Category Archives: Space participation

Astronomy, Education, Space participation

ARKYD space telescope for public access – Kickstarter pledges rocket upwards

Planetary Resources is a company planning to mine asteroids. Initially, though, they will place small observatories into earth orbit to search for candidate near earth orbit asteroids to which they will later send probes for closer inspection. On Wednesday they announced a program to dedicate one of their space observatories to public access and education.

The ARKYD project will launch in 2015 a space telescope into orbit specifically to allow students, schools and the members of the general public to direct its observations. They opened a Kickstarter campaign to raise $1M to fund the project.

One of the cool perks for a $25 pledge is a Space Selfie in which an image that you give them will be displayed on the “satellite’s external screen overlooking Earth. We will then take a picture from our camera arm and send the image back to you.”

The concept and the perks seem very popular as the 32 day campaign has already reached in the first two days nearly $565,000 from 5674 backers. [Update June.1.13: The totals are currently at  $625,714 nd 6,234 backers.]

Here is a video for the Kickstarter:

And in the video below,

Jason Silva, the host of National Geographic’s Brain Games talks about what the ARKYD space telescope means to him and the world. You can follow Jason on Twitter @JasonSilva

Help fund citizen science and make space exploration a reality for everyone! Support the ARKYD Kickstarter http://kck.st/18DzUJ7

http://youtu.be/8WuJwk-7rZI

And here is a video with Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis and Planetary Society chief Bill Nye:

http://youtu.be/w542nXe_CIY

Living in Space, Space Arts, Space participation

Kickstarter to launch the comic book “FloatBall” about a space sport

Former NFL Pro Bowl linebacker Ken Harvey and aerospace engineer Allen Herbert have sought ways to excite young people’s interest in technology and spaceflight and one of the concepts they have developed is a team sport that would be played in microgravity. Called FloatBall, it combines elements of football, basketball and freefall. It was described in this 2008 NY Times article: Marketing Sports as the Next Phase of Space Tourism – NYTimes.com.

Obviously such a game requires sizable facilities in space and low cost transport to support the building and populating of such facilities. Such transport isn’t available yet and may not be for awhile. So they are pursuing a way to keep the idea alive by bringing it first to a comic book world. They have recruited a team of artists and seek to raise $30k on Kickstarter by June 21st to launch the FloatBall comic book series:

Harvey says:

Combining our talents, we came up with a game that would be fun, ferocious and factual. Since society has not yet achieved the level of space proficiency needed to play our new game, we decided that next best step would be to create a comic book about the sport. Not just any comic, but one that is cool and fun like Marvel or DC Comics, and also factually based on scientific possibilities.

FloatBall, like the original Star Trek, will help ignite the reality of today while fueling the imagination of tomorrow. This is where we need your help. We’d like to ask your assistance with funding this project.

Here is a video about the Kickstarter project:

Harvey also says:

If you are a fan of comics, space, sports, or science, then this is the comic for you. We need to raise enough money to produce and distribute the first issue. You can be in on the beginning of something great. Years into the future, your name will be associated with the beginning of a new age of sports in space.

Our goal is to create the first of a series of illustrated comic books delving into the world of FloatBall, the sport of the future. Who knows, with any luck the story will become a movie!

 Preproduction sketches of FloatBall players by the FutureDude team.“Preproduction sketches of FloatBall players by the FutureDude team.”

Astronomy, Space participation

Amateur variable star observers solve dwarf nova mystery

Observations by members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) have helped to solve a mystery regarding the SS Cygni variable star and correct a measurement made of it with the Hubble telescope:

DIY space, Space participation

Maker Faire picts

Here are some pictures from the recent Maker Faire event in San Mateo, California:

Update: More picts: The 2013 Bay Area Maker Faire in Pictures – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

Update 2: Here is an article about the space related activities and exhibits at the event: NASA and private groups bring space exploration to Maker Faire – Oakland NASA/Examiner.com

Astronomy, Exoplanets, Space participation

Planet Hunter citizen scientists confirmed exoplanet in star’s habitable zone

Earlier this year participants in the Planet Hunters citizen science project

confirmed with 99.9 percent confidence the discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet called PH2b orbiting within the “habitable zone” of its star, the range where earth-like planets could have liquid water and possibly sustain life. The researchers also announced 42 new planet candidates, including 20 located in the habitable zone of their respective stars.

– Planet Hunters Project Confirms a New Planet in the “Habitable Zone” – Yale Scientific Magazine.

Participants in the project examine data from the Kepler space observatory, which monitors the light from over 100,000 stars simultaneously to look for dimming when a planet passes in front of the star as seen from earth.

With_sun_spotPlanets transiting across the face of a star will dim its light output.

While the Kepler group have software to find such dimming from the planet transits across the face of stars, there are significant advantages of humans examining the light data directly

Citizen scientists working on Planet Hunters, on the other hand, can consider transits on a case-by-case basis, and can visually detect planets which produce fewer dips in the light-curve; these are the planets with a wider orbit and a longer orbital period that Kepler algorithms often overlook. Nine of the recent planet candidates have orbital periods over 400 days, and most have periods longer than 100 days.

“I didn’t expect that volunteers would be able to find a significant number of planets that the Kepler computers couldn’t. Everything found by volunteers causes Kepler to improve their algorithms,” Professor Fischer added.

Examples of a Kepler data for a planetary transit:

SPH10102031 SPH10102031b