NASA Mission to Study the Moon's Fragile Atmosphere

Right now, the Moon is a ghost town. Nothing stirs. Here and there, an abandoned Apollo rover — or the dusty base of a lunar lander — linger as silent testimony to past human activity. But these days, only occasional asteroid impacts disrupt the decades-long spell of profound stillness.

And this stillness presents scientists with an important opportunity.

Currently, the Moon's tenuous atmosphere is relatively undisturbed. But that won't be true for long. NASA is planning to return people to the Moon, and human activity will kick up dust, expel rocket exhaust, and release other gaseous emissions into the lunar atmosphere. Because the atmosphere is so thin, these disturbances could quickly swamp its natural composition.

If scientists are ever to know the lunar atmosphere in a relatively natural state, now is the time to look. So researchers are building a probe called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) that will orbit the Moon and measure its wispy atmosphere better than ever before.

"It's important that we understand it in its pristine state before there's much perturbation," says Anthony Colaprete of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "It's such a fragile system. It's possible that it will be hard to study once humans are once more living and working on the Moon."

Thinner than thin

Right about now, you might be thinking to yourself: "Hold on a second. I thought the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere!" And you would be almost correct. The Moon's "atmosphere" is so tenuous that it's technically considered an exosphere, not an atmosphere.

"It's not anything like an atmosphere we would think of," Colaprete says. For example, a cubic centimeter of Earth's atmosphere at sea level contains about 100 billion billion molecules. That same volume of the Moon's exosphere contains only about 100 molecules.

In fact, that's so thin that molecules in the lunar exosphere almost never collide with each other. Rather than constantly ricocheting off each other to create a cohesive, swarming mass of molecules as happens in Earth's atmosphere, molecules in the lunar exosphere fly unimpeded, like microscopic cannon balls following curved, ballistic trajectories.

And the weirdness of the exosphere doesn't stop there. During the lunar night, the Moon's exosphere mostly falls to the ground. (Just imagine if our atmosphere fell to the ground at night!) When sunlight returns, the solar wind kicks up new particles to replenish the exosphere.

In 1968, on many occasions, NASA's Surveyor 7 moon lander photographed a strange "horizon glow" after dark. Researchers now believe the glow is sunlight scattered from electrically-charged moondust floating just above the lunar surface.

Also, intense ultraviolet sunlight kicks electrons off particles in the lunar soil, giving those particles an electric charge that can cause them to levitate. Ambient electric fields lift these charged dust particles as high as kilometers above the surface, forming an important part of the exosphere.

Lunar astronauts will have to live and work in this bizarre environment, so scientists want a better picture of the exosphere and its odd behaviors. Levitating dust can get into equipment, spacesuits, and computers, causing damage and shortening the hardware's useful life. In fact, moondust wrecked havoc with the Apollo spacesuits, which were nearly threadbare by the time they returned to Earth. Knowing how much dust is floating around in the exosphere and how it behaves will help engineers design next-generation lunar hardware.

After it launches in 2012, LADEE's spectrometers and dust detectors will measure the concentrations of 18 different chemicals in the exosphere, including methane and water vapor. These sensors will document how those chemicals vary, both from place to place and over time.

Beyond the inherent scientific value of understanding the chemical makeup of the Moon's exosphere, knowing how chemicals move within the exosphere could help answer a question of keen interest to future human habitants: How could the Moon have frozen reserves of water?

This animation shows how individual molecules may move near the surface of the Moon to form an exosphere.

Evidence suggests that the Moon might harbor stores of ice in deep, dark polar craters. On the lunar surface, fierce sunlight would quickly sublimate any ice and the vapors would drift off into space. But a deep dark crater, combining unimaginable cold with an absence of sunlight, could provide a safe-haven for frozen water.

A popular idea is that icy comets brought water to the Moon in a series of ancient impacts. But there's a problem: Even if a comet landed in one of those dark polar craters by sheer luck, the heat of impact would evaporate most of the ice. So how could significant amounts of ice accumulate?

The Moon's exosphere could help.

Suppose a comet hits the Moon and leaves some H2O molecules on the exposed surface. That water could survive by, essentially, leaping to safety. Water molecules could "jump" across the lunar surface by escaping into the exosphere and later be recaptured by the surface as the exosphere breathes in and out. Individual water molecules could move around in this way until they land in one of the dark polar craters, where they would accumulate as solid ice.
Data from LADEE should show whether this "jumping" process works in a way that could explain how cometary ice could have found its way into those craters. "We can estimate the likelihood that the water on the Moon is cometary in origin," Colaprete says.

So much information from such a trifling amount of atmosphere! Stay tuned for results from LADEE.

The 2009 Orionid Meteor Shower

The Orionid meteor shower peaks this week and it could be a very good show.

"Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, the source of the Orionids," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "Flakes of comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of meteors per hour."


The best time to look is before sunrise on Wednesday, Oct. 21st. That's when Earth encounters the densest part of Halley's debris stream. Observing is easy: Wake up a few hours before dawn, brew some hot chocolate, go outside and look up. No telescope is required to see Orionids shooting across the sky.

Orionids appear every year around this time when Earth orbits through an area of space littered with debris from the ancient comet. Normally, the shower produces 10 to 20 meteors per hour, a modest display. The past few years, however, have been much better than usual.

"Since 2006, the Orionids have been one of the best showers of the year, with counts of 60 or more meteors per hour," says Cooke.

According to Japanese meteor scientists Mikiya Sato and Jun-ichi Watanabe, 2006 marked Earth's first encounter with some very old debris. "We have found that the [elevated activity of 2006] was caused by dust trails ejected from 1P/Halley in 1266 BC, 1198 BC, and 911 BC," they wrote in the August 2007 edition of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. In their paper "Origin of the 2006 Orionid Outburst," Sato and Watanabe used a computer to model the structure and evolution of Halley's many debris streams stretching back in time as far as 3400 years. The debris that hit Earth in 2006 was among the oldest they studied and was rich in large fireball-producing meteoroids.

Repeat encounters produced good displays in 2007 and 2008—and "the meteoroids are expected to approach Earth [again] in 2009," say Sato and Watanabe. They note that these old broad streams tend to produce equally broad showers, lasting several nights around the peak. So, if clouds interfere on the 21st, try again on the 22nd or 23rd.

The phase of the Moon favors a good show. The Moon is almost new and completely absent from the pre-dawn sky at the time of the shower's peak. Bright moonlight will not be a problem.

Last but not least, the display will be framed by some of the prettiest stars and planets in the night sky. In addition to Orionids, you'll see brilliant Venus, red Mars, the dog star Sirius, and bright winter constellations such as Orion, Gemini and Taurus. Even if the shower is a dud, the rest of the sky is dynamite.

Set your alarm and enjoy the show.

Diamond Ring Flight Test

Space X’s Diamond Ring Flight Test:

Space X, or stand for Space Exploration Cooperation, had planned for a new programmed to launch a PTR rocket system (Payload Transportation Rocket). For this new flight programmed, Space X had asked for a permission from Dragon X Space Agency to create for a new space vehicle/rocket to be used for their cooperation. So far, Dragon X Space Agency had agreed and allowed them to create for their own rocket.

Launch Site:
All space vehicles launches and touchdowns are always plan at Dragon X Space Agency. So the new Space X’s PTR rocket is plan for launches at Dragon X Space Agency Launch Complex. The Space X’s PTR rocket is also controlled by Dragon X Space Agency Launch Operation Center (LOC) when in the process to be launch and touchdown, similar to the other.

"Click here" for more information.

Lunar Eclipse In 2009.pdf

Umbral Lunar Eclipse of 31 December 2009

Eclipse occurs date(s) = 31 December 2009 ~ 01 January 2010
Eclipse occurs time(s) = At about 23:00 hours ~ 02:00hours

Percentage of eclipse occurs
= 8.0% Umbral

Umbral Magnitude = -0.0881 U.Radius = 0.7463° Axis = 1.0680°

Best visible from:
Europe, Africa, Asia

Information added by:
Dragon X Space Agency

Space X Lunar Manager

Anti-frozen Of Gasses

If you carelessly keep the carbonate drinks in the frozen for two days, what will you think you will ask for when you take out the drinks?

"The drinks were in in the liquids particle! Why was it didn't change into ice?"

Actually, the carbonate drinks which is high in carbonate and carbohydrate is a type of anti-frozen for gasses. The "defenders" which is defense the liquids from reaching the freezing point are called the A-warmers. After planting the experiments on it, thenDragon X Space Agency had confirmed that the carbon dioxide (CO2), carbonate and carbohydrate is a type of the anti-frozen for gasses.

Alcohol – An Anti-frozen Of Liquids

Why that the alcohol that was kept in the frozen did not change in ice?

Dragon X Space Agency had discovered the science that “Why is the alcohol that kept in the frozen for a long times did not change into ice?” What did you think is the answer for this discovered?

Actually, the alcohol is a type of the anti-frozen for liquids. The alcohol is made up of small “defenders”. These “defenders” are called the A-warmers. These A-warmers are such as the tiny soldiers that defense the frozen (the freezing point) from attacking the liquids.

If you put a bottle of alcohol (above 30%) in the frozen for 1 month without touching it, you will find out that the alcohol in the bottle does not have any changes. It is only cold in liquid but not freeze in solid. This is because the A-warmers always keep the liquids cold by not reaching the freezing point, so the alcohol in the frozen will not change into ice.

New Solar Cycle Prediction

An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.

"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

The 1859 storm--known as the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare--electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused "only" $80 to 125 billion in damage.

The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

"It turns out that none of our models were totally correct," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."
Researchers have known about the solar cycle since the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. At first glance, it looks like a regular pattern, but predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome. Cycles vary in length from about 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch out much longer. In the 17th century the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotlessness known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists.

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspot counts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.

"In our professional careers, we've never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted far beyond the date we predicted in 2007."

In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show timorous signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel's new, almost unanimous forecast.

According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research point of view, that's good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth's poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.

Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast."Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But use a pencil."

Honey, I Blew up the Tokamak

Magnetic reconnection could be the Universe's favorite way to make things explode. It operates anywhere magnetic fields pervade space--which is to say almost everywhere. On the sun magnetic reconnection causes solar flares as powerful as a billion atomic bombs. In Earth's atmosphere, it fuels magnetic storms and auroras. In laboratories, it can cause big problems in fusion reactors. It's ubiquitous.

The problem is, researchers can't explain it.

The basics are clear enough. Magnetic lines of force cross, cancel, reconnect and—Bang! Magnetic energy is unleashed in the form of heat and charged-particle kinetic energy.

But how? How does the simple act of crisscrossing magnetic field lines trigger such a ferocious explosion?
"Something very interesting and fundamental is going on that we don't really understand -- not from laboratory experiments or from simulations," says Melvyn Goldstein, chief of the Geospace Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA is going to launch a mission to get to the bottom of the mystery. It's called MMS, short for Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, and it consists of four spacecraft which will fly through Earth's magnetosphere to study reconnection in action. The mission passed its preliminary design review in May 2009 and was approved for implementation in June 2009. Engineers can now start building the spacecraft.

"Earth's magnetosphere is a wonderful natural laboratory for studying reconnection," says mission scientist Jim Burch of the Southwest Research Institute. "It is big, roomy, and reconnection is taking place there almost non-stop."
In the outer layers of the magnetosphere, where Earth's magnetic field meets the solar wind, reconnection events create temporary magnetic "portals" connecting Earth to the sun. Inside the magnetosphere, in a long drawn-out structure called "the magnetotail," reconnection propels high-energy plasma clouds toward Earth, triggering Northern Lights when they hit. There are many other examples, and MMS will explore them all.

The four spacecraft will be built at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Each observatory is shaped like a giant hockey puck, about 12 feet in diameter and 4 feet in height," says Karen Halterman, MMS Project Manager at Goddard.

The mission's sensors for monitoring electromagnetic fields and charged particles are being built at a number of universities and laboratories around the country, led by the Southwest Research Institute. When the instruments are done, they will be integrated into the spacecraft frames at Goddard. Launch is scheduled for 2014 onboard an Atlas V rocket.

Any new physics MMS learns could ultimately help alleviate the energy crisis on Earth.

"For many years, researchers have looked to fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy for our planet," says Burch. "One approach, magnetic confinement fusion, has yielded very promising results with devices such as tokamaks. But there have been problems keeping the plasma (hot ionized gas) contained in the chamber."
"One of the main problems is magnetic reconnection," he continues. "A spectacular and even dangerous result of reconnection is known as the sawtooth crash. As the heat in the tokamak builds up, the electron temperature reaches a peak and then 'crashes' to a lower value, and some of the hot plasma escapes. This is caused by reconnection of the containment field."

In light of this, you might suppose that tokamaks would be a good place to study reconnection. But no, says Burch. Reconnection in a tokamak happens in such a tiny volume, only a few millimeters wide, that it is very difficult to study. It is practically impossible to build sensors small enough to probe the reconnection zone.

Earth's magnetosphere is much better. In the expansive magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet, the process plays out over volumes as large as tens of kilometers across. "We can fly spacecraft in and around it and get a good look at what's going on," he says.

That is what MMS will do: fly directly into the reconnection zone. The spacecraft are sturdy enough to withstand the energetics of reconnection events known to occur in Earth's magnetosphere, so there is nothing standing in the way of a full two year mission of discovery.

Deep Solar Minimum

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.
2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 year.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet—and here it is," says Pesnell.

But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:

A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites.

A 55-year low in solar radio emissions: After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."
Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.

In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected.

Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of top solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. Pesnell has surveyed the scientific literature and prepared a "piano plot" showing the range of predictions. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle.
Pesnell believes sunspot counts will pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013.But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear? Stay tuned for updates.

Ares Super-chute

NASA and U.S. Air Force test pilots have just dropped a 50,000-pound "dummy" rocket booster on the Arizona desert--and stopped it before it crashed.

It's all part of NASA's plan to return to the Moon.

"NASA's new Ares moon rocket is going to have a reusable booster stage that we plan to recover after each mission," explains James Burnum of Marshall Space Flight Center. "To 'catch' the booster before it crashes back to Earth, we need a super-reliable parachute system."

Chief pilot Frank Batteas of Dryden Flight Research Center helped a NASA-led team test one of the super-chutes on Feb. 28th, and he offers this account:

"We flew at 175 knots at 25,000 feet, and dropped one of the heaviest payloads a C-17 has ever carried – a 50,000 pound stand-in for the spent Ares booster," says Batteas. "A lot of things have to happen correctly for such a test to be successful. A great deal of teamwork, among NASA, the Air Force, the Army, Boeing, and others, goes into planning and executing events both inside and outside the plane."

Burnum adds, "not only is planning critical, but also the aircraft pilot's skill and experience are paramount. The Air Force saw to it that we were placed in very good hands. Batteas was one of the very first test pilots for the C-17 and has flown this aircraft for about 1000 of its 3000 total hours, so he knows the plane like the back of his hand. This kind of excellent support from the Air Force lets us concentrate on our hardware. We don't worry at all about the plane or piloting."

The Ares booster recovery parachute system consists of (1) a small pilot chute, which pulls out the drogue chute; (2) a drogue chute, and (3) three main parachutes. All three components are being subjected to testing.
In the recent test, the 68-foot diameter drogue parachute got a chance to prove itself. Its ultimate job will be to slow the Ares I rocket's jettisoned booster and orient it vertically before the cluster of three main parachutes deploys to carry the booster to splashdown.

The drogue chute passed its test with flying colors. It slowed the descent of its ungainly passenger – a 50,000-pound steel, missile shaped test payload – sufficiently for the main parachute to deliver it to good old terra firma in Yuma, Arizona for recovery. Like the booster, the test payload will be reused.

"The steel 'missile' used for testing has cavities for adjusting the weight of the payload," says Franz Ravelo, C-17 Mission Systems Engineer at the Air Force Flight Test Center in Edwards Air Force Base, California. "We'll reuse it for future Ares parachute testing with 70,000, 77,000, 85,000, and finally 90,000 pound payloads."

The Feb. 28th drop went off entirely without a hitch – well, almost.

"The day testing was scheduled for, 80 mph winds were blustering at 25,000 ft, causing a slip in the schedule," says Batteas. "We ended up testing on my birthday, so I missed the celebration they held for me back at Dryden," says Batteas. "They did call me and sing 'Happy Birthday' to me over the phone. And my wife saved me some cake."
He didn't really mind working that day, though.

"When you see that mammoth payload plunge Earthward and then slow as the chutes deploy, it is very satisfying. It's exciting to see it really work. And with each test there are many lessons learned which make it safer for the next test--and take us that much closer to the Moon."

A Brief History of Solar Sails

Solar sail, n. - A gossamer material that, when unfurled in the vacuum of space, feels the pressure of sunlight and propelled by said pressure may carry a ship among the stars.

Long ago, someone stood alone on a sandy shore and gazed longingly out at the seemingly endless expanse of ocean, over a horizon suffused softly with ocean mist, musing "I wonder, what's out there?" Then, they fashioned a boat, rigged it with a large cloth to catch the wind, and set sail.

Not quite so long ago, someone stood alone on a sandy shore and gazed longingly up at the seemingly endless expanse of space, suffused softly with sparkling stars, musing "I wonder, what's out there?" Then, they fashioned a spacecraft, rigged it with a large cloth to catch the sun, and set sail.

Two very special missions are planned for the near future; both aim to deploy a solar sail to harness the power of sunlight. NASA's NanoSail-D is a small solar sail slated for launch as early as August 2008. The Planetary Society's Cosmos 2 does not yet have a specific launch target date. Its goal is to make "a controlled flight under sunlight pressure."

To fully appreciate these two missions, let's travel back in time for a brief history of solar sailing:

Almost 400 years ago, German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed comet tails being blown by what he thought to be a solar "breeze." This observation inspired him to suggest that "ships and sails proper for heavenly air should be fashioned" to glide through space.

Little did Kepler know, the best way to propel a solar sail is not by means of solar wind, but rather by the force of sunlight itself. In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell first demonstrated that sunlight exerts a small amount of pressure as photons bounce off a reflective surface. This kind of pressure is the basis of all modern solar sail designs.
In 1960, Echo-1 felt these solar pressure effects loudly and clearly. "Photon pressure played orbital soccer with the Echo-1 thin-film balloon in orbit.... The shards were flung far and wide by sunlight."

NASA had a more positive experience with solar sailing in 1974 when the Mariner 10 spacecraft ran low on attitude control gas. Because Mariner 10 was on a mission to Mercury, there was plenty of sunlight around and this gave mission controllers an idea: They angled Mariner's solar arrays into the sun and used solar radiation pressure for attitude control. It worked. Though Mariner 10 was not a solar sail mission, and though the radiation pressure it used was incredibly small, this ingenious use of Mariner's solar arrays did demonstrate the principle of solar sailing.
Right: Mariner 10, circa 1974, was not designed for solar sailing, but the spacecraft's solar arrays worked surprisingly well as impromptu sails for attitude control.

Also in the 1970s, Dr. Louis Friedman, then at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, led a project to try the first solar sail flight. Halley's Comet was to make its closest approach to Earth in 1986, and NASA conceived the exciting idea of propelling a probe via solar sail to rendezvous with the comet. Eventually, the project was scrapped. Still "the year-long work on preliminary design demonstrated that, indeed, solar sailing was a feasible spacecraft-propulsion technique."

In 1993, the Russian Space Agency launched a 20-meter diameter, spinning mirror called Znamya 2, hoping to beam solar power back to the ground.

"Some call Znamya 2 a sail because it was made of a large, lightweight reflector and unfurled like a solar sail might be unfurled," says Les Johnson of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, co-author of the soon-to-be-published book Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel. "In fact, if I were asked to demonstrate solar sail technology and was constrained to deploy it from a large spacecraft, I might design a 'sail' like Znamya."

The foil reflector unfurled and when illuminated produced a spot of light which crossed Europe from France to Russia. Unable to control its own flight, however, the mirror burned up in the atmosphere over Canada. Russia's proto-sail program was abandoned in 1999 after a larger, follow-up mission (Znamya 2.5) failed to deploy properly.
Solar sails were an accessory on India's INSAT 2A and 3A communications satellites, circa 1992 and 2003. The satellites were powered by a 4-panel solar array on one side. A solar sail was mounted on the north side of each satellite to offset the torque resulting from solar pressure on the array.

In 2004, the Japanese deployed solar sail materials sub-orbitally from a sounding rocket. Although it was not a demonstration of a free-flying solar sail that could be used for deep-space exploration, the deployment was nevertheless "a valuable milestone" remarks Friedman, who appreciates the challenges of deploying gossamer sheets from fast-moving spacecraft.

To date, no solar sail has been successfully deployed in space as a primary means of propulsion.
The Planetary Society hoped to demonstrate the technology with its Cosmos 1 mission in 2005. "Cosmos 1 was a fully developed solar sail spacecraft intended to fly only under the influence of solar pressure for control of the spacecraft's orbit," says Friedman, now the director of the Planetary Society.

"If all had gone as planned, the US-based Planetary Society, working with Russia, would have been the first to fly a fully functional, though performance-limited, solar sail in space," says Johnson. "It would have been the first spin-stabilized, free-flying solar sail to fly in space."

Cosmos 1, however, was lost when the launch vehicle failed.

Meanwhile, NASA has also continued to dabble in solar sailing. Between 2001 and 2005, the Agency developed two different 20-meter solar sails (fabricated by ATK Space Systems and L'Garde, Inc., respectively) and tested them on the ground in vacuum conditions. "These sail designs are robust enough for deployment in a one atmosphere, one gravity environment and are scalable to much larger solar sails -- perhaps as much as 150 meters on one side." "A NASA flight test is possible by the year 2010."

Meanwhile, NanoSail-D is shooting for this summer, and space.

Edward E. Montgomery's team from the Marshall Space Flight Center is working in cooperation with Elwood Agasid's Ames team toward deploying the NanoSail-D solar sail--in fact, "any day now," says Montgomery. It will travel to orbit onboard a SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket, to be launched from Omelek Island in the Pacific Ocean.

"Our primary objective is to demonstrate successful deployment of a lightweight solar sail structure in low Earth orbit," says Montgomery. NanoSail-D will feel two kinds of pressure: (1) aerodynamic drag from the wispy top of Earth’s atmosphere and (2) the pressure of sunlight. Montgomery's team hopes to measure both types of pressure as the sail circles Earth.

Johnson cautions, "If--and it's a big if—they can measure the solar pressure, they will have demonstrated solar pressure as a primary means of orbital maneuvering. They'll have to show conclusively the effects of solar pressure, with a convincingly high signal-to-noise ratio (above the forces resulting from the residual atmospheric pressure)."
Montgomery acknowledges the challenge: "The orbit available to us in this launch opportunity is so low, it may not allow us to stay in orbit long enough for solar pressure effects to accumulate to a measurable degree. We are going to have to look closely at the flight data to see if we can make that determination."

And what of Cosmos 2? The mission is a privately funded project, a partnership of The Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios. Work has begun at the Russian Space Research Institute on some Cosmos 2 spacecraft hardware. They are also studying possible launch configurations on a reliable launch vehicle.

If successful, NanoSail-D and Cosmos 2 could profoundly affect the future of science and exploration missions.
"Success would be huge for the future of space exploration," says Montgomery.

"Solar sailing is the only means known to achieve practical interstellar flight," says Friedman. "It is our hope that the first solar sail flight will spur the development of solar sail technology so that this dream can be made real."

Each effort is a stepping stone, in the great visionary Carl Sagan's words, along "the shore of the cosmic ocean," leading us closer to sailing among the stars. Future attempts will surely take us the rest of the way. "'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemedAs if it could not be,And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamedOf sailing that beautiful sea."

Letupan Besar

Menurut teori Letupan Besar, alam semesta muncul dari keadaan yang sangat tumpat dan panas. Sejak itu, ruang angkasa mengembang dengan masa membawa galaksi bersama.

Dalam fizik kosmologi, Letupan Besar merupakan teori saintifik yang mengatakan alam semesta muncul dari keadaan yang sangat tumpat dan panas lebih kurang 13.7 bilion tahun dahulu. Teori Letupan Besar adalah berdasarkan cerapan anjakan merah hukum Hubble tentang jarak galaksi yang apabila disertakan sekali prinsip kosmologi mendapati ruang angkasa mengembang menurut model Friedmann-Lemaître bagi kerelatifan am. Ditentuluarkan ke masa silam, pemerhatian ini menunjukkan yang alam semesta mengembang dari keadaan ketika tenaga dan jirim dalam alam semesta ini sangat panas dan tumpat. Ahli fizik tidak bersetuju sepenuhnya tentang apa yang berlaku sebelum itu, walaupun kerelatifan am meramalkan ketunggalan graviti.

Istilah Letupan Besar digunakan bagi merujuk titik apabila pengembangan yang dicerap (Hukum Hubble) bermula — kira-kira 13.7 bilion (1.37 × 1010) tahun dahulu (±2%) — dan bagi yang lebih umum iaitu digunakan untuk merujuk paradigma kosmologi terkini menerangkan asal dan pengembangan alam semesta, begitu juga komposisi jirim awal melalui nukleosintesis seperti yang diramalkan oleh teori Alpher-Bethe-Gamow.

Satu kesan daripada letupan besar adalah keadaan alam semesta kini berbeza dari keadaan pada masa dahulu atau akan datang (evolusi semula jadi alam semesta sentiasa mengambil tempat). Daripada model, George Gamow pada 1948 dapat meramalkan, sekurang-kurangnya secara kualitatif, akan kewujudan sinar latar belakang mikrogelombang kosmos (CMB). CMB ditemui pada 1960-an dan kemudian mengesahkan teori Letupan Besar mengatasi lawannya, teori keadaan tetap.


Sejarah
Rencana utama: Sejarah teori Letupan Besar

Teori Letupan Besar dikembangkan dari cerapan dan pertimbangan teori. Secara cerapan, didapati kebanyakan nebula berpusar bergerak dari Bumi,m tetapi sesiapa yang membuat pemerhatian tersebut tidak menyedari akan implikasi kosmologi mahupun yang nebula tersebut adalah galaksi luar Bima Sakti. Pada 1927, Georges Lemaitre menerbitkan persamaan Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker dari persamaan Albert Einstein tentang kerelatifan am dan mencadangkan, tentang asas bagi runtuhan nebula berpusar, bahawa alam semesta bermula dari "letupan" "atom awal"—yang kemudian dikenali sebagai Letupan Besar.

Pada 1929, Edwin Hubble menyediakan asas pemerhatian tentang teori Lemaître. Dia menjumpai, secara relatif kepada Bumi, yang galaksi bergerak di setiap arah pada kelajuan yang berkadar terus dengan jaraknya dari Bumi. Fakta ini dikenali sebagai Hukum Hubble. Di beri prinsip kosmologi yang mana alam semesta, apabila dilihat dalam skala jarak yang agak besar, tidak mempunyai arah tertentu atau tempat tertentu, Hukum Hubble mencadangkan yang alam semesta sedang berkembang lalu menentang scenario alam semesta yang tetap dan selanjar yang dikembangkan oleh Einstein.

Idea ini membenarkan dua percanggahan kemungkinan. Satu adalah teori Letupan Besar Lemaitre, disokong dan dimajukan oleh George Gamow. Kemungkinan lain adalah model keadaan tetap Fred Hoyle yang mana jirim baru akan tercipta apabila galaksi menjauhi antara satu sama lain. Dalam model ini, alam semesta agak sama di mana-mana titik pada satu masa. Sebenarnya, Hoyle mencipta nama bagi teori Lemaitre, merujuk secara ironiknya sebagai "idea Letupan Besar ini" ketika siaran rancangan pada 28 Mac 1949 oleh BBC Third Programme. Hoyle mengulang istilah itu dalam siaran yang lain pada awal 1950-an, sebagai sebahagian siri dari lima syarahan yang bertajuk Sifat Benda. Teks syarahannya telah diterbitkan dalam majalah British The Listener seminggu selepas setiap kali penyiaran, kali pertama istilah"Letupan Besar" muncul dalam cetakan.

Buat beberapa tahun, sokongan bagi teori ini telah bebelah bagi. Walau bagaimanapun, bukti cerapan mula menyokong idea yang menyatakan bahawa alam semesta berubah dari keadaan tumpat dan panas. Sejak penemuan sinaran latar belakang mikrogelombang kosmos pada 1965, ia telah dianggap sebagai teori terbaik tentang asal-usul dan perubahan kosmos. Hampir semua kerja teori dalam kosmologi kini melibatkan pengembangan dan pernukaran asas teori Letupan Besar. Banyak kerja tentang kosmologi kini meliputi pemahaman bagaimana galaksi membentuk dalam konteks Letupan Besar, pemahaman tentang apa yang terjadi ketika Letupan Besar, dan menyepadukan pemerhatian dengan teori asas.

Kelebihan besar dalam kosmologi Letupan Besar pada 1990-an dan abad ke-21 sebagai kesan daripada kemajuan teknologi teleskop apabila disekalikan dengan data satelit yang banyak dari COBE, Teleskop Hubble Space dan WMAP. Data sebegitu telah membenarkan ahli kosmologi mengira banyak perimeter Letupan Besar hingga ke satu tahap kepersisan dan membawa kepada penemuan yang tidak dijangka iaitu pengembangan alam semesta sedangan memecut.

Gambaran keseluruhan
Berdasarkan pengukuran pengembangan semesta dengan menggunakan Supernova Type Ia, pengukuran akan kekasaran latar belakang mikrogelombang kosmos, dan pengukuran fungsi sama bagi galaksi, usia alam semesta dikira selama 13.7 ± 0.2 bilion tahun. Persetujuan 3 pengukuran tidak bersandar ini dikira sebagai bukti kukuh bagi Model ΛCDM yang menerangkan secara terperinci sifat isi kandungan alam semesta.

Alam semesta yang awal diisi secara lama keadaan dan seragam dengan ketumpatan bertenaga tinggi bersama suhu dan tekanan tinggi. Ia mengembang dan menyejuk, melalui perubahan fasa seperti pemeluwapan wap atau penyejukan air apabila ia menyejuk tetapi berkaitan dengan zarah asas.

Lebih kurang 10-35 saat selepas zaman Planck, peralihan fasa menyebabkan alam semesta mengalami pertumbuhan eksponen ketika pengembungan kosmos. Selepas pengembungan terhenti, komponen-komponen jirim alam semesta berada dalam bentuk plasma kuark-gluon (juga termasuk zarah lain—dan mungkin dihasilkan secara eksperimen seperti cecair kuark-gluon) yang mana juzuk zarah semuanya bergerak secara relatif. Apabila alam semesta berterusan membesar, suhu pula menurun. Pada suhu tertentu, melalui peralihan yang masih tidak diketahui yang dipanggil bariogenesis, kuark dan gluon akan bergabung menjadi barion seperti proton dan neutron, malah menghasilkan ketaksimetrian seperti antara jirim dan antijirim.

Suhu rendah masih boleh menyebabkan fasa peralihan pecahan simetri berlaku yang meletakkan daya dan zarah asas kepada keadaan seperti sekarang. Kemudian, sebahagian proton dan neutron membentuk nucleus-nukleus deuterium dan helium dalam proses yang dipanggil Nukleosintesis letupan besar. Apabila alam semesta semakin sejuk, jirim berandur-ansur berhenti bergerak secara relatif dan jisim rehat tenaga ketumpatannya menjadi secara graviti yang menguasai sinaran. Selepas 300,000 tahun, elektron dan nukleus bergabung membentuk atom (kebanyakannya hidrogen); maka sinaran terpancar dari jirim dan bersambungan merentasi angkasa yang tidak berpenghalang. Sinaran peninggalan inilah latar belakang gelombang mikro kosmik.

Lama-kelamaan, kawasan yang lebih tumpat yang jirimnya disebarkan secara seragam tertarik secara graviti berhampiran jirim lalu bertambah tumpat dan membentuk awan gas, bintang, galaksi, dan lain-lain struktur astronomi yang boleh dilihat hari ini. Perincian proses ini bergantung kepada jumlah dan jenis jirim dalam alam semesta. Tiga jenis yang mungkin dikenali sebagai jirim gelap sejuk, jirim gelap panas, dan jirim barionan]]. Pengukuran terbaik (dari WMAP) menunjukkan yang bentuk utaman jirim dalam alam semesta adalah jirim gelap sejuk. Dua yang lain mengambil 20% daripada jirim alam semesta.

Alam semesta kini dipenuhi sejenis bentuk tenaga yang misteri yang dikenali sebagai tenaga gelap. Lebih kurang 70% daripada keseluruhan ketumpatan tenaga alam semesta masa kini dalam bentuk tersebut. Komponen sebatian alam semesta ini didedahkan oleh sifatnya yang menyebabkan pengembangan alam semesta menyimpang dari hubungan jarak-halaju linear dengan menyebabkan ruang-masa mengembang dengan lebih cepat dari yang dijangka pada suatu jarak yang besar. Tenaga gelap yang berada dalam pembentukan yang teringkas mengambil bentuk istilah pemalar kosmologi dalam persamaan medan Einstein tentang kerelatifan am, tetapi kandungannya tidak diketahui dan lebih umumnya, perincian persamaan keadaannya dan hubungannya dengan model piawai bagi zarah fizik masih disiasat secara cerapan dan teori.

Semua cerapan ini akan dirangkumkan ke dalam model ΛCDM kosmologi, iaitu model matematik bagi Letupan Besar dengan enam parameter tidak bersandar. Misteri muncul ketika ia hampir kepada permulaan, apabila tenaga zarah lebih tinggi dari apa yang boleh dikaji melalui eksperimen. Tiada bantuan model fizik bagi 10-33 saat yang pertama alam ini iaitu sebelum peralihan fasa yang dipanggil teori penyatuan agung (Grand Unification Theory, GUT). Pada mulanya, teori Einstein tentang graviti meramalkan kewujudan ketunggalan graviti iaitu ketika ketumpatannya tidak terhingga. Untuk menguraikan paradoks ini, teori kuantum graviti diperlukan. Memahami tempoh tersebut dalam sejarah alam semesta adalah satu masalah besar yang masih belum dapat diselesaikan.

2009 Perseid Meteor Shower

Earth is entering a stream of dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the shower won't peak until August 11th and 12th, the show is already getting underway.

Brian Emfinger of Ozark, Arkansas, photographed this early Perseid just after midnight on Sunday, July 26th:

"I used an off-the-shelf digital camera to capture this fireball and its smoky trail," says Emfinger. "It was a bright one!"
Don't get too excited, cautions Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "We're just in the outskirts of the debris stream now. If you go out at night and stare at the sky, you'll probably only see a few Perseids per hour."
This will change, however, as August unfolds.

"Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on August 12th. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour."

For sky watchers in North America, the watch begins after nightfall on August 11th and continues until sunrise on the 12th. Veteran observers suggest the following strategy: Unfold a blanket on a flat patch of ground. (Note: The middle of your street is not a good choice.) Lie down and look up. Perseids can appear in any part of the sky, their tails all pointing back to the shower's radiant in the constellation Perseus. Get away from city lights if you can.

There is one light you cannot escape on August 12th. The 55% gibbous Moon will glare down from the constellation Aries just next door to the shower's radiant in Perseus. The Moon is beautiful, but don't stare at it. Bright moonlight ruins night vision and it will wipe out any faint Perseids in that part of the sky.

The Moon is least troublesome during the early evening hours of August 11th. Around 9 to 11 p.m. local time (your local time), both Perseus and the Moon will be hanging low in the north. This low profile reduces lunar glare while positioning the shower's radiant for a nice display of Earthgrazers.

"Earthgrazers are meteors that approach from the horizon and skim the atmosphere overhead like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond," explains Cooke. "They are long, slow and colorful—among the most beautiful of meteors." He notes that an hour of watching may net only a few of these at most, but seeing even one can make the whole night worthwhile.The Perseids are coming. Enjoy the show.

Exploring the Moon, Discovering Earth

Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts set out on a daring adventure to explore the Moon. They ended up discovering their own planet.

How do you discover Earth … by leaving it? It all started with a single photograph:

Apollo 8 was the first crewed Saturn V launch and the first time humans were placed in lunar orbit. Mission plans called for the astronauts to photograph possible landing sites for future missions. Before this, only robotic probes had taken images of the Moon's far side.

As the astronauts in their spacecraft emerged from behind the Moon, they were surprised and enchanted by an amazing view of Earth rising over the lunar horizon. Bill Anders quickly snapped a picture of the spectacular Earthrise – it was not in the mission script.

His timing could not have been better. It was Christmas Eve, 1968, the close of one of the most turbulent, fractured years in U.S. and world history. The picture offered a much needed new perspective on "home."

For the first time in history, humankind looked at Earth and saw not a jigsaw puzzle of states and countries on an uninspiring flat map – but rather a whole planet uninterrupted by boundaries, a fragile sphere of dazzling beauty floating alone in a dangerous void. There was a home worthy of careful stewardship.

The late nature photographer Galen Rowell described this photo as "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken."

"It changed humanity's entire orientation," says Kristen Erickson of NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. "And similar photos taken by the Apollo 11 through 17 crews reinforced the impact of this first view."

Apollo photos of the big blue marble energized grass-roots green movements and led directly to the modern fleet of Earth observing satellites NASA uses to monitor and predict weather, examine ozone holes, investigate climate change, and much more. Like Anders' camera, these satellites have transformed the way we view the planet we call Earth.

We gained all this by shooting for the Moon.

The Apollo astronauts were, by their own admissions, profoundly moved and changed when they gazed upon Earth from their unique position in space.

"It changed my life," said Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut.

"…You only see the boundaries of nature from there…not those that are manmade," said Eugene Cernan of Apollos 10 and 17. "It is one of the deepest, most emotional experiences I have ever had."

Apollo 17 was the last crewed Moon mission. Since then, no humans have been to the place where they can float and gaze at the whole Earth. The crew of the International Space Station has a beautiful view of Earth, but not the whole Earth. Because the space station is in low-Earth orbit, only a portion of the planet can be seen at any one time. For the big picture view, the Moon can't be beat.

Soon, we'll be back. Right now, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is circling the Moon gathering critical data NASA scientists need to plan for renewed human exploration. NASA is once again charting a daring mission to the Moon -- this time to stay.

There are many compelling reasons to return. Former space shuttle astronaut Joseph Allen thinks our own planet is one of them:

"With all the arguments, pro and con, for going to the Moon, no one suggested that we should do it to look at the Earth. But that may in fact be the most important reason."

In his recent confirmation hearing to take NASA's helm as administrator, former astronaut Charles F. Bolden Jr. said, "I dream of a day when any American can launch into space and see the magnificence and grandeur of our home planet."

Until then, a few astronauts will take the ride for all of us, and they'll be carrying cameras a thousand times more advanced than Apollo.

What the space agency shows us will surely expand our vision. It always has.

NASA Sees the 'Dark Side' of the Sun

Today, NASA researchers announced an event that will transform our view of the Sun and, in the process, super-charge the field of solar physics for many years to come.

"On February 6, 2011," says Chris St. Cyr of the Goddard Space Flight Center, "Super Bowl XLV will be played in Arlington, Texas."

Wait … that's not it.

"And on the same day," he adds, "NASA's two STEREO spacecraft will be 180 degrees apart and will image the entire Sun for the first time in history."

STEREO's deployment on opposite sides of the Sun solves a problem that has vexed astronomers for centuries: At any given moment they can see only half of the stellar surface. The Sun spins on its axis once every 25 days, so over the course of a month the whole Sun does turn to face Earth, but a month is not nearly fast enough to keep track of events. Sunspots can materialize, explode, and regroup in a matter of days; coronal holes open and close; magnetic filaments stretch tight and—snap!—they explode, hurling clouds of hot gas into the solar system. Fully half of this action is hidden from view, a fact which places space weather forecasters in an awkward position. How can you anticipate storms when you can't see them coming? Likewise researchers cannot track the long-term evolution of sunspots or the dynamics of magnetic filaments because they keep ducking over the horizon at inconvenient times. STEREO's global view will put an end to these difficulties.

The global view is still two years away. Already, however, the two spacecraft are beaming back over-the-horizon images that have researchers and forecasters glued to their monitors.

"This is a perspective we've never had before," says STEREO mission scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters. "We're now monitoring more than 270 degrees of solar longitude—that's 3/4ths of the star."

"After all these years," she laughs, "we're finally getting to see the dark side of the Sun."

STEREO's journey to the "dark side" began on Oct. 25, 2006, when the twin probes left Earth together onboard a Delta II rocket. High above the atmosphere, they separated and headed for the Moon. What happened next was a first in space navigation. The Moon acted as a gravitational slingshot, flinging the two probes in opposite directions—STEREO-A ahead of Earth and STEREO-B behind. They've been spreading apart ever since, and this is where they are now:

Because of the way the Sun spins (counterclockwise in the diagram above), STEREO-B gets a sneak preview of sunspots and coronal holes before they turn to face Earth—a boon for forecasters.
"I know forecasters at NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center monitor STEREO-B very closely," says St Cyr. "It lets them know what's coming."

At the moment, STEREO-B enjoys a 3-day look-ahead advantage over Earth-based observatories. This has allowed researchers to predict geomagnetic storms as much as 72 hours earlier than ever before. On several occasions in late 2008, STEREO-B spotted a coronal hole spewing solar wind before any other spacecraft did. When the solar wind hit Earth, STEREO-B's long-range forecast was validated by auroras like these:

St. Cyr notes that experienced ham radio operators can participate in this historic mission by helping NASA capture STEREO's images. The busy Deep Space Network downloads data from STEREO only three hours a day. That's plenty of time to capture all of the previous day's data, but NASA would like to monitor the transmissions around the clock.
"So we're putting together a 'mini-Deep Space Network' to stay in constant contact with STEREO," says Bill Thompson, director of the STEREO Science Center at Goddard.

The two spacecraft beam their data back to Earth via an X-band radio beacon. Anyone with a 10-meter dish antenna and a suitable receiver can pick up the signals. The data rate is low, 500 bits per second, and it takes 3 to 5 minutes to download a complete image.

So far, the mini-Network includes stations in the United Kingdom, France and Japan—and Thompson is looking for more: "NASA encourages people with X-band antennas to contact the STEREO team. We would gladly work with them and figure out how they can join our network."

The two STEREO spacecraft rank among most sophisticated solar observatories launched by NASA to date. They are equipped with sensors that measure the speed, direction and composition of the solar wind; receivers that pick up radio emissions from explosions and shock waves in the sun's atmosphere; telescopes that image the solar surface and all the tempests that rage there; and coronagraphs to monitor events in the sun's outer atmosphere.
"So, really," says Guhathakurta, "we're not only seeing the sun's dark side, we're feeling, tasting and listening to it as well.

"Super Bowl Sunday may never be the same….

Extreme Gamma-Ray Burst

The first gamma-ray burst to be seen in high-resolution from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is one for the record books. The blast had the greatest total energy, the fastest motions and the highest-energy initial emissions ever seen.

"We were waiting for this one," said Peter Michelson, the principal investigator on Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) at Stanford University. "Burst emissions at these energies are still poorly understood, and Fermi is giving us the tools to understand them."

This explosion, designated GRB 080916C, occurred at 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, 2008, in the constellation Carina. This movie compresses about 8 minutes of Fermi LAT observations of GRB 080916C into 6 seconds. Colored dots represent gamma rays of different energies:

Above: A Fermi LAT movie of the extreme gamma-ray burst. The blue dots represent lower-energy gamma rays (less than 100 million eV); green, moderate energies (100 million to 1 billion eV); and red, the highest energies (more than 1 billion eV).

Fermi's other instrument, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, simultaneously recorded the event. Together, the two instruments provide a view of the blast's initial, or prompt, gamma-ray emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.

Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Astronomers believe most occur when exotic massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As a star's core collapses into a black hole, jets of material -- powered by processes not yet fully understood -- blast outward at nearly the speed of light. The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star and generate bright afterglows that fade with time.

The first thing astronomers usually do after a gamma-ray burst is scramble to detect the fading afterglow. An afterglow's spectrum (i.e., its colors) can reveal the distance to the blast site. This is crucial information astronomers must have to calculate a gamma-ray burst's power.

Nearly 32 hours after the blast, a group led by Jochen Greiner of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, found the afterglow of GRB 080916C. Working quickly, before it could fade away, they measured the afterglow's spectrum using the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector, or GROND, on the 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile.

According to their data, the explosion took place 12.2 billion light-years away.

"Already, this was an exciting burst," said Julie McEnery, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "But with the GROND team's distance, it went from exciting to extraordinary."

With the distance in hand, Fermi team members calculated that the blast exceeded the power of approximately 9,000 ordinary supernovae, if the energy was emitted equally in all directions. This is a standard way for astronomers to compare events even though gamma-ray bursts emit most of their energy in tight jets.

Coupled with the Fermi measurements, the distance also helps astronomers determine the speed of the gamma-ray emitting material. Within the jet of this burst, gas bullets must have moved at least 99.9999 percent the speed of light. This burst's tremendous power and speed make it the most extreme recorded to date.The team's results appear in the Feb. 19th online edition of the journal Science.

Kepler Detects an Exoplanet Atmosphere

NASA's new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet, demonstrating the telescope's extraordinary scientific capabilities. The discovery will be published Friday in the journal Science.

"As NASA's first exoplanets mission, Kepler has made a dramatic entrance on the planet-hunting scene," said Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate's Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Detecting this planet's atmosphere in just the first 10 days of data is only a taste of things to come. The planet hunt is on!"

Launched March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm "Goldilocks zone" where there could be water. It will do this by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars, which occur when orbiting planets transit, or cross in front of, the stars.

"When the light curves from tens of thousands of stars were shown to the Kepler science team, everyone was awed; no one had ever seen such exquisitely detailed measurements of the light variations of so many different types of stars," said William Borucki, the principal science investigator and lead author of the paper.

The observations were collected from a planet called HAT-P-7, known to transit a star located about 1,000 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the star in just 2.2 days and is 26 times closer than Earth is to the sun. Its orbit, combined with a mass somewhat larger than the planet Jupiter, classifies this planet as a "hot Jupiter." It is so close to its star, the planet is as hot as the glowing red heating element on a kitchen stove.

HAT-P-7 was known before Kepler turned its attention to the planet. Kepler's measurements are so precise, however, they show something new: a smooth rise and fall of the light caused by the changing phases of the planet, similar to the phases of our own Moon. Kepler could also see the planet's light vanish completely when it passed behind its parent star. This vanishing act is called an "occultation."

The new Kepler data can be used to study this hot Jupiter in unprecedented detail. The depth of the occultation and the shape and amplitude of the light curve show the planet has an atmosphere with a day-side temperature of about 4,310 degrees Fahrenheit. Little of this heat is carried to the cool night side. The occultation time compared to the main transit time shows the planet has a circular orbit. The discovery of light from this planet confirms the predictions by researchers and theoretical models that the emission would be detectable by Kepler.

The observed brightness variation is just one and a half times what is expected for a transit caused by an Earth-sized planet. Although this is already the highest precision ever obtained for an observation of this star, Kepler will be even more precise after analysis software being developed for the mission is completed. "This early result shows the Kepler detection system is performing right on the mark," said David Koch, deputy principal investigator of NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. "It bodes well for Kepler's prospects to be able to detect Earth-size planets."

Kepler Mission To Hunt For New Planet Like Earth

Are there other worlds like ours? Are we alone?


NASA's Kepler spacecraft is about to begin an unprecedented journey that could answer these ancient questions.
Kepler is scheduled to blast into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a Delta II rocket on March 5 at 10:48 p.m. EST. It is the first mission with the ability to find planets like Earth -- rocky planets that orbit sun-like stars in a warm zone where liquid water could be maintained on the surface.


"Kepler is a critical component in NASA's efforts to find and study planets where Earth-like conditions may be present," said Jon Morse, the Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
The mission will spend three and a half years surveying more than 100,000 sun-like stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy. It is expected to find hundreds of planets the size of Earth and larger orbiting at various distances from their stars. If Earth-size planets are common in the habitable zone (where conditions favor liquid water), Kepler could find dozens of worlds like ours. On the other hand, if those planets are rare, Kepler might find none.



The Kepler telescope is specially designed to detect the periodic dimming of stars caused by transiting planets. Some star systems are oriented in such a way that their planets cross in front of their stars, as seen from our Earthly point of view. As the planets transit, they cause their stars' light to slightly dim, or wink: 1 MB video. The telescope can register changes in brightness of only 20 parts per million.


"If Kepler were to look down at a small town on Earth at night from space, it would be able to detect the dimming of a porch light as somebody passed in front," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.


To accomplish this feat, Kepler will use the largest camera ever launched into space, a 95-megapixel array of charged couple devices or "CCDs."


By staring at one large patch of sky for the duration of its lifetime, Kepler will be able to watch planets periodically transit their stars over multiple cycles. This will allow astronomers to confirm the presence of planets. Earth-size planets in habitable zones would theoretically take about a year to complete one orbit, so Kepler will monitor those stars for at least three years to confirm their presence. Ground-based telescopes and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will perform follow-up studies on the larger planets that they can see."Kepler is a critical cornerstone in understanding what types of planets are formed around other stars," said exoplanet hunter Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University. "The discoveries that emerge will be used immediately to study the atmospheres of large, gas exoplanets with Spitzer. And the statistics that are compiled will help us chart a course toward one day imaging a pale blue dot like our planet, orbiting another star in our galaxy."

When To See Mercury In The Evening Sky In 2009

LOOK WITHIN ABOUT A WEEK OF THE DATE SHOWN......

04 January 2009
26 April 2009
24 August 2009
18 December 2009

NOTICE: Mercury moves too quickly for a table like the one on the right to be useful. Instead, consult the table above. Within a week of the dates given above, Mercury will be visible as a moderately bright star low on the western horizon, just before sunset. About six weeks after these dates, it is visible in the east just before sunrise. The dates in boldface (late spring) offer the best viewing for observers in the northern hemisphere, with Mercury sitting nearly 20 degrees above the horizon at sunset.

For more information, please go to Space X webpage to find out.