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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
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Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Jupiter's Red Spot Jr. Raging Up
According to recent Hubble's observation, Jupiter's little Red Spot is getting stronger, and now it has a wind speed of approximately 400 miles per hour, that almost equals to the wind speed at its sibling, the Great Red Spot. The little Red Spot is actually a giant storm that's about the size of Earth. It was formed from three smaller white-colored storms that merged together and has been observed since 1940s. The effect of storm intensity will eventually change the colour of the storm, according to researcher.
Full Story...
Posted @ 3:26 PM by kinzi
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Confirmed by Hubble, Epsilon Eridani B is the Closest Exoplanet
The planet that detected in 2000 and orbiting a Sun-like star is confirmed to co-exist with debris disks around the parent star. The planet orbits its star, Epsilon Eridani, every 6.9 years and has 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter. The star is located 10.5 light years away, that makes this planet to be the closest extrasolar planet to us. Observation from Hubble indicated that this star is young, only 800 million years old that is why it still retains its debris disk.
Epsilon Eridani has long captivated the attention of science fiction writers, as well as astronomers. In 1960, years before the first extrasolar planet was detected, astronomer Frank Drake listened for radio transmissions from inhabitants of any possible planets around Epsilon Eridani as part of Project Ozma's search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. In the fictional "Star Trek" universe, Epsilon Eridani is considered by some fans to be the parent star for the planet Vulcan, Mr. Spock's home.
Full Story...
Posted @ 7:08 PM by kinzi
Epsilon Eridani has long captivated the attention of science fiction writers, as well as astronomers. In 1960, years before the first extrasolar planet was detected, astronomer Frank Drake listened for radio transmissions from inhabitants of any possible planets around Epsilon Eridani as part of Project Ozma's search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. In the fictional "Star Trek" universe, Epsilon Eridani is considered by some fans to be the parent star for the planet Vulcan, Mr. Spock's home.
Full Story...
Posted @ 7:08 PM by kinzi
Sunday, October 08, 2006
New picture from Sharp Vision of Mars Orbiter Released
This is the new picture released by NASA from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows also here the mars rover 'Opportunity' examining the Victoria crater. A stunning picture!
Visit MRO site for more details.
Posted @ 1:03 PM by kinzi
Friday, October 06, 2006
'Chinese Lantern' Technique Helps Track Clouds at Saturn
A new image of Saturn demonstrates a technique that creates a 'Chinese lantern' effect, showing Saturn's deep clouds silhouetted against the planet's warm, glowing interior. Seen this way, Saturn's interior shows surprising activity underneath the overlying haze, with a great variety of cloud shapes and sizes. Because upper-level hazes and clouds obscure the view of these deep clouds in visible light, imaging clouds in the depths of Saturn is not practical using visible-light cameras. Several recent images obtained by Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer were combined in a way that highlights the deep clouds in silhouette against the background radiation of heat generated by Saturn's interior. This literally lights the planet from the inside, like a lantern.
Clouds and hazes in Saturn's northern hemisphere are noticeably thinner than those in its southern hemisphere. This is thought to be a seasonal effect; this idea will be tested as Saturn's northern hemisphere enters springtime in the next few years.
Bright red colors indicate areas relatively free of deep-level clouds and particles, while darker red colors are cloudy regions. Images like these show Saturn's deep clouds under both daytime and nighttime conditions.
JPL Newsletter - Released date October 5
Posted @ 8:59 PM by kinzi
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Hubble Survey Finds Numbers of Extrasolar Planets
A Hubble Survey called the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS) yielded a finding of Jupiter-sized planets orbiting very close to their parent stars in the central region of our galaxy. The survey covers 180.000 stars. The astronomers used a planet transit technique for the planet findings. Among the those new exoplanets, one has the shortest orbital period, named SWEEPS-10, swings around its star in 10 hours. Located only 740,000 miles from its star, the planet is among the hottest ever detected. It has an estimated temperature of approximately 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
More Story
Posted @ 2:40 PM by kinzi
More Story
Posted @ 2:40 PM by kinzi
Hubble Eyes Dark Clouds on Uranus
Hubble spotted dark cloud formation in Uranus atmosphere. Measuring 1,100 miles by 1,900 miles (1,700 kilometers by 3,000 kilometers), the dark cloud is located at a latitude of 27 degrees in Uranus's northern hemisphere, which is just now becoming fully exposed to sunlight after many years of being in shadow. The development of a dark spot may be a signal of the oncoming uranian northern spring, said researchers.
More Story
Posted @ 2:35 PM by kinzi
More Story
Posted @ 2:35 PM by kinzi
Sunday, October 01, 2006
NASA's New Mars Camera Gives Dramatic View of Planet
Mars is ready for its close-up. The highest-resolution camera ever to orbit Mars is returning low-altitude images to Earth from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.Rocks and surface features as small as armchairs are revealed in the first image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter since the spacecraft maneuvered into its final, low-altitude orbital path. The imaging of the red planet at this resolution heralds a new era in Mars exploration.
The image of a small fraction of Mars' biggest canyon reached Earth on Friday,
the beginning of a week of tests for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
and other instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "We are elated at the sharpness of the image, revealing such fine detail in the landscape," said Dr. Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is the principal investigator for this camera. The target area includes the deepest part of Ius Chasma, one portion of the vast Valles Marineris canyon. Valles Marineris is the largest known canyon in the solar system, as long as the distance from California to New York.
The image is available online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro-20060929a.html
and http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000823_1720/
The camera returned test images after Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter went into orbit around Mars on March 10, 2006, but those were from altitudes more than eight times as high as the orbiter is flying now. Since March, the spacecraft has shrunk its orbit by dipping more than 400 times into the top of the Martian atmosphere to shave
velocity. It is now flying in its final, nearly circular orbit at altitudes of 250 to 316 kilometers (155 to 196 miles). The orbit will remain this shape and size for the mission's two-year primary science phase, which begins in November.
During its primary science phase, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will return more data about the red planet than all previous missions combined, pouring data to Earth at about 10 times the rate of any earlier Mars spacecraft. Scientists will analyze the information to gain a better understanding of the distribution and history of
Mars' water - whether ice, vapor or liquid - and of the processes that formed and modified the planet's surface. In addition to the high-resolution camera, the orbiter's science payload includes a mineral-identifying spectrometer, a ground-penetrating radar, a context camera for imaging wide swaths of the surface, a wide-angle color imager for monitoring the entire planet daily, and an instrument for mapping and monitoring water vapor
and other constituents in the atmosphere.
For most of October, Mars will be passing nearly behind the sun from Earth's perspective. Communication will be intermittent. Activities will be minimal for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other spacecraft at Mars during this time, and they will resume in early November.
JPL Newsletter
Posted @ 9:01 PM by kinzi
The image of a small fraction of Mars' biggest canyon reached Earth on Friday,
the beginning of a week of tests for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
and other instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "We are elated at the sharpness of the image, revealing such fine detail in the landscape," said Dr. Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is the principal investigator for this camera. The target area includes the deepest part of Ius Chasma, one portion of the vast Valles Marineris canyon. Valles Marineris is the largest known canyon in the solar system, as long as the distance from California to New York.
The image is available online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro-20060929a.html
and http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000823_1720/
The camera returned test images after Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter went into orbit around Mars on March 10, 2006, but those were from altitudes more than eight times as high as the orbiter is flying now. Since March, the spacecraft has shrunk its orbit by dipping more than 400 times into the top of the Martian atmosphere to shave
velocity. It is now flying in its final, nearly circular orbit at altitudes of 250 to 316 kilometers (155 to 196 miles). The orbit will remain this shape and size for the mission's two-year primary science phase, which begins in November.
During its primary science phase, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will return more data about the red planet than all previous missions combined, pouring data to Earth at about 10 times the rate of any earlier Mars spacecraft. Scientists will analyze the information to gain a better understanding of the distribution and history of
Mars' water - whether ice, vapor or liquid - and of the processes that formed and modified the planet's surface. In addition to the high-resolution camera, the orbiter's science payload includes a mineral-identifying spectrometer, a ground-penetrating radar, a context camera for imaging wide swaths of the surface, a wide-angle color imager for monitoring the entire planet daily, and an instrument for mapping and monitoring water vapor
and other constituents in the atmosphere.
For most of October, Mars will be passing nearly behind the sun from Earth's perspective. Communication will be intermittent. Activities will be minimal for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other spacecraft at Mars during this time, and they will resume in early November.
JPL Newsletter
Posted @ 9:01 PM by kinzi
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ryan
kinzi
Nightsky calendar (a brief version) by Skymaps & NASA's Space Calendar | Image of FCO - credit: NASA. Hosting generously provided by Site Design Magazine Design & page layout © kinzi - 2008 | Contact me? kinzikuta@(no-spam)gmail.com |
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| The
Oort cloud, is a postulated spherical cloud
of comets situated about 50,000 to 100,000 AU from
the Sun. This is approximately 1000 times the distance
from the Sun to Pluto or roughly one light year, almost
a quarter of the distance from the Sun to Proxima
Centauri, the star nearest the Sun. The Oort cloud
would have its inner disk at the ecliptic from the
Kuiper belt. Although no direct observations have
been made of such a cloud, it is believed to be the
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