Nancy Atkinson, Author at Universe Today

December 8, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

MRO Comes Out of Safe Mode

Artist impression of MRO. Image credit: NASA/JPL

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The latest word on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is that the spacecraft has successfully come out of safe mode. The various instruments, including the HiRISE camera are still “safed” at this point, and engineers are waiting for acquisition of signal to confirm mapping orientation. MRO spontaneously rebooted its computer on Aug. 26, and since this was the fourth time this type of event had occurred, flight engineers decided to keep the spacecraft in safe mode, and have been working to figure out possible root causes, as well as repercussions if these events were to continue to happen. Several protective files were uploaded to MRO in late November, with hopes of returning the orbiter to its regularly scheduled research and relay activities. Once engineers check out of all the science instruments, normal science operations may resume next week.

“The patient is out of danger but more steps have to be taken to get it back on its feet,” said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Jim Erickson.

Since August, the team worked painstakingly on a plan to ensure the safety and operation of the orbiter. “This process is to bulletproof the spacecraft against a remote vulnerability that our team identified,” said Erickson. “Meanwhile, analysis of possible root causes for the four reboots this year continues as another important part of our path toward resuming science operations.”

The preventive care required amending some data files in the computers’ non-volatile, or “flash” memories where the computers check for default settings when they reboot.

The four reboots involved a device, called the “computer module interface controller,” that controls which of two redundant main computers on the spacecraft is active. Still undetermined is whether trouble lies with that controller itself or with a voltage glitch elsewhere on the spacecraft. The Aug. 6 reboot, though not the other three, prompted a switch from one computer to its backup twin. More than 100 factors are under consideration as possible root causes.

MRO has six instruments on board to examine Mars in detail, from subsurface layers to the top of the atmosphere.

“The precautionary steps we are taking are not driven by the calendar, but by our commitment to care for this valuable national resource,” Erickson said. “We are all eager to have science observations resume as soon as a properly cautious process allows.”

December 8, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Exoplanet Not Really There?

This artist’s concept shows the smallest star known to host a planet. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In May 2009, astronomers were jubilant: finally, an extra solar planet had been found by using the method of astrometry. That’s great, except, they may not have found a planet after all. Researchers from JPL reported they found a Jupiter-like planet around a star smaller than our sun. But follow-up observations of the star VB10 are coming up empty. “The planet is not there,” said Jacob Bean from the Georg-August University in Gottingen, Germany, who used a different and more successful approach to look for exoplanets, radial velocity.

Astrometry measures the side-to-side motion of a star on the sky to see whether any unseen bodies might be orbiting it. Using this method is difficult and requires very precise measurements over long periods of time. Using astrometry to look for exoplanets has been around for 50 years, but it hadn’t bagged a verified exoplanet – until, astronomers thought, earlier this year. A team of researchers announced an exoplanet, six times more massive than Jupiter, orbiting a star about one-thirteenth the mass of the Sun, using a telescope at the Palomar Observatory in southern California (S. Pravdo and S. Shaklan Astrophys. J. 700, 623–632; 2009).

“This method is optimal for finding solar-system configurations like ours that might harbor other Earths,” astronomer Steven Pravdo of JPL said in May. “We found a Jupiter-like planet at around the same relative place as our Jupiter, only around a much smaller star. It’s possible this star also has inner rocky planets. And since more than seven out of 10 stars are small like this one, this could mean planets are more common than we thought.”

But using different methods, other astronomers aren’t finding anything.

“We would definitely have seen a significant amount of variation in our data if [the planet] was there,” said Bean, quoted in the online Nature News. Bean has submitted a paper to the Astrophysical Journal.

Radial velocity, which has found most of the extrasolar planets so far, looks for shifts in the lines of a star’s absorption spectrum to track its motion towards and away from Earth, which would be caused by the influence of a planet.

Pravdo says that Bean and his colleagues “may be correct, but there is hyperbole in their rejection of our candidate planet.” Bean’s paper, for instance, only rules out the presence of any planet that is at least three times more massive than Jupiter, says Pravdo, adding that the work “limits certain orbits for possible planets but not all planets.”

Astronomers expect astrometry to work much better above the distorting effects of the atmosphere. Two space missions in the works — the European Space Agency’s GAIA, due to launch in 2012, and NASA’s proposed SIM-lite (Space Interferometry Mission) will use the technique to search for planets as small as Earth around Sun-like stars. Astrometry potentially can yield the mass of a planet, whereas radial velocity only puts a lower limit on it.

Bean admits that astronomers might one day find a planet around VB10 if they scrutinize the star long and hard enough.

Source: Nature News

December 8, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

New Findings Say Mars Methane Comes from Life or Water — or Both

Mars from orbit. Valles Marineris and Volcanic region

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A new paper that will be published Wednesday rules out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, boosting the idea that the short-lived gas perhaps could be generated by either life or water, or maybe even both. Microorganisms living in the Martian soil could be producing methane gas as a by-product of their metabolic processes, or methane might be created as a result of reactions between volcanic rock and water. Either way, the prospect is exciting.

Methane on Mars was first detected in 1999, again in 2001 and 2003, which was widely reported, but not much was known about the origin or amount of the gas on Mars.

In January 2009, scientists analyzing data from telescopic observations and unmanned space missions announced that the methane on Mars is being constantly replenished by an unknown source and they are keen to uncover how the levels of methane are being topped up.

Methane has a short lifetime of just a few hundred years on Mars because it is constantly being depleted by a chemical reaction in the planet’s atmosphere, caused by sunlight.

Some researchers proposed meteorites might be responsible for Martian methane levels because when the rocks enter the planet’s atmosphere they are subjected to intense heat, causing a chemical reaction that releases methane and other gases into the atmosphere.

However, the new study, by researchers from Imperial College London, shows that the volumes of methane that could be released by the meteorites entering Mars’s atmosphere are too low to maintain the current atmospheric levels of methane. Previous studies have also ruled out the possibility that the methane is delivered through volcanic activity.

“Our experiments are helping to solve the mystery of methane on Mars,” said Dr. Richard Court, co-author of the study. “Meteorites vaporizing in the atmosphere are a proposed methane source but when we recreate their fiery entry in the laboratory we get only small amounts of the gas. For Mars, meteorites fail the methane test.”

The team used a technique called Quantitive Pyrolysis-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to reproduce the same searing conditions experienced by meteorites as they enter the Martian atmosphere. The team heated the meteorite fragments to 1000 degrees Celsius and measured the gases that were released using an infrared beam.

When quantities of gas released by the laboratory experiments were combined with published calculations of meteorite in-fall rates on Mars, the scientists calculated that only 10 kilograms of meteorite methane was produced each year, far below the 100 to 300 tons required to replenish methane levels in the Martian atmosphere.

The researchers say their study will help NASA and ESA scientists who are planning a joint mission to the red planet in 2018 to search for the source of methane. The researchers say now that they have discovered that meteorites are not a source of Methane on Mars, ESA and NASA scientists can focus their attention on the two last remaining options.

“This work is a big step forward,” said co-author Mark Sephton. “As Sherlock Holmes said, eliminate all other factors and the one that remains must be the truth. The list of possible sources of methane gas is getting smaller and excitingly, extraterrestrial life still remains an option. Ultimately the final test may have to be on Mars.”

This research will be published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Source: Imperial College

December 8, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Hubble Takes a New “Deep Field” Image with Wide Field Camera 3

Hubble’s latest image is another stunner — and just look at all the galaxies! Hubble has produced a new version of the Ultra Deep Field, this time in near-infrared light and taken with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3. This is the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared, and so the faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, and they likely formed only 600–900 million years after the Big Bang. This image was taken in the same region as the visible Ultra Deep Field in 2004, but this new deep view at longer wavelengths provides insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the Universe’s history.

“Hubble has now re-visited the Ultra Deep Field which we first studied 5 years ago, taking infrared images which are more sensitive than anything obtained before,” said Dr. Daniel Stark, a postdoctoral researcher from Cambridge University. “We can now look even further back in time, identifying galaxies when the Universe was only 5 percent of its current age – within 1 billion years of the Big Bang.”

A portion of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field showing the location of a potentially very distant galaxy (marked by crosshairs). Credit: Oxford University

The image was taken during a total of four days in August 2009, with 173,000 seconds of total exposure time. Since infrared light is invisible to the human eye and therefore does not have colors that can be perceived, the image is a “natural” representation that in shorter infrared wavelengths are represented as blue and the longer wavelengths as red. The faintest objects are about one billion times fainter than the dimmest visible objects seen with the naked eye.

Click here for a video zooming into the Ultra Deep Field.

“The expansion of the Universe causes the light from very distant galaxies to appear more red, so having a new camera on Hubble which is very sensitive in the infrared means we can identify galaxies at much greater distances than previously possible,” said Stephen Wilkins, from Oxford University.

Where is the new Ultra Deep Field in the sky? Credit: HubbleSite

The team that took this image in August of 2009 have made it available for research by astronomers worldwide, and a multitude of astronomers have been furiously searching through the data for the most distant galaxies yet discovered. In just three months, twelve scientific papers on these new data have been submitted.

As well as identifying potentially the most distant objects yet, these new HST observations present an intriguing puzzle. “We know the gas between galaxies in the Universe was ionized (or fried) early in history, but the total light from these new galaxies may not be sufficient to achieve this,” said Andrew Bunker, from the University of Oxford.

Installation of Wide Field Camera 3 by astronauts as part of servicing mission 4. Courtesy of NASA.

“These new observations from HST are likely to be the most sensitive images Hubble will ever take, but the very distant galaxies we have now discovered will be studied in detail by Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched in 2014,” said Professor Jim Dunlop at the University of Edinburgh.

Papers:
1. By R.J. McLure, J.S. Dunlop, M. Cirasuolo, A.M. Koekemoer, E. Sabbi, D.P. Stark, T.A. Targett, R.S. Ellis,

2. By Stephen M. Wilkins, Andrew J. Bunker, Richard S. Ellis, Daniel Stark, Elizabeth R. Stanway, Kuenley Chiu, Silvio Lorenzoni, Matt J. Jarvis

3. By Bunker, Andrew; Wilkins, Stephen; Ellis, Richard; Stark, Daniel; Lorenzoni, Silvio; Chiu, Kuenley; Lacy, Mark; Jarvis, Matt; Hickey, Samantha,

Sources: Oxford University, Space Telescope Center

December 7, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

First Look at SpaceShipTwo

Virgin Galactic will unveil SpaceShipTwo (SS2), Monday night, but they did sneak out a few photos prior to the event. SS2 will be the world’s first commercial manned spaceship, with room for several passengers to move (and fly!) around during suborbital flights. “This is truly a momentous day. The team has created not only a world first but also a work of art,” said Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic founder. Burt Rutan, the designer of SpaceShipOne which won the Ansari X PRIZE in 2004 for completing the world’s first manned private space flights said, “All of us at Scaled Composites are tremendously excited by the capabilities of both the mothership and SS2.”

SS2 and VMS Eve in hangar 2. Credit: Virgin Galactic

A “theatrical unveil” Monday night at the Mojave Spaceport will be followed by a cocktail party for the 300 plus paying passengers that have already signed up for flights on SS2, along with other VIPs of the space industry.

SpaceShipTwo’s debut marks the first public appearance of a commercial passenger spacecraft. SS2 has been under construction for two years. On board, there will be room for six passengers and two pilots.

Daily space tourism flights for SS2 are set to begin in New Mexico from Spaceport America following the completion of test programming and US government licensing. SS2 will be carried by WhiteKnightTwo mothership, a four-engine jet-powered aircraft unveiled last year that features twin fuselages mounted on either side of a huge wing. SS2 will be mounted in the center.

SpaceShipTwo will be released at an altitude of 15,240 meters (50,000 feet.) A hybrid rocket motor burning solid propellant with nitrous oxide then will boost SpaceShipTwo onto a steep trajectory to an altitude of more than 100 km (62 miles.)

Here’s an image comparing SS2 with SpaceShipOne:

Comparing SS1 and SS2. Click for larger version.

The first SpaceShipTwo test flights are expected to start next year, with full-fledged space launches to its maximum altitude by or in 2011.

The 300 paid passengers have already put down the $200,000 ticket or placed a deposit, according to the company.

This video provides more looks at the vehicle.

Source: Virgin Galactic

December 7, 2009December 29, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Carnival of Space #132

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Steve Tilford over at Steve’s Astro Corner.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #132.

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.

December 4, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

365 Days of Astronomy to Continue in 2010

Calling all podcasters! The award-winning 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is proud to announce the project will continue for another 365 days, and is now accepting sign-ups for participants for 2010. Whether you’re a seasoned podcaster or if you have never picked up a microphone before, anyone with a love of space exploration and astronomy is welcome to sign up to do a podcast. If you’ve not yet heard of the 365 Days of Astronomy, it was a major project of the International Year of Astronomy, publishing 1 podcast for every day of the year. The podcast episodes are written, recorded and produced by people all around the world. As in 2009, the podcast team is looking to sign up a wide range of participants for 2010, from graduate students in astronomy to science bloggers to big media companies, to amateur and armchair astronomers. Here’s your chance to share why you love astronomy and space exploration! Check out the “Join In” page on 365 Days of Astronomy for more information

December 3, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

See the Invisible Sky with Chromoscope

Screenshot of the new Chromoscope online tool.

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Unless you’re Superman or a rattlesnake and can see in X-ray or infrared, there are aspects of night sky you are missing out on. These days, the wonderful assortment of telescope and spacecraft data at our disposal allow us to “see” our universe in the different wavelengths which otherwise are invisible to our limited human vision. Now, there is a quick and easy way to take advantage of this data to explore various spectra, and it’s portable, too. At the dotAstronomy Conference today, a group of astronomers have revealed a new online tool: Chromoscope. The site shows the sky in a range of wavelengths, from high-energy gamma rays through to the longest radio waves, and allows users to move easily around the night sky and switch seamlessly between different wavelengths.

“We wanted to see the whole sky in the different wavelengths,” said Stuart Lowe, lead developer of the project, from the University of Manchester. “You can do that with Google Sky and WorldWide Telescope, but we also wanted to have the ability to use it without an internet connection. You can download Chromoscope to a computer and run it on your laptop, or use it during a presentation where you don’t have access to the internet.”

Additionally, the entire platform is small enough that it can be downloaded to a memory stick and shared with others.

A standard, modern, web browser is all that you need to use Chromoscope so there is no need to install any extra software, plugins or learn a new interface. Being platform independent means that whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux, it should still be accessible.

Plus, it is extremely easy to use.

“Chromoscope sheds new light on familiar objects,” said project member Robert Simpson, from Cardiff University, “such as the Orion nebula, our closest stellar nursery. This view of the Universe has been familiar to professional astronomers for a long while, but Chromoscope makes it accessible to everyone.”

This video of how to use Chromoscope was created by Douglas Pierce-Price, one of the attendees at the dotAstronomy conference:

Chromoscope was created using public-domain datasets from a number of all-sky astronomy projects. It has a simple user-interface that lets you easily move around the sky and fade between wavelengths, illustrating the similarities and differences between what is visible at each wavelength.

“This allows people to see the connections between the night sky we see with our own eyes and the sky that astronomers explore in different wavelengths, such as radio and the infrared,” said Lowe.

The project involves data from ROSAT (X-ray), the Digital Sky Survey (optical), IRAS (infrared), WMAP (microwave) and other all-sky astronomical surveys. There are more wavelengths lined up and ready to go in the near future.

Lowe said the most challenging aspect of the project was building the “slippy map” similar to what is used on Google Sky, from the ground up. “The other challenge was compiling all the data in the different wavelengths in a form that we could use and make it interchangeable.”

Check out Chromoscope!

December 3, 2009January 8, 2010 by Nancy Atkinson

Dot Astronomy in One Word

So, what have I been up to this week at the .Astronomy conference in Leiden, The Netherlands? And just what is .Astronomy? Who better to explain than those in attendance at the world’s largest (and only!) annual conference dedicated to exploring and sharing cutting-edge astronomy and the latest web technology. But trying to explain this wonderful conglomeration of amazing people, innovative ideas and avant-garde technology in just one word is difficult, as you’ll see.

Thanks to conference attendee Markus Poessel who created this video during Wednesday’s “Hack Day,” where everyone shared their talents and latest widgets and gadgets.

December 3, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Explore the Universe with Science@ESA

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If you’re looking for some superb space and astronomy vodcasts, ESA has produced a series of informative video podcasts that explore our Universe as seen through the “eyes” of ESA’s fleet of science spacecraft. “The Science@ESA podcast series was started as part of an education and public outreach project for the International Year of Astronomy,” said Dr. Salim Ansari, from ESA’s Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration, “but it will continue on past IYA, continuing to cover more missions and discoveries.”

The series is a high quality video podcast with HD graphics and stunning visuals. Ansari said the production all done in house.

“One of my favorites is actually the first podcast that shows how with our eyes we see just a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Ansari said. “But we demonstrate how the different spacecraft can provide insight across the whole spectrum.”

Other podcasts delve into specifics of the electromagnetic spectrum that will be explored by the new Planck (microwave) and Herschel (infrared) spacecraft, to learning about the Gaia galaxy mapper mission that will determine the position of a billion stars.

A new 7th podcast will be released next week that introduces the solar system as seen by the Venus Express, Mars Express, Rosetta, Cassini-Huygens, SoHO and Cluster.

See the Science@ESA page for a complete list of podcasts.