Astronomy and planetary sciences

NASA finds a Solar System similar to our own

19Dec

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

NASA finds a Solar System similar to our own

Kepler Space Telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to find Earth-sized planets orbiting other sun-like stars has recently discovered a new planet orbiting the Kepler-90 star. This brings the number of planets around the star to eight, the same as the number of planets in our solar system. The star and the system in which the new planet is located is about 2,545 light years away from our planet. There could be more planets in the system which have not yet been spotted. The discovery came as a result of a team effort from NASA and Google Artificial Intelligence. A machine learning algorithm trained to look for signals that might belong to planets played a part in the discovery of the new planet known as Kepler0-90i. Paul Hertz, the director of the Astrophysics Division of NASA, says “By ap...

22Mar

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, News, Space flight

NASA’s EO-1 Retires After 17 Years

Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), one of NASA’s pathfinder Earth satellites, was launched back in 2000 as part of their New Millennium Program. Its original mission was designed to last one year and it was designed to operate for about 1.5 times that duration. Seventeen years later, we can safely say that it has far exceeded expectations. Now EO-1 is finally set to retire on March 30, 2017. Some of its achievements include being the first to map active lava flows, track re-growth in the Amazon and measure a methane leak at a facility from space. During its operation, more than 1500 papers were published based on EO-1 research. Fig. Methane emissions detected by EO-1’s Hyperion (Source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov) Two of the instruments on board the EO-1 that made this possible are the Adva...

28Sep

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space flight

Reality Check!

From Einstein’s theory of relativity to the remarkable discovery of gravitational waves, a century-long ride. Intro 100 years after it was first published, Einstein’s theory of relativity has emerged copiously triumphant in the wake of the recent direct detection of gravitational waves. Einstein said that everything is relative. Gravity isn’t exactly a downward force, time is not absolute and it’s all about ‘spacetime’. Was Isaac Newton entirely mistaken? We hear ‘general relativity’ and we think ‘ E=mc2 ’, Albert Einstein’s gift to humanity. The general theory of relativity was published by Albert Einstein in 1916. A century later, in late 2015, the very first direct detection of the ‘gravitational waves’ as predicted by general relativity has ensued. Thanks to the brilliant LI...

22Sep

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space flight

Frozen Orbits

Frozen orbits about the Earth - counteracting orbital perturbations in the long run A special type of orbit that is cleverly chosen such that the variation in the mean Kepler elements under the influence of Earth’s irregular gravity field is minimized. There are six intuitive orbital components that are often used to describe the shape and orientation of a satellite orbit. These elements are varying constantly due to perturbations, but for a cleverly chosen orbit, the frozen orbit, the long-term effects of at least some of these perturbations can be cancelled. In 1978, a key Earth observation satellite was launched from Vandenberg AFB in the United States. This satellite, carrying the name Seasat, was to monitor Earth’s oceanographic phenomena. To carry out this mission, the satellite w...

5Jul

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, News, Space flight

“Juno, welcome to Jupiter”

After 2.7 billion kilometers and almost 5 years, Juno successfully entered Jupiter's orbit in the early hours of today morning. Subsequent to NASA's Galileo mission (1995), Juno is only the second to have accomplished this feat. While in orbit, the Juno mission aims to better understand the gas giant in the following 20 months of its science phase. Juno also happens to be the fastest ever craft built by humans, travelling at speeds of over 260,000 kilometers per hour (74 km/s). To arrive at Jupiter, Juno took an elliptical heliocentric orbit through the Solar System involving an Earth fly-by two years after launch. This fly-by provided Juno with a further boost of around 3.9 km/s, enabling Juno to reach Jupiter in just under 5 years. "Juno, welcome to Jupiter" were the words heard throu...

NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge: Interview with Jason Kessler

20Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, Interview, Space engineering, Space flight, Specials

NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge: Interview with Jason Kessler

The narrative around asteroids has largely been one of ‘Impact-Threat Science’. The concept that asteroids are a threat has lead to a push in reconfiguring astronomy as ‘interventionist science’, ultimately suggesting militaristic endings. Many other asteroid scientists suggest contrasting innovative solutions. We caught up with Jason Kessler, Program Executive of NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge at the Border Sessions Festival in The Hague, where he was one of the speakers. NEOO, ARM and AGC: In 1998, NASA initiated Near Earth Objects (NEO) Observations programs with the aim to discover 90% of the NEOs larger than one kilometer in diameter and in 2005, Congress extended that goal to include 90% of the NEOs larger than 140 meters. The programs have been remarkably successful at achiev...

Emerging Victorious: The LISA Pathfinder

8Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space engineering, Space flight

Emerging Victorious: The LISA Pathfinder

The LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) Pathfinder is a research spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) and was launched in December 2015. The main purpose of the LISA Pathfinder mission is to test certain technologies for future space observatories to detect gravitational waves from large astronomical bodies (e.g. stars) around us. The LISA Pathfinder uses extremely sophisticated technology to observe the "path" taken by two cubes located in the heart of the spacecraft when subjected to pure gravitational free-fall. It is also ensured that the cubes act under the influence of gravity alone and hence, the LISA Pathfinder shields these two cubes from external disturbances like solar wind and/or pressure. Therefore, you have two cubes in pure gravitational free-fall insid...

1Jun

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space flight

How Are Supermassive Black Holes Born?

It is believed that black holes are formed from ‘black hole seeds’ that grow out of smaller black holes. These seeds then grow by consuming the gas from their surroundings and merging with other small black holes. This process, however, is slow and fails to satisfactorily account for the rapid development of black holes. Now, an Italian group of scientists has identified two objects in the early universe which could be suitable candidates to be black hole seeds. Seen less than a billion years after the Big Bang, these ‘seeds’ weigh 100,000 times the mass of our Sun. These seeds are formed directly when a massive cloud of gas collapses onto itself, according to new findings. The Italian team’s new research points towards a theory that black holes start big and proceed to...

18May

By LeonardoTimesNo Comments

Astronomy and planetary sciences, News, Space flight

Mercury’s transit

A celestial event that will occur merely 14 times throughout the entire 21st century; it is now time for Mercury’s transit in front of our Sun. From the Earth’s perspective, only the transits of Mercury & Venus can be viewed. On May 9th 2016, Mercury could be seen as a minuscule black dot sailing in front of the Sun’s magnificent inferno. Centuries ago, it was the observation and analysis of the transit of Mercury (and Venus) that led astronomers to estimate astronomical distances. This was done by making use of the parallax effect. Astronomers would observe the transits from different geographical locations on Earth and precisely record the start and end of the transit. Thereby, the first estimates of the distance from the Earth to the Sun (1 AU) and other celestial bodies were...