Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond.
Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/
Are you ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Take a look at the image above and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. 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 — if you dare! Check back tomorrow on this same post to see how you did. Good luck!
UPDATE (12/4): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven’t made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!
A variety of guesses this week, but many answers were correct: Saturn’s moon Iapetus. The Cassini spacraft zoomed in on the cratered moon to provide this stunning close-up. And did you know you can golf the moons of Saturn? The Cassini scientists created a Flash-based game based on some of the best images from the spacecraft’s tour of Saturn and its moons. It’s called Golf Sector 6, and its pretty fun. As many of you mentioned, this image shows the equatorial bulge of Iapetus, with mountainous terrain reaching about 10 km in height. Above the middle of the image can be seen a place where an impact has exposed the bright ice beneath the dark overlying material.
The image was taken on 10 September 2007 with the Cassini’s narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 3870 km from Iapetus. Image scale is 23 m per pixel. Credits: NASA/ JPL/ Space Science Institute.
And you know-it-alls out there don’t have to provide links to images or videos in your guesses! Give everyone the equal chance to play, please!
Tune in again next week for another WITU challenge!
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The commercial space company XCOR announced today that the travel company RocketShip Tours will begin selling suborbital rides on XCOR’s two-seater spacecraft, the Lynx. And get this: the price for the ticket has actually been lowered from the original estimates. $95,000 USD will get you a seat right up front, next to XCOR pilot and former space shuttle commander Rick Searfoss, for a 30 minute ride to the edge of space. XCOR decided early on not to sell the tickets themselves directly to consumers, but instead offer wholesale packages to adventure travel companies, which will set the price for customers. Jules Klar, founder of Phoenix, AZ-based RocketShip Tours, said in today’s press conference that the price includes the “complete and total experience” that incorporates a 5-day program of briefings, medical evaluations, test flights on aircraft to test for g-forces and claustrophia before going on the real flight on the Lynx.
2010 is XCOR’s target for their first test flights of the Lynx. The flight plan has the Lynx taking off horizontally like an airplane from the Mojave spaceport runway, but quickly going vertical and shooting up to 61 kilometers (37 miles) above the Earth, and coasting at apogee for over 4 minutes of a microgravity environment and a spectacular view of our planet. Then the vehicle heads into re-entry, putting passengers through a maximum of 4 G’s at pullout, then gliding and circling back to the runway where it all started. The flight lasts 30 minutes.
At today’s press conference, Andrew Nelson, COO of XCOR Aerospace, said the beginning of ticket sales is an important milestone for XCOR, and a monumental opportunity for people to realize their dreams of flying to space. The Lynx. Credit: XCOR
Nelson said that they already have presold 22 tickets, and the first commercial passenger on the Lynx will be Danish investment banker Per Wimmer. “I am going to fly aboard the Lynx because I want to experience space from a front row seat,” said Wimmer. He has already earned a reputation as a pioneering adventurer. He recently made the first tandem skydive over Mt. Everest, (check out his website www.wimmerspace.com. Wimmer, who uses his adventures to promote various charities, says, “My goal is to place the Dannebrog, the Danish flag, on the Moon one day. Flying to the edge of space aboard the Lynx will make me the first Dane to experience suborbital space flight and takes me one step closer to my ultimate goal.” Per Wimmer and_Rick Searfoss at the press conference. Credit: XCOR
“What a life-changing experience it will be,” said XCOR test pilot, and former space shuttle commander, Col. Rick Searfoss in an earlier intervew, “to come screaming off the Mojave Desert, home of the most amazing flight test projects the world has ever seen, and climb vertically through the same airspace where humans first went supersonic, all the way to the edge of space and beyond. And the best part of it all is that you’ll ride right up front.”
So, if you’re looking for an unusual holiday gift for the person who has everything, check out RocketShip Tours. A deposit of $20,000 begins the process of assigning the participant to the qualification program. Klar said one does not have to be an athlete to fly aboard the Lynx, but the procedure will include a medical questionnaire and a screening performed by qualified aeronautic physicians. Instruction regarding life support systems, flight physiology, and other aspects of the Lynx suborbital flight will also be provided. “We want to ensure the experience is as safe as possible and that people are adequately trained and prepared.”
“Since this is a suborbital launch, training will require familiarization with the spacesuit and what will be experienced while sitting in the cockpit.” Klar said. “We will provide deluxe accommodations for all those who share in ‘The Right Stuff’ experience we offer and become part of this historic stage in the evolution of human space flight.”
“After the flight is concluded, participants will receive an HD DVD recording of their flight experience as well as other mementos,” Klar said.
While not exactly cheap, XCOR’s price is less than half of Virgin’s $200,000 price tag and extremely competitive with Rocketplane’s price of $250,000 per passenger. XCOR won’t fly as high as the other commercial space companies, but XCOR provides the up-front, fighter-pilot feel with an extremely “personal” personal spaceflight experience — the passenger and the pilot are the only ones on board.
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All comets are about the same, right? Not necessarily. Astronomer David Schleicher has been studying 150 comets, measuring the abundances of five different molecules in each comet. One of these comets, Comet 96P/Machholz 1 was different from all the rest, showing an extremely unusual chemistry. Schleicher believes the anomalous composition may reveal the existence of a new class of comets. What makes Machholz 1 different is that the molecule cyanogen, CN, is extremely depleted. In Machholz 1, CN is missing by about a factor of 72 from the average of other comets, i.e., only a little above one percent of normal. “This depletion of CN is much more than ever seen for any previously studied comet, and only one other comet has even exhibited a CN depletion,” said Schleicher. The cause of the chemical anomaly is unknown.
However Schleicher, a planetary astronomer at the Lowell Observatory has come up with three intriguing scenarios to explain origins of Machholz 1, and each one will yield important but differing new constraints on the formation or evolution of comets.
One possible explanation is that Machholz 1 did not originate in our Solar System, but instead escaped from another star. In this scenario, the other star’s proto-planetary disk might have had a lower abundance of carbon, resulting in all carbon-bearing compounds having lower abundances. “A large fraction of comets in our own Solar System have escaped into interstellar space, so we expect that many comets formed around other stars would also have escaped,” said Schleicher. “Some of these will have crossed paths with the sun, and Machholz 1 could be an interstellar interloper.”
Another possible explanation for Machholz 1’s anomalous composition is that it formed even further from the sun in a colder or more extreme environment than any other comet we have studied thus far. If this was the case, then the scarcity of such objects is likely associated with the significant difficulty of explaining how such comets moved into the inner solar system where they can then be discovered and observed.
A third possibility is that Machholz 1 originated as a carbon-chain depleted comet but that its chemistry was subsequently altered by extreme heat. While no other comet has exhibited changes in chemistry due to subsequent heating by the sun, Machholz 1 has the distinction of having an orbit that now takes it to well inside Mercury’s orbit every five years. (Other comets get even closer to the sun, but not as often). “Since its orbit is unusual, we must be suspicious that repeated high temperature cooking might be the cause for its unusual composition,” said Schleicher. “However, the only other comet to show depletion in the abundance of CN did not reach such high temperatures. This implies that CN depletion does not require the chemical reactions associated with extreme heat.”
Although comet 96P/Machholz 1 was first sighted in 1986 and orbits the sun with a period of slightly over five years, compositional measurements only took place during the comet’s recent 2007 apparition. Lowell Observatory’s program of compositional studies, currently headed by Schleicher, includes measurements of over 150 comets obtained during the past 33 years. This research is unique because it compares and contrasts Machholz 1 against this large database of 150 comets.
Currently there are two types of comets, these being identified by a program at the Lowell Obervatory in the early 1990s. One class, containing the majority of observed comets, has a composition called “typical.” Most members of this typical class have long resided in the Oort Cloud at the very fringes of our Solar System but are believed to have originally formed amidst the giant planets, particularly between Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Other members of this compositional class arrived from the Kuiper Belt, located just beyond Neptune.
The second compositional class of comets has varying depletions in two of the five chemical species measured. Since both depleted molecules, C2 and C3, are wholly composed of carbon atoms, this class was named “carbon-chain depleted.” Moreover, nearly all comets in this second class have orbits consistent with their having arrived from the Kuiper Belt. For this and other reasons, the cause of the depletion is believed to be associated with the conditions that existed when the comets formed, perhaps within an outer, colder region of the Kuiper Belt.
Comets are widely thought to be the most pristine objects available for detailed study remaining from the epoch of Solar System formation. As such, comets can be used as probes of the proto-planetary material that was incorporated into our Solar System. Differences in the current chemical composition among comets can indicate either differences in primordial conditions or evolutionary effects.
Although the location of origin cannot be definitively determined for any single comet, Machholz 1’s short orbital period means that astronomers can search for additional carbon-bearing molecular species during future apparitions. “If additional carbon-bearing species are also strongly depleted, then the case for its origin outside of our Solar System would be strengthened,” said Schleicher. The next opportunity for observations will be in 2012.
The study is published in the November issue of the Astronomical Journal.
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A new image of Omega Centauri shows the globular cluster glittering away as one of the finest jewels of the southern hemisphere night sky. It contains millions of stars and is located about 17,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, and sparkles at magnitude 3.7, appearing nearly as large as the full moon on the southern night sky. Visible with the unaided eye from a clear, dark observing site, when seen through even a modest amateur telescope, the Omega Centauri can be seen as incredible, densely packed sphere of glittering stars. But when astronomers use a professional telescopes, they are able to uncover amazing secrets of this beautiful globular cluster.
This new image is based on data collected with the Wide Field Imager (WFI), mounted on the 2.2-metre diameter Max-Planck/ESO telescope, located at ESO’s La Silla observatory, high up in the arid mountains of the southern Atacama Desert in Chile. Omega Centauri is about 150 light-years across and is the most massive of all the Milky Way’s globular clusters. It is thought to contain some ten million stars!
Recent research into this intriguing celestial giant suggests that there is a medium sized black hole sitting at its center. Observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory showed that stars at the cluster’s center were moving around at an unusual rate — the cause, astronomers concluded, was the gravitational effect of a massive black hole with a mass of roughly 40,000 times that of the Sun.
The presence of this black hole is just one of the reasons why some astronomers suspect Omega Centauri to be an imposter. Some believe that it is in fact the heart of a dwarf galaxy that was largely destroyed in an encounter with the Milky Way. Other evidence (see here and here) points to the several generations of stars present in the cluster — something unexpected in a typical globular cluster, which is thought to contain only stars formed at one time. Whatever the truth, this dazzling celestial object provides professional and amateur astronomers alike with an incredible view on clear dark nights.
Conjuction of Moon, Venus & Jupiter (w/moons). Photo courtesy of Tavi Greiner
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I was really looking forward to viewing last night’s triple conjunction of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter, but unfortunately we were socked in with clouds at my location. Fortunately, however there were lots of other people out there who had clear skies, as well as some great equipment to capture the event. Amateur astronomer Tavi Greiner took this spectacular image (link to larger image) at about 6:00 pm local time from the coastal region of North Carolina in the US, and even managed to capture two of Jupiter’s moons. Interestingly, she used just a Canon 400 D camera and telephoto zoom (no telecope) with an exposure of 1.3 seconds, (F/5.6 at ISO 400). Tavi has just recently started doing astrophotography, and was thrilled with this image. “That was such luck for me!” she said. ” We’ve had rain for days and days, and last night it cleared up. But now it’s raining again this (Tuesday) morning. So I feel so fortunate.”
Here’s a list of other places to see more images:
Spaceweather.com has a big list of submitted photos, including some great images taken from Europe of the lunar occultation of Venus. Cosmos4U has an even bigger list, the Discovery Blog will be posting images all week, and Phil Plait even tried his hand at astrophotography.
If you’re new to astrophotography or thinking about trying it, you can take heart from Tavi Greiner’s excellent results. She said she has been doing regular astronomy with telescopes and binoculars for quite some time, but got a camera a few months ago.
“I wanted to try astrophotography, but without a telescope,” she said. “I’ve been trying to teach myself, and I’m not very good at it yet, but I wanted to be able to show my children what’s all out there that we’re not seeing with our eyes. So I was really tickled with this particular picture, because it proves my point that we’re looking at this beautiful moon and the planets, and look at what our eyes aren’t seeing, but its right there: these little moons! It’s just thrilling. Just look at the things that can be revealed in just a few seconds.”
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Phoenix isn’t merely dead; it’s really most sincerely dead. NASA has now stopped listening for any residual beeps sent by the Phoenix lander with the spacecraft orbiting Mars. After nearly a month of daily checks to listen for any last communications from the lander, the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have ended their efforts to listen for Phoenix. The final communication from Phoenix remains a brief signal received via Odyssey on Nov. 2. “The variability of the Martian weather was a contributing factor to our loss of communications, and we were hoping that another variation in weather might give us an opportunity to contact the lander again,” said Phoenix Mission Manager Chris Lewicki of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The last attempt to listen for a signal from Phoenix was when Odyssey passed overhead at 3:49 p.m. PST Saturday, Nov. 29 (4:26 p.m. local Mars solar time on the 182nd Martian day, or sol, since Phoenix landed).
And now, a moment of silence…
The Phoenix lander operated for two overtime months after achieving its science goals during its original three-month mission. It landed on a Martian arctic plain on back on May 25.
As expected, reduced daily sunshine eventually left the solar-powered Phoenix craft without enough energy to keep its batteries charged.
The end of efforts to listen for Phoenix with Odyssey and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had been planned for the start of solar conjunction, when the sun is almost directly between the Earth and Mars. This makes communications between Earth and Mars-orbiting spacecraft difficult, and so they are therefore minimized from now until mid-December.
Nov. 29 was selected weeks ago as the final date for relay monitoring of Phoenix because it provided several weeks to confirm the lander was really most sincerely dead, and it coincided with the beginning of solar conjunction. When they come out of the conjunction period, weather on far-northern Mars will be far colder, and the declining sunshine will have ruled out any chance of hearing from Phoenix.
The "homemade" Korean Lunar Lander. Credit: Korean Times
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Everybody wants to go to the moon! Scientists from Korea recently unveiled a spacecraft developed completely in-house that could potentially be used for robotic exploration of the Moon. The mini-sized lander, shown above is about 40 centimeters tall (15.5 inches) and weighs 25 kilograms (55lbs). Scientists say it carry an additional 20 kilograms in payloads to the surface. Every part of the rocket engine was “homemade,” said Kwon Se-jin, a professor of aerospace engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). The lander, the result of a six year long effort, represents an advancement in technology, and an important step for Korea’s nascent space program.
The rocket’s propulsion includes a state-of-the-art propulsion and the engine’s design allows it to be powered by environmentally friendly fuel. Also, the Korean team was proud of the low costs associated with their new lander.
According to Kwon, lunar modules between the 100 and 200 kilogram range, developed by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) under the International Lunar Network (ILN) project costs around $100 million. The rocket engine created by his team could cut development costs to about half that, Kwon claimed.
“We have approached NASA over the possibilities of using our engine,” Kwon said, adding that his team is collaborating with other local scientists with the goal of landing a spacecraft on the moon by 2013.
“Lunar-landers are critical in developing lunar spacecraft, but advanced nations have been careful to protect their core technologies, so I think this is a big deal for us,” he said.
South Korea has been pushing an aggressive space program over the past decade, and objectives include having a man on the moon by 2020.
Korea’s current plans are to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite in early 2009 from a newly built spaceport. If successfully, Korea would become the ninth country to launch a satellite from its own soil.
But the Koreans also want to become part of an international space research project, the ILN, a project aiming to gradually place six to eight fixed or mobile science stations on the lunar surface. The stations will form a robotic network to replace the hardware left by the Apollo program to continue studies of the moon’s surface and interior.
Panoramic image with "plank"-like rock. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Over the long holiday weekend, Universe Today was flooded with emails from readers who asked us to comment on an image taken by the Opportunity rover that appears to show a plank of wood laying on the surface of Mars. The image, above, (here’s the full resolution image) was taken in May of 2004, about four and a half years ago, in the early part of the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Since the image appears to have caused a bit of excitement across the internet recently, I decided to contact Dr. Jim Bell from Cornell University, who is also the lead scientist for the Panoramic cameras on the rovers. Bell was surprised to hear from me about the image, but happy to offer some insight. “My first reaction,” he said, “is that it’s delightful that there is such public interest in images from Mars.” Bell agreed that, indeed, it does look like a wooden plank. But does that mean it is a piece of wood on Mars? Sadly, no, says Bell.
“What you’re seeing is a piece of flat, platy, layered sulfur-rich outcrop rock like we’ve seen almost everywhere the Opportunity rover has been in Meridiani Planum,” said Bell. “Sometimes, like in this case, those flat, platy rocks have been tilted or dislodged, this one probably from the forces associated with the huge impact crater that formed nearby.”
See this image of several rocks in the area that have been tilted:
More tilted rocks. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
“And this one’s being viewed edge-on,” Bell said, of the rock in question. “That edge-on view, combined with the layered nature of these rocks in general gives the surface a sort of grainy texture. So, indeed, it looks like a wooden plank on Mars.”
So, could it maybe be wood? “No, sadly,” said Bell. “I say ‘sadly’ because personally I think it would be incredible and spectacular to find a wooden plank on Mars! However, in this case, it’s just a trick of the lighting and the viewing angle.”
In fact, I spent most of the morning scanning through MER images from May 15-29, 2004 to see if I could find more images of this “wooden plank.” There’s plenty, as all of the MER images from all five cameras for both rovers are freely available on the rover website. I believe I found an image of the same rock, taken from the “backside” or opposite view: (see below)
Opportunity rover image from Sol 111. Credit: NASA/JPL
Here, it appears to be a rock, a tilted rock, but it doesn’t stand out because from this view, the lighting doesn’t make the rock appear as dark as the original view. Again, I’m not sure this is the same rock, but there are several images of tilted rocks in this region, and if this isn’t the same one, it’s one very much like it.
Here’s another image of rocks that have a similar “grainy” look to them:
Rocks with grainy surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
For those of you who remain convinced that NASA is covering up some sort of “major” finding here, just remember a few things:
1. This image was released back in May of 2004, just a couple of days after it was taken by Opportunity. MER Principal Investigator Steve Squyres made the decision before the mission started to release all the images taken by the rovers and make them freely available to anyone. If NASA was hiding something, they wouldn’t have posted this image, as well as all the other images of the area that are available. Please, go look at them all if you have any doubt.
2. The best planetary geologists on Earth have looked at this image, and have all concluded this is just a rock. It’s an interesting rock, but a rock nonetheless. Think again if you believe some internet sleuths out there have a better understanding of this object than highly trained and experienced planetary scientists.
3. If this object really was a piece of wood, NASA and all the scientists on the MER mission would probably be shouting from the rooftops. As Jim Bell said, it would be incredible and spectacular, and don’t think for a minute these scientists wouldn’t be jumping for joy if they found something as amazing as log on Mars.
And in case you’re wondering about the other interesting feature in the image, the shiny object in the background is Opportunity’s heat shield.
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Sunday was a busy day for human spaceflight, as space shuttle Endeavour landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and a Progress re-supply ship docked at the International Space Station. While the shuttle landing went off without a hitch, problems developed with an automated docking system for the Progress ship, forcing a last-minute switch to a manual docking, performed by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov. A series of problems including the loss of frequency information and unexpected toggling of the automatic system’s tracking displays occurred, Russian news agencies reported. But Lonchakov, who was already at the manual controls as a precaution, took over from the automated system when the Progress was about 30 meters (98 feet) from the station and guided it flawlessly to the docking port within a few minutes. ISS Commander Mike Fincke and Yuri Lonchakov give thumbs up after a successful manual docking of the Progress vehicle. Credit: NASA TV
The decision to land in California was made early Sunday morning, as thunderstorms and strong winds prevented Endeavour from attempting either of the two landing opportunities at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the primary landing site.
The clear blue skies in southern California made for a picturesque landing, with a great view of the shuttle as it quickly dropped through the sky.
Endeavour touched down at 3:25 p.m Central time.
Endeavour arrived at the station Nov. 16, delivering equipment that will help allow the station to double its crew size to six. The new gear includes a water recovery system, which will allow urine and other condensate to be purified and converted into water for the crew’s use. Endeavour returned with samples of the processed water for experts in Houston to analyze before it is approved for use by the crew.
Endeavour’s astronauts also repaired and serviced crucial rotating joints for the station’s giant solar arrays. During four spacewalks, the astronauts lubricated and cleaned the joints that allow the arrays to automatically track the sun.
In addition, Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Sandy Magnus replaced Greg Chamitoff as part of the ISS crew. Chamitoff returned to Earth aboard Endeavour.
STS-126 is the 124th shuttle mission and 27th shuttle flight to visit the space station. Progress vehicle as it approached the ISS. Credit: NASA TV
The Progress vehicle, which blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 26, was carrying water, scientific equipment as well as personal items and holiday gifts for the ISS crew.
University of Calgary graduate student Ellen Milley poses with a fragment of a meteorite in a small pond. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Geoff Howe
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On Nov. 27, planetary scientist Dr. Alan Hildebrand from the University of Calgary and graduate student Ellen Milley brought reporters to a site where they have found numerous meteorite fragments from the bolide that streaked across the sky in Western Canada on Nov. 20. The area where the meteroite fragments were found is called Buzzard Coulee, about 40 kilometers from the town of Lloydminster, on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. There, around a frozen pond, numerous small rocks and pebbles could be seen that the scientists said were from the meteorite. No large chunks were spotted, however, reporters said.
Fragments of a meteorite were found in a small pond at Buzzard Coulee, Sask. on Friday. (Geoff Howe/CP)
The fireball that streaked across western Canadian skies was witnessed by thousands, and Hildebrand believes it was a 10-ton fragment from an asteroid. Videos from surveillance and police cameras showed the meteor exploding before it hit the ground. Reporters were told those observations, combined with the physical evidence, give scientists a treasure trove of data that could give them a better understanding of the solar system. The reports don’t offer any indications of the type of meteorite the fragments are, but from the images they appear to possibly be iron. We’ll add more images and information as they become available.
