Astronomer's Corner

[Eagle3]

This thread is for posting astronomy news and events. Hopefully it will be popular enough to continue adding to it. I find astronomy a lot of fun and hope you do to.

Whether you have nice telescope and dark skies around your house or just your naked eyeballs surrounded by the worst light pollution there is always something interesting to see in the night skies. It's my hope that you find something new and interesting in the articles to come.

A Star Prepares to Blow Its Top (http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/variablestars/article_843_1.asp)
By David Tytell
Keep an eye on Cassiopeia — it contains a naked-eye star that may brighten and dim dramatically in the coming months.

That was the message at a January press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. Alex J. R. Lobel and Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) both reported observations of the active hypergiant star Rho (r) Cassiopeiae, which is visible to the naked eye at magnitude 4.5. That it shines so brightly from 10,000 light-years away means that it must be huge. Rho Cas is about as hot as the Sun but roughly a million times more luminous, which makes it is so big that, if it replaced our Sun, its surface would lie beyond the orbit of Mars.

According to Lobel and Dupree, the star has had a chaotic recent past. In 1946 astronomers watched it fade to 6th magnitude and cool from 7,000° to 3,000° Kelvin, changing from spectral type F to M. Astronomers at the time speculated that it had undergone an enormous internal eruption that caused it to swell and cool, but they could not tell much else. The star eventually returned to normal. Then in 2000 astronomers caught Rho Cas acting up again. It brightened by 20 percent (0.2 magnitude), then dimmed by about two magnitudes while again cooling by more than 3,000° K.

This time astronomers were better prepared to study what was going on. The star turned out to be having the largest stellar mass ejection ever recorded. "It ejected 50 Earths per day for 200 days," says Dupree. When the entire event was over, about 5 percent of a solar mass was gone — roughly a thousandth of Rho Cas's mass.

It wouldn't take many such ejections to have life-altering effects on the star. Its behavior may hold the answer to one of astronomy’s lingering questions — why are there no stars more luminous than a million Suns? "Maybe these mass losses constrain the luminosity," suggests Dupree. If all hypergiants have episodic eruptions like Rho Cas, Lobel suggests, it could be why they can't sustain superbright luminosities.

Clearly the star's days are numbered. "Rho Cas is in the very last stages of its evolution," says Dupree. It could go supernova in as little as 50,000 years.

It also seems to have an encore planned. The telltale spectral changes that it showed before its 2000 events have showed up again, only this time they are happening much faster. While Rho Cas isn’t expected to change much in coming days, "We are looking at months rather than years," says Dupree.

"We have advised amateur groups to continue to monitor it," adds Lobel. "Many national groups are looking, and an observing alert was also issued in Japan to watch." When the star does erupt, Lobel and Dupree plan to alert the amateur community.

"We know this star did an amazing thing," says Dupree. It may be poised to do so again. Keep watch.

For continuing updates, visit the Rho Cass (http://www.aavso.org/rhocas.shtml) section of the AAVSO Web site.

[Freak]

Anybody have the paid version SkyMap or a similar program? I have the demo of an older version and was wondering if shelling out $100 is worth it. Is there better programs out there?

I have been wanting to buy a good program for a while.

http://www.skymap.com/products.htm

[Eagle3]

I haven't used SkyMap in a long time. I used Distant Suns for a long time. Now I use Starry Night Pro (http://www.starrynight.com/new_snprox.html) . It's amazing. Best astromomy/planetarium software I've ever seen.

[Freak]

Thanks E3, I have heard from a couple friends that is what they use as well. I will check it out.

[Barb101]

Mars Rover about to launch at 1:58 EST at Cape Caneveral, Fl. Weather is clear & all systems are go.

Rovers Mission (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/mission/)

[Freak]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

I just watched the launch, the video is so clear. Wow. 4 miles up in less than 60 secs!!!

thanks for the reminder Barb!

[Eagle3]

I caught it on NASA TV and it certainly was amazing video. I love those on vehicle camera views!

[Barb101]

Your welcome Freak. :) That was spectacular wasn't it!! My fingers crossed this one will actually make it to the surface.

What's really cool is my name is on the Rover too!! Last year NASA was asking for entries for this mission. I even got a certificate.

Your name on Mars (http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/2003/)

[Eagle3]

Here is some information on the recent launch of a Japanese satellite enroute to Mars by request.
Japanese Mars Probe Back on Track (http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/027sbtsn.asp)

Scientists have re-established communication with the Nozomi spacecraft.
by Elesa Janke

Scientists at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in Japan are bringing their first interplanetary mission, Nozomi, back to life. On April 21, 2002, the spacecraft was bombarded by extremely energetic solar particles from a coronal mass ejection, which pounded the craft for over six hours and caused a temporary shutdown. But engineers are now confident that the mission will soon be back on track.

Originally known as "Planet-B," Nozomi was renamed after launch to the Japanese word for "hope." It is en route to Mars, where it will study the planet's atmosphere and ionosphere. Carrying 14 instruments from five nations, including NASA's Neutral Mass Spectrometer, the mission will bring scientists valuable information about the interaction between the atmosphere and the solar wind. The spacecraft will also send pictures back to Earth of the Red Planet's surface.

After months of hunting down the source of the problem, ISAS scientists discovered that the coronal mass ejection caused one of the electrical power converters to "latch up," knocking out the main power and freezing the onboard propellant. They have since restored communication with the spacecraft and will maneuver its attitude (orientation) when the craft re-approaches Earth later this month, allowing the propellant to unfreeze.

Launched in July 1998, the craft was originally scheduled to arrive at the Red Planet in 1999. But due to a course-correction maneuver that used more fuel than planned, Nozomi did not have enough acceleration to propel it into its planned route. It is now scheduled for a December 2003 arrival, when it will begin to fly around Mars in an oval-shaped orbit that will range from 96 to 27,000 miles from the planet's surface.

[Eagle3]

And ESA just launched their's on 6/2. In August Mars will be it's closest to the Earth in some 60,000 years. Break out the scopes and binoculars!

Mars Express Launched (http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_969_1.asp)
By Jonathan McDowell and Stuart J. Goldman

June 2, 2003 | The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission lifted off today from Kazakhstan — the first of three missions to the red planet scheduled to launch this month. The spacecraft is Europe's first to Mars, and is part of a project similar to NASA's former "better, faster, cheaper" approach of designing and building planetary probes. The project cost about $300 million and was ready for space in four years, in time to make a relatively quick hop to Mars as the planet comes its closest to Earth in 60,000 years.

Six days before arrival at Mars in December, the spacecraft will release a lander — dubbed Beagle 2. A heat shield and parachute will lower the lander to the ground, and Pathfinder-style airbags will cushion the impact. Beagle 2 will touch down on Isidis Planitia, located northeast of Syrtis Major at 10.6° north, 270° west. The hope is that the sedimentary plain at Isidis preserves evidence of ancient Martian life, while being warm enough during local spring for Beagle 2 to survive. Instruments will spend at least six months looking for water, carbonate minerals, and organic material, as well as studying the site's environment.

Meanwhile, Mars Express itself will settle into Martian orbit, where it will study the planet's surface and atmosphere for two years. Its complement of instruments includes a stereo camera, a subsurface sounding radar/altimeter, and a spectrometer.

Mars Express leads an armada of lander-bearing spacecraft. Two NASA missions are scheduled to liftoff on June 8th and 25th, each carrying a Mars Exploration Rover. They will arrive at Mars in January.

[Barb101]

Obviously this is important research to many & if all goes well looks like we might have colonies on Mars in the next hundred or so years eh?:cool: Total Recall revisited :D :hehe:

[Freak]

Originally posted by Barb101
What's really cool is my name is on the Rover too!! Last year NASA was asking for entries for this mission. I even got a certificate.

Hey I did that too for my family!

[Barb101]

LOL, I did that for everyone I knew too. My Mom was kinda pissed because she was worried an alien would get ahold of her name & come see her. heh :rolleyes:

[Eagle3]

A New Neighbor Star (http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_976_1.asp)
By Alan M. MacRobert
June 13, 2003 | A faint red dwarf star newly discovered in Aries may turn out to be the third-closest star system to the Sun. Or maybe not; its distance is still uncertain, and it might not even make the list of the closest two dozen. But in any case it's a rare find.

Known as SO 025300.5+165258, the star glows at a very dim visual magnitude of 15.4, which is why it went unnoticed for so long. Like other dim red and brown dwarfs that astronomers have recently discovered nearby, it was found by its fast proper motion (motion across the sky). A team led by Bonnard J. Teegarden (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) is searching for high-proper-motion stars in the online image database created by the NEAT asteroid-hunting program. Their new catch is speeding southeast at slightly more than 5 arcseconds per year. Only seven star systems in the sky are known to have proper motions that fast.

Using the NEAT images, the team also was able to measure a rough parallax for the star. This indicates that it lies between 6 and 11 light-years away, with 7.8 light-years being the likeliest value. Only the Alpha Centauri system and Barnard's Star are closer than that.

The team also observed the star's spectrum and found a spectral type of M6.5, placing the star toward the cool, dim end of the red-dwarf sequence. If it is like other M6.5 dwarfs, its apparent brightness would put it about 12 light-years away. High-quality parallax measurements now under way by the U.S. Naval Observatory should give a very accurate distance by the end of the year. Details of the discovery are in a NASA press release (http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0520newstar.html) and the astronomers' reprint. (http://arXiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0302/0302206.pdf)

The star is within reach of amateur CCD imagers, who might be able to measure its parallax themselves over the course of the next year. It is currently at right ascension 2h 53m 01.7s, declination 16° 52' 40" (J2000, epoch 2003.5).

[Barb101]

Space Adventures (http://www.spaceadventures.com/press/061803.html) Announces First Commercial Mission to the International Space Station

New York, NY, June 18, 2003 - Commercial space flight took a giant leap forward today with the announcement by Space Adventures, Ltd., the leading space experiences company, of its plans to launch the world's first privately funded mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Space Adventures recently secured a contract with the Russian Aviation & Space Agency (RASA) to fly two explorers to the ISS aboard a new Soyuz TMA spacecraft.

I wanna go...:cry: :cry:

[Eagle3]

Pact Barb, if either of us wins the lotto we bring the other along. :thumbsup:

[Eagle3]

Hubble snaps baby pic of cosmos (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/06/19/bigbang.view.reut/index.html)
Galactic whirls from 12 billion years ago

Thursday, June 19, 2003 Posted: 2:19 PM EDT (1819 GMT)
http://www.umich.edu/~buzznau/bressler/hubblepic.jpg
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A new wide-angle view of the universe looks back to a mere billion years after the Big Bang, revealing secrets about the lives of galaxies and the black holes at their hearts, scientists reported on Thursday.

The new view is contained in one extraordinary image, compiled by astronomers using a super-high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, along with a catalog of objects giving off strong X-rays from space, detected by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, another NASA-affiliated instrument.

The image shows a section of sky about one-tenth the size of the full Moon viewed from Earth. Though this may seem narrow, it is about 30 times wider than the last deep look into the universe, the Hubble Deep Field observation released in 1996.

That earlier vision was described as a keyhole view; this one might reasonably be called a picture window.

Both images sought to peer far enough away from Earth to see back in time to when the light from some of the oldest galaxies headed toward our spot in the cosmos. They also captured cosmic objects from later periods.

As in that earlier path-breaking picture, the galaxies in the new image look like smudged jewels on black velvet, with distinct shapes and colors, their whirling arms and oval forms apparent.

But the new image, known as GOODS for Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, managed to look back further -- more than 12 billion years to when the universe was a billion years old. Astronomers put the age of the universe at roughly 13.7 billion years.

"In terms of time, we go from when the universe was about 15 percent of its current age to when it was 9 percent of its age," Mauro Giavalisco, a researcher who works with the Hubble data at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in a telephone interview.
Leap back in time

Again, the difference between the older image and this new one sounds slight, but Giavalisco said the most rapid, dramatic changes occur early in a galaxy's development, much as human development occurs most dramatically at the earliest stages. That means even a small-seeming leap back in time reveals worlds of detail on galactic development.

Starting about 1 billion years after the theoretical Big Bang -- the giant explosion that many scientists believe gave birth to the universe -- the galaxies grew in size and went through a "baby boom" period of furious star formation that lasted about 6 billion years.

At that point, star formation dropped to about one-tenth its earlier rate, and major galaxy building trailed off when the universe was about half its current age, preliminary findings from the new image show.

Many astronomers believe there are monstrous black holes lurking at the center of many galaxies, including the Milky Way that contains Earth. Black holes are thought to be matter-sucking drains in space, whose pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Black holes can be inferred by X-rays emitted from them or near them, and scientists want to know more about how supermassive black holes relate to the galaxies that swirl around them, said Niel Brandt, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University who worked with the Chandra X-ray data.

The GOODS image is sharp enough at great distances to allow astronomers to try to match up hundreds of X-ray sources -- thought to indicate black holes -- with the galaxies they inhabit, Brandt said by telephone.

[Barb101]

Pact Barb, if either of us wins the lotto we bring the other along.:thumbsup:

*shakes Eagle's hand* It's a deal! :cool:


Along with Chandra X & The Hubble we're almost there aren't we?!! Only about a billion & 1/2 to go. I still think it would be a great idea to build an observatory on the moon. Free from all the interference the earth's atmosphere gives off & it would be stationary.

[Freak]

Here is a web based interactive star map. Kind of cool once you get it set up to your liking.

Your Sky (http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/)

[Eagle3]

Solar System Similar to Ours Discovered (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/03/science.jupiter.reut/index.html)

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Astronomers searching for signs of a solar system like our own said Thursday they had found a planet very similar to Jupiter orbiting a star resembling the sun 90 light-years away.

"This is the closest we have yet got to a real solar system-like planet and advances our search for systems that are even more like our own," said UK team leader Hugh Jones of Liverpool John Moores University.

The planet was discovered by British, American and Australian astronomers using the 3.9-meter Anglo-Australian Telescope in New South Wales.

With a mass twice that of gas giant Jupiter, the planet circles star HD70642 in the constellation Puppis once every six years.

In relation to its own distance from its star, if it were in our own solar system it would be about halfway between Mars and Jupiter.

"The long-term goal of this program is the detection of true analogs to the solar system," the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council said in a statement.

"This discovery of a Jupiter-like gas giant planet around a nearby star is a step towards this goal."

[Eagle3]

Mars Viewing Guide (http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_985_1.asp)

[Barb101]

Cosmic Call to Send Earthly Message to Five Stars
Sat Jul 5, 7:26 AM ET


By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Space entrepreneurs plan to beam best wishes on Saturday toward five sun-like stars, hoping intelligent beings will get the message.

The broadcast will emanate from a 230-foot wide dish at the Evpatoriya Radio Astronomy Facility in Ukraine. Mission control is at Roswell, New Mexico, where some believe an alien spaceship came to Earth 56 years ago this week.

The "Cosmic Call" was coordinated by Team Encounter, a Houston-based aerospace company that among other ventures allows customers to "name a star" and send messages to its constellation.

Saturday's broadcast will feature messages from some 90,000 people, each of whom has paid at least $24.95 for the service.

An Indiana family issued an invitation to their farm: "Please call 24 hours in advance so that we may make your visit one to remember."

Mark from Belgrave, Australia, sent a quotation from Albert Einstein: "Imagination is more important than understanding."

From Toronto, Canada, came a common earthly request: "Please send money. Any kind of money. Universal money is OK. Alien currency OK. Meteorites are good. Gold, Moon rocks, space junk also good. Send to: Maura, Planet Earth."

Charles Chafer, Team Encounter's chief executive officer, said the project also plans to send scientific messages to the stars, which astronomers have determined are similar to our sun and could therefore harbor unseen Earth-type planets.

INTERSTELLAR ROSETTA STONE

Among those messages is an Interstellar Rosetta Stone, using a mathematical language to convey information about Earth and its human inhabitants. Also included is a copy of a message sent in 1974 from the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the first directed at extraterrestrial intelligence.

"We think space, although real and important and scientific, also needs to be fun if it's going to flourish and survive," Chafer said in a telephone interview. "It's also a very real mission that will be participated in by school kids all over the world, including in Roswell."

Roswell has built up a tourist trade around reports that a "flying disk" came to rest in New Mexico during the first week of July 1947. The International UFO Museum there is holding a UFO Festival over the U.S. July 4-6 Independence Day holiday weekend.

The call -- a powerful digitized broadcast meant to remain comprehensible through interstellar space -- will go through at 5 p.m. in New Mexico (2 a.m. in Ukraine), Chafer said.

"A lot of people giggled at the Wright brothers at a certain point," he said, referring to the U.S. aviation pioneers. "Why shouldn't we be reaching out to communicate? Human beings are an exploring and a communicating species and so it should be fun. It's also fundamental science. What more important question is there in the universe than, 'Are we alone?"'

Seth Shostak, a scientist at the SETI Institute, which aims to explore "the prevalence of life in the universe," said the Cosmic Call was a useful exercise in learning to communicate over interstellar space, but unlikely to prompt a return call.

"It's in a way kind of communicating by putting a bottle with a message in it into the surf at Atlantic City and hoping some astute Europeans get it," Shostak said. "Now it's not impossible that they will, but it's not terribly likely either."

He said messages might be sent at frequent intervals over long periods of time.

"You'd better be prepared to leave the transmitter on for a long, long time, possibly tens of thousands of years -- and that's something we're not prepared to do," he said.

More information is available online at http:/www.teamencounter.com.

Damn, they're going to think we're freaking nuts if they understand some of these :rolleyes:

Source--Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=8&u=/nm/20030705/sc_nm/space_call_dc)

[Barb101]

Looks like the Rover Launch that was supposed to happen today was scrubbed again. :(

"The second of two Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, is rescheduled for launch Monday, July 7 at 10:35:23 p.m. EDT. Liftoff will occur aboard the Boeing Delta II Heavy launch vehicle from Pad B at Space Launch Complex 17 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A second launch opportunity exists at 11:18:15 p.m. EDT, if necessary. Should launch be delayed by 24 hours, two launch times are also available on Tuesday at 10:27:46 p.m. and 11:10:44 p.m. EDT. The window of the planetary launch period extends through July 15."

Hoping for clear skies tomorrow!


NASA Press Release (http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/release/2003/57-03.htm)

[cuda]

Originally posted by Barb101
Looks like the Rover Launch that was supposed to happen today was scrubbed again. :(


We launching dogs into space again? :confused:

[Eagle3]

Originally posted by cuda
We launching dogs into space again? :confused:

You haven't seen the latest astronauts?

[DMS]

Well, I posted it here, coz they always talkin bout this stone circle thing being a astronautic map or sumptin..but whaddayaknow..
it's a giant vagina.

The vagina monoliths: Stonehenge was ancient sex symbol
Stone circle is exciting gynaecologists, reports Science Editor Robin McKie

Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

Stonehenge has dominated the Wiltshire landscape for more than 4,000 years and is one of the world's most important heritage sites, but its purpose has remained a mystery.
Some researchers have claimed the stone circles were used as a giant computer; others that Stonehenge was an observatory for studying stars and predicting the seasons; and a few have even argued that its rings acted as a docking pad for alien spaceships.

Now a University of British Columbia researcher who has investigated the great prehistoric monument for several years has announced he has uncovered its true meaning: it is a giant fertility symbol, constructed in the shape of the female sexual organ.

'There was a concept in Neolithic times of a great goddess or Earth Mother,' says Anthony Perks, a gynaecologist who decided to investigate the idea that the circles could have symbolic anatomical links. 'Stonehenge could represent the opening by which the Earth Mother gave birth to the plants and animals on which ancient people so depended.'

According to Perks's analysis, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine , the critical events in the lives of the builders of Stonehenge - who began their work around 3,000 BC - were births and deaths in their families and community. But there is no evidence of any burials near Stonehenge, Perks adds. 'There is little sign of death; there are no tombs, because Stonehenge was a place of life and birth, not death, a place that looked to the future.'

Evidence that the monument was dominated by ideas about creation and regeneration has been overlooked until now, says Perks.

Take the inner circle, which consists of pairs of massive capped rock pillars, one of which is rough and the other carefully smoothed. 'To a biologist, the smooth and rougher stones arranged in pairs, united by heavy lintels, suggest that male and female, father and mother, joined together,' he states.

Even more convincing, says Perks, is the similarity between Stonehenge seen from above and the anatomy of the female sexual organ. His article includes a map of the former, which is compared, point by point, with a detailed diagram of the latter. Of these features, the most important concern the central empty area that is enclosed by the monument's inner circle of giant bluestones.

'This central area is empty because it represents the opening to the world, the birth canal,' says Perks. Stonehenge was therefore constructed to honour the Earth Mother for 'giving both life and livelihood'.

As to Stonehenge's alignment with various astronomical events such as the rising of mid-winter and mid-summer sun - discovered by astronomers many years ago - these fit with notions of an Earth Mother partnered with a Sun Father, says Perks. Stonehenge celebrated their association, a place where people celebrated the Sun's closest approach to Earth in summer, while in winter they prayed for the pair to reunite.

It is intriguing theory, though it has failed to impress experts. David Miles, chief archaeologist for English Heritage, which owns the site, said Perks's theory, although interesting, was essentially untestable. 'You can come up with just about any idea to explain a structure like Stonehenge if you stare at it for long enough. And if Stonehenge was built so that it looked like a female sexual organ when viewed from above, how were people supposed to see that? As far as we have been able to tell, they didn't have hot-air balloons in prehistoric times.'

In fact, scientists have shown that Stonehenge was not built in one single act of construction, but was put together over a period of more than 1,500 years in a series of successive modifications and improvements. Nor was it built by the druids, the people most often associated with the site. In fact, many more ancient tribes and societies - individuals attempting to make their impact on the landscape of England - were responsible.

'The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once said that every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves,' added Miles. 'For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the computing era, researchers argued that you could use Stonehenge as a giant calculating machine.' Later, in the more mystical New Age, it was argued that the monument was really a spaceport for aliens, while, in the Middle Ages, it was said Stonehenge was built by giants. 'By those standards, this latest idea seems to say something quite odd about the twentyfirst century.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,992215,00.html

[Eagle3]

OK........ :hehe:

Hey, NASA got the second rover off.

Mars Rover Finally Launched (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&ncid=753&e=10&u=/space/20030708/sc_space/marsroveropportunityfinallylaunchedtoredplanet)

By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
Cape Canaveral Bureau, SPACE.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Technology and weather finally cooperated at the same time late Monday, allowing NASA (news - web sites) at long last to send the Mars Rover Opportunity on its way to the Red Planet.

Riding atop the first-ever Delta 2 Heavy rocket, Opportunity was sent safely speeding on a path that would have it escape Earth's gravity and travel seven months to reach the Martian surface.

Opportunity is joining its twin, the Mars Rover Spirit launched June 10, on an $800 million mission to learn more about when water might have flowed on Mars. Both probes are targeted to land in January.

Only three of humanity's nine landing attempts at the Red Planet have succeeded, said Ed Weiler, NASA's space science chief in Washington, D.C.

"If we beat the odds and our missions arrive safely, I think it's safe to bet that we'll see the biggest scientific return from another planet that we've ever seen," Weiler said. "And we'll see the most fantastic Martian landscapes we think you can imagine."

Delta delivers

Liftoff in perfect weather came at 11:18:15 p.m. EDT (0318.15 GMT Tuesday) from pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Monday's first chance to fly at 10:35:23 p.m. EDT (0235.23 GMT Tuesday) was missed when a liquid oxygen fill and drain valve to the rocket's first stage did not close properly and the countdown was held seven seconds before launch.

A quick round of tests on the valve confirmed it was working properly so the countdown was allowed to start again. This time it all came together.

"I think we've done just about everything twice that we could do," said Omar Baez, NASA's director of expendable launch vehicles for the Kennedy Space Center (news - web sites). "We're looking very good."

The night sky glowed a brilliant orange as the 13-story rocket climbed away from its launch stand and streaked out over the Atlantic Ocean, shedding its stages as each consumed its propellant.

Eyewitnesses on the ground enjoyed the usual blinding spectacle of a night shot from the Cape, while viewers of NASA TV also were treated to incredible views of the climb to orbit courtesy of a tiny camera mounted to the Delta 2 Heavy's second stage.

By all appearances the new version of the workhorse Delta 2 rocket operated flawlessly. Sporting nine solid rocket boosters originally designed for use by the Delta 3, the slightly larger motors performed as expected to give Opportunity an extra kick in speed.

Initial success was claimed about 83 minutes after launch when the Mars Rover spacecraft separated from its third stage.

A few minutes later a Deep Space Network ground station in California acquired the probe's radio signal and officials reported that all was well, sending another cheer through the various control rooms monitoring the mission.

Beat the clock

First planned for launch June 25, a variety of problems conspired to keep the Boeing Delta 2 Heavy rocket on the ground until July 7.

Most of the delay was caused by concerns with two bands of cork that wrap around the Delta 2 rocket's first stage. The cork protects some particularly sensitive points of the first stage's skin from high temperature during the climb through the atmosphere.

Unfortunately routine inspections revealed the cork was not sticking properly and repairs were ordered on more than one occasion when the problem repeated itself.

Weather also prompted a scrubbed launch attempt the evening of June 27 and into the morning of June 28. Surface winds blowing in the wrong direction and upper level winds blowing too strongly both contributed, as did a boat in the launch danger zone at the wrong time.

Then just as the cork problem was solved, engineers discovered a battery in the system that is used to destroy the vehicle in flight if necessary had to be replaced, delaying launch another 24 hours.

All this time mission managers and scientists were keeping an eye on the calendar. Opportunity had to get off the ground by about July 15 or face either a four-year wait for the next launch window or immediate banishment to a museum.

Planetary launch windows between Earth and Mars take place every 26 months.

This year, with Mars about to make its closest approach to Earth in thousands of years, mission scientists were able to take advantage of the proximity by sending bigger spacecraft with the same sized rocket -- truly a case of "more bang for your buck."

But as Weiler noted following the launch of Spirit in June, despite the hard work it takes to prepare and execute a launch, the most difficult part of the mission is still ahead. He advises the Mars Rover team to not get too giddy prematurely.

"The job is just beginning," Weiler said. "It's not time for champagne quite yet."

[Barb101]

Damn, yeah I saw that last night. They launched 45 minutes after they stopped countdown. Damn rain & satellite TV do NOT mix!

[Eagle3]

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Home (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/)

[Eagle3]

Martian Flare Watch (http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_982_1.asp)
By Thomas A. Dobbins

Will Martian flares like those observed in 2001 appear again in 2003? Amateur and professional astronomers will be watching the red planet closely to find out.

In the May 2001 issue of Sky & Telescope, my colleague William Sheehan and I discussed rare historical observations of bright, star-like flares from certain regions on the planet Mars. We suggested that the brightenings might be caused by specular (mirror-like) reflections of sunlight off water-ice crystals in surface frosts or thin clouds. Many of these glints were reported when the sub-Sun and sub-Earth points (where the Sun and Earth, respectively, are directly overhead as seen from Mars) were nearly coincident and close to the planet's central meridian, the imaginary line running down the center of the visible disk from pole to pole. Based on our analysis, we predicted that flares like those reported only four times between 1894 and 1958 might erupt in the region known as Edom Promontorium, near the Martian equator at longitude 345°, in early June 2001.

I organized an expedition to the Florida Keys, where the red planet would climb high in the south under exceptionally steady skies. Team members from Sky & Telescope and the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rhill/alpo/mars.html) (ALPO) scrutinized the planet using a variety of telescopes nightly beginning June 5th. No flares were seen for the first two nights. But on June 7th, beginning around 06:35 Universal Time (2:35 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time), about 85 minutes before Edom crossed the central meridian, we saw a series of brightenings. Each lasted 3 to 5 seconds; they occurred once or twice a minute over the next hour and a half, until clouds ended the observations. The flares were seen visually at magnifications of 300x to 366x through two 6-inch (15-centimeter) Newtonian reflectors and were recorded on videotape at 1,400x through a Meade 12-inch (30-cm) Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Visually, the flares seemed to cut the dark linear feature Sinus Sabaeus nearly in two. More brightenings of Edom were observed on June 8th; these were as brilliant as the ones the night before but not as frequent. For details see IAU Circular 7642 (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/07600/07642.html#Item1).

Our June 2001 observations support the idea that the flares came from sunlight glinting off patches of frost or ice on the Martian surface. Because the flashes occurred before Edom crossed the center of the planet's disk, the reflectors must have been tilted as much as 19° east-west; perhaps they rested on inclined surfaces on the ground, for example, the slopes of dunes. Intriguingly, the light-colored oval of Edom Promontorium corresponds to the large, flat crater Schiaparelli, and in May 2002 NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft found indications that this region is anomalously rich in water ice for a site near the Martian equator. The historical tendency of flares to occur when the sub-Sun and sub-Earth points are nearly coincident suggests to Masatsugu Minami, director of the Oriental Astronomy Association's Mars section, that the sources of the reflections lie at the bottoms of narrow fissures or trenches on the planet's surface.

Mars observers and planetary scientists hope to learn more about the flare phenomenon during the red planet's 2003 apparition, now building toward a record-breaking closest approach in late August. Because Mars's southern hemisphere is tipped our way this year, the geometry precludes seeing any flares from Edom or other equatorial regions. Instead, specular reflections are likely from sites at more southerly Martian latitudes.

In late July and early August this year, the sub-Sun and sub-Earth points will converge at a Martian latitude of –20°. By then the apparent diameter of Mars's gibbous disk will exceed 20 arc seconds. From July 24th through August 10th, observers should keep an eye on northern Thaumasia, northern Solis Lacus, southern Tithonius Lacus, Deucalonius Regio, Iapygia, and northern Hellas — all at or near latitude –20°. It will be interesting to see if specular reflections like those observed at Edom in 2001 are rare events that suggest something special about that site, or if they can be seen at many locations whenever the Mars-Sun-Earth geometry is favorable.

Observations, both positive and negative, are welcomed by the Mars sections of both ALPO and the British Astronomical Association, as well as by the International Mars Watch. Of course, we also welcome your observing reports at Sky & Telescope!

[Eagle3]

The Perseid meteor shower, an annual celestial event that's a favorite of
skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere, peaks at 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Daylight Time on August 13th. But light from the Moon, one day past full,
will wash out many of the shower's faint meteors. Still, if you're outside
this evening, pause and watch for a Perseid.

more (http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/meteors/article_937_1.asp)

[Barb101]

Thanks for the reminder Eagle! I remember last year I sat outside for an hour & saw maybe 3 meteors from the Perseid shower. :rolleyes: Damn city lights :what:

[Eagle3]

Yea, light pollution is a real drag. It's amazing how much light we generate. Mush of it is wasted through poor design and or placement, yet it contributes to wash out the night sky. This year the moon is going to be the problem. I doubt I'll get up for the Perseid's this year. I will start getting up to observe Mars. It's really really bright now. I think best time on the east coast is around 2:00AM right now. It should continue to be prime for viewing through the next six weeks.

[Eagle3]

Did some Mars observing last night and at 4:30 AM. Conditions were much better this morning as Mars was much higher in the sky and out of the light glow from Ann Arbor. The polar cap tilted towards us was easily visible as well as several dark spots.

Sideout's coming over tonight. Hopefully the sky will be clear.

[Eagle3]

Mars is starting to fade, but Saturn is now rising late in the night. By mid October it will be up before midnite.

Saturn's Varied Colors (http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1050_1.asp)
By Lisa R. Johnston

September 16, 2003 | Catching Saturn during its extreme axial tilt last March, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope obtained some of the best multicolor images ever taken of the ringed planet. Like Earth, Saturn is tilted with respect to the Sun over its 29.5 year orbit. This allows observers to watch as the planet experiences fluctuating atmospheric conditions thoughout the Saturnian year.

Planetary scientist Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona) captured Saturn's south side during maximum tilt, 27°, using Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The instrument used 30 separate filters to obtain spectral data ranging throughout the infrared, visual, and ultraviolet wavelengths. When combined, these data become a valuable tool for understanding the chemical compositions of different layers of Saturn's upper atmosphere. For example, smaller aerosols are detectable only in ultraviolet wavelengths, while methane gas shows clearly through infrared and visible light. In a press release Karkoschka said, "The set of 30 selected filters may be the best spectral coverage of Saturn observations ever obtained."

[jillamanda]

:confused: Do you guys see the Southern Cross in the Northern Hemisphere? It came up in discussion the other day, so I thought I'd ask the experts.....;)

[Eagle3]

Not from the latitude I'm at. I have seen when at sea when we were near the equator. Not even sure if it's visable from say Florida. I'll have to check my astronomy program to be sure. It's south of Centaurus and we can only see part of it from the lower US latitudes.

[DMS]

We have a very clear view of the sky at night here, and the power goes off almost every night in this neighborhood, it's totally dark, which way do I have to look, and how does that Cross look?:cool:
My backyard is facing full south.

[jillamanda]

I have no idea.... you see things different from way up there..., but for what it's worth, it's the constellation on our flag....:)

[Eagle3]

NOVEMBER'S LUNAR ECLIPSE

On Saturday night, November 8-9, the full Moon will pass through the Earth
's shadow for skywatchers throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, and
western and southern Asia. But this eclipse will be unusually brief,
remaining total for only 25 minutes as the Moon skims barely inside the
southern edge of the darkest portion (the umbra) of our planet's shadow.

More (http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/eclipses/article_1072_1.asp)

[Eagle3]

With Mars fading away it's time to look at another planet. Saturn will be putting on a fine show this year.

An Observing Guide to Saturn (http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/article_304_1.asp)

[Barb101]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA's Voyager 1, built to last just five years to probe Earth's planetary neighbors, has reached the solar system's final frontier and may have surfed into interstellar space, more than 26 years after its launch.

Whether or not it has escaped the sun's sphere of influence -- known to astronomers as the heliosphere -- Voyager 1 has exceeded all expectations and on Wednesdaywas more than 8 billion miles from Earth, or 90 times the distance between Earth and the sun.

The Earth-sun distance, 93 million miles, is a convenient measure for astronomers and is known as one astronomical unit or AU. Voyager 1 is the only human-made object known to have traveled 90 AU.

At this point, scientists are loath to predict when Voyager 1 will give up the ghost, because it is still sending data.

"We do have enough electrical power, if nothing breaks on the spacecraft, we can continue till 2020," Edward Stone, a Voyager project scientists based at the California Institute of Technology, said at a briefing at NASA headquarters.

Stone said Voyager 1, carrying a gold record bearing greetings, images and diverse information from Earth, has not yet crossed what he called the "final frontier" out of the solar system, but that the crossing could occur before 2020.

However, Stamatios Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington said at the same briefing that Voyager has already done it.

"We have discovered that Voyager 1 has actually crossed into the area of interstellar space, around August 1, 2002," Krimigis said at the same briefing.

SOLAR WIND STOPS

At the frontier, the flow of charged particles emitted by the sun -- known as the solar wind -- simply stopped, Krimigis said, adding that the spacecraft encountered the kind of material associated with interstellar space.

He said this meant Voyager 1 had successfully navigated something called termination shock, a violent-sounding term for the area where the sun's influence ends and the area between the stars begins.

Because this area is very close to being a perfect vacuum, the termination shock does not bother Voyager 1 at all, according to Frank McDonald, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland outside Washington.

"The spacecraft has no idea that it passed or didn't pass through the shock ... the spacecraft is not perturbed at all, so it's not a danger in any way," McDonald said.

Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 were built to explore Jupiter and Saturn and their surrounding phenomena and were expected to last five years after their launch in 1977. But the two of them kept going, eventually exploring all the giant outer planets of the solar system, 48 of their moons as well as their systems of rings and magnetic fields.

Voyager 1 left the planets behind in 1990, taking a backward-looking snapshot before heading toward the space between the stars. Voyager 1's path is bent up from the plane where most of the planets lie; Voyager 2 is headed downward.

"This little engine that could was not designed for this kind of lifetime," said Louis Lanzerotti, a Bell Labs expert on solar wind who has been involved with the Voyager program since 1972. "It's absolutely remarkable."


Yahoo News (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=6&u=/nm/20031105/sc_nm/space_voyager_dc)

[cuda]

Originally posted by da mighty sparrow
My backyard is facing full south.

I guess that means your neighbors must have a good view of Uranus during a full moon. :rolleyes:

...I kill me. :hehe:

[shotglass]

Full lunar eclipse tonight....

[jillamanda]

You can't see the Southern Cross from up there......

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/the_universe/crux.html

[Barb101]

Originally posted by Shotty
Full lunar eclipse tonight....

Cool! It should reach totality around 8-8:30 EST.

[shotglass]

Clouds all night here. I won't get to see it at all. :mad: :fbomb:

[Barb101]

It was cloudy here all night too :cry: I only caught a couple of glimpses of it through the clouds. No pictures this time. :what:

[Sideout]

bummer...if I actually had a video camera and I knew about it ahead of time...I could have got the whole thing...it was real clear...I didn't get out there until is was already in totallity...nice redish shadow and the lower edge still bright...I checked it out a little more as the shadow was about halfway out of the picture.
Pretty cool...from what I hear, we only have to wait til next year to catch the next one.

[Eagle3]

More Potential Fireworks on the Sun (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/25/science/25SOLA.html?ex=1070341200&en=69e78e5263aacf48&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE)

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 22 — Snapping like rubber bands pulled too tightly, tangled magnetic fields on the surface of the Sun have been spewing waves of radiation and superheated particles at Earth.

So far, the damage has been relatively minor in comparison with significant communications disruptions three years ago. The culprits this year are three volatile sunspots that began erupting last month and set off blackouts in Sweden, damaged satellites and forced some airlines to divert flights from polar routes to escape extra radiation.

And now, after a three-week lull while the Sun's rotation spun them out of view, the sunspots are back within striking distance. The one with the potential to produce the most fireworks, Region 507, is expected to fix its sights squarely on Earth just as Thanksgiving arrives. While all three have decayed a bit, 507 is still roughly eight times the size of Earth.

Predicting the level of havoc that can be wrought by 507 or any other exploding sunspot is a minute-to-minute science. The erratic nature of exploding sunspots leaves researchers with as little as 30 minutes to warn of radiation storms or as much as 17 hours to prepare for speeding clouds of plasma.

Nowhere perhaps is the pressure greater to assess the magnitude of these blasts than within the walls of the Space Environment Center here, home of what could be called the solar storm trackers. Vivid, up-to-date images of the Sun captured by satellites a million miles from Earth constantly blare across an elevated, oversize television screen demanding the team's attention.

To the forecasters here, every sunspot has its own personality and can be dangerously unruly or quickly fizzle into obscurity.

For the last month, the rotating team of several space weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has focused on nothing else, darting from computer images of the sun flares to e-mail messages and to telephone calls in an effort to warn thousands of subscribers, like utilities, NASA and the airlines, of the newest storm ratings.

They also answer queries from the public that range from the humorous, like the woman who blamed a speed-trap radar reading of 90 miles an hour on a flare, to the tragic, like those who believe relatives' pacemakers failed during such events. Or those who complain the hair on their arms stands on end. Or that their flaring arthritis is in sync with a solar flare. Or that a homing pigeon loses its internal compass in a geomagnetic storm.

And lately, with the likelihood of storms resuming, so too has the number of calls from concerned travelers fearing extra radiation during their holiday flights.

On Thursday, when the sunspots reappeared with a new round of storms, the space forecasters fell back into formation. A locustlike cloud of charged particles shot out of the Sun at more than two million miles an hour, swarming Earth just after midnight.

Standing beside a fortress of computers, William Murtagh, a forecaster, described the storm as relatively slow moving. Still, he brimmed with the satisfaction of knowing that at least for the day, he had tried to restrain the Sun's devastating fury.

"This one we predicted would arrive in 50 hours, and it actually reached us in 46 — so I'd say that's a pretty good job," Mr. Murtagh said with a smile. "We expected major to severe geomagnetic storm levels, and that's exactly what we're getting now — right on target."

Those predictions have far-reaching impact. The agency's subscribers also include the Coast Guard, most airlines and the military.

The storm trackers' alerts prompted power companies throughout North America to switch to "safe mode" to protect grids from collapse with the heightened solar storm currents. All it took to plunge six million people in Quebec into darkness during a storm in March 1989, Mr. Murtagh said, was one transformer that overheated and shut down.

The frenetic activity in the forecast center on Thursday was only a glimpse of what could come this week, when Regions 507 and 508 stare at Earth. As 508 was rotating away from Earth on Nov. 4, it unleashed a flare that some scientists say was the biggest explosion ever recorded in the solar system.

"It was like being in Miami and seeing a giant hurricane coming toward you that eventually veers off to sea," said Dr. Devrie S. Intrilligator, director of the space plasma laboratory at the Carmel Research Center in Santa Monica, Calif. "We really lucked out because the full force of it didn't head toward Earth."

When it was tucked away on the backside of the Sun, 508 ejected clouds of plasma so enormous that scientists could see them dwarfing the Sun in size as they roared off into space. Now it is Region 507 that Mr. Murtagh's team is bracing for. Rivaling Jupiter in size, it has the potential to bathe Earth with intense storms that could expose airplane passengers to abnormal amounts of radiation around Thanksgiving.

The last time that happened, in late October, the Federal Aviation Authority warned passengers on planes over 25,000 feet at some latitudes that they would accumulate about two millirems of radiation per hour, or two days' worth of radiation on the ground.

What will happen in the next several days is still uncertain. "A severe one could happen, but I think a moderate one at most is more likely," Court Williamson, an operations specialist, told one caller who was concerned about her husband's flight from San Francisco to London the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The forecasters can be on 24-hour call at times like these. Mr. Murtagh recalled talking to an airline from bed at 11 o'clock one night as the company tried to decide whether to proceed with a Newark-to-Beijing flight the next day.

Now and then, even the forecasters are dumbfounded by the connections people draw between the force of the solar storms and everyday life.

"The deputy," began one woman about her son's speeding ticket, "at first said he was going 90, then 75 m.p.h. My son was trying to pull over due to a flat tire, and told the deputy there is no way he could drive at that speed on a flat."

Mr. Murtagh said he was reluctant to rule anything out. "If someone did a study showing geomagnetic storms affect radar guns, you can be sure the legal system would be flooded with millions of people fighting traffic tickets."

The space environment center is fighting a battle of its own in Washington. Instead of the $8.3 million that the agency requested for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, the House allocated $5.3 million and the Senate budgeted no money at all.

"If a major storm hits and we don't exist, the airlines will have no reason not to divert planes away from polar routes or the higher latitudes," said Dr. Ernest Hildner, the center's director. "How much is it worth to expose all those people to all that radiation and increased cancer risk?"

As 507 glares into view, the storm trackers already have warned power companies, satellite operators and holiday travelers.

Those who would have the most reason to be concerned if a major storm did hit, Mr. Murtagh says, would be passengers or crew members on flights that cross over the North Pole, like New York to some parts of Asia. Because of the shape and location of Earth's magnetic field, radiation from violent solar events tends to flow toward the poles and regions at higher latitudes.

"It's costly for airlines to send their planes on the longer route or make them drop from say 38,000 feet to 28,000 to avoid radiation," he said. "But generally they would if we give them the data that shows a strong radiation storm is on the way."

Some European countries have adopted legislation mandating studies into how much radiation passengers are exposed to during solar flares and others have regulations to protect flight crews. One popular analogy that quantifies radiation exposure while flying in numbers of chest X-rays, said Joe Kunches, chief of the space weather operations division, is often imprecise.

"Are we talking about chest X-rays today or many years ago?" Mr. Kunches said. "What side of the plane are you on? How high is it flying? There are just too many variables involved."

[Barb101]

I think those solar flares are responsible for my cell phone bill being $135 last month :nolike: :rolleyes:

[jillamanda]

:)

[jillamanda]

Saturn to run rings around Mars
By Stephen Cauchi
December 2, 2003



Saturn, arguably the most spectacular of the planets, is putting in its own close call on New Year's Eve.

Although the ringed planet is visible for most of the year, on that day it will be the closest it has been since December 1973.

The red planet grabbed attention in August as it made its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. But Saturn - whose rings are visible through small telescopes but not the naked eye - may have more to offer the amateur astronomer. For this year, Saturn's rings are, as seen from Earth, at maximum tilt - about 26 degrees. At other times the thin rings present an edge-on view and seem to disappear.

Earth and Saturn make a close approach, or opposition, about once every year.

However, Saturn is making its closest approach to the sun since January 1974, making this opposition closer than usual. Saturn, though, will not be as bright as Mars was in August.

[Eagle3]

They're coming up in a few days. Hope you have clear skies.

The Geminids: (http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/meteors/article_802_1.asp)
By Monica Bobra

Comets unleash streams of dusty debris as they approach the Sun. The Earth, speeding around its orbit, crosses some of these streams. And we see stunning meteor showers.

But that’s not always the case.

The Geminid meteor shower, peaking on the night of December 13–14, is a rare exception to this rule. Broken fragments from a pseudo asteroid-comet with a mysterious composition create the Geminids, which are growing in intensity every year.

While the Leonids and Perseids have been documented for centuries, the Geminids were first observed only 150 years ago, spawning scientific query into its origin. In October 1983, after searching survey data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, Simon Green and John Davies found an asteroid-like object, later named 3200 Phaethon. Dynamicist Fred Whipple then noted the body’s orbit matches that of the Geminids. It was the first time an asteroid had been linked to a meteor shower.

But is it an asteroid or is it a comet? Described as a dormant comet coated with a thick layer of dust, Phaethon has an extremely elliptical, 1.4-year-long orbit. Meteors created as Phaethon advances toward the Sun are much denser than those usually created by comets. Yet they are less dense than typical asteroid compositions. Furthermore, Phaethon doesn’t have a characteristic comet tail and its spectra indicate a rocky surface. While Phaethon’s true nature is up for debate, the annual meteor showers it triggers certainly aren’t.

In 2003, the Geminid meteor shower will peak during the night of December 13–14, producing as many as 75 slow, graceful Geminids per hour if viewed under ideal conditions. They tend to be bright and appear yellow. Rates increase steadily for several days before maximum, then drop off quickly. The meteors that do appear after maximum, however, tend to be especially bright.

This year a bright gibbous Moon will be in the sky during the shower’s prime viewing hours, which start around 10 p.m. local time each night and last until dawn. Strong moonlight will sharply reduce the number of faint meteors seen. By definition, a Geminid is a meteor whose path, extended backward, crosses the shower’s radiant point near Castor.

[Barb101]

The Best of Hubble

On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope began its eye-popping mission after being launched into space by the shuttle Discovery. Since then, thousands of images of never-before-seen galaxies, stars, and celestial bodies have been sent back to Earth to be marveled at and studied. Unfortunately, the end of the Hubble's life is near -- its mission is scheduled to end in 2010, although many astronomers would like to see it refurbished and its mission extended. And after perusing the absolutely amazing photos on this site, you're sure to agree. The Flash presentation offers some of the telescope's most amazing photos, including a shot of the Monocerotis star, which suddenly brightened in January 2002 to become 600,000 times brighter than our sun. As the mysterious and beautiful photos roll by, you'll no doubt question our place in the universe. Just imagine what's to come in the future.

The Best of Hubble Slideshow (http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm)

This is amazing! Go see! Go see! :D :alien:

[Eagle3]

Very cool Barb! Thanks! :)

[Texan]

That was very cool, Barb. The music was haunting. I liked it. :thumbsup:

[cuda]

NASA Shows Views From Infrared Telescope (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/new_telescope)
By PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - NASA unveiled the first views Thursday from its space infrared telescope, a super-cooled orbiting observatory that can look through obscuring dust to capture images never before seen.

The telescope, a $670 million project launched in August, can detect extremely faint waves of infrared radiation, or heat. Astronomers for the first time are able to peer into the heart of stellar fields that had been blocked from the view of conventional telescopes by dense clouds of dust and gas.

"This gives us a powerful new capability that will enable us to see things not seen before and to answer questions we couldn't even ask before. This is a very powerful new tool for astronomy," Michael Werner, an astrophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said at a news conference. He is the project scientist for the Spitzer Space Telescope, named in honor of the famed astronomer Lyman Spitzer Jr.

Added Giovanni Fazio, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a Spitzer researcher: "We are now able for the first time to lift the cosmic veil that has blocked out view and see the universe in all of its components."

Some of the first views from the Spitzer included:

- a galaxy that was mostly blurred in the view of other telescopes. In the Spitzer image, there are vast fields of stars in a spiral necklace surrounding the galaxy. The image also detects clouds of glowing carbon dust.

- a patch of sky that appears black and empty in visible light telescopes is revealed by the Spitzer to be a stellar nursery, a large cloud of dust wherein stars and other bodies are forming,

"That's what the solar system looked like in the beginning," said Fazio.

- an object 3.25 billion light years away that is almost invisible to other instruments is seen as a highly energetic galaxy, glowing with an energy 1,000 times that of the Milky Way, the home galaxy of the sun and Earth. Embedded within the clouds of the galaxy are organic molecules, such as carbon dioxide and cyanide, that are thought to be the chemical building blocks of life.

- a comet streaking through the solar system some 550,000 million miles from the sun. It is surrounded by a cloud about 20 times bigger than Jupiter; the Spitzer sees to the comets glowing core.

John N. Bahcall of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., said the Spitzer will enable astronomers to study the birth pangs of stars and the formation of planets out to the very edge of the universe.

"We will be able to see things that human beings have never before seen," he said. "This will change the way astronomers do astronomy."

The telescope completes NASA's original plan to orbit telescopes to study segments of the electromagnetic spectrum, the visible and invisible radiation that fills the universe, which is partially or completely blocked by the Earth's atmosphere.

The Hubble, launched in 1990, gathers images in visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared waves. The Compton, launched in 1991, studied gamma rays, a high energy form of radiation. Its mission ended in 1999. The Chandra Observatory, launched in 1999, studies X-ray radiation from supernovas and black holes.

Now the Spitzer collects infrared radiation which is invisible to the naked eye, but which is able to penetrate dust and gas.

Virtually all objects in the universe emit some infrared, or heat, radiation. To detect it, the Spitzer is rather like a telescope within a vacuum jug. All the instruments detecting infrared are cooled by liquid helium and shielded from the heat-producing parts of the craft.

The telescope was launched into an orbit that trails the Earth. This keeps it away from the planet's heat and enables the Spitzer to operate at a minus-450 degrees F, just 10 degrees above absolute zero.

The store of liquid helium, used at its present rate, is expected to last almost six years, officials said.

Spitzer, a Princeton University astronomer, proposed in 1946, long before the first orbital rocket, that the nation put telescopes into space, above the obscuring effects of the atmosphere.

Spitzer was a leader in efforts to persuade Congress to pay for a fleet of orbiting telescopes. He also played a major role in the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. He died in 1997.

Spitzer is considered one of the most significant astronomers of the 20th century, the author of textbooks still studied in college. He did fundamental studies of the interstellar medium, the gas and dust that fill vast reaches of space and which play a key role in the formation of stars and planets.

[Barb101]

LONDON (Reuters) - A British probe the size of an open umbrella was due to land on Mars Thursday and start trying to answer a question which has fascinated mankind for centuries -- is there life on the red planet?

Beagle 2, which weighs just 75 pounds, is scheduled to open its panoply of parachutes and airbags and float down to the surface of Mars just before 3 a.m. Christmas Day.

The probe will emit a call sign -- a tune composed especially for the occasion by British pop group Blur -- which scientists hope to pick up on powerful radios aboard a pair of mission rockets orbiting the planet.

The signal will be relayed to earth where the mission's organizers will be praying in the silent hours for a smooth landing of the craft named for the ship which British naturalist Charles Darwin took to gather the scientific data that formed the basis of his groundbreaking 19th century treatise on evolution: "The Origin of Species."

"We've had no way of monitoring Beagle 2 since it was launched from Mars Express last week," said Peter Barratt, head of communications for the Beagle 2 team. "But as far as we know it's on schedule and all is going to plan."

The probe still faces many potential pitfalls, including huge dust storms sweeping the surface of the volatile planet, 63 million miles from Earth.

If Beagle 2's parachutes open too soon the tiny craft could be blown away. Too late, and the probe risks ending its life as scrap metal strewn across the forbidding Martian landscape.

Assuming the mission is successful, Beagle 2 will start work straight away. It has an estimated maximum operational life of just 180 days before Martian dust and extremes of temperature are expected to put it out of action.

The lander is packed with state of the art scientific instruments that will scrape, bore and bake samples from the surface of Mars, seeking signs of whether the planet could sustain life. At its heart is a mass spectrometer used to measure the mass and abundance of atoms and molecules on planetary surfaces.

Colin Pillinger, the brains behind the project, says this is the first mission dedicated to looking for life on Mars rather than simply signs that life once existed.

"We would not be doing this if we did not think there was a good chance of success," he said.

British bookmaker Ladbrokes cut its odds Wednesday on the chances of finding life to 25-1 from 33-1 following a flurry of bets since the probe successfully broke free from its mother craft the Mars Express last Friday.

Ladbrokes have had a book open on the event since 1969, when man first walked on the moon.

Scientists will be holding an all-night vigil in London to await news of the probe.

If it lands safely, they are likely to crack open a few bottles of Mars Magic, a beer brewed specially for the occasion by a local brewer.


Source Yahoo/Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20031224/sc_nm/space_mars_dc)

[Barb101]

:( Second Setback for British Mission to Mars

LONDON (Reuters) - A British mission trying to find life on Mars suffered a second setback when its space probe again failed to send a signal to confirm it had landed, project organizers said on Friday.

The failure to pick up a signal from Beagle 2 raised fears that the probe, no bigger than an open umbrella, had suffered the same fate as so many craft before it and ended up as scrap metal strewn across the bleak Martian landscape.

"A search for a Beagle 2 radio signal was carried out (on Thursday evening) without success," the organizers of the mission said in a note posted on their Web Site www.beagle2.com.

Beagle 2's latest failure to make contact capped a dismal Christmas Day for the mission's British scientists, trying to answer a question which has fascinated mankind for years -- "Is there life on Mars?"

They had gathered in London in the early hours of the morning, hoping to hear the probe broadcasting its signature tune -- composed for the occasion by British pop group Blur -- across the vastness of space from the red planet.

But Beagle 2 remained silent and scientists were forced to wait 16 hours for a second chance to detect the probe -- this time using the giant Jodrell Bank telescope in central England.

FADING HOPES
That bid also failed and the chances of finding the probe in one piece appear to be fading.

Scientists will make their next bid to trace it at 1:15 p.m. EST on Friday, using a mission rocket orbiting the planet. They can try again at regular intervals over the next few weeks but with each failed attempt, hopes for the mission grow slimmer.

Source Yahoo/Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20031226/sc_nm/space_mars_dc)

[Pistol Pete]

Some of you, Barb & Eagle3 most notably, know about our two Mars rovers that are to be landed January 3 (today) & January 24. Here's the NASA link that tells all about how they work and what they'll do.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_surface_rover.html

[Barb101]

Yahoo/Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20040104/ts_nm/space_mars_dc_20)

U.S. Rover Sends Home Dramatic Pictures of Mars
Sun Jan 4, 6:19 AM ET

By Dan Whitcomb and Gina Keating

PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - A robotic explorer beamed stunning images of the bleak Martian surface back to Earth, showing on Sunday it had made a safe landing in what NASA (news - web sites) scientists said could be a dry lake bed ideal for finding signs of life on the red planet.

The black-and-white pictures showed a panoramic view of the barren, rock-strewn Martian landscape surrounding the Spirit lander, which touched down at the wind-swept center of the Gusev crater -- exactly where project managers had hoped.

"It's a place almost ... tailor-made for our vehicle," Mars Exploration Rover chief mission investigator Steve Squyres said. "It's a glorious crater. We have hit what the science team believes is the scientific sweet spot."

The pictures, taken at mid-afternoon Mars time, show a vast expanse of what appears to be desert extending to the horizon in every direction. The scientists were intrigued by dust-filled hollows they said may be one of the rover's first stops. They also were trying to gauge the distance to a series of ridges.

"The images are outstanding," Mars Exploration Rover science manager John Callas said as the pictures from Spirit began to appear on a giant screen at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"The quality (is) the best that have been taken. This is incredible."

The pictures captured Mars for the first time in stereoscope -- offering unprecedented depth of field that will allow NASA to more accurately pinpoint areas of exploration.

Squyres said if the landing site inside the crater was in fact a dry lake bed, its sedimentary rock could have preserved clues about the planet's ancient past.

The spacecraft sent between 60 and 80 pictures -- an unexpected bounty for the Spirit team -- to the passing Odyssey orbiter during a 12-minute communications window and gave NASA scientists a glimpse of the lander itself, which had traveled seven months through space to search for life on Mars.

:alien: :cool:

[Eagle3]

I didn't get a chance to post a head of time, but I hope some of you got a chance to watch Nova last night. It was about the building and testing of the two Mars rover payloads leading right up to launch. At the end they showed the control center and some of the first low-res shots as the first rover sucessfully landed. Good job NASA. They needed something positive to happen. Tomorrow I believe Nova will be showing the first hi-res images from the rover. These might be released today.

[Eagle3]

Celestial Highlights for 2004 (http://skyandtelescope.com/printable/observing/highlights/article_1138.asp)
Follow the link to the article to get the side articles mentioned.

By Paul Deans

Every clear night the starry realm offers skygazers new sights to behold and old favorites to revisit — there’s always plenty to see in the heavens on a regular basis. Planets are popular targets for skywatchers, and during the first half of 2004 three of them dominate the evening sky. Brilliant Venus and fainter Saturn are well-placed for viewing after sunset during the first few months of the new year while Jupiter remains a fine sight until it's lost in the Sun's glare in late August. Mars and Mercury pass within 0.2° of each other at dusk on July 10th, and on November 5th Venus and Jupiter make a dazzling pair in the dawn sky. But each year uncommon events and sights arise that merit special mention, and there are several in 2004. Leading the list is something that hasn’t occurred in 122 years.

Transit of Venus

No one alive today has seen this sight, and it happens only twice this century. For the first time since 1882, Venus will glide across (transit) the face of the Sun on June 8th, taking 6 hours 12 minutes to complete its journey. The entire transit is visible from Europe, Africa (except the far west), the Middle East, and Asia (except the far east). For observers in eastern and central North America, the Sun rises with the transit in progress. The article "The Transit of Venus: Where to See It" will help you determine whether or not you'll be able to see this event from your area.

A magnified view of the Sun (which requires a proper solar filter) will reveal the black dot of Venus slowly moving across the Sun’s face from celestial east to west. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the transit is watching Venus enter and exit the solar disk — a process that takes about 20 minutes.

Eye safety is a prime consideration when you’re viewing the solar surface (with or without Venus in transit). Always use a safe solar filer or an indirect projection technique, even when the Sun is low on the horizon. Visit "The Sun" section of Sky & Telescope's Web site to learn how to safely view our star.

By the way, the second and final Venus transit of the 21st century occurs in 2012; the next pair of transits doesn't take place until 2117 and 2125.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses

There are four eclipses during 2004: a pair of total lunar eclipses and two partial solar eclipses. First up is a partial eclipse of the Sun, visible on April 19th to observers in Madagascar and the southern third of Africa.

Two weeks later, on the night of May 4–5, a total lunar eclipse is visible from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Totality lasts for 76 minutes, with mideclipse occurring at 20:30 Universal Time (10:30 p.m. in Cape Town, South Africa). At least some part of Earth's dark shadow (the umbra) touches the Moon for 3 hours 24 minutes. Western Europe, western Africa, and eastern South America will see the Moon rise already eclipsed, while in eastern Asia and Australia the Moon sets as the eclipse ends.

A partial solar eclipse occurs in western Alaska at sunset on October 13th and across Japan, the northeastern tip of China, and eastern Russia on the 14th. Greatest eclipse occurs in Alaska, west of Anchorage, where more than 90 percent of the solar diameter is obscured as the Sun sets.

The second total lunar eclipse of 2004 is visible from the Americas, Europe, most of Africa, and western Asia on the night of October 27–28. Canada and the continental US will see all of totality (weather permitting), but Hawaii will experience only a partial eclipse, as the Moon rises after totality has ended. At 9:14 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on the 27th (subtract 3 hours for Pacific Time, add 4 hours for Greenwich or Universal time) the Earth’s umbra touches the left side of the Moon. The dark notch grows until it covers the entire lunar surface at 10:23 p.m. Since the envelope of air surrounding our planet bends some of the Sun’s light into the Earth’s shadow, the Moon will probably remain visible during totality. If our atmosphere is relatively clear, the Moon will be bathed in the reddish glow from sunrises and sunsets around the world. But if the air is thick with clouds, the Moon may look dull gray and dim. Totality ends at 11:45 p.m., and the Moon departs the Earth’s umbra at 12:54 a.m.

Additional details about these and other upcoming eclipses, as well as information about how to observe and photograph these breathtaking celestial spectacles, are available in the "Eclipses" section of this Web site.

Comets in 2004

When a bright comet appears in Earth’s skies, it’s usually a surprise. Rarely do astronomers have enough warning of a comet’s arrival to be able to issue predictions about its brightness and position a year or more in advance. The downside of such long-range prognostications is that comets are notoriously unreliable! However, at least two moderately bright comets will appear in 2004. It’s possible both will be visible without optical aid, and skywatchers south of the equator will see both comets at their best.

Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR), discovered in October 2002, remains faint until after perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) in late April 2004. By mid-May, Comet LINEAR may become at least as bright as 4th or 3rd magnitude, and Southern Hemisphere observers will be able to see it in the southwest shortly after sunset. At this time it’ll join another comet — Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) — that southern skywatchers will have been observing for some time.

Comet NEAT was discovered in August 2001, but it’s visible mainly from south of the equator until late April 2004. Then the comet begins a rapid rise through the winter sky, moving past the bright stars Sirius and Procyon in early May and M44 (the Beehive Cluster in Cancer) at midmonth before entering the constellation Ursa Major in late May. During this time, C/2001/Q4 may become at least a 3rd-magnitude object, making it easy to spot after twilight in the west.

More information about both comets is available in the online article "Two Comets in 2004."

Occultations of Jupiter and Venus

As the Moon glides eastward through the sky, it occasionally occults (passes in front of) a star or planet, snuffing out its light. The star or planet reappears on the Moon’s opposite side up to an hour later.

Beginning about 3:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on the morning of December 7th, the Moon occults Jupiter for observers from the Rocky Mountains eastward in North America. This will be a spectacular event, easily visible in binoculars and small telescopes. The giant planet and several of its four bright satellites will disappear behind the bright lunar limb of the waning crescent Moon, reappearing from behind the dark limb up to an hour later.

Three other planetary occultations in 2004 deserve mention, though all are daytime events. On May 21st, Europeans see the Moon hide Venus beginning around 11:00 Universal Time. For skywatchers in northeastern US and eastern Canada, the Moon covers Jupiter beginning about 12:00 p.m. EST on November 9th. Finally, on November 10th, observers in Australia and New Zealand see an occultation of Venus starting at approximately 1:00 UT (noon in Sydney, Australia).

The Moon also hides bright stars on a regular basis. The best of these occultations for the coming year are described in the article "Lunar Occultation Highlights for 2004."

Detailed descriptions of upcoming celestial events appear monthly in Sky & Telescope magazine. A summary of these events, plus any late-breaking observing stories, can be found in the Observing section of this Web site.

[Barb101]

Originally posted by eagle3
I didn't get a chance to post a head of time, but I hope some of you got a chance to watch Nova last night. It was about the building and testing of the two Mars rover payloads leading right up to launch. At the end they showed the control center and some of the first low-res shots as the first rover sucessfully landed. Good job NASA. They needed something positive to happen. Tomorrow I believe Nova will be showing the first hi-res images from the rover. These might be released today.

Hey Eagle! Nova is airing 'Mars, Dead or Alive" again on Jan 6th. With up to the minute news. You can also catch it here the next day on the web.

Following the televised broadcast of "MARS Dead or Alive," the entire one-hour program will be viewable here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/program.html on January 7th. It will be divided into chapters and can be viewed with the QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player plug-ins

[DMS]

:sure: It looks like the Arizona desert to me...
:what:

[DMS]

I hear it's a fake, just to boost Bush's poll ratings!:Poke:

[cuda]

I wonder if they'll send it out to look for the British probe. :laugh:

[JDub]

Originally posted by cuda
I wonder if they'll send it out to look for the British probe. :laugh:

Headline: Rover finds Beagle?

[Barb101]

(LOL Dub :D)


ATLANTA (Reuters) - The sun has a twin in the left claw of Scorpio.

The solar twin is 18 Scorpii, located in the constellation Scorpio (The Scorpion), a mere 46 light-years from Earth. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year. In cosmic terms, this is quite close by.

Astronomers have looked for sun-like stars for years, because stars similar to our sun might have orbiting planets like Earth, and might be good places to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

They have trained their sights on 18 Scorpii in particular since 1997, when scientists identified it as a potential solar twin. On Tuesday, a team of astronomers from Villanova University in Pennsylvania noted just how much the two stars have in common.

They are both about the same age, between 4 billion and 5 billion years old. They have about the same mass, the same radius and the same surface temperature. They take approximately the same amount of time to rotate -- somewhere around 25 days. They have similar cycles of activity, sunspots in the sun's case.

Villanova's Edward Guinan said there is a certain sport to finding the closest stellar match to the sun, but there is scientific value as well. Finding a likely twin of the sun shows that the sun is likely a normal star, Guinan said at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Atlanta.

Bizarro World :cool:

Yahoo/Reuters (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=5&u=/nm/20040106/sc_nm/space_twin_dc)

[Barb101]

This is cool! It's the first fullscreen, 360 degree panoramic view of Mars.Panorama of Mars (http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f2_mars.html)

[cuda]

NASA Unable to Communicate with Mars Rover (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040122/ts_nm/space_mars_dc)
By Jill Serjeant


PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - NASA scientists said on Thursday they had lost contact with the robot rover Spirit on Mars and were unsure what had caused the problem.

Spirit project manager Pete Theisinger told a news briefing that there was a "very serious anomaly" in communications with the six-wheeled craft, which landed on Mars on Jan. 3 on a planned three-month mission to explore the geologic history of the planet.

Theisinger said scientists had been unable to communicate with Spirit for about 24 hours and had so far been unable to explain the source of the problem.

"There is not one single fault that explains this," Theisinger said, adding that mission scientists had worked throughout the night on scenarios ranging from a major power failure to a software or memory corruption.

Mission managers said Spirit was not completely dead, and had sent out a communication beep and default signals. But they said several attempts since Wednesday afternoon to send commands to the rover and to receive data from it via the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and the Mars Odyssey orbiter had failed.

The grim news dampened the elated atmosphere at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where mission controllers have delighted up until now at the virtually flawless landing on Mars.

Spirit last week began its first tentative journeys sampling the surface soil of the Gusev Crater -- a barren, wind-swept basin that scientists believe may have been the site of an ancient lake bed once fed by a Martian river.

The first hitch in the mission came on Wednesday when a thunderstorm in Canberra, Australia, prevented mission controllers from transmitting command sequences from the Canberra large dish antenna complex to Spirit on its 18th day on the red planet.

Project managers initially seemed unconcerned at the setback but are now examining whether the communications glitch may have contributed to the more serious problems with Spirit.

Mission managers said on Thursday that the Spirit communications problems would have no effect on the scheduled arrival on Saturday on the opposite side of Mars of Spirit's twin exploration rover, Opportunity.

The two robotic rovers are the most advanced missions to date in man's 40-year quest to discover the geologic history of Mars and whether it was ever sufficiently warm or wet enough to sustain a recognizable form of life.

[Barb101]

"I know. I think Beagle found it and chewed on the antenna"

A quote from Eagle. :D

[cuda]

Could be a photoshop theme here. :rolleyes:

[STIBROKER]

this is pretty cool......

http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

[Barb101]

Second Rover Lands Successfully on Mars
By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040125/ap_on_sc/mars_rovers_19

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA (news - web sites)'s Opportunity rover landed on Mars late Saturday, arriving at the Red Planet exactly three weeks after its identical twin set down, and prompting whoops and cheers of delight from mission scientists.

"We're on Mars everybody," Rob Manning, manager of the entry, descent and landing portion of the mission, shouted as fellow scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory burst into wild applause.

The unmanned, six-wheeled rover landed at 9:05 p.m. PST in Meridiani Planum, NASA said. The smooth, flat plain lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where its twin, Spirit, set down on Jan. 3.

Minutes after the landing, former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) strode through mission control, shaking hands with elated scientists.

Together, the twin rovers make up a single $820 million mission to determine if Mars ever was a wetter world capable of sustaining life. NASA launched Spirit on June 10. Opportunity followed on July 7.

Earlier this week, Spirit developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and other scientific data. Scientists said earlier Saturday, however, that they believe they can fix the problem in the weeks ahead.

"We resurrected one rover and saw the birth of another today," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science.

At a jubliant news conference nearly two hours after the landing, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe broke open a bottle of champagne, as he did after Spirit's landing, and toasted the mission's leaders.

"As the old saying goes, it's far better to be lucky than good, but you know, the harder we work the luckier we seem to get," O'Keefe said, adding "no one dared hope" that both rover landings would be so successful.

Four hours after landing, NASA received the first photographs from Opportunity. The burst of black-and-white thumbnail images showed portions of the lander, as well as rocky outcroppings apparently just yards from the spacecraft. Mission members whooped and hollered as they splashed on a screen in mission control.

"This tells us the rover is functioning as planned," mission science manager John Callas said.

Mars Exploration Rover Entry, Descent and Landing Manager Rob Manning, sitting far left, talks to Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Mission Control Center at NASA's JPL in Pasadena, Calif., Saturday, 24 Jan. 2004., following the safe landing of the Opportunity rover. Others from left: Mars rover Chief Engineer Wayne Lee, California Congressman Adam Schiff, Schwarzenegger, Texas Congressman John Culbertson, and former Vice-president Al Gore.

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger & Vice-president Al Gore got to be there! :cool: Lucky dogs. :what:

[Peckable]

Minutes after the landing, former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) strode through mission control, shaking hands with elated scientists.
Can't NASA afford some real celebs?

[cuda]

Didn't Gore invent the Mars Probe? :confused:

[Eagle3]

Originally posted by cuda
Didn't Gore invent the Mars Probe? :confused:

He invented the vacuum of space, i.e. the space between his ears.

[jillamanda]

I wouldn't mind this diamond.....

'Lucy' the star diamond

February 17, 2004 - 9:12AM

Space scientists revealed today that they have found the biggest known diamond in the universe - a 10-billion-trillion-trillion-carat gem.

US astrophysicists said they found the massive rock on Valentine's Day, positioned 50 light years away in the constellation Centaurus.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/17/1076779937571.html

[Favetti]

Astronomy Magazine or Sky And Telescope?

7x50s or 9x63s?

Light buckets or catadioptric?

Strained necks or wet backsides?

[Eagle3]

Just my $0.02

Originally posted by Favetti
Astronomy Magazine or Sky And Telescope?
Tough call. I lean towards S&T. It also has a nice website. I read them both at the library.

7x50s or 9x63s?
7x50's at a minimum. If you're going to spring for 9x63's may as well get 15x63's


Light buckets or catadioptric? How much $$$ do you have? :laugh: If you're just getting into this for casual observing get as big a light bucket on a dob mount you can afford and have room for.

Strained necks or wet backsides?
Strained neck. Motrin and some stretching works wonders. I hate a wet backside. :nolike:

[Eagle3]

Both of these comets will viewable in the southern hemisphere. Comet NEAT will also be viewable in the north. Both are potential naked eye objects.

Two Comets in 2004 (http://skyandtelescope.com/printable/observing/objects/comets/article_1040.asp)
By Greg Bryant

A pair of comets show much promise for early 2004, though keep in mind that predicting the brightness of comets remains a somewhat unreliable science.The first is C/2001 Q4, detected at 20th magnitude on August 24, 2001, by the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) survey program. As 2004 begins, Comet NEAT moves through Indus and curves into Tucana. In early April the comet, perhaps already sighted by unaided eyes, passes 7° north of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Three weeks later it’s less than 10° from the Large Magellanic Cloud. C/2001 Q4 continues to pick up speed as it passes closest to Earth (at 0.32 astronomical units) on the 6th and heads toward perihelion (the point in its orbit nearest the Sun), May 15th, at 0.96 a.u. from the Sun. Around this time it may shine as bright as 2nd magnitude.

During May this comet will become increasingly visible to Northern Hemisphere observers in the evening sky. It crosses the celestial equator on the 10th, heading north as it begins to fade. But even at the end of May, when this comet enters Ursa Major, it may still be brighter than 5th magnitude.
......


Comet LINEAR C/2002 T7
The second comet is C/2002 T7, discovered by the Lincoln Laboratory Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey program on October 14th, 2002, as an apparent asteroid. Images taken two weeks later revealed it to be a comet nearly 7 a.u. distant, and subsequent calculations by Brian G. Marsden (Minor Planet Center) showed that it, too, is a first-time visitor.

This comet spends most of January through April in Pisces. But it will be lost in the solar glare for about three weeks beginning in mid-March. When Southern Hemisphere observers sight this comet again in the morning sky, hopes are that it will be visible to the naked eye. Perihelion is on April 23rd, at 0.61 a.u. from the Sun.

Moving from Pisces into Cetus and then Eridanus, the comet will become an evening object by the second half of May. About May 19th, this visitor will approach to within 0.27 a.u. of Earth and perhaps peak in brightness as high as 1st magnitude.

Around then Southern Hemisphere observers could have a memorable scene in the evening sky. Imagine two comets of perhaps 2nd magnitude, both probably displaying post-perihelion tail lengths of many degrees! Such a pairing will be a unique experience for today’s generation.

As 2004 unfolds, we’ll gain a firmer idea of how bright these comets may ultimately become. With both C/2001 Q4 and C/2002 T7 still approaching the Sun, now is an ideal time to watch, if you can, as they grow in brightness and size over the coming months.

[Eagle3]

Black Hole Seen Ripping Star Apart (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040218/D80PREA80.html)
Feb 18, 2:04 PM (ET)
By ANDREW BRIDGES

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Two space observatories have provided the first strong evidence of a supermassive black hole stretching, tearing apart and partially gobbling up a star flung into reach of its enormous gravity, astronomers said Wednesday.

The event had long been predicted by theory but never confirmed.

A powerful X-ray blast drew the attention of astronomers to the event, located near the center of a galaxy about 700 million light-years from Earth. The international team of astronomers believe gases from the star, heated to multimillion-degree temperatures as they fell toward the black hole near the heart of galaxy RX J1242-11, produced the blast.

Astronomers said a star about the size of our sun neared the black hole after veering off course following a close encounter with another star. The tremendous gravity of the black hole, estimated to have a mass 100 million times that of our sun, then stretched the star to the point of breaking.

"This is the ultimate David versus Goliath battle, but here David loses," said Gunther Hasinger, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

The effect is the same that the tug of the moon has on the Earth's oceans, but with much more violent results. The black hole consumed an estimated 1 percent of the doomed star, flinging the rest out into space.

"This unlucky star just wandered into the wrong neighborhood," said Stefanie Komossa, also of the Max Planck Institute.

Astronomers used NASA's Chandra and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatories to capture the event. Similar events are estimated to occur just once every 10,000 years in a typical galaxy.

Astronomers have seen other similar X-ray blasts before, but never were able to pinpoint them at the center of a galaxy, where black holes lurk. The new observations also revealed the characteristic X-ray signature expected of the surroundings of a black hole.

The blast first was seen in 1992 and remains visible as it fades, said Chandra press scientist Peter Edmonds, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

[Favetti]

I was curious what your preference was for handheld binocs and scopes. Mine is a Mak but hey, I don't even have US$0.02 for that comment.

[Eagle3]

That's why asked what you wanted to spend. If I had unlimited funds I would have gotten a Mak. If you're on a budget then I think a reflector is the way to go and unless you're absolutley sure that you have to do astrophotography get a Dob mount.

[Favetti]

Ah.. so you prefer a Mak too. Have you scoped out (pun intended) the Lomos? I know Intes has a good rep and following.

[Eagle3]

I haven't read any reviews on them, but they seem to be price competitive. The built in finder scope is a pretty cool feature. The way to check them out though is to find the local astronomy club and check them out on an open house night. You'll see all kinds of scopes and they'll love to let you look through them.
Uber nerds can't help showing off their hardware :hehe:

[cuda]

coooooooool....:cool:

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html

[Eagle3]

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (http://skyandtelescope.com/printable/news/article_1195.asp)
By Robert Naeye

February 27, 2004 | This glorious new image of Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft provides just a hint of what is to come. Cassini ventures closer and closer to the ringed planet each day as it heads for its July 1st rendezvous, meaning images in the coming weeks and months will exhibit ever more detail. The spacecraft's narrow-angle camera acquired this image on February 9th from a range of 69.4 million kilometers (43.1 million miles, or 0.46 astronomical unit). The resolution enables us to see features just 540 km across. The picture shows multicolored bands in the planet's atmosphere, the Cassini Division and Encke Gap in the rings, and the icy moon Enceladus to Saturn's upper left. To view a higher-resolution version of this image, visit NASA's Cassini/Huygens home page. (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm)

[Eagle3]

StarDust's Comet Cargo (http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1213_1.asp)
By David Tytell

March 18, 2004 | With all the excitement surrounding the Mars Exploration Rovers since they landed in January, few people realize that another space triumph happened two days before Spirit touched down on the red planet. On January 2nd a spacecraft called Stardust successfully flew by Comet 81P/Wild 2, extended a tennis-racket-shaped collector, and, as its name implies, caught bits of cometary dust to return to Earth. On Tuesday a standing-room-only crowd of researchers at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, eagerly listened as the Stardust team members shared the early results of the flyby.

The mission's primary goal was to bring back at least 500 particles bigger than 15 microns in size. According to Stardust's principal investigator, Donald Brownlee (University of Washington), "We beat that by a factor of at least a few." The spacecraft also took 72 images of the comet's nucleus from as little as 240 kilometers (149 miles) away, spotting details with a resolution better than 20 meters per pixel. These shots revealed a body covered with scarps, vertical cliffs, and a "monument valley" complete with columns, pyramids, cones, and 100-meter-high spires.

Stardust's cameras also confirmed that the comet's 5-km (3-mile) wide nucleus is quite active. More than a dozen highly collimated jets of gas and dust were seen spewing from the nucleus, and one of them was clearly associated with a distinct surface feature. Wild 2 is "unlike any other body in the solar system," says Brownlee. "There is no featureless terrain. It's incredibly feature-rich."

Wild 2 came with other surprises. Most notable was the comet's coma, the hazy cloud of dust and gas that surrounds the nucleus. Astronomers had suspected that as Stardust passed through the coma, its dust-flux-monitoring instrument would detect a smooth increase of particles that would peak at closest approach and recede the same way. That's what the Giotto spacecraft found when it passed through Comet 1P/Halley's coma in 1986. The predictions couldn't have been more wrong. Instead Stardust detected the dust in "clumps," recording sudden bursts of hits followed by lulls. To explain the phenomenon Benton C. Clark (Lockheed Martin) proposed that Wild 2 actually releases mass in "chunks and aggregates that later become dust clouds."

Perhaps the reason is the comet's recent history. Wild 2 was originally in a long-period orbit that kept it far from the Sun. But in 1974 an encounter with Jupiter changed its orbit, bringing it into the inner solar system. Thus, in the past three decades Wild 2 likely experienced fresh stresses and cracks that could have led to the loss of large chunks of the largely pristine icy body.

Stardust did come with some disappointments. Scientists were unable to determine the mass and thus the density of the comet's nucleus. The best they could distinguish from the noisy data was an upper bound of 5 trillion tons. Additionally, the Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer, a mass spectrometer, only recorded 29 events — only a hundredth of what was predicted, says Clark. He suspects that as the craft was being pelted with debris it needed to fire its thrusters to correct its orientation, which might have caused an "unintended shadowing" of the instrument. Bad timing is also possible — perhaps Stardust simply flew past Wild 2 during a period of little outburst activity. The particles that the instrument did see had an organic-rich composition and were deficient in rock-forming minerals. But the CIDA results remain preliminary.

Stardust's sealed sample canister will land in Utah on January 15, 2006. It will be then whisked away to a special lab being constructed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. There scientists will mine the collected particles looking for embedded gases, ratios of key atomic isotopes, minerals, and organic compounds.

[Bucko]

My names on a chip that Stardust carries. They're going to display it around the country when it returns....along with several billion other names. LOL

[Eagle3]

Expanding light echo around V838 Monocerotis (http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1205_1.asp)
By Pamela L. Gay

March 16, 2004 | In early 2002, a relatively undistinguished star named V838 Monocerotis embarked on a light-speed rise to fame. It flared twice in February and March before fading away, but the aftermath of its outbursts continues to intrigue astronomers and mesmerize the public. The series of five images above were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. They show the outward journey of the light from the flares.

The casual viewer might look at these frames and think they show an expanding shell of glowing dust and gas moving away from V838 Mon. In truth, the flareups are merely illuminating progressively larger spheres of preexisting, stationary material in space. We are seeing a "light echo" bouncing off this material, the same way echoes of a sound can be heard bouncing off objects near the sound's source.

In a January article in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Romuald Tylenda of the Torun Centre for Astronomy in Poland argues that the material is distributed too asymmetrically to have been puffed off from the star even long ago. Instead, the expanding sphere of starlight is apparently lighting up interstellar gas and dust that just happened to be in the area.

While V838 Mon is the most photogenic star of its kind, it is not unique. Both Sagittarius and Andromeda have stars that put on similar public outbursts. A study led by Dipankar P.K. Banerjee of the Physical Research Laboratory in India found the signature of rare aluminum oxide molecules in both V838 Mon and V4332 Sgr. Banerjee and his team propose the name "quasinovae" for this new class of objects.

[Barb101]

Space Weather News for April 15, 2004

Newly-discovered Comet Bradfield (C/2004 F4) is plunging toward the sun. At closest approach on April 17th it will be well inside the orbit of Mercury. Comets that get so close to the sun can become very bright and, sometimes, they break apart.

The sun's glare will hide the encounter from observers on Earth, but not from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Coronagraphs onboard SOHO are able to block the glare and reveal sungrazing comets. Comet Bradfield will enter SOHO's field of view on April 16th. Visit Spaceweather.com to view the images.

In the weeks ahead, sky watchers will be able to see some comets for themselves: Comet NEAT (C/2001 Q4), Comet LINEAR (C/2002 T7) and, if it survives its flyby of the sun, Comet Bradfield. Details and sky maps are available at Spaceweather.com (http://www.spaceweather.com) .

[Bucko]

Cosmic Magnifying Glass: Distant Star Reveals Planet

Like Sherlock Holmes holding a magnifying glass to unveil hidden clues, modern day astronomers used cosmic magnifying effects to reveal a planet orbiting a distant star.

This marks the first discovery of a planet around a star beyond Earth's solar system using gravitational microlensing. A star or planet can act as a cosmic lens to magnify and brighten a more distant star lined up behind it. The gravitational field of the foreground star bends and focuses light, like a glass lens bending and focusing starlight in a telescope. Albert Einstein predicted this effect in his theory of general relativity and confirmed it with our Sun.

"The real strength of microlensing is its ability to detect low-mass planets," said Dr. Ian Bond of the Institute for Astronomy in Edinburgh, Scotland, lead author of a paper appearing in the May 10 Astrophysical Journal Letters. The discovery was made possible through cooperation between two international research teams: Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (Moa) and Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (Ogle). Well-equipped amateur astronomers might use this technique to follow up future discoveries and help confirm planets around other stars.

The newly discovered star-planet system is 17,000 light years away, in the constellation Sagittarius. The planet, orbiting a red dwarf parent star, is most likely one-and-a-half times bigger than Jupiter. The planet and star are three times farther apart than Earth and the Sun. Together, they magnify a farther, background star some 24,000 light years away, near the Milky Way center.

In most prior microlensing observations, scientists saw a typical brightening pattern, or light curve, indicating a star's gravitational pull was affecting light from an object behind it. The latest observations revealed extra spikes of brightness, indicating the existence of two massive objects. By analyzing the precise shape of the light curve, Bond and his team determined one smaller object is only 0.4 percent the mass of a second, larger object. They concluded the smaller object must be a planet orbiting its parent star.

Dr. Bohdan Paczynski of Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., an OGLE team member, first proposed using gravitational microlensing to detect dark matter in 1986. In 1991, Paczynski and his student, Shude Mao, proposed using microlensing to detect extrasolar planets. Two years later, three groups reported the first detection of gravitational microlensing by stars. Earlier claims of planet discoveries with microlensing are not regarded as definitive, since they had too few observations of the apparent planetary brightness variations.

"I'm thrilled to see the prediction come true with this first definite planet detection through gravitational microlensing," Paczynski said. He and his colleagues believe observations over the next few years may lead to the discovery of Neptune-sized, and even Earth-sized planets around distant stars.

Microlensing can easily detect extrasolar planets, because a planet dramatically affects the brightness of a background star. Because t