astronomy & space stuff

[linuxgeek]

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Black holes are actually 'green'
April 24, 2006

(SPACE.com) -- A new study finds that supermassive black holes, located at the heart of some galaxies, are the most fuel efficient engines in the universe.

"If you could make a car engine that was as efficient as one of these black holes, you could get about a billion miles out of a gallon of gas," said study team leader Steve Allen of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University.

"In anyone's book, that would be pretty green."

The finding, made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and announced in a media teleconference today, is giving scientists insights into how supermassive black holes generate energy and how they affect the galaxies where they make their homes.

'Quiet' black holes

Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that matter and light can't escape once they pass the event horizon, a spherical boundary surrounding the black hole.

However, inflowing matter that hasn't yet passed this point of no return can -- through friction and interaction with the black hole's strong magnetic field -- release energy in the form of either diffuse light or focused jets of energy.

"Once gas comes within a distance about a million times larger than the event horizon of the black hole, it becomes gravitationally captured," Allen explained. "At this point the gas becomes fuel for the black hole engine."

The new study looked at nine supermassive black holes at the centers of elliptical galaxies; each one was about a billion times more massive than our sun. The black holes were relatively old and generated much less energy than the fiercely luminous and rapidly growing supermassive black holes known as "quasars."

The researchers found that these "quiet" black holes released about 1,000 times more energy as jets than as light. The reasons for this are still unclear.

"That's a mystery, how these black holes selectively put that much energy into the jets without producing much light," study team member Christopher Reynolds from the University of Maryland told SPACE.com.

Space bubbles

Most of the energy in the jets is being emitted as radio waves, but in at least one of the black holes studied, the energy was in the form of more energetic X-rays.

"The energy in these jets is absolutely huge, about a trillion trillion trillion watts," Allen said.

As they race outwards from their parent black holes at nearly light speed, the jets carve out enormous cavities, or "bubbles," in the surrounding gas environment; some of these bubbles can be tens of thousands of light years across.

Bubbles can also form in the aftermath of stellar explosions called supernovas; our own solar system is enveloped by such a structure, called the "Local Bubble," which was formed during an explosion long ago.

The researchers used these bubbles to figure out the fuel efficiency of the black holes. Using Chandra images, they first calculated how much fuel in the form of gas was available to each black hole. They then estimated the power required to produce the bubbles that were observed.

Preventing galactic sprawl

The finding could have implications for other types of black holes as well, including much smaller, stellar-mass black holes, the researchers say.

"We already knew that powerful quasars are very efficient at making light. Now we know that black holes in elliptical galaxies are efficient as well," said Kim Weaver, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who was not involved in the study. "This suggests that being green is a trait that all black holes may have in common."

The scientists think the supermassive black holes are green in another way, too. The energy that each black hole emits as jets warms the surrounding environment. This prevents gas from cooling and coalescing into billions of new stars and places an upper limit on how large a galaxy can grow.

"In an environmental sense, the black holes are actually preventing galactic sprawl from taking over the neighborhood," Weaver said.

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

 

[linuxgeek]

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European Hams Hear Signals from the Edge of Space

NEWINGTON, CT, April 25, 2006 -- Hams in Germany received signals from American spacecraft Voyager 1 March 31 using a 20 meter parabolic antenna of a radio telescope on a frequency of 8.4 GHz. Voyager 1 transmits on 8415 MHz nominal.

A team of hams at AMSAT-DL/IUZ Bochum (The Institute for Environmental and Future Research at Bochum Observatory) using Doppler shift and sky positioning, received the signal from a distance of 8.82 billion miles (14.7 billion km). That's roughly 98 AUs, or 98 times the distance from the Sun to Earth. This is the first recorded reception of signals from Voyager 1 by radio amateurs. Members of the AMSAT-DL /IUZ team include Freddy de Guchteneire, ON6UG, James Miller, G3RUH, Hartmut Paesler, DL1YDD, and Achim Vollhardt, DH2VA/HB9DUN.

Also helping out were Theo Elsner, DJ5YM (IUZ Bochum), and Roger Ludwig of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as the Deep Space Network Tracking Station in Madrid, Spain.

Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977 to conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings and the larger moons of the two planets. Originally built to last only five years, the probe will continue to send back astronomical information to NASA and the JPL until at least 2020. Voyager 1 will continue to study ultraviolet sources among the stars, and the fields and particles instruments aboard will continue to search for the boundary between the Sun's influence and interstellar space. Communications will be maintained until the nuclear power sources can no longer supply enough electrical energy to power critical subsystems.

 

[linuxgeek]

HERE THEY COME: More than 60 fragments of dying comet 73P/Schwassmann Wachmann 3 are racing toward Earth. There's no danger of a collision. At closest approach on May 12th - 16th, the mini-comets will be 6 million miles away. That is close enough, however, for a marvelous view through backyard telescopes.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/10may06/smith.jpg

The outburst probably signals a major break-up. As the comet-fragment falls apart, fresh veins of ice and dust are exposed to sunlight causing the ensemble to brighten. Whatever the cause, fragment B is now glowing like a 4th or 5th magnitude star, visible to the naked eye from rural areas

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=73P
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/24mar_73p.htm
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2006/10may06/skymap_north.gif
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2006/11may06/skymap_north.gif
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/73p/skymap_north_12may06.gif
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/73p/skymap_north_14may06.gif

 

[just pet]

The Man just sent in the proposed name he has chosen for the near earth asteroid he discovered
He's posted the data somewhere around here

 

[linuxgeek]

The Man just sent in the proposed name he has chosen for the near earth asteroid he discovered
He's posted the data somewhere around here

cool!

 

[linuxgeek]

5/17 - AURORA WATCH: A solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun is expected to hit Earth today. This could cause a geomagnetic storm and auroras over Alaska and Canada.

 

[Lost Cause]

Return to space!

The Space Shuttle Discovery stands at its launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The shuttle arrived at 8:30 p.m. EDT Friday on top of a giant vehicle known as the crawler transporter.

Launch window is July 1.........

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/may/HQ_S06229_STS121_rollout.html

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/2005-0616shuttle-full.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

src

Huge Storms Converge

June 5, 2006: The two biggest storms in the solar system are about to go bump in the night, in plain view of backyard telescopes.

Storm #1 is the Great Red Spot, twice as wide as Earth itself, with winds blowing 350 mph. The behemoth has been spinning around Jupiter for hundreds of years.

Storm #2 is Oval BA, also known as "Red Jr.," a youngster of a storm only six years old. Compared to the Great Red Spot, Red Jr. is half-sized, able to swallow Earth merely once, but it blows just as hard as its older cousin.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/redperil/chrisgo_strip_lab.jpg
Above: Jupiter's two red spots, photographed on May 28, 2006, by amateur astronomer Christopher Go of the Philippines.

The two are converging. Closest approach: the 4th of July, according to Amy Simon-Miller of the Goddard Space Flight Center who has been monitoring the storms using the Hubble Space Telescope.

"There won't be a head-on collision," she says. "The Great Red Spot is not going to 'eat' Oval BA or anything like that." But the storms' outer bands will pass quite close to one another—and no one knows exactly what will happen.

Amateur astronomers are already monitoring the event. Christopher Go of the Philippines took the picture above using his 11-inch telescope on May 28th. "The distance between the storms is shrinking visibly every night," he says.

Similar encounters have happened before, notes JPL's Glenn Or ton, a colleague of Simon-Miller. "Oval BA and the Great Red Spot pass each other approximately every two years." Previous encounters in 2002 and 2004 were anti-climatic. Aside from some "roughing" around the edges, both storms survived apparently unaltered.

This time might be different. Simon-Miller and Orton think Red Jr. could lose its red color, ironically, by passing too close to the Great Red Spot.

Red Jr./Oval BA wasn't always red. For five years, 2000 to 2005, the storm was pure white like many other small "white ovals" circling the planet. In 2006 astronomers noticed a change: a red vortex formed inside the storm, the same color as the powerful Great Red Spot. This was a sign, researchers believed, that Oval BA was intensifying.

The color of the Great Red Spot itself is a mystery. A popular theory holds that the storm dredges up material from deep inside Jupiter's atmosphere, lifting it above the highest clouds where solar ultraviolet rays turn "chromophores" (color-changing compounds) red. Oval BA turned red when it became strong enough to perform the same trick.

Bumping up against the Great Red Spot, however, could weaken Oval BA, turning it white again. Simon-Miller explains: "We believe the Great Red Spot will push Oval BA toward a southern jet stream, which is blowing against the oval's counterclockwise rotation." This would slow Oval BA's spin, possibly reversing the process that reddened it in the first place.

What will actually happen? "We'll see," she says. That's what telescopes are for.

Note to sky watchers: Jupiter is easy to find. It pops out of the evening twilight before any other star, surprisingly bright. Look for it halfway up the southeastern sky at sunset:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/images/redperil/skymap_north.gif

 

[linuxgeek]

src

NASA Gives Green Light for July 1 Discovery Launch

NASA senior managers on Saturday cleared the Space Shuttle Discovery for a July 1 flight to the International Space Station.

The decision was announced after a lengthy Flight Readiness Review, a traditional meeting in which top NASA managers and engineers set launch dates, determine whether the shuttle's complex array of equipment, support systems and procedures are ready for flight and assess any risks associated with the mission.

"We had two full days of an intensive Flight Readiness Review," said Administrator Michael Griffin. "It was spirited and one of the most open, yet non-adversarial meetings I've seen since returning to NASA."

William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Space Operations said "It was a tremendously good review. We were really careful in this. We reviewed everything we could and we think we are ready to go and fly."

"The ice frost ramps were one of the most vigorously discussed items. This [foam loss], is what we expect to see in flight. So when we get this data down, you should not be surprised," continued Gerstenmaier.

The ice/frost ramps are structures made of insulation foam that cover 34 brackets on the outside of the shuttle's external fuel tank. The ramps have been cited as a potential source of foam loss, which could cause damage to the shuttle. The Flight Readiness Review board decided the current design does not pose sufficient risk to delay the upcoming mission while design improvements for later flights are under way.

"We are not tracking any major issues which would delay launch," said NASA Launch Director, Mike Leinbach. "Our countdown starts on June 28 leading to T-0 on July 1. We see no reason why we can't go July 1 from our perspective. We are in good shape with Discovery on the Pad and good shape with Atlantis as well."

The STS-121 mission will visit the International Space Station and continue evaluating new shuttle safety improvements. At least two spacewalks are planned during the 12-day mission, which also includes repair work to the station.

STS-121 Press Kit: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/149873main_sts121_press_kit.pdf

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/117228main_121patch_154x154.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/122541main_STS121-S-002_516.jpg

 

[Fagin]

NASA Gives Green Light for July 1 Discovery Launch

Now if they'd give a green light to keeping the fleet flying until the new fleet was ready.

 

[Lost Cause]

Fair Sails, Discovery~

I can barely wait until the war on terrorism is stabilized and we can start pouring some dough into the space program and get to them thar stars!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gamma/images/cosm_galaxy_large.jpg

 

[Lost Cause]

If they can stop the string of weird things from happening~

http://www******.com/news/ap_060407_shuttle_mishaps.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

There's alot of Navy flyers on this mission...

 

[just pet]

It's official

Explorer57 was given the go ahead, and he named the planet he discovered, a near Earth asteroid. It was tracked by Palomar and other observatories as well.

 

[linuxgeek]

NYX AND HYDRA: Finally, some names we can remember! Pluto's two new moons, formerly known as S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, have been officially christened Nyx and Hydra. In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess of night, while Hydra is a terrifying serpent with nine heads. These seem like good companions for Pluto, ninth planet and Roman god of the Underworld.

 

[Lost Cause]

SHIT!

The Hubble Space Telescope's showcase camera has been offline since Monday, June 19.

Managers are scrambling to use the observatory's other cameras as science operations continue.

Meanwhile, engineers have yet to figure out what caused the camera to go into "safe mode," essentially a sleep state that prevents normal operations.

"We're still investigating the problem and working on all sorts of contingencies," said Max Mutchler at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, where Hubble's science operations are run. "We're hoping for the best but preparing for other contingencies."

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has gone into safe mode "more than once" recently, Mutchler explained today, but this time the problem is more serious.

http://www******.com/news/060623_hubble_acs.html

http://biphome.spray.se/stoffe.trygg/astronomipics/Hubble.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/07/14/space.shuttle.ap/index.html

Discovery's hydraulic system leaking

Unit that powers brakes, steering may need to be shut down

Friday, July 14, 2006; Posted: 10:16 p.m. EDT (02:16 GMT)

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- While astronauts set a record for using robotics in space, NASA engineers on Friday focused on a slow leak aboard space shuttle Discovery that if it worsens could cause a first-of-its-kind shutdown of one of three hydraulic systems during Monday's landing attempt.

John Shannon, the shuttle program's deputy manager, said the problem was unlikely to affect the shuttle's return to Earth. But engineers were closely monitoring the leak in the pipeline of an auxiliary power unit that controls hydraulic steering and braking maneuvers.

It is leaking at a rate of "about six drops per hour," and could be leaking harmless nitrogen or flammable hydrazine fuel, Shannon said.

The leak is more likely nitrogen, but there is no way of knowing that, so NASA is treating the problem as if the leak were fuel, he said. If it is fuel, the current rate is still 100,000 times slower than what would cause a fire, Shannon said.

So if nothing changes, the shuttle will land normally, Shannon said.

Just in case, NASA will turn on the power unit with the leak early Sunday as part of its normal testing and then see if the leak rate changes. If it does, NASA may burn off the hydrazine and shut down the power unit before the shuttle returns to Earth to eliminate any fire hazard, Shannon said.

If that happens, the shuttle would land with just its two other power units for the first time in the spacecraft's history.

The shuttle is certified to land normally with two power units, with the only change requiring pyrotechnics to lower the landing gear, Shannon said. The shuttle could land with only one power unit, but that would be more difficult, he said.

Also Friday, the shuttle and the international space station set an informal record for robotic activity during a mission. Discovery's crew used the shuttle's robotic arm for yet another examination of the shuttle heat shield.

It was just another day in space for Discovery's robot operators Stephanie Wilson and Lisa Nowak, whom Mission Control called the "robo chicks."

Hours later, minor problems with the space station's robotic arm put Wilson and Nowak behind schedule on their big inspection of the day, looking at the shuttle's left wing for damage from dust-size meteorites and small pieces of space junk.

The inspection used a laser sensor attached to the extension that doubles the length of the 50-foot robotic arm.

Nowak and Wilson performed flawlessly at the task, which is like controlling a video game stick and being an air traffic controller at the same time, said NASA robotics operator Simon Aziz.

"It's a piloting skill," Aziz said. "You're flying the joystick and the operator is trying to absorb information off all the screens."

When Mission Control praised Discovery for getting the inspection finished, commander Steve Lindsey answered: "Robo chicks take care of it again."

Approval for landing due Saturday

Engineers will not know until Saturday if the shuttle gets its expected all-clear for landing. The shuttle undocks from the space station that day, and the robotic arm will be hauled out again to look at the left wing and the nose cap -- something easier to do when detached from the space station.

The astronauts, however, doubted they would find anything.

"We've been flying space shuttles for a long time and we've never had any kind of critical damage from a micrometeoroid so it's pretty remote," pilot Mark Kelly said.

"Based on what we've seen over the last 10 days, the inspections we've done ... we've got a great ship. It's ready to come home," he said.

Discovery's mission, just the second since the 2003 Columbia disaster, has been a success so far. NASA needed to prove that the shuttle was safe to fly after spending $1.3 billion on repairs and safety upgrades following the accident that killed seven astronauts.

Columbia broke apart on February 1, 2003, when superheated atmospheric gases blasted into a hole in its wing caused by an debris impact during launch 16 days earlier.

The shuttle's fuel tank, which shed the debris, was redesigned but failed its first test-flight last year.

Discovery's July 4 launch proved the latest modifications to the tank were successful.

Also critical to the success of Discovery's mission was the repair of the space station's equipment transporter, which is needed for upcoming missions to resume construction of the $100 billion station.

"If we weren't successful, we wouldn't have been able to do that," station fight director Rick LaBrode told reporters.

Space station assembly was halted after the Columbia accident but is slated to resume with the shuttle mission scheduled for next month.

Discovery's touchdown is scheduled for 9:07 a.m. EDT on Monday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/jul/HQ_M06115_DiscoverySet_to_land.html

MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-115


NASA'S Space Shuttle Discovery Set to Land Monday

Commander Steve Lindsey and his crew onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery will complete their mission, STS-121, with a landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., set for 9:07 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 17. Discovery began its 13-day mission to the International Space Station on July 4.

Landing at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility is slated to occur on orbit 203 at the mission-elapsed time of 12 days, 18 hours and 29 minutes. The deorbit burn will occur at 8:04 a.m. A second Kennedy landing opportunity is available at 10:42 a.m., with the deorbit burn at 9:40 a.m.

Two landing opportunities are available at the back-up landing location on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on Monday. However, mission managers are expected to attempt a landing only at Kennedy Monday unless there are technical reasons that would necessitate other plans. The first opportunity at Edwards would be 12:11 p.m. EDT and the second at 1:46 p.m.

If landing occurs as scheduled, this will be the 62nd landing at Kennedy in the history of the shuttle program. Discovery will be serviced and prepared for its next mission, STS-116, targeted for December.

About an hour after touchdown, the STS-121 crew members will meet with their families and undergo initial physical examinations. A post-mission press conference with the crew is scheduled at Kennedy's News Center no earlier than six hours after landing.

If Discovery lands at Edwards, an augmented Kennedy convoy team will be onsite to safe the vehicle, disembark the crew and move the orbiter to the mate/demate device, the structure used to prep the shuttle for its ferry flight back to Kennedy atop NASA's modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Kennedy's News Center will open for landing activities at 10 a.m. EDT Sunday, July 16, and close at 4 p.m. On landing day, the News Center will open at 5 a.m. and close at approximately 5 p.m. The STS-121 mission badges are in effect through landing. The pass and identification building on State Road 3 will be open on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Monday from 5 to 7 a.m. The last bus will depart from Kennedy's Press Site for the Shuttle Landing Facility an hour before landing.

For the latest information on the STS-121 mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

 

[linuxgeek]

NASA's Landing Blog - Mission STS-121

Blog coverage of the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery will begin at 7 a.m. EDT on July 17.

NOTE: Refresh/Reload your browser every few minutes to view launch control center updates. All times are in EDT unless otherwise stated.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/sts-121/landing-vlcc.html

 

[linuxgeek]

Shuttle scheduled to land approximately 9:14a EST this morning.


Deorbit to KSC on Orbit 202

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/152363main_ksc202_long.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/152365main_ksc202_mid.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/152361main_ksc202_close.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

Woot! we got booms.

 

[linuxgeek]

She's on the ground, wheels stop!

 

[raindancer]

Woot! we got booms.

So cool! I regret never having the chance to witness a launch or landing.

 

[Killswitch]

You dont put on a short sleeved white shirt and a skinny black tie for these deals do you linux?

 

[linuxgeek]

I've gotten to be at the 5 mile limit for one launch. It is like standing on a huge subwoofer for about 10 seconds.

 

[Lost Cause]

Absolutely beautiful landing~ well done Discovery!

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/