Brilliant Leonids Meteor Shower Peak Occurs Morning of Nov. 18

Asteroid & Comet Watch logo.

November 14, 2014

A Leonid meteor. Image Credit: NASA

This year’s Leonids meteor shower peaks on the morning of Nov. 18. If forecasters are correct, the shower should produce a mild but pretty sprinkling of meteors. The waning crescent moon will not substantially interfere with viewing the Leonid shower.

“We’re predicting 10 to 15 meteors per hour,” says Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.  “For best viewing, wait until after midnight on Nov. 18, with the peak of the shower occurring just before sunrise.”

Cooke also recommends going to a location away from city lights, dressing warmly, and lie flat on your back and look straight up. No special viewing equipment needed —  just your eyes.

Leonids are bits of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Every 33 years the comet visits the inner solar system and leaves a stream of dusty debris in its wake. Many of these streams have drifted across the November portion of Earth’s orbit. Whenever our planet hits one, meteors appear to be flying out of the constellation Leo.

A live viewing opportunity is available via Ustream from a telescope at Marshall Space Flight Center. The Ustream feed will be live beginning Monday, November 17 at 6:30 p.m. CST and will continue until sunrise on Tuesday Nov. 18: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc

For more information about Marshall Space Flight Center, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/home/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center/Janet Anderson.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Tracking Philae

ESA - Rosetta Mission logo.

November 17, 2014

OSIRIS spots Philae drifting across the comet

These incredible images show the breathtaking journey of Rosetta’s Philae lander as it approached and then rebounded from its first touchdown on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014.

The mosaic comprises a series of images captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera over a 30 minute period spanning the first touchdown. The time of each of image is marked on the corresponding insets and is in GMT. A comparison of the touchdown area shortly before and after first contact with the surface is also provided.

The images were taken with Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera when the spacecraft was 17.5 km from the comet centre, or roughly 15.5 km from the surface. They have a resolution of 28 cm/pixel and the enlarged insets are 17 x 17 m.

From left to right, the images show Philae descending towards and across the comet before touchdown. The image taken after touchdown, at 15:43 GMT, confirms that the lander was moving east, as first suggested by the data returned by the CONSERT experiment, and at a speed of about 0.5 m/s.

Artist's view of Rosetta passing over Philae

The final location of Philae is still not known, but after touching down and bouncing again at 17:25 GMT, it reached there at 17:32 GMT. The imaging team is confident that combining the CONSERT ranging data with OSIRIS and navcam images from the orbiter and images from near the surface and on it from Philae’s ROLIS and CIVA cameras will soon reveal the lander’s whereabouts.

The insets are provided separately via the blog: OSIRIS spots Philae drifting across the comet: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/17/osiris-spots-Philae-drifting-across-the-comet/

Related links:

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

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

Images, Text, Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.

Pioneering Philae completes main mission before hibernation

ESA - Rosetta Mission patch.

15 November 2014

Rosetta’s lander has completed its primary science mission after nearly 57 hours on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

After being out of communication visibility with the lander since 09:58 GMT / 10:58 CET on Friday, Rosetta regained contact with Philae at 22:19 GMT /23:19 CET last night. The signal was initially intermittent, but quickly stabilised and remained very good until 00:36 GMT / 01:36 CET this morning.

Philae's first touchdown seen by Rosetta's NavCam

In that time, the lander returned all of its housekeeping data, as well as science data from the targeted instruments, including ROLIS, COSAC, Ptolemy, SD2 and CONSERT. This completed the measurements planned for the final block of experiments on the surface.

In addition, the lander’s body was lifted by about 4 cm and rotated about 35° in an attempt to receive more solar energy. But as the last science data fed back to Earth, Philae’s power rapidly depleted.

“It has been a huge success, the whole team is delighted,” said Stephan Ulamec, lander manager at the DLR German Aerospace Agency, who monitored Philae’s progress from ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, this week.

First comet panoramic

“Despite the unplanned series of three touchdowns, all of our instruments could be operated and now it’s time to see what we’ve got.”

Against the odds – with no downwards thruster and with the automated harpoon system not having worked – Philae bounced twice after its first touchdown on the comet, coming to rest in the shadow of a cliff on Wednesday 12 November at 17:32 GMT (comet time – it takes over 28 minutes for the signal to reach Earth, via Rosetta).

The search for Philae’s final landing site continues, with high-resolution images from the orbiter being closely scrutinised. Meanwhile, the lander has returned unprecedented images of its surroundings.

While descent images show that the surface of the comet is covered by dust and debris ranging from millimetre to metre sizes, panoramic images show layered walls of harder-looking material.  The science teams are now studying their data to see if they have sampled any of this material with Philae’s drill.

Philae’s instruments

“We still hope that at a later stage of the mission, perhaps when we are nearer to the Sun, that we might have enough solar illumination to wake up the lander and re-establish communication, ” added Stephan.

From now on, no contact will be possible unless sufficient sunlight falls on the solar panels to generate enough power to wake it up. The possibility that this may happen later in the mission was boosted when mission controllers sent commands to rotate the lander’s main body with its fixed solar panels. This should have exposed more panel area to sunlight.

The next possible communication slot begins on 15 November at about 10:00 GMT / 11:00 CET. The orbiter will listen for a signal, and will continue doing so each time its orbit brings it into line-of-sight visibility with Philae. However, given the low recharge current coming from the solar panels at this time, it is unlikely that contact will be re-established with the lander in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Rosetta orbiter has been moving back into a 30 km orbit around the comet.

It will return to a 20 km orbit on 6 December and continue its mission to study the body in great detail as the comet becomes more active, en route to its closest encounter with the Sun on 13 August next year. 

Over the coming months, Rosetta will start to fly in more distant ‘unbound’ orbits, while performing a series of daring flybys past the comet, some within just 8 km of its centre.

Rosetta’s trajectory after 12 November

Data collected by the orbiter will allow scientists to watch the short- and long-term changes that take place on the comet, helping to answer some of the biggest and most important questions regarding the history of our Solar System. How did it form and evolve?  How do comets work? What role did comets play in the evolution of the planets, of water on the Earth, and perhaps even of life on our home world.

“The data collected by Philae and Rosetta is set to make this mission a game-changer in cometary science,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager, says, “At the end of this amazing rollercoaster week, we look back on a successful first-ever soft-landing on a comet. This was a truly historic moment for ESA and its partners. We now look forward to many more months of exciting Rosetta science and possibly a return of Philae from hibernation at some point in time.”

More about Rosetta:

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

Related articles:

Touchdown! Rosetta’s Philae probe lands on comet: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2014/11/touchdown-rosettas-philae-probe-lands.html

First images from the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2014/11/first-images-from-surface-of-comet.html

Three touchdowns for Rosetta’s lander: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2014/11/three-touchdowns-for-rosettas-lander.html

Related links:

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

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

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

Images, Text, Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0/Philae/CIVA/ATG medialab.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

On the work of the spacecraft Electro-L №1

ROSCOSMOS logo.

11/14/2014

Hydrometeorological geostationary space complex Electro-L was launched on January 20, 2011 to complete operational multispectral shooting clouds, land surface and the ocean in the entire observable Earth disc.

The satellite is in a geostationary orbit at distances ~ 760 E and currently continues to be used for the intended purpose with some restrictions. The orientation of the spacecraft is performed on engines stabilization. Even after the introduction of restrictions on the purpose of the spacecraft camera provides data observing all the visible disk of the Earth.

Image above: Picture taken with the spacecraft Electro-L № 1. November 6, 2014.

Multispectral Camera spacecraft Electro-L provides work for a given program with the ability to capture images of the Earth in 10 bands visible and thermal infrared spectral regions.

Installed on board equipment provides data on geophysical conditions in near-Earth space, perform telecommunications functions for the dissemination of hydrometeorological and heliogeophysical data and relay information from the meteorological data collection platforms and ground units COSPAS-SARSAT relay service and other information.

Electro-L № 1 spacecraft

The spacecraft includes a channel relay signals from distress beacons (EPIRBs) COSPAS-SARSAT channel relaying weather information from data collection platforms (DCPs) to receive data from the station platforms (SPDP) and Channel information transfer from heliogeophysical equipment complex. Shooting clouds and the underlying earth's surface by means of multispectral scanner hydrometeorological MSU-GS development of JSC Russian Space Systems.

ROSCOSMOS Press Release: http://www.federalspace.ru/21113/

Images, Text, Credits: Press Service of the Russian Space Agency/ROSCOSMOS/Gunter's Space Page/Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

New Map Shows Frequency of Small Asteroid Impacts

Asteroid Watch logo.

November 14, 2014

New Map Shows Frequency of Small Asteroid Impacts, Provides Clues on Larger Asteroid Population

Image above: This diagram maps the data gathered from 1994-2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth's atmosphere to create very bright meteors, technically called "bolides" and commonly referred to as "fireballs".  Sizes of red dots (daytime impacts) and blue dots (nighttime impacts) are proportional to the optical radiated energy of impacts measured in billions of Joules (GJ) of energy, and show the location of impacts from objects about 1 meter (3 feet) to almost 20 meters (60 feet) in size. Image Credit: Planetary Science.

A map released today by NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program reveals that small asteroids frequently enter and disintegrate in the Earth's atmosphere with random distribution around the globe. Released to the scientific community, the map visualizes data gathered by U.S. government sensors from 1994 to 2013. The data indicate that Earth's atmosphere was impacted by small asteroids, resulting in a bolide (or fireball), on 556 separate occasions in a 20-year period. Almost all asteroids of this size disintegrate in the atmosphere and are usually harmless. The notable exception was the Chelyabinsk event which was the largest asteroid to hit Earth in this period. The new data could help scientists better refine estimates of the distribution of the sizes of NEOs including larger ones that could pose a danger to Earth.

Finding and characterizing hazardous asteroids to protect our home planet is a high priority for NASA. It is one of the reasons NASA has increased by a factor of 10 investments in asteroid detection, characterization and mitigation activities over the last five years. In addition, NASA has aggressively developed strategies and plans with its partners in the U.S. and abroad to detect, track and characterize NEOs. These activities also will help identify NEOs that might pose a risk of Earth impact, and further help inform developing options for planetary defense.

The public can help participate in the hunt for potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects through the Asteroid Grand Challenge, which aims to create a plan to find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them. NASA is also pursuing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) which will identify, redirect and send astronauts to explore an asteroid. Among its many exploration goals, the mission could demonstrate basic planetary defense techniques for asteroid deflection.

For more information about the map and data, go to: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

For details about ARM, and the Asteroid Grand Challenge, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Dwayne Brown/JPL/DC Agle.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Three touchdowns for Rosetta’s lander

ESA - Rosetta Mission patch.

14 November 2014

Searching for Philae

Image above: This five-image montage of OSIRIS narrow-angle images is being used to try to identify the final touchdown point of Rosetta’s lander Philae. The images were taken around the time of landing on 12 November when Rosetta was about 18 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (about 16 km from the surface).

After achieving touchdown on a comet for the first time in history, scientists and engineers are busy analysing this new world and the nature of the landing.

Touchdown was confirmed at ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany at 16:03 GMT/17:03 CET on 12 November.

Since then, scientists, flight dynamics specialists and engineers from ESA, the Lander Control Centre in Cologne, Germany, and the Philae Science, Operations and Navigation Centre in Toulouse, France have been studying the first data returned from the lander.

These revealed the astonishing conclusion that the lander did not just touch down on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko once, but three times.

First touchdown

Image above: His image from Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is marked to show the location of the first touchdown point of the Philae lander. It is thought that Philae bounced twice before settling on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The harpoons did not fire and Philae appeared to be rotating after the first touchdown, which indicated that it had lifted from the surface again.

Stephan Ulamec, Philae manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center, reported that it touched the surface at 15:34, 17:25 and 17:32 GMT (comet time – it takes over 28 minutes for the signal to reach Earth, via Rosetta). The information was provided by several of the scientific instruments, including the ROMAP magnetic field analyser, the MUPUS thermal mapper, and the sensors in the landing gear that were pushed in on the first impact.

The first touchdown was inside the predicted landing ellipse, confirmed using the lander’s downwards-looking ROLIS descent camera in combination with the orbiter’s OSIRIS images to match features.

But then the lander lifted from the surface again – for 1 hour 50 minutes. During that time, it travelled about 1 km at a speed of 38 cm/s. It then made a smaller second hop, travelling at about 3 cm/s, and landing in its final resting place seven minutes later.

First comet panoramic

Image above: Rosetta’s lander Philae has returned the first panoramic image from the surface of a comet. The view, unprocessed, as it has been captured by the CIVA-P imaging system, shows a 360º view around the point of final touchdown. The three feet of Philae’s landing gear can be seen in some of the frames.

The touchdown signal generated on first touchdown induced the instruments to ‘think’ that Philae had landed, triggering the next sequence of experiments. Now those data are being used to interpret the bounces.

Preliminary data from the CONSERT experiment suggest that Philae could have travelled closer to the large depression known as Site B, perhaps sitting on its rim. High-resolution orbiter images, some of which are still stored on Rosetta, have yet to confirm the location.

The lander remains unanchored to the surface at an as yet undetermined orientation. The science instruments are running and are delivering images and data, helping the team to learn more about the final landing site.

Philae’s instruments description

The descent camera revealed that the surface is covered by dust and debris ranging from millimetre to metre sizes. Meanwhile, Philae’s CIVA camera returned a panoramic image that on first impressions suggests the lander is close to a rocky wall, and perhaps has one of its three feet in open space.

After discussions as to whether to activate those science instruments that may cause the position of Philae to shift, MUPUS and APXS have both been deployed.

The primary battery enabling the core science goals of the lander may run out some time in the next 24 hours. As for the secondary battery, charged by solar panels on Philae, with only 1.5 hours of sunlight available to the lander each day, there is an impact on the energy budget to conduct science for a longer period of time. The original landing site offered nearly seven hours of illumination per 12.4 hour comet day.

Related links:

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

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

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/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

How standard is the Higgs boson discovered in 2012?

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

November 13, 2014

The highlight of the first run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was undoubtedly the discovery by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations of a new elementary particle of a type never seen before. All the properties of this particle measured so far are consistent with those predicted for the Higgs boson of the Standard Model. It was predicted to have zero spin (angular momentum), and every alternative option tested has by now been ruled out with a high degree of confidence. It was predicted to couple with other particles proportionally to their masses, and this is strongly supported by the data. This is why the committee that awarded the 2013 Nobel Physics Prize to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs stated “Beyond any reasonable doubt, it is a Higgs boson.”

Image above: An artist’s approximation of a collision of two protons that produce a Higgs boson. Image Credit: CERN.

Physicists are now asking themselves follow-up questions. Is there any difference between its properties and those predicted in the Standard Model? Is it the only Higgs boson, or are there others? Many of its couplings to other particles have been measured, but what about its coupling to the heaviest known particle, the top quark? Or its couplings to lighter particles like the muon? What gives its mass to this Higgs boson? Is it truly an elementary particle, or is it made of some smaller constituents? Is it a portal to some new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as dark matter?

The next run of the LHC, starting in the spring of 2015, will set about answering some of these questions. For example, its higher energy will enable the LHC experiments to probe more deeply for deviations from the Standard Model predictions, and to search for heavier Higgs bosons. It will be possible to measure directly this Higgs boson's coupling to the top quark, and to box in its possible coupling to the muon. These measurements may reveal some substructure inside this Higgs boson, or provide some other evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. Time will tell!

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States.

Related links:

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/large-hadron-collider

ATLAS: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/experiments/atlas

CMS: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/experiments/cms

Standard Model: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/standard-model

The basics of the Higgs boson: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/05/basics-higgs-boson

The origins of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism: http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/higgs-boson/origins-brout-englert-higgs-mechanism

Image, Text, Credits: CERN/John Ellis.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch