Artist concept of the curious events going at the star named KIC 12557548. Credit: MIT

The old saying of the universe being stranger than we can imagine definitely applies to a newfound exoplanet orbiting a star about 1,500 light years from Earth. Researchers using the Kepler space observatory have detected what appears to be a planet about the size of Mercury literally turning to dust. A long tail of debris — almost like a comet’s tail — is following the planet as it whirls around the star, KIC 12557548. Scientists think the planet could be evaporating under the blistering heat of the star, and that by analyzing the dust, they could decipher the history of the planet. But they better hurry. According to the team’s calculations, the planet will completely disintegrate within 100 million years.

“This might be another way in which planets are eventually doomed,” said Dan Fabrycky, a member of the Kepler Observatory science team.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: exoplanets, Kepler mission

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Falcon 9 on the launchpad in Florida. Credit: SpaceX

Saturday morning’s launch window for SpaceX’s historic test flight to the International Space Station lasts just one second. Company President Gwynne Shotwell predicted they have “better than a 50-50 shot on whether we lift off tomorrow,” she said at a press conference today, adding, “If we lift off, we’ll get to orbit.”

Shotwell and NASA officials outlined a myriad of systems and activities that have to go perfectly for the launch take place, and then it will be non-stop action for the duration of the flight to orbit and ultimately the berthing of Dragon to the ISS.

Launch is set for 08:55 UTC on May 19 (4:55 AM Eastern/1:15 AM Pacific.) Here’s a timeline of activities so you can follow along while you watch the launch:
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Commercial Space, Space Station, SpaceX

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With less than a day left before SpaceX’s historic launch of the first commercial vehicle to the ISS, slated for 4:55 am EDT on Saturday, May 19, here’s a video of what will happen once the Falcon lifts off.

(Part of me really wishes that they’ll be pumping out some dramatic music when it launches!)

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: animation, Celestis, Dragon, Falcon, Launch, May 19, NASA, rocket, SpaceX, video

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Researchers at Stanford University are working on solutions to the inherent difficulties of hypersonic flight — speeds of over Mach 5, or 3,000 mph (4828 km/h) — and they’ve created one amazing computer model illustrating the dynamics of air temperature variations created at those intense speeds.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: aeronautics, flight, fluid dynamics, hypersonic, Mach speed, scramjet, Stanford

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This great video created from images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on May 13 and 14 show Jupiter as it comes close to the Sun (from our vantage point) in a solar conjunction. But what it really looks like is the old “Space Invaders” video game, with Jupiter marching across the screen. There’s even a couple of sungrazing comets “pewpew-ing” in like the laser cannon shots in the game, and a coronal mass ejection completes the scene as an explosion (which is actually more like “Asteroids.”) For more fun, the team who created this video at the Naval Research Laboratory’s Sungrazing Comets website takes the time to show all the different objects in the scene, which amazingly includes Callisto and Ganymede, two of Jupiter’s moons. All it needs is the funky video game background music.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Jupiter, soho, sun

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Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Just look at the kind of stunning images that are buried in the archives from the Hubble Space Telescope! Here, Hubble turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The entire galaxy, called NGC 891, stretches across 100,000 light-years and we see it exactly edge-on. Visible are filaments of dust and gas escaping the plane of the galaxy. A few foreground stars from the Milky Way shine brightly in the image, while distant elliptical galaxies can be seen in the lower right of the image.

This is just an example of the hidden gems in Hubble’s archives that have never been seen by the general public. There’s a new contest to find more — so how can you participate?
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: galaxies, Hubble Telescope, NGC 891

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The Herschel Space Observatory's

The largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole

How much of planet Earth is made of water?

What would it be like to fly over the asteroid Vesta?

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers.

Two stars within our own Milky Way galaxy anchor the foreground

A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy really is

This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Space station hardware in the foreground includes the Mini-Research Module (MRM1, center) and a Russian Progress vehicle docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment (right). Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit said of the photographic techniques used to achieve the images: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then 'stack' them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure." A total of 47 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite. Image Credit: NASA

Sunspots from today and from 65 years ago, with planet sizes for comparison.

The short answer? Really big. The long answer? Really, really big.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: active region, CME, Earth, Jupiter, SDO, size, solar, solar max, sun, sunspots

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COSMOS. Seth MacFarlane. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Need we say more?

(If you DO want to find out more, read Dorothy Pomerantz’s write-up for Forbes here.)

“I never met Carl Sagan, but this is my way to give something back to him for all of the things he gave to me.” – Seth MacFarlane

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments |
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SpaceX Dragon approaches the ISS on COTS 2 test flight slated for May 19 liftoff and docking on Day 4. Astronauts will grapple it with the robotic arm and berth it at the Earth facing port of the Harmony node. Illustration: NASA /SpaceX

In less than 48 hours, SpaceX is primed to make history and launch the first ever commercial rocket and spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) early Saturday morning on May 19.

Following today’s Launch Readiness Review (LRR), SpaceX was just given the official “GO” from NASA to proceed with the blastoff of the Falcon 9 at 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT) from Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This also marks the first night time liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket.

“Just passed final launch review with NASA”, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted this evening. “All systems (...)
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© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments |
Post tags: Commercial Space. SpaceX, Dragon capsule, Falcon 9, SpaceX, SpaceX Dragon

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As the solar eclipse on May 20th progresses, its partial and annular phases will look very similar to this eclipse on May 10, 1994. Photo by Fred Espenak/SkyandTelescope.com.

There’s a great reason to look up this weekend and hope for clear skies! On May 20-21 an annular eclipse of the Sun will be visible from a 300 kilometer-wide track that crosses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States. An annular eclipse means the Moon will not cover the Sun completely, and so when the Moon is directly in front of the Sun, there will be a bright ring of visible light on the surrounding edges, creating a so-called ‘ring of fire.’ The eclipse begins at 20:56 UTC (16:56 EDT US time) on May 20, and ends at 02:49 UTC May 21 (22:49 on May 20 EDT).

Not in that swath? See the map below, but you may be able to see a partial eclipse if you are in Asia, the Pacific and the western two-thirds of North America.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: eclipses, Observing, sun

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Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s proposed FINESSE space telescope may not hunt for exoplanets, but it will find out what they’re made of.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: exoplanets, FINESSE, JPL, planets, space telescope, spectroscopy

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