Universe Today

Find the Answer to This Week's WITU Challenge

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:51:03 +0000

The answer to this week's Where In The Universe challenge is now available back on the original post. Check it out! And happy 4th of July holiday weekend to everyone in the US!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: July 3-5, 2009

Tammy Plotner — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:49:38 +0000

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a Moon-filled weekend? Then let's have a look a some great lunar features as we race Mad Max to the "Megadome"! For some lucky viewers in Japan and Hawaii, there will be an occultation of Antares to enjoy. How about some great double stars… Or a chance to see if you can spot a penumbral lunar eclipse? Then follow me out to the backyard. The stars are waiting… (...)
Read the rest of Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: July 3-5, 2009 (1,046 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Happy Fourth of July!

Anne Minard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:48:44 +0000

Courtesy of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Astronomers working with the Subaru Telescope have released these new images of a "fireworks display" in a near-infrared image of the Helix Nebula, showing comet-shaped knots within.

(...)
Read the rest of Happy Fourth of July! (560 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Perchlorates and Water Make for Potential Habitable Environment on Mars

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:36:05 +0000

This mosaic assembled from Phoenix images show the spacecraft's three landing legs. Splotches of Martian material on the landing leg strut at left could be liquid saline-water. Click for larger version on Spaceflightnow. com Credit: Kenneth Kremer, Marco Di Lorenzo, NASA/JPL/UA/Max Planck Institute and Spaceflightnow.com. Used by permission

Scientists say that the Arctic region studied by Phoenix lander may be a favorable environment for microbes. Just-right chemistry and periods where thin films of liquid water form on the surface could make for a habitable setting. "Not only did we find water ice, as expected, but the soil chemistry and minerals we observed lead us to believe this site had a wetter and warmer climate in the recent past — the last few million years — and could again in the future," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
(...)
Read the rest of Perchlorates and Water Make for Potential Habitable Environment on Mars (615 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

First Images from LRO

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:58:39 +0000

Woohoo! NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken its first images of the Moon! There are two cameras on board which combine to create the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. They were both activated June 30, and their "first light" images were of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator — the dividing line between day and night — making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission."
(...)
Read the rest of First Images from LRO (161 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

By Gamma-Rays Alone: Fermi Raises the Curtain on 16 New Pulsars

Anne Minard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:38:32 +0000

For the first time, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted a new group of pulsars using only their gamma-ray emissions, in the absence of radio signals beamed to Earth. The 16 new objects are reported in this week's edition of Science Express, in a study based out of the University of California in Santa Cruz.

(...)
Read the rest of By Gamma-Rays Alone: Fermi Raises the Curtain on 16 New Pulsars (490 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Phoenix Lander Team: It Snows at Night on Mars

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:24:12 +0000

It snows on Mars. This occurs, at least in the northern arctic region where the Phoenix lander set up camp in 2008. Science teams from Phoenix were able to observe water-ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere and precipitation that fell to the ground at night and sublimate into water in the morning. James Whiteway and his colleagues say that clouds and precipitation on Mars play a role in the exchange of water between the ground and the atmosphere and when conditions are right, snow falls regularly on Mars.
(...)
Read the rest of Phoenix Lander Team: It Snows at Night on Mars (611 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Messier 87 Shows Off for Hundreds of Earth-bound Astronomers

Anne Minard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:12:26 +0000

When the giant radio galaxy Messier 87 (M 87) unleashed a torrent of gamma radiation and radio flux, an international collaboration of 390 scientists happened to be watching. They're reporting the discovery in this week's issue of Science Express.

(...)
Read the rest of Messier 87 Shows Off for Hundreds of Earth-bound Astronomers (762 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Test-Bed Rover is Now Stuck — Which is a Good Thing!

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:13:52 +0000

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have intentionally driven their engineering rover into soft soil in a sandbox testbed, to simulate how the Spirit rover is stuck on Mars. And they did a good job of it, too, as the test rover, called SSTB1, is stuck, as well, with its wheels spinning and going nowhere. The science team has confirmed a rock on Mars, underneath Spirit is touching the underside of the rover, so engineers have placed a similar looking rock in the test sandbox, as seen above.

"We want to experiment with different extraction techniques down here on Earth before we actually do them for real on Mars," said John Callas, project manager for the Mars rovers. "Our expectation is that it will some time to get Spirit out, so we will be able to get a better feel for that here in this facility to see how well the techniques work and how long it will take for them to work."
(...)
Read the rest of Test-Bed Rover is Now Stuck — Which is a Good Thing! (473 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

WiFi in Space Coming Soon?

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:38:24 +0000

Mike Massimino, AKA Astro_Mike on Twitter, works on his computer during the STS-125 mission. Credit: NASA

Although current astronauts are Twittering and blogging from space, it's a cumbersome process as the ISS, shuttle and Soyuz do not have internet access. Instead, they have to downlink their information to mission control, where someone posts it to the web. But if future commercial space travelers or astronauts living on the Moon want to blog, Tweet and share their experiences real-time, will it be possible? Well, a group of engineers are working on applying the same wireless systems that keep our mobile phones, laptops and other devices connected to the web to a new generation of networked space hardware. They say that wireless technologies will likely be important part of future space exploration, not only for human communication but for transfer of data and commands.
(...)
Read the rest of WiFi in Space Coming Soon? (300 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Where In The Universe #60

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:24:18 +0000

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here's #60! Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. As usual, we’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: The answer has now been posted below. Don't peek before you make your guess!
(...)
Read the rest of Where In The Universe #60 (134 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Astronomers Discover Medium-Sized Class of Black Holes

Anne Minard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:04:48 +0000

It's the Goldilocks variety of black holes: not too big and not too small.

The new source HLX-1, the light blue object to the top left of the galactic bulge, is the ambassador for a new class of black holes, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun. It lies on the periphery of the edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 243-49, about 290 million light years from Earth.

(...)
Read the rest of Astronomers Discover Medium-Sized Class of Black Holes (325 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Your New Guide to the Inner Galaxy

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:04:02 +0000

All you galactic hitchhikers take note: a new atlas of the inner regions of the Milky Way was released today, showing thousands of previously undiscovered dense knots of cold cosmic dust — the potential birthplaces of new stars. This new map of the home galaxy was made using observations from the APEX telescope in Chile, showing the Milky Way in submillitere wavelengths. “ATLASGAL gives us a new look at the Milky Way. Not only will it help us investigate how massive stars form, but it will also give us an overview of the larger-scale structure of our galaxy”, said Frederic Schuller from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, leader of the ATLASGAL team.

So, grab your towels and let's head out!
(...)
Read the rest of Your New Guide to the Inner Galaxy (475 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Mars Will NOT Look as Big as the Full Moon, But You Can Watch it Get Closer

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:21:45 +0000

For criminy's sake, I just got one of those "Mars as big as the full Moon in August" emails. For one more time: this is completely false and it couldn't possibly happen. Besides, in 2009 Mars is all but unobservable until the end of the year, and even next year it won't be much better. So can we please see an end to these erroneous emails???

But Mars is coming closer to Earth (it happens like clockwork every 26 months) and the folks at Emory University have created a real-time distance calculator that shows Mars' geocentric distance from us. It's really fun to see how quickly Mars is coming closer to Earth (but pleeeeease it is not going to look as big the full Moon!!!) The distance is calculated in miles (sorry rest of the world) and shows up in blue when Mars is approaching and red when Mars begins to move farther from Earth. Very fun!

And if you need to know why Mars will not look as big as the full moon, see below.
(...)
Read the rest of Mars Will NOT Look as Big as the Full Moon, But You Can Watch it Get Closer (197 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Get Your Own Personal UFO

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:38:41 +0000

I'm always amazed at what you can find on You Tube. Type "UFO" in the search panel, and you get all sorts of wacky stuff. But this one is really quite cool. It's called the X-Jet and was created by the US Air Force. It is kind of like your own personal flying Segway. For everyone who has wondered where the flying cars are, here's your answer.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Faster, Cheaper (and Better?) Way to the Moon

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:09:45 +0000

The word this morning from several NASA Twitterers is that the stacking of the new Ares I-X rocket for its upcoming test flight is temporarily on hold. Everyone is waiting for word from a NASA executive session reconsidering the plan. And perhaps it might have something to do with an alternative plan to return to the Moon, submitted by shuttle program manager John Shannon to the Augustine Commission, the independent panel that is reviewing NASA's current vision, including the Constellation program. Interestingly, Shannon says he was strongly encouraged by a top NASA administrator to present his idea to the panel. Shannon's option would be faster – perhaps eliminating at least a year of the projected 5-year gap between the shuttle and Constellation. It would be cheaper: $6.6 billion vs. $35 billion for Constellation. But would it be better? Take a look at this video that Shannon presented to the Augustine Commission.
(...)
Read the rest of Faster, Cheaper (and Better?) Way to the Moon (564 words)

© nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Fly Me To The Moon…

Tammy Plotner — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:54:56 +0000

"Fly me to the Moon and let me play among the stars… Let me see what life is like on…" Oh, hi there! I'll just bet you know what's up with the double image, don't you? That's right. A little "stereo magic" by Jukka Metsavainio. But this time you're in for something really different. Step inside for a magic carpet ride you'll never forget… (...)
Read the rest of Fly Me To The Moon… (262 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:49:04 +0000

Polarization Synchrotron. Credit: Singleton, et al., via Current.com

A scientist has created a gadget that can make radio waves travel faster than light. Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light, but phenomena like radio waves are a different story, said John Singleton, who works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists.

Singleton said the polarization synchrotron basically abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light. This may be what happens in pulsars, as well.
(...)
Read the rest of Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light (356 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

NASA, Japan Release Most Complete Topographic Map of Earth

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:50:02 +0000

In this perspective view, the new topographic maps show the LA Basin. Credit: NASA, MET

Topographic maps are some of the most used and valuable maps for both government and the general public. Now, NASA and Japan have released a new digital topographic map of Earth Monday that covers more of our planet than ever before and was created from nearly 1.3 million individual stereo-pair images collected by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, on board NASA's Terra spacecraft. It is available online to users everywhere at no cost.
(...)
Read the rest of NASA, Japan Release Most Complete Topographic Map of Earth (323 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Book Review: Cold War Tech War

Mark Mortimer — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:38:05 +0000

Cold War Tech War

When is the best answer not the right answer? Assuredly many historical events epitomize this dilemma. Randall Whitcomb digs into Canada's Avro Arrow story and delivers up such an event in his book, "Cold War Tech War – The Politics of America's Air Defense". In it, he shows how a plane, successfully designed and built for winning tomorrow's war, ended up not being chosen as the perfect answer.
(...)
Read the rest of Book Review: Cold War Tech War (589 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Carnival of Space #109

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:32:17 +0000

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Jennifer Oullette at Discovery Space's Twisted Physics.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #109.

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let Fraser know if you can be a host, and he’ll schedule you into the calendar.

Finally, if you run a space-related blog, please post a link to the Carnival of Space. Help us get the word out.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

First Conclusive Signature for Lunar Uranium

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:55:54 +0000

Data from Kaguya's GRS. Credit: JAXA

Using data obtained from the gamma ray spectrometer on the Kaguya spacecraft scientists have found signatures of uranium, an element not seen in previous moon-mapping efforts. In addition to uranium, the Kaguya GRS data also is showing clear signatures for thorium, potassium, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, calcium, titanium and iron.

"We've already gotten uranium results, which have never been reported before," said Robert C. Reedy, senior scientists at the Planetary Science Institute. "We're getting more new elements and refining and confirming results found on the old maps."
(...)
Read the rest of First Conclusive Signature for Lunar Uranium (105 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Watch Live Webcast of Ulysses Spacecraft Switch-off

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:09:23 +0000

Artist impression of the Ulysses spacecraft. Credit: NASA/ESA

UPDATE: Use this link to watch the webcast (the other one isn't working very well!)

It's the spacecraft that just won't quit. We ran a story about a year ago that the Ulysses spacecraft was dying of natural causes (running out of power to keep the spacecraft warm and functional) and its mission would likely end by July 1, 2008. The thing is, the spacecraft just kept hanging on…and hanging on….and hanging on. But now, after 18.6 years in space and defying several earlier expectations of its demise, Ulysses will finally be switched off. You can watch a live webcast of the final communication with the spacecraft, which will occur on June 30, 2009, starting at 15:35 GMT and go until 20:20 GMT.
(...)
Read the rest of Watch Live Webcast of Ulysses Spacecraft Switch-off (168 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Book Review: Keep Watching the Skies

Mark Mortimer — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:34:39 +0000

Keep Watching the Skies

We work hard to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. If lucky, we've got some time left over for other activities. Patrick McCray's book "Keep Watching the Skies – The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age" is the story of a program that took advantage of some of those spare hours. During its time, this program had people encouraged, organized, and trained to view the skies and contribute to the nascent space age.
(...)
Read the rest of Book Review: Keep Watching the Skies (436 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Landforms Indicate "Recent" Warm Weather on Mars

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:56:06 +0000

Retrogressive scarps with cuspate niches, long branching spurs and associated fluvial-like tributary channels. Credit:NASA/JPL/UofA

Remember the polygon-shaped landforms at Mars north polar region that the Phoenix lander studied? The polygons are produced by seasonal expansion and contraction of ground ice, and these shapes have been found in other regions on Mars as well. New studies of images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicates that the Martian surface near the equator experienced freeze-thaw cycles as recently as 2 million years ago. This means Mars had significantly warmer weather in its recent past, and has not been locked in permafrost conditions for billions of years as had been previously thought.
(...)
Read the rest of Landforms Indicate "Recent" Warm Weather on Mars (294 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh