Space Shuttle Endeavour to Retire

The space shuttles are arguably some of the most successful aircraft in history, let alone most successful spacecraft. Their unique ability to glide from the very top of the atmosphere and land on a conventional runway qualifies them as aircraft, while, of course, their ability to orbit the planet makes them spacecraft as well.

Endeavour (officially designated OV-105) has done a masterful job of transferring goods and people from earth to the International Space Station and back. She shows well over 116 million miles on the odometer, and has orbited the Earth over 4,423 times.  She’s docked with the Russian space station Mir once and with the International Space Station 11 times.

Her last ride starts on Friday, April 29. If all goes well she’ll roar into space just before four in the afternoon, local time, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She’ll be delivering spare parts for the ISS and a new experiment, called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS).

Instead of a telescope, the AMS is a cosmic ray receiver. The data the AMS captures will be analyzed with the hopes of better understanding the origin of these mysteriously energetic particles, and perhaps gaining insight into the origin of the universe itself.

At the conclusion of this mission, officially dubbed STS-134, Endeavor will head back to the hanger, but the keys won’t be put in the drawer just yet. She’ll be prepped as a backup for STS-135, the Atlantis mission scheduled for June. Endeavour will be the lifeboat should something go wrong while Atlantis is in orbit.

When Atlantis returns from her final flight, Endeavour will be cleaned up and prepped for her longest mission, the last of her life. She’ll be flown out to California and become a permanent museum exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. 

Although she won’t be ferrying astronauts or cargo she’ll be doing a far more important job. She’ll be educating the American public on just how magnificent an achievement the space shuttle program was.

Before we get teary-eyed over the end of the shuttle program, however, we must remind ourselves that the Constellation Program is in the building stages. Where the shuttle program did a magnificent job of colonizing Earth’s orbit, Constellation is focused on exploration the solar system and deep space.

 

Celestial Events to Add to a Skywatching Calendar

May 6 – Haley’s Comet Meteor Shower

On May 6 early risers will be able to experience the return of Halley’s Comet. The best watch time is just before dawn. A seventy six year cycle, the early birds will get to see the dynamic event of profuse activity produced by a type of sand that this comet sheds in its path of orbit, along with blazing meteorites crossing the night sky.  This is a once in a lifetime event for most people.

Image via Wikipedia

As many people know, famed author and satirist, Mark Twain was born on the year of Haley’s comet. He always said that by the next time this famous comet comes around, he would be leaving the same way he arrived on earth. He passed away the day after. 

Also known as the eta Aquarid meteor shower, it’s best observed from somewhere out of the city away from the lights. Take a chaise lounger or a blanket and sprawl out to watch the show. Anyone under the age of 76 has never seen this event which is best viewed from the southern hemisphere. There’s something for everyone, though. Meteor activity will be visible from most locations.

There is no set timework for when the meteors come and go, but this date is important because of the moon phase. Only a crescent moon appears on this new moon phase, and minimal light helps the show go on. During a full moon, for example, the sky will be quite bright, interfering with the visibility.

The eta Aquarid meteors move at 148,000 mph, sometimes leading a long train of glowing matter behind in the wake. When a meteor comes toward the earth, it isn’t possible to see the tail. Otherwise, the fiery flashes that follow dominate the visuals against a black backdrop, as the crescent moon goes beyond the horizon.

Partial solar eclipse on June 1st          

Mostly visible from Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Japan, and Norway this partial eclipse goes on for about two hours. Outside of these northern areas, not much will be visible. For a view of the path of travel, copy paste the links at the end of this article.   

Astrologers confer different meanings to solar eclipses. This partial eclipse can lead to new decisions or goals. It may bring anxiety or restlessness. Usually the effects of the eclipse can be felt for a week before or after. Robert Hand, famed astrologer, goes so far as to say the effects happen either six months before or after. He indicates that astrological meaning is so complex that it is really a wait and see situation. The moon sign and sun sign on June 1st will be Gemini. There was a total lunar eclipse in Gemini just last December (2010.)

As spring is bursting out all over, the skies are no exception. Hopefully, the celestial events are a source of enjoyment for those who are able to watch.

Mysterious Dwarf Planet Haumea Might Have Been a Major

The rules for being a major planet are simple; it must orbit the sun, it must have enough gravitational pull to form a spherical shape, and it must clear its orbital path of major debris.  That last rule is the one that knocked poor Pluto into the dwarf league.

Sad though Pluto’s plight may be, it is nothing compared to that of Haumea, discovered in 2003.  Haumea orbits the sun in the Kuiper Belt, that vast field of planetary bits and pieces that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Here Comes the Sun

Haumea is about as big as Pluto, but only on her longest side. She isn’t round, but football shaped – a tapered cylinder 1,200 miles tall. And she tumbles end-over-end, making a complete tumble about once every four hours. Standing at one of the poles you’d see the sun, from there a very bright star, rise from below and in front of you, soar overhead, and set below and behind you.

But where Pluto has the tiny moon Charon to keep it company, Haumea has both Hi’iaka and Namaka orbiting her.  They are spherical either, but appear to be massive chunks of ice – space icebergs – that were torn off of Haumea, just as Charon is believed to have been torn out of Pluto, some time long, long ago.

Knocked out of the Majors

It is widely believed that Earth was smacked by a Mars-sized intruder back in our early formation days. The collision was so massive that the moon was torn right out of us.  Before Haumea, we thought we and Pluto were the only collision survivors.

But an ancient collision is assumed to be the reason for both Haumea’s odd shape and her curious tumbling. The moons Hi’iaka and Namaka are very probably chunks of the dwarf planet.

If that collision hadn’t occurred, Haumea may very well have been spherical. And, since her orbital path is crowded with debris believed to have been ejected from the crash, it may have once been clear. That would classify her as a major planet! Ah, the cruel fates.

A Long, Long Tumble

Haumea is a rocky planet embedded in a sheath of ice.  This is different from Pluto, which is believed to have a much higher ice content. Haumea’s end over end tumbling is probably what caused her to assume the elongated structure. That structure would have assumed an even more banana shape if not for her rocky core.

The collision is believed to have taken place roughly around the same time as our own: 4.5 billion years ago.

Picture this: that dwarf planet has been silently tumbling end-over-end, like a badly thrown football, for over four billion years.

Nasa Spots Asteroid Collision

Scheila, officially called 596 Scheila, is about 70 miles in diameter – that’s miniscule by planetary standards but a significant size when compared to many objects in the Asteroid Belt. The Asteroid Belt is that vast, rocky plain that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

Astronomers noticed in late November that Scheila suddenly and noticeably brightened – doubled in intensity and took on a comet-like glow. Telescopes and instruments were quickly brought to bear on the event.

Intense research, the results of which will be published in May’s Astrophysical Journal, revealed that she’d been hit by another, smaller asteroid.  The smaller body crashed into Scheila at 11,000 mph, and at an angle of about 30o – creating a crater that was as much as 1,000 feet across and sending a plume of debris off either end of the asteroid.

The dust plumes were reflected in the sunlight, causing the asteroid’s brightness to noticeably increase. The plumes also obscured astronomer’s ability to see details on the asteroids surface, giving it a comet-like appearance. The plumes were whipped away a few weeks later by the solar wind, that never ending bellow of radiation produced by the sun’s nuclear fire.

The plumes, however, revealed much about the asteroid’s interior. When NASA’s Deep Impact Probe punched an 800 pound bullet into the comet Tempel 1 back in 2006, the collision raised a cloud of ice and dust.  The impact on Scheila, however, was as much as 10,000 times more massive than that, and kicked up a cloud of rock and dust but no ice, indicating that the asteroid is of an entirely different structure than most comets.

The Scheila impact raised as much as 660,000 tons of dust.That’s twice the weight of the Empire State Building.

Astronomers were very fortunate to have spotted the impact. The relentless solar wind quickly erases collision dust clouds, leaving gaping craters and rough, ragged rock fragments as our only clues to the violent nature of Asteroid Belt.

You can learn more about Scheila’s earth-shattering experience at NASA’s News page.