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Results tagged “telescopes” from Breaking Orbit

NASA Crashes the Moon Tomorrow Morning

Posted on October 8, 2009 | 1 Comments

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By James Robertson, National Geographic Digital Media

One of the coolest-sounding missions launched by NASA comes to an explosive end tomorrow morning.  The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (or LCROSS) will smash into the moon at about 4:30 a.m. PST (7:30 a.m. EST), followed by another impact four minutes later. (Read the National Geographic News preview NASA Moon "Bombings" Tomorrow: Sky Show, Water Expected.)

The first stage of the LCROSS is designed to kick up a huge plume of dust in the permanently dark Cabeus crater at the south pole of the moon. The second stage contains scientific equipment to collect the dust and determine if it contains water ice, before crashing into the moon itself and causing a purely gratuitous explosion. 

According to the mission's NASA page, amateur astronomers with a 10 to 12-inch telescope should be able to see the dust plumes created by the impacts.

If you don't have a telescope, you can watch the camera footage from the satellite and mission control at the Newseum in Washington, DC, at a special watch party on their 40-foot high video wall, at other locations around the world, or on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html.

You will also be able to watch video and read about the mission afterward on National Geographic News.

If water ice is found in the dust, it would confirm findings of water and hydroxyl molecules by NASA instruments aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft launched about a year ago.

Disclosure: James Robertson is a consultant for the Newseum.


"Galileo" Helps Celebrate the Smithsonian's Newest Acquisition

Posted on September 30, 2009 | 1 Comments

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Aristotle was wrong—just ask Galileo's ghost.

The 17th-century Italian was on hand today to witness the official opening of the National Air and Space Museum's Public Observatory, a new 22-foot (6.7-meter) dome housing a more than 40-year-old telescope.

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"Galileo" and David DeVorkin stargaze in front of the observatory's dome.
—Photograph by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

The 16-inch (40-centimeter) Boller and Chivens telescope is an artifact on loan from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, once a feature of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., but now based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The telescope had been purchased in 1966 and used for research at Harvard's Oak Ridge Observatory, about 30 to 40 miles (48 to 64 kilometers) from Cambridge.

When Oak Ridge closed in 2005, the museum's senior space historian, David DeVorkin, had an idea: Bring the historic telescope to the Mall, but don't put it in a display case. Instead, make it available for public use.

Starting today, museum visitors can head over to the East Terrace Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and see like an astronomer. And yes, it is entirely possible to closely examine the sun (with special filters), the moon, and several of the brighter stars, planets, and nebulae during broad daylight.

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—Photograph by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Like a Mauna Kea dome in miniature, the new facility has a rotating top and a sliding door in the ceiling to protect the telescope from the elements. FYI, if you're there on a cloudy or rainy day, you won't be able to use the observatory.

Overall, the project makes for a nice complement to the museum's collections, since it should help the museum's seven million annual visitors gain first-hand understandings of the science presented inside the building, noted museum director General John R. "Jack" Dailey.

"The observatory will enable us to share our mission in an interactive way," Dailey told reporters at this morning's unveiling ceremony.

And Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, called the telescope a "key element" in the museum's education mission, "since it is so physical, so dramatic."

Speaking of drama, one of the highlights of the ceremony was DeVorkin's speech, which was interrupted by an unnamed actor portraying Galileo.

In a re-enactment of many an astronomer's dream interview, DeVorkin plied Galileo for information about his famous first glimpses of the heavens 400 years ago and how he came to his now celebrated conclusions about what revolves around what.

Contrary to the then-beloved teachings of Greek philosopher Aristotle, "the heavens are not perfect," Galileo told the crowd. Just look at the orb of the moon. Its seemingly smooth face is actually littered with valleys and mountains [really impact craters, later astronomers figured out].

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The moon's pockmarked surface is clearly visible in a picture taken August 3 with a Meade Lunar and Planetary Imager mounted on the Public Observatory's telescope.
—Photograph courtesy Smithsonian Public Observatory Project

"And have you looked at the little ears on Saturn?" Galileo asked. Or at Jupiter, which has four distinct spheres in its orbit? If something is rotating around Jupiter, that means not all things in the heavens revolve around Earth!

Galileo published some of these initial findings in 1610 in Sidereus Nuncius, the first scientific "paper" based on telescopic astronomy.

A first edition of this publication is also on display for the next three months at Air and Space, safely ensconced inside the museum's "Explore the Universe" gallery.

Biggest Star Party in the Universe

Posted on February 4, 2009 | 0 Comments

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The following is a guest post from Anne Minard, an accomplished writer and fellow space geek. Anne writes for NatGeo News a bunch and has even written a whole book [and a good one, too] on poor demoted Pluto.

Like what you read? Check out more of Anne's blogginess at 100 Days of Science.

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—Left image courtesy Sloan Digital Sky Survey; center image courtesy National Radio Astronomy Observatory; right image courtesy Plateau de Bure Interferometer

A massive galaxy at the edge of the known universe harbors the largest and most intense star factory astronomers have ever seen.

And it sounds like an incredible setting for a Wii space flight game.

Fabian Walter, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, led a research team that glimpsed the galaxy, whimsically named SDSS J1148+5251, with the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France. Their results are out in this week's issue of Nature.

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Jupiter Drops Its Belt, Gets "Grounded"

Posted on October 2, 2008 | 0 Comments

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The tug-of-war between space-based and ground-based telescopes continues, with today's release of what's being called the sharpest full-planet image of Jupiter taken by an on-the-ground observatory.

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—Image courtesy ESO

[versus]

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Jupiter, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2007
—Image courtesy NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

An international team used the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile to stare right at Jupiter for almost two hours straight.

The resulting infrared image revealed that Jupiter has lowered its belt. The bulk of the haze within the bight band around Jupiter's midsection has migrated south by more than 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) since 2005, the researchers said.

"The change we see in the haze could be related to big changes in cloud patterns associated with last year's planet-wide upheaval, but we need to look at more data to narrow down precisely when the changes occurred," team member Mike Wong said in a press release.

[Incidentally, the global upheaval he's referring to involved massive changes in cloud patterns and other wild weather features observed in 2007.]

In an interview with NatGeo News reporter Richard A. Lovett, lead researcher Franck Marchis, a planetary astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, and the SETI Institute, said of the new image: "We have something comparable to or even better than the Hubble Space Telescope."

Wow. But this isn't the first time researchers using ground-based 'scopes have compared their work to products of the aging but much beloved Hubble.

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About This Blog

The moon
From dwarf planets to hot Jupiters, join NatGeo News space and tech editor Victoria Jaggard in a global discussion about all things extraterrestrial.


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