Mars Express discovers water supersaturation in martian atmosphere

Mars Express satellite

Last week, scientists announced findings based on data from the SPICAM spectrometer onboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. According to the research team, the discovery provides new information which will help scientists better understand the water cycle and atmospheric history of Mars. What processes are at work to allow large amounts of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere?

Above picture shows the water cycle of the Martian atmosphere

When the polar caps of Mars (which contain frozen Water and CO2) are warmed by the Sun during spring and summer, the water sublimates and released into the atmosphere.

Atmospheric winds transport the water vapor molecules to higher altitudes. When the water molecules combine with dust molecules, clouds are formed. If there isn’t much dust in the atmosphere, the rate of condensation is reduced, which leaves water vapor in the atmosphere, creating a supersaturated state.

Water vapor may also be transported by wind to the southern hemisphere or may be carried high in the atmosphere. In the upper atmosphere the water vapor can be affected by photodissociation in which solar radiation (white arrows) splits the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which then escape into space.

Scientists had generally assumed that supersaturation cannot exist in the cold Martian atmosphere, believing that any water vapor in excess of saturation instantly froze. Data from SPICAM revealed that supersaturation takes place at altitudes of up to 50 km above the surface when Mars is at its farthest point from the Sun.

Based on the SPICAM data, scientists have learned that there is more water vapor in the Martian atmosphere than previously believed. While the amount of water in Mars’ atmosphere is about 10,000 times less water vapor than that of Earth, previous models have underestimated the amount of water in the Martian atmosphere at altitudes of 20-50km, as the data suggests 10 to 100 times more water than expected at said altitudes.

“The vertical distribution of water vapour is a key factor in the study of Mars’ hydrological cycle, and the old paradigm that it is mainly controlled by saturation physics now needs to be revised,” said Luca Maltagliati, one of the authors of the paper. “Our finding has major implications for understanding the planet’s global climate and the transport of water from one hemisphere to the other.”

“The data suggest that much more water vapour is being carried high enough in the atmosphere to be affected by photodissociation,” added Franck Montmessin, Principal Investigator for SPICAM and co-author of the paper.

“Solar radiation can split the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen atoms, which can then escape into space. This has implications for the rate at which water has been lost from the planet and for the long-term evolution of the Martian surface and atmosphere.”

However, water vapour is a very dynamic trace gas, and one of the most seasonally variable atmospheric constituents on Mars.

Jupiter rising in the sky

Jupiter rising in sky

Have you seen a very bright star rising in the East every night the past few months? If you’re a night owl, you may have noticed it moves across they sky from the East into the West, shining brightly throughout the night. However this object is not a star! It’s the planet Jupiter and it is the brightest object in the night sky at the moment, apart from the Moon.

At the end of October Jupiter will be at opposition. This means the mighty planet (the largest in our solar system) will be directly opposite the sun as seen from Earth and it will also be at its closest point to Earth in the two planets’ orbits around the Sun. This makes Jupiter or any other object at opposition appear brighter and larger. The opposition of Jupiter occurs on October 29, 2011.

But Jupiter has been gracing our night sky for several months, and will continue to shine brightly as it moves in and out of opposition. But enjoy the view now, as this will be the closest opposition until 2022!

Visually, even with the naked eye, Jupiter is stunning! A burning yellowish-white star-like object, many times brighter than any other stars. But through a pair of ordinary binoculars or a small telescope, Jupiter comes to life. Not only is it possible to see the disc of the Planet, you can also see the four Galilean moons.

The Galilean moons, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io were discovered by Galileo over 400 years ago and are amazing worlds in their own right.

Callisto is the outermost moon with a very ancient and heavily cratered surface. It is the second largest of the four moons, but does not interact tidally with an “orbital resonance” unlike the other three moons. Ganymede is the largest of the four moons and is also the largest moon in the Solar system, being larger than the Planet Mercury. The bizarre surface is a mix of two types of terrain – highly cratered dark regions and younger, but still ancient regions with a large array of grooves and ridges. Ganymede is the only moon in the solar system to have its own magnetosphere.
 

Jupiter's four largest satellites from left to right Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

Europa is the second closest moon and is also the smallest. It has one of the smoothest and newest surfaces in the solar system, being covered purely with ice. Europa is likely a water world and it is believed that below its icy surface, lies a deep moon-wide ocean surrounding a warm mantle. It is one of the most likely places to harbour life in the solar system. Io is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and third largest. It is the most geologically active body in the solar system with over 400 active volcanoes and an ever changing and hostile surface of sulphur and silicates.

 

When you look up tonight and stare at Jupiter, or you are looking at it through binoculars or a telescope, just think – Jupiter and the four Galilean moons are a very interesting place, almost a mini solar system with our larger solar system! Occasionally you will see Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot” or the shadow of one of the moons on Jupiter’s surface. The Jupiter system is always changing.

A Planet Orbiting Two Suns

Remember Tatooine — Luke Skywalker’s home planet in the Star Wars saga, with two suns setting together on the desert horizon? Luke’s home world has always served as a good illustration of what astronomers call a circumbinary planet: a world that orbits both stars of a close binary pair.

An artist's concept of the newly discovered alien world Kepler-16b, orbiting the close binary pair — an orange and a red dwarf. NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (SSC)

Now for the first time, NASA’s exoplanet-scouting space telescope Kepler has caught such a planet crossing the faces of both stars of the Kepler-16 binary system, a 12th-magnitude pairing 200 light-years away in Cygnus. The discovery team, led by Laurence Doyle (SETI Institute), presents its findings in this week’s issue of Science.

In most cases involving binaries, an exoplanet orbits one of two widely separated stars basically as if the star were single. Only seven exoplanets of the many discovered in binaries are thought to revolve around both stars. Kepler-16b is the first of these to be confirmed by showing itself in silhouette transiting both stars.

The two stars in the Kepler-16 system are orange and red dwarfs with 0.69 and 0.20 times the mass of the Sun. Their size ratio is also about 3 to 1. The two stars eclipse each other every 41 days as they revolve around their center of mass in a mildly eccentric orbit. When the smaller and dimmer Star B moves in front of Star A, the total light from system fades by 13%. When A blocks B, Kepler notes a 1.6% dropoff.

But in addition, Kepler’s long run of precision brightness measurements shows something extra. The system’s total light also dips by about 1.7% and 0.1% in a complex timing pattern not corresponding to these mutual stellar eclipses. So the team inferred the presence of a small third body in the system, passing across the faces of stars A and B about every 229 days.

Light curves of the four kinds of transits observed in the Kepler-16 system. The two stars eclipse each other, producing the primary and secondary eclipses. The planet crosses the face of each of the two stars, causing the tertiary and quaternary eclipses. NASA / Science / L. Doyle

From the slight gravitational tugs this object exerts on the two stars, the scientists conclude that it has only a third the mass of Jupiter. The depth of its transits show that it has about three-fourths Jupiter’s diameter. That makes it similar to Saturn but about 1.4 times denser, suggesting that the planet is richer in heavy elements.

So, how Tatooine-like is Kepler-16b? Not much, really. Tatooine, Star Wars aficionados will recall, was a terrestrial planet with mountainous landscapes, cities, and a plethora of alien species that raced pods for amusement. Kepler-16b is a gas giant with no hard surface and very cold, with an upper-atmosphere temperature probably averaging 185 K (–90°C; –130°F).

The only thing fairly Earthlike is the planet’s surface gravity, 1.5 g. So, hypothetically, you could stagger around on it but would tire out soon.

But even if it’s not lively world from Star Wars, the planet is a treasure for astronomers. The team hopes it will help unlock the mysteries of planet formation around binary stars. The three eclipsing objects orbit within 0.5° of the same plane. This indicates that they formed at the same time, from the same protoplanetary disk, and have not been much disturbed since. “I would assume everything formed at the same time,” says Doyle. “Any perturbations of the system after formation one would think would show up in non-planar orbits.”

The Kepler-16 system, showing the binary star (A and B) and their planet (b). The stars, Sun, and planets are shown in scale with each other. But the scale of their spacing (the orbits) is much greater; this is what the 0.5 a.u. scale bar refers to. On this scale, the Sun (just under 0.01 a.u. wide) would be about the size of the decimal point in "0.5". There's much more empty space in the system than the illustration and the artwork above suggest. NASA / Science / L. Doyle

“This is a milestone discovery, one we have all been waiting for,” says planetary expert Sara Seager (MIT). The timing of the discovery adds to “the coolness factor,” she notes. But this neat arrangement is changing; gravitational effects in this three-body system are warping the orbital plane around in a longer cycle (precession). So the planet will stop crossing the dim star in about 2014 and the brighter one in 2018. Not until around 2042 will the transits start up again from Earth’s point of view.

Even though the planet orbits just three times farther out than the separation of the two stars, simulations indicate that the system is stable, at least on time scales of a few million years (and probably much longer, considering that it exists for us to see). So Kepler-16 promises to be an object of curiosity for a long time to come.

October Sky..must watch..

Have you seen the movie ‘October Sky’?

No?

Then you should watch it.

Based on true story, this movie is about a boy who found his dream and tries to pursue it. Homer Hickam is a high school boy in Coalwood, West Virginia. On 4th of October Russians launches Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. He saw the Sputnik with his friends and neighbours who react with fear (those days Americans were really scared not because of satellite but because somebody else has did it before them). But Homer instantly fascinated by the object which is moving some incredible speed and orbiting around Earth. At that time he decides that he will built rocket. He started studying everything he can find on jet and rocket engine.

While many of Homer's friends are puzzled by his new obsession, several new friends share his enthusiasm, and with the encouragement of his teacher, Homer and his fellow "Rocket Boys" begin designing and launching their own homemade missiles. However, Homer's father takes a dim view of his son's interest in rockets and is convinced Homer's future should be the same as his own, working in the local coal mines.

Because, Coalwood’s main trade was coal mining and everybody have to do mining job for surviving in that small place. Only those students can escape from that small village if they can able to get football scholarship. Homer tries to get place in football team, but failed every time. Then by designing rockets and fighting against all odd condition this small village boy wins a science competition and got scholarship. For which he make everybody to proud him. This high school boy then becomes a NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam, Jr.'s.

Actually why I like the movie is that because like Homer, I also wanted to build rocket and tried too. Many times. I like the way he pursue his interest in rockets did whatever he want to know about the rockets. He read books, took help of others, and always tries new things after each failure. When I compared myself with Homer I found I did not do those things which he did. After a long time, when I joined Model Rocketry Lab of Vikram A. Sarabhai Community Science Centre then I learned rocket science and aalso learned to make model rockets.

Making rockets is always a very exciting experience to me. I especially enjoyed designing part of rocketry. Trying new types of models. Not every time gives you a success, but when design works and rocket roar and jump towards sky I cannot express my feeling. I think making rockets by your own and flying them successfully, it’s like AWESOME yaar!!!! At least once in a lifetime everyone should experience it.

But before that watch October Sky. I know you will like this movie...

Earth from Space: Sacred stones of the outback

This Landsat image takes us to the Amadeus Basin in the heart of the Australian outback.

Two large rock formations are visible on the lower section of the image. Sacred to the local Aboriginal people, the Anangu, these sandstone 'bornhardts' are the main features of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The group of 36 domed rock formations to the west (left) is the Kata Tjuta with the tallest dome, Mount Olga, reaching 1066 m above sea level.

Forty kilometres east of Kata Tjuta is Ayers Rock, known to the Aboriginals as Uluru. Surrounding the formation are springs, waterholes, caves and ancient paintings. Local legend claims that misfortune will fall on those who remove rocks from Uluru. It has been reported that many who had taken this risk later attempted to mail the rocks back to lift the curse.

The white area at the top of the image is the salt-crusted Lake Amadeus. Although it contains hundreds of millions of tonnes of salt, the remote location renders it nearly impossible for harvesting. This area in the southern part of the Northern Territory is home to a variety of animals, including the red kangaroo, emu, marsupial mole, various bats and over 70 species of reptiles.

The Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5, jointly managed by NASA and the US Geological Survey, acquired this image on 18 May 2011. ESA supports the Landsat series as a Third Party Mission, meaning it uses its ground infrastructure and expertise to acquire, process and distribute Landsat data to users.

Herschel paints new story of galaxy evolution

Was the universe a kinder, gentler place in the past that we have thought? The Herschel space observatory has looked back across time with its infrared eyes and has seen that galaxy collisions played only a minor role in triggering star births in the past, even though today the birth of stars always seem to be generated by galaxies crashing into each other. So what was the fuel for star formation in the past?

Simple.

Gas.

The more gas a galaxy contained, the more stars were born.

Scientists say this finding overturns a long-held assumption and paints a nobler picture of how galaxies evolve.

Astronomers have known that the rate of star formation peaked in the early Universe, about 10 billion years ago. Back then, some galaxies were forming stars ten or even a hundred times more vigorously than is happening in our Galaxy today.

In the nearby, present-day Universe, such high birth rates are very rare and always seem to be triggered by galaxies colliding with each other. So, astronomers had assumed that this was true throughout history. But Herschel’s observations of two patches of sky show a different story.

Looking at these regions of the sky, each about a third of the size of the full Moon, Herschel has seen more than a thousand galaxies at a variety of distances from the Earth, spanning 80% of the age of the cosmos.

In analyzing the Herschel data, David Elbaz, from CEA Saclay in France, and his team found that even though some galaxies in the past were creating stars at incredible rates, galaxy collisions played only a minor role in triggering star births. The astronomers were able to compare the amount of infrared light released at different wavelengths by these galaxies, the team has shown that the star birth rate depends on the quantity of gas they contain, not whether they are colliding.

They say these observations are unique because Herschel can study a wide range of infrared light and reveal a more complete picture of star birth than ever seen before. However, their work compliments other recent studies from data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope which found ancient galaxies fed on gas,not collisions

Galaxy forming stars

“It’s only in those galaxies that do not already have a lot of gas that collisions are needed to provide the gas and trigger high rates of star formation,” said Elbaz. Today’s galaxies have used up most of their gaseous raw material after forming stars for more than 10 billion years, so they do rely on collisions to jump-start star formation, but in the past galaxies grew slowly and gently from the gas that they attracted from their surroundings.

Moon CLick

I have taken this foto on Ganesh Chaturthi from Jaipur with my simple Kodak Digital Camera by using night landscape mode..

Martian lake delta spotted by Mars Express

Formed by an asteroid strike, Eberswalde crater has nearly eroded away with time. After it formed, it was partially obliterated by another impact which shaped 140 km diameter crater Holden. Although this second strike buried Eberswalde with ejecta, 115 square kilometers of delta area and feeder channels survived. These channels once were the arteries that pumped water along the surface to pool in the crater’s interior, forming a lake. As they carried water, they also carried sediments and – just as on Earth – left their mark. With time, the water dried up and even more sediments were carried along by the wind, exposing the area in vivid relief.

NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft spied the delta in earlier missions, giving even further solidification that Mars was once a wet world. While Eberswalde crater and Holden crater were once a part of a list of possible landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory, Gale crater was selected as the Curiosity’s landing site, given its high mineral and structural diversity related to water. But don’t count this wonderful, wet confession of a lake out forever. Thanks to high mineral diversity and suggestive structure, we’re sure to visit the delta of Eberswalde and Holden again, from orbit or with another landing mission.

Earth first "Trojan" asteroid spotted by WISE.

Astronomers studying observations taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have discovered the first known "Trojan" asteroid orbiting the sun along with Earth.

Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it. In our solar system, Trojans also share orbits with Neptune, Mars and Jupiter. Two of Saturn's moons share orbits with Trojans.

Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth's point of view.

The WISE telescope sees the entire sky in infrared light, so warmer objects are easier to spot. This asteroid is probably around the freezing point of water or so, which, to an astronomer, is pretty warm. The team's hunt resulted in two Trojan candidates. One called 2010 TK7 was confirmed as an Earth Trojan after follow-up observations with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth's orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid's orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).

A handful of other asteroids also have orbits similar to Earth. Such objects could make excellent candidates for future robotic or human exploration. Asteroid 2010 TK7 is not a good target because it travels too far above and below the plane of Earth's orbit, which would require large amounts of fuel to reach it.

The WISE telescope has observed more than 155,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and more than 500 NEOs, discovering 132 that were previously unknown.

Hubble Space Telescope discovers another moon around Pluto

Hubble Space Telescope's keen vision has found yet another moon orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. This discovery expands the number of Pluto's known satellite system to four moons. The tiny, new satellite — temporarily designated P4 — was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the frigid dwarf planet.

The new moon is the smallest moon yet discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).

The new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which Hubble discovered in 2005. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory and first resolved using Hubble in 1990 as a separate body from Pluto.

The dwarf planet's entire moon system is believed to have formed by a collision between Pluto and another planet-sized body early in the history of the solar system. The smashup flung material into orbit around Pluto, which then coalesced into the family of satellites now seen.

Lunar rocks returned to Earth from the Apollo missions led to the theory that our Moon was the result of a similar collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body 4.4 billion years ago. Scientists believe material blasted off Pluto's moons by micrometeoroid impacts may form rings around the dwarf planet, but the Hubble photographs have not detected any so far.

P4 was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on June 28, 2011. It was confirmed in subsequent Hubble pictures taken on July 3 and July 18. The moon was not seen in earlier Hubble images because the exposure times were shorter. There is a chance it appeared as a very faint smudge in 2006 images, but was overlooked because it was largely obscured by an imaging artifact, called a diffraction spike.

The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The mission is designed to provide new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system. Hubble's mapping of Pluto's surface and discovery of its satellites have been invaluable to planning for New Horizons' close encounter.

Dawn arrives at Vesta

Dawn Space Probe

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the first close-up image after beginning its orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta. On Friday, July 15, Dawn became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Vesta is 330 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes have obtained images of Vesta for about two centuries, but they have not been able to see much detail on its surface. This is beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system. This region of space has been ignored for far too long. So far, the images received to date reveal a complex surface that seems to have preserved some of the earliest events in Vesta's history.

Vesta is thought to be the source of a large number of meteorites that fall to Earth. Vesta and its new neighbour Dawn, are currently approximately 117 million miles (188 million kilometers) away from Earth. The Dawn team will begin gathering science data in August. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system. The data also will help pave the way for future human space missions.

The probe carries instruments to detect the mineral and elemental composition of its surface rocks. It will be looking for evidence of geological processes such as mountain building and rifting.

The Dawn science team is keen to understand how Vesta's surface has been remodelled over time by impacts and even lava flows. Dawn's remote sensing instruments will also be able to discern something of the asteroid's internal structure. The expectation is that scientists will confirm it has a metallic core. From the outside, Vesta looks like a punctured football, the result of a colossal collision sometime in its past that knocked off its south polar region.

After traveling nearly four years and 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers), Dawn accomplished the largest propulsive acceleration of any spacecraft, with a change in velocity of more than 4.2 miles per second (6.7 kilometers per second), due to its unique ion engines. The engines expel ions to create thrust and provide higher spacecraft speeds than any other technology currently available.

Dawn will spend one year orbiting Vesta, then travel to a second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, arriving in February 2015.

India notches another space success

It was on 15th July, 2011 that the proud nation put another feather on the cap on the launch of GSAT 2011 from the space station at Shriharikota. The launch occurred from the Satish Dhawan space center at 4.48pm when the massive satellite was successfully placed into its elliptical orbit.

“I am extremely happy to state that the PSLV-C17 GSAT12 mission is successful. The launch vehicle injected the satellite very precisely into the intended orbit,” said the ISRO chairman K.Radhakrishnan. The scientists could not refrain themselves from breaking into cheers seeing one of their most wanted dream come true.

GSAT aims at extending the capacity of INSAT for increased facilities related to medicine, resource mapping and education facilities. Due to the failures in the previous two launches in April and December, 2010, the ISRO team without any further experimentation used PSLV for the most safe transmission medium. The total time mission for GSAT is about eight years with an estimated cost of about Rs.2 crore.

The main reason for the launch was to meet the country’s demand for increased transponders which is a device with a transmitter and receiver that will generate a reply signal on proper electronic interrogation. Pleased and delighted with the success of the launch the ISRO chairman has also declared the team’s future plans for designing reliable GSLV cryogenic stage.

The Prime minister greeted the whole ISRO team for their success which in turn promised to keep their determination and dedication alive forever for the country’s sake.

One Neptunian Year.....!!!!!

On Tuesday, July 12th, Neptune will have completed one full circuit around the Sun since its discovery around midnight on the night of September 23-24, 1846. The great icy world was first pinpointed 164.79 years ago. And as Neptune takes 164.79 Earthly years to circle the sun, it is only now completing its first full orbit since its detection by humans. And there is much to commemorate – for Neptune's discovery marked a turning point in astronomy. Its existence was revealed, not through a serendipitous observation by an astronomer but by the careful work of mathematicians. They calculated that perturbations in the orbit of Uranus, then thought to be the sun's most distant planet, could only be explained by the existence of another, even remoter world whose gravity was affecting Uranus's path.

John Adams and Urbain Le Verrier carried out independent analysis of discrepancies in the observed and calculated positions of Uranus and predicted in 1845 the mass and orbit of the perturbing body. The planet was discovered on September 23, 1846 by Johann Galle and Heinrich d’Arrest from Berlin Observatory very near the predicted position. An international dispute arose between the English and French over priority and the right to name the new planet; they are now jointly credited with Neptune’s discovery.

As to the nature of the planet, this was only revealed in full in 1989 when the US probe Voyager 2 swept past it and sent back images of a seemingly serene blue world – though later analysis revealed dark spots on its surface that are vast cyclonic storms.

Neptune’s composition is probably similar to Uranus: various “ices” and rock with about 15%hydrogen and little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it may not have a distinct internal layering but rather to be more or less uniform in composition. But there is most likely a small core of rocky material, about the mass of the Earth. Its atmospere is mostly hydrogen and helium with a small amount of methane.

Neptune’s blue color is largely the result of absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere but there is some additional as yet unidentified chromosphere which gives the clouds their rich blue tint. Like typical gas planet, Neptune has rapid winds confined to bands of latitude and large storms or vortices. Neptune’s winds are the fastest in the solar system, reaching 2000 km/hour.

Neptune also has rings. Earth based observations showed only faint arcs of complete rings, but Voyager 2’s image showed them to be complete rings with bright clumps. Like Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune’s rings are very dark but their composition is unknown. Neptune’s rings have been given names: the outermost is Adams which contains three prominent arcs named as Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Next is an unnamed ring then Leverrier and finally the faint but broad Galle.

This is an awkward time to observe Neptune; it doesn't reach a reasonable height above the horizon until the wee hours of the morning. Moreover, it won't appear anywhere near its discovery position with respect to the stars, due to the fact that Earth is in quite a different part of its orbit. But if you want to view Neptune anyway, it's easy to do with decent telescopes and binoculars.

Neptune is well-placed in the early evening sky starting in September, and it will appear extremely close to its discovery position among the stars from mid-October through December.

Last Shuttle...

Space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-135 mission will be NASA’s last space shuttle flight. Atlantis will carry four astronauts and the multi-purpose logistics module Raffaello to the International Space Station on 8th of July. During the 12-day flight, mission specialists will use the shuttle’s robotic arm to lift Raffaello from the shuttle’s payload bay and hand it off to the station’s robotic arm for temporary attachment to the Harmony node segment. Raffaello contains logistics, supplies and hardware for transfer to the station. Atlantis also will carry a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing satellites and return a failed ammonia pump to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems. STS-135 is Atlantis’ 33rd and final flight, the 135th and final space shuttle mission, and the 37th U.S. flight to the space station.

Pandora Cluster

A team of scientists studying the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, which is also called as Pandora's Cluster, have pieced together the cluster's complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Japanese Subaru telescope, and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The giant galaxy cluster appears to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters that took place over a span of 350 million years. The galaxies in the cluster make up less than five percent of its mass. The gas (around 20 percent) is so hot that it shines only in X-rays (colored red in this image). The image is a composite of separate exposures made by Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys detectors in October 2009, the VLT, and the Chandra ACIS detector. Hubble provides the central, most detailed part of the image, while the VLT, which has a wider field of view, provides the outer parts of the image. The distribution of invisible dark matter (making up around 75 percent of the cluster's mass) is colored here in blue.
(Source: NASA Inbox Astronomy)

The longest day of year is here...!!!

June 21st, 2011 is Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year.
This is the time when the Sun is at its highest or most northerly point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere and when we receive the most hours of daylight. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere it is the reverse, so you will be having “Winter Solstice.”
Also known as “Midsummer” the Summer Solstice gets its name from the Latin for sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). In ancient India astronomers also observed this change in length of the day. The Sun reaches its most Northerly point (this motion of the Sun is known as Uttarayana) and momentarily stands still before starting its journey South in the sky (known as Dakshinayana) again until it reaches its most Southerly point “Winter Solstice”, before repeating the cycle. This is basically how we get our seasons.
It’s not actually the Sun that moves North or South over the seasons although it may appear so. It’s the Earths axial tilt that causes the Sun to change position in the sky as the Earth orbits the Sun throughout the year.

The Sun reaches its most Northerly point in the sky at 17:16 UTC momentarily and from that point forward starts to make its way South. This means the days will get shorter and shorter until Winter Solstice in December.

Lunar Eclipse on 15 June 2011

These are some pics I have taken from Abu road. Actually I should have post these earlier butt I could not. On that day I was not able to observe entire eclipse because clouds interrupt the show...but I managed to get some shots from my digital camera.

Very Large Survey Telescope display stunning images of southern sky

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is the latest telescope to be added to ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed in an enclosure immediately adjacent to the four VLT Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal under the pristine skies of one of the best observing sites on Earth. The VST is a wide-field survey telescope with a field of view twice as broad as the full Moon. It is the largest telescope in the world designed to exclusively survey the sky in visible light. Over the next few years the VST and its camera OmegaCAM will make several very detailed surveys of the southern sky. All survey data will be made public.

The VST programme is a joint venture between the INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy and ESO. INAF has designed and built the telescope with the collaboration of leading Italian industries and ESO is responsible for the enclosure and the civil engineering works at the site. OmegaCAM, the VST’s camera, was designed and built by a consortium including institutes in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy with major contributions from ESO. The new facility will be operated by ESO, which will also archive and distribute data from the telescope.

The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre aperture telescope with an active optics system to keep the mirrors perfectly positioned at all times. At its core, behind large lenses that ensure the best possible image quality, lies the 770 kg OmegaCAM camera, built around 32 CCD detectors, sealed in vacuum, that together create 268-megapixel images.


The first released VST image shows the spectacular star-forming region Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula, as it has never been seen before. This vast region of gas, dust and hot young stars lies in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The VST field of view is so large that the entire nebula, including its fainter outer parts, is captured — and retains its superb sharpness across the entire image.

Monsterous blast on Sun!

The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare with a substantial
coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7 that is visually spectacular. The
large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it
covered an area of almost half the solar surface.

SDO observed the flare's peak at 1:41 AM EST. SDO recorded these images in extreme ultraviolet light and they show a very large explosion of cool gas.
It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to
be even cooler material -- at temperatures less than 80,000K.

When viewed in SOHOs coronagraphs, the event shows bright plasma and
high-energy particles roaring from the Sun. This Earth-directed CME is
moving at 1400 km/s according to NASA models. Due to its angle, however,
effects on Earth should be fairly small. Nevertheless, it may generate
space weather effects here on Earth in a few days!

Image Credit: NASA/ Solar Dynamics Observatory

Copenhegan Suborbitals

On Friday, a group of amateur rocketeers Copenhagen Suborbitals, successfully launched the world’s first amateur-built rocket made for human space travel. The home-made HEAT-1X rocket with the Tycho Brahe capsule reached an altitude of 2.8 kilometers, launching from its floating ‘Sputnik’ platform in the Baltic Sea off the east coast of the Danish island of Bornholm. The builders, Peter Madsen, Kristian von Bengtson and their team, hoped the craft would fly 15 to 16 kilometers into the sky on its maiden voyage, but they said they would also be happy if it launched at all. And the rocket shot almost straight up in a tremendous milestone for the amateur group which hopes to send people into space on a shoestring.

Copenhagen Suborbitals are doing things differently than other “commercial” space companies: they are open-source, so they are sharing their designs, and they have gotten this far with volunteers and donations. Since May 2008 they have been working full time to reach our goal of launching human into space and to show the world that human space flight is possible without major government budgets and administration.

This team work in a 300 sqm storage building, called Horisontal Assembly Building (HAB), placed on an abandoned but yet historic shipyard in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are working fulltime to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles - designed to pave the way for manned space flight on a micro size spacecraft.

Last September, the team’s first attempt to launch Heat-1X and Tycho Brahe came to halt when a standard hair-dryer that was being used as part of its construction went failed. But Friday’s successful test flight will enable the group’s next goal, which is to send their rocket and capsule into space, with the eventual goal of sending an even bigger rocket, with a human astronaut inside, 100 kilometers up in a suborbital ride into space.

Space age hobby: Model Rocketry

Model rocketry is a scientific space age hobby. It can be an exciting pursuit for almost any age, though it’s best suited for ten years and above age group. Model rocketry brings together a host of hand-building modelling skills and thrilling time outdoors to create its unique experience. While the hobby can be pursued on an almost turn-key basis for some, those who delve into its fundamentals can undertake important personal growth, self-education and enhance their lives by becoming rocket scientists.

Modern space science is in fact the offspring of amateur rocketry dating to the early 20th century. But many amateur rocketeers don’t know where to start from as non-professional rocketeers do not have the expensive material, training, or any experience to build the rocket right from a scratch. Hence there arose a need for safe, relatively inexpensive form of rocketry and this is how the Model Rocketry Club came into existence at the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre thirty years ago. The model Rocketry Club for the first time in India initiated conducting model rocketry activity for school students and lay people.

In its craft aspect, the model rocketry offers its constituents like the fun of cutting, gluing and painting the models themselves. Constructed of only lightweight materials such as balsa wood for fins, rolled paper tubing for the body, and some small amount of plastics, the models built are striking, yet easy to prepare, and provide several hours’ indoor activity working with the hands to get each model ready for flight. The final finishing is crucial for its performance, and modellers quickly learn how to make their models slender, sleek and slippery, to cut down drag (the air’s resistance), enabling higher altitudes to be attained in flight.

In model rocketry, propulsion is provided by using simple Diwali Rocket engines. The explosive part is removed before placing it in rockets for safety, without the fear of the danger of compounding chemicals to get the power needed for impressive flights.

On the launching day, the modellers enjoy the ritual of rocket launching like packing their supplies, engines batteries, launch stand and heading to a large open space to send their handiwork aloft. The models with their engines installed are placed on a launch stand. This guides the model until it gains enough speed to be stabilized by aerodynamic forces. Typically, this is a 1/8 inch rod about 3 feet in length supported by a stable base, which cannot be blown over by a wind gust.

Model rocket engines are ignited for flight with incense stick from safe distance or it can be done remotely through an electrical ignition hooked to a small piece of heating wire inside the engine of the rocket. The second method is quite safe compared to the first one. Minimum distance for these systems place the rocket launch crew a safe ten feet from the model. The area around the launch of model rockets has to be clear of people; a countdown is initiated and the current is applied to ignite the rocket engine.

With a significant whoosh, the model vaults skyward, accelerating rapidly to sometimes many hundreds of miles per hour. Several seconds later, having the engine burn out its propellant supply, the model may continue to coast upwards for seconds longer before a small charge deploys the recovery system. Typically, these are parachutes of plastic film, that return the model gently to earth, so it can be re-used in future flights.

Quite often, the launch team will have to use instruments to sight it on the model, so that calculation can be made of the model’s final altitude. This involves some mathematical calculation, and is often a younger rocketry hobbyist’s practical introduction to trigonometry. Those who are inclined have many options as they grow within the model rocket hobby.

Specialties exist, such as models that glide for recovery, the space plane model. Some have fun with the pursuit of measuring in flight performance through radio transmitters on the model which send back telemetry of acceleration, spin-rate and the like. Model rocket is not only for fun and entertainment but it forms a very powerful tool of education. One can establish one’s own model rocketry club at school also; it will provide a base for the children to pursue their interest in this wonderful hobby. By using model rockets, one can teach the concept of rocketry to student. The head of rocketry club may make groups of students with leader for every group, can conduct activity related to model rockets, like construction of the rockets, design and fabrication of model rocket.

Discussion with the students at different stages will help them in exchanging thoughts about the designing aspect of the models. Discussion about the performance of their models would help them to correct their mistake and design new experiments till they achieve the best result. Frequent competition between the groups will encourage the student to put in maximum efforts to get the best results. It is not only about the making of rockets, but developing a scientific approach in them.

Supernova Discovered in Whirlpool Galaxy M51

A new supernova (exploding star) has been discovered in the famous Whirlpool Galaxy, M51.

M51, The Whirlpool galaxy is a galaxy found in the constellation of Canes Venatici, very near the star Alkaid in the handle of the saucepan asterism of the big dipper. Easily found with binoculars or a small telescope.

The discovery was made on June 2nd by French astronomers and the supernova is reported to be around magnitude 14.

The supernova will be quite tricky to spot visually and you may need a good sized dobsonian or similar telescope to spot it, but it will be a easy target for those interested in astro imaging.

The whirlpool galaxy was the first galaxy discovered with a spiral structure and is one of the most recognisable and famous objects in the sky.

She landed for last time

Space Shuttle Endeavour and her six man crew landed safely today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:35 a.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) following a 16 day journey of more than sixteen million miles.

The STS-134 mission marked the end of Endeavour’s space exploration career. It was the 25th and last space mission by NASA’s youngest orbiter. Altogether, Endeavour has logged 299 days in space, orbited Earth 4,671 times and traveled 122,883,151 miles. Endeavour was named after the famed ship sailed by Captain James Cook. This was the same ship he took in 1769 to the South Pacific to observe the very rare transit of Venus across the Sun’s face, in the hopes of determining the size and scale of the solar system.

The crew was led by Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly. Also aboard were Pilot Greg H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and the European Space Agency’s Roberto Vittori. Vittori is the last non NASA astronaut to fly on a shuttle mission.

The night landing capped a highly productive flight highlighted by the delivery of the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. AMS is a cosmic ray detector that seeks to unveil the invisible universe and search for evidence of dark matter, strange matter and antimatter.

Four members of the crew conducted 4 spacewalks during the flight, which were the last by shuttle crew members during the space shuttle era. Simultaneously they completed the construction of the US portion of the ISS.

During the flight, Mike Fincke established a new record of 382 days for time a U.S. astronaut has spent in space. He broke the record on May 27, his 377th day on May 27, by surpassing previous record holder Peggy Whitson.

STS-134 was the 134th space shuttle mission and the 36th shuttle mission dedicated to ISS assembly and maintenance.

After the landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), Endeavour was towed back into the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) where she will be cleaned and “safed” in preparation for her final resting place – Retirement and public display at the California Science Center in Los Angelos, California.

With the successful conclusion of Endeavour’s mission, the stage is now set for blastoff of the STS-135 mission on July 8, the very final flight of the three decade long shuttle Era.

Moon will be eclipsed by The Earth

On June 15 there will be a total lunar eclipse visible from Australia, Indonesia, southern Japan, India, a large area of Asia, Africa, Europe and the eastern part of South America. This is expected to be one of the darkest eclipses ever (with a magnitude of 1.7), second only to the July 2000 eclipse.

Gradually growing darker from its western limb inwards, the Moon then gains a bluish cast which transitions to orange then deep red as it moves into light passing through the edge of Earth’s atmosphere (the same as what makes the colors of a sunset) and then eventually going almost completely dark before the process then reverses itself from the opposite side.

The entire eclipse will last 5 hours and 39 minutes, with a totality duration of 1 hour and 40 minutes. It will begin at 17:23 UT.

Viewers in Australia and eastern Asia will see the eclipse begin as the Moon is setting while those in Europe and South America will see it as the Moon is rising. Only locations in India, eastern Africa, the Middle East and western Asia will experience the entire eclipse.

This is the first of two total lunar eclipses in 2011; the next will take place on December 10.

Crucial Space Missions that changed the world: Sputnik

Fifty years ago, the first ’beep-beep’ signal from Sputnik was heard from the heavens on the night of 4 October 1957, marking the beginning of a new era for mankind. The story of Sputnik 1 can be traced back to the aftermath of the Second World War. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became enemies. This period led to the Cold War between two mighties. They competed against each other in many fields like military, technology, and culture as each one wanted to become the most powerful nation. This rivalry represented the fight between different ideologies, or philosophy of the two countries, opposing ideologies of capitalism and communism.

The US had spent the years following the end of the World War-II in persuading the governments of many countries that bordered and were unfriendly to the Soviet Union, to establish air base for their bombers in these countries. The fact that the US was not similarly surrounded by territories on which bombers could be based placed the Soviet Union at a severe tactical disadvantage.
There was only one solution Russians had to find a way to deliver warheads to the US without the use of bombers. The obvious answer was to use ballistic missiles.

In the U.S., scientists and engineers were working on missiles too, but for reasons other than delivering warheads. U.S. was planning to put a small satellite equipped with basic scientific instruments into orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1958. This scientific satellite could then, be followed by much larger satellites carrying military cameras – in other words, spy satellites.

Until 1956, the Soviet government had resisted the idea of launching a satellite because they wanted to focus on missiles. When the news of the US plans to launch a satellite, as part of the IGY reached Moscow, the Central Committee of the Communist Party changed planning. They also started working on the satellite launching, but quite secretly.

The original Soviet satellite – dubbed simply Object D – was planned to be a large device that would carry an array of scientific instruments, the construction of which involved several different institutions. But it was too big and complex. Russian engineers simplified the design down to an 84 kg sphere approximately 60cm in diameter, which contained a radio transmitter that broadcasted only a beep that could be heard and picked up from around the world. Sputnik 1 – which in Russian meant simply “fellow traveller of Earth” – was born. Its function was pure propaganda: proving to the world, the superiority of Soviet’s science and technology and unnerving the West, particularly the United States.

When Sputnik was launched, the entire world was surprised at what the Russian engineers had managed to do and they were also afraid. This event caused fear among nations because it meant that, if the Russians had rockets that were powerful enough to launch satellites, then they had rockets powerful enough to launch atomic bombs. It also meant that the Russians would have power over Space. A month later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik II. By the end of December, the United States tried to launch its first satellite but it failed, ending up in an explosion.

In 1958, the U.S. successfully launched its first satellite called Explorer I. In addition, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created by Congress to carry out space exploration. In 1959, Soviet Union launched the first probe to hit the moon. It was called Luna 2. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, which is the term used by Russians to mean astronaut, was the first person in space and the first to circle Earth. Less than a month later, Alan Shephard Jr. became the first American astronaut in space. In 1962, John Glen was the first American to orbit Earth in a capsule named Friendship 7. The Soviet Union was considered to be the first in the Space Race and the U.S. ranked the second. In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. In December 1968, the U.S. launched Apollo 8, which was the first human mission to go around the moon. This success gave the U.S. rank number one in the space race. In July, 1969, the U.S. sent astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

The U.S. having reached the moon and having its astronauts walk on the moon first won the Space Race. When the Cold War ended, the U.S. and Russia started working together on building a space station and collaborating on space projects. Direction and objective of Space age is now changed from where it was born out of a culture of suspicion and fear. Satellites and space probes have dramatically changed our way of living, they have turned the world into a global village where an unprecedented wealth of information is at hand anywhere, anytime. The world has shrunk, and our perception of our planet has changed too. Thanks to Sputnik which boosted the space age.

The Milky Way new arm

For years, people created maps of the whole galaxy based on studying just one section of it, or using only one method. Unfortunately, when the models from various groups were compared, they didn't always agree.

This might come as a surprise, but every portrayal ever made of how the Milky Way galaxy looks from afar is more imagined than factual. That's because we sit squarely inside our galaxy's turgid disk, which together with its bloated central bulge make it impossible to see most of what lies on the side opposite the Sun. We're only getting half the picture.

A few years ago, astronomers used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to deduce that our galaxy really has just two main spiral arms, not four as had been thought. Called the Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus arms, these appear to connect up nicely with the ends of the galaxy's central bar. (Our Sun lies along a minor offshoot, about halfway from the center to the outer edge, known as the Orion Spur.)

The telltale carbon-monoxide emission turned up in a string of 10 locations — hardly a comprehensive sampling, but enough to sketch in the distant arm's location and extent. One of the CO-rich clouds turns out to be about 150 light-years across and has a mass of at least 50,000 Suns.

The arm also shows up in prior radio surveys that mapped the abundance of neutral hydrogen throughout the disk. It largely escaped detection, astronomers speculate, because it's both displaced from the galactic plane and tilted with respect to it. Astronomers say that the main problem with hydrogen is that there is too much of it. In any case, the CO radio hits match strongest hydrogen concentrations along the distant arm, assuring that it's real.

The new find is an isolated segment that's roughly 60,000 light-years long. Astronomers believe it marks the distant end of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, which would mean that the entire arc is more than 200,000 light-years long and that it wraps more than 300° around the galactic center.

To know for certain that the new arm is really an extension of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, scientists hope to use their little radio dish to map it more completely in the years ahead. Even if they don't or can't, it's reassuring to know that the Milky Way really does have the gracefully sweeping arms and beautiful symmetry that befits a grand spiral galaxy.

End of Spirit

In the wee hours of May 25, 2011 the scientists and engineers of the Mars Exploration Rover team sent the last command in attempt to contact the Spirit rover. Over the past year, they have sent over 1,200 commands and haven’t heard anything in reply from the stuck and likely frozen rover.

Spirit, the plucky rover that landed on Mars on January 3, 2004, overcame many difficulties and endured way past her 90-day warranty. For nearly six years, she traveled long distances, climbed hills — something the rovers weren’t really designed to do — she roved and stopped at interesting rocks along the way, all the while beaming back the information she garnered, enlightening us all about the nature of Mars, past and present.

Spirit trapped in soft Martian soil in May of 2009 and that was the beginning of the end. The Mars Exploration Team spent months planning for her extrication, and then months again attempting to drive her out, but they ran out of time and power in the approaching Martian winter. The team was unable to put the rover in a favorable position to catch rays of sunlight on her solar panels, and after another freezing, grueling winter, Spirit has now likely succumbed to the harsh environment on Mars.

One of the challenges that Spirit faced is that it always had dust on the solar arrays, Callas said, even during the first winter on the Columbia Hills. After a timely dust cleaning event by a dust devil, the team was able tilt Spirit to gather sunshine and she survived. The second winter she achieved a 10% tilt and survived; the third winter, the team was able to find a 30% tilt – again she survived. But the 4th winter, there just wasn’t the right geography in the sand pits of Troy that would enable Spirit to survive after it became embedded.

Spirit made many discoveries – finding carbonates which told scientists much about the past habitability of Mars and that it likely had a thicker atmosphere at one point. Then, even failure brought discovery, as the malfunction of the right front wheel in 2004 meant the team had to relearn to drive the rover, driving it backwards, dragging the wheel behind. This churned up the top soil and revealed what was under the surface: amorphous silica, which is evidence for an ancient hydrothermal system on Mars, which means not only water but an energy source that could have been driving a type of ecosystem in one particular location on Mars.

Spirit roved her way into our hearts and into the science books. She will not be forgotten. I’m sure we’ll be telling stories of when Spirit was a wee little rover.

The last command was sent early on May 25, 0700 UTC, it was just after midnight at JPL in Pasadena, California