Galaxies are actually much larger than they appear in most telescopes. Astronomers working with the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii have found stars associated with galaxy NGC 300 at twice the previously estimated radius. These old, dim stars would have blazed brilliantly billions of years ago, but now it takes a powerful telescope to be able to see them. And if NGC 300 is probably twice as large as previously estimate, our own Milky Way galaxy could extend as much as 200,000 light-years across.
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Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and NASA are preparing to head back to Chile's Atacama desert to search for evidence of life with Zo?, an autonomous solar-powered rover. During this third trial, Zo? will travel 180 km (112 miles) across the desert, seeking micro-organisms. Researchers have chosen Atacama because it's one of the driest places on Earth, and one of the best analogs for finding life on Mars. This time around, it'll build a 3D map of soil to show how populations of bacteria cluster together.
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Astronomers from the US and France have discovered an asteroid with two small moons. The asteroid, 87 Sylvia, has been known since 1866, and known to have a single moon since 2001; the second moon was a complete surprise. The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory's 8.2m Very Large Telescope in Chile while astronomers were trying to pin down motions of the first moon. These moons allowed astronomers to estimate the mass of 87 Sylvia, and they found it was only 20% higher than water. It's probably a loose pile of rubble held together by gravity, with mostly empty space.
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Fergal Murphy took this picture of a straight Moon wall on 28th April 2004 from his backyard in Sandyford, Dublin, Ireland. Fergal used Toucam Pro II webcam attached to a Nexstar 8.
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With Discovery's return to flight complete, NASA is counting up the accomplishments for this shuttle mission: 14 days in space, three spacewalks, all four space station gyros returned to service, high resolution images of launch and in-orbit, and the first spacewalk to the underside of the shuttle. Discovery will now be ferried back to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a modified Boeing 747 aircraft.
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Since we're inside the Milky Way, it's impossible for us to see what our whole galaxy looks like. But we can look at similar galaxies and get a pretty good idea. Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory have photographed two galaxies - NGC 4565 and M83 - which are very similar to the Milky Way. NGC 4565 is perfectly edge on, so we can see the central bulge. M83 is face on, so we can see its magnificent spiral arms and central structure.
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After a one-day delay, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is ready for launch on Thursday, August 11. The first launch window opens from 1150 to 1335 UTC (7:50 to 9:35 am EDT). If the spacecraft fails to launch during this period, there will be additional windows every day through August. It's expected to arrive at Mars in March 2006, where it will perform a series of aerobraking maneuvers for a full half-year before it arrives in its final science orbit.
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Our planet gained its nice, oxygen-rich atmosphere about 2.4 billion years ago thanks to early bacteria. One question that has puzzled researchers, however, is why it took at least 300 million years for oxygen to build up to large levels, even though the bacteria had been working madly to produce it. Researchers from the University of Washington have developed a model that shows how volcanic gasses could have sucked up this available oxygen. Not only that, but a large layer of iron from meteorite strikes would have used it for rusting. Not until those sinks were filled could oxygen build up.
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The Earth suffered a period of heavy bombardment in its early days when the Solar System was swarming with asteroids. Although it would have been catastrophic for you and I, it might have actually been a nice environment for early microbes. This is according to researchers who spent time at Haughton Impact Crater on Devon Island, in the Canadian Arctic. They found many life-friendly features in this "ground zero", including hydrothermal vents, blasted rocks that make cosy microbe homes, and a nice, protected impact basin.
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José Luis Ortiz had no idea that his announcement on July 29th of the discovery of a big Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) would kickstart one of the most confusing and controversial days for the astronomical community in recent years. The astronomer from Sierra Nevada Observatory, Spain, sent an e-mail detailing his findings with the subject "Big TNO discovery, urgent" to a mailing list for astronomers. A few hours later, reports surfaced on some astronomical websites indicating that the object found by Ortiz, designated as 2003 EL61, was twice as big as Pluto, but they were quickly dismissed by Ortiz.
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One person can harvest a field, many people can move a mountain. This is the power of community. The challenge is to get a consensus on the definition of a mountain, which mountain to move, and where to move it. W.D. Kay in his book,
Defining NASA - The Historical Debate Over the Agency's Mission uses his skills in political science to look at the United States government's perception of space flight. Though NASA isn't a mountain, it is the result of the contributions of millions of people. Acknowledging this, Kay ponders on what was and what may be for this government agency.
The space shuttle Discovery returned safely back to Earth this morning, landing at Edwards Air Force Base at 1211 UTC (8:11 am EDT). Poor weather over Florida's Cape Canaveral prevented two landing attempts, so managers decided to switch the landing location to California. This safe landing brought mission STS-114 to a successful conclusion, two and half years after the catastrophic destruction of Columbia. The next shuttle, Atlantis, is scheduled to launch September 22, but it all depends on whether they can resolve the foam shedding problems with Discovery's launch.
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Brad Timerson took this picture of the Moon and Venus on August 7, 2005. Brad used Olympus C740 camera at 10x zoom with 1/30th second exposure.
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Astrophotographer
John Chumack with DIRAS Observatory Team took this picture of the newly discovered
10th Planet with 8 minute exposure on the 31st Jul. and 10 minute exposure on 1st Aug. John used a 0.30 meter FL. 11.9 Takahashi Dall-Kirkham Scope and Software Bisque ParaMount and FLI CCD.
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Greetings fellow SkyWatchers! The week starts off rather special as observers in Alaska get the opportunity to watch the Moon occult Venus and more. The return of the Moon might mean the loss of early evening deep sky studies, but we'll still enjoy lunar features and the timeless dance of its orbital track. Take advantage of every clear night as the Perseid meteor shower gears up for its annual peak on Thursday. Keep your eyes on the skies, because...
Here's what's up!
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The Mars Exploration Rovers have unquestionably been one of NASA's most exciting and successful missions to date. The projects scientific principal investigator, Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University has written a candid and fascinating new book about the mission.
Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet offers an inside look at the journeys the rovers have taken; not only their captivating treks across Mars, but the surprisingly circuitous and difficult route they took from inception to development and launch.
If humans are going to live on Mars, we're going to need to learn how to grow plants in the planet's thin atmosphere, poor soil, severe cold, and total lack of water. This environment will put plants into a severe state of stress and shut down their metabolism, but NASA scientists think they've got strategies to help them cope. By introducing genes from extremophile microbes that can withstand severe changes in environment, scientists are hoping to modify plants so they won't shut down their metabolism in response to stress.
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The space shuttle Discovery's landing has been pushed back to Tuesday because of low clouds above Florida's Cape Canaveral on Monday. All three primary landing sites will be activated on Tuesday, so the shuttle can potentially land at Cape Canaveral, Edwards Air Force Base in California, or White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. Weather forecasters are expecting similar weather in Florida for Tuesday, so it's likely Discovery will have to use an alternative site. The first landing attempt will be at 0907 UTC (5:07 am EDT).
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is set to launch in just a couple of days - its launch window opens up on Wednesday, August 10 at 1153 UTC (7:53 am EDT). If all goes well, the spacecraft will blast off on top of an Atlas V-401 rocket with Russian-made RD-180 engines. When it finally reaches Mars in a few months, MRO will begin a series of 514 aerobraking maneuvers, where it skims through the top of the atmosphere to slow down its velocity and bring it into its final science orbit.
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During its recent flyby of Mimas, Cassini found the Saturnian moon to be heavily battered and bruised by impact craters; it's the most heavily bombarded of Saturn's moons. It also got a perfect image of Mimas' Hershel crater, which is 140 km (87 miles) across, and makes the moon look like the Death Star. By analyzing the impact craters, scientists hope to calculate how many impacting asteroids moved through the region early in the life of our Solar System.
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Earth isn't the only place that gets the Northern and Southern Lights, or auroras. NASA's Cassini spacecraft has taken an ultraviolet image of Saturn that shows its southern pole covered by an aurora. In this false-colour image, the blue indicates the aurora emissions created by hydrogen gas excited by electron bombardment, and the red-orange is reflected sunlight. Another photo, taken just an hour later shows how quickly these auroras are changing.
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The MARSIS radar instrument on board Mars Express is now extended and fully operational, and ESA scientists have begun using it to probe beneath the surface of Mars in search of water and ice. During this initial commissioning phase, operators have used the instrument to examine Mars' topography to compare its reading against previous readings of the Red Planet to make sure its calibrated correctly. Within a few weeks they'll start isolating areas where the radar is penetrating beneath the surface to start mapping out underground layers.
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Skywatchers in the Southeastern United States will have an opportunity to watch the International Space Station and the space shuttle Discovery fly overhead on Saturday morning at 5:50 am CDT.. Discovery will have undocked from the station three hours previously, so the two objects will be separated visually by about the width of the Moon. As a special bonus, the two spacecraft will pass close to the planet Mars as well.
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NASA astronauts on board Discovery and the International Space Station held a tribute to remember the crew of Columbia, which was destroyed during its re-entry more than two years ago. Each crewmember wore a red shirt with Columbia's STS-107 mission patch, and spoke, paying their respects to the crew of STS-107, as well as Challenger, Apollo 1, Soyuz 1 and 11.
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NASA has given the space shuttle Discovery a green light to return to Earth on Monday, August 8th. The agency's Mission Management Team has decided that the shuttle's heat shield and other systems are in good shape, after Wednesday's spacewalk to remove excess gap filler between shuttle tiles. The team also decided that a torn thermal blanket won't be a risk as the shuttle re-enters the atmosphere.
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At least three massive asteroids smashed into the Earth more than 3.2 billion years ago, and caused such destruction, they dramatically changed the structure and composition of the Earth's surface. This is according to new research from scientists at the Australian National University. The team uncovered evidence of major earthquakes, faulting, and volcanic eruptions that were so violent they dramatically changed the way the Earth's surface was forming. This happened during a period that the Moon also suffered heavy bombardment.
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Ahhh, summer time and the livin' is light and easy. Per chance there's an opportunity to escape the textbooks, computer screens and chores to engage in a more leisurely pursuit. Alex Brett offers a busy little mystery in her book,
Cold Dark Matter. In it, a private investigator takes on the puzzle of an apparent murder at the FrancoCanadian telescope in Hawaii. A quick pace and twisting plot make this a fine read for those astronomy buffs who care to branch out a bit.
The Hubble Space Telescope spent 40 hours gazing at the same spot in the sky to produce a photograph filled with galaxies. The field shown in this image is a fraction of the size of the full moon in the sky, but it shows a rich diversity of galaxies. Some are big; some small; a few close; and most far away. The photograph was actually a bonus, taken in September 2003 while Hubble was using its other instruments for research in the same area.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a relatively close flyby of Saturn's moon Mimas on August 2nd, 2005. The 130 km (80 mile) crater Herschel makes the moon look amazingly similar to the Death Star from the Star Wars series of movies. Cassini passed only 62,700 km (38,800 miles) above Mimas; the closest it's ever been to the moon.
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Astronaut Steve Robinson successfully pulled out the protruding gap fillers from between the shuttle's thermal protection tiles during his 7 hour spacewalk yesterday. The gap fillers came out with a simple tug; Robinson didn't need the makeshift hacksaw he'd brought with him. NASA officials were worried that the Nextel fabric could lead to overheating in the area during Discovery's re-entry. The filler material keeps the shuttle's heat tiles from bumping into each other during launch, but aren't necessary during landing.
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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has peered through walls of galactic dust to spot supermassive black holes called quasars. Some quasars are visible to telescopes, but others are behind so much gas and dust they can only be seen in the infrared spectrum, which is good for viewing through dust. Based on background X-ray radiation, astronomers had an estimate for how many quasars are out there, but they could never see them with telescopes. Now Spitzer has shown that those quasars are there, just hidden.
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With new instruments, astronomers are filling in all the pieces that help to explain how planets form out of extended disks of gas and dust around newborn stars. This process seems to happen quickly, often just a few million years is all it takes to go from dust to planets. But astronomers have found one proto-planetary disk that refuses to grow up. It's 25 million years old, and still hasn't made the transition to form planets. Lee Hartmann is with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the lead author on the paper announcing the find.
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Astronauts Steve Robinson and Soichi Noguchi made their preparations to head outside the space shuttle Discovery today. This spacewalk had been planned for the mission, but shuttle managers gave the two men the additional task of fixing two protruding gap fillers in between the heat tiles on the underside of the shuttle. Robinson will attempt to pull the excess material out by hand, or use a hacksaw if that doesn't work.
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Shuttle managers decided on Wednesday that Discovery's leading wing edge is safe for it to make re-entry. This is the area that was damaged by falling foam during Columbia's launch, and caused the catastrophe during re-entry. High resolution photographs have analyzed every part of Discovery, and the only concerning area were some protruding tile gap fillers, which will be fixed during a spacewalk on Wednesday.
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NASA's Messenger spacecraft made a successful Earth flyby this week, getting a gravity boost that will propel it into the inner solar system. This maneuver put it on course towards Venus, where it'll get another gravity assist to put it on track towards its final destination: Mercury. It won't get into a final, stable orbit around the closest planet to the Sun until 2011. Messenger took several photographs of the Earth as it came by, using this opportunity to calibrate its scientific equipment.
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This Cassini image of Saturn's moon Rhea shows a bright, white spot in its leading hemisphere. This bright feature could have come from a large impact, and has been examined by Cassini several times from different angles. Cassini took the photo on June 25, 2005 when it was approximately 1.1 million km (700,000 miles) away from the moon.
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Stars, stars, everywhere are stars. What's that one? Oh, it's an aeroplane flying by, oops. Moments such as this would be really bad starts to an evening out viewing the skies. However, as in the word's of the illustrious Zaphod, "Don't panic". Robin Kerrod in his book
The Star Guide: Learn How to Read the Night Sky Star by Star separates the lowly flashing lights of fireflies from the twinkles overhead using a wonderful combination of maps and pictures, together with some judicious text. With this book, the stars and night sky need no longer be a mystery.
In this image of Saturn, taken by Cassini, it's possible to see how Saturn's atmosphere distorts the rings right next to the planet. This happens because Saturn's atmosphere refracts the light coming from the rings, similar to how object in the water look distorted and out of position.
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Cepheid variables are one of the most accurate tools astronomers can use to measure the distance to objects in space because the period of their pulsation is directly tied to their brightness. An international team of astronomers have used this method to calculate the distance to galaxy NGC 300 which is in the Sculptor Group. The team found more than 100 Cepheid variables, and then used them to calculate the distance to be 6.13 million light-years away; give or take 3%.
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Instead of being a dead, icy moon, Cassini has found that Enceladus is actually quite active. This moon of Saturn has a huge cloud of water vapour over its southern pole, and warmer fractures. The moon is relatively close to Saturn, so the intense tidal pressures are keeping it warmer than it should be. This is the same interaction between Jupiter and Io that keeps the moon covered in volcanoes.
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Greetings fellow SkyWatchers! Dark skies this week means a chance to further our in-depth look at globular clusters as we explore classifications, structure, population and distance. What better way to start than with the M22? Even if you only have binoculars or a small telescope, there will be many studies here to intrigue both you and the seasoned observer as well. So open your eyes to the skies, because...
Here's what's up!
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Mike Salway took this picture of
Crux and Centaurus on the 9th July, 2005 from Kulnura, on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia. This image was taken with a Sony Cybershot 5.1mp digicamthe and is a result of 5 images @30s each (ISO400).
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Physicists have used the Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider to create quark-gluon plasma; a mysterious form of matter that was probably present in the first moments after the Big Bang. The team created it by smashing the nuclei of gold atoms together at relativistic speeds. The resulting explosion of particles lasted just 10-20 seconds. Astronomers think that large neutron stars might go into a quark-gluon phase before they collapse into black holes.
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Is the discovery of methane in Mars' atmosphere the first direct evidence of extraterrestrial life? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so scientists are working to figure out what it will take to know for sure. The best way to know for sure will be to analyze the ration of carbon-12 to carbon-13. Living creatures prefer to pick up carbon-12 as they assemble methane, so a larger amount of this isotope will be a telltale sign. Unfortunately, detecting this isotope is best done by spectrometers on the surface of Mars, so future landers/rovers with more sensitive instruments will be required.
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Astronomers have discovered a new planet orbiting our Sun, which is larger than Pluto. It's located 97 times further than the Earth from the Sun. This new, 10th planet was actually first photographed in 2003 by the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, but it took this long to study and confirm its size and orbit. A name has been proposed to the International Astronomical Union, which is making its decision.
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When astronomers discover a supernova, it's too late to learn much about the star before it exploded. Even if astronomers have a picture of its home galaxy before the star went supernova, there are often too many stars in the area to pick out the progenitor star. An international team of astronomers got a lucky break when a supernova exploded in the relatively nearby Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) which was well photographed by Hubble. By comparing archived pictures with a new photo containing the supernova, they were able to find the exact star that exploded.
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Scientists from NASA, MIT and other institutions have developed a comprehensive simulation of the Earth's climate that accurately models ocean, ice, land and atmosphere. This new model, called the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) pulls in data from a variety of sources, such as satellites and ground observations. The research team will be releasing the software publicly on the internet to the scientific community so they can use the simulator to study various processes in the Earth's environment.
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Two of Saturn's icy moons, Mimas and Tethys, circle the planet in this infrared image of the Ringed Planet taken by Cassini. Mimas is 397 kilometers (247 miles) across. Tethys is 1,071 kilometers (665 miles) across. It's also possible to see a large, doughnut-shaped storm near Saturn's southern pole which is at least 1,600 km (1,000 miles) across.
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