This Hubble Space Telescope view of Beta Pictoris clearly shows a primary dust disk and a much fainter secondary dust disk. The secondary disk extends at least 24 billion miles from the star and is tilted roughly 4 to 5 degrees from the primary disk. The secondary disk is circumstantial evidence for the existence of a planet in a similarly inclined orbit. The planet may have indirectly formed the secondary disk by sweeping up smaller planetesimals – chunks of rock and/or ice – from the main disk. The planetesimals then collide, producing the dust seen in the disk. The image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), is the sharpest visible-light view of the disks around Beta Pictoris.

Astronomers used the Advanced Camera’s coronagraph to block out the light from the bright star. The black circle in the center of the image marks the coronagraphic mask. The colorful spike-like features and the speckled background are artifacts of the image processing which removed the residual starlight. The color image reveals that the disk is slightly red. The disk appeared gray in previous images taken by ground-based telescopes. Though astronomers are not sure why the disk is red, they think it is due to compact or fluffy grains of graphite and silicates, which may be as small as smoke particles.

The image was taken Oct. 1, 2003.

The Advanced Camera for Surveys images were obtained as part of the guaranteed observing time awarded to the ACS Investigation Definition Team led by Holland Ford (Johns Hopkins University) and Garth Illingworth (University of California at Santa Cruz).

Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Golimowski (Johns Hopkins University), D. Ardila (IPAC), J. Krist (JPL), M. Clampin (GSFC), H. Ford (JHU), and G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick) and the ACS Science Team

Source: Hubblesite
Beta Pictoris is an interesting star about 19.2 parsecs away in the constellation Pictor of all places . Read more about Beta Pictoris here.

Boy I hope they can get this camera working again!!

 Hubble Update: It looks like everything is set to attempt recovery of the ACS.  The process is in action right now and it appears the ACS may get the green light after evaluation of the initial exposure data.  Perhaps sometime after the middle of next week.  Nothing is certain and we will have to wait and see what happens.

Last year there was Deep Impact. This year there is more going on in the sky than fireworks on the 4th of July (for those of us in the States). If you aren’t going to any fireworks shows and have clear skies, read on.

Go outside about dark, just before and look for the moon. Keep watching and you will see Jupiter appear right beside it. Binoculars will only help and if you have a telescope all the better. If you have a scope and an imager well there you have a nice image in the making.

You will also be able to see the International Space Station, check Heavens Above for times it will be over you. If the Space Shuttle is launched Saturday as scheduled, and the re is last I heard a 60 percent chance it will be, you will see it attached to the ISS if you have a telescope. This is a pretty good sight anyway, and you may have seen it and not known what you were looking at. It is easily visible with the naked eye, but it will look more like a slow “falling star” that travels across the entire sky. In fact, with or without a scope, is the station going by the Moon and Jupiter pairing is something you will not see very often. It will happen between 9:40 and 9:41, so check Heavens Above to see if you will be able to view that. You can also check NASA’s Sky Watch web site for ISS times.

The video of a flyby is from amateur astronomer John Locker of Wirral UK. Some day I’d like to think I would be good enough to catch some video like that.

Image Credit: John Locker
Source: Science@NASA

I figured I’d better write a short post this morning in case I can’t get on later.  The other day we had flooding rain and the internet connection was spotty at best.  Today we are in for even more flooding rain.  We are running a minimum of 117 percent of normal rainfall for the last three months – June is 182 percent and that doesn’t count the fact that is it pouring right now.  We should break an all time record for the month.

I will perhaps take some of the blame, not all of it.  I did order a Mitty Wedge for my scope.  I wanted a wedge I didn’t need the pier for (I still have that of course), this way I can move things around.  Down the road I am going to have an observatory – down the road.  The wedge isn’t here yet though, so I don’t want all the credit.

You probably know the Shuttle is getting ready for launch on July 1, and you probably know NASA will carry the launch, but if you get HDNET, a high definition station, they will also be carrying the launch.

So if I can get on later I will, if not oh well…..

Venus Express data now confirms the presence of a huge ‘double-eye’ atmospheric vortex at the planets south pole.  This comes from data gathered by the spacecraft during the very first orbit around the planet.

Click the image to get an animation (courtesy ESA) 122 k.

From the press release:

High velocity winds are known to spin westwards around the planet, and to take only four days to complete a rotation. This ‘super-rotation’, combined with the natural recycling of hot air in the atmosphere, would induce the formation of a vortex structure over each pole. But why two vortexes?

“We still know very little about the mechanisms by which the super-rotation and the polar vortexes are linked,” said HÃ¥kan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express Project Scientist. “Also, we are still not able to explain why the global atmospheric circulation of the planet results in a double and not single vortex formation at the poles. However the mission is just at the beginning and it’s doing fine; we expect this and many other long-standing mysteries to be addressed and possibly solved by Venus Express,” he added. Atmospheric vortexes are very complex structures that are very difficult to model, even on Earth.

Thanks to these first pictures, it has also been possible to observe the presence of a collar of cold air around the vortex structure, possibly due to the recycling of cold air downwards.

Another great ESA mission!

Source and Image Credit: ESA

The contrast in the landscape of these two Saturn moons is pretty remarkable.  Janus is a cool little moon, and in this image is in the background appearing to be a bit ragged.  Janus is 113 miles (181 km) across.  Janus is famous for the dance it does with Epimetheus, where the moons actually swap positions – see my post about it here.

Enceladus 314 miles (505 km) across, is acclaimed due to the fact that it is venting water vapor/ice, and is thought to be contributing to the ring structure of the mother planet.  It is also a good candidate, or should I say as good candidate as there is, for finding life on another celestial body.

The image also shows the bright core of the F ring of Saturn, about 50 km wide.  The dimmer ringlets on either side of the bright core are wound into a tight spiral structure, which was discovered in Cassini images.

Image credit and source: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

 

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS

Opportunity

On my last update the Rover Opportunity was again stuck, a feat the little rover seems to have a penchant for.  That came to a good end on June 9th as the team finished “unsticking” Oppy from the dune called “Jammerbugt”.  On June 15th Opportunity hit the 5 mile mark.

As of June 23rd the rover is healthy, and getting new flight software. It is still heading to Victoria Crater, there is still a half mile to go.  Happily there are many targets on the way.

About the image (click to enlarge):

On its 825th Martian day (May 20, 2006), NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity stopped for the weekend to place its instrument arm onto the soil target pictured here, dubbed “Alamogordo Creek.” Two views from the panoramic camera, acquired at about noon local solar time, are at the top. Below them is a close-up view from the microscopic imager.

At upper left, a false-color view emphasizes differences among materials in rocks and soil. It combines images taken through the panoramic camera’s 753-nanometer, 535-nanometer and 432-nanometer filters. At upper right is an approximately true-color rendering made with the panoramic camera’s 600-nanometer, 535-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters. The microscopic-imager frame covers the area outlined by the white boxes in the panoramic-camera views, a rectangle 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) across.

Spirit

Spirit as you may or may not know is kind of hanging out.  The rovers location on Mars as put it deep in Martian winter. The battery heaters turned for the first time on June 9th, a first for either rover.  The heaters are set to turn on when the local temperature drops to -19 C (-2 F).  The lowest allowable operating temperature is -20 C (- 4 F) – much warmer than I would have thought.   The amount of solar energy Spirit is getting is about a third of what it was getting last (Martian) summer.  The energy, about 310 watt-hours per day is about it, and if you consider it takes about 100 watt-hours to light a 100-watt light bulb for an hour, the amount of work that can be done is limited.  That’s not stopping anything though.  This little rover is still acquiring portions of the McMurdo panorama, a mosaic of microscopic images of a third layer of soil, it has completed six targeted studies using the mini thermal emission spectrometer AND communicating with the Odyssey spacecraft during its overhead passes.

Spirit is also getting new flight software.

About the image (click to enlarge): 

The image is the northward view from Spirit’s wintering spot.  The image isn’t complete; it’s part of the “McMurdo Panorama” image that it is taking while on low power.

Every now and then I get overwhelmed with the grandeur of this mission and the success it has had – it is just simply incredible.  It is also often easy to overlook the fact that the mission managers are doing phenomenal work – heck I wouldn’t want to get a rover unstuck out of my back yard, these folks are doing it from millions of miles!  Think about it, they send a command to one of the rovers and then wait….it takes 10 minutes to get there and then another 10 to get back.