Space Shuttle Discovery is on its way to the public eye at the Smithsonian. Earlier this week, the space shuttle was spotted hitching a ride to its new home on the back of a specialized 747 aircraft (pictured below).
Yesterday, April 19th, the Discovery “attended” a ceremony (pictured below) where it traded places with space shuttle Endeavor at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. According to NASA, Discovery will soon be on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Museum.
Of all the places in our solar system (besides Earth) that are most likely to harbor life, none is better than Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon. Although extremely cold, it has been recording spouting geyser-like plumes of liquid water high into the air. Enceladus is one of only a few other places in our solar system with recorded geologic activity.
Although it is so very cold on a, that does not have researchers worried, because we have life here in our arctic oceans on Earth.
There are also concerns that perhaps the oceans are far too acidic to support life, but again, it may be possible for microbes to survive in such conditions.
Microbes, are, in fact, what the researchers are looking for; millions of microscopic bacteria and other organisms that live just about everywhere here on Earth. As the water is likely being spurted from the oceans beneath the frozen surface of the planet, any life held within them would be blown up into the atmosphere in the geysers.
The lucky thing about the water being sprayed into the air also means that the probes that have been sent to Enceladus do not even need to land! All they have to do is fly through the spray to gather their samples and analyze the liquid. With the environment being so cold, however, all of the spray is probably being frozen into snow in the atmosphere.
Read more from SPACE.com.
Astronomy Series “The Copernicus Revolution” Date: 04/17/2012 Time: 7:15-8:30 pm Location: The Wetherbee Planetarium at Thronateeska Heritage Center Cost: $3.50+tax, Free for members and Darton College students Watch a film in the Wetherbee Planetarium, and discuss the world-rocking life and studies of Nicolaus Copernicus. Also discuss the constellations Leo the lion and Hydra the water snake. Call 229.432.6955 for more info, or email us. Learn about our planetarium.
2011 has been a tremendous year for astronomy. It has been a marvelous year for discoveries, yet we look forward to the future as the space program evolves to continue without the space shuttles. Here at the Wetherbee Planetarium, we would like to take a moment to reflect on some of our favorite stories we covered this past year.
11. Diamonds in the Sky, originally published 08.29.11. A diamond planet companion was found orbiting J1719-1438. How is that for twinkle?
10. De Blob, it glows!, originally published 08.19.11. Lyman-alpha blob 1 (LAB-1), a giant, intergalactic green blob, was discovered. No one knows what it is, but it is big, it glows, and it is green. We think that is pretty awesome.
9. The sky is falling!, originally published 09.14.11. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) took a spiraling descent back to Earth over late September-early October, mostly breaking apart and burning in the atmosphere.
8. A Geriatric Non-Planet, Non-Asteroid…Thing…, originally published 04.04.11. The gargantuan asteroid Vesta was visited by NASA’s Dawn mission in July of this year for a photoshoot rendezvous.
7. “Spinstars” May Have Helped Seed the Universe, originally published 05.02.11. Astronomers working with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) theorized the existence of “spinstars,” possibly the fastest rotating objects in the universe.
6. Gamma Ray Flares in Binary Star are a Mystery, originally published 07.07.11. A binary star system in January and February of this year was found emitting gamma ray flares as a companion pulsar grazed through the Be-class star’s gaseous disc.
5. “It’s Alive!” Zombie Satellite Galaxy 15 Springs Back to Life, originally published 01.04.11. Rebellious satellite-gone-rogue Galaxy 15 came to its senses and rebooted after months of failing to respond to commands and joyriding.
4. Life-Friendly Zones in the Galaxy?, originally published 09.30.11. Astronomers theorized the possibility of a “life zone” or area in galaxies that is most likely to support life as we know it.
3. Hubble Celebrates Millionth Observation, originally published 07.12.11. The Hubble Space Telescope made its historic millionth observation of outer space, a spectroscopic observation of planet HAT-P-7b.
2. The Star of Bethlehem, originally published 12.20.10, reprinted 12.20.11. The staff at the Wetherbee Planetarium delved into possible explanations for one of the most iconic symbols of the Christmas season.
1. Launch Week: Last Flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour Scheduled Friday, originally published 04.25.11. NASA set the launch date for the last flight of space shuttle Endeavour, one of the final missions for the shuttle program.
So, what do we expect for 2012? NASA’s Dawn mission will wrap up its study of Vesta, the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission will make its descent back to Earth after its failed launch, Kepler is confident about the odds of finding an Earth-like planet in the life zone, and the biggest non-event: the supposed “alignment with the core of the galaxy” on December 21. Here’s to 2012!
Russian aerospace company NPO Lavochkin is expected to make the announcement soon that Phobos-Grunt, an unmanned probe mission to Mars, has failed. The probe launched early last month and its last booster rocket failed to go off, leaving the probe stuck in Earth orbit with a full tank of fuel. The probe’s intended destination was the red planet’s moon Phobos. Its mission was to collect rock and soil samples.
The probe launched early on November 8 of this year. All seemed to be well as it reached Earth orbit, but the last booster rocket failed to fire, which would have propelled the probe out of orbit and on track towards Phobos. Repeated contact attempts have been made to make the last booster rocket fire, but it failed to respond. In its current state, the probe is too dangerous to approach with another vessel to repair it, so the mission is a bust. Russian officials claim the probe should not pose a threat to humans when it descends to Earth, and say most of it should burn up as it falls.
For more information please call 229-432-6955. Information credit: SPACE.com. Image credit: thespacereview.com.
A planet roughly 2.4 times the size of Earth has been discovered orbiting its star in the “life zone” or “habitable zone.” Found by NASA’s Kepler mission, the planet is in a solar system approximately 600 light-years away.
The “life zone” is the sort of “sweet spot” around a star that is neither too hot nor too cold for water to exist in its liquid form, and consequently, for life as we know it to thrive on any planets that may be in that region. The star in the system is G-class star, like our own, but a little bit smaller, so the life zone around it is about the same region as the distance between the orbits of Venus through Mars, as illustrated in this diagram here.
The planet, thus far only referred to as Kepler 22b, is almost 2 1/5 times the size of Earth, and orbits its star a bit closer than Earth does, but having passed this first investigatory hurdle, astronomers will be studying it even more closely to try to determine what manner of planet it may be. As of yet, they do not know whether it is terrestrial (made of rock and soil like Mercury through Mars), covered in liquid (like Uranus and Neptune), or composed of gaseous clouds (like Jupiter and Saturn).
For more information please call 229-432-6955. Credit: NASA. Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech.
An amateur astronomer in New Zealand has managed to take and clean up a photograph of a new solar system in the works. The stunning part? He was doing it with his own, homemade, 10-inch telescope. That’s some pretty good aim!
The system is Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away in the southern hemisphere. The system had been photographed a number of years ago by professional astronomers, but the fact that Rolf Olsen managed to first of all find the system, then photograph it and do such a good job that the “circumstellar disc” was visible, is astounding.
The circumstellar disc is the cloud of dust and debris orbiting around the star. Eventually, it should turn into planets and various other satellites. Olsen was able to expose it using a very long, detailed set of instructions that had been published in a study on the system. That he was able to achieve such good results shows again that anyone can make a contribution to astronomy if they wish.
“There certainly could be a lot of interesting things that professional astronomers have missed, that amateur astronomers could clue us in on,” wrote Bryce Croll, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an email to SPACE.com about Olsen’s achievement. So, hang in there, sky watchers! You just might be the next one to have a breakthrough.
For more information please call 229-432-6955. Credit: SPACE.com. Image credit: Rolf Wahl Olsen.
New interpretations of data from NASA and European orbiters are beginning to come together, suggesting that the possibility for life on Mars is not so strong on the surface, but much more promising for the subsurface directly underground.
This interpretation comes after researchers have discovered clay and certain types of minerals in the Martian subsurface. Clay can only be formed through the interaction of liquid water with rock, so finding clay under the surface suggests a much more consistent liquid presence than it does for the surface, which usually only has frozen ice in its craters and at its poles.
One of the minerals that they have discovered that supports their new theories is a rather icky-colored stone called prehnite. Prehnite can only form in areas where the temperature is over 400 degrees Fahrenheit, so the presence of prehnite and the abundant clay in the subsurface suggests the likelihood for strong hydrothermal (hot water) activity beneath the Martian surface.
That being the case, it is not so strange to think about the likelihood of finding life on Mars. Based on earth’s own geothermal and hydrothermal activity, scientists know it is possible for various kinds of life (usually bacteria and all manner of simple microbes) to live in their own environments, underground, away from the light of the sun.
So, is it time to chuck the rovers and reach for a shovel instead? Not necessarily. More research still needs to be done. There is also more than enough evidence left on the surface of Mars for astronomers to know there was liquid water there at times, and there is still plenty of ice left in some places, so the possibility for life is still there. The idea of finding bacteria on a planet puts the phrase “finding a needle in a haystack” to shame, though. Knowing where to look that is the hard part.
For more information please call 229-432-6955. Credit: NASA. Image credit: Geology.com.
Astronomers recently used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to unravel a 2,000 year old mystery. In 185 A.D., Chinese sky watchers made note of something they noticed in the sky. They called it a “guest star” at the time, and continued to make notation of its visibility for about the next 8 months. Astronomers had had ideas about what the object could have been, but now using the power of science, they can peer into the depths of space in the area the Chinese had noted and see what may be left over from this mysterious “guest star.” Their findings? A supernova.
This particular supernova is a Type 1a supernova. Supernovae happen when a star dies, either by imploding in on itself as its core collapses, creating a black hole, or bursting outward, as was the case with this supernova. However, scientists who had observed it before had been puzzled because the debris left over is far larger and more spread out than a supernova of that age should be.
With more observation they discovered the star actually exploded inside of some sort of shell of open space. This allowed the material that was ejected from the star as it exploded to travel unimpeded for great distances, much further than it would have traveled before. At any rate, it is an impressive sight. We can only wonder what the Chinese would have said about their “guest star” all those years ago if they could have seen it up close.
For more information please call 229-432-6955. Credit: NASA. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA.
NASA is working on a power source that could revolutionize space exploration. A nuclear reactor the size of a regular suitcase, it is strong enough to power eight average US homes, yet portable enough to travel in small, compact space craft. Designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, the generator is not actually in production yet, but given that its true value is proven, it could be venturing outside Earth’s atmosphere in a few decades or less.
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Lyman-alpha blob 1 (LAB-1) is a blob. Not only that, but it is a giant, intergalactic green blob—a giant, intergalactic, green blob that can only be studied with extremely large telescopes, like the (aptly named) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the mountains of Chile. This is what LAB-1 looks like through the VLT:
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