Cassini Spacecraft And Ground Telescope See Violent Saturn Storm

NASA - Cassini Insider's Mission patch.

May 19, 2011

NASA's Cassini spacecraft and a European Southern Observatory ground-based telescope tracked the growth of a giant early-spring storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere so powerful it stretches around the entire planet. The rare storm has been wreaking havoc for months and shot plumes of gas high into the planet's atmosphere.

Image above: Thermal infrared images of Saturn from the Very Large Telescope Imager and Spectrometer for the mid-Infrared (VISIR) instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, on Cerro Paranal, Chile, appear at center and on the right. Image credit: ESO/Univ. of Oxford/T. Barry.

Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument first detected the large disturbance, and amateur astronomers tracked its emergence in December 2010. As it rapidly expanded, its core developed into a giant, powerful thunderstorm. The storm produced a 3,000-mile-wide (5,000-kilometer-wide) dark vortex, possibly similar to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, within the turbulent atmosphere.

The dramatic effects of the deep plumes disturbed areas high up in Saturn's usually stable stratosphere, generating regions of warm air that shone like bright "beacons" in the infrared. Details are published in this week's edition of Science Magazine.

"Nothing on Earth comes close to this powerful storm," says Leigh Fletcher, the study's lead author and a Cassini team scientist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "A storm like this is rare. This is only the sixth one to be recorded since 1876, and the last was way back in 1990."

Image above: This false-color infrared image, obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, shows clouds of large ammonia ice particles dredged up by a powerful storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona.

This is the first major storm on Saturn observed by an orbiting spacecraft and studied at thermal infrared wavelengths, where Saturn's heat energy reveals atmospheric temperatures, winds and composition within the disturbance.

Temperature data were provided by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile and Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) operated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"Our new observations show that the storm had a major effect on the atmosphere, transporting energy and material over great distances, modifying the atmospheric winds -- creating meandering jet streams and forming giant vortices -- and disrupting Saturn's slow seasonal evolution," said Glenn Orton, a paper co-author, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Image above: Measurements by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal temperatures in a high layer of Saturn's atmosphere known as the stratosphere and show the dramatic effects of the massive storm deep below. Image credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/Univ. Oxford.

The violence of the storm -- the strongest disturbances ever detected in Saturn's stratosphere -- took researchers by surprise. What started as an ordinary disturbance deep in Saturn's atmosphere punched through the planet's serene cloud cover to roil the high layer known as the stratosphere.

"On Earth, the lower stratosphere is where commercial airplanes generally fly to avoid storms which can cause turbulence," says Brigette Hesman, a scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park who works on the CIRS team at Goddard and is the second author on the paper. "If you were flying in an airplane on Saturn, this storm would reach so high up, it would probably be impossible to avoid it."

Other indications of the storm's strength are the changes in the composition of the atmosphere brought on by the mixing of air from different layers. CIRS found evidence of such changes by looking at the amounts of acetylene and phosphine, both considered to be tracers of atmospheric motion. A separate analysis using Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, led by Kevin Baines of JPL, confirmed the storm is very violent, dredging up larger atmospheric particles and churning up ammonia from deep in the atmosphere in volumes several times larger than previous storms. Other Cassini scientists are studying the evolving storm, and a more extensive picture will emerge soon.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany operates the VLT in Chile.

For information about Cassini, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini 

Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA / ESO.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

NASA'S Galaxy Evolution Explorer Finds Dark Energy Repulsive

NASA - GALEX logo labeled.

May 19, 2011

A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds.

The survey used data from NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope on Siding Spring Mountain in Australia.

The findings offer new support for the favored theory of how dark energy works – as a constant force, uniformly affecting the universe and propelling its runaway expansion. They contradict an alternate theory, where gravity, not dark energy, is the force pushing space apart. According to this alternate theory, with which the new survey results are not consistent, Albert Einstein's concept of gravity is wrong, and gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive when acting at great distances.

Image above: In this artist's conception, dark energy is represented by the purple grid above, and gravity by the green grid below. Gravity emanates from all matter in the universe, but its effects are localized and drop off quickly over large distances. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

"The action of dark energy is as if you threw a ball up in the air, and it kept speeding upward into the sky faster and faster," said Chris Blake of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Blake is lead author of two papers describing the results that appeared in recent issues of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "The results tell us that dark energy is a cosmological constant, as Einstein proposed. If gravity were the culprit, then we wouldn't be seeing these constant effects of dark energy throughout time."

Dark energy is thought to dominate our universe, making up about 74 percent of it. Dark matter, a slightly less mysterious substance, accounts for 22 percent. So-called normal matter, anything with atoms, or the stuff that makes up living creatures, planets and stars, is only approximately four percent of the cosmos.

The idea of dark energy was proposed during the previous decade, based on studies of distant exploding stars called supernovae. Supernovae emit constant, measurable light, making them so-called "standard candles," which allows calculation of their distance from Earth. Observations revealed dark energy was flinging the objects out at accelerating speeds.

The new survey provides two separate methods for independently checking these results. This is the first time astronomers performed these checks across the whole cosmic timespan dominated by dark energy. Astronomers began by assembling the largest three-dimensional map of galaxies in the distant universe, spotted by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer helped identify bright, young galaxies, which are ideal for this type of study," said Christopher Martin, principal investigator for the mission at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "It provided the scaffolding for this enormous 3-D map."

Image above: This diagram illustrates two ways to measure how fast the universe is expanding -- the "standard candle" method, which involves exploded stars in galaxies, and the "standard ruler" method, which involves pairs of galaxies. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

The team acquired detailed information about the light for each galaxy using the Anglo-Australian Telescope and studied the pattern of distance between them. Sound waves from the very early universe left imprints in the patterns of galaxies, causing pairs of galaxies to be separated by approximately 500 million light-years.

Blake and his colleagues used this "standard ruler" to determine the distance from the galaxy pairs to Earth. As with the supernovae studies, this distance data was combined with information about the speeds the pairs are moving away from us, revealing, yet again, the fabric of space is stretching apart faster and faster.

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer

The team also used the galaxy map to study how clusters of galaxies grow over time like cities, eventually containing many thousands of galaxies. The clusters attract new galaxies through gravity, but dark energy tugs the clusters apart. It slows down the process, allowing scientists to measure dark energy's repulsive force.

"Observations by astronomers over the last 15 years have produced one of the most startling discoveries in physical science; the expansion of the universe, triggered by the big bang, is speeding up," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Using entirely independent methods, data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer have helped increase our confidence in the existence of dark energy."

For more information about NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/galex

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

JAXA conducts first phase of D-SEND project

JAXA logo labeled.

May 19, 2011 (JST)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully conducted the first phase of the "Drop test for Simplified Evaluation of Non-symmetrically Distributed sonic boom*1" (D-SEND) twice on May 7 and 16, 2011 (Sweden Standard Time) at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden in cooperation with the Swedish
Space Corporation (SSC). JAXA has, for the first time in the world, confirmed the validity of low sonic boom axisymmetric*2 design by a balloon drop test.

Establishing low sonic boom design technology is one of the highest priority issues for realizing silent supersonic transport. As part of silent supersonic research, JAXA is carrying out the two phased D-SEND project to validate its low sonic boom design concept and to contribute to the deliberation of
international standards for sonic booms based on the acquired data.

In the first phase called D-SEND#1, two different axisymmetric bodies were dropped from a balloon, and the sonic booms, measured both in the air and on the ground, were compared with each other. Through this test, JAXA has successfully demonstrated its low sonic boom axisymmetric design concept technology which reduced the sonic boom by half.

The data obtained from the test is valuable as a reference for the validation of the sonic boom propagation analysis method and is expected to contribute to low-sonic boom studies in the future. JAXA has also established for the first time a new method of demonstrating the low sonic boom design concept in the
form of a balloon drop test.

JAXA expresses our sincere gratitude to the Swedish Space Corporation and all parties that provided assistance in this demonstration test.

*1 sonic boom
   A sonic boom is a kind of impulsive sound of shockwaves, similar to thunder,
   generated by supersonic flight

*2 axisymmetric
   Typical axisymmetric shapes include cone, cylinder, etc.

For more details, please refer to the following website: http://www.apg.jaxa.jp/eng/index.html

1. Test details

Two test bodies, namely the N-wave model and the low-boom model are dropped consecutively from an altitude of 20-30km. The sonic boom generated by the free-fall is measured by using a low-boom measurement system and a boom measurement system.

Sequence of D-SEND#1

Place:     Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), at Esrange Test Site (Kiruna, Sweden)
Role Sharing:        Measurement of sonic booms in the air and on the ground (JAXA)
Management of measurement balloon and dropping of test models (SSC)

2. Test conditions

Correlation of velocity and altitude after the release

Preparation of balloon and test models(1st test) /
Balloon ascending into the sky (1st test)

3. Measurement Results

Pressure metamorphose time records measured by microphones in the air altitude of 500m (Pressure signature) are described below.

The characteristic N-type wave was clearly measured by N Wave Model (NWM) in the tests. Meanwhile, the low-boom model validated that its sonic boom could be reduced by comparing NWM.

4. Schedule of future tests

We will further analyze the obtained data and then report the results at a meeting of the SuperSonic Task Group (SSTG) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) *3 in November.

*3 ICAO

ICAO is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and codifies the treaty, international standard, recommendation and guideline related to international air services to ensure economical and substantial operation of the international air transportation business based on the principle of equal opportunity.

Mission website:

Research on Super/Hyper Sonic Airplane: http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/aero/sst/index_e.html

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2011/05/20110519_dsend_e.html#ref

Images, Graphics, Text, Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars

NASA patch.

May 18, 2011

Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds probably were ejected from developing planetary systems.

Image above: This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Astronomers recently uncovered evidence for 10 such lone worlds, thought to have been "booted," or ejected, from developing solar systems.

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light years from Earth.

"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected, holding major implications for planetary formation and evolution models," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This adds up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy."

The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of the journal Nature.

The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.

Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating planet-like objects within star-forming clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight. It is thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large planets.

On the other hand, it is likely that some planets are ejected from their early, turbulent solar systems, due to close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars. Without a star to circle, these planets would move through the galaxy as our sun and others stars do, in stable orbits around the galaxy's center. The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports the ejection scenario, though it's possible both mechanisms are at play.

"If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we would have expected to see only one or two of them in our survey instead of 10," Bennett said. "Our results suggest that planetary systems often become unstable, with planets being kicked out from their places of birth."

The observations cannot rule out the possibility that some of these planets may have very distant orbits around stars, but other research indicates Jupiter-mass planets in such distant orbits are rare.

Lone Planet Under a Cosmic Magnifying Glass

Video above: This artist's animation illustrates the technique used for finding free-floating, Jupiter-mass planets in space. Astronomers found evidence for 10 of these worlds, thought to have been ejected early on from their developing solar systems.

The survey, the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), is named in part after a giant wingless, extinct bird family from New Zealand called the moa. A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something, such as a star or planet, passes in front of another more distant star. The passing body's gravity warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent, resulting in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion, and brighten a star for only a few days or less.

A second microlensing survey group, the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), contributed to this discovery using a 4.2-foot (1.3 meter) telescope in Chile. The OGLE group also observed many of the same events, and their observations independently confirmed the analysis of the MOA group.

For more information about NASA's exoplanet research, visit: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

Images, Video, Text, Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Endeavour docks with Space Station

  












NASA - STS-134 Mission patch / AMS-02 Mission patch.

18 May 2011

Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived at the International Space Station today at 12:14 CEST (10:14 GMT) after chasing it in space after a textbook launch on Monday. The crews have now started their combined operations.

STS-134 Endeavour's last docking at the ISS

 The hatches between the Space Shuttle and Space Station were opened after leak tests at 13:38 and ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori and his five crewmates floated in the Space Station at 14:36 today. They were welcomed by Expedition 27 astronauts, including ESA’s another Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli. The two Italians were the first astronauts to meet after the hatches were opened.

Endeavour and Columbus seen after docking

The main payload of the Shuttle is a AMS-02, one of the most exciting scientific instruments ever built - an experiment that could change our understanding of the Universe. After being installed tomorrow, it will be the largest science experiment on the Station.

The installation will be done by careful choreography of the Space Shuttle robot arm and ISS robot arm: the huge instrument will be picked up by the Shuttle’s arm from the cargo bay of Endeavour and handed over to ISS arm, which will crane the AMS-02 to the far-away attaching point on the upper side of the ISS central truss.

Paolo Nespoli giving a safety briefing to visitors

Roberto Vittori will play an important role in these robotic manoeuvres.

During the 16-day STS-134 mission the astronauts from Endeavour will do four spacewalks and also install spare parts and micrometeoroid shields to the Space Station. After these works and in total 36 Shuttle visits, the orbital outpost is ready for a multitude of uses, ranging from performing fundamental science experiments to preparing for the exploration of deep space.

Paolo coming home

After almost six days of combined operations, the six-men-crew of Endeavour and three ISS astronauts – Andrei Borisenko, Aleksandr Samokutyayev and Ron Garan – will say goodbye to Dmitri Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli, who have been aboard the ISS since last December.

Astronauts posing in the Harmony node

The leaving trio will take a Soyuz TMA-20 on Tuesday night, depart from the nadir docking port of the Rassvet docking module at 00:06 CEST on 23 May (22:06 GMT on 22 May).

The landing is supposed to happen about three hours later, at 3:26 CEST (01:26 GMT), to the steppes of Kazakhstan when Sun has just risen over the local horizon.

Science on DAMA mission

Roberto’s mission has been named as DAMA after the mystical form of matter – ‘dark matter’ – that fills the universe with even more strange dark energy, according to theories. AMS-02 will detect this ‘dark matter’ and antimatter by observing the cosmic rays, helping us hopefully to better understand the origin and structure of the Universe.

AMS-02

In addition, Roberto will act as a test subject for two ESA life science experiments and perform six studies sponsored by the Italian space agency, ASI, in technology, medicine, biology and material science.

STS-134 Endeavour preparing for final dock with ISS

 

Endeavour is scheduled to depart the Station in early morning hours of Monday 30 May (CEST) and land at the Kennedy Space Center on 1 June.

Related links:

DAMA Mission: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/DAMA_mission/index.html

Last Shuttle with ESA astronaut lifts off to Space Station to hunt ‘dark matter’: http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMBERLSNNG_index_0.html

STS-134 mission (NASA): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts134/index.html

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA / NASA / AMS-02 Collaboration / Youtube.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA's Shuttle Endeavour Heads To Space Station On Its Final Mission

 











NASA - STS-134 Mission patch / AMS-02 Mission patch.

May 16, 2011

Space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:56 a.m. EDT Monday. The STS-134 mission is the penultimate orbiter flight and the final one for shuttle Endeavour.

Endeavour launch

"This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment and exploration," Commander Mark Kelly said shortly before liftoff. "It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop. To all the millions watching today including our spouses, children, family and friends, we thank you for your support."

AMS-02 mounted on the upper Payload Attach Point on the main truss of the ISS (left)

The crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) and critical supplies to the space station, including two communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional parts for the Dextre robot. AMS is a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual cosmic matter. The crew also will transfer Endeavour's orbiter boom sensor system to the station, where it could assist spacewalkers as an extension for the station's robotic arm.

Space Shuttle Endeavor Final Launch - Mon, 16th May 2011

"Today's final launch of Endeavour is a testament to American ingenuity and leadership in human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "As we look toward a bright future with the International Space Station as our anchor and new destinations in deep space on the horizon, we salute the astronauts and ground crews who have ensured the orbiter's successful missions. The presence of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at the launch inspired us all, just as America's space program has done for the past 50 years."

Kelly's crewmates are Pilot Greg H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency. This is the first shuttle flight for Fincke and Vittori. Vittori will be the last international astronaut to fly aboard a shuttle.

Endeavour's Final Voyage

Endeavour is scheduled to dock to the station at 6:15 a.m. on Wednesday. The 16-day mission includes four spacewalks. After undocking to return to Earth, Kelly and Johnson will ease the shuttle back toward the station to test new sensor technologies that could facilitate the docking of future space vehicles to the station.

The shuttle's first landing opportunity at Kennedy is scheduled for 2:32 a.m. on June 1. STS-134 is the 134th shuttle flight, the 25th flight for Endeavour and the 36th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.

NASA's web coverage of STS-134 includes mission information, a press kit, interactive features, news conference images, graphics and videos. Mission coverage, including the latest NASA Television schedule, is available on the main space shuttle website at: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

NASA is providing continuous television and Internet coverage of the mission. NASA TV features live mission events, daily status news conferences and 24-hour commentary. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Daily news conferences with STS-134 mission managers will take place at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Live updates to the NASA News Twitter feed will be added throughout the mission and landing. To access the feed, go to the NASA.gov homepage or visit: http://www.twitter.com/nasa

Kelly, Johnson, Fincke and Chamitoff are providing updates to their Twitter accounts during the mission. They can be followed at: http://www.twitter.com/shuttleCDRkelly

http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Box

http://www.twitter.com/AstroIronMike

http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Taz

For more information about the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station


Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / ESA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Comets WISE -- A Family Portrait

NASA - WISE Mission patch.

May 14, 2011

During its one-year mission, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mapped the entire sky in infrared light. Among the multitudes of astronomical bodies that have been discovered by the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission are 20 comets. This collage shows those 20 new comets together in a kind of family portrait.

The fuzzy background in each picture is due to random fluctuations in infrared light, primarily from dust in our own solar system. Stars cannot be seen because they were subtracted during the process of combining multiple WISE pictures to make this view centered on the moving comets.

Image, Text, Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch