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 [email protected], 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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What a gorgeous and immense image! And it’s full of stars! An astronomer from Central Michigan University has put together a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky , with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger stitched together over 3,000 images to create this beautiful image, which also comes in an interactive version, showing stars 1,000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.
Mellinger spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan. After the photographs were taken, “the real work started,” Mellinger said.
Simply cutting and pasting the images together into one big picture would not work. Each photograph is a two-dimensional projection of the celestial sphere. As such, each one contains distortions, in much the same way that flat maps of the round Earth are distorted. In order for the images to fit together seamlessly, those distortions had to be accounted for. To do that, Mellinger used a mathematical model—and hundreds of hours in front of a computer.
Another problem Mellinger had to deal with was the differing background light in each photograph.
“Due to artificial light pollution, natural air glow, as well as sunlight scattered by dust in our solar system, it is virtually impossible to take a wide-field astronomical photograph that has a perfectly uniform background,” Mellinger said.
To fix this, Mellinger used data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes. The data allowed him to distinguish star light from unwanted background light. He could then edit out the varying background light in each photograph. That way they would fit together without looking patchy.
The result is an image of our home galaxy that no star-gazer could ever see from a single spot on earth. Mellinger plans to make the giant 648 megapixel image available to planetariums around the world.
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The Cassini team posted this image today, sending “bats wishes” for a happy, healthy and fun Halloween. And this give all of us here at Universe Today a chance to wish everyone a fun, safe, almost-full-Moon-lit, eat-your-favorite-treats, happy Hallow’s Eve. Click the image for a larger version.
Also, as a heads up, Cassini will be flying by the moon Enceladus next week, on Nov. 2, approaching within about 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the surface. The spacecraft has gone closer during a previous flyby (25 kilometers or 15 miles), but this time it will be going deep into the heart of the plume from the geysers on the tiger-striped moon. The objective is to analyze the particles in the plume with instruments that can detect the size, mass, charge, speed and composition. This will happen at about 7:40 a.m. UTC and the spacecraft will spend only about a minute in the plume.
This has taken awhile to filter into the Western press, but an asteroid exploded over the town of Bone,Indonesia on October 8th at around 11am local time. Initially, locals called the police to report that a plane had crashed, or that an earthquake shook the ground, as reported in the Jakarta Globe. The Jakarta Post quoted Thomas Djamaluddin, head of the Lapan Center for Climate and Atmosphere Science Implementation as saying that the explosion was due to a meteorite or bit of space junk that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere. As it turns out after further analysis, the explosion was due to an asteroid about 5-10 meters (15-30 feet) in diameter exploding in the air between 15 and 20 km (nine to 12 miles) above sea level. Nobody was injured as a result of the explosion, but it evidently caused quite a scare with the local population!
In a press release from the Near Earth Object (NEO) program, the explosion was detected by many International Monitoring System (IMS) infrasound stations, five of them 10,000 km (6200 miles) away, and one 18,000 km (11,100 miles) from the blast. These stations monitor seismic waves, infrasound (low frequency soundwaves), hydroacoustic, and radionuclide emissions as part of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). They are well equipped to monitor explosions of nuclear weapons, but also detect other events such as meteorite impacts and asteroid explosions, tsunamis and earthquakes.
When analyzed, the amount and intensity of low frequency sound waves created by the explosion allowed researchers Elizabeth Silber and Peter Brown of the Meteor Infrasound Group at the Univ. of Western Ontario to determine that the explosion caused by the asteroid was on the scale of 30 – 50 kilotons of TNT. To give you an idea of how powerful of an explosion this is, the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II exploded with the force of 20 kilotons of TNT.
The fireball – also called a bolide – created a dusty tail upon entering the atmosphere of the Earth. It is estimated that the asteroid was traveling around 72,000 km/hour (45,000 miles/hour) when it hit the atmosphere. As an asteroid enters the thick Earth atmosphere, it slows down abruptly and heats up due to the process of ablation. If this asteroid were made of metal instead of rock, it would likely have impacted the ground causing a lot of damage. Fortunately for the residents of Bone and the surrounding area, the rock broke up in a large fireball instead. There haven’t been any reports of pieces that have touched down as of yet.
Asteroids of this size are predicted to impact the Earth about every 2-12 years, and the last one of this magnitude was a bolide over the Marshall Islands on February 1, 1994. That impactor was estimated to be between 4.4 and 13.5 meters. A full analysis of that event is available on the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System.
Of course, events like this always raise the question of why the object wasn’t detected before it even entered the atmosphere. The NEO program has cataloged over 600 objects in the size of 10 meters, but there are many, many more out there. The cost of a monitoring and cataloging all of the Near Earth Objects would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but more events like this may spur the political will and capital to further efforts at protecting human lives from the potential damage of meteorite impacts.
Divers recover the Ares I-X booster. Credit: NASA, via Spaceflightnow.com
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The damage seen on the Ares I-X booster occurred as a result of parachute failure, which caused the rocket to impact the water harder than expected. Ares I-X manager Bob Ess briefed reporters today on the preliminary data from Wednesday’s test flight of NASA new rocket, and said the parachute failure was not a significant event. “The damage we see is analogous to when there has been parachute failure on the space shuttle boosters, but actually the parachute guys were ecstatic overall and are not worried about it,” Ess said. “This is all part of doing a test flight, so team is still very elated. The fact that the parachute team has something interesting to go work makes them excited. The damage was all collateral because of the parachute.” He also touched on the “tumbling” of the second stage, and their findings on thrust oscillation for the vehicle.
Ess said all three chutes initially deployed as planned: pilot chute, then drogue chutes, then the three main chutes come out and partially deploy to a 50% open condition to avoid shock to the material. But at that point one of the mains failed and basically became a streamer. Ess said it appeared the lines went slack, which would be indicative of a problem with the riser lines and not the parachute material. Then a second chute may have gotten damaged from the bad “streamer” parachute and the second chute didn’t open all the way. So instead of coming down on three parachutes, it only had one and a half. “So that caused the booster to hit the water at a higher speed than expected, with more horizontal velocity, so booster slapped down pretty hard which caused damage on the booster.”
Additionally the booster was 15% heavier than the booster that will be used for Ares 1. “This was an overtest, so it does not detract from the success of the flight,” Ess said. Image from NASA TV showing the Ares I-X stage separtion.
The tumbling seen as the two stages separated was actually not unexpected and Ess said he misspoke at the press briefing on the day of the test flight as the separation being “interesting” (and his team immediately let him hear about it!). “We’ve actually done thousands of animations showing this type of behavior on the upper stage, and the models predicted this is what we would see. It was the manager who didn’t say it right,” Ess joked.
The upper stage on the test flight was a “dummy” and was loaded with 30,000 pounds of ballast near the bottom to simulate a full load of liquid oxygen rocket propellant and another 30,000 pounds higher up to simulate liquid hydrogen fuel.
The center of gravity was in an unusual spot, making it inherently unstable, so it behaved exactly as a heavy, unstable projectile would. “Once you separate, there’s nothing to control it,” Ess said. “In reality, the Ares I will have the J-2X engine on it, and everything will be fine.”
The much ballyhooed thrust oscillations the vehicle might encounter were basically non-existent on Wednesday’s test flight. “We had two sensors to measure this and so far the oscillations look very small, similar to what the shuttle might encounter,” Ess said. “We didn’t see anything unusual or remotely like anything to indicate that thrust oscillation was a factor.” Ares I-X. Credit: NASA/Scott Andrews
At Wednesday’s briefing, Ess said the vehicle has three pairs of thrusters to keep things under control if thrust oscillation would become a problem. Their simulations said they might encounter 20-25 firings of the automatic thrusters during flight, but in actuality, there were only three.
“We’re just not seeing any significant numbers for thrust oscillation,” Ess said. “It’s the impact on the vehicle that you worry about, and so far we haven’t seen it but we’ll look closer at the data in the next few weeks.”
The damaged booster contains the flight data recorder, and Ess thought they should get access to it on Saturday and begin looking at the data from over 700 sensors on board the vehicle.
Since test flights are done to bring up major problems, Ess was asked if he wished there were more issues to tackle. “It was a great flight, and the parachute problem is a minor thing, and we have a few more year to go look at it,” he said. “When something is a little different, you get excited, as an engineer. But we were ecstatic and no one is sad we didn’t have any more problems. We still have to look at the sensors, so there’s a lot in front of us. But there’s nothing pride from the team that it went as well as it did.”
Certain strains of bacteria, including Bacilus Pumilus, may be able to survive on the Martian surface. Image credit: NASA
Multiple missions have been sent to Mars with the hopes of testing the surface of the planet for life – or the conditions that could create life – on the Red Planet. The question of whether life in the form of bacteria (or something even more exotic!) exists on Mars is hotly debated, and still requires a resolute yes or no. Experiments done right here on Earth that simulate the conditions on Mars and their effects on terrestrial bacteria show that it is entirely possible for certain strains of bacteria to weather the harsh environment of Mars.
A team led by Giuseppe Galletta of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Padova simulated the conditions present on Mars, and then introduced several strains of bacteria into the simulator to record their survival rate. The simulator – named LISA (Laboratorio Italiano Simulazione Ambienti) – reproduced surface conditions on Mars, with temperatures ranging from +23 to -80 degrees Celsius (73 to -112 Fahrenheit), a 95% CO2 atmosphere at low pressures of 6 to 9 millibars, and very strong ultraviolet radiation. The results – some of the strains of bacteria were shown to survive up to 28 hours under these conditions, an amazing feat given that there is nowhere on the surface of the Earth where the temperatures get this low or the ultraviolet radiation is as strong as on Mars.
Two of the strains of bacteria tested – Bacillus pumilus and Bacillus Nealsonii – are both commonly used in laboratory tests of extreme environmental factors and their effects on bacteria because of their ability to produce endospores when stressed. Endospores are internal structures of the bacteria that encapsulate the DNA and part of the cytoplasm in a thick wall, to prevent the DNA from being damaged.
Galletta’s team found that the vegetative cells of the bacteria died after only a few minutes, due to the low water content and high UV radiation. The endospores, however, were able to survive between 4 and 28 hours, even when exposed directly to the UV light. The researchers simulated the dusty surface of Mars by blowing volcanic ash or dust of red iron oxide on the samples. When covered with the dust, the samples showed an even higher percentage of survival, meaning that it’s possible for a hardy bacterial strain to survive underneath the surface of the soil for very long periods of time. The deeper underneath the soil an organism is, the more hospitable the conditions become; water content increases, and the UV radiation is absorbed from the soil above.
Given these findings, and all of the rich data that came in last year from the Phoenix lander – especially the discovery of perchlorates – continuing the search for life on Mars still seems a plausible endeavor.
Though this surely isn’t a confirmation of life on Mars, it shows that even life that isn’t adapted to the conditions of the planet could potentially hold out against the extreme nature of the environment there, and bodes well for the possibility of Martian bacterial life forms. The LISA simulations also indicate the importance of avoiding cross-contamination of bacteria from Earth to Mars on any scientific missions that travel to the planet. In other words, when we finally are able to definitively test for life on our neighboring planet, we don’t want to find out that our Earth bacteria have killed off all the native lifeforms!
Phoenix landing site in Dec. 2008 and August 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL/ U of Arizona; annotations by Phil Stooke
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I was just thinking of the Phoenix lander earlier this week, wondering if our little buddy was surviving the Martian winter when, boom: via Twitter came this:
@MarsPhoenix “Spring has sprung in the north hemi(sphere) of Mars! Team is waiting for longer daylight hours, around mid-Jan., to ‘listen’ for our lander.”
Then, via another Tweet from @doug_ellison, (Doug Ellision) I found out the folks at Unmannedspaceflight.com have been thinking about the Phoenix lander, too. Phil Stooke from the UMSF crew had searched for Phoenix in the latest images released by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken in August 2009 and found of glimmer of hope the lander was still visible among the CO2 frost and “snow.” See the comparison above of the landing site from Dec. 2008 to August 2009. Then Emily Lakadawalla of the Planetary Society Blog took things one step further and made a little “movie” of HiRISE images of Phoenix during the different seasons on Mars (check out her extensive post here.) Hope springs eternal for many of us as to whether we’ll ever hear from Phoenix again, and time will only tell. But its nice to know there were lots of us with Phoenix on the brain this week; kind of a shared experience! (except everyone else did all the work….) See below for more closeups of Phoenix’s winter surroundings from UMSF.
Phoenix landing site, August, 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL/U of Arizona. Annotations by Phil Stooke
Phil wrote on UMSF that it took him several tries to match up the landing site from the two different HiRISE images. “When the two sides of this comparison are blinked a thousand features match up, not just a dozen. This is a lesson to people searching for Mars Polar lander – it’s easy to be fooled! … The parachute and backshell are invisible, the heatshield almost so, but the lander’s clear.”
And below is one of just the lander from July 2009. Unfortunately, HiRISE has been unable to take any recent images of Phoenix or any other location on Mars because of MRO being in an extended safe mode. It went into safe mode over 9 weeks ago, and mission engineers have yet to determine the cause. They are playing it safe and want to get to the root cause, since this has happened four times over the course of the mission. Latest word reported in the Arizona Star is that if the system reboots itself enough times, the memory of the main computer could be reset, and basically wiped. That would be bad. “Engineers are now working to create a safeguard against that worst-case scenario as well as finding the cause of the mysterious voltage signals,” the Star said.
Phoenix close up from July 2009. Annotated by Phil Stooke.
Buckling on the first stage booster for Ares I-X. Credit: NASA via Spaceflightnow.com
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The booster rocket used in the Ares I-X test flight was found to be badly dented when divers located it in the Atlantic Ocean. The damage could have occurred as the booster hit the water. UPDATE (7:30 pm CDT): Bill Harwood from CBS news is reporting that according to NASA officials, one of the three 150-foot-wide parachutes designed to gently lower NASA’s Ares I-X first stage booster to the Atlantic Ocean deflated after deployment, resulting in a harder splashdown than expected. All three main chutes deployed, but while two inflated fully, the third collapsed. “A source said the deflated parachute contacted one of the others as it whipped about in the wind, causing a partial deflation. That could not be immediately confirmed, although a splashdown in that condition might explain the buckling seen in the lower segment of the rocket’s case,” Harwood wrote. (end of update).
Spaceflightnow.com reported that engineers have said shuttle boosters can be damaged depending on the impact angle and how rough the ocean is. But it’s not yet known whether such a “slap down” or some other issue might have caused the damage noted in the Ares I-X booster.
Divers recover the Ares I-X booster. Credit: NASA, via Spaceflightnow.com
Parachute deploy was one of the major test objectives for the flight. The 327-foot-tall I-X rocket was equipped with a four-segment shuttle booster, a fifth segment loaded with avionics gear, a dummy upper stage and Orion crew module mockup.
The booster is being towed back to Kennedy Space Center, and should arrive late Thursday, where engineers will be able to look more closely at the damage.
Additionally, NASA is saying there was more damage to the launchpad following the Ares I-X launch than what is customarily seen after a shuttle launch. Leaks of toxic propellant at launch pad 39B forced NASA to evacuate the pad. Two separate leaks occurred at the 95-foot-level where the pad’s fixed service structure and gantry-like rotating service structure meet.
Meanwhile, on the shuttle side of the program, after a Flight Readiness Review, mission managers for the STS-129 mission have cleared space shuttle Atlantis to launch on Nov. 16 at 2:28 p.m. EST. The target date depends on the planned Nov. 14 launch of an Atlas V rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Atlas has reserved the Eastern Range on Nov. 14 and 15. If the Atlas launch is delayed to Nov. 15, the shuttle’s liftoff will move to no earlier than 2:02 p.m. on Nov. 17.
The STS-129 mission will focus on storing spare hardware on the exterior of the space station. The flight will include three spacewalks and install two platforms on the station’s truss, or backbone. The platforms will hold spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttle fleet is retired.
Also, the mission will bring up communications equipment for the SpaceX Dragon capsule and future commercial cargo missions to the ISS.
Launch day. Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell
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After Wednesday’s picture perfect launch of the Ares I-X test rocket — which revealed no real showstoppers or issues as of yet for the vehicle — the obvious next question is: now what? Much of what comes next for the Ares program, and Constellation in general, hinges on any decisions the Obama administration and Congress make in regards to NASA’s budget and the options put forth by the Augustine Commission. But if the Ares program is given the green light, here’s an overview of the next steps, future test flights and milestones. First on the list? We won’t hear the word “triboelectrification” ever again.
No more trouble with triboelectrification.
At Wednesday’s press briefing following the launch, program managers said they didn’t realize what a big issue the triboelectrification rule would be. Flying through high-level clouds can generate “P-static” (P for precipitation), which can create a corona of static around the rocket that interferes with radio signals sent by or to the rocket. This would create problems when the rocket tries to transmit data down to the ground or if the Range Safety Officer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station needed to send a signal to terminate (blow up) the rocket in the event of a problem.
“We can coat the vehicle with something to dissipate the charge, or you certify the vehicle to show it is not sensitive to that effect,” said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. “We’ve done analysis that our vehicle isn’t sensitive, but we didn’t go and get it certified with the Range. This was a bigger implication to us than we expected.”
Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley said had there been a lengthy delay of the test flight, for whatever reason, they likely would have had the time and opportunity to do the certification. But from now on, Hanley said, all rockets will be certified before launch to avoid the “trouble with triboelectrification.”
In-flight anomaly. Image from NASA TV showing the Ares I-X stage separtion.
The only initial anomaly during the test flight was some unusual dynamics on the dummy second stage after separation. It went into a flat tumble, and appeared as if it might hit the first stage as it turned. The reason for the tumble wasn’t initially known, and will be of interest to the team as they analyze data from over 700 sensors. “We know all the motors fired, but it might be the aerodynamics,” said Ess, “perhaps a higher aerodynamic pressure than what we expected. It was interesting, and interesting is good. It wasn’t dramatically different from what we expected, though”.
As far as the future, Hanley said the flight test program is constantly under review as far as what budget and schedule allows but here’s the current plan:
Spring 2010: Launch Abort System Test. Launch abort system. Credit: NASA
The Ares’ Orion crew capsule includes a launch abort system, which is scheduled to undergo the first of three tests early next year. The abort system involves three separate motors to move the capsule away from the rocket and/or launchpad. It will have directional control to separate and jettison the entire launch abort system so the capsule can parachute back to Earth.
The test will take place at the White Sands Missile with a “boiler plate capsule,” a mock-up the Orion capsule outfitted with several instruments to measure how the abort motors work. “This is a key part of any human launch system as far as safety is concerned,” Hanley said.
Summer 2010: First Stage Motor Testing
ATK has just started casting the second Ares I first stage motor that will be test fired summer 2010. “We have more first stage recovery parachute testing as well, schedule for April,” Trina Patterson from ATK told Universe Today. She is the Senior Manager Media Relations for ATK Space Systems.
2010: Mobile launcher completed. The new Ares mobile launcher, as it looked under contruction in Sept. 2009. Credit: NASA
The new mobile launcher, currently under construction, will be the base for the Ares rocket to launch the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the cargo vehicle. “Two tiers are up, and the third tier is ready to go up later this week,” Hanley said. The base will be lighter than space shuttle mobile launcher platforms so the crawler-transporter can pick up the added load of the 345-foot tower and taller rocket. When the structural portion of the new launcher is complete, umbilical lines, access arms, communications equipment and command/control equipment will be installed.
Late 2010: Design review for the Orion capsule.
“At the end of next year, there is a critical design review for the Orion capsule,” said Hanley. “Progress is underway to build components. The first copy of Orion is being welded together at the Michoud Assembly Facility (in New Orleans). We will go through bunch of testing through the next couple of years, getting everything designed. It had a successful PDR (preliminary design review) in August and has the CDR (critical design review) next year. The Orion factory is actually here KSC, it is coming together, and as soon as all the parts come, they can put it together.”
Hanley said the program is paced by the current budget on when they can order parts for both Orion and Ares. “We’re under a continuing resolution, and that puts pressure on a program that want to be ramping up to its peak at this time,” he said. “More money sooner is would be good – that gets the parts purchased and into the supply chain. It takes about 3 years to actually get the parts you need. To build parts, you have to get the design done and know what you want to buy and then get your parts to assemble the rocket.”
A J-2 engine undergoes static firing. Image Credit: NASA Early 2011: J2X engine initial test.
The Ares I second, or upper, stage is propelled by a J-2X main engine fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
The J-2X is an evolved variation of two historic predecessors: the powerful J-2 engine that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, and the J-2S, a simplified version of the J-2 developed and tested in the early 1970s but never flown.
March 2014: Arex 1Y test flight. Artist concept of Ares I. Image Credit: NASA
This will be a suborbital flight of the five-segment first stage reusable solid-rocket first with a flight-production upper stage, but containing a dummy J-2X engine. It will also conduct a high altitude test of the launch abort system. Hanley said they have studied putting an actual J-2X engine on that flight to prove that it will start at that altitude, but that is still under review.
“We’d all like to fly sooner; I would have liked to see Orion in completed in 2012 or 13, but the funding didn’t materialize for that, so we adjusted,” Hanley said. “That’s what we have to to do budget cycle to budget cycle. And that’s what we have to continue to do. But we’re making progress on the system, and the flight test schedule, we look for the opportunity to do more flight testing, but that is predicated on the budget.”
Here’s this week’s image for the WITU Challenge, a spooky Halloween version, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. An added “bonus round” this week: name the circular feature in the image, too. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.
UPDATE: The answer is now posted below.
This is a picture of auroras over Earth, specifically Canada with the large Manicouagan impact crater in the foreground. Clouds and Earth’s surface are illuminated by moonlight. The image was taken from the International Space Station by Mr. Wizard himself, astronaut Don Pettit. Read more about Pettit and his photography and wizardry at Science@NASA
