The Milky Way Rising Over Badlands National Park Keith Duvall

Ep. 25 Southern Stars - HD and the Void

I live in the Northern Hemisphere of Earth, which means I see some constellations and stars that people in the Southern Hemisphere don't see. The opposite is true as well, and it's more interesting for me to talk about the constellations I don't g...

I’m a Northern Hemisphere dweller, so I thought it would be fun to cover Southern Hemisphere stars and constellations in this episode! I also coulsnt’ resist talking about Aurora Australis and Steve, the hot new atmospheric phenomenon all the young people are talking about.

Below the cut, I have the glossary, transcript, sources, and music credits. I take topic suggestions from Tumblr messages, or you can tweet at me on Twitter at @HDandtheVoid, or you can ask me to my face if you know me. Please subscribe on iTunes, rate my podcast and maybe review it, and tell friends if you think they’d like to hear it!

(My thoughts on the next episode are Chuck Yeager, Stephen Hawking and his theories, the opposition of Mars, or famous comets. The next episode will go up May 14th or 21st!)

Glossary

Bayer designation - a way to classify stars based on their relative brightness within a constellation. A specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of the constellation's Latin name.

circumpolar - appearing to orbit one of the Earth’s poles. For stars and constellations, this means they are above the horizon at all times in certain latitudes.

irregular galaxy - an asymmetrical galaxy shape, where the galaxy lacks a central supermassive black hole.

Script/Transcript

Sources

Orion from the Southern Hemisphere via EarthSky (Mar 2017)

How to Spot Sky Landmarks: Big Dipper and Southern Cross via Space.com (Apr 2012)

Locate Cassiopeia the Queen via EarthSky (February 2018)

Small Magellanic Cloud orbits Milky Way via EarthSky (Oct 2017)

Nubecula via LatDict

Early star catalogues of the southern sky via Astronomy and Astrophysics (2011)

Catalog of Southern Stars via the University of Oklahoma

Edmond Halley via Royal Museums Greenwich

Finding south using the Southern Cross via Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Jan 2013)

List of 88 official constellations via the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa

Alpha Centauri system, closest to sun via EarthSky (May 2017)

Hadar is a southern pointer star via EarthSky (April 2017)

Aurora Australis forecast service

Video of aurora australis via Global News Canada (April 2018)

Aurora Steve via Global News Canada (March 2018)

Bagnall, Philip M. “Crux.” In The Star Atlas Companion: What You Need to Know About the Constellations. Springer Science+Business Media: New York, 2012 (183-7). Located in Google Books Preview [accessed May 1, 2018].

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: ‘Mace Spray’ by The Jezabels off their EP Dark Storm.

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

The Cassini probe took a picture of Saturn that includes Earth in it!

Cassini has actually taken a ton of cool photos of Saturn if you want to check those out in the wake of last week’s planets podcast. 

People can’t anticipate how much they’ll miss the natural world until they are deprived of it. I have read about submarine crewmen who haunt the sonar room, listening to whale songs and colonies of snapping shrimp. Submarine captains dispense “periscope liberty” - a chance to gaze at clouds and birds and coastlines - and remind themselves that the natural world still exists. I once met a man who told me that after landing in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a winter at the South Pole research station, he and his companions spent a couple of days just wandering around staring in awe at flowers and trees. At one point, one of them spotted a woman pushing a stroller. “A baby!” he shouted, and they all rushed across the street to see. The woman turned the stroller and ran. Nothing tops space as a barren, unnatural environment. Astronauts who had no prior interest in gardening spend hours tending experimental greenhouses. “They are our love,” said cosmonaut Vladislav Volkov of the tiny flax plants - with which they shared the confines of Salyut 1, the first Soviet space station. At least in orbit, you can look out the window and see the natural world below. On a Mars mission, once astronauts lose sight of Earth, they’ll be nothing to see outside the window. “You’ll be bathed in permanent sunlight, so you won’t eve see any stars,” astronaut Andy Thomas explained to me. “All you’ll see is black.”

Mary Roach. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (via coneyislands)

If Earth had Saturn’s Rings

From an excellent post by Jason Davis

From Washington, D.C., the rings would only fill a portion of the sky, but appear striking nonetheless. Here, we see them at sunrise.

From Guatemala, only 14 degrees above the equator, the rings would begin to stretch across the horizon. Their reflected light would make the moon much brighter.

From Earth’s equator, Saturn’s rings would be viewed edge-on, appearing as a thin, bright line bisecting the sky.

At the March and September equinoxes, the Sun would be positioned directly over the rings, casting a dramatic shadow at the equator.

At midnight at the Tropic of Capricorn, which sits at 23 degrees south latitude, the Earth casts a shadow over the middle of the rings, while the outer portions remain lit.

via x

This Black Eye Galaxy that got its name from the band of light absorbing dust appearing in front of the star systems bright center in the Hubble space telescope.

via reddit

Just a reminder that the first NASA astronauts were supposed to be women because generally they are smaller, lighter (less weight in the cockpit means less fuel required) and eat less than men and so would be easier to accommodate in space. 

Celebrating 17 Years of NASA’s ‘Little Earth Satellite That Could’

The satellite was little— the size of a small refrigerator; it was only supposed to last one year and constructed and operated on a shoestring budget — yet it persisted.

After 17 years of operation, more than 1,500 research papers generated and 180,000 images captured, one of NASA’s pathfinder Earth satellites for testing new satellite technologies and concepts comes to an end on March 30, 2017. The Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite will be powered off on that date but will not enter Earth’s atmosphere until 2056. 

“The Earth Observing-1 satellite is like The Little Engine That Could,” said Betsy Middleton, project scientist for the satellite at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

To celebrate the mission, we’re highlighting some of EO-1’s notable contributions to scientific research, spaceflight advancements and society. 

Scientists Learn More About Earth in Fine Detail

This animation shifts between an image showing flooding that occurred at the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers on January 12, 2016, captured by ALI and the rivers at normal levels on February 14, 2015 taken by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory  

EO-1 carried the Advanced Land Imager that improved observations of forest cover, crops, coastal waters and small particles in the air known as aerosols. These improvements allowed researchers to identify smaller features on a local scale such as floods and landslides, which were especially useful for disaster support. 

On the night of Sept. 6, 2014, EO-1’s Hyperion observed the ongoing eruption at Holuhraun, Iceland as shown in the above image. Partially covered by clouds, this scene shows the extent of the lava flows that had been erupting.

EO-1’s other key instrument Hyperion provided an even greater level of detail in measuring the chemical constituents of Earth’s surface— akin to going from a black and white television of the 1940s to the high-definition color televisions of today. Hyperion’s level of sophistication doesn’t just show that plants are present, but can actually differentiate between corn, sorghum and many other species and ecosystems. Scientists and forest managers used these data, for instance, to explore remote terrain or to take stock of smoke and other chemical constituents during volcanic eruptions, and how they change through time.  

Crowdsourced Satellite Images of Disasters   

EO-1 was one of the first satellites to capture the scene after the World Trade Center attacks (pictured above) and the flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. EO-1 also observed the toxic sludge in western Hungary in October 2010 and a large methane leak in southern California in October 2015. All of these scenes, which EO-1 provided quick, high-quality satellite imagery of the event, were covered in major news outlets. All of these scenes were also captured because of user requests. EO-1 had the capability of being user-driven, meaning the public could submit a request to the team for where they wanted the satellite to gather data along its fixed orbits. 

This image shows toxic sludge (red-orange streak) running west from an aluminum oxide plant in western Hungary after a wall broke allowing the sludge to spill from the factory on October 4, 2010. This image was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager on October 9, 2010. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory

 Artificial Intelligence Enables More Efficient Satellite Collaboration

This image of volcanic activity on Antarctica’s Mount Erebus on May 7, 2004 was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager after sensing thermal emissions from the volcano. The satellite gave itself new orders to take another image several hours later. Credit: Earth Observatory

EO-1 was among the first satellites to be programmed with a form of artificial intelligence software, allowing the satellite to make decisions based on the data it collects. For instance, if a scientist commanded EO-1 to take a picture of an erupting volcano, the software could decide to automatically take a follow-up image the next time it passed overhead. The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and was uploaded to EO-1 three years after it launched. 

This image of Nassau Bahamas was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager on Oct 8, 2016, shortly after Hurricane Matthew hit. European, Japanese, Canadian, and Italian Space Agency members of the international coalition Committee on Earth Observation Satellites used their respective satellites to take images over the Caribbean islands and the U.S. Southeast coastline during Hurricane Matthew. Images were used to make flood maps in response to requests from disaster management agencies in Haiti, Dominican Republic, St. Martin, Bahamas, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The artificial intelligence software also allows a group of satellites and ground sensors to communicate and coordinate with one another with no manual prompting. Called a “sensor web”, if a satellite viewed an interesting scene, it could alert other satellites on the network to collect data during their passes over the same area. Together, they more quickly observe and downlink data from the scene than waiting for human orders. NASA’s SensorWeb software reduces the wait time for data from weeks to days or hours, which is especially helpful for emergency responders. 

Laying the Foundation for ‘Formation Flying’

This animation shows the Rodeo-Chediski fire on July 7, 2002, that were taken one minute apart by Landsat 7 (burned areas in red) and EO-1 (burned areas in purple). This precision formation flying allowed EO-1 to directly compare the data and performance from its land imager and the Landsat 7 ETM+. EO-1’s most important technology goal was to test ALI for future Landsat satellites, which was accomplished on Landsat 8. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

EO-1 was a pioneer in precision “formation flying” that kept it orbiting Earth exactly one minute behind the Landsat 7 satellite, already in orbit. Before EO-1, no satellite had flown that close to another satellite in the same orbit. EO-1 used formation flying to do a side-by-side comparison of its onboard ALI with Landsat 7’s operational imager to compare the products from the two imagers. Today, many satellites that measure different characteristics of Earth, including the five satellites in NASA’s A Train, are positioned within seconds to minutes of one another to make observations on the surface near-simultaneously.

For more information on EO-1’s major accomplishments, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/celebrating-17-years-of-nasa-s-little-earth-satellite-that-could

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com/.

Hahaha, right after I start out a podcast talking about how we’ll never poke the Sun, it turns out we’re sending a probe to do just that!

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Mark your calendars for summer 2018: That’s when we’re launching a spacecraft to touch the sun. 

In honor of our first-ever mission to the heart of the solar system, this week we’re delving into the life and times of this powerful yellow dwarf star.

1. Meet Parker 

Parker Solar Probe, our first mission to go to the sun, is named after Eugene Parker, an American astrophysicist who first theorized that the sun constantly sends out a flow of particles and energy called the solar wind. This historic mission will explore one of the last regions of the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft and help scientists unlock answers to questions they’ve been pondering for more than five decades.

2. Extra SPF, Please 

Parker Solar Probe will swoop within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. The mission will provide new data on solar activity to help us better understand our home star and its activity - information that can improve forecasts of major space-weather events that could impact life on Earth.

3. Majorly Massive 

The sun is the center of our solar system and makes up 99.8 percent of the mass of the entire solar system. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be about the size of a nickel.

4. Different Spin 

Since the sun is not a solid body, different parts of the sun rotate at different rates. At the equator, the sun spins once about every 25 days, but at its poles the sun rotates once on its axis every 36 Earth days.

5. Can’t Stand on It

The sun is a star and a star doesn’t have a solid surface. Rather, it’s a ball of ionized gas 92.1% hydrogen (H2) and 7.8% helium (He) held together by its own gravity.

6. Center of Attention 

The sun isn’t a planet, so it doesn’t have any moons. But, the sun is orbited by eight planets, at least five dwarf planets, tens of thousands of asteroids, and hundreds of thousands to trillions of comets and icy bodies.

7. It’s Hot in There 

And we mean really, really hot. The temperature at the sun’s core is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. However, its atmosphere, the corona, can reach temperatures of 3 million degrees. (That’s as if it got hotter the farther away you got from a fire, instead of cooler!) Parker Solar Probe will help scientists solve the mystery of why the corona’s temperature is so much higher than the surface.

8. Travel Conditions

The sun influences the entire solar system, so studying it helps us better understand the space weather that our astronauts and spacecraft travel through.

9. Life on the Sun? 

Better to admire from afar. Thanks to its hot, energetic mix of gases and plasma, the sun can’t be home to living things. However, we can thank the sun for making life on Earth possible by providing the warmth and energy that supply Earth’s food chain.

10. Chance of a Lifetime 

Last but not least, don’t forget that the first total solar eclipse to sweep across the U.S. from coast-to-coast since 1918 is happening on August 21, 2017. Our toolkit has you need to know to about it. 

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Soyuz MS-10 experiences launch anomaly; crew aborts to safe landing.

One of Russia’s most reliable launchers experienced a rare, in-flight anomaly earlier this morning, forcing the two-man crew of Soyuz MS-10 to abort the mission.

Following a normal liftoff at 4:40am EST (2:40pm local time), a malfunction in the Soyuz FG rocket two minutes into the flight forced Expedition 57 crewmembers Alexey Ovchinin and Nick Hague to abort a manual abort profile. The anomaly occurred immediately following the separation of the rocket’s four strap-on boosters and jettisoning of the Launch Escape System. However, the protective fairing covering the spacecraft during flight through the thick atmosphere was still on, and solid rocket motors attached to the fairing pulled the crew capsule away from the failing booster. Following a ballistic trajectory through the upper atmosphere, the Soyuz’s Descent module separated from the Orbital Module and payload fairing and descended to a safe landing 20 kilometers east of Zezkezhan, Kazakhstan, 34 minutes after launch. Roscosmos reported that the crewmembers experienced around seven times the force of gravity, or 7G’s, during their abort. 

Recovery forces reached the landing site immediately following touchdown. Both astronauts were reported to be in good health following their ordeal, and returned to their families at the Baikonur launch site around six hours after liftoff.

Recovery forces at the Soyuz MS-10 emergency landing site. Source: Ruptly.

Soyuz MS-10 crewmembers Alexey Ovchinin and Nick Hague embrace their families following their return to the Baikonur Cosmodrome after today’s launch mishap. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. This marks the first crewed launch mishap of the International Space Station program, the first crewed launch mishap since the Challenger disaster in 1986, and the first crewed Soyuz launch malfunction since Soyuz T-10 in 1983.

That incident saw the two-man crew of Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov abort away from their exploding rocket shortly before its scheduled liftoff time.  While no cause of the mishap is currently known, Russian authorities have begun an investigation of the incident and have temporarily grounded all future Soyuz flights.  The current three-member crew of Expedition 57 is slated to return to Earth December 13, followed by the launch of Expedition 58 December 20. Following today’s anomaly, it is unclear whether Expedition 57 will remain on orbit longer, or when the next crew will launch to the station. Expedition 57 is able to remain on orbit until early January, when their Soyuz reaches its certified orbital lifetime.

Expedition 57 commander Alexander Gerst captured this image of the Soyuz MS-10 launch from the International Space Station. The anomalous nature of the launch is evidenced by multiple points of light along the ascent path. Source: NASA. Watch NASA TV coverage of the Soyuz MS-10 launch below.

P/c: NASA.

Heya, if you like space maybe you’ll like this comic? It’s one of my favorites and it’s ending soon and it’s all online for freebies! The spaceships are fish and folks get to go around fixing up abandoned ruins in space. It’s utterly beautiful. It’s also ending this month!

We’ll make it out eventually. 

http://www.onasunbeam.com/

(New chapters coming soon)