The Sky is Waiting.
Time expousre of one of the ATA instruments.
(Credit: SETI Institute/Seth Shostak. Used with Permission).
Amidst news of royal weddings, birth certificate releases, and the usual celebrity goings on, troubling news recently came out of the University of California at Berkley. In a scene right out of certain Hollywood movie, the National Science Foundation’s funding for its Hat Creek Radio Observatory will be reduced to a tenth, effectively shutting down the Allen Telescope Array. [Read more...]
Artist’s impression of a SKA offset Gregorian dish. (Credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions on a Creative Commons 3.0 license).
African radio astronomers are taking an innovative approach to a bid in hosting a unique proposal. The idea is known as the Square Kilometer Array, a radio observatory that will employ hundreds of dishes over a large area to scan and survey the radio sky in unprecedented detail. Much like the Allen Telescope Array being built in California, SKA’s strategy is to use the technique known as radio interferometry and go for many small dishes linked together rather than one large single antenna.
Last month’s “old school” Blue Moon…(Photo by Author).
We’re back… December 2010 sees us here at Astroguyz wrapping up our 3-year plus quest for an online science teaching degree and a return to full-bore content creation. And none too soon, as December is generally our busiest (and most intriguing!) month of the year… [Read more...]
Out Now from Princeton University Press!
One of the crucial questions in modern cosmology is: why is there anything at all? Why are we here to admire the cosmos, and create books and blogs about how clever we are to figure it all out? Why didn’t the early universe promptly annihilate itself in a massive matter/anti-matter collision? [Read more...]
Hayabusa returned to Earth today, lighting up the skies over the Australian outback and the Woomera restricted zone slightly before 10:00 AM EDT. Good captures of the fireball and the re-entry were confirmed, and the probe burned up after releasing the sample return capsule to plunge over the Australian desert. But the big mystery remains; did Hayabusa in fact capture and return a sample of asteroid Itokawa, and in doing so succeed in a first ever sample return from an asteroid? Of course, we may not truly know the answer to this long awaited tale for some time, as engineers must first recover and retrieve the capsule for further analysis. All indications were that the sample stirring pellet gun did not fire during the asteroid encounter, but there’s always the slim chance that material may have gotten stirred up and caught in the sample retrieval horn. Hayabusa slammed into the atmosphere today at a terrific speed of 27,000 mph, one of the fastest re-entries ever attempted. All space fans were present watching the action in the Australian night via Twitter and UStream, further evidence that the realm of new school media has in fact arrived. NASA & SETI’s joint reentry observation program was also aloft in a DC-8 for the event, watching to grab a spectroscopic analysis of the fireball as it plunged to Earth. The trail seen was quite bright, lighting up the thin scud of clouds as viewed from the surface. Robin Whittle and his Wife Tina reported a fireball “brighter than Venus” from their locale 25 km west southwest of Port Augusta. Re-entry came at an angle of 10 degrees and had to endure temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit during the decent. Toasts were raised worldwide as Hayabusa made its heroic return, a triumph for the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA). Doubtless, it’ll be days to weeks for engineers to sort out the after action data; for example, scientists are still going over the Stardust aerogel returned from comet Wild years later. A search of the Australian outback is underway and we’ll post more pics as we see em throughout the day… Kampai, Hayabusa!
Video of the fireball in the Australian night…
01:00 PM EDT: More dramatic pics have just come in via JAXA and the NASA/SETI team…
Hayabusa re-entry as seen by the JAXA Ground all-sky observation network. (Credit: JAXA).
…and the most recent images from the joint SETI/NASA airborn observation program;
Re-entry as seen from the air; is that a sample return capsule I see flying in formation to the lower right? (Credit: NASA/SETI).
The Uber-Cool SETI@Home screen-saver!
Tired of waiting for E.T. to call? Late last year, the distributed computing program that started it all, http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/, turned ten. One of the most scientifically ambitious programs run before bedtime, SETI@Home showed us that computers could do more than display flying toasters in their spare time. In fact, word of the first SETI@Home way back in ’99 initially convinced us here at Astroguyz that we probably should get a home computer, and we’ve been hooked ever since. Sure, the Vulcan home world has yet to present itself, but this is one of those experiments that even one confirmed positive hit would have some amazing implications!
In 2001, SETI@Home essentially became the world’s largest collective super-computer. But what you may not realize are the changes that have been made, and the ones that are in store. In 2006, a multi-beam sky survey was introduced. Then in 2007, the Astropulse Survey was launched. Further upgrades to come are a Near-Time Persistency Checker, searches beyond the current 2.5MHz Band, and new methods of limiting terrestrial radio interference, as well as a means for users to share new data. What we’d also like to see is a dedicated SETI@Home platform, perhaps via the Allen Telescope Array. SETI currently piggybacks off of Arecibo data, which itself spends most of its time staring at extra-galactic sources, not prime alien country. Anyway, if you haven’t, now’s the time to donate that idle CPU time for what could be the discovery of this or any other century!
Out now from National Geographic Press!
Seth Shostak has a unique tale of scientific inquiry to tell. At its heart are questions that some of the greatest thinkers of our time such as Jill Tarter and Carl Sagan have pondered; are we alone? Why are we here? How common or unique are we as a species?
Only very recently has the topic and field of exobiology become a respectable science, and Confessions of an Alien Hunter by Mr. Shostak and out by Nation Geographic Press reflects on how far we’ve come in this very elusive field and where we might be headed. [Read more...]
Colossus-The Forbin Project: a Sci-Fi classic that kicked off the talks!
What’s the future of humanity and life on Earth? Will we have a good multi-billion year run until our Sun swells into a red giant boiling away our atmosphere, or will we first do the job of snuffing ourselves out? Earlier this year, some of the leading thinkers of our time gathered near Harvard University at the Arrow Theater to discuss just these weighty concepts. Dubbed Crossroads: The Future of Human Life in the Universe, each talk in the series was 30 minutes long and solicited an avalanche of enthusiastic questions. Some of the highlights:
-Gerrit Verschuur discussed the Drake equation and just how prevalent any interstellar neighbors might be; at a guesstimated 2,500 light years, we may be pretty, well, spaced out!
-Maira Zuber discussed the future of space travel in the solar system and the difficulties of overcoming probably the biggest engineering problem; prolonged radiation exposure.
-Astronomers Dimitar Sasselov, David Charbonneau, and paleontologist Peter Ward of Rare Earth fame discussed the slew of recent exoplanet findings and the quest for the true coin of the realm; Earth-like worlds around other stars. Most interestingly, the idea was proposed that a “super-Earth” may be more conducive to the development of life, and our own planet may represent the bottom rung of habitability; indeed, as Ward notes, “Rare does not mean unique!” Another interesting proposal by Ward is what he termed the Medea Hypothesis, a sort of anti-Gaia Hypothesis, were the Earthly biosphere may actually occasionally become detrimental to life, and thus fuel mass extinctions. The name comes from perhaps the worst Mom in mythological history!
-Finally, big time elder thinker Freeman Dyson of Princeton urges that our very search methods for life might be flawed, and that we should be looking for “what is detectable, rather than only whats probable.” he also proposed missions targeting such possible abodes for life such as Europa, the icy large moon of Jupiter.
Whatever the future of humanity is, one gets the impression from the visionary speakers presented that it is NOT endless consumerism. The message in the history of life on Earth is clear; evolve or die. No one will save us but ourselves, and the future is collectively ours to choose!
The topic of extra-terrestrial life is a controversial one. Indeed, it’s only been in the last decade or so that the subject has moved from the realm of science fiction into that of mainstream science. In Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its astonishing Implications for Our Future, (Princeton Press), author Jeffery Bennett covers a wide swath of science, leading up to our present day understanding of the emerging field of exobiology. [Read more...]
Patiently Listening…(Credit: APOD/NASA).
Nothing fires the ol’ mental juices like the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Only recently has the very idea of alien life moved from the realm of science fiction to a possible science reality in our lifetimes. [Read more...]
As the Moon wanes from the evening night, thoughts here at Astroguyz turn towards the wonders of the deep sky.
M13 in Hercules. (Credit: Digitized Sky Survey).
One of the finest sights in the northern hemisphere is the globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules. [Read more...]
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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
The Algonquin Indians had names for each of the seasonal Full Moons, many of which survive today. The Full Snow Moon pictured occurs in the month of December, when the first large winter storms coat the ground with snow. This Full Moon also tends to fall near the Winter Solstice, and thus rides high in the nightly sky opposite to the Sun on long winter nights.
Every rocket launch is unique, but twilight shuttle launches where by far the most impressive. The image pictured was of the April 5th, 2010 launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center at dawn. The exhaust plume caught the rising Sun overhead just right, and numerous noctilucent clouds persisted right up until sunrise. Unfortunately, space shuttle launches are now relegated to the pages of history.
11.05.11: Voyager: The Humanoids Where Here.
Decoding the disk; are you smarter than a humanoid? (Credit: NASA/JPL).
If we were to vanish from the cosmic scene tomorrow, what would be our most lasting impact? Would it be our monuments, our terrestrial relics, or our broadcasts of I Love Lucy and the Jerry Springer Show? Thankfully, researchers in the 1970’s designed a “message in a bottle” to be tossed out across the cosmic sea attached to the twin Voyager spacecraft. Launched in 1977, both spacecraft reconnoitered the outer planets before being flung on trajectories that will leave our solar system. [Read more...]