Solar Dynamics Observatory One Year On

One year on from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) First Light and Nasa have released a compilation of wondrous clips of its observations of our local star. [Video credit: Nasa SDO] They have selected 12 of the most beautiful, interesting, and mesmerizing events seen by SDO during its first year. In the order they appear in the video the events are: 1. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on March 30, 2010 2. Cusp Flow from AIA in 171 Angstroms on …

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“you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s…”

With Cassini exploring Saturn’s moons, and Messenger finally at Mercury, the BBC’s Spaceman, Jonathan Amos, takes an interesting look at the future prospects for interstellar travel.  And he starts with this observation of Voyager’s 33-year-long journey. I’ve been troubled of late by the scale of things, by the vastness of space. It’s been brought into focus by two things, I think. The first is the Voyager 1 probe – the most distant man-made object from Earth. I’ve written a couple of …

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Weather watching… on Titan.

Nasa’s Messenger spacecraft may have finally arrived in orbit around Mercury, but the Cassini probe has been exploring Saturn’s system of moons since 2004 – some archived posts here.  [Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI] The latest images show seasonal weather patterns, and apparently associated surface changes.  From the Nasa/JPL press release Extensive rain from large cloud systems, spotted by Cassini’s cameras in late 2010, has apparently darkened the surface of the moon. The best explanation is these areas remained wet after methane rainstorms. …

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Messenger to Mercury

Tonight at 12.45am [GMT] Nasa’s Messenger spacecraft will begin a 15 minute engine burn timed to take it into orbit around Mercury – the first spacecraft to do so.  (All images credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington) Launched on 3 August 2004, Messenger’s taken a circuitous route to the innermost planet. It’s second, and final, look at the Earth was in August 2005. Twice past Venus, the second time in June 2007 Before not one, not two fly-bys, but …

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Mission to Mars…

The US National Research Council have expressed doubts about the extent of US involvement in the planned joint ESA/Nasa rover mission to Mars, as well as two subsequent orbiter missions – one to the Jovian moon Europa and the other to Uranus. But, for now, Mars remains under close scrutiny.  The latest false colour image from the Hi-RISE camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Mars rover Opportunity at the edge of a football-field sized crater, Santa Maria, where it’s been exploring …

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“It did its grand tour past the planets and it just goes on, on this voyage of discovery.”

The farthest man-made object from Earth, at some 17.4 billion kilometres, Nasa’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is still performing acrobatics 30-odd years after it was launched.  From the BBC report Voyager is executing a series of roll manoeuvres to get one of its instruments into the optimum position to measure particles sweeping away from the Sun. Controllers at the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, report a perfect response from the probe. “I liken Voyager to an old car,” …

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Final Flight of Discovery

After a number of postponements due to technical problems, the Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to lift-off for the last time from the Kennedy Space Centre tonight at 9.50pm [GMT]. After 38 missions to date and more than 5,600 trips around the Earth, it’s the final flight of Discovery – on Mission STS-133.  They’re heading to the International Space Station where ESA’s ATV Johannes Kepler has just docked. Discovery will become the first shuttle to be retired.  Only two Space Shuttle missions remain scheduled – Endeavour on …

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Look to the north!

The BBC points to the possibility, given clear skies, of further displays of the Aurora Borealis being visible from Northern Ireland following a series of large solar flares – including a level X2.2 flare on the 15th, the most powerful since 2006.  But, as the Professor and a separate BBC report notes, there are some practical concerns. The China Meteorological Administration reported that the solar flare caused “sudden ionospheric disturbances” in the atmosphere above China and jammed short-wave radio communications in the …

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Rendezvous with Tempel 1

[Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell]  Late last night Nasa’s Stardust NExT spacecraft swept past Comet Tempel 1 on the final leg of its 12-year mission.  The BBC reports that the spacecraft was about 180 km (110 miles) from the 7.5 km wide comet nucleus during closest approach – the earlier linked Nasa report more accurately records that closest approach at 181 km (112 miles). There was, of course, a much more intimate rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1 by the Deep Impact probe in 2005…  a probe which subsequently completed a successful …

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“Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized.”

The Irish Times has a detailed report noting the confirmed discovery of 6 large exo-planets closely orbiting a star in the system, Kepler-11, approximately 2,000 light years from Earth. Even more remarkable are reports that the Kepler space observatory, launched in March 2009, first light in April 2009, has now identified 1,235 planetary candidates – and 54 candidates within the habitable zone – from the data for 156,453 stars observed from the beginning of the science observations on 2 May through 16 September 2009. From the Nasa …

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Blue sunset on Mars

Using a clip from NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which NASAtelevision has online, here’s a short seasonal treat from JPLnews.  Accelerating about 17 minutes of sunset on Nov. 4 and 5, 2010, into a 30 second simulation it’s the longest sunset movie from Mars ever produced.  There’s also a clip of Phobos partially eclipsing the Sun, if you follow the links…  Nasa press release here. Pete Baker

Fermi Finds Galactic Gamma-ray-emitting Bubbles

Fascinating discovery by Nasa’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which achieved first light in August 2008.  Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. From the Nasa press release NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy. “What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and …

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Comet Hartley 2 Flyby – “Just spectacular”

Here’s a wondrous short video of the recent flyby of Comet Hartley 2 by the Nasa/JPL EPOXI Mission using 40 images taken from Deep Impact’s Medium-Resolution Instrument during the encounter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/Brown University. And the EPOXI Mission scientists present their preliminary findings at a press conference.  Video via NASAtelevision. Pete Baker

Deep Impact to Flyby Hartley 2

As I mentioned last month, Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time.  The image top was taken by the EPOXI mission on Nov. 2, 2010 from a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD] And, as the BBC report notes, Deep Impact should be flying within 700km of the comet just about now [1402 GMT].  Live coverage on Nasa TV. …

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Clearing the cosmic fog

As the BBC noted, astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] have confirmed that galaxy UDFy-38135539, one of several candidates identified in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) image of the Fornax Constellation acquired with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 last year, is the most distant galaxy ever detected. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz) and the HUDF09 Team] Spectroscopic analysis of data collected during a 16 hour observation using the VLT identified a red shift …

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“on the timescales involved in this event, we’re really catching it in the moment of happening”

When the comet-like asteroid P/2010 A2 was identified as a suspected asteroid-asteroid collision in January this year it was the first such collision caught “in the act”.  Images Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA). As the BBC notes, subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Rosetta probe suggest that the collision probably occurred in early 2009. Here’s a sequence of Hubble observations from January to May 2010, with scale. As the associated text explains The asteroid debris, dubbed P/2010 A2, appears to be …

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Deep Impact Spies Comet Target

Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time.  On Sunday 5th September the probe opened its eyes and took the first of more than 64,000 images its expected to take of Comet Hartley 2 [Image credit: NASA/JPL/UM].  On 4th November Deep Impact [EPOXI] will fly within 700km of the comet, which might at some point become visible to the naked eye.  It will spend 21 …

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The spicules of Sol

Another wondrous view of our own modest star from the Solar Dynamics Observatory [SDO].  Here’s what the SDO channel says Spicules pop up from the Sun constantly. These dynamics jets are smaller features of the Sun that are commonly ignored. However, with the detailed close-up that SDO can provide, we can see these much more clearly than ever before. Over a few hours observation of the northern pole area of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light (Aug. 3, 2010), we can …

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“The Moon is not a dead body”

The Moon is shrinking!  Or, at least, it has shrunk.  That’s the conclusion from images obtained by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  This video from the NASAexplorer channel explains. Pete Baker

Vesta awaits!

Nasa previews the Dawn mission’s visitation with the asteroid Vesta, due next year as noted here, with a video presentation narrated by Leonard Nimoy – as opposed to the previously noted video narrated by William Shatner.  Whether the encounter will be as stunning as that of the Rosetta probe was remains to be seen…  The Dawn mission website is here.  More Dawn related  videos and interviews here. Pete Baker