Category Archives: Astronomy

Wave at Saturn for your picture

About time to go outside and wave at Saturn. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be taking a picture of earth today between 2:27 and 2:42 PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:47 UTC).

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury will take images with earth in the picture at 4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. PDT (7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. EDT, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on Saturday.

NASA Interplanetary Probes to Take Pictures of Earth From Space

This simulated view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth's picture
This simulated view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth’s picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. — Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.

The image taken from the Saturn system by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will occur between 2:27 and 2:42 PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:47 UTC) Friday, July 19. Cassini will be nearly 900 million miles (nearly 1.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth. NASA is encouraging the public to look and wave in the direction of Saturn at the time of the portrait and share their pictures via the Internet.

The Cassini Earth portrait is part of a more extensive mosaic — or multi-image picture — of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun. The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn’s dusty rings. Processing of the Earth images is expected to take a few days, and processing of the full Saturn system mosaic will likely take several weeks.

Inspired in part by the Cassini team’s plans to obtain a picture of Earth, scientists reexamined the planned observations of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury. They realized Earth is coincidentally expected to appear in some images taken in a search for natural satellites around Mercury on July 19 and 20. Those images will be taken at 4:49 a.m., 5:38 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. PDT (7:49 a.m., 8:38 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. EDT, or 11:49, 12:38, and 13:41 UTC) on both days. Parts of Earth not illuminated in the Cassini images, including all of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, will appear illuminated in the MESSENGER images. MESSENGER’s images also will take a few days to process prior to release.

Details on how to find Saturn in the sky and participate in the event are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .

The public can share pictures by using the hashtag #waveatsaturn on Twitter, or uploading pictures to the event’s Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wave_at_saturn/ .

The event’s Facebook page is: http://bit.ly/waveatsaturn .

Cassini mission scientists also will be participating in a live Ustream show on Friday from 2 to 2:30 p.m. PDT (5 to 5:30 p.m. EDT): http://www.ustream.com/nasajpl2 .

For more information about the two NASA spacecraft, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/messenger .

Hubble telescope discovers a new moon around Neptune

An announcement from NASA:

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new moon orbiting the distant blue-green planet Neptune, the 14th known to be circling the giant planet.

The moon, designated S/2004 N 1, is estimated to be no more than 12 miles across, making it the smallest known moon in the Neptunian system. It is so small and dim that it is roughly 100 million times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. It even escaped detection by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew past Neptune in 1989 and surveyed the planet’s system of moons and rings.

Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., found the moon July 1, while studying the faint arcs, or segments of rings, around Neptune. “The moons and arcs orbit very quickly, so we had to devise a way to follow their motion in order to bring out the details of the system,” he said. “It’s the same reason a sports photographer tracks a running athlete — the athlete stays in focus, but the background blurs.”

The method involved tracking the movement of a white dot that appears over and over again in more than 150 archival Neptune photographs taken by Hubble from 2004 to 2009.

On a whim, Showalter looked far beyond the ring segments and noticed the white dot about 65,400 miles from Neptune, located between the orbits of the Neptunian moons Larissa and Proteus. The dot is S/2004 N 1. Showalter plotted a circular orbit for the moon, which completes one revolution around Neptune every 23 hours.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a cooperative project between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington.

For images, video, and more information Neptune’s new moon, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/30

For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

July 15, 2013: In the summer of 1989, a robotic emissary from Earth visited the farthest major planet from the Sun, Neptune. Like any good tourist, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft snapped a lot of pictures during the brief flyby. The prolific probe discovered several moons orbiting close to the blue-green planet. But one moon, no bigger than a metropolitan city and nearly coal-black, escaped detection because it was too faint to be seen. Until now.

While analyzing Neptune photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute noticed an extra white dot about 65,400 miles from Neptune, located between the orbits of the moons Larissa and Proteus. Hubble’s extraordinary sensitivity and sharpness caught an object that is roughly one hundred million times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye. Thankfully, Showalter also had 150 archival Neptune photographs taken by Hubble from 2004 to 2009. The same white dot appeared over and over again. This allowed him to plot a circular orbit for the moon, designated S/2004 N 1, which completes one revolution around Neptune every 23 hours. His discovery raises the number of known moons orbiting Neptune to 14.

StarTalk Radio Show with Neil deGrasse Tyson: Cosmic Queries

The latest episode of StarTalk Radio Show by Neil deGrasse Tyson is titled: Cosmic Queries: Planet Earth

StarTalk Radio comes down to Earth as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about our home planet. How was Earth formed? What is the earliest limit of the fossil and tectonic record? How does the high proportion of landmass in the Northern Hemisphere affect Earth’s rotation? Which will happen first – the Sun’s expansion into a red giant or the death of the dynamo inside Earth? Could a shift in magnetic poles happen in the near future, and what would that mean? In terms of natural disasters, where is the safest place to live? Does the full Moon affect tides? What would carbon-based life be like if Earth had double the gravity? Were there red sunsets in prehistoric times, before human pollution? All this, plus Neil’s classic answer to the question, “If the moon is getting further away from the Earth each year, how can we have a Super Moon?”

Co-Host:
Chuck Nice, comedian

Amateur astronomer spots comet during star party in Ukraine

Ukrainian amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov discovered a comet while participating in a star party: Amateur Astronomer Discovers Comet C/2013 N4 (Borisov) During a Star Party – universetoday.com.

Animation of Comet Borisov compiled from multiple images. Credit: http://astronomamator.narod.ru/cometes/comet_anim.gif

Animation of Comet Borisov compiled from multiple images.
Credit: astronomamator.narod.ru/cometes/comet_anim.gif

More info and images at Leonid Elenin’s Photos | Facebook.