Rosetta images reveal crack hundreds of meters long in comet 67P

Image of Comet 67P taken by ESA's Rosetta (Click Image to Download)

The European Space Agency (ESA) succeeded in delivering the Philae lander to the surface of comet 67P several months ago, but its Rosetta probe hasn’t been twiddling its robotic thumbs since then. It’s still in orbit of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to study the comet as it gets closer to the sun. In the newest set of images published by the ESA, scientists reveal 67P is coming apart at the seams. A huge crack was discovered running hundreds of meters along the surface.



To visualize what’s happening, it’s important to know a little about the shape of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Many of us have an idea of comets as being more or less round, but many of them are actually quite oddly shaped. For example, 67P has two lobes, one smaller than the other, connected by a narrow neck. It looks a little like a rubber duck. The crack detected by Rosetta’s Osiris camera is in the neck region, which is also where most of the gas and dust is being expelled.

The crack is about one meter in width, which wouldn’t be so impressive if it wasn’t covering such a large area. The neck region where the crack was found is only 1km wide after all, so a few hundred meters is nothing to sneeze at. In the image above, the crack is visible in two locations on the surface, but the middle section is obscured by layers of dust, which the ESA team has found is plentiful on the surface of 67P, especially in the neck region where the object’s minimal gravity is even less substantial.



67P won’t reach its closest approach to the sun for several months, but it’s already losing more than 11kg of gas and dust every second. Scientists are unsure if the crack will worsen or close up as the comet continues to lose weight. If the stresses on the neck increase, the comet could fracture and break in two .
Some researchers believe that 67P’s shape is the result of two smaller objects colliding in the distant past, so this crack could be following an existing “fault line” in the structure. It’s also possible this crack is nothing out of the ordinary for porous comets like 67P as they erode. It’s hard to say for sure — this is the first time we’ve gotten such a close-up look at a comet.

Rosetta dropped the Philae lander off on 67P back in November, but it didn’t quite go as planned. The lander’s harpoons failed to fire, which caused it to bounce along the surface, eventually coming to rest in a shadow that prevented the solar panels from creating enough power. After doing most of its science, Philae went to sleep. The ESA has continued to monitor conditions on the comet with Rosetta and hopes that when the comet nears the sun, it will shine more light on Philae, allowing it to come back online.

Philae isn’t close enough to the neck region to offer any insights about the newly discovered crack, but it can certainly tell us more about the composition of 67P. Even if Philae never comes back online, Rosetta will keep an eye on the surface from a few kilometers up. It will be there through 67P’s solar perigee in August, and will follow as it heads back out toward Jupiter.

Source : Geek.com

NASA unveils 100-millionth picture of the sun

An instrument onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured NASA's 100-millionth image of the sun. Four telescopes work parallel to capture eight images of the sun and cycle through 10 different wavelengths every 12 seconds.

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration instrument aboard a sun-viewing spacecraft has captured its 100-millionth image of the sun.

The instrument, on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and uses four telescopes. The photo was taken Jan.19, according to NASA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VVxdN79QZY

In the nearly five years since its start in 2010, Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured images of the sun "to help scientists better understand how the roiling corona gets to temperatures some 1,000 times hotter than the sun's surface, what causes giant eruptions such as solar flares, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move," NASA says.

Source : USA TODAY

Amazing photo of Saturn and its Titan moon looks like high art in deep space

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This amazing image shows Saturn and its moon Titan as crescents on Aug. 11, 2013. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

An amazing photo taken by a NASA probe shows Saturn and its large moon Titan shining as pretty crescents in deep space.

The two cosmic bodies were imaged by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the Saturn system for about 10 years. The image -- released on Monday (Nov. 3) -- was captured as the robotic ship was flying about 1.1 million miles (1.7 million kilometers) from the ringed wonder on Aug. 11, 2013, according to NASA. Some of Saturn's ring plane can even be seen in the black and white image.

"More than just pretty pictures, high-phase observations -- taken looking generally toward the sun, as in this image -- are very powerful scientifically since the way atmospheres and rings transmit sunlight is often diagnostic of compositions and physical states," NASA officials said in an image description. "In this example, Titan's crescent nearly encircles its disk due to the small haze particles high in its atmosphere scattering the incoming light of the distant sun."

China probe flies around moon and back in first such mission since 1970s

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Chinese researchers examine the scorched Chang’e 5-T1 return capsule after it landed successfully in Inner Mongolia having travelled around the moon and back.

Photograph: Xinhua

China has completed its first return mission to the moon with the successful re-entry and landing on Earth of an unmanned probe, state media reported.

The probe, Chang’e 5-T1, landed safely in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, state news agency Xinhua said, citing the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre.

Xinhua said the probe, dubbed “Xiaofei” (little flyer) on social media, took “some incredible pictures” of the Earth and the moon. It is the first trip around the moon and back since US and Russian flights of the 1970s, 40 years ago.

Prior to re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere the unnamed probe had been travelling at 11.2 kilometres per second (25,000 miles per hour), a speed that can generate temperatures of more than 1,500C (2,700F), the news agency reported.

To slow it down scientists let the craft “bounce” off Earth’s atmosphere before re-entering again and landing.

The probe’s mission was to travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to Earth, said the the state science and technology agency, Sastind. The module went 413,000km from Earth at its furthest point.

The mission was launched to test technology to be used in the Chang’e-5, China’s fourth lunar probe, which aims to gather and return samples from the surface in 2017.

The military-run space project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.

China currently has a robotic rover, Yutu (Jade Rabbit), on the moon. It landed on 14 December 2013 and completed parts of its mission before grinding to a halt on 25 January 2014 due to equipment failure.

Source : The Guardian

China’s Lunar Test Spacecraft Takes Incredible Picture of Earth and Moon Together

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The Chinese lunar test mission Chang’e 5T1 has sent back some amazing and unique views of the Moon’s far side, with the Earth joining in for a cameo in the image above. According to the crew at UnmannedSpaceflight.com the images were taken with the spacecraft’s solar array monitoring camera.



A closeup of Mare Marginis, a lunar sea that lies on the very edge of the lunar nearside. Credit: Xinhua News, via UnmannedSpacefight.com

The mission launched on October 23 and is taking an eight-day roundtrip flight around the Moon and is now journeying back to Earth. The mission is a test run for Chang’e-5, China’s fourth lunar probe that aims to gather samples from the Moon’s surface, currently set for 2017. Chang’e 5T1 will return to Earth on October 31.

The test flight orbit had a perigee of 209 kilometers and reached an apogee of about 380,000 kilometers, swinging halfway around the Moon, but did not enter lunar orbit.



A view of Earth on October 24, 2014, from the Chinese Chang’e-5 T1 spacecraft.

Source : universe today

Cassini sees sunny seas on Titan

This near-infrared, color view from Cassini shows the Sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas.

As it soared past Saturn’s large moon Titan recently, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft caught a glimpse of bright sunlight reflecting off hydrocarbon seas.

In the past, Cassini had captured separate views of the polar seas and the Sun glinting off them, but this is the first time both have been seen together in the same view.

Also in the image:

– An arrow-shaped complex of bright methane clouds hovers near Titan’s north pole. The clouds could be actively refilling the lakes with rainfall.

– A “bathtub ring,” or bright margin, around Kraken Mare — the sea containing the reflected sunglint — indicates that the sea was larger at some point, but evaporation has decreased its size.

Titan’s seas are mostly liquid methane and ethane. Before Cassini’s arrival at Saturn, scientists suspected that Titan might have bodies of open liquid on its surface. Cassini found only great fields of sand dunes near the equator and lower latitudes but located lakes and seas near the poles, particularly in the north.

The new view shows Titan in infrared light. It was obtained by Cassini’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on August 21.

 

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Jupiter's ‘one-eyed giant Cyclops’ captured by Hubble

A stunning event captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope shows a big black eye staring back from Jupiter's Great Red Spot storm. In reality, it is shadow play on a planetary scale.

The image was captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope as it tracked changes in Jupiter’s immense Great Red Spot storm – a storm that has been raging for over 300 years. The black eye is caused by the shadow of the Jovian moon, Ganymede, sweeping across the center of the storm.

“For a moment, Jupiter stared back at Hubble like a one-eyed giant Cyclops,” a NASA spokesman told the Daily Express.

The Great Red Spot, the largest known vortex in the Solar System at 10,000 miles wide, is a persistent anti-cyclonic storm just south of Jupiter's equator. It has been raging for between 300 and 400 years, blowing winds at 345 miles an hour – speeds that are beyond comparison with even an Earthly Category 5 hurricane, which can only maximize up to 200 miles.

Astronomers are only beginning to fully understand the complexity of Jupiter, a gas giant which has a mass 317 times bigger than Earth. The planet has 62 moons – including four large ones called the Galilean moons, first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede is the largest of these moons.

Amazing picture of Supernova 1987A

Real image SN 1987A located at 1,68,000 light years from earth in Large Magellanic Cloud (Another Galaxy)

you can imagine the power of this supernova by understanding that even it was located at another galaxy it was visible to the naked eye. It was the first supernova that modern astronomers had to observe a SN and to use modern technology in that observation allowing them to gather much more data.

Supernovae are extremwely rare events. About 1 every 200 years is visible and they only last for a month or two.



image of SN 1987A

Hubble captures stunning image of a comet's brush past Mars

NASA has just released this image of comet Siding Spring's close brush past Mars, and it is thrilling.

The image you see above -- a fuzzy white comet hovering above a glowing rust-colored planet -- is actually a composite of several images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on Saturday and Sunday.

NASA's Hi Res camera aboard a Mars orbiter captured the first images of the nucleus of a comet
There are a few reasons that Hubble could not take a picture like this in a single shot. For one, Mars is 10,000 times brighter than its cometary visitor, making it impossible to see details of Siding Spring and Mars in one exposure.

Also, the two objects were racing past each other during their near-rendezvous on Sunday. At least one of the objects would have been blurry if Hubble tried to take an image of them simultaneously.

The starfield that the two bodies are set against was provided by the Palomar Digital Sky Survey.

Despite being a bit of a cut and paste job, NASA officials say the image accurately illustrates the distance between Siding Spring and Mars at the time of the comet's closest approach.

It also accurately represents the relative sizes of the two bodies.