This weekend, at Rockland Community College in Suffern, N.Y., the Northeast Astronomy Forum is featuring a special guest! Jimmy Neutron creator John Davis.
I wonder if he drives a Chrysler, too.
Our friends from BigBangPrints will be there as well, among many others. Hope you can make it.
What is that? HFS!! It’s a meteorite!! A 10-ton rock falling from the sky at 20 km/second — that’s 745 miles per hour! Injured 500 people, too.
The Russian Academy of Sciences is referring to it as the “Chelyabinsk Fireball,” weighing 10 tons and with a velocity of up to 20 meters per second.
Сегодня утром в районе города Челябинска было зарегистрировано падение космического тела, вызвавшее яркую световую вспышку и сильную ударную волну.
Сообщается о выбитых стеклах в домах. По нашим оценкам размер тела составлял несколько метров, масса порядка десяти тонн, энергия несколько килотонн. Тело вошло в атмосферу со скоростью 15-20 км/с, разрушилось на высотах 30-50 км, движение фрагментов с большой скоростью вызвало мощное свечение и сильную ударную волну. Основная часть вещества падающего тела испарилась (сгорела), оставшиеся куски затормозились и могли выпасть на землю в виде метеоритов. Обычно суммарная масса найденных метеоритов составляет не больше 1-5% от начальной массы. Основная энергия выделилась на высотах 5-15 км. Тела такого размера падают довольно часто, несколько раз в год, однако обычно сгорают на больших высотах (порядка 30-50 км). Рассматриваемое тело, по-видимому, было очень прочным, возможно железным. Последний раз похожее явление на территории России наблюдалось в 2002 году (Витимский болид). Более точные оценки можно дать после получения всей имеющейся информации.
Wow. Massive. From the AP…
A meteor that scientists estimate weighed 10 tons streaked at supersonic speed over Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday, setting off blasts that injured some 500 people and frightened countless more.
The Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement that the meteor over the Chelyabinsk region entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of at least 33,000 mph and shattered about 18-32 miles above ground.
The fall caused explosions that broke glass over a wide area. The Emergency Ministry says more than 500 people sought treatment after the blasts and that 34 of them were hospitalized.“There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people’s houses to check if they were OK,” said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region.
“We saw a big burst of light then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound,” he told The Associated Press by telephone.
Another Chelyabinsk resident, Valya Kazakov, said some elderly women in his neighborhood started crying out that the world was ending.
Some fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul, the regional governor’s office said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. It was not immediately clear if any people were struck by fragments.The agency also cited military spokesman Yarslavl Roshupkin as saying that a six-meter-wide (20-foot-wide) crater was found in the same area which could be the result of fragments striking the ground.
Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.
Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said that about 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of a roof at a zinc factory had collapsed. There was no immediate clarification of whether the collapse was caused by meteorites or by a shock wave from one of the explosions.Reports conflicted on what exactly happened in the clear skies. A spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry, Irina Rossius, told The Associated Press that there was a meteor shower, but another ministry spokeswoman, Elena Smirnikh, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was a single meteor.
Amateur video broadcast on Russian television showed an object speeding across the sky about 9:20 a.m. local time (0320 GMT), leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
Donald Yeomans, manager of U.S. Near Earth Object Program in California, said he thought the event was probably “an exploding fireball event.”
Pretty awesome of MSNBC to report on the Kepler mission’s discoveries…
Our Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets, and possibly many more, a new study suggests.
“It’s a staggering number, if you think about it,” lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. “Basically there’s one of these planets per star.”
Swift and his colleagues arrived at their estimate after studying a five-planet system called Kepler-32, which lies about 915 light-years from Earth. The five worlds were detected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, which flags the tiny brightness dips caused when exoplanets cross their star’s face from the instrument’s perspective.
It was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal. Good luck finding the abstract.
Hoping some of these images make it to the BigBangPrints.com gallery.
Just in time for the 12-12-12 Concert to benefit Sandy victims, Phil Plait’s piece in Slate suggests the Bon Jovi song…
Oh!
Shot through the heart
And you’re to blame
You give love a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
You give love a bad name (bad name)
Just watch the video from the Hubble folks…
GPS shoes to be commercially available in the U.K and Ireland, enabling tracking of wandering Alzheimer’s patients who wear them.
[SatNews - 10/12/2012]
The Season of Bulgarian TV Shows II from Martin Simeonov on Vimeo.
Intelsat gets agreements with two Bulgarian media companies for transponder services to enable digital terrestrial television and distribution of HD programming.
[SatNews - 10/12/2012]
B612 Foundation Sentinel Special Review Team concludes that the Sentinel Mission implementation plans and mission design and will lead to successful Sentinel mission to find and track Near Earth Asteroids.
[Satellite Today - 10/12/2012]
SpaceX Dragon loses Orbcomm satellite on way to Space Station.
[NewScientist - 10/11/2012]
Astrium successfully completes ASTRA 2F testing in orbit and turns over control to SES.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
Boeing is selected by SES S.A. to build SES-9 Ku-band satellite for DTH to Asia and Indonesia.
[Space Daily - 10/11/2012]
Eutelsat chooses Thales Alenia Space to build the EUTELSAT 8 West B satellite for broadcast over the Middle East and North Africa.
[herald online - 10/11/2012]
Components for fourth, fifth, and sixth Soyuz launches from French Guiana have arrived at the Spaceport.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
Avanti’s $25 million operating loss sends shares down.
[Space News - 10/11/2012]
Russian Federation approves use of Iridium service throughout its territory.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
Marlink commits to completing a maritime VSAT installation within 24 hours.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
DigitalGlobe gets USGIF Industry Intelligence Award for its work with Satellite Sentinel Project, monitoring human rights violations in Sudan and South Sudan using satellite imagery.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
Air Force Space Command commander order Accident Investigation Board to investigate why a Delta IV RL-10B-2 upper stage engine did not perform as expected, even though the GPS IIF satellite was successfully deployed into orbit.
[SatNews - 10/11/2012]
Ariane 5 VA210 flight to orbit EUTELSAT 21B for Eutelsat and Star One C3 for Brazil in November; Soyuz Flight VS03 scheduled for launch October 12 with two European Space Agency GPS satellites.
[Space Ref - 10/10/2012]
Avanti announces that HYLAS 2 is now fully operational and providing coverage across Africa, Caucasia, and the Middle East.
[SatNews - 10/10/2012]
EADS and BAE Systems terminate merger discussions on heels of discussions with several governments about their issues with the merger.
[SatNews - 10/10/2012]
Australian company EM Solutions wins tender with Tokyo based Jepico Corporation to provide Ka-band Satellite on the Move (SOTM) platform to Japanese Government’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.
[SatNews - 10/10/2012]
Azerbaijani Deputy Communications and IT Minister says first Azerbaijani telecommunications satellite Azerspace will be launched in January 2013.
[Trend - 10/09/2012]
ATK gets $50M NASA contract to complete engineering development and risk reduction tests as part of the Advanced Concept Booster Development for the Space Launch System.
[SatNews - 10/09/2012]
Beam Communications installs Inmarsat products IsatDock Pro at Russian Antarctic Polar Station.
[herald online - 10/09/2012]
GeoEye is connected to additional government networks through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
[SatNews - 10/09/2012]
Hughes signs 10-year smart grid satellite connectivity deal with Emtele of Finland.
[Satellite Today - 10/09/2012]
Inmarsat signs long-term alliance with Cisco, enabling it to deliver advanced services over Inmarsat’s new high-throughput satellite broadband network, Global Xpress.
[Market Watch - 10/08/2012]
Indian Space Research Organization plans to launch 58 space missions, among them 33 satellites, by 2017.
[Satellite Today - 10/08/2012]
Inmarsat signs master distribution agreement with Honeywell for GX Aviation services, to bring the service to the business aviation market.
[SatNews - 10/08/2012]
Space Systems/Loral to build EchoStar 8 for Dish Network.
[Satellite Today - 10/08/2012]
New ESA project led by Irish industry puts satellite data to use for monitoring quality of coastal water.
[SatNews - 10/08/2012]
NASA plans space network upgrade for Goddard Space Flight Center to accommodate third generation Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, with launch of TDRS-K scheduled for December.
[Satellite Today - 10/08/2012]
NASA’s Terra satellite observes plume cause by eruption of Shiveluch volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
[SatNews - 10/08/2012]
Two TV market studies show increasing IPTV effect on traditional video, giving satellite TV providers something to think about.
[Satellite Today - 10/08/2012]
NASA TDRS-K satellite under final system checks by Boeing in preparation for December launch.
[phys.org - 10/06/2012]
FCC lets access rules expire that required cable companies to sell local content like sports channels to satellite TV providers.
[Wall Street Journal - 10/05/2012]
Race for gigabit satellite throughput explored in WTA report, “Teleports in a Gigabit World.”
[World Teleport Site - October, 2012]
Satellite industry girds for another likely spectrum battle in 2015.
[Satellite Today - 10/01/2012]
The payload deployment test shown above moves the FalconSAT-7 mission forward, which is scheduled for 2015. Why is this “cubesat” important? It uses diffraction instead of refraction or reflection and it is becoming a real alternate to a large space-based observatory in studying the Sun’s chromosphere — especially in the H-alpha wavelengths.
The cubesat is being developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, among others, including the NRO, DARPA, AFOSR, AFIT, MMA Design and AFRL.
A photon sieve is a novel optical element consisting of a flat opaque sheet with millions of tiny holes. Light passing through these holes is focused in a similar manner to a lens or a mirror. Photon sieves have several key advantages over those more conventional optics:
- Focusing can be achieved from a flat, thin sheet that can be unfurled from a very compact, lightweight package
- Surface quality tolerances are orders of magnitude more relaxed
- The fabrication costs are much lower
The trade-offs include:
- Lower efficiency / loss of light
- Narrow bandwidth giving what are essentially grayscale images
The photon sieve will have the following design parameters:
- 200mm diameter, 400mm focal length, 656.3nm wavelength
- 2.5 billion holes ranging in size from 2-277 microns
- 50% fill factor, 30% focusing efficiency
The telescope has a relatively simple design due to space constraints and has:
- 4 µrad resolution which equates to 600 km at Sun surface
- ~0.1 degree field of view (about a 1/5th of the Sun’s disk)
Clockwise from top left: A 4-inch photon sieve lit by laser light. The focal spot produced. A magnified image of the central 25mm. An image of a resolution chart produced by the sieve. An interferogram of the wavefront that indicates perfect focusing capability.
Europe and China will share data from ocean-monitoring satellites.
[Space News - 08/30/2012]
Twin U.S. satellites rocket into orbit to explore radiation belts and protect planet from solar outbursts.
{R&D Magazine – 08/30/2012]
Defense Weather Systems Directorate celebrates 50 years of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).
[SatNews - 08/30/2012]
Russia’s NPO Molnya Space Design Bureau developing hypersonic unmanned rocket vehicle capable of orbiting satellites.
[Satelllite Today - 08/30/2012]
Vizada is awarded five-year IDIQ contract with funding ceiling of $2.8 billion to provide land, sea, and air SATCOM services to all federal agencies.
[U.S. Politics Today - 08/30/2012]
Thaicom plans for interim satellite to be placed at its 50.5 degree East orbital slot to maintain the location rights.
[Satellite Today - 08/30/2012]
Dish Network urges FCC not to shift its spectrum holdings in the 2GHz band, and to approve rules for using satellite spectrum in terrestrial settings.
[TeleGeography - 08/30/2012]
Globecomm will introduce new business unit, Globecomm Europe, at IBC.
[SatNews - 08/30/2012]
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft to leave giant asteroid Vesta and travel three billion miles in 2 1/2 yeas to dwarf planet Ceres.
[SatNews - 08/30/2012]
Russia to launch two space laboratories within next four years.
[SatNews - 08/30/2012]
Satellite Interference Reduction Group (IRG), Global VSAT Forum (GVF), and Newtec announce number of meetings and initiatives relating to satellite interference at IBC.
[SatNews - 08/29/2012]
Largest public media enterprise in the U.S., Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), installs large set of Newtec M6100 modulators for content distribution as part of upgrade to DVB-S2 and H264, as well as Carrier ID for interference migigation.
[SatNews - 08/29/2012]
ITC deepens local presence in Africa with acquisition of Spidersat.
[Herald Online - 08/29/2012]
SES signs capacity agreement with Romantis, who will use NSS-12 Ku-band capacity to support growing connectivity needs across Russia and Central Asia.
[SatNews - 08/29/2012]
KVH introduces new onboard terminal for its mini-VSAT Broadband service including its breakthrough IP-enabled antenna control unit, CommBox ACU, with IP network and Wi-Fi features.
[SatNews - 08/29/2012]
United Arab Emirates is elected as member of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization Advisory Committee.
[Khaleej Times - 08/28/2012]
MTN Satellite Communications launches MTN Worldwide TV for maritime customers.
[SatNews - 08/28/2012]
Intelsat Mobility offering highlights convergence of FSS and MSS markets.
[Satellite Today - 08/28/2012]
Dish Networks broadens international Internet-based television service to be viewable on PCs and Mac computers.
[Home Media Magazine - 08/28/2012]
C-COM Satellite Systems receives type approval from ViaSat for its iNetVu Ka-75V antenna system, for operation on ViaSat’s Exede professional Ka-band high-capacity satellite service.
[SatNews - 08/28/2012]
Satlink upgrades MCPC platform on AsiaSat 5 satellite to DVB-S2.
[SatNews - 08/28/2012]
Advantech Wireless rolls out new X-, C-band manpack BUCs.
[Satellite Today - 08/28/2012]
EchoStar files patent application for rooftop weather station.
[Satellite Today - 08/27/2012]
Satellite companies look to drones for growth.
[Washington Post - 08/26/2012]
iDirect Government Technologies to provide satellite router board modems to L-3 GCS for Hawkeye III 2.0M VSAT terminals.
[U.S. Politics Today - 08/26/2012]
Eight satellite providers win Custom Satellite Communications Solutions contract awarded by the General Services Administration and the Defense Information Systems Agency for commercial satellite services.
[Space News - 08/24/2012]
Mars Panorama – Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2 in New Mexico
Very cool.
Hope more Mars images become available by our friends at Big Bang Prints soon.
That’s not a very compelling title for a fascinating post. Unless your one of the many astronomers who worked on this new discovery by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory…
Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster, one of the largest objects in the universe, that is breaking several important cosmic records. Observations of the Phoenix cluster with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope, and eight other world-class observatories may force astronomers to rethink how these colossal structures and the galaxies that inhabit them evolve.
Stars are forming in the Phoenix cluster at the highest rate ever observed for the middle of a galaxy cluster. The object also is the most powerful producer of X-rays of any known cluster and among the most massive. The data also suggest the rate of hot gas cooling in the central regions of the cluster is the largest ever observed.
The Phoenix cluster is located about 5.7 billion light years from Earth. It is named not only for the constellation in which it is located, but also for its remarkable properties.
“While galaxies at the center of most clusters may have been dormant for billions of years, the central galaxy in this cluster seems to have come back to life with a new burst of star formation,” said Michael McDonald, a Hubble Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the lead author of a paper appearing in the Aug. 16 issue of the journal Nature. “The mythology of the Phoenix, a bird rising from the dead, is a great way to describe this revived object.”
Like other galaxy clusters, Phoenix contains a vast reservoir of hot gas, which itself holds more normal matter — not dark matter — than all of the galaxies in the cluster combined. This reservoir can be detected only with X-ray telescopes such as Chandra. The prevailing wisdom once had been that this hot gas should cool over time and sink to the galaxy at the center of the cluster, forming huge numbers of stars. However, most galaxy clusters have formed very few stars during the last few billion years. Astronomers think the supermassive black hole in the central galaxy of a cluster pumps energy into the system, preventing cooling of gas from causing a burst of star formation.
Sorry, Euro-hipster communists: the moon landings weren’t faked by the U.S. government. The folks behind the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) recently released images showing the Apollo landings’ flags were still standing, except for Apollo 11. Buzz Aldrin said they knocked it down as they left the Moon’s surface.
From the LROC images it is now certain that the American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11, and it looks like he was correct! The most convincing way to see that the flags are still there, is to view a time series of LROC images taken at different times of day, and watch the shadow circle the flag (see movie below; the flag is just above the LM descent stage).
Some of the images from the Apollo landings are stunning — and for real!
