Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS on the evening of April 9, 2013 from Austria. Dust released when the sun vaporizes the comet's ice is pushed back by the pressure of sunlight to form the tail. Click to enlarge. Credit: Michael Jaeger
It’s falling out of the news but Comet PANSTARRS still lives! You can still see it in a clear sky near you with nothing more than a pair of binoculars. And thanks to guidance from the bright zigzag of Cassiopeia, it’s easier than ever to find. Would that we had had this star group to point up comet-ward in March when PANSTARRS was brightest!
The comet marches along through Cassiopeia the Queen in April. The map shows the evening sky facing northwest about 90 minutes after sunset. Comet positions are shown every 5 nights. Stellarium
Start looking about 75-90 minutes after sunset or the same amount of time before sunrise. Yes, the comet is visible now at both dusk and dawn. Currently it shines at about 4.5-5 magnitude and might still be faintly visible with the naked from a very dark sky location. In 35-50mm binoculars it will look like a faint, fuzzy streak of light with a brighter head. Telescopes still give a wonderful view of the bright nucleus and shapely tail.
While the northern U.S., Canada and Europe have good views of PANSTARRS at both dusk and dawn, sky watchers in the southern U.S. have their best views at dawn. This map shows the sky at the start of dawn facing northeast about 90 minutes before sunrise. Stellarium
The other night a student who helps run our local planetarium described it as looking like a “real comet” through the telescope, the way textbook and online photos had led him to anticipate. Binoculars or telescope will show a misty, plume-like tail, but wide-field, time-exposure photography reveals the comet’s unbelievably broad fan of dust.
Comet PANSTARRS moves along a steeply tilted orbit that takes it far above and below the plane of the planets. Right now it’s high above Earth’s north pole and we see its tail broadside. The comet takes about 106,000 years to complete an orbit around the sun. Credit: NASA/JPL/Bob King
The reason for this unusual appearance has much to do with perspective. PANSTARRS is sailing back into deep space directly above the plane of the planets. With the tail blown back by the pressure of sunlight, we look up and across a distance of more than 125 million miles (201 million km) to see it spread like a deck of cards across the constellation Cassiopeia.
Comet PANSTARRS a week ago when it passed near the Andromeda Galaxy (at left). Details: 300mm f/2.8, ISO 800 and 90-second exposure. Credit: Bob King
In the northern U.S., Cassiopeia is higher up in both morning and evening skies and easy to spot. Once you’ve found its familiar shape, focus your binoculars on the brightest star nearest the comet, and slowly work your way in its direction. Skywatchers in the northern U.S., Canada and Europe are favored because Cassiopeia is a northern constellation and higher up in the sky at both dusk and dawn. Observers in the southern U.S. will get their best views around the start of dawn.
Artist's rendition of TESS in space. (Credit: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics Research).
Move over Kepler. NASA has recently green-lighted two new missions as part of its Astrophysics Explorer Program.
These come as the result of four proposals submitted in 2012. The most anticipated and high profile mission is TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Slated for launch in 2017, TESS will search for exoplanets via the transit method, looking for faint tell-tale dips in brightness as the unseen planet passes in front of its host star. This is the same method currently employed by Kepler, launched in 2009. Unlike Kepler, which stares continuously at a single segment of the sky along the galactic plane in the direction of the constellations Cygnus, Hercules, and Lyra, TESS will be the first dedicated all-sky exoplanet hunting satellite.
The mission will be a partnership of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, Orbital Sciences Corporation, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI).
TESS will launch onboard an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket released from the fuselage of a Lockheed L-1011 aircraft, the same system that deployed IBEX in 2008 & NuSTAR in 2012. NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) will also launch using a Pegasus XL rocket this summer in June.
An Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket attached to the fuselage of an L1011 for the launch of IBEX. (Credit: NASA).
“TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission. It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth,” said George Riker, a senior researcher from MKI.
TESS will utilize four wide angle telescopes to get the job done. The effective size of the detectors onboard is 192 megapixels. TESS is slated for a two year mission. Unlike Kepler, which sits in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit, TESS will be in an elliptical path in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
TESS will examine approximately 2 million stars brighter than 12th magnitude including 1,000 of the nearest red dwarfs. Not only will TESS expand the growing catalog of exoplanets, but it is also expected to find planets with longer orbital periods.
One dilemma with the transit method is that it favors the discovery of planets with short orbital periods, which are much more likely to be seen transiting their host star from a given vantage point in space.
TESS will also serve as a logical progression from Kepler to later proposed exoplanet search platforms. TESS will also discover candidates for further scrutiny by as the James Webb Space Telescope to be launched in 2018 and the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrometer based at La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Artist’s conception of NICER on the exterior of the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA).
Also on the board for launch in 2017 is NICER, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer to be placed on the exterior of the International Space Station. NICER will employ an array 56 telescopes which will collect and study X-rays from neutron stars. NICER will specialize in the study of a particular sub-class of neutron star known as millisecond pulsars. The X-ray telescopes are in a configuration utilizing a set of nested glass shells looking like the layers of an onion.
Observing pulsars in the X-ray range of the spectrum will offer scientists tremendous insight into their inner workings and structure. The International Space Station offers a unique vantage point to do this sort of science. Like the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), the power requirements of NICER dictate that it cannot be a free-flying satellite. X-Ray astronomy must also be done above the hindering effects of the Earth’s atmosphere.
NICER will be deployed as an exterior payload aboard an ISS ExPRESS Logistics Carrier. These are unpressurized platforms used for experiments that must be directly exposed to space.
Another fascinating project working in tandem with NICER is SEXTANT, the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing And Navigation Technology. This project seeks to test the precision of millisecond pulsars for interplanetary navigation.
“They (pulsars) are extremely reliable celestial clocks and can provide high-precision timing just like the atomic signals supplied through the 26-satellite military operated Global Positioning System (GPS),” said NASA Goddard scientist Zaven Arzoumanian. The chief difficulty with relying on this system for interplanetary journeys is that the signal gets progressively weaker the farther you travel from the Earth.
“Pulsars, on the other hand, are accessible in virtually every conceivable flight regime, from LEO to interplanetary and deepest space,” said NICER/SEXTANT principle investigator Keith Gendreau.
Both NICER and TESS follow the long legacy of NASA’s Astrophysics Explorer Program, which can be traced all the way back to the launch Explorer 1. This was the very first U.S. satellite launched in 1958. Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the Earth.
(From left) William Pickering, James Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun hold aloft a mock up of Explorer 1 shortly after launch. (Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech).
“The Explorer Program has a long and stellar history of deploying truly innovative missions to study some of the most exciting questions in space science,” stated NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld. “With these missions, we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zones for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.”
Of course, Grunsfeld is referring to planets orbiting red dwarf stars, which will be targeted by TESS. These are expected have a habitable zone much closer to their primary star than our own Sun. It has even been suggested by MIT scientists that the first exoplanets visited by humans on some far off date might be initially discovered by TESS. The spacecraft may also discover future targets for follow up spectroscopic analysis, the best chance of discovering alien life on an exoplanet in the next 50 years. One can imagine the excitement that a positive detection of a chemical exclusive to life as we know it such as chlorophyll in the spectra of a far of world would generate. More ominously, detection of such synthetic elements as plutonium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet might suggest we found them… but alas, too late.
But on a happier note, it’ll be exciting times for space exploration to see both projects get underway. Perhaps human explorers will indeed one day visit the worlds discovered by TESS… and use navigation techniques pioneered by SEXTANT to do it!
This intriguing picture from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the glowing green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim and dying star. It is located about 3300 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). This is the most detailed picture of this object ever taken. Credit: ESO
Located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, the ESO’s Very Large Telescope was busy using the FORS instrument (FOcal Reducer Spectrograph) to achieve one of the most detailed observations ever taken off a lonely, green planetary nebula – IC 1295. Exposures taken through three different filters which enhanced blue light, visible green light, and red light were melded together to make this 3300 light year distant object come alive.
Located in the constellation of Scutum, this jewel in the “Shield” is a miniscule star that’s at the end of its life. Much like our Sun will eventually become, this white dwarf star is softly shedding its outer layers, like an unfolding flower in space. It will continue this process for a few tens of thousands of years, before it ends, but until then IC 1295 will remain something of an enigma.
“The range of shapes observed up to today has been reproduced by many theoretical works using arguments such as density enhancements, magnetic fields, and binary central systems. Despite this, no complete agreement between models and properties of a given morphological group has been achieved. One of the main reasons for this is selection criteria and completeness of studied samples.” say researchers at Georgia State University. “The samples are usually limited by available images in few bands such as Ha, [NII] and [OIII]. Of course they are also limited by distance, since the further away the object is, the harder it is to resolve its structure. Even with the modern telescopes, obtaining a truly complete sample is far from being achieved.”
Why is this common deep space object like IC 1295 such a mystery? Blame it on its structure. It is comprised of multiple shells.- gaseous layers which once were the star’s atmosphere. As the star aged, its core became unstable and it erupted in unexpected releases of energy – like expansive blisters breaking open. These waves of gas are then illuminated by the ancient star’s ultraviolet radiation, causing it to glow. Each chemical acts as a pigment, resulting in different colors. In the case of IC 1295, the verdant shades are the product of ionised oxygen.
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This video sequence starts with a broad panorama of the Milky Way and closes in on the small constellation of Scutum (The Shield), home to many star clusters. The final detailed view shows the strange green planetary nebula IC 1295 in a new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This faint object lies close to the brighter globular star cluster NGC 6712. Credit: ESO/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Chuck Kimball. Music: movetwo
However, green isn’t the only color you see here. At the heart of this planetary nebula beats a bright, blue-white stellar core. Over the course of billions of years, it will gently cool – becoming a very faint, white dwarf. It’s just all part of the process. Stars similar to the Sun, and up to eight times as large, are all theorized to form planetary nebulae as they extinguish. How long does a planetary nebula last? According to astronomers, it’s a process that could be around 8 to 10 thousand years.
“Athough planetary nebulae (PNe) have been discovered for over 200 years, it was not until 30 years ago that we arrived at a basic understanding of their origin and evolution.” says Sun Kwok of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics. “Even today, with observations covering the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio to X-ray, there are still many unanswered questions on their structure and morphology.”
What if — somehow — historical records were changed to show the Apollo 11 mission never happened? In Moon Hoax, a new and entertaining historical fiction novel, author Paul Gillebaard re-writes history with a tale of high tech subterfuge and deceit played out on the world’s stage. You can read our full review of this book here, or find out more about the book at the author’s website.
This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for your interest!
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Apollo 11, a spaceflight forever cemented in history books, signifies the moment when humans first walked on the Moon. Since that historical day, the US has been the only nation to set foot on the Moon.
But what do you do if someone says this event wasn’t real? Conspiracy theorists have always been on the fringe saying the Moon landing was an elaborate hoax, a clever story fabricated in great detail by our government or space agency. But what if — somehow — historical records were changed to show the Apollo 11 mission never happened? In Moon Hoax, a new and entertaining historical fiction novel, author Paul Gillebaard re-writes history with a tale of high-tech subterfuge and deceit played out on the world’s stage.
Currently in 2013, the USA is certainly not the only space faring nation. With the retirement of the shuttle program, we can’t even launch our own astronauts into space. Other countries have a core of trained astronauts and collaboration between nations has become a key mode of operation. Teamwork has become a necessity. The International Space Station circling high above our heads is inspiring proof of countries working together in space research. What if one country wants all of the glory for themselves? What if they have engineered a way to change the face and records of space travel as we know it?
Moon Hoax weaves the tale of a rising and formidable superpower country trying to take away our historical facts and show them as false. One of the most populated countries on Earth wants the world to think the United States of America lied and has been lying to them for over 40 years: the twelve amazing American moonwalkers never were. Not only do the antagonists want to rewrite the history books, but they want to stake their claim on the Moon and launch themselves into the annals of space and world supremacy status.
Twisting the truth into an extremely plausible lie is a challenge. Moan Hoax will consistently have you reacting with a range of emotions from dismay and frustration to determination in seeing the truth prevail. It’s a race to prove to the world that the history books are factual versus the changing tide of a public dissuasion campaign. The author, Paul Gillebaard, has substantial space knowledge and an engineering background. This first time author adds a writing flair to make the reader question history’s validity on an enjoyable, entertaining ride.
Early on, Mars had giant active volcanoes, which would have released significant methane. Because of methane’s high greenhouse potential, even a thin atmosphere might have supported liquid water. Credit: NASA
It might be common, but carbon could have a huge impact in the formation and evolution of a planet’s atmosphere. As it moves from the interior to the surface, carbon’s role is important. According to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, if Mars let go of its majority of carbon supply as methane, it probably would have been temperate enough to caused liquid water to form. Just how captive carbon escapes via iron-rich magma is offering us vital clues as to the role it plays in “early atmospheric evolution on Mars and other terrestrial bodies”.
While the atmosphere of a planet is its outer layer, it has its beginnings far below. During the formation of a planet, the mantle – a layer between a planet’s core and upper crust – latches on to subsurface carbon when it melts to create magma. When the viscous magma rises upwards to the surface, the pressure lessens and the captive carbon is released as gas. As an example, Earth’s captive carbon is encapsulated in magma as carbonate and its released gas is carbon dioxide. As we are aware, carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” which enables our planet to absorb heat from the Sun. However, the release process for captive carbon on other planets – and its subsequent greenhouse effects – isn’t well understood..
“We know carbon goes from the solid mantle to the liquid magma, from liquid to gas and then out,” said Alberto Saal, professor of geological sciences at Brown and one of the study’s authors. “We want to understand how the different carbon species that are formed in the conditions that are relevant to the planet affect the transfer.”
Thanks to the new study, which also included researchers from Northwestern University and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, we’re able to take a closer look at the release processes for other terrestrial mantles, such as those found on the Moon, Mars and similar bodies. Here the captive carbon in the magma is formed as iron carbonyl – then escapes as methane and carbon monoxide. Like carbon dioxide, both of these gases have a huge potential as greenhouse.
The team, along with Malcolm Rutherford from Brown, Steven Jacobsen from Northwestern and Erik Hauri from the Carnegie Institution, came to some significant conclusions about the early volcanic history of Mars. If it followed the captive carbon theory, it might have very well released enough methane gas to have kept the Red Planet warm and cozy. However, it didn’t happen in an “Earth-like” manner. Here our mantel supports a condition known as “oxygen fugacity” – the volume of free oxygen available to react with other elements. While we have a high rate, bodies like early Mars and the Moon are poor in comparison.
Now the real science part comes into play. In order to discover how a lower oxygen fugacity impacts “carbon transfer”, the researchers experimented with volcanic basalt which closely match those located on both Mars and the Moon. Through various pressures, temperatures and oxygen fugacities, the volcanic rock was melted and studied with a spectrometer. This allowed the scientists to determine just how much carbon was absorbed and what form it took. Their findings? At low oxygen fugacities, captive carbon took the form of iron carbonyl and at low pressure the iron carbonyl released as carbon monoxide and methane.
“We found that you can dissolve in the magma more carbon at low oxygen fugacity than what was previously thought,” said Diane Wetzel, a Brown graduate student and the study’s lead author. “That plays a big role in the degassing of planetary interiors and in how that will then affect the evolution of atmospheres in different planetary bodies.”
As we know, Mars has a history of volcanism and studies such as this mean that large quantities of methane must have once been released via carbon transfer. Could this have triggered a greenhouse effect? It’s entirely possible. After all, methane in a early atmosphere may very well have supported conditions warm enough to have allowed liquid water to form on the surface.
This is awesome. Astrophotographer Göran Strand took his 30 gigabytes of image data of the incredible aurora he shot on March 17 (which we shared here) and re-tooled everything to fit into an interactive virtual reality-type video where the viewer can move and pan around in any direction. You can watch below, or click here to see the full screen version and be transported to a small town in northern Sweden called Östersund.
Strand said he was almost obsessed with creating this virtual reality version to try and share the experience.
“Hopefully this means that I finally can close the case on the auroras from March 17,” he told Universe Today via email. “As you might understand, these amazing auroras had a big impact on me and I really want to show how wonderful it was.”
Here’s the virtual reality version. Use the arrow keys on your computer to move the view around in any direction:
Last December the Golden Spike Company announced its plans to enable private-sector lunar exploration missions which would be feasible, profitable, and possible — even without government funding. Comprised of veteran space program executives, managers, and engineers, Golden Spike intends to stand on the shoulders of current space technology to develop lunar transportation systems that can be used by agencies and private interests worldwide to get humans back to the Moon… but they still need your help getting the word out.
“We’re running an Indiegogo campaign as an experiment in public outreach and interest in human lunar expeditions,” Golden Spike CEO and planetary scientist Alan Stern explained to Universe Today in an email.
Recently Golden Spike started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $240,000 for international outreach (that’s a dollar for every mile to the Moon!) but, with only 16 10 days left in the campaign, only $9,400 $12,134 has been contributed.* While dollar-for-mile that’s still farther than any humans have traveled into space since Apollo, it’s unfortunately quite short of their goal.
CEO and famed planetary scientist Alan Stern blames himself.
“Simply put, we didn’t put the right people and resources on this Indiegogo campaign,” Stern wrote in an announcement on the Indiegogo site on April 9.
But despite the small amount of time remaining, he’s not giving up.
“We’re going to take advantage of the press of time left — just 16 days — to reach out to the broader public about people they can be a part of a historic new era of human lunar exploration,” Stern writes.
“To do that, you’ll be seeing Golden Spike in the press quite a bit more the next two weeks.”
And he’s asking for your continued help to not just contribute, but also to get the word out.
“Speak to friends and colleagues. Message on sites like Twitter and Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Send emails. Heck, put up signs and hand out flyers! We’re in the final phases of this campaign, ask people to join in. Let them know why you joined. Tell them their participation will make a huge difference… If we do this right, we can succeed.”
While contributions to the Golden Spike campaign won’t be used to launch rockets or build Moon bases, they will be used to reach out to potential international partners and show them that people are indeed interested in getting people back to the Moon… proven by the fact that they’ll even put some of their own money into the venture.
Small donations, large donations… each contribution no matter the size shows that people will invest in a future of lunar exploration. Put some “skin in the game,” if you will.
Click here to contribute to the Golden Spike campaign.And even if you can’t contribute financially, help get the word out. Share this article, tell people about the campaign, let them know that our future on the Moon doesn’t have to rely on fickle government funding or be subject to catastrophic budget cuts.
We got there before, we can get there again. The Moon awaits.
“Make the point that 40-plus years of waiting for governments to do this for us showed that the people who want humans to explore the Moon have to take personal action if we want it.”
– Alan Stern, planetary scientist and Golden Spike Company CEO
PS: Be sure to email [email protected] when you donate to the campaign and let them know your name, city, and state, and who referred you to donate (in this case, Universe Today.) They’re giving prizes for the top US state, top country, and top referrals!
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrates how tears don't fall in space. Credit: NASA/CSA.
No tears in heaven? Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield shows that while you really can cry in space, tears don’t fall like they do here on Earth, and instead just end up as a big ball of water on your face. It’s physics, baby!
The Big Bang Theory: A history of the Universe starting from a singularity and expanding ever since. Credit: grandunificationtheory.com
One of the greatest mysteries is how the Universe began — and also how and why does it appear to be ever-expanding? CERN physicist Tom Whyntie shows how cosmologists and particle physicists are exploring these questions by replicating the heat, energy, and activity of the first few seconds of our Universe, from right after the Big Bang.
