A new study by NASA and the Naval Research Institute has found that exhaust from the space shuttle can create high altitude clouds over Antarctica, just a few days after launch. Exhaust released at an altitude of 110 km (69 miles) can form Antarctic polar clouds in the mesosphere (the second highest layer of the atmosphere). Scientists originally discovered the connection when they noticed iron particles in clouds above Antarctica, and couldn't imagine a natural process that could put them into the high atmosphere.
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An international team of astronomers have discovered a strange source of high energy gamma rays. The object is called LS5039, and it's known as a microquasar because of the kinds of radiation it generates. Microquasars are binary systems, where a regular star orbits a dead star, like a neutron star or black hole. Material streams from the regular star to the neutron star in such quantity that it starts to back up, like too much water going down a drain. What's unusual about LS5039 is that it's producing more high energy gamma rays than should be possible.
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NASA has taken detailed measurements of global sea levels, and confirmed that they're rising. Not only that, the rate is increasing. During the last 50 years sea levels have risen .18 cm (.07 inches) a year, but during the last 12 years, that rate is .3 cm (.12 inches) a year. Part of this rise is due to the expansion of water as it warms up, and part of it is from increased ice cap and glacier melt. It's estimated that 100 million people around the world will be affected by a one-metre (3.3 foot) rise in sea levels.
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With the safety concerns resolved, NASA has announced that they will begin the official countdown for STS-114; the space shuttle return to flight. The countdown begins on July 10 at 2200 UTC (6:00 pm EDT), which is 43 hours before liftoff. If all goes well, Discovery and its seven-member crew of astronauts will lift off at approximately 1951 UTC (3:51 pm EDT) on July 13. They will visit the International Space Station to deliver some supplies, and then test out a series of new procedures designed to improve the safety of the shuttle.
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Bigger is better. When you're making a telescope, you want to construct the biggest mirror you can. The European consortium building the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) - a monster observatory with a main mirror that will be between 50-100 metres - moved a step closer to building their telescope today by releasing the scientific case. If development moves forward, the ELT could begin construction within a few years, and be complete by 2015. Where Hubble can resolve objects 95 m (311 feet) apart on the Moon, the ELT could resolve objects 2 m (6.5 feet) apart.
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As Deep Impact's impactor probe smashed into Comet Tempel 1 this week, every available observatory, on land and in space was watching to help gather as much science as possible from this $333 million mission. The Gemini North telescope, located on Hawaii's Mauna Kea successfully captured images, before and after the collision that clearly show the debris cloud moving off the comet. They also found evidence that rocky materials were exposed on the comet's surface.
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From space and even on the surface, Mars just looks dry, reddish and rocky as far as the camera can see. But there's actually a pretty complex world of minerals under that surface layer of basalt. By studying the surface of Mars with Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, NASA scientists have turned up very interesting surface features which hint at the hidden minerals underneath. This research is published in the latest edition of the Journal Nature.
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Scientists monitoring NASA's Swift satellite had a good view of Deep Impact's collision with Comet Tempel 1. Although the space-based observatory was designed to watch for gamma ray bursts, its instruments were handy for this observation since it can see in several wavelengths at the same time. One of its most important observations from the impact is a quick rise in ultraviolet light. This means that the impactor struck a hard surface, as opposed to something soft and snowy.
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The European Space Agency is helping Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard construct a solar powered airplane that will fly around the world in 2010. Piccard made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon in 1999 with Brian Jones from Britain. When they make their attempt, the Solar Impulse will be flown by three pilots in shifts, and travel along the equator to maximize the Sun's energy.
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NASA/ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the most successful comet hunter in history, is expected to discover its 1,000th comet this summer. In fact, half of all comets ever discovered can be attributed to SOHO. This is because many comets close to the Sun were once part of an enormous comet that was broken up. SOHO can resolve chunks as small as the size of a house as they blaze up near the surface of the Sun. Many of SOHO's comets have been discovered by observers through the Internet.
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Scientists at the University of Maryland think that large quantities of artificial meat could be produced to supply the world with animal-free meat products, like chickenless nuggets. This is based on experiments for NASA, that created small amounts of muscle fibre cultured from single cells. According to the researchers, larger quantities could be grown in thin sheets and then stacked up to create thickness. Of course, they need to figure out a way to exercise it to make it taste like regular meat.
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Ah, summer. Long relaxing days spent at the lake, just swimming, fishing, and enjoying the scenery. Think you can only enjoy lakes here on Earth? Well, think again. NASA's Cassini spacecraft might have turned up a lake on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It might not be the kind of lake you're used to though. The average temperature on Titan is only a hundred degrees above Absolute Zero, so it's probably a lake of liquid hydrocarbons. Carolyn Porco is the leader on the imaging team on the Cassini mission to Saturn and the director for the Center of Imaging Operations at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. That's where the images from Cassini are processed and released to the public.
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When Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft smashed into Comet Tempel 1, the two objects collided at a speed of 10 km/s (6.3 miles/s). The force of this collision generated a tremendous amount of heat and light which served to illuminate the whole area for the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft. The impactor spacecraft was able to capture images of Tempel 1 as it approached, and the last image was taken at an altitude of only 30 km (19 miles).
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What is the nature of the Universe in which we live? This is probably one of the most profound questions human beings can ask. And for the majority of human history, that question could only find answers in philosophy or religion; we lacked the tools to look deeply into the cosmos, to see what was going on. Enter the Big Bang, a theory of the Universe where everything began from a single point, and has been rapidly expanding ever since. In his latest book, Big Bang, Simon Singh explores the history and series of discoveries that have led astronomers and theorists to our current understanding of our place in an expanding Universe.
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NASA's Deep Impact mission completed its primary goal July 4th, when its impactor spacecraft smashed into Comet Tempel 1. NASA scientists are eagerly reviewing the impact data captured by the flyby spacecraft to learn what size crater was excavated, and the kind of material ejected into space. The 373 kg (820 lb) copper impactor crossed paths with Tempel 1 right on schedule, at 0552 UTC (1:52 am EDT). More than 60 observatories on Earth and in space were on hand to watch the collision and help gather data. As expected, Comet Tempel 1 was entirely unfazed by the impact, and hasn't changed its orbit in any detectable way.
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It always happens. You go to buy something. You've got a list of all the necessary parameters, you've set a budget and you've short listed the merchants. Then you end up back at home with a really neat gizmo that looks sharp, costs way too much and doesn't really do what you need. Emotions are to blame as they take over your reasoning and lead you on a completely unexpected journey. Simon Mitton shows similar a similar rational for Fred Hoyle in his biography Conflict in the Cosmos, Fred Hoyle's Life in Science. In it is a very storied career that sometimes proceeds in expected directions while other times progresses along wholly inexplicable paths.
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Astronomers have found an extrasolar planet that contains the largest core ever seen in a planet. This planet orbits the Sun-like star HD 149026, is roughly the size of Saturn, and takes only 2.87 days to complete its year. The planet was first discovered by the effect of its gravity around its parent star. Astronomers were then fortunate to detect how much it dims the light from the star as it passes in front. From this information, they were able to measure the planet's size, and calculate the size of its core. This discovery adds evidence to the "core accretion" theory of planetary formation, where planets start as balls of rock and ice, and collect a gas envelope around themselves.
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The powerful Hubble Space Telescope was on hand to watch the collision between Deep Impact and Comet Tempel 1. Even though Hubble is one of the most sensitive telescopes available, the shroud of dust and gas surrounding Tempel 1 obscures a view of the comet's nucleus. Hubble was able to see the flash from the impact, making the comet 4 times as bright, and then an expanding fan of debris moving away from the comet.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The big news is Deep Impact, and while we're waiting we'll view the "Cat's Eye". With New Moon this week, there will be plenty of opportunities to check out the cometary action as well as some very unusual star clusters. As the week ends, be sure to enjoy the picturesque twilight as the Moon returns to join the planetary show. It's time to open your eyes to the skies, because...
Here's what's up!
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NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft released its impactor "probe" Sunday morning, and changed its trajectory to pass a comfortable distance from Comet Tempel 1. When it was released, the impactor was 880,000 km (547,000 miles) away from Tempel 1. After releasing the impactor, Deep Impact began firing its engine for 14 minutes, which slowed down, and kept it out of the path of the onrushing comet. If all goes well, the impactor will strike Tempel 1 on Monday, July 4 at 0652 UTC (1:52 am EDT).
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This year NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has selected a dozen new-fangled ideas that could lead to revolutionary changes in the way we explore the near and far solar system. Among these advanced concepts was a proposal headed up by Dr. Gerald A. Smith, of Positronics Research LLC, Santa Fe, N.M. whose "Positron-propelled and Powered Space Transport Vehicle for Planetary Missions" could lead to the kind of high-efficiency propulsion systems needed to get there and back without having to cart vast quantities of chemically-based fuel and oxidizer along for the ride.
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University of Chicago researcher Nicolas Dauphas has developed a new method to calculate the age of the Milky Way by measuring two long-lived radioactive elements in meteorites. By calculating the amount of uranium-238 and thorium-232, Dauphas determined that the Milky Way is approximately 14.5 billion years old, give or take 2 billion. This is a close match for the age of the Universe, calculated to be 13.7 billion years by NASA's WMAP spacecraft. This means that it probably didn't take much time after the Big Bang for large structures, such as the Milky Way, to form.
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The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has captured its first photograph of Comet 9P/Tempel 1, Deep Impact's target. Rosetta is quite distant, so Tempel 1 is at the very limits of its detection abilities. The spacecraft will help analyze the gas, ice and debris that spew off of Comet Tempel 1 when Deep Impact smashes into it on July 4. This is just a job on the side, though, as Rosetta has a date with its own comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in 10 years from now.
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How many times have I been to space? Well, I lost count at, oh, none. So I, and nearly every other human being on Earth can't compare with Story Musgrave, a legendary NASA astronaut who flew on the space shuttle six times, including leading the team that fixed the Hubble Space Telescope's vision in 1993. He's the subject of a recent biography called Story: the Way of Water, and has a new CD called Cosmic Fireflies, which sets his space inspired poetry to music. Story speaks to me from his home in Florida.
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Our Sun is in the middle age of life, and that's a good thing for us here on Earth. But in a few billion years, when the Sun runs out of hydrogen to fuel its massive fusion furnace, it will balloon into a massive red giant, engulfing the inner planets, including the Earth, before it shrinks again into a white dwarf. Is that the end of our solar system? Maybe not. Although they might get a little (okay... a lot) scorched, the outer planets might actually survive the experience in one piece. German researchers have found the first planet orbiting a white dwarf star, so there appears there's a future for planets when their star becomes a red giant.
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A key instrument for the search of life on Mars has discovered it in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. The instrument, called the Mars Organic Analyzer, will be installed into the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission due for launch in 2011. It was able to see evidence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, in soil at Chile's Atacama desert. The next step will be to build an instrument that can fit in the allowed space of the ExoMars spacecraft.
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NASA's Deep Impact spotted an outburst of ice and gas from the surface of Comet Tempel 1, which has been turned into a short animation of several frames. This is the second outburst astronomers have seen from the comet this month, and gives astronomers a great opportunity to fine tune instruments in space and here on Earth to get the most science out of the July 4 "encounter".
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Planetary scientists have speculated that there could be lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and now they've found an intriguing dark patch on the moon's surface that could be an open body of liquid. This photograph is a view of Titan's southern pole, a region that often has storm clouds, so it's an ideal candidate for an open lake. If it isn't a lake, the region could be a large hole that filled with solid, dark hydrocarbon "snow". The red cross in this image marks Titan's south pole.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this photograph of Janus, one of Saturn's many moons. The 181 km (113 mile) moon is covered with craters and patches of dark material exposed by numerous impacts. Astronomers think that Janus may be a porous object, largely composed of water ice. This image was taken when Cassini was approximately 357,000 km (222,000 miles) away from Janus.
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Even in X-rays, Saturn is beautiful. The latest image taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory shows how the rings sparkle in this wavelength. These X-rays are created by solar X-rays striking the ice particles in Saturn's rings, and being refracted towards the Earth. Astronomers aren't exactly sure why these flashes are happening, but one theory is that they're caused by micrometeorites striking through Saturn's rings and causing a brief puff of ice particles which can cause a more irregular scattering of X-rays from the Sun.
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The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) has been asleep for the past 11 months, but now it's being woken up for a very important task: to watch the collision between Deep Impact and Comet Tempel 1. SWAS completed 5.5 years of service to the astronomical community, and it was put into hibernation for just something like this. The spacecraft is especially good at measuring the abundance of water molecules in ice and dust, so it should be able to help analyze the ejected material when the spacecraft slams into the comet on July 4.
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If you're an astronomer and you want to escape the Earth's hazy atmosphere, you need a space telescope... right? Not necessarily, sometimes all you need is a balloon, and some clear arctic skies. An international team of researchers traveled to Sweden and deployed a 33-storey tall balloon carrying the BLAST telescope, designed to study the birth of stars and planets. Gaelen Marsden is a member of the team, and researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
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The dance of the planets continues as we watch Mercury, Venus and Saturn shuttle around the twilight sky. Mars and the Moon are going to join the show in the morning hours, and the time for viewing Comet 9/P Tempel 1 is now! We'll explore the "Cocoon Galaxy", Eta Carinae, and enjoy two meteor showers as well. So open your eyes to the skies, because...
Here's what's up!
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Now that NASA has committed itself to returning humans to the Moon, they're looking to overcome one of the major risks to anyone staying in space for a lengthy amount of time: radiation. In deep space, and on the Moon, astronauts would be bombarded by radiation from the Sun, and cosmic rays from space. NASA is considering an electromagnetic shield of highly charged inflatable spheres. These could be erected above a potential lunar base to attract the radiation and channel it safely away.
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The Hubble Space Telescope was lucky to watch a jet of dust streaming off of Comet Tempel 1; a prelude to next week's smashup between the comet and NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. These observations show that Hubble will be a good instrument to observe the collision, as it was able to see many details on the comet and jet. The image was taken on June 14, and the jet extends 2,200 km (1,400 miles) long, and points towards the Sun. Astronomers aren't sure why jets like this occur.
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Workers at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab have begun pre-firing one of the 8.4 metre mirror segments as part of the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). When it's finally completed in 2016, the GMT will be the largest telescope in the world, consisting of 7 of these 8.4 metre mirrors aligned to work as a single mirror 25.6 metres across - with 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
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This satellite view of Istanbul, taken by the ESA's Envisat satellite, was taken using its Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). Radar doesn't actually build up images in colour, it just measures different textures. So the colour in this image represents different times that the radar images were acquired. It's possible to see the bridges that span the narrow Bosporus channel, dividing Europe and Asia. You can even see a few ships sailing up the channel as little points of light.
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The European Space Agency's new powerful 35-metre radio antenna in Cebreros, Spain came online earlier this month, to assist communications with the agency's growing fleet of spacecraft. Construction of the dish went very quickly; workers only broke ground a little more than a year ago. The dish has already received signals from the ESA's Rosetta and SMART-1 spacecraft as well as several radio-emitting stars. The Cebreros dish will also support the Venus Express spacecraft, due for launch in October 2005.
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Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered a massive planetary zone forming around the star system TW Hydrae. By probing this vast disk of material with the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in the radio spectrum, they have detected that rocks and pebbles extend outward for at least 1.6 billion km (1 billion miles). These chunks of rock will slowly clump together, eventually forming larger and larger planets over millions of years. This is the first time astronomers have seen this intermediate stage, after pure dust, but before planets.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this photograph of Saturn's moon Pan, embedded in the Encke Gap in Saturn's A ring. In the first picture, you can see the ripples in the ring due to Pan's gravity, and then another image without this wake. Pan is only 20 km (12 miles) across, but the effect of its gravity is quite impressive on the fragile rings.
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The most common element in the Universe is hydrogen, and much of that is molecular hydrogen, where two atoms are bonded together. Scientists have long puzzled over the question of why all this molecular hydrogen is out there in space. Researchers from Ohio State University might have found the answer. They've developed a simulation that shows how molecular hydrogen is more likely to form on interstellar grains of dust which are bumpy, and not smooth.
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A Zenit-3SL rocket blasted off from the Sea Launch platform today, carrying the Intelsat Americas-8 communications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The rocket lifted off from the floating platform at 1403 UTC (10:03 am EDT), and the Block DM-SL upper stage separated without a hitch. The IA-8 satellite will provide broadcast and data services to the Americas, Caribbean, Hawaii and Alaska.
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