Topic: Space exploration thread - Unexpected Rapid Disassembly in the launch area.

[trenchtownrasta]

RIP Patrick

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20663883

[Andy @ Allerton!]

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

Aliens are people too

[farawayred]

Unfortunately, there won't be any drilling activities on Mars before 2013... We need to sort a few things out with the testbed here before we risk the rover. Not a big thing in my view, but the Project folks are very cautious.

[Roady]

Aliens are people too

am i a bit odd? I clciked on that and expected to see more people than that?

[BRdispatch05]

[farawayred]

NASA crashed the two GRAIL spacecraft on the moon:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/121217-moon-satellite-crash-land-space-science/

Ah, the moon... The British should be proud to be the first nation ever to publish pictures from another celestial object (that drove the Russians mad at the time)...

[Red Beret]

I wonder if you could send a Mars Exploration type Rover to the Moon?  I'm sure you could soft land something using that air bag system.

Factoid: Mercury and Mars have about the same gravity, because the former is so dense.

[farawayred]

It's hard to justify spending a billion dollars on a moon rover, unless there is something to gain (I can't think of much). The next highly probable lunar lander mission would be for testing sample return technology to be applied to Mars. But with limited finances we may have to do Mars sample return without prior testing. Did that with the sky crane...

Just dug out some pictures of the sky crane and the rover from June 2011

[Red Beret]

It's hard to justify spending a billion dollars on a moon rover, unless there is something to gain (I can't think of much). The next highly probable lunar lander mission would be for testing sample return technology to be applied to Mars. But with limited finances we may have to do Mars sample return without prior testing. Did that with the sky crane...

Just dug out some pictures of the sky crane and the rover from June 2011

Would an Opportunity-class rover cost that much to build now though?  It's a proven technology after all and with the right equipment it could literally provide years of ground based work on the moon that could find the reasons to justify a more expensive investment down the line.

[-Nay-]

this is ok for in here?


http://news.sky.com/story/1029118/asteroid-fears-over-space-rock-to-miss-earth

An asteroid feared to be on a collision course with Earth no longer poses a significant risk to the planet.

Experts previously said there was up to a one in 500 chance of the space rock, which is as wide as two football pitches, crashing into Earth in February 2040.

However, when astronomers made further observations to better predict the asteroid's course, they found it would pass no closer than 550,000 miles to the planet - a distance equivalent to more than two trips to the moon.

The updated trajectory was drawn up by NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

They relied on data from a team at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, who used the eight-metre Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to find the faint asteroid, known as 2011 AG5.

Their research greatly reduced uncertainties about the object's orbit and eliminated fears it would cross Earth's path.

Asteroid 2011 AG5 has a diameter of 140 metres and is one of more than 8,700 near-Earth objects known to scientists.

It was found by astronomers at the top of Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains, near Tuscon, Arizona, in January 2011.

[farawayred]

Would an Opportunity-class rover cost that much to build now though?  It's a proven technology after all and with the right equipment it could literally provide years of ground based work on the moon that could find the reasons to justify a more expensive investment down the line.

You are partly correct in terms of the cost in terms that it won't cost as much as the first one did. But the cost savings are only substantial if you build two or more at a time. Think for example of all the electronics. That technology is 20-years old and most of the parts are no longer produced, especially those that are the heart and brain of a rover - FPGAs, computers, memories, sensors, etc. As it is very typical for a new project, aside from a few capacitors and resistors, everything has to be built from scratch. This requires new full-scale reliability and radiation testing programs, which carry the large price tag. The same goes for the most important mechanical parts like motor actuators. So, what we could save cost on is the mechanical designs, basically the chassis and such stuff. That does save cost, but not too much. The way we've been doing cost-saving is by having several partially overlapping projects going through JPL that use the same parts and devices. Right now SMAP leverages on all the MSL research and uses the same parts; that's why it would come out cheaper than it normally would. But the projects have gone away, we have nothing through in the next two years, and the future savings are gone with that.

[Barneylfc∗]

Looking forward to this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9767950/Comet-15-times-brighter-than-the-moon-to-be-visible-from-Britain.html

The comet, named Ison, is expected to be so "spectacularly bright" that it will be visible to the naked eye in daylight next year.

It is predicted to end a year of "celestial treats" for 2013, with other comets also coming within visible range of the Earth.

Comet Ison was discovered accidentally in September this year by astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, who had planned to use a high-powered telescope to probe the far reaches of the Gemini and Cancer constellations.

Instead, they stumbled upon what could be one of the biggest astronomical events of the decade; a comet so bright that it will likely be visible to the naked eye in daylight.

In the coming year, the ‘2014 L4’ comet will also be seen from Earth in the spring.

Experts say there is a "very, very good chance" that Ison, known as a ‘sun-grazer’ because it will orbit so close to the sun, will be visible to Britain’s many amateur astronomers.

“I would be very surprised if both comets don’t become visible in the UK,” said Professor Mark Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory.

Amateur astronomers will have the best chance of seeing Ison in November and December, leading scientists to colloquially call it the 'Christmas Day Comet’.

“Because it goes very close to the Sun it is thought that it will be spectacularly bright," said Professor Bailey. "As it moves away from the Sun it is thought that it will develop a very spectacular tail.”

Experts say that the comet has taken millions of years to reach our solar system from the Oort cloud which is over a light year away from earth. It is due to come to life in October next year, say experts.

As it passes close to Mars, the comet’s surface will morph as ice reacts to shifting temperatures, causing large cracks to appear and huge plumes of gas to be expelled.

In this case it would become visible to the naked eye as early as November, its newly formed tail stretching far into the sky above the horizon.

Scientists liken the composition of comets to ‘dirty ice-balls’.

“Imagine rolling an ice-ball in your driveway – it’s in that way that the nucleus of a comet is made up, with all the pebbles and dust mixed in,” said Professor Bailey.

“We’re in for real celestial treats next year which will surely inspire people’s interest in astronomy.”

[Barneylfc∗]

It's hard to justify spending a billion dollars on a moon rover, unless there is something to gain (I can't think of much). The next highly probable lunar lander mission would be for testing sample return technology to be applied to Mars. But with limited finances we may have to do Mars sample return without prior testing. Did that with the sky crane...

Just dug out some pictures of the sky crane and the rover from June 2011

Can't remember where I read it, maybe even on here, but is it right that the US Government have seriously cut funding to NASA and NASA have to fight like fuck to get any serious money?

[Red Beret]

I'm looking forward to comet Ison as well.  I've not seen a comet since Hale-Bopp back in the mid-90s and this new one promises to be something special.

Just to put things into perspective, Comet Ison will pass just 680,000 miles from the Sun's surface.  Compare that to the average Earth-Moon distance of 239,000 miles!

[Barneylfc∗]

I'm looking forward to comet Ison as well.  I've not seen a comet since Hale-Bopp back in the mid-90s and this new one promises to be something special.

Just to put things into perspective, Comet Ison will pass just 680,000 miles from the Sun's surface.  Compare that to the average Earth-Moon distance of 239,000 miles!

I remember reading about that at the time but never seen it. This will be my first. My da has a quality telescope so I'm going to get it off him for this.

[Red Beret]

I remember reading about that at the time but never seen it. This will be my first. My da has a quality telescope so I'm going to get it off him for this.

If Ison is anything like Hale Bopp, then trust me - you wont NEED a telescope.  It was literally a huge smear of light across the sky with it's two distinct tails of blue and green.  Must have been close to five or six moon-widths in length.

[Roopy]

700,000 galaxies may be uncovered

http://www.enniscorthyguardian.ie/breaking-news/world-news/700000-galaxies-may-be-uncovered-3338888.html

Two Australian sky surveys named Wallaby and Dingo are expected to uncover an unprecedented 700,000 new galaxies over the course of the new year.

A huge new radio telescope facility in Western Australia will scour vast regions of space to provide new clues about galaxy evolution.

The Ł65 million Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (Askap) is located in a remote desert region of Western Australia, 196 miles from the port of Geraldton. It consists of 36 identical 12 metre-wide dishes that work together as a single antenna.

Askap, which starts scanning the southern skies this year, will also help astronomers investigate one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: dark energy.

This is the anti-gravity force which appears to be causing galaxies to fly apart at an accelerating rate. Although no one is sure what dark energy is, it accounts for 73% of all the mass-energy in the universe.

Scientists were able to predict Askap's capabilities by combining its specifications with computer simulations.

Dr Alan Duffy, a member of the Askap team from the University of Western Australia, said: "Askap is a highly capable telescope. Its surveys will find more galaxies, further away and be able to study them in more detail than any other radio telescope in the world. We predict that Wallaby will find an amazing 600,000 new galaxies and Dingo 100,000, spread over trillions of cubic light years of space."

The telescope will examine galactic hydrogen gas - the fuel that forms stars - to see how galaxies have changed in the last four billion years.

Askap is itself a curtain raiser for an even more ambitious project, the Square Kilometre Array (Ska).

With receiving stations stretching between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Ska will be the world's largest radio telescope when it begins operating in 2019. Its combined antennae will provide a total radiation collecting area of approximately one square kilometre.

[Roopy]

Incredible NASA Photos Show Saturn's Rings and Clouds

NASA has unveiled amazing new views of the planet Saturn showcasing the ringed wonder's moons, rings and turbulent atmosphere as seen by the Cassini spacecraft.

The first photo, which NASA released on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), clearly shows Saturn's south pole and distinctive rings. But the image also holds a few surprises.

The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas appears in the photo as a small, oblique dark spot slightly to the left and above the planet's south pole. Mimas is perhaps best known for a huge crater that dominates one of its hemispheres, leading some "Star Wars" fans to compare its look to the "Death Star."

Cassini also captured Janus, another of the more than 60 known moons of Saturn, in the top left section of the image. The small satellite is difficult to spot, but appears as a tiny white dot just over the planet's north pole. While NASA released the photo of Saturn, Mimas and Janus this week, Cassini actually snapped the image in August. Since then, mission scientists processed and polished the image to highlight its features.

A second Saturn photo, a raw, unprocessed view released Wednesday (Dec. 26), shows Saturn's turbulent surface in extreme detail. Violent storms churning among Saturn's cloud tops appear as delicate whorls and swirls.

Both of the new Saturn photos were taken with Cassini's wide-angle camera, but they represent two different ways NASA handles space images. The first photo of Saturn, Janus and Mimas was refined to bring out the most interesting aspects of the photos. For example, Janus was barely visible in the original, raw image, so image specialists opted to brighten the small moon in the final, refined image.

The second image is part of a larger database of raw images that NASA releases online soon after they are sent to Earth by Cassini. Like the first photo, this somewhat foggy depiction of Saturn's surface will eventually be treated to bring out its most stunning aspects.

The Cassini spacecraft has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion km) since its launch with the Huygens lander in 1997. Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004 and dropped European-built Huygens onto the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. The Cassini- Huygens mission is a joint project of NASA, the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

During its time in space, Cassini has taken more than 300,000 images of the Saturn and its moons. The spacecraft is currently in an extended phase of its mission that runs through 2017.







This image, captured by the Cassini orbiter on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) and beamed to Earth on Dec. 26., shows details of Saturn's turbulent surface.

[BornaRED]

  i always read but never post, but  just came across this site that may interest some on here  http://events.slooh.com/#  live images and chat from a telescope in tenerife.    just had a good view of jupiter  and now showing a galaxy  ... really good views. 

[MHLC]

The launch of ESA's GAIA spacecraft is due in summer 2013. We're performing validation tests for the mission control systems next week - not looking forward to it as it tends to be intensively stressful

[Macphisto80]

  i always read but never post, but  just came across this site that may interest some on here  http://events.slooh.com/#  live images and chat from a telescope in tenerife.    just had a good view of jupiter  and now showing a galaxy  ... really good views. 

Very nice. Bookmarked that. Thanks.

[Barneylfc∗]

Taken from Cmdr Hadfield's twitter

The beauty of the Bahamas is surreal; every blue that exists. Taken on New Year's Day, 2013 from the Space Station. pic.twitter.com/cnNPh8Xl

[TepidT2O]

Drilling next week then?!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20901931

[Red Beret]

In case anybody's interested, The Sky at Night is on Sunday at midnight (or Monday 00.00 am if you prefer).  It's the last one recorded by Sir Patrick so you might want to catch it. 

[farawayred]

Drilling next week then?!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20901931

That decision will be taken on Wednesday. It looks like we'll give them a green light despite a few hickups, the risk for now is low. Looking forward to it!

[farawayred]

The rover successfully brushed a rock to abrade the aged surface - another tool working fine. The drill doesn't need the brush as it throws out the top layer from the core anyway, but it's good to have a tool set.

[Roopy]

'17 billion' Earth-sized planets in Milky Way

A simulation based on data from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission has determined that about one out of every six stars has an Earth-sized planet, which would translate to at least 17 billion such worlds in our Milky Way galaxy. And that's not even counting the alien Earths we'd want to live on.

These 17 billion planets would be circling their parent stars more closely than Mercury orbits our own sun — which means that, in many cases, the planets would be too hot for liquid water to exist. A few such worlds already have been found, including a "lava planet" known as Alpha Centauri Bb that's just 4.3 light-years away from us.

Someday, the type of simulation that astronomers used to estimate the number of hot Earths can be used to estimate how many habitable Earths could provide a home for life as we know it in the Milky Way. But not just yet.

"For an estimate of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone, it's simply too early to call," said Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, or CfA.

Fressin and his colleagues lay out their estimates for Earth-sized planets, as well as bigger worlds, in a paper that's been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Their research is being discussed today at the American Astronomical Society's winter meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

The estimates are based on a list of 2,400 planet candidates that have been detected by the Kepler probe since its launch in 2009. Kepler looks for planets in a patch of sky overlapping the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, by checking for the faint dimming of a star as an alien world passes across its disk. One of the challenges is to make sure the dimming is really caused by a planet, rather than some other phenomenon such as an eclipsing binary star. Another challenge is that Kepler is sure to miss some planets, because those planets are not in a position to block the light of its parent star, as seen from Earth.

Now that the Kepler mission has been churning out detections for more than three years, there's enough of a database to arrive at some statistical conclusions about the total number of planets in the Milky Way — at least 100 billion. There's also enough data to determine what the breakdown of detections should be, and even how many of those detections will be wrong.

"We have a knowledge of false positives that's good enough that we can do a study from scratch," Fressin said.

The simulation suggests that the false-positive rate should vary depending on the size of the planet candidates, from a low of 6.7 percent for small Neptune-scale planets to a high of 17.7 percent for Jupiter-type giants. The false-positive rate for close-in planets between 0.8 and 1.25 times as wide as Earth is 12.3 percent. When all these factors were added to the calculations, the astronomers arrived at a breakdown for five types of planets currently detectable by Kepler:

 •17 percent for Earths with orbital periods up to 85 days.
 •26 percent for super-Earths (1.25 to 2 times as wide as Earth) with orbits up to 145 days.
 •26 percent for small Neptunes (2 to 4 times Earth's width) with orbits up to 245 days.
 •3 percent for large Neptunes (4 to 6 times Earth's width) with orbits up to 418 days.
 •5 percent for giants (6 to 22 times Earth's width) with orbits up to 418 days.

The results indicate that for every size of planet except for gas giants, the type of star doesn't matter. Earth-sized planets should be just as likely to form around red dwarfs as around sunlike stars. That runs counter to what was previously thought.

"Earths and super-Earths aren't picky. We're finding them in all kinds of neighborhoods," the CfA's Guillermo Torres, a co-author of the study, said in a news release.

The researchers emphasized that these are just minimum estimates — and that as Kepler provides more planet candidates at smaller scales and wider orbits, the numbers could increase. Eventually, such simulations could spit out a long-sought number: the tally of Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way expected to have conditions capable of supporting life.

"This result is a significant step towards the determination of eta-earth, the occurrence of Earthlike planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars," they wrote in their research paper.

[trenchtownrasta]

I want to place a bet on some sore of alien life form being discovered in the next 50 years, any idea where I would go to get decent odds? I read ladbrokes slashed their odds from 1000/1 to 100/1 when curiosity landed.

 

[Tomo!]

Anyone watching skygazing live on BBC 2?

[RedJim]

Anyone watching skygazing live on BBC 2?

I'm gonna be in the audience on Thursday night one, standing around awkwardly in the crowd while cox and o'brien talk!

[farawayred]

I'm gonna be in the audience on Thursday night one, standing around awkwardly in the crowd while cox and o'brien talk!

Damn it, missed it today... Got stuck in the lab all day.

Where are you located? You mentioned night, it's at noon to 1pm our time (PST)...

[RedJim]

Damn it, missed it today... Got stuck in the lab all day.

Where are you located? You mentioned night, it's at noon to 1pm our time (PST)...

If you watch the show from last night it's the "back to earth" part and I assume it will be the same set up, the audience crowding around behind where the guests sit down and talk. It should be good I'm looking forward to it. I have uni lectures from Brian Cox and Tim O'Brien (thats how i got to be in the audience) so I'm used to mixing with the tv stars!

[sonnyred]

17% of stars host an Earth sized planet, give or take, and there are 17 billion of these? I don't understand the maths? Surely 17% in our galaxy would mean closer to 150 billion earth sized planets? Considering our galaxy has close to trillion stars? BTW, fantastic thread.

[farawayred]

If you watch the show from last night it's the "back to earth" part and I assume it will be the same set up, the audience crowding around behind where the guests sit down and talk. It should be good I'm looking forward to it. I have uni lectures from Brian Cox and Tim O'Brien (thats how i got to be in the audience) so I'm used to mixing with the tv stars!

Ah, got it, thanks. I know that they are having 3 series (on 8th, 9th and 10th) with partial broadcast from JPL. I thought I might meet you there...

[Red Beret]

Is 2036 the new 2012?

The large rocky mass [Apophis] was first discovered in 2004. At the time, it raised alarm when scientists calculated that it had a one-in-45 chance of smashing into the Earth in 2029.

Later revisions, lifted this threat; instead on the Friday 13 April 2029, it will make a close pass at a distance of about 30,000km.

However, astronomers say there is still a one-in-200,000 chance that it could strike Earth in 2036.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast, UK, said: "In 2029, it will pass so close to us that Earth's gravity will change its orbit.

"Most of the potential orbits it will end up on will mean we are safe for the next 100 years. But there is a small region of space - something we call a keyhole - and if it passes through that keyhole in 2029, it will come back and hit us on 13 April in 2036."

If this happened, it would strike the Earth with 100 times the energy in our largest nuclear bombs, said Prof Fitzsimmons.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20961003

[Roopy]

Supernova 'Mingus' could shed light on dark energy

Astronomers have spotted the most distant supernova ever seen.

Nicknamed "Mingus", it was described at the 221st American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.

These lightshows of dying stars have been seen since ancient times, but modern astronomers use details of their light to probe the Universe's secrets.

Ten billion light-years distant, Mingus will help shed light on so-called dark energy, the force that appears to be speeding up expansion of the Universe.

Formally called SN SCP-0401, the supernova was something of a chance find in a survey carried out in part by the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) using the Hubble space telescope, first undertaken in 2004.

But the data were simply not good enough to pin down what was seen. As David Rubin of the University of California Berkeley, lead author on the study, told the AAS meeting, "for a sense of brightness this supernova is about as bright as a firefly viewed from 3,000 miles away".

Further news had to wait until astronauts installed Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble telescope in 2009 and again trained it on the candidate, which had - in an SCP tradition of naming supernovae after composers - already been named after jazz musician Charles Mingus.

"Unfortunately it took the development of Wide Field Camera 3 to bring home what the [2004] measurements meant," Mr Rubin told BBC News.

"The sensitivity is a few times better, which makes a huge difference, and we have a much cleaner image."

The team went on to confirm that the supernova was in fact a Type 1a - whose light occurs in such a regular way that they are known as "standard candles".

'Bit of history'
 
What interests astronomers finding ever more distant Type 1a supernovae - distant both in space and in time - is the chance to compare them to better-known, more local supernovae.

"We were able to watch these changes in brightness and spectral features for an event that lasted just a few weeks almost 10 billion years ago," said Saul Perlmutter, who leads the Supernova Cosmology Project.

Prof Perlmutter shared the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for work with Type 1a supernovae that proved our Universe is speeding up in its expansion.

Explaining that expansion will require careful study of supernovae all the way back to those of the earliest stars, in a bid to explain "dark energy", the mysterious force that has been invoked as the cause of the Universe's speeding expansion.

"We're seeing two-thirds of the way back to the beginning of the Universe, and we're getting a little bit of history where the physics of what makes a supernova explode have to all work out the same way there as they do near here," he told the meeting.

The group's study is (LINK published online and will appear in the Astrophysical Journal on 20 January.

The meeting also heard from Joshua Frieman, director of the Dark Energy Survey - a five-year mission using the most powerful camera ever trained on the skies to get to the bottom of the dark matter mystery.

The phone-booth-sized Dark Energy Camera snapped its first images in September 2012 and will begin its formal mission in September this year, looking not only at supernovae but also at three other dark-energy signatures in the cosmos.

Prof Frieman told BBC News that the distant supernova result fits neatly into a story that he hoped the Dark Energy Survey would explore in great detail.

"What they're doing is using the Hubble telescope to go really deep - we're going to use the Dark Energy Survey to go very broad," he explained to BBC News.

"They're finding tens of supernovae at these high (distances), and we're going to find thousands of supernovae not quite as deep. You really need both of those together to really make progress in trying to figure out why the Universe is speeding up."

[Trada]

I'm gonna be in the audience on Thursday night one, standing around awkwardly in the crowd while cox and o'brien talk!

How was it?

I keep getting put off by the peaking old lady in the 2nd show.

[farawayred]

That decision will be taken on Wednesday. It looks like we'll give them a green light despite a few hickups, the risk for now is low. Looking forward to it!

Unfortunately, the decision was not to drill for another fortnight... We found a hardware problem with the twin system here and are trying to work the issues out. One chance is that we had a localized problem here, but the other option can occur from normal operation on Mars... So far the images from Mars don't show evidence of the problem, which is good news, but we may be limited in the number of holes we can drill. The science team needs to carefully pick and choose now.

[GBF]

that discovery they made on Mars, i thought I saw it on the (crap) movie Mission to Mars where gases come out of the surface

[rakey_lfc]

Is 2036 the new 2012?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20961003

Potentially. Judging from what the rep from NASA was saying on stargazing:live last week. They're confident that they have the technology to knock an asteriod of its course and change its orbit. I'd rather them trial that equipment sooner than later though.