New Horizons - Methane Detected; New Images of Pluto and Charon; Sunrise & Sunset Observations

NASA - New Horizons Mission logo.

July 1, 2015

Yes, there is methane on Pluto, and, no, it doesn’t come from cows. The infrared spectrometer on NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has detected frozen methane on Pluto’s surface; Earth-based astronomers first observed the chemical compound on Pluto in 1976.

“We already knew there was methane on Pluto, but these are our first detections,” said Will Grundy, the New Horizons Surface Composition team leader with the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. “Soon we will know if there are differences in the presence of methane ice from one part of Pluto to another.”

Image above: The location of the New Horizons Ralph instrument, which detected methane on Pluto, is shown. The inset is a false color image of Pluto and Charon in infrared light; pink indicates methane on Pluto’s surface. Image Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

Methane (chemical formula CH4) is an odorless, colorless gas that is present underground and in the atmosphere on Earth. On Pluto, methane may be primordial, inherited from the solar nebula from which the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. Methane was originally detected on Pluto’s surface by a team of ground-based astronomers led by New Horizons team member Dale Cruikshank, of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California.

Come Fly with New Horizons on its Approach to Pluto

Images from New Horizons show the view from aboard the spacecraft closes in on the Pluto system for a July 14 flyby. Image Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

This time-lapse approach movie was made from images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera aboard New Horizons spacecraft taken between May 28 and June 25, 2015. During that time the spacecraft distance to Pluto decreased almost threefold, from about 35 million miles to 14 million miles (56 million kilometers to 22 million kilometers). The images show Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, growing in apparent size as New Horizons closes in. As it rotates, Pluto displays a strongly contrasting surface dominated by a bright northern hemisphere, with a discontinuous band of darker material running along the equator. Charon has a dark polar region, and there are indications of brightness variations at lower latitudes.

June 30, 2015, View of Pluto and Charon from New Horizons

Video above: This movie, from New Horizons’ highest-resolution imager, shows Pluto and Charon as the spacecraft closes in. In the annotated version, Pluto’s prime meridian (the region of the planet that faces Charon) is shown in yellow and the equator is shown in pink. Video Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

“Alice” Instrument Practices for Sunset and Sunrise Observations of Pluto’s Atmosphere 

Image above: The location of the Alice ultraviolet imaging spectrograph on the New Horizons spacecraft is indicated. Image Credits: Photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

The New Horizons spacecraft has made a critical observation in preparation for its upcoming observations of Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere. Just hours after its flyby of Pluto on July 14, the spacecraft will observe sunlight passing through the planet’s atmosphere, to help scientists determine the atmosphere’s composition. “It will be as if Pluto were illuminated from behind by a trillion-watt light bulb,” said Randy Gladstone, a New Horizons scientist from Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio. On June 16, New Horizons’ Alice ultraviolet imaging spectrograph successfully performed a test observation of the sun from 3.1 billion miles away (5 billion kilometers), which will be used to interpret the July 14 observations.

Image above: This is how the Sun looked in ultraviolet light to NASA’s SOHO spacecraft on June 16, 2015, when New Horizons observed the Sun at similar ultraviolet wavelengths. Image Credit: NASA.

New Horizons is now less than 11 million miles (18 million kilometers) from the Pluto system. The spacecraft is healthy and all systems are operating normally.

Image above: This spectrum of the Sun obtained by New Horizons’ Alice instrument on June 16, 2015, will be used to interpret the spacecraft’s upcoming observations of Pluto’s atmosphere. Image Credits: Photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Stays the Course to Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is getting a final “all clear” as it speeds closer to its historic July 14 flyby of Pluto and the dwarf planet’s five moons.

Image above: These images show the difference between two sets of 48 combined 10-second exposures with New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera, taken at 8:40 UTC and 10:25 UTC on June 26, 2015, from a range of 21.5 million kilometers (approximately 13 million miles) to Pluto. The known small moons, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx, are visible as adjacent bright and dark pairs of dots, due to their motion in the 105 minutes between the two image sets. Images Credits: NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI.

After seven weeks of detailed searches for dust clouds, rings, and other potential hazards, the New Horizons team has decided the spacecraft will remain on its original path through the Pluto system instead of making a late course correction to detour around any hazards. Because New Horizons is traveling at 30,800 mph (49,600 kph), a particle as small as a grain of rice could be lethal.

“We’re breathing a collective sigh of relief knowing that the way appears to be clear,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA. “The science payoff will be richer as we gather data from the optimal flight path, as opposed to having to conduct observations from one of the back-up trajectories.”

Mission scientists have been using the spacecraft’s most powerful telescopic camera, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), to look for potential hazards, such as small moons, rings, or dust, since mid-May. The decision on whether to keep the spacecraft on its original course or adopt a Safe Haven by Other Trajectory, or "SHBOT" path, had to be made this week since the last opportunity to maneuver New Horizons onto an alternate trajectory is July 4.

“Not finding new moons or rings present is a bit of a scientific surprise to most of us,” said principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “But as a result, no engine burn is needed to steer clear of potential hazards. We presented these data to NASA for review and received approval to proceed on course and plan. We are ‘go’ for the best of our planned Pluto encounter trajectories.”

New Horizons formed a hazard analysis team in 2011, after the discovery of Pluto’s fourth moon, Kerberos, raised concerns the cratering of these moons by small debris from the outer area of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, could spread additional hazardous debris into New Horizons’ path. Mission engineers re-tested spare spacecraft blanketing and parts back on Earth to determine how well they would stand up to particle impacts, and scientists modeled the likely formation and locations of rings and debris in the Pluto system. By the time New Horizons’ cameras were close enough to Pluto to start the search last month, the team had already estimated the chances of a catastrophic incident at far less than one percent.

Image above: Pluto and its largest moon, Charon seen from 35 million miles. Image Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

The images used in the latest searches that cleared the mission to stay on its current course were taken June 22, 23 and 26. Pluto and all five of its known moons are visible in the images, but scientists saw no rings, new moons, or hazards of any kind. The hazards team determined that satellites as faint as about 15 times dimmer than Pluto’s faintest known moon, Styx, would have been seen if they existed beyond the orbit of Pluto’s largest and closest moon, Charon.

If any rings do exist, the hazard team determined they must be extremely faint, reflecting less than one 5-millionth of the incoming sunlight.

“The suspense – at least most of it – is behind us,” says John Spencer, of SwRI, who leads the New Horizons hazard analysis team. “As a scientist I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t spot additional moons to study, but as a New Horizons team member I am much more relieved that we didn’t find something that could harm the spacecraft. New Horizons already has six amazing objects to analyze in this incredible system.”

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio, leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

To view images from New Horizons and learn more about the mission visit: http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and http://pluto.jhuapl.edu and http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm

Follow the New Horizons mission on social media, and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. The mission’s official NASA Twitter account is @NASANewHorizons. Live updates will be available on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/new.horizons1

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Lillian Gipson/Dwayne Brown/Laurie Cantillo/Karen Northon/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Mike Buckley/Southwest Research Institute/Maria Stothoff.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Light Toned Deposit in the Aureum Chaos Region on Mars

NASA - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) logo.

July 1, 2015

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a light-toned deposit in Aureum Chaos, a 368 kilometer (229 mile) wide area in the eastern part of Valles Marineris, on Jan. 15, 2015, at 2:51 p.m. local Mars time.

 A Light Toned Deposit in Aureum Chaos

The objective of this observation is to examine a light-toned deposit in a region of what is called “chaotic terrain.” There are indications of layers in the image. Some shapes suggest erosion by a fluid moving north and south. The top of the light-toned deposit appears rough, in contrast to the smoothness of its surroundings.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information and image products: http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_039708_1765

For more information about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/main/index.html

Images, Video, Text,  Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Caption: HIRISE Science Team/Sarah Loff.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Comet sinkholes generate jets

ESA - Rosetta Mission patch.

1 July 2015

A number of the dust jets emerging from Rosetta’s comet can be traced back to active pits that were likely formed by a sudden collapse of the surface. These ‘sinkholes’ are providing a glimpse at the chaotic and diverse interior of the comet.

Rosetta has been monitoring Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s activity for over a year, watching how its halo of dust and gas grows as the comet moves closer to the Sun along its orbit.

Active pits on comet (click on the image for enlarge)

From a distance of a few hundred kilometres, Rosetta observes an intricate pattern of the dust jets emitted from the nucleus as they stream out into space. But now, thanks to high-resolution images from the OSIRIS camera from distances of just 10–30 km from the comet centre last year, at least some of these dust jets can be traced back to specific locations on the surface, the first time this has ever been seen.

In a study reported today in the science journal Nature, 18 quasi-circular pits have been identified in the northern hemisphere of the comet, some of which are the source of continuing activity.

The pits are a few tens to a few hundreds of metres in diameter and extend up to 210 m below the surface to a smooth dust-covered floor. Material is seen to be streaming from the most active pits.

Active regions in Seth

“We see jets arising from the fractured areas of the walls inside the pits. These fractures mean that volatiles trapped under the surface can be warmed more easily and subsequently escape into space,” says Jean-Baptiste Vincent from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, lead author of the study.

Scientists analysing the images think that the pits are formed when the ceiling of a subsurface cavity becomes too thin to support its own weight and collapses as a sinkhole. This exposes the fractured interior of the comet, allowing otherwise hidden material to sublimate, thus continuing to erode the pit over time.

“Although we think the collapse that produces a pit is sudden, the cavity in the porous subsurface could have growing over much longer timescales,” says co-author Sebastien Besse, of ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.

The authors suggest three possible ways the voids are formed. 

One idea is that they have existed since the comet itself formed, as a result of very low-speed collisions between primordial building blocks tens to hundreds of metres in size. The collapse of the roof above such a void could then be triggered through weakening of the surface, perhaps by sublimation or via seismic shaking or impact from boulders ejected from elsewhere on the comet.

Active pits

Another possibility is the direct sublimation of pockets of volatile ices like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide below the surface, heated by the warmth of sunlight penetrating an insulating top layer of dust.

Alternatively, sublimation could be driven by the energy liberated by water ice changing its physical state from amorphous to crystalline then sublimating the more volatile surrounding carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices.

If either of the latter two processes is the driving force, then the fact that the pits are not seen everywhere may indicate an uneven distribution of ices inside the comet.

“Regardless of the processes creating the cavities, these features show us that there are large structural and/or compositional differences within the first few hundred metres of the comet’s surface and the cavities are revealing relatively unprocessed materials that might not otherwise be visible,” adds Sebastien.

Comet pit formation

The authors note that the internal features revealed on the pit walls vary quite significantly from pit to pit, and include fractured material and terraces, horizontal layers and vertical striations, and/or globular structures nicknamed ‘goosebumps’.

“We think that we might be able to use the pits to characterise the relative ages of the comet’s surface: the more pits there are in a region, the younger and less processed the surface there is,” explains Jean-Baptiste.

“This is confirmed by recent observations of the southern hemisphere: this is more highly processed because it receives significantly more energy than the northern hemisphere, and does not seem to display similar pit structures.”

The evolution of comet pits

The active pits are particularly steep-sided, whereas pits without any observed activity are shallower and may instead indicate regions that were active in the past. The team suggests that the active pits are the youngest, while middle-aged pits exhibit boulders on their floors that have fallen from the sides. Meanwhile, the oldest pits have degraded rims and are filled with dust.

“We are continuing to analyse our observations to see if this theory holds true, and if this ‘time series’ is related to the internal thermal evolution of the comet, for example,” adds Sebastien.

“But we think that most of the active pits must have been present for several orbits around the Sun already, or else we would have expected to see a number of outbursts as their collapses were triggered this time around."

Rosetta did witness one outburst during its approach to the comet in April 2014, which is thought to have generated between 1000 kg and 100 000 kg of material. The authors state that a pit collapse could have been the driver for this outburst, but only a small fraction of the total volume of a typical pit could have been liberated at the time.

Rosetta orbiting the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

For example, given the measured average comet density of 470 kg per cubic metre, the rapid evacuation of a typical large pit 140 m wide and 140 m deep would result in the release of around a billion kilograms of material, several orders of magnitude greater than was observed in April 2014.

“We are very interested to see how these active pits evolve and maybe we’ll even witness the formation of a new pit,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

“Being able to observe changes in the comet, in particular linking activity to features on the surface, is a key capability of Rosetta and will help us to understand how the comet’s interior and surface have evolved since its formation.

“And with the extension of the mission until September 2016, we can do the best job possible at unravelling how comets work.”

Notes for Editors:

“Large heterogeneities in comet 67P as revealed by active pits from sinkhole collapse,” by Jean-Baptiste Vincent et al is published in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v523/n7558/full/nature14564.html

About OSIRIS:

The scientific imaging system OSIRIS was built by a consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (DE) in collaboration with CISAS, University of Padova (IT), the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (FR), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia, CSIC (ES), ESA’s Scientific Support Office (NL), the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (ES), the Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid (ES), the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Uppsala University (SE), and the Institute of Computer and Network Engineering of the TU Braunschweig (DE). OSIRIS was financially supported by the national funding agencies of Germany (DLR), France (CNES), Italy (ASI), Spain (MEC) and Sweden (SNSB) and the ESA Technical Directorate.

About Rosetta:

Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander is contributed by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI.

For more information about Rosetta mission, visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta

Operations: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations

More about...

Rosetta overview: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta_overview

Rosetta factsheet: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_factsheet

Frequently asked questions: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Frequently_asked_questions

In depth:

Rosetta in depth:http://sci.esa.int/rosetta

Related links:

Rosetta at Astrium: http://www.astrium.eads.net/en/programme/rosetta-1go.html

Rosetta at DLR: http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10394/

Ground-based comet observation campaign: http://www.rosetta-campaign.net/home

Rosetta Blog: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/

Images, Text, Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA; graphics from J-B Vincent et al (2015)/ATG Medialab.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Buried in the Heart of a Giant

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

1 July 2015

The colourful star cluster NGC 2367

This rich view of an array of colourful stars and gas was captured by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera, on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It shows a young open cluster of stars known as NGC 2367, an infant stellar grouping that lies at the centre of an immense and ancient structure on the margins of the Milky Way.

Discovered from England by the tireless observer Sir William Herschel on 20 November 1784, the bright star cluster NGC 2367 lies about 7000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Canis Major. Having only existed for about five million years, most of its stars are young and hot and shine with an intense blue light. This contrasts wonderfully in this new image with the silky-red glow from the surrounding hydrogen gas.

The star cluster NGC 2367 in the constellation of Canis Major

Open clusters like NGC 2367 are a common sight in spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, and tend to form in their host’s outer regions. On their travels about the galactic centre, they are affected by the gravity of other clusters, as well as by large clouds of gas that they pass close to. Because open clusters are only loosely bound by gravity to begin with, and because they constantly lose mass as some of their gas is pushed away by the radiation of the young hot stars, these disturbances occur often enough to cause the stars to wander off from their siblings, just as the Sun is believed to have done many years ago. An open cluster is generally expected to survive for a few hundred million years before it is completely dispersed.

In the meantime, clusters serve as excellent case studies for stellar evolution. All the constituent stars are born at roughly the same time from the same cloud of material, meaning they can be compared alongside one another with greater ease, allowing their ages to be readily determined and their evolution mapped.

Wide-field view of the sky around the bright star cluster NGC 2367

Like many open clusters, NGC 2367 is embedded within an emission nebula, from which its stars were born. The remains show up as wisps and clouds of hydrogen gas, ionised by the ultraviolet radiation being emitted by the hottest stars. What is more unusual is that, as you begin to pan out from the cluster and its nebula, a far more expansive structure is revealed: NGC 2367 and the nebula containing it are thought to be the nucleus of a larger nebula, known as Brand 16, which in turn is only a small part of a huge supershell, known as GS234-02.

Zooming in on the star cluster NGC 2367

The GS234-02 supershell lies towards the outskirts of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is a vast structure, spanning hundreds of light-years. It began its life when a group of particularly massive stars, producing strong stellar winds, created individual expanding bubbles of hot gas. These neighbouring bubbles eventually merged to form a superbubble, and the short life spans of the stars at its heart meant that they exploded as supernovae at similar times, expanding the superbubble even further, to the point that it merged with other superbubbles, which is when the supershell was formed. The resulting formation ranks as one of the largest possible structures within a galaxy.

The colourful star cluster NGC 2367

This concentrically expanding system, as ancient as it is enormous, provides a wonderful example of the intricate, interrelated structures that are sculpted in galaxies by the lives and deaths of stars.

More information:

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”.

Link:

Photos of the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=mpg

For more information about the European Southern Observatory (ESO), visit: http://www.eso.org/public/

Images, Text, Credits: ESO/G. Beccari/IAU and Sky & Telescope/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin/Videos: ESO/G. Beccari/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com).

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Russian Cosmonaut Padalka Sets New Record For Time in Space

ISS - Expedition 44 Mission patch.

June 30, 2015

The astronauts aboard the International Space Station are advancing science and setting spaceflight milestones, and each achievement contributes to relationship-building that will support long-duration missions to Mars while benefiting humans back on Earth through advances in science.

Image above: Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, Expedition 43 flight engineer, performed his Flight Day 30 fundoscopy, with assistance from astronaut Terry Virts. The fundoscope is used to image the interior surface of the eye. Image Credit: NASA.

Expedition 44 commander Gennady Padalka broke the 10-year-old record for the number of cumulative days in space this weekend, as he reached 803 days in space on June 28. His more than two years of cumulative time in space puts him ahead of the previous record of 802 days in space that was set by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev on August 5, 2005. Padalka’s current mission marks his fourth time in space, and he is set to return to Earth in early September.

Padalka has been on orbit for more than 90 days after launching to the space station on March 27, and he has participated in several investigations, including one on how long-duration spaceflight affects vision. The Ocular Health study will not only help scientists understand how to protect an astronaut’s vision in space, but could also provide insight to changes in eyesight that can help people on Earth who suffer from ocular diseases such as glaucoma, high blood pressure or are confined to long-term bed rest.

Image above: Expedition 43 Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from European Space Agency rests in a chair outside the Soyuz spacecraft just minutes after she landed on June 11, 2015. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Padalka is not the only crew member marking milestones on the orbiting laboratory this year. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti set a new duration record for a single mission for European Space Agency astronauts, Italian astronauts and all female astronauts with her 200-day stay aboard the station. The previous record holder for the most days in space by a woman was astronaut Sunita Williams, who spent 195 days in space in 2007. Cristoforetti broke the record thanks in part to an extension on her mission after the Russian Progress 59 cargo craft failed to reach the space station after launching in late April.

Astronaut Scott Kelly is also set to break a record in October when he will surpass astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria’s record for the single-longest spaceflight by an American. Lopez-Alegria spent 215 days in space as commander of the Expedition 14 crew in 2006. Kelly will reach 216 days in space on October 28.

Image above: NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly works aboard the International Space Station on May 30, 2015 on a number of science experiments and maintenance of the station equipment. Image Credit: NASA

Kelly’s record-breaking will not stop in October as he continues on as part of the One-Year Mission along with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. The pair arrived at the space station in March, and are participating in studies that examine a variety of effects of long-duration spaceflight such as the psychological effects of extended stays in space, and how astronauts perform functional tasks after spending a year in a low-gravity environment. Kelly’s twin brother, former astronaut Mark Kelly, will participate in parallel studies on Earth that will help scientists compare the effects on the body and mind in space.

The One-Year mission is a significant stepping stone in NASA’s Journey to Mars. The investigations in progress on the space station will help scientists better understand the effects of long-duration missions on humans, and how to protect them as they begin to live and work on the red planet. The strong U.S.-Russian collaboration during the One-Year Mission also is crucial in strengthening international partnerships that will be key in taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit.

A Moment with Gennady Padalka

As crew members break individual records this year, they also will celebrate a broader historic milestone. November marks 15 years of continuous human occupancy aboard the space station. The first resident crew of the station arrived on November 2, 2000. Expedition One included Commander Bill Shepard, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev, and lasted more than four months. Since that time, there has never been a period when humans were not living and working in space.

Every milestone that is met and every record that is broken on the space station helps humans better understand how long-duration spaceflight affects bodies and minds, and creates more opportunities for applying the knowledge gained on orbit to improve the quality of our lives here on Earth. Seventeen years after the launch of the first space station module, it continues to be a place where we are doing research off the Earth, for the Earth.

Related links:

Gennady Padalka: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/padalka.html

Expedition 44: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition44/index.html

Ocular Health study: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/204.html

One-Year Mission: http://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year-mission/

NASA’s Journey to Mars: http://www.nasa.gov/content/journey-to-mars-overview

International Space Station (ISS): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Kristine Rainey.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Solar Impulse: "This is a fabulous moment"

SolarImpulse - Around The World patch.

June 30, 2015

Japan-Hawaii - André Borschberg is now completely "in the ocean challenge," according to organizers. The flight is going "very well".

The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft continued to fly calmly above the Pacific on the night of Monday 29 to Tuesday, June 30, almost 30 hours after takeoff from Japan towards Hawaii, according to information given by the organizers of this challenge .

Tuesday at 07.30 Japan time (23:30 Switzerland), the aircraft was above the ocean at an altitude of 8350 meters, flying over a thick layer of clouds, according to images broadcast online.

Solar Impulse 2 above the ocean at an altitude of 8350 meters, flying over a thick layer of clouds

The pilot, André Borschberg, then quietly conversed with the engineers in the control center located in Monaco. "This is a fabulous time, the flight is going very well," he assured his cockpit since.

"Completely in the ocean challenge"

He then traveled 1,720 km since leaving Nagoya (Central Japan) on the night of Sunday to Monday.

His aerial crossing of trafficking alone, over a distance of 7,900 km to Hawaii, should last about 120 hours or 5 days and 5 nights.

"20% of the journey has already been made. André Borschberg is now fully in the ocean challenge, "the organizers said.

"Many critical moments take place before the arrival in Hawaii," warned one of the leaders of the Solar Impulse communication in a video.

"The kind of moment I dreamed"

"This is the kind of times I dreamed see that plane flying as long without burning fuel," rejoiced over internet Bertrand Piccard, project designer and second pilot alternately.

"I have no shower, but we have enough means to make life possible in the cockpit several days and in these conditions," stated André Borschberg.

Image above: This is the second attempt at crossing the Pacific; the first, a month ago, had to be aborted when the weather got much worse. Shown is a map of the approximate route that will be taken.

The driver is subjected to temperature conditions ranging from about -20 degrees Celsius to +30 degrees Celsius.

The ground crew supervising the behavior of the aircraft when the pilot sits for periods of 20 minutes. He uses techniques of yoga and meditation to relax.

Blocked a month in Japan

Solar Impulse 2 departure from Nagoya

Solar Impulse 2, whose wings are covered with photovoltaic cells, had been blocked for nearly a month in Japan by bad weather, but ended up finding a favorable time window to take off Monday before dawn and launch to conquer the Pacific.

The plane, which had also had to wait before a month in China, was away on March 9 Abu Dhabi to a world tour of 35,000 kilometers to promote the use of renewable energy, particularly solar energy.

For more information about Solar Impulse Around The World, visit: http://www.solarimpulse.com/

Images, Text, Credits: SolarImpulse/AFP/Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

NASA Missions Monitor a Waking Black Hole

NASA - Swift Mission patch.

June 30, 2015

NASA's Swift satellite detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from the constellation Cygnus on June 15, just before 2:23 p.m. EDT. About 10 minutes later, the Japanese experiment on the International Space Station called the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) also picked up the flare.

The outburst came from V404 Cygni, a binary system located about 8,000 light-years away that contains a black hole. Every couple of decades the black hole fires up in an outburst of high-energy light, becoming an X-ray nova. Until the Swift detection, it had been slumbering since 1989.

Flaring Black Hole Accretion Disk in the Binary System V404 Cygni

Video above: On June 15, NASA's Swift caught the onset of a rare X-ray outburst from a stellar-mass black hole in the binary system V404 Cygni. Astronomers around the world are watching the event. In this system, a stream of gas from a star much like the sun flows toward a 10 solar mass black hole. Instead of spiraling toward the black hole, the gas accumulates in an accretion disk around it. Every couple of decades, the disk switches into a state that sends the gas rushing inward, starting a new outburst. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

An X-ray nova is a bright, short-lived X-ray source that reaches peak intensity in a few days and then fades out over a period of weeks or months. The outburst occurs when stored gas abruptly rushes toward a neutron star or black hole. By studying the patterns of the X-rays produced, astronomers can determine the kind of object at the heart of the eruption.

"Relative to the lifetime of space observatories, these black hole eruptions are quite rare," said Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "So when we see one of them flare up, we try to throw everything we have at it, monitoring across the spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays."

Astronomers classify this type of system as a low-mass X-ray binary. In V404 Cygni, a star slightly smaller than the sun orbits a black hole 10 times its mass in only 6.5 days. The close orbit and strong gravity of the black hole produce tidal forces that pull a stream of gas from its partner. The gas travels to a storage disk around the black hole and heats up to millions of degrees, producing a steady stream of X-rays as it falls inward.

But the disk flips between two dramatically different conditions. In its cooler state, the gas resists inward flow and just collects in the outer part of the disk like water behind a dam. Inevitably the build-up of gas overwhelms the dam, and a tsunami of hot bright gas rushes toward the black hole.

Flaring Black Hole Accretion Disk

Astronomers relish the opportunity to collect simultaneous multiwavelength data on black hole binaries, especially one as close as V404 Cygni. In 1938 and 1956, astronomers caught V404 Cygni undergoing outbursts in visible light. During its eruption in 1989, the system was observed by Ginga, an X-ray satellite operated by Japan, and instruments aboard Russia's Mir space station.

"Right now, V404 Cygni shows exceptional variation at all wavelengths, offering us a rare chance to add to this unique data set," said Eleonora Troja, a Swift team member at Goddard.

Ongoing or planned satellite observations of the outburst involve NASA’s Swift satellite, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, as well as Japan’s MAXI, the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite, and the Italian Space Agency's AGILE gamma-ray mission. Ground-based facilities following the eruption include the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias operated by Spain in the Canary Islands, the University of Leicester's 0.5-meter telescope in Oadby, U.K., the Nasu radio telescope at Waseda University in Japan, and amateur observatories.

V404 Cygni has flared many times since the eruption began, with activity ranging from minutes to hours. "It repeatedly becomes the brightest object in the X-ray sky -- up to 50 times brighter than the Crab Nebula, which is normally one of the brightest sources," said Erik Kuulkers, the INTEGRAL project scientist at ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid. "It is definitely a 'once in a professional lifetime' opportunity."

Swift spacecraft

In a single week, flares from V404 Cygni generated more than 70 "triggers" of the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard Fermi. This is more than five times the number of triggers seen from all objects in the sky in a typical week. The GBM triggers when it detects a gamma-ray flare, then it sends numerous emails containing increasingly refined information about the event to scientists on duty.

Every time the GBM recovered from one trigger, V404 Cygni set it off again, resulting in a torrent of emails. The event prompted David Yu, a GBM scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, to comment on social media: "Achievement Unlocked: Mailbox spammed by a blackhole."

Related article:

Monster black hole wakes up after 26 years: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2015/06/monster-black-hole-wakes-up-after-26.html

For more information about Swift mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/main/index.html

Related Links:

Swift detects the V404 Cygni outburst
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/17929.gcn3

Alert notice from the American Association of Variable Star Observers
http://www.aavso.org/aavso-alert-notice-520

NASA's Swift Satellite Discovers a New Black Hole in our Galaxy
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2012/10/nasas-swift-satellite-discovers-new.html

Images, Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy/Karl Hille.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch