a freeware space simulation software that lets you explore the universe in three dimensions, starting from planet Earth to the most distant galaxies. Areas of the known universe are represented using actual astronomical data, while regions uncharted by astronomy are generated procedurally. Millions of galaxies, trillions of stars, countless planets – all available for exploration.
Here are a couple of videos describing the program:
This July Fourth the solar system is showing off some fireworks of its own.
Superficially resembling a skyrocket, comet ISON is hurtling toward the sun presently at a whopping 48,000 mph.
Its swift motion is captured in this time-lapse movie made from a sequence of pictures taken May 8, 2013, by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the time the images were taken, the comet was 403 million miles from Earth, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The movie shows a sequence of Hubble observations taken over a 43-minute span and compresses this into just five seconds. The comet travels 34,000 miles in this brief video, or 7 percent of the distance between Earth and the moon. The deep-space visitor streaks silently against the background stars.
Unlike a firework, the comet is not combusting, but in fact is pretty cold. Its skyrocket-looking tail is really a streamer of gas and dust bleeding off the icy nucleus, which is surrounded by a bright star-like-looking coma. The pressure of the solar wind sweeps the material into a tail, like a breeze blowing a windsock.
As the comet warms as it moves closer to the sun, its rate of sublimation (a process similar to evaporation in which solid matter transitions directly into gas) will increase. The comet will get brighter and its tail will grow longer. The comet is predicted to reach naked-eye visibility in November.
The comet is named after the organization that discovered it, the Russia-based International Scientific Optical Network.
This false-color, visible-light image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington, D.C.
Operations in Point Rest State (PRS) have continued for the spacecraft. The spacecraft was placed in PRS on May 15, 2013, after the failure of reaction wheel 4. It has been 53 days since the spacecraft collected new science data.
As noted in the last update, the team has made adjustments to onboard fault parameters for the star trackers to lessen the possibility of entry into safe mode. We have also made additional adjustments to the Thruster-Control Safe Mode to improve its fuel efficiency. This provides yet more protection for spacecraft fuel reserves while the team continues to work on reaction wheel performance assessment and recovery plans.
The engineering team has devised initial tests for the recovery attempt and is checking them on the spacecraft test bed at the Ball Aerospace facility in Boulder, Colo. The team anticipates that exploratory commanding of Kepler’s reaction wheels will commence mid-to-late July. The Kepler spacecraft will remain in PRS until and during the tests.
Later this month, an update to the data processing pipeline software will be deployed. Called SOC 9.1, this enhancement has been underway for several months and is in the final stages of verification and validation. This software release provides additional refinements to better tease out small planet signatures from the four years of Kepler data. It will also decrease the frequency of false positives.
The team continues to disposition Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) found by searching the observational data from Quarters 1 to Quarter 12. With 63 more planet candidates added since the last report, the count now stands at 3,277.
While Kepler data analysis continues, we were pleased to note the discoveries recently announced by European Southern Observatory (ESO). A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS at ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, revealing a system with at least six planets. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water might exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life. This is the first system found with a fully packed habitable zone.
Also this month, a research team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., used Kepler data to find two planets smaller than three times the size of Earth orbiting sun-like stars in a one billion year old star cluster named NGC 6811. The result demonstrates that small planets can form and persist in an open cluster, and casts the net wider in the search for planets the size and temperature of Earth. With this discovery, 134 planets have been confirmed using Kepler data.
And, finally we note the announcement from France’s space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), on the retirement of the Convection, Rotation, and planetary Transits (CoRoT) mission. The CoRoT spacecraft was launched Dec. 26, 2006, and paved the way for Kepler in terms of space-based identification of transiting exoplanets and also the detection of acoustic oscillations in sun-like stars. We congratulate CNES on a great run with the CoRoT spacecraft!
Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute led the team that spotted the new Pluto-ian moons with the Hubble Space Telescope. He
decided to call for a public vote to suggest names for the two objects. To be consistent with the names of the other Pluto satellites, the names had to be picked from classical mythology, in particular with reference to the underworld — the realm where the souls of the deceased go in the afterlife. The contest concluded with the proposed names Vulcan, Cerberus and Styx ranking first, second and third respectively. Showalter submitted Vulcan and Cerberus to the IAU where the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) discussed the names for approval.
However, the name Vulcan had already been used for a hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun. Although this planet was found not to exist, the term “vulcanoid” remains attached to any asteroid existing inside the orbit of Mercury, and the name Vulcan could not be accepted for one of Pluto’s satellites (also, Vulcan does not fit into the underworld mythological scheme). Instead the third most popular name was chosen — Styx, the name of the goddess who ruled over the underworld river, also called the Styx.
Here is a SETI Institute video with a discussion of the name selection:
