This is one of the better images captured by MESSENGER on its recent flyby of Mercury. An October rendezvous will take the craft to within 124 miles of the surface before it eventually settles into orbit.
If you're wondering why anyone would want to explore Mercury, NASA supplies some answers here.
Wayne
Voyager 2, on its way out of our solar system toward interstellar space, has relayed new information about the boundary region where the sun's solar wind, which dominates that heliosphere, ebbs, and the heliosheath begins.
The heliosphere appears to be lopsided.
If all goes well, the two Voyager craft should still have enough energy to transmit their findings as they make their way across the heliosheath and toward the heliopause, which marks the beginning of intersteller space, and area where our sun loses all influence.
NASA engineers believe that they have enough power onboard to return data until 2025, perhaps long enough to provide information after the two craft have left the solar system for good.
Wayne
[Cross-posted from the IdeaFestival] I enjoyed this quote from the recent article, "For Alien-Life Seekers, New Reason to Hope," regarding the results from a new sky survey:
Whether habitable or abominable, planets are inescapable. 'You make a star, you’re probably going to get planets,' said Seth Shostak, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'They’re like those knives that get thrown in for free when you order a Veg-o-matic.'
The idea that there might be other planets like ours orbiting distant stars is hardly new - exo-planet hunters have cataloged over 300 in the past dozen years - but the notion that Earth-sized planets might be fairly common is a more recent development. As one planetary theorist says in the article above, it's very suggestive that just as soon as astronomers were able to find low-mass planets, they found them. And as observational techniques are further refined, the detection of an exo-planet very similar in mass to ours now seems almost a matter of time.
Wayne
Wikipedia: planetary formation
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has performed its first wet chemistry experiment on the collected Martian soil, returning data showing that it contains many nutrients. It might just be suitable for... asparagus?
Wayne
The nearest stars, other than our sun of course, can be seen in this image from CiCLOPS. Entitled "steller horizon," it depicts Alpha Centauri A and B - but not the red dwarf companion Proxima Centauri - above Saturn's ring plane. Click the image for a larger version.
CICLOPS also added this note about relative distance of the stars compared to the distance of Saturn from Earth:
From the orbit of Saturn, light (as well as Cassini's radio signal) takes little more than an hour travel to Earth. The distance to Alpha Centauri is so great that light from these stars takes more than four years to reach our solar system. Thus, although Saturn seems a distant frontier, the nearest star is almost 29,000 times farther away.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The very latest Carnival of Space is out, hosted by Fraser at Universe Today. Check it out. My favorite story is about Plutoids, the newly suggested name for bodies, like Ceres, tucked away in our solar system.
Wayne
[Cross-posted from the IdeaFestival weblog]
Beginning late last month, a collection of truly stunning images from the doughty spacecraft Cassini went on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
Saturn and Dione are pictured above. For much different look at the same two bodies, check out this image.
Aside from dropping titan-sized hints about the relative prevalence about organics in our solar system and elsewhere - as well as leaving a treasure trove of images, of course - the mission has been ho-hum.
Wayne
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Because Titan's thick atmosphere burns up objects prior to impact, there are very few craters on the surface. Surface winds and erosion have tended to erode surface craters as well. But on Cassini's most recent flyby on May 12, the craft discovered only the fourth featured definitively identified as an impact crater. It is pictured above on the left, with another crater, discovered in 2005, shown on the right.
More on the discovery may be found here.
Wayne
Image credit: NASA/JPL
According to the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, NASA will be conducting a webcast a portion of the Phoenix Lander mission for schools on Thursday, May 22 as the robot explorer, which will touch down on Mars on May 25, nears the planet. The events of the entry, descent and landing, and the path to Mars so far will be reviewed.
Phoenix's mission is to land at the Mars' north pole, dig into the icy soil looking for the chemical building blocks of life and study the history of water.
But first it much touch down safely on the Red Planet. Here is a very well done video combining animation with expert narration of the challenge getting Phoenix to the ground:
Wayne
This is an artist's conception of a new member of our solar system, the dwarf planet Eris, which is approximately three times farther from the sun than its dwarf companion, Pluto. At that distance the small body is very, very cold and the sun appears much like other stars in the Milky Way as Eris moves among the "icy wrecks" of the Kuiper Belt.
Wayne
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
My name is Wayne Hall and I work with the Kentucky space program. Huh? Kentucky what?!
Suffice it to say that a group of talented people are out to change the perception of what's possible in the commonwealth of Kentucky by doing hands-on space science. The very first project of this ambitious enterprise is a cooperative, student-led effort to design, build and fly a CubeSat that kids from the eastern mountains to the western Mississippi river shore can figuratively reach out and touch from classrooms all over the state. The first of many planned efforts, it will rocket to orbit sometime late this year or early next. And with that,
Welcome to the 50th edition of the Carnival of Space! From rocket racing to astronomy to particle physics to the search for intelligent life, this week features a wide variety of space-related topics. So let's dive right in.
New Frontiers has news about the Rocket Racing League and its announcement about upcoming exhibition race dates. Meanwhile, Space Transport News discusses Red Bull air races and the differences and similarities to rocket racing as well as taking some notes from the news conference.
At Altair VI, David S. F. Portree writes about the old NASA Office of Exploration Mars' and Moon vision for space exploration and has something to say about space tourism.
The Planetary Society's Emily Stewart Lakdawalla notes the stunning images of Phobos available from the Mars Express image catalog. A Babe in the Universe follows suit, pointing out that the crater Stickney is 9 km across on a moon only 22 km long. Speaking as a blogger who makes liberal use of CICLOPS and HiRISE images, the pictures coming from current robotic missions are spectacular. I'm looking forward to what MESSENGER and New Horizons might reveal.
Speaking of the planets, Stuart Atkinson at Cumbrian Sky reports on one suggestion to send monkeys to Mars. You read that right. He also provides some images of Pheonix's landing spot on the planet.
Fraser explains why Pluto is no longer a planet. Let's just say that the region beyond Neptune is awfully interesting.
Of the many satellites that dance around Sun, Neptune's Triton is probably not a world that tickles one's imagination when envisioning space colonization. But while it may be ignored as scientists chase after Mars and Titan, Neptune's Triton may in the distant future become a prime location at the edge of our solar system. Colony Worlds asks: Neptune's Triton: Is It Worth Billions, Or Trillions?
This week's Space Video at Space Feeds is the eighth episode of Firefly, Out of Gas.
At Next Big Future, Brian Wang asks whether a $153 million Thin Film Dome inflated over cities might protect against nuclear weapons or perhaps substitute for communication satellites. Russian inventor and researcher Alexander Bolonkin has developed an interesting technology that suggests all kinds of commercial possibilities.
Can Dark Matter be directly detected? Anticipating such an announcement, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel expresses his doubts at Starts with a Bang! It's a question I've also put to Star Stryder, Pamela Gay.
Astronomer Robert Simpson at Orbiting Frog contributes a post to the 50th carnival on Nebulae in 3D. He nominated another post about the late John Wheeler from Daniel Holz at the wonderful group blog Cosmic Variance. Holz movingly recalls his time with the physicist, who was conversant in biology, history and poetry. Please give it a read.
At Out of the Cradle, Ken Murphy continues his look at growing plants on the Moon with a review of the book "Lunar Base Agriculture" in part II of his article "Of a Garden on the Moon".
At Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster, who is surely link-weary from the attention this blog has paid to him, posts a story about "Life as Rarity in the Cosmos," which looks at new research suggesting that we are living rather late in the history of Earth's biosphere. If so, it might have implications for the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. Bottom line: we might find that life itself is rather common, but intelligent life? Not so much.
Do we have anything to worry about from the Large Hadron Collider? Ian O'Neill explains that "an Earth-eating black hole is pretty much impossible."
Ever-prepared, Scouts Canada describes a variety of methods for finding direction without a compass or GPS by using the sun, stars and moon. In practical fashion, Scouts blogger Mang also lends some context to astronomical distances - the discussion includes a scale overlay of the solar system on the City of Toronto using a standard marble for Earth - and writes about modeling a micro-satellite, the Microvariability & Oscillations of STars (MOST) satellite. The MOST team has opened target proposals to the public.
Space Cynics, meanwhile, wonders how prepared Gen-Y is to contribute to the national space program.
Tyler Nordgren is educating visitors about what they learn about the solar system and universe through what they can see for themselves in the dark starry skies above the parks, as well as on the ground around them in the wonderful geological processes and features the parks protect. The most recent entry from this week at Arches National Park is found here.
Finally, at Music of the Spheres, Bruce Irving asks Why Space?, a theme that the Martian Chronicles also picks up on this week, along with providing some great Cape Verde images as seen from everyone's favorite Martian rover.
Why explore indeed! And since it's THAT time again, perhaps it's appropriate that John Benac contribute a post about Political Action for Space, the first space political action committee.
It's been a blast to host the carnival at Kentucky's space program blog this week. KySat hopes to make its own news in the near future. So please come back and please visit all the great blogs and bloggers you see listed here!
Wayne
According to a JPL podcast, the Cassini mission has been extended two years, to July of 2010. Twenty-six more encounters with an "Earth-like" Titan, seven more close encounters of the geyser-moon Enceladus (artist's impression above), and three more encounters, one each, with three of the smaller moons are planned, according to Cassini project manager, Bob Mitchell.
Listen to the podcast for a mission recap and news of the extension.
Wayne
Credit: Copyright 2008 Karl Kofoed
Unlike previous craft to land on Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory is big - very big. The Universe Today describes the challenge of lowering it through the planet's thin atmosphere to the surface of the planet.
MSL will be the first planetary mission to use precision landing techniques, using a rocket-guided entry with a heat shield to steer itself toward the Martian surface similar to the way the space shuttle controls its entry through the Earth's upper atmosphere. In this way, the spacecraft will fly to a desired location above the surface of Mars before deploying its parachute for the final landing. MSL will use a scaled-up version of parachutes used for the Viking and Mars Exploration Rovers mission. Called a Disk-Gap-Band parachute, the name describes the construction of the parachute: a disk forms the canopy, then a small gap, followed by a cylindrical band.
Carrying a science lab on board, the job of robotic craft will be to uncover evidence for whether the Martian environment could once have been favorable for microbial life.
USA Today also carries a story about the difficulties of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.
Wayne
Conveniently divvied up into "Earth," "Heliophysics," "Planets" and "Astrophysics," NASA has launched a brand new site focused on the space sciences.
Wayne
The Planetary Society provides an update on New Horizons, including a description of some tough choices the mission managers will have to make as the craft heads toward an encounter with Pluto, Charon and the Kuiper Belt.
The mission team is also soliciting ideas from the public, hoping to increase its chances for "Kodak moments" - pictures prized for their artistic merit rather than their scientific value.
As Emily Lakdawalla notes at the Planetary Society, a similar effort lead to a couple of the most spectacular images taken of the Jupiter system as New Horizons passed by last year, one of which is reproduced above. It is among my favorite images from our solar system.
In the image, volcanic Io and more placid Europa can be seen in the same frame but they are in reality separated by a distance of nearly 800,000 kilometers. Easily visible in the picture, the spectacular Tvashtar plume on Io erupts about 300 kilometers into space.
Wayne
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
This recently released photo of Titan clearly shows the high altitude haze layer surrounding the Saturn satellite. The atmosphere of the moon moves in superrotation, that is, faster than Titan itself rotates.
More data about the topology of the moon has also been released.
And somewhere on the surface, the Huygens' probe rests.
Wayne
Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Here is a "perspective view" of Hebes Chasma obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. According to ESA:
Hebes Chasma is an enclosed trough, almost 8000 m deep, in Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars, where water is believed to have flowed.
The Universe Today has more about these images. Photo: ESA
Wayne
More science from Cassini's recent fly by of Saturn's geyser-moon, Enceladus, is being made available to the public. NASA has just posted this heat map of the southern pole of the satellite.
According to the agency, there is a 200 degree swing (Fahrenheit) between the temperature at the vents and the rest of the surface of the moon.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/SwRI/SSI
Along with a number of other presentations at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Pamela Gay live blogged a session on the future of planetary science from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. It's interesting stuff.
Wayne
At the Planetary Society, Ted Stryk has uncovered some additional detail from Voyager's images of the moons of Uranus that were taken over 20 years ago.
Wayne
The Cassini team will conduct a spectacular fly-by today of the mysterious Saturn moon of Enceladus, which sports a long geyser-like tail of ice and surface debris the craft will have to navigate. And
if that weren't enough, at closest approach Cassini will be a mere 50 kilometers (30 miles) above the
surface of the moon, as illustrated by the graphic to the right.
While nosing around the site, I also noticed - as the Planetary Society also points out - that NASA has begun an experiment in live blogging big events. The Enceladus encounter bloggers are here.
Wayne
Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Sciences Institute
Gullies found in 2005 images that appeared to show gully formation created by the rapid release of water have on further examination turned out to be created from the flow of granular debris, or landslides, according to Universe Today.
Wayne
This just released image from Cassini features a look from above the ringplane of Saturn. Trace the outermost ring all the way around and you will see Prometheus and Pandora on either side. You may need to click the image to enlarge it enough to see these small shepherd moons.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
At the Planetary Society, Project System Engineer for the Dawn mission, Marc Rayman, has posted an update that includes a stunning false color image of the Eta Carina Nebula, also shown here, taken by the Framing Camera on board the spacecraft.
Powered by an Ion propulsion system, Dawn is on its way toward a rendezvous with the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet, Ceres, where it will orbit these two very different bodies looking for clues into the origins of the solar system. More on the mission may be found here.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/MPS/DLR/IDA
JPL is accepting applications for its Planetary Science Summer school program. Applicants who have completed graduate work in sciences and engineering are preferred. According to the announcement the program is "An intensive one-week team exercise learning the process of developing a robotic mission concept into reality through concurrent engineering. Limited funds are available to provide partial support for travel and lodging."
The application form is here.
The Planetary Photojournal at NASA has just posted this January 29 image of the over wintering position of Spirit, one of two Mars rovers currently roaming the planet. The image caption reads:
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has this view northward from the position at the north edge of the "Home Plate" plateau where the rover will spend its third Martian winter.
Husband Hill is on the horizon. The dark area in the middle distance is "El Dorado" sand dune field.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell UniversityReferencing a New York Times article, Hobbyspace points out that amateur observers helped find a solar system like ours.
Wayne
NASA is asking the public to name its Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST. The telescope is designed to peer at "extreme environments," looking for "signs of new laws of physics," including what dark matter might be.
To name that satellite, go here. According to NASA:
Anyone who drops a name into the "Name That Satellite!" suggestion box on the Web page can choose to receive a "Certificate of Participation" via return e-mail. Participants also may choose to receive the NASA press release announcing the new mission name. The announcement is expected approximately 60 days after launch of the telescope.
Wayne
According to information at HiRISE, students at a New Jersey Charter High School helped it select this image. HiRISE is responsible for the images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
In addition to click workers, who helped it do tasks that required human perception, such as the ability to recognize patterns, but not a lot of scientific background, the HiRISE project has worked to incorporate the public into its efforts. It should be commended.
If you're interested in other human-based computation efforts, see this list. The popular Galaxy Zoo, which asks ordinary individuals to help classify galaxies, is a favorite of mine.
Lastly, the HiRISE blog mentions a way to get MRO data into Google Earth. Google Mars anyone?
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Dawn and its ion propulsion system are in inter-planetary cruise, according to Marc Rayman, project system engineer, who in an update on the mission tells a story about dealing with an electrical issue caused by a stray cosmic particle. The distance between the craft and Earth grows by about 1.1 million kilometers a day - the total distance is about 175 times as far as the moon - as it heads toward a rendezvous with Ceres and Vesta, the two largest protoplanets left intact in our solar system. Image credit:
McREL
Wayne
The color isn't mind blowing, but look closely at the first color image of Mercury released by MESSENGER. It's a terrific picture.
Wayne
This is one over 1200 images acquired by MESSENGER in its Monday flyby of Mercury, the first visit to the planet in over 30 years. The shadow on the right side if the image is the terminator, which marks the day -night boundary.
Image releases may be seen here.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Wayne
The geological features in the image above from MESSENGER's Mercury flyby this week are described in detail in this Planetary Society post, which also includes a photo of the same area taken by Mariner 30 years ago. The differences are stark.
Wayne
Following up on the last post, Cassini has just concluded another flyby of Titan, Saturn's atmosphere-shrouded moon, zipping past at 1050km in altitude. The craft used its visual and infrared mapping spectrometer to map the site where the Huygens probe, ferried to Titan by Cassini, landed in January, 2005. The artist's rendering above of the probe's descent to Titan's surface is courtesy of the European Space Agency.
A scheduled March 2008 mission will take Cassini to within 50km of icy Enceladus.
Teachers, age specific materials related to the Cassini mission may be found here.
Wayne
As noted here earlier, CICLOPS, the organization and people responsible for the breathtaking images taken by Cassini as it moves among Saturn and its moons, held a contest so the public could choose its favorite picture.
The winning color image, which shows an eclipse of the sun as seen from the other side of Saturn, is shown above. Nestled just inside the outermost ring on the left side of the picture (click to enlarge) is our home, Earth.
Cosmic Log's Alan Boyle has much more on the story, including a link to comments from Steven Pinker, who called it "the most stunning photograph ever taken" in this post.
An image roughly 2700 x 1300 pixels can be found here. It's currently saved as my Macbook desktop.
Wayne
I'm posting the latest release from CICLOPS just because it's so beautiful. Can you spot Epimetheus in the picture?
Teachers, the great thing about the images from CICLOPS and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaging team, HiRISE, is that with simple credit - like the line found at the bottom of this image - the pictures may be freely used. I bet like me many years ago, there is a student in your class to whom these kinds of images would really speak.
Wayne
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
Bad Astronomy posts its top ten astropictures of 2007.
My personal favorite is this image above of Io and Europa taken by New Horizons, which is on its way to Pluto. As Phil Plait points out - his commentary on the photos he selected is also very good - the two moons are in reality very far apart. The blue stream you see on Io is the result of the volcano Tvashtar, spewing debris hundreds of kilometers into surrounding space. The red at the base of the volcano is molten sulfur.
Here's a close up of Io that I like.
Check out all of Phil's choices. There are some truly gorgeous images.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Wayne
UPDATE: See Centauri Dreams for added information.
Voyager 2 has passed termination shock on its way to becoming the first human made object to leave our solar system. Unlike Voyager 1, Voyager 2 has working instruments capable of measuring the solar wind and it captured the crossing into the Heliosheath.
NASA has more.
Image credit: NASA/Feimer
Wayne
Universe Today describes the design challenges of roving the surface of Venus in its article, "How to Keep a Venus Rover Cool." With crushing pressures 100 times that of Earth and temperatures reaching 840F degrees, the planet's environment has proved very formidable and has prevented any extended scientific exploration. A greater understanding of climate change on Venus and Earth makes the effort, however, worthwhile.
One design method considered by the researchers at NASA's John Glenn Research Center would would split the communications duties between craft. The rover would contain minimal electronics in an internal chamber cooled (relatively speaking) to 570F degrees. Rover locomotion would come from a Stirling engine. To help with communication an aircraft carrying the bulk of sensitive electronics would fly the middle atmospheres of the planet where, thanks to abundant solar energy, it might loiter indefinitely.
The mission could fly in the 2015-2020 time frame.
Wikipedia: Stirling engine, Venera probes
Wayne
Cassini is set to make another flyby of Titan today. Because the moon will be directly between Cassini and the sun, scientists are expecting a very nice look at the density of Titan's atmosphere.
This will also be the highest inclination pass yet. By July, 2008 the craft will be looking down on Saturn from a perch of over 70 degrees, which should provide some spectacular pictures of the planet.
The image of Titan above was released in October.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Wayne
Universe Today: Making the third of four scheduled planetary encounters to gain speed, Rosetta will sling past Earth tomorrow on its way to an investigation of the Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
After entering orbit around the comet in 2014, the spacecraft will release a small
lander onto the icy nucleus then spend the next two years orbiting the
comet as it heads towards the Sun.
The artist's conception above envisions the craft on the comet.
Because they have changed far less than nearby planets, comets offer material undisturbed since the earliest days of the solar system. In addition to landing on the comet and the studying that material, the mission also will require some very interesting maneuvers, not the least of which is the 10 year trip to the comet itself. The Rosetta page at ESA is here.
Wayne
Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab
