MooPig Astronomy Department :: "Kepler Spacecraft"

NASA, we have a Lot of Data
Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Nov 18, 2013  |  Bryan TX

While astrophysicists continue to mine the data provided by Kepler Space Craft, the craft hit a snag. One of its "wheels" quit turning. So the Kepler is frozen in one position, but not before Astronomers could report staggering numbers.

[Picture LINK and LINK]

Far-Off Planets Like the Earth Dot the Galaxy - NYTimes.com: "Astronomers reported that there could be as many as 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the galaxy, based on a new analysis of data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. One out of every five sun-like stars in the galaxy has a planet the size of Earth circling it in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot, not too cold — where surface temperatures should be compatible with liquid water, according to a herculean three-year calculation based on data from the Kepler spacecraft by Erik Petigura, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley."

'via Blog this'

_______________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/cosmic-census-finds-billions-of-planets-that-could-be-like-earth.html?_r=1&
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/science/space/new-plan-for-a-disabled-kepler.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/earth-like-habitable-planets-kepler-space-video_n_4214758.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html#.Uos_5MSUTx4
http://media4.obspm.fr/exoplanets/pages_projets/futur-spatiaux-exopl.html
http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/seek-strange-worlds-kepler-space-telescope/

NASA Talk :: Orion Nebula

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Feb 11, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

The Cosmic Hearth
The Orion nebula is featured in this sweeping image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The constellation of Orion is prominent in the evening sky throughout the world from about December through April of each year. The nebula (also catalogued as Messier 42) is located in the sword of Orion, hanging from his famous belt of three stars. The star cluster embedded in the nebula is visible to the unaided human eye as a single star, with some fuzziness apparent to the most keen-eyed observers. Because of its prominence, cultures all around the world have given special significance to Orion. The Maya of Mesoamerica envision the lower portion of Orion, his belt and feet (the stars Saiph and Rigel), as being the hearthstones of creation, similar to the triangular three-stone hearth that is at the center of all traditional Maya homes. The Orion nebula, lying at the center of the triangle, is interpreted by the Maya as the cosmic fire of creation surrounded by smoke.

This metaphor of a cosmic fire of creation is apt. The Orion nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas where vast numbers of new stars are being forged. It is one of the closest sites of star formation to Earth and therefore provides astronomers with the best view of stellar birth in action. Many other telescopes have been used to study the nebula in detail, finding wonders such as planet-forming disks forming around newly forming stars. WISE was an all-sky survey giving it the ability to see these sites of star formation in a larger context. This view spans more than six times the width of the full moon, covering a region nearly 100 light-years across. In it, we see the Orion nebula surrounded by large amounts of interstellar dust, colored green.

Astronomers now realize that the Orion nebula is part of the larger Orion molecular cloud complex, which also includes the Flame nebula. This complex in our Milky Way galaxy is actively making new stars. It is filled with dust warmed by the light of the new stars within, making the dust glow in infrared light.

Color in this image represents specific infrared wavelengths. Blue represents light emitted at 3.4-micron wavelengths and cyan (blue-green) represents 4.6 microns, both of which come mainly from hot stars. Relatively cooler objects, such as the dust of the nebulae, appear green and red. Green represents 12-micron light and red represents 22-micron light.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Page Last Updated: February 6, 2013
Page Editor: Tony Greicius
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar

______________________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia16684.html

NASA Talk :: LL Ori and the Orion Nebula

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Feb 11, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

LL Ori and the Orion Nebula
This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift in Orion's stellar nursery and still in its formative years, variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more energetic than the wind from our own middle-aged Sun. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is formed, analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed.

The small, arcing, graceful structure just above and left of center is LL Ori's cosmic bow shock, measuring about half a light-year across. The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula's hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture. In three dimensions, LL Ori's wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the "bottom" edge. The beautiful picture is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team
Page Last Updated: February 4, 2013
Page Editor: Steve Fox
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar


_____________________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2442.html

NASA Talk :: LANDSAT

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Feb 11, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Fairing Encloses Landsat Satellite
Technicians encapsulate NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite in its payload fairing in the Astrotech processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is NASA's eighth satellite in the Landsat series and continues the Landsat program's critical role in monitoring, understanding and managing the resources needed for human sustainment such as food, water and forests. As our population surpasses seven billion people, the impact of human society on the planet will increase, and Landsat monitors those impacts as well as environmental changes.

Image credit: NASA/VAFB
Page Last Updated: February 7, 2013
Page Editor: Sarah Loff
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar

______________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2444.html

NASA Talk :: NEMO Storms

Retrieved By Pat Darnell | Feb 11, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Powerful Nor'easter Coming Together
A massive winter storm is coming together as two low pressure systems are merging over the U.S. East Coast. A satellite image from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite on Feb. 8 shows a western frontal system approaching the coastal low pressure area.

The satellite image, captured at 9:01 a.m. EST, shows clouds associated with the western frontal system stretching from Canada through the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, into the Gulf of Mexico. The comma-shaped low pressure system located over the Atlantic, east of Virginia, is forecast to merge with the front and create a powerful nor'easter. The National Weather Service expects the merged storm to move northeast and drop between two to three feet of snow in parts of New England.

Credit: NASA
Page Last Updated: February 8, 2013
Page Editor: Jim Wilson
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar


______________________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2445.html

NASA Talks :: NEMO

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Feb 11, 2013 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Blizzard Moves Through
This image was taken from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite on Saturday, Feb. 9, at 7:01 a.m. EST. Two low pressure systems came together and formed a giant nor'easter centered right over New England creating blizzards from Massachusetts to New York. the image was created by NASA's GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Image credit: NASA/GOES Project
Page Last Updated: February 9, 2013
Page Editor: Brian Dunbar
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar

_________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2446.html

NASA Talk :: "Curiosity Self Portrait"

Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Dec 31, 2012  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Curiosity Self-Portrait, Wide View
On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity's mission on Mars (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover.

The mosaic shows the rover at "Rocknest," the spot in Gale Crater where the mission's first scoop sampling took place. Four scoop scars can be seen in the regolith in front of the rover. A fifth scoop was collected later.

Self-portraits like this one document the state of the rover and allow mission engineers to track changes over time, such as dust accumulation and wheel wear. Due to its location on the end of the robotic arm, only MAHLI (among the rover's 17 cameras) is able to image some parts of the craft, including the port-side wheels.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Page Last Updated: December 27, 2012
Page Editor: Sarah Loff
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar


_________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2417.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mp4/716063main_whatsup20130101-320.mp4

NASA Talk :: "Ion Thruster"

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Dec 31, 2012 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Ion Thruster Sets World Record
While the Dawn spacecraft is visiting the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions. NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has developed a 7-kilowatt ion thruster that can provide the capabilities needed in the future.

An ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, but does so at higher specific impulse (or higher exhaust velocities), which means that an ion thruster has a fuel efficiency of 10-12 times greater than a chemical thruster. The higher the rocket's specific impulse (fuel efficiency), the farther the spacecraft can go with a given amount of fuel. Given that an ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, it needs to operate in excess of 10,000 hours to slowly accelerate the spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach the asteroid belt or beyond.

The NEXT ion thruster has been operated for over 43,000 hours, which for rocket scientists means that the thruster has processed over 770 kilograms of xenon propellant and can provide 30 million-newton-seconds of total impulse to the spacecraft. This demonstrated performance permits future science spacecraft to travel to varied destinations, such as extended tours of multi-asteroids, comets, and outer planets and their moons.

Image Credit: NASA
Page Last Updated: December 26, 2012
Page Editor: Steve Fox
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar

_________________________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2416.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mp4/716063main_whatsup20130101-320.mp4

NASA Talk :: "Chandra"

Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Dec 31, 2012 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3627
The spiral galaxy NGC 3627 is located about 30 million light years from Earth. This composite image includes X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope (red), and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope (yellow). The inset shows the central region, which contains a bright X-ray source that is likely powered by material falling onto a supermassive black hole.

A search using archival data from previous Chandra observations of a sample of 62 nearby galaxies has shown that 37 of the galaxies, including NGC 3627, contain X-ray sources in their centers. Most of these sources are likely powered by central supermassive black holes. The survey, which also used data from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxy Survey, found that seven of the 37 sources are new supermassive black hole candidates.

Confirming previous Chandra results, this study finds the fraction of galaxies found to be hosting supermassive black holes is much higher than found with optical searches. This shows the ability of X-ray observations to find black holes in galaxies where relatively low-level black hole activity has either been hidden by obscuring material or washed out by the bright optical light of the galaxy.

Credits: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./C.Grier et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI, ESO/WFI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Page Last Updated: December 28, 2012
Page Editor: Rebecca Goodman
NASA Official: Brian Dunbar


_________________________Reference
http://www.nasa.gov/mp4/716063main_whatsup20130101-320.mp4
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2418.html

MooPig I am a Planet :: Focusing on "grazing eclipsing binaries" as False Positives

 Common False Positives ::
 "Two common types of astrophysical phenomena that can masquerade as a planetary transit are grazing eclipsing binaries (left), where a pair of stars orbit each other, and background eclipsing binaries (right), where a distant binary star system is aligned very close to the star of interest. These require significant amount of ground-based observations to eliminate using radial velocity techniques. [HERE] "

"2010 Jan 4 AAS Press Conference - light curves [HERE]"

"2010 Jan 4 AAS Press Conference - planet sizes [HERE]"

" ... Using the prolific planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have discovered 1,235 planet candidates orbiting other suns since the Kepler mission's search for Earth-like worlds began in 2009. To find them, Kepler monitors a rich star field to identify planetary transits by the slight dimming of starlight caused by a planet crossing the face of its parent star. In this remarkable illustration created by Jason Rowe of NASA's Kepler Science Team, all of Kepler's planet candidates are shown in transit with their parent stars ordered by size from top left to bottom right. Simulated stellar disks and the silhouettes of transiting planets are all shown at the same relative scale, with saturated star colors. Of course, some stars show more than one planet in transit, but you may have to examine the picture at high resolution to spot them all. For reference, the Sun is shown at the same scale, by itself below the top row on the right. In silhouette against the Sun's disk, both Jupiter and Earth are in transit. "

"1,235 Planet Candidates — The Science Story
On February 1, 2011, BIll Borucki, Kepler's Principal Investigator, announced 1,235 planet candidates found in the first four months of Kepler observations. Prior to his announcement, about 500 exoplanets had been discovered by astronomers using all methods. Link to the press conference, announcement, and scientific publication in NASA Kepler News. [HERE] "

I am a Planet

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