Category: It’s science!

Fox News repotrs NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force station, home of the of the United States Air Force Space Command’s 45th Space Wing, on its historic mission to the Sun. The probe lit up the night sky as it blasted off at 3:31 a.m. EDT.

“It was a very quiet launch countdown, it went off like clockwork,” NASA Launch Director Omar Baez said. “Parker Solar Probe has been one of our most challenging missions to date.”

About four minutes into flight, the Delta IV port and starboard booster engines shut down and separated from the second stage. After second stage engine ignition, the payload fairing also was jettisoned. The second stage main engine cut off and separated.

Shortly afterward, mission managers confirmed that the spacecraft’s solar arrays successfully deployed. The spacecraft, provided by Northrup Grumman, was operating on its own power.

Carried by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, Parker lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37. The launch had intially been scheduled for early Saturday, but last-minute technical glitches ate away at the launch window, prompting a 24-hour delay.

The $1.5 billion mission will take humanity closer to the Sun than ever before. Parker will be the first spacecraft to fly through the Sun’s corona, the outermost part of the star’s atmosphere. It is expected to reach the Sun in November.
Parker will face “brutal” heat and radiation during an epic journey that will take it seven times closer than the previous closest spacecraft, Helios 2, in 1976

Parker must withstand heat of nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit to complete its audacious mission. To achieve this, the probe will be protected by a special 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield. Safe inside the spacecraft, however, the probe’s payload will be operating at room temperature.

Harnessing Venus’ gravity, Parker will complete seven flybys over seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. On its closest approach in 2024, the probe will be traveling at approximately 430,000 mph, setting a new speed record for a manmade object.

The Sun’s corona, which can be seen during a total solar eclipse, is usually hidden by the bright light of the star’s surface. The probe, named after pioneering solar physicist Dr. Eugene Parker, will provide a wealth of invaluable data.
Scientists expect to shed new light on the Sun’s potential to disrupt satellites and spacecraft, as well as electronics and communications on Earth.

Instruments on board Parker will study magnetic fields, plasma and energetic particles as well as imaging solar wind, a flow of ionized gases that stream past the Earth at more than a million miles an hour.

Eugene Parker first theorized the existence of the solar wind. To honor his contribution to science, the probe is NASA’s first spacecraft to be named after a living person.

The probe, which was designed and built by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, is also carrying more than 1.1 million names to the Sun. In March, members of the public were invited to be a part in the historic mission by submitting their names to be placed on a memory card that the spacecraft will take into space. In May, NASA confirmed that, over a seven-week period a total of 1,137,202 names were submitted.

Parker Solar Probe is the fourth mission this year for NASA’s Launch Services Program, which is responsible for launch service acquisition, integration, analysis and launch management for each mission. It’s good to be back.

Newsweek reports astronomers released images from the most wide-ranging ultraviolet light survey of nearby star-forming galaxies to date.

The project, known as LEGUS (Legacy Extra Galactic UV Survey), researchers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, and the Advanced Camera to capture both ultraviolet and visible images of 50 neighboring galaxies, which lie within a 60 million-light-year radius of Earth, over the course of a year.

The astronomers captured images of around 8,000 young star clusters, or groups of stars which are gravitationally bound, and catalogued 39 million individual stars, ranging in age from one billion to several billion years old.

The scientists hope data collected by the survey will provide new insights into the complexities of star formation and galaxy evolution.

“There has never before been a star cluster [catalog] and a stellar catalog that included observations in ultraviolet light,” Daniela Calzetti, an astronomer from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the LEGUS survey, said in a statement.

“Ultraviolet light is a major tracer of the youngest and hottest star populations, which astronomers need to derive the ages of stars and get a complete stellar history. The synergy of the two catalogs combined offers an unprecedented potential for understanding star formation,” she said.

Even today, with access to unprecedented astronomical data, astronomers still do not understand many aspects of how stars form. The new findings may help to change that, as the data will be made available to researchers who want to investigate how star formation occurred in either one specific galaxy or set of galaxies.

One of the main issues that the survey may help to address is the connection between star formation and the major structures that make up a galaxy, such as spiral arms.

Seems NASA is back in the game after cutbacks imposed by the previous administration. Manned asteroid exploration and both robot and manned missions to Mars are in the offing. Good to see you back, NASA.

Live in northern China, the Middle East, central Italy, northern Spain or the northern states of the US, New Zealand, Tasmania, parts of South America and southern Africa? Then I have some bad news for you.

The Guardian reports China’s first space station is expected to come crashing down to Earth within weeks, but scientists have not been able to predict where the 8.5-tonne module will hit.

Estimates differ, but the US-funded Aerospace Corporation thinks the Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere during the first week of April, give or take a week, while the European Space Agency says the module will come down between 24 March and 19 April. They’re just a bit vague on the “where” part.

“If this should happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometres in size,” said Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight.

“When considering the worst-case location … the probability that a specific person (ie, you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot.

“In the history of spaceflight no known person has ever been harmed by reentering space debris. Only one person has ever been recorded as being hit by a piece of space debris and, fortunately, she was not injured.”

“I would guess that a few pieces will survive re-entry. But we will only know where they are going to land after the fact.”

Aerospace Corperation warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board, so there’s that. I certainly feel better, now. Thank you Chinese rocket scientists!