astronomy & space stuff

[linuxgeek]

GIANT SUNSPOT: Remember giant sunspot 720? On Jan. 20th it exploded, sparking bright auroras and the most intense proton storm in 15 years. Since then the 'spot has been transiting the far side of the sun, carried around by the sun's 27-day rotation.

Using a technique called helioseismic holography, solar physicists can take pictures of the sun's far side--and they've seen sunspot 720 there:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/30jan05/midi_farside_strip.gif

Helioseismic Holography

 

[linuxgeek]

I didn't save the Helioseismic Holography saved when I posted the above article, but I'm fairly sure since I posted it, sunspot 720 has gotten bigger. Mid-Feb may have some interesting activity.

 

[Guest]

I didn't save the Helioseismic Holography saved when I posted the above article, but I'm fairly sure since I posted it, sunspot 720 has gotten bigger. Mid-Feb may have some interesting activity.

Does this mean that in mid Feb. there might be some more grand auroras? (I'm asking because I don't know much about how this stuff works). If so, how far south (in the northern hemisphere) do you think they would be visible?

 

[linuxgeek]

Does this mean that in mid Feb. there might be some more grand auroras? (I'm asking because I don't know much about how this stuff works). If so, how far south (in the northern hemisphere) do you think they would be visible?

If sunspot 720 stays the same size or continues to grow, when it swings around to be facing us in about 2 weeks, I would expect aurora activity to pick up in general. With 720 having grown, we could also see more solar flares and corona mass ejections like we saw when the X7 flare hit us Jan 20th. Just with the bigger sunspot, the flares can be proportionaly bigger.

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month
29 January 2005

A LICK of paint could help a spacecraft powered by a solar sail get from Earth to Mars in just one month, seven times faster than the craft that took the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet.

Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, and his brother James, who runs aerospace research firm Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, envisage beaming microwave energy up from Earth to boil off volatile molecules from a specially formulated paint applied to the sail. The recoil of the molecules as they streamed off the sail would give it a significant kick that would help the craft on its way. "It's a different way of thinking about propulsion," Gregory Benford says. "We leave the engine on the ground."

Solar sails are in essence nothing more than giant mirrors. Photons of light from the sun bounce off the surface, giving the sail a gentle push. It was while developing a solar sail five years ago that the brothers stumbled upon their idea for enhancing the effect.

The pair were testing a very thin carbon-mesh sail by firing microwaves at it. To their surprise, the sail experienced a force several times stronger than they expected. They eventually worked out that the heat from the microwave beam was causing carbon monoxide gas to escape from the sail's surface, and that the recoil from the emerging gas molecules was giving the sail an extra push.

In a forthcoming issue of the journal Acta Astronautica, the Benfords explain how a sail covered with a paint designed to emit gas when it is heated might propel a spacecraft to Mars in just a month. A rocket would take the craft to low-Earth orbit, 300 kilometres up. After the craft unfurls a solar sail 100 metres across, a transmitter on Earth would fire microwaves at it to heat it up. The Benfords calculate a one-hour burst of microwaves could accelerate the craft to 60 kilometres per second, faster than any interplanetary spacecraft to date.

The feat would require a 60-megawatt microwave beam with a similar diameter to the sail. It would also have to be capable of tracking the craft as it accelerated away. But this power level could not be delivered by any existing microwave transmission system. The deep-space communications network that NASA uses to communicate with Mars rovers and the Cassini probe now orbiting Saturn can only manage half a megawatt. The Benfords say the power could be ramped up in future and hope to persuade NASA to consider doing this as part of a future upgrade to the network.

A further challenge is how to formulate the evaporating paint. The ideal material would lock up large amounts of a light gas like hydrogen and only release it at very high temperature, when the high speed of the gas molecules would maximise the recoil. Ideally all the paint would boil away, leaving a micrometre-thin sail to continue the voyage to Mars.

"It's pretty cool," says Geoffrey Landis, a physicist at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. "There are obviously some details to be worked out here, but in a fundamental way the idea makes sense."

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2484/24846501.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

I really hate it when something looks weird and the pros aren't even sure what it is...

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/31jan05/midi_farside_strip.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/02feb05/midi_farside_blank.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

SUNSPOTS: Something's coming. Witness this photo taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on February 5th. Magnetic loops of hot-glowing gas surging above the sun's eastern limb are a telltale sign of sunspots just around the bend. Are they big ones? We'll find out in the days ahead as the sun's rotation turns them toward Earth.

The mystery 'spot could be an old friend: giant sunspot 720. Last month, while it was facing Earth, sunspot 720 unleashed five X-class solar flares. One of those blasts sparked bright auroras over Europe and an intense proton storm on the Moon.

Since then the sunspot has been crossing the far side of the sun--hence the recent quiet. If sunspot 720 still exists, it should peek over the sun's eastern limb on February 6th or 7th.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/05feb05/20050205_1319_eit_304.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

Here it comes.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/07feb05/midi140.gif http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/07feb05/720_med.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

Space Weather News for February 8, 2005
http://spaceweather.com

CHINESE NEW YEAR: Tonight's new moon, because it is the second new moon of winter, marks the beginning of a new year--in China. According to the Chinese calendar, Wednesday, Feb. 9th, is the first day of the year of the rooster. Happy New Year!

SUNSPOT REPORT: Last week, solar physicists using a technique called helioseismic holography spied two big sunspots on the far side the the sun. Since then the sun's 27-day rotation has carried these 'spots around toward Earth where we can see then directly. Visit http://spaceweather.com for images and details.

 

[Guest]

Space Weather News for February 8, 2005
http://spaceweather.com

CHINESE NEW YEAR: Tonight's new moon, because it is the second new moon of winter, marks the beginning of a new year--in China. According to the Chinese calendar, Wednesday, Feb. 9th, is the first day of the year of the rooster. Happy New Year!

SUNSPOT REPORT: Last week, solar physicists using a technique called helioseismic holography spied two big sunspots on the far side the the sun. Since then the sun's 27-day rotation has carried these 'spots around toward Earth where we can see then directly. Visit http://spaceweather.com for images and details.

Any heavy aurora activity???

 

[linuxgeek]

Any heavy aurora activity???

Not that is being perdicted yet. but with the look of Sunspot 733, may be seeing some in the next 7 days. Currently, the magnetic field on it is not too extreme, so we'll see.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/09feb05/720_733.gif

 

[Guest]

Not that is being perdicted yet. but with the look of Sunspot 733, may be seeing some in the next 7 days. Currently, the magnetic field on it is not too extreme, so we'll see.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/09feb05/720_733.gif

I'm eagerly hoping there will be, and that it will be visible fairly far south

 

[linuxgeek]

happy moon!

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/10feb05/Eskildsen1_strip.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

SUNSPOT REPORT: The biggest 'spot on the sun today is sunspot 733, about twice as wide as Earth. It has a simple magnetic field that poses no threat for strong solar flares, so solar activity should remain low.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/10feb05/palmer1_strip.jpg http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/10feb05/midi140.gif

They may not be big, but the number is picking up. That "?" on what is coming around the horizon is always special when coming from the pros.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/11feb05/westlake1_strip.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GALILEO:

On February 15, 1564, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/40/280px-Galileo_by_leoni.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

All that is missing is the smile, and we'd have a giant happy face on the sun...

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/15feb05/midi360.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Brightest galactic flash ever detected hits Earth
Explosion briefly altered planet's upper atmosphere


A huge explosion halfway across the galaxy packed so much power it briefly altered Earth's upper atmosphere in December, astronomers said Friday.

No known eruption beyond our solar system has ever appeared as bright upon arrival.

But you could not have seen it, unless you can top the X-ray vision of Superman: In gamma rays, the event equaled the brightness of the full Moon's reflected visible light.

The blast originated about 50,000 light-years away and was detected Dec. 27. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

The commotion was caused by a special variety of neutron star known as a magnetar. These fast-spinning, compact stellar corpses -- no larger than a big city -- create intense magnetic fields that trigger explosions. The blast was 100 times more powerful than any other similar eruption witnessed, said David Palmer of Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of several researchers around the world who monitored the event with various telescopes.

"Had this happened within 10 light-years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass extinction," said Bryan Gaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

There are no magnetars close enough to worry about, however, Gaensler and two other astronomers told SPACE.com. But the strength of the tempest has them marveling over the dying star's capabilities while also wondering if mass extinctions in the past might have been triggered by stellar explosions.

'Once-in-a-lifetime'
The sun is a middle-aged star about 8 light-minutes from us. It's tantrums, though cosmically pitiful compared to the magnetar explosion, routinely squish Earth's protective magnetic field and alter our atmosphere, lighting up the night sky with colorful lights called aurora.

Solar storms also alter the shape of Earth's ionosphere, a region of the atmosphere 50 miles (80 kilometers) up where gas is so thin that electrons can be stripped from atoms and molecules -- they are ionized -- and roam free for short periods. Fluctuations in solar radiation cause the ionosphere to expand and contract.

"The gamma rays hit the ionosphere and created more ionization, briefly expanding the ionosphere," said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for NASA's gamma-ray watching Swift observatory.

Gehrels said in an email interview that the effect was similar to a solar-induced disruption but that the effect was "much smaller than a big solar flare."

Still, scientists were surprised that a neutron star so far away could alter the ionosphere.

"That it can reach out and tap us on the shoulder like this, reminds us that we really are linked to the cosmos," said Phil Wilkinson of IPS Australia, that country's space weather service.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Rob Fender of Southampton University in the UK. "We have observed an object only 20 kilometers across [12 miles], on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a tenth of a second than the sun emits in 100,000 years."

Some researchers have speculated that one or more known mass extinctions hundreds of millions of years ago might have been the result of a similar blast altering Earth's atmosphere. There is no firm data to support the idea, however. But astronomers say the sun might have been closer to other stars in the past.

A similar blast within 10 light-years of Earth "would destroy the ozone layer," according to a CfA statement, "causing abrupt climate change and mass extinctions due to increased radiation."

The all-clear has been sounded, however.

"None of the known sample [of magnetars] are closer than about 4,000-5,000 light years from us," Gaensler said. "This is a very safe distance."

Cause a mystery
Researchers don't know exactly why the burst was so incredible. The star, named SGR 1806-20, spins once on its axis every 7.5 seconds, and it is surrounded by a magnetic field more powerful than any other object in the universe.

"We may be seeing a massive release of magnetic energy during a 'starquake' on the surface of the object," said Maura McLaughlin of the University of Manchester in the UK.

Another possibility is that the magnetic field more or less snapped in a process scientists call magnetic reconnection.

Gamma rays are the highest form of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes X-rays, visible light and radio waves too.

The eruption was also recorded by the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array of radio telescopes, along with other European satellites and telescopes in Australia.

Explosive details
A neutron star is the remnant of a star that was once several times more massive than the sun. When their nuclear fuel is depleted, they explode as a supernova. The remaining dense core is slightly more massive than the sun but has a diameter typically no more than 12 miles (20 kilometers).

Millions of neutron stars fill the Milky Way galaxy. A dozen or so are ultra-magnetic neutron stars -- magnetars. The magnetic field around one is about 1,000 trillion gauss, strong enough to strip information from a credit card at a distance halfway to the moon, scientists say.

Of the known magnetars, four are called soft gamma repeaters, or SGRs, because they flare up randomly and release gamma rays. The flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashed about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts of power.

"The next biggest flare ever seen from any soft gamma repeater was peanuts compared to this incredible Dec. 27 event," said Gaensler of the CfA.

 

[linuxgeek]

SOLAR FILAMENT: Today on the sun there's an enormous dark filament stretching 300,000+ miles from end to end--greater than the distance between Earth and the Moon. Experienced solar observers say it's one of the longest they've ever seen:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/20feb05/piepol_strip.jpg

Filaments are magnetic tubes suspended above the surface of the sun and filled with dense gas. Because the gas is cooler than the sun below it, filaments appear dark. Sometimes filaments erupt, producing a "Hyder flare." More often they don't. This one will probably persist for many days to come.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/20feb05/favre.jpg

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/20feb05/murner.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/images/sts114patch.jpg

NASA to launch space shuttle Discovery on May 15

WASHINGTON (AFP) Feb 19, 2005
NASA will launch space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station in May, and Atlantis will make the flight in July, the US space agency said, firming up plans for the resumption of space shuttle flights more than two years after the Columbia disaster.

"NASA's Space Flight Leadership Council met today and refined the launch planning window for Discoverys Return to Flight mission to May 15 to June 3, 2005," the US space agency said Friday.

"STS-114 will rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS)," with seven crew members on board, according to a NASA statement that described elaborate testing and system checks as almost completed.

Atlantis also has a mission to the ISS in the works, with a launch window of July 12-July 31, the agency said.

NASA mothballed its shuttle program after the Columbia tragedy and has since been working to modify the remaining three shuttles to avoid a recurrence.

Columbia disintegrated on re-entry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.

An inquiry board found that a piece of insulating foam dislodged from a fuel tank during takeoff and hit the left wing of the Columbia hard enough to damage the craft's protective thermal skin.

On reentry, superheated gasses entered the wing and destroyed its internal structure, triggering the craft's destruction.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

 

[ifun26]

Good to here. If another accident happens I am scared that NASA will just fold the shuttle program. Which would be a horrible injustice.

 

[linuxgeek]

Good to here. If another accident happens I am scared that NASA will just fold the shuttle program. Which would be a horrible injustice.

yup, 'cause at this point it would likely mean the end of ISS also. Hopefully they will get on the ball and design a suitable replacement vehicle for what is left of the shuttle fleet.

 

[linuxgeek]

SOLAR EXPLOSION: Two days ago something exploded on the sun. We couldn't see the blast from Earth because the blast-site was hidden behind the sun's western limb. But the massive cloud it hurled into space was spotted by photographer Gary Palmer:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/21feb05/palmer1_strip.jpg

"Wow!" says Palmer. "This ultra-fast moving cloud re-wrote the definition of 'speed.'" It was pretty, too.

Solar farside explosions like this one have no effect on Earth, but they can interact with other planets. Yesterday's blast was directed more or less toward Mars. One day humans will go to the Red Planet; the colonists be very interested in this kind of solar activity.