venus williams blog: Space

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Ko San Selected as First Astronaut of South Korea

Ko San, an athletic talent who won a bronze medal in the national amateur boxing competition in 2004 , were picked up as South Korea's first astronaut by the country's Ministry of Science and Technology today on September 5. The 30-year-old computer engineer beat out Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old female doctorate researcher during the final selection. Ko is set to fly on board Soyuz TMA-12 during an eight day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2008.

Ko was born in Busan and raised in Seoul. He graduated from Seoul National University and was a researcher at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in the artificial intelligence and computer vision field, before being picked for the astronaut program of South Korea.

Update: Ko San was demoted to the back-up of Yi So-Yeon after he violated security protocol at a Russian training centre. Mar 9, 2008

Sources: Former Boxer Will Go to Space in April @ Korea Times

Biography of Yi So-yeon @ Spacefacts.de

Related reading: Ko San to Boost Korea’s Dream for Space Power @ Korea Times

'Bottomless' Pit on Mars

On 8 August 2007, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using the HiRISE camera (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) snapped this stunning picture which shows an originally thought bottomless cavern was actually a pit , with at least 70 meters deep. Scientists hope this kind of pits could provide shelter for future human visitors to Mars . Source: Newscientist

Picture of Rare September 1 Aurigid Meteor Shower Illustration

Astronomers predict that an extremely rare Aurigid meteor shower will occur September 1st. Peter Jenniskens (photo), an expert on meteor showers who also works at NASA Ames Research Center, said that the shower will be visible by the naked eye from the western United States, especially in California, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, and the western provinces of Canada. Prime viewing time will be on Saturday, September 1, 2007, from 4:06 a.m. – 5:06 a.m. PDT.

The picture above shows an artist's illustration that depicts the vast Oort Cloud of comets, whose castoffs are expected to create a rare kind of meteor show tonight.

If you will have taken the photos of Aurigid meteor shower, don't hesitate to let us know and we'd like to post a link to them.

Source: NASA & Nationalgeographic

Fly to the Moon

An awesome photo spotted when I am reading a report on tonight's lunar eclipse (Agust 28 2007) on the Age!

The Best Time to Watch Lunar Eclipse August 28 2007 in USA Cities

As the earth currently locates between the Sun and the Moon and very close to the Mars and the Lunar Eclipse August 28 2007 (tonight) is the longest in the past 7 years, the skygazers can see this spectacular astronomic phenomenon in the most parts of the world.

The best times for watching tonight’s Lunar Eclipse in USA cities are as follows:

* New York: 5:52 am

* St.Louis: 4:52 am

* Denver: 3:52 am

* West Coast: 2:52 am

Instead, if you are interested in solar eclipse, check this broadcasting video from NASA.

Links: PR & National Geographic

How Many Moons Does Mars Have?

The stunning picture from NASA, I think, clearly tells us that the red planet Mars has only two diminutive moons, Phobos and Deimos:

Mars' moons were discovered in August of 1877 by Asaph Hall at the US Naval Observatory using the large 26-inch Alvan Clark refractor. Recorded on this August 22nd, innermost moon Phobos and outermost moon Deimos are seen here against the planet's glare in a digital composite image. The picture consists of of a long exposure capturing the faint, city-sized moons and overexposing the planetary disk, combined with a well exposed image of the red planet, revealing dark markings on the surface and the white south polar cap. The images were taken by astronomer Johannes Schedler using an 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at his observatory in southeastern Austria.

p.s. Never previously in modern human history has Mars been as bright or as close to Earth as on the night of August 27, 2008.

Source: APOD & Astrobio

Polar Mesospheric Clouds

This stunning picture (see the high resolution picture) of polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) was photographed by the space shuttle Atlantis crew when visiting the the Internantional Space Station (ISS) this June. This image was taken looking north while the Shuttle and ISS were docking and flying over the border between western China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. The red-to-dark region at the bottom of the image is the dense part of the Earth’s atmosphere. Because this image was taken with a long lens (180mm), the entire profile of the Earth’s limb (the edge of the atmosphere) was not captured.

In the summertime in the far northern or southern latitudes, high in the Earth’s atmosphere at the edge of space, thin, silvery clouds sometimes become visible just after sunset. These high clouds, occurring at altitudes of about 80 kilometers (50 miles), are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs). They are also called noctilucent (“night-shining”) clouds. In recent years, polar mesospheric clouds seem to be occurring more frequently and at lower latitudes than they have in the past, and studies are underway to determine whether their occurrence is related to global climate change.

Source: Earth Observatory

How the Space Shuttle Landing to Earth

As the Hurricane Dean with Grade 5 which already lashed Mexico Yucatan Peninsular possibly hits USA, and thus it may pose the threats for the shuttle Endeavor's safely landing in Florida. Before that bad scenario happens, you can have a good reading of BBC's How the Shuttle Returns to Earth

To return to Earth the space shuttle must make a series of complicated manouevres to align itself into the correct position to achieve a safe descent.
1. The shuttle flies upside down in orbit to control its heating.

2. To re-enter the atmosphere, the shuttle is turned tail first to the direction of travel, and fires its engines to slow its speed.

3. The orbiter is then flipped the right way up and enters the top layer of the atmosphere at about a 40-degree angle from horizontal with its wings level.

4. The orientation keeps its black thermal tiles facing the majority of the heat - as high 1,650C (3,000F) on the leading edges of the wings and nose.

5. As its speed drops, the shuttle starts to fly more like an aircraft, using its rudder and wing flaps for control. It banks sharply to slow its speed still further

6. The shuttle falls from a height of more than 360km at speeds that top Mach 30, and at an angle of 19 degrees, far steeper than that of a commercial aircraft. The spacecraft comes to a dead stop half a world a way from where it began the descent.

Day and Night Seen at the SAME Time

From Sea Agels

The photograph was taken by the crew on board the space shuttle Columbia during its last mission in 2003, on a cloudless day. The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities' lights. The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert. Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and that's it's still daylight in Dublin, London, Lisbon, and Madrid.

The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands; a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa, are the Cape Verde Islands. Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during day time and night time. To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

Mira, the Dying Star with a 13-light-year-lond Tail

Using Nasa’s space telescope Galaxy Evolution Explorer, scientists discovered a stunning 13-light-year-old tail of the dying star Mira , which is located 350 light-years (A light year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year) from Earth in the ‘whale’ constellation Cetus.

Rocketing through our Milky Way galaxy at 130 km per second — literally faster than a speeding bullet — the star is spewing material (made up of oxygen, carbon and nitrogen) that scientists believe may be recycled into new stars, planets and maybe even life. Link

NASA's Spirit Rover Strongest Evidence for Watery Past on Mars

The strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was much wetter than it is now has been unearthed by NASA's Spirit rover.

A patch of Martian soil kicked up and analyzed by Spirit appears to be rich in silica, which suggests it would have required water to produce.

This discovery came about unexpectedly as the result of a mechanical failure.

Both Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity completed their original three-month missions in April 2004, and are aging. One of Spirit's six wheels no longer rotates, gouging a deep impression as it drags through soil. That scraping has exposed several patches of bright soil, leading to some of Spirit's biggest discoveries in its Gusev Crater exploration site, including the most recent find.

One possible origin for the silica may have been interaction of soil with acid vapors produced by volcanic activity in the presence of water, though the material could also have formed in water in a hot spring environment, NASA said in a statement. The latest discovery adds compelling new evidence for ancient conditions that might have been favorable for life.

Source: Space.com

Ring of Dark Matter Discovered by Hubble

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a titanic collision between two galaxy clusters. The ring's discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that dark matter exists.

"This is the first time we have detected dark matter as having a unique structure that is different from both the gas and the galaxies in the cluster," said astronomer James Jee of Johns Hopkins University. Jee is a member of the team that spotted the dark matter ring.

The ring, which measures 2.6 million light-years across, was found in the cluster CL0024+17, located 5 billion light-years from Earth. link

World Largest Robotic Telescope Goes into Operation in China

The world largest fully robotic astronomical telescope, was put into operation recently at the Yunnan Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences. As a fully robotic telescope with remote control mode, the facility is designed to work automatically without human operators in attendance.

The $4.5 million telescope, with a diameter of 2.4 meters, a height of 8 meters, a weight of some 40 tons and the power to look back over 5 billion light years, has been designed and manufactured by Telescope Technologies Limited (TTL) in UK.

The telescope will be sited at the Gaomeigu (GMG) Station, 3,240 meters above sea level atop a mountain near the historic city and tourist spot of Lijiang, in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The new telescope, the largest optical telescope in China, can be used for a wide variety of research programs, including searching for planets, studying cataclysmic variable stars and supernovae, determining the size and age of the universe by monitoring supernovae light curves, and investigating the structure of accretion disks around stars using the principles of astrophysical tomography.

Link

James Webb Space Telescope--Hubble's Successor

Hubble's Successor--James Webb Space Telescope

The successor to the aging Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be launched in 2013 to explore the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the Universe. The telescope was named after NASA's second administrator James E. Webb.

It will be larger than its predecessor, sit farther from Earth and have a giant mirror to enable it to see more.

A full-scale model (see picture above) is being displayed outside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the US capital, Washington DC.

The $4.5bn (£2.3bn) telescope will take up a position some 1.5 million km (930,000 miles) from Earth.

It will measure 24m (80ft) long by 12m (40ft) high and incorporate a hexagonal mirror 6.5m (21.3ft) in diameter, almost three times the size of Hubble's.

Link

Video: Moon Return Project Anime

The newest NASA animation shows the space agency's plan to return to the moon!

Star Trek Actor's Ash Lost in Mountains After Trip to Space

A payload of SpaceLoft XL rocket carrying the cremated remains of Star Trek's "Scotty" James Doohan and NASA Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper was yet to be located after it returned to a rugged New Mexico mountain landscape. The rocket of UP Aerospace was successfully blasted off from New Mexico's Spaceport America into space on a suborbital trajectory on April 28th. Link

Update: Doohan's ash remains have been recovered after missing in New Mexico's mountains for weeks.18 May, 07

Astronomers Spot Explosion of Brightest Supernova

Using a variety of Earth and space telescopes, astronomers found a giant exploding star that they figure has shined about five times brighter than any of the hundreds of supernovae ever seen before, said discovery team leader Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley. The discovery was first made last September by a graduate student in Texas.

Smith said the star, SN2006gy [wiki], "is a special kind of supernova that has never been seen before." He called the star "freakily massive" at 150 times the mass of the sun.

Observations from the Chandra X-ray telescope helped show that it didn't become a black hole like other supernovae and skipped a stage of star death.

Unlike other exploding stars, which peak at brightness for a couple of weeks at most, this supernova, peaked for 70 days, according to NASA. And it has been shining at levels brighter than other supernovae for several months, Smith said.

Malaysian Astronaut to Have Facing-Mecca Prayer in ISS?

Malaysian astronaunt fais khaleed and shekh

Interesting reading from Times (via)!

How do you pray facing Mecca five times a day when you are circling the Earth 16 times every 24 hours? This is one of the problems facing Malaysian authorities as they prepare to send their first man into space.
There are others: how to hold the prayer position in zero gravity, ensure that only halal freeze-dried food makes it into your space cupboard and perform your ritual ablutions before worship? They have all been answered by a team of Islamic scholars and scientists that has spent more than a year working on guidelines for the astronaut [selected from Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor and Faiz Khaleed].
He will travel to the International Space Station in October on the invitation of Russia for a Malaysian to join its mission, in exchange for a lucrative arms deal.
The Government hailed the mission as an important milestone but religious scholars questioned how a practising Muslim could accommodate worship with the demands of space travel.
Reconciling a religion founded in the deserts of 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century space travel was never going to be easy. The space station travels around the world at 17,000mph (27,400km/h), making Mecca a target in perpetual motion. With 16 orbits a day and five daily devotion sessions determined by times of sunrise and sunset, devout Muslim astronauts could find themselves chanting their prayers as many as 80 times in 24 hours.
There is also the question of water, a valuable commodity in space, but which Muslims require to wash before each prayer session. Then there is the holy month of Ramadan, which falls during the Russian mission. All Muslims are required to abstain from food during daylight hours — but what is daylight in space?
Only two Muslims have so far gone into space — Prince Sultan bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who travelled on the US shuttle Discovery in 1985, and Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian American space tourist, who went to the space station last year. Both apparently were left to work out their obligations on their own.
Malaysia insists, however, that maintaining Islamic beliefs “is mandatory for Muslims in every situation, time and place”. Mustafa Abdul Rahman, the head of its Department of Islamic Development said: “Circumstances on the ISS that are different from circumstance on Earth are not an obstacle for an astronaut to fulfil a Muslim’s obligations.”

Astronomers Find "second Earth"

Using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, astronomer Stephane Udry and his colleagues discovered that a planet about five times as massive as Earth is the smallest and potentially most Earth-like planet outside the solar system. It orbits a small, dim "red dwarf" star called Gliese 581 which lies 20.5 light years away every 13 days. The planet is believed to be habitable because the astronomers calculated that it has a pleasant right-for-liquid-water-existence surface temperature of about 0 to 40° C. Link

NASA Astronaut Runs 'Marathon' In Space

Astronaut Sunita Williams has become the first astronaut who officially participated in a marathon in space.

She started her version of the Boston Marathon on Monday, running on a treadmill 210 miles above Earth undeterred by the wind and rain facing her Massachusetts counterparts.

Already traveling at 17,500 mph, Williams started the race on time at 10 a.m. EDT with race No. 14,000 taped to the front of the treadmill. Two lap top computers were on either side of the treadmill so she could watch a live feed of the race from Boston and keep track of where the space station was flying.

Restrained to the treadmill in a harness so she wouldn't float away, Williams ran at a brisk pace at the start of the 26.2-mile race.

"Marathons are hard on the body," she said. "It's hard on the machine. I hope both of us survive."