New Discoveries *2* - ...Extraplanetary, deep space, CONTINUED

Palomar · 2003-12-28 15:18:59

Layered Hills on Mars
*Striking photo. This was posted to Astropix on 24 December, and so makes a mention of the impending Beagle 2 mission.
Such varied surface features Mars has, truly exotic. Would be a shame to obliterate all those eccentric dandies with too much terraforming.
--Cindy

Layered Mars: An Ancient Water World?

*This little gem was connected with the link in my most recent post (in the Quote box).

Regarding fossils -:

"Did life arise on ancient Mars? Because of their possible association with water, a prime location for future searches for fossil remains of martian life would be within these layers of Mars."

Spellbinding landscapes.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2003-12-30 07:11:03

Well, well...look who's in cohoots together!

*NASA had better watch its back! :;):

The folks at spaceweather.com are likely watching this with special interest.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2003-12-30 08:52:32

*Weird (looks like capillaries I've seen photos of in anatomy and med books, thanks to the b/w film used...I'd like to see it in color). What next??

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031230.html

--Cindy

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out the error, Rik. I'm going to put a big Post-It Note on my computer regarding how to handle Astropix!

Palomar · 2003-12-31 06:49:07

Stardust Probe to Rendezvous with Comet "Wild 2"

*Stardust will travel up to speeds of nearly 14,000 mph and will come within 188 miles of Wild 2. The purpose is to "grab" dust samples which can provide clues as to the origins of our solar system. Stardust will also take photos and gather other data. Stardust and Wild 2 will be 242 million miles from Earth during this time.

From the article: "'We are literally collecting preserved samples of the building blocks of our solar system and our Earth and even ourselves,' said Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomer who is the mission's chief scientist. 'They've been preserved for the age of the solar system out there at low temperature and are basically in a pristine state.'"

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-01 11:36:58

Quadrantids Meteor Shower

*I have really grown to love the spaceweather.com site. Not only do they inform us of an impending meteor shower which apparently gets little fanfare...they also include astronomical historical information:

"Quadrantid meteors take their name from an obsolete constellation, Quadrans Muralis, found in early 19th-century star atlases between Draco, Hercules, and Bootes. It was removed, along with a few other constellations, from crowded sky maps in 1922 when the International Astronomical Union adopted the modern list of 88 officially-recognized constellations. The Quadrantids, which were 're-zoned' to Bootes after Quadrans Muralis disappeared, nevertheless retained their name -- possibly because another January shower was already widely-known to meteor watchers as the 'Bootids.'"

If I'd heard/read previously of the now-arcane constellation named Quadrans Muralis, I'd forgotten. Cool!

This occurs on my weekend this year, so I may try and catch it. Our night-temps are generally in the low 40 F range, and clear skies are in the forecast.

--Cindy

P.S.: Does anyone know what "Quadrans Muralis" means? Quad refers to "4" I know...not sure about the rest.

Stu · 2004-01-01 11:44:05

P.S.: Does anyone know what "Quadrans Muralis" means? Quad refers to "4" I know...not sure about the rest.

Cindy,

It meant "The Mural Quadrant", and was one of the constellations proposed by the astronomer Bode, circa 1775. Mural as in "big picture" and "Quadrant" as in the scientific instrument I guess.

Happy New Year everyone

Su

Palomar · 2004-01-03 06:50:57

Stardust Probe to Rendezvous with Comet "Wild 2"
*Stardust will travel up to speeds of nearly 14,000 mph and will come within 188 miles of Wild 2. The purpose is to "grab" dust samples which can provide clues as to the origins of our solar system. Stardust will also take photos and gather other data. Stardust and Wild 2 will be 242 million miles from Earth during this time.
From the article: "'We are literally collecting preserved samples of the building blocks of our solar system and our Earth and even ourselves,' said Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomer who is the mission's chief scientist. 'They've been preserved for the age of the solar system out there at low temperature and are basically in a pristine state.'"
--Cindy

*Stardust is a success! The original article I linked to (above) mentioned a particular hazard faced by Stardust: Being bombarded by debris slamming it with 6 times the force of a bullet as it entered the comet. Apparently the shields and everything worked just fine.

A photo of Wild 2 as captured by Stardust (3 January 2004):

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

"U.S. spacecraft snaps startling pictures of comet":

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....st_dc_6

Unfortunately, we have a 2-year wait (Jan 2006) until the samples return via (capsule) landing in the deserts of Utah.

--Cindy

P.S.: Thanks, Stu, for answering my question about Quadrans Muralis.

Palomar · 2004-01-07 10:58:59

Time to rewrite the books!

*Well, our little Stardust spacecraft has returned so much fresh, new data that astronomy texts "may have to be rewritten to reflect new discoveries about the streaking masses of rock and ice, scientists said on Tuesday."

As mentioned previously, Stardust will drop off the samples (via capsule) in 1/06, in the Utah desert...so we've got 2 years' wait for the actual samples to be retrieved by scientists.

Here's a bit of info I may have missed previously (I don't remember it): Stardust took 72 pics of Wild 2.

Yay!

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Here's a big photo of Wild 2's nucleus taken by Stardust (courtesy the good folks at Astropix):

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040103.html

jadeheart · 2004-01-07 13:56:52

Here's an interesting ARTICLE in space.com today.

Note that the star of interest is 47.5 L.Y. away, which is near the limit of what the Terrestrial Planet Finder will be able to survey. Wonder what TPF will find there?

I think, besides humans to mars, TPF is probably going to turn out to be the most important mission in the history of space exploration. My biggest fear is that funding will be cut to it or its precursor proof-of-concept Space Interferometry Mission.

TPF Link

Space Interferometry Mission

Palomar · 2004-01-07 14:17:40

Here's an interesting ARTICLE in space.com today.
Note that the star of interest is 47.5 L.Y. away, which is near the limit of what the Terrestrial Planet Finder will be able to survey. Wonder what TPF will find there?
I think, besides humans to mars, TPF is probably going to turn out to be the most important mission in the history of space exploration. My biggest fear is that funding will be cut to it or its precursor proof-of-concept Space Interferometry Mission.
TPF Link
Space Interferometry Mission

*Hi jadeheart. Thanks for the links to TPF and SIM. I've not seen these link before, I'm quite sure.

The article pertaining to 18 Scorpii is very interesting; I found a Yahoo! item relative to it earlier today. Astronomers have apparently had their eyes on it since 1997.

What the heck did we do in the days before the internet?? Wait for that once-a-month magazine in the mail!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-08 07:00:45

The "Roaster" Planet (warms up its sun!)

*Yep, you read that right. Another mind-boggler from our unendingly fascinating universe.

If I recall correctly, Arthur C. Clarke created a similar scenario in his novel _2001: A Space Odyssey_.

The (nearly) Jupiter-sized planet's magnetic field is what astronomers believe is causing spot warming on the star.

From the article:

"The hot spot on the star, known to astronomers as HD179949, might have been mistaken for a sun spot except that it is moving at the pace of the planet's orbit, rather than at the speed the star is rotating."..."The star itself rotates every nine days, but the hot spot seems to correspond to the planet and not the star's rotation."

Wow.

--Cindy

Mad Grad Student · 2004-01-08 19:39:51

Supernova causes mass extinction, maybe

It's not just limited to timid speculation by kid's books anymore, a massive supernova that happened about 440 million years ago caused one of the five great mass extinctions of Earth, or so the theory goes. Imagine what it would be like on Earth at that time, the article says that thick brown smog resulting from the destroyed ozone layer covered the planet, turning the sky brown!

Come to think of it, aren't we in a mass extinction right now? Not a major one, just one of those Plane Jane ones that happens every 10 million years and kills 2-5% of life on Earth. This one's being caused by wild temperature swings between warm spells and ice ages, and we're in the warm spot right now. We still have at least one or two million years to go before we're out of the woods, so we'd better not screw up the atmospehre too much. Global warming+ice age= ?

Probably should have said this earlier, but since I'm already posting I'll just say it now. Yeah, that earthquake in California was wild, I should know considering my grandparents and several other relatives live in Paso Robles. It happened just about a week after I left there, too. My uncle, a doctor, was in the operating room when the quake started, imagine what that would be like!

jadeheart · 2004-01-09 16:07:52

hey, i just found this COOL interactive 3-D extrasolar planet atlas (you need shockwave to use it, it will offer you the download automatically if you don't have it):

extrasolar atlas

Palomar · 2004-01-09 21:09:59

Most massive star yet...record breaker?

*Wow. Be sure to look at the illustration.

Astronomers have found a star (known as "LBV 1806-20) in the region of northern Sagittarius, approximately 45,000 light years away, which "emits 5 to 40 million times" the energy of Sol. They estimate its diameter is 200 times greater than Sol's ("and its mass should amount to at least 150 solar masses ? perhaps more"). According to previous theories, no star should be able to survive beyond 100 to 120 solar masses.

Studies so far indicate that this LBV 1806-20 is not an unresolved star cluster (apparently other "candidates" for supermassive classification have turned out to be clusters of ordinary stars) but an actual humongous solitary star.

--Cindy

Mark · 2004-01-09 22:11:33

That is a simply gargantuan star/sun in size. Just shows you the kind of things that are out there. It's a blue on too! I wonder what other colors there are. It's like something a little bit out of that movie Pitch Black with the blue sun.

Palomar · 2004-01-10 06:41:53

It's a blue one too! I wonder what other colors there are.

*White, blue-white, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

::EDIT:: (see graph below, "Standard Stellar Types"...although it doesn't list "green"...hmmmm, I wonder why?)

http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/alle … ation.html

What's really cool are binary (or "double") stars of differing colors, like Antares -- a red giant whose secondary star is green. In the constellation Cygnus is a binary, one of which is orange and the other blue.

There is a star known as "The Garnet Star" in the winter constellation of Lupus (this little constellation is right below Orion). It's a very pretty variation in color from red.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-10 11:20:09

Fireballs Over Spain

*Police on meteor alert...people reported *smoke trails* in the sky due to the meteors...they're searching for an impact crater ("Police expected to find a crater caused by a meteor of up to 100 tonnes that may have broken up as it shot across the skies")..."the ground shook, everything shook."

This occurred on Tuesday, and is the latest Yahoo! update. I haven't found a comparable -more recent- article at space.com or spaceweather.com.

Does anyone know if they found an impact crater yet, etc.?

Wow...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-12 19:29:28

Vulcanoids

*I just received my monthly issue of "Astronomy" magazine in the mail. A really cool article about "Vulcanoids" is one of the features.

What are Vulcanoids? From the link above: "...a long-sought population of diminutive asteroids that may be circling near the sun in the innermost frontier of the solar system."

Astronomers search for Vulcanoids during solar eclipses, twilight, and shortly before sunrise. It is theorized that Vulcanoids (if they exist...if) may contain "planet-building material left over from the earliest days of the inner solar system."

The Southwest Research Institute and Dryden Flight Research Center in California (NASA) are collaborating on a program to search for Vulcanoids.

The article linked above is dated 2002...the article in my recent issue of "Astronomy" magazine says: "A bevy of small asteroids may lurk inside the orbit of Mercury, although searches have yet to turn up a thing."

Great reading all around.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-13 06:08:23

::EDIT:: (see graph below, "Standard Stellar Types"...although it doesn't list "green"...hmmmm, I wonder why?)
Maybe 'cause there are no green stars in the entire Universe ?! And i think i can give you a hint why: nor hydrogen nor helium can shine green.

*There are green stars...at least according to *professional* sources I've encountered. Perhaps you missed the description of Antares (a red giant) and its green companion? It is a small star compared to its huge companion, and astronomers have classified it as green; it is scientifically catalogued as such.

Also, in the AstroCards "Double Star" set, there are a sprinkling of stars classified as green.

Last but not least, Golden Books' _Stars_ (in publication for decades now) has a picture graph of the OBAFGKM system of classification...which includes green.

These are professional sources I'm referring to.

--Cindy

::EDIT:: I did some Googling on this as well. According to an astronomy discussion forum for "Astronomy" magazine, there are "solid astrophysical reasons to call into question the existence of green stars"'; certainly fair enough...however, the professional sources I refer to above haven't (yet) rescinded that classification.

Palomar · 2004-01-13 14:56:13

*Nice quotes. Perhaps they are right (I'm not a professional astronomer, so it's not "my call").

Again, I'm just going by what professional astronomical sources have *documented* in star catalogues, a book I own (currently in publication), etc.; I'm only relating what has been documented and published in various astronomical resources.

By the way, what source(s) are you quoting? I've named mine.

--Cindy

::EDIT:: In case anyone is wondering, I don't recall ever seeing a green star myself during outings with my telescope. And resolving Antares' faint companion is beyond the grasp of my telescope's optics...so I can't personally vouch for what it looks like (color).

Palomar · 2004-01-14 06:11:29

[=http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html]Stardust & Wild 2

*If you check out the entry for January 13 in "Astronotes" (currently at the top; Astronotes is updated, so eventually all articles there are pushed down) you can see animation of the flyby of Comet Wild 2 by the spacecraft Stardust. NASA release.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-14 09:14:28

[=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040113.html]Apollo 15 Panorama

*No, it's not a "new discovery," but I'll place it in the thread anyway (don't want to start a new thread, etc.). What an awesome image! Of all the Apollo pics I've ever seen, this one really blows me away. It's almost like you can step into the photo and go climb that hill yourself!

My god, to actually have set foot on a different celestial body...regardless if you're first or tenth. Totally mind-boggling, even after all these decades. I still feel that "rush" of excitement.

I really envy the first person to set foot on Mars.

--Cindy

New Mars Forums

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