Tag: astronomy

Voyager 1’s future.

9:08 am

Voyager 1’s future.

Voyager 1 has enough nuclear fuel to keep doing science through to 2025, and then it will be dead, adrift. On its current trajectory, the probe should eventually end up within 1.5 light years of a star in Camelopardalis, a northern constellation that looks like a cross between a giraffe and a camel. No one knows if there are any planets around that star, nor if aliens will be in residence by the time the probe arrives. “But if they are there, maybe they will capture Voyager 1,” says mission scientist Tom Krimigis of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

In addition to the above silliness, the article gives a good summary of the real data that Voyager 1 is sending back about interstellar space.

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NASA has announced a press conference for later today about the Voyager spacecraft.

9:26 am

NASA has announced a press conference for later today about the Voyager spacecraft.

The rumors are that all the scientists involved with this data from this spacecraft now finally agree that Voyager has left the solar system. More to come.

The rumors were true: NASA has confirmed that Voyager 1 is out of the solar system and in interstellar space, and has been since last summer.

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Astronomers have compiled the first detailed 3D map of the inner regions of the Milky Way.

9:08 am

Astronomers have compiled the first detailed 3D map of the inner regions of the Milky Way. More here.

They find a box/peanut shaped bulge with an elongated bar and a prominent X-structure, which had been hinted at in previous studies. This indicates that the Milky Way was originally a pure disk of stars, which then formed a thin bar, before buckling into the box/peanut shape seen today.

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Astronomers submit a slew of proposals for using the partly crippled Kepler space telescope.

3:32 pm

Astronomers submit a slew of proposals for using the partly crippled Kepler space telescope.

Ideas range from a survey of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects to a study of Jupiter-sized exoplanets in large orbits. Kepler scientists will sort through the proposals and decide by 1 November which ones, if any, to recommend to NASA headquarters for further review.

Sadly, none of these ideas excites me very much. The tragedy here is that we have this really good optical telescope above the atmosphere, and we can’t point it accurately enough to use it.

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NASA will reactivate the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) next month to use it to look for more near Earth asteroids.

4:48 pm

NASA will reactivate the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) next month to use it to look for more near Earth asteroids.

This decision raises two thoughts.

  • Why did they shut it down in the first place if it was still viable and could still do important research? If the cost wasn’t worth the benefit then, how has this equation changed now? And if the cost was worth the benefit, it then was foolish to shut it down in the first place. Though it costs money to operate these things, it is always cheaper to keep something running than to build something new. The press announcement above doesn’t really address these issues, and I wish it did.
  • I wonder if this decision is somehow related to the end of the Kepler mission. With Kepler out of service, maybe NASA decided to shift the funds to run that telescope over to WISE. They do not say, but the timing is interesting. This decision could be a hint that Kepler doesn’t really have another mission it can fulfill, and thus the money to run it has already been put elsewhere.
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A star that went nova last week is now visible to the naked eye.

2:07 pm

A star that went nova last week is now visible to the naked eye.

“Nova Delphini 2013 is among the 30 brightest novae ever recorded,” says S&T editor in chief Robert Naeye. “It’s a wonderful target for backyard observers, given that it’s visible to the naked eye and relatively easy to find. But it’s also attracting the intense interest of scientists, who are using a wide assortment of telescopes and astronomical satellites to better understand these enigmatic explosions.”

Though related scientifically to certain kinds of supernovae, this is not a supernova. Nonetheless, it is rare for these events to be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. Go outside tonight and take a look!

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The engineering tests to try to save Kepler have found that the mission is essentially over.

11:16 am

The engineering tests to try to save Kepler have found that the mission is essentially over.

A headline at this New York Times article, “NASA’s Kepler Mended, but May Never Fully Recover” is wrong, as the telescope has not been “mended.” They have found they might be able to do some limited science, at the most. NASA is going to review this possibility, weighing the cost versus the benefit, and decide in the fall.

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Scientists today published a new model that suggests that Voyager 1 actually entered interstellar space in July of last year.

9:28 am

Ad astra: Scientists today published a new model that suggests that Voyager 1 actually left the solar system and entered interstellar space in July of last year.

In describing on a fine scale how magnetic field lines from the sun and magnetic field lines from interstellar space can connect to each other, they conclude Voyager 1 has been detecting the interstellar magnetic field since July 27, 2012. Their model would mean that the interstellar magnetic field direction is the same as that which originates from our sun.

Other models envision the interstellar magnetic field draped around our solar bubble and predict that the direction of the interstellar magnetic field is different from the solar magnetic field inside. By that interpretation, Voyager 1 would still be inside our solar bubble.

This new model might very well explain the conflicting data received from the spacecraft, some of which said it was out of the solar system and some of which said it was not.

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Comet ISON has come out from behind the Sun, and it looks like it will not produce a grand show for us later this year.

10:53 am

Comet ISON has come out from behind the Sun, and it looks like it will not produce a grand show for us later this year.

There will be a lot of stupid commentary criticizing astronomers for hyping this comet, all unfair. The comet had the strong possibility of being spectacular. Astronomers pointed that out, being as hopeful as everyone to see a bright and beautiful comet grace our night skies for a few months. That this is not turning out to be so is not their fault.

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A supernova has exploded in the galaxy M74, only 30 million light years away.

3:57 pm

A supernova has exploded in the galaxy M74, only 30 million light years away.

This is one of the closest supernovae in recent years. Though it is still brightening and has reached 12th magnitude, it is not expected to brighten to naked eye visibility (about 6th magnitude). Astronomers however have spotted the progenitor star in archival Hubble images, which they have identified as a M-type red supergiant that was also particularly bright in the infrared.

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