I Guess I Should Stop Being Lazy

I have been back home from my vacation since Monday, but haven't felt much like writing a post. First it was because I was a bit sad leaving the beach and my girlfriend. And then when trying to come up with something in the past few days, there has just been an overwhelming amount of astronomy news that it was hard to pick where to dig into.

Anyways, I am back. You can expect normal posting to resume Monday. I'll probably be checking out the blogs that I follow this weekend. I dunno how much I will get back into it though, I am still working on that job hunt.

But for some weekend reading, here are some of the big astronomy stories that I haven't taken the time to tackle:

The next Mars Rover, Curiosity, had its landing site chosen, Gale crater.

The Dawn probe entered orbit around asteroid Vesta on the 15th, our first close glimpse is amazing.

A fourth moon has been discovered around Pluto. Right now it seems like they are leaning towards naming it Cerberus, the 3-headed dog that guards the gates of The Underworld.

The House has proposed cancelling the James Webb Telescope, described as the Hubble successor (it doesn't really do the same thing, but it's still amazing). The telescope is over 50% done, probably closer to 75-80% and would be in orbit by 2015. Along with a 9% total cut to NASA's budget, with the shuttles winding down, this is like a sucker punch to NASA, an insult. Hopefully the Senate and President alter this course.

Yes, we are officially living in a post-space shuttle world right now. Atlantis landed safely at 5:56 AM EST on the morning of the 21st. Hopefully the post-space shuttle world is temporary and a replacement unveiled soon.

With the space shuttles grounded, the private space race has been heating up. This provides some optimism for the future. NASA can focus on pushing the boundaries that they have done so well while leaving the trucking to someone else.

Also, July 18th was former astronaut John Glenn's 90th birthday. The 20th was the 42nd anniversary of the Moon landing.

There might have been a few other interesting things I missed over, but the major focus has been on the winding down of the shuttle mission. I hope you all have a good weekend!

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Posted in Back,Pluto,Space News,Space Shuttle,Vesta 15 comments

Astronomy News Update 4/20/11

There are a couple of astronomy news things this week that I wanted to share. It's all pretty exciting stuff.

But first, let me remind you to vote on the poll in the sidebar. Every Tuesday I give a little lesson in astronomy and I let you, the readers, decide on what I'm gonna write about. There is always room for suggestions, so please make them in any comment thread. A history of previous Astro-Lessons can be found under the Astronomy Topics heading. (Still working on getting that all updated.)

On to the News:

• Endeavour's last flight scheduled for April 29 

NASA announced today that the Space Shuttle Endeavour's last flight will be on Friday, April 29, at 15:47 EST. A number of notable things will happen this flight: the Shuttle will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 to the International Space Station; there will also be the last set of Shuttle astronaut spacewalks (4 in total); and the Commander is Mark Kelly, husband of Congresswoman Giffords, who got shot earlier this year but plans to attend the launch. More at NASA's Shuttle page and watch it live on NASA TV

• Titan might be hiding a liquid water ocean

I already told you that Titan was one of the Top Moons of the Solar System, and that it had an entire hydrological cycle based on methane with a thick atmosphere, but now the moon is getting even more complex! According to the math, the motions of Titan's orbit and rotation indicate that their is a HUGE subsurface ocean.

There is speculation that this ocean could be yet more methane, but the recent modeling supports a water (H2O) ocean, making it the best fitting hypothesis so far. It isn't a final blow yet though, the only way to know for sure is to get there and start digging. Another explanation could be an interaction with a large comet or asteroid.

• Pluto has a large poisonous atmosphere 

Ah, Pluto, even though not a planet anymore, the dwarf is still a favorite for astronomers to study, being the most accessible Kuiper Belt Object. Using the 15-meter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, a British-based team found a strong signal of poisonous carbon monoxide gas in Pluto's atmosphere. They also discovered that rather than the thought height of 60 miles (~1,000 km), Pluto's atmosphere extends at least 1,860 miles (3,000 km), or a quarter of the way to it's largest moon Charon.

The gas would be extremely cold at about -364 F (-220 C), and the atmosphere is likely generated by solar heating. When Pluto is closer to the Sun, parts of the surface would evaporate into a gaseous atmosphere and freeze again as Pluto moved away. Pluto's last closest pass was in 1989 and it takes 248 years to complete an orbit. More on this discovery can be read on Space.com.

• Hubble is turning 21!

If the Hubble Space Telescope was a human in the U.S., he'd be getting excited about celebrating with a couple cold ones on April 24. Unfortunately, it can't, so I propose having a beer in honor of its long and wonderful service, and wishing it many more great years. A large part of astronomy in today's popular culture is due to this scope, and the name Hubble is known around the world. On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery roared the HST into orbit and astronomy hasn't been the same since. In honor of this, NASA has released a new image of interacting galaxies called Arp 273, taken on 17 December 2010, with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). You can read more about the image (and find a higher resolution) at the Hubble website or Bad Astronomy.

Of course there are lots of other good stories out there, these are just a couple of the great ones. Other stories to check out: Sunspots spawn gigantic solar flare (with a cool video); Black forests could exist on a world with two suns; and Electromagnetic currents link Enceladus and Saturn.

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Posted in Astronomy,Hubble,News,Pluto,Space Shuttle,Titan 20 comments

A Message From Ceres

I try to keep this blog relatively clean language wise. But this picture was just to awesome not to share! It also fills some space for a quick post today.

In the future I do plan to talk more about Ceres and Vesta and the other asteroids. They are some of my favorite objects in our solar system.

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Posted in Ceres,Pluto 52 comments

Friday Something

So I think before I said I was going to try to post some sort of gadget or gizmo every Friday that looked of interest to me. I decided to cut out the gadget and gizmo part since there are enough blogs about that stuff out there and just go with whatever interests me. Whether its a game, gadget, book, movie, or whatever.

So today it is windy here, real windy. Like the power every once in awhile cuts off and you can hear ambulances screaming off in the distance occasionally (I live near the hospital). The power being unreliable makes doing stuff on computers and TVs rather difficult. So it has put me in a bit of a reading mood, and I wanted to recommend an amazing book. For whenever you have a windy, rainy day where reading seems like the best activity.

The book is How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown. It is a great story, and really puts a human side to astronomers and the work they do. Mike Brown is an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology and his primary work is looking for objects in the outer solar system. These objects (including Makemake, Quaoar, Haumea, and Eris) that he and his team found challenged the notion of Pluto's qualification as a planet. Ultimately it becomes a tale of discovery, birth, and the death of a beloved planet, Pluto. A great read, and highly recommended if you want to know more about what went into Pluto's fate.

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Posted in Book,Pluto 22 comments