astronomy & space stuff

[Lost Cause]

You know, it's kind of good to see everyone reaching for the stars- it puts the universe and their importance in perspective.

We can run-but we can't hide.... (See Below)

How will our universe end?

Recent speculation now includes a pervasive growing field of mysterious repulsive phantom energy that rips virtually everything apart.

Although the universe started with a Big Bang, analysis of cosmological measurements allows a possibility that it will end with a Big Rip.

As soon as few billion years from now, the controversial scenario holds, dark energy will grow to such a magnitude that our own Galaxy will no longer be able to hold itself together.

After that, stars, planets, and then even atoms might not be able to withstand the expansive internal force.

Previously, speculation on the ultimate fate of the universe centered on either a re-collapsing Big Crunch or a Big Freeze.

Although the universe's fate is still a puzzle, piecing it together will likely follow from an increased understanding of the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071021.html

http://img.consumating.com/photos/17900/large/154308.jpg

 

[Karen Kraft]

Well, from watching the dailies, I think it will contract and re-bang again. And again. It depends on how they edit it.

 

[Fagin]

How will our universe end?

Man-Made Universal Warming

 

[mediocre]

Well, from watching the dailies, I think it will contract and re-bang again. And again. It depends on how they edit it.

Suddenly I am reminded of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

 

[Lost Cause]

An enormous cold spot in our universe could be explained by a cosmic defect in the fabric of space-time created shortly after the Big Bang, scientists say.

If confirmed by future studies, the finding, detailed in the Oct. 25 issue of the journal Science, could provide cosmologists with a long-sought clue about how the infant universe evolved.

But other scientists, and even members of the study team, are skeptical of the new claim.

Scientists think that shortly after the Big Bang, as the universe cooled and expanded, exotic particles transformed into the particles we know today via phase transitions similar to the gas-liquid-solid transitions that matter now experiences on Earth.

And like phase transitions on Earth, defects inevitably occur. When water crystallizes to ice, for example, cloudy spots appear in the ice that mark where water molecules are misaligned. Physicists predict that similar defects happened during the phase transitions of the early universe, and that the defects took different forms.

The team thinks a cold spot in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—an energy artifact of the Big Bang that has been detected and mapped by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite—represents the most complex kind of cosmic defect, a 3-D blob-like structure called a texture.

http://www******.com/scienceastronomy/071025-cosmic-defect.html

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/071025-cosmic-texture-02.jpg

 

[Lost Cause]

A new "first" in space!

In another first for outer space, two women commanders greeted each other 250 kilometres above Earth on Thursday after the space shuttle Discovery finished its delicate docking manoeuvres with the International Space Station.

Discovery commander Pamela Melroy, 46, who manually steered the last millimetres to dock, floated through the connection door and laughed as she hugged her colleague, space station commander Peggy Whitson, 47.

Melroy is the second female shuttle commander in NASA history, Whitson the first woman to command a space station crew.

They flew together in 2002.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/a-...above-the-earth/2007/10/26/1192941283461.html

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/10/26/womenastronauts_wideweb__470x332,0.jpg

 

[The Mutt]

An enormous cold spot in our universe could be explained by a cosmic defect in the fabric of space-time created shortly after the Big Bang, scientists say.

It's Asgard.

 

[Lost Cause]

"It's Asgard."

ODIN!

http://illustrebob.free.fr/images/cinoche/erikviking/08.jpg

 

[Lancecastor]

I'm a Capricorn.

 

[sophieloves]

An enormous cold spot in our universe could be explained by a cosmic defect in the fabric of space-time created shortly after the Big Bang, scientists say.

If confirmed by future studies, the finding, detailed in the Oct. 25 issue of the journal Science, could provide cosmologists with a long-sought clue about how the infant universe evolved.

But other scientists, and even members of the study team, are skeptical of the new claim.

Scientists think that shortly after the Big Bang, as the universe cooled and expanded, exotic particles transformed into the particles we know today via phase transitions similar to the gas-liquid-solid transitions that matter now experiences on Earth.

And like phase transitions on Earth, defects inevitably occur. When water crystallizes to ice, for example, cloudy spots appear in the ice that mark where water molecules are misaligned. Physicists predict that similar defects happened during the phase transitions of the early universe, and that the defects took different forms.

The team thinks a cold spot in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—an energy artifact of the Big Bang that has been detected and mapped by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite—represents the most complex kind of cosmic defect, a 3-D blob-like structure called a texture.

after the previous text, this part really made me smile.

 

[Fagin]

..... a 3-D blob-like structure called a texture.

My 3-D blob-like structure is called my belly.

 

[Fagin]

No one posted Laika's anniversary. Although that didn't turn out so well for him.

 

[The Mutt]

They fixed it.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200711/200711040008.html

 

[Lost Cause]

Coming home today!

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/194029main_KSC-op-1.jpg

Space shuttle Discovery is ready to return home with landing planned for the first of two opportunities to the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., at 1:01 p.m. EST today. The seven astronauts on board the shuttle completed final preparations Tuesday.

his morning, Entry Team Flight Director Bryan Lunney and his team are overseeing Discovery’s reentry and landing with the deorbit burn set for 11:59 a.m. The 1 minute, 58 second burn will slow Discovery by 148 miles per hour (217 feet per second) for the reentry across the heartland of the United States traveling from the northwest to southeast.

A second landing opportunity also is available about 90 minutes later. Lunney will consider Florida only for today’s landing attempts with plenty of consumables on board to stay in space through Saturday, if necessary.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts120/news/landing.html


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

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

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030228onboard/030228onboard5.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/sci_nat_columbia_space_shuttle_disaster/img/2.jpg

 

[Lost Cause]

Touchdown!

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2007/120.landing.jpg

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Discovery and its crew landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Wednesday at 1:01 p.m. EST after completing a 15-day journey of more than 6.2 million miles in space. Discovery's STS-120 mission added a key component to the International Space Station and featured an unprecedented spacewalk to repair a damaged solar array.

"This mission demonstrates the value of having humans in space and our ingenuity in solving problems," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "The teams on the ground worked around the clock, along with the crews in space, to develop a plan to fix the array. Our high level of preparedness gave us the edge necessary to make this a successful mission."

Discovery's crew of Commander Pam Melroy, Pilot George Zamka and mission specialists Scott Parazynski, Doug Wheelock, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli delivered the Node 2 module, known as Harmony. Harmony will provide attachment points for European and Japanese laboratories to be added later this year and early in 2008.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=23968

 

[sophieloves]

got any news on that new 5th planet they've discovered, LC?

orbiting a sun about the same age as our own, but this planet's meant to be about the size if Jupiter i think... and it's in the Cancer constellation

 

[Lost Cause]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44222000/jpg/_44222803_cancri_story_ap.jpg

Astronomers in the US say they have found a new planet in orbit around a star 41 light years from Earth.

The discovery brings to five the number of planets orbiting the star, 55 Cancri, the most found to date in a single solar system outside our own.

Astronomers have found more than 250 planets outside our own solar system - the team behind the latest discovery have found more than anyone else.

The new planet is a gas planet about 45 times the mass of the Earth.

Their latest find is a fifth planet to add to the four they had already discovered around 55 Cancri, a double or binary star in the constellation of Cancer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7082257.stm

 

[Lost Cause]

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA pix.htm

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASApix04.jpg

 

[Lost Cause]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.

"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.

"We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.

If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.

http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/images/071218-mars-hubble-02.jpg

 

[Fagin]

Video of Atlantis landing.

http://www.wades.web.st/Video/atlantis_landing_comm.wmv




(I got "Forbidden" using Firefox, but worked with Opera)

edit: I should add, it is view from the cockpit showing the heads up display.

 

[Fagin]

In memorial

Twenty-two years ago today, STS-51L, Challenger, lost.

http://www.astronautmemorial.net/images/51lcrew.jpg




Forty-one years ago yesterday, crew of Apollo 1 lost.

http://www.astronautmemorial.net/images/apollo1.jpg




Five years ago Friday, STS-107, Columbia, lost.

http://www.astronautmemorial.net/images/sts107crew.jpg

 

[linuxgeek]

I wish Congress would sponsor making the day NASA set aside to honor our fallen astronauts as a nationally recognized observance.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2628127620080128

Satellite unlikely to pose danger to humans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A disabled U.S. spy satellite is likely to break into small pieces when it falls to Earth within weeks, posing little danger to humans, U.S. government officials and space experts said on Monday.

Most, if any, debris that survives the intense heat of re-entry would likely fall into the oceans, which cover more than 70 percent of the Earth, White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

But he said the U.S. government was monitoring the satellite's descent from orbit and examining different options to "mitigate any damage."

The U.S. military could potentially use a missile to destroy the minivan-sized satellite in space, but one senior U.S. defense official said that was unlikely for several reasons, including concern about creating space debris as China did when it shot down one of its satellites last year.

"Given that 75 percent of the Earth is covered in water and much of the land is uninhabited, the likely percentage of this satellite or any debris falling into a populated area is very small," Johndroe said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said more than 17,000 man-made objects re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over the past 50 years without major incident.

"We are monitoring it ... we take our obligations seriously with respect to the use of space," Whitman said, noting the satellite was expected to return to earth "over the next several weeks ... late February, early March."

SATELLITE LAUNCHED IN 2006

The satellite is a classified National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2006, according to four senior U.S. officials, who asked not to be named.

The satellite, known as L-21, has been out of touch since shortly after reaching its low-Earth orbit. Built by Lockheed Martin Corp at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the satellite has fallen more than 70 km (43 miles) to an orbit at around 280 km (174 miles) above the Earth. U.S. and European astronomers estimate it is dropping at an accelerating rate of some 8 km (5 miles) a day.

Because the satellite never became operational, it has toxic rocket fuel on board that would have been used to maneuver the satellite in space. It could pose a danger if the fuel tank does not explode upon re-entry.

Thousands of space objects fall to Earth each year, but they generally scatter over a huge area and there have never been any reported injuries, two U.S. officials said.

Occasionally, bigger objects survive, including a 563-pound (255-kg) stainless steel fuel tank from a Delta II rocket that landed 50 yards from a farmer's home in Texas in 1997.

This L-21 satellite is much smaller, and more likely to burn up as it enters the atmosphere, scientists said.

The U.S. military has no weapon designed to shoot down a satellite, but it demonstrated the ability to do that in the mid-1980s, and could cobble together a plan to do so again fairly quickly, said the senior defense official.

Such a move appears unlikely, given global dismay about China's use of a missile to destroy a much bigger satellite at a higher orbit, which scattered nearly 1,000 pieces of debris throughout space, the official said.

 

[The Mutt]

Don't worry about the satellite. The asteroid will smash it on the way down.

 

[The Mutt]

Awesome photo

http://chamorrobible.org/images/pho...-Shuttle-Atlantis-Florida-19960820-medium.jpg