© John E Cordiale
The ISS shines by reflected sunlight--just like the raindrops that reflect sunlight in the aftermath of a terrestrial thunderstorm. That's why the "space station rainbow" looks so familar. Same sun, same colors.
Science & Technology
On May 12th, the International Space Station passed high over Queensbury, New York, where John E Cordiale was waiting ... with a prism. When the bright light of the streaking spacecraft passed through the glass, it spread into all the colors of a rainbow:
"This is an 18 sec exposure on my Nikon D200," says Cordiale. "For the objective prism, I used a Takahashi Meteor Spectrograph."
The ISS shines by reflected sunlight--just like the raindrops that reflect sunlight in the aftermath of a terrestrial thunderstorm. That's why the "space station rainbow" looks so familar. Same sun, same colors.
The ISS shines by reflected sunlight--just like the raindrops that reflect sunlight in the aftermath of a terrestrial thunderstorm. That's why the "space station rainbow" looks so familar. Same sun, same colors.
© Theirry Legault
Brace yourself, it's about to happen. First, look at the image below and cross your eyes; merge the two space stations into a single 3D object. Click HERE to watch to set the scene in motion (DivX required).
"I made the movie on April 24th when the International Space Station passed over my home in France," says Theirry Legault. Setting adjacent video frames side by side provided the 3D effect. "All you have to do is squint."
Legault, who is legendary among astrophotographers for his extraordinary shots of spacecraft and other things, recorded the flyby through a 10" Meade ACF telescope on a modified Takahashi EM-400 mount. The trick, he says, was using a green laser to pinpoint the ISS and a custom-made double joystick to track the spacecraft as it glided across the sky.
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
This image from WISE shows the Tadpole nebula.
This image from WISE shows the Tadpole nebula.
The asteroid, called 1719 Jens, left tracks across the image, seen as a line of yellow-green dots in the boxes near center. A second asteroid was also observed cruising by, as highlighted in the boxes near the upper left (the larger boxes are blown-up versions of the smaller ones).
But that's not all that WISE caught in this busy image - two satellites orbiting above WISE (highlighted in the ovals) streak through the image, appearing as faint green trails. The apparent motion of asteroids is slower than satellites because asteroids are much more distant, and thus appear as dots that move from one WISE frame to the next, rather than streaks in a single frame.
Last time you checked you were a conservatively dressed, 28-year-old man. But you look down and notice that you now have the legs of a 10-year-old girl and appear to be wearing a skirt.
ICARUS'S wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. Here's hoping a similar fate doesn't befall his namesake, the solar sail due to be unfurled by Japan's aerospace exploration agency (JAXA) next week. If all goes to plan, it will be the first spacecraft fully propelled by sunlight.
© Akihiro Ikeshita
Flying close to the wind
Flying close to the wind
The Venus Climate Orbiter, called AKATSUKI, aims to find out why blistering winds zip around the planet at speeds of up to 400 kilometres per hour. The upper clouds can circle the planet in four days or even less, and no one knows why. The effect is called "super-rotation", because the bulk of the atmosphere is rotating much faster than the planet itself. Venus takes 243 Earth days to make one rotation.
To investigate, AKATSUKI will move roughly in sync with the winds during part of its orbit, so it can track a patch of atmosphere for about 24 hours at a stretch. Five cameras will snap the planet at different wavelengths. "By combining the images from these cameras we can develop a three-dimensional model of the Venus atmosphere," says mission scientist Takeshi Imamura. This will be the first time such measurements have been taken on a planet other than Earth, he adds.
© NASA/JPL
This artist's rendering depicts NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft as it studies the outer limits of the heliosphere - a magnetic 'bubble' around the solar system that is created by the solar wind. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This artist's rendering depicts NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft as it studies the outer limits of the heliosphere - a magnetic 'bubble' around the solar system that is created by the solar wind. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The first changes in the return of data packets from Voyager 2, which is near the edge of our solar system, appeared on April 22. Mission team members have been working to troubleshoot and resume the regular flow of science data. Because of a planned roll maneuver and moratorium on sending commands, engineers got their first chance to send commands to the spacecraft on April 30. It takes nearly 13 hours for signals to reach the spacecraft and nearly 13 hours for signals to come down to NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth.
© Scientific Blogging
Easter Island Stones
Easter Island Stones
A complex network of roads up to 800-years-old crisscross the Island between the hat and statue quarries and the coastal areas. Laying alongside the roads are dozens of the statues - or moai.
The find will create controversy among the many archaeologists who have dedicated years to finding out exactly how the moai were moved, ever since Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl first published his theory in 1958. Heyerdahl and subsequent researchers believed that statues he found lying on their backs and faces near the roads were abandoned during transportation by the ancient Polynesians.
© Unknown
The Nottingham Caves Survey, being carried out by archaeologists from Trent & Peak Archaeology at The University of Nottingham, has already produced extraordinary, three dimensional, fly through, colour animation of caves that have been hidden from view for centuries.
© ESA / HOPS Consortium
NGC 1999 is the green tinged cloud towards the top of the image. The dark spot to the right was thought to be a cloud of dense dust and gas until Herschel looked at it.
NGC 1999 is the green tinged cloud towards the top of the image. The dark spot to the right was thought to be a cloud of dense dust and gas until Herschel looked at it.
"No one has ever seen a hole like this. It's as surprising as knowing you have worms tunneling under your lawn, but finding one morning that they have created a huge, yawning pit," explains Tom Megeath, who was a member of the research team behind the investigation. He is based at the University of Toledo, in Ohio. According to scientists, it may be that analyzing this cosmic structure in more detail could provide additional clues as to what exactly happens to stars when they reach the end of their burning cycle.
Comment: On the Voyager main website http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov, from where the above article is linked, we find additional information:
May 6, 2010: On 22 April 2010 the DSN achieved a nominal carrier and subcarrier acquisition but was unable to frame-sync Voyager 2 telemetry in the routine cruise science/engineering data mode. We commanded to the 40 bps engineering-only data mode by real-time command, achieved frame-sync and found no spacecraft alarm conditions. So far, the only anomalous indication is an incorrect checksum from the Flight Data System (FDS) memory flight software region. We should learn more after we receive and analyze a full FDS memory readout.