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 UC Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HRCO). Image credit: Gary Crabbe Photographer Gary Crabbe captured this beautiful image of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California. Here’s what Gary had to say about the photograph: I was working on a book project about California history and traveling between locations in Northern California. I’ve always been an armchair astronomy and cosmology buff, so when by chance I whizzed by the sign that said something like UC Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HRCO) at 55 MPH, I knew immediately what it was. I made a quick U-Turn and followed the signs to the entrance to the Observatory. I was delighted to see that the public was welcomed to take self-guided tours on limited daytime hours M-F, or by special arrangement.
I highly recommend you check out Gary’s website and see the rest of his beautiful photographs.
© Fraser for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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 Artist's impression of the Solar Nebula. Image credit: NASA It has been known for several years that stars hosting planets are generally more rich in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, known in astronomy as “metals”. These heavy elements help to form the cores of the forming planets and accelerate the formation process. However, a new study has helped to suggest that the opposite may also be true: Planets may make their host stars less metal rich than they should otherwise be. (...)
Read the rest of Do Planets Rob Their Stars of Metals? (423 words)
© jvois for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Extrasolar Planets
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 Dawn snaps First Full-Frame Image of Asteroid Vesta
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on July 24, 2011. It was taken from a distance of about 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers). Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 15, and will spend a year orbiting the body. The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The framing cameras were built by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA NASA has just released the first full frame images of Vesta- and they are thrilling! The new images unveil Vesta as a real world with extraordinarily varied surface details and in crispy clear high resolution for the first time in human history. Vesta appears totally alien and completely unique. "It is one of the last major uncharted worlds in our solar system," says Dr. Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Now that we are in orbit we can see that it’s a unique and fascinating place.” “We have been calling Vesta the smallest terrestrial planet,” said Chris Russell, Dawn’s principal investigator at the UCLA.(...)
Read the rest of NASA Unveils Thrilling First Full Frame Images of Vesta from Dawn (434 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 1 Ceres, 4 vesta, Asteroids, Dawn Asteroid Orbiter, Dawn mission, Detla II rocket, DLR, Juno mission, Jupiter, Main Asteroid Belt, Max Planck Inbstitue for Solar System Research, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Meteorites, NASA, protoplanets
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 Following the space program is an exhausting business - but if done consistently it can provide a journalist with a wealth of material that will help tell the drama that is the space flight story. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. – As one might imagine covering the space program is a exciting vocation. Some professionals focus on writing articles or taking pictures others work with television stations or online media outlets to provide video and commentary. I have selected to attempt to do all of the above. This can be rather challenging. During the final launch of Atlantis for example, I conducted interviews with a variety of guests up until the launch, from there I operated two camcorders and a DSLR camera (for stills).(...) Read the rest of Chasing Rockets, Chasing History: One Journalist’s Video Reflections (604 words)
© Jason Rhian for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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 Barringer Crater, also known as Meteor Crater, in Arizona. This crater was formed around 50,000 years ago by the impact of a nickel-iron meteorite. Near the top of the image, the visitors center, complete with tour buses on the parking lot, provides a sense of scale. Credit: National Map Seamless Viewer/US Geological Service From a Max Planck Institute for Astronomy press release: Is the Earth more likely or less likely to be hit by an asteroid or comet now as compared to, say, 20 million years ago? Several studies have claimed to have found periodic variations, with the probability of giant impacts increasing and decreasing in a regular pattern. Now a new analysis by Coryn Bailer-Jones from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), published in the Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows those simple periodic patterns to be statistical artifacts. His results indicate either that the Earth is as likely to suffer a major impact now as it was in the past, or that there has been a slight increase impact rate events over the past 250 million years. The results also lay to rest the idea of the existence of an as-yet undetected companion star to the Sun, dubbed "Nemesis."
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Read the rest of New Impact Rate Count Lays Nemesis Theory to Rest (613 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Asteroids, Comets, Impact Rate, Nemesis
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 This is the portion of sky in which astronomers found the Segue 1 dwarf galaxy. Can you see it? Credit: Marla Geha Two years ago, Marla Geha, a Yale University astronomer, Joshua Simon from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and their colleagues discovered something unusual while studying with the Keck II telescope and information for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Their observations turned up a contrasting group of stars which all appeared to be moving in unison – not just a moving cluster of similar stars which could have been torn away from the nearby Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. The team knew they were on to something, but a competing group of astronomers at Cambridge University was skeptical. Too bad… there was a dark treasure right there before their eyes. (...)
Read the rest of Alone In The Dark? (658 words)
© tammy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dark Galaxy, Dark Matter, Deep Extragalactic Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS), Keck II, Moving Stellar Groups, Segue 1
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 Hoisting Solar Powered Juno atop most powerful Atlas Rocket
At Space Launch Complex 41, a crane is lowered over the nose of the Atlas payload fairing enclosing the Juno spacecraft in preparation for its lift to the top of the Atlas rocket stacked in the Vertical Integration Facility. Juno is scheduled to launch Aug. 5 aboard the most powerful ever United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston In less than one week's time, NASA's $1.1 Billion Juno probe will blast off on the most powerful Atlas V rocket ever built and embark on a five year cruise to Jupiter where it will seek to elucidate the mysteries of the birth and evolution of our solar system's largest planet and how that knowledge applies to the remaining planets. The stage was set for Juno's liftoff on August 5 at 11:34 a.m. after the solar-powered spacecraft was mated atop the Atlas V rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral and firmly bolted in place at 10:42 a.m. EDT on July 27. “We’re about to start our journey to Jupiter to unlock the secrets of the early solar system,” said Scott Bolton, the mission’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “After eight years of development, the spacecraft is ready for its important mission.” (...)
Read the rest of JUNO Orbiter Mated to Mightiest Atlas rocket for Aug. 5 Blastoff to Jupiter (391 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Atlas V, Juno mission, Jupiter, radiation, solar power, Solar System, Space Exploration
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 The search for extraterrestrial intelligence could be a waste of time according to a recent statistical analysis of the likelihood of life arising spontaneously on habitable-zone exoplanets out there in the wider universe (and when have predictive statistics ever got it wrong?). Credit: SETI Institute. History has proved time and again that mathematical modelling is no substitute for a telescope (or other data collection device). Nonetheless, some theoreticians have recently put forward a statistical analysis which suggests that life is probably very rare in the universe – despite the apparent prevalence of habitable-zone exoplanets, being found by the Kepler mission and other exoplanet search techniques. You would be right to be skeptical, given the Bayesian analysis undertaken is based on our singular experience of abiogenesis – being the origin of life from non-life, here on Earth. Indeed, the seemingly rapid abiogenesis that occurred on Earth soon after its formation is suggested to be the clinching proof that abiogenesis on habitable-zone exoplanets must be rare. Hmm…(...)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – The Unlikeliness Of Being (574 words)
© Steve Nerlich for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 79 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bayesian analysis
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