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.

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...

Moon CLick

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

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.