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Voyager 1 reaches interstellar space
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02-10-2014, 01:27 AM, (This post was last modified: 02-10-2014, 01:30 AM by Miguel.)
RE: Voyager 1 reaches interstellar space
(02-08-2014, 11:37 PM)john Wrote: The light from some of the reddish galaxies has been traveling for more than 13 billion years. They are the most distant objects ever photographed and are seen as they were when the universe was very young.
In college, I took a self-paced astronomy course. After receiving a notice that I was on pace to receive a failing grade, I threw myself into it the last few weeks. Studying hard and frequently taking two tests a day, I ultimately made an "A" and walked away impressed by how they could determine so much just from observing the universe. One of the most fascinating things was its vastness and the fact that -- despite the speed of light -- what you were observing had occurred eons ago.
That was twenty years ago. Not that long in the grand scheme of things.
06-07-2014, 01:51 PM, (This post was last modified: 06-07-2014, 03:00 PM by john.)
A real time HD view of the earth from video cameras attached to the space station: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/
If the screen is black the camera is currently on the dark side of the earth. If it is grey, the cameras are changing (several HD cameras are being evaluated and they switch) or the space station is in a downlink dead spot. For best results switch the video feed to HD and expand it to full screen.
One camera operates at a time and they are pointed in different directions. The station moves along at a good clip and the motion is obvious -- you see the earth as you might looking out a window on the space station in real time. Here's a still from one of the cameras:
08-06-2014, 03:37 AM, (This post was last modified: 08-06-2014, 08:48 PM by john.)
After traveling ten years and 4 billion miles the Rosetta spacecraft has caught up with it's target comet. The comet is traveling at 55,000 kilometers per hour (relative to the sun I would guess) which is more than 10X the speed of a bullet shot from a typical rifle. Impressive accomplishment.
Quote: ...To catch it, the team needed to get Rosetta into the comet's orbit. As the spacecraft made four orbits around the sun, it flung itself around Earth, then around Mars, and then around Earth twice more, accelerating and adjusting its course along the way. On its route to match the comet's path, Rosetta also flew by two main belt asteroids, in 2008 and 2010, and field-tested many of its 21 instruments.
In the summer of 2011, Rosetta passed through the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and continued out toward Jupiter's orbit. At that distance from the sun, the spacecraft's 104-foot-span solar panels were producing less and less energy, so mission controllers put Rosetta into its planned hibernation, shutting down everything but minimal heating for vital components. The spacecraft slept for almost three years. A wake-up alarm went off this past January as Rosetta was inbound on the interception lap, 500 million miles from the sun....
...After about two months, Rosetta will draw to within 19 miles, close enough to be captured by the comet's gravity (only a tiny fraction of Earth's). Rosetta will wind its orbit closer, while at mission control, scientists will scour the surface maps for a smooth landing site. Rosetta is carrying a 220-pound lander, Philae, named after the Nile River island where archeologists found an obelisk confirming the Rosetta translation. "We fly within three kilometers [1.9 miles] of the surface and drop the lander," says Jansen.
...In December, the inbound comet will get within 400 million miles of the sun, about the distance from the sun to the main asteroid belt. Here, the sun's heat will start to bring it alive. Gas jets will belch from its surface, and a hazy atmosphere called a coma will form from ice and dust, and stretch out to become an incandescent tail. For the next month and perhaps longer, Philae will ride Churyumov-Gerasimenko like a bronco buster, "not bothered too much by all this," Jansen says, and Rosetta will escort the two, transmitting data from its 11 instruments and the 10 on the lander. The instruments will map the comet's surface, analyze the composition of the nucleus, coma, and tail, measure the size and momentum of the material emanating from the surface, and image the comet from the ultraviolet to the infrared
...Rosetta will continue to orbit until the disturbance from the comet's powerful gas jets overcomes the spacecraft's ability to control its angle. Then it will move out of orbit, but keep up with the comet as closely as possible. The comet will make its closest approach to the sun—112 million miles—on August 13, 2015, then head back to Jupiter's neighborhood, with Rosetta keeping pace and Philae clinging to its back.
Read more: http://www.airspacemag.com/space/rosetta...z39fdyrXxz
Volcano eruption viewed from the ISS
My Alter Ego
^^John, do you know which volcano it was?
(08-08-2014, 07:05 PM)My Alter Ego Wrote: ^^John, do you know which volcano it was?
2009 eruption of Sarychev Volcano in eastern Russia.
^^Amazing! Since dealing with the aftermath of the May 18, 1980 Mt. Saint Helen's eruption (I lived in eastern Washington then), volcanoes fascinate me.
Moonrise -- photo by Jim Abels
Himm2
I think I see "Rhythm", Halien Reinhart's friend, showing me her moves in the sky.
Rosetta spacecraft to release lander tomorrow. Rocket science.
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