Hello, astro-nuts!

First, I want to wish my two favorite Roberts happy birthdays! :) Second, I hope everyone affected by that nasty storm late last week made it through alright; snow totals in some areas are just borderline absurd! Here in central PA we received around a foot to fifteen inches or so, and more is on the way by mid-week! Getting back to astronomy, the Endeavour launch had to be scrubbed Sunday morning because of low cloud concerns; however, this morning looked better and the rescheduled launch took place, lighting up the early morning sky. Another interesting story this morning was about NASA working with General Motors to develop new robotic technologies.

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The sun was alive and kicking this past weekend and I am starting to think we are slowly emerging from the big solar rut we've been in for the past several months. Giant sunspot 1045 developed Saturday and, according to spaceweather.com has produced three M-class and nearly a dozen C-class solar flares! The strongest of the bunch, an M6-class, appears to have sent a coronal mass ejection towards Earth. No need for concern, but this could mean some really nice auroras for higher latitude observers. In addition to that, ham radio operators have been detecting strong solar radio bursts on their shortwave receivers. Take a listen to some of these solar radio bursts captured by the radio telescope array in New Mexico, and have a look at the X-ray flux graph from the past couple of days....amazing!

The Chandra X-ray observatory has imaged a pair of quasars that may have been a result of merging galaxies. These quasars are roughly 4.6 billion light-years from Earth, but are only separated by about seventy-thousand light-years. The pair, known as SDSS J1254+0846 get their energy from material being pulled into supermassive black holes. While Chandra imaged the quasars, the Baade-Magellan telescope in Chile picked up "tidal tails"; streamers of stars and gas that have been gravitationally stripped. This is the first time that a pair of quasars have been imaged during a galaxy merger. Time for a science lesson....a quasar (quasi-stellar radio source), is described as a bright, very distant energetic core of a young galaxy. Quasars are thought to get their energy from supermassive black holes, which pull in stars as well as dust and gases around a galaxy center. These are then greatly compressed and emit radiation astronomers see as the quasar.

Astronews!

The space shuttle Endeavour launch was scrubbed for 24 hours due to low clouds early Sunday morning, according to NASA. Re-tanking took place last night around 7pm EST, at which point a 60 percent chance of favorable weather for launch was predicted. At 9pm, the weather was still considered to be "red" (no-go) because of low clouds. About a half hour later, the green light was given and countdown resumed. At 4:14am EST, Endeavour and her six-member crew lifted off into the dark early morning sky, making for a beautiful sight across Florida's Space Coast. Endeavour is now in orbit and is expected to dock with the International Space Station on Wednesday. The highlight of the mission is going to be during the three planned spacewalks, during which the third module, Tranquility, will be installed. Additionally, the ISS will get a "room with a view" as a cupola with several windows will be attached to the Tranquility node. The seven-windowed cupola will give crew members an incredible view of Earth and space, while providing extra room for robotics and command control stations. Through the cupola, spacewalks can be observed, as can visiting spacecraft and external areas of the ISS. The presence of this giant window to the outside world could also prove beneficial psychologically since they are typically enclosed in very tight spaces during their missions. Some artists' renditions of how the cupola would look once attached to the station can be found on ESA's website. Good luck to the Endeavour crew, travel safely, and we'll see you in 13 days! Meanwhile, the SDO mission I discussed last week was also postponed because of the delayed shuttle launch. The Atlas V rocket carrying the solar satellite is now expected to launch this Wednesday at around 10:30am, weather pending of course!

Engineers and scientists from NASA and General Motors (GM) have been working together as part of a Space Act agreement to build a humanoid robot that would be able to work alongside humans. These robots would have special control, sensor and video technology that will hopefully prove useful during hazardous space missions, going where it is not safe for people to go during missions, and could even help GM build safer vehicles. A prototype robot, called Robonaut 2 was developed that can use its hands and work faster than its predecessor. More technologically advanced sensor and control systems could prove useful in manufacturing vehicles for GM, and provide a better work environment for astronauts out in space. Robonaut 2 was designed to use the same tools and instruments as humans, and is much stronger and more dexterous than the original version. For example, Robonaut 2 can lift AND hold a twenty pound weight, about four times heavier than the limit of previous dexterous robots. The original robonaut was designed for space travel and built about ten years ago. The relationship between NASA and GM is certainly nothing new. It dates back to the Apollo era, when GM played a role in developing navigation systems with NASA. The technology is actually kind of neat, but personally I've always found robots a little creepy, and Terminator 2 and 3 didn't help.

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
AccuWeather.com Astronomy Center

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Hello, astro-nuts!

It looks like it will be an absolutely terrible couple of nights for stargazing here in the Northeast, not to mention out west. Here in the Northeast, a huge winter storm is already wreaking havoc around DC and across much of the Southeast. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for spring! Anyway, the astronomy video is new today; the week leading up to Valentine's Day has some neat celestial events going on, so check it out! Meanwhile, Endeavour is set for launch on Sunday, and the Cassini mission has been extended again!

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If you watch the National Geographic Channel, be sure to tune in at 9pm starting on Valentine's Day for the new six-part mini-series called A Traveler's Guide To The Planets. The series begins with a tour of Saturn followed by Jupiter. On Monday night (Feb 15th) at 9pm, tune in for a tour of Mars, followed by Venus and Mercury. Finally, on the 16th at 9pm, head into the far reaches of the solar system to learn about Neptune and Uranus, as well as Pluto. The shows will be presented as if the viewer were a traveler planning a "far-out" trip, and will include tips on what to bring, the best sights to see, and of course, typical weather. Be sure to tune in and then leave some comments here on the blog about it!

Early Sunday morning, the bright star Antares in Scorpius will be about 3 degrees from a waning crescent moon. Observers in the northern latitude should be on the lookout for auroras this weekend into next week as a solar wind stream nears Earth. A neat STEREO-B animation from spaceweather.gov shows a series of active areas in the eastern hemisphere of the sun. The region on the far right shows an eruption that likely sent some material towards Earth. It was not a major eruption, but enough of one to trigger some auroras when it contacts our atmosphere.

A Russian Progress cargo ship docked with the International Space Station at 11:26pm EST Thursday, according to the ISS control center. Among the 2.6 tons of cargo were chocolate and DVDs , as well as water, fuel and oxygen for the cosmonauts aboard the station. The Progress ship will remain docked at the station for a couple of days while the cargo is unloaded, and then refilled with waste from the station before undocking and being destroyed as it re-enters our atmosphere.

Astronews!

Back to back launches are scheduled for a few days from now. Superbowl Sunday kicks off bright and early with the 4:39am EST launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. STS-130 is expected to be the final nighttime launch in the space shuttle program. The STS-130 crew have been busy preparing for the mission; reviewing flight plans and performing training exercises today at the Operations and Checkout Building . The weather looks pretty good for launch; the weather team has given an 80 percent chance of good weather for launch at KSC, as well as the transoceanic abort landing sites in France and Spain. According to NASA, the fueling of Endeavour's External Tank is expected to begin at 7pm on Saturday, and live coverage will begin a few hours later at 11:30pm EST. A few days after launch, Endeavour will be docking with the International Space Station, and the crew will deliver the Tranquility connecting module and a seven-window cupola which will be used as a control room for robotics. These will be installed over the three planned spacewalks of the mission. After this mission, only four launches remain in the space shuttle program; if you've never seen a live space shuttle launch, I strongly suggest you make plans to if you can. Its an amazing experience that you will never forget!
The Endeavour launch will be the first of two back to back launches over the next few days. On February 9th at no earlier than 10:30am EST, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will be launching aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The goal of this mission is to give astronomers a closer look at the sun and help us understand the source of the sun's energy so spaceweather can better be predicted. SDO is different compared to other satellites in that it will be collecting enough data to fill a single CD every thirty-six SECONDS! Not only that, but SDO has no data recording system here on Earth where its data will be stored, so it essentially has to build its own. In order for this to happen, SDO will be placed in a geosynchronous orbit and will remain constantly in orbit above its ground communication station in New Mexico. SDO won't just be studying the surface of the sun, it also has the ability, through its Helioseismic Magnetic Imager to study the INSIDE of the sun, similar to how an ultrasound works. Check out this cool video about the sun's inner workings and magnetic fields!

For the second time, NASA is extending the successful Cassini mission. The mission was first scheduled to end by 2008, but was extended to September of this year. Cassini and its twelve instruments are still going strong and still providing amazing data about Saturn and its moons, so part of the new NASA budget for 2011 includes a 60 million-dollar annual extension for the mission through 2017. This second extension has been given the name the Cassini Solstice Mission and will focus on studying seasonal and long-term weather changes on Saturn and its moons. Cassini first arrived at Saturn following its northern hemisphere winter solstice; its latest extension will carry the mission past the northern hemisphere summer solstice in May, 2017. Never before has a complete seasonal period of Saturn been studied in such detail. An additional 155 orbits around Saturn, 54 flybys of Titan, and 11 flybys of Enceladus are scheduled. In addition to all of that, more observations of Saturn's rings will be taken, with Cassini making passes between the planet and its ring layers to gain more insight about the internal composition of the planet and its magnetic field, as well as the mass of the rings. The Cassini mission has logged over 2.6 BILLION miles to date, and over 200,000 images have been captured. Cassini has taken 125 trips around Saturn, 67 flybys of Titan and eight flybys of Enceladus thus far. Cassini is currently has an edge-on view of Saturn and its rings.

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
AccuWeather.com Astronomy Center

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Hello, astro-nuts!

This is so cool, I couldn't wait until tomorrow to mention it! The refurbished Hubble Space Telescope has captured images that were used to create a map of Pluto's terrain! Granted, it has been quite challenging, the Hubblesite.org article describes the task of comparing 2002-2003 images with some taken in 1994 "as challenging as trying to see the markings on a soccer ball forty miles away". Hubble doesn't have a good enough view to pick up specific craters or mountains, but the colors on the newest images show changes in what appears to be white, dark-orange and charcoal-black terrain. These colors are believed to come from radiation from the sun actually breaking up the surface methane! Other changes were noticed in the dwarf planet's overall brightness; the northern pole is brighter than the redder, darker southern pole.This is thought to be the result of surface ice sublimating from the northern pole as summer arrives, and then refreezing on the southern pole. The current images and simulated map of Pluto are currently the best we have until the New Horizons probe is six months away from its flyby in 2015. The images from Hubble will, however, give astronomers an idea of which areas of Pluto to focus on during the flyby, and will give the New Horizons team an idea of what kind of exposures at which to shoot images of Pluto (there's no chance for reshoots!). Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute says a technique called dithering was used that allows several offset images to be combined via computer processing to create a single higher-resolution image. This process "has taken four years and twenty computers operating continuously and simultaneously to accomplish". Nice work!

For more information about how images of Pluto were used to create those maps, and a great image comparing the 1994 images of Pluto to the 2002 images, check out this article from Marc Buie. Thanks to commenter "Bibi" for sharing this information!

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
AccuWeather.com Astronomy Center

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Hello, astro-nuts!

It is pretty much official that, if Obama's budget passes, the Constellation program is being scrubbed, and NASA will change its focus to instead go through commercial companies to develop vehicles and technology to carry crews into space after the space shuttles are retired. There are of course upsides and downsides to this decision and I welcome your thoughts on it. Today I'll be discussing Hubble's X-shaped discovery, and how Kennedy Space Center will be affected by the changes at NASA.

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Another shuttle launch is at hand; Sunday, February 7th is the expected launch date for STS-130, at about 4:39am EST. STS-130 is expected to be the final nighttime shuttle launch, so set your alarms! The six-member crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, consisting of Commander George Zamka, Mission Specialist Nicholas Patrick, Pilot Terry Virts, Mission Specialists Robert Behnken and Kathryn Hire, and Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson. During the 14-day mission, there will be three spacewalks during which Endeavour will deliver the third connecting module-Tranquility- and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics, to the International Space Station.This morning around 10am EST there will be a Countdown Preview Briefing on NASA TV. The participants are Jeremy Graeber, NASA test director; Joe Delai, STS-130 payload manager; and Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer. At this point, the weather forecast for the shuttle launch looks pretty good, with temperatures in the lower 50s and clear skies expected in the early morning. Later on Sunday of course we have Superbowl farther south in Miami; what a day! :)

Speaking of the Superbowl, the official opening-toss coin has gotten some mileage on it--more than four million miles, to be specific. The medallion was flown aboard the space shuttle Atlantis (STS-129) and was then taken to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Museum in Ohio, before being taken to Sun Life Stadium. A member of that Atlantis flight crew, Leland Melvin, actually played in the NFL for a short time for Detroit and Dallas, so two jerseys, among other football memorabilia, also accompanied the coin during the shuttle mission.

Those of you in the northern latitudes, keep looking up! The spaceweather.gov forecast for the month looks good for auroras; the solar wind is blowing fast and furious right now and there's a wind stream heading for Earth and is expected to produce some nice auroras next week! Spaceweather.com has a beautiful gallery of aurora images, including one that was taken from SPACE!

If you watch the National Geographic Channel, be sure to tune in at 9pm starting on Valentine's Day for the new six-part mini-series called A Traveler's Guide To The Planets. The series begins with a tour of Saturn followed by Jupiter. On Monday night (Feb 15th) at 9pm, tune in for a tour of Mars, followed by Venus and Mercury. Finally, on the 16th at 9pm, head into the far reaches of the solar system to learn about Neptune and Uranus, as well as Pluto. The shows will be presented as if the viewer were a traveler planning a "far-out" trip, and will include tips on what to bring, the best sights to see, and of course, typical weather. Be sure to tune in and then leave some comments here on the blog about it!

Astronews!

Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3 managed to capture quite an interesting event that occurred about 100 million miles away from Earth. An odd x-shaped debris pattern and dust streamers trailing behind it seem to suggest that two asteroids may have gotten too close for comfort and collided. The feature was first seen by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program back on January 6, and Hubble snagged some images of it at the end of January (at that point, the object was about 90 million miles from Earth). This "comet-like object", dubbed P/2010 A2, seems to have a main nucleus like a comet, but the structure of the whole thing is not quite the same. David Jewitt of UCLA has said "this is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets....the filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus...". Some of these filaments appear to have been swept backwards from radiation pressure from sunlight, resulting in long streaks of dust. The nucleus of P/2010 A2 also seems to lie outside of its own dust halo; something that has not been seen in such an object. It is estimated to be about 460 feet in diameter. Unlike normal comets, which seem to be made from icy materials from the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud, P/2010 A2 orbits "warmer" inner areas of the asteroid belt and is closer to dry, rocky bodies, not icy materials. The orbit of the object seems to coincide with the Flora asteroid family, created millions of years ago after a huge collision.

The recent proposed changes to NASA's course of action regarding space launches is going to have huge impacts (both good and not so good) on Kennedy Space Center. According to an article by Stephen Clark on Spaceflightnow.com, the two main launch pads and the huge Vehicle Assembly Building, among other facilities will be upgraded and improved following the retirement of the shuttle fleet in order to be ready for the use of private space technology organizations. Unmanned commercial launches will still take place, but as far as manned spaceflight technology from the Apollo and space shuttle eras, the infrastructure going forward is likely to change. KSC officials still want the complex to be "the premier launch complex anywhere" and are prepared to make whatever upgrades and changes might become necessary to accommodate new commercial policies. In the meantime, NASA is looking into potential commercial partners; thus far, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance are already at the head of the line as potential partners since both already have operating satellite launch pads nearby. KSC could reportedly receive nearly two billion dollars over the next five years in order to perform upgrades to the launch complex (keep in mind that it dates back to the Apollo era!). One example of where upgrades are most needed is the transition time currently needed between launches. Right now, it can take two days to make the transition, and with today's available technology, that shouldn't take longer than an hour. Other areas of improvement include general infrastructure, fiber-optics and wiring. Suggestions for enlarging areas open to customers and researchers are being considered as well. Once the last shuttle flies, it is unknown when KSC would actually host another manned launch, and for that reason, more than 7,000 jobs will likely be dissolved after the shuttles are retired. However, with proposals to develop and test new technologies and robotic missions, and part of NASA's focus shifting to climate science missions, there may be more opportunities for new jobs. Meanwhile, we may not be sending humans to the Moon anytime soon, but many nations, including the U.S. will be continuing their work on robotic orbiter and lander missions into the next decade. The cancellation of the Constellation program does not mean the end of the U.S. Space program, says NASA administrator Charles Bolden. Instead, the focus needs to shift to using more updated technology and being more innovative and cost-effective about space exploration. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin agrees, and sees the new NASA plan as forward-thinking, stating that, "A near-term focus on lowering the cost of access to space and on developing key, cutting-edge technologies to take us further, faster, is just what our nation needs to maintain its position as the leader in space exploration."

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
AccuWeather.com Astronomy Center

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Hello, astro-nuts!

Mars and the "Wolf Moon" looked incredible on Friday night! Temperatures dropped to about 2 degrees where I was, and the winds were merciless, but it was worth it to catch a glimpse of such a beautiful sight! I hope many of you were able to see it as well! The first Astronomy video of the month went up on Friday, hope you enjoy it! Today I'll be talking about the new Firefly mission, and some plans in the works for extending the life of the International Space Station.

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I wasn't able to post anything on Thursday, but January 28th was the 24th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident. Today is the 7th anniversary of the Columbia accident. These two events changed the way we look at shuttle launches and all the safety protocols involved with them. I remember exactly where I was for Columbia, but I was just shy of turning 5 when Challenger occurred. I learned about it in school when we were talking about outer space just about a year later. Feel free to share comments about these missions, and take a minute to remember the crews of STS-51L and STS-107.

A potential brown dwarf star may have been discovered through the use of the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. Not only that, but depending on what color spectrum is used to view the object, it has appeared red or blue. TThe object, dubbed SDSS1416+13B, was first discovered by Dr. Ben Burningham of the University of Hertfordshire as part of a UK-based Brown Dwarf survey. The object is not alone, either. It is in a wide orbit around a "somewhat brighter and warmer brown dwarf" called SDSS1416+13A. This brighter object was detectable through visible light, while 13B is only visible through infrared light. The two are between fifteen and fifty light years from our solar system; fairly close in the grand scheme of things in astronomy. More about this "cool brown dwarf" can be found on Spacedaily.com.

Astronews!

A new NASA mission is in the works that may help solve the mystery of Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF). These outbursts of gamma rays usually occur far away from Earth, likely near black holes or other high-energy sources, but they had been found to be occurring right over our heads here on Earth since the 1990s. Most of what scientists already know about TGFs came from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. In 1994, Compton accidentally caught a glimpse of a TGF in our atmosphere. The particles involved in these TGFs seem to take up quite a bit of energy, much more than the beautiful auroras seen in higher latitudes (about a thousand times more). Questions such as 'What causes TGFs?', 'Are they related in anyway to lightning?' and, 'Could they have triggered high-energy particles in the Van Allen radiation belts?' have been raised about TGFs, and Firefly could help provide some answers. Firefly is a small satellite about the size of a football that is expected to be launched this year or next as part of the new CubeSat program I mentioned in the last week or so. The hope for this relatively cheap mission is that Firefly will return some simultaneous measurements of TGFs and lightning. It is hypothesized that TGFs could actually be providing the start for lightning strikes, since the energy needed to begin a lightning bolt discharge is about ten times more than what is available inside your typical thunderstorm cloud. For this to be possible, many more TGFs would have to be occurring than are currently thought. For perspective, previous Compton and other telescope observations, according to NASA, indicate that roughly 100 or fewer TGFs occur daily; there are MILLIONS of lightning strikes on a daily basis, however. Granted, Compton and the other telescopes were not looking specifically for TGFs, so a mission that DID search specifically for them would hopefully come up with a much higher number.

Many of you know that a big story today is the newly proposed budget for 2010. Many questions are arising from the astronomical community, especially when it comes to the Constellation Program and the International Space Station. Should the new budget pass, it would likely mean the end of the Constellation program, and any plans to return to the Moon by 2020. The International Space Station, meanwhile, was expected to be completed this year and then allowed to remain in commission through 2015. However, one option the government is looking into is keeping the ISS running through 2020. If that were to be the case, the decision would have to be made this year, so that parts and supplies for the station could be ordered and delivered in a timely manner. This is especially important since the crew has been expanded to six people instead of three. An upcoming meeting of the five partner countries involved in the ISS program will involve discussions of finances, visiting spacecraft and of course replacement parts that will be needed. On the U.S. side, NASA currently has contracts for twenty commercial cargo flights to the station through SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. The Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft are being developed and would be launched on new Falcon 9 and Taurus 2 rockets. The first commercial flights are set to begin next year, following the retirement of the space shuttle fleet. NASA will have to work closely with Russia to get seats for their astronauts aboard the Soyuz flights beyond 2012. Meanwhile, ESA and JAXA already have their Automated Transfer Vehicle and H-2 Transfer Vehicles flying to the station and are expected to continue through 2015. In addition to commercial space flight, NASA is being informed to start focusing more on climate science, and many of the upcoming experiments being sent to the ISS will revolve around that topic. Thoughts on the proposed changes? Some additional information and nice insight can be found on the Spacewriter's page.

Keep your eyes to the sky and enjoy the view!
~Lisa C.
AccuWeather.com Astronomy Center

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