a degree south of Luna… But a pairing this close means a few lucky observers could be in for an occultation event! Be sure to check IOTA for possible times and locations.
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This discovery comes just in time to light up Christmas: new observations of the Northern Lights – a spectacular phenomenon that lights up the night sky – show them to be more intricate than previously thought.

The Northern Lights were observed by NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS), a system of ground cameras and five orbiting micro-satellites that work in combination to observe the phenomenon better than with a single satellite. This allowed scientists to map and understand the mechanisms of the Northern Lights better than before by giving them a 3D picture of the events.
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If you were on the surface of Saturn, how long would a day last? This has remained a mystery for scientists, because the thick clouds of gas obscure the surface of the planet from direct observation by telescopes or orbiters. Below all those clouds there is a surface that rotates at a constant speed. Since scientists can't directly see the surface, they've taken another approach: listening.
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Blinking spots of intense light are being observed all over the lower atmosphere of the Sun. Not just in the active regions, but in polar regions, quiet regions, sunspots, coronal holes and loops. These small explosions fire elegant jets of hot solar matter into space, generating X-rays as they go. Although X-ray jets are known to have existed for many years, the Japanese Hinode observatory is seeing these small flares with unprecedented clarity, showing us that X-ray jets may yet hold the answers to some of the most puzzling questions about the Sun and its hot corona.
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The Moon is a pretty popular destination these days: Google's X-Prize is already getting applicants, Kaguya and Chang'e-1 are currently snapping pictures and taking measurements, and both India and the U.S. have missions lined up to launch in the next 10 years or so. MIT announced last week that it would join in on the fun, designing a spacecraft to study the Moon, schedule for launch in 2011.

In cooperation with NASA, MIT head a up a mission to send two satellites to simultaneously study the gravity field of the Moon in detail. Named GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), the mission will study the gravity of the Moon to shed light on its thermal history and composition. By using two satellites to do so, GRAIL will create a map of the Moon's gravity field that is 1,000 times more accurate than previous maps.
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Finally, astronomy is going to get the respect it deserves. The United Nations announced today that 2009 will be the International Year of Astronomy. There'll be a concerted effort around the world to increase awareness about astronomy, and give people access to tools, techniques and knowledge.

The year coincides with 400 years since Galileo Galilei first pointed his telescope towards the heavens. He then went on to discover mountains and craters on the Moon, and the four major moons of Jupiter.

There are going to be many many events during the International Year of Astronomy. In fact, my Astronomy Cast co-host, Dr. Pamela Gay, is going to be the New Media Chair, and help administrate the IYA 2009 website. Apparently I've also been volunteered for several projects - I'll keep you posted as the details are revealed to me.

You can access the International Year of Astronomy 2009 website here.

Original Source; IAU Press Release

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Try to walk on Mars today, and the planet will simultaneously freeze and suffocate you. Not to mention the minimal air pressure and relentless radiation from space. But billions of years ago, the Red Planet was much warmer and liquid water flowed on its surface. Warm temperatures on Earth are maintained by the carbon cycle, but maybe another greenhouse gas - sulfur dioxide (SO2) - maintained the temperatures on Mars.
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The 34th Carnival of Space has been posted to Rainer Gerhards' Spaceflight blog. There are not one, but two lists of the top space photos in 2007. Enjoy galactic death rays, gravity suits for children, and scramjet research.

And if you're interested in looking back, here's an archive to all the past carnivals of space. If you've got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community - and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let me know if you can be a host, and I'll schedule you into the calendar.

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My kids find it fascinating that the gold in the ring on my finger was formed in an instant when a massive star detonated in a supernova explosion. But it's not just the heavier elements that get produced in a supernova, there's also dust. Lots and lots of dust that can eventually collect together into new planets. And according to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a typical supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A contains enough dust for 10,000 Earths.
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It seems impossible to believe, but astronomers are now making plans to reach for the brass ring of planet hunting: to find Earth-sized worlds orbiting other stars, and then to analyze them to see if there's life. But you've got to know what you're looking for. That's why astronomers are considering what the Earth might look like from afar. What clues would our planet give to distant astronomers that there's life here?
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Our condolences to space station astronaut Dan Tani, whose mother was killed on Wednesday in a car/train accident. Tani has been on board the ISS since October, and in all likelihood would have returned back to earth on Wednesday if space shuttle Atlantis had been able to launch as originally scheduled on Dec. 6. However, the shuttle has been grounded because of malfunctioning engine cutoff sensors in the external fuel tank. As it stands now, the earliest Tani could return home would be late January.
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Here in the Milky Way, new stars are formed at a rate of roughly 4 per year; that's considered pretty normal for spiral galaxy like ours. But researchers have found a galaxy that's absolutely bursting with new star formation. Instead of our leisurely 4 stars per year, this distant galaxy is generating more than 4,000 new stars a year.
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For your photo today, it's another image of Mars nearing its closest point to the Earth. This one was captured by Efrain Morales Riviera in the forum.

Astronomy in the UK is in deep trouble. The Science & Technology Facilities Council has had their budget slashed by £80 million. Find out more and help out here.

Centauri Dreams has more details about the Tunguska research I reported on today. And so does Bad Astronomy.

Here's a great idea: a space exploration reality show, with a group of potential explorers cooped up together on a mock spaceship here on Earth. Okay, maybe it's a terrible idea.

Maybe off-world children will wear gravity suits in the future to simulate living on Earth.

On an administrative note, Pamela and I will be attending the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, TX in January. If you're going drop me a note. We're going to try and organize some kind of meetup for Astronomy Cast.

Several people mentioned this great interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in the Washington Post.

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Spotting flares on the surface of the Sun is easy. It's right there, blazing in our skies. But watching flares erupt on the surface of a distant star, located 150 light-years away… now that's a challenge. And yet, a team of European astronomers announce just such a discovery this week.
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