Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

[handdrummer]

Who built it, Ford, the recall king.

[pharvey]

I've been following "Firefly Aerospace" https://firefly.com/ which has actually been really interesting - far, far from the SpaceX's and Blue Origins of this world, they've only made one attempt at spaceflight which unfortunately ended up in a fireball...... , but still an incredible achievement to get as far as they did - never say die and currently in the process of a second attempt. Both Sunday's and Monday's attempts were scrubbed, but another attempt due for September 19th.

It's low budget stuff (in terms of space for sure) and that's part of the beauty. Live Webcasts through Firefly and the Space.com website - as well as "Everyday Astronaut" https://everydayastronaut.com/ - live:

Great insight, great information, truly interesting stuff!! Of course, moreso for science, space and rocket geeks!!

[pharvey]

Doubtful, but who knows? Three failures already and another excuse on the cards.....

NASA's Artemis 1 Moon Launch Scheduled for Sept. 27 Despite Gathering Storm

"NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket is ready for its big moment next week, but Mother Nature may keep it grounded for a while longer yet.

The space agency continues to target Tuesday (Sept. 27) for the launch of Artemis 1 from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, even though a big storm is brewing in the Caribbean. That storm could intensify into a hurricane, and it may have the Space Coast in its sights.

Artemis 1, the first flight of NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration, will use a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to send an uncrewed Orion capsule on a journey to lunar orbit and back"

Full - https://www.space.com/artemis-1-moon-ro ... d57734e5e2

Or MUCH More Interestingly......
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[pharvey]

What a shocker......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63022093

Will this rocket ever take off? Musk may just get to Mars before NASA gets back to the moon!!

Anywho...

Despite the masses of NASA's success in the past and more recently with the supposedly NASA lead James Webb Telescope (which was a joint venture and certainly not manufactured or designed by NASA), questions must be asked over the cost and their ability quite frankly.
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James-Webb.png (258.47 KiB) Viewed 1470 times

[PeteC]

Dimorphos: Nasa flies spacecraft into asteroid in direct hit

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63039191

The American space agency's Dart probe has smashed into an asteroid, destroying itself in the process.

The collision was intentional and designed to test whether space rocks that might threaten Earth could be nudged safely out of the way.

Dart's camera returned an image per second, right up to the moment of impact with the target - a 160m-wide object called Dimorphos.

What had been a steady image stream cut out as the probe was obliterated......

Best read at link as filled with photos and charts.

[pharvey]

Would be quite somthing if it's life could be extended by a further 20 years!!

Nasa, SpaceX Study Hubble Telescope Re-boost Mission

"Nasa and the SpaceX rocket company are to study the feasibility of running a private astronaut mission to extend the life of the Hubble telescope.

The orbiting observatory, one of the greatest instruments in the history of science, is gradually losing altitude.

If nothing is done to re-boost it, the telescope will eventually fall into the atmosphere and burn up.

Hubble was serviced on five occasions by astronauts in Nasa's space shuttle, the last time being in 2009.

Since then, the telescope has come down by about 25km and now circles the Earth at a height of 540km.

Ideally, Nasa would like to get the observatory back up to the 600km altitude where it was positioned at launch in 1990.

This might give it an additional 20-30 years of life, although longevity would also be heavily dependent on the continued good operation of the telescope's systems and, in particular, its four instruments."

Full Article @ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63084707

[Nereus]

Astronomers just spotted the most powerful flash of light ever seen

https://www.space.com/most-powerful-gam ... -ever-seen

The gamma-ray burst was also the nearest ever detected.

Astronomers just detected what may be the most powerful flash of light ever seen.

The so-called gamma-ray burst, the most energetic type of electromagnetic explosion known to exist in the universe, was first spotted by telescopes Sunday (Oct. 9).

Gamma-ray bursts, which were discovered accidentally by U.S. military satellites in the 1960s, are likely produced when giant stars explode at the ends of their lives before collapsing into black holes, or when ultradense stellar remnants known as neutron stars collide. Within seconds, these explosions unleash as much energy as the sun will emit during its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.

The flash detected Sunday was the strongest one ever observed, releasing 18 teraelectronvolts of energy. Scientists are still analyzing the measurements, but if the findings are confirmed, the gamma-ray burst would be the first gamma-ray burst ever found to carry more than 10 teraelectronvolts of energy.

At first, the strength of the flash confused astronomers; they thought it must have been produced by a relatively close source. They also initially believed that the energy was coming in X-rays, rather than in gamma-rays. Subsequent analyses of the signal confirmed that it was indeed a gamma-ray burst coming from a source some 2.4 billion light-years away. While not exactly nearby, the gamma-ray burst is still the closest ever seen.

Although this gamma-ray burst was within a safe distance from Earth, a much closer one would be catastrophic to our planet. Such an energetic flash within thousands of light-years from Earth would strip the planet of its protective ozone layer and likely cause mass extinction. In fact, scientists think one of the biggest mass-extinction events in Earth's history — the Ordovician extinction, which occurred 450 million years ago — may have been triggered by such a blast, according to NASA(opens in new tab).

Although the recently spotted gamma-ray burst, dubbed GRB221009A, appeared 20 times closer to Earth than an average gamma-ray burst, it is still far enough away to cause more excitement than concern.

"This is indeed a very exciting event!" Gemma Anderson, an astronomer at Curtin University in Australia, who studies similar phenomena, told ScienceAlert(opens in new tab). "This event being so nearby but also very energetic means the radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray light it produces is extremely bright and therefore easy to observe. We can therefore study this gamma ray burst with lots of big and small telescopes around the world and collect very comprehensive datasets as it first brightens and then fades away."

Gamma-ray bursts come in two varieties. Short gamma-ray bursts are rarer and last no longer than two seconds. These bursts make up about 30% of all such events and are believed to be caused by collisions of neutron stars. The other type, long gamma-ray bursts, can last up to several minutes and are likely produced by hypernovas, stellar explosions that are 100 times brighter than supernovas, in which supermassive stars die after running out of the hydrogen fuel in their cores.

Astronomers mostly see the afterglow of these explosions that comes from electrons energized by the blast. GRB221009A appears to be a long gamma-ray burst, but astronomers don't know yet what gave rise to it.

"It is still too early to tell," Anderson told ScienceAlert. "The light from an underlying supernova will take days to brighten. However, given this gamma-ray burst's long duration, it may be a very powerful type of supernova."

Telescopes all over the world (and in Earth's orbit) are now pointing at the dusty galaxy from which the flash emerged. They will try to observe the light generated by the explosion in as many wavelengths as possible to get the most complete picture of its origin.

"When you are dealing with cosmic explosions that blast out stellar remains at near the speed of light, leaving a black hole behind, you are watching physics occurring in the most extreme environments that are impossible to recreate on Earth," Anderson told ScienceAlert. "We still don't fully understand this process. Such a nearby explosion means we can collect very high quality data to study and understand how such explosions occur."

The observations were first published in the Astronomer's Telegram(opens in new tab) on Sunday, Oct. 9.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic flashes of light known to exist in the universe. (Image credit: NASA, ESA and M. Kornmesser)

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[pharvey]

So, just purchased a "Beginners Scope" to try and view our "Celestrial Neighbours" - knowing very little (hence "Beginner"), looking for a bit of advice if there's anyone here that can offer some....

The Telescope I purchased (recommended on Space.com) is a "Celestron 22460 StarSense Explorer DX 102AZ Smartphone App-Enabled Refractor Telescope". This comes with 10 and 25mm lenses, should I be looking at others? Are there decent lenses to restrict light pollution?

Ta in advance.....

[Nereus]

NASA published a 'haunting portrait' of Pillars of Creation for Halloween. Here's why it's a spookier version of its sparkly twin

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-31/ ... /101595872

NASA has published a new image of the Pillars of Creation using the James Webb Telescope, taken using technology that highlights the "eerie" clouds of dust rather than the sparkling stars around it.

Earlier in the month, NASA published a recreation of the iconic Pillars of Creation image taken by the Hubble telescope back in 1995.

That image, taken using Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), revealed dazzling detail of the stars surrounding the massive gas clouds.

long article with photos at the link...............................

A side-by-side look at two highly detailed images of the Pillars of Creation from the James Webb Telescope. (Supplied: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI))

pillars of creation.jpg (169.56 KiB) Viewed 1282 times

[Nereus]

So, just purchased a "Beginners Scope" to try and view our "Celestrial Neighbours" - knowing very little (hence "Beginner"), looking for a bit of advice if there's anyone here that can offer some....

The Telescope I purchased (recommended on Space.com) is a "Celestron 22460 StarSense Explorer DX 102AZ Smartphone App-Enabled Refractor Telescope". This comes with 10 and 25mm lenses, should I be looking at others? Are there decent lenses to restrict light pollution?

Ta in advance.....

I cannot comment on the instrument, but the biggest problem with any of them is finding an area with no, or very little, background light. In Australia near where I come from, an outback sheep station has set up a camping area where no light is permitted.
The sheep are not permitted either, but maybe your Welsh sheep could help you keep warm on top of a hill away from surrounding light.

[pharvey]

I cannot comment on the instrument, but the biggest problem with any of them is finding an area with no, or very little, background light. In Australia near where I come from, an outback sheep station has set up a camping area where no light is permitted.
The sheep are not permitted either, but maybe your Welsh sheep could help you keep warm on top of a hill away from surrounding light.

In Wales and the UK in general we are lucky with "Dark Sky" areas, though obvioulsy nothing like Aus. In fact just heading to the countryside in Suffolk on the East coast in an area which is good apparently.
Will wait for the New Year to visit the Welsh sheep - whilst they can ineed keep you warm, I'm not a sheep worrier!!

[Big Boy]

Will wait for the New Year to visit the Welsh sheep - whilst they can ineed keep you warm, I'm not a sheep worrier!!

A Welshman who is not a sheep worrier

[pharvey]

A Welshman who is not a sheep worrier

It's my story and I'm sticking to it!! Mind you, I have the expandable bycicle clips which are (apparently) more comfy than wellies.......

[STEVE G]

The NASA Artemis 1 mission finally launched just under two hours ago. It successfully made orbit and has now made an engine burn to put it on the way to the moon.

[Nereus]

NASA's Orion spacecraft reaches record-breaking distance in space exploration mission

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-29/ ... /101711590

NASA's Orion spacecraft has reached more than 432,000km from Earth — the farthest distance scheduled on its Artemis I mission and the farthest any spacecraft built for humans has travelled.

The uncrewed spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to deep space destinations reached the halfway point of it's 25.5 day mission on Tuesday morning, AEST.

The mission will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, with the goal of a safe crew module entry, descent, splashdown and recovery.

On Tuesday, NASA confirmed the mission was on track, with the spacecraft in a healthy condition as it continued its journey in deep retrograde orbit, a highly stable orbit where little fuel is required.

"Because of the unbelievable can-do spirit, Artemis I has had extraordinary success and has completed a series of history making events," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said.

"It's incredible just how smoothly this mission has gone, but this is a test. That's what we do – we test it and we stress it."

Engineers had originally planned an orbital maintenance burn around the halfway mark, but determined it was not necessary because of Orion's already precise trajectory.

Based on Orion's performance, managers are examining adding seven additional test objectives to reduce risk before flying future missions with crew.

Flight controllers have completed about 37.5 per cent of the test objectives associated with the mission, with many remaining objectives set to be evaluated during entry, descent, splashdown, and recovery.

NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team and the US Navy are beginning initial operations for recovery of Orion when it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.