Category: Science

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Impact of China’s Anti-Sat Weapon’s Test Debris?

"It would not surprise me if it caused the destruction of at least one working satellite and maybe a couple. I would be surprised if it was bad enough to cause the destruction of many satellites."

- Jonathan McDowell, Ph.D., Harvard Astrophysicist

Illustration of aging FengYun-1 weather satellite destroyed January 11, 2007, in Chinese anti-satellite weapon test, courtesy Earth Observation Resources.
Illustration of aging FengYun-1 weather satellite destroyed January 11, 2007, in Chinese anti-satellite weapon test, courtesy Earth Observation Resources.

January 19, 2007  Cambridge, Massachusetts  -   Craig Covault in Aviation Week & Space Technology online reported January 17, 2007, that "U. S. intelligence agencies believe China performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 miles altitude (new estimate is 530 miles up) on January 11, 2007, destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile.

 

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Confusing Sun: Will Solar Cycle 24 Be Most Intense On Record?

"It’s a little confusing this time around, actually. We haven’t had this problem before ...but indicators (of big solar maximums) that have agreed and worked in the past don’t agree this time."

- David Hathaway, Ph.D., NASA

Three sunspots on the sun, January 11, 2007. Individual sunspots are often larger than planet Earth, which is shown scaled to size in the lower right, along with massive Jupiter. The scale line at lower left compares to the length of 10 Earths. Image courtesy SOHO.
Three sunspots on the sun, January 11, 2007. Individual sunspots are often larger than planet Earth, which is shown scaled to size in the lower right, along with massive Jupiter. The scale line at lower left compares to the length of 10 Earths. Image courtesy SOHO.
July 15, 2002, "most detailed images ever of sunspots" (Region 10030) on sun's granular surface by solar telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, off African coast. Resolution is 62 miles (100 km). Colorized image by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Institute for Solar Physics.
July 15, 2002, "most detailed images ever of sunspots" (Region 10030) on sun's granular surface by solar telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, off African coast. Resolution is 62 miles (100 km). Colorized image by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Institute for Solar Physics.

January 13, 2007  Huntsville, Alabama - If you could fly near the surface of the sun, there would be a lot of humming and sonic booms. At Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley, physicists have processed radio signals from the sun and produced audio files. The sun vibrates with a hum that goes up and down every five minutes. Stanford scientists call it "the singing sun."

 

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Universe’s Mysterious Dark Matter – First 3-D Map

"Without dark matter, there would have been insufficient mass
in the universe for structures to collapse and galaxies to form. ...Normal matter - including stars, galaxies and gas - is built inside an underlying
scaffolding of dark matter."

- NASA/JPL

First 3-dimensional map of dark matter distribution in this universe moving from the early universe (left) to the more recent universe (right).  Image credit NASA, ESA and R. Massey, Cal-Tech.
First 3-dimensional map of dark matter distribution in this universe moving from the early universe (left) to the more recent universe (right).  Image credit NASA, ESA and R. Massey, Cal-Tech.

Age of Universe: 13.7 billion years

Composition:
­     .4% glowing matter such as stars.
­   3.6% "normal" matter as we know it in planets and stars.
­ 23.0% cold, invisible "dark" matter detectable only by its gravitational influence on "normal" matter.
­ 73.0% invisible "dark" energy.

 

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Liquid Methane Lakes on Saturn’s Titan Moon

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and second largest moon in solar system, after Earth's moon. 3200 miles in diameter. Image by Cassini-Huygens/NASA JPL.
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and second largest moon in solar system, after Earth's moon. 3200 miles in diameter. Image by Cassini-Huygens/NASA JPL.
Layers of haze seen in a colorized ultraviolet image of Titan's night-side limb. Image by Cassini-Huygens/NASA JPL.
Layers of haze seen in a colorized ultraviolet image of Titan's night-side limb. Image by Cassini-Huygens/NASA JPL.

January 6, 2007  Pasadena, California - NASA's JPL reports that scientists now have "definitive evidence of the presence of lakes filled with liquid methane" on Saturn's moon Titan. The radar data was published in this week's journal Nature cover story. Radar imaging data from a July 22, 2006, fly-over by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft provided convincing evidence for large bodies of liquid methane. on Titan today.

 

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First Stars – Or First Black Holes – in Universe?

"Imagine trying to see fireworks at night from across a crowded city. If you could turn off the city lights, you might get a glimpse at the fireworks. We have shut down the lights of the Universe to see the outlines of its first fireworks."

- Alexander Kashlinsky, Ph.D., NASA Goddard Astronomer

"Foreground Objects" (right) is an image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stars and galaxies in the Ursa Major constellation. This infrared image covers a region of space so large that light would take up to 100 million years to travel across it. "Background Light" (left) is the same image after stars, galaxies and other sources were masked out. The remaining background light is from a period of time when the universe was less than one billion years old, and most likely originated from the universe's very first groups of objects - either huge stars or voracious black holes. Darker shades in the image on the left correspond to dimmer parts of the background glow, while yellow and white show the brightest light. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC).
"Foreground Objects" (right) is an image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of stars and galaxies in the Ursa Major constellation. This infrared image covers a region of space so large that light would take up to 100 million years to travel across it. "Background Light" (left) is the same image after stars, galaxies and other sources were masked out. The remaining background light is from a period of time when the universe was less than one billion years old, and most likely originated from the universe's very first groups of objects - either huge stars or voracious black holes. Darker shades in the image on the left correspond to dimmer parts of the background glow, while yellow and white show the brightest light. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (GSFC).

 

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Stardust Comet Mission Reports New Kind of Organics

"A portion of the organic material in the samples is unlike anything seen before in extraterrestrial materials."

- Scott Sandford, NASA's Ames Research Center

Special "needles" mounted on micro-manipulators controlled by computer to carefully and precisely cut out sections of aerogel that contain cometary samples. Image courtesy NASA.
Special "needles" mounted on micro-manipulators controlled by computer to carefully and precisely cut out sections of aerogel that contain cometary samples. Image courtesy NASA.

Also see 120106 Earthfiles report about Deep Impact study of Comet Tempel I.

December 15, 2006  Pasadena, California - NASA reports that scientists have found a new class of organics in comet dust captured from comet Wild 2 in 2004 by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. [ See December 15, 2006 issue of Science Express online. ]

 

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NASA Wants Permanent Moon Base by 2024

December 8, 2006  Bethesda, Maryland - NASA's longest serving astronaut is John Young who landed on the moon in 1972 with the Apollo 16 crew. In March 2005, he was the keynote speaker at the Lunar and Planetary Institute conference in Houston. He told nearly fifteen hundred scientists and engineers from around the world:

"NASA is in the deadly serious business of saving the human species. I think over this century, if we industrialize the moon and use its resources, I think it can save civilization. I think over the long haul, going to Mars will extend civilization. But I think the moon has the capability to save us."

 

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Deep Impact and Stardust: Are Comets Made of the Same Stuff?

"We were hoping to see an exact agreement between Stardust and Deep Impact and we don’t have that exact agreement right now."

- Carey Lisse, Ph.D., Deep Impact Chemist


December 1 , 2006  Laurel, Maryland - This week, the European Space Agency's office in Paris announced that one of its spacecraft called "Rosetta" is preparing to swing-by Mars in a couple of months in February 2007. Since its launch in March 2004, Rosetta has been on a trajectory that will eventually lead it to its landing on a comet in the first half of 2014. After landing, Rosetta will burrow into Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, named after two Russian scientists who discovered the 2-mile-diameter comet in 1969. The Rosetta spacecraft is heavy and needs to use three gravity assists from Earth and one from Mars in February 2007 to get to Comet 67P seven years from now.

 

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Namibia Telescopes Find First “Gamma Clock” in Milky Way Galaxy

"This is the highest energy at which any periodic signal has been observed, nearly 100,000 times higher than previously known."

- H.E.S.S. Observatory, Namibia

High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the 100 GeV energy range. First operation began in Summer 2002 in Gamsberg, Namibia. Image courtesy H.E.S.S.
High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the 100 GeV energy range. First operation began in Summer 2002 in Gamsberg, Namibia. Image courtesy H.E.S.S.
Gamsberg is west of Windhoek, Namibia.
Gamsberg is west of Windhoek, Namibia.

November 27, 2006  Gamsberg, Namibia - Astrophysicists operating the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) gamma-ray telescopes in Namibia have announced the discovery of periodic emission of very-high-energy gamma rays from a binary system. The object which is responsible for this emission is a double system called LS 5039, comprised of a massive blue star twenty times heavier than the Sun.

 

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One, Maybe Two, More Mysterious Radio Bursts from Galactic Center

Radio image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. The white arrow points at the SNR 359.1-00.5 region where intense radio bursts repeated five times spaced 77 minutes apart on the night of September 30, 2002, to October 1, 2002. Image courtesy Northwestern University.
Radio image of the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy. The white arrow points at the SNR 359.1-00.5 region where intense radio bursts repeated five times spaced 77 minutes apart on the night of September 30, 2002, to October 1, 2002. Image courtesy Northwestern University.

Date: Night of September 30 to October 1, 2002.
Radio Wave Size: About 1 meter in wavelength.
Number of Bursts:  Five bursts over 7-hour period.
Name Assigned 5 Radio Bursts:  "GCRT J1745-3009"
Length of Each Burst:  10 minutes duration and each radio burst separated by about 77 minutes of silence. Rise time in intensity was about 8 minutes, slower than decay time which was about two minutes.
Estimated Location: As far as 24,000 light-years, or as close as 300 light-years, toward center of Milky Way galaxy and region of red supernova remnant known as "SNR 359.1-00.5."

October 23, 2006  Sweet Briar, Virginia - A year and a half ago in early March 2005, I reported at Earthfiles about a physicist’s report in Nature concerning a powerful and repeating burst of radio waves toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy in a region known as SNR 359.1-00.5. The galactic center is 26,000 light-years from Earth and is full of stars. There were five radio bursts in 1-meter-long radio wavelengths of 330 MegaHertz detected over a 7 hour period on the night of September 30 to October 1, 2002. The five radio bursts were equally spaced apart by 77 minutes and there were no detectable x-ray emissions. No one studying our galaxy has ever seen any radio bursts like that before. The source is a complete mystery.

 

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