Hello, astro-nuts!

The space shuttle Endeavour took off from Kennedy Space Center on Friday night and is now docked at the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the Phoenix mission may have ended, but the Martian rover Spirit still has some work to do!

Check This Out!

Assuming that clouds do not get in your way, you'll want to keep an eye on Jupiter and Venus the rest of the month. The two bright planets will appear to edge closer to each other. By the end of the month, they will be within two degrees of each other, making a show with a lovely crescent moon. Tonight, however, another nice show will take place. Venus (that really, really bright "star" looking thing in the west-southwest after sunset) will be about 0.1 degree below the star Lambda Sagittarii and will appear through telescopes or binoculars to have gained a "moon". Don't forget about Jupiter, which will still be hanging around in the southern sky near Sagittarius.

Meanwhile, with Endeavour docked to the ISS, it will be noticeably brighter as it passes over certain locations during the next week or two. As always, check out heavens-above.com to see if you'll be lucky enough (weather permitting) to see the ISS/Endeavour pass over your location! In some cases you may get to catch the pair twice in the same evening! I encourage you to register and input your location; it will save that for you so whenever you sign in later, you don't have to keep setting your location. For those of you who have never been to the site, it basically shows you when/where certain satellites/orbiting craft will be over your location. It also offers planet/object information, including comets and Iridium flares!

Did anyone have a chance to catch any Leonids last night? As is the norm around here this time of year, it was pretty cloudy and windy and cold last night; hardly ideal observing conditions. But I hope it was clear enough somewhere that a few of you got to watch the show. Speaking of shows, if you have the National Geographic Channel, check it out at 9pm Eastern/Pacific tonight for the premiere of "Direct From The Moon" which will discuss past, present and future missions to the Moon. If you get to watch it, feel free to share your thoughts/opinions by dropping me a line or discussing it in our astronomy forum.

Sunday marked the start of "National Geography Week", and as part of that, the National Air and Space Museum has a "Geography From Space" quiz you can take online, and the prize is the book "Earth From Space". You can partake in the quiz here. Good luck!

Astronews!

I was thrilled to be able to watch the Endeavour launch Friday night; granted, it was from my home computer on NASA.gov, but I still got to watch it. As always it was amazing to watch, especially because it was a nighttime launch! The shuttle took a few spins around the planet before docking with the ISS on Saturday around 5:01pm EST. Prior to the docking, Endeavour did a "backflip" so that her crew could take a few investigative pictures of the heat shield and perform the mandatory evaluation of the shuttle. It was discovered that a 12- by 18-inch portion of the heat shield tiles had ripped off during launch; however, it was determined to be in an area that does not experience high heat during re-entry so it is not of great concern.
Endeavour launched nearly ten years after a shuttle crew began constructing the ISS on November 20, 1998. "Home improvement' will be the main task for this shuttle mission as the astronauts repair solar arrays and expand the ISS crew's living space. In addition to the spatial upgrades, a filtering system will be installed that can turn urine into drinking water (anyone ever see "Waterworld"?). This will allow the six-person ISS crew to drastically reduce the amount of water that has to be delivered to the ISS from Earth. The first of four planned spacewalks is scheduled for Tuesday, the fifth day of the mission. As I mentioned, the 20th will mark the 10th anniversary of the ISS, and the mission will extend through the holiday of Thanksgiving;will the crew be feasting on turkey? Will the triptophan make the crew just as sleepy in orbit as it does here on Earth? :)

I have a profound interest in photography, so when I read about how NASA had restored a 42-year old image, I had to share the story! There is a great picture that was taken by the Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966 that depicts Earth rising above the lunar surface. Modern digital technology has allowed NASA to produce the image at much higher resolutions. In the 1960s, limited technology of the day prevented the full, true resolution of the images from being available as they were captured on large magnetic types and transferred to photographic film. The release of the restored image confirms that is possible to retrieve data from the original tapes when the drives are combined with updated software. The restoration is part of the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project taking place at NASA's Ames Research Center, which is taking data from the original recorders and 1,500 of the original tapes and converting them to digital form before reconstructing the images.

Meanwhile, on Mars, the team controlling the Spirit rover mission have made plans to tell Spirit to save some energy over the next few weeks. Powerful dust storms over the past few days and weeks have caused serious dust buildup over the solar panels on the rover. Normally the panels produce 161 watt hours of energy. During the dust storm, only 89 watt hours were produced. This time of year, dust storms are common, so in order to allow the rover to recharge, orders were sent to Spirit to keep certain heaters turned off and conduct limited observations and communications through the 19th. Additional low-power orders will be sent through the rest of the month. On November 30th, there will be a two-week period in which no new commands will be sent to Spirit from Earth because the Sun will be between Earth and Mars.

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.

Posted by Lisa Beightol on Monday, November 17, 2008 7:34 AM
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