#1tankcomander
Mark'sGirl Has My Heart!
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All I gotta say is .....Albedo 039.......Albedo 039......
astronomy & space stuff
- Thread starter linuxgeek
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linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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http://www.wesh.com/news/4583426/detail.html
Rare Space Artifacts Found At Cape Canaveral
Suits From Ditched Effort To Use Astronauts In Space As Cold War Spies
POSTED: 10:06 am EDT June 8, 2005
UPDATED: 12:12 pm EDT June 8, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A security officer at Cape Canaveral stumbled across a rare artifact of an effort to use astronauts in space as Cold War spies.
Little is remembered and even less is left over from the time when the Air Force planned to build a military space station run by military astronauts, who trained in specialized spacesuits, WESH 2 News reported.
The suits were presumed lost or destroyed.
The forgotten building was locked for years and is located about 100 yards from the pad where Alan Shepard launched on the first American spaceflight. When NASA security agent Dann Oakland went inside, he used a flashlight because the room had no power.
"It's an experience at the Space Center," Oakland said. "Whatever you do, turn a corner, open a box or a door and you never know what you might find."
Oakland found a curious-looking box. Inside, he discovered two spacesuits in remarkable condition with gloves and helmets. He knew the find was significant, but he didn’t know just how rare the particular suits were.
They are from the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, a military astronaut project that received little attention. Astronauts, including Bob Crippen, Richard Truly and Gordon Fullerton, were trained at Cape Canaveral to live in an orbiting spy outpost, fashioned from part of a Titan rocket including a Gemini spacecraft.
Their mission would have been to photograph military targets in the Soviet Union. Their suits were different from those of the NASA astronauts, and most were lost when the Pentagon canceled the program.
"There were about 17 manufactured," Luis Barrios, a spokesman for NASA, said. "A third of which, many are classified as 'this position unknown.'"
For 24 years, the rediscovered suits were unaccounted for and locked away in a forgotten room. Now, one of them is on its way to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The other suit will stay on the Space Coast. Visitors will be able to see it on display at the Astronaut Hall of Fame on state Road 405 near Titusville.
Rare Space Artifacts Found At Cape Canaveral
Suits From Ditched Effort To Use Astronauts In Space As Cold War Spies
POSTED: 10:06 am EDT June 8, 2005
UPDATED: 12:12 pm EDT June 8, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A security officer at Cape Canaveral stumbled across a rare artifact of an effort to use astronauts in space as Cold War spies.
Little is remembered and even less is left over from the time when the Air Force planned to build a military space station run by military astronauts, who trained in specialized spacesuits, WESH 2 News reported.
The suits were presumed lost or destroyed.
The forgotten building was locked for years and is located about 100 yards from the pad where Alan Shepard launched on the first American spaceflight. When NASA security agent Dann Oakland went inside, he used a flashlight because the room had no power.
"It's an experience at the Space Center," Oakland said. "Whatever you do, turn a corner, open a box or a door and you never know what you might find."
Oakland found a curious-looking box. Inside, he discovered two spacesuits in remarkable condition with gloves and helmets. He knew the find was significant, but he didn’t know just how rare the particular suits were.
They are from the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, a military astronaut project that received little attention. Astronauts, including Bob Crippen, Richard Truly and Gordon Fullerton, were trained at Cape Canaveral to live in an orbiting spy outpost, fashioned from part of a Titan rocket including a Gemini spacecraft.
Their mission would have been to photograph military targets in the Soviet Union. Their suits were different from those of the NASA astronauts, and most were lost when the Pentagon canceled the program.
"There were about 17 manufactured," Luis Barrios, a spokesman for NASA, said. "A third of which, many are classified as 'this position unknown.'"
For 24 years, the rediscovered suits were unaccounted for and locked away in a forgotten room. Now, one of them is on its way to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
The other suit will stay on the Space Coast. Visitors will be able to see it on display at the Astronaut Hall of Fame on state Road 405 near Titusville.
linuxgeek
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Deep Impact Nearing its Target
Summary - (Jun 10, 2005) NASA's Deep Impact is now only a few weeks away from its target, Comet Tempel 1, which it's due to strike on July 4. During the morning of July 3, the spacecraft will deploy its 1 metre (39 inch) impactor which will then guide itself to collide with the comet. Deep Impact will fly 500 km (310 miles) below the comet and capture every moment of the collision with its instruments. The spacecraft will have 13 minutes to take pictures and transmit them back to Earth before it enters a hail of particles from the comet's nucleus.
Full Story - After a voyage of 173 days and 431 million kilometers (268 million miles), NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will get up-close and personal with comet Tempel 1 on July 4 (EDT).
The first of its kind, hyper-speed impact between space-borne iceberg and copper-fortified probe is scheduled for approximately 1:52 a.m. EDT on Independence Day (10:52 p.m. PDT on July 3). The potentially spectacular collision will be observed by the Deep Impact spacecraft, and ground and space-based observatories.
"We are really threading the needle with this one," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "In our quest of a great scientific payoff, we are attempting something never done before at speeds and distances that are truly out of this world."
During the early morning hours of July 3 (EDT), the Deep Impact spacecraft will deploy a 1-meter-wide (39-inch-wide) impactor into the path of the comet, which is about half the size of Manhattan Island, N.Y. Over the next 22 hours, Deep Impact navigators and mission members located more than 133 million kilometers (83 million miles) away at JPL, will steer both spacecraft and impactor toward the comet. The impactor will head into the comet and the flyby craft will pass approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles) below.
Tempel 1 is hurtling through space at approximately 37,100 kilometers per hour (23,000 miles per hour or 6.3 miles per second). At that speed you could travel from New York to Los Angeles in less than 6.5 minutes. Two hours before impact, when mission events will be happening so fast and so far away, the impactor will kick into autonomous navigation mode. It must perform its own navigational solutions and thruster firings to make contact with the comet.
"The autonav is like having a little astronaut on board," Grammier said. "It has to navigate and fire thrusters three times to steer the wine cask-sized impactor into the mountain-sized comet nucleus closing at 23,000 miles per hour."
The crater produced by the impact could range in size from a large house up to a football stadium, and from two to 14 stories deep. Ice and dust debris will be ejected from the crater, revealing the material beneath. The flyby spacecraft has approximately 13 minutes to take images and spectra of the collision and its result before it must endure a potential blizzard of particles from the nucleus of the comet.
"The last 24 hours of the impactor's life should provide the most spectacular data in the history of cometary science," said Deep Impact Principal Investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. "With the information we receive after the impact, it will be a whole new ballgame. We know so little about the structure of cometary nuclei that almost every moment we expect to learn something new."
The Deep Impact spacecraft has four data collectors to observe the effects of the collision. A camera and infrared spectrometer, which comprise the High Resolution Instrument, are carried on the flyby spacecraft, along with a Medium Resolution Instrument. A duplicate of the Medium Resolution Instrument on the impactor will record the vehicle's final moments before it is run over by Tempel 1.
"In the world of science, this is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito," said Dr. Don Yeomans, a Deep Impact mission scientist at JPL. "The impact simply will not appreciably modify the comet's orbital path. Comet Tempel 1 poses no threat to the Earth now or in the foreseeable future."
Deep Impact will provide a glimpse beneath the surface of a comet, where material from the solar system's formation remains relatively unchanged. Mission scientists expect the project will answer basic questions about the formation of the solar system, by offering a better look at the nature and composition of the frozen celestial travelers we call comets.
The University of Maryland is responsible for overall Deep Impact mission management, and project management is handled by JPL. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about Deep Impact on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact.
Deep Impact Nearing its Target
Summary - (Jun 10, 2005) NASA's Deep Impact is now only a few weeks away from its target, Comet Tempel 1, which it's due to strike on July 4. During the morning of July 3, the spacecraft will deploy its 1 metre (39 inch) impactor which will then guide itself to collide with the comet. Deep Impact will fly 500 km (310 miles) below the comet and capture every moment of the collision with its instruments. The spacecraft will have 13 minutes to take pictures and transmit them back to Earth before it enters a hail of particles from the comet's nucleus.
Full Story - After a voyage of 173 days and 431 million kilometers (268 million miles), NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will get up-close and personal with comet Tempel 1 on July 4 (EDT).
The first of its kind, hyper-speed impact between space-borne iceberg and copper-fortified probe is scheduled for approximately 1:52 a.m. EDT on Independence Day (10:52 p.m. PDT on July 3). The potentially spectacular collision will be observed by the Deep Impact spacecraft, and ground and space-based observatories.
"We are really threading the needle with this one," said Rick Grammier, Deep Impact project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "In our quest of a great scientific payoff, we are attempting something never done before at speeds and distances that are truly out of this world."
During the early morning hours of July 3 (EDT), the Deep Impact spacecraft will deploy a 1-meter-wide (39-inch-wide) impactor into the path of the comet, which is about half the size of Manhattan Island, N.Y. Over the next 22 hours, Deep Impact navigators and mission members located more than 133 million kilometers (83 million miles) away at JPL, will steer both spacecraft and impactor toward the comet. The impactor will head into the comet and the flyby craft will pass approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles) below.
Tempel 1 is hurtling through space at approximately 37,100 kilometers per hour (23,000 miles per hour or 6.3 miles per second). At that speed you could travel from New York to Los Angeles in less than 6.5 minutes. Two hours before impact, when mission events will be happening so fast and so far away, the impactor will kick into autonomous navigation mode. It must perform its own navigational solutions and thruster firings to make contact with the comet.
"The autonav is like having a little astronaut on board," Grammier said. "It has to navigate and fire thrusters three times to steer the wine cask-sized impactor into the mountain-sized comet nucleus closing at 23,000 miles per hour."
The crater produced by the impact could range in size from a large house up to a football stadium, and from two to 14 stories deep. Ice and dust debris will be ejected from the crater, revealing the material beneath. The flyby spacecraft has approximately 13 minutes to take images and spectra of the collision and its result before it must endure a potential blizzard of particles from the nucleus of the comet.
"The last 24 hours of the impactor's life should provide the most spectacular data in the history of cometary science," said Deep Impact Principal Investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. "With the information we receive after the impact, it will be a whole new ballgame. We know so little about the structure of cometary nuclei that almost every moment we expect to learn something new."
The Deep Impact spacecraft has four data collectors to observe the effects of the collision. A camera and infrared spectrometer, which comprise the High Resolution Instrument, are carried on the flyby spacecraft, along with a Medium Resolution Instrument. A duplicate of the Medium Resolution Instrument on the impactor will record the vehicle's final moments before it is run over by Tempel 1.
"In the world of science, this is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito," said Dr. Don Yeomans, a Deep Impact mission scientist at JPL. "The impact simply will not appreciably modify the comet's orbital path. Comet Tempel 1 poses no threat to the Earth now or in the foreseeable future."
Deep Impact will provide a glimpse beneath the surface of a comet, where material from the solar system's formation remains relatively unchanged. Mission scientists expect the project will answer basic questions about the formation of the solar system, by offering a better look at the nature and composition of the frozen celestial travelers we call comets.
The University of Maryland is responsible for overall Deep Impact mission management, and project management is handled by JPL. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.
For more information about Deep Impact on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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BIG SUNSPOTS: There are two big active regions on the sun today, sunspots 775 and 776. Although both have magnetic fields that harbor energy for M-class solar flares, the pair have been quiet for days. Will they erupt ... or not?
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/11jun05/midi140.gif
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/11jun05/midi140.gif
wideeyedgrin
Literotica Guru
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I've only seen the Aurora dip to where I live once. The show lasted for almost 5 days. Unfortunately, most of the time when this happens, it's also cloudy or raining.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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src
Discovery Mated to New External Tank
Space Shuttle Discovery has been attached to its new External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. Engineers are performing the Shuttle Interface Test verifying the vehicle-to-ground interfaces. The Shuttle is sitting in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center after rolling back from the launch pad May 26. On June 14, Discovery is scheduled to roll back out to the launch pad in preparation for a launch window that begins July 13 and ends July 31.
Shuttle workers decided to swap External Tanks after encountering problems during two previous tanking tests while Discovery was at the launch pad. NASA’s newest External Tank, originally planned for Space Shuttle Atlantis, has now been mated to Discovery. The new tank contains heaters to eliminate ice build-up.
The STS-114 crewmembers are getting ready for the upcoming Return to Flight Mission. They have been taking training flights in T-38 jets and participating in simulations with flight controllers. Also, the crewmembers continue to familiarize themselves with flight hardware and International Space Station emergency procedures.
Discovery Mated to New External Tank
Space Shuttle Discovery has been attached to its new External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. Engineers are performing the Shuttle Interface Test verifying the vehicle-to-ground interfaces. The Shuttle is sitting in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center after rolling back from the launch pad May 26. On June 14, Discovery is scheduled to roll back out to the launch pad in preparation for a launch window that begins July 13 and ends July 31.
Shuttle workers decided to swap External Tanks after encountering problems during two previous tanking tests while Discovery was at the launch pad. NASA’s newest External Tank, originally planned for Space Shuttle Atlantis, has now been mated to Discovery. The new tank contains heaters to eliminate ice build-up.
The STS-114 crewmembers are getting ready for the upcoming Return to Flight Mission. They have been taking training flights in T-38 jets and participating in simulations with flight controllers. Also, the crewmembers continue to familiarize themselves with flight hardware and International Space Station emergency procedures.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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"BLAST, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, was launched on the 11th at 11:09 UTC from Esrange in northern Sweden, and is currently floating over Greenland. BLAST is a 2700kg telescope with a 2 meter primary mirror that hangs from a 1.1 million m^3 balloon floating at an altitude of 38km that will study the star formation history of the universe. It will float west at nearly constant latitude for about 5 days before the flight is terminated over northwest Canada or northern Alaska. Real time position and flight track is available from the NSBF. Two of the graduate students working on the project have photo blogs of the entire (8 week) prep period, including several launch photos. The press has more traditional coverage as well. And if that isn't geeky enough to make it on Slashdot, the flight computers run Slack."
http://chile1.physics.upenn.edu/blastpublic/
http://www.ssc.se/esrange/
http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon4/balloon4.htm
"BLAST, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, was launched on the 11th at 11:09 UTC from Esrange in northern Sweden, and is currently floating over Greenland. BLAST is a 2700kg telescope with a 2 meter primary mirror that hangs from a 1.1 million m^3 balloon floating at an altitude of 38km that will study the star formation history of the universe. It will float west at nearly constant latitude for about 5 days before the flight is terminated over northwest Canada or northern Alaska. Real time position and flight track is available from the NSBF. Two of the graduate students working on the project have photo blogs of the entire (8 week) prep period, including several launch photos. The press has more traditional coverage as well. And if that isn't geeky enough to make it on Slashdot, the flight computers run Slack."
http://chile1.physics.upenn.edu/blastpublic/
http://www.ssc.se/esrange/
http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon4/balloon4.htm
linuxgeek
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"The Earth's roaming magnetic pole has moved out of Canada and into international waters as it heads towards Siberia. The magnetic pole has been within Canada's current boundaries for at least the past 400 years and left sometime in the past year after rapidly picking up speed in 2001. If it keeps to its current course and expected speed, it should reach Siberia by the middle of the century. There's speculation that December's tsunami causing earthquake may have been one of the factors causing the pole to move more quickly than predicted."
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmo....html?id=658628d5-fc19-48e0-add8-bc0fbebadfe9
"The Earth's roaming magnetic pole has moved out of Canada and into international waters as it heads towards Siberia. The magnetic pole has been within Canada's current boundaries for at least the past 400 years and left sometime in the past year after rapidly picking up speed in 2001. If it keeps to its current course and expected speed, it should reach Siberia by the middle of the century. There's speculation that December's tsunami causing earthquake may have been one of the factors causing the pole to move more quickly than predicted."
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmo....html?id=658628d5-fc19-48e0-add8-bc0fbebadfe9
rosco rathbone
1. f3e5 2. g4??
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I am teaching myself nautical astronomy.
I just did lesson one, "Use Of The Sextant".
I just did lesson one, "Use Of The Sextant".
linuxgeek
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Audio: Get Ready for Deep Impact
Summary - (Jun 13, 2005) July 4th is Independence Day In the United States, and Americans typically enjoy their holiday with a few fireworks. But up in space, 133 million kilometres away, there's going to be an even more spectacular show... Deep Impact. On July 4th, a washing machine-sized spacecraft is going to smash into Comet Tempel 1, carve out a crater, and eject tonnes of ice and rock into space. The flyby spacecraft will watch the collision from a safe distance, and send us the most spectacular pictures ever taken of a comet - and its fresh bruise. Dr. Lucy McFadden is on the science team for Deep Impact, and speaks to me from the University of Maryland.
Listen to the interview: http://www.universetoday.com/audio/UT061305deepimpact.mp3
Fraser: Can you give me a preview for what we're going to be seeing on July 4th?
Dr. Lucy McFadden: I wish I knew exactly what was going to happen on July 4th, but this is an experiment. I can tell you what we think we might see, but chances are it may be significantly different.
So, we have a spacecraft on its way to Comet Tempel 1, which is a short-period comet that orbits - comes into the inner solar system - about once every 5.5 years. It is about the size of Washington DC. It can be fit into the area of Washington DC, but it's a little bit elongated. It's about 14 km by 4 km by 4 km, and as our spacecraft is heading toward it, we have planned to actually separate the spacecraft into two parts. Let me set the stage here, this comet is in orbit around the Sun. It's coming to its closest point of the Sun, called its perihelion, and thus be moving at its fastest speed through the solar system in early July. Our spacecraft is also in orbit around the Sun, and it's heading to intercept the orbit of the comet. 24 hours before we plan to impact this comet, we're going to separate the two spacecraft, the impactor and the flyby. The impactor will continue on its collision course to the comet, and the flyby - or mother ship - will slow down a little bit and change its direction ever so slightly so that it will be able to watch as the impactor hits the comet. When it hits the comet, when we have this cosmic collision in space, what's going to happen is the energy of the impact is going to propagate into the comet itself, in the form of a shock wave. This shock wave will plough into the comet; how deep, we don't know. But at some point, the force of the material in the comet itself will push back on the advancing energy shock wave and push material out of the comet. We will have formed a crater with ejected material coming out of the hole that we created.
Now, you may ask, why are we doing this? We're doing this to take a look - to take advantage of the opportunity of this comet being so close to us - to take a look at the inside of the comet; to see what the inside is made of, and see what structure is there.
To elaborate more, I think I need to give you some perspective on what comets are, and what they are in the solar system. I like to say they're the oldest and coldest part of the solar system. They formed at the edges of the solar system, hundreds of thousands of times the distance that the Earth is from the Sun. So, everything where comets formed is cold. They also formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was forming. They have never been incorporated into a planet. So they're both old and cold as well. We're taking advantage of the comets coming closer to the Earth to use it as a laboratory and as a probe to distant edges of the solar system in both space and time.
Fraser: Now, Deep Impact only launched a couple of months ago, so did we get really lucky with Tempel 1 being at the wrong place at the right time?
Dr. McFadden: Yeah, well, from my perspective it was at the right place at the right time.
Fraser: I was more looking from the perspective of the comet.
Dr. McFadden: Let me say two things here. First of all, the comet isn't going to be harmed. Let's get some perspective here in terms of the mass of the spacecraft versus the mass of the comet. Or the energy of the spacecraft versus the energy of the comet in motion. It's equivalent to a gnat, or a small mosquito being run into by a 767 aircraft. So, we're not going to hit the comet. But, needless to say, I'll let you take the perspective of the comet if you want. But yes, it was in the right place, or the wrong place, at this time. NASA said, when it issued its announcement of opportunity for space exploration missions, they said that this announcement covers money available within a certain time frame, and the time frame was between 2000 and 2006. And so, we went looking for comets that were available during the time NASA would give us money, and then when we found Comet Tempel 1 close to perihelion, when it's moving fastest, that also pleased us because the faster the comet's moving, the more energy involved in the transfer to create the crater. So, it's good from that point of view. And then there's a third, but secondary reason why Comet Tempel 1 is good; it's not as active as some comets might be. There's not as much dust and jet activity associated with Comet Tempel 1, which might be confusing or make it hard for us to actually observe the formation of the crater when we hit it. So, Comet Tempel 1 fits.
Fraser: How are we going to be observing it from here on Earth and from space?
Dr. McFadden: We have the spacecraft observing it from space - our Deep Impact spacecraft. We have the Rosetta spacecraft, which is heading to another comet, will also observe it from space. We have NASA's three Great Observatories: Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer will be observing it. Three different wavelengths; Chandra's an X-ray telescope, and Hubble's an optical and near-infrared imaging telescope. We'll be observing some spectroscopy with Hubble too. And then Spitzer's an infrared telescope. So, we'll be using those. As well as all the major observatories around the world will be observing the comet, before, during and after impact. So we're having a worldwide observing campaign.
Fraser: And how will the pictures from Deep Impact compare to the pictures we saw from Stardust?
Dr. McFadden: It's interesting, I'm using the images from Stardust to practice interpreting the images we get from Deep Impact. We will get a closer look at Comet Tempel 1 than the Stardust spacecraft did; we will be flying closer - we'll be flying 500 km from Comet Tempel 1, whereas the Stardust spacecraft was 1,100 or 1,300 km distant.
Fraser: I remember that Stardust got hit quite a bit by debris, how will Deep Impact do if it's going to be closer to the comet?
Dr. McFadden: You have to remember that the main objective of Stardust was to collect dust, so, they wanted to get hit. So they flew into the region with the largest dust density. What we do when we fly through that same region is we turn the spacecraft away into shield mode to protect the telescope during the time when we should be getting the greatest number of hits from dust and debris. And we actually fly at an angle. Most of the debris exists in the plane of the orbit, in the direction of its motion, and so the spacecraft will fly past it at an angle; so there'll be a short, 20 minute period when we will not be observing to protect the cameras.
Fraser: Once Deep Impact completes its flyby, will you have any additional scientific targets you'd like to be able to use the spacecraft for, once it gets out of visual range of Tempel 1?
Dr. McFadden: There are currently no specific plans for observing in a follow-on mission; that has to be approved by NASA. We have done some research and know that there are another comet or two that we could observe, but we haven't gotten approval for that yet.
Fraser: So, in your wildest dreams, what will turn up on July 4th?
Dr. McFadden: Well, my wildest dream is that the impactor will go into the comet and come out the other side, but that's not very likely.
Fraser: Okay then, maybe a less wild dream.
Dr. McFadden: Okay, less wild, in order of probability is that the comet will have the consistency of a brick, for example, and the impactor will hit it and not do much damage to the surface, or not really create much of an impact because the comet is the consistency of a brick. But that's not very likely either. On the other extreme, what if the comet is like Corn Flakes? If it's like Corn Flakes, we should get a spectacular display of ejecta. We call it an ejecta curtain during the formation of the crater, and I'm hoping that that's what we'll see, because that would be very dramatic. And hopefully we could watch as we're taking fast pictures with very short exposures repeatedly. We'll be clicking as we go by. If we have a big ejecta curtain, we should be able to see the ejecta form, or traveling along in space, and that will allow us to determine the most information about the internal structure of the comet itself. So that's what I'm hoping will happen.
Audio: Get Ready for Deep Impact
Summary - (Jun 13, 2005) July 4th is Independence Day In the United States, and Americans typically enjoy their holiday with a few fireworks. But up in space, 133 million kilometres away, there's going to be an even more spectacular show... Deep Impact. On July 4th, a washing machine-sized spacecraft is going to smash into Comet Tempel 1, carve out a crater, and eject tonnes of ice and rock into space. The flyby spacecraft will watch the collision from a safe distance, and send us the most spectacular pictures ever taken of a comet - and its fresh bruise. Dr. Lucy McFadden is on the science team for Deep Impact, and speaks to me from the University of Maryland.
Listen to the interview: http://www.universetoday.com/audio/UT061305deepimpact.mp3
Fraser: Can you give me a preview for what we're going to be seeing on July 4th?
Dr. Lucy McFadden: I wish I knew exactly what was going to happen on July 4th, but this is an experiment. I can tell you what we think we might see, but chances are it may be significantly different.
So, we have a spacecraft on its way to Comet Tempel 1, which is a short-period comet that orbits - comes into the inner solar system - about once every 5.5 years. It is about the size of Washington DC. It can be fit into the area of Washington DC, but it's a little bit elongated. It's about 14 km by 4 km by 4 km, and as our spacecraft is heading toward it, we have planned to actually separate the spacecraft into two parts. Let me set the stage here, this comet is in orbit around the Sun. It's coming to its closest point of the Sun, called its perihelion, and thus be moving at its fastest speed through the solar system in early July. Our spacecraft is also in orbit around the Sun, and it's heading to intercept the orbit of the comet. 24 hours before we plan to impact this comet, we're going to separate the two spacecraft, the impactor and the flyby. The impactor will continue on its collision course to the comet, and the flyby - or mother ship - will slow down a little bit and change its direction ever so slightly so that it will be able to watch as the impactor hits the comet. When it hits the comet, when we have this cosmic collision in space, what's going to happen is the energy of the impact is going to propagate into the comet itself, in the form of a shock wave. This shock wave will plough into the comet; how deep, we don't know. But at some point, the force of the material in the comet itself will push back on the advancing energy shock wave and push material out of the comet. We will have formed a crater with ejected material coming out of the hole that we created.
Now, you may ask, why are we doing this? We're doing this to take a look - to take advantage of the opportunity of this comet being so close to us - to take a look at the inside of the comet; to see what the inside is made of, and see what structure is there.
To elaborate more, I think I need to give you some perspective on what comets are, and what they are in the solar system. I like to say they're the oldest and coldest part of the solar system. They formed at the edges of the solar system, hundreds of thousands of times the distance that the Earth is from the Sun. So, everything where comets formed is cold. They also formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was forming. They have never been incorporated into a planet. So they're both old and cold as well. We're taking advantage of the comets coming closer to the Earth to use it as a laboratory and as a probe to distant edges of the solar system in both space and time.
Fraser: Now, Deep Impact only launched a couple of months ago, so did we get really lucky with Tempel 1 being at the wrong place at the right time?
Dr. McFadden: Yeah, well, from my perspective it was at the right place at the right time.
Fraser: I was more looking from the perspective of the comet.
Dr. McFadden: Let me say two things here. First of all, the comet isn't going to be harmed. Let's get some perspective here in terms of the mass of the spacecraft versus the mass of the comet. Or the energy of the spacecraft versus the energy of the comet in motion. It's equivalent to a gnat, or a small mosquito being run into by a 767 aircraft. So, we're not going to hit the comet. But, needless to say, I'll let you take the perspective of the comet if you want. But yes, it was in the right place, or the wrong place, at this time. NASA said, when it issued its announcement of opportunity for space exploration missions, they said that this announcement covers money available within a certain time frame, and the time frame was between 2000 and 2006. And so, we went looking for comets that were available during the time NASA would give us money, and then when we found Comet Tempel 1 close to perihelion, when it's moving fastest, that also pleased us because the faster the comet's moving, the more energy involved in the transfer to create the crater. So, it's good from that point of view. And then there's a third, but secondary reason why Comet Tempel 1 is good; it's not as active as some comets might be. There's not as much dust and jet activity associated with Comet Tempel 1, which might be confusing or make it hard for us to actually observe the formation of the crater when we hit it. So, Comet Tempel 1 fits.
Fraser: How are we going to be observing it from here on Earth and from space?
Dr. McFadden: We have the spacecraft observing it from space - our Deep Impact spacecraft. We have the Rosetta spacecraft, which is heading to another comet, will also observe it from space. We have NASA's three Great Observatories: Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer will be observing it. Three different wavelengths; Chandra's an X-ray telescope, and Hubble's an optical and near-infrared imaging telescope. We'll be observing some spectroscopy with Hubble too. And then Spitzer's an infrared telescope. So, we'll be using those. As well as all the major observatories around the world will be observing the comet, before, during and after impact. So we're having a worldwide observing campaign.
Fraser: And how will the pictures from Deep Impact compare to the pictures we saw from Stardust?
Dr. McFadden: It's interesting, I'm using the images from Stardust to practice interpreting the images we get from Deep Impact. We will get a closer look at Comet Tempel 1 than the Stardust spacecraft did; we will be flying closer - we'll be flying 500 km from Comet Tempel 1, whereas the Stardust spacecraft was 1,100 or 1,300 km distant.
Fraser: I remember that Stardust got hit quite a bit by debris, how will Deep Impact do if it's going to be closer to the comet?
Dr. McFadden: You have to remember that the main objective of Stardust was to collect dust, so, they wanted to get hit. So they flew into the region with the largest dust density. What we do when we fly through that same region is we turn the spacecraft away into shield mode to protect the telescope during the time when we should be getting the greatest number of hits from dust and debris. And we actually fly at an angle. Most of the debris exists in the plane of the orbit, in the direction of its motion, and so the spacecraft will fly past it at an angle; so there'll be a short, 20 minute period when we will not be observing to protect the cameras.
Fraser: Once Deep Impact completes its flyby, will you have any additional scientific targets you'd like to be able to use the spacecraft for, once it gets out of visual range of Tempel 1?
Dr. McFadden: There are currently no specific plans for observing in a follow-on mission; that has to be approved by NASA. We have done some research and know that there are another comet or two that we could observe, but we haven't gotten approval for that yet.
Fraser: So, in your wildest dreams, what will turn up on July 4th?
Dr. McFadden: Well, my wildest dream is that the impactor will go into the comet and come out the other side, but that's not very likely.
Fraser: Okay then, maybe a less wild dream.
Dr. McFadden: Okay, less wild, in order of probability is that the comet will have the consistency of a brick, for example, and the impactor will hit it and not do much damage to the surface, or not really create much of an impact because the comet is the consistency of a brick. But that's not very likely either. On the other extreme, what if the comet is like Corn Flakes? If it's like Corn Flakes, we should get a spectacular display of ejecta. We call it an ejecta curtain during the formation of the crater, and I'm hoping that that's what we'll see, because that would be very dramatic. And hopefully we could watch as we're taking fast pictures with very short exposures repeatedly. We'll be clicking as we go by. If we have a big ejecta curtain, we should be able to see the ejecta form, or traveling along in space, and that will allow us to determine the most information about the internal structure of the comet itself. So that's what I'm hoping will happen.
linuxgeek
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Shuttle Rolls Toward Launch Pad
POSTED: 6:06 am EDT June 15, 2005
UPDATED: 9:16 am EDT June 15, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Discovery is on its way back to Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday morning. It's a crucial step for NASA to return to flight.
There was none of the fanfare that accompanied the first rollout in April, but there are fewer doubts this time about the shuttle's readiness for launch, WESH 2 News reported.
Astronauts Charlie Camarda and Andy Thomas were there to see Discovery's rollout. They'll be onboard the shuttle when and if it flies next month.
Painfully slowly, giant tailpipes roaring with almost 6,000 horsepower, the transporter carrying Discovery got under way about two hours late. Minor glitches had delayed the rollout, but once the shuttle cleared the Vehicle Assembly Building, the crawler accelerated to its top speed when loaded of 1 mph.
Back in April, after more than two years of recovery from the Columbia accident, Discovery had rolled out in triumph, only to roll back in disappointment for more safety work. Workers switched the shuttle to a new fuel tank with an extra heater. It should prevent the buildup of ice.
New research shows ice could damage the shuttle in much the same way a piece of loose insulation brought down Columbia. NASA has still not produced its final analysis showing whether the ice problem is completely solved, so that's still a nagging question to be answered the last week of June.
But NASA does have the provisional OK of a watchdog group, an independent panel of astronauts, and space program leaders who said last week it appears the space agency is complying with its new post-Columbia safety requirements, so astronauts Camarda and Thomas, along with their five crewmates, have more hope than ever of blasting off soon.
The last hurdle before returning the shuttle to space will be a flight readiness review on June 29-30. NASA management will set a formal launch date then, but only if their analysis shows the risk has been reduced to an acceptable level.
Shuttle Rolls Toward Launch Pad
POSTED: 6:06 am EDT June 15, 2005
UPDATED: 9:16 am EDT June 15, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Discovery is on its way back to Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday morning. It's a crucial step for NASA to return to flight.
There was none of the fanfare that accompanied the first rollout in April, but there are fewer doubts this time about the shuttle's readiness for launch, WESH 2 News reported.
Astronauts Charlie Camarda and Andy Thomas were there to see Discovery's rollout. They'll be onboard the shuttle when and if it flies next month.
Painfully slowly, giant tailpipes roaring with almost 6,000 horsepower, the transporter carrying Discovery got under way about two hours late. Minor glitches had delayed the rollout, but once the shuttle cleared the Vehicle Assembly Building, the crawler accelerated to its top speed when loaded of 1 mph.
Back in April, after more than two years of recovery from the Columbia accident, Discovery had rolled out in triumph, only to roll back in disappointment for more safety work. Workers switched the shuttle to a new fuel tank with an extra heater. It should prevent the buildup of ice.
New research shows ice could damage the shuttle in much the same way a piece of loose insulation brought down Columbia. NASA has still not produced its final analysis showing whether the ice problem is completely solved, so that's still a nagging question to be answered the last week of June.
But NASA does have the provisional OK of a watchdog group, an independent panel of astronauts, and space program leaders who said last week it appears the space agency is complying with its new post-Columbia safety requirements, so astronauts Camarda and Thomas, along with their five crewmates, have more hope than ever of blasting off soon.
The last hurdle before returning the shuttle to space will be a flight readiness review on June 29-30. NASA management will set a formal launch date then, but only if their analysis shows the risk has been reduced to an acceptable level.
linuxgeek
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linuxgeek
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NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: As night fell over Europe on June 14th, electric blue clouds materialized in the darkening sky. It happened again on June 15th. "What a wonderful display of noctilucent clouds," says Jan Koeman, who took this picture from Kloetinge, the Netherlands:
http://www.spaceweather.com/nlcs/images2005/14jun05/koeman1_strip.jpg
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are a mystery. They hover near the edge of space, far above ordinary clouds. Some researchers believe they're seeded by space dust. Others say they're a sign of global warming. Whatever they are, they're beautiful, and this week's sightings in Europe mark the beginning of the 2005 noctilucent cloud season. Northern summer is the best time to spot them.
http://www.spaceweather.com/nlcs/images2005/14jun05/koeman1_strip.jpg
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are a mystery. They hover near the edge of space, far above ordinary clouds. Some researchers believe they're seeded by space dust. Others say they're a sign of global warming. Whatever they are, they're beautiful, and this week's sightings in Europe mark the beginning of the 2005 noctilucent cloud season. Northern summer is the best time to spot them.
linuxgeek
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Summer Moon Illusion
The lowest-hanging full moon in 18 years is going to play tricks on you this week.
June 20, 2005: Sometimes you can't believe your eyes. This week is one of those times.
Step outside any evening at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant moon rising in the east. It looks like Earth's moon, round and cratered; the Man in the Moon is in his usual place. But something's wrong. This full moon is strangely inflated. It's huge!
You've just experienced the Moon Illusion.
Sky watchers have known this for thousands of years: moons hanging low in the sky look unnaturally big. Cameras don't see it, but our eyes do. It's a real illusion.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/moonillusion/seattlemoon_stephens_strip.jpg
Above: A time-lapse sequence of the moon rising over Seattle. To the camera, the moon appears to be the same size no matter what its location on the sky. Credit and copyright: Shay Stephens.
This week's full moon hangs lower in the sky than any full moon since June 1987, so the Moon Illusion is going to be extra strong.
What makes the moon so low? It's summer. Remember, the sun and the full Moon are on opposite sides of the sky. During summer the sun is high, which means the full moon must be low. This week’s full moon occurs on June 22nd, barely a day after the summer solstice on June 21st--perfect timing for the Moon Illusion.
When you look at the moon, rays of moonlight converge and form an image about 0.15 mm wide in the back of your eye. High moons and low moons make the same sized spot. So why does your brain think one is bigger than the other? After all these years, scientists still aren't sure why.
A similar illusion was discovered in 1913 by Mario Ponzo, who drew two identical bars across a pair of converging lines, like the railroad tracks pictured right. The upper yellow bar looks wider because it spans a greater apparent distance between the rails. This is the "Ponzo Illusion."
Some researchers believe that the Moon Illusion is Ponzo's Illusion, with trees and houses playing the role of Ponzo's converging lines. Foreground objects trick your brain into thinking the moon is bigger than it really is.
But there's a problem. Airline pilots flying at very high altitudes sometimes experience the Moon Illusion without any objects in the foreground. What tricks their eyes?
Maybe it's the shape of the sky. Humans perceive the sky as a flattened dome, with the zenith nearby and the horizon far away. It makes sense: Birds flying overhead are closer than birds on the horizon. When the moon is near the horizon, your brain, trained by watching birds, miscalculates the moon's true distance and size.
There are other explanations, too. It doesn't matter which is correct, though, if all you want to do is see a big beautiful moon. The best time to look is around moonrise, when the moon is peeking through trees and houses or over mountain ridges, doing its best to trick you. The table below (scroll down) lists moonrise times for selected US cities.
A fun activity: Look at the moon directly and then through a narrow opening of some kind. For example, 'pinch' the moon between your thumb and forefinger or view it through a cardboard tube, which hides the foreground terrain. Can you make the optical illusion vanish?
Stop that! You won't want to miss the Moon Illusion.
Summer Moon Illusion
The lowest-hanging full moon in 18 years is going to play tricks on you this week.
June 20, 2005: Sometimes you can't believe your eyes. This week is one of those times.
Step outside any evening at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant moon rising in the east. It looks like Earth's moon, round and cratered; the Man in the Moon is in his usual place. But something's wrong. This full moon is strangely inflated. It's huge!
You've just experienced the Moon Illusion.
Sky watchers have known this for thousands of years: moons hanging low in the sky look unnaturally big. Cameras don't see it, but our eyes do. It's a real illusion.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/moonillusion/seattlemoon_stephens_strip.jpg
Above: A time-lapse sequence of the moon rising over Seattle. To the camera, the moon appears to be the same size no matter what its location on the sky. Credit and copyright: Shay Stephens.
This week's full moon hangs lower in the sky than any full moon since June 1987, so the Moon Illusion is going to be extra strong.
What makes the moon so low? It's summer. Remember, the sun and the full Moon are on opposite sides of the sky. During summer the sun is high, which means the full moon must be low. This week’s full moon occurs on June 22nd, barely a day after the summer solstice on June 21st--perfect timing for the Moon Illusion.
When you look at the moon, rays of moonlight converge and form an image about 0.15 mm wide in the back of your eye. High moons and low moons make the same sized spot. So why does your brain think one is bigger than the other? After all these years, scientists still aren't sure why.
A similar illusion was discovered in 1913 by Mario Ponzo, who drew two identical bars across a pair of converging lines, like the railroad tracks pictured right. The upper yellow bar looks wider because it spans a greater apparent distance between the rails. This is the "Ponzo Illusion."
Some researchers believe that the Moon Illusion is Ponzo's Illusion, with trees and houses playing the role of Ponzo's converging lines. Foreground objects trick your brain into thinking the moon is bigger than it really is.
But there's a problem. Airline pilots flying at very high altitudes sometimes experience the Moon Illusion without any objects in the foreground. What tricks their eyes?
Maybe it's the shape of the sky. Humans perceive the sky as a flattened dome, with the zenith nearby and the horizon far away. It makes sense: Birds flying overhead are closer than birds on the horizon. When the moon is near the horizon, your brain, trained by watching birds, miscalculates the moon's true distance and size.
There are other explanations, too. It doesn't matter which is correct, though, if all you want to do is see a big beautiful moon. The best time to look is around moonrise, when the moon is peeking through trees and houses or over mountain ridges, doing its best to trick you. The table below (scroll down) lists moonrise times for selected US cities.
A fun activity: Look at the moon directly and then through a narrow opening of some kind. For example, 'pinch' the moon between your thumb and forefinger or view it through a cardboard tube, which hides the foreground terrain. Can you make the optical illusion vanish?
Stop that! You won't want to miss the Moon Illusion.
The Mutt
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- Apr 29, 2004
- Posts
- 22,265
Solar Sail
LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Reuters) - The world's first solar sail spacecraft takes flight on Tuesday, launched by space enthusiasts who cobbled the privately funded mission together on $4 million and an untested theory that light can power limitless space exploration.
Cosmos 1, a disc-shaped craft whose two segmented sails suggest flower petals, is set to blast off from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea at 12:46 p.m. PDT (1746 GMT) on Tuesday.
Mission controllers hope to fill each sail's four 49-foot (15-meter) segments with streams of photons, or light particles, emanating from the sun to lift Cosmos 1 to a higher orbit.
The mission's sponsors at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, think Cosmos 1's flight ultimately will prove the science-fiction conceit that sailing to the stars aboard a light-powered ship is possible.
"Our role is as the dreamers and instigators behind this spacecraft," Emily Lakdawalla, project operations assistant, said on Monday.
"It is very promising technology but one that nobody is really pursuing into space. All we are trying to do is to demonstrate that the technology can work," Lakdawalla said.
The project started as a dream held by Planetary Society founders Carl Sagan, the late science fiction writer, and Louis Friedman, who proposed sending a solar sail craft to rendezvous with Halley's Comet in the 1970s when he worked at NASA.
Friedman, the society's executive director, and others believed the impact from a constant stream of photons bouncing off a huge sail be enough would impel a craft through frictionless space at an ever-increasing rate of speed.
With sunlight as its only fuel, a solar sail craft could open the farthest reaches of the solar system to space travel.
OFF THE DRAWING BOARD
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the need to find commercial uses for Russia's long-range missiles helped Cosmos 1 get off the drawing board three decades later.
The project was funded mainly by an entertainment company run by Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, and by contributions from Planetary Society members and philanthropist Peter Lewis.
Cosmos 1 was built by Russian spacecraft contractor NPO Lavochkin. It will be launched in the tip of a converted intercontinental ballistic missile that was part of the Soviet Cold War arsenal. The plan is for it to orbit Earth for at least a month.
The rocket trip and a boost from a "kick motor" will put the 220.5-pound (100 kg) spacecraft into orbit about 550 miles (885 km) above Earth shortly after 1 p.m. PDT (1800 GMT).
Cosmos 1 will orbit for several days to acclimatize its instruments to the vacuum of space before its twin sails are deployed via inflatable booms. Mission controls now plan to deploy the sails late on Saturday.
Each sail is made up of eight triangular blades whose combined structure looks like a disk. The reflective Mylar sails are about 5 microns thick, or about one-quarter the thickness of a plastic trash bag.
After it deploys its sails, Cosmos 1 will be visible as it circles the Earth about once every 100 minutes.
LOS ANGELES, June 20 (Reuters) - The world's first solar sail spacecraft takes flight on Tuesday, launched by space enthusiasts who cobbled the privately funded mission together on $4 million and an untested theory that light can power limitless space exploration.
Cosmos 1, a disc-shaped craft whose two segmented sails suggest flower petals, is set to blast off from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea at 12:46 p.m. PDT (1746 GMT) on Tuesday.
Mission controllers hope to fill each sail's four 49-foot (15-meter) segments with streams of photons, or light particles, emanating from the sun to lift Cosmos 1 to a higher orbit.
The mission's sponsors at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, think Cosmos 1's flight ultimately will prove the science-fiction conceit that sailing to the stars aboard a light-powered ship is possible.
"Our role is as the dreamers and instigators behind this spacecraft," Emily Lakdawalla, project operations assistant, said on Monday.
"It is very promising technology but one that nobody is really pursuing into space. All we are trying to do is to demonstrate that the technology can work," Lakdawalla said.
The project started as a dream held by Planetary Society founders Carl Sagan, the late science fiction writer, and Louis Friedman, who proposed sending a solar sail craft to rendezvous with Halley's Comet in the 1970s when he worked at NASA.
Friedman, the society's executive director, and others believed the impact from a constant stream of photons bouncing off a huge sail be enough would impel a craft through frictionless space at an ever-increasing rate of speed.
With sunlight as its only fuel, a solar sail craft could open the farthest reaches of the solar system to space travel.
OFF THE DRAWING BOARD
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the need to find commercial uses for Russia's long-range missiles helped Cosmos 1 get off the drawing board three decades later.
The project was funded mainly by an entertainment company run by Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, and by contributions from Planetary Society members and philanthropist Peter Lewis.
Cosmos 1 was built by Russian spacecraft contractor NPO Lavochkin. It will be launched in the tip of a converted intercontinental ballistic missile that was part of the Soviet Cold War arsenal. The plan is for it to orbit Earth for at least a month.
The rocket trip and a boost from a "kick motor" will put the 220.5-pound (100 kg) spacecraft into orbit about 550 miles (885 km) above Earth shortly after 1 p.m. PDT (1800 GMT).
Cosmos 1 will orbit for several days to acclimatize its instruments to the vacuum of space before its twin sails are deployed via inflatable booms. Mission controls now plan to deploy the sails late on Saturday.
Each sail is made up of eight triangular blades whose combined structure looks like a disk. The reflective Mylar sails are about 5 microns thick, or about one-quarter the thickness of a plastic trash bag.
After it deploys its sails, Cosmos 1 will be visible as it circles the Earth about once every 100 minutes.
linuxgeek
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SUMMER SOLSTICE: The 2005 northern summer solstice is today. The sun is at its highest declination of the year, so high that in some places the sun never sets--not even at midnight. This picture of the midnight sun comes from Antero Rahtu of Rovaniemi, Finland:
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/21jun05/Rahtu1_strip.jpg
Rovaniemi is 7 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, which means, strictly speaking, the midnight sun ought to dip below the horizon. What's going on? "The sun can be seen here because sunbeams are bent by the atmosphere," explains Rahtu.
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/21jun05/Rahtu1_strip.jpg
Rovaniemi is 7 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, which means, strictly speaking, the midnight sun ought to dip below the horizon. What's going on? "The sun can be seen here because sunbeams are bent by the atmosphere," explains Rahtu.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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SOLAR ACTIVITY: Astronomers are monitoring a giant solar prominence today. Peeking over the sun's eastern limb, it stretches some 200,000 kilometers from end to end. Jack Newton and friends at the Observatory Bed & Breakfast in Osoyoos, British Columbia, took this picture of it on June 20th:
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/21jun05/newton_strip2.jpg
"What a great prominance to appear so late in the solar cycle," marvels Newton.
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/21jun05/newton_strip2.jpg
"What a great prominance to appear so late in the solar cycle," marvels Newton.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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Solar sail probe 'probably lost'
Sponsors of an experimental spacecraft designed to use light from the Sun to power space travel have conceded that the mission is probably lost.
But they said the apparent detection of signals from the craft by tracking stations remained to be explained.
The privately funded Cosmos-1 craft was launched on Tuesday on a Russian rocket from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
Russian officials said the modified missile carrying the craft failed during firing of its first stage.
Despite announcements by the Russian navy and space agency that the vehicle had been lost, the Cosmos-1 team held out hope throughout Tuesday that the launch had succeeded.
However, that hope has now all but faded. In a statement, mission sponsors the Planetary Society accepted the Russians' conclusion was probably correct.
But, it continued, "there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources".
Apparent signals were detected by three ground stations, at Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, Majuro in the Marshall Islands and Panska Ves in the Czech Republic, the Planetary Society said. It added that doppler data was also detected over one of these stations.
Slim chance
But Jiri Simunek, a scientist at Panska Ves, told the BBC News website that no signal had been detected by the Czech tracking station, "just noise".
Nevertheless, Cosmos-1 scientists said there was still a slim possibility that the craft made it into orbit, though a lower one than expected.
"The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue," said the Planetary Society statement.
A spokesperson for the Russian space agency said the Volna rocket booster carrying the spacecraft had failed 83 seconds after launch due to a problem with the first stage engine of the three-stage booster.
"The booster's failure means that the solar sail vehicle was lost," said agency spokesperson Vyacheslav Davidenko.
"The Russian navy is searching the area for the debris of the booster and the vehicle."
Rocket failure
The Russian-built Cosmos-1 was launched aboard a modified Volna intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from the nuclear submarine Borisoglebsk.
The $4m (£2.1m) experimental craft uses "solar sails" for power.
The sail reflects particles of light, or photons, from the Sun, gaining momentum in the opposite direction.
Some think solar sails offer a cheaper, faster form of spacecraft propulsion.
"Solar sailing is really the only known technology that could potentially take us to the stars one day because it does not have to carry fuel with it and because it can keep accelerating - even at incredible distances," the Planetary Society's Amir Alexander told the BBC.
The acceleration from sunlight is very small; but the advantage of solar sailing over chemical propulsion is that the acceleration is sustained.
Cosmos-1 would have got faster and faster - and climbed higher in orbit - as time went on.
The 100kg (220lbs) craft had been scheduled to reach an 800km- (500 mile-) high orbit.
It was then to have taken pictures of Earth for four days before unfurling its eight aluminium-backed plastic sail blades into a 30m (100ft) circle.
The US, European, Japanese and Russian space agencies also have solar sail programmes in the offing.
Solar sail probe 'probably lost'
Sponsors of an experimental spacecraft designed to use light from the Sun to power space travel have conceded that the mission is probably lost.
But they said the apparent detection of signals from the craft by tracking stations remained to be explained.
The privately funded Cosmos-1 craft was launched on Tuesday on a Russian rocket from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
Russian officials said the modified missile carrying the craft failed during firing of its first stage.
Despite announcements by the Russian navy and space agency that the vehicle had been lost, the Cosmos-1 team held out hope throughout Tuesday that the launch had succeeded.
However, that hope has now all but faded. In a statement, mission sponsors the Planetary Society accepted the Russians' conclusion was probably correct.
But, it continued, "there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources".
Apparent signals were detected by three ground stations, at Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, Majuro in the Marshall Islands and Panska Ves in the Czech Republic, the Planetary Society said. It added that doppler data was also detected over one of these stations.
Slim chance
But Jiri Simunek, a scientist at Panska Ves, told the BBC News website that no signal had been detected by the Czech tracking station, "just noise".
Nevertheless, Cosmos-1 scientists said there was still a slim possibility that the craft made it into orbit, though a lower one than expected.
"The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue," said the Planetary Society statement.
A spokesperson for the Russian space agency said the Volna rocket booster carrying the spacecraft had failed 83 seconds after launch due to a problem with the first stage engine of the three-stage booster.
"The booster's failure means that the solar sail vehicle was lost," said agency spokesperson Vyacheslav Davidenko.
"The Russian navy is searching the area for the debris of the booster and the vehicle."
Rocket failure
The Russian-built Cosmos-1 was launched aboard a modified Volna intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from the nuclear submarine Borisoglebsk.
The $4m (£2.1m) experimental craft uses "solar sails" for power.
The sail reflects particles of light, or photons, from the Sun, gaining momentum in the opposite direction.
Some think solar sails offer a cheaper, faster form of spacecraft propulsion.
"Solar sailing is really the only known technology that could potentially take us to the stars one day because it does not have to carry fuel with it and because it can keep accelerating - even at incredible distances," the Planetary Society's Amir Alexander told the BBC.
The acceleration from sunlight is very small; but the advantage of solar sailing over chemical propulsion is that the acceleration is sustained.
Cosmos-1 would have got faster and faster - and climbed higher in orbit - as time went on.
The 100kg (220lbs) craft had been scheduled to reach an 800km- (500 mile-) high orbit.
It was then to have taken pictures of Earth for four days before unfurling its eight aluminium-backed plastic sail blades into a 30m (100ft) circle.
The US, European, Japanese and Russian space agencies also have solar sail programmes in the offing.
linuxgeek
Rogue Scholar
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- Feb 1, 2004
- Posts
- 32,719
PLANETS ALIGN: Have you noticed what's happening in the western sky at sunset? Saturn, Venus and Mercury are gathering for a spectacular close encounter this weekend. Get the full story from Science@NASA. (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22jun_spectacular.htm)
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/23jun05/downey_med.jpg
Above: Saturn, Venus and Mercury on June 20th. Image credit: Philip Downey of St. Catharines, Ontario.
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/23jun05/downey_med.jpg
Above: Saturn, Venus and Mercury on June 20th. Image credit: Philip Downey of St. Catharines, Ontario.
linuxgeek
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NASA Bill Hangs Condition on Shuttle Retirement
WASHINGTON — The senior U.S. senators from Florida and Texas are pushing back against NASA’s plan to retire the U.S. space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade regardless of whether a replacement vehicle is ready to enter service by then.
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee, and Bill Nelson (Fla.), her Democratic counterpart, introduced a bill June 21 that would require NASA to keep the space shuttle orbiter flying until a new crew transport vehicle has flown.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is adamant about retiring the shuttle in 2010, but has said he intends to accelerate development of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in order to minimize any gap in the United States’ ability to put humans in space. NASA previously had planned to field the CEV in 2014. Although Griffin has said he wants the CEV to be ready before then, he has not made its availability a precondition for retiring the shuttle.
The bill sponsored by Hutchison and Nelson would change that.
Specifically, the bill says, “In order to ensure continuous human access to space, the Administrator may not retire the Space Shuttle orbiter until a replacement human-rated spacecraft system has demonstrated that it can take humans into Earth orbit and return them safely.”
The space shuttle language is included in a broader measure, S. 1281, which authorizes appropriations for NASA for 2006-2010.
While the bill endorses NASA’s new exploration goals, which include returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 in preparation for eventual trips to Mars and beyond, it parts with NASA on both shuttle retirement and on plans to eliminate international space station-based research that does not directly support the space agency’s exploration plans.
The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation June 23. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, intend to introduce their own NASA authorization bill June 27. The House version of the bill, according to sources familiar with it, would not require NASA to keep flying the shuttle until the CEV is ready. The House and Senate must sort out any differences between their respective versions of a bill before it can become law.
Congress last sent a NASA authorization bill to the White House for the president’s signature in 2000.
NASA Bill Hangs Condition on Shuttle Retirement
WASHINGTON — The senior U.S. senators from Florida and Texas are pushing back against NASA’s plan to retire the U.S. space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade regardless of whether a replacement vehicle is ready to enter service by then.
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee, and Bill Nelson (Fla.), her Democratic counterpart, introduced a bill June 21 that would require NASA to keep the space shuttle orbiter flying until a new crew transport vehicle has flown.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is adamant about retiring the shuttle in 2010, but has said he intends to accelerate development of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in order to minimize any gap in the United States’ ability to put humans in space. NASA previously had planned to field the CEV in 2014. Although Griffin has said he wants the CEV to be ready before then, he has not made its availability a precondition for retiring the shuttle.
The bill sponsored by Hutchison and Nelson would change that.
Specifically, the bill says, “In order to ensure continuous human access to space, the Administrator may not retire the Space Shuttle orbiter until a replacement human-rated spacecraft system has demonstrated that it can take humans into Earth orbit and return them safely.”
The space shuttle language is included in a broader measure, S. 1281, which authorizes appropriations for NASA for 2006-2010.
While the bill endorses NASA’s new exploration goals, which include returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 in preparation for eventual trips to Mars and beyond, it parts with NASA on both shuttle retirement and on plans to eliminate international space station-based research that does not directly support the space agency’s exploration plans.
The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote on the legislation June 23. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, intend to introduce their own NASA authorization bill June 27. The House version of the bill, according to sources familiar with it, would not require NASA to keep flying the shuttle until the CEV is ready. The House and Senate must sort out any differences between their respective versions of a bill before it can become law.
Congress last sent a NASA authorization bill to the White House for the president’s signature in 2000.
Crystal_Flower
Experienced
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- Jun 24, 2005
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Interesting, all of it.
