Thursday, August 13, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
All I can say is wow
Launch dates
A lot of space missions are poised for launch right now! NASA has the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which will blast off no earlier than June 2, and the Hubble servicing mission for the Space Shuttle Atlantis is now scheduled for launch on May 11. I’ll have lots more about that soon.
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| Herschel and Planck |
The European Space Agency isn’t exactly taking it easy, either: Herschel and Planck are two astronomy missions that will launch on a single Ariane 5 rocket on May 14th.
Herschel is a massive infrared telescopic observatory with a 3.5 meter mirror, by far the largest infrared observatory ever put in space. It will look at far-infrared light, from 55 to 180 microns (our eyes are sensitive to light out to roughly 0.7 microns, so this is way out in the IR). For comparison, the awesome Spitzer telescope has a mirror 0.85 meters across, so Herschel will return incredible imagery of the sky. I can’t wait to see what it shows us!
Planck will map the entire sky at microwave frequencies, looking at the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. The NASA satellite WMAP did this a few years back and answered many questions about the physics of the early Universe, but as we have to come to expect in science, any new observations will also raise even more questions. Planck will have ten times the resolution that WMAP did, so it will see smaller features on the sky. It’s also more sensitive than WMAP was, so it will see fainter features as well. This means it may answer a lot of those questions WMAP raised.
Now get this: the Big Bang model is the best one we have to explain the origin of the Universe. But it does not tell us about how that moment occurred. Did the Universe get its start from a singular event, a quantum fluctuation in some larger metaverse? Are we the last in a series of past Big Bangs and recollapses (the last because we’re pretty sure the cosmic expansion will go on forever this time)? Are we here because two high-dimensional membranes collided?
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| WMAP map of the microwave sky |
These questions stretch our brains to the breaking point… but the thing is, there is science here! These different ideas predict different structures in the background glow leftover from the Big Bang. WMAP saw many cooler and warmer spots on the sky in that microwave glow, equal numbers of them. But some theories say we should see just a hair more cold spots. WMAP did a fine job observing the sky, but it simply lacked the resolution to be able to see any asymmetries in the hot and cold spot numbers.
Planck may very well have the resolution needed to see that. Do you understand the implications? We may be on the verge of determining if the origin of the Universe was a singular event, or if it was due to some other mechanism.
We’re on the edge of "holy crap!" territory with this. We have progressed from last century’s having no clue about how the cosmos got its start, to now possibly being able to get a handle on what happened before the Big Bang.
That’s why I love science! Some people try to tell me that science will never answer the big questions we have in life. To them I say: baloney! The real problem is your questions aren’t big enough.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Lots of neat things on BA this morning
I'd read about this asteroid a few days ago, very cool video as it passed inside the orbit of the moon last night.
UPDATE: I found this way cool video of the asteroid that zoomed by this morning. It’s not much to look at, but note the time display, and remember this thing isn’t all that much bigger than a house.
Time lapsed Lulin
Via Universe Today I saw this video time lapse of comet Lulin as it blows gas off its nucleus:
This was taken by Joseph Brimacombe, Southern Galactic Telescope Hosting, on February 22, 2009. The solid part of a comet is usually pretty tiny, just a few kilometers across. Bigger than a mountain, but a lot smaller than a moon. But a lot of that solid part is frozen stuff that turns into gas when the comet nears the Sun. It expands, forming a cloud around the solid nucleus. That cloud can be huge– 100,000 kilometers across or more, bigger than planets!
The gas escapes away from the comet, forming a tail. That tail can get kinks, twists, sheets, ribbons, all kinds of shapes as it moves off. In the video, you really get a sense of the majesty and beauty of this process. As the tail fans out, sometimes it looks like we see part of it on both sides of the comet, but that’s just a perspective effect. Imagine someone with long hair in the wind; their hair forms a comet-like shape behind them. Looking straight at them, face-on, you’d see hair on both sides of their head. That’s more or less what we see with Lulin. You can see the so-called anti-tail in lots of the images posted of Lulin. Try a Google image search and be amazed. This is some gorgeous comet.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Total Lunar Eclipse Wed Feb 20
February 20th's Eclipse of the Moon
All of the Americas will have ringside seats . . . weather permitting.
Find out more about this eclipse, including observing projects you can do with a telescope or your unaided eye, in Sky & Telescope's February issue. 
The last sunlit rim of the Moon was about to slip into the Earth's red shadow when Sean Walker of Sky & Telescope magazine took this picture on Aug. 28, 2007. It's easy to take good eclipse shots. Use a long lens and a tripod for your camera if you have an SLR, or just point any digital camera into a telescope. For best results see our lunar eclipse photography guide.
...The full Moon is going to get totally eclipsed on the night of February 20–21, putting on a gorgeous show as it glides through Earth's shadow. Skywatchers in nearly the entire Western Hemisphere will get an excellent view.
In the Americas, the eclipse happens during convenient evening hours on Wednesday, the 20th, when people are up and about. In the time zones of Europe and West Africa, the eclipse happens during the early-morning hours of Thursday, the 21st.
Earth’s shadow will totally engulf the Moon from 10:00 to 10:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, or 7:00 to 7:52 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, as shown at lower right. The partial phases of the eclipse last for about an hour and a quarter before and after totality.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
SETI@home
I hadn't installed SETI@home on this laptop. I've put it on others and it's exactly as they say, no issues, no impact. Follow the links and install it.
SETI@home needs you!
I am way behind on this, but it’s been a busy month.
SETI is the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It’s a project by a phenomenally dedicated and brilliant group of scientists and engineers to search the sky for radio signals from other civilizations. I won’t go into the basis for this here (you can read their FAQ for all that), but I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
One of their biggest problems is the sheer volume of data they generate. They probe the sky looking at a huge number of radio channels for a signal — imagine your car radio able to tune in to not 20 or 30 stations, but millions. Billions. That’s what they face.
Some very smart folks at Berkeley realized that home computers could be utilized to process some of that data, so they created SETI@Home. When you are not using your PC or Mac, the processor can be utilized to crunch through the SETI data, looking for that needle in a million haystacks: an intelligent signal (good luck finding one on your AM dial!). (link Bad Astronomy)
A little break from teh internets
It's Saturday morning, I'm laying in bed with my laptop catching up on the internet. I need a little break from all the "news".
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2008 February 7
NGC 4013 and the Tidal Stream
Image Credit & Copyright: R Jay Gabany (Blackbird Observatory) - collaboration; D.Martínez-Delgado(IAC, MPIA),
M.Pohlen (Cardiff), S.Majewski (U.Virginia), J.Peñarrubia (U.Victoria), C.Palma (Penn State)Explanation: Nearly 50 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, NGC 4013 was long considered an isolated island universe. Seen edge-on, the gorgeous spiral galaxy was known for its flattened disk and central bulge of stars, cut by silhouetted dust lanes. But this deep color image of the region reveals a previously unknown feature associated with NGC 4013, an enormous, faint looping structure extending (above and toward the left) over 80 thousand light-years from the galaxy's center. A detailed exploration of the remarkable structure reveals it to be a stream of stars originally belonging to another galaxy, likely a smaller galaxy torn apart by gravitational tides as it merged with the larger spiral. Astronomers argue that the newly discovered tidal stream also explains a warped distribution of neutral hydrogen gas seen in radio images of NGC 4013 and offers parallels to the formation of our own Milky Way galaxy.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Astronomy Picture of the Day
I use my blog as an interface and "portal" for the web. I keep links I read there, reference links, news, other blogs etc. Since I'm looking at it many times a day I'm tired of being reminded of all the crap I come across with BushCo and others. Posting these pictures changes the whole feeling every time I come back to my homepage.
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2008 January 12
Image Credit & Copyright: Doug Zubenel
Explanation: This colorful view of the western sky at sunset features last Wednesday's slender crescent Moon. Of course, when the Moon is in its crescent phase it can never be far from the Sun in the sky. Also always close to the Sun in Earth's sky is innermost planet Mercury, seen here below and right of center against the bright orange glow along the horizon. Mercury is usually difficult to glimpse because of overwhelming sunlight, but increasingly better views of the small planet after sunset will be possible as it wanders farther east of the Sun in the coming days. On January 14th, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will have a good view too, as it makes its first Mercury flyby.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2008 January 11
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Mandel (Hidden Valley Observatory)
Research Collaboration: Adolf Witt (University of Toledo) et al.
Explanation: Centered on North Star Polaris, this 4 degree wide field of view covers part of a complex of relatively unfamiliar, diffuse dust clouds soaring high above the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. The combined light of the Milky Way stars are reflected by the dusty, galactic cirrus, the reflected starlight having the same blue tint characteristic of better known reflection nebulae. But this deep color image also records a faint reddish luminescence from the dust grains as they convert invisible stellar ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Dubbed extended red emission, the dim cosmic glow is thought to be caused by complex organic molecules known as PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), common constituents of interstellar dust. On planet Earth, PAHs are widely encountered as the sooty products of combustion.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
What is a year?
How long is a year? I really liked being able to instantly remember about how many seconds are in a year.
Yay! Tonight at midnight it’s New Year!
But what does that mean, exactly?
The year, of course, is the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, right? Well, not exactly. It depends on what you mean by "year", and how you measure it. This takes a wee bit of explaining, so put down the champagne, take the lampshade off your head, and hang on.
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Let’s say we used a stopwatch to measure the elapsed time. We’ll see that it took the Earth 31,558,149 seconds (some people like to approximate that as pi x 10 million (31,415,926) seconds, which is an easy way to be pretty close). But how many days is that?
(link Bad Astronomy)
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