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On Tuesday morning, the LCROSS spacecraft will fly by the Moon only 9,000 km above the lunar surface and send back live streaming video for about an hour. This relatively close encounter with the Moon, will help put LCROSS in the correct position to impact the lunar surface in October. LCROSS will never actually be lunar orbit, but is working its way to an elongated Earth orbit which will eventually bring it to the correct orientation for meeting up with the south pole of the Moon later this year. LCROSS will search for water ice on the moon by sending the spent upper-stage Centaur rocket to impact part of a polar crater in permanent shadows. The LCROSS spacecraft will fly into the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties before also colliding with the lunar surface. Live video streaming of the flyby begins at approximately 12:20 GMT (8:20 EDT) on Tuesday, June 23, 2009. Click here to watch.
The LCROSS instrumentation will send back data to Earth for approximately one hour. The first 30 minutes will contain a view of the lunar surface from an altitude of approximately 9,000 km. The video feed is set to display one frame per second. During the latter 30 minutes, the spacecraft will perform multiple scans of the moon’s horizon to calibrate its sensors. During this latter half hour, the video image will update only occasionally. The 3D visualization stream will show the spacecraft position and attitude throughout the swingby.
Noah Fulmor and Erin Finnegan flip in float as they say their 'I Do's' in weightlessness with ZERO-G. Credit: Reuters
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A couple flew like Superman and floated upside down to say their wedding vows on Saturday, as Zero Gravity Corporation hosted the world’s first-ever weightless wedding. Noah Fulmor and Erin Finnegan were married on June 20 among family and friends who were all on board ZERO-G’s G-FORCE One, a specially modified Boeing 727. Officiating the wedding was Richard Garriott, the sixth private explorer in history to go to space, and the first second-generation U.S. astronaut. “I am honored to be taking part in Erin and Noah’s wedding. I know firsthand the added thrill microgravity will play in their already joyous event,” said Garriott. “The excitement from these first ever microgravity nuptials will not soon fade in the minds of all the members of the wedding party.”
The plane flies in parabolas to provide 20-30 seconds of zero g at a time. Over the span of nearly eight minutes, the vows and rings were exchanged in a microgravity environment. The aircraft’s interior has padded floors and walls and video cameras to record the the experience. Fulmor and Finnegan by G-FORCE ONE. Credit: Reuters Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane Global have announced they plan on offering space weddings when their respective spaceplanes head to suborbital space, (Virgin Galactic hopes to begin their public flights to space in 2010) but for now, ZERO-G is the only way to experience true weightlessness without going to space.
Before starting a parabola, G-FORCE ONE flies level to the horizon at an altitude of 24,000 feet. The pilots then begins to pull up, gradually increasing the angle of the aircraft to about 45° to the horizon reaching an altitude of 34,000 feet. During this pull-up, passengers will feel the pull of 1.8 Gs. Next the plane is “pushed over” to create the zero gravity segment of the parabola. For the next 20-30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless. Next a gentle pull-out is started which allows the flyers to stabilize on the aircraft floor. This maneuver is repeated 12-15 times, each taking about ten miles of airspace to perform.
Fulmor and Finnegan are both space enthusiasts, and both wanted to be astronauts as children. Erin attended space camp in Michigan, while Noah volunteered at his local planetarium. Although they are currently living relatively earth-bound lives, the idea of space came up again following their engagement in 2008.
“When we started talking about marriage, Noah joked that we should have our wedding ‘in space,'” Erin said. “Although most girls would take this to mean Noah didn’t want to get married, I knew he was sincere, and that this was a serious request.” ZeroG_Wedding. Credit: ZERO-G
The wedding took place in the skies above Florida. ZERO-G has flights that depart from Bristow Air Center in Titusville, Florida, the Shuttle Landing Facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida and from the Signature Air Terminal at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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The “science book” by National Geographic shows just how ‘incredibly, unbelievably, immeasurably cool’ science is. With a format little changed from countless encyclopaedias, this book provides the reader with a huge expanse of our accumulated knowledge. From star shine to number systems and from behavioural patterns to fracture tectonics, it’s all science and it’s in this book.
This book is perfect as a scholastic reference. It’s clearly sectioned, topics are usually confined to individual pages and a plethora of coloured pictures and diagrams greatly aid a reader’s understanding. The book aims at covering a lot of content, so it has to sacrifice a bit on depth. Nevertheless, the page given to a topic provides current relevance, historical progress and issues for the future. Hence, the reader can easily discover the impact of science upon our forebearers and upon our lives today.
Perhaps surprisingly, the book stands on its own. It has no bibliography, suggested readings or recommendations for web sites. As well, the book is missing any references. So, we have to trust the source which is National Geographic. Given its pedigree, the content is likely accurate and current.
Yet, why would anyone want a book when the Internet is readily available to most schools? The best reason is that this book maintains the same level of detail throughout. Doing a search on the Internet can yield post graduate research papers as well as unreferenced blogs. However, with this book as a reference, there’s the same level of detail for every science topic it presents.
And science is a wonderful topic. With our continual advances, we’re able to fly higher, move faster and dig deeper than ever before. We can understand and better coexist with the life forms surrounding us on this planet and explore for life elsewhere. All this knowledge can easily be at your fingertips with National Geographic’s “the science book – everything you need to know about the world and how it works“.
Almost everyone who is familiar with space images has seen this beautiful and color emission and reflection nebula – but take a really close look. This isn’t a Hubble image. It was done with a ground based camera!
When looking at M20 through a telescope, what you will see won’t match the photo above, while what is normally presented in science journals is colorful. Why? Well, when it comes to photographs, exposure times and wavelengths causes the different colors you see. Photographically, the red emission nebula contained within Messier 20 has a bright blue star cluster in it central portion. It glows red because the ultraviolet light of the stars ionizes the hydrogen gas, which then recombines and emits the characteristic red hydrogen-alpha light captured on film. Further away, the radiation from these hot, young stars becomes too weak to ionize the hydrogen. Now the gas and dust glows blue by reflection!
Of course, there are other ways of looking at Messier objects, too. It was my great fortune on Saturday night to have an opportunity to study M20 through an image intensifier – a highly complex piece of equipment which uses x-rays and produces a ‘live’ image feed which is displayed on a binocular like eyepiece screen. I cannot even begin to describe to you what this does to observing, except to say that it opens a dimension to to eyes never before experienced. No matter how it is observed, the Trifid – or “three lobed” nebula has a distinctive set of dark dust lanes which divide it. These also have a classification of their own and were cataloged by E.E. Barnard as dark nebula Barnard 85 (B 85).
In 1999 the Hubble Space Telescope took this photograph – a look deep into the Trifid nebula at some of its star forming regions and found a stellar jet poking its way into the cloud, like a fabulous twisted antenna. Inside the exhaust column is a new star waiting to be born, yet sometime over the next 10,000 years the central massive star will probably erode away all of its material before it can fully form. Nearby a stalk stands waiting… Like the jet, it is also a stellar nursery – one with an EGG (evaporating gaseous globule) at its tip – a condensed cloud of gas able to survive so far. “If our interpretation is correct, the microjet may be the last gasp from a star that was cut off from its supply lines 100,000 years ago.” says Jeff Hester of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, “The vast majority of stars like our sun form not in isolation, but in the neighborhood of massive, powerful stars. HST observations of the Trifid Nebula provide a window on the nature of star formation in the vicinity of massive stars, as well as a spectacular snapshot of the “ecology” from which stars like our sun emerge.”
But, is it possible for those of us here on the ground to perform our own deep studies of regions of space like the Trifid Nebula? The answer is yes. Take a look at this small frame clipped from the full sized image you see above. While the colors haven’t been processed the same, those EGGs are there!
Trimarchi M20 EGGs
It’s a cinch that those of us that don’t have a multitude of titles behind our names are ever going to be allowed Hubble time… even at this late stage of the game. You know our findings will never be placed in the hallowed journals of science. But, why should the scientists be allowed to have all the fun? While images like Eddie’s might be considered “amateur”, it is anything but. While he’s chosen to reveal it in an artistic format, you must stop to think about how much information has been collected inside of his raw data. Unlike a simple film photograph, CCD imaging gathers huge amounts of information that’s processed out by what data is desired. “Velocity maps of the inner regions of the bright H II regions NGC 6514 were made with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution in the 5007 A line of forbidden O III. In addition to the advantages of an instrumental full width at half-maximum intensity of only 5.4 km/s, the small thermal width of the heavy oxygen ion also allows determination of accurate line widths and velocities.” says C.R. O’Dell (et al), “The CCD spectra were numerically fitted to Gaussian line profiles and revealed two separate velocity systems in NGC 6523. The data sets of radial velocities were used to derive the dependence of the most probable turbulent velocities upon the sample sizes, and the spatial dependence of the structure function. These relationships are the basic functions for comparison with the predictions of the models for turbulence in H II regions.”
To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Mr. Trimarchi’s picture wasn’t so much the huge revelation of all the Herbig-Haro objects – but a tiny, fine detail that you probably took for granted when you looked at it. Dust extinction… There’s a lot of very exiting things in that photograph, but there’s a detail he left in there that most other photographers filter out! The studies of C.R. O’Dell taught me to take a much closer look a certain properties in astrophotos, because I might see something that others missed, and in this case its a huge amount of dust extinction which he proved to exist around M20 many, many years ago. (Like back when my telescopes still had training wheels.)
Why are things like that important? In this circumstance, knowing there was more dust there than should have been lead to further investigations – and those in turn led to a discovery: “We report the discovery of a new candidate barrel-shaped supernova remnant (SNR) lying adjacent to M20 and two shell-type features to the north and east of SNR W28.” says F. Yusef-Zadeh (et al), ” Future observations should clarify whether the nonthermal shell fragment is either part of W20 or yet another previously unidentified shell-type SNR.”
Keep those cameras rolling… Who knows what we may find tomorrow?
Many thanks to Eddie Trimarchi of Southern Galactic for sharing this wonderul image with us!
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Hawaii beckons the weary winter resident who’s searching for some relaxing moments on soft beaches while gentle sounds drift across with the breeze. The Big Island, with its high peaks and occasional dustings of snow, seldom attracts the Honolulu-bound pleasure seekers. But Jean-Charles Cuillandre has made a cinematic symphony that has another Hawaii based way of connecting a person to the ethereal pleasures of our existence.
Entitled “Hawaiian Starlight –Exploring the Universe from Mauna Kea”, this DVD shares views and vantages from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Spectacular stills exhibit galaxies, star trails, asterisms and the occasional portion of the lunar surface. Simple transformations, whether rotating, enlarging or shrinking, give impressions of dynamism. Bright, almost startling, colours capture the attention and the viewer’s wonder. With views that continually change and a soundtrack that steadily supports and subtly thrills, the main feature of this DVD easily keeps viewers in awe.
The DVD makes the connection to Mauna Kea by including many clips created through judicious use of time-lapse cinematography. Great telescopes open and close their shutters in a blink of an eye. People dance along the periphery of roads while the trace of car lights fall from the top of the mountain like colourful red and yellow ribbons. And, if you like roiling, bubbling cloud tops, you’ll be entranced by the many such clips from the vantage of the top of the great volcano. Then, should you want more, a special feature slide show of ‘Hawaii’s natural beauty’ will take you well away from the stars and drop you amidst the vibrant flora and fauna that grace Hawaii.
Though so much of this DVD entertains as a vibrant visual treat, a few other special features add some science to the mix. Included amongst these are explanations of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, other nearby telescopes, the Mauna Kea volcano, and time-lapse cinematography. Yet, it’s difficult to draw oneself away from the shear beauty of the views so as to allow the technical details to slip in.
By dancing the views between twilight, night skies, deep star formation and mountain tops, this DVD keeps a viewer’s intrigue. The pace is good, though the chapter titles don’t seem to be particularly relevant. The same music plays throughout. It’s wonderfully appropriate but can feel repetitive by the end. And, there’s no annotation of what’s being looked at. Hence, enjoyment takes precedence over instruction. But, for pure enjoyment, this “Hawaiian Starlight –Exploring the Universe from Mauna Kea” DVD by Jean-Charles Cuillandre will expand your senses to vistas well beyond the surface of our wonderful world.
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Some of the best tourist discoveries occur off the beaten track. Plan to go somewhere, choose a fortuitous route and voila, a petite patch of paradise opens up in front of you. The same can be true for planning a night of star hunting. Dial coordinates into a ‘go-to’ satellite and you will immediately see your target, if all works well, but, you won’t see anything else. However, take “The Cambridge Double Star Atlas” by James Mullaney and Wil Tirion, then star-hop to your destination, and who knows what you will find.
By using this atlas, you should still easily find some choice targets. It’s a book aimed at the amateur astronomer and it well hits its mark. For starters, it’s in a very large format. Central to the book are 30 maps, each shown across two pages. These wonderfully laid out guideposts show the glow from the Milky Way equator, constellation boundaries, significant stars and, of course, the double stars themselves. And to ease the viewer along the way, many clusters, nebulae and galaxies also grace the pages. The typical but necessary coordinates surround the pages’ edges; right acension across the top and declanation along the sides. With this, and a red flashlight, star hopping should be a breeze.
The book also has a sampling of 133 of what the authors consider showpiece double and multiple stars. Hence with this, the reader can start by choosing a target, learning about its discovery, determine where it is shown in the atlas and then setup the hops to get the wonder into the eyepiece. And with descriptions like the “Easter Egg” double, seen as strking yellow and ruddy-purple or garnet jewels, the reader will quickly fall into the joy of viewing the variety and splendor of the night time spectacle.
Two final sections round out this great atlas. The first is a brief introductory section that shares the particular pleasures of viewing multiple star systems. Then, in Appendix C, there’s a listing of the Cambridge Double Start Atlas target list. These presumably include all the nearly 2,400 double and multpile stars of the nearly 25,000 stars plotted on the 30 maps. Most of these are purported to be viewable with typical “backyard” telescopes in the 2-inch to 4-inch range, so there’s no need to worry about not being able to see most of them.
So whether you’re on a star-finding challenge or a personal quest for striking images, “The Cambridge Double Star Atlas” by James Mullaney and Wil Tirion is a fabulous resource. Well laid out, fully detailed and insightfully described, it has the details to get you where you want to go and perhaps place you beside many other fabulous, fortuitous views.
Image from Spirit's front hazcam from sol 1940. Credit: NASA/JPL
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Here’s a rover update: Spirit remains stuck in her location on the west side of Home Plate, and work continues at JPL for testing on how to extract the rover from being embedded in soft soil. A rock may be underneath Spirit, keeping her from moving, but more images are being taken by the microscopic camera at the end of the robotic arm to try and determine exactly what is going on under and around the rover. But with a boosted power supply, Spirit has also been busy making scientific observations of her surroundings. And one more thing, which would be extremely fun, rover driver Scott Maxwell hinted on Twitter that Spirit has so much power now from a recent wind event that cleared off her solar panels that she may attempt to make overnight observations. So stay tuned for PANCAM images of the Martian night sky!
As of Sol 1932 (June 9, 2009), Spirit’s solar array energy production is at 828 watt-hours. Total odometry remains at 7,729.93 meters (4.80 miles).
Meanwhile over on the other side of the planet, Opportunity continues to drive south on the way to Endeavour crater. On Sol 1906 (June 4, 2009), the rover completed a 69-meter (266-foot) drive due south. Elevated actuator currents with the right-front wheel continue to cause concern. On Sol 1910 (June 8, 2009), the planned drive stopped early because a multi-wheel current limit threshold was exceeded. A diagnostic maneuver on the next sol was successful indicating the cause on the previous sol was due to the elevated right-front wheel motor currents. The view from Opportunity on sol 1912. Credit: NASA/JPL
A long, backward drive was performed on Sol 1912 (June 10, 2009). Driving backwards is one technique to mitigate the elevated wheel currents. However, wheel currents continued to be elevated after that 72-meter (236-foot) drive. Further resting of the rover’s actuators is being considered.
The plan ahead includes opening the shroud of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) to expose the instrument’s dust-contaminated elevation mirror to the environment. This is an attempt to allow the wind environment to clean dust off the mirror.
As of Sol 1912 (June 10, 2009), Opportunity’s solar array energy production is 431 watt-hours. Opportunity’s total odometry is 16,569.05 meters (10.3 miles).
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Millions of people visit Yellowstone National Park every year, but how many think about the fact that they’re standing on top of one of the largest volcano calderas on Earth? Within the last 17 million years, there have been more than 100 large eruptions within the Yellowstone caldera, and thousands of smaller lava flows and steam explosions. In fact, the last great Yellowstone eruption happened about 70,000 years ago, and it only seems like a matter of time before it all happens again. Don’t panic, though, geologists monitor Yellowstone carefully, and they don’t think any large eruptions will happen soon.
The Yellowstone calderas measures 55 km wide by 72 km long, and rises to an elevation of 3,142 meters at its tallest point – Mount Sheridan. The constant uprise of the region created a plateau where there used to be a mountain range. These eruptions and uplift helped create the eastern Snake River Plain.
In the last 17 million years, there have been 142 caldera-forming eruptions in Yellowstone. This is an eruption large enough that a significant amount of lava, ash or rock were released – usually as an explosive eruption. Three of these eruptions have been classified as “super eruptions”, where up to 2,500 cubic km of ash and rock exploded out of the volcano. Just for comparison, Mount St. Helens, which erupted in 1980, only released 1 cubic km of material… so 2,500 times that in a single eruption. One of these super eruptions would have devastated most of North America, and cooled the climate of planet Earth for decades. The oldest of these Yellowstone eruptions happened 2.1 million years ago, which created the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff. The next oldest happened 1.3 million years ago, and the most recent super eruption happened about 640,000 years ago.
And since that last super eruption, there have been numerous smaller (but still powerful eruptions) non-explosive eruptions. The most recent lava flow has been estimated to have occurred about 70,000 years ago, and a steam explosion created a 5-km crater 13,800 years ago. The only eruptions that happen at Yellowstone today are the numerous geothermal vents around the caldera. These mix with water to create the famous geysers, like Old Faithful. These geysers indicate that Yellowstone is still a very active region, and more eruptions are likely.
Geologists are continuing to monitor the Yellowstone caldera, including the speed at this the caldera floor is rising up. Like Hawaii, Yellowstone is created by a single volcanic hotspot located under the Earth. The North American Plate is slowly moving over top of the hotspot, creating a long chain of calderas. The current caldera in Wyoming is the current location of the hotspot. Geologists have measured that the caldera floor is rising upwards at almost 7 cm per year. Fortunately, they find no evidence that we’re due for another super Yellowstone eruption. Of course, these things are difficult to predict.
There’s good news ahead for dark sky supporters – a real prescription for light pollution. It’s called Resolution 516: Advocating and Support for Light Pollution Control Efforts and Glare Reduction for Both Public Safety and Energy Savings. What’s it all about and how did it turn out? Then step inside… Where it’s dark at last. Continue reading “Prescription For Light Pollution”
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Spend enough time with anything and it begins to acquire a personality beyond its mere physical presence. If your life relies upon that particular object, as with a pilot and their plane, then the intensity of the relationship increases even more. The consequence, as shown in the book “The NASA Northrop T-38, Photographic Art from an Astronaut Pilot” by Lance and Ann Lenehan and Story Musgrave, can be a step beyond simple observation and appreciation. It can be an exulting testimonial.
NASA uses the Northrop T-38 to train and maintain the skills of its astronauts. Given it’s been around for over 50 years and many astronauts have come, gone and continue to be at NASA, this plane has more than ample opportunity to show its worth. Also, as it remains the mainstay of the fleet, we can safely assume that it continues to faithfully fulfil its mandate. Lastly, given the typical high skill level of the personnel of the astronaut corp, there’s every expectation that the planes will be given the chance to shine, as happens in this book.
In brief then, this book contains a large collection of Story Musgrave’s photographs, either of the T-38 or from the T-38. The photographs are large, spanning either one or two pages. The images are crisp and the colours pronounced. A brief passage of text highlights the significance of the view and the impression that is trying to be relayed. Some, such as with the shuttle’s vehicle assembly building in the background, illustrate the close association with the space program. Others showing cloud formations and contrails relay the feeling of a pilot who’s living in a domain vastly different from us common pedestarians. Yet, all photographs seem to relay motion, sky and purpose. Even the few photos dedicated to the ground crew have a sense of preparation and direction. Given the book’s hundreds of pages, nearly every view of the T-38, and many vantage points of Earth, get their chance to sparkle.
This book would be a joy for those who have felt the tug of the sky’s attraction. Perhaps it could also further inflame the passion of a young, potential astronaut. As well, everyone who’s flown in or has been associated with the T-38 would appreciate the memories of this fine looking craft. However, with this book’s singular focus upon the T-38, people with a general interest might be mystified at the large number of similar looking photographs of the exact same type of plane. As well, many photographs seem to be included so as to highlight a photographic technique, such as lighting, background composition or perspective. This somewhat confuses the general direction of what otherwise is a magnficent testimonial of a flying machine.
Yet, the T-38 has very photogenic lines. Whether on the tarmac or silhouetted against clouds, it’s like a sleek, swift dart made for flight. As shown in “The NASA Northrop T-38, Photographic Art from an Astronaut Pilot” by Lance and Ann Lenehan and Story Musgrave, this craft is a capable flyer, a wonderful subject for photography and a great vantage point for capturing some natural artwork.
