Universe Today

February 20, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Help NASA Name the Next ISS Module

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The next module for the International Space Station needs a name; something with a little more pizazz than its current appellation, Node 3. NASA is seeking opinions and suggestions for new names, for the component – a connecting module and its cupola, targeted to launch in December 2009. The cupola looks very cool, almost like a starship bridge – with six rectangular windows and one circular window overhead, providing a panoramic view that will be unrivaled by any other spacecraft ever flown. Node 3 itself will connect to the port side of the Unity Node and will provide room for many of the station’s life support systems. NASA has a few names picked out, so you can vote for those, or suggest your own designation. NASA says the name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony. Here are the choices so far:

Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, Venture, or, suggest another name.

Voting/suggesting is open until March 20 here.

More about Node 3:

Space shuttle Endeavour will deliver the Node 3 components during the STS-130 mission, currently schedule for December 2009. Once the cupola is attached to one of the module’s six ports, it will offer astronauts a spectacular view of both their home planet and their home in space. Aside from providing a perfect location to observe and photograph the Earth, the cupola also will contain a robotics workstation, where astronauts will be able to control the station’s giant robotic arm.

After Node 3 is installed, the station’s crew will transfer over many of the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) currently stored in various places around the station, including:

The Oxygen Generation System (OGS), which takes the station’s water and splits it apart into hydrogen, which gets vented into space, and oxygen, which is returned into the cabin for the crew to breathe
Atmosphere Revitalization System (ARS), which controls the station’s carbon dioxide levels and maintains the temperature and atmospheric pressure at comfortable levels.

The Water Recovery System (WRS) and Urine Processor Assembly (UPA), which take waste water from the station’s shower and toilets and purify it, separating any contaminants and making it safe for the crew to drink.

The Waste and hygiene compartment, which provides a place for the crew to shower and use the bathroom in a way that allows the station to process the majority of the water used onboard so that it may be used again, greatly lessening the need for resupply flights from Earth.

NASA and its station partners traditionally have named each habitable part of the station, including its three laboratories (the U.S lab- Destiny, the European lab- Columbus, and the Japanese lab- Kibo or Hope), two airlocks (Quest and Pirs), and two Russian-built modules (Zvezda or Star, and Zarya or Dawn).

Source: NASA

February 20, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Funds Development of Mars Balloon

Shielded Mars Balloon Launcher (SMBL) deployment sequence. Credit: Aurora Flight Services

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A future Mars mission could include instruments attached to balloons, providing the capability to study places where rovers can’t go, while offering a closer look than orbiting satellites. NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Aurora Flight Sciences and its partner Vertigo Inc, to develop an autonomous balloon launcher to operate from the surface of Mars. Aurora is looking to develop a compact lightweight system that could be included on future Mars landers, augmenting the mission with a small aerial vehicle. Such a system would have potential for atmospheric sampling and video data capture unavailable on current Mars missions.

Balloon-based Mars exploration has the capability to cover a larger portion of the Martian surface than is accessible via a rover and to provide better resolution than is available from satellites. Balloons could be used to measure atmospheric data at different altitudes and locations on Mars.

“A major challenge to ground deployment is the possibility of the envelope being damaged by winds, surrounding rocks, or parts of the associated lander,” said the project’s manager, George Kiwada. “Our Shielded Mars Balloon Launcher (SMBL) concept addresses this challenge by using inflatable structures to provide a safe environment for balloon inflation and deployment.”

Balloons have been flying for decades in Earth’s stratosphere, which has an atmosphere as thin as that on the surface of Mars. Conventional stratospheric balloons have lifetimes limited to a few days because of the daily heating and cooling of the balloon. Helium superpressure balloons, currently under development for the Ultra Long Duration Balloon (ULDB), will fly more than 100 days and perhaps as long as a year. Smaller superpressure balloons carrying payloads of only a few kilograms have already flown for as long as a year.

Aurora’s has done previous work with NASA on the development of a Mars airplane. In that project, Aurora became familiar with the challenges of aerial vehicle operations in the Martian atmosphere.

Source: Aurora Flight Sciences

February 20, 2009December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Weekend SkyWatcher’s Forecast – February 20-22, 2009

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for one awesome weekend? Then let’s enjoy the dark skies as we take on a wide variety of challenges. For those who just use their eyes, this is a great time to spot Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and the New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms. Need more? For binoculars we have open star clusters and bright comets. Still more? Then get out your telescope and dust off your eyepieces and let’s see how good you are as we take on some challenges! Whenever you’re ready, I’ll see you in the back yard….

Friday, February 20, 2009 – On this date in 1962, John Glenn was rocketing around Earth on his first orbit as our friends ‘‘down under’’ made history. Residents of Perth, Australia, simultaneously switched on lights as Glenn flew over—the first city spotted from space! If you’re out tonight as the Sun sets, be sure to take a look along the western horizon for the first bright “star” to appear. That’s not a star – that’s Venus! Today in 1996 also marks the discovery of Sakurai’s Object, a star in collapse.While studying Sagittarius and photographing what appeared to be a typical nova, Yukio Sakurai became only the third twentieth-century astronomer to witness a star in final helium flash. When this occurs, the star is switching its nuclear fuel from hydrogen to helium and then burning the helium to carbon in the final stage, burping forth an envelope from its interior.

Let’s examine an open cluster where stars have gone through this same evolutionary step. Begin by identifying Delta Geminorum and hop a fist-width east for open cluster NGC 2420 (RA 07 38 23 Dec +21 34 24). This magnitude 8.5 group is visible under dark-sky conditions to binoculars as a weak, round, hazy patch and requires a mid-sized telescope to begin resolution of its long, looping chains of stars.

Some members are similar to Sakurai’s Object, while others have evolved to helium depletion. Studying clusters like NGC 2420 is important: they are areas where stars are all about the same age, yet their different masses mean they evolve at different rates. Average telescopes will only see the primary stars, while large aperture notices the distinct glow of hundreds of stars on the verge of resolution. If you get the impression of a weak globular cluster, you’d be correct. With a thousand members packed into a
30-light-year sphere, a lot has happened during its 1.7-billion-year lifetime. It may have started in our own galaxy’s cluster-forming region and been thrown clear by an encounter with a large mass. Or, it might have once been part of a smaller galaxy absorbed by our own. But one thing is clear: its unusual Sun-like elements—so far from where they belong—make NGC 2420 a prime playground for study. Some of its members could even be blue stragglers—unions of two stars into one!

Saturday, February 21, 2009 – This day in 1972, Luna 20 made a safe touchdown in the Apollonius highlands, where it captured 30 grams of surface material to return to Earth. The Moon will make a very scenic appearance in the pre-dawn skies and be visible for several hours after the Sun rises. Take time to show others its position as you walk to work or school, and explain its movement away from the Sun from our viewpoint. How long does the Moon remain visible as the sky brightens? This pretty visage is often called the “New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms”.

Got comet? Well, why the heck not? If you thought Comet Lulin was easy to find a week ago, it’s even easier to find now. The chart you see here was generated for position for the morning of Friday, February 20th – and Lulin will continue its course towards a future rendezvous with Saturn on Monday, February 23rd. With almost no Moon to contend with in the early morning sky (and if you get up early enough, you can easily observe before the Moon rises), 6th magnitude C/2007 N3 is so close to being visible to the unaided eye that even the smallest of binoculars will pick this elongated round fuzzy right out of the sky. Don’t wait until it meets up with Saturn to take a look at this 38 million mile traveler from the Oort Cloud – instead, try tracking it for several days. Lulin is sufficiently bright enough to been seen even from an urban setting and the bright “guide posts” of Spica and Saturn are easy markers.

Tonight we’ll study an object of many names: Melotte 25, Collinder 50, and Caldwell 41, a star cluster so bright it doesn’t require a telescope. At 150 light-years away, the Hyades is the nearest gathering of stars to our Solar System that can be seen as a cluster. So, where is it? First, look at Aldebaran…

With the exception of this 60-light year-distant orange giant, almost all the stars around it are moving toward a point slightly east of Betelgeuse. The 790 million-year-old central mass spreads over a 10 light-year area, while outlying stars could stretch as far as 80 light-years. Aim binoculars its way and be blown away by a rich field of stars! Even with minimum magnification you’ll split the brightest member of the Hyades, the twin Sigma pair. They’ll appear close to the same magnitude and distance to the eye, but only the northernmost belongs to the Hyades moving cluster. Power up with a telescope. You’ll discover a wealth of other doubles and delightful color combinations in this much under-visited treat!

Now, I’ll appeal to the more advanced stargazer. Begin at the border of Orion and locate 8 Monoceros. We’re hunting for an odd star cluster called Dolidze 22 (RA 06 23 06 Dec +04 40 55). Although there’s no great scientific reason to observe this sparse open cluster, it’s an exercise aimed at sharpening your skills. To date, no data exist on the cluster’s true distance or age.

When you’ve noted your study, move about 2 degrees south and identify Collinder 91 (RA 06 21 42 Dec +02 22 00). Again, a loose, star-poor collection, essentially unstudied except for association. Why choose these two objects instead of brighter ones? Learning to visually understand a group relationship among stars is a skill Sir William Herschel had naturally, but one that can only be developed by most of us with a lot of practice. As Herschel once said:

‘‘The phenomena of nature, especially those that fall under the inspection of the astronomer, are to be viewed not only with the usual attention to facts as they occur, but with the eye of reason and experience.’’

Sunday, February 22, 2009 – If you’re up before dawn, look for the relatively close pairing of the waning Moon and Jupiter. Try using the Moon’s position to see how long you can still spot the bright planet as the sky turns blue!

When the Sun has risen, salute the 1824 birth of Pierre Janssen, the first to devise a method for observing solar prominences. With a spectroscope, he proved the solar chromosphere is gaseous in nature and reported a helium spectral line. Janssen was also the first to record surface granulation via photography and published his own illustrated solar atlas in the year 1904.

In 1966, Kosmos 110 launched its canine crew, Veterok and Ugolyok, into space history. Tonight let’s look at a celestial dog as we turn to Canis Minor. A large portion of the constellation is only viewable from the Southern Hemisphere, and most of its brighter stars hide below the horizon for the north. Look for an arch of four fairly bright stars to the east of Canis Major. The second from the east is Xi Puppis. Aim telescopes or binoculars just north of Xi (RA 07 44 36 Dec -23 52 00) for M93.

This bright open cluster is a rich concentration of stars of various magnitudes, which explodes in sprays of stellar fireworks in the eyepiece of a large telescope. Spanning 18–22 light-years and residing 3,400 light-years away, M93 contains blue giants and lovely golds. Janssen would have been very proud to know it’s been studied spectroscopically and contains many Sun-like stars! M93 is the last object personally discovered by Messier, who described it as ‘‘A cluster of small stars without nebulosity.’’ Did he realize that the light left during the reign of Ramses III? Or that this celestial gathering was 100 million years old? Did Messier realize it was forming about the time Earth’s landmasses were breaking up, dinosaurs ruled, and the first mammals and birds were evolving? Although H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is a work of fiction (published on this date in 1895), each time we view light through a telescope we take a journey back across time itself.

Now, let’s time-travel back 5,000 years as we head for NGC 2392. Located about two fingerwidths southeast of Delta Geminorum (RA 07 29 10 Dec +20 54 42), this beauty is a planetary nebula commonly known as the ‘‘Eskimo.’’ Discovered in 1787 by Sir William Herschel, a small telescope will see it as a fuzzy green star, while aperture will reveal definite annulus around its central stellar point. A steady night helps to reveal details, and a nebula filter lights it up! NGC 2392 is so complex that it is not yet fully understood. We know the glowing gases are the outer layers of its central star, shed 10,000 years ago, while the inner ribbons of light (called filaments) are areas where particles are being pushed away by the strong stellar wind. Even now, we still can’t quite explain the unusual outer filaments! It won’t look like a Hubble image in your telescope, but you can still marvel at a unique mystery—seeing its light as it was when the first ‘‘physicists’’ began using the first ‘‘computer’’—the newly invented abacus!

Now, don’t forget… Before the dawn arrives, Comet Lulin will meet with Saturn! Because the comet doesn’t stop moving and we all live in different time zones, the position will be slightly different for each observer around the world, but the Universal Date you’ve been waiting for is about to happen….

Until next week? Dreams really do come true when you keep on reaching for the stars!

This week’s awesome images are: Sakurai’s Object (press release photo), NGC 2420 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), New Moon in Old Moon’s Arms – Jarle Aasland (APOD), Comet Locator Chart (credit – Chris Peet, courtesy of Heavens-above.com), Illustration of the Hyades Cluster (generated image), Area of Sigma 1 and Sigma 2 Tauri (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), Dolidze 22 and Collinder 91 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), Pierre Janssen (historical image), M93 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech) and NGC 2392 (credit—Hubble Space Telescope). We thank you so much!

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Kaguya Captures Eclipse — From the Moon

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse as seen from the Moon. Credit: JAXA

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Here’s something you don’t see everyday. In fact, this is the first time this has ever been seen. On Feb. 10 Japan’s Kaguya spacecraft in orbit around the moon successfully took an image of a penumbral lunar eclipse. That’s the Earth passing in front of the sun, as seen from the Moon. From the Moon! The image was taken just at the moment when the Earth covered up most of the sun, creating a diamond ring effect. If we’re lucky on Earth, we can see this effect in a solar eclipse, when the Moon blocks the Sun as seen from Earth. Here, Earth’s atmosphere is lit up by the sun, creating the ring and just enough sunlight is sneaking by on one side of the Earth, creating the diamond. Sensational! Plus, there’s a movie of the eclipse, too!

A penumbral lunar eclipse is a phenomenon in which the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in tandem, and the moon is in the Earth’s penumbra, or, when you look from the Moon, the Sun is partially covered by the Earth (partial eclipse.) When the phenomenon occurs, the volume of light from the Sun to the Moon decreases, making the Moon’s surface look darker when you see it from the Earth.

The Bad Astronomer waxes eloquently about the event, so give him a visit.

Source: JAXA

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

NASA’s Kepler Mission Ready for Launch

Technicians working inside the Astrotech Space Operations facility near NASA's Kennedy Space Center look over the Kepler spacecraft soon after it arrived in Florida in preparation for launch. Image credit: NASA/Tim Jacobs

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NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is ready to be moved to the launch pad today and will blast off within weeks, with a mission to address an age-old question: Are we alone?

Kepler is scheduled to blast into space from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a Delta II rocket on March 5 at 10:48 p.m. eastern time (7:48 p.m. Pacific). It is the first mission with the ability to find planets like Earth — rocky planets that orbit sun-like stars in a warm zone where liquid water could be maintained on the surface. If Earth-sized and slightly larger planets are as common around other stars as some astronomers suspect, Kepler could spy hundreds of them within the next few years.

If so, “life may well be common throughout our universe,” said William Borucki, NASA’s principal investigator for Kepler science, who spoke about the mission Thursday afternoon at a NASA press conference. “If on the other hand we don’t find any, that will be another profound discovery. In fact it will mean there will be no Star Trek.”

The Kepler mission will spend three and a half years surveying more than 100,000 sun-like stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy. Its telescope is specially designed to detect the periodic dimming of stars that planets cause as they pass by. Some star systems are oriented in such a way that their planets cross in front of their stars, as seen from our Earthly point of view. As the planets pass by, they cause their stars’ light to slightly dim, or wink.

The telescope can detect even the faintest of these winks, registering changes in brightness of only 20 parts per million. To achieve this resolution, Kepler will use the largest camera ever launched into space, a 95-megapixel array of charged couple devices, known as CCDs.

“If Kepler were to look down at a small town on Earth at night from space, it would be able to detect the dimming of a porch light as somebody passed in front,” James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a press release. During the briefing he added that the resolution is “akin to measuring a flea as it creeps across the headlight of an automobile at night. That’s the level of precision we have to achieve.”

Fanson added that Kepler, at a cost of about $500 million, is “the most complex piece of space flight hardware ever built” by the Boulder, Colorado-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

The exoplanet research field has already proven exciting, Borucki said. Just over three hundred exoplanets have been detected so far, most of them gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn because those are the easiest to spot with pre-Kepler instruments. Already, the known exoplanets are an eclectic bunch.

“We’re finding planets that [would] float like foam on water,” Borucki said. “We’re finding planets with the density of lead.” And whereas researchers were expecting planet with orderly, circular orbits and sizes that increased with distances from stars, they’re finding a chaotic mix of behaviors — eccentric orbits, and giant, gaseous worlds so close to their parent stars that they complete full orbits within days.

By staring at one large patch of sky for the duration of its lifetime, Kepler will be able to watch planets periodically transit their stars over multiple cycles, allowing astronomers to confirm the presence of planets and use the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, along with ground-based telescopes, to characterize their atmospheres and orbits. Earth-size planets in habitable zones would theoretically take about a year to complete one orbit, so Kepler will monitor those stars for at least three years to confirm the planets’ presence.

The first objects likely to be reported will be the Jupiter- and Saturn-sized planets, and gradually — as confirmations roll in and detections get more focused — Neptune and then Earth-sized detections will be more likely to emerge, said exoplanet hunter Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University in California, who is not directly involved with the mission.

“We have a good chance of finding Mars-size planets, and a possibility of finding Mercury-sized planets” with Kepler, she said. “We don’t think we can do better than that.”

The scientists are in no rush to announce new discoveries until they’re “bulletproof,” they said — which could translate into years of suspense for the world’s Trekkies.

“We don’t want to have false discoveries,” Borucki said. “We want to be sure when we say it’s an earth, its an earth.”

Source: NASA teleconference and press release.

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Fermi Glimpses Wildest-Ever Gamma-Ray Blast

GRB 080916C’s X-ray afterglow appears orange and yellow in this view that merges images from Swift’s UltraViolet/Optical and X-ray telescopes. Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler

Researchers using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are reporting a gamma-ray explosion that blows away anything they’ve seen before. The blast, recorded last fall in the constellation Carina, released the energy of 9,000 supernovae.

The collapse of very massive stars can produce violent explosions, accompanied by strong bursts of gamma-ray light, which are some of the brightest events in the universe. Typical gamma-ray bursts emit photons with energies between 10 kiloelectron volts and about 1 megaelectron volt. Photons with energies above megaelectron volts have been seen in some very rare occasions but the distances to their sources were not known. An international research consortium is reporting in this week’s issue of the journal Science Express that the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected photons with energies between 8 kiloelectron volts and 13 gigaelectron volts arriving from the gamma-ray burst 080916C.

formerly_glast — Fermi, formerly known as GLAST, pictured pre-launch in the spring of 2008. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, occurred just after midnight GMT on September 16 (7:13 p.m. on the 15th in the eastern US). Two of Fermi’s science instruments — the Large Area Telescope and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor — simultaneously recorded the event. Together, the two instruments provide a view of the blast’s gamma-ray emission from energies ranging from 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.

A team led by Jochen Greiner at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, established that the blast occurred 12.2 billion light-years away using the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) on the 2.2-meter (7.2-foot) telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile.

“Already, this was an exciting burst,” says Julie McEnery, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “But with the GROND team’s distance, it went from exciting to extraordinary.”

Astronomers believe most gamma-ray explosions occur when exotic massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As a star’s core collapses into a black hole, jets of material — powered by processes not yet fully understood — blast outward at nearly the speed of light. The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star. This generates bright afterglows that fade with time.

The burst is not only spectacular but also enigmatic: a curious time delay separates its highest-energy emissions from its lowest. Such a time lag has been seen clearly in only one earlier burst, and researchers have several explanations for why it may exist. It is possible that the delays could be explained by the structure of this environment, with the low- and high-energy gamma rays “coming from different parts of the jet or created through a different mechanism,” said Large Area Telescope Principal Investigator Peter Michelson, a Stanford University physics professor affiliated with the Department of Energy.

Another, far more speculative theory suggests that perhaps time lags result not from anything in the environment around the black hole, but from the gamma rays’ long journey from the black hole to our telescopes. If the theorized idea of quantum gravity is correct, then at its smallest scale space is not a smooth medium but a tumultuous, boiling froth of “quantum foam.” Lower-energy (and thus lighter) gamma rays would travel faster through this foam than higher-energy (and thus heavier) gamma rays. Over the course of 12.2 billion light years, this very small effect could add up to a significant delay.

The Fermi results provide the strongest test to date of the speed of light’s consistency at these extreme energies. As Fermi observes more gamma-ray bursts, researchers can look for time lags that vary with respect to the bursts. If the quantum gravity effect is present, time lags should vary in relation to the distance. If the environment around the burst origin is the cause, the lag should stay relatively constant no matter how far away the burst occurred.

“This one burst raises all sorts of questions,” Michelson says. “In a few years, we’ll have a fairly good sample of bursts, and may have some answers.”

Source: Eurekalert

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Is the Earth Round?

The Earth isn’t flat, that’s for sure. And if you look at a photograph, the Earth really looks round. But how round is it?

The actual shape of the Earth is actually an oblate spheroid – a sphere with a bulge around the equator. The Earth is bulged at its equator because it’s rapidly rotating on its axis. The centripetal force of the rotation causes the regions at the equator to bulge outward. And it actually makes a pretty big difference. The diameter of the Earth, measured across the equator is 43 km more than when you measure the diameter of the Earth from pole to pole.

This bulge has some interesting implications. For example, it means that the point on Earth furthest from the center isn’t actually Mount Everest, but Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Only because Chimborazo is closer to the Earth’s equator.

So how smooth is the Earth. When billiard balls are manufactured, they aim for a tolerance of 0.22%. The Earth has a tolerance of 0.17%, so it’s actually smoother than a billiard ball. If you could hold the Earth in your hands, it would feel smoother than a billiard ball.

But the Earth definitely isn’t flat.

We have written many articles about the Earth for Universe Today. Here’s a cool article about looking at the Earth as if it’s an extrasolar planet.

Want more resources on the Earth? Here’s a link to NASA’s Human Spaceflight page, and here’s NASA’s Visible Earth.

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth.

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

What is the Tallest Volcano on Earth?

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The tallest volcano on Earth is Mauna Kea, one of the 5 volcanos that make up the Big Island of Hawaii. The summit of Mauna Kea is 4,205 meters above sea level, but its true height is much larger. When measured from the sea floor, Mauna kea is more than 9,000 meters tall, making it the tallest mountain on Earth.

Mauna Kea is part of the network of volcanos above the Hawaiian hotspot. The tectonic plate that has the Hawaiian islands is slowly moving above the hotspot, and it recently carried Mauna Kea away from the hotspot. Scientists believe that Mauna Kea is now dormant; it last erupted about 4,500 years ago. Although, researchers do think it’s going to erupt again, the time between eruptions is measured in hundreds of years. The most active volcano on the island, Kilauea, erupts every few years.

Even though the Hawaiian islands are warm and tropical, Mauna Kea is so tall that it has regular snowfalls in the winter months. Geologists have even found deposits created by glaciers during recent ice ages. There were probably three glacial episodes in the last 200,000 years. People regularly ski on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

Although Mauna Kea is the tallest volcano, it’s only about 40 meters taller than the nearby Mauna Loa, which is the biggest volcano on Earth. Mauna Loa has more than 75,000 cubic kilometers of material.

And the biggest volcano in the Solar System isn’t on Earth, but on Mars. The enormous Olympus Mons is 27 km tall, and contains 100 times more material than Mauna Loa.

We have written many articles about the Earth for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the biggest volcano on Earth, and here’s an article about the biggest volcano in the Solar System.

Want more resources on the Earth? Here’s a link to NASA’s Human Spaceflight page, and here’s NASA’s Visible Earth.

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth.

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

What is the Biggest Volcano on Earth?

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The largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa, which is one of the 5 volcanoes that make up the Big Island of Hawaii. When we talk about biggest volcano here, we’re talking about the volcano that has the biggest volume, and that’s Mauna Loa. It’s made up of an estimated 75,000 cubic kilometers of material.

Mauna Loa is an active shield volcano, and scientists think that it has been erupting for about 700,000 years; it emerged through the surface of the ocean about 400,000 years ago. The active magma for Mauna Loa comes from the Hawaiian hotspot. But the plate carrying the massive volcano is slowly carrying it away from the hotspot, and it will go extinct in the next 500,000 to 1 million years. It last erupted in 1984, and destroyed homes and villages in 1926 and 1950.

The volcano measures 4,169 meters above sea level, but that’s not its true height. Measured from the sea floor, Mauna Loa is really taller than 9,000 meters – that’s taller than Mount Everest. But Mauna Loa isn’t the tallest volcano, that’s actually its neighbor, Mauna Kea, which is about 40 meters taller.

The biggest volcano in the Solar System isn’t on Earth, but on Mars. Olympus Mons, on Mars, measures 27 km high, and has about 100 times the volume of Mauna Loa.

We have written many articles about the Earth for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the biggest volcano in the Solar System, and here are some great images of a lightning storm around a volcano.

Want more resources on the Earth? Here’s a link to NASA’s Human Spaceflight page, and here’s NASA’s Visible Earth.

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth.

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Next ATV Will Be Named Johannes Kepler

Jules Verne arrives at the ISS. Johannes Kepler is next... (NASA)

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The next Automated Transfer Vehicle (A T V) to be launched to supply the International Space Station (ISS) has been officially named. Currently being assembled in Germany, the next ATV will honour the great 17th Century German scientist, Johannes Kepler.

The very first ATV was named after the legendary French science fiction writer, Jules Verne, and launched on an extended 5 month mission to the orbiting outpost where it delivered supplies, gave the station a helpful re-boost and then carried out an extreme garbage disposal effort, burning up over the Pacific Ocean on September 5th, 2008.

After it is launched on a similar resupply mission in 2010, the same fate awaits ATV Johannes Kepler. Or does it…

The ATV is Europe’s most advanced spacecraft ever built. Last year, Jules Verne wowed the world as it was launched into orbit, completed a flyby of the station (at a distance of 30 km) and then carried out a series of tests (including the critical Collision Avoidance Manoeuvre) before waiting in a parking orbit, 2000 km from its destination.

This was a particularly busy time for the ISS as Jules Verne had to wait for Space Shuttle Endeavour to finish its mission (STS-123) to attach the Japanese Kibo module and Canadian robotic arm. After Endeavour returned to Earth, the ATV was clear to dock on April 3rd.

So next year, it will be ATV Johannes Kepler’s turn to carry out a fully automated docking procedure with the space station to deliver food, water, propellant and oxygen. As with Jules Verne, Johannes Kepler is expected to provide a re-boost option, pushing the ISS to a slightly higher orbit.

However, Johannes Kepler might be saved from the fiery re-entry its predecessor had to endure. The European Space Agency, overjoyed at the success of Jules Verne, has asked the space industry for advice on how the ATV might be upgraded, to allow for the safe return of cargo to Earth and possible astronaut transportation. A feasibility study was approved at a meeting in The Hague in November 2008.

Interestingly, there will be another mission already in space in 2010 bearing the same name as the second ATV. The exoplanet-hunting Kepler telescope is set for launch next month.

Source: BBC