Yesterday morning, NASA successfully launched the Mars Science Laboratory — named Curiosity — toward the fourth planet. If, like me, you missed the launch itself (^%$#@&! sinuses) why then, here’s some pretty dramatic video of the liftoff:
[Make sure to set it to 720p resolution!]
The cool parts to watch are: about 2 minutes in when the booster rockets fall by the wayside; 3:42 when the payload fairing is jettisoned, exposing the Curiosity spacecraft — as seen by the camera onboard the rocket, which is way cool; 4:38 when the entire rocket starts to slowly spin up, providing stabilization and allowing the Sun to heat the assembly evenly; then a few seconds later when the upper stage Centaur rocket ignites, leaving the booster behind (also extremely cool).
[UPDATE: SUCCESS! The launch was just about perfect, and Curiosity is now on its way to Mars, scheduled to land in August 2012. Congrats to everyone on the mission!]
Tomorrow, Saturday, November 26 at 10:02 Eastern (US) time (15:02 UTC), an Atlas V rocket carrying the Curiosity Mars rover will blast off from Florida, sending the sophisticated rolling lab to the Red Planet.
It is no exaggeration to say that Curiosity is a huge leap forward for Mars exploration. Designed to last for nearly two years, it’s 3 meters long — the size of a hefty golf cart — and its scientific payload is ten times more massive than its predecessors. It has instruments (PDF) that can sample and taste the air and surface, imagers to provide high resolution stereo pictures, a laser to zap rocks and get their spectra (which yields their composition), and even a camera that will take video of the last two minutes of its descent to the surface to provide aerial context for its cameras once it lands.
If you thought Spirit and Opportunity were cool — and you’d be right — Curiosity will up the ante considerably. I’m very excited by the prospect of the science this rover will do, and the exploration it’s capable of as a precursor, eventually, to a human being stepping foot on this odd, dry, and cold neighboring world.
NASA’s little satellite that could, Swift, recently celebrated its seventh year in space. It blasted into orbit on November 20, 2004, starting a mission that would increase our understanding of the most violent events in the universe, and shatter cosmic distance records.
I wrote about Swift six years ago, on the first anniversary of its launch, and the funny thing is not a whole lot has changed except for the numbers. It’s still going strong after 2500+ days in orbit, and instead of dozens of gamma-ray bursts seen after one year, now it’s seen well over 600. Gamma-ray bursts are the mind-numbingly violent explosions of stars that signal the births of black holes, and each event releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will over its entire lifetime. Happily, the Earth is nowhere near any potential GRB candidates (the nearest is about 7500 light years away, far enough that any damage it could do to us would be relatively mild), but if one were, say, 100 light years away, it would cook us like a whelk in a supernova.
I worked on Education and Public Outreach for Swift for many years, and it’s really nice to see it still pumping out fascinating and important science. Happy birthday to Swift and congratulations to the Swift team!
Image credits: NASA; Image credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
On October 28th, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite launched into low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. Designed to observe Earth’s environment and climate, it’s in an 800 km (500 mile) orbit, and on November 21 it took its first images of the planet below.
And what a picture! Check. This. Out.
[Click to engaiaenate.]
What’s that, I hear you ask? It doesn’t look like that big a deal? That’s because I had to shrink the flippin’ huge 6000×6000 original image to fit the blog! The whole swath shows the planet from Canada to South America, but here’s a closer-up version: (more…)
A few days ago, the US House and Senate compromised on a (partial) federal budget, and President Obama signed it into reality. Among many other things, NASA’s budget was in there. Congress has posted an overview of the bill, which I recommend perusing. Space News has an excellent overview of the budget, as does The Planetary Society blog.
The big picture: NASA will get a total of $17.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, which is about $600M less than last year, and over $900M less than what President Obama wanted.
Ouch.
But totals aren’t necessarily as important as specifics. What are the details?
James Webb Space Telescope
As you may recall, the House wanted to ax the James Webb Space Telescope, literally giving it 0 dollars. The Senate wanted to save it. The new funding just passed gives NASA’s Science Directorate a total of $5.1 billion, which is an increase over last year by about $150 million. That sounds great, but this total includes $530 million for JWST to keep it going.
I’m glad that the project won’t be canceled, but I’m very concerned about the source of that money. I can do that math. All things being equal, a $150M increase with $530M dedicated to JWST means NASA will have to cut other programs to the tune of $380 million. The Congressional summary even says this explicitly:
The agreement accommodates cost growth in the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by making commensurate reductions in other programs, and institutes several new oversight measures for JWST’s continuing development.
Astronaut Ron Garan’s photography is a common feature here at BA Central, and although his still photos are incredible, he hadn’t tried time-lapse photography until his last trip up to the space station.
This is part of a project Ron is working on called Fragile Oasis, an effort to get everyone to see the Earth as a single home for humanity, and to inspire people to make a difference, change things for the better. About his feelings as he gazed down on the Earth from space, Ron writes:
It was very moving to see the beauty of the planet we’ve been given. But as I looked down at this indescribably beautiful fragile oasis, this island that has been given to us and has protected all life from the harshness of space, I couldn’t help thinking of the inequity that exists.
I couldn’t help but think of the people who don’t have clean water to drink, enough food to eat, of the social injustice, conflict, and poverty that exist.
The stark contrast between the beauty of our planet and the unfortunate realities of life for many of its inhabitants reaffirmed the belief I share with so many. Each and every one of us on this planet has the responsibility to leave it a little better than we found it.
I can’t argue with that. In fact, I strongly support this effort, and hope everyone out there spreads the word.
Unless you are actively giving CPR to an accident victim at this very moment, drop whatever you are doing and watch this stunning, mind-blowing time lapse video of the Earth at night, taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station:
Holy. Haleakala. Make sure that’s set to HD and make it full screen.
The video, taken by astronauts and edited by Michael König, was from a high-resolution camera with low-light abilities, so it can see faint sources of light. The footage was all taken from August to October 2011.
I’m so overwhelmed by the beauty and coolness of this video I’m not sure which part I like best! The cities streaming by underneath; the instantly recognizable outlines of familiar places like the Great Lakes or the boot of Italy; the incredible flickering thunderstorms — giving you an understanding that there are always thousands of such storms all over the planet at any one time; the incredible 3D view of the green and red aurorae which you can actually see as towering structures dozens or even hundreds kilometers in height; the stars rising and setting and spinning over the horizon; the reflection of the Moon on the Earth below following along our point of view at 2:50 into the footage; or the thin glowing arc above the horizon: airglow, caused by molecules in the upper atmosphere slowly emitting light as they release energy accumulated during the day.
It’s all fantastic.
There have been plenty of beautiful time lapse videos of the Earth from the ISS — most notably, one from September — but this sets a new standard. Not the least of which because it’s so smooth; the sense of motion, the sense of flying, is overpowering. But the sheer magnificence of the entire video is simply incredible.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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The cool parts to watch are: about 2 minutes in when the booster rockets fall by the wayside; 3:42 when the payload fairing is jettisoned, exposing the Curiosity spacecraft — as seen by the camera onboard the rocket, which is way cool; 4:38 when the entire rocket starts to slowly spin up, providing stabilization and allowing the Sun to heat the assembly evenly; then a few seconds later when the upper stage Centaur rocket ignites, leaving the booster behind (also extremely cool).
NASA’s little satellite that could, 
A few days ago, the US House and Senate compromised on a (partial) federal budget, and President Obama signed it into reality. Among many other things, NASA’s budget was in there. 
