astronomy & space stuff

[linuxgeek]

PLANETS ALIGN: (cont)

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/24jun05/ballard_strip.jpg

 

[Guest]

 

[linuxgeek]

HaHaHah!!!


I was wondering what the fourth one was that was not labeled... it was dirt on my monitor!

dirt, eh? where did you find white dirt?

 

[Guest]

 

[linuxgeek]

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Making the Mirror for the World's Largest Telescope

Summary - (Jun 27, 2005) Workers at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab have begun pre-firing one of the 8.4 metre mirror segments as part of the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). When it's finally completed in 2016, the GMT will be the largest telescope in the world, consisting of 7 of these 8.4 metre mirrors aligned to work as a single mirror 25.6 metres across - with 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/2005-0627mirror-full.jpg

The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab is pre-firing its huge spinning furnace and inspecting tons of glass for casting a first 8.4-meter (27-foot) diameter mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The casting is scheduled for Saturday, July 23.

With this milestone step, the GMT becomes the first extremely large ground-based telescope to start construction.

The completed GMT telescope primary mirror will consist of six 8.4-meter off-axis mirrors surrounding a seventh, on-axis central mirror. (An off-axis mirror focuses light at an angle away from its axis, unlike a symmetrical mirror that focuses light along its axis.) This arrangement will give the GMT four-and-one-half times the collecting area of any current optical telescope and the resolving power of a 25.6-meter (84-foot) diameter telescope, or 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

'Spin-casting' single-piece telescope mirrors that are giant, stiff yet lightweight is an ingenious, awesome process that was conceived and developed by University of Arizona Regents' Professor of astronomy J. Roger P. Angel. Casting giant monolithic mirrors is accomplished at only one place in the world -- the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory.

The casting team, headed by Randy Lutz, installed about 50 cores a day for a total 1,681 cores during seven weeks in April - May. The team bolted each core at precisely measured angles to hearth tile and adjoining cores in this operation. The crew daubed all the glued junctures with blue "smurf" - a concoction the color of the blue smurf cartoon characters -- to prevent glass from sticking to the mold.

At this point, the mold holds 17,000 pounds of hearth tiles, 16,000 pounds in fiber tub walls, and 15,000 pounds of cores and pins. The casting team has now cleaned and inspected the completed mold, lowered the furnace cover into place, and begun pre-firing on June 16.

Team members actively 'pilot' the furnace by computer as temperatures ramp up during the first 8 days of the heating process, then shut power off to complete the two-week pre-firing. Pre-firing centers core glue joints, burns out any impurities and stresses the mold. The casting team will inspect the mold for any needed repairs after pre-firing.

Some of the most visually stunning steps in casting are glass inspection and loading. The team began inspecting 90 shipping crates of glass on June 24. Glass loading is scheduled for the second week of July, said Steve Miller, Mirror Lab manager.

The 40,000 pounds of borosilicate glass that will make the 27-foot diameter (8.4 meter) GMT mirror comes from Ohara Glassworks in Japan. Ohara made the glass from sand that comes from the gulf coast of Florida.

The Mirror Lab will start heating the furnace July 18. It takes six days for the glass to reach peak temperature at 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit (1178 Celsius). At this temperature, the glass begins to flow like honey at room temperature. The thick liquid glass flows between the hexagonal cores in the mold to create a "honeycomb" structure. The final honeycomb mirror blank will weigh about a fifth as much as a solid glass mirror of its size.

The bearings on the rotating furnace will turn a 100-ton load during spincasting. The furnace can be supplied with up to 1.1 Megawatts of electricity during casting -- enough to power an average 750 to 1,100 Tucson households, depending on the time of year.

The oven's rotation rate determines the depth of the curve spun into the shape of the mirror, or the mirror's focal length. The GMT mirror will spin 5 times a minute, slower than the two 8.4-meter mirrors the Lab made for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), because the off-axis GMT mirror is to be a shallower, longer focal-length mirror than the symmetric LBT primaries.

"This is a new epoch for astronomy," Richard Meserve, president of the Carnegie Institution, said. "The fabrication of the off-axis mirror is a path-breaking event that will advance scientific discovery. Everyone in the eight-member GMT consortium is excited that we're in production."

The Giant Magellan Telescope consortium currently includes the Carnegie Observatories, Harvard University, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin, and Texas A & M University.

"The fact that we are already in production is directly related to the successful technology developed for the twin 6.5-meter (21-foot) Magellan telescopes at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile," said Matt Johns, assistant director of the Carnegie Observatories and GMT project manager. "The Magellan telescopes have proved to be the best natural imaging telescopes on the ground."

Mirror cooling is a carefully controlled process that will take 11 to 12 weeks. After the mirror is completely cooled, the lab will wash the ceramic cores out of the mirror's glass honeycomb cells. Then the mirror will be ground and polished to an accuracy of plus-or-minus 15 to 20 nanometers (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter). The mirror will be coated with a layer of reflective aluminum only 100 nanometers thick at the observatory site.

The GMT is slated for completion in 2016 at a site in northern Chile. With its powerful resolution and enormous collecting area, it will be able to probe the most important questions in astronomy, including the birth of stars and planetary systems in our Milky Way, the mysteries of black holes, and the genesis of galaxies.

Detailed information about the GMT design and science goals is online at http://www.gmto.org/

 

[linuxgeek]

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Discovery is Ready to Return to Flight

Shuttle managers met at Kennedy Space Center June 29 and 30 for the Flight Readiness Review and have decided Space Shuttle Discovery is ready to launch. At a press conference June 30 it was announced the Shuttle will Return to Flight on July 13 at 2:51 p.m. CDT (1951 GMT).

Space Shuttle Discovery sits at the launch pad with its cargo already installed in the payload bay. When it launches to the International Space Station, the Shuttle will take with it a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, a replacement control moment gyroscope and the orbiter boom sensor system, which will help the astronauts inspect the Shuttle's thermal tiles and panels.

The seven astronauts of the STS-114 mission will test new Shuttle safety procedures recommended by Columbia accident investigators and deliver much needed supplies to the Space Station.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/118290main_1315-s.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/118349main_1333-s.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/118341main_1329-s.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

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On the 4th of July, a NASA spacecraft will blast a hole in Comet Tempel 1.

June 28, 2005: For the last five billion years of our planet's violent history, Earth has been walloped by comets. These small bodies and their asteroid cousins whacked Earth often in its early years, knocking the stuffing out of our young world. As the solar system matured, impacts happened less often—but they have never ceased. Earth bears its scars in the form of weathered craters and extinct species.

This 4th of July is payback time. For the first time in history, Earth gets to strike back.

The weapon: a NASA spacecraft named Deep Impact.

The target: a 10-mile wide comet named Tempel 1.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/deepimpact/DI_Rawlings_low_strip.jpg

Deep Impact is going to shoot an 820-pound projectile into the rocky, icy nucleus of Comet Tempel 1. The 23,000 mph collision will form a big crater, and Deep impact will observe the stages of its development, how deep it gets and how wide it becomes. Researchers expect a plume of gas and dust to spray out of the crater. Deep Impact will measure its composition and record what the billowing plume does to the comet's atmosphere. In all, Deep Impact should be able to peer into the new crater for almost 15 minutes before the craft speeds away, continuing, like its cometary quarry, to orbit forever around the Sun.

Back on Earth, amateur astronomers will be watching, too. The comet glows like a 10th magnitude star and can be seen through backyard telescopes. It should brighten considerably when Deep Impact strikes. The impact plume will reflect sunlight, boosting the visibility of the comet to 5th or 6th magnitude, making it a faint naked-eye object. The Pacific side of Earth will be facing the comet at the moment of impact (0552 UT on July 4th; 10:52 pm PDT on July 3rd); observers in Hawaii, Mexico and the US southwest are favored. Click here and here for observing tips.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/deepimpact/skymap_north_med2.gif

Other spacecraft have flown by comets. Most recently, in 2004, Stardust approached Comet Wild 2 close enough to gather dust particles from the comet's atmosphere for return to Earth in 2006. Deep Space 1 visited Comet Borrelly in 2001; Giotto and others visited Comet Halley in 1986. We've seen what a comet's dark crusty nucleus looks like from the outside. Deep Impact, for the first time, will poke a hole through the crust and let us look inside.

Why Comet Tempel 1? We know of more than a thousand comets. Choosing this particular one has a lot to do with timing: Mission planners needed a comet that would be relatively easy to reach at about the time the spacecraft was ready for launch. According to principal investigator Mike A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, Tempel 1 has a big nucleus; the impact should form a crater, not obliterate the comet. Tempel 1 also has an orbit that would allow the spacecraft to reach the comet with a high velocity and on the sunward side, so that the impact would be sunlit and visible from Earth. "Tempel 1 was in the right place at the right time," says mission co-investigator Lucy McFadden.

Blasting a comet is satisfying on many levels.

For one thing, it could save our planet. Comet Tempel 1 is not on a collision course with Earth, but suppose, one day, astronomers find a comet that is. What kind of projectile or bomb should we use to deflect or destroy it? If comets break into dangerously-big pieces when they're "touched," thus multiplying the hazard, shooting at them might not be a good idea. Consider Deep Impact to be a first experiment in planetary protection.

For another, it reveals the true value of comets. Is there "stuff" in there we can use? NASA is planning to send people back to the Moon by 2020, followed by trips to Mars and beyond; this is NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. Eventually comets could serve as interplanetary filling stations, providing explorers with raw materials they need, particularly water, which can be broken apart into hydrogen (for rocket fuel) and oxygen (to breathe) or simply melted and drank. Deep Impact is going to help planners understand exactly what materials comets contain and how difficult they might be to extract.

Finally, Deep Impact takes us back to the beginning--of everything. Impacts are the process by which the planets in our solar system formed. One big example: Some 4.5 billion years ago a planetesimal body the size of Mars sideswiped the Earth, ripping off its crust and creating a huge ring of debris which lasted a year or so. Much of that debris later collided with itself to form a new world, which we now see as the Moon.

About half a billion years later, the Earth and Moon were hit by an act of cosmic terror unseen since then. A brief "period of late heavy bombardment" left the Earth and Moon a wasteland, and as we look up at the Moon, we see the results as the huge impact basins that form the eyes and face of the Man in the Moon. Even after that period subsided, comets kept on smashing into Earth, bringing with them the building blocks of life--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Had there been no impacts, some scientists believe, there would be no life on Earth.

And once life formed, the process continued. At least one of the great extinctions of the past can be traced to the impact of a comet or an asteroid some 65 million years ago, resulting in the extinction of 70% of all species of life. It also led to great change in the history of life; instead of an age of reptiles, there was an age of mammals. And out of all this life there arose one small group of humans, who were inspired to send a return package.

Our planet comes full circle: prepare for Deep Impact.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/deepimpact/holloway_med.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact

 

[linuxgeek]

AURORA OUTLOOK: A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, but so far it has not sparked a geomagnetic storm. Nevertheless, high-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras tonight in case geomagnetic activity intensifies.

SUNSPOTS GALORE: What a difference a few days makes. Three days ago, the sun was almost blank, now it's peppered with sunspots. Two of the biggest are shown below, blossoming from invisible specks to planet-sized active regions:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/02jul05/midi360b.gif

Despite their rapid growth, these spots do not yet have unstable magnetic fields that pose a threat for explosive solar flares. This could change, however, so stay tuned for updates.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/02jul05/midi140.gif

 

[drown]

sincerely
appreciate
this thread...

deep impact.

hit me baby.

 

[jif_p]

Ack Ack!

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/14/mars.pop/story.mars.attacks.jpg

 

[Holly Delight]

A bump so folks read linuxgeek's post ^^ about four up that ^ a ^ way.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/120500main_070305-imp_mri-516.jpg

This image of Deep Impact's impactor probe was taken by the mission's mother ship, or flyby spacecraft, after the two separated at 11:07 p.m. Pacific time, July 2 (2:07 a.m. Eastern time, July 3). The impactor is scheduled to collide with comet Tempel 1 at 10:52 p.m. Pacific time, July 3 (1:52 a.m. Eastern time, July 4). The impactor can be seen at the center of the image.

 

[linuxgeek]

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Deep Impact: Observer's Guide
by David H. Levy

If Comet Tempel 1 behaves as predicted, on the evening of July 3, 2005, it should be shining between 9th and 10th magnitude about 3.5 degrees east northeast of Spica: sky map. It could brighten rapidly to 6th, or even 5th magnitude, making it an easy target in binoculars.

How long will it stay bright? A few minutes? Hours, days, or weeks? When Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 split after being catastrophically disrupted in July 1992, it remained pretty bright for several months, fading considerably about a year after the split. This impact will not be nearly as disruptive, so my guess is that it will continue to brighten for a day or so, then fade over the next several weeks. But since this type of experiment has never been done, we really do not know.

So what should we expect to see or do?

For beginners: The best way to experience this event is to begin observing the comet on the next clear night. You do need a telescope, but even a small 4-inch or 6-inch reflector will do just fine. Some suggestions:

• Beginning on the next clear night, try to find the comet with your telescope.
• When you spot it, note its shape and its size. It may look like mere fuzzy smudge against the background sky. Is it an entirely circular fuzzy blob of light, or is it elongated? Does it have a tail?
• On other nights, finding and observing Tempel 1 will be easier and easier as you get used to it.
• If you live in the western part of North America, or in the eastern Pacific, you'll enjoy a direct view of the comet at the moment of impact. Write down what you see, and draw a sketch of it.
• If you live elsewhere, try to follow step 4 the night before impact and the night after it. You'll probably notice a great brightening from one night to the next!
• If you like, you can submit your observations to the mission's Amateur Observers Program

For advanced observers: To make observations that could be scientifically useful to the mission, you need the following:

• A good telescope, and aperture of 6 inches or more, on a good motor driven mount.
• A CCD system that works with the telescope to resolve details as small as two arcseconds per pixel.
• Take exposures that are fairly short, no more than a minute. Except during the hours around impact, it might help to "co-add" or "stack" several short exposures to get an total exposure of up to 10 minutes. But around impact time, I do not recommend co-adding several short exposures to make a single long exposure in hopes of revealing more detail. While this is normally a good idea, the comet might be changing so rapidly that you need to use the individual exposures.
• Later, you can try stacking these images, but do submit the originals
• Calibrate each exposure with appropriate dark frames, bias frames, and flat fields, but save the original, unprocessed images. Do not enhance the images in any way that would affect the information they contain.

For more information, visit www.deepimpact.umd.edu/stsp

Do not feel as though you must submit your observations to anyone but your own observing log. This will be a historic event, and your own record of it will stay in your memory--and in your observing log--for many years to come.

 

[linuxgeek]

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Deep Impact Smashes Into Tempel 1

Summary - (Jul 3, 2005) NASA's Deep Impact mission completed its primary goal July 4th, when its impactor spacecraft smashed into Comet Tempel 1. NASA scientists are eagerly reviewing the impact data captured by the flyby spacecraft to learn what size crater was excavated, and the kind of material ejected into space. The 373 kg (820 lb) copper impactor crossed paths with Tempel 1 right on schedule, at 0552 UTC (1:52 am EDT). More than 60 observatories on Earth and in space were on hand to watch the collision and help gather data. As expected, Comet Tempel 1 was entirely unfazed by the impact, and hasn't changed its orbit in any detectable way.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/2005-0703deep-lg.jpg

After 172 days and 431 million kilometers (268 million miles) of deep space stalking, Deep Impact successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The collision between the coffee table-sized impactor and city-sized comet occurred at 1:52 a.m. EDT.

"What a way to kick off America's Independence Day," said Deep Impact Project Manager Rick Grammier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The challenges of this mission and teamwork that went into making it a success, should make all of us very proud."

"This mission is truly a smashing success," said Andy Dantzler, director of NASA's Solar System Division. "Tomorrow and in the days ahead we will know a lot more about the origins of our solar system."

Official word of the impact came 5 minutes after impact. At 1:57 a.m. EDT, an image from the spacecraft's medium resolution camera downlinked to the computer screens of the mission's science team showed the tell-tale signs of a high-speed impact.

"The image clearly shows a spectacular impact," said Deep Impact principal investigator Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park. "With this much data we have a long night ahead of us, but that is what we were hoping for. There is so much here it is difficult to know where to begin."

The celestial collision and ensuing data collection by the nearby Deep Impact mothership was the climax of a very active 24 hour period for the mission which began with impactor release at 2:07 a.m. EDT on July 3. Deep space maneuvers by the flyby, final checkout of both spacecraft and comet imaging took up most of the next 22 hours. Then, the impactor got down to its last two hours of life.

"The impactor kicked into its autonomous navigation mode right on time," said Deep Impact navigator Shyam Bhaskaran, of JPL. "Our preliminary analysis indicates the three impactor targeting maneuvers occurred on time at 90, 35 and 12.5 minutes before impact."

At the moment the impactor was vaporizing itself in its 10 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second) collision with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft was monitoring events from nearby. For the following14 minutes the flyby collected and downlinked data as the comet loomed ever closer. Then, as expected at 2:05 a.m. EDT, the flyby stopped collecting data and entered a defensive posture called shield mode where its dust shields protect the spacecraft's vital components during its closest passage through the comet's inner coma. Shield mode ended at 2:32 a.m. EDT when mission control re-established the link with the flyby spacecraft.

"The flyby surviving closest approach and shield mode has put the cap on an outstanding day," said Grammier. "Soon, we will begin the process of downlinking all the encounter information in one batch and hand it to the science team."

The goal of the Deep Impact mission is to 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 known as comets.

The University of Maryland is responsible for overall Deep Impact mission science, and project management is handled by JPL. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.

For information about Deep Impact on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact.

 

[linuxgeek]

Deep Impact NASA image galary

 

[linuxgeek]

SOLAR ACTIVITY: Fast-growing sunspot 786 has an unstable magnetic field that poses a threat for powerful X-class solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of such an explosion during the next 24 hours.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/05jul05/midi140.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

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STS-114 Countdown Begins July 10

NASA will begin the countdown for the Return to Flight launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-114 July 10 at 6 p.m. EDT, 43 hours before liftoff. Discovery's seven-member crew will test new equipment and procedures to increase the safety of the Shuttle and deliver spare parts, water and supplies to the International Space Station.

The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) launch team will conduct the countdown from Firing Room 3 of the Launch Control Center. The countdown includes nearly 27 hours of built-in hold time leading to a preferred launch time at about 3:51 p.m. on July 13 with a launch window extending about five minutes.

This historic mission is the 114th Space Shuttle flight and the 17th U.S. flight to the International Space Station. STS-114 is scheduled to last about 12 days with a planned KSC landing at about 11:01 a.m. EDT on July 25.

Discovery rolled into KSC's Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) on Aug. 22, 2001, after returning from its last mission STS-105 in August 2001 and undergoing an Orbiter Major Modification period. The Shuttle rolled out of OPF bay 3 and into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on March 29. While in VAB high bay 1, Discovery was mated to its redesigned External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters. The entire Space Shuttle stack was transferred to Launch Pad 39B on April 7.

In order to allow for the addition of a new heater to the External Tank, Space Shuttle Discovery was rolled back to the VAB on May 26 for that modification to be performed. Discovery was removed from its External Tank and attached to a new tank originally scheduled to fly with orbiter Atlantis on mission STS-121, the second Return to Flight mission.

Discovery was rolled back out to Launch Pad 39B on June 15 in preparation for the July launch window.

On mission STS-114, the crew will perform inspections on orbit for the first time of all of the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels on the leading edge of the wings and the Thermal Protection System tiles using the new Canadian-built Orbiter Boom Sensor System and the data from 176 impact and temperature sensors. Mission Specialists will also practice repair techniques on RCC and tile samples during a spacewalk in the payload bay.

In the payload bay, the Multi-Purpose Logistic Module Raffaello, built by the Italian Space Agency, will carry 11 racks with supplies, hardware, equipment and the Human Research Facility-2.

During two additional spacewalks, the crew will install the External Stowage Platform-2, equipped with spare part assemblies, and a replacement Control Moment Gyroscope contained in the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure.

The STS-114 crew includes Commander Eileen Collins, Pilot James Kelly, and Mission Specialists Soichi Noguchi, Stephen Robinson, Andrew Thomas, Wendy Lawrence and Charles Camarda.

 

[linuxgeek]

AURORA WATCH: A coronal mass ejection, hurled into space by sunspot 786 during the early hours of July 10th, is en route to Earth. High latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras when it arrives on July 11th or 12th.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/10jul05/midi140.gif

 

[Rhys]

src

STS-114 Countdown Begins
The STS-114 crew includes Commander Eileen Collins, Pilot James Kelly, and Mission Specialists Soichi Noguchi, Stephen Robinson, Andrew Thomas, Wendy Lawrence and Charles Camarda.

God save them.

 

[linuxgeek]

God save them.

Fortunately, this will be one of the safer shuttle rides.

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Web Log: NASA Begins Shuttle Fueling

POSTED: 6:03 am EDT July 13, 2005
UPDATED: 9:54 am EDT July 13, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Compiled From Staff Reports

9:51 a.m.: Fueling Nears Completion
The fueling of space shuttle Discovery is nearing completion. When the tanking is completed, an ice debris team will head out to the launch pad for a final inspection before launch. --WESH.com Web Staff

7:11 a.m.: Discovery Fueling Begins
NASA officials say they're beginning to fuel Discovery's external tank after a delay while workers replaced a faulty heater part. --WESH.com Web Staff

6:17 a.m.: Shuttle Fueling Delayed
Fueling of the space shuttle Discovery's external tank was delayed this morning while workers changed a part on a heater. The fueling was set to begin about an hour before sunrise. NASA officials say the swapping out of the part isn't expected to affect the 3:51 p.m. launch time. -- Associated Press

3:45 a.m.: Countdown Enters Final Hours
It's down to a final few hours of waiting for NASA to return to space travel with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery on track for this afternoon. The shuttle and its seven-person crew are scheduled to lift off this afternoon with a redesigned external fuel tank and nearly 50 other improvements made in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

Engineers had to deal with an embarrassing mishap Tuesday -- a plastic cover on one of the shuttle's cockpit windows fell more than 60 feet to hit the fuselage. Technicians replaced an aluminum panel that was damaged.

The weather remains the only concern, with thunderstorms in the forecast. NASA puts the chances of acceptable weather at launch time at 60 percent. -- Associated Press

 

[linuxgeek]

(WESH web log con't)

10:25 a.m.: Fueling Complete
A few clouds are around Kennedy Space Center right now. We're hoping they'll blow away in time for the 3:51 launch this afternoon. Fueling is complete and the crew should begin arriving at the pad within the next 90 minutes. They will walk out at noon. The crew has been fully briefed and things are great at the pad. An issue with the heater has been repaired, so there are no technical problems to talk about. --WESH 2 News anchor Claire Metz

 

[linuxgeek]

(WESH web log con't)

10:57 a.m.: Scattered Showers At Cape
The Weather Plus Storm Tracker shows a few scattered showers near the launch pad right now. The storms are to the north of the Cape and they're nearly stationary right now. This afternoon, we expect the sea breeze to blow those showers inland, toward Orlando, so I think they're going to be far enough away that the lightning that does develop will not be a problem. --WESH 2 News chief meteorologist Dave Marsh

10:55 a.m.: Only 40 Percent Chance Shuttle Will Launch
Meteorologists for NASA say there is only a 40 percent chance the shuttle will launch today because of storms and showers. WESH 2 Weather Plus meteorologist Amy Sweezey said she just had a long conversation with the NASA meteorologists. It's hard to say because right now the skies are pretty blue behind Discovery. -- WESH 2 News anchor Claire Metz

 

[linuxgeek]

(WESH web log con't)

11:25 a.m: Crew Suits Up For Launch
The crew is suiting up for their trip to space. In about 30 minutes they will walk out to the launch pad. Commander Eileen Collins, Jim Kelley and Steve Robinson are getting a weather briefing about the threat of storms this afternoon. --WESH.com Web Staff

 

[ExistentialLuv]

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/gif/pmapN.gif

This image shows the current extent and position of auroral activity in the northern hemisphere, based on measurements taken during the most recent polar pass of the NOAA POES satellite.

The images gives a guide to the possibility that the aurora is located near a given location, activity that may or may not be visible from the surface. Auroral activity is related to the power flux shown in the image, with yellow, orange and red indicating higher levels.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c2small.gif

Actual upto the minute flare activity


all images and info about them can be found here http://www******.com/spacewatch/aurora_cam.html