NASA : SERVIR: NASA lends a hand in Central America

Dec. 28, 2007: Earlier this year, NASA researcher Dan Irwin stepped off a plane in Guatemala and found, to his surprise, that he was running for mayor. It seems the people of San Andres had put his name on the ballot.

Irwin respectfully declined, but he was touched. If you ask him why the residents of rural San Andres are crazy about him, Irwin, a humble soul, shrugs his shoulders and says, "Everyone has a hobby. Mine is building things – helping develop their community. I enjoy it."

Irwin is a pioneer of SERVIR (Spanish for "to serve"), a high-tech satellite visualization system that monitors the environment of Central America. It helps track and combat wildfire, improves land use and agricultural practices, and helps local officials respond faster to natural disasters.

Right: During a recent visit to Central America, Dan Irwin explains the inner workings of SERVIR to NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. [more]

Developing SERVIR was a full-time job for Alabama-resident Irwin, including many months on assignment in Central America. What do you do in your spare time so far from home? With the help of community residents, Irwin built a playground and a library in San Andres. "I worked on the projects before and after work and on weekends," says Irwin, "just as other people spend time on their hobbies at those times."

But it is Irwin's "real" work with SERVIR that makes contributions reaching far beyond the community level to the whole of Central America.

"SERVIR has brought together a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds to create the kind of team needed to help solve very complex issues and provide potentially life-saving solutions to local decision makers and stakeholders," says John Horack of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) where SERVIR technology is developed and tested.

SERVIR's supercomputer at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) in Panama City integrates data from a variety of sources and displays a real-time map of crisis points. At a glance, decisions-makers can see where rain will fall, where flooding will occur, the location of forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes – pretty much anything nature can dish out. CATHALAC then warns residents.

Above: SERVIR brings high-tech satellite imagery and visualization tools to bear on Central America. Current maps of fire, floods and severe weather may be found on the bilingual SERVIR web site: http://servir.net.

SERVIR also takes a global approach to environmental challenges by supporting the ten-year plan for implementation of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS, which was adopted by the European Commission and over 70 governments worldwide.

GEOSS's main purpose is to foster cooperation and integration among countries by pooling Earth observation tools and data for the benefit of all. Because of SERVIR's positive impact in Central America, GEOSS recently adopted SERVIR as their template--a sort of "poster child" for how to meet GEOSS goals. At the organization's recent Ministerial Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, which was attended by over 70 nations and over 50 international organizations, SERVIR was recognized as a "GEOSS Early Achievement."

What's the secret to SERVIR's success? It's not "what" but "who" – namely, Irwin and what he calls the "dream team."

Above: The SERVIR "dream team." [Larger image]

These behind-the-scene "wizards" include administrators, scientists, and technicians like, at CATHALAC, Director Emilio Sempris, Emil Cherrington, and Francisco Delgado; and, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Burgess Howell, Robert Griffin, and Jason Arnold.

The CATHALAC team members are in charge of day-to-day on-site operations: gathering and processing the satellite data, combining it with ground observations, and getting the results quickly into the hands of national environmental management and disaster response leaders. Team members at the MSFC test-bed facility view SERVIR data at the same time as their Central American counterparts view it and play key roles in supporting and coordinating SERVIR projects.

"I'm involved at several different levels within SERVIR," says team member Griffin. "I help coordinate among institutions in a country as well as with SERVIR and its partners in the U.S. and abroad. As with everyone involved with these projects, I help create products to solve problems in the event of a natural disaster."

All of the SERVIR team members will help achieve the next important step -- geographic expansion. NASA is extending SERVIR's life-saving benefits to Africa and the Caribbean. SERVIR’s flexibility and adaptability make it perfect for meeting the new challenges of these geographic areas, helping NASA and its partners bring global technology to the grass roots level.

Right: A SERVIR "test bed node" at the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, AL. [Larger image]

"This is an extremely exciting time to be a part of this project," says Griffin. "Right now, I'm working to deploy SERVIR in the Dominican Republic. Most recently we brought together radar imagery and other information to help the Dominican Republic's government respond to extensive flooding in the wake of Tropical Storm Noel."

Says Irwin of Griffin and other members of the team, "all of these people are indispensable to all that we've done and will continue to do. Without them, it would be impossible."

It's no wonder that Irwin reveres the SERVIR team, and that many Central Americans revere Dan Irwin.

Space.com : The Winter Sky: Planets, Stars and Cool Shapes

By Joe Rao SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist posted: 28 December 2007 01:17 pm ET

December is the month of the winter solstice, which a large part of mankind associates with such festivals as the Nativity. Among the many varied customs linked with this special season for thousands of years, the exchanging of gifts is almost universal.

The moment of the solstice occurred on Dec. 22 at 1:08 a.m. EST. The sun, appearing to travel along the ecliptic, reached that point in the sky where it is farthest south of the celestial equator.

Mother Nature herself offers the sky observer in north temperate latitudes the two gifts of longest nights and a sky more transparent than usual.

One reason for the clarity of a winter's night is that cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air can. Hence, on many nights in the summer, the warm moisture-laden atmosphere causes the sky to appear hazier. By day it is a milky, washed-out blue, which in winter becomes a richer, deeper and darker shade of blue. For us in northern climes, this only adds more luster to that part of the sky containing the beautiful wintertime constellations. Indeed, it is seemingly nature's holiday decoration to commemorate the winter solstice and enlighten the long cold nights of winter.

First rule: Bundle up!

If you plan to be outside for a long period of time on these frosty, cold nights, remember that enjoying the starry winter sky requires protection against the prevailing low temperatures. One of the best garments is a hooded ski parka, which is lightweight yet excellent insulation, and ski pants which are better than ordinary trousers. And it is also important to remember your feet. While two pairs of warm socks in loose-fitting shoes are often adequate, for protracted observing on bitter-cold nights wear insulated boots.

From dusk to dawn

Soon after sunset, we can enjoy the sight of the brightest evening planet, Mars, shining brilliantly in the east-northeast sky. It fades ever-so-slightly since its Christmas Eve opposition brilliance to magnitude -1.5.

Still, this is a trifle brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which itself will be coming up over the east-southeast horizon soon after 7 p.m.

Saturn rises soon after 9 p.m. from the east-northeast, a bright yellowish-white interloper among the stars of Leo, the Lion. If you received a telescope as a holiday gift, you'll be able to glimpse Saturn's famous ring system with a magnification as low as 30-power. Currently, the rings are tipped only about 7 degrees to our line of sight, but as the winter progresses they'll be opening up a bit more. On Dec. 20, Saturn began its retrograde motion – reversing its course against the background stars and appearing to move back to the west toward Leo's brightest star, Regulus (which it will almost reach by next spring).

And if you're still up in the predawn morning hours, you'll see Venus, the brightest of all the planets, emerging from the east-southeast horizon like a brilliant silvery "star" soon after 4 a.m.

High toward the south, also at around 10:30 p.m., we see what astronomy author Hans A. Rey (1898-1977) called a "Great Hexagon" of bright winter stars. To the south and a little east lies Sirius; up to the west, Rigel. Still higher, reddish Aldebaran; then at the north end of the circle, Capella. South and slightly east, we come to Castor and Pollux, the heads of the Gemini twins. Finally, south again to Procyon: in all, seven bright stars in six constellations.

In the center of the hexagon, more or less, you have the ruddy star Betelegeuse, while soaring high above Orion, between the horns of Taurus is pumpkin-hued Mars; an interloper this winter season. This is the rich region that gives the winter sky its splendor.

• Online Sky Maps and More
• Sky Calendar & Moon Phases
• Astrophotography 101

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.

Space.com : Stepping Forward: The Year in Spaceflight

By Tariq Malik Staff Writer posted: 27 December 2007 7:00 a.m. ET

It's been a busy year for spaceflight in the U.S. and around the world, with an even more ambitious slate ahead for 2008.

On the home front, NASA launched three shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS), where astronauts laid the framework for new European and Japanese laboratories set to fly next year even as they uncovered new glitches with the outpost's solar arrays.

"I think that we have accomplished a lot post-Columbia, and that this last year has been our proving ground," said the space station's current commander Peggy Whitson, the first female ISS skipper, this month.

Malaysia's first astronaut and a record space tourist flight also launched toward the ISS in 2007, which saw a myriad of science probes rocket spaceward while the Space Age turned 50. China and Japan also made great strides this year, launching their first moon probes as both countries prepare to send crewed spacecraft into orbit next year.

Orbital construction leaps forward

While a freak hail storm in February delayed the start of NASA's shuttle flight plan for months, the U.S. agency bounced back to complete three missions that added new solar arrays, truss segments and the Harmony connecting room to the ISS.

Astronauts moved old, massive trusses, stitched up torn solar wings and overcame crippling computer glitches while outfitting the ISS with new segments. Engineers are currently grappling with the station's balky starboard solar wing joints, with repairs slated for sometime next year.

"Obviously, it hasn't gone along flawlessly, but that's part of the process too," said Whitson, adding that only by tackling such challenges will humanity learn how to better explore space.

The construction work culminated in a November marathon of spacewalks and robotics by Whitson and her crewmates to ready their station for a fourth shuttle flight—since delayed—bearing Europe's Columbus laboratory. Columbus will dock at the station's Harmony node, the first new room to arrive at the ISS since 2001.

"The activity we just did on [the] station is probably the most complicated assembly we have ever done," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. "And all that has worked precisely as we needed it to work."

NASA plans up to 12 more shuttle flights to complete ISS construction, plus one more to the Hubble Space Telescope, before its three-orbiter fleet retires in 2010. Six shuttle flights are currently on NASA's docket for 2008.

"I think we've got easily the capability to go fly the four flights a year that we need to do to complete our manifest," Gerstenmaier said.

Asian Space Race

China began this year with a bang, literally, when it destroyed a defunct communications platform during a January anti-satellite test that spurred widespread criticism from countries around the world.

"They really do seem to have been caught off guard," said China space specialist Dean Cheng, a senior Asia analyst with CAN Corp. in Arlington, Va., of the country's surprise from the protests. "And the damage control efforts that they've undertaken have, frankly, been poor."

But the test kicked off a busy launch period for China and Japan capped by the near launches of separate lunar orbiters—Chang'e 1 and Kaguya, respectively—to explore the surface of the moon. The year also saw Malaysia's first astronaut launch to the ISS aboard a Russian spacecraft and return during a harrowing ballistic descent with two professional cosmonauts.

"This was, in a sense, the first wave of Asia's jump into space," Cheng said of 2007. "This is not a high-impact, pedal-to-the-metal kind of race."

Unlike the Space Race between the U.S. and former Soviet Union, the international competition for space prowess in Asia reaches past national prestige, he added.

"The Chinese are still, for better or worse, head and shoulders above the rest simply because they're putting up their own astronauts up on their own vehicle," Cheng said.

China is the third country, after Russia and the U.S., to build and launch spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts into orbit.

South Korea's first astronaut is slated to launch to the space station atop a Russian rocket in 2008 after, if all goes well, Japanese astronauts visit the ISS to help install segments of their country's massive Kibo laboratory. When fully assembled, Kibo will be the largest single lab attached to the ISS.

Meanwhile, China is gearing up to launch its third manned spaceflight, with three astronauts and a planned spacewalk, in fall 2008.

"These countries are competing with each other to say, 'We are a first world, first rate, aerospace and scientifically advanced country,'" Cheng said. "Take us seriously, invest in us, hire our people, all of those factors. And I think in the next several years you're going to see an even higher growth rate."

The road ahead

While national space agencies made steady progress, commercial firms met with mixed results highlighted by Bigelow Aerospace's successful second launch of a prototype space station and the tragic explosion that killed three and wounded three others.

NASA is banking on advances in commercial spaceflight to help bridge the anticipated years-long gap between the space shuttle fleet's retirement and the first flights of its replacement—the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.

The U.S. space agency completed awarding contracts for the spacecraft's Ares I rocket among other milestones, with the first abort test flights planned for 2008.

"[I]t's been an important year for us," Whitson said. "And I'd like to think that it's been very successful."

• Top 10 Spaceflight Stories of 2007
• VIDEO: ISS Commander Peggy Whitson Takes Charge
• SPACE.com Quiz: The Reality of Life in Orbit

Univers eToday : Quadrantid Meteor Shower Will Sparkle on January 3rd

Written by Tammy Plotner

Beginning each New Year and lasting for nearly a week, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower sparkles across the night sky for nearly all viewers around the world. Its radiant belongs to an extinct constellation once known as Quadran Muralis, but any meteors will seem to come from the general direction of bright Arcturus and Boötes. This is a very narrow stream, which may have once belonged to a portion of the Aquarids, but recent scientific data points to a what may have been a cosmic collision.

According the most recent data, the Quandrantid meteors may have been formed about five centuries ago when a near-Earth asteroid named 2003 EH1 and a comet smashed into one another. Historic records from ancient China put comet C/1490 Y1 in the path of probability. As Jupiter's gravity continues to perturb the stream, another 400 years may mean this shower will become as extinct as the constellation for which it was once known… But NASA scientists and astronomers are taking to the skies to study the event.

A Gulfstream V aircraft will fly scientists and their instruments for 10 continuous hours over the Arctic to observe and record meteor activity. From above the Earth, the stream can be studied without light pollution and clouds to determine when the activity peaks and how the stream is dispersed. “We will fly to the North Pole and back to compensate for Earth's rotation and to keep the stream in view throughout the flight,” said Peter Jenniskens, a principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center.

According to NASA, scientists believe this could be the most brilliant meteor shower in 2008 with over 100 visible meteors per hour at its peak. Best viewing times with the highest meteor rates are expected to be in either the late evening of Jan. 3 over Europe and western Asia or the early morning of Jan. 4 over the eastern United States. For the USA: 6pm – 2am (Pacific Time) on Jan. 3 and 4, 2008. For Northern Europe: 2am – 10am (London) on Jan. 4, 2008. For Northern Asia: 11am – 7pm (Tokyo) on Jan. 4, 2008. For almost of us, this means bundling up against the cold and battling the remnants of the waning Moon… But the sight of even one "shooting star" can make the trip worthwhile!

Will the Quadrantid Meteor Shower live up to its expectations? No one knows for sure… But we'll be watching!

Universe Today : Podcast: Globular Clusters

Written by Fraser Cain

This week we're going to study some of the most ancient objects in the entire Universe; globular clusters. These relics of the early Universe contain hundreds of thousands of stars, held together by their mutual gravity. Since they formed together, they give astronomers a unique way to test various theories of stellar evolution.

Click here to download the episode

Globular Clusters - Show notes and transcript

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

Universe Today : Book Review: Rocketeers

Written by Mark Mortimer

People as a group don't get credit for making great advances. Individuals are the ones who rise above the background noise of humanity, and their suggestions or offerings provide a new thrust for our civilization. Edison brought ready energy to peoples' houses; the Wright brothers brought ready transport across vast distances. Michael Belfiore in his book Rocketeers – How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space gives identity to some of today's individuals who are trying to rise above. His is the story of these individuals who want to enable the ready travel of people beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Just recently, SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize by privately funding a craft that could rise to more than 328,000 feet. Belfiore sees this as a starting point to a grand adventure for humankind. He claims, and writes, how individuals are able to accomplish tasks once solely in the realm of government. These few people, with great drive and smarts, set their special skills to attaining a specific goal. And some, almost miraculously, achieve it. The author also describes how most of these people, if not all, have great expectations on seeing their results become a cornerstone to another, new vibrant industry.

In this book, Belfiore is, if nothing else, amazingly vibrant and cheerful. Think, a cheerleader on steroids after drinking an overly caffeinated drink. He glamourizes imagery and enlightens background situations. In doing, he leaves no doubt as to the challenge of building rockets, the risk with flying them and the utmost joy upon a mission's success. He relays the fear of having a plane door flap open during flight, the amazement of using a rocket to power a bicycle, and the dejection of months of effort evaporating with the failure of one small, relatively inexpensive, component. Within this book, everything is happening immediately, in front of the reader. Great distances and many people dash by, as the book follows the author while he visits airfield operators, financial underwriters and rocket developers. He conveys the feeling of no time to waste, as in any start-up industry.

This traveling about by the author is the greatest appeal to this book. Belfiore includes passages that show he hasn't just read clippings and then written a book. Rather, he's gone out, met the people and got first hand information. He writes of meetings with Bigelow, Feeney, Ansari and many others. He describes many of the manufacturing facilities, test sites and mock-ups which he visited. Included within the book are photographs and fun anecdotal events to back up these travels. With these, the book really comes alive for the reader. The reader becomes part of the working group gathered around the restaurant table, all drawing schematics on paper napkins.

But, this optimism and vibrancy throughout the text makes for a very one-sided appreciation of the undertaking. Entrepreneurs and experimenters with near-limitless funding or with connections to wealthy benefactors are all nearly eulogized as being the best. The government comes across as lost, misdirected or obstructionist. Further, there's only reference to efforts in the United States. Therefore, as wonderful as this will read for any rich citizen in the United States, others may have some difficulty in sharing in the excitement and hope. Given references to one hundred thousand dollar tickets to fly to orbit and back, most people on this planet will never experience this pleasure. Hence, though Belfiore is careful to write that the goal is to benefit all humankind, the book's details impart a different story.

Hence, if a reader is very much into space and rocket travel, this book is great fun. Rocket plane races, weddings in space and orbiting hotels make for exciting visions of the future. Those readers who perhaps dwell deeper in the practicalities will find this book a bit overly optimistic and thin. But, anyone who enjoys fast paced, lively writing on technical subjects will enjoy this book probably as much as Belfiore says he had in gathering the information.

Working for the future allows us to put substance into our dreams. Waiting for a finished product to service our longings may mean never doing it. In Rocketeers – How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space, Michael Belfiore writes of those doing the deed rather than waiting for a provider. For them, a ticket to ride can never come soon enough and their dreams may just enable ours.

Read more reviews or purchase a copy online from Amazon.com.

universe Today : SoHO Celebrates its 12th Birthday

Written by Ian O'Neill

On December 2^nd, 1995 a large joint ESA and NASA mission was launched to gain an insight to the dynamics of the Sun and its relationship with the space between the planets. 12 years on, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) continues to witness some of the largest explosions ever seen in the solar system, observes beautiful magnetic coronal arcs reach out into space and tracks comets as they fall to a fiery death. In the line of duty, SoHO even suffered a near-fatal shutdown (in 1998). As far as astronomy goes, this is a tough assignment.

By the end of 1996, SoHO had arrived at the First Lagrange Point between the Earth and the Sun (a gravitationally stable position balanced by the masses of the Sun and Earth, about 1.5 million km away) and orbits this silent outpost to this day. It began to transmit data at "solar minimum", a period of time at the beginning of the Solar Cycle, where sunspots are few and solar activity is low, and continues toward the upcoming solar minimum after the exciting firworks of the last "solar maximum". This gives physicists another chance to observe the majority of a Solar Cycle with a single observatory (the previous long-lasting mission was the Japanese Yohkoh satellite from 1991-2001).

On board this ambitious observatory, 11 instruments constantly gaze at the Sun, observing everything from solar oscillations (“Sun Quakes”), coronal loops, flares, CMEs and the solar wind; just about everything the Sun does. SoHO has become an indispensable mission for helping us to understand how the Sun influences the environment around our planet and how this generates the potentially dangerous “Space Weather”.

The SoHO mission site confidently states that SoHO will remain in operation far into the next Solar Cycle. I hope this is the case as the new Hinode and STEREO probes will be good company for this historic mission.

Source: NASA News Release

Universe Today : 1-in-75 Chance Of Tunguska-Size Impact On Mars

Written by Ian O'Neill

A 164-foot (50 meter) wide asteroid will be crossing the orbit of Mars at the end of January 2008. Currently, there is a 1-in-75 chance of the "Mars Crosser" hitting the Red Planet, and if it does, the 30,000 mile per hour speeding mass would generate a three megaton explosion (approximately the size of the terrestrial Tunguska impact over Siberia in 1908) and create a crater half-a-mile wide somewhere north of Meridiani Planum. So, the Mars Rover Opportunity will get a ringside seat should this once-in-a-thousand-year event occur…

NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California reported this month that a known Near Earth Asteroid (NEO) will be crossing the path of Mars on January 30, 2008. This puts asteroid "2007 WD5" in a special group of asteroids: "Mars Crossers". NASA's Near Earth Object Observation Program (or "Spaceguard" program) is intended to track asteroids that come close to the orbit of Earth, but also provides data for any asteroids tracked near our planetary neighbors.

Scientists are both excited and concerned by the possibility of an impact on Mars. Whilst this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to observe an impact of this size on Mars (remember the excitement at Shoemaker-Levy hitting Jupiter in 1994?), this event would eject millions of tons of dust into the Mars atmosphere, interfering with the Mars Expedition Rovers, and hindering orbital imaging of the planet. The Phoenix mission (currently en-route) will undoubtedly be affected. Looking far into the future, this event could have serious consequences for manned exploration.

"Right now asteroid 2007 WD5 is about half-way between the Earth and Mars and closing the distance at a speed of about 27,900 miles per hour […] Over the next five weeks, we hope to gather more information from observatories so we can further refine the asteroid's trajectory," - Don Yeomans, manager of the NEO Office at JPL.

Although the odds are low, and the asteroid is expected to miss Mars by 30,000 km, asteroid hunters will be keeping a close eye on the progress of 2007 WD5 as it barrels closer and closer to the Red Planet and our robotic explorers.

Source: Near Earth Object Program

Universe Today : Happy Birthday Johannes Kepler

Written by Nancy Atkinson

December 27 is a day to celebrate the life of astronomer Johannes Kepler, who was born on this date in 1571, and is best known for his three laws of planetary motion. But also, coming up in 2009, The International Year of Astronomy (IYA) will celebrate the work of Kepler as well. Not only did Galileo begin his observations with a telescope almost 400 years ago in 1609, but also in that year Kepler published his book New Astronomy or Astronomia Nova. This was the first published work that documented the scientific method.

Kepler’s primary reason for writing Astronomia Nova was to attempt to calculate the orbit of Mars. Previous astronomers used geometric models to explain the positions of the planets, but Kepler sought for and discovered physical causes for planetary motion. Kepler was the first astronomer to prove that the planets orbited the sun in elliptical paths and he did so with rigorous scientific arguments.

An offshoot of Astronomia Nova was the formulation of concepts that eventually became the first two of Kepler's Laws:

First Law: The orbit of a planet about the Sun is an ellipse with the Sun's center of mass at one focus.

Second Law: A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal intervals of time.

And Kepler's third Law: The squares of the periods of the planets are proportional to the cubes of their semi-major axes.

Kepler was also instrumental in the development of early telescopes. He invented the convex eyepiece, which allowed an expanded field of vision, and discovered a means of determining the magnifying power of lenses. He was the first to explain that the tides are caused by the Moon and the first to suggest that the Sun rotates about its axis. He also was the first to use stellar parallax caused by the Earth's orbit to try to measure the distance to the stars.

While Kepler remains one of the greatest figures in astronomy, his endeavors were not just limited to this field. He was the first person to develop eyeglasses designed for nearsightedness and farsightedness, the first to investigate the formation of pictures with a pin hole camera, and the first to use planetary cyles to calculate the birth year of Christ. He also formed the basis of integral calculus.

Kepler's many books provided strong support for Galileo's discoveries, and Galileo wrote to him, “I thank you because you were the first one, and practically the only one, to have complete faith in my assertions.”

Original News Source: The Writer's Almanac

Universe Today : Studying Planets With Sunglasses

Written by Nancy Atkinson

While finding a planet orbiting another star is incredibly exciting, it’s almost becoming commonplace. The current exoplanet count is up to 270. So now that astronomers know where these exoplanets are located, they are currently devising new techniques in order to study the planets in detail. Using a new method similar to how Polaroid sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare, an international team of scientists were able to infer the size of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, plus directly trace the planet’s orbit.

Orbiting a dwarf star in the constellation Vulpecula and lying approximately 63 light years from earth, this exoplanet was discovered two years ago. Using this new polarization technique, the astronomers were able to see details about the planet called HD189733b that aren’t possible to observe using other indirect methods. The scientists extracted polarized light to enhance the faint reflected starlight ‘glare’ from the planet, and for the first time, were able to detect the orientation of the planet’s orbit and trace its motion in the sky.

This new technique also indicates that the atmosphere of the planet is quite large, about 30% larger than the opaque body of the planet seen during transits, and probably consists of small particles, perhaps even tiny dust grains or water vapor.

Earlier studies of HD189733b using the Hubble Space Telescope indicated that this world doesn’t have any Earth-sized moons or a discernible ring system. Also, the temperature of its atmosphere is a blazing seven hundred degrees Celsius.

The planet is so close to its parent star that its atmosphere expands from the heat. Until now, astronomers have never seen light reflected from an exoplanet, although they have deduced from other observations that HD189733b probably resembles a ‘hot Jupiter’ – a planet orbiting extremely closely to its parent star. Unlike Jupiter, however, HD189733b orbits its star in a couple of days rather than the 12 years it takes Jupiter to make one orbit of the sun.

“The polarimetric detection of the reflected light from exoplanets opens new and vast opportunities for exploring physical conditions in their atmospheres”, said Professor Svetlana Berdyugina, leader of the group from Zurich’s Institute of Astronomy and Finland’s Tuorla Observatory. “In addition, more can be learned about radii and true masses, and thus the densities of non-transiting planets.”

They discovered that polarization peaks near the moments when half of the planet is illuminated by the star as seen from the earth. Such events occur twice during the orbit, similar to half-moon phases.

Original News Source: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Press Release

Universe Today : Fast Food Delivery: Progress Docks With ISS

Written by Nancy Atkinson

A new Progress cargo carrier docked to the International Space Station’s Pirs docking compartment early Wednesday, bringing almost 2.5 tons of fuel, air, water and other supplies to the station and its three-member crew. One of the first items unpacked were fresh tomatoes and lettuce, to be used for an anticipated culinary treat of “space hamburgers” for the crew.

This is the ISS’s 27th unpiloted Progress spacecraft to bring supplies to the station. The Progress launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 23 at 2:21 am EST, and docked with the ISS on Dec. 26 at 3:14 am EST. About three hours later, the crew began unloading the supplies, which includes more than 1,900 pounds of propellant, over 100 pounds of oxygen and 2,921 pounds of dry cargo. Part of the dry cargo are Christmas presents for Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani, as well as birthday gifts for Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, who turned 46 on Saturday.

In an earlier press conference Whitson mentioned she was especially looking forward to receiving the “fixings” for hamburgers, especially since the crew wouldn’t be able to enjoy the Christmas meal that space shuttle Atlantis was supposed to bring on its flight, originally scheduled for early December. The shuttle will now launch no earlier than January 10 due to problems with engine cutoff sensors in the shuttle’s external fuel tank. Whitson said she had created space hamburgers during her previous stay on the station, Expedition 5, and wanted to reproduce the meal for her current crew.

The previous Progress ship was undocked from the station last Friday, after it was filled with trash and unneeded equipment from the station. It will be deorbited for destruction on re-entry in mid-January after conducting Earth observation experiments.

Original News Source: NASA Press Release

Universe Today : It’s a Bird! It’s Tinker Bell! It’sThree Galaxies!

Written by Nancy Atkinson

There once was a galaxy known as ESO 593-IG 008. It was thought to be a relatively mild-mannered galaxy, even though scientists believed it was a collision of two different galaxies; one a barred spiral and the other an irregular galaxy. But now, an international team of astronomers has discovered that it actually is a stunning rare case of three interacting galaxies, with the third galaxy forming stars at a frantic rate.

Using adaptive optics on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers were able to see through the all-pervasive dust clouds of the object that has been dubbed as “The Bird“ because of its resemblance to a winged creature. With the adaptive optics of what’s called the NACO instrument, very fine details were able to be resolved.

"Examples of mergers of three galaxies of roughly similar sizes are rare," says Petri Väisänen, lead author of the paper which will appear in the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. "Only the near-infrared VLT observations made it possible to identify the triple merger nature of the system in this case."

NACO is the combination of NAOS - Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System that is equipped with both visible and infrared sensors, and CONICA, a Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph.

Looking like a bird or a cosmic Tinker Bell, the NACO images show two unmistakable galaxies that form the body and wings of “The Bird.” Astronomers were surprised with the new images that identify a third, clearly separate component that forms the head. This irregular, yet fairly massive galaxy is forming stars violently, at a rate of nearly 200 solar masses per year. It appears to be the major source of infrared luminosity in the system, even though it is the smallest of the three galaxies. The other two galaxies appear to be at a quieter stage of their interaction-induced star formation history. The object is 650 million light years distant but it is quite large with the ‘wings’ alone extending more than 100,000 light-years, or the size of our own Milky Way.

Subsequent optical spectroscopy with the new Southern African Large Telescope, and archive mid-infrared data from the NASA Spitzer space observatory, confirmed the separate nature of the 'head', but also added further surprises. The 'head' and major parts of the 'Bird' are moving apart at more than 400 km/s (1.4 million km/h!). Observing such high velocities is very rare in merging galaxies.

"The Bird" belongs to the prestigious family of luminous infrared galaxies, with an infrared luminosity nearly one thousand billion times that of the Sun. This family of galaxies has long been thought to signpost important events in galaxy evolution, such as mergers of galaxies, which in turn trigger bursts of star formation, and may eventually lead to the formation of a single elliptical galaxy.

The galaxy is also designated as IRAS 19115-2124. The ESO is more formally known as the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere.

Original News Source: ESO Press Release:

Bad Astronomy : Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2007: Runners Up

I’m not exactly a wishy-washy kind of guy, but choosing this year’s Top Ten Astronomy pictures was really tough. First, there are literally hundreds of images to go through. Maybe thousands. I can usually narrow that choice down to a few dozen. But then I’ll have three pictures of the same sort of thing: colliding galaxies, or Jupiter’s moons, or whatever. Then I have to figure which of those three is the best. Framing, color, science, simple devastating impact… whatever criteria I can use. Then I have to make sure I can use the one I pick. Some images are from amateur astronomers, and I need to know if they are copyrighted, and what credit to give.

For whatever reason, some images just didn’t make the cut. I never heard back from the owner, the image wasn’t high enough resolution, whatever. In some cases they were too similar to last year’s picks (I may ease up on that next time). For others, I just screwed up; I thought they were from 2006, or I simply never saw the image in the first place.

The following pictures are one that fall in this category. They are all gorgeous, of course, and very cool scientifically, but they just didn’t make my Top Ten. Still, I think you’ll like them! Clicking on them will take you to a high-resolution version from the original image site. Some are extremely high-res and totally amazing.

Crescent Saturn

After I had compiled my final Top Ten list and written everything up, I realized with utter horror (no exaggeration) that not one Cassini image was on the list! And this, with a) the Saturn image being my #1 pick last year, and b) Carolyn Porco — the Cassini imaging team leader — being a friend of mine! The reason I left Saturn off were manyfold, and I tried, oh I tried. Here are the pictures I considered.

This spectacular Cassini image of the crescent Saturn is impossible to see from Earth; the orbiter was high over the plane of the rings, capturing this mesmerizing view. I love this picture, and was one of my first choices for the Top Ten. But then I realized it was a little too much like last year’s winner, so I cut it. That hurt to do.

Iapetus

Saturn’s moons are weird, but none weirder than Iapetus. First, it has two totally different hemispheres; the leading gone (the one that faces into its direction of travel as it orbits the ringed planet) is very dark, and the trailing hemisphere is very bright. This is because of the junk it slams into as it moves around Saturn. Also, the moon has a giant raised ridge around its equator, kilometers high. Theories abound about it (including some silly pseudoscience ones, of course), but its exact origin is still something of a mystery. This picture is a mosaic of several smaller images made by Cassini. I didn’t include it on my list because I’m an idiot, and thought it was from 2006 (even though it was on my blog recently)! It was Fraser from Universe Today who told me (too late) that it was recent. Figures. Obviously, this would have made the cut had I been thinking.

Kaboom!

In February, a rocket booster exploded high in the sky over Australia. Robert McNaught, famed comet hunter, caught it on camera and created a short animation as the debris cloud moved across the sky as it orbited the Earth. You just don’t see stuff like this every day, and it’s totally cool. You can even see small streaks from the solid debris! This image is from Space Weather, which is a great daily stop for amazing images and info.

Comet McNaught from STEREO

Speaking of McNaught…

Comet McNaught graced our skies in January 2007, and was magnificent. It was near the Sun, and so bright it was easily visible in broad daylight! I took many terrible pictures of it, but my favorite is this one from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. Thing is, I already had a STEREO animation on my Top Ten list, and another comet as well, so I dropped this one. There are dozens, hundreds of incredible images of McNaught on the web; my second favorite is this one from McNaught, the man himself. APOD has many more, too.

The Moon Eats Saturn

I love this multiple image of Saturn passing behind the Moon. It comes from Peter Lawrence via LPOD, the Lunar Picture of the Day. It’s rare, but sometimes the Moon appears to pass directly in front of a planet. Peter took a series of images and made this composite. It’s very cool, and gives you a sense of depth to the solar system. Saturn is huge, but it’s a long way away.

Chaos in Cluster Abell S0470

How many Hubble images can you have in a Top Ten list? Maybe next year I’ll expand the list to 15. That way I won’t have to leave out pictures like this one, of the galaxy cluster Abell S0740. Pictures like this floor me; the sheer variety, complexity, and beauty of galaxies in a cluster always brings me to a standstill. Just examining the image can tell you so much about galaxies behave in such an environment! Careful analysis also reveals a lot of information about the way the Universe itself behaves, and that’s why we do this, isn’t it? That, and to simply gape at the pageantry of the cosmos.

Carina

The Milky Way Galaxy is lousy with dense clouds of gas and dust, stellar nurseries where stars are born. This phenomenal Hubble mosaic has so much going on in it that it’s hard to know where to start, and it’s harder to know where to stop! That link will take you to a lengthy description I wrote, and had a huge amount of fun putting together. Scroll to the bottom for one of my favorite astronomical images of all time.

Barred for Life

I don’t need to give too many reasons for loving this image of barred spiral NGC 1672, taken by Hubble. I just love spirals, and barred spirals too. Love love love. Sigh.

I Zwicky 18

… or this picture of I Zwicky 18. This galaxy is cool for more than just its odd beauty: it was thought to be a young galaxy, but it turns out to have some very old stars in it. It is also 59 million light years away; the observations making this image showed it to be 10 million light years farther away than previously thought.

HAWK-1 and the Stellar Cocoon

This image from the Very Large Telescope in Chile is very cool, showing dust and gas in a star-forming region. I discussed it in depth in an earlier blog entry. It’s nice, but not quite what I was looking for for my Top Ten. Still… cool.

I love whimsical pictures, too, and this one kills me. The effort that went into it must have been phenomenal; the Moon is actually very small in a camera, and I would think that if the tripod had even been bumped slightly it would have totally screwed this image up. Not to mention the timing! Wow.

Spitzer maps a distant planet

In 1995, the first planet was discovered orbiting a sun-like star. We’ve come a long way: well over 200 have now been found; one has been directly imaged, and some have even had their atmosphere detected! This image is the very first temperature map ever made of an exoplanet, in this case HD 189733b, which orbits its star so closely that it is extremely hot. Spitzer can detect that heat, and as the planet orbits its star we see different aspects of it. By mapping the amount of heat detected very carefully over time, astronomers were able to create this temperature map of the planet. The hot spot is the part of the planet that permanently faces the star (where it’s always high noon), and fierce winds distribute that heat around the rest of the planet.

Mapping Dark Matter

It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important maps ever made: a three-dimensional layout of dark matter in the Universe. Dark matter is invisible, but for decades has been known to exist. An extraordinary series of observations led to astronomers being able to map out its location in the Universe. Distance increases to the right, and, since we see more distant objects as they were in the past, we are actually getting a timeline of the cosmos. Note how the dark matter is smoother back when the Universe was young; over billions of years it has fragmented and aided the development of the galaxies and clusters we see today. This was an incredible confirmation of dark matter science and theory!

Spitzer Helix

The Helix Nebula is a favorite: it’s a planetary nebula, a cloud of gas created when a dying star sheds its outer layers, which expand outward in dramatic fashion. Spitzer Space Telescope captured this incredible view of it. It’s possible the Sun will look like this in a few billion years, when it runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core and starts its final paroxysms… though some current reading I have done indicates the Sun won’t be bright enough to light up the gas. It will still blow off its envelope, but the gas won’t be lit up in this way. Too bad, I suppose; aliens viewing our eventual demise won’t get such a pretty show.

Earthrise, Earthset

The US and Russia are no longer the only countries to have sent probes to the Moon, Japan now belongs to this exclusive club (as do India and China as well). The Japanese orbiter Kaguya captured this incredible series of images as the Earth appeared to set over the limb of the Moon. It doesn’t look real! But don’t tell Bart Sibrel.

Home

Does this count as astronomy? Maybe. But after traveling millions of light years across the Universe, sometimes the best sight of all is the approach of home.

And there you go. Next year, well, we’ll see. Making the Top Ten cut is so hard I may very well expand the list. If you are an amateur astronomer — or a pro — better get cracking! Obviously, the competition is fierce. But I’m already looking forward to seeing what will rise over the horizon in 2008.