Universe Today

Earlier today in Moscow, six people were locked inside a hermetically sealed living space, where they will remain for the next 105 days. They will eat dehydrated food, have limited contact with the outside world and will be constantly monitored. No, it's not another season of 'Big Brother', but a joint experiment by the European Space Agency and the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences to study the effects a mission to Mars would have on a human crew.

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Filed under: Mars, Space Flight | 11 Comments »

The Red River reached a record high of 40.82 feet at Fargo, North Dakota on March 28, 2009, and flood stage for the river is 18 feet. This image, taken by the Advanced Land Imager on the Earth Observer-1 (EO-1) satellite on March 28, shows the swollen river, held in place by reinforced levees as it snakes through the region. Below you can compare images taken on March 28 and March 14 with NASA's Aqua satellite, to show how the flooding increased between the two dates. I have a personal interest in this natural disaster, as I grew up near Fargo and have family living there. Today, with the river easing slowly down to 38 feet, the Red River Valley was hit by a blizzard of between 10-20 inches of heavy, wet snow, according to KVLY- KX4 meteorologist Mick Kjar (who happens to be my brother). So when this snow begins to melt, the river is expected to rise again.
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Filed under: Earth Observation | 6 Comments »

The Senate Budget Committee has given the green light to fund NASA's shuttle program past the end of 2010, when the program is set to retire.

But NASA isn't asking for an extension.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson requested the $2.5 billion provision, which was included in the broader five-year spending plan that passed committee Monday afternoon. His office argues that launching nine missions in 18 months puts too much pressure on the agency, and could compromise safety.

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Filed under: Astronomy, NASA, Space Exploration, Space Flight, Space Shuttle | 9 Comments »

NASA began the process of moving and juggling space shuttles around for the next mission, the important Hubble Telescope repair mission. Space shuttle Atlantis moved out to launch pad 39A today in preparation for the STS-125 mission, which will send seven astronauts to repair Hubble. Targeted liftoff date is May 12. Additionally, a replacement for the faulty instrument that delayed the mission last fall arrived at Kennedy Space Center, and will be loaded on the shuttle while it's on the pad. This mission will require a second shuttle to be ready for liftoff in the event a problem arises with Atlantis in orbit, and Endeavour will head out to launch pad 39B on April 17. After Atlantis is cleared to land, Endeavour will move to Launch Pad 39A for its upcoming STS-127 mission to the International Space Station, slated to launch in mid-June. Moving a shuttle out to the launch pad takes about six hours, but this video does it in about 3 minutes – so enjoy the sped-up show; it’s a nice video showing the process.
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Filed under: Hubble, Space Shuttle | 11 Comments »

We certainly hope you had the opportunity to keep an eye on our remote telescope! Despite the Moon gaining a hold on the sky, we're delivering some very fine images and we've even bumped up the user level so more folks can access the telescope at the same time. I know it's certainly fascinating to watch and I have to keep reminding myself to quit being a "scope hog"! If you didn't get a chance to watch the IYA telescope "live" on Galactic TV today, don't worry. We took a video capture for you. Step inside to enjoy today's view of Messier Object 68. We do it all for you… Read more…

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If you fell into a black hole, would you be engulfed in darkness? Could you see out beyond the event horizon? Are there wormholes inside black holes? Do black holes give birth to baby universes? Believe it or not, these questions may have been answered. Andrew Hamilton from the University of Colorado and Gavin Polhemus have created a video showing what falling into a Schwarzschild black hole might look like to the person falling in. The two researchers warn that based on our experience in the 3D world, we might imagine that falling through the horizon would be like falling through any other surface. However, they say, it's not. And likely, a person falling into the black hole would be able to see outside of the event horizon.
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Filed under: Black Holes | 56 Comments »

Officials are now saying the bright fireball seen over Virginia in the US on Sunday was probably a natural meteor event and not part of a Russian rocket, a reversal from yesterday's initial analysis. Space.com reported that an official from the U.S. Naval Observatory believed the loud boom and flash of light seen in the skies over Norfolk and Virginia Beach was likely the second stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched Expedition 19 to the International Space Station last Thursday. However, U.S. Strategic Command has since reported that the rocket re-entered Earth's atmosphere near Taiwan, on the other side of the world, several hours after the reports of the fireball. So both its timing and entry location rule out the rocket as the explanation for the fireball. But the investigation is continuing to determine exactly what the object was.
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Filed under: Asteroids, Meteorites | 4 Comments »

The scientists and engineers working with the Spirit rover on Mars were hoping the aging rover could take the short route over the top of a small plateau called "Home Plate;" she could get to her next destination quicker and easier. But with the rover's right front wheel not working, the rover was unable to make the climb from the side of the plateau where Spirit spent the majority of the Martian winter (with her solar panels tilted towards the sun) up to the top. So, Spirit is now making her way around Home Plate, where the less desirable path may have led to a serendipitous discovery. The rover's immobile right-front wheel has churned up a long stripe of bright soil. Could this bright soil be sulfur or silica, providing evidence of past action of water at this site? The rover will test the soil today with it's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. And this isn't the first time Spirit's bum wheel has churned up something interesting.
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Filed under: Mars, Missions | 7 Comments »

Fresh impact craters on Mars have revealed more evidence of stable ice that's been hiding just beneath the surface all along, say scientists working on images sent back by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The craters appeared sometime between January and September of last year, in areas that had been previously imaged without them prior to January 2008. The impacts served as "natural probes" to excavate evidence that gets to a long-standing question about ice on Mars: where is it stable, and where is it residual, in the process of sublimating away?

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Filed under: Mars, NASA, Solar System | 13 Comments »

This week our very own Ian O'Neill is hosting the Carnival of Space over at his Astroengine website.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #96

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 Fraser know if you can be a host, and he'll schedule you into the calendar.

Finally, if you run a space-related blog, please post a link to the Carnival of Space. Help us get the word out.

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Mars is not the dead world we once thought it was, and these images portray that fact. Stuart Atkinson (not a relative, but a good pal) is part of the UnmannedSpaceflight.com crew, the folks who have created fantastic visual treats from raw images sent back from our space exploring robots. Stu also has his own website, Cumbrian Sky . Today, Stu posted some pictures on his website, along with his story of how he came to create an utterly fantastic image from a rather ordinary-looking picture from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaisaince Orbiter. After seeing Stu's handiwork today, I asked him if he wouldn't mind sharing his story on Universe Today of how he came to make an amazing discovery on Mars. (Click on the image above for a larger version.)
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Filed under: Citizen Science, Mars | 15 Comments »

If you didn't get a chance to watch the IYA telescope "live" on Galactic TV today, don't worry. We took a video capture for you. Step inside to enjoy today's view of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. Read more…

Filed under: IYA Live Telescope Library | 1 Comment »

Have you heard the word? In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy, there's a worldwide event happening that will begin on April 2 and last through April 5, 2009. Public outreach activities, live science centers, research observatory webcasts and sidewalk astronomy events are only a small part of what you'll discover when the "100 Hours of Astronomy Cornerstone Project" gets underway. Want to find out more about what's happening? Then step inside… Read more…

Filed under: IYA 2009, Observing | 6 Comments »

I've been oohing and ahhing all weekend over the stunning images taken by the Discovery space shuttle astronauts as they departed from the International Space Station. It's the "finished" look of the space station we've all been waiting for. And now an amateur photographer and an amateur astronomer have gone even further with images of the ISS, causing even more shouts of delight. Photographer Nathanial Burton-Bradford took images from the high-definition video of the space station and created fantastic 3-D images! So grab your 3-D glasses and take a gander. Not only that, but astronomy enthusiast/photographer Mike Salway took this incredible image of the ISS and shuttle from the ground in Australia:

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Filed under: Astrophotos | 3 Comments »

Residents of Virginia in the US reported hearing booms and seeing flashes of light Sunday night, and originally, it was reported to be another possible meteor. But now officials from the U.S. Naval Observatory say it was likely the second stage of the Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth. Parts of the rocket from last Thursday's launch to the International Space Station would have fallen to Earth about that same time. "I'm pretty convinced that what these folks saw was the second stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched the crew up to the space station," Space.com quoted Jeff Chester of the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
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Filed under: Asteroids | 5 Comments »