10 Friday Aug 2012
Posted in NASA, Solar activity, Video
Earth’s protective shield takes quite a beating, especially during these peak times of solar activity. Later this month, NASA will send a probe – dubbed the Radiation Belt Storm probe – to explore the Van Allen Radiation Belts in the Earth’s magnetosphere.
Here’s a video explaining it all. Enjoy!
10 Thursday May 2012
Wow!
Here’s a video of Earth that was created by stringing together images taken by the Electro-L Weather Satellite. The images were taken every 30 minutes, according to the video’s description.
“The images are taken in four different wavelengths of light, three visible, and one infrared. The infrared light appears orange in these images, and shows vegetation,” the description read.
See more amazing video of Earth here. Thanks to Prof. Abel Mendez for pointing out the vids on Twitter! Follow him @ProfAbelMendez
28 Saturday Apr 2012
This artist’s impression shows a sunset seen from the super-Earth Gliese 667 Cc. The brightest star in the sky is the red dwarf Gliese 667 C, which is part of a triple star system. The other two more distant stars, Gliese 667 A and B appear in the sky to the right. Astronomers have estimated that there are tens of billions of such rocky worlds orbiting faint red dwarf stars in the Milky Way alone. Caption and image courtesy of the ESO/L. Calçada
Right now, Gliese 667 Cc is all the rage.
We talked about the exoplanet back in February when scientists announced that the super-Earth could be ripe enough for life. Gliese 667 Cc, which has a similar mass to Earth, is located in a triple star system in the constellation of Scorpius.
It is said to be within the habitable zone – an area far enough away from the sun where it isn’t too hot or too cold. Otherwise known as the “Goldilocks” zone, the area is a pretty good breeding ground for microbial life as liquid water could exist.
“It´s the Holy Grail of exoplanet research to find a planet orbiting around a star at the right distance so it´s not too close where it would lose all its water and not too far where it would freeze,” Steven Vogt, an astronomer from the University of California, said in this article. “It´s right there in the habitable zone – there´s no question or discussion about it. It is not on the edge. It is right in there.”
Right now, according to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL), there are only four exoplanets that are potentially habitable. Those planets include HD 85512, Gliese 581 d, Kepler-22 b, and Gliese 667 cc.
This image shows to scale the only four potential habitable exoplanets so far, HD 85512 b, Gliese 581 d, Kepler-22 b, and Gliese 667C c compared with Earth and Mars using the Earth Similarity Index, or ESI (number below the names). This number is a measure of Earth-likeness where Earth is the standard of comparison with an ESI value equal to one. Exoplanets with values above 0.8 can be considered Earth-like planets but those with values down to about 0.7 might still be habitable by microbial life. HD 85512 b, Gliese 581 d, and Kepler-22 b are shown here with dense atmospheres covered with water clouds. Gliese 581 d and Gliese 667C c look redder because they orbit red dwarf stars.
We’re sure more planets will make that list because the discoveries seem to be occurring at a much more rapid rate. There are billions and billions of planets out there. And, let’s not forget about the moons. From the 763 detected exoplanets – or planets outside of our solar system - there are probably around 30 moons that could host life, according to the PHL.
Read more about planets, and the habitable zone, here.
22 Thursday Sep 2011
It’s 35-feet long, 3,000 pounds, and it’s crashing somewhere on Earth tomorrow.
This conceptual image shows the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, launched on Sept. 15, 1991, by the space shuttle Discovery. Measurements from the mission helped define the role of Earth's upper atmosphere in climate and climate variability. The 35-foot-long, 15-foot-diameter UARS was decommissioned on Dec. 14, 2005. Credit: NASA
The NASA satellite UARS is expected to re-enter our atmosphere sometime tomorrow afternoon, Sept. 23, according to NASA officials. UARS, or Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, should break up into pieces during its plunge, however, that won’t happen with all of the parts. If you happen to find a piece of the debris, don’t touch it. Contact your local law enforcement authority.
But here’s some good news for my folks in the United States: The satellite is not expected to reach us.
Here’s some bad news: The satellite is not expected to reach us.
How sad. We’ll be safe (public risk was always minimal), but we’ll miss out on the fireworks.
Objects the size of UARS re-enter Earth about once a year, according to NASA officials. Perhaps the biggest object to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere was Skylab, a 75-ton station that was unexpectedly pushed out of orbit due to high solar activity. On July 11, 1979, Skylab plunged into Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated in western Australia and the southeastern Indian Ocean..
More time and location information for the UARS re-entry will be released within 24 to 48 hours, according to NASA officials.
Here’s some background: UARS launched into orbit in 1991. It measured ozone and chemicals compounds found in the ozone layer, winds and temperatures in the stratosphere, and energy input from the Sun. It was decommissioned in 2005 and has been orbiting Earth ever since.
13 Tuesday Sep 2011
Tags
Courtesy of NASA
Recently, we found out just how much “space junk” is orbiting Earth. There are more than 500,000 pieces of debris, all traveling up to 17,500 miles per hour. At that rate, there’s a very good chance a piece of junk could crash into a multimillion dollar satellite or spacecraft and cause quite a bit of damage. About 200,000 pieces of the space junk are the size of a softball or larger. What should be done?
Read about space debris here.
