Hubble: Magnifying the Distant Universe

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

March 31, 2014

Galaxy clusters are some of the most massive structures that can be found in the Universe — large groups of galaxies bound together by gravity. This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals one of these clusters, known as MACS J0454.1-0300. Each of the bright spots seen here is a galaxy, and each is home to many millions, or even billions, of stars.

Astronomers have determined the mass of MACS J0454.1-0300 to be around 180 trillion times the mass of the sun. Clusters like this are so massive that their gravity can even change the behavior of space around them, bending the path of light as it travels through them, sometimes amplifying it and acting like a cosmic magnifying glass. Thanks to this effect, it is possible to see objects that are so far away from us that they would otherwise be too faint to be detected.

In this case, several objects appear to be dramatically elongated and are seen as sweeping arcs to the left of this image. These are galaxies located at vast distances behind the cluster — their image has been amplified, but also distorted, as their light passes through MACS J0454.1-0300. This process, known as gravitational lensing, is an extremely valuable tool for astronomers as they peer at very distant objects.

Hubble orbiting Earth

This effect will be put to good use with the start of Hubble's Frontier Fields program over the next few years, which aims to explore very distant objects located behind lensing clusters, similar to MACS J0454.1-0300, to investigate how stars and galaxies formed and evolved in the early Universe.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble and http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Image, Text, Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Nick Rose.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

NASA Releases Images of X-class Solar Flare

NASA - Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) patch.

March 31, 2014

Image above: Extreme ultraviolet light streams out of an X-class solar flare as seen in this image captured on March 29, 2014, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This image blends two wavelengths of light: 304 and 171 Angstroms, which help scientists observe the lower levels of the sun's atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/SDO.

The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 1:48 p.m. EDT March 29, 2014, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

To see how this event impacted Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

This flare is classified as an X.1-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.

Related Links:

Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Space Weather: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html

View Other Past Solar Activity: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/multimedia/Solar-Events.html

Image, Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / Karen C. Fox.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Expedition 39/40 Crew Opens Hatch to the International Space Station

ISS - Expedition 39 Mission patch.

March 28, 2014

Expedition 39 40 Crew Opens Hatch to the International Space Station

The crew opened the hatches to the station at 10:35 p.m. after a series of leak and pressure checks between the two spacecraft before . The new station residents entered Poisk and greeted Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos.

After the welcoming ceremony and congratulatory words with family, friends and mission officials, the newly comprised crew conducted a mandatory safety orientation. All six crew members then will have an off-duty day Friday as they relax, having shifted their schedules to accommodate the busy launch and docking activities.

The original plan for the Soyuz to arrive at the station in just four orbits over six hours defaulted to the more traditional 34-orbit plan after the Soyuz spacecraft failed to conduct an engine firing early in the rendezvous sequence following launch to refine its orbit.

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft is just a few meters away from docking. Image Credit: NASA TV / Screen capture: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

The Soyuz crew was safe the entire time as flight controllers replanned their approach and rendezvous. The two day launch-to-docking profile was the normal Soyuz mission profile used for years before Russian space officials began single-day launch to docking efforts in March 2013.

 As is customary, Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev will have several days set aside to familiarize themselves with their new home in space. The new trio will also assist the veteran crewmates as they adjust to living and working in space for six months.

International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA

Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev are scheduled to return home in September as Expedition 40 crew members. They will officially become Expedition 40 when Expedition 39 crew members Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin end their mission and undock in their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft in May for their return to Earth.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned) Text, Credit: NASA.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Soyuz TMA-12M Docks with International Space Station

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-12M Mission patch.

March 27, 2014

The Soyuz TMA-12M vehicle docked to the International Space Station at 7:53 p.m. EDT (23.53 GMT), 252 miles above northern Brazil near the northern coast of South America. Aboard the space station, Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency -- the first Japanese astronaut to lead an expedition -- Richard Mastracchio of NASA and Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will welcome Soyuz crew members Steve Swanson of NASA and Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos.

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft is just a few meters away from docking.Image Credit: NASA TV / Screen capture: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

The original plan for the Soyuz to arrive at the station in just four orbits over six hours defaulted to the more traditional 34-orbit plan after the Soyuz spacecraft failed to conduct an engine firing early in the rendezvous sequence following launch to refine its orbit.

Expedition 39 Docks to Station After Two Day Trip. Video Credit: NASA TV.

The Soyuz crew was safe the entire time as flight controllers replanned their approach and rendezvous. The two day launch-to-docking profile was the normal Soyuz mission profile used for years before Russian space officials began single-day launch to docking efforts in March 2013.

The crew will go through a series of leak and pressure checks between the two spacecraft before finally opening the hatches to the station. The new station residents will enter Poisk and greet Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos.

Image above: Expedition 39 crew members wave after their final press conference before their Tuesday night lift off. Image Credit: ROSCOSMOS.

After a welcoming ceremony and congratulatory words with family, friends and mission officials, the newly comprised crew will conduct a mandatory safety orientation. All six crew members then will have an off-duty day Friday as they relax, having shifted their schedules to accommodate the busy launch and docking activities.

 As is customary, Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev will have several days set aside to familiarize themselves with their new home in space. The new trio will also assist the veteran crewmates as they adjust to living and working in space for six months.

Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev are scheduled to return home in September as Expedition 40 crew members. They will officially become Expedition 40 when Expedition 39 crew members Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin end their mission and undock in their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft in May for their return to Earth.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned) Text, Credit: NASA.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Rosetta sets sights on destination comet

ESA - Rosetta Mission patch.

27 March 2014

Rosetta’s first sighting of its target in 2014 – narrow angle view

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has caught a first glimpse of its destination comet since waking up from deep-space hibernation on 20 January.

These two ‘first light’ images were taken on 20 and 21 March by the OSIRIS wide-angle camera and narrow-angle camera, as part of six weeks of activities dedicated to preparing the spacecraft’s science instruments for close-up study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

OSIRIS, the Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System, developed under the leadership of the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung in Göttingen, Germany, has two cameras for imaging the comet. One covers a wide angle, while the narrow-angle camera covers a smaller field at higher resolution.

OSIRIS is one of a suite of 11 science instruments on the Rosetta orbiter that together will provide details on the comet’s surface geology, its gravity, mass, shape and internal structure, its gaseous, dust-laden atmosphere and its plasma environment.

Rosetta’s first sighting of its target in 2014 – wide angle view

Rosetta has been travelling through the Solar System for 10 years, and will finally arrive at the comet in August this year. It first imaged the comet in a long exposure ­of over 13 hours from a distance of 163 million kilometres, three years ago, before entering deep-space hibernation.

Rosetta is currently around 5 million kilometres from the comet, and at this distance it is still too far away to resolve – its light is seen in less than a pixel and required a series of 60–300 second exposures taken with the wide-angle and narrow-angle camera. The data then travelled 37 minutes through space to reach Earth, with the download taking about an hour per image.

“Finally seeing our target after a 10 year journey through space is an incredible feeling,” says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. “These first images taken from such a huge distance show us that OSIRIS is ready for the upcoming adventure.”

“This is a great start to our instrument commissioning period and we are looking forward to having all 11 instruments plus lander Philae back online and ready for arriving at the comet in just a few month’s time,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

OSIRIS and the spacecraft’s dedicated navigation cameras will regularly acquire images over the coming weeks to help refine Rosetta’s trajectory in order to bring it steadily in line with the comet ahead of the rendezvous.

When can we see the comet?

Currently, Rosetta is on a trajectory that would, if unchanged, take it past the comet at a distance of approximately 50 000 km and at a relative speed of 800 m/s. A critical series of manoeuvres beginning in May will gradually reduce Rosetta’s velocity relative to the comet to just 1 m/s and bring it to within 100 km by the first week of August.

Between May and August the 4 km-wide comet will gradually ‘grow’ in Rosetta’s field of view from appearing to have a diameter of less than one camera pixel to well over 2000 pixels – equivalent to a resolution of around 2 m per pixel – allowing the first surface features to be resolved.

These early observations will allow the rotation rate and the shape of the nucleus to be better understood, crucial for planning manoeuvres around the comet. An initial assessment of the comet’s activity will also be possible.

With OSIRIS re-activated in the first week of instrument commissioning, Rosetta’s 10 other science experiments, along with lander Philae, will provide the focus for the next months’ activities.

For an overview of the instrument commissioning schedule, and for regular status reports, visit the Rosetta blog.

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. Rosetta will be the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface. Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the Sun and its planets formed. By studying the gas, dust, structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in-situ observations, the Rosetta mission should become the key to unlocking the history and evolution of our Solar System, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth’s water and perhaps even life.

More about OSIRIS:

The scientific imaging system OSIRIS was built by a consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany) in collaboration with CISAS, University of Padova (Italy), the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (France), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia, CSIC (Spain), the Research and Scientific Support Department of the European Space Agency (The Netherlands), the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (Spain), the Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid (Spain), the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Uppsala University (Sweden), and the Institute of Computer and Network Engineering of the TU Braunschweig (Germany).

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

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

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Hubble Space Telescope Spots Mars-Bound Comet Sprout Multiple Jets

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

March 27, 2014

Image above: The images above show -- before and after filtering -- comet C/2013 A1, also known as Siding Spring, as captured by Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute).

NASA released Thursday an image of a comet that, on Oct. 19, will pass within 84,000 miles of Mars -- less than half the distance between Earth and our moon.

The image on the left, captured  March 11 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows comet C/2013 A1, also called Siding Spring, at a distance of 353 million miles from Earth. Hubble can't see Siding Spring's icy nucleus because of its diminutive size. The nucleus is surrounded by a glowing dust cloud, or COMA, that measures roughly 12,000 miles across.

The right image shows the comet after image processing techniques were applied to remove the hazy glow of the coma revealing what appear to be two jets of dust coming off the location of the nucleus in opposite directions. This observation should allow astronomers to measure the direction of the nucleus’s pole, and axis of rotation.

Hubble also observed Siding Spring on Jan. 21 as Earth was crossing its orbital plane, which is the path the comet takes as it orbits the sun. This positioning of the two bodies allowed astronomers to determine the speed of the dust coming off the nucleus.

"This is critical information that we need to determine whether, and to what degree, dust grains in the coma of the comet will impact Mars and spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars," said Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

Images above: Compass and Scale Image for Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring (3 Epochs). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute).

Discovered in January 2013 by Robert H. McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory, the comet is falling toward the sun along a roughly 1 million year orbit and is now within the radius of Jupiter's orbit. The comet will make its closest approach to our sun on Oct. 25, at a distance of 130 million miles – well outside of Earth's orbit. The comet is not expected to become bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble and http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / J.D. Harrington / Space Science Telescope Institute / Ray Villard.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Roscosmos has conducted monitoring of suspected areas crash aircraft Boeing-777 of Malaysian Airlines

ROSCOSMOS logo.

03/27/2014

In the period from 13 to 24 March 2014 Roscosmos spent satellite imagery to monitor the district alleged crash of an aircraft Boeing-777 of Malaysian Airlines.

The obtained satellites data for the period shooting distance probed Earth (RSE) promptly transferred to the project manager of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which was initiated in connection with the alleged crash of the aircraft.

(Click on the image for enlarge)

During the period from 13 March to now , the Charter were transferred data from the spacecraft from the Russian group of spacecraft ERS: spacecraft Resource-P № 1 and Canopus-In № 1.

Thus, within the framework of solving the problem of monitoring suspected areas crash aircraft Boeing-777 to the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters materials were transferred to the Russian space shooting spacecraft ERS total area of ​​120 thousand square meters km, including in the waters of the South China Sea transferred 24274 m. km, and in the Indian Ocean - 93369 m. km.

ROSCOSMOS Press Release: http://www.federalspace.ru/20395/

Image, Text, Credits: Roscosmos press service / ROSCOSMOS / Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch