Space Scan

NASAs Cassini spacecraft has imaged a bizarre hexagon shaped feature covering the entire north pole of Saturn. This feature was also imaged by NASAs Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts two decades ago. This means that the feature is a long-lived one. Cassini has also shown another darker feature that is also of the same shape. Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image. The hexagon can be compared to the polar vertex on Earth that has winds blowing in circular fashion, but the same feature on Saturn has acquired the shape of a hexagon. The feature is nearly 25,000 kilometers across this means that it is so big that nearly four Earth’s can fit inside it. The feature also extends much deeper than previously expected. It has a depth of more than 100 kilometers with a system of clouds whipping across the hexagon like cars on a racetrack. The feature is not yet visible to Cassini’s visual cameras, because the North Pole of the planet is engulfed in a long Polar night which lasts about 15 years, but since Cassini is equipped with infrared mapping spectrometer it can image the planet in both day and night conditions. Image Credit: NASA Via: scienceblog

For the first time a team of Swedish, Canadian, Finnish and French scientists have discovered the presence of molecular oxygen in interstellar space. This new discovery can make scientists understand the formation of stars in interstellar clouds which are like nurseries of stars. All previous attempts to detect molecular oxygen in interstellar space have failed. This team has used the Odin space observatory located in space for the discovery. The observatory is used to study both celestial objects and Earth’s atmosphere. The team has discovered molecular oxygen in a dense gas cloud in the constellation of Ophiuchus, which is at a distance of about 500 light years from Earth. Via: seedmagazine

This looks like an incident which was bound to happen. The result could also have been disastrous. Pilots of a Chilean commercial aircraft approaching the Auckland airport in New Zealand said they spotted flaming space debris falling past their jetliner. The airline reported that the pilot made visual contact with incandescent fragments several kilometers away. Later the Sydney Morning Herald reported that pieces of a Russian Satellite had narrowly missed the jet. It also stated that New Zealand authorities had been warned by Russians that orbiting debris will be entering Earth’s atmosphere, but the entry time was miscalculated by the Russians. This reference to the Russians may have been linked to the scheduled re-entry of Progress Cargo ship which was cast off from ISS on Tuesday. Russians however believe that the Progress was on schedule after the reported fireball and the coordinates for the re-entry did not match up with reports from the LAN Chile crew. Some analysts have also stated that the space fireball might be a different piece of space junk or a natural meteor fireball that lazed through the sky before the Progress was de-orbited. Via: MSNBC

According to researchers Meteorites that strike Earth contain important information about the evolution of the solar system. More than 31,000 meteorites have been found on our planet with weights ranging from one gram to 60 metric tons. These meteorites contain materials that were created before the solar system was created and also illustrate the chemical changes that took place some 4.56 billion years ago. These chemical changes could have been one of the causes that led to the formation of the solar system. Moreover meteorites are parts of some planet; once we get to examine them we can tell their planet of origin which can then give us more knowledge about the planet itself without launching an expensive mission to that planet. Via: playfuls

Imagine being on a planet which has two or more suns. You will see two suns setting down the horizon one after another. Astronomers have used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have observed that planetary systems thrive in stellar twins. Since more than half of all stars are twins, or binaries the findings suggest that our Universe is packed with planets orbiting around two suns. Earlier astronomers thought that planets could form in binaries in which the host stars are quite far away from each other. Of the 200 planets discovered far outside the solar system about 50 orbit one member of the wide stellar duo. This new study focuses on binaries in which stars are close to each other. The distance between them is zero to 500AU. Until now astronomers were not aware that the separation of stars in a binary can have effect on planet formation. The new research led to the fact that planetary systems are at least as common around binary stars as they are around single stars. In addition to that they also discovered that planetary systems were more frequent around binaries which have close companion stars. Researchers also stated that for a planet in a binary system location is everything. Earlier not much was thought about binary systems, but they actually are most common sites for planet formation in our galaxy. Via: Spaceref

The European Space Agency has stated that the first of the five Automated Transfer Vehicles is nearly ready for flight. The agency has stated that they can launch the spacecraft by Q3 this year. The spaceship is the most complex ship ever developed in Europe and it follows three years of testing. The ship will be controlled by three space control centers for the first time in history. These control centers are in Moscow, Houston and Toulouse, France. The tasks will be performed sequentially at all the space centers so they will have to effectively communicate with one another. ESA has also stated that Jules Verne should be ready for shipment to its Kourou, French Guiana, Launch site this summer. Since the delay of NASA’s Atlantis Shuttle due to the damage caused by hailstorm, ESA stated that the launch of Jules Verne can be postponed to November. Via: imedinews

It wasn’t until the year 2000 that astronomer noticed that Asteroid 90 Antitope was not a single asteroid but a duo. Instead of a single solitary space rock these are two objects that are orbiting a common centre of gravity. The binary asteroid 90 Antiope was discovered by powerful telescopes such as the 10 meter Keck II observatory in Hawaii. This observatory helped astronomers to state that 90 Antiope is actually a double asteroid by splitting them up. More recent observations that have been made with the European Space Observatory has revealed 90 Antiope as two egg-shaped piles of rubble orbiting one another. Each asteroid is roughly 53 miles in diameter and the distance between them is just 106 miles. The most interesting observation happened in 2005 when astronomers were able to focus on the pair during a mutual eclipse. During this period the shadow of one asteroid was falling on another making it easier for astronomers to get more details about the pair. Via: Universetoday

When China sent a missile into space last January and blasted off an old satellite it was a demonstration of its capability to attack and destroy a target in the space. But, it has also added a new dimension to the management of space around the earth, as now there is the dangerous possibility of smashing an orbiting target at will and leave thousands of pieces of debris flying around earth for ever. Nicholas I. Johnson, the chief scientist for orbital debris at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston says ‘The breakup of Fengyun-1C, the Chinese satellite, is by far the most severe satellite breakup ever in terms of identified debris.’ Earth is already surrounded by hundreds of thousands of nuts, bolts, gloves and other such debris thrown out into space by manned and unmanned space missions. This orbiting garbage dump around Earth presents a hazard to man-made satellites and spacecraft. The ESA Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference has listed more than 600,000 objects larger than 1 cm in orbit. According to estimates by NASA the Chinese satellite blast has left about 35,000 junk pieces larger than one centimeter in size. The number of flying objects and particles may reach 2 million, if tiny pieces are included. The debris in space travel at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour, ten times faster than a bullet from a rifle. A space junk of about a millimeter size can rip through a multi-million dollar satellite and leave it as a vast stretch of junk pieces. The pieces that now litter space can hit any satellite, spacecraft or even the international space station in orbit. There is no way to prevent a collision. Senior U.S. military officers are irritated by what they say a reckless creation of a 2,000-mile-long cloud of space debris by the Chinese test. NASA is monitoring tens of thousands of space junks to safe guard satellites and spacecraft from being hit. The monitoring also helps avoid mistaking a falling space junk to be an enemy missile thus triggering a catastrophic counter attack. While China has defended its ant-satellite missile test, it has made no efforts to address the issue of debris. China has only said ‘It did not pose a threat to anyone, nor did it violate the relevant international treaties.’ In fact, China is not alone in conducting an anti-satellite test. Both the United States of America and the former Soviet Union have conducted anti-satellite tests during the cold-war era. Nations that have several communications, weather and military satellites in orbit are rightly worried. China is among the nations that have satellites in orbit. It has also sent manned space flights into orbit since 2003. It is high time the countries concerned came up with a plan to clean up the space around earth and make it safe for peaceful programs in future. Via Image credit

Images captured by New Horizons during the spacecraft’s Jupiter Flyby, a couple of weeks ago, are being revealed by scientists at NASA. These two images were taken using New Horizon’s LEISA infrared camera and show fine details in Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere using light that can only be seen using infrared sensors. These images are ‘false color’ pictures made by assigning infrared wavelengths to the colors red, green and blue. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is seen clearly in the form of a large storm on the right side of both strips is. The images taken in the infrared spectrum help us to notice that the monster storm extends far up into the atmosphere. The hazy high-altitude clouds above Jupiter’s southern pole is shown by a blue spectrum in this image. Source. More details.