Universe Today

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

July 22, 2009 Total Solar Eclipse from China – Let’s Chase!

Eclipse from Chongqing Municipality (Xinhua/Liu Chan)

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The total solar eclipse which just occurred on the 22nd of July 2009 was the longest maximum duration of the 21st century. Not since Saros 1991 have astronomers and eclipse chasers been treat to such an event! Totality lasted over six and a half minutes at maximum. duration. The event started in India along the western shore near Surat moved towards Butan and reached the southern tip of Nepal and the northern edge of Bangladesh.

For other lucky astronomers like Vietnamese student Dang Anh Tuan at Hanoi National University of Education, the eclipse path also took the event over cities like Chengdu, Suining, Chonging, Wuhan, Xiaogan, Hangzhou, and Shanghai – and event which yielded five minutes of totality. Leaving Shanghai the shadow path raced across the ocean, to fall across islands such as Toshima and Akusaki south of Japan and eventually the Marshall islands. Where was the longest point? The maximum eclipse duration of 6 minutes and 43 seconds occurs far off the coast in the Pacific Ocean! Are you ready to become an eclipse chaser? Then follow me…

I’ve always wanted to go on an eclipse chasing journey, but I’m afraid I’ll never quite be rich or well enough, unless it happens somewhere near me. But, my world is one that is both large and very small at the same time… And filled with wonderful friends from every corner. Bill Fish of Lubrizol Advanced Materials made my day by sending me some photos shared by their employees immediately after the eclipse had ended.

Seeing such incredible beauty, like this image of Bailey’s Beads taken in Chong Qing, and in just a few hours meeting great people like Jessica Bian, Kelly Zhou, Jun-Sheng Cao, Leo Chi, Mars Meng, Lucy Wang and Helen Tong felt so wonderful. Truly astronomy is a language we all speak! By roughly 9:00 in the morning, this is what they would have seen from their office windows or rooftops. Can you imagine what an exciting day it must have been?!

Well, needless to say, once I saw something like that, all my worries and cares for the day seemed so small. Even though I couldn’t leave my desk, the marvelous opportunity for me to become an eclipse chaser had just opened up like a fortune cookie right before my eyes. It was time for me to learn Chinese… and check out this awesome video done by Hubei Jingmen!

But he wasn’t alone… And neither was I. Millions of folks all over China were witnessing the eclipse and with each video I felt more and more like I was there, too.

“In the Zhejiang Haining, huge amounts of people were out to observe the wonderful total solar eclipse. The observation person is sea of people. But two big marvelous sight’s secret directions are the Sun, the Earth and the Moon…. “three meet”.”

Now, let’s travel to Beijing where the sky was enveloped in mist. Despite the weather, some 200 astronomy watchers queued in front of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory at 6:30 a.m. Staff at the observatory said the eclipse had sparked interest in astronomy. Yang Jing, a high-school student from Urumqi said. “I didn’t expect such a big crowd to watch the eclipse!”

Our next video comes from Chengdu… You can imagine the city stopping for just a moment to look skyward. “As soon as the totality happened, the clouds closed in so we couldn’t see the corona. That’s a pity,” said Zhen Jun, a man whose work unit had given the day off for the spectacle.

Now we move on to Hangzhou… When thousands of people thronged outdoors for the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, animals at the zoo in east China’s Hangzhou City also reacted, quickly and confusedly. The shadow of the moon disoriented birds whose body clock and direction depend on the sun. Red-crowned cranes and flamingos that had been wandering or drinking water suddenly fell asleep during the brief blackout of eclipse. But when the sun rays came out again several minutes later, the birds emerged from their cages and started the life of another “day.”

Even though I don’t understand a word of Chinese, I understand every word of “human”. Listen to them… Listen to the people talk and the children! How I wish I were there, too! Said Kang Hui:“The celestial phenomenon was a marvelous sight”. Are you ready to move again and follow the shadow? Then, let’s take a trip to Shanxi Linfen…

Now, I’ll race you to Hong Kong! Hundreds of people thronged into the Hong Kong Space Museum Wednesday morning for the Partial Solar Eclipse Observation activity. The public watched the eclipse using telescopes equipped with a safe filtering system and projection under guidance provided by the Space Museum.

Gosh, some of that footage feels like you could just reach right out and wrap your hand around that Moon, doesn’t it? Now let’s head to the middle of Anhui Yi County…

This one where you can see the corona dazzling is simply extraordinary. Can you imagine what it would feel like to be able to see this in real life? Come on… Let’s continue our eclipse chasing trip to Shanghai! It was raining in Shanghai when the total eclipse occurred at 9:35 a.m. The city put extra police on streets, and more than 30 police vessels patrolled the coast. Only street lamps were left on, as the city turned off all landscape lighting to allow people to watch the solar eclipse.

In Shanghai, more than 4,000 people ended up in suburban Yuehu Park of Sheshan Observatory and Yangshan Deep Water Port, two prime spots in the city, to observe the eclipse. Shanghai Science Hall also organized a public viewing session in downtown Fuxing Park and seventeen observation stations were set up in the solar eclipse path from Yunnan province to Zhejiang province.

Now we travel to the Henan Luoyang and say hello to these great kids and their equally excited parents and grandparents as we catch a partial eclipse.

“Luoyang’s light rain was intermittent, in the morning about 10:45, the Sun opened out the cloud layer to reveal the face of what was to come. The residents might see the partial solar eclipse! This kind of picture has not been seen here for a very long time. The Henan Luoyang partial solar eclipse looks just like the raging fire phoenix raising slowly.”

Shall we continue to Taiwan? Then grab us a cup of coffee and I will meet you at the Taibei Municipal Astronomy Scientific Culture Hall.

Shall we travel to Shenyang? This was also a partial solar eclipse location, but witnesses said the Moon “seemed like it was curved”.

Now, come with us to Ningbo. This one is so beautiful I wept when I saw it…

“This morning we just watched the total solar eclipse, which happens every 500 years. When the whole sun is blacken by the Moon. Everyone is highly excited. It’s pity I forgot to bring the camera by my side and the moment is passed away soon. But I am still lucky to see the sight. 500 years……how significant!”

When I was a child, I was charmed by a story about Ping the Duck, who lived on the Yangtze River. The last of the hundreds of videos I have watched today that I’d like to share with you is part of the Yangtze River collection.

Enjoy this beautiful composite image taken by Yang Lei at a park in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality. It has been my most wonderful pleasure over the day to spend time in the East…

Chasing the Sun!

Solar eclipse occurring over Taipei of southeast China's Taiwan

My many thanks to Bill Fish for getting me started, Jessica Bian for investigating and translating and the wonderful people at Sina for sharing!

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Where In The Universe #63

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here’s #63! Take a look 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. As usual, 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 has now been posted below

This is the Bullet Cluster, as seen by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This image is very fitting for this week, as Chandra is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary. What you’re seeing here is two large clusters of galaxies that have crashed into one another at extremely high velocities. At a relatively close distance from Earth (3.8 billion light years away) and with a favorable side-on orientation as viewed from Earth, the Bullet Cluster provides an excellent test site to search for something very interesting: the signal for antimatter. Find out more about that and the image here.

If you enjoyed this week’s WITU Challenge, check back next for another test of your visual knowledge of the cosmos!

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Northern & Southern Aurorae Are Siblings, But Not Twins

Asymmetrical aurorae, courtesy of Karl Magnus Laundal and Nature

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Seen the Northern Lights and you’ve seen them all, hm? Not so.

It is commonly assumed that the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere and the aurora australis in the Southern Hemisphere are mirror images of each other — but new research has revealed differences between the events.

The aurorae, commonly known as the Northern and Southern Lights, are spectacular natural light displays in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The phenomenon is caused by charged particles from the solar wind striking atoms and molecules in the atmosphere.

It’s intuitive to think the Northern and Southern Lights are identical, because the charged particles causing the aurora follow the symmetric magnetic field lines connecting the two hemispheres.

But study co-authors Nikolai Østgaard and Karl Magnus Laundal, both of the University of Bergen in Norway, report in the journal Nature this week that there are differences between the phenomena.

“Here we report observations that clearly contradict the common assumption about symmetric aurora: intense spots are seen at dawn in the Northern summer Hemisphere, and at dusk in the Southern winter Hemisphere,” they write. “The asymmetry is interpreted in terms of inter-hemispheric currents related to seasons, which have been predicted but hitherto had not been seen.”

Østgaard and Laundal based their report on observations from a new set of global imaging cameras at each pole. The authors suggest that the observed asymmetry confirms the existence of inter-hemispheric, field-aligned currents related to the seasons, which had been predicted but never before observed.

Source: Nature

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Mystery Solved? New Clues Point to a Liquid Ocean on Enceladus.

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A liquid plume is spewing from Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus — but is it coming from heated ice on the surface, or a liquid ocean underneath?

Analysis of the plume’s chemistry, detailed in the Cassini (CICLOPS) image above and reported in Nature this week, may put the debate to rest.

Lead author Jack Hunter (J.H.) Waite, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas and his colleagues say ammonia detected in the jets from Enceladus’ south pole provides the strongest evidence yet for the existence of liquid water beneath the surface.

A previous paper led by Frank Postberg of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, published in Nature just last month, reported the discovery of salts in E-ring particles derived from the plume, also suggestive of a liquid reservoir.

But Susan Kieffer of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and her colleagues proposed in a 2006 Science paper that warm ice is heated near the surface, causing dissociation of clathrate hydrates. And Nicholas Schneider, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and his colleagues published a paper in the same Nature issue as Postberg’s team (June 24) — reporting that there’s not enough sodium in the plume to support a liquid ocean.

The ammonia may tip the scales, say the authors of the new paper.

“The presence of ammonia provides strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water, given that temperatures in excess of 180K have been measured near the fractures from which the jets emanate,” the authors write. “We conclude, from the overall composition of the material, that the plume derives from both a liquid reservoir (or from ice that in recent geological time has been in contact with such a reservoir) as well as from degassing, volatile-charged ice.”

Besides ammonia, the authors detected various organic compounds and deuterium — ‘heavy’ hydrogen abundant in the oceans of Earth. Ammonia, together with methanol and salts, acts as an antifreeze, allowing liquid water to exist at below-freezing temperatures. The authors suggest that preserving even a residual oceanic layer during cooling episodes would maintain conditions necessary for tidal heating and geologic activity.

Enceladus is one of only three moons in the Solar System known to be volcanically active. The plume of gas and particles is thought to make up Saturn’s outermost ‘E’ ring.

UT ran a story last month, when Nature ran two papers with different ideas about whether Enceladus harbors a liquid ocean. See that story here.

Source for text: Nature. Source for images: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS), with thanks to study co-author William Lewis for the tip.

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Abby Cessna

Weight on Other Planets

Planets and other objects in our Solar System. Credit: NASA.

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Many children, and even adults, dream of visiting other planets and wonder what it would be like to stand on another planet. For one thing, your weight would be different on another planet, depending on a number of factors including the mass of the planet and how far you are away from the center of the planet.

Before we start, it’s important to understand that the kilogram is actually a measurement of your mass. And your mass doesn’t change when you go anywhere in the Universe and experience different amounts of gravity. Your weight is best measured in newtons. But since your bathroom doesn’t measure your weight in newtons, we’ll use kilograms. This is what your bathroom scale would say if you stepped on another world.

Mercury is the smallest planet in our Solar System, but it is dense. Because Mercury is so small, it has very little gravity. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth, you would only weigh 25.7 kg on Mercury.

Venus is very close to Earth in size and mass. Venus’ mass is roughly 90% of the mass of the Earth. Thus, it is no surprise that someone would weigh a similar amount on Venus. Someone who weighed 68 kg on Earth would weigh 61.6 kg on Venus.

Mars is quite a bit smaller than Earth with only 11% of our planet’s mass. Mars is larger than Mercury, but it is not as dense as the smaller planet. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth then you would weigh 25.6 kg on Mars. Since Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, Mars became the planet where you would weigh the least.

Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System with the most mass. Because of Jupiter’s mass, you would weigh more on that planet than on any other one in our Solar System. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth then you would weigh 160.7 kg on Jupiter, over twice your normal weight. That is if you could actually stand on Jupiter’s surface, which is impossible because it is a gas giant, and gas giants do not have solid surfaces.

Saturn is a gas giant best known for its planetary rings system. It is also the second biggest planet in our Solar System. Despite its mass though, the planet has a very low density and a lower gravity than Earth. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth, you would weigh 72.3 kg on Saturn.

Uranus is a gas giant without a solid surface. Although Uranus is larger in size than Neptune, it has less mass and therefore less gravity. You would only weigh 60.4 kg on Uranus, if you weighed 68 kg on Earth.

Neptune, the last planet in our Solar System, is a gas giant. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth, then you would weigh 76.5 kg on Neptune if you could stand on the planet’s surface.

Although the Moon is not a planet, it is one of the few objects that astronauts have actually visited. Because the Moon is so small, it has a low density and low gravity. If you weighed 68 kg on Earth, then you would only weigh 11.2 kg on the Moon.

Universe Today has a number of articles to check out including weight on the moon and mass of the planets.

If you are looking for more information then determine your weight on other planets and facts about the planets.

Astronomy Cast has an episode on gravity.

July 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

July 22, 2009 Total Solar Eclipse – Incoming News…

July 22, 2009 Solar Eclipse Image Submitted By Bill Fish

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The total solar eclipse which just occured on the 22nd of July 2009 was the longest in terms of maximum totality duration of the 21st century – lasting over six and a half minutes. Not since Saros 1991 have astronomers and eclipse chasers been treated to such a length of time! The eclipse footprint started in India along the western shore near Surat moved towards Butan and reached the southern tip of Nepal and the northern edge of Bangladesh. For other lucky astronomers, the eclipse path also took the event over the Chinese cities of Chengdu, Suining, Chonging, Wuhan, Xiaogan, Hangzhou, and Shanghai – yielding five minutes of totality. Leaving Shanghai the shadow raced across the ocean to fall across islands such as Toshima and Akusaki south of Japan and eventually the Marshall islands. Where did the longest time occur? The maximum eclipse duration of 6 minutes and 43 seconds was far off the coast in the Pacific Ocean! As I write this announcement, our readers are sending in their photos and stories to my home email (send them!!) and I just couldn’t wait to show you some of the beginning results. It will take a short time to do a little translation work… But it’s a small, wonderful world and this article will be updated very soon!

July 21, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

“Feelings” Are Back at NASA

Garver and Bolden after they were sworn into office. Credit: NASA

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Steely-eyed missile men may still be a part of NASA, but the space agency’s newly sworn-in administrator says he is an unabashed hugger and admits to crying easily. “One more thing you’ll learn about me, I cry,” said Charlie Bolden at an all-hands video meeting with the NASA centers. “I think it’s important to be passionate.” Bolden’s Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said she’s a hugger, too and as Bolden and Garver hugged on stage, Garver exclaimed, “Feelings are not something that were popular in the last few years at NASA, but they’re back. Feelings are back!”

Garver was obviously referring to former administrator Mike Griffin, who once said, “I don’t do feelings, just think of me as Spock.”

Bolden, a retired Marine Corps general and four-time shuttle astronaut, spoke at length about himself and his hopes for NASA’s future. He asked NASA employees in attendance to raise their hands if they didn’t think NASA should go to Mars. When no one raised their hands, he said, “We all agree we want humans to go to Mars, we don’t agree on how to get there. The challenge is to figure out the most efficient, most cost-effective path to get there. We can’t get there the way we’re doing it right now, with a whole bunch of different people thinking we’ll do a little of that and a little of this. We need to come together with a coherent plan.”

A presidential panel is reviewing options for the NASA’s human space program and is expected to issue its report next month. Bolden told workers the review is “nothing to be afraid of.”

Also, a second review encompassing all areas of space — military, commercial, civil and scientific — is under way by the national security advisor, James Jones, a retired four-star Marine general.

“There needs to be a coherent policy and so President Obama has asked General Jones to put together a group to take a look at the national space policy,” Bolden said.

Bolden said he wants working at NASA to be fun. “I will make mistakes, but I’m going to have fun, and I want all of you (NASA work force) to have fun,” he said. However, he cautioned that working in space is a risky business, and not everything is fun. “NASA is in the news every day and there’s always the potential for it to be bad news when we have people in space.”

Showing that she is in touch with the public’s views of NASA Garver shared some encouraging poll results about public opinion of NASA. Of those polled, 72 per cent have a positive impression of NASA. That’s better than Apple, Garver said, which got only a 63 per cent rating.

“We are more popular than your iPod,” she said.

Both Bolden and Garver said they were incredibly proud to be working at NASA again. “I look forward to working with you all,” Bolden said, “and we have some important things we have to do.”

July 21, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Exploration of Mercury

The MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury (NASA)

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As one of the planets visible with the unaided eye, Mercury has been known before recorded history. But until the development of the telescope, the exploration of the Mercury was only unaided eye observations. Early cultures like the Mayans and ancient Greeks were diligent astronomers, and calculated the motions and positions of Mercury with tremendous accuracy.

But the exploration of Mercury really began with the invention of the telescope. Galileo Galilei was the first to turn his telescope on the 1st planet, seeing nothing more than a small disk. Galileo’s telescope wasn’t powerful enough to see that Mercury has phases, like the Moon and Venus. In 1631, Pierre Gassendi made the first observations of Mercury’s transit across the surface of the Sun, and further observations by Giovanni Zupi revealed its phases. This helped astronomers to conclude the Mercury orbited the Sun, and not the Earth.

Because Mercury is so small, and located so close to the Sun, astronomers weren’t able image features on its surface with any accuracy. It wasn’t until the 1960s, when Soviet scientists bounced radio signals off the surface of Mercury that astronomers got any sense of what its surface was like. These radio reflections also helped astronomers discover that Mercury’s day length is 59 days; almost as long as its year of 88 days.

But the best Mercury exploration happened when NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft first flew past Mercury in 1974. It revealed that Mercury’s surface is pockmarked with craters like the Earth’s moon. And like the Moon it has flat regions filled in with lava flows. After two additional flybys Mariner 10 ended up mapping only 45% of Mercury’s surface.

The next mission to explore Mercury was NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, launched on August 3, 2004. It made its first Mercury flyby on January 14, 2008, mapping more of Mercury’s surface. MESSENGER will eventually go into orbit around Mercury, mapping its surface in great detail and answering many unknown questions about Mercury and its history.

We have written many stories about Mercury here on Universe Today. Here’s an article about a the discovery that Mercury’s core is liquid. And how Mercury is actually less like the Moon than previously believed.

Want more information on Mercury? Here’s a link to NASA’s MESSENGER Misson Page, and here’s NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide to Mercury.

We have also recorded a whole episode of Astronomy Cast that’s just about planet Mercury. Listen to it here, Episode 49: Mercury.

References:
NASA Solar System Exploration: Missions to Mercury
NASA: Planetary Science

July 21, 2009April 26, 2016 by Anne Minard

Thirty-Meter Telescope Headed for Mauna Kea

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The Thirty Meter Telescope, which is vying to be the inaugural member of an emerging class of giant eyes in the sky, is headed for the Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

That means the other contending site, Cerro Armazones in Chile, is off the drawing board.

Richard Ellis, a TMT board member, said the choice was a tough one, but Mauna Kea had scientific advantages.

“Mauna Kea is a higher site. It is actually drier, and the average temperature fluctuates less from day to day and during the day to night cycle than the Chilean site,” he said, during a press conference this afternoon to announce the decision. “Much of the astronomy will be at infrared wavelengths, where the dryness is an advantage.”

He added that the Hawaii boasts slightly better atmospheric qualities, including lower turbulence over the site.

When completed in 2018, the TMT will enable astronomers to detect and study light from the earliest stars and galaxies, analyze the formation of planets around nearby stars, and test many of the fundamental laws of physics. Based on the scientific model of the twin Keck telescopes, the core technology of TMT will be a 30-meter primary mirror composed of 492 segments.

The TMT project is an international partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and ACURA, an organization of Canadian universities. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) joined TMT as a Collaborating Institution in 2008.

The TMT project has completed its $77 million design development phase with primary financial support of $50 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and $22 million from Canada. The project has now entered the early construction phase, with an additional $200 million pledge from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Caltech and the University of California each have agreed to raise matching funds of $50 million to bring the construction total to $300 million, and the Canadian partners propose to supply the enclosure, the telescope structure, and the first light adaptive optics.

The TMT faces competition from the Giant Magellan Telescope to usher in the age of the giants. See past Universe Today coverage of the race here.

Source: TMT site

July 21, 2009December 24, 2015 by Tega Jessa

First Rocket

Dr. Robert Goddar with on his early rockets in Roswell

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Rocketry is actually older than many people think. The first rockets originated in China and subsequently the Middle East with the discovery of gunpowder. These rockets were used for military purposes or as entertainment. The use of rockets and gunpowder would eventually transform warfare, and to this day we still use rockets in pretty much the same way they were used 700 years ago. The only difference is that when we use rockets for military purposes we call them missiles and when used for entertainment they can be toys or pyrotechnics.

The composition of the first rocket was what is now in aeronautics called a solid rocket. This rocket runs on a solid fuel that burned inside the rocket. The heated exhaust is expelled out the bottom the rocket, creating the thrust needed to fly. The composition of solid fuel rockets is still pretty much the same as in ancient times.

The casing is the body of the rocket. Rockets were made differently depending upon their end use. For example, solid rockets that were used in space programs had steel casings. The next important element of a solid rocket was the grain. The grain is the solid fuel needed to power the missile. The first types used had gunpowder as the grain but the formula could be altered. If you ever saw a fireworks display, this is why the explosions have different colors. The additions of different metals and composites in the grain of the rockets creates this effect. The final components; the fuse. This was the ignition device used to start the combustion process of the rockets fuel. Later as rocketry was further researched a nozzle was added to the design to better direct exhaust and improve thrust.

The first rockets that were used in modern rocketry was invented by Dr. Robert Goddard. For this he is known as the Father of Modern Rocketry. He created the first successful liquid fuel rocket, adding the nozzle design that is so common today. The liquid fuel rocket ran on a slightly different design than its predecessor with the fuel being released from a pressure tank to a combustion chamber where it was mixed with air or another oxidizer to burn and create heated exhaust which was directed away to create thrust. This would be the design that would pave the way for modern aeronautics and eventually space exploration.

So as we see rockets have come a long way from their earliest day. Nevertheless, they are still playing an important role in the development of human technology. Making new advances possible every day with the missions and experiments they support.

If you enjoyed this article there are other related articles on the Universe Today website you might want to checkout. Here is an article that talks more about solid fuel rockets. If you want to learn more about modern rockets this article on new advances made on liquid fuel rockets.

There are other interesting articles you can find on the web. Time magazine has a great profile article on Robert Goddard. Another good resource is the NASA website which has a brief article on the history of rockets.

You might also enjoy listening to an episode of Astronomy Cast. Episode 100 Rockets is relevant to the stuff talked about in the article.

Source: Wikipedia