MetaFilter posts tagged with NASA and astronomy

At the limit of humankind's ability

IvoShandor — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:29:49 -0800

Scientists at NASA will announce the first findings from the Kepler mission next month. The results have caught scientists off-guard but they aren't giving any hints as to what mission co-investigator David Latham "was not prescient enough to anticipate". The Kepler team will announce what mission scientists characterized as "quite a few more" extrasolar planet discoveries to add to the more than 400 already cataloged. Kepler is a NASA project designed to look for Earth-like extrasolar planets. It was supposed to be the first of many, including SIM Planetquest (now SIM Lite) and the Terrestrial Planet Finders. These projects have seen their share of delays, mostly due to budget constraints (see p. 225 in PDF for details on 2010 NASA exoplanet budget request) imposed by NASA's "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" initiative. Support for these missions is provided by NASA's Cal-Tech operated Exoplanet Science Institute. (Previously)

The Leonid Meteor Shower 2009

nickyskye — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:34:18 -0800

NASA's Fluxtimator helps calculate the meteor shower activity in your area. There will be one of the biggest meteor shower events of our lifetime, the Leonid Meteor shower of 2009. Start time: this Monday November 16, 2009 at 11:00pm EST. End Time: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 4:00am EST (best 2am to 4 am EST). An Atomic Age song in mp3 to celebrate: What Is A Shooting Star. What Is A Shooting Star, written by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer and originally recorded by Tom Glazer for the 1959 album Space Songs. National Geographic says, "you may see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour, depending.." NASA and Caltech say up to 500 an hour. Quoting Orin K, a friendly, generously informative astronomy geek on FaceBook: "If you can see stars directly over head, you will see the brighter meteors only. It's best to get out of town or go to a larger park with trees If you are interested in finding a USA or Canada dark sky site near you, check out this site:http://cleardarksky.com/csk/ and an interesting Calif example observing spot off Rte 40- http://cleardarksky.com/c/AmbyCtCAkey.html?1 Find this on google maps with satellite and terrain views. Use the light pollution map choice to find dark areas near you. Use the sites by state or miles, mouse over pins for site name, dbl click to find next 48 hr forecast of seeing conditions. Black and blue pins are darker sites. Makes Maps, etc. Also, google and install - Cartes du Ciel - free software. Also, well before you leave, check out ( when it is working! ) - the GOES 12 live view satellite 6 hr visible and infrared 6 hr animation to see the cloud flow patterns in your area of interest: http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeseastconus.html Get advice from local astronomy clubs. Take Lawn Chairs or thick foam pads, sleeping bags, layered clothing, wool caps, hand warmers, warm drinks. camera, 24mm lens at f2.8 with 20 second or more exposure, on tripod, and shutter cable trigger or 10 second count down shutter release. No binoculars or telescopes needed - just look up. The head stars of Constellation Leo will be rising after the Gemini Twins and the planet Mars in the northeast after midnight. Record brightness and direction of travel. Do clear nights Nov 16-19, but 11PM to dawn on 17 into 18 is best. Also think badly of ground fog, local light domes from cities, farmyard lights. As Ever, Orin, near Chicago." What do the colors under the "light pollution" column mean? Viewing suggestions in California l on the East Coast. The most famous depiction of the 1833 Leonid meteor showers. Previously

Please Prepare For Landing

msalt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:33:36 -0800

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Did that star just blink?

borkencode — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:32:32 -0800

Tonight NASA is scheduled to launch the Kepler Mission (named after planetary legislator Johannes Kepler) with the goal of finding Earth size planets in orbit around stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the sky. Over the next 3 and a half years it will maintain a nearly unblinking gaze on the approximately 100 thousand stars in the region. NASA expects it to find about 50 Earth size planets, as well as hundreds that are larger. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV. Currently the smallest known exoplanet is COROT-Exo-7b discovered by the French COROT mission. (previously) Both the COROT and Kepler missions use the planetary transit method of detection, where a planet crossing the face of a star causes a dip in its brightness.

Dark Flow

homunculus — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:28:16 -0800

Mysterious New 'Dark Flow' Discovered in Space. "As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered. Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon 'dark flow.' The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude." Here's the paper (subscription required): A Measurement of Large-Scale Peculiar Velocities of Clusters of Galaxies: Results and Cosmological Implications. NASA has preprints you can download: results and implications and technical details (PDFs).

We live in a wonderfully insane universe.

brundlefly — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:18:55 -0800

NASA Astronomers Find Bizarre Planet-Mass Object Orbiting Neutron Star [via]

Race To Mars

richlach — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:35:01 -0800

"Somewhere on the planet are ten-year-olds who, someday, will be the first people to set foot on Mars" 300 scientists and space-experts contributed to what's billed as "a realistic vision of the first Human Mission to Mars" -- Race to Mars. Discovery Channel Canada used Hollywood special effects, but for added realism rather than ray-guns and aliens. On the website, you can argue about whether they got it right. www.racetomars.ca

Titanic Pirates of Methane Seas

y2karl — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:10:42 -0800

Titan Sea and Lake Superior

This movie, comprised of several detailed images taken by Cassini's radar instrument, shows bodies of liquid near Titan's north pole. These images show that many of the features commonly associated with lakes on Earth, such as islands, bays, inlets and channels, are also present on this cold Saturnian moon. They offer strong evidence that larger bodies seen in infrared images are, in fact, seas. These seas are most likely liquid methane and ethane.

Radar Shows Evidence of Seas

Hubble ACS, We Hardly Knew You

Brak — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:22:39 -0800

Hubble's ACS Has Died. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has apparently gone into safe mode, with little hope of return. The ACS was installed in 2002, and added amazing upgrades to Hubble's imaging capabilities. Though its lifespan was only projected at five years, scientists had hoped it would hold out longer. Though a final shuttle servicing mission is scheduled for 2008, the mission objectives plate is already too full to consider its repair. Alas, more of those beautiful pictures (as well as extended research capabilities) will have to wait until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.

Space Nerds Rejoice!

ND¢ — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 13:26:26 -0800

Stardust@home. The Stardust spacecraft (discussed recently here) should land in Utah early Saturday, carrying in its hold a sprinkling of grains of interstellar dust. Researchers are seeking the public's help in pinpointing the submicroscopic bits of dust. Participants will sift through the hundreds of thousands of pictures of the roughly square-foot collector plate.

Polarises? Polarii?

40 Watt — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 08:51:40 -0800

Hubble reveals that the North Star is not one, not two, but THREE stars. Dear god, we've all been living a lie. I feel so disillusioned.

Stunning Saturn/Dione Photo

brownpau — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:40:31 -0800

Stunningly beautiful photo of Dione and Saturn with rings. Such a sensation of depth and grandeur. Thanks, Cassini/JPL/NASA. [animation] [planetary photojournal entry] [B/W mirror from kokogiak] [now you play fun Flash spaceship game].

Cassini Flies by Tethys

brownpau — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 20:04:59 -0800

Cassini Flies by Tethys and Hyperion, and the photos so far have been awesome and weird. I especially want to point out this fascinating view, which, if you look at it closely, reveals what appears to be a string of small impact craters, in a straight line over older terrain. What kind of meteor impact could have produced such an excellent formation of craters? Hyperion photos are coming. (Kokogiak's got backup in case the JRUNS strike.)

Spirit photographs Phobos and Deimos

brownpau — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 22:33:01 -0800

Two Moons Passing in the Night. Mars rover Spirit took these sequential photos of Martian moons Phobos and Deimos passing overhead in the night sky. Those rovers are still going strong!

Moonies

nervestaple — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:36:19 -0800

Google Moon - Google Maps gets the Lunar treatment, in honor of the first manned moon landing. No directions, though, so you won't be able to plot the best route from Tycho Crater to Mare Imbrium. (Fun Hint! - try the maximum zoom level)

Cassini Photos of Saturn's Rings and Moons

brownpau — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:24:48 -0800

Rocks Among the Rings. The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla has compiled some of the loveliest imagery of Saturn's ring-and-moon system from Cassini. More on Saturn from the Planetary Society here. Also see the Cassini at Saturn photoset, from our very own kokogiak, and watch for updates on the latest Enceladus flyby.

View the universe in 3d

Fozzie — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:49:24 -0800

Ever have trouble visualizing how the solar system is put together, how the orbits work, how everything is positioned relative to everything else? This site helps you see how we think it all fits together.

The Summer Moon Illusion

digaman — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:32:20 -0800

For the sake of your sanity, for five minutes this week forget the memos, the autopsies, the celebrity verdicts, and the rest. Go outside and look at the full moon, which will hang in the sky at its lowest point in 18 years over the next three nights, says NASA, creating the "summer moon illusion." If you're a US resident, calculate your local moonrise time here.

Pioneer Anomaly

brownpau — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 12:00:34 -0800

The Pioneer Anomaly. Something's up in deep space: the Pioneer spacecraft, now out of contact, have shown an unexplained Doppler drift, indicating sunward acceleration, effectively decelerating the probes cumulatively. The effect may be be nongravitational, and could be explained by any number of factors: an undiscovered twist in Newtonian physics, localized cosmological contraction issues, or just venting gas. Other deep space probes may have experienced the anomaly as well, and a new mission could explore the puzzle; but for now, all we have is past Pioneer data, and that's stored on old 9 track tape which can only be read by antique readers. What's to be done? (Also see Pioneer Odyssey for a nostalgic romp through those early days of deep space exploration. And NASA, bring back the original Pioneer home page plz, kthx.)

Huygens Makes it!

tgrundke — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:52:28 -0800

It worked! Huygens has successfully landed on Saturn's moon Titan and the Cassini orbiter is sending good data back to Earth as I type. Isn't it amazing how we can take a probe the size of a compact car, send it on a 7 year journey in the most inhospitable environment imaginable, deploy a sub-probe that has been dormant for that entire time and land it where we had planned on another solar body so far away that it takes 67 minutes to get a signal back and forth. Exploration and research has never been so cool.

There can be no escape. . .

absalom — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 17:10:10 -0800

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory recently detected [reg required] the largest explosion ever detected in the universe: an eruption releasing the energy of hundreds of millions of gamma ray bursts. Just to put it in perspective, a single GRB releases enough radiation to wipe out just about everything human beings would require for survival in a 1000 light year radius. (The Milky Way spans ~100,000 light years, while the United Federation of Planets spans about 8,000). Arthur C. Clarke has gone so far as suggesting that GRBs might be one of the reasons for Extra-Terrestrial silence: Gamma Ray Bursts are so large and inescapable, a single one would wipe out even an enormous galactic empire. Makes killer asteroids seem downright quaint.

Ring-around-the-posie

moonbird — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 06:17:31 -0800

" It was beyond description, really, it was mind-blowing," she said. "I'm surprised at how surprised I am at the beauty and the clarity of these images. They are shocking to me."

90 Sols in 90 Seconds

fatbobsmith — Tue, 18 May 2004 12:59:07 -0800

With all this talk of wars in distant countries, it's easy to forget that there's exciting things going on just 300 million km from your back porch. NASA has provided 90 second videos of the first 90 sols of the Spirit [5MB .mov] and Opportunity rovers [5MB .mov].

Life On Mars's Meethane Traces Thought To Be Detected

y2karl — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:38:34 -0800

Life on Mars? Methane has been found in the Martian atmosphere which scientists say could be a sign of present-day life on Mars. It was detected by telescopes on Earth and has recently been confirmed by instruments onboard the European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express craft. Methane lives for a short time in the Martian atmosphere so it must be being constantly replenished. There are two possible ways to do this. Either active volcanoes, but none have yet been found on Mars, or microbes. The Independent has it as Methane find on Mars may be sign of life. The second group to detect signals of methane in the Martian atmosphere is led by Michael Mumma of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who used powerful spectroscopic telescopes based on Earth. This team is even believed to have detected variations in the concentrations of methane, with a peak coming from the ancient Martian seabed of Meridiani Planum, which is being explored by a Nasa rover. This could indicate a subterranean source of methane which is pumping out the gas, either due to some residual geological activity or because of the presence of living organisms producing it as a waste gas. Asked whether the continual production of methane is strong evidence of a biological origin of the gas, Dr Mumma said: "I think it is, myself personally." As to how...