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A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky at the Mont-Tendre near Montricher in the Jura Mountains, north of Geneva, late Tuesday during the Perseid shower. This view was captured with a fisheye lens. Click on the image for a larger version. |
Long after summer vacations are over, the experience lives on in slideshows, photo albums and computerized file folders filled with exotic snapshots. My weeklong vacation in Quebec produced some personal favorites - but the real action was in the skies above, highlighted by the annual Perseid meteor shower. Stunning images also came down from Mars, Saturn and frontiers beyond the solar system. Here's a rundown of the week's visual highlights:
Perseid postmortem
 Bill Cooke / NASA via SpaceWeather.com |
| This composite view of bright Perseid meteors was created using two cameras operated by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center. |
The reports on the Meteorobs discussion forum spanned the spectrum from deep satisfaction to deep disappointment, as usual. Some reported that the viewing was better on Wednesday night (Aug. 12-13) than it was on the traditional peak night (Aug. 11-12). "Perseids made up for their poor Aug. 11-12 showing last night," one observer wrote. "Rates for me were triple the previous night."
Check out SpaceWeather.com's meteor gallery for stunning views of the show. The next highlight for meteor-watchers comes early next week, when the Kappa Cygnid shower is due to peak.
Having a blast on Mars
 NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Ariz. |
| NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided this oblique view of Victoria Crater. Click on the image for a larger view, with Mars rover tracks barely visible on the crater's left edge. |
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera also spotted a Martian dust devil whipping over the planet's surface, and plenty more sights besides. But some of the most intriguing insights came from Opportunity, which is still operating on the Martian surface five and a half years after touching down.
Opportunity came across an iron-nickel meteorite during its travels - and scientists have determined that the watermelon-sized hunk of rock, nicknamed Block Island, couldn't have survived its descent from space unless Mars' atmosphere was thicker than it is today.
"Either Mars has hidden reserves of carbon dioxide ice that can supply large amounts of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere during warm periods of more recent climate cycles, or Block Island fell billions of years ago," rover team member Matt Golombek said in Monday's update about the find.
Season's greetings from Saturn
 NASA / JPL / SSI |
| A picture taken by the Cassini orbiter shortly after Wednesday's equinox on Saturn shows only a thin ring shadow on the planet. Click on the image for more. |
Because Saturn's rings are precisely edge-on with respect to the sun, the rings' shadow almost completely vanishes from the planet's disk. From Earth's perspective, Saturn looks virtually ringless. The seasonal curiosity serves as a scientific opportunity as well: The shadows of objects embedded in the ring plane became incredibly elongated in the weeks leading up to the equinox, revealing weird bumpy features in the rings as well as a previously undetected moonlet. Check out the Cassini imaging team's Web site for the latest images of this magical season.
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, was also in the news this week, thanks to the detection of a tropical storm within its smoggy atmosphere. You can see a picture of the storm, as well as a psychedelic infrared portrait of Saturn and Titan, at the Gemini Observatory's Web site.
A fresh burst of starbirth
 NASA / CXC / PSU / JPL-Caltech / CfA |
| This composite image from the Chandra and Spitzer space telescopes shows the molecular cloud Cepheus B. Click on the image for a larger view. |
The picture shows bursts of starbirth within a cloud of molecular hydrogen known as Cepheus B, and suggests that infant star systems can be "triggered" into existence.
"Astronomers have generally believed that it's somewhat rare for stars and planets to be triggered into formation by radiation from massive stars," Penn State University's Konstantin Getman said in a news release jointly distributed Wednesday by the Spitzer and Chandra teams. "Our new result shows this belief is likely to be wrong."
Getman is the lead author of a study detailing the results, published in the July 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
You can expect more marvels from yet another Great Observatory just after Labor Day, when astronomers are due to release a fresh crop of images from the repaired and upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. The vacation season may be drawing toward a close, but the stunning snapshots from space just keep on coming.
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The Cephus B. shot peaks my interest. The idea that molecular hydrogen happens to congregate in such a way as to become concentrated enough to allow for star formation is mind boggling to me. The idea that these concentrations happen in a chaotic and random way again and again over the age of the galaxy and over such a massive volume of space is amazing.
But hydrogen is just one aspect of a possible solar system birth. You also need the basic elements of the periodic chart up to and including iron to make planets and in sufficient quantity. It would be interesting to know if the cloud includes the dust of planet formation too.
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I hope that Barack Obama and his W.H. experts will NOT believe in what the Augustine Commission will say them, since...
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first of all, the AG hasn't really examined ALL proposals it has received
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I've sent them over a dozen emails and links without receive just ONE answer or feedback!
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that, despite, I've two blogs that talks about Space from four years and are regularly visited weekly by space agencies and aerospace companies, I've contributed to several space and science forums and blogs with (at least) 8000 posts (so far) in four years, I've developed and published dozens suggestions about Space, ESAS and Constellation and, despite, the rocket that will (likely) be used, could be one of which I've designed and published the concept 3.5 years ago:
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http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/005_SLVnow.html
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I'm not alone in saying that, since, on the HSF Facebook Wall page, other have claimed to have send documents and suggestions NEVER taken in consideration by the HSF Committee!
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since I've not received any answer to my email to the HSF, I've posted many ideas, opinions and links on the HSF Facebook Wall page
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well, the (unknown) moderator of the HSF page, has FIRST warned me to send my ideas ONLY through the HSF-email/BLACK-HOLE, then, he has BLOCKED my comment privileges
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but, before and after that, the HSF moderator HASN'T blocked the guys that posted LOTS of propaganda for the Ares-1/5 and (try to imagine...) ..."Direct"... (from the homonymous LOBBY)
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ALL the (7-8) "options" proposed by the AC's "experts" (but, which kind of "experts" are they, if not able to know EXACTLY the right choice?) are WRONG and PRETTY SIMILAR, that, since, the AC looks DEEPLY INFLUENCED by LOBBIES and, with their conclusions (like the big delays to 2019-2028) they JUST want to demonstrate that NASA, contractors and new.space companies need MUCH MORE MONEY (maybe, also the $35 Bn to develop the Ares-1) if the US President did not want to be the one that allowed NASA and USA to be surpassed by China, Russia and India in the new (commercial) "moon-race" (that, however, could happen anyway...)
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there are SEVERAL OTHER options that can be taken in consideration to come back to the Moon or go to Mars, but the AC hasn't discussed proposed them, while, they have discussed and taken in consideration old/wrong designs like the Shuttle-C, crazy and expensive technologies like the "orbital refuel" and things like the RESIZED-Ares-5 called "Direct"... (from the homonymous LOBBY)
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in fact, it's NOT TRUE that $81 Bn in the next ten years are "not enough" to accomplish ALL the orbital and Moon mission planned and it's NOT TRUE that NASA absolutely needs three more billion$ per years to accomplish these missions
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clearly, if NASA will receive more funds will be a very good news (hoping they'll not burn them like the $9 Bn spent in last four years for nothing...) but, $81 Bn (or a slightly higher) budget could be enough just IF the right choices are made and no one further cent is burned in crazy and bad things!
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THESE PICTURES ARE AWESOME. I LOVE TO LOOK AT THE NIGHT SKY, I ALWAYS WATCH THE SPACE STATION GO OVER WHEN IT IS VISIBLE IN AZ. THANKS TO ALL WHO PUT THE SPACE INFO. SO EVERYONE CAN SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS OUT THERE.
(sigh) Gaetano, couldn't you have posted this in a more appropriate thread, instead of going a mile off-topic? (if only because fewer potentially interested eyes will see it, in a pure astronomy story...even I didn't read this until two days after it was put here)
I have no doubt that there will be another Orion/Ares/Constellation/Augustine story on this site, sooner or later.
"...then, he has BLOCKED my comment privileges"
It would not be the first time or place...
Calm down. As you seem to say, you're not the only one being ignored.
Opportunity is going to stay long enough to do a more thorough investigation of Block Island than it did Heat Shield Rock (which is now officially named meteorite Meridiani Planum). I was appalled at the totally cursory examination given HSR and even less study given Zhong Shan and Allan Hills by MER Spirit. Fortunately their is starting to be a growing awareness that there is more to these objects than just chunks of metal. They actually are telling us some things about Mars. For examples:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18294372
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL
&_udi=B6WGF-4K9CCT1-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_
fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c
&_searchStrId=981938812&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google
&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid
=10&md5=adb89905eca957c2e8a380f11b9f0934
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFM.P53A1433A
All of these studies are concerned with using meteorites as recorders of Mars' climatic past. Heat Shield Rock was found to be 'landable' even with just what atmosphere Mars has today (despite certain premature pronouncements to the contrary). But Block Island is roughly 10x the mass of HSR and it is virtually impossible to explain it without a denser atmosphere; it would have pulverized itself on impact.
Oh, and one other thing; the reason Matt G. says "Either Mars has hidden reserves of carbon dioxide ice . . .or Block Island fell billions of years ago" is that it much easier to understand where the gas for a dense Mars atmosphere went, if we assume it existed billions of years ago, then was slowly stripped off by various processes. If it had existed just within the last few milion years, then we don't know where the gas could now be hiding (the ice caps have been show to be almost all water, with just a seasonal coating of winter CO2 frost.)
Frank Glover said... "would not be the first time or place"
it often happens to the persons that say the TRUTH
but, at the end of the story, the truth ALWAYS WINS... :)
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i've been fascinated by space all my life...
just curious when we are going to break out of this technology rut and invest in to serious space travel...A ship that will actually work and not need tons of tank resevoirs on the side of the shuttle..that is so the past..why don't we advance already? what are we waiting for...there are so many worlds out there to discover along with new civilizations.....let alone other beings...we need to evolve and get off this planet.....just my suggestion to who ever is listening....concerned citizen of earth......
there should be an active commitee that involves taking chances to advance our civilization.....trust me, it's a step that needs to be taken REAL soon...
That will unfortunately take some time, I'm afraid, R.L.D. I'd love to see it happen too, but for that to happen there need to be some fundamental breakthroughs made. For one, chemical rockets have pretty much reached the limits of their capability, and yet it still costs tens of thousands of dollars just to boost 1 kg of cargo into low earth orbit. As long as that is true "routine" travel to space (not to mention other planets) will not be possible. One (but by no means the only...) idea is presented in in the next post on this blog. Sure, we could probably squeeze just a little more out of rockets, but what people who scoff at big thinking like the space elevator ignore, is that we don't need just a little more performance; we need a LOT more if people are ever going to go into space in significant numbers (I don't call a few astronauts and zillionaires endlessly circling in LEO "significant").
NASA did, in fact, once have a program specifically for coming up with bold new ideas, and following them up. I can't remember what it was called. I think it was a bad mistake to cancel it a few years ago. No doubt its funding was diverted to pay for a few days worth of ISS life support, or a fraction of a shuttle mission to nowhere.
hope all will be fine