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Dave
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THIS WEEK'S TOP STORY
Anniversary – The 'Pale Blue Dot'
This week marks the 20th anniversary of a photograph. It's a very dramatic photo, even though, at first glance, it's mostly dark and seems to show nothing at all. But if you look closely, you can see a tiny speck of light. That speck is the Earth, seen from very, very, very far away. This is the photo we call the 'Pale Blue Dot'… read on.
Two decades ago, Candice Hansen-Koharcheck became the first person to ever see that speck, sitting in front of a computer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California. "I was all alone, actually, that afternoon, in my office," she recalls.
Her office was dark. The window shades were drawn. She was searching through a database of images sent home by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which at the time was nearly 4 billion miles away. "I knew the data was coming back," she says, "and I wanted to see how it had turned out."
Finally, she found it. "It was just a little dot, about two pixels big, three pixels big," she says. "So not very large." But this was the Earth — seen as no human had ever seen it before.
Pic: (Above) Taken in 1990 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, the "pale blue dot" photo shows what our planet looks like from 4 billion miles away. Earth is the tiny speck of light indicated by the arrow and enlarged in the upper left-hand corner. The pale streak over Earth is an artifact of sunlight scattering in the camera's optics.
What's more, an accidental reflection off the spacecraft made it look as though the tiny speck was being lit up by a glowing beam of light. "You know, I still get chills down my back," says Hansen-Koharcheck. "Because here was our planet, bathed in this ray of light, and it just looked incredibly special."
And yet, if you weren't searching for it, that special little speck would be almost invisible. The Apollo astronauts had taken photos that showed the Earth as a big blue marble, swirling with clouds and continents. But this picture showed the smallness of Earth in the vastness of space.
The late astronomer Carl Sagan eloquently tried to express how he felt about this photo in his book Pale Blue Dot:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Ever wondered what they put on that record? Well then, why not have a listen to a sample. They're excerpts of history! http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html
Robert Poole, a historian at the University of Cumbria in the United Kingdom who wrote a book on images of Earth from space called Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth, says this particular photo shows what an extraterrestrial might see as it approached our solar system."This is not our view. We've managed to go out and get the view that somebody else might have, whereas the early Apollo pictures of the blue marble were our own view of Earth," Poole says. "Like most people, I saw it in the newspaper not long after it was taken and kind of intellectually I thought, 'This is amazing!' "
Onboard the Voyager spacecraft is a 12-inch, gold-plated record with greetings in 59 languages, music samples and images.
Pictures like this are still few and far between. They are not exactly easy to take. In fact, we almost didn't get this one. Sagan lobbied for it early in the Voyager 1 mission. But others objected that taking it might fry the spacecraft's camera. That's because the Earth is so close to our extremely bright sun. "There was a reluctance to take any kind of risk when we would point back towards the sun; we didn't want to accidentally damage the cameras in any way," says Hansen-Koharcheck.
Oh, there was a lot of debate as to what its value would be," recalls Edward Stone, who was — and still is — the chief scientist for the Voyager mission. "It was not a scientific image. It was really, I think, an image to sort of declare that here, for the first time we could take such an image, and second of all it provided a new perspective of Earth and its place in our solar neighborhood."
But the idea was shelved for years, as Voyager 1 flew through the solar system and did its science, sending images back from Saturn and Jupiter. In 1989, the mission was winding down — some staff was going to leave. And Sagan made a last-minute request to please, please, take this unique photo before the opportunity disappeared forever. The decision went to the top levels of NASA "because it was going to extend the mission in terms of imaging capability for an additional six months or so and that of course did cost money," explains Stone.
"I did get a visit from Carl Sagan. We talked about a lot of things. And somewhere in that conversation he mentioned this idea," recalls the then -head of NASA, retired Vice Adm. Richard Truly. "I thought, heck, with Voyager so far away, if it could turn around and take a picture of the different planets including the Earth, that that would really be cool. And so I was a great advocate of it, although I can't take any credit for it."
In 1990, late on Feb. 13 — or on Valentine's Day, in the time zone used by the Voyager 1 team — the spacecraft turned its cameras to Earth. Later, the image was released to the world to great fanfare. But it never really captured the popular imagination like the famous Apollo images. "I think it was hard — it's still hard — to get really your head around the fact that our solar system is so immense, compared to Earth," says Stone. To get the full impact of this photo, Stone says, you really have to see it up on a wall, as part of large panorama that Voyager 1 took of the solar system's distant planets.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab used to have just such a display with the full mosaic of photos posted up in an auditorium, says Hansen- Koharcheck. "And to show the whole thing it covered, oh, I don't know, 12 or 14 feet," she says — of mostly empty black space, with just a few pinpricks of light showing the planets. One of them was labeled Earth.
"One of the guys that took care of that display told me one time that he was forever having to replace that picture," says Hansen-Koharcheck, "because people would come up to look at it and they would always touch the Earth." Voyager 1 is now about three times farther away than it was 20 years ago, says Stone. The spacecraft still routinely phones home, although its cameras no longer take photos. But if it could send back another picture, the little dot that is Earth would look even fainter and even smaller.
NPR
MORE ASTRO-SPACE NEWS
Orion Can Launch Safely in 2013 says Lockheed
“We can fly Orion in 2013”, says John Karas, the VP and General Manager of Human Space Flight for Lockheed Martin. Lockheed is the prime contractor for NASA’s Orion capsule. “There is no doubt in my mind we can do this. And Orion is very safe”. He strenuously repeated this statement to me several times with absolutely no doubt in his mind during a wide ranging interview.
Lockheed Martin has issued an official statement saying, “We are keenly disappointed in the Administration's budget proposal for NASA that would cancel Project Orion as part of an elimination of NASA's Constellation Program. Orion's maturity is evident in its readiness for a first test flight in a matter of weeks. In fact, Orion can be ready for crewed flights to low Earth orbit and other exploration missions as early as 2013, thus narrowing the gap in U.S. human space flight capability when the shuttle is retired later this year”.
Pic: Orion (now cancelled) approaches the International Space Station in Earth orbit. Artist Concept Credit: NASA
Karas questioned the complete lack of vision and realism by the Obama Administration and NASA in deciding to terminate Project Constellation, which includes the new Orion Capsule, the Ares 1 booster rocket for Orion and the Ares 5 Heavy Lift booster required to reach the Moon, Mars and beyond. “I was very surprised by the cancellation. We expected and felt that a middle ground with some changes to Constellation was reasonable. We did not expect to be left with nothing”. “Where is the US Leadership in space if we don’t have a heavy lifter soon ? or a deep space crewed capablity ?
“Russia, China, Japan and India will all have boosters equal to or better than the US expendable fleet. Why would anyone have an incentive to work with us if they already have their own boosters and crew vehicles for LEO. The nations of the world will look elsewhere, not to the US”, Karas told me emphatically. "Its not international cooperation, its international dependency !"
“We will not maintain Space leadership if the US will only be spending money on commercial LEO technology development under the new proposals by the Obama Administration, and not on an actual rocket program that builds, tests and launches flight hardware. Other countries have vehicles and technology programs too.”
“For now, I told the team that Job 1 is to stay calm and keep focused. We are not terminated yet. We are continuing the Constellation program according to our contracts with NASA. By law, the Congress must still have its say. The program cannot be terminated without congressional approval. We have some hope there and are working with NASA and Congress.” “We have numerous Orion related tests upcoming including the LAS or Launch Abort System test in 60 days. And we have test hardware at Michoud and other sites in Louisiana, Texas and Florida.
We have successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) on Orion last year. We are headed for the critical design review (CDR) beginning in the August 2010 time frame and running into next year. Orion is the most mass efficient ever built. And its full of innovations".
Karas was confident about the early readiness of Orion and vehemently disagrees with the conclusions of the blue ribbon Augustine commission which evaluated Project Constellation and stated in their final report that the Orion capsule could not launch prior to 2015 to 2017. Karas stated, “We can have an Orion capsule built and ready to fly by 2013. It would likely utilize a 5 segment Ares 1 rocket and probably be capable of launching with 4 astronauts aboard. To acccomplish that, we first need to complete several high altitude abort tests with the capsule. This would be followed by an unmanned orbital test in 2012.
There are some alternatives to using Ares 1 as the booster rocket if Lockheed decides to bid on NASA’s commercial route to human spaceflight. There has been speculation about launching with a 4 segment Ares 1 first stage which might also work, but with certain modifications to reduce the weight of Orion. Some systems or components would have to be simplified, reduced or pulled off such as the Service module size, avionics and unspecified life support hardware resulting in less redundancy and robustness in case of failures,” Karas said.
The Delta 4 Heavy and Atlas 5 are among other booster possibilities. Along with this of course is the fact that some capabilitities would also have to be sacrificed. For example making Orion only LEO capable and thus giving up on the Moon, Mars and other Deep Space targets such as Asteroids. But, he cautioned me by saying that much work remains yet to be done to define these alternative options. "Focusing on LEO is not space leadership. The nation should have a balanced approach" says Karas. Capabilities sacrificed today could potentially be added back in later.
Money could also obviously be saved by designing and constructing a capsule with less built in safety capability. Fear of that happening has been expressed by many. Let me be completely clear, Karas was NOT advocating any option to curtail on crew safety. Just stating that compromises to crew safety would be a direct consequence to cutting development costs by cutting operational systems from the Orion capsule to meet a commercial competition.
Indeed, Karas is extremely concerned that by going the commercial taxi route, astronaut safety is exactly what will be sacrificed. “I am very concerned that safety and safety standards are at risk. There is a lot of rhetoric about commercial providers". In fact, no one has built any manned capsule yet and many comentators think their fast timelines are unrealistic. Some commercials providers have claimed they will have a manned capsule ready in about two years. But they have not even flight tested the unmanned cargo carriers yet.
"What happens if the commercial providers fail to deliver ? and the market for manned capsules fails to materialize ? Then the US will be left with no capability to launch its own astronauts into space for perhaps a decade or more.” The looming “Gap” will thus grow even longer, further threatening US Space Leadership", stated Karas. “Significant investment has already been made by the nation and private industry in Orion, which is human rated to provide a level of safety unmatched by any previous or currently proposed crewed vehicles”, according to Lockheed. “Over 4000 people are working on Orion and those jobs are at risk. Lockheed and its partners have spent $300 million of its planned $500 million investment in Orion,” Karas told me.
Over 7000 jobs at the Kennedy Space Center are now at risk as well as thousands more across the US as a result of the retirement of the Space Shuttle at the end of 2010. The cancellation of Project Constellation adds even more uncertainty and the probable loss of another 500 jobs at the Cape. On Feb 1, NASA awarded $50 million to commercial firms to begin development of concepts and technology demonstrations for commercial human spaceflight. “Its just prudent for the tax-payers to have a backup plan.” “We have done all the analysis, and others have verified it independently, making Orion inherently more safe than the alternatives,” Karas concluded.
Moon Exploration is Not Dead
It's clear by now that America's grand plans for returning astronauts to the Moon have been quashed, at least in the short term. The Constellation program, originally created to land astronauts there by 2020, is no more. But that doesn't mean that astronauts will not return in the future, nor does it mean that lunar exploration will cease in the meantime.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is delivering wonderful images of the Moon, and uncovering new discoveries. Scientists as also still digesting the results of the LCROSS mission, which crashed a rocket stage near the Moon's south pole in 2009, and proved the existence of water there.
NASA's Themis mission, a constellation of identical spacecraft previously launched to explore particles and fields in Earth orbit, has given rise to the Artemis mission. Two spacecraft from the Themis constellation have been sent to lunar orbit, to continue their mission there.
NASA also expects to launch the LADEE orbiter, which will sample the Moon's tenuous atmosphere, and the twin GRAIL spacecraft, which will map the Moon's gravitational field, giving clues to the Moon's interior. There's also discussion of a proposed robotic lunar sample return mission, which would explore the Aitken Basin region, unvisited by any previous lander. Private companies are also working on commercial lunar missions, which would land scientific instruments on the Moon and deploy rovers. The Google Lunar X-Prize, which offers a huge cash reward to anyone who lands a private mission there, is being pursued actively by several teams. One team could launch as soon as 2011.
All of these missions were in the works before 2010, but the recent review of NASA's plans suggests that there will be even more robotic activity. Plans have not been specific at this stage, but there seems to be a new impetus for more robotic landings on the Moon, and the testing of new technologies on these missions. These missions are designed to act as trailblazers for astronauts who will eventually follow in their wake, much like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is doing today.
China expects to launch its second lunar orbiter later this year. This will carry a high-resolution camera, along with other instruments. India is planning its first robot lunar landing around 2012. China is expected to send its own first robot lander to the Moon in 2013. China will probably land a robot sample-return mission in 2017. India is also considering a sample-return mission, and Russia is planning an orbiter mission called Luna-Glob, which will fire penetrators into the lunar surface.
Internationally, there has been talk of an International Lunar Network of small robot landers, although exact plans for the network are still in development. Some of these missions could yet experience delays or cancellations, but it's clear that the Moon will be a busy place for the rest of the decade.Dr Morris Jones is the author of "The New Moon Race", available from Rosenberg Publishing (www.rosenbergpub.com.au).
Moon Daily
Group Formed to Save Iconic Moon Dish
The Moon dish that brought the Apollo 11 moon walk images to the world's TV screens is slated to become little more than a statue near Canberra, the capital of Australia in just over a week .
NASA is feeling the pinch during world economic crisis and is doing the best it can under the circumstances to make sure that the dish does not get turned into scrap metal, but Echoes of Apollo Australian manager Robert Brand says that Australia should do more. NASA has done the best it can under the circumstances, but cannot afford to keep the dish operational any longer.
Even stripping it down and welding it in place as a monument will cost money, but it is all that NASA can afford during tough times. Once the gears are welded, it will never be able to be used again.
Brand said "This dish was instrumental in bringing the world TV coverage of the first moon walk and kept the astronauts in touch with mission control with both voice and data. It deserves to be kept going for as long as we can afford to do so. This action comes at a time when Australia is looking at ways to stimulate students into studying for space careers. It is expected that government money will be made available for radio astronomy including dishes with remote access for the classroom. Why not use the Moon dish for this purpose. Yes, it will cost more, but imagine the effect on students of having access to the very same dish that was used for the Moon missions and was so important to ensuring that the crew of Apollo 13 made it back to earth safely.
Brand suggests that sponsorship and funds from a variety of areas be used to refurbish the dish and then operate it. It should see another 40 years if kept updated. Rather than having what would be little more than a static monument, this large dish would continue to stimulate and inspire children from around the world.Brand said "We need a stay of execution from NASA while a newly formed group looks at ways of raising funds for the restoration and upgrade. If it cannot be done, then this is the next best option, but a headlong rush into oblivion for the dish is not the way.
The antenna known today simply as DSS46 was originally at Honeysuckle Creek, part of NASA's Deep Space network. It was moved to its current location at Tidbinbilla between 1981- and 1983 and has been in active use every since tracking spacecraft around the solar system. Although many people around the world believe that the Parkes Radio Telescope brought us the moon landings, a windstorm prevented NASA from using them for the first part of the moonwalk and the first images came from Honeysuckle Creek. The movie "The Dish" was never meant to be a documentary.
Only last month, US Manager and Founder of Echoes of Apollo Pat Barthelow suggested a group be formed to manage old and abandoned dishes around the world and use them for a variety of purposes including education. NASA's proposed action for the Moon dish has meant that we have to move very quickly with little more than a week to gather support we have had to accelerate the program. It is called SOSS – Save Our Space-comms Systems and has over 400 members so far – for information about joining the group please join the mailing list at http://echoesofapollo.com/subscribe/ and select "SOSS" Amateur radio operators are also interested in access to the dish for major events such as World Moon Bounce Day.
Contact Robert Brand for more information:robert.brand@echoesofapollo.com (02) 9572 7246 – intl +61 2 95727246
To learn more about Echoes of Apollo, visit: http://echoesofapollo.com/
Irish Fireball Could Sell for $41,000
Meteorite hunters are on the look-out for space rock in Ireland, after a fireball was spotted blazing across the sky on Wednesday night.
People from across the country witnessed the spectacle, which happened at around 6pm.It is thought the fireball was a space rock travelling at a 100,000 miles per hour, or the equivalent of a small atomic bomb blast in the skies.
Terry Moseley, from the Irish Astronomical Association, said such an occurrence was 'extremely rare' and said there was a chance that some of it may have survived and fallen to earth as a meteorite.
'What it probably was is a small asteroid, which is a piece of space rock which has collided with the earth and burned up at very high atmosphere,' he explained.The last time a meteorite hit Ireland was in 1989, and a gram of that meteor rock sold for $500.
'It seems to have travelled over most of Ireland, roughly from south to north and there is a possibility that a meteorite fell at the end of that, possibly somewhere in County Armagh.' Astronomy Ireland is urging anyone with sightings to record it on their website, astronomyireland.ie.
Meteorites are fragments of rock that fall to Earth from space. Having broken away from a larger body, they can measure anything from a fraction of a millimetre to the size of a football pitch and bigger. As they enter Earth's atmosphere they glow due to the friction and flash across the sky before crashing to the ground.
Mail Online
Space Rock Worth Thousands Stirs Ownership Debate
An out-of-this world rock has become the center of a down-to-earth dispute over who its rightful owner should be. The tennis ball-sized meteorite plummeted through the roof of a Virginia medical office just after dusk on Jan. 18, the same time as people reported seeing a fireball in the sky. It plunged through the ceiling of an examination room and landed near the spot where a doctor had been sitting a short while earlier.
"I'm the most likely person to be sitting in that place where it hit," Dr. Marc Gallini said. "It just wasn't my time, I guess."
He and fellow practitioner Dr. Frank Ciampi say their first thought was to give the rare find to the Smithsonian Institution, which offered $5,000 for it. Within days, it was sent to the National Museum of Natural History for safekeeping. The doctors are worried, though, that their longtime landlords plan to stake their own claim to the space rock. The collectors market for meteorites can be lucrative.
Gallini, who has run his family practice in Lorton, Va., since 1978, said he notified his property owner, Erol Mutlu, of plans to hand the object over to the Smithsonian, which holds the world's largest museum collection of meteorites. Gallini says he got Mutlu's permission. Later in the week, though, Mutlu sent the doctors an e-mail warning that his brother and fellow landlord Deniz Mutlu was going to the Smithsonian to retrieve the rock, Gallini said.
He wouldn't share the e-mail exchange with The Associated Press, but The Washington Post reported that Erol Mutlu wrote that "it's evident that ownership is tied to the landowner."" The U.S. courts have ruled that a meteorite becomes part of the land where it arrives through 'natural cause' and hence the property of the landowner," the e-mail said. Deniz Mutlu later appeared to back away from the claim, saying the family was making no such demands and the meteorite is safe for now at the Smithsonian. He added, however, that he didn't know how long it would remain there.
A lawyer representing the landlords would not comment Tuesday. The doctors hired their own lawyer and demanded the Smithsonian not release the meteorite until the ownership question was resolved. The lawyer plans to ask a court to rule. "We really want this to end up in the right place," Gallini said. The doctors plan to donate the money from the Smithsonian to Haiti earthquake relief, he said. The Smithsonian won't comment on ownership and said in a statement that it will "retain possession of the 'Lorton Meteorite' until a legal owner has been established."
The Smithsonian collection includes about 15,000 meteorites; of those, 738 were gathered shortly after they fell from the sky. The Lorton meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, curators said. It has a blackened outer surface from burning through the atmosphere, said Tim McCoy, a mineral sciences curator at the Smithsonian. Inside are flecks of metal and thousands of tiny rocks containing "the primitive stuff left over from the birth of the solar system," he said. That material allows scientists to look back about 4.6 billion years, McCoy said.
The last meteorite known to strike a building was in New Orleans in 2003, said Linda Welzenbach, the museum's meteorite collections manager. There were other finds that year in the Chicago area. Space rocks can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors. Meteorite hunters descended on Washington's Virginia suburbs to look for other remnants of the Lorton meteorite.
One was Steve Arnold, co-star of the new Science Channel TV show, "Meteorite Men." Arnold estimates the Lorton meteorite could bring $25,000 to $50,000 on the open market, unless more pieces turn up. But he said Tuesday that none turned up from his search around the doctors' office.
Meteorites have been the subject of legal disputes before. In the early 1900s, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled a 15-ton meteorite belonged to the landowner on whose property it likely landed, not the person who found it. The doctors' attorney Marvin Miller said Virginia law differs and favors the tenant. As of Tuesday, the land owners had made no formal demands, but Miller said he would soon ask a court to decide. "That's the fairest way to deal with things for everybody's sake," he said.
SF Gate
Astronomers Unveil Atmospheres of Far Away Planets
The discovery and characterisation of a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere is a step closer thanks to a new observation technique, developed by astronomers at NASA and UCL, using surprisingly small ground-based telescopes.
Astronomers have identified organic molecules in the atmosphere of a Jupiter sized planet nearly 63 light years away. Rather than using a high performance space telescope, like Hubble, they have made the breakthrough using a relatively small
30 year-old telescope in Hawaii.
The surprising new finding was made using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii – a 3 meter diameter telescope that ranks just 40th among ground based instruments.
The new technique promises to speed up the work of studying planet atmospheres by enabling many other ground-based telescopes to focus on known exoplanets – planets that orbit stars beyond our solar system. “The final goal is to observe the atmosphere of a planet with the capability to support life. We’re not there yet, but this technique will make it much easier and faster to characterise exoplanet atmospheres,” said Dr Giovanna Tinetti, co-author of the study at UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy.
"This work suggests we may be able to detect organic molecules in the atmospheres of terrestrial planets with existing instruments very soon,” said Dr. Mark Swain, astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and lead author of the paper.
The next step is to set up synergies between ground telescopes and NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer and future James Webb space telescopes, in order to maximise information gathering with a view to fully characterising the atmospheres of other exoplanets. In the study, the astronomers were able to confirm the presence of water, carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of a planet called HD 189733b in the constellation of Vulpecula. The new technique decomposes light emitted by the planet to get a spectrum, or signature, of the different chemicals present in the planet’s atmosphere.
Giovanna Tinetti added: “This technique allows us to get a much more accurate picture of the chemicals present in the atmosphere of exoplanets, and has shown that there are some emissions in the atmosphere of this planet which are indicative of ‘non-thermal processes’ – very complex relationships between the distribution of energy over wavelengths and the temperature of an object. “These processes have been observed in the atmospheres of few planets in our solar system, but have never been seen before in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.”
Insciences Organisation
Chile to be the Site for the 42 meter European Extremely Large Telescope?
Question: Where are the night skies always dark, cloud-free 360 days a year, bone-dry, and orbiting 3.5 km above sea level? Answer: Armazones Mountain, Atacama desert, Chile. "We are talking about the biggest telescope in the world, the biggest for a long time to come.
That means we have to choose the best spot. Chile has a superb location. It's the best in the world, there's no doubt," the European Southern Observatory's astronomer, Massimo Tarenghi, said. He is one of four astronomers – two Chileans, an Italian (Tarenghi) and a German – who were in the desert this week to evaluate its suitability compared to the main other contender: the Spanish isle of La Palma in the Canary Islands off western Africa.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental astronomical research agency that already has three facilities operating in the Atacama desert, including the Very Large Telescope array in the town of Paranal which is currently considered Europe's foremost observatory.
Work on the E-ELT is to begin in December 2011 and cost 90 million euros (120 million dollars) … once a decision is made on the site, which will be as early as March this year. When complete, the E-ELT will be "the world's biggest eye on the sky," according to the ESO, which hopes it will "address many of the most pressing unsolved questions in astronomy."
The E-ELT is likely to be as revolutionary in the field of astronomy as Galileo's telescope 400 years ago that determined that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the center of our universe, according to the European agency based in Munich, Germany. The German astronomer in Chile, Wolfgang Gieren, waxed happily about the possibilities of the future telescope. "In no more than 15 years we could have the first good- resolution spectra of planets outside our universe that are the same size of Earth and see if we can detect signs of life," he said.
One of the Chilean astronomers, Mario Harmuy, said the Armazones provided an ideal location. "Several things come together here. The cold Humboldt Current, which passes by Chile's coast, means that there is a high pressure center in the Pacific that deflects high clouds and prevents cover over this part of the continent," he said. "To the east, the high Andes mountains prevent humidity from moving in from the Atlantic with clouds. The higher you are, the less humidity there is, and thus the light from the stars go through less of the atmosphere and is distorted less when it hits the telescope." To boot, the Chilean location is free of the storms that hit the Canary Islands and the Sahara, he said.
Tarneghi added that the ESO's existing Paranal observatory nearby also meant that much of the ground infrastructure was already in place. Chile's government was equally enthusiastic about hosting the E-ELT. Gabriel Rodriguez, in charge of the foreign ministry's science and technology division, said Chile was ready to cede the 600 hectares (1,500 acres) needed for the project. The government is to submit its offer to the ESO next Monday, with a decision expected early March.
The Italian astronomer cautioned that despite Chile's obvious advantages, the tender had to be weighed carefully for all its aspects. "Neither any of us nor the ESO know what the final decision will be. We need to receive the Chilean and Spanish proposals and evaluate factors of operation, work and production costs," Tarenghi said.
The other Chilean astronomer, Maria Teresa Ruiz, remained fired up at the potential of the new instrument. The "surface area of this telescope is bigger than all the others in Chile combined, which will allow us to explore things in the universe that we can't even imagine today," she said.
Universe Today
Russia Wants To Charge More For Rides To Space
Russia, which is set to hold a monopoly on flights to the international space station (ISS), wants to charge more for rides on its Soyuz rocket, the space agency head said Tuesday.
"At a meeting of the space agency chiefs in Tokyo, I want to discuss the maintenance of transport to the station," Roskomos head Anatoly Perminov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
"We have an agreement until 2012 that Russia will be responsible for this. But after that? Excuse me but the prices should be absolutely different then!"
When NASA retires its long-serving shuttle fleet as planned later this year, the United States and other countries will be wholly dependent on Russia to fly the station's six-man crew to and from orbit.
NASA has signed a deal worth 306 million dollars (224 million euros) with Roskomos for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, or a charge of 51 million dollars per US astronaut. But with space now limited aboard the Soyuz rocket, Russia looks set to curb its lucrative space tourism service, for which it had charged cosmos-crazed tycoons 35 million dollars (28 million euros) for the ultimate adventure.
The floating ISS research station was to be closed in 2015 and ditched in ocean like its predecessor the Russian Mir station, but the 16 countries involved are in talks to extend the station's life to 2020.
AFP
Professor: We Have a 'Moral Obligation' to Seed Universe With Life
Eventually, the day will come when life on Earth ends. Whether that’s tomorrow or five billion years from now, whether by nuclear war, climate change, or the Sun burning up its fuel, the last living cell on Earth will one day wither and die. But that doesn’t mean that all is lost. What if we had the chance to sow the seeds of terrestrial life throughout the universe, to settle young planets within developing solar systems many light- years away, and thus give our long evolutionary line the chance to continue indefinitely?
According to Michael Mautner, Research Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, seeding the universe with life is not just an option, it’s our moral obligation. As members of this planet’s menagerie, and a consequence of nearly 4 billion years of evolution, humans have a purpose to propagate life. After all, whatever else life is, it necessarily possesses an incessant drive for self-perpetuation. And the idea isn’t just fantasy: Mautner says that “directed panspermia” missions can be accomplished with present technology.
“We have a moral obligation to plan for the propagation of life, and even the transfer of human life to other solar systems which can be transformed via microbial activity, thereby preparing these worlds to develop and sustain complex life,” Mautner explained . “Securing that future for life can give our human existence a cosmic purpose.”
As Mautner explains in his study published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Cosmology, the strategy is to deposit an array of primitive organisms on potentially fertile planets and protoplanets throughout the universe. Like the earliest life on Earth, organisms such as cyanobacteria could seed other planets, digest toxic gases (such as ammonia and carbon dioxide on early Earth) and release products such as oxygen which promote the evolution of more complex species.
To increase their chances of success, the microbial payloads should contain a variety of organisms with various environmental tolerances, and hardy multicellular organisms such as rotifer eggs to jumpstart higher evolution. These organisms may be captured into asteroids and comets in the newly forming solar systems and transported from there by impacts to planets as their host environments develop.
Mautner has identified potential breeding grounds, which include extrasolar planets, accretion disks surrounding young stars that hold the gas and dust of future planets, and – at an even earlier stage – interstellar clouds that hold the materials to create stars. He explains that the Kepler mission may identify hundreds of biocompatible extrasolar planets, and astronomers are already aware of several accretion disks and interstellar clouds that could serve as targets. These potential habitats range in distance from a few light-years to 500 or more light-years away.
To transport the microorganisms, Mautner proposes using sail-ships. These ships offer a low-cost transportation method with solar sails, which can achieve high velocities using the radiation pressure from light. The microorganisms could be bundled in tiny capsules, each containing about 100,000 microorganisms and weighing 0.1 micrograms. Mautner predicts that the most challenging part of the process would be the precise aiming required in order for a mission to arrive at its target destination after hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of years of travel.
Accounting for the difficulties of each of the steps involved, Mautner has calculated how many microbial capsules would be needed to ensure a reasonable probability of success. He concludes that a few hundred tons of microbial biomass “can seed dozens of new solar systems in an interstellar cloud with life for eons.” With launch costs of $10,000/kg, this amount of biomass would cost about $1 billion to launch. If we can aim precisely at planets in nearby solar systems, the mission would require significantly fewer capsules, smaller biomass, and lower costs. Mautner predicts that, while the technology is currently available, such an initiative will be easier to implement as space infrastructure develops and launch costs decrease.
As Mautner notes, several scientists have previously proposed ways to seed planets (notably, Venus and Mars) in our own solar system with microorganisms in order to alter the atmosphere and possibly make them habitable for humans. Also, some theories suggest that, on Earth, life -supporting nutrients and materials – or even life itself – may have come from somewhere else in the universe, arriving here on meteors, asteroids, and comets. In a sense, Mautner’s proposal would simply be helping life’s planet-hopping journey continue.
But, some critics might ask, what if extraterrestrial life already exists somewhere else, and we infect it with our own invasive genetic material? First of all, Mautner explains that we can minimize these chances by targeting very primitive locations where life could not have evolved yet. In addition, he argues that, since extraterrestrial life is not currently known to exist, our first concern should be with preserving our family of organic gene/protein life that we know exists.
In the long term, Mautner is hopeful that life can continue existing beyond our home planet. Using techniques from astroecology based on the energy output of stars, he calculates that the amount of sustainable life can be significant in other neighborhoods of the universe. Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure how everything will turn out after we’re long gone.
“May life last indefinitely?” he writes. “The habitable lifetime of the galaxy may depend on the dark matter and energy. These forces may need to be observed for many more eons to predict their future behaviour. During those cosmological times our descendants may understand nature more deeply and seek to extend life indefinitely.” More information: Michael N. Mautner. “Seeding the Universe with Life: Securing Our Cosmological Future.” Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol. 5.
PhysOrg.com
Video: Will NASA Send Robots to the Moon with "Project M?"
This video recently apeared on NASA Watch, but there's not a lot of details about Project M. According to the America Space website, Project M is a program being developed out of the Johnson Space Center Engineering Directorate to put a lander on the moon with a robot.
Supposedly, the mission could be done within a 1,000 days once the project got the go-ahead. It would be different than other NASA projects in that there would be no prime contractors, but just using "the best engineers in the world to get the job done on time," said America Space. Cryptically, the website also says the project has been "go" since Monday, November 9th, 2009.
UFO Moviez eyes 1000 theatre screens for IPL 3 matches
PTI /
JOHN
By VINCE SOODIN THIS amazing UFO has left scientists baffled — after boffins claimed it was NOT a comet streaking through space. It was first spotted early …
Pop goes UFO claims in Lake Saint Louis
1, 2010 — Paul Bauer shows a deflated advertising balloon with LED lights that was confused for a UFO. He was flying it at his
Remote Controlled Helium Balloon Mistaken For UFO
But it wasn
|
By PAUL SUTHERLAND, Sun Spaceman A BRITISH stargazer has taken an amazing video of a UFO crossing the face of the sun. Malcolm Park was taking a series of …
UFO fleet filmed above Acapulco, Mexico The UFO footage below is believed to have been filmed in |
FEATURE STORY
Will Saturn's Titan Yield 1st Evidence of Life Beyond Earth?
Saturn's Titan has been considered a “unique world in the solar system” since 1908 when, the Spanish astronomer, José Comas y Solá, discovered that it had an atmosphere, something non-existent on other moons. This week's announcement of NASA's extension of the Cassini mission probes of Saturn and its moons may solve fascinating mysteries, including the strong possibility of life on Saturn's largest moon,Titan.
It seems perfectly appropriate that one of the prime candidates for life in our solar system, Titan, should have surface lakes, lightning, shorelines, relatively thick nitrogen atmosphere -and seasons. Titan can be viewed as an early-model Earth. And 100% of all known Earths have awesome life on them. The significantly lower temperature is a bit of a stumbling block (it's ten times as far from the sun as us), but there's a strong possibility of subterranean microbial life – or even a prebiotic "Life could happen!" environment.
If a space traveler ever visits Titan, they will find a world where temperatures plunge to minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit, methane rains from the sky and dunes of ice or tar cover the planet's most arid regions -a cold mirror image of Earth's tropical climate, according to scientists at the University of Chicago.
Titan's ice is stronger than most bedrock found on earth, yet it is more brittle, causing it to erode more easily, according to new research by San Francisco State University Assistant Professor Leonard Sklar. Sklar and his team developed new measurements from tests on ice as cold as minus 170 degrees Celcius which demonstrate that ice gets stronger as temperature decreases. Understanding ice and its resistance to erosion is critical to answering how Titan's earth-like landscape formed. Titan has lakes, rivers and dunes, but its bedrock is made of ice as cold as minus 180 degrees Celcius, eroded by rivers of liquid methane.
"You have all these things that are analogous to Earth. At the same time, it's foreign and unfamiliar," said Ray Pierrehumbert, the Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences at Chicago.
Titan, one of Saturn's 60 moons, is the only moon in the solar system large enough to support an atmosphere. Pierrehumbert and colleague Jonathan Mitchell, have been comparing observations of Titan collected by the Cassini space probe and the Hubble Space Telescope with their own computer simulations of the moon's atmosphere.
"One of the things that attracts me about Titan is that it has a lot of the same circulation features as Earth, but done with completely different substances that work at different temperatures," Pierrehumbert said. On Earth, for example, water forms liquid and is relatively active as a vapor in the atmosphere. But on Titan, water is a rock. "It's not more volatile on Titan than sand is on Earth."
Methane-natural gas-assumes an Earth-like role of water on Titan. It exists in enough abundance to condense into rain and form puddles on the surface within the range of temperatures that occur on Titan. "The ironic thing on Titan is that although it's much colder than Earth, it actually acts like a super-hot Earth rather than a snowball Earth, because at Titan temperatures, methane is more volatile than water vapor is at Earth temperatures," Pierrehumbert said.
Pierrehumbert and Mitchell even go so far as to call Titan's climate tropical, even though it sounds odd for a moon that orbits Saturn more than nine times farther from the sun than Earth. Along with the behavior of methane, Titan's slow rotation rate also contributes to its tropical nature. Earth's tropical weather systems extend only to plus or minus 30 degrees of latitude from the equator. But on Titan, which rotates only once every 16 days, "the tropical weather system extends to the entire planet," Pierrehumbert said.
Titan's dense, nitrogen-methane atmosphere responds much more slowly than Earth's atmosphere, as it receives about 100 times less sunlight than Earth. Seasons on Titan last more than seven Earth years. Its clouds form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion.
Physicists from the University of Granada and University of Valencia, analyzing data sent by the Cassini-Huygens probe from Titan, have “unequivocally” proved that there is natural electrical activity on Titan. The world scientist community believes that the probability of organic molecules, precursors of life, being formed is higher on planets or moons which have an atmosphere with electrical storms.
Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have monitored Titan's atmosphere for three-and-a-half years, between July 2004 and December 2007, and observed more than 200 clouds. They found that the way these clouds are distributed around Titan matches scientists' global circulation models. The only exception is timing — clouds are still noticeable in the southern hemisphere while fall is approaching.
"Titan's clouds don't move with the seasons exactly as we expected," said Sebastien Rodriguez of the University of Paris Diderot, in collaboration with Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team members at the University of Nantes, France. "We see lots of clouds during the summer in the southern hemisphere, and this summer weather seems to last into the early fall. It looks like Indian summer on Earth, even if the mechanisms are radically different on Titan from those on Earth. Titan may then experience a warmer and wetter early autumn than forecasted by the models."
On Earth, abnormally warm, dry weather periods in late autumn occur when low-pressure systems are blocked in the winter hemisphere. By contrast, scientists think the sluggishness of temperature changes at the surface and low atmosphere on Titan may be responsible for its unexpected warm and wet, hence cloudy, late summer.
Scientists will continue to observe the long-term changes during Cassini's extended mission, which runs until the fall of 2010, which will offer plenty of opportunities to monitor climate change on Titan — the spacecraft makes its next flyby of the moon on June 6. We'll learn if the sluggish weather is the result of a slow rate of temperature change at the surface.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Daily Galaxy
IN THE SKY THIS MONTH
February 2010
Well, already well into 2010 and the night sky is starting to get really interesting. So much so you won't even need a telescope to see some of the celestial goodies… your eyes, and maybe a pair of binoculars, will do just fine!
There's a new Moon on February 14 (Valentine's Day) and that's a great time to not only propose, but look for planets as well. It's also Chinese New Year! The Moon's glare can sometimes block them out. Mercury is just starting to make an appearance low above the Eastern horizon during morning twilight. Look for a small yellowish star-like object.
Mars appears as a bright orange 'star' in the early north-eastern evening sky. With a reasonably powerful telescope you can see the orange disc, surface markings and possibly the polar caps.
Ever heard of the giant planet? That's Jupiter, 1300 times bigger than the Earth. In fact, all the planets in the solar system could fit inside this huge world, still with plenty of room left over to park your car! You can spot Jupiter setting low in the West and even with a good pair of binoculars it's stunning – the disc is clearly visible with four of its moons spinning around the outside.
The lord of the rings is next. Saturn is visible earlier in the evening above the Eastern horizon as a pale yellow star. It's the one planet with the 'Wow' factor but keep in mind the rings are turned mostly side on at the moment, so don't expect a lot OK?
Two welcome signposts for the Australian evening summer sky are the familiar constellations of Orion, (or 'saucepan') and the Southern Cross. Look at the middle star in the handle of Orion with your scope. It's not a star, it's a beautiful gas cloud called a nebula where stars are being born. The reddish star below it is one of the few stars in the sky that you can actually recognize its colour. Betelgeuse is truly a giant, almost 600 times wider than our own Sun.
If you remember holding sparklers as a kid on cracker night you'll love the Alpha-Centaurids. They're a meteor shower happening best on February 8 with long lasting streaky tails and possibly a rare fireball or two! What time to watch did you say? Sorry, it's an early morning treat. Get up sometime between midnight and dawn and just look eastward. Nope, you won't need anything, just your eyes will do.
Dave Reneke
ASTRO PIC OF THE WEEK
Water Molecules of the Rose Nebula
The NGC 7129 nebula is a star-forming region with many of the bright stars shown here are younger than 1 million years old as well as a small number of very red structures that indicate regions where new stars are forming -often outflows of gas called Herbig Haro objects. Highly active regions like this can often produce molecular masers – a coherent flarelike signal of light- generally at microwave wavelengths. The H2O (water) molecules in this gas region are excited (vibrate) by high-energy photons.
The Spitzer Space Telescope image was obtained with an infrared array camera that is sensitive to invisible infrared light at wavelengths that are about ten times longer than visible light. The rosy pink hue is produced by glowing dust grains on the surface of the bubble being heated by the intense light from the embedded young stars.
Upon absorbing ultraviolet and visible-light photons produced by the stars, the surrounding dust grains are heated and re-emit the energy at the longer infrared wavelengths observed by Spitzer. The reddish colors trace the distribution of molecular material thought to be rich in hydrocarbons, the building blocks of life.
Source: NASA Spitzer Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Megeath (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
Did You Know?
How does Earth
Did You Know?
Gravity pulls us downward on all sides on the Earth. Does this mean that at the center of the Earth, there is no gravity?
First, the most important thing to know is that gravity exists absolutely everywhere in the universe. Every bit of matter exerts a force on every other bit of matter. This means that you are attracted, and attract, everything in the universe! The force exerted depends on the distance of the object and the mass. The Earth exerts the most force on you because it is close (right here!) and very massive.Forces add like vectors, so their direction is very important. If you could be at the exact center, the forces that each bit of Earth matter exerted on you would cancel out (up cancelling down, east cancelling west, etc.). This only occurs for a single point, though, and you would still feel a gravitational force on the rest of your body.
Remember, gravity is universal and exists everywhere. This is the fundamental law of physics.
Ever Wondered???
Why is the Earth spherical?
The Earth (and other planets, and stars) is spherical because the spherical shape is the lowest energy state that a group of matter can be in. Small asteroids and moons can be non-spherical, but after they reach a certain size (when the force of their gravity can "break" the rock from which they are made), all the bumps are pulled down, and they become more spherical. There is a maximum size that mountains can attain that gets smaller as the planetoid gets more massive. So Mars can have larger mountains (Olympus Mons for example) than the Earth can, because it weighs less. As long as the maximum mountain size is small compared to the radius of the planetoid (true for objects considerably smaller than the Moon), the body will be spherical.
The question that no-one can answer?
Academics at the London University New Academic Terminology Information Centre (L.U.N.A.T.I.C.) have announced that their 20 year search for the "Question that has no answer" has finally ended. The question resulted in a team being locked away to try and find an answer.
The question to which there is no answer is: "What is the opposite of opposite?" Some sources say Oxford & Cambridge, Collins and Wykpedia have offered (UK) £100,000 for the first person to give the answer. What is opposite to opposite – think about it.
Events
Global Astronomy Month
Global Astronomy MonthProfessional and amateur astronomers, educators and all astronomy enthusiasts worldwide are invited to celebrate the Universe in April 2010, during Global Astronomy Month – an international project that builds on the achievements of The International Year of Astronomy 2009, by combining a wide array of activities with the possibility of sharing experiences in real-time!
Taking place during April 2010, Global Astronomy Month (GAM2010) is a community-based effort aiming to achieve international collaboration and more interaction between participants than ever before. The primary idea of GAM2010 is to share ideas, experiences and successes, allowing communities that organize their own events to carry their ideas and inspiration forward.
Please look at organising events throughout Australia to share the Universe with as many people out ther as you can – let me know what you areplanning so we can publicise it and share it with the world.
Some ideas?
GAM2010 includes the most popular events for both astronomers and the public: telescopes will be available for the viewing of the Moon, Saturn and other objects, not only at observatories and planetariums, but also in public locations; dark sky observing of distant objects, Messier marathon, Lyrid Meteor Shower observing parties and events for the annual celebration of Astronomy Day (April, 24) are just some of the activities planned; special events by IYA2009-created global programs, observing with telescopes controlled over the Internet, webcasts and podcasts of special presentations, exhibitions, public competitions, astrophotography contests and workshops and much more will ensure that there is something for everyone.
Check out the website http://www.gam-awb.org and blogs – http://gam-awb.org/gam-project-blog.html for more info.
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NACAA 2010 – National Australian Convention for Amateur Astronomers
Workshop. Start Time: Friday, April 2 at 7:25pm Sunday, April 4 at 10:25pm. Where: Rydges Capitol Hill Hotel, Forrest,
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=258264943077&mid=1d04ba3G20ce0a77G55b1fd6G7
Download The Evening Sky Map
The Evening Sky Map (PDF) is a 2-page monthly guide to the night sky suitable for all sky watchers including newcomers to Astronomy. AND its entirely FREE. Designed to print clearly on all printers.
The Evening Sky Map is ready-to-use and will help you to: Identify planets, stars and major constellations – Find sparkling star clusters, wispy nebulae & distant galaxies – Locate and follow bright comets across the sky – Learn about the night sky and Astronomy.
The Evening Sky Map is free for personal non-commercial educational use. Receive news of updated sky maps, reminders of Sky Calendar events, and other noteworthy news for sky watchers. And it's FREE! Sky Map Download
Southern Cross Observatory – Tasmania, Australia.
If you are interested in Astro-Photography take note and learn from the experts! Shevill Mathers is recognized as one of the world’se leading amateur astronomers and is a specialist in his field.
His regular columns and newspaper articles are now augmented by a wide range of articles including ATM articles, Astro News items and Activities from Tasmania as well as reviewing a wide range of astronomical equipment.Shevill Mathers has been a keen amateur astronomer / telescope and camera builder in the UK since the early 60’s, with a special interest in astrophotography.
A member of the BAA, London (Lunar Section), his photographic expertise was greatly encouraged by Patrick Moore, with whom he has maintained a lasting friendship. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1968.
Shevill is a regular contributor to many various magazines. He is a local media source for TV, radio and the print media.Contact details:shevill.mathers@southernphone.com.au Shevillm@gmail.com Web:www.shevillmathers.id.au
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