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.)
posted by brownpau
on Jun 13, 2005 -
21 comments
"Standard orbit, aye, sir." Following a nail-biting ring-plane crossing and 96-minute engine burn,
Cassini has arrived, and is now in orbit around Saturn, 84 light-minutes away, sending in
the first closeup pictures of the planet's rings. Also see the Planetary Society's
details on the Orbit Insertion, Spaceflight Now's
mission updates in weblog-like format, and
raw images from the spacecraft as they come. Kudos, JPL! (Aside: the press has yet to tire of
Lord of the Rings references.)
posted by brownpau
on Jul 1, 2004 -
14 comments
ISS-Jupiter Transit tonight. Notable space station flyover tonight for you skywatching East Coasters: the ISS will pass quite close to Jupiter, and some of you lucky ones [
coordinates|
map] will even see the station briefly eclipse the planet. (Side note: Remember those days when everyone was using its radio call sign
"Alpha?" Now the media just say "space station." Sigh.) East Coast, 9:30pm, I'll be outside, looking up.
posted by brownpau
on May 13, 2004 -
9 comments
Mars Rover Blog, move over:
SpiritRover and
OpportunityGrrl are on Livejournal, along with
Pathfinder(ess),
Voyager 1,
Cassini,
GOES,
FUSE,
Hubble, and
the Planet Mars Himself. (Educational. Sort of. And very LJ. Very,
very LJ.)
posted by brownpau
on Apr 2, 2004 -
2 comments
Meanwhile, on Mars, The Spirit rover has reached Bonneville Crater, a primary mission objective, and snapped photos of the far side of the crater rim with its navcam. But what is that
glint to the left side? (more within)
posted by brownpau
on Mar 11, 2004 -
40 comments
Far, far away. Today, Voyager 1 will reach 90
AU from the sun, around which distance it is expected to cross the "termination shock," finally crossing into the fuzzy boundary between the
heliosphere and true
interstellar space. (Yes, it's taken
that long to get there.) Some even think that
the termination shock has already been reached, but then re-expanded past the spacecraft. Tears need not be shed yet for these distant explorers:
both Voyagers have juice till about 2020, and the mission remains
very much alive. (No word, however, on a possible
return to the Creator.)
posted by brownpau
on Nov 5, 2003 -
25 comments
Just FYI, it's entirely possible for a human to survive
exposure to the vacuum of space for a limited time without any permanent damage -- as long as you expel all the breath from your lungs to avoid an embolism. Horrifying scenes of sudden explosive decompression or immediate freezing are, as far as I can tell, a myth. (In other words,
Mission to Mars got it wrong,
2001 got it mostly right. But that's no surprise now, is it?)
Link via BadAstronomy. Love that site.
posted by brownpau
on Aug 23, 2001 -
16 comments
