This Chandra image shows the star cluster Trumpler 14 which contains about 1,600 stars and a glow from multimillion degree X-ray producing gas. Trumpler 14 has one of the highest concentration of massive, luminous stars in the Galaxy. The star cluster is located on the edge of a giant molecular cloud and is part of the Carina Complex which has at least 8 star clusters.

The bright stars are pretty young by stellar standards, only about a million years old, and are much more massive than our Sun. These particular stars burn their fuel at a prodigious rate and use up that energy and explode as supernovas in just a few million years.

The young stars also have very powerful associated stellar winds. The stellar winds of high-speed particles develop shock waves can heat gas to millions of degrees and produce intense X-ray sources. The stellar winds can carve out cavities in the dust clouds that surround the stars and trigger the formation of even more stars.

Image Credit: Chandra

Sounds a bit like a sci-fi film but it isn’t. It is an amazing mission underway by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Hayabusa is a Japanese spacecraft launched on May 9, 2003. Hayabusa is Japanese for “falcon” and like its namesake is flying to the Near Earth Asteroid Itokawa. Once there it will descend to the surface and capture its prey. Well ok, it isn’t going to capture Itokawa exactly. Itokawa is much too big for that, being a 600 meter sized asteroid, which by the way is potato shaped.

What Hayabusa is going to do is study the asteroid intensely for three months. In September, Hayabusa will move into what is called its “gate-position”, just 20 kilometers above the surface when it will undertake global mapping of the surface. Later in September, the spacecraft will move even closer; from about 7 km from the surface and a more detailed surface map will be generated and the surface composition differences will be examined as the asteroid rotates underneath it. In late November Hayabusa will fire a few tantalum pellets into the asteroid’s surface at 300 meters per second, collect about a gram of the ejecta and put the material into a sample capsule; the really interesting thing is what will be accomplished at the same time. During the first decent to fire a pellet, a coffee-can sized “surface hopper” called MINERVA will be dropped slowly onto the asteroid’s surface. For a day or two it will leap (albeit slowly) taking surface temperatures and high resolution images with each of its three cameras.

The sample capsule will be returned to Earth, parachuting into the Australian outback in June of 2007 for study in laboratories. This will be the first mission to return an asteroid sample.

The NEO Itokawa is named after Hideo Itokawa, the famous Japanese rocket pioneer. While the primary mission of Hayabusa isn’t returning the sample, rather the testing of new technology it is going to provide a great deal of scientific information.

The larger image is an artist’s concept of Hayabusa and the little hopper – Minerva. The smaller picture is Earth of course, as seen by Hayabusa during a swing-by on May 17, 2004.

A fun mission to follow.

Image Credit: JAXA
Credit: NASA

China’s progressive space program took another step yesterday with the launch of a satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite launch center in Gansu province.

The launch marks the 22nd scientific satellite China has launched. According to China’s Xinhua: “the satellite will be used our country’s scientific and technical domain and social and economic development”. They further said: “it would be used for land surveying and mapping and other experiments.

This is the second satellite China has launched this month; the last being launched on August 2nd and according to state television it returned to Earth on Monday.

Image: AFP/ File Photo (Yahoo News)

Cassini took this image of Saturn’s big moonTitan during an approach on August 21st. This is a natural color view, showcasing the moons global smog. The view is much the same as what Voyager saw 25 years ago. Now Titan’s surface is being revealed by Cassini shown by Titan Mosaic East of Xanadu.

The image was taken using a wide-angle camera using RGB spectral filters. The distance from the moon at the time was 132,000 miles (231,000 km).

Image Credit: Cassini / NASA

Ok, here’s the issue as I understand it:

The family of astronaut Gus Grissom has been trying for a long time (years actually) to get NASA to give them Gus’s 1961 Mercury space suit. Presumably the suit would end up in the Gus Grissom Memorial, in his hometown of Mitchell, Ind.

NASA says the suit is government property and a valuable artifact that should be kept at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida.

Ok, so it would be nice if the Gus Grissom Memorial had the suit – great for them in fact. On the other hand it IS government property, which incidentally makes it our property in a way. So what can be done about this?

An interesting compromise has been offered up by Amanda Meyer. Amanda has launched an Internet petition drive and has spent the summer writing and calling NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, and Congress.

Her belief is the government doesn’t have to relinquish its claim to the suit, but could (and should) loan it to the Gus Grissom Memorial.

Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edmund White died in the Apollo command module fire, which occurred during a training exercise.

A bit more on the controversy over the suit: Grissom apparently took the suit home and never returned it, according to NASA. Grissom family members claim they rescued the suit from the trash, although NASA denies the claim. At any rate, Betty Grissom lent the suit to the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1989, at the time it was privately run. Then in 2003 the government took over the Hall of Fame and the Grissoms went to get the suit back and NASA said not so fast. While they did return 15 items, they refused to give up the suit, saying it was government property belonging to the Smithsonian.

Amanda is really trying to find a compromise that everyone can be happy with. Did I mention she is a 15 year old high school student? So if you will excuse me I am on my way over to sign the petition.

Good luck Amanda!

A more complete story can be found here.

Credit: Hartford Courant

Sustained winds are 175 mph as of 11:00 am EDT. That doesn’t include gusts.

All I can say is OMG!

National Hurricane Center

Image Credit: NOAA