Hello, astro-nuts!
I hope you were able to watch the video of Hubble being deployed by Atlantis; it was great! Hubble is now on its own again for the last time, and the Atlantis crew is heading to a lower, safer orbit, in preparation for re-entry at the end of the week (weather permitting). Meanwhile, the Whole Earth Telescope network is watching a dying white dwarf star.
Check This Out!
Early risers (and maybe some not-so-early risers!)! If you missed it this morning, be sure to get outside Thursday morning before sunrise and check out the eastern sky (Pisces/Pegasus area)! You'll see a beautiful thin crescent Moon, accompanied by Venus and Mars in a lovely triangle. The naked eye view will be great, but grab some binoculars for an even better look (and take some pictures too; I'm going to give it a try!).
The sun may be a little slow these days, at least when it comes to sunspots; however, there hasn't been a shortage of pretty prominences lately. If you have a solar scope and the ability to take pictures with it, be sure not to neglect the sun's outer edges. Sunspot 1017 is rapidly fading, so unless another one reappears relatively soon, the surface of the sun won't be too exciting.
Reader/astrophotographer John Schaser took a great shot of the Atlantis launch from Titusville, Florida. Check out more of his work in the AccuWeather.com gallery! You can also check out his video of the launch. Great stuff; thanks John!
At last, the four-stage Minotaur 1 Rocket carrying the TacSat-3 satellite was launched from Wallops Island, VA at 7:55pm Tuesday evening. In addition to TacSat-3, the upper stage of the Minotaur 1 rocket carried NASA's PharmaSat microsatellite, and CubeSat Technology Demonstration experiments. The latter includes three four-inch cubed satellites. The PharmaSat nanosatellite, now in an orbit 285 miles up, will be investigating the effects of antifungal agents on the growth of yeast in microgravity. The research is expected to help scientists understand how microbial agents may become resistant to drugs used to treat astronauts during long space missions.
Astronews!
Tuesday morning at 8:57am, the crew of Atlantis said goodbye to Hubble for the last time as the 24,500-lb observatory was released 350 miles above the African coast. The astronauts are scheduled to come home Friday morning; there will be three attempts, the first at 10:01am. Now that Atlantis was moved to a lower orbit, it has brought about that earlier landing opportunity. As many of you know, the weather has become an issue this week in Florida; the hope is that there is some break in the weather for Atlantis to touch down. Endeavour has been on standby in case there were problems, and was supposed to be taken off stand-by at that point; however, a change of plans will keep Endeavour on the standby launchpad until the de-orbit firing takes place Friday. Countdown to launch for Endeavour has begun (6am Wednesday) in order for preparations to be made to make sure that it can get off the ground as quickly as possible if rescue is needed Friday.
The Whole Earth Telescope network, a worldwide group of observatories formed in 1986, have been focusing on (no pun intended) constant coverage of a "cooling" star, now reaching the end of its life. The dying white dwarf, WDJ1524-0030, is located in the constellation Ophiuchus has spent its nuclear fuel and losing brightness. Constant monitoring of the star started on May 15th and will continue until June 11th. WET works like a relay team, taking "shifts" during which to monitor the dying star. The Mt. Cuba Observatory in Delaware will monitor and photograph the star until local sunrise, at which point observatories in Texas and Arizona take over, then international viewers in Australia, New Zealand, China, etc take over. White dwarf stars are about the size of Earth but as dense as the sun, and as waves of energy travel through it, it "pulsates". Astronomers want to study these pulses and their shapes to get an idea of how the star's atmosphere moves and works. The pulses coming from the star are quite active. Right now, the star is part of the mere 30 percent of white dwarfs that are bright enough for scientists to study using asteroseismics (helps determine age, temperature and composition based on pulses and brightness). The entire study from observing to studying the data is expected to take about two years. The findings will be used to study other stars and even Earth. By the way, choosing the observatories involved in these "observing runs" is quite an involved process; for some of the larger scopes, an application is required to get permission, and it must be submitted years in advance!
Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
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The Minotaur launch and staging looked good at sunset from the Virginia peninsula. It will be nice if the success eventually leads to increased use of the Wallops Is. launch site. Very exciting to view a rocket launched into orbit from this part of the eastern seaboard !
Here's wishing also for an uneventful landing of Atlantis/Hubble mission and crew of STS-125 !
Posted by RRichards | May 20, 2009 4:21 PM