Blog de Puree » astronomy

Space Shuttle Atlantis is Ready for its Final Launch on Friday

paul — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:35:07 +0000

The space shuttle Atlantis has been cleared for its final mission and lift off is scheduled for 2:20 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

At 25 years of age, the veteran Atlantis will blast off from Launch Pad 39A on NASA’s 132nd space shuttle mission.

Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center.

Star gazers and skywatchers will also have a chance to see Atlantis as it approaches the international space station and when it undocks. Anyone interested in checking it out should read ‘How to see shuttle Atlantis from Earth‘ on Space.com. Atlantis’s crew will perform three spacewalks on the 12-day mission and deliver Rassvet (Russian for dawn), the new research module and other spare parts.

Cool Atlantis Facts

Atlantis was named after the original exploration sailing vessel of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. It has lived up to its namesake venturing out into the unknown and returning with an abundance of scientific information.
It’s the shuttle fleet’s workhorse. The unsung hero Atlantis will have flown 32 missions to orbit and space stations. No stranger to space station missions, NASA’s oldest flying shuttle flew seven times to the Mir space station and 11 times to the International Space Station.
It was the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe. In 1989, Atlantis launched the Magellan spacecraft, which mapped more than 98 percent of Venus’s surface.
It helped us watch a comet hit a planet. In 1989, Atlantis launched the Galileo probe, which captured close-up images of an asteroid on its way to Jupiter. Then in 1994, it made the only direct observations of a comet collision when Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the solar system’s biggest planet.
Atlantis doesn’t have an extension cord. Basically, it can’t plug into solar-powered electrical systems on the space station and is limited to 14-day missions, the maximum its hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells will allow.
It has a clone. The shuttle Endeavour was built from a complete set of spare parts that were originally made in case Atlantis was damaged. After the Challenger shuttle was lost, NASA decided to build another shuttle. (Endeavour’s last mission will be in November.)
Atlantis was the last space shuttle to visit the Hubble Space Telescope. During its May 2009 mission, the crew made five space walks to repair and enhance the Hubble with the Cosmic Origins spectrograph allowing the telescope to peer deeper into the universe’s ultraviolet light spectrum, as well as add Wide Field Camera 3 allowing astronomers better quality observations of galaxy evolution, dark matter and dark energy.
Atlantis is a movie star! That’s right, the shuttle co-stars in the movie “Hubble 3D” with narrator Leonardo DiCaprio about its 2009 mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

Looking for more cool space shuttle stuff? Check out the NASA website, of course.

Space.com Provides List of Night Sky Highlights in 2009

paul — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:46:58 +0000

Amateur astronomy buffs will want to check out the 2009 listing of night star-gazing highlights for 2009, provided by Space.com.

From the Solar System and beyond, you definitely don’t want to miss these during the year. Mark your calendar!

NASA and Google Provide a look at Mars in 3D

paul — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:12:22 +0000

Google brought us online search that has yet to be matched and Google Earth, a wicked cool bit of software that lets us view almost any part of Planet Earth. The software is so accurate and detailed that governments and security agencies worldwide are extremely uncomfortable.

NASA has brought us, well, space! Moon missions; the space shuttle program; and satellites that show us earth, our solar system, the Milky Way and the Universe with unparalleled detail. We also can’t forget how the NASA has captured our imaginations.

Now, these two organizations bring us another brilliant product together, Google Mars, a new mode included in its latest version of Google Earth. Oh, did I mention that it was in 3D?!

We can now get high resolution, three dimensional images of Martian terrain. Using NASA data and imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other spacecraft, you can zip through Martian canyons or study the planet’s surface.

But rather than read my blather about it, take a glimpse of it online.

NASA Wants Your Vote for Hubble’s Next Target

paul — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:37:55 +0000

NASA wants your input on what Hubble’s next target is going to be.

You get to choose from one of six astronomical objects in honor of the International Year of Astronomy, the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s observations, which began this month.

Want to cast your vote? Go to HubbleSite.org to cast your vote for one of the following:

Star-Forming Region: NGC 6334
Planetary Nebula: NGC 6072
Planetary Nebula: NGC 40
Spiral Galaxy: NGC 5172
Edge-on Galaxy: NGC 4289
Interacting Galaxies: Arp 274

The voting deadline is March 1, 2009. I’ve cast my vote, so get yours in today.

NASA Plans to View the Dark Side of the Sun

paul — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:13:07 +0000

NASA is poised to give us the first views of the dark side (far side) of the sun.

The space agency has launched the STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories) mission, two spacecraft that will simultaneously orbit the sun to provide a complete picture of all sides at once. The first full image will come early in February.

Read more about it on the Wired Science blog.

Take a video tour of the International Space Station (ISS)

paul — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:05:43 +0000

NASA recently released a series of four videos providing a tour of the International Space Station (ISS).

The series is over 30 minutes total, but provides a fascinating and rarely seen look at the insides of the ISS. I highly recommend checking it out when you have the time.

Virgin Galactic may have America’s first spaceport in New Mexico

paul — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:04:26 +0000

In an almost scifi start to the new year, SpaceFellowship.com writes New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced “Virgin Galactic has signed a 20 year lease agreement with the State of New Mexico. Virgin Galactic’s world headquarters will be established in New Mexico and its operations will be located at New Mexico’s Spaceport America, the nation’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.”

Governor Richardson believes that the agreement, which came a few days after the FAA “issued a launch license to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority,” will make New Mexico the home of commercial space travel.

The signing of the agreement coincides with the start of Virgin Galactic’s test program of the WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicle in the Mojave Desert.

This is pretty cool news on many levels and I’m excited to see a commercial space program get off the ground. Virgin Galactic is one step closer to bringing space travel to the common citizen.

Full Moon Names for 2009

paul — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:04:10 +0000

Did you know that Native Americans had a name for each full moon during the year? In fact, the names they gave each moon, such as Full Wolf Moon, Full Flower Moon or Full Corn Moon coincided with what was happening around them in nature.

For example, the Full Wolf Moon got its name because it occurred in the midst of winter when Native Americans could hear the wolves howling outside their village.

Space.com has a full listing of the moons for 2009. It’s a pretty interesting read and I recommend it for amateur astronomers and anyone interested in Native American culture.

The Earth is full of holes

paul — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:40:09 +0000

Have you ever looked at the moon or pictures of other planets to see hundreds of impact craters and wondered why Earth doesn’t look like that? Well, it sort of does. That’s right, Planet Earth is full of 170 crater holes and meteor blast sites, and counting!

An interesting article about Earth’s craters on Space.com explains that some of the main reasons we don’t see most of what planet Earth has been pelted with has to do with the shifting of tectonic plates, volcanoes, erosion and the formation of mountains.

The article goes on to explain that scientists believe that the Earth was bombarded far more in its youth when more debris was floating around during the formation of the solar system. Things have relatively settled down now. The most recent famous impact crater is Arizona’s Barringer Meteor Crater which is approximately 50,000 years old. And when compared to other craters in Earth’s history, it’s 3/4 of a mile diameter is considered rather paltry.

For more interesting information on older impact sites, including the one that is purported to have killed out the dinosaurs and many other living creatures on Earth, give the article a read. And thank goodness for the geologic process. Imaging having to commute to work around a crater that is miles wide or wondering who would buy homes built at the bottom of these behemoth holes because some contractor felt he could squeeze in a housing development at cost.

Viewing the lunar eclipse this past Wednesday

paul — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:19:44 +0000

The total lunar eclipse that took place on Wednesday night, February 20, 2008 was nothing short of spectacular.

About 40 degrees high in the eastern sky, the bright full, white moon slowly darkened from Earth’s shadow over the course of a couple of hours. While it was hard to see the shadow actually creep across the Moon’s surface with the naked eye—like in the movies—I could slightly make out some movement when looking through the telescope. As the Moon darkened, the most interesting part for me was the different colorations that could be seen. The moon never actually blacked out, but the eclipse just cycled through gradations of colored shadow the moon could be viewed clearly the entire time.

To top the evening off, my neighbor and their daughter brought out their new telescope as well. With two scopes set up in our back yard, we watched the eclipse. At scattered moments we also stole views of Saturn, which was to the left and down from the moon. Viewing was so good that we could see Saturn’s rings clearly. It was February, however, and we stuck it out for roughly an hour before the cold temperatures drove us inside.

Here are a few pictures, courtesy of Space.com, which show exactly what we were looking at.

This is how the eclipsed looked early in the evening as the Earth’s shadow started creeping across the moon.

This photo shows some of the red and yellow tinges that we were able to make out through our telescopes.

This is the best view of the coloration of moon that we were able to see.