Launch abort system mock-up for Orion hits the road. Credit: NASA
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Imagine driving along in your car, minding your own business and getting passed by this. It could happen to you this week. This is a 13.7 meter (45 feet) -long full-scale mock-up that’s part of the rocket assembly for the launch abort system for the new Orion crew exploration vehicle. The system hit the road on Tuesday, March 3, 2009, and is traveling from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to undergo the first flight tests of the system. The launch abort system will allow the astronaut crew to safely escape in the event of an emergency during launch.
The mock-up, also known as the LAS pathfinder, represents the size, outer shape and specific mass characteristics of Orion’s abort system. Artist's rendering of a Launch Abort System (LAS) in operation. Credit: Orbital
The real system will be composed of solid rocket motors, separation mechanisms, and an adapter structure to provide escape capability for the Orion crew from pad operations through ascent. The new design, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. is key in vastly improving the safety of the flight crew as compared to what the shuttle has.
In case you’re wondering, in the background are large, white vacuum spheres used at the hypersonic wind tunnel complex at Langley.
It’s Wednesday, so that means its time for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept is to name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for this image. Check back on Thursday so find the answer. Good luck!
UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. Don’t peek before you make your guess!
First of all, I owe everyone an apology, because a spacecraft didn’t take this image, it was an Earth-based telescope, the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ.
Hubble did take an image of the same object (which can be seen here) but its not the image above.
And what is this image? It shows a deep Hydrogen-alpha image of the brightest X-ray source in the sky, NGC 1275.
No one really knows exactly why or how these filaments emanating from the galaxy are produced, but they likely are the result of an interaction between the black hole in the center of the galaxy and the intracluster medium surrounding it. (The glowing background objects in this image are galaxies in that same galaxy cluster.)
At a distance of about 230 million light-years, this is the nearest example to Earth of such vast structures, which are seen surrounding the most massive galaxies throughout the Universe.
Its a very nifty image, that’s for sure , and yes, the Flying Spaghetti Monster does come to mind when looking at this! A few of you did say NGC 1275, and Jon Hanford actually got everything correct by saying the correct telescope, but I hope the rest of you didn’t get thrown off too much by my asking for the spaceraft– sorry, I got mixed up on which image I ended up using.
Thanks for playing, and check back again next week for another Where In The Universe Challenge.
Galileo’s first telescope was basically a tube containing two lenses, and was a three-power instrument. His next effort magnified objects approximately nine times. Now, you can have a Galileo-like experience, and view the things he saw looking through the “Galileoscope.” But the view will be much better. The Galileoscope, now on sale for the great price of $15 each USD (or less — see below), is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy, aiming to promote astronomical observing. These scopes are high quality, easy-to-assemble and easy-to-use. Order one or a ton at the Galileoscope website.
Galileoscopes are available for US $15 per kit. Discounts are available for group purchases of 100 or more, bringing the price down to US$12.50 each, reducing costs for schools, colleges, astronomical societies, or even parties of interested individuals.
Remember the first time you looked through a telescope? Consider sharing that experience by donating Galileoscopes to less-advantaged schools or organizations. Donating increases the project’s global impact and gives people who might otherwise never have the opportunity to look through a telescope the chance to join millions of skywatchers worldwide in a shared experience of astronomical discovery. Find out more about donating at the Galileoscope website.
The Galileoscope is a professionally endorsed scientific instrument, developed by astronomers, optical engineers and science educators to make the wonders of the night sky more accessible to everyone. Orders can now be placed through www.galileoscope.org for delivery beginning in late April.
The Galileoscope is a high quality 50-mm f/10 telescope, with a glass doublet achromatic objective. A 0-mm Plossl-like eyepiece with twin plastic doublet achromatic lens gives a magnification of 25x across a 1.5-degree field, and a 2x Barlow lens (also a plastic doublet achromat) gives a magnification of 50x. The Barlow lens can also be used as a Galilean eyepiece to give a magnification of 17x and a very narrow field of view to simulate the “Galileo experience”. The standard 1.25-inch focuser accepts commercial accessories.
Artist's conception of the binary supermassive black hole system. Credit P. Marenfeld, NOAO
Artist's conception of the binary supermassive black hole system. Credit P. Marenfeld, NOAO
Paired black holes are theorized to be common, but have escaped detection — until now.
Astronomers Todd Boroson and Tod Lauer, from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona, have found what looks like two massive black holes orbiting each other in the center of one galaxy. Their discovery appears in this week’s issue of Nature.
Astronomers have long suspected that most large galaxies harbor black holes at their center, and that most galaxies have undergone some kind of merger in their lifetime. But while binary black hole systems should be common, they have proved hard to find. Boroson and Lauer believe they’ve found a galaxy that contains two black holes, which orbit each other every 100 years or so. They appear to be separated by only 1/10 of a parsec, a tenth of the distance from Earth to the nearest star.
After a galaxy forms, it is likely that a massive black hole can also form at its center. Since many galaxies are found in cluster of galaxies, individual galaxies can collide with each other as they orbit in the cluster. The mystery is what happens to these central black holes when galaxies collide and ultimately merge together. Theory predicts that they will orbit each other and eventually merge into an even larger black hole.
“Previous work has identified potential examples of black holes on their way to merging, but the case presented by Boroson and Lauer is special because the pairing is tighter and the evidence much stronger,” wrote Jon Miller, a University of Michigan astronomer, in an accompanying editorial.
The material falling into a black hole emits light in narrow wavelength regions, forming emission lines which can be seen when the light is dispersed into a spectrum. The emission lines carry the information about the speed and direction of the black hole and the material falling into it. If two black holes are present, they would orbit each other before merging and would have a characteristic dual signature in their emission lines. This signature has now been found.
The smaller black hole has a mass 20 million times that of the sun; the larger one is 50 times bigger, as determined by the their orbital velocities.
Boroson and Lauer used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a 2.5-meter (8-foot) diameter telescope at Apache Point in southern New Mexico to look for this characteristic dual black hole signature among 17,500 quasars.
Quasars are the most luminous versions of the general class of objects known as active galaxies, which can be a hundred times brighter than our Milky Way galaxy, and powered by the accretion of material into supermassive black holes in their nuclei. Astronomers have found more than 100,000 quasars.
Boroson and Lauer had to eliminate the possibility that they were seeing two galaxies, each with its own black hole, superimposed on each other. To try to eliminate this superposition possibility, they determined that the quasars were at the same red-shift determined distance and that there was a signature of only one host galaxy.
“The double set of broad emission lines is pretty conclusive evidence of two black holes,” Boroson said. “If in fact this were a chance superposition, one of the objects must be quite peculiar.One nice thing about this binary black hole system is that we predict that we will see observable velocity changes within a few years at most.We can test our explanation that the binary black hole system is embedded in a galaxy that is itself the result of a merger of two smaller galaxies, each of which contained one of the two black holes.”
LEAD IMAGE CAPTION (more): Artist’s conception of the binary supermassive black hole system. Each black hole is surrounded by a disk of material gradually spiraling into its grasp, releasing radiation from x-rays to radio waves.The two black holes complete an orbit around their center of mass every 100 years, traveling with a relative velocity of 6000 kilometers (3,728 miles) per second. (Credit P. Marenfeld, NOAO)
SN 2009ab as seen by the AlbaNova Telescope in Stockholm, Sweden. Credit: Magnus Persson, Robert Cumming and Genoveva Micheva/Stockholm University
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SN 2009ab as seen by the AlbaNova Telescope in Stockholm, Sweden. Credit: Magnus Persson, Robert Cumming and Genoveva Micheva/Stockholm University
Have you ever discovered a supernova? Well, I haven’t, but I can only imagine finding a star that has blown itself to smithereens must be pretty exciting. At least that’s what I thought, anyway….
Seemingly, a fair amount of folks must be out there who have found supernovae. In 2008 alone, 278 supernovae were found, one by a 14-year old girl. But 2008 was a really slow year in the supernova department. In 2007, 584 were discovered – a record number – and in 2006, 557 supernovae were spied by astronomers, both professional and amateur. 40 have been found so far in 2009. But even with those fairly big numbers, I still gotta believe that finding a supernova must be absolutely incredible. So when someone I knew, Robert Cumming from Stockholm University in Sweden, recently played a part in finding a supernova, I emailed him my congratulations. Imagine my surprise when he replied, “It’s no big deal, really.”
But Robert, it’s a SUPERNOVA!
I had heard of Scandinavian stoicism, but this was off the charts! Besides that, I knew Robert is not originally from Sweden.
So, I begged him to tell me all about it.
“Well, since you ask,” he said with a smile. Okay, maybe, just maybe he was more excited than he was letting on. Robert Cumming.
Here’s the story of how Supernova 2009ab was discovered:
“I’ve observed a few supernovae before and I’ve had my name on the odd IAU circular, but this is the first time I’ve been one of the first to actually confirm one,” said Robert, with just a hint of excitement in his voice.
On February 8, the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), a 30-inch fully robotic telescope at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton in California discovered a bright spot not seen before in the outskirts of the spiral galaxy UGC 2998, 150 million light years away. Astronomers from KAIT wanted to make a second observation to verify, but bad weather made it impossible for them to confirm that the new object was not an asteroid or instrumental error. So, the KAIT astronomers requested observations from other telescopes around the world.
Magnus Persson, also from the Stockholm University was getting ready to do some observations using the University’s AlbaNova Telescope, when Robert received an email from KAIT about needing confirmation observations. AlbaNova Telescope. Credit: Teresa Riehm/Stockholm University.
“I knew Magnus was going to be observing – he was planning to take some pictures of the Crab nebula for a colleague,” said Robert. “And I had this mail from the KAIT in California.”
So, the two set to work in an effort to locate the possible supernova.
Robert and Persson used different filters and took a few images of galaxy UGC 2998. “The supernova was right there on our first 45-second exposure – we were kind of amazed!” he said.
The two astronomers from Sweden were able to establish that the new light source showed all the signs of being a supernova. The supernova shines in a blue color, in contrast to the stars in the galaxy which are generally old and red, and the other stars in the image which lie in our galaxy. Shortly after the explosion, such a supernova emits as much energy as the entire host galaxy.
“We did the observations properly, and then I picked the best data to make very rough photometry, got comparison magnitudes from Gregor Dusczanowicz, Sweden’s amateur supernova discoverer, talked to a colleague to check we hadn’t forgotten anything important, and mailed off the measurements to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams.”
Other telescopes have now observed SN 2009ab, but the AlbaNova telescope was the first to successfully take images and confirm it as a new supernova. The following day, astronomers on the Canary Islands took a spectrum using the considerably bigger Telescopio Nationale Galileo and were able to determine the supernova was of type Ia, that is a white dwarf star which had exploded in a binary system. As Magnus’ and Robert’s confirmation was published in an astronomical telegram, the new supernova was named SN 2009ab, this year’s 28th supernova.
It’s also the story of a new telescope in an unlikely location being used to make new and exciting — yes exciting –discoveries. The Stockholm University Department of Astronomy uses the AlbaNova telescope, a 1-meter reflector, mainly for education and instrumental development. Robert said the plan is to use the telescope to do environmental monitoring, using LIDAR to monitor ozone and particle pollution in the city.
But Robert said the discovery of the supernova shows it is also possible to do scientifically interesting astronomical observations with the telescope, despite the limitations from Stockholm’s bad weather and light pollution. The AlbaNova Observatory in Stockholm. Credit: Magnus Näslund/Stockholm University
“Our site is right in the city, so our sky brightness is scary. So far we haven’t measured just how bad it is, so it was a really nice surprise to get something out of it,” he said.
“The telescope is still pretty new, and with the Stockholm weather lately the experience of observing at all is pretty exciting,” Robert said. “And it is exciting that the telescope is now in full use. If we can do observations like these, we can do much more.”
So finally, I got Robert to admit he was excited. But the Scandinavian modesty and stoicism quickly returned.
This sequence of three images, obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft over the course of about 10 minutes, shows the path of a newly found moonlet in a bright arc of Saturn's faint G ring. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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Saturn’s G ring has been the ring without a moon, until now. In trying to understand the mysterious G ring, Cassini scientists have taken every opportunity they can to take a closer look at what could be creating the ring. In 2007, scientists identified a possible source of the G ring as relatively large, icy particles that resided within a bright arc on the ring’s inner edge. But the researchers thought there had to be more than just these particles “shepherding” the ring, and concluded that there had to be larger, yet-unseen bodies hiding in the arc. Their persistence has now paid off, as a small moonlet has been found within the ring. “Before Cassini, the G ring was the only dusty ring that was not clearly associated with a known moon, which made it odd,” said Matthew Hedman, a Cassini imaging team associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “The discovery of this moonlet, together with other Cassini data, should help us make sense of this previously mysterious ring.” The sequence of three images above, obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft over the course of about 10 minutes, shows the path of the moonlet in a bright arc of Saturn’s faint G ring.
Cassini imaging scientists analyzing all the images acquired over the course of about 600 days found the tiny moonlet, about a half a kilometer (about a third of a mile) across, embedded within a partial ring, or ring arc, previously found by Cassini in Saturn’s tenuous G ring.
Scientists imaged the moonlet on Aug. 15, 2008, and then they confirmed its presence by finding it in two earlier images. They have since seen the moonlet on multiple occasions, most recently on Feb. 20, 2009. The moonlet is too small to be resolved by Cassini’s cameras, so its size cannot be measured directly. However, Cassini scientists estimated the moonlet’s size by comparing its brightness to another small Saturnian moon, Pallene.
Hedman and his collaborators also have found that the moonlet’s orbit is being disturbed by the larger, nearby moon Mimas, which is responsible for keeping the ring arc together.
This brings the number of Saturnian ring arcs with embedded moonlets found by Cassini to three. The new moonlet may not be alone in the G ring arc. Previous measurements with other Cassini instruments implied the existence of a population of particles, possibly ranging in size from 1 to 100 meters (about three to several hundred feet) across. “Meteoroid impacts into, and collisions among, these bodies and the moonlet could liberate dust to form the arc,” said Hedman.
Saturn’s rings were named in the order they were discovered. Working outward they are: D, C, B, A, F, G and E. The G ring is one of the outer diffuse rings. Within the faint G ring there is a relatively bright and narrow, 250-kilometer-wide (150-miles) arc of ring material, which extends 150,000 kilometers (90,000 miles), or one-sixth of the way around the ring’s circumference. The moonlet moves within this ring arc. Previous Cassini plasma and dust measurements indicated that this partial ring may be produced from relatively large, icy particles embedded within the arc, such as this moonlet.
Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member and professor at Queen Mary, University of London, said, “The moon’s discovery and the disturbance of its trajectory by the neighboring moon Mimas highlight the close association between moons and rings that we see throughout the Saturn system. Hopefully, we will learn in the future more about how such arcs form and interact with their parent bodies.”
Early next year, Cassini’s camera will take a closer look at the arc and the moonlet. The Cassini Equinox mission, an extension of the original four-year mission, is expected to continue until fall of 2010.
Trio of galaxies. Image credit: NASA, ESA and R. Sharples (University of Durham, U.K.)
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Is this an image of two galaxies? Actually, its three interacting galaxies that are locked in a gravitational tug-of-war. The give and take going on here may eventually tear at least one galaxy apart, and someday the three will likely merge into one super-large galaxy. This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys allows astronomers to view the movement of gases from galaxy to galaxy, and already, strong tidal interaction surging through the galaxies has dragged a significant number of stars away from their original homes.
The three galaxies are about 100 million light-years away, in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish). The three pictured galaxies — NGC 7173 (middle left), NCG 7174 (middle right) and NGC 7176 (lower right) — are part of the Hickson Compact Group 90, named after astronomer Paul Hickson, who first catalogued these small clusters of galaxies in the 1980s.
NGC 7173 and NGC 7176 appear to be smooth, normal elliptical galaxies without much gas and dust. In stark contrast, NGC 7174 is a mangled spiral galaxy, barely clinging to independent existence as it is ripped apart by its close neighbors. Stars are being moved away from their original locations, and are now spread out, forming a tenuous luminous component in the galaxy group.
Ultimately, astronomers believe that the stars in NGC 7174 will be redistributed into a giant ‘island universe’, tens to hundreds of times as massive as our own Milky Way.
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NASA asked the public to vote on where they want the Hubble Space Telescope to be pointed in the “Hubble, You Decide” contest. Nearly 140,000 votes were cast online to help decide. And the winner is: a pair of interacting galaxies that look like they are hugging. Called Arp 274 (from the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies) these two galaxies won over five other celestial candidates. The Hubble observations will be taken during the International Year of Astronomy’s “100 Hours of Astronomy,” taking place April 2 – 5. The full-color galaxy image will be released publicly during that time.
Drawn together by their gravity, the two galaxies are starting to interact. The spiral shapes of these galaxies are mostly intact, but evidence can be seen of the gravitational distortions they are creating within each other. When galaxies interact and merge together, the gas clouds inside them often form tremendous numbers of new stars.
According to NASA: “The new picture of Arp 274 promises to reveal intriguing never-before-seen details in the galactic grand slam.”
We’ll be sure to post the image when it is released.
The latest Carnival of Space is so big, it takes two posts to fit everything in! Or as Mike over at The Launch Pad said, (home of Carnival #92) there’s the Carnival and then the Sideshow.
Artist’s impression of how the surface of Pluto might look, if patches of pure methane rest on the surface. At the distance of Pluto, the Sun appears about 1,000 times fainter than on Earth. Credit: ESO
Artist’s impression of how the surface of Pluto might look, if patches of pure methane rest on the surface. At the distance of Pluto, the Sun appears about 1,000 times fainter than on Earth. Credit: ESO
Pluto is certainly frigid, but new research has revealed its atmosphere is a bit warmer.
Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in Pluto’s atmosphere, which evidently helps it stay about 40 degrees warmer than the dwarf planet’s surface. The atmosphere warms to -180 degrees Celsius (-356 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to a surface that’s usually -220 degrees Celsius (-428 degrees Fahrenheit).
“With lots of methane in the atmosphere, it becomes clear why Pluto’s atmosphere is so warm,” said Emmanuel Lellouch of the Observatoire de Paris in France. Lellouch is lead author of the paper reporting the results, which is in press at the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Pluto, which is about a fifth the size of Earth, is composed primarily of rock and ice and orbits about 40 times further from the Sun than the Earth.
It has been known since the 1980s that Pluto also has a thin, tenuous atmosphere. Abundant nitrogen, along with traces of methane and probably carbon monoxide, are held to the surface by an atmospheric pressure only about one hundred thousandth of that on Earth, or about 0.015 millibars. As Pluto moves away from the Sun, during its 248 year-long orbit, its atmosphere gradually freezes and falls to the ground. In periods when it is closer to the Sun — as it is now — the temperature of Pluto’s solid surface increases, causing the ice to sublimate into gas.
Until recently, only the upper parts of the atmosphere of Pluto could be studied. By observing stellar occultations, a phenomenon that occurs when a Solar System body blocks the light from a background star, astronomers were able to demonstrate that Pluto’s upper atmosphere was some 50 degrees warmer than the surface. Those observations couldn’t shed any light on the atmospheric temperature and pressure near Pluto’s surface. But unique, new observations made with the CRyogenic InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES), attached to ESO’s Very Large Telescope, have now revealed that the atmosphere as a whole, not just the upper atmosphere, has a mean temperature much less frigid than the surface.
Usually, air near the surface of the Earth is warmer than the air above it, largely because the atmosphere is heated from below as solar radiation warms the Earth’s surface, which, in turn, warms the layer of the atmosphere directly above it. Under certain conditions, this situation is inverted so that the air is colder near the surface of the Earth. Meteorologists call this an inversion layer, and it can cause smog build-up.
Most, if not all, of Pluto’s atmosphere is thus undergoing a temperature inversion: the temperature is higher, the higher in the atmosphere you look. The change is about 3 to 15 degrees per kilometer (.62 miles). On Earth, under normal circumstances, the temperature decreases through the atmosphere by about 6 degrees per kilometer.
The reason why Pluto’s surface is so cold is linked to the existence of Pluto’s atmosphere, and is due to the sublimation of the surface ice; much like sweat cools the body as it evaporates from the surface of the skin, this sublimation has a cooling effect on the surface of Pluto.
The CRIRES observations also indicate that methane is the second most common gas in Pluto’s atmosphere, representing half a percent of the molecules. “We were able to show that these quantities of methane play a crucial role in the heating processes in the atmosphere and can explain the elevated atmospheric temperature,” said Lellouch.
Two different models can explain the properties of Pluto’s atmosphere. In the first, the astronomers assume that Pluto’s surface is covered with a thin layer of methane, which will inhibit the sublimation of the nitrogen frost. The second scenario invokes the existence of pure methane patches on the surface.
“Discriminating between the two will require further study of Pluto as it moves away from the Sun,” says Lellouch. “And of course, NASA’s New Horizons space probe will also provide us with more clues when it reaches the dwarf planet in 2015.”
LEAD IMAGE CAPTION: Artist’s impression of how the surface of Pluto might look, if patches of pure methane rest on the surface. At the distance of Pluto, the Sun appears about 1,000 times fainter than on Earth. Credit: ESO
