Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's Astronomy collection

The Sun

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:29:17 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Go to the site for jaw-dropping hi-res, an animation that won't clip and detailed captions.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minumum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times

Detailed closeup of magnetic structures on the Sun's surface, seen in the H-alpha wavelength

NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet

Image of an active solar region

The total solar eclipse of February 16, 198

Venus is seen by NASA's TRACE satellite, at the start of its transit across the sun

a sunspot

Solar flares produce seismic waves

An animation of the sun

a massive solar flare

false-color, 3-layer composite

High Roller - Falcon 1 Video

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:32:54 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Wanna see the coolest video set to music from a webcam attached to the very first privately owned company rocket that made it into orbit that you’ll see… well, ever?^*

Yes. Yes, you do.

Space X took the webcam video from their successful launch of the Falcon-1 rocket and set it to music. The result is made of awesome. The editing is a thing of wonder.

Hint: turn up your speakers.

And yes, you want the high-def version.

Major Failure On the Hubble Space Telescope; Repair Mission Options Being Weighed

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:57:27 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

A major failure on the Hubble Space Telescope has shut down science operations, as the spacecraft is unable to send any data to Earth, according to an article on NASA Spaceflight.com. The failure is on the “Side A” control system. There is also a back-up system, Side B which has never been used. Attempts will be made to switch to Side B later this week. This switch has never been attempted during the lifetime of the telescope, but it is hoped that the switch will work, allowing the HST to return to functionality. This may have an impact on the STS-125’s mission to repair the Hubble, delaying it to 2009, if managers decide to send up a replacement unit, or if a mitigation plan fails to restore the Telescope’s functionality

Stay tuned.

Future Moon Base Site Imaged in 3-D

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:18:58 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Scientifically speaking, where is the best place on the Moon to set up a colony for research? Hands down, it has to be the Moon's south pole. Mountainous areas near the rim of Shackelton Crater provide areas of almost continual sunlight, meaning solar power would be constantly available. In addition, the shadowed craters are in constant darkness and may hold water ice, a potential water supply that would be a vital resource for any lunar base. Plus it would be a great place to set up a lunar telescope. Recently, three-dimensional views of this region were released by the European Space Agency, taken by the SMART-1 spacecraft, providing unprecedented details of what has been called the "Peak of Eternal Light." Moon base designers, take a look…

This image from the Clementine mission shows seven possible colony sites on the Moon's south pole. Circled in red the highest mountain, the so-called "Peak of Eternal Light."

Who's ready to go?

First Picture of a Planet Around a Sun-Like Star

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:21:42 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Astronomers have unveiled what is likely the first picture of a planet around a normal star similar to the Sun. Using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, astronomers from the University of Toronto imaged the young star 1RXS J160929.1-210524, which lies about 500 light-years from Earth and a candidate companion of that star. They also obtained spectra to confirm the nature of the companion, which has a mass about eight times that of Jupiter, and lies roughly 330 times the Earth-Sun distance away from its star. For comparison, the most distant planet in our solar system, Neptune, orbits the Sun at only about 30 times the Earth-Sun distance. The parent star is similar in mass to the Sun, but is much younger. “This is the first time we have directly seen a planetary mass object in a likely orbit around a star like our Sun,

If we confirm that this object is indeed gravitationally tied to the star, it will be a major step forward.”

Star tickling and communicating with aliens.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:43:28 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: The Cepheid Galactic Internet

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

If an alien species wanted to communicate with Earthlings, or any other civilization that might be out there, how might they do it?

why wouldn't aliens just use the internet? The Cepheid Galactic Internet, that is.

a sufficiently advanced civilization could use Cephied variable stars as beacons to transmit information throughout the galaxy and beyond

any technologically advanced civilization would likely observe Cepheids as distance markers

Cepheids and any other regular variable stars should be searched for signs of phase modulation and patterns which could be indicative of intentional signaling

something akin to a T1 line that is already established? All that would need to be done is to "tickle" the star, as the scientists call it, or tweak the Cepheid, to send a message

"tickling" the star, with the delivery of a relatively small amount of energy via neutrinos or other forms of power pulses

could trigger the Cepheid to a specific variability, and a message could be encoded

Stellarium - planetarium on your computer

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:21:46 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: Looks interesting enough to download!

Clip Source: stellarium.org

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go. view screenshots

Clip Source: stellarium.org

Screenshots

Clip Source: stellarium.org

features

sky

default catalogue of over 600,000 stars

extra catalogues with more than 210 million stars

asterisms and illustrations of the constellations

constellations for ten different cultures

images of nebulae (full Messier catalogue)

realistic Milky Way

very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset

the planets and their satellites

visualisation

equatorial and azimuthal grids

star twinkling

shooting stars

eclipse simulation

skinnable landscapes, now with spheric panorama projection

Tags: planetarium, galaxy, planets, stars, asteroids, sky, moon

The beating heart of nebula W5

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:46:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Oh my!

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Holy frak! Check out this new image from Spitzer Space Telescope:

(Click to hugely embiggen)

W5 is a nebula, a giant cloud of gas roughly 6000 light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It’s enormous, spanning about 2 x 1.5 degrees of the sky (15 times the size of the full Moon on the sky), and is actively cranking out stars. The valentine-shape is actually an enormous cavern, a hollow carved out of the gas by the winds and fierce ultraviolet light flooding out from massive young stars in its… well, its heart. It’s like these stars are blowing a vast bubble in the middle of the cloud.

The stars doing the work can be seen in the image; the bright blue ones are the culprits. Mind you, this is an infrared false-color image; blue is not really blue, it’s actually light at 3.6 microns, more than four times the wavelength of visible light.

Jupiter and its moons

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:40:05 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Must visit the site to get full benefit of these staggeringly beautiful images. The Boston Globe is producing some great stuff.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

MarsCam: World's most distant webcam goes live

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:16:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

You can use a webcam to sneak peeks at birds’ nests, active volcanoes, watch the Shuttle launch, and even to check traffic. But that’s just local stuff. What if you want more of a far look?

Then you need to check out the most distant webcam (so far) in the solar system: the Mars Express Visual Monitoring Camera

This camera on board Europe’s Mars Express orbiter has been circling the red planet since 2003. It was used to confirm the Beagle lander’s separation from the main spacecraft, and that completed its main mission. But last year, controllers wondered if the camera could be turned back on to provide some tourist views of Mars, so they began a new campaign to check out the camera. It turned on just fine

The image above shows something we never can see from Earth: a crescent Mars, with the Sun peeking over the limb (you need to have Mars between you and the Sun to see this, and Earth is always closer to the Sun than Mars)

Clip Source: www.esa.int

The VMC: An ordinary camera in an extraordinary place!

A frosty morning - on Mars!!

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:54:17 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Incredible images.

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

It's getting a little nippy in the mornings on Mars. The Phoenix lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image at 6 a.m. on Sol 79 (August 14, 2008 here on Earth), and a thin layer of water frost is visible on the ground around the landing area. From subsequent images, the frost begins to disappear shortly after this image was taken as the sun rises on the Phoenix landing site.

This false color image has been enhanced to show color variations.

Earlier images taken in June, and put together here in sequence to form a movie, appears to show frost forming on Phoenix's own legs.

The Phoenix lander also announced on Twitter that it has opened another TEGA oven door in preparation for receiving another sample of Martian soil to "bake and sniff."

New Source: Phoenix Image Gallery, Wanderingspace.net

19th century Mars - The Mars maps of Giovanni Schiaparelli

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:55:38 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.uapress.arizona.edu

Schiaparelli was born on March 14, 1835, in the town of Savigliano, in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, not far from the French border

as an infant," Schiaparelli later wrote, "I came to know the Pleiades, the Little Wagon, the Great Wagon. . . . Also I saw the trail of a falling star; and another; and another. When I asked what they were, my father answered that this was something the Creator alone knew. Thus arose a secret and confused feeling of immense and awesome things. Already then, as later, my imagination was strongly stirred by thoughts of the vastness of space and time."¹⁵ Young Schiaparelli's interest was further stimulated by the total eclipse of the Sun of July 8, 1842

The fame of his meteor work and the growing national pride of the recently organized Kingdom of Italy brought Schiaparelli a more powerful telescope, an 8.6-inch (22-cm) refractor

Clip Source: www.uapress.arizona.edu

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

Tags: astronomy, mars, planets, history

"Huge" announcement due about potential for life on Mars - White House has been briefed

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:56:57 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more "provocative" than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of water in the Mars regolith on Thursday. Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming that life once existed on the Red Planet's surface, new data appears to indicate the "potential for life" more conclusively than the TEGA water results. Apparently these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed analysis can be carried out, but we are assured that this announcement will be huge…

So why is there all this secrecy?

the next big discovery will need to be mulled over for a while before it is announced to the world

Scientists are keen to point out however, that this secretive news will in no way indicate the existence of life (past or present) on Mars

Tags: astronomy, life on mars

Mars: Stairs, Polygons, Dunes and Troughs

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:54:17 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Meridiani Planum on Mars, where the Mars Rover Opportunity has been traversing the past four plus years, is not just covered with flat, endless plains. Of course, Opportunity has been entering and studying a few of the craters in the region. Here's a crater in Meridiani that's a whopper

This crater is so large that the HiRISE image is entirely within it, and the crater rim is not visible. The most prominent feature is layered sedimentary rocks that look like a grand stairway. These rocks have been eroded, most likely by wind, or possibly flowing water.

Click here for a full resolution picture of this area.

HiRISE also has taken some great images of the polygon features found in the high northern latitudes, that form from the ground seasonally freezing and thawing

polygons and a few dunes

This image is from an area

known as Elysium Planitia

just north of Mars’ equator

interesting geologic history

catastrophic floods of water

For more spectacular images, see the HiRISE website.

Tags: astronomy, hirise, mars, planets, solar system

Electrical Activity on Titan Confirmed: The Spark for Life?

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:03:34 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Titan not only has an atmosphere it has hydrocarbon lakes, oceans, sand dunes and now research has just been published proving Saturn's moon is sparkling with electrical activity. Scientists are in general agreement that organic molecules, the precursors to life on Earth, are a consequence of lightning in the atmosphere

using data from the Huygens probe

scientists have "unequivocally" proven that Titan has electrical storms

causing much excitement as this could mean that organic compounds may be found in abundance

The fruits from the Cassini-Huygens mission are coming thick and fast. Only yesterday, Nancy reviewed the discovery of liquid hydrocarbon lakes

Now Titan has all the necessary components for life; it has an atmosphere with electrical activity, increasing the opportunity for prebiotic organic compounds to form, thus increasing the possibility for life to evolve

Titan is already considered a "unique world in the solar system"

Tags: astronomy, titan, life, solar system, saturn