2015年8月31日 星期一

Pluto in Enhanced Color


Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and images of our Solar System's most famous dwarf planet, taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in July, have been digitally combined to give an enhanced view of this ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface. The featured enhanced color image is not only esthetically pretty but scientifically useful, making surface regions of differing chemical composition visually distinct. For example, the light-colored heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio on the lower right is clearly shown here to be divisible into two regions that are geologically different, with the leftmost lobe Sputnik Planum also appearing unusually smooth. New Horizons now continues on beyond Pluto, will continue to beam back more images and data, and will soon be directed to change course so that it can fly past asteroid 2014 MU69 in 2019 January. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Q2xVAN

Space Movies Do Not Drive Space Policy

The Martian message, Eric Sterner, Space Review "Surely, several interests want to capitalize on the melding of film and speculative reality. Damon recently visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he talked about his role, and NASA's website proudly uses the...

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NASA Arctic Field Campaign to Examine Ecosystem Impacts of Changing Climate

As part of a broad effort to study the environmental and societal effects of climate change, NASA has begun a multi-year field campaign to investigate ecological impacts of the rapidly changing climate in Alaska and northwestern Canada, such as the thawing of permafrost, wildfires and changes to wildlife habitats.

August 31, 2015
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NASA Needs To Buy 2 Vans in Russia

NASA JSC Solicitation: Purchase of Two Vehicles for the Human Space Flight Program-Russia "Delivered to US Embassy Moscow, Russia The contractor must provide with the bid proposal a schematic drawing showing vehicle design and dimension specifications in the form of...

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Inundated By Global Warming

Do you think global warming is something that only affects us sometime in the future, decades or centuries from now?

Think again. Our planet heating up is affecting us now, and has been for decades. We’re already seeing a lot of serious problems due to it: extreme weather, more devastating hurricanes, wildfires, and sea level rise.

Of all these, the last seems most like science fiction. Seriously, the levels of the ocean are going up? It can’t be much, right?

Think again, again. NASA just released results from several satellite observations going back to 1992. Those 23 years of data show that the oceans of the planet have risen substantially in that time: over 6 centimeters (2.5 inches) on average, with some places on Earth seeing more than 22 cm (9 inches)!

This animation shows where the levels are going, and by how much:

The global sea level rise is driven by two major factors: One is that as water warms, it expands, raising the sea level. The other is that Greenland and Antarctica are melting, dumping 450 billion tons of water into the oceans every year. Every year.

So overall sea level is rising, but in some places it’s rising faster than others. For example, in the Pacific, heat travel east to west, so the eastern coasts of the Philippines and Japan have seen huge jumps in sea level the past two decades. Interestingly, sea levels have dropped in some places. Off the northeastern shore of the US you can see a drop. But in that case it’s because the Gulf Stream, a major warm ocean current, has shifted north somewhat, so levels have risen in the north but dropped in its wake to the south.

But those drops are highly localized. Globally, levels are on the rise.

The cause of all this is obvious and very real: global warming. As human activity — primarily dumping 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year — causes the Earth’s surface temperature to go up, a lot of that energy is absorbed by the oceans, causing them to expand. Some of it is absorbed at the poles, melting ice there.

Sea ice melting at the north pole is bad enough, but the land ice melting is nothing short of catastrophic. Climatologists have already shown that the melting of the West Antarctica ice sheet may be unstoppable. We may be locked in — that is, inevitably going to suffer from — a full meter of sea level rise, three feet. This may take a century or more, but it’s coming. And while that may seem like a long time, think of it this way: A meter per century is a centimeter every year, an inch every 2.5 years.

Mind you, that’s vertical rise. Look at the slope of a beach and you can see that a small rise vertically means a lot of horizontal reach to the ocean, too. We’ll see beaches disappear, coastlines changed. More immediately, we’ll see storm surges do far more damage as it takes less rise in the water levels to inundate cities. Remember what the surge from Hurricane Sandy did to NYC? We’ll be seeing more and more of that.

This is the new normal. And the scary thing is not so much that the new normal is bad, it’s that with more warming, rising sea levels, and changing weather patterns, the new normal will continue to get worse. There may not be a normal any more.

Just as a reminder: With only a single exception, none of the GOP Presidential candidates has a reality-based view on global warming (the exception is George Pataki, who has no chance of winning), and those views range from unsupportable by facts to unhinged in the extreme. Even those of them who admit it’s real think it’s not human caused, or that we can’t do anything about it without hurting the economy (and that is 100% ultra-grade fertilizer; it’s worse to wait). Even this far out it seems certain the House will go GOP again in 2016, so having a climate-change-denying President will mean at least four more years of inaction bolstered by the smoke and mirrors of the noise machine.

And don’t forget that the GOP in the House is still trying to eviscerate NASA’s Earth science budget, which goes in large part to monitoring the effects of global warming. Why? Simply put, they deny the reality all around them.

And all that time, the temperatures will rise, the glaciers will melt, the sea levels will rise, and we’ll be that much deeper into a catastrophe that is already well underway.



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Western Wildfire Smoke Has Drifted Over the Atlantic


Smoke from the treacherous western wildfires has wafted across country and out to sea. via NASA http://ift.tt/1MXEkxm

NASA, USAID Open Environmental Information Hub for Southeast Asia

NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Monday launched SERVIR-Mekong, a joint project to strengthen regional environmental monitoring in five countries in the lower Mekong region of Southeast Asia.

August 31, 2015
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2015年8月30日 星期日

M31: The Andromeda Galaxy


What is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy? Andromeda. In fact, our Galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda. Together these two galaxies dominate the Local Group of galaxies. The diffuse light from Andromeda is caused by the hundreds of billions of stars that compose it. The several distinct stars that surround Andromeda's image are actually stars in our Galaxy that are well in front of the background object. Andromeda is frequently referred to as M31 since it is the 31st object on Messier's list of diffuse sky objects. M31 is so distant it takes about two million years for light to reach us from there. Although visible without aid, the above image of M31 is a digital mosaic of 20 frames taken with a small telescope. Much about M31 remains unknown, including exactly how long it will before it collides with our home galaxy. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Eq99t1

Space Is Cold, But We Are Not

If you have five minutes — and I think you do — then I urge you to go take a look at this lovely and wonderful comic by French artist Boulet. Yes, there are a few typos in the translation, but it’s charming and sweet, and expresses quite a few points I strongly believe in myself.

Science is not cold, nor scientists unemotional. If we were, we wouldn’t be doing this in the first place. For so many, it is our sense of awe and wonder that drives us.

Tip o' the pen cap to Jesse Anderton.



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2015年8月29日 星期六

The Seagull Nebula


A broad expanse of glowing gas and dust presents a bird-like visage to astronomers from planet Earth, suggesting its popular moniker - The Seagull Nebula. This portrait of the cosmic bird covers a 1.6 degree wide swath across the plane of the Milky Way, near the direction of Sirius, alpha star of the constellation Canis Major. Of course, the region includes objects with other catalog designations: notably NGC 2327, a compact, dusty emission region with an embedded massive star that forms the bird's head (aka the Parrot Nebula, above center). Dominated by the reddish glow of atomic hydrogen, the complex of gas and dust clouds with bright young stars spans over 100 light-years at an estimated 3,800 light-year distance. via NASA http://ift.tt/1NZ7MSf

Crash Course Astronomy: White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulae

I’ll be honest: Every episode of Crash Course Astronomy has been fun to write, edit, and shoot. They all really have. But the past few episodes, and the next few to come, deal with one of my favorite topics in astronomy: What happens when a star decides to give up the ghost.

When stars die all sorts of fantabulous things happen: They explode, they leave behind bizarre ultradense objects, they fling gas into space that creates amazing and breathtaking shapes and colors.

This week, CCA is about what happens after stars like the Sun die: They become white dwarfs, and in the process blow out a series of winds that become one of the most beautiful sights in the sky: planetary nebulae.

I studied the planetary nebula NGC 6286 for my Master’s degree at the University of Virginia, investigating a giant circular halo of gas around it from the star’s original red giant wind. I had to simultaneously learn about planetary nebulae, the physics of interacting colliding winds, how gas radiates light, how the digital detector on the telescope worked (this was when such cameras were brand spanking new, so every thing about them was a learning experience), how to use the telescope, and how to write code to analyze the data. It was… interesting. Very difficult, but in the end I got results that were worth publishing.

My advisor, Noam Soker, is the man I mention in the video. I have never met a harder working astronomer in my life; he published a ridiculous number of papers, covering one small topic very well in each, and then moving on. I remember talking to him about why 6826 had an elliptical inner region, and he suggested it could be from a Jupiter-like planet orbiting the star. The problem was it would have to be very close to the star to be enveloped when the star became a red giant, and I thought that wasn’t possible — our Jupiter, after all, is over 700 million kilometers from the Sun, way too far to get swallowed up! And you can’t form a planet that big that near a star anyway.

Oh, me. This was five years before the first “hot Jupiter” was found, and now I wish we had emphasized this even more in our paper instead of just adding a single line about it! It turns out they may be quite common; they form farther out from the star and migrate inwards over time. I was pretty shocked when 51 Peg b was discovered, and seriously my first thought when it was announced was, “PLANETARY NEBULAE! OF COURSE!”

Yes, I think in all caps sometimes. It’s very funny to me that planets and planetary nebulae are in fact connected, especially since, despite their names, they are very, very different objects. But in science you find that everything’s connected in one way or another. It’s a tapestry, and every thread counts.



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2015年8月28日 星期五

Puppis A Supernova Remnant


Driven by the explosion of a massive star, supernova remnant Puppis A is blasting into the surrounding interstellar medium about 7,000 light-years away. At that distance, this colorful telescopic field based on broadband and narrowband optical image data is about 60 light-years across. As the supernova remnant expands into its clumpy, non-uniform surroundings, shocked filaments of oxygen atoms glow in green-blue hues. Hydrogen and nitrogen are in red. Light from the initial supernova itself, triggered by the collapse of the massive star's core, would have reached Earth about 3,700 years ago. The Puppis A remnant is actually seen through outlying emission from the closer but more ancient Vela supernova remnant, near the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Still glowing across the electromagnetic spectrum Puppis A remains one of the brightest sources in the X-ray sky. via NASA http://ift.tt/1LF7ZfT

NASA Pays For Decision Making Advice On A Decision It Already Made

Innovative Study Supports Asteroid Initiative, Journey To Mars "NASA employed ECAST to engage in a "participatory technology assessment," an engagement model that seeks to improve the outcomes of science and technology decision-making through dialog with informed citizens. Participatory technology assessment...

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Congress Kicks The Commercial Crew Can Down The Road

Congress, Don't Make Us Hitch Rides With Russia. Love, NASA, Charlie Bolden via Wired "Saturday will mark 1,500 days since the Space Shuttle touched down for the final time. Grounding human spaceflights was always supposed to be temporary as we...

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Make Me Dream, Under the Stars

One of the things I love best is when someone looks through a telescope for the first time. Even better when it’s a kid; a simple glance through the eyepiece, a single moment, and a lifetime of joy and wonder is theirs.

During the week of the Perseid meteor shower in August, 2015, two dozen high school students participated in an Astronomy Camp held by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They traveled to the high desert I that state to learn how to observe the sky, and then joined up with 600 other astronomers to participate in the Oregon Star Party.

Astrophotographer Ben Canales followed them, and took footage of the events. He created this wonderful video, “Make Me Dream”, which made my heart very happy indeed.

Some technical detail: Canales used the new Sony A7 mirrorless camera, which uses new technology allowing it to shoot video at — get this — ISO 100,000 (it goes even higher, but Canales said that's the highest he could go and get acceptable noise levels, even with some fancy post-processing techniques). That’s incredible; such a high setting means the camera was phenomenally sensitive to light, which is how he was able to get scenes showing both the young students and stars of the Milky Way in the background, even out of focus (which spreads the light out, making them even dimmer). I have got to try one of those.

The last shot, showing the persistent Perseid train, is fantastic. Make sure you watch all the way to the end of the video, too.

All the sky footage was nice, but what really made my smile grow was the expressions on the faces of the students as they set up and used their telescopes. It gives a real sense of accomplishment to learn how to use a telescope; they can be finicky, and frustrating. But when things start to click, the whole sky becomes yours. When you know your way around the night sky it’s a treasure map… but it’s also the treasure itself.

Canales captures this perfectly. But what else do I expect from someone who took this picture, one of my all-time favorite astrophotos?

That is how I feel all the time when I am out under the stars. I highly recommend it. 



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Signs of Katrina Linger in the Marshes


Ten years after making landfall, scars from Hurricane Katrina still linger. via NASA http://ift.tt/1MSLi6M

NASA Awards Contract for Construction of New Mission Launch Command Center at Wallops Flight Facility

NASA has awarded a contract to Harkins Contracting Inc. of Salisbury, Maryland, for the construction of a new Mission Launch Command Center (MLCC) at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.

August 28, 2015
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ISS Daily Summary Report – 08/27/15

42 Soyuz (42S) Relocation: 42S will be relocated from Mini Research Module (MRM) 2 Zenith to Service Module Aft tomorrow with the undock command scheduled for 2:11 am CDT. To support the relocation timeline the 42S crew sleep shifted 5.5 hours earlier today (11:00 am CDT, 16:00 GMT).  The relocation is in preparation for 44S scheduled docking to MRM 2 Zenith on September 4.  42S return to Earth is currently planned for September 11.   Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: Lindgren and Yui continued with their Flight Day 30 (FD30) Ocular Health activities performing their Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), each acting as the Crew Medical Officer (CMO) for the other. They also performed fundoscopy, again with Yui acting as CMO for Lindgren, and Lindgren as CMO for Yui.  OCT is used to measure retinal thickness, volume, and retinal nerve fiber layer, and the fundoscope is used to obtain images of the retinal surface.  The Ocular Health protocol calls for a systematic gathering of physiological data to characterize the risk of microgravity-induced visual impairment/intracranial pressure in ISS crewmembers. Researchers believe that the measurement of visual, vascular and central nervous system changes over the course of this experiment and during the subsequent post-flight recovery will assist in the development of countermeasures, clinical monitoring strategies, and clinical practice guidelines. Kelly completed his FD150 Sprint ultrasound.  He activated the Ultrasound machine and donned the calf and thigh reference guides.  He then performed thigh and calf scans with guidance from the Sprint ground team.  Ultrasound scans are used to evaluate spaceflight-induced changes in the muscle volume. The Sprint investigation evaluates the use of high intensity, low volume exercise training to minimize loss of muscle, bone, and cardiovascular function in ISS crewmembers during long-duration missions. Upon completion of this study, investigators expect to provide an integrated resistance and aerobic exercise training protocol capable of maintaining muscle, bone and cardiovascular health while reducing total exercise time over the course of a long-duration space flight. This will provide valuable information in support of investigator’s long term goal of protecting human fitness for longer space exploration missions. Kelly and Kornienko performed their Reaction Self-Tests today.  This week-long session is in advance of the sleep shift required for the 42 Soyuz relocation tonight.  Reaction Self-Test aids crewmembers to objectively identify when their performance capability is degraded by various fatigue-related conditions that can occur as a result of ISS operations and time in space (e.g., acute and chronic sleep restriction, slam shifts, extravehicular activity (EVA), and residual sedation from sleep medications). Kelly and Kornienko are performing a week of sleep logging.  The Sleep ISS-12 experiment monitors ambient light exposure and crew member activity, and collects subjective evaluations of sleep and alertness, to examine the effects of space flight and ambient light exposure on sleep during a year-long mission on the International Space Station (ISS).   NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor (MGM): Lindgren stowed the MGM deployed in the Node 1 on NanoRacks Platform 2 to recharge the battery and transfer data.  The Multi-Gas Monitor is the first laser sensor to continuously measure four gases that are key for crewmembers’ health aboard the ISS. The multiple low-power, tunable lasers train an infrared laser beam on a cabin air sample, and sensors are tuned to specific wavelengths of light to detect oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and humidity. The instrument fits in a device the size of a shoebox and detects the presence of gases in less than one second.   HTV Cargo Transfer Status:  Kelly, Lindgren and Yui completed 5.5 hours of HTV-5 Cargo transfer operations today.  A total of 32 hours remain to complete HTV-5 cargo operations   Today’s Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Biochemical Urinalysis Self-exam for response time. Response time test (morning) Weekly Crew/GOGU Conference R/G 9716 PRT   – laptop closeout ops Return of acoustic dosimeters to stowage location WHC   –  servicing Return of URISYS hardware to stowage location USND2   –  hardware activation OTKLIK. Hardware monitoring  /  Radiogram  9734 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) – hardware prep SPRINT   –  hardware install and set-up FROST   –  cold pack install IMS Tag-up   (S-band) Soyuz 716 up and down cargo prep / Radiograms 9646nu, 9711 CARDIOVECTOR. Experiment ops. Radiogram 9737 WHC   –  servicing OCT Vision Test (Subject) Optical coherence tomography (OCT) – eye scan (assist) MRM1 air vent screen cleaning (Group B). Cleaning behind Panels 405,  406 Radiogram  8393 MOTOCARD. Experiment ops. Radiogram 9735 Comm test and session from Soyuz 716 via Russian ground sites(VHF2) Optical coherence tomography (OCT) – eye scan (assist) OCT Vision Test (Subject) Soyuz 716 up and down cargo prep / Radiograms 9646nu, 9711 Replacement of Dust Filter СКПФ1, СКПФ2, MRM1 Gas-Liquid Heat Exchanger Cleaning Optical coherence tomography (OCT) – hardware stow USND2   –  hardware power-down HTV cargo transfer ops Е-К tank R&R and hose in [АСУ] (Е-К No. 1409127 (00065906R) Soyuz 716 Kentavr g-suit sizing JRNL   –  log entry HTV cargo transfer ops NANO   –  hardware stow HTV   –  transfer tag-up GLACIER5   –  old pack swap-out HAM session from Columbus Portable breathing apparatus (PBA) and portable fire extinguisher  (PFE) inspection Self-exam for response time. Response time test (evening) Eye fundoscopy – hardware setup Fundoscope   –  vision test Eye fundoscopy – hardware stow   Completed Task List Items None   Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. SPRINT Ultrasound support HMS OCT/Fundoscope support OPALS antenna configuration   Three-Day Look Ahead: Friday, 08/28: 42S relocation from MRM2 Zenith to SM Aft Saturday, 08/29: Crew off duty Sunday, 08/30: Crew off duty   QUICK ISS Status – Environmental Control Group:                               Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [СКВ] 1 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV1”) Off [СКВ] 2 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV2”) On Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Standby Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Shutdown Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Operate Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Standby Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Standby Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Off Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 […]

August 28, 2015 at 12:27AM
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2015年8月27日 星期四

The Large Cloud of Magellan


The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily visible to southern hemisphere skygazers are known as the Clouds of Magellan, now understood to be satellite galaxies of our much larger, spiral Milky Way galaxy. About 160,000 light-years distant in the constellation Dorado, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is seen here in a remarkably deep, colorful, image. Spanning about 15,000 light-years or so, it is the most massive of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies and is the home of the closest supernova in modern times, SN 1987A. The prominent patch below center is 30 Doradus, also known as the magnificent Tarantula Nebula, is a giant star-forming region about 1,000 light-years across. via NASA http://ift.tt/1KP4xcI

Future Version of Neil Tyson Promotes "The Martian"

@NeilTyson did a @MartianMovie mockumentary. That must mean he won't dump on the movie right? http://ift.tt/1Em4tEm NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) August 28, 2015 We Get It Neil Tyson: You Hated "Gravity" (Update), earlier post...

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NASA Concludes Series of Engine Tests for Next-Gen Rocket

NASA has completed the first developmental test series on the RS-25 engines that will power the agency’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on missions deeper into space than ever before.

August 27, 2015
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Dropping Orion in the Desert: NASA Completes Key Parachute Test

NASA’s Orion spacecraft completed a key parachute test Aug. 26 at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona.

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Astronaut Kjell Lindgren Corrals the Supply of Fresh Fruit


NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren corrals the supply of fresh fruit that arrived on the Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5.) via NASA http://ift.tt/1hI2yjP

Bubbly Hurricane

I used to play a lot with soap bubbles. Long after I grew up, I mean.

Scientifically, they’re very interesting; they explore such topics as thin film surfaces, optical interference, least-area surfaces, shape packing, and all kinds of chemistry.

Also, they’re pretty and silly and fun.

But one thing that never occurred to me in all that time is that soap bubbles make a pretty good stand-in for hurricanes. It might surprise you that such a delicate and fragile structure might analogize one of the most powerful and destructive events on the Earth’s surface, but sometimes in science scale isn’t a problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s small or big, the interacting forces are what matter.

My friend Dianna, aka Physics Girl, explains in this great video:

Dianna’s a great science communicator; she has a knack for making complex issues simple, but not too simple. You should check out her other videos, especially this one on mirrors flipping right and left (… or do they?), and this one on vortices in swimming pools.

Bubbles are a lot of fun, and the science they show us is astonishing and beautiful. Especially, in my not-so-unbiased opinion, when they’re on the ten trillion kilometer or so scale.

As an aside, congratulations to Dianna for now being a part of the PBS Digital Studios family! They’re partners with Hank and John Green in producing Crash Course Astronomy, so I’m a big fan of them. 



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ISS Daily Summary Report – 08/26/15

Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: Lindgren and Yui initiated their Flight Day 30 (FD30) Ocular Health performing vision tests, tonometry, blood pressure measurements, and answering a vision questionnaire.  The Ocular Health protocol calls for a systematic gathering of physiological data to characterize the risk of microgravity-induced visual impairment/intracranial pressure in ISS crewmembers. Researchers believe that the measurement of visual, vascular and central nervous system changes over the course of this experiment and during the subsequent post-flight recovery will assist in the development of countermeasures, clinical monitoring strategies, and clinical practice guidelines. Kelly participated in Interactions-2 which is a Russian experiment in which both 1-Year mission crewmembers are participating.  The goal of the investigation is to study the patterns of intra- and inter-group (interaction with Mission Control Center (MCC)) dynamics during the long-term spaceflight of an international crew. Kelly and Kornienko performed their morning Reaction Self-Test and will perform another session prior to sleep.  This week-long session is in advance of the sleep shift required for the 42 Soyuz relocation later this week.  Reaction Self-Test aids crewmembers to objectively identify when their performance capability is degraded by various fatigue-related conditions that can occur as a result of ISS operations and time in space (e.g., acute and chronic sleep restriction, slam shifts, extravehicular activity (EVA), and residual sedation from sleep medications). Kelly and Kornienko are performing a week of sleep logging.  The Sleep ISS-12 experiment monitors ambient light exposure and crew member activity and collects subjective evaluations of sleep and alertness to examine the effects of space flight and ambient light exposure on sleep during a year-long mission on the ISS.   Plant Rotation: Yui removed samples from the Cell Biology Experiment Facility (CBEF) following the completion of the Plant Rotation Run 4 session.  He took photos of the Plant Rotation Chamber and downlinked for ground evaluation.  Many species of climbing plants grow upward in a spiraling shape, a process known as circumnutation. Plant organs, such as stems, leaves, and roots also grow in a spiraling, helical shape. This spiraling process can take many forms, including very tight loops and broad curves. The Plant Rotation experiment verifies the hypothesis that this type of plant growth requires gravity.   Circadian Rhythms: Lindgren concluded his 36-hour Circadian Rhythms measurement, doffing the Thermolab sensors and instrumentation belt and answering a short questionnaire about caffeine intake.  Circadian Rhythms investigates the role of synchronized circadian rhythms, or the “biological clock,” and how it changes during long-duration spaceflight. Researchers hypothesize that a non-24-hour cycle of light and dark affects crewmembers’ circadian clocks. The investigation also addresses the effects of reduced physical activity, microgravity and an artificially controlled environment. Changes in body composition and body temperature, which also occur in microgravity, can affect crewmembers’ circadian rhythms as well. Understanding how these phenomena affect the biological clock will improve performance and health of future crewmembers.   Mycological Evaluation of Crew Exposure to ISS Ambient Air (MYCO): Upon wakeup, Kelly performed the MYCO sampling, collecting nasal cavity, pharynx, saliva and skin samples. MYCO evaluates the risk of inhaling microorganisms and their adhesion to the skin to determine which fungi act as allergens on the ISS.  Analysis focuses on microflora, particularly fungi sampled from subjects, which may cause opportunistic infections and allergies if their immunity is compromised on the ISS.   Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Overnight Robotics Ground Controllers maneuvered the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) to position Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) Arm 2 to open H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) Exposed Facility Unit 1 (HEFU1) and HEFU2 on the HTV5 External Platform (EP).  During the first attempt to grasp the HEFU1 Micro-Square Fixture (MSF), Orbit Replaceable Unit (ORU) Tool Changeout Mechanism 2 (OTCM2) hung up on the MSF. Robotics Ground Controllers were able to free OTCM2 and back SPDM Arm 2 away.  The next attempt to grasp the HEFU1 was successful and HEFU1 was opened.  OTCM2 then released the HEFU1 MF and the SSRMS and the SDPM were maneuvered to a park position.  HEFU2 will be opened on August 29 as part of the Superconducting sub-Millimeter-wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) transfer operations.   42S Relocation From Mini Research Module (MRM)2 Zenith to Service Module (SM) Aft Preparation: Earlier today the 42S Thruster Test was successfully completed.  Kelly completed Systems Operations Data File (SODF) deploy to replace emergency books and cue cards. He stowed discarded books and cards for return on a future SpaceX flight. The 42S crew performed On-Board Training (OBT) to prepare for 42S redock.   HTV5 Cargo Transfer Status:  Lindgren and Yui completed 4 hours of HTV-5 Cargo transfer operations today.  A total of 36 hours remain to complete HTV-5 cargo operations.   Today’s Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. IMMUNO. Saliva Sample (Session 1). / r/g 9727 Self-Reaction Test. Reaction Time Test (morning) IMMUNO. First stress test, questionnaire data entry. / r/g 9727 Closing USOS Window Shutters MYCO – Morning Sample Collection IMMUNO. Blood Sample (finger) / r/g 9727 IMMUNO. Blood Sample Ops. / r/g 9727 MYCO – Sample MELFI Insertion IMMUNO. Equipment Stow / r/g 9727 Acoustic Dosimeter Setup for FE-2, FE-6 COSMOCARD. Closeout Ops / r/g 9713 ISS Crew / SSIPC FD Conference HMS Visual Testing Activity Photography and Downlink of DC1 shell surface behind panels 201 and 202 via OCA / r/g 9729 Vision Questionnaire Soyuz 716 АСУ Activation (MRM2) / Ascent and Descent HMS Visual Testing Activity Soyuz 716 MCS (СУД) Test Before Relocation r/g 9720 ECLSS Recycle Tank Remove and Replace UDOD. Experiment Ops. / r/g 9721 Vision Questionnaire Ocular Health (OH) Blood Pressure Operations Ocular Health (OH) – Tonometry Test Setup Ocular Health (OH) Blood Pressure Operations Hardware prepack for return and disposal via ТК 716 / r/g 9646, 9711 Ocular Health (OH) – Tonometry Test (Operator) Ocular Health (OH) – Tonometry Test Ocular Health (OH) – Tonometry Test (Operator) Ocular Health (OH) – Tonometry Test Ocular Health (OH) – Stow Tonometry Hardware IPAD Unpack CRHYT – Hardware Removal HTV Transfers Ops Preventive maintenance of MRM2 АСП-О Hatch […]

August 27, 2015 at 12:52AM
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2015年8月26日 星期三

Collinder 399: The Coat Hanger


Is this coat hanger a star cluster or an asterism? This cosmic hang-up has been debated over much of last century, as astronomers wondered whether this binocular-visible object is really a physically associated open cluster or a chance projection. Chance star projections are known as asterisms, an example of which is the popular Big Dipper. Recent precise measurements from different vantage points in the Earth's orbit around the Sun have uncovered discrepant angular shifts indicating that the Coat Hanger is better described as an asterism. Known more formally as Collinder 399, this bright stellar grouping is wider than the full moon and lies in the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula). via NASA http://ift.tt/1EhBBgC

A Novel Way To Track The Space Station

Point the Way to the International Space Station with This DIY Orbit Tracker, Make "Given the International Space Station's host of superlatives (i.e. most expensive man made structure, largest artificial body in Earth's orbit, longest functioning habitable satellite, greatest engineering...

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next International Space Station Crew

The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to launch to the orbital outpost Wednesday, Sept. 2.

August 26, 2015
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NASA Invites Student Teams to Participate in Underwater Research

NASA is offering undergraduate students an opportunity to work in the deep end of spacewalk training through the Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) activity.

August 26, 2015
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Webcomic: Poetry in space

Take a delightful, pixelated journey with French artist Boulet as he explains his love for the "infinite void" of the "mathematical skies."

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NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon?

Seas around the world have risen an average of nearly 3 inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation, according to the latest satellite measurements from NASA and its partners. An intensive research effort now underway, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several fee

August 26, 2015
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More New Horizons Nomenclature Food Fights

Pluto, we have a problem: Some geographical names may not fly on official maps, GeekWire "Some of the best-known names on Pluto ranging from the Sputnik plains to the Hillary and Norgay mountains and the dark Cthulhu Regio may never...

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OK, How'd That Mountain Get There?

Ceres is the largest asteroid in the solar system*. The Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting it since early this year, and a few months ago it spotted something really weird: a 6-kilometer tall mountain just sitting all by its lonesome on the surface.

Since that time Dawn has lowered itself closer to the surface of Ceres, where it can take higher-resolution images. A new photo of the mountain has only made things weirder:

What the heck is going on with this rock?

The mountain, still unnamed, is just so odd. It sits on what looks like a relatively flat area (though saturated with craters, like the rest of Ceres). It almost looks more like a mesa, with a relatively flat top.

Note the flanks. In this image, the Sun is shining from the right (I flipped it from the original for ease of viewing in a browser), so the right side of the mountain is bright, and the left in shadow — but it turns out that difference in shading is real; one side really is brighter than the other. That’s more obvious in this animated tour of the mountain that uses shading in different images to generate topographical relief:

Note the bright streaks running down the sides. We know Ceres has a lot of water ice in it, but I can’t convince myself that’s what we’re seeing here. The sides of the mountain get a lot of sunlight, and even though Ceres orbits out past Mars, it gets warm enough on its surface that direct sunlight should make the ice sublimate (turn into a gas).

The base of the mountain is pretty sharply defined all the way around. It even looks like there’s a small bit of material piled up around the base on the side facing the crater; you can see slightly brighter arcs here and there. That’s probably mass wasting, material that has slid down the sides. However, there’s not very much of it!

I’m not saying this mountain is a mesa, but suppose for a moment there might be similar processes at work here. Mesas are shaped the way they are due to erosion. What could erode something on Ceres? If the bright stuff really were ice, then you'd expect the material to slump and fall down the sides as the ice sublimates, piling up at the base. We do see some of that, but not nearly enough (see below for more about slumping). That's one reason why I'm skeptical the bright stuff is ice. The resemblance to a mesa is probably just coincidence. 

Dawn was about 1500 km above Ceres when it took that shot on Aug. 19. In a couple of months it will begin to lower itself to a height of only 375 km! It'll reach that orbit in December (ion engines are efficient but very low thrust, so it takes a while to change orbits). The resolution will increase by a factor of 4, and features just 150 meters or so across will be visible. Hopefully that will help resolve (literally) some of the mysteries of this bizarre feature. It’ll be interesting to get a better view of the terrain around the mountain, including that soft trough snaking up and slightly around the mountain. Coincidence? Or are they related?

And because why not, here’s another spectacular photo from Dawn:

Yegads. The big crater at the bottom is called Gaue, and is about 84 km across. Like lots of other craters on Ceres, the rim slopes look steep due to material sloughing off; you can see it piled up all along the inside rim on the crater floor. To my untrained eye, I see a lot of material around it that looks like it might be part of the ejecta apron, material blown out of the crater when it formed. There’s a subtle change in texture near the top left of the image, where I’m speculating the ejecta blanket ended.

Lots of big craters have central peaks, where material rebounds upward after the impact. But the center of this crater is sunken! That may be due to lots of softer material underneath (ice?).

I’ll remind everyone that I’m not a planetary scientist, and while I’m fascinated by geology I’m hardly an expert. But these images are new, and even the Dawn scientists have only just received them. I’ll be very interested to hear their own conclusions.

These images are fantastic, and I can’t wait for December. As amazing as the current data are, those will be even better.

* Some people call it a dwarf planet. I don’t. I got a note from a scientist on the Dawn team who told me they prefer the term “protoplanet”; Ceres and Vesta were both well on their way to becoming full planets before they stopped growing, whereas asteroids tend to be debris, or smaller objects that are fodder for the growth of protoplanets. I rather like that term, and I may have to write up more about it in the future. 



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Stark Beauty of Supersonic Shock Waves


Updating a 150-year-old German photography technique, NASA and the U.S. Air Force released what's called a "schlieren" image of the shock wave from a supersonic aircraft. via NASA http://ift.tt/1fFScyS

ISS Daily Summary Report – 08/25/15

HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 Activities: Following yesterday’s successful capture and berthing, today the crew completed vestibule outfitting, opened the HTV hatch and installed Portable Fire Extinguishers, breathing apparatuses and handrails prior to ingressing the vehicle and completing 3-hours of cargo transfer. Later in the day the crew participated in a post-capture debrief with ground teams.   Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Last night, the Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) and maneuvered the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) to extract the External Platform (EP) from the HTV5 Unpressurized Logistics Carrier (ULC).  The EP was then maneuvered to the handoff position at which point the Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS) Ground Controllers maneuvered the JEMRMS to grapple the EP Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF).  The Robotics Ground Controllers then released the SSRMS from the EP Power and Video Grapple Fixture (PVGF) and maneuvered the SSRMS to a park position.  Early this morning, the JEMRMS Ground Controllers installed the EP on JEM Exposed Facility (JEF) Exposed Facility Unit 10 (EFU10) and then removed the Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) from the EP and installed it on JEF EFU9.  The SSRMS was then walked from the Node 2 Power and Data Grapple Fixture (PDGF) to the Mobile Base System (MBS) PDGF #4.  The SSRMS was then used to pick up the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) from the Lab PDGF.  MSS performance today was nominal.  Later today, the Mobile Transporter (MT) will be moved to Worksite 7 and the SPDM will be used to open HTV Exposed Facility Units (HEFU) 1 and 2. Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: Kornienko began his Flight Day (FD) 150 Fluid Shifts Before, During and After Prolonged Space Flight and Their Association with Intracranial Pressure and Visual Impairment (Fluid Shifts) Dilution Measurements.  Upon wakeup he collected baseline saliva, blood and urine and inserted them into the Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) prior to ingesting a Sodium Bromide (NaBr) tracer.  Throughout the day, he performed more urine, blood, and saliva collections, inserting those samples into MELFI as well.  The Dilution Measurements are the first part in the series of FD150 Fluid Shifts measurements.  The next step in the Fluid Shifts experiment is the Baseline Imaging portion, occurring for both Kornienko and Kelly the week of August 31. The third portion of the Fluid Shifts experiment involves utilization of the Russian Chibis (Lower Body Negative Pressure – LBNP) during ultrasound measurements which will occur during the second week of Increment 45.  Fluid Shifts investigates the causes for severe and lasting physical changes to astronaut’s eyes. Because the headward fluid shift is a hypothesized contributor to these changes, reversing this fluid shift with a lower body negative pressure device is investigated as a possible intervention. Results from this study may help to develop preventative measures against lasting changes in vision and eye damage. Kelly performed his FD150 Cognition. Individualized Real-Time Neurocognitive Assessment Toolkit for Space Flight Fatigue (Cognition) is a battery of tests that measures how spaceflight-related physical changes, such as microgravity and lack of sleep, can affect cognitive performance. Cognition includes ten brief computerized tests that cover a wide range of cognitive functions, and provides immediate feedback on current and past test results. The software allows for real-time measurement of cognitive performance while in space. Kelly and Kornienko performed their morning Reaction Self-Test and another session prior to sleep. This week-long session is in advance of the sleep shift required for the 42 Soyuz relocation later this week. Reaction Self-Test aids crewmembers to objectively identify when their performance capability is degraded by various fatigue-related conditions that can occur as a result of ISS operations and time in space (e.g., acute and chronic sleep restriction, slam shifts, extravehicular activity (EVA), and residual sedation from sleep medications). Kelly and Kornienko are performing a week of sleep logging. The Sleep ISS-12 experiment monitors ambient light exposure and crew member activity, and collects subjective evaluations of sleep and alertness, to examine the effects of space flight and ambient light exposure on sleep during a year-long mission on the International Space Station (ISS).   NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor (MGM): Lindgren deployed the MGM in Node 3 today.  The MGM is the first laser sensor to continuously measure four gases that are key for crewmembers’ health aboard the ISS. The multiple low-power, tunable lasers train an infrared laser beam on a cabin air sample, and sensors tuned to specific wavelengths of light detect oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and humidity. The instrument fits in a device the size of a shoebox and detects the presence of gases in less than one second.   CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) Video Survey: Yui captured video of the installation of CALET as it was moved from the HTV-5 EP to the JEM EFU #9. CALET is an astrophysics mission that searches for signatures of dark matter and provides the highest energy direct measurements of the cosmic ray electron spectrum to observe discrete sources of high energy particle acceleration in our local region of the Galaxy.  CALET addresses many outstanding high-energy astrophysics questions such as the origin of cosmic rays, how cosmic rays accelerate and travel across the galaxy and the existence of dark matter and nearby cosmic-ray sources.   On-Board Training (OBT) Emergency Review: All 6 crew members participated in this OBT to review emergency response during the upcoming direct handover timeframe. They specifically covered 6 crew with a Soyuz on SM Aft and MRM1; 9 crew timeframe; and 6 crew with a Soyuz on MRM1 and MRM2.   Today’s Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Self-Reaction Test. Reaction Time Test SLEEP Questionnaire FLUID SHIFTS – Saliva Test FLUID SHIFTS – Urine Sample Collection FLUID SHIFTS – Urine Sample MELFI Insertion FLUID SHIFTS – Blood Sampling FLUID SHIFTS – Galley Water Collection and Tracer Ingestion Ops FLUID SHIFTS – Centrifuge Setup JEMRMS – RLT2 Activation GoPro HERO3 Video camera Setup and Adjustment for Operation during ТК 716 Descent […]

August 26, 2015 at 12:48AM
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2015年8月25日 星期二

Meteors and Milky Way over Mount Ranier


Despite appearances, the sky is not falling. Two weeks ago, however, tiny bits of comet dust were. Featured here is the Perseids meteor shower as captured over Mt. Rainier, Washington, USA. The image was created from a two-hour time lapse video, snaring over 20 meteors, including one that brightened dramatically on the image left. Although each meteor train typically lasts less than a second, the camera was able to capture their color progressions as they disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere. Here an initial green tint may be indicative of small amounts of glowing magnesium atoms that were knocked off the meteor by atoms in the Earth's atmosphere. To cap things off, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy was simultaneously photographed rising straight up behind the snow-covered peak of Mt. Rainier. Another good meteor shower is expected in mid-November when debris from a different comet intersects Earth as the Leonids. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Efg08x

Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome Has Big Problems

Blow for new cosmodrome as officials say first manned launch is still a decade away, Siberian Times "A 2007 presidential decree had set 2018 as this target date for manned launched and it was echoed in repeated statements from officials...

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NASA Responds to Congressional Inquiry on Cargo Losses

Letter From NASA to Congress Regarding SpaceX and Orbital ATK Launch Failure Reviews "Dear Chairman Smith: Thank you very much for your letter of August 4, 2015 regarding the recent space launch failures of June 28,2015 and October 28, 2014....

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Soyuz Move Sets Stage for Arrival of New Space Station Crew

Half of the residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Friday, Aug. 28. NASA Television coverage will begin at 2:45 a.m. EDT.

August 25, 2015
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Three space fan visualizations of New Horizons' Pluto-Charon flyby

It has been a difficult wait for new New Horizons images, but the wait is almost over; Alan Stern announced at today's Outer Planets Advisory Group meeting that image downlink will resume September 5. In the meantime, a few space fans are making the most of the small amount of data that has been returned to date.

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Understanding The Value of Dissimilar Redundancy

U.S. and Russia Can't Even Agree on How to Handle Astronaut Pee, Bloomberg Keith's note: Too bad this reporter (or his editor) did not really understand what NASA was telling him. This article title is simply wrong. This has nothing...

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A Sun-Diving Neighbor

I suspect that when most people think about asteroids approaching Earth, they picture them coming from deep space, out past Mars and Jupiter.

But there’s a substantial population of asteroids where the rocks spend most of their time inside Earth’s orbit, closer to the Sun. These little beasties are hard to find because they tend not to stray too far from the Sun in the sky, so they’re up mostly during the day or twilight hours.

For my biweekly column at Sen.com, I wrote about a newly discovered asteroid called 2015 QM3 that is on such an orbit, swinging it past not just Earth, but also Venus and Mercury! It’s a curious object, getting close enough to all three planets that over millions of years its orbit is certainly unstable. Not many such asteroids are known (just 17!) so any time we find a new one it helps us understand the complicated dynamics of near-Earth objects.

My articles for Sen.com are subscription only, but for $5 a month you get access to a lot of pretty cool astronomical info. I check it for news and interesting photos every day. You should too.

My thanks to my friend and esteemed astronomical colleague Amy Mainzer for her help with some info about QM3 … and also for announcing the asteroid in the first place



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Outer Planet News

NASA's Outer Planet Analysis Group is currently meeting to hear the agency's current plans and to provide the feedback of the scientific community on those plans.

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The Lonely Mountain


NASA's Dawn spacecraft spotted this tall, conical mountain on Ceres from a distance of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers). via NASA http://ift.tt/1IcpgoZ

ISS Daily Summary Report – 08/24/15

HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 Capture/Berthing: Yui and Lindgren captured HTV5 using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) at 5:29 am CDT this morning.  Next the Robotics Ground Controllers used the SSRMS to maneuver the HTV5 into position to support the inspection of the HTV5 Passive Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) and then maneuvered the HTV5 to and install it on the Node-2 Nadir Active CBM at approximately 8:44 am CST. Kelly and Lindgren then performed the CBM capture/Abolt, vestibule pressurization and outfitting parts 1 and 2. The Robotic Ground Controllers have ungrappled the HTV5 and maneuvered the SSRMS to grapple the HTV5 External Platform (EP).  Robotic Ground Controllers have reconfigured the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) from the Hot Backup Configuration to a nominal operations configuration and powered down the MSS.  Overnight Robotics Ground Controllers will extract the EP from the HTV and handoff to the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Remote Manipulator System (RMS).  Tomorrow morning the crew will perform Vestibule Outfitting part 3, CPA removal and ingress.   Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: Kelly and Kornienko performed their morning and pre-sleep Reaction Self Tests.  This week-long session is in advance of the sleep shift required for the 42 Soyuz relocation later this week.  Reaction Self-Test helps crewmembers objectively identify when their performance capability is degraded by various fatigue-related conditions that can occur as a result of ISS operations and time in space (e.g., acute and chronic sleep restriction, slam shifts, extravehicular activity, and residual sedation from sleep medications). Kelly and Kornienko are performing a week of sleep logging.  The Sleep ISS-12 experiment monitors ambient light exposure and crew member activity and collects subjective evaluations of sleep and alertness. It examines the effects of space flight and ambient light exposure on sleep during a year-long mission on the ISS.   Remote Power Controller Module (RPCM) LAD62B-A RPC 12 (Lab CDRA ASV) Trip: Over the weekend the RPCM LAD62B-A that provides power to the Lab Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Air Selector Valves (ASV) tripped multiple times. This RPCM was replaced on 24-July-2015. This is the first time the RPC 12 has tripped since the RPCM was replaced. RPC 12 has been tripping intermittently since April 1, 2014 while the Lab CDRA is ‘On’ or in ‘Standby’. The replacement of the RPCM was to remove a leg of the fault tree. RPC 12 has been closed and Lab CDRA is currently in standby. It is available for use as needed.   Today’s Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Self-Reaction Test. Historical Documentation Photos Self-Reaction Test. Reaction Time Test (morning) Self-Reaction Test. Photo Documentation МО-8. Configuration Setup Body Mass Measurement RWS Configuration Setup МО-8. Closeout Ops PCS Verification Closing USOS Window Shutters Acoustic Dosimeter Setup HD Camcorder Set-up Robotic Workstation (RWS) Cupola Crew Restraint (CCR) Installation HTV Approach Monitoring Conference with Search and Rescue Team (ГПСК) Regeneration of БМП Ф1 Micropurification Cartridge (start) Collecting condensate water samples from СРВ-К2М before Gas-Liquid Mixture Filter (ФГС) into Russian Samplers – start r/g 9695 Photography in MRM1 for КЛ-108/109Ц digital unit installation feasibility assessment / r/g 9694 UDOD. Experiment Ops. / r/g 9688 HTV Approach Monitoring Hardware prepack for return and disposal on ТК 716 / r/g 9646 Surface samples from SM equipment and structures / r/g 9686 SSRMS HTV Grapple Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS) Power up Node 2 – Port CBM Pre-mate Status Verification Soyuz 716 Sokol Suit Leak Check HAM radio session from Columbus Video downlink from LAB (end) CALET H/W setup for video acquisition Sokol Suit Drying – Set up Suits 1 and 2 for Drying [Aborted] HTV – Hardware Command Panel (HCP) Inhibit and Stow Node 2 CBM – Capture and Acquire Bolts WRS – Recycle Tank Fill Video of greetings r/g 9696 Removal of Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS) WRS – Recycle Tank Fill Relocate cargo items from unauthorized RS stowage locations  r/g 9687 Connecting TV Camera КЛ-153М to MRM1 TVS / r/g 9693 Condensate tank dump  to CWC (end) Testing MPEG-2 TV Transmission via Ku-band HTV/N2 –  Vestibule Pressurization and Leak Check Terminate Drying Suits 1, 2 [Aborted] Start Drying the 3rd Space suit and Set Up the 1st t Pair of Gloves for Drying [Aborted] FS – Urine Collection Hardware Setup ARED – Cylinder Flywheel Evacuation CALCIUM. Experiment Session 11. / r/g 9685 Finish drying the first pair of gloves and start drying the second pair [Aborted] Node 2 Nadir/HTV Vestibule Outfitting, Part 1 Exercise Data Downlink / r/g 6797 Terminate drying the second pair of gloves [Aborted] SOZh maintenance RWS Cupola Crew Restraint (CCR) Removal WRM – Water Consumption Balance, place holder Photo of SM window 2 exterior after EVA-41 cleaning / r/g 9703 Finish drying the 3rd suit, start drying the 3rd pair of gloves [Aborted] Thermolab – Instrumentation Ops for Circadian Rhythms Terminate drying the 3rd pair of gloves [Aborted] Stow suits and gloves after drying [Aborted] БМП Ф1 Absorption Cartridge Regeneration (end) Self-Reaction Test. Reaction Time Test (evening)   Completed Task List Items Air quality survey COL ziplock stow P/TV external inspection from JEM Short Duran Mission prep: generic gather, MOBIPV gather, P/TV gather, video gather   Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. HTV5 capture/berthing   Three-Day Look Ahead: Tuesday, 08/25: HTV5 ingress, HTV5 cargo transfer, OBT emergency delta review, NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor Deploy 1 Wednesday, 08/26: Ocular Health, Capillary Beverage, 42S redocking training Thursday, 08/27: Ocular Health, HTV cargo transfer, PEPS Inspect   QUICK ISS Status – Environmental Control Group:                               Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [СКВ] 1 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV1”) On [СКВ] 2 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV2”) Off Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Standby Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Shutdown Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Operate Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Process Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Process Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Off Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Full Up  

August 25, 2015 at 12:50AM
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No, There Won’t Be a Giant Asteroid Impact in September 2015

The latest from the Here-We-Go-Again-Department: An Internet rumor has gone viral that NASA is covering up information about a giant asteroid or comet that’s going to hit the Earth in September, sometime between Sept. 15 - 28.

Let me be clear: No.

Let me be less clear but more snarky: Go look at a bull facing north. Now walk around to the south side. See what comes out? Yeah, this asteroid impact rumor.

There are a lot of reasons this story is nonsense.

  • It was on Before It’s News, a crackpot website that is to accuracy what Donald Trump is to humility. I also try to avoid getting my news from sites that leave vowels out of their name.
  • The claim that a comet over two miles wide will hit the Earth in a month or two is ridiculous right away: It would be one of the brightest objects in the sky. I think someone might have noticed.
  • NASA couldn’t cover something like this up. First of all, they’re not the world’s only space agency. Second, NASA doesn’t control all the telescopes in the world. Or even really any. There are tens of thousands of astronomers all over the planet who would have seen and been talking about an object that big headed our way.
  • As Ron Baalke pointed out, NASA announced two asteroid impacts, one in 2014 and the other in 2008 — both were small rocks that burned up in our atmosphere, but it shows that NASA has not covered such things up in the past.
  • Also, how many times have we heard this kind of crap from breathless pseudoscience sites? Many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
  • And how many times have they been right? Oh yeah: none. None more times.

This latest in the long-running series of hoax impact claims got spread around so much that the folks at NASA felt they had to issue a debunking of their own:

"There is no scientific basis -- not one shred of evidence -- that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
In fact, NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program says there have been no asteroids or comets observed that would impact Earth anytime in the foreseeable future.  All known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids have less than a 0.01% chance of impacting Earth in the next 100 years.

I’m glad NASA went to the trouble to write and release that, but it ticks me off. People at NASA have better things to do than squelch silly Internet nonsense. That's your tax dollars at work, folks.

But a bigger reason I get angry about stuff like this is that it scares people. It really does; whenever these rumors go around I get plenty of anxious emails and tweets asking me if it’s true. I don’t know why sites like Before It’s News and the others post fertilizer like that story — maybe it’s just for clicks, or for attention, or because they get their jollies by scaring people for no reason whatsoever.

But every time they do they are frightening people, they are wasting time, and they’re also contributing to the overall erosion of public trust in science.

And that is something we really, really don’t need.

Tip o’ the Whipple shield to Fark and @AbsolutSpaceGrl.



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2015年8月24日 星期一

Smoke and Mirrors and New Horizons 2

Second Horizon, Space Review "The New Horizons 2 proposal was an effort to gain approval for a mission that was not recommended by the planetary science decadal survey or any other independent group. But the NASA review panel recommended that...

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Dione, Rings, Shadows, Saturn


What's happening in this strange juxtaposition of moon and planet? First and foremost, Saturn's moon Dione was captured here in a dramatic panorama by the robotic Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting the giant planet. The bright and cratered moon itself spans about 1100-km, with the large multi-ringed crater Evander visible on the lower right. Since the rings of Saturn are seen here nearly edge-on, they are directly visible only as a thin horizontal line that passes behind Dione. Arcing across the bottom of the image, however, are shadows of Saturn's rings, showing some of the rich texture that could not be seen directly. In the background, few cloud features are visible on Saturn. The featured image was taken during the last planned flyby of Dione by Cassini, as the spacecraft is scheduled to dive into Saturn's atmosphere during 2017. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Jf3ODS

Galileo's best pictures of Jupiter's ringmoons

People often ask me to produce one of my scale-comparison montages featuring the small moons of the outer solar system. I'd love to do that, but Galileo's best images of Jupiter's ringmoons lack detail compared to Cassini's images from Saturn.

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NASA Extends Contract for Training Facility Support at Johnson Space Center

NASA has signed an extension of its contract with Raytheon Company in Houston to provide support for training facilities at the agency’s Johnson Space Center, also in Houston.

August 24, 2015
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Sea Ice in the Greenland Sea


As the northern hemisphere experiences the heat of summer, ice moves and melts in the Arctic waters and the far northern lands surrounding it. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of sea ice off Greenland on July 16, 2015. via NASA http://ift.tt/1PuQrkn

Why NASA Still Can't Put Humans in Space: Congress Is Starving Them of Needed Funds.

On Aug. 29, 2015, a few days from now, it will have been 1500 days that NASA has been relying on Russia to hitch a ride to the International Space Station.

It was that long ago when the Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center — the last Shuttle flight to the ISS, and in fact the last Shuttle flight of them all. That was the last time an American rocket carried humans into space.

As I have made clear many times, I do not begrudge President Bush for canceling the Shuttle program, nor President Obama for canceling its replacement, the Constellation program, which was running severely over budget and behind schedule.

What I do begrudge is a Congress that has made this situation far worse by underfunding the Commercial Crew Development program, which was specifically designed to allow commercial companies to pick up the slack and get Americans back into space on board American crewed vehicles.

Every year, NASA works with the White House to create a budget. The amount the President has asked to fund Commercial Crew over time would have been enough to begin the first launches this year, 2015.

But over the past five years, Congress has consistently underfunded Commercial Crew, usually by several hundred million dollars every year, as much as 25 percent of the requested funds. The total amount that’s been shorted is about a billion dollars.

Yes, a billion.

It’s gotten so bad that NASA’s Chief Administrator, Charles Bolden, sent a letter to the Congressional committees that oversee NASA’s budget. You should read it; it’s not long. Here’s a choice quotation:

In 2010, I presented to Congress a plan to partner with American industry to return launches to the United States by 2015 if provided the requested level of funding. Unfortunately, for five years now, the Congress, while incrementally increasing annual funding, has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned. This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and international partner crews to the ISS.

That last sentence is critically important. Every launch we miss because Congress has underfunded Commercial Crew is a launch we have to pay Russia for — and Putin’s government has been consistently jacking up the price for years.

My friend Mika McKinnon cranked the numbers, and found that it will cost upwards of a half billion dollars to put six astronauts on the space station in 2017 (Bolden’s number is in that same ballpark), but it would cost 75 percent of that to launch them on American vehicles — and that money would be staying here in the US, not being sent to Russia.

Why are we investing in Russia, and not ourselves?

Perhaps because many of the Congresspeople who are in charge of NASA’s budget right now are more invested in building the Space Launch System, the NASA rocket system designed to replace the Shuttle.

My opinion on SLS and the Orion capsule are a matter of record: I think, given the cost, that money would be far, far better spent on commercial rockets. SLS is so expensive that I worry there won’t be money left in the budget to do anything with it. I’m not the only one who thinks that either. Nor am I the only person who has been outspoken against SLS. Lori Garver thinks it’s a waste of money, too, and she is former Deputy Administrator of NASA!

So why is Congress so gung ho for SLS? Maybe because so many Congresspeople have people building SLS in their states and districts.

For one very critical example, space journalist Eric Berger points out that Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) is the chairman of the Senate’s committee that funds NASA, and he has Marshall Space Flight Center in this district. Marshall is where SLS is being designed and built. Shelby also has a history of throwing roadblocks in the way of funding Commercial Crew and SpaceX.

Berger also points out that Congress has made it clear that other government funded agencies, like the Department of Defense, are not allowed to buy hardware from Russia. Yet here we are, with that same Congress forcing NASA to pay Russia to the tune of nearly 500 million bucks for one year.

For their part, Congress has asked the President why he is underfunding SLS. That’s pretty audacious, given these facts (and given that Congress actually funded SLS at levels higher than what NASA requested). Coincidentally, the amount of money cut from Commercial Crew is about the same as what we’ve been sending to Russia for seats on their Soyuz. I'll also note that at the very best, SLS won't be ready to put humans in space for four years after a commercial vehicle could. How many billions of dollars would that mean giving to Russia to cover that gap if Commerical Crew is still underfunded?

Let me be clear: I love NASA. I think they represent the best of what we humans can do. I also know they are tied in knots trying to appease the whims of Congress and the White House, two winds that blow in vastly different directions. I have taken the President to task before for mysteriously and bafflingly underfunding planetary exploration, but in this case the White House has it right.

I know that SLS and Orion are too big and moving forward too much to cancel now. That’s a political reality, and while I can’t make my peace with it, I can understand its truth. But this nickel and diming Commercial Crew must stop. Boeing and SpaceX need that money to keep the schedule, and if Congress can’t find it, then we’ll just be sending payload bays full of cash to Russia for many more years to come.

The solution is easy. The amount of money we’re talking about here isn’t much in terms of government spending, and it will save hundreds of millions of dollars per year in the long run, all the while promoting American industry and ingenuity.  

Congress: Increase NASA’s budget by the amount needed. Fund SLS and Orion as you see fit, but don’t do so at the cost — literally — of Commercial Crew Development.



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2015年8月23日 星期日

Giant Cluster Bends Breaks Images


What are those strange blue objects? Many of the brightest blue images are of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster galaxies here typically appear yellow and -- together with the cluster's dark matter -- act as a gravitational lens. A gravitational lens can create several images of background galaxies, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a distant street light. The distinctive shape of this background galaxy -- which is probably just forming -- has allowed astronomers to deduce that it has separate images at 4, 10, 11, and 12 o'clock, from the center of the cluster. A blue smudge near the cluster center is likely another image of the same background galaxy. In all, a recent analysis postulated that at least 33 images of 11 separate background galaxies are discernable. This spectacular photo of galaxy cluster CL0024+1654 from the Hubble Space Telescope was taken in November 2004. via NASA http://ift.tt/1MLh1Z0

Has The Promise of Space Tourism Started to Fade?

Virgin Galactic boldly goes into small satellites, telling future astronauts 'you have to wait', Telegraph "Before the crash in November last year, there were around 750 "future astronauts" signed up to Virgin Galactic's space programme, paying $250,000 (160,000) a pop...

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Crash Course Astronomy: Low Mass Stars and the Fate of the Sun

It’s time to take a step out into the greater Universe in Crash Course Astronomy. Sure, exoplanets and brown dwarfs got us out of the solar system, but when you want to understand what’s going on in the cosmos, you have to look at stars.

We dipped into them in Episode 26, but now it’s time to start poking into their guts in detail. The basic events in any star’s life occur in low mass stars, ones from red dwarfs up to a few times the mass of Sun. Things get different when higher mass stars start to die, so we’ll hit that when we get into that end of the HR diagram (what’s that, you ask? Click the Episode 26 link!).

In Episode 27, “Low Mass Stars”, I talk about their lives and deaths. Mind you, since the Sun is in that range, well, we’ll have to look that eventuality in the face as well. And since the Earth orbits the Sun, you can guess what that means for our fair world.

The good news is that the events that will unfold won’t do so for billions of years. Billions, with a b. We’ve come a long way in the past century or two — heck, we understand stars well enough to make educational videos about them — so who knows where we’ll be in a hundred million centuries.

In my book, Death from the Skies!, I cover all this, including the death of the Sun and likely vaporization of Earth. I also talk about the idea of using the gravitational effects of slinging thousands of big asteroids past the Earth to move its orbit out so that it can maintain a constant temperature while the Sun goes red giant. There’s a great journal paper about this online; if you want details they’re there. It’s what I based that part of the chapter on.

See? There’s hope! And if we’re being honest, my biggest hope is that we won’t need to do this to save the Earth at all. By then, instead, we’ll have spread out into the galaxy, and those beyond. A billion years is a long time.

The Crash Course Astronomy playlist is an index to all the episodes online so far. One-stop shopping, folks.



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2015年8月22日 星期六

Precision Product Placement by NASA With Global Reach

Keith's note: Released 20 Aug 2015. Lots of NASA logos, hardware, facilities seen by 7,756,789 14,488,149 young viewers so far. Priceless....

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Little Planet Curiosity


A curious robot almost completely straddles this rocky little planet. Of course, the planet is really Mars and the robot is the car-sized Curiosity Rover, posing over its recent drilling target in the Marias Pass area of lower Mount Sharp. The 92 images used to assemble the little planet projection, a digitally warped and stitched mosaic covering 360x180 degrees, were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the Curiosity mission sol (martian day) 1065. That corresponds to 2015 August 5, three Earth years since Curiosity landed on the surface of the Red Planet. The composite selfie excludes images that show the rover's robotic arm and mount of the MAHLI camera itself, but their shadow is visible beneath. Check out this spectacular interactive version of Curiosity's sol 1065 panorama. via NASA http://ift.tt/1fxgZFq

Dawn Journal: Mapping Ceres

More than two centuries after its discovery, Ceres is being mapped in great detail by the Dawn spacecraft. Chief Engineer and Mission Director Marc Rayman gives an update on Dawn's progress.

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Straight Outta Physics

Oh, I love a good science pun.

This idea came to me as soon as the “Straight Outta Compton” meme started spreading. I lack actual Photoshop skills though, so I tweeted about it, and Twitter user ClockWorkSimon came to the rescue.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Don’t get it? Well, what’s even better than a science joke? When I get to explain one*!

Scattering is a term we use in physics to describe when two objects collide, interact in some way, then head off in different directions. There are lots of different kinds of scattering, but if you want a super simple example, think of two billiard balls hitting each other and then rebounding.

Sometimes, when two objects scatter off each other, they exchange energy. The object with lower energy steals a bit from the higher energy object. This is generally expressed as velocity, so (for example) a slow moving particle hitting a faster one speeds up, while the faster one slows down. It depends on the particle masses, their velocities, directions, and lots of other stuff.

It happens with particles and light, too. A high-energy photon (a particle of light) can hit an electron. The photon loses energy, while the electron goes careening off at higher speed.

This kind of interaction was first discovered by the physicist Arthur Compton in 1905, and he won the Nobel for it in 1927. In his honor, we call this Compton Scattering.

It turns out the reverse works, too: low energy light can hit a high-velocity electron, steal its energy, and turn into a much higher energy photon, like an X-ray or a gamma ray. Lots of processes in astrophysics create high energy particles; matter swirling around a black hole, particles getting batted around in supernova shockwaves, and more. When these impact light (like starlight), the photons get pumped up to X- and gamma rays, and we can detect these with our orbiting telescopes.

So now does the joke make sense? The image in the background is a map of the sky taken by the Fermi gamma-ray observatory. Some of the gamma rays in that image are from inverse Compton scattering.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, it made me laugh.

Even better? I mentioned to ClockWorkSimon that some of the gamma rays in the map are from inverse Compton scattering, so he inverted the image:

Ha! An even dorkier physics joke.

If you laughed at that picture, then congrats! You’re a physics nerd. Give yourself +π Internet points, and go read the Wikipedia entry on equipartition of energy for fun.

And if you don’t think science can be funny, the evidence is against you. I mean, maybe not in this case, but in general, yeah.

* Because the only thing funnier than a joke is explaining why it’s funny. 



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2015年8月21日 星期五

Sprites from Space


An old Moon and the stars of Orion rose above the eastern horizon on August 10. The Moon's waning crescent was still bright enough to be overexposed in this snapshot taken from another large satellite of planet Earth, the International Space Station. A greenish airglow traces the atmosphere above the limb of the planet's night. Below, city lights and lightning flashes from thunderstorms appear over southern Mexico. The snapshot also captures the startling apparition of a rare form of upper atmospheric lightning, a large red sprite caught above a lightning flash at the far right. While the space station's orbital motion causes the city lights to blur and trail during the exposure, the extremely brief flash of the red sprite is sharp. Now known to be associated with thunderstorms, much remains a mystery about sprites including how they occur, their effect on the atmospheric global electric circuit, and if they are somehow related to other upper atmospheric lightning phenomena such as blue jets or terrestrial gamma flashes. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Kz3Lk4

The United States of Space Advocates

See which states have the highest number of space advocates writing Congress and the White House to support planetary exploration.

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Pretty Pictures of the Cosmos: Long Exposures

Astrophotographer Adam Block brings us images showcasing beauty in details requiring extended exposures to capture.

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NASA Awards Contract for Engineering, Trades Support Services

NASA has selected Aerie Aerospace LLC of Huntsville, Alabama to provide engineering technicians and trades support services at the Marshall Space Flight Center, also in Huntsville, and Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

August 21, 2015
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NASA to Test Emergency Locator Transmitters by Crashing Airplane

Using a Cessna 172 dropped from a height of 100 feet, NASA’s Search and Rescue Mission Office will simulate a severe but survivable plane accident Wednesday, Aug. 26 to test emergency locator transmitters (ELTs). NASA Television will air live coverage of the test, which is scheduled to happen between 1 and 2 p.m. EDT.

August 21, 2015
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A Hubble Cosmic Couple


Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. via NASA http://ift.tt/1U4ogtV

Farewell, Dione

Last week, the nothing-short-of-phenomenal Cassini spacecraft made its last close pass of Saturn’s icy moon Dione.

Yes, last. After more than a decade orbiting Saturn, the Cassini mission’s days are numbered. It will end late in 2017, after deservedly being extended twice (and having toured the Saturnian neighborhood since 2004). So, in many cases over the next few months, when it passes by a moon it will be for the last time.

And so we have a final flyby of Dione. Cassini flew past it at a distance of less than 500 km on Aug. 17, 2015, taking quite a few images, including some with a stunning resolution of just 10 meters per pixel! Though motion blurred bit, that means features as small as a house could be seen. Not bad, from a space probe that’s a billion kilometers from Earth!

Dione is small, about 1120 km across, a third the size of our own Moon. Its density is low, meaning it’s mostly water ice, most likely with a smallish core of rock. In this image, taken when Cassini was still 170,000 km from the moon, gives you a sense of the beating it’s taken over the eons (this is a mosaic of nine separate images, one taken with a lower resolution camera, which is why part of the moon is blurrier). That big multi-ringed impact basin to the lower right is called Evander, and it’s about 350 km across. The hexagonal crater to its upper left is Sabinus; older, higher-resolution images show that the crater rim is slumped in, probably due to the low strength of the icy material. Many of the craters on Dione are low relief for that reason.

Usually, moon pictures like this have a black background, so why doesn’t this one? Because, lying just another 370,000 km past Dione, Saturn is filling the field of view! The black stripes running across the picture, going behind Dione, are Saturn’s rings, seen nearly edge-on here. Saturn is 100 times wider than Dione, to give you a sense of how little of the planet you’re seeing here.

This view, taken from 73,000 km distant, shows a little more context. At the bottom you can see the shadows of Saturn’s rings on the planet’s cloud tops.

From 158,000 km, Sabinus dominates the view of Dione’s surface. Note the central mountain filling most of the crater floor; that’s a common feature in big craters, caused as material rebounds after the impact. Seen against the blackness of space, Saturn’s rings split the background, again nearly edge-on during this encounter.

Up close, the true nature of the surface is more obvious. This shot was taken when Cassini was a mere 750 km above the moon’s surface! It’s an oblique view, showing the moon’s edge, and you can see that the surface is positively saturated with craters down to the smallest scales visible (about 200 meters across). The image looks grainy because it was a short exposure, to prevent too much motion blur as Cassini zipped past.

Taken less than 600 km from the surface, this view shows Dione near the terminator, the shadow line separating day and night. It’s stunning. The features look soft, eroded. This was taken with Cassini’s wide-angle camera; near the middle an inset shows the view from the narrow (higher power) angle camera. At full resolution the narrow-angle image is pretty rough, but shows craters in the Sun’s shadow yet still illuminated softly by the glow of Saturn, which dominates Dione’s sky.

I love this picture, if only because of how much it looks like our own Moon. I can easily imagine looking out the window of the Lunar Module and seeing this terrain approaching. Again, a higher-resolution inset is included, the view from the narrow-angle camera. The full res version is motion blurred, but again shows just how impact-laden this tiny world is.

Near the top is a short, winding canyon, looking very much like a rille — on the Moon, these are caused by lava flows. Is this the same sort of feature, but due to water flowing after an impact?

Farewell, Dione. This magnificent shot, taken after Cassini passed the moon, is a mosaic of several images taken from a distance of about 60,000 – 75,000 km. The vastly different angle between Cassini, the moon, and the Sun puts Dione in a crescent phase as seen from the spacecraft. The low Sun angle accentuates relief on the surface, highlighting craters and some of the cliffs that line the moon. Those cliffs were discovered in Voyager images, but their true nature as icy cliffs not understood until Cassini visited the moon for the first time in 2004.

And that is the end of the show for Dione. But not for Cassini, not yet. It still has over a year of travels left, including visiting tiny moons far from Saturn that have only been seen from great distances. What secrets will they reveal?

And the grandest adventure is yet to come: Over the last few months of the mission, Cassini will fly between Saturn’s rings and the top of its atmosphere, providing what will be incredible views. And then the final step: Cassini will be aimed into Saturn itself, plunging into it, burning up and crushed by the mighty planet’s atmosphere. But as it does it will return a last precious few bytes of data, telling us more about the ringed wonder even as it lives its final moments, a few drops of scientific knowledge more for us a billion kilometers sunward.

We should all do so well in our lives. 



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2015年8月20日 星期四

M27: Not a Comet


While hunting for comets in the skies above 18th century France, astronomer Charles Messier diligently kept a list of the things he encountered that were definitely not comets. This is number 27 on his now famous not-a-comet list. In fact, 21st century astronomers would identify it as a planetary nebula, but it's not a planet either, even though it may appear round and planet-like in a small telescope. Messier 27 (M27) is an excellent example of a gaseous emission nebula created as a sun-like star runs out of nuclear fuel in its core. The nebula forms as the star's outer layers are expelled into space, with a visible glow generated by atoms excited by the dying star's intense but invisible ultraviolet light. Known by the popular name of the Dumbbell Nebula, the beautifully symmetric interstellar gas cloud is over 2.5 light-years across and about 1,200 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula. This impressive color composite highlights details within the well-studied central region and fainter, seldom imaged features in the nebula's outer halo. It incorporates broad and narrowband images recorded using filters sensitive to emission from sulfur, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Mz4ZQS

NASA Holds Media Opportunities to Discuss Rising Sea Levels

In a series of media opportunities Wednesday, Aug. 26 through Friday, Aug. 28, NASA experts will present an up-to-date global outlook on current conditions and future projections of sea level rise.

August 20, 2015
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Curiosity Low-Angle Self-Portrait at 'Buckskin' Drilling Site on Mount Sharp


This low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle above the "Buckskin" rock target, where the mission collected its seventh drilled sample. via NASA http://ift.tt/1NvoIS7

An August Moment to Check in on NASA’s Budget and Future

It’s August. Congress is out of session. Things are quiet. It’s as good a time as any to check in on several issues we’ve been following here at the Society, particularly with NASA’s budget prospects for the year and the future of human spaceflight policy.

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The Southern Owl

Planetary nebulae are among my favorite objects in the sky. These are gaseous shells thrown off by middle-weight stars as they die, ethereally interacting winds that form fantastic and colorful cosmic baubles.

Many are easy to see in small telescopes, so the amateur astronomer in me loves them, and the physics behind them is fascinating, rich, and intricate, inspiring the science-minded astronomer in me (in fact; I wound up studying them for both my Masters and PhD, and went on to analyze even more as a professional with Hubble).

I have seen images of the planetary nebula called ESO 378-1 before, but the European Southern Observatory just released a new, gorgeous, and high-resolution shot of this lovely object:

Very cool. But what are you seeing?

What we have here is a dying star. As a star ages, its core (where the heat is generated) shrinks and heats up. This puffs up the outer layers — when you heat a gas, it expands — and the gas on the surface starts to blow away in a dense, slow wind. Eventually, so much of the outer layers blow off that the hotter lower layers get exposed. The wind blown off gets less dense and much faster, catching up with and slamming into the older, slower wind.

The resulting nebula (gas cloud) is lit by the hot exposed core of the star, and glows. The shape we see depends on what the star was doing when it blew the winds. If it was just sitting there, the winds expand as spheres, and the result looks like a soap bubble.

But with ESO 378-1, the star must have been spinning rapidly. Perhaps, in its twilight years as it expanded, it swallowed up a bunch of its planets, which would have spun it up like whisking scrambled eggs. As it spun, the gas blew off preferentially along the star’s equator due to centrifugal force. This created a dense ring of gas.

When the star started to blow of the faster wind, it slammed into this dense ring and slowed down. But up and down, along the poles of the star, the gas was free to expand. It formed a more elongated, barrel shaped object (this diagram of another such object may help you picture it). We see that barrel at a slight angle; if you look at the interior of ESO 378-1 you can see it has two circular darkish regions, the top and bottom of the barrel.

It might be easier to see that in this photo of the Owl Nebula, a planetary nebula in Ursa Major:

See the two dark circles? Same thing. And you can see why ESO 378-1 has the nickname the Southern Owl (the original Owl is quite far north; this one is south of the celestial equator). They look very similar, and almost certainly have similar origin stories.

As for the colors, rarefied oxygen glows blue, and hydrogen is red. I suspect the red at the top is actually due to gas floating between the stars being swept up (what astronomers call, for obvious reasons, “snowplowing”) as the planetary nebula gas expands. There must be more gas above than below, so we see a brighter rim of red there. Other planetaries do this too.

I noticed that this picture got a lot of press when it was released, but most stories simply repeated the brief info in the press release. But c’mon, you know I can’t just do that. Y’all deserve to know more than that! Plus, planetaries are near and dear to me, and I love thinking about how they get all their weird and wonderful shapes. I’ve written about them many, many times, and I urge you to peruse them. They truly are amazing objects.



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