King's Lynn and District Astronomy Society

Promoting astronomy for all ages across West Norfolk

Archive: Space News

Interesting geology in first detailed images of Pluto

by

Interesting geology on Pluto. Amazing to think we are still discovering what one of our own planets in our solar system looks like!

mh-07-10-15_puto_image_annotated

Image credit: NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html )
Pluto’s Orientation with the Equator and Central Meridian from 10th July 2015.

An annotated image of Pluto indicates features and includes a reference globe showing Pluto’s orientation with the equator and central meridian in bold.

New Horizons is at its closest approach in 3 days time, expect even more detailed images then. You can follow the mission here at this web link to Nasa’s New Horizons website… https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

Thank you Dr Simon Sheridan

by

Thank you to Dr Simon Sheridan for a really interesting talk last evening for his talk on Rosetta – Landing on a Comet from Planning to Reality.

Special thanks to Ray Price for arranging Dr Sheridans visit last night, the talk on the Rosetta and Philae mission was excellent and being able to see and touch the replica pieces to Ptolemy (Philae Lander) and Beagle 2 and also hold a piece of Mars was fantastic.

Dr Sheridan was really nice guy and his willingness to stay and chat for so long after the talk was an unexpected bonus.

Dr Simon Sheridan’s key activities include:

  • Development of the gas handling and processing system on the Ptolemy instrument (Rosetta Lander)
  • The development of miniature mass spectrometers for sub-surface deployment by either low-speed mole or high-speed penetrator devices
  • The development of Carbon Nano Tube devices for use as low power mass spectrometer ionisation sources

Put simply this guy designed the major parts of Ptolemy which will analyse samples from the comet to help us understand what it is and more about the beginnings of our solar system.

You can follow the ESA team on twitter:-
Ptolemy team:  https://twitter.com/Philae_Ptolemy
and the whole ESA Rosetta Team here https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta

Once again a massive thank you to Ray, who unfortunately had to leave early, get well soon.
Clear skies to all.

Mars hills hide Icy past

by

Phlegra Montes southern tip

A complex network of isolated hills, ridges and small basins spanning 1400 km on Mars is thought to hide large quantities of water-ice.Phlegra Montes southern tip

A complex network of isolated hills, ridges and small basins spanning 1400 km on Mars is thought to hide large quantities of water-ice.

Phlegra Montes stretches from the Elysium volcanic region at about 30ºN and deep into the northern lowlands at about 50°N, and is a product of ancient tectonic forces. Its age is estimated to be 3.65–3.91 billion years.

Phlegra Montes in context

ESA’s Mars Express imaged the portion of Phlegra Montes seen here on 8 October 2014. It captures the southernmost tip of the range centred on 31ºN / 160ºE.

Based on radar data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter combined with studies of the region’s geology from other orbiters, scientists believe that extensive glaciers covered this region several hundred million years ago.

And it is thought that ice is still there today, perhaps only 20 m below the surface.

Phlegra Montes southern tip topography

 

 

The tilt of the planet’s polar axis is believed to have varied considerably over time, leading to significantly changing climatic conditions. This allowed the development of glaciers at what are today the mid-latitudes of Mars.
Features visible in the Phlegra Montes mountain range  providing strong evidence for glacial activity include aprons of rocky debris surrounding many of the hills. Similar features are seen in glacial regions on Earth, where material has gradually slumped downhill through the presence of subsurface ice.

You can read more of this article at: ESA

Mysterious Bright Spots Shine on Dwarf Planet Ceres (Photos)

by

ceres-photos-nasa-dawn

Two photos of the dwarf planet Ceres taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on Feb. 12, 2015, from a distance of about 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers). The images have been magnified from their original size. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

 

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will have plenty of mysteries to investigate when it begins orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres next month, as the probe’s latest photos attest.

Dawn’s most recent images of Ceres, taken Feb. 12 at a distance of 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) away, show an abundance of craters on the dwarf planet, as well as numerous bright spots that have scientists baffled.

“As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the wiser,” Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA said in a statement. “We expected to be surprised; we did not expect to be this puzzled.”

The new photos, which have a resolution of 4.9 miles (7.8 km) per pixel, are the sharpest ever taken of Ceres, NASA officials said.

A large, flickering white spot was also visible in photos Dawn took of Ceres last month.

“We can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery,” Dawn mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told Space.com via email at the time

Dawn could clear up the mystery soon. The probe is scheduled to enter orbit around the 590-mile-wide (950 km) Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, on the night of March 5. Dawn will start studying Ceres in earnest six weeks after that; the probe is scheduled to work its way down to its first science orbit on April 23.

The $466 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study the asteroid belt’s two biggest denizens — the protoplanet Vesta, which is 330 miles (530 km) wide, and Ceres. Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, when it departed for Ceres.

Dawn’s observations of these two planetary building blocks should help scientists better understand the solar system’s early days, NASA officials said.

Dawn is scheduled to study Ceres from a variety of orbits through June 2016, when the probe’s mission will come to an end.

Read more and watch a timelapse video at Space.com

Dawn spacecraft begins approach to dwarf planet Ceres

by

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to enter Ceres orbit in March 2015.

Dawn recently emerged from solar conjunction, in which the spacecraft is on the opposite side of the sun, limiting communication with antennas on Earth. Now that Dawn can reliably communicate with Earth again, mission controllers have programmed the maneuvers necessary for the next stage of the rendezvous, which they label the Ceres approach phase. Dawn is currently 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) from Ceres, approaching it at around 450 miles per hour (725 kilometers per hour).

The spacecraft’s arrival at Ceres will mark the first time that a spacecraft has ever orbited two solar system targets. Dawn previously explored the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months, from 2011 to 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body.

This is an excerpt from the full NASA article which you can read more at the following link.

The quest for organic molecules on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G

by

For scientists engaged with large complex projects like Rosetta, there is always a delightful period early on when, unbound by practical realities, it is possible to dream. And so it was that at one time the scientists were thinking about having a lander with the capability to hop around a comet’s surface. In this way it would be possible to make measurements from different parts of the comet.

Interestingly, this unplanned opportunity presented itself on 12 No-vember 2014, when Philae landed not once but three times on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The Ptolemy instrument on Philae is a compact mass spectrometer designed to measure the composition of the materials making up 67P/C-G, with a particular focus on organic molecules and mineral compo-nents. Earlier in 2014, Ptolemy had collected data at distances of 15,000, 13,000, 30, 20, and 10 km from the comet, while Philae was still attached to Rosetta.

This short excerpt is from an ESA blog from the Ptolemy team, you can read more at the following link.