It Looks Like an Asteroid Strike Can’t Cause a Worldwide, Dinosaur-Killing Firestorm

by Nancy Atkinson on January 30, 2015

Computer generated simulation of an asteroid strike on the Earth. Credit: Don Davis/AFP/Getty Images

For decades, scientists have debated the cause of the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and other life 65 million years ago. While the majority of researchers agree that a massive asteroid impact at Chicxulub, Mexico is the culprit, there have been some dissenters. Now, new research is questioning just a portion of the asteroid/Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction scenario. While the scientists involved in the study don’t doubt that such an asteroid impact actually happened, their research shows it is just not possible that vast global firestorms could have ravaged our planet and be the main cause of the extinction.

Researchers from the University of Exeter, University of Edinburgh and Imperial College London recreated the vast energy released from a 15-km wide asteroid slamming into Earth, which occurred around the time that dinosaurs became extinct.
They found that close to the impact site — a 180 km wide crater in Mexico — the heat pulse would have lasted for less than a minute. This intense but short-lived heat, the team says, could not have ignited live plants, challenging the idea that the impact led to global firestorms.
However, they did find that the effects of the impact would actually be worse on the other side of the planet, where less intense but longer periods of heat could have ignited live plant matter.
“By combining computer simulations of the impact with methods from engineering we have been able to recreate the enormous heat of the impact in the laboratory,” said Dr. Claire Belcher from the University of Exeter. “This has shown us that the heat was more likely to severely affect ecosystems a long distance away, such that forests in New Zealand would have had more chance of suffering major wildfires than forests in North America that were close to the impact. This flips our understanding of the effects of the impact on its head and means that palaeontologists may need to look for new clues from fossils found a long way from the impact to better understand the mass extinction event.”
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction was one of the biggest in Earth’s history and geologic evidence of the impact has been discovered in rock layers around the world from this time period. Some critics of the asteroid impact theory as a cause of the extinction have pointed to some of the microfossils from the Gulf of Mexico that show the impact occurred well before the extinction and could not have been its primary cause. Others point to volcanism that produced the Deccan traps of India around this time as a possible cause of the extinction.
But multiple models have showed such an impact would have instantly caused devastating shock waves, tsunamis, and the release of large amounts of dust, debris and gases that would have led to a low light levels and a prolonged cooling of Earth’s surface. The darkness and a global winter would have decimated the planet life and the dependent animals.
So while fire and brimstone may not have played a big role in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, there was plenty of destruction and mayhem for the resulting extinction of more than 70% of known species.

Dawn Captures Best Images Ever of “Hipster Planet” Ceres

by Jason Major on January 27, 2015

Animation of Ceres made from images acquired by Dawn on Jan. 25, 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

This is the second animation from Dawn this year showing Ceres rotating, and at 43 pixels across the images are officially the best ever obtained!
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is now on final approach to the 950 km (590 mile) dwarf planet Ceres, the largest world in the main asteroid belt and the biggest object in the inner Solar System that has yet to be explored closely. And, based on what one Dawn mission scientist has said, Ceres could very well be called the Solar System’s “hipster planet.”

“Ceres is a ‘planet’ that you’ve probably never heard of,” said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “We’re excited to learn all about it with Dawn and share our discoveries with the world.”

Originally classified as a planet, Ceres was later categorized as an asteroid and then reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006 (controversially along with far-flung Pluto.) Ceres was first observed in 1801 by astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi who named the object after the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. (Its orbit would later be calculated by German mathematician Carl Gauss.)

“You may not realize that the word ‘cereal’ comes from the name Ceres,” said Marc Rayman, mission director and chief engineer of the Dawn mission at JPL. “Perhaps you already connected with the dwarf planet at breakfast today.”

Ceres: part of this nutritionally-balanced Solar System!

Comparison of HST and Dawn FC images of Ceres taken nearly 11 years apart. Credit: NASA.

The animation above was made from images taken by Dawn framing camera on January 25, 2015 from a distance of about 237,000 km (147,000 miles). These are now the highest-resolution views to date of the dwarf planet, 30% more detailed than those obtained by Hubble in January 2004.

And there’s that northern white spot again too… seen in observations from earlier this month and in the 2003-04 HST images, scientists still aren’t quite sure what it is. A crater wall? An exposed ice deposit? Something else entirely? We will soon find out.

“We are already seeing areas and details on Ceres popping out that had not been seen before. For instance, there are several dark features in the southern hemisphere that might be craters within a region that is darker overall,” said Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator at JPL.

Full-frame image from Dawn of Ceres on approach, acquired Jan. 25, 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

From now on, every observation of Ceres by Dawn will be the best we’ve ever seen! This new chapter of the spacecraft’s adventure has only just begun.

Dawn is scheduled to arrive at Ceres on March 6.

Why Is Andromeda Coming Towards Us?

Posted Yesterday

I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s a massive galaxy heading our way and will collide with us in a few billion years. But aren’t most galaxies speeding away? Why is Andromeda on a collision course with the Milky Way?

The Andromeda Galaxy will collide with the Milky Way in the future. Credit: Adam Evans

I don’t want to freak you out, but you should be aware that there’s a gigantic galaxy with twice our mass headed right for us. Naw, I’m just kidding. I totally want to freak you out. The Andromeda galaxy is going to slam head first into the Milky Way like it doesn’t even have its eyes on the road.
This collision will tear the structure of our galaxy apart. The two galaxies will coalesce into a new, larger elliptical galaxy, and nothing will ever be the same again, including your insurance premiums. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. It’s like those “don’t text and drive commercials” where they stop time and people get out and have a conversation about their babies and make it clear that selfish murderous teenagers are really ruining everything for all of us all the time.
And now that we know disaster is inbound, all we can do is ask WHY? Why this is even happening? Isn’t the Universe expanding, with galaxies speeding away from us in all directions? Shouldn’t Andromeda be getting further away, and not closer? What the hay, man!
Here’s the thing, the vast majority of galaxies are traveling away from us at tremendous speed. This was the big discovery by Edwin Hubble in 1929. The further away a galaxy is, the faster it’s moving away from us. The most recent calculation by NASA in 2013 put this amount at 70.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec. At a billion light-years away, the expansion of the Universe is carrying galaxies away from us at 22,000 km/s, or about 7% of the speed of light. At 100 million light-years away, that speed is only 2,200 km/s.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s extreme close-up of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Picture released in January 2015. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler

Which actually doesn’t seem like all that much. Is that like Millenium Falcon fast or starship Enterprise Warp 10 fast? Andromeda is only 2.5 million light-years away. Which means that the expansion of the Universe is carrying it away at only 60 kilometers per second. This is clearly not fast enough for our purposes of not getting our living room stirred into the backyard pool. As the strength of gravity between the Milky Way and Andromeda is strong enough to overcome this expansive force. It’s like there’s an invisible gravity rope connecting the two galaxies together. Dragging us to our doom. Curse you, gravity doom rope!
Andromeda is speeding towards us at 110 kilometers per second. Without the expansion of the Universe, I’m sure it would be faster and even more horrifying! It’s the same reason why the Solar System doesn’t get torn apart. The expansion rate of the Universe is infinitesimally small at a local level. It’s only when you reach hundreds of millions of light-years does the expansion take over from gravity.
You can imagine some sweet spot, where a galaxy is falling towards us exactly as fast as it’s being carried away by the expansion of the Universe. It would remain at roughly the same distance and then we can just be friends, and they don’t have to get all up in our biz. If Andromeda starts complaining about being friend-zoned, we’ll give them what-for and begin to re-evaluate our friendship with them, because seriously, no one has time for that.
The discovery of dark energy in 1998 has made this even more complicated. Not only is the Universe expanding, but the speed of expansion is accelerating. Eventually distant galaxies will be moving faster away from us than the speed of light. Only the local galaxies, tied together by gravity will remain visible in the sky, eventually all merging together. Everything else will fall over the cosmic horizon and be lost to us forever.

This annotated artist’s conception illustrates our current understanding of the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. Image Credit: NASA

All things in the Universe are speeding away from us, it’s just that gravity is a much stronger force at local levels. This is why the Solar System holds together, and why Andromeda is moving towards us and in about 4 billion years or so, the Andromeda galaxy is going to slam into the Milky Way.
So, if by chance you only watched the first part of this video, freaked out, sold your possessions and joined some crazy silver jumpsuit doomsday cult, and are now, years later watching the conclusion… you may feel a bit foolish. However, I hope that you at least made some lifelong friendships and got to keep the jumpsuit.
Really, there’s nothing to worry about. Stars are spread so far apart that individual stars won’t actually collide with each other. Even if humanity is still around in another 4 billion years or so, which is when this will all go down. This definitely isn’t something we’ll be concerned with. It’s just like climate change. Best of luck future generations!
What do you think, will humans still be around in 4 billion years to enjoy watching the spectacle of the Milky Way and Andromeda collide?
Source: Universe Today, written by Fraser Cain

Rare Triple Transit! There’ll be 3 Moon Shadows on Jupiter on January 24th, 2015

by David Dickinson on January 20, 2015

The triple shadow transit of October 12th, 2013. Credit & copyright: John Rozakis.

Play the skywatching game long enough, and anything can happen.
Well, nearly anything. One of the more unique clockwork events in our solar system occurs this weekend, when shadows cast by three of Jupiter’s moons can be seen transiting its lofty cloud tops… simultaneously.
How rare is such an event? Well, Jean Meeus calculates 31 triple events involving moons or their shadows occurring over the 60 year span from 1981 to 2040.
But not all are as favorably placed as this weekend’s event. First, Jupiter heads towards opposition just next month. And of the aforementioned 31 events, only 9 are triple shadow transits. Miss this weekend’s event, and you’ll have to wait until March 20^th, 2032 for the next triple shadow transit to occur.

Hubble spies a triple shadow transit on March 28th, 2004 . Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona.

Of course, double shadow transits are much more common throughout the year, and we included some of the best for North America and Europe in 2015 in our 2015 roundup.
The key times when all three shadows can be seen crossing Jupiter’s 45” wide disk are on the morning of Saturday, January 24^th starting at 6:26 Universal Time (UT) as Europa’s shadow ingresses into view, until 6:54 UT when Io’s shadow egresses out of sight. This converts to 1:26 AM EST to 1:54 AM EST. The span of ‘triplicate shadows’ only covers a period of slightly less than 30 minutes, but the action always unfolds fast in the Jovian system with the planet’s 10 hour rotation period.

The view on January 24th at 6:41 UT/1:41 AM EST. Credit: Created using Starry Night Education software.

Unfortunately, the Great Red Spot is predicted to be just out of view when the triple transit occurs, as it crosses Jupiter’s central meridian over three hours later at 10:28 UT.
The moons involved in this weekend’s event are Io, Callisto and Europa. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Seeing three shadows at once is pretty neat, but can you ever see four?
The short answer is no, and the reason has to do with orbital resonance.

The orbital resonance of the three innermost Galilean moons. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

The three innermost Galilean moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa and Ganymede) are locked in a 4:2:1 resonance. Unfortunately, this resonance assures that you’ll always see two of the innermost three crossing the disk of Jupiter, but never all three at once. Either Europa or Ganymede is nearly always the “odd moon out.”
To complete a ‘triple play,’ outermost Callisto must enter the picture. Trouble is, Callisto is the only Galilean moon that can ‘miss’ Jupiter’s disk from our line of sight. We’re lucky to be in an ongoing season of Callisto transits in 2015, a period that ends in July 2016.
Perhaps, on some far off day, a space tourism agency will offer tours to that imaginary vantage point on the surface of one of Jupiter’s moons such as Callisto to watch a triple transit occur from close up. Sign me up!
Jupiter currently rises in late January around 5:30 PM local, and sets after sunrise. It is also well placed for northern hemisphere observers in Leo at a declination 16 degrees north . This weekend’s event favors Europe towards local sunrise and ‘Jupiter-set,’ and finds the gas giant world well-placed high in the sky for all of North America in the early morning hours of the 24^th.

Jupiter rides high to the south at 1:45 AM EST for the US East Coast. Credit: Stellarium.

Look closely. Do the shadows of the individual moons appear different to you at the eyepiece? It’s interesting to note during a multiple transit that not all Jovian moon shadows are ‘created equal’. Distant Callisto casts a shadow that’s broad, with a ragged gray and diffuse rim, while the shadow of innermost Io appears as an inky black punch-hole dot. If you didn’t know better, you’d think those alien monoliths were busy consuming Jupiter in a scene straight out of the movie 2010.  Try sketching multiple shadow transits and you’ll soon find that you can actually identify which moon is casting a shadow just from its appearance alone.

The orientation of Earth’s nighttime shadow at mid-triple transit. Credit: Created using Orbitron.

Other mysteries of the Galilean moons persist as well. Why did late 19^th century observers describe them as egg-shaped? Can visual observers tease out such elusive phenomena as eruptions on Io by measuring its anomalous brightening? I still think it’s amazing that webcam imagers can now actually pry out surface detail from the Galilean moons!

The 2004 triple shadow transit. Photo by author.

Observing and imaging a shadow transit is easy using a homemade planetary webcam. We’d love to see someone produce a high quality animation of the upcoming triple shadow transit. I know that such high tech processing abilities — to include field de-rotation and convolution mapping of the Jovian sphere — are indeed out there… its breathtaking to imagine just how quickly the fledgling field of ad hoc planetary webcam imaging has changed in just 10 years.
The moons and Jupiter itself also cast shadows off to one side of the planet or the other depending on our current vantage point. We call the point when Jupiter sits 90 degrees east or west of the Sun quadrature, and the point when it rises and sets opposite to the Sun is known as opposition.  Opposition for Jupiter is coming right up for 2015 on February 6^th. During opposition, Jupiter and its moons cast their respective shadows nearly straight back.
Did you know: the speed of light was first deduced by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer in 1671 using the discrepancy he noted while predicting phenomena of the Galilean moons at quadrature versus opposition. There were also early ideas to use the positions of the Galilean moons to tell time at sea, but it turned out to be hard enough to see the moons and their shadows with a small telescope based on land, let alone from the pitching deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean.
And speaking of mutual events, we’re still in the midst of a season where it’s possible to see the moons of Jupiter eclipse and occult one another. Check out the USNO’s table for a complete list of events, coming to a sky near you.
And let’s not forget that NASA’s Juno spacecraft is headed towards Jupiter as well., Juno is set to enter a wide swooping orbit around the largest planet in the solar system in July 2016.
Now is a great time to get out and explore Jove… don’t miss this weekend’s triple shadow transit!

What Other Worlds Have We Landed On?

by Elizabeth Howell on January 13, 2015

As of November 2014, these are most of the planetary, lunar and small body surfaces where humanity has done “soft landings” or lived. Click for a larger version. Composition by Mike Malaska, updated by Michiel Straathof. Image credits: Comet 67P/C-G [Rosetta/Philae]: ESA / Rosetta / Philae / CIVA / Michiel Straathof. Asteroid Itokawa [Hayabusa]: ISAS / JAXA / Gordan Ugarkovic. Moon [Apollo 17]: NASA. Venus [Venera 14]: IKI / Don Mitchell / Ted Stryk / Mike Malaska. Mars [Mars Exploration Rover Spirit]: NASA / JPL / Cornell / Mike Malaska. Titan [Cassini-Huygens]: ESA / NASA / JPL / University of Arizona. Earth: Mike Malaska

Think of all the different horizons humans have viewed on other worlds. The dust-filled skies of Mars. The Moon’s inky darkness. Titan’s orange haze. These are just a small subset of the worlds that humans or our robots landed on since the Space Age began.
It’s a mighty tribute to human imagination and engineering that we’ve managed to get to all these places, from moons to planets to comets and asteroids. By the way, for the most part we are going to focus on “soft landings” rather than impacts — so, for example, we wouldn’t count Galileo’s death plunge into Jupiter in 2003, or the series of planned landers on Mars that ended up crashing instead.

The Moon

Al Shepard raises the American flag during Apollo 14 in February 1971. Below is the shadow of his crewmate, Ed Mitchell. Credit: NASA

Our instant first association with landings on other worlds is the human landings on the Moon. While it looms large in NASA folklore, the Apollo landings only took place in a brief span of space history. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first crew (on Apollo 11) to make a sortie in 1969, and Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt made the final set of moonwalks in 1972. (Read more: How Many People Have Walked on the Moon?)
But don’t forget all the robotic surveyors that came before and after. In 1959, the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 made the first impact on the lunar surface; the first soft landing came in 1966, with Luna 9. The United States set a series of Ranger and Surveyor probes to reach the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. The Soviet Union also deployed a rover on the moon, Lunakhod 1, in 1970 — the first remote-controlled robot controlled on another world’s surface.
In 2013, China made the first lunar soft landing in a generation. The country’s Chang’e-3 not only made it safely, but deployed the Yutu rover shortly afterwards.
Mars

Sojourner – NASA’s 1st Mars Rover. Rover takes an Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement of Yogi rock after Red Planet landing on July 4, 1997 landing. Credit: NASA

Mars is a popular destination for spacecraft, but only a fraction of those machines that tried to get there actually safely made it to the surface. The first successful soft landing came on Dec. 2, 1971 when the Soviet Union’s Mars 3 made it to the surface. The spacecraft, however, only transmitted for 20 seconds — perhaps due to dust storms on the planet’s surface.
Less than five years later, on July 20, 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 touched down on Chryse Planitia. This was quickly followed by its twin Viking 2 in September. NASA has actually made all the other soft landings to date, and expanded its exploration by using rovers to move around on the surface. The first one was Sojourner, a rover that rolled off the Pathfinder lander in 1997.
NASA also sent a pair of Mars Exploration Rovers in 2004. Spirit transmitted information back to Earth until 2010, while Opportunity is still roaming the surface. The more massive Curiosity lander followed them in 2012. Another stationary spacecraft, Phoenix, successfully landed close to the planet’s north pole in 2008.
Venus

Surface of Venus by Venera.

Venera 7 — one of a series of Soviet probes sent in the 1960s and 1970s — was the first to make it to the surface of Venus and send data back, on Dec. 15, 1970. It lasted 23 minutes on the surface, transmitting weakly towards Earth. This may have been because it came to rest on its side after bouncing through a landing.
The first pictures of the surface came courtesy of Venera 9, which made it to Venus on Oct. 22, 1975 and sent data back for 53 minutes. Venera 10 also successfully landed three days later and sent back data from Venus as planned. Several other Venera probes followed, most notably including Venera 13 — which sent back the first color images and remained active for 127 minutes.
Titan

Artist depiction of Huygens landing on Titan. Credit: ESA

Humanity’s first and only landing on Titan so far came on Jan. 14, 2005. The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe likely didn’t come to rest right away when it arrived on the surface, bouncing and skidding for about 10 seconds after landing, an analysis showed almost a decade later.

A fish-eye view of Titan’s surface from the European Space Agency’s Huygens lander in January 2005. Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The probe managed to send back information all the way through its 2.5-hour descent, and continued transmitting data for an hour and 12 minutes after landing. Besides the pictures, it also sent back information about the moon’s wind and surface.
The orangey moon of Saturn has come under scrutiny because it is believed to have elements in its atmosphere and on its surface that are precursors to life. It also has lakes of ethane and methane on its surface, showing that it has a liquid cycle similar to our own planet.
Comets and asteroids

Images from the Rosetta spacecraft show Philae drifting across the surface of its target comet during landing Nov. 12, 2014. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Robots have also touched the ground on smaller, airless bodies in our Solar System — specifically, a comet and two asteroids. NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker made the first landing on asteroid Eros on Feb. 12, 2001, even though the spacecraft wasn’t even designed to do so. While no images were sent back from the surface, it did transmit data successfully for more than two weeks.
Japan made its first landing on an extraterrestrial surface on Nov. 19, 2005, when the Hayabusa spacecraft successfully touched down on asteroid Itokawa. (This followed a failed attempt to send a small hopper/lander, called Minerva, from Hayabusa on Nov. 12.) Incredibly, Hayabusa not only made it to the surface, but took off again to return the samples to Earth — a feat it accomplished successfully in 2010.
The first comet landing came on Nov. 12, 2014 when the European Space Agency’s Philae lander successfully separated from the Rosetta orbiter and touched the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Philae’s harpoons failed to deploy as planned and the lander drifted for more than two hours from its planned landing site until it stopped in a relatively shady spot on the comet’s surface. Its batteries drained after a few days and the probe fell silent. As of early 2015, controllers are hoping that as more sunlight reaches 67P by mid-year, Philae will wake up again.

Here’s a Fresh, Never Before Seen Impact Crater on Mars

by Fraser Cain on January 9, 2015

Impact crater on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

The surface of Mars is a well worn place in the Solar System, heavily pounded by countless meteor impacts. And some of these craters are hundreds of millions of years old. So it’s unusual for there to be a completely fresh impact on the surface of Mars: but that’s just what NASA scientists discovered looking through a recent batch of images returned from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
You’re looking at an image taken by the Mars Context Camera, an instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In an older photograph taken of the region in February 2012, there was just a bunch of old craters. And then, in the newer image, taken June 2014, this fresh scar on the surface of Mars is clearly visible.

No crater… then crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

The crater itself is circular, but the blast of ejecta indicates that the object came in from the West, and struck the surface of Mars, blasting out a curtain of pulverized rock that covered the nearby surface. The impactor would have vaporized into a fireball of superheated rock, like a nuclear bomb exploding on the surface of Mars, while the eject blanket was shot out to the side.
This isn’t the first time spacecraft have detected new craters on Mars. In fact, the largest new crater discovered was half the length of a football field. And so far, researchers have turned up more than 400 new craters on the surface of Mars.
The Mars Context Camera has completely imaged the entire surface of Mars at least once during its 7-year mission. And with multiple passes, planetary scientists are starting to build up a picture of how the dynamic the surface of Mars can really be.

Largest new crater ever discovered. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

And of course, planetary scientists have discovered fresh craters on other locations in the Solar System. NASA’s Lunar Impact Monitoring Program turned up a bright meteoroid impact on March 17, 2013, and follow on observations by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned up the impact location. The monitoring program has actually turned up more than 300 impacts so far. So if you’re walking around on the Moon, watch your head.

Bright impact flash made by a foot-wide rock that struck the moon on March 17, 2013. The moon was a crescent in the evening sky at the time. The impact occurred in the dark, earthlit part of the moon away from the sun-lit crescent. Credit: NASA

Left: Fresh material brought to the surface makes the new 59-foot-wide crater look like it was spray painted white. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University. Right: The meteoroid strike occurred near the familiar crater Copernicus in the Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium). Credit: Bob King

Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Student Scientists Get Second Chance to Fly Experiments to ISS Aboard Falcon 9 After Antares Loss

by Ken Kremer on January 6, 2015

Student Space Flight teams at NASA Wallops – Will Refly on SpaceX CRS 5
Science experiments from these students representing 18 school communities across America were selected to fly aboard the Orbital Sciences Cygnus Orb-3 spacecraft bound for the ISS and which were lost when the rocket exploded uexpectedly after launch from NASA Wallops, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014, as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). The students pose here with SSEP program director Dr. Jeff Goldstein prior to Antares launch. The experiments will be re-flown aboard SpaceX CRS-5. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

When it comes to science and space exploration, you have to get accustomed to a mix of success and failure.
If you’re wise you learn from failure and turn adversity around into a future success.
Such is the case for the resilient student scientists who learned a hard lesson of life at a young age when the space science experiments they poured their hearts and souls into for the chance of a lifetime to launch research investigations aboard the Antares rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS) on the Orb-3 mission, incomprehensibly exploded in flames before their eyes on Oct. 28, 2014.
Those student researchers from across America are being given a second chance and will have their reconstituted experiments re-flown on the impending SpaceX CRS-5 mission launch, thanks to the tireless efforts of NASA, NanoRacks, CASIS, SpaceX and the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) which runs the program.
The SpaceX CRS-5 launch on the Falcon 9 rocket planned for this morning, Jan. 6, was scrubbed with a minute to go for technical reasons and has been reset to no earlier than Jan. 9.

SSEP Director Dr. Jeff Goldstein shows a NanoRacks Mix-Stix tube used by the student investigations on the NanoRacks/Student Spaceflight Experiments Program -Yankee Clipper mission during presentation at NASA Wallops prior to Oct. 28 Antares launch failure. 17 of 18 experiments will re-fly on SpaceX CRS-5 launch. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

The experiments are known collectively as the ‘Yankee Clipper’ mission.
Antares Orb-3 was destroyed shortly after the exhilarating blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia shore.
Everything aboard the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket and ‘the SS Deke Slayton’ Cygnus cargo freighter was lost, including all the NASA supplies and research as well as the student investigations.

First stage propulsion system at base of Orbital Sciences Antares rocket appears to explode moments after blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014, at 6:22 p.m. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

“The student program represents 18 experiments flying as the Yankee Clipper,” said Dr. Jeff Goldstein, in an interview with Universe Today at NASA Wallops prior to the Antares launch. Goldstein is director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, which oversees SSEP in partnership with NanoRacks LLC.
“Altogether 8 communities sent delegations. 41 student researchers were at NASA Wallops for the launch and SSEP media briefing.”
“The 18 experiments flying as the SSEP Yankee Clipper payload reflect the 18 communities participating in Mission 6 to ISS.”
“The communities represent grade 5 to 16 schools from all across America including Washington, DC; Kalamazoo, MI; Berkeley Heights and Ocean City, NJ; Colleton County and North Charleston, SC, and Knox County and Somerville, TN.”
Goldstein explains that within days of the launch failure, efforts were in progress to re-fly the experiments.
“Failure happens in science and what we do in the face of that failure defines who we are,” said Goldstein, “NASA and NanoRacks moved mountains to get us on the next launch, SpaceX CRS-5. We faced an insanely tight turnaround, but all the student teams stepped up to the plate.”
Even the NASA Administrator Charles Bolden lauded the students efforts and perseverance!
“I try to teach students, when I speak to them, not to be afraid of failure. An elementary school student once told me, when I asked for a definition of success, that ‘success is taking failure and turning it inside out.’ It is important that we rebound, learn from these events and try again — and that’s a great lesson for students,” said NASA Administrator Bolden.
“I am delighted that most of the students will get to see their investigations re-flown on the SpaceX mission. Perseverance is a critical skill in science and the space business.”
Virtually all of the experiments have been reconstituted to fly on the CRS-5 mission, also known as SpaceX-5.
“17 of the 18 student experiments lost on Orb-3 on October 28 are re-flying on SpaceX-5. These experiments comprise the reconstituted Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Yankee Clipper II payload for SSEP Mission 6 to ISS,” noted Goldstein.
“This shows the resilience of the federal-private partnership in commercial space, and of the commitment by our next generation of scientists and engineers.”
TThe wide range of experiments include microgravity investigations on how fluids act and form into crystals in the absence of gravity crystal growth, mosquito larvae development, milk expiration, baby bloodsuckers, development of Chrysanthemum and soybean seeds and Chia plants, effect of yeast cell division and implications for human cancer cells, and an examination of hydroponics.

Student experiments are aboard. Bearing the CRS-5 Dragon cargo craft within its nose, the Falcon 9 v1.1 stands patiently to execute the United States’ first mission of 2015. Photo Credit: Mike Killian/AmericaSpace

That dark day in October witnessed by the students, Goldstein, myself as a fellow scientist, and others is something we will never forget. We all chose to learn from the failure and move forward to greater accomplishments.
Don’t surrender to failure. And don’t give in to the ‘Do Nothing – Can’t Do’ crowd so prevalent today.
Remember what President Kennedy during his address at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Finding Lovejoy: How to Follow the Path of Comet 2014 Q2 Through January

by David Dickinson on January 2, 2015

A splendid capture of comet Q2 Lovejoy as it passes near M79 at the end of 2014. Credit and copyright: Andre van der Hoeven.

Have you seen the amazing pics? A bright comet graces evening skies this month, assuring that 2015 is already on track to be a great year for astronomy.
We’re talking about Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy. Discovered by comet hunter extraordinaire Terry Lovejoy on August 17^th, 2014, this denizen of the Oort Cloud has already wowed observers as it approaches its passage perihelion through the inner solar system in the coming week.
First, our story thus far. We’ve been following all Comet Q2 Lovejoy action pretty closely here at Universe Today, from its surreptitious brightening ahead of schedule, to its recent tail disconnection event, to its photogenic passage past the +8.6 magnitude globular cluster Messier 79 (M79) in the constellation Lepus. We also continue to be routinely blown away by reader photos of the comet. And, like the Hare for which Lepus is named, Q2 Lovejoy is now racing rapidly northward, passing into the rambling constellation of Eridanus the River before entering the realm of Taurus the Bull on January 9^th and later crossing the ecliptic plane in Aries.

The path of Comet Q2 Lovejoy from January 2nd to the 31st. Ticks mark the position of the comet at 7PM EST/midnight Universal Time. Credit: Created using Starry Night Education software.

And the best window of opportunity for spying the comet is coming right up. We recently caught our first sight of Q2 Lovejoy a few evenings ago with our trusty Canon 15x 45 image-stabilized binocs from Mapleton, Maine.  Even as seen from latitude 47 degrees north and a frosty -23 Celsius (-10 Fahrenheit) — a far cry from our usual Florida based perspective — the comet was an easy catch as a bright fuzz ball. Q2 Lovejoy was just outside of naked eye visibility for us this week, though I suspect that this will change as the Moon moves out of the evening picture this weekend.
Currently shining at magnitude +5.5, Comet Q2 Lovejoy has already been spied by eagle-eyed observers unaided from dark sky sites to the south. Astrophotographers have revealed its long majestic dust and ion tails, as well as the greenish hue characteristic of bright comets. That green color isn’t kryptonite, but the fluorescing of diatomic carbon and cyanogen gas shed by the comet as it’s struck by ultraviolet sunlight. This greenish color is far more apparent in photographs, though it might just be glimpsed visually if the intrinsic brightness of the coma exceeds expectations. Q2 Lovejoy just passed opposition at 0.48 AU from the Earth today on January 2^nd, and will make its closest passage from our fair world on January 7th at 0.47 AU (43.6 million kilometres) distant.

Comet Q2 Lovejoy via Iphone (!) and a NexStra 8SE telescope. Credit and copyright: Andrew Symes.

What’s so special about the coming week? Well, we also cross a key milestone for evening observing, as the light-polluting Moon reaches Full phase on Sunday January 5^th at 4:54 UT (11:54 PM EDT on the 4^th) and begins sliding out of the evening sky on successive evenings. That’s good news, as Comet Q2 Lovejoy enters the “prime time” evening sky and culminates over the southern horizon at around 10:30 PM local this weekend, then 8:00 PM on January the 15^th, and just before 6:00 PM by January 31^st.
While many comets put on difficult to observe dusk or dawn appearances — the 2013 apparition of another comet, C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS comes to mind — Q2 Lovejoy is well placed this month in the early evening hours.
The current projected peak brightness for Comet Q2 Lovejoy is +4th magnitude right around mid-January. Already, the comet is bright enough and well-placed to the south for northern hemisphere observers that it’s possible to catch astrophotos of the comet along with foreground objects. If you’ve got a tripod mounted DSLR give it a try… it’s as simple as aiming, focusing manually with a wide field of view, and taking 10 to 30 second exposures to see what turns up. Longer shots will call for sky tracking via a barn-door or motorized mount. Binoculars are you friend in your comet-hunting quest, as they can be readily deployed in sub-zero January temps and provide a generous field of view.
Q2 Lovejoy will also pass near the open clusters of the Hyades and the Pleiades through mid-January, and cross into the constellations of Aries and Triangulum by late January before heading northward to pass between the famous Double Cluster in Perseus and the Andromeda Galaxy M31 in February, proving further photo ops.

A comet hung up among the winter trees… Credit and Copyright: Per/Kam75

From there, Q2 Lovejoy is expected to drop below naked eye visibility in late February before passing very near the North Star Polaris and the northern celestial pole at the end of May on its way out of the inner solar system on its 8,000 year journey.
So, although 2014 didn’t produce the touted “comet of the century,” 2015 is already getting off to a pretty good start in terms of comets. We’re out looking nearly every clear night, and the next “big one” could always drop by at anytime… but hopefully, the first discovery baring the name “Comet Dickinson” will merely put on a spectacular show, and not prove to be an extinction level event…

A green New Year’s Eve comet. Credit and Copyright: Roger Hutchinson.