Suomi NPP

Posted on 1/26/2012 by Tom

The Blue Marble from the new Suomi NPP satellite. Click for a larger version - more versions linked below. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Just have a look at this amazing image of us from one of our newest satellites!

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

To read more about NASA’s Suomi NPP go to: http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

You can see other sized versions of this image here at full resolution, I’m putting this on my desktop for sure.

2012 ESA Missions Preview

Posted on 1/25/2012 by Tom

A good preview of ESA missions with (IMHO) terrible audio quality. I thought it was just the version I was watching but no, they are all the same.

Audio aside, I can’t wait to see that Vega launch coming right up on February 9, the VV01 as it is called is going to carry nine satellites into orbit including seven CubeSats from European universities.

I love the CubeSats. Typically they are a 10 cm cube, that’s 3.9 inches in the US and they weigh in at about 1.33 kg or 2.9 lbs. They give a platform for students to perform space science experiments and exploration. CubeSats have been built by academia as they utilize off-the-shelf electronics. Several companies have built CubeSats including Boeing, builders of “regular” satellites. CubeSats are very popular and provide a nice fit with the ham radio crowd too, of which I am happy to say I belong.

BTW: I’ve been hearing the aurora was very nice last night, I was clouded in so I can’t say. Hard to believe as the K indices were not that high, it could be the reports were originating in very high latitudes though.

Source

Voyager Update

Posted on 1/24/2012 by Tom

Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s pretty amazing, who would have thought after all these years we’d be getting updates on the Voyager spacecrafts?

The update below continues with the theme of power saving to stretch out the mission. The mission could extend to 2025 after which data collection and transmission will probably cease.

Actually even more amazing than the Mission time of 15 years is the mere fact we can still communicate with the Voyager. The radio signal must be incredibly weak, the transmitter only puts out 20 watts at best and the spaceship is over 17,966,400,000 km or 11,163,800,000 miles away! Radio signals take over 33 hours to go to Voyager and back!

Here’s the update from JPL (click for Voyager site):

PASADENA, Calif. — In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured. This heater shut-off is a step in the careful management of the diminishing electrical power so that the Voyager spacecraft can continue to collect and transmit data through 2025.

Continue reading →

Aurora Possible

Posted on 1/24/2012 by Tom

A quick note: You might keep an eye to the sky after dark if it is clear, a pretty decent Aurora could show itself. Not saying it will of course but the potential is there.

Going to be cloudy here so I will be watching the Boulder K index, if it is over 5 the Aurora will be visible to me at 45^o N lattitude or you if you are below 45^o S lattitude. The higher that number the better the show and the further south or north they can be seen (depending on your hemisphere).

The Boulder K is 5 at 2300 UTC. . . There be lights! Well if you are northerly and have good skies which I do not.

The Planck Mission

Posted on 1/23/2012 by Marian

Most of us think of the Planck Mission as either an extension of the WMAP, or as the answer to (and correction of) the WMAP. It’s not used to unseat WMAP, but to serve as the next step.

The Planck satellite - NASA image

Launched in May of 2009, Planck resides in the Earth’s second Lagrange point (yes, you do TOO know what a Lagrange point is). That’s about 930,000 miles out. More sensitive than WMAP, Planck images the oldest radiation in the universe; the cosmic microwave background. This radiation was created 13 billion years ago (plus or minus) in the Big Bang, and has existed every since – traveling away from its point of origin in all directions.

NASA image - The CMB as imaged by Planck

To really understand what Planck is viewing, you have to spend some time reading up on the cosmic microwave background — but I’ll give you a quick review. When the universe was very young, it was uniformly filled with a “fog” of glowing hydrogen plasma and radiation. As the universe aged and expanded, this “fog” became thinner and cooler, and eventually formed matter. The radiation remained equally distributed as the universe expanded, and exactly the same amount of photons filled a larger and larger universe. That’s “relic radiation”, and that’s the cosmic microwave background.

Didn’t catch it? Okay; picture hair mousse. Spray some in your hand and it will begin to expand. Same mass of hair mousse, larger blob filling your hand.

Now, what Planck is doing is sending information on this radiation (which it “images”) to supercomputers around the world. In the United States, that’s the Franklin computer in Berkeley (primarily). The information is analyzed by ESA, NASA, and JPL, among others.

NASA image - Another view of the CMB from Planck

As our understanding of the early universe increases through the data from Planck, we will know more about the size, shape, mass, age, and fate of our universe. Will it expand forever, or someday collapse back upon itself? Planck may give us the answer. Don’t forget, also, that Planck may very well help us solve the dark matter/dark energy mystery.

We will never reach a place where we know everything about the universe. Not only is it much too vast and complicated, it appears possible that there are infinite universes with infinite mystery. Doesn’t that just give you goose bumps?