New Discoveries *3* - ...MORE deep space, extraplanetary, etc.

Palomar · 2004-03-11 07:46:44

*We've almost hit the 300 posts mark in the 2nd "New Discoveries" thread, so I'm starting a new one.

[http://www.spacedaily.com/news/uranus-04a.html]Uranus enigma

Quadruple magnetic poles! Goodness.

Also discusses Neptune.

I really like that pic of Uranus, especially those 3 red circular areas toward the one side. REALLY funky.

Uranus is groovy...yeah!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-12 12:27:47

[http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12175]Clumps in the F Ring

*First noticed by Voyager in 1980 and 1981, now re-imaged by Cassini. The clumps rotation in the direction Saturn rotates (makes sense, I guess).

"Other knot-like irregularities in the ring's brightness can also be seen in the right hand image...several theories have been proposed, including meteoroid bombardment and inter-particle collisions in the F ring."

They're hoping Cassini can help them figure out the life spans of these clumps.

Janus, one of Saturn's moons, is visible in the 2nd pic. Very cool information here:

"Janus was discovered by ground-based astronomers in 1966, and was first resolved by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1980. The moon shares almost the same orbit with another small satellite, Epimetheus. --->Janus and Epimetheus, both thought to consist mostly of porous ices, play a role in maintaining the outer edge of Saturn's A ring.<---

Now that is awesome...moons help maintain ring stability. What an endlessly fascinating universe!

I love Saturn; what a beauty!

--Cindy

Byron · 2004-03-12 13:06:35

Now that is awesome...moons help maintain ring stability. What an endlessly fascinating universe!
I love Saturn; what a beauty!
--Cindy

Yeah, I've heard that before...the moons of Saturn are instrumental in keeping those beautiful rings "alive"...otherwise they would have likely disappeared a long time ago...

B

Palomar · 2004-03-18 07:06:47

[http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html]Recently Discovered Near-Earth Asteroid

...Makes Record-Breaking Approach to Earth.

"On average, objects about the size of 2004 FH pass within this distance roughly once every two years, but most of these small objects pass by undetected. This particular close approach is unusual only in the sense that scientists know about it."

No danger of collision, however. It's approximately 100 feet in diameter and will pass within 26,500 miles from Earth. :-\

That's close enough, thank you.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-19 07:45:13

[http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html]Recently Discovered Near-Earth Asteroid
...Makes Record-Breaking Approach to Earth.
"On average, objects about the size of 2004 FH pass within this distance roughly once every two years, but most of these small objects pass by undetected. This particular close approach is unusual only in the sense that scientists know about it."
No danger of collision, however. It's approximately 100 feet in diameter and will pass within 26,500 miles from Earth. :-\
That's close enough, thank you.
--Cindy

[http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html]Click

*More information about the near-Earth asteroid which whizzed past us yesterday.

New illustrations, including an animated one.

Says Earth's gravity bent the asteroid's trajectory by approximately 15 degrees. Also, the asteroid crossed from one side of the Moon's orbit to the other in 31 hours. Guess the little guy was really zipping along, huh?

Keep going and don't come back!

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-19 08:56:33

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/s … 319.html]A Wild & Crazy Comet

*Ha ha. I was surprised to see Wild-2 making yet another major headline at space.com. They mention, again, the hills, cliffs, craters and "active vents" which "belch gas into space." However, -this- article has more information than others like it I've read.

"Astronomers can't yet make heads or tails out of all the crazy things they've seen in close-up pictures of comet Wild-2...

--->'Other than the Sun, this is the most active planetary surface in our solar system,' <--- said Donald Brownlee, principle investigator of the comet study...

(Oooo, now that -IS- so cool!!)

'The overall shape of the nucleus resembles a thick hamburger patty with a few bites taken out,' said Thomas Duxbury, Stardust project manager...."

*Lots of really interesting information packed into this little article. I can't wait until the samples fall onto Utah, are retrieved and analyzed (but we have to wait until 2006! <frown>).

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Here's a related article (Stardust - update):

[http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/s … 40102.html]Click

Palomar · 2004-03-20 08:25:39

[http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html]Click
*More information about the near-Earth asteroid which whizzed past us yesterday.
New illustrations, including an animated one.
Says Earth's gravity bent the asteroid's trajectory by approximately 15 degrees. Also, the asteroid crossed from one side of the Moon's orbit to the other in 31 hours. Guess the little guy was really zipping along, huh?
Keep going and don't come back!
--Cindy

*Asteroid 2004 FH. It must really be tumbling along as well; check out the rapidly-alternating variations in brightness:

This image is courtesy spaceweather.com, which received it from a Chilean telescope (14-inch SoTIE). To make this animation, "we put together twenty-four 5-second exposures," says Masi. "It shows both the motion and the brightness variations of this funny asteroid."

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-20 09:18:11

[http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/s … 40319.html]A Wild & Crazy Comet
*Ha ha. I was surprised to see Wild-2 making yet another major headline at space.com. They mention, again, the hills, cliffs, craters and "active vents" which "belch gas into space." However, -this- article has more information than others like it I've read.
"Astronomers can't yet make heads or tails out of all the crazy things they've seen in close-up pictures of comet Wild-2...
--->'Other than the Sun, this is the most active planetary surface in our solar system,' <--- said Donald Brownlee, principle investigator of the comet study...
(Oooo, now that -IS- so cool!!)

More information about the nucleus' features from Sky & Telescope e-Bulletin: "[pics from Stardust] revealed a body covered with scarps, vertical cliffs, and a 'monument valley' complete with columns, pyramids, cones, and 100-meter-high spires..."

Amazing!

[http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1213_1.asp]Sky & Telescope article

[I suppose some folks will go off like loons about the pyramid features. :-\ ]

Anyway, it is all quite fascinating.

---

Be sure to check out my most recent post above this one (asteroid animation from Chilean telescope).

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-21 08:24:29

[http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004 … lanets.htm]The Fabulous Five

*I'm definitely going to aim for Mercury. I have been looking at the others through my telescope quite a bit this winter.

--Cindy

Byron · 2004-03-21 08:58:20

[http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004 … lanets.htm]The Fabulous Five
*I'm definitely going to aim for Mercury. I have been looking at the others through my telescope quite a bit this winter.
--Cindy

That's pretty darned cool...I'll have to try and catch a look at Mercury in the next couple of evenings...

Also, that article you linked to mentioned that you can see Venus in the daytime...I didn't know that was possible. Will have to try doing that this week as well...

B

Palomar · 2004-03-23 07:53:43

[http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040323.html]WOW

*Lava flows on Venus.

This isn't "new" news...but how striking! Only the pic itself is initially visible on my screen (until I scroll down to see the text beneath), and initially I thought it might be a pic pertaining to something on Earth.

Venus is sooooo intriguing. All the more so because of the immense difficulties related to its nature, etc., IMO.

--Cindy

::EDIT:: [http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/magellan/]Magellan Mission to Venus

Palomar · 2004-03-23 08:23:18

[http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=13891]Lava Lakes on Io

*First the lava flows on Venus earlier today (the post above this one), and now an article on Io's lava (I guess it's "Lava Day"...). Really interesting article.

"Investigations into lava lakes on the surface of Io, the intensely volcanic moon that orbits Jupiter, may provide clues to what Earth looked like in its earliest phases, according to researchers at the University at Buffalo and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

'When I look at the data, it becomes startlingly suggestive to me that this may be a window onto the primitive history of Earth,' said Tracy K. P. Gregg, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

'When we look at Io, we may be seeing what Earth looked like when it was in its earliest stages, akin to what a newborn baby looks like in the first few seconds following birth,' she added."

"During the most intense periods of its eruption cycle, Gregg said, Loki churns out about 1,000 square meters of lava -- about the size of a soccer field -- per second."

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Check out the information on "Loki." Interesting name for it, by the way; Loki was a pucky, very mischievious character in old Norse mythology -- a prankster.

[http://www.gods-heros-myth.com/norse/loki.html]Loki, mythology

Palomar · 2004-03-24 16:07:01

[http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/ob … 1223_1.asp]1 little, 2 little, 3 little shadows...

*Hey, check this out; during the early-morning hours of March 28 persons with adequate telescopes can see the shadows of Callisto, Io, and Ganymede crossing Jupiter's disc.

I might risk being bleary-eyed the rest of the day to catch it.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-24 20:35:45

[http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004 … lanets.htm]The Fabulous Five
*I'm definitely going to aim for Mercury. I have been looking at the others through my telescope quite a bit this winter.
--Cindy

*Mission accomplished!

Yours truly -- humble but intrepid amateur astronomer -- battled devil's spear cacti, an uneven rock-wall ledge, barking dogs, street traffic passing by, and a street light perhaps only 20 feet away to view Mercury!

In my Astroscan's most powerful eyepiece (6 mm) it is a tiny, softly glowing amber-colored disc, abit smaller than: o

***

I also checked Venus (mid-phase) and the lovely crescent moon. Great crater features and peaks, etc.

--Cindy

Byron · 2004-03-25 05:44:52

Cool! Unfortunately, it's been too cloudy here for me to have a shot at seeing Mercury...not to mention attempting to view Venus in the daylight, which is something I've wanted to do for a while.

Were you able to see Mercury with the naked eye, or did you have to use the scope to find it in the evening sky? They say that this is the last time that 5 planets are supposed to be visible to the naked eye until the year 2036...damn those clouds!...

B

Palomar · 2004-03-25 06:51:03

Were you able to see Mercury with the naked eye,

*Yep. It's approximately as bright (IMO) as one of Orion's belt stars. I knew it was Mercury, because there is no star that bright in that exact section of the sky. Then I trained my 'scope on it.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-25 08:44:15

[http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … 40325.html]Magnesium-loaded supernova remnants

*How weird. The remnants contain as much magnesium as our Sun's mass. And check out the info regarding oxygen (short article w/photo).

"Magnesium, created deep inside the star and ejected in the supernova explosion, is usually associated with correspondingly high concentrations of oxygen. However, the Chandra data indicate that the amount of oxygen in N49B is not exceptional.

This poses a puzzle as to how the excess magnesium was created, or, alternatively, how the excess oxygen has escaped detection..."

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-26 08:53:53

*SMART-1 moon probe update. This is from space.com's "Astronotes," which is in column format and updated nearly daily, so I'll copy and paste the article:

"SMART-1 Moon Probe Pushes Onward

Europe’s first lunar mission, the Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART-1) has completed over 250 orbits around Earth, progressively spiraling out from Earth toward an eventual gravitational bonding with the Moon.

The European Space Agency (ESA) reported this week that all spacecraft functions are performing nominally. Due to the alignment of the Sun and Earth, SMART-1 went through an "eclipse season" with the craft surviving lengthy cold soaks. The longest eclipse lasted for over two hours, stressing the probe’s power systems to their maximum limit. SMART-1 made it through these "long nights" without a hitch, ESA reported.

SMART-1 has a primary objective of flight testing Solar Electric Primary Propulsion as the key technology for future ESA missions. Among its duties once it starts orbiting the Moon is searching for ice in the craters at the Moon's south pole.

Launched in late September 2003, the craft uses its solar electric engine to slowly push it outward on ever-increasing orbits of the Earth until capture by the Moon's gravitational field. That Earth to the Moon voyage is taking roughly 16 months to complete."

---

*More about Mercury: Observe it while you can. I'm glad I got my 'scope out and on it, the night before last. This includes "how-to" illustrations, etc:

[http://www.space.com/spacewatch/mercury … 40326.html]Click

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-03-26 11:16:04

[http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/04032608 … ncwc1.html]Our "new moons"

*A "quasi-moon," which is actually an asteroid named 2003 YN17, will orbit the Earth a few years "while it orbits the sun on a horseshoe-shaped path..." They speculate 2003 YN17 is a piece of debris resulting from an impact between the surface of the Moon and a bigger piece of space rock. It'll be with us until 2006.

We have more company, apparently: "Two other 'quasi-moons' -- temporary fellow-travellers that loop around the earth for while as they girdle the sun -- have been spotted in recent years: Cluithne and asteroid 2002 AA29."

--Cindy

~Eternal~ · 2004-03-26 16:40:09

[http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/04032608 … ncwc1.html]Our "new moons"
*A "quasi-moon," which is actually an asteroid named 2003 YN17, will orbit the Earth a few years "while it orbits the sun on a horseshoe-shaped path..." They speculate 2003 YN17 is a piece of debris resulting from an impact between the surface of the Moon and a bigger piece of space rock. It'll be with us until 2006.
We have more company, apparently: "Two other 'quasi-moons' -- temporary fellow-travellers that loop around the earth for while as they girdle the sun -- have been spotted in recent years: Cluithne and asteroid 2002 AA29."
--Cindy

Can you say economy boost?

SBird · 2004-03-27 12:48:28

There was a Slashdot thread about this. It turns out that calling this a 'moon' is really stretching the definition. It's going to be something like 4.5 million miles away at the closest.

On the other hand, I found out that our moon isn't actually a moon! It turns out that the Moon actually feels a stronger gravitation attraction to the Sun than the Earth. As a result, the Earth and Moon are more accurately described as a binary planet.

Palomar · 2004-04-02 11:40:14

[http://www.solarviews.com/cap/comet/kuiper3.htm]Relationship of Kuiper Belt to Oort Cloud

*A handy little resource.

--Cindy

::EDIT::

[http://www.solarviews.com/cap/comet/kuiper1.htm]Binary Objects at Solar System's Fringe...cool!

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped pictures of a double system of icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt. This composite picture shows the apparent orbit of one member of the pair. In reality, the objects, called 1998 WW31, revolve around a common center of gravity, like a pair of waltzing skaters."

Palomar · 2004-04-06 05:23:20

*It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...it's the International Space Station!

Mr. Torsten Edelmann of Germany caught this image of Saturn and the ISS. From spaceweather.com: "On April 1st, Torsten Edelmann of Landsberg, Germany, photographed a rare and beautiful close encounter ... between Saturn and the ISS. 'This is no April Fool's joke,' says Edelmann, who recorded the event using a Celestron C9.25 telescope and a Phillips Toucam digital camera. 'The two frames showing the ISS are just 1/15s apart! I processed the image of Saturn separately to enhance the planet's faint moons.'"

*Cool. I'd like to see the ISS zooming by some night in my telescope. I have, perhaps half a dozen times (it's rare), been peering through the eyepiece when an airplane has zipped through the field.

--Cindy

Stu · 2004-04-09 07:24:47

Can someone tell me why NASA is even thinking about scuttling HUBBLE when it's sending back such glorious images as this..?

[http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2004 … ll_jpg.jpg]http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu....jpg.jpg

Unbelievable - both the decision and the picture...

Palomar · 2004-04-09 07:54:12

Can someone tell me why NASA is even thinking about scuttling HUBBLE when it's sending back such glorious images as this..?
[http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2004 … ll_jpg.jpg]http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu....jpg.jpg
Unbelievable - both the decision and the picture...

*It is glorious.

[http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/ima … ategory=ds]Mega Image Gallery

Lots of stunning photos here (Hubble and otherwise).

--Cindy

P.S.: Let the religionists have their places of eternal reward or damnation after death...if I can't tour the universe while corporally alive, I'd love to tour the universe in the afterlife instead (-if- there is one)! :;):

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