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.