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
A Snapshot of the Jewel Box cluster with the ESO VLT
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Nothing in my jewelry box compares to the Kappa Crucis Cluster, also known as NGC 4755 or simply the “Jewel Box.” This object is just bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, but a combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes, the Very Large Telescope, the 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light. Above is the image from ESO’ Very Large Telescope, which zooms in for a close look at the cluster itself. This new image is one of the best ever taken of this cluster from the ground, taken with an exposure time of just 5 seconds.
A Hubble gem: the Jewel Box. Credit: NASA/ESO
The Hubble Space Telescope can capture light of shorter wavelengths than ground-based telescopes can, and this new HST image of the core of the cluster represents the first comprehensive far ultraviolet to near-infrared image of an open galactic cluster. It was created from images taken through seven filters, allowing viewers to see details never seen before. It was taken near the end of the long life of the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, Hubble’s workhorse camera up until the recent Servicing Mission, when it was removed and brought back to Earth, and replaced with an new and improved version. Several very bright, pale blue supergiant stars, a solitary ruby-red supergiant and a variety of other brilliantly colored stars are visible in the Hubble image, as well as many much fainter ones. The intriguing colors of many of the stars result from their differing intensities at different ultraviolet wavelengths.
Wide Field Image of the Jewel Box. Credit: ESO
A new image taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the cluster and its rich surroundings in all their multicolored glory. The large field of view of the WFI shows a vast number of stars. Many are located behind the dusty clouds of the Milky Way and therefore appear red.
Composite image of the Jewel Box. Credit: ESO
Star clusters are among the most fascinating objects in the sky. Open clusters such as NGC 4755 typically contain anything from a few to thousands of stars that are loosely bound together by gravity. Because the stars all formed together from the same cloud of gas and dust their ages and chemical makeup are similar, which makes them ideal laboratories for studying how stars evolve.
A bowshock forms around the Arex I-X rocket. Credit: NASA
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There are some great images of Wednesday’s Ares I-X launch. Most notable is this one of the Prandtl–Glauert singularity bow shock that formed around the 327-foot-tall rocket as it went supersonic at about 39 seconds into the flight. Liftoff of the 6-minute flight test from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida was at 11:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 28. This was the first launch from Kennedy’s pads of a vehicle other than the space shuttle since the Apollo Program’s Saturn rockets were retired. See more great images below.
Launch day. Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell
With more than 12 times the thrust produced by a Boeing 747 jet aircraft and 23 times the power output of the Hoover Dam, the Ares I-X test rocket produces 2.96 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Interestingly, the Ares I-X booster was put together with parts from shuttle boosters that flew on 30 different shuttle missions ranging from STS-29 in 1989 to STS-106 in 2000. Ares I-X weighed 1.8 million pounds, almost twice that of a full 747 airliner.
The space shuttle and Ares I-X. Credit: NASA/Scott Andrews
KSC is a busy spaceport, with the Ares I-X launching and space shuttle Atlantis poised on Launch Pad 39A for liftoff, targeted for Nov. 16. The Ares 1-X is nearly 143 feet taller than the space shuttle stack. Another view of the launch. Credit: NASA/ Scott Andrews
The data returned from more than 700 sensors throughout the rocket will be used to refine the design of future launch vehicles and bring NASA one step closer to reaching its exploration goals.
View from inside mission control. Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA Ares I-X mission managers watch from mission control as the Ares I-X rocket launches.
Ares I-X. Credit: NASA/Scott Andrews
Here’s the full shot from the lead image showing the Prandtl–Glauert singularity, and here’s Wikipedia’s definition:
“The Prandtl–Glauert singularity or P.G. singularity is sometimes referred to as a vapor cone, shock collar, or shock egg.
The point at which a sudden drop in air pressure occurs is generally accepted as the cause of the visible condensation cloud that often surrounds an aircraft traveling at transonic speeds, though there remains some debate. It is an example of a mathematical singularity in aerodynamics.”
NASA's Ares I-X rocket is seen on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
This is a gorgeous shot of the Ares I-X on the pad on an evening before launch.
For information on the Ares I-X vehicle and flight test, visit NASA’s website.
Far away in the constellation of Aries, in a 14th magnitude barred spiral galaxy designated as NGC 918… a star exploded with enough candlepower to briefly outshine its home. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan) on October 11, 2009, this Type II supernova might be hiding in the intergalactic dust, but it isn’t hiding from Joe Brimacombe.
So who is to blame for this poor intergalactic housekeeping condition, eh? Just exactly where did this film of dust come from that dims distant galaxies and cloaks supernova events? Try our own Milky Way. We’ve known since the first Palomar Sky Surveys that we’re looking through clouds and filaments of dust at high galactic latitudes. But it isn’t just our galaxy either… It’s our whole family! Chances are the entire local group is puffing out enough hydrogen to send up a smoke screen – possibly even with higher redshift extragalactic objects. And just who is the smoker of our group?
The Andromeda Galaxy – M31…
“Finally we come to the aspect which could most shake conventional beliefs about the Local Group and the nature of near space. Deep prints of a red sensitive Schmidt plate (Arp and Sulentic 1991) show unmistakable filamentary dust features reaching back along the minor axis direction toward M31.This filament is repeated in the blue photographs and 100 the hundred micron infra red scans. They have to be real. Although no one has cared to take a spectrum there is no hint of gaseous emission.” says Halton Arp.
“The ejection path across the whole Local Group sky from M31 to 3C120 must have carried material either dusty or capable of forming dust from the ejecting M 31. But that means dust and obscuration within the Local group of galaxies – a point which has never before been seriously advanced. But how can one escape the mult-iwavelength evidence? The most provocative object in the M31 minor axis line is NGC 918. The nebulous dust is most concentrated at the position of the galaxy but a region has been cleared on either side of the minor axis of the galaxy. Higher resolution images would give invaluable information on the process whereby ejections come out along the minor axis of galaxies. In addition the nebulosity is of such long extent across the sky and so coincident with the alignment along the M31 minor axis that it must be in the Local Group. Therefore interaction with the dust filament would represent direct evidence for a distance much smaller than NGC 918’s conventional redshift distance.”
“The filamentary features surrounding NGC 918 are well shown in this image. The outer features appear to be dust illuminated by the galaxy. Immediately around the galaxy the dust appears to cleared away. By either outflow of matter or radiation pressure from the galaxy.” explains Arp, “If the galaxy is not interacting with the nebulosity but just shining through a serendipitous hole we still have the remarkable inference that material has been ejected along the minor axis of M31 into the middle of the Local Group of galaxies. The question then arises as to how many other nearby galaxy groups contain intergalactic material and what this would do to our view of purportedly more distant galaxies.”
If dust is to blame for a clouded view here, is it possible that NGC 918 could be just as guilty of ignoring the Swiffer? Darn right it could. According to research done by E. E. Martinez-Garcia (et al), NGC 918 has its share of spiral density waves that present azimuthal color gradients that even an infrared passband won’t fully penetrate. “We believe that this effect may be due to the position of the dust lanes and stars with respect to the observer.” says Garcia, “More research needs to be done to understand the origin of this effect.”
In the meantime, we’ll thank Joe Brimacombe of Northern Galactic for being on watch and capturing this distant supernova within 24 hours of its discovery. Cuz’ another one bites the dust!
The Apollo 17 Lunar Module Challenger descent stage comes into focus from the new lower 50-km mapping orbit, image width is 102 meters [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maneuvered into its 50-km mapping orbit on September 15, which enables it to take a closer look at the Moon than any previous orbiter. This also allows for comparing previous images taken by LRO when it was at its higher orbit. Here’s the Apollo 17 landing site: just look at what is all visible, especially in the image below! These images have more than two times better resolution than the previously acquired images.
Region of Taurus-Littrow valley around the Apollo 17 landing site. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
At the time of this recent pass, the Sun was high in the sky (28° incidence angle) helping to bring out subtle differences in surface brightness. The descent stage of the lunar module Challenger is now clearly visible, at 50-cm per pixel (angular resolution) the descent stage deck is eight pixels across (four meters), and the legs are also now distinguishable. The descent stage served as the launch pad for the ascent stage as it blasted off for a rendezvous with the command module America on December 14, 1972.
Also visible is the ALSEP, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments, which for Apollo 17 included 1) Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (geophones), 2) Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE) to measure the composition of the Moon’s extremely tenuous surface bound exosphere, 3) Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites (LEAM) experiment, 4) central station, 5) Heat Flow Experiment, 6) all powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). Below is how it looked from the surface, taken by the Apollo astronauts.
View of the ALSEP looking south-southeast. Credit: NASA
Compare these most recent images to one taken previously.
This image shows the afterglow of GRB 090423 (red source in the centre) and was created from images taken in the z, Y and J filters at Gemini-South and VLT (credit: A. J. Levan).
[/caption] This image shows the afterglow of GRB 090423 (red source in the centre) and was created from images taken in the z, Y and J filters at Gemini-South and VLT (credit: A. J. Levan).
On April 23, 2009 the Swift satellite detected a gamma ray burst and as we reported back in April, scientists soon realized that it was more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. GRB 090423 occurred 630 million years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was only four percent of its current age of 13.7 billion years. Now, continued observations of the GRB by astronomers around the world have yielded more information about this dramatic and ancient event: the GRB didn’t come from a monster star, but it produced a fairly sizable explosion.
Several of the world’s largest telescopes turned to the region of the sky within the next minutes and hours after Swift’s announcement of the GRB’s detection, and were able to locate the faint, fading afterglow of the GRB. Detailed analysis revealed that the afterglow was seen only in infrared light and not in the normal optical. This was the clue that the burst came from very great distance.
The Very Large Array radio telescope first looked for the object the day after the discovery, detected the first radio waves from the blast a week later, then recorded changes in the object until it faded from view more than two months later. Images of the afterglow of GRB 090423 taken (left to right) with the Y, J, H and K filters. The absence of any flux in the Y filter is a strong indication that the GRB is very high redshift (Credit: A. J. Levan & N. R. Tanvir)
Astronomers have thought that the very first stars in the Universe might be very different — brighter, hotter, and more massive — from those that formed later.
“This explosion provides an unprecedented look at an era when the Universe was very young and also was undergoing drastic changes. The primal cosmic darkness was being pierced by the light of the first stars and the first galaxies were beginning to form. The star that exploded in this event was a member of one of these earliest generations of stars,” said Dale Frail of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Universe Today spoke with Edo Berger with the Gemini Telescope shortly after the GRB was detected, and he said the burst itself was not all that unusual. But even that can convey a lot of information. “That might mean that even these early generations of stars are very similar to stars in the local universe, that when they die they seem to produce similar types of gamma ray bursts, but it might be a little early to speculate.”
“This happened a little more than 13 billion years ago,” said Berger. “We’ve essentially been able to find gamma ray bursts throughout the Universe. The nearest ones are only about 100 million light years away, and this most distant one is 13 billion light years away, so it seems that they populate the entire universe. This most distant one demonstrates for the first time that massive stars exist at those very high red shifts. This is something people have suspected for a long time, but there was no direct observational proof. So that is one of the cool results from this observation.”
The scientists concluded the explosion was more energetic than most GRBs, but was certainly not the most energetic ever detected. The blast was nearly spherical that expanded into a tenuous and relatively uniform gaseous medium surrounding the star. Antennas of the Very Large Array CREDIT: NRAO/AUI/NSF
“It’s important to study these explosions with many kinds of telescopes. Our research team combined data from the VLA with data from X-ray and infrared telescopes to piece together some of the physical conditions of the blast,” said Derek Fox of Pennsylvania State University. “The result is a unique look into the very early Universe that we couldn’t have gotten any other way,” he added.
In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect. The animation below shows the delay scientists had expected to observe. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet
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While the Fermi Space Telescope has mapped the gamma ray sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, it now has been able to take a measurement that has provided rare experimental evidence about the very structure of space and time, unified as space-time. Einstein’s theory of relativity states that all electromagnetic radiation travels through a vacuum at the same speed. Fermi detected two gamma ray photons which varied widely in energy; yet even after traveling 7 billion years, the two different photons arrived almost simultaneously.
On May 10, 2009, Fermi and other satellites detected a so-called short gamma ray burst, designated GRB 090510. Astronomers think this type of explosion happens when neutron stars collide. Ground-based studies show the event took place in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away. Of the many gamma ray photons Fermi’s LAT detected from the 2.1-second burst, two possessed energies differing by a million times. Yet after traveling some seven billion years, the pair arrived just nine-tenths of a second apart.
“This measurement eliminates any approach to a new theory of gravity that predicts a strong energy dependent change in the speed of light,” Michelson said. “To one part in 100 million billion, these two photons traveled at the same speed. Einstein still rules.”
“Physicists would like to replace Einstein’s vision of gravity — as expressed in his relativity theories — with something that handles all fundamental forces,” said Peter Michelson, principal investigator of Fermi’s Large Area Telescope, or LAT, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. “There are many ideas, but few ways to test them.” Artist concept of Fermi in space. Credit: NASA
Many approaches to new theories of gravity picture space-time as having a shifting, frothy structure at physical scales trillions of times smaller than an electron. Some models predict that the foamy aspect of space-time will cause higher-energy gamma rays to move slightly more slowly than photons at lower energy.
GRB 090510 displayed the fastest observed motions, with ejected matter moving at 99.99995 percent of light speed. The highest energy gamma ray yet seen from a burst — 33.4 billion electron volts or about 13 billion times the energy of visible light — came from September’s GRB 090902B. Last year’s GRB 080916C produced the greatest total energy, equivalent to 9,000 typical supernovae.
Lead image caption: In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect. The animation below shows the delay scientists had expected to observe. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet
After waiting out weather and triboelectrification issues, the Arex I-X rocket thundered and crackled away from the launch pad at 11:30 am EDT with a successful (and beautiful) launch. The vehicle ran through the entire 2-minute test flight with no obvious problems or issues, ending with the stages separating and parachuting down to the Atlantic Ocean. This marks the first time a new vehicle has launched from Kennedy Space Center since the first space shuttle launch in 1981. “The only thing we were waiting for was weather,” said a jubilant test flight director Ed Mango to his team after the flight, “and that means all of you did fricking fantastic!”
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“I can’t tell you how unbelievable that was,” said former astronaut Bob Cabana, who is now the director of Kennedy Space Center. “I got tears in my eyes. That was one of the most beautiful rocket launches I’ves seen. Given that three years ago this program was a blank piece of paper, it shows what we can do with common goal and common vision, I just couldn’t be more pleased.”
Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley said, “How impressive is that? You have all accomplished a great step forward for Constellation.” Ares I-X during the flight. Credit: NASA TV
Despite ongoing problems with the clouds and possible rain, the launch team worked closely with weather personnel to find a break in the clouds.
At the T+2 minute point in the flight, the upper stage simulator and first stage separated approximately 130,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. The unpowered simulator splashed down in the ocean, and the first stage was fired for a controlled ocean landing with parachutes so that it could be recovered.
Data collected from over 700 sensors on board the Ares I-X will help with the development of future missions as well as the design and modeling of future vehicles.
More images and video will be posted as they become available.
RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960's. Credit - Dietrich Haeseler
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Russia’s space agency chief is proposing to build a new spaceship with a nuclear engine. Reportedly,
Anatoly Perminov told a government meeting Wednesday that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. It would take about nine more years and 17 billion rubles (about $600 million or 400 million euros) to build the ship. This ambitious proposal is a stark contrast to the current state of the Russian space program.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the Cabinet to consider providing the necessary funding. Russia is currently using 40-year old Soyuz booster rockets and capsules to send crews to the International Space Station.
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Need to get away from it all? If you have a background in medicine, computers or engineering and can speak a little Russian and English, this might be just what you are looking for. The European Space Agency and the Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems are still looking for volunteers to participate in a 520-day simulation of an expedition to Mars. The institute announced last week the opening of registration, but haven’t yet gotten enough applicants. The nearly two-year experiment will simulate all aspects of a journey to the Red Planet, with a 250-day outward trip, a 30-day stay on its surface, and a 240-day return flight.
Basic requirements: age 25-50, higher education, knowledge of the Russian and English languages ensuring professional and household communication, and a citizen of Russia or ESA member countries.
This full-up simulation follows an earlier 14-day experiment in November 2007, and a 105-day simulation of a mission to Mars this year that ended in July. That mission involved four Russians and two members of the European Space Agency, who spent over three months hunkered down together in a lab that simulated life on board a spaceship. A warm-up 105-day mission took place in 2009, with participants from Germany and France and four Russians living together in cramped conditions. Credit: ESA
But now comes the real test. The mission is slated to begin mid-2010 and the participants will live and work in a sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, to investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration space mission, focusing on the effect that isolation has on the human subjects. Similar to reality TV, the six participants will be filmed throughout their stay.
Scientists will also test various life-support, communications and scientific equipment.
The crew will grow their own vegetables in a special lab, sleep in capsule-sized rooms and will only leave the facility during their 30-day trip to Mars “surface.” They will stick to a rigid daily regime of work, rest and exercise, and follow the same diet as crews aboard the International Space Station.
The participants will be paid, although the amount isn’t specified. For the 105-day mission, each participant was paid 15,500 Euros ($20,000).
