LITEROTICA PODCAST
LIT CAMS (200 Free Tokens)ADULT TOYSVOD MOVIES

astronomy & space stuff

SOLAR FILAMENT: There are no 'spots on the sun today, but that doesn't mean the sun is truly blank. To those who know how to look, there's a lot to see. On Oct. 27th, Greg Piepol of Rockville, Maryland, snapped this picture:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/27oct05/piepol_strip1.jpg

A giant filament is cutting across the sun--"center stage," says Piepol. White-light photos of the sun don't reveal this filament, but using a hydrogen-alpha filter tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen, Piepol saw it easily. "Thanks to the availability of amateur H-alpha filters we can still enjoy the sun [even when sunspots are scarce]," he says.
 
This doesn't bode well for ISS....

src

NASA Axes Space Station Research

Nov. 4, 2005— Scientists who once begged Congress to fund the space station have been notified by NASA that their programs have been canceled as the agency attempts to wrestle its way out of a looming budget deficit just as it begins work on a new space transportation system.

In addition to beginning development of a new manned launch system, expenses to return the shuttle fleet to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster and delays completing the International Space Station have left NASA with a projected shortfall of up to $5 billion over the next five years, said agency administrator Michael Griffin.

Griffin was called before Congress on Thursday to explain what is going on at NASA.

"It seemed to me that it was getting the cart before the horse to be worrying about money for human or other life sciences when we could not assure ourselves the continued capability to be able to place people in orbit in the first place," Griffin told members of the House Science Committee.

"My priority became assuring that the United States would have as close to continuous capability to put people in space first and then conducting research on them after that," he said.

NASA plans to retire the shuttle fleet in 2010, whether or not assembly of the International Space Station is complete, and begin flying the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle by 2012.

The agency is looking to commercial space transportation providers to supply rides for cargo, and eventually people, to the space station.

Paying for research also falls behind finishing as much of the space station as possible within the shuttle's final years of service, Griffin said.

"Utilization of (the station) for research or technology will have to be minimized in favor of first getting it assembled," Griffin said.

Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat and a senior committee member, expressed concerns that the Bush Administration underfunded its space exploration plan.

Focusing solely on a deadline for astronauts to return to the moon undercuts the very reason for a human space program, he said.

"It leads to the basic question of 'Are we doing the right thing — or just doing the thing right?' Should simply getting to the moon under the administration's timetable be the nation's goal?" Gordon said.

"I am very concerned that this administration may not be willing to pay for the vision that it presented to the nation 21 months ago," he added. "And I fear that the approach being taken over the near term may make it very difficult to sustain the initiative beyond 2008."

NASA faces short-term challenges as well. Shuttle flights remain on hold following problems during the first and only mission since the Columbia disaster.

Damage from Hurricane Katrina then interrupted work at the NASA complex heading the effort to resolve issues with the shuttle's external fuel tanks, which shed foam during launch.

Columbia was struck by a piece of falling foam insulation, which led to its breakup over Texas as it headed for landing in Florida following a 16-day research mission. Seven astronauts died in the accident.

The same problem reappeared during the July 26 liftoff of Discovery, but the debris did not strike the orbiter.

NASA re-grounded the fleet for additional repairs and now hopes to fly again in May.
 
BIG SUNSPOT: Sunspot 822 is enormous. From end to end it stretches some 140,000 km, about the diameter of Jupiter. Yesterday, Mila Zinkova of San Francisco photographed the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. Among the sea gulls is sunspot 822; it's the one without the wings:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/16nov05/Zinkova1_strip.jpg

Sunspot 822 is crackling with M-class solar flares. So far the explosions have not affected Earth, but this could change in the days ahead. The sunspot is turning to face our planet, increasing the chances of an Earth-directed eruption.


http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/16nov05/midi140.gif
 
src

Earth's Magnetic Pole Drifting Quickly

Thu Dec 8, 7:36 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday.

Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe.

The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth's core and are different from the geographic poles, the surface points marking the axis of the planet's rotation.

Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. Exactly why this happens is a mystery.

"This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada," Joseph Stoner, a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University, said Thursday at an American Geophysical Union meeting.

Previous studies have shown that the strength of the Earth's magnetic shield has decreased 10 percent over the past 150 years. During the same period, the north magnetic pole wandered about 685 miles out into the Arctic, according to a new analysis by Stoner.

The rate of the magnetic pole's movement has increased in the last century compared to fairly steady movement in the previous four centuries, the Oregon researchers said.

At the present rate, the north magnetic pole could swing out of northern Canada into Siberia. If that happens, Alaska could lose its Northern Lights, which occur when charged particles streaming away from the sun interact with different gases in Earth's atmosphere.

The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831 and when it was revisited in 1904, explorers found that the pole had moved 31 miles.

For centuries, navigators using compasses had to learn to deal with the difference between magnetic and geographic north. A compass needle points to the north magnetic pole, not the geographic North Pole. For example, a compass reading of north in Oregon is about 17 degrees east of geographic north.

In the study, Stoner examined the sediment record from several Arctic lakes. Since the sediments record the Earth's magnetic field at the time, scientists used carbon dating to track changes in the magnetic field.

They found that the north magnetic field shifted significantly in the last thousand years. It generally migrated between northern Canada and Siberia, but it sometimes moved in other directions, too.
 
HOUR OF THE GEMINIDS: The 2005 Geminid meteor shower peaks on Dec. 13th and 14th. Bad timing. The glaring almost-full Moon will be out on those nights, wiping out all but the brightest meteors. There is, however, one hour when the shower can be seen in full force.

Between about 5 AM and dawn (local time) on Dec. 13th, the Moon will be at or below the horizon, briefly leaving the sky dark for Geminid meteors. If you're awake and watching, you might see dozens of shooting stars.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/13dec05/skymap_north.gif
 
src

NASA to remove foam on shuttle's tank

Thursday, December 15, 2005; Posted: 5:18 p.m. EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA plans to redesign the space shuttle's external tank again, this time removing a section of protective foam that broke off during the launch of Discovery last July, an official with the space agency said Thursday.

The removal of more foam from the external tank, and further testing to determine the root cause of cracks on it could lead to a longer delay until the next shuttle flight, tentatively set for May.

But NASA official Bill Gerstenmaier said that's not necessarily the case.

Gerstenmaier is leading the investigation into the foam loss.

The troublesome foam section protects a cable tray that runs along the tank. "We think that's the best thing to do, just take it off," Gerstenmaier said.

NASA had redesigned the fuel tank after a large piece of insulating foam hit the wing of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, causing the disaster that killed seven astronauts.

The shuttle fleet was grounded after that and again last July after a smaller piece of foam broke off Discovery's tank.

Discovery also lost other pieces of foam in four other areas, including the same spot where a large chunk came loose during Columbia's liftoff.
 
WINTER SOLSTICE: Northern winter begins today, Dec. 21st, at precisely 1835 UT (10:35 am PST) when the sun reaches its lowest declination of the year: minus 23.5o. Get ready for a long night, e.g., 14 hours of darkness in southern California and more than 18 hours in Alaska.

The highest and lowest points in the sky reached by the sun throughout the year are called solstices, and there is a big difference between the summer solstice and its winter counterpart. In Athens, Greece, Anthony Ayiomamitis photographed the sunrise "during summer and winter solstice as well as the intervening equinox."

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/20dec05/anthony_strip.jpg

"[In Athens], the azimuth of the rising sun varies by a whopping 66 degrees from one solstice to the other," he marvels.

Meanwhile in the southern hemisphere, today marks the beginning of summer: long days, short nights, and plenty of sunshine. Seasons are opposite on the two ends of our planet. No matter where you live, Happy Solstice!

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html
 
TWO SUNS: Weekend sailor Chris Ware was anchored in Banks Channel at Wrightsville Beach, NC, when he witnessed a very strange sight: two suns setting. "What planet are we on?" wondered an onlooker in a neighboring boat.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/24dec05/ware.jpg

Answer: Earth, where ice crystals in clouds can create the appearance of a second sun.

"The 'extra sun' Ware witnessed is an unusually bright sundog," explains atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. To produce such a intense display, "the ice crystals must be larger than a tenth of a millimeter with nearly optically perfect faces and free of air bubbles and flaws. And they must not wobble too much! When we think of the time and effort needed to polish a perfect gemstone, it is a wonder that nature makes millions of icy examples in the sky to provide fine halo displays."

Sometimes ice crystals conspire to produce even stranger sights: "Very early halo observers described their displays as three, four and sometimes even 'seven suns.'" notes Cowley. "Matthew Paris' display of 1233 had five."
 
src

An Explosion on the Moon

So you thought nothing ever happens on the moon?

December 23, 2005: NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s.

"What a surprise," says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact's flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, "we caught one," says Suggs.

Right: The red dot marks the location of the Nov. 7, 2005, meteoroid impact. Credit: NASA/MSFC/Bill Cooke. [Larger image]

The object that hit the moon was "probably a Taurid," says MSFC meteor expert Bill Cooke. In other words, it was part of the same meteor shower that peppered Earth with fireballs in late October and early November 2005. (See "Fireball Sightings" from Science@NASA.)

The moon was peppered, too, but unlike Earth, the moon has no atmosphere to intercept meteoroids and turn them into harmless streaks of light. On the moon, meteoroids hit the ground--and explode.

"The flash we saw," says Suggs, "was about as bright as a 7th magnitude star." That's two and a half times dimmer than the faintest star a person can see with their unaided eye, but it was an easy catch for the group's 10-inch telescope.

Cooke estimates that the impact gouged a crater in the moon's surface "about 3 meters wide and 0.4 meters deep." As moon craters go, that's small. "Even the Hubble Space Telescope couldn't see it," notes Cooke. The moon is 384,400 km away. At that distance, the smallest things Hubble can distinguish are about 60 meters wide.

This isn't the first time meteoroids have been seen hitting the moon. During the Leonid meteor storms of 1999 and 2001, amateur and professional astronomers witnessed at least half-a-dozen flashes ranging in brightness from 7th to 3rd magnitude. Many of the explosions were photographed simultaneously by widely separated observers.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/lunartaurid/Blue_Flash_mag2.jpg
Above: The Nov. 7th lunar Taurid explosion, shown as a sequence of 6 false-color video frames. Credit: Wes Swift/NASA.

Since the Leonids of 2001, astronomers have not spent much time hunting for lunar meteors. "It's gone out of fashion," says Suggs. But with NASA planning to return to the moon by 2018, he says, it's time to start watching again.

There are many questions that need answering: "How often do big meteoroids strike the moon? Does this happen only during meteor showers like the Leonids and Taurids? Or can we expect strikes throughout the year from 'sporadic meteors?'" asks Suggs. Explorers on the moon are going to want to know.

"The chance of an astronaut being directly hit by a big meteoroid is miniscule," says Cooke. Although, he allows, the odds are not well known "because we haven't done enough observing to gather the data we need to calculate the odds." Furthermore, while the danger of a direct hit is almost nil for an individual astronaut, it might add up to something appreciable for an entire lunar outpost.

Of greater concern, believes Suggs, is the spray—"the secondary meteoroids produced by the blast." No one knows how far the spray reaches and exactly what form it takes.

Also, ground-shaking impacts could kick up moondust, possibly over a wide area. Moondust is electrostatically charged and notoriously clingy. (See "Mesmerized by Moondust" from Science@NASA.) Even a small amount of moondust can be a great nuisance: it gets into spacesuit joints and seals, clings to faceplates, and even makes the air smell when it is tramped indoors by moonwalkers. Could meteoroid impacts be a source of lunar "dust storms?" Another question for the future....

Suggs and his team plan to make more observations. "We're contemplating a long-term monitoring program active not only during major meteor showers, but also at times in between. We need to develop software to find these flashes automatically," he continues. "Staring at 4 hours of tape to find a split-second flash can get boring; this is a job for a computer."

With improvements, their system might catch lots of lunar meteors. Says Suggs, "I'm ready for more surprises."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/lunartaurid/sitemap_new_med.jpg
 
src

China's moon mission takes step forward

Spacecraft is on schedule to launch in 2007

Thursday, December 29, 2005; Posted: 11:18 a.m. EST

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China's plans to send a spacecraft around the moon have reached a new stage, with the unmanned orbiter and rocket entering production and testing, China's top aerospace official said on Thursday.

Luan Enjie, commander of China's "round the moon" project, said the Chang'e 1 Lunar Orbiter and a launch rocket are being assembled and tested, and the launch site and command system are also taking shape, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Luan said the craft is still on schedule to be launched in 2007.

The unmanned lunar orbiter is part of China's plan to eventually land astronauts -- called "taikonauts" by the Chinese government -- on the moon before 2020.

"Taikong" is the Mandarin Chinese word for outerspace.

"Our technical staff have solved many crucial technical problems by attacking technological focal points, assembling systems and conducting a range of experiments", Xinhua said in the report on preparations.

Planning for China's lunar exploration project has been underway since early 2004.

China launched its first man into space in 2003, and in October 2005 it sent another spacecraft carrying two men into orbit for five days. Another manned orbit is planned for 2007.

In the United States, the Bush administration announced a $104 billion plan in September to return Americans to the moon by 2018.

Its Apollo program carried the first humans to the moon in 1969.

Japan has also announced plans to land a person on the moon by 2025.
 
src

Mars rovers keep exploring Red Planet

twin robots mark second anniversary

Monday, January 2, 2006; Posted: 12:17 p.m. EST

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The warranty expired long ago on NASA's twin robots motoring around Mars.

In two years, they have traveled a total of seven miles. Not impressed? Try keeping your car running in a climate where the average temperature is well below zero and where dust devils can reach 100 mph.

These two golf cart-sized vehicles were only expected to last three months.

"These rovers are living on borrowed time. We're so past warranty on them," says Steven Squyres of Cornell University, the Mars mission's principal researcher. "You try to push them hard every day because we're living day to day."

The rover Spirit landed on Mars on January 3, 2004, and Opportunity followed on January 24. Since then, they've set all sorts of records and succeeded in the mission's main assignment: finding geologic evidence that water once flowed on Mars.

Part of the reason for their long survival is pure luck. Their lives were extended several times by dust devils that blew away dust that covered their solar panels, restoring their ability to generate electricity.

Like most Earth-bound vehicles, these identical robots have their own personalities.

The overachieving Opportunity dazzled scientists from the start. It eclipsed its twin by making the mission's first profound discovery -- evidence of water at or near the surface eons ago that could have implications for life.

The rock-climbing Spirit went down in the history books by becoming the first robot to scale an extraterrestrial hill.

Last summer, it completed a daredevil climb to the summit of Husband Hill -- as tall as the Statue of Liberty -- despite fears that it might not survive the weather.

The rovers haven't been all get-up and go -- technical hiccups have at times limited their activity, even from the start. At one point, Spirit had a balky front wheel, but engineers overcame the problem by driving it in reverse.

Last spring, Opportunity got stuck hub-deep in sand while trying to crest a foot-high dune, and was freed after weeks of effort by the Earth-bound engineers.

Signs of aging

The six-wheeled travelers, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, also are showing signs of aging. In November, a motor on Opportunity's robotic arm stalled and the arm failed to extend while it was surveying a rock outcrop. The engineers fixed that problem after two weeks.

This mission is the first time any probe has extensively rolled across Mars, whose rocky landscape is a dangerous place for man-made objects to settle and roam.

There have been four previous Mars landings that succeeded. Of those, NASA's stationary Viking 1 lander operated the longest, from 1976 to 1982. NASA's Sojourner was the first rover, but it stayed close to its Pathfinder lander.

Spirit and Opportunity parachuted to opposite ends of Mars. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a 90-mile-wide depression south of the Martian equator.

Opportunity followed three weeks later, touching down on Meridiani Planum on the other side of the planet.

In two years, Spirit has traveled over three miles and beamed back 70,000 images including self-portraits and panoramas of the rust-colored planet's surface. Opportunity has driven over four miles and transmitted more than 58,000 images.

Three times NASA has extended the rovers' mission, spending an extra $84 million on top of the $820 million original price tag.

While both rovers have discovered clues of ancient water, they also have found evidence of a violent past that might have prevented some life forms from emerging.

Piecing together a definitive history of Mars is far from over, scientists say, as the rovers head to their next destinations to explore more rocks and minerals.

Spirit recently descended Husband Hill and is driving toward a basin that holds geologic promise.

Opportunity is rolling to an enormous depression known as Victoria Crater that is thought to hold more clues about the planet's past.

"Rock layers are the barcode of Mars history," said John Grotzinger, a science team member from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Every time we encounter new layers, it's another piece of the puzzle."
 
Thanks for the update, LG!

Fire in the sky Jan 15th~

When the Stardust sample return capsule nose dives back to Earth in January, it will become the fastest human-made object to streak through the atmosphere. Scientists and engineers are at the ready to observe the spectacular sky show—and savvy skywatchers can join in on the aerial action too.

If all goes to plan, Stardust will release its sample return capsule carrying comet and interstellar dust particles on Jan. 15 at 12:57 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). Four hours later, the capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere, zooming toward Utah and a parachute landing at roughly 5:12 a.m. EST.

During its plummet into Utah, the heat-thwarting capsule will skyrocket across the Western United States.

According to Stardust officials, the fireball should be visible from San Francisco perhaps up to and beyond Portland, shooting over Nevada toward its Utah landing. The artificial meteor is expected to peak in brightness as it penetrates deeper in the Earth's atmosphere, lighting up to roughly the brilliance of Venus for about 90 seconds. That brightness is expected to peak over Carlin, Nevada.

So if you live in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Northern Nevada, Southern Idaho or Western Utah you should be able to see some part of Stardust sky show. The closer you live to the trajectory, which runs from Crescent City, California and then through Winnemucca and Elko Nevada, and finally to Western Utah, the higher the fireworks in the early morning sky will be.

Speed record

The velocity of Stardust's sample return capsule as it slices through the Earth's atmosphere is a hasty 28,860 mph (12.9 kilometers per second). At that speed, the capsule surpasses the record set in May 1969 during the return of the Apollo 10 command module, the highest speed ever attained by human beings: 24,861 mph (11.11 kilometers per second).

Even at that rate, it still doesn't beat the heat seen by the Galileo probe as it plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere on Dec. 7, 1995. The small craft reached a blistering 106,000 mph (47.4 kilometers per second).

But nobody was on the scene to get an eyeful.

Stardust's sample return capsule is a lightweight. It tips the scale at 101-pounds (46 kilograms).

In 2004, Genesis—a sister mission of Stardust—made a similar return, jettisoning a sample return capsule four-times the mass of Stardust.

Due to improperly placed sensors on the Genesis capsule, however, its parachute system failed to deploy. That resulted in a precisely placed, but busted-up capsule when the vessel hit the desert landscape at high speed. Despite the hard-landing, researchers remain hopeful they can extract meaningful science from the returned specimens of solar wind.

Science friction

Four hours after release from the main Stardust spacecraft, the sample return capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere at 410,000 feet (125 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean.

At this point, the capsule is about 551 miles (886 kilometers) from its landing zone in Utah, and on its way to claim the record of the fastest human-made object ever to enter Earth's atmosphere.

By entry plus 38 seconds, the capsule will have already covered half the horizontal distance to its landing zone. At this point, friction from the entry is to raise the capsule's heat shield temperature, making it observable via infrared tracking equipment.

At entry plus 52 seconds, at an altitude of 200,000 feet (61 kilometers), the capsule will experience peak heating: the heat shield's exterior will spike at 365 degrees Fahrenheit (185 Celsius). Ten seconds later, peak deceleration will occur as the rapidly slowing capsule experiences 38'gs—or 38 times the force of gravity.

Airborne campaign

After nearly seven years of cruising through space, and surviving its high-speed fall, the Stardust capsule will be on a heading that leads to the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), southwest of Salt Lake City. Spacecraft navigators are looking to plop the capsule into an ellipse 47 by 27 miles (76 by 44 kilometers) within the UTTR.

Scientists are anxious to scrutinize the fiery fall of the capsule. Data collected is expected to help understand how natural material incoming from space is altered as it enters Earth's atmosphere. This information would be helpful in piecing together a story on chemical changes in compounds during that process—a puzzle piece for astrobiologists that study the origin of life.

A crew of researchers flying on a heavily-instrumented NASA DC-8 aircraft will study the small, speeding Stardust capsule returning from space. They face a daunting task of tracking and observing the capsule as it hurtles through the atmosphere and slows before parachuting into a Utah desert landing zone.

Public invite


The airborne campaign is coming together, with the DC-8 arriving on Jan. 3 at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Once there, it will be loaded with science gear. A Jan. 11 first test flight is also on the books.

"We have now turned our attention on setting up ground-based observations as well, including involving the public in documenting the reentry," said Peter Jenniskens, principal investigator of the Stardust Sample Return Capsule Re-entry Observing Campaign. He is a meteor astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

"Some observations can only be done from the ground, such as listen for the sonic boom and observing the hot air trail in the wake of the sample return capsule drift in front of the Moon," Jenniskens told SPACE.com.

"Also, we'd like to involve the public in taking images and video of the reentry because the view from each location will be a little different, depending on how the capsule itself shields the light coming from the front," Jenniskens said.

Viewing tips

Jenniskens and his research colleagues involved in tracking the Stardust capsule offer several viewing tips

The capsule will approach the landing zone from a westerly direction. The best opportunities for viewing the entry will be along Highway 80 between Carlin, Nevada and Elko, Nevada, and further east to the Utah border, where the capsule's front side can be observed before it passes over the observer on the ground.

The peak brightness will decrease further from Carlin, lessening to about the brightness of Venus when seen from Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City. Observers using the naked eye will likely see the capsule as a very bright pinpoint of pink-white light.


For certain viewing locations just north of the trajectory line, the capsule will appear to pass by the Moon—above it, or below it, depending on the viewer's location.

Video, photos welcomed

By choosing their positions carefully, some observers will be able to see the capsule pass in front of the Moon. As seen by the naked eye, the capsule will disappear in the glare of moonlight, but by looking through telescopes, observers may see a tiny dot, perhaps trailed by a dark wake of dissipating heat shield material and hot air.

Moving at many times the speed of sound, the capsule will take only two to three video frames to appear to pass by the Moon.

The trail may form a thin line behind the capsule, especially near the point of peak brightness where atmospheric friction and dissipation of heat is most intense.

http://www******.com/missionlaunches/051226_stardust_watch.html
 
METEOR SHOWER: The first meteor shower of 2006, the Quadrantids, peaks on Jan. 3rd at 18:20 Universal Time. The timing favors Japan and, to a lesser extent, Hawaii where dark-sky observers should see 40+ faint meteors per hour just before dawn (Tuesday morning in Hawaii, Wednesday morning in Japan). North Americans can expect to see perhaps half that many.

http://www.amsmeteors.org/visual.html#Quads
 
src

NASA to Return Comet Samples to Earth

January 8, 2006, 12:21 PM EST

LOS ANGELES -- Comets have long lit up the sky and the imaginations of scientists. Now these icy bodies from the beginnings of the solar system are finally ready for their close-up.

Six months after NASA scientists first peeked inside one comet from afar, they're bringing pieces of another to Earth for study under the microscope.

This weekend, the Stardust spacecraft will jettison a 100-pound capsule holding comet dust. It will nosedive through the Earth's atmosphere and -- if all goes well -- make a soft landing in the Utah desert.

The searing plunge is expected to generate a pinkish glow as bright as Venus that should be visible without a telescope across much of the West.

Comets -- which astronomers consider to be among the solar system's leftover building blocks -- have been scrutinized for centuries. But only in recent years have scientists had the technology to learn firsthand their ingredients.

Last July, the Deep Impact spacecraft released a probe that carved a crater in a comet, exposing its interior to NASA telescopes. The Stardust mission went a step further by retrieving the first samples from a comet named Wild 2, which was about 500 million miles from Earth when Stardust launched in 1999.

Comets are bodies of ice and dust that circle the sun. About 4.5 billion years ago, a cloud of gas and dust collapsed to create the sun and planets. Comets formed from what was left over, and scientists believe studying them could shed light on the solar system's birth.

"This is a true treasure," principal investigator Don Brownlee of the University of Washington said of the Stardust capsule.

But the capsule isn't home yet.

First it faces a blistering descent, piercing the atmosphere at a record-breaking 29,000 mph -- the fastest re-entry of any man-made probe.

Its target is Dugway Proving Ground, a Rhode Island-sized Army base southwest of Salt Lake City where in 2004 the ill-fated Genesis probe crashed on live television after its parachute failed to open. Despite that crash, scientists recovered enough solar wind atoms for study.

To avoid another embarrassment, engineers checked Stardust's systems and believe they will work, said Ed Hirst, a mission system manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is managing the $212 million mission.

Stardust traveled nearly 3 billion miles halfway to Jupiter and back, looping around the sun three times. Along the way, it also captured interstellar dust -- tiny particles thought to be ancient stars that exploded and died.

After five years, the 850-pound spacecraft finally reached Wild 2.

During a historic 2004 flyby, Stardust sped through the comet's coma -- the fuzzy shroud of gas and dust that envelops it -- to collect the microscopic samples. The particles were trapped by a catcher the size of a tennis racket, which has since been clammed up inside the capsule for the trip home.

Comet particles from Stardust would represent the second robotic retrieval of extraterrestrial material since 1976, when the unmanned Soviet Luna 24 mission brought back moon samples.

If all goes as planned, the main spacecraft will free the shuttlecock-shaped capsule about 69,000 miles from Earth late Saturday. Then the mothership will fire its thrusters and go into a perpetual orbit around the sun.

Early Sunday, the capsule will penetrate the atmosphere. As it tumbles toward the Utah desert, the temperature on its protective heat shield will spike to 365 degrees.

Traveling at supersonic speed, the capsule will release its first parachute at 100,000 feet, followed minutes later by a larger chute, which will guide it to a landing.

During Genesis, helicopters were deployed to retrieve the capsule in mid-air, but poorly installed gravity sensors on the capsule caused its parachute to fail.

For Stardust, helicopters will fly to the landing site only after the capsule has touched down. Crews will recover the capsule and bring it to a temporary clean room on the base before transferring it to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

If the weather is too snowy or windy for helicopters to fly, NASA will send off-road vehicles to the landing site.

Scientists believe thousands of particles of comet and interstellar dust, most smaller than the width of a human hair, are locked inside the capsule.

To determine the makeup of the particles, scientists will slice the samples into even smaller chunks and probe them under powerful microscopes, said Brownlee, the mission's principal investigator.

"We are literally bringing back samples of the solar system as they were billions of years ago," he said.

If Stardust is not on target for a weekend re-entry, engineers can command the spacecraft to fire its thrusters to a backup orbit. That would postpone its return to Earth four years.
 
src

NASA strikes deal for Soyuz flights

Friday, January 6, 2006

(SPACE.com) -- NASA will pay the Russian Federal Space Agency $21.8 million per passenger for Soyuz rides to and from the international space station (ISS) starting this spring.

NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said January 5 that the U.S. space agency and its Russian counterpart concluded a $43.8 million deal just before New Year's Day that includes Soyuz transportation to and from the space station for NASA's newly named Expedition 13 crew member, Jeff Williams, and a ride home for astronaut Bill McArthur, who has been living onboard the station since October.

Under the deal, Russia also will provide what Mathews described as "a small amount" of cargo space aboard a Progress resupply ship slated to launch to the station later this year and initial Soyuz training for NASA's Expedition 14 crew member.

That astronaut will head to the station this autumn aboard a Soyuz if the space shuttle is not back in service by then.

The agreement also reserves a seat for Williams should he and his cosmonaut crewmate be forced to evacuate the station aboard a Soyuz craft in an emergency.

As part of its contribution to the space station program, Russia has set aside Soyuz seats for American astronauts at no charge to the United States since 2000. But that deal essentially expired last October when Russia launched the 11th and final Soyuz called for under an earlier bilateral agreement.

Mathews described the new agreement as a short term extension of an existing contract NASA signed with the Russian space agency before the Iran Nonproliferation Act became law in 2000. That act barred NASA from paying Russia for any space station-related goods and services as long as Russia continues to help Iran acquire missiles and other advanced weaponry.

The law was amended by the U.S. Congress at the request of the White House in late 2005, clearing the way for NASA buy Soyuz and Progress services from Russia until 2011, when the temporary relief would expire.

While NASA has only contracted for six months of services at this point, Mathews said Russia has agreed to honor the $21.8 million per seat price through 2011.
 
src

There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/02/images/a/formats/web_print.jpg

We tend to think of the North Star, Polaris, as a steady, solitary point of light that guided sailors in ages past. But there is more to the North Star than meets the eye. The North Star is actually a triple star system. And while one companion can be seen easily through small telescopes, the other hugs Polaris so tightly that it has never been seen – until now.

By stretching the capabilities of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to the limit, astronomers have photographed the close companion of Polaris for the first time. They presented their findings today in a press conference at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.

"The star we observed is so close to Polaris that we needed every available bit of Hubble's resolution to see it," said Smithsonian astronomer Nancy Evans (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). The companion proved to be less than two-tenths of an arcsecond from Polaris — an incredibly tiny angle equivalent to the apparent diameter of a quarter located 19 miles away. At the system's distance of 430 light-years, that translates into a separation of about 2 billion miles.

"The brightness difference between the two stars made it even more difficult to resolve them," stated Howard Bond of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Polaris is a supergiant more than two thousand times brighter than the Sun, while its companion is a main-sequence star. "With Hubble, we've pulled the North Star's companion out of the shadows and into the spotlight."

By watching the motion of the companion star, Evans and her colleagues expect to learn not only the stars' orbits but also their masses. Measuring the mass of a star is one of the most difficult tasks facing stellar astronomers.

Astronomers want to determine the mass of Polaris accurately, because it is the nearest Cepheid variable star. Cepheids' brightness variations are used to measure the distances of galaxies and the expansion rate of the universe, so it is essential to understand their physics and evolution. Knowing their mass is the most important ingredient in this understanding.

"Studying binary stars is the best available way to measure the masses of stars," said science team member Gail Schaefer of STScI.

"We only have the binary stars that nature provided us," added Bond. "With the best instruments like Hubble, we can push farther into space and study more of them up close."

The researchers plan to continue observing the Polaris system for several years. In that time, the movement of the small companion in its 30-year orbit around the primary should be detectable.

"Our ultimate goal is the get an accurate mass for Polaris," said Evans. "To do that, the next milestone is to measure the motion of the companion in its orbit."

Release Date: 9:20AM (EST) January 9, 2006
Release Number: STScI-2006-02
 
Osama bin Laden banned from orbit
FAA draws up space tourism regs
By Lester Haines
Published Monday 9th January 2006 10:38 GMT

The US Federal Aviation Authority has responded to the possible threat of terrorist exploitation of the burgeoning space tourism business by drafting some proposed regs to ensure Ossie bin Laden and his mates don't book themselves aboard Virgin Galactic.

In effect, the FAA says space tourists should be treated the same as airline passengers, with the usual security checks and a quick shufti of the global "no-fly" list to see if the wannabe astronaut has previously been barred from airlines worldwide for attempting to open the door mid-flight in order to have a quick ciggie.

According to the BBC, the FAA's report declares: "New technologies carry new risks. Nonetheless, Congress recognises that private industry has begun to develop commercial launch vehicles capable of carrying human beings into space, and greater private investment in these efforts will stimulate the nation's commercial space transportation industry as a whole.

"The public interest is served by creating a clear legal, regulatory, and safety regime for commercial human spaceflight," it adds.

There are, thankfully, a few potential benefits of the FAA proposals for customers who will pay $200,000 a pop to blast off from Virgin Galactic's New Mexico spaceport when it eventually opens for business. The FAA recommends "companies should give passengers safety advice including the number of flights the spacecraft has been on and any problems they have experienced with the craft" as well as offering "pre-flight training to handle emergency situations such as a loss of cabin pressure or fire".

Interestingly, the FAA offers no passenger health recommendations, so we'll have to wait to see what minimum fitness criteria Virgin Galactic applies to its low-orbit punters. ®

src
 
IREBALL ALERT: On Sunday morning, Jan. 15th, between 1:56 and 1:59 a.m. PST (0956 - 0959 UT), a brilliant fireball will streak over northern California and Nevada. It's NASA's Stardust capsule, returning to Earth with samples of dust from Comet Wild 2. The best observing sites: near Carlin and Elko, Nevada, where the man-made meteor is expected to shine as much as 60 times brighter than Venus.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/10jan06/flightpath_strip.jpg

The fireball should be visible from parts of Oregon, Idaho and Utah as well as California and Nevada: observing tips. NASA is interested in videos and photos of the re-entry, which could help researchers learn more about, e.g., the physics of heat shields.

If you're too far away to see the fireball, you might be able to hear it--on the radio. The technique is called "meteor scatter." Tune an FM radio to a silent spot between local stations and point the radio's antenna in the general direction of northern Nevada. When the Stardust capsule rips through the atmosphere, it will create an electrically ionized wake that reflects radio waves. You could suddenly pick up stations thousands of miles away reflected in your direction from the fireball's tail

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html
http://reentry.arc.nasa.gov/viewingforum.html
 
src

Pluto Probe Readied For Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Launch preparations are in full swing at Cape Canaveral for Tuesday's planned mission to Pluto.

The fastest spacecraft in NASA's fleet was rolled out to the launch pad on Monday, but some people think its cargo carries a threat to Earth.

Several people spent Sunday at Cape Canaveral protesting the New Horizon launch, WESH 2 News reported.

At issue is a plutonium-powered generator on board. The protesters believe the radioactive material could harm people if something goes wrong during launch or orbit.

"If the rocket misfires, if anything happens, that plutonium is going to be raining down on us," said protester Barbara Laxon.

NASA has said that the only threat of radioactive material being released is in the first 40 seconds of the launch, but even if that happens, they said they expect no health risks.

The project's manager explained on Monday why the plutonium is necessary for the mission.

"You can't get there without that kind of a system," said project manager Glen Fountain. "When you are at Pluto, the sun's intensity is 1/1000th of the intensity of the sun here. Other kinds of systems do not work."

The Pluto probe will ride a powerful Atlas-5 rocket and scientists don't expect it to reach the outermost planet of the solar system for another nine years. Scientists hope the probe will return the first clear images of the frozen planet's surface.

Watch the launch live on WESH 2 News and WESH.com at 1:24 p.m. Tuesday.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

THROBBS
ABC Exhausting, though not Exhaustive
Replies
9
Views
8K
Sunlover102
Sunlover102
stephen55
When was the last time you got out to a light show?
Replies
11
Views
625
stephen55
stephen55
linuxgeek
eclipsing subject
Replies
22
Views
524
Cheyenne
Cheyenne
ExistentialLuv
Get ready for another hit
Replies
12
Views
454
ExistentialLuv
ExistentialLuv
Spermaceti
Lizard King information
Replies
0
Views
2K
Spermaceti
Spermaceti
Back
Top