You can take advantage of your 4K esolution TV by streaming this short 4K video from the Int. Space Station showing a
Once again, astronauts on the International Space Station dissolved an effervescent tablet in a floating ball of water, and captured images using a camera capable of recording four times the resolution of normal high-definition cameras. The higher resolution images and higher frame rate videos can reveal more information when used on science investigations, giving researchers a valuable new tool aboard the space station. This footage is one of the first of its kind. The cameras are being evaluated for capturing science data and vehicle operations by engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The first color images of Pluto’s atmospheric hazes, returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft last week, reveal that the hazes are blue.
Pluto’s Blue Sky: Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles (called tholins) that grow as they settle toward the surface. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible. (Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)“Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It’s gorgeous,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado.
The haze particles themselves are likely gray or red, but the way they scatter blue light has gotten the attention of the New Horizons science team. “That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles,” said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. “A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles. On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger — but still relatively small — soot-like particles we call tholins.”
Water Ice on Pluto: Regions with exposed water ice are highlighted in blue in this composite image from New Horizons’ Ralph instrument, combining visible imagery from the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) with infrared spectroscopy from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). The strongest signatures of water ice occur along Virgil Fossa, just west of Elliot crater on the left side of the inset image, and also in Viking Terra near the top of the frame. A major outcrop also occurs in Baré Montes towards the right of the image, along with numerous much smaller outcrops, mostly associated with impact craters and valleys between mountains. The scene is approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) across. Note that all surface feature names are informal. (Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)Scientists believe the tholin particles form high in the atmosphere, where ultraviolet sunlight breaks apart and ionizes nitrogen and methane molecules and allows them to react with each other to form more and more complex negatively and positively charged ions. When they recombine, they form very complex macromolecules, a process first found to occur in the upper atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. The more complex molecules continue to combine and grow until they become small particles; volatile gases condense and coat their surfaces with ice frost before they have time to fall through the atmosphere to the surface, where they add to Pluto’s red coloring.
In a second major finding, New Horizons has detected numerous small, exposed regions of water ice on Pluto. The discovery was made from data collected by the Ralph spectral composition mapper on New Horizons.
“Large expanses of Pluto don’t show exposed water ice,” said science team member Jason Cook, of SwRI, “because it’s apparently masked by other, more volatile ices across most of the planet. Understanding why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places, is a challenge that we are digging into.”
A curious aspect of the detection is that the areas showing the most obvious water ice spectral signatures correspond to areas that are bright red in recently released color images. “I’m surprised that this water ice is so red,” says Silvia Protopapa, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. “We don’t yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto’s surface.”
The New Horizons spacecraft is currently 3.1 billion miles (5 billion kilometers) from Earth, with all systems healthy and operating normally.
New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.
Pluto and its largest moon Charon dance around each other, making circles around their common center of mass, which lies in an empty space between them. Around the dancing couple are four small moons. In order of increasing distance, their names are Styx (just beyond Charon), then Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. These tiny moons also orbit around the system’s center of mass. The orbits line up like a miniature solar system, except with a binary system at the center, similar to the planetary system around the star Kepler 47. All four of the small moons are less than about 30 miles (50 kilometers) in their longest dimension. Each has a lumpy shape because, unlike Pluto and Charon, they aren’t big enough for gravity to squish them into a ball.
Nix and Hydra were discovered in 2005, shortly before New Horizons launched in 2006, and their initials were a subtle nod to the New Horizons mission that started the search for them, just as the P and L in Pluto are a subtle nod to astronomer Percival Lowell, who began the search for Pluto.
The orbits of Pluto and its moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra are illustrated around their common center of mass. Credit: SwRI/S. PorterPluto’s moon Nix is shown in high-resolution black-and-white and lower resolution color. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRIPluto’s moon Hydra as seen from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, July 14, 2015. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered never-before-seen structures within a dusty disc surrounding a nearby star. The fast-moving wave-like features in the disc of the star AU Microscopii are unlike anything ever observed, or even predicted, before now. The origin and nature of these features present a new mystery for astronomers to explore. The results are published in the journal Nature on 8 October 2015.
Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered fast-moving wave-like features in the dusty disc around the nearby star AU Microscopii. These odd structures are unlike anything ever observed, or even predicted, before now. The top row shows a Hubble image of the AU Mic disc from 2010, the middle row Hubble from 2011 and the bottom row is an image taken with the SPHERE instrument, mounted on the Very Large Telescope, from 2014. The black central circles show where the brilliant light of the central star has been blocked off to reveal the much fainter disc, and the position of the star is indicated schematically.
AU Microscopii, or AU Mic for short, is a young, nearby star surrounded by a large disc of dust [1]. Studies of such debris discs can provide valuable clues about how planets, which form from these discs, are created.
Video: Using images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered unique and totally unexpected structures within the dusty disc around the star AU Microscopii. Credits.
Astronomers have been searching AU Mic’s disc for any signs of clumpy or warped features, as such signs might give away the location of possible planets. And in 2014 they used the powerful high-contrast imaging capabilities of ESO’s newly installed SPHERE instrument, mounted on the Very Large Telescope for their search — and discovered something very unusual.
“Our observations have shown something unexpected,” explains Anthony Boccaletti of the Observatoire de Paris, France, lead author on the paper. “The images from SPHERE show a set of unexplained features in the disc which have an arch-like, or wave-like, structure, unlike anything that has ever been observed before.”
This image shows the sky around the nearby young star AU Microscopii. It was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. AU Mic appears just below the centre of the image as an orangish star of moderate brightness. Because the photographs through different coloured filters that were used to make this picture were taken many years apart, AU Mic appears double, as the star’s own proper motion has moved it a small distance across the sky in the intervening time.
Five wave-like arches at different distances from the star show up in the new images, reminiscent of ripples in water. After spotting the features in the SPHERE data the team turned to earlier images of the disc taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 2010 and 2011 to see whether the features were also visible in these [2]. They were not only able to identify the features on the earlier Hubble images — but they also discovered that they had changed over time. It turns out that these ripples are moving — and very fast!
“We reprocessed images from the Hubble data and ended up with enough information to track the movement of these strange features over a four-year period,” explains team member Christian Thalmann (ETH Zürich, Switzerland). “By doing this, we found that the arches are racing away from the star at speeds of up to about 40 000 kilometres/hour!”
The features further away from the star seem to be moving faster than those closer to it. At least three of the features are moving so fast that they could well be escaping from the gravitational attraction of the star. Such high speeds rule out the possibility that these are conventional disc features caused by objects — like planets — disturbing material in the disc while orbiting the star. There must have been something else involved to speed up the ripples and make them move so quickly, meaning that they are a sign of something truly unusual [3].
“Everything about this find was pretty surprising!” comments co-author Carol Grady of Eureka Scientific, USA. “And because nothing like this has been observed or predicted in theory we can only hypothesise when it comes to what we are seeing and how it came about.”
The team cannot say for sure what caused these mysterious ripples around the star. But they have considered and ruled out a series of phenomena as explanations, including the collision of two massive and rare asteroid-like objects releasing large quantities of dust, and spiral waves triggered by instabilities in the system’s gravity.
Video: This short timelapse sequence shows images of the debris disc around the nearby star AU Microscopii in 2010, 2011 and 2014. The two earlier images were from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the final one from the new SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Credit: ESO, ESA & NASA
But other ideas that they have considered look more promising.
“One explanation for the strange structure links them to the star’s flares. AU Mic is a star with high flaring activity — it often lets off huge and sudden bursts of energy from on or near its surface,” explains co-author Glenn Schneider of Steward Observatory, USA. “One of these flares could perhaps have triggered something on one of the planets — if there are planets — like a violent stripping of material which could now be propagating through the disc, propelled by the flare’s force.”
“It is very satisfying that SPHERE has proved to be very capable at studying discs like this in its first year of operation,”adds Jean-Luc Beuzit, who is both a co-author of the new study and also led the development of SPHERE itself.
The team plans to continue to observe the AU Mic system with SPHERE and other facilities, including ALMA, to try to understand what is happening. But, for now, these curious features remain an unsolved mystery.
This video clip takes the viewer from a broad view of the entire southern Milky Way into a closeup of the nearby star AU Microscopii, about 32 light-years from Earth. This star is young and surrounded by a dusty disc that features odd wave-like, rapidly moving features that are imperfectly understood. Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org) . Music: Johan Monell
Notes
[1] AU Microscopii lies just 32 light-years away from Earth. The disc essentially comprises asteroids that have collided with such vigour that they have been ground to dust.
[2] The data were gathered by Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).
[3] The edge-on view of the disc complicates the interpretation of its three-dimensional structure.
Here’s a statement from RR Auction about the watch:
Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Chronograph Watch to be auctioned Only privately owned watch worn on the Moon— set for auction on October 22
BOSTON, MA – (October, 1 15) Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 lunar surface-worn chronograph watch will be auctioned Boston-based RR Auction.
Of the select dozen men that have stepped foot on the Moon, all have worn the standard Omega chronographs. Officially issued by NASA, they are acknowledged as government property, and many, including Dave Scott’s watch used during his first two moonwalks are housed in institutions, a distinction that leaves Commander Scott’s Bulova Chronograph, worn during his third and final moonwalk of the mission— as the only lunar surface watch in private hands.
The watch is visible here on Scott’s left hand.
The Bulova Wrist Chronograph, exhibits significant wear from exposure while on the Moon, and from splashdown and recovery.
“Among the decisions I made, the monitoring of time was perhaps most important,” Commander Dave Scott stated in a detailed five-page letter of authenticity confirming its background story and mission use.Colonel David R. Scott—Gemini 8 Pilot, Apollo 9 CMP, Apollo 15 CDR—amassed a combined 546 hours in space, was the seventh man to walk on the Moon and the first astronaut to operate the Lunar Rover on the Moon’s surface.
“This may be a once in a lifetime chance to own a watch that was worn on the surface of the Moon,” said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction. “In 2014, we auctioned Dave Scott’s hand controller – used to land on the moon for $610,000, and I expect that the watch will sell for much more, somewhere between $750,000 – $1,000,000.”
The Space and Aviation Autograph and Artifact Auction by RR Auction will run from October 15 through October 22.
Online bidding for the Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Chronograph will be available until 6:00 pm ET on October 22. At 7:00 pm ET, the live auction of this lot will begin in our Boston Gallery. Only phone bids or in-person bids will be accepted during the live auction.
For information, visit the RR Auction web site at www.rrauction.com.
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