This Is Kjell Lindgren. He’s A NASA Astronaut Who Just Got Back From 5 Months On The International

Comet That Took a Century to Confirm Passes by Earth

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center logo. March 31, 2017 On April 1, 2017, comet 41P will pass closer than it normally does to Earth, giving observers with binoculars or a telescope a special viewing opportunity. Comet hunters in the Northern Hemisphere should look for it near the constellations Draco and Ursa Major, which the Big Dipper is part of. Whether a comet will put on a good show for observers is notoriously difficult to predict, but 41P has a history of outbursts, and put on quite a display in 1973. If the comet experiences similar outbursts this time, there’s a chance it could become bright enough to see with the naked eye. The comet is expected to reach perihelion, or its closest approach to the sun, on April 12.

Image above: In this image taken March 24, 2017, comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák is shown moving through a field of faint galaxies in the bowl of the Big Dipper. On April 1, the comet will pass by Earth at a distance of about 13 million miles (0.14 astronomical units), or 55 times the distance from Earth to the moon; that is a much closer approach than usual for this Jupiter-family comet. Image Credits: image copyright Chris Schur, used with permission. Officially named 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák to honor its three discoverers, the comet is being playfully called the April Fool’s Day comet on this pass. Discovery credit goes first to Horace Tuttle, who spotted the comet in 1858. According to the Cometography website, 41P was recognized at the time as a periodic comet — one that orbits the sun — but astronomers initially were uncertain how long the comet needed to make the trip. The comet was rediscovered in 1907 by Michael Giacobini but not immediately linked to the object seen in 1858. Later, the astronomer Andrew Crommelin determined that the two observations had been of the same object and predicted that the comet would return in 1928 and 1934, according to the Cometography entry for the comet. However, the object was not seen then and was considered lost. In 1951, L’ubor Kresák discovered it again and tied it to the earlier observations. A member of the Jupiter family of comets, 41P makes a trip around the sun every 5.4 years, coming relatively close to Earth on some of those trips. On this approach, the comet will pass our planet at a distance of about 13 million miles (0.14 astronomical units), or about 55 times the distance from Earth to the moon. This is the comet’s closest approach to Earth in more than 50 years and perhaps more than a century. For scientists, 41P’s visit is an opportunity to fill in details about the comet’s composition, coma and nucleus.

Image above: An artist’s illustration of a group of comet enthusiasts. Image Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “An important aspect of Jupiter-family comets is that fewer of them have been studied, especially in terms of the composition of ices in their nuclei, compared with comets from the Oort cloud,” said Michael DiSanti of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He and his team will be observing 41P on April 1 using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. Astronomers will try to determine characteristics such as how quickly 41P’s nucleus rotates, which provides clues about how structurally sound the nucleus is, and whether any changes can be documented in the coma and tail. Observers also will look for outbursts, which are an indication of how active a comet is. By cataloging the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, differences among comets, researchers can construct a family tree and trace the history of how and where these objects formed as the solar system was taking shape. “Comets are remnants from the early solar system,” said DiSanti. “Each comet that comes into the neighborhood of Earth gives us a chance to add to our understanding of the events that led to the formation of our own planet.” Related links: Comets: http://www.nasa.gov/comets Goddard Space Flight Center: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, by Elizabeth Zubritsky/Rob Garner. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

Ten minutes till this happens! I can’t watch it live but I’m excited to see what happens in the aftermath…

In about 20 minutes SpaceX will attempt to reuse a rocket booster they’ve already used before. If they succeed it could be a very serious step forward in space exploration capabilities.

Go SpaceX. Pleassssse…

Does Mars Have Rings? Not Right Now, But Maybe One Day

NASA - Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) patch. March 20, 2017 As children, we learned about our solar system’s planets by certain characteristics – Jupiter is the largest, Saturn has rings, Mercury is closest to the sun. Mars is red, but it’s possible that one of our closest neighbors also had rings at one point and may have them again someday. That’s the theory put forth by NASA-funded scientists at Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, whose findings were published in the journal Nature Geoscience. David Minton and Andrew Hesselbrock developed a model that suggests that debris that was pushed into space from an asteroid or other body slamming into Mars around 4.3 billion years ago alternates between becoming a planetary ring and clumping together to form a moon. One theory suggests that Mars’ large North Polar Basin or Borealis Basin – which covers about 40 percent of the planet in its northern hemisphere – was created by that impact, sending debris into space. “That large impact would have blasted enough material off the surface of Mars to form a ring,” Hesselbrock said. Hesselbrock and Minton’s model suggests that as the ring formed, and the debris slowly moved away from the Red Planet and spread out, it began to clump and eventually formed a moon. Over time, Mars’ gravitational pull would have pulled that moon toward the planet until it reached the Roche limit, the distance within which a planet’s tidal forces will break apart a celestial body that is held together only by gravity.

Image above: The image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows one of Mars’ two moons, Phobos, passing directly in front of the other, Deimos, in 2013. New research suggests the moons consolidated long ago from dust rings around the planet and, in the distant future, may disintegrate into new rings. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ. Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, is getting closer to the planet. According to the model, Phobos will break apart upon reaching the Roche limit, and become a set of rings in roughly 70 million years. Depending on where the Roche limit is, Minton and Hesselbrock believe this cycle may have repeated between three and seven times over billions of years. Each time a moon broke apart and reformed from the resulting ring, its successor moon would be five times smaller than the last, according to the model, and debris would have rained down on the planet, possibly explaining enigmatic sedimentary deposits found near Mars’ equator. “You could have had kilometer-thick piles of moon sediment raining down on Mars in the early parts of the planet’s history, and there are enigmatic sedimentary deposits on Mars with no explanation as to how they got there,” Minton said. “And now it’s possible to study that material.” Other theories suggest that the impact with Mars that created the North Polar Basin led to the formation of Phobos 4.3 billion years ago, but Minton said it’s unlikely the moon could have lasted all that time. Also, Phobos would have had to form far from Mars and would have had to cross through the resonance of Deimos, the outer of Mars’ two moons. Resonance occurs when two moons exert gravitational influence on each other in a repeated periodic basis, as major moons of Jupiter do. By passing through its resonance, Phobos would have altered Deimos’ orbit. But Deimos’ orbit is within one degree of Mars’ equator, suggesting Phobos has had no effect on Deimos. “Not much has happened to Deimos’ orbit since it formed,” Minton said. “Phobos passing through these resonances would have changed that.” “This research highlights even more ways that major impacts can affect a planetary body,” said Richard Zurek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He is the project scientist for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, whose gravity mapping provided support for the hypothesis that the northern lowlands were formed by a massive impact. Minton and Hesselbrock will now focus their work on either the dynamics of the first set of rings that formed or the materials that have rained down on Mars from disintegration of moons. Curiosity is part of NASA’s ongoing Mars research and preparation for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s. Caltech manages JPL, and JPL manages the Curiosity mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ For more information about NASA missions investigating Mars, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/ Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Laurie Cantillo/Dwayne Brown/JPL/Guy Webster/Purdue University/Steve Tally/Emil Venere/Writer: Brian Wallheimer. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

Stars Born in Winds from Supermassive Black Holes

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo. 27 March 2017 ESO’s VLT spots brand-new type of star formation

Artist’s impression of stars born in winds from supermassive black holes

Observations using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have revealed stars forming within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies. These are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution. The results are published in the journal Nature. A UK-led group of European astronomers used the MUSE and X-shooter instruments on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile to study an ongoing collision between two galaxies, known collectively as IRAS F23128-5919, that lie around 600 million light-years from Earth. The group observed the colossal winds of material — or outflows — that originate near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the pair’s southern galaxy, and have found the first clear evidence that stars are being born within them [1]. Such galactic outflows are driven by the huge energy output from the active and turbulent centres of galaxies. Supermassive black holes lurk in the cores of most galaxies, and when they gobble up matter they also heat the surrounding gas and expel it from the host galaxy in powerful, dense winds [2]. “Astronomers have thought for a while that conditions within these outflows could be right for star formation, but no one has seen it actually happening as it’s a very difficult observation,” comments team leader Roberto Maiolino from the University of Cambridge. “Our results are exciting because they show unambiguously that stars are being created inside these outflows.”

Artist’s impression of stars born in winds from supermassive black holes

The group set out to study stars in the outflow directly, as well as the gas that surrounds them. By using two of the world-leading VLT spectroscopic instruments, MUSE and X-shooter, they could carry out a very detailed study of the properties of the emitted light to determine its source. Radiation from young stars is known to cause nearby gas clouds to glow in a particular way. The extreme sensitivity of X-shooter allowed the team to rule out other possible causes of this illumination, including gas shocks or the active nucleus of the galaxy. The group then made an unmistakable direct detection of an infant stellar population in the outflow [3]. These stars are thought to be less than a few tens of millions of years old, and preliminary analysis suggests that they are hotter and brighter than stars formed in less extreme environments such as the galactic disc. As further evidence, the astronomers also determined the motion and velocity of these stars. The light from most of the region’s stars indicates that they are travelling at very large velocities away from the galaxy centre — as would make sense for objects caught in a stream of fast-moving material. Co-author Helen Russell (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK) expands: “The stars that form in the wind close to the galaxy centre might slow down and even start heading back inwards, but the stars that form further out in the flow experience less deceleration and can even fly off out of the galaxy altogether.” The discovery provides new and exciting information that could better our understanding of some astrophysics, including how certain galaxies obtain their shapes [4]; how intergalactic space becomes enriched with heavy elements [5]; and even from where unexplained cosmic infrared background radiation may arise [6]. Maiolino is excited for the future: “If star formation is really occurring in most galactic outflows, as some theories predict, then this would provide a completely new scenario for our understanding of galaxy evolution.” Notes: [1] Stars are forming in the outflows at a very rapid rate; the astronomers say that stars totalling around 30 times the mass of the Sun are being created every year. This accounts for over a quarter of the total star formation in the entire merging galaxy system. [2] The expulsion of gas through galactic outflows leads to a gas-poor environment within the galaxy, which could be why some galaxies cease forming new stars as they age. Although these outflows are most likely to be driven by massive central black holes, it is also possible that the winds are powered by supernovae in a starburst nucleus undergoing vigorous star formation. [3] This was achieved through the detection of signatures characteristic of young stellar populations and with a velocity pattern consistent with that expected from stars formed at high velocity in the outflow. [4] Spiral galaxies have an obvious disc structure, with a distended bulge of stars in the centre and surrounded by a diffuse cloud of stars called a halo. Elliptical galaxies are composed mostly of these spheroidal components. Outflow stars that are ejected from the main disc could give rise to these galactic features. [5] How the space between galaxies — the intergalactic medium — becomes enriched with heavy elements is still an open issue, but outflow stars could provide an answer. If they are jettisoned out of the galaxy and then explode as supernovae, the heavy elements they contain could be released into this medium. [6] Cosmic-infrared background radiation, similar to the more famous cosmic microwave background, is a faint glow in the infrared part of the spectrum that appears to come from all directions in space. Its origin in the near-infrared bands, however, has never been satisfactorily ascertained. A population of outflow stars shot out into intergalactic space may contribute to this light. More information: This research was presented in a paper entitled “Star formation in a galactic outflow” by Maiolino et al., to appear in the journal Nature on 27 March 2017. The team is composed of R. Maiolino (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), H.R. Russell (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), A.C. Fabian (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), S. Carniani (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), R. Gallagher (Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), S. Cazzoli (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain), S. Arribas (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain), F. Belfiore ((Cavendish Laboratory; Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, UK), E. Bellocchi (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain), L. Colina  (Departamento de Astrofisica-Centro de Astrobiología, Madrid, Spain), G. Cresci (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), W. Ishibashi (Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland), A. Marconi (Università di Firenze, Italy; Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), F. Mannucci (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), E. Oliva (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italy), and E. Sturm (Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”. Links: ESOcast 101 Light: Stars found in black hole blasts http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1710a/ Research paper in Nature: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1710/eso1710a.pdf Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/ ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT): http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/ MUSE instrument: http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/vlt-instr/muse/ X-shooter instrument: http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt/vlt-instr/x-shooter/ Image, Video, Text, Credits: ESO/Richard Hook/Cavendish Laboratory, Kavli Institute for Cosmology University of Cambridge/Roberto Maiolino/M. Kornmesser. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

goodnight moon. goodnight Milky Way. goodnight Ursa Major (UMa I dSph). goodnight 24IC 1613 (UGC 662.350[8].

Spacewalkers Successfully Connect Adapter for Commercial Crew Vehicles

ISS - Expedition 50 Mission patch / EVA - Extra Vehicular Activities patch. March 30, 2017 Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough and Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson of NASA concluded their spacewalk at 2:33 p.m. EDT. During the spacewalk, which lasted just over seven hours, the two astronauts successfully reconnected cables and electrical connections on the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3. PMA-3 will provide the pressurized interface between the station and the second of two international docking adapters to be delivered to the complex to support the dockings of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft in the future.

Image above: Spacewalkers Shane Kimbrough (spacesuit with red stripe on legs) and Peggy Whitson are pictured shortly after exiting the Quest airlock this morning. Image Credits: @Thom_Astro. The duo were also tasked with installing four thermal protection shields on the Tranquility module of the International Space Station. The shields were required to cover the port where the PMA-3 was removed earlier in the week and robotically installed on the Harmony module. During the spacewalk, one of the shields was inadvertently lost. The loss posed no immediate danger to the astronauts and Kimbrough and Whitson went on to successfully install the remaining shields on the common berthing mechanism port. A team from the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston devised a plan for the astronauts to finish covering the port with the PMA-3 cover Whitson removed earlier in the day. The plan worked, and the cover was successfully installed, providing thermal protection and micrometeoroid and orbital debris cover for the port. To round out the spacewalk, Kimbrough and Whitson also installed a different shield around the base of the PMA-3 adapter for micrometeoroid protection. The shield was nicknamed a cummerbund as it fits around the adapter similar to a tuxedo’s cummerbund worn around the waist.

Image above: Astronaut Peggy Whitson signs her autograph near an Expedition 50 mission patch attached to the inside the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA. Having completed her eighth spacewalk, Whitson now holds the record for the most spacewalks and accumulated time spacewalking by a female astronaut. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 1,243 hours and 42 minutes outside the station during 199 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Related links: International docking adapters: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/meet-the-international-docking-adapter Peggy Whitson spacewalk record: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2017/03/29/astronaut-peggy-whitson-set-to-break-spacewalk-record-thursday/ Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

Ep. 34 Stargazing - HD and the Void

Not enough people in the real world listened to my stories about my recent stargazing adventure, so I distilled my process and plans so that the process of selecting a site and using a stargazing app seems more attainable for those who have never ...

I went stargazing in early August of this year (2019) and I want to suggest a few options that will hopefully make this sort of trip accessible to people who are curious about stargazing but haven’t tried it yet. I talk through the process of finding the right time and location, selecting campsites, preparing some tools to maintain your nightvision, and using an app to figure out stars and constellations more easily.

Below the cut are the transcript, sources, and music credits. Send me any topic suggestions via Tumblr message (you don’t need an account to do this, just submit as anonymous). You can also tweet at me on Twitter at @HDandtheVoid, or you can ask me to my face if you know me in real life. Subscribe on iTunes to get the new episodes of my semi-monthly podcast, and I’d love if you could rate and review it. Go ahead and tell friends if you think they’d like to hear it, too!

(The next episode is undecided, but I’m hoping to have it out for September.)

Transcript

Sources

Dark Site Finder

SkyView Lite

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: me singing ‘House of Gold’ by Twenty-One Pilots off their album Vessel

me singing a parody of ‘Mexican Wine’ by Fountains of Wayne off their album Welcome Interstate Managers

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

It’s international dark sky week! Please enjoy this great Bortle scale.

skyglowproject What sky do you live under? Learn more at SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM

One-year countdown to solar eclipse, August 21, 2017: path of totality overlaid on U.S. population density and interstate map.