Tag: space.com

Eye-popping Venus, low-riding Mercury and stealthy Saturn will all make appearances among the bright objects in September’s night sky, and this day-by-day description shows how to find them.

This month, Mercury might be glimpsed very low near the west-southwest horizon while Saturn gets lower each evening in the southwest at dusk. Meanwhile Mars, Jupiter and Venus have crossed into the morning sky, but only dazzling Venus is readily seen at dawn as it rapidly rises higher each morning.  It hovers just to the upper right of the waning crescent moon in the wee hours of the Sept. 10.  Mars is in the general vicinity, although it glows only a fraction as bright as Venus. During the second week of September, Jupiter appears against the bright morning twilight and becomes easier and easier to see during the latter part of the month. This video explains which planets are visible in the September night sky.

Remember, you can use your clenched fist at arm’s length — equal to roughly 10 degrees of the night sky — to measure off angular distances and locate planets on display. Here’s a look at when to see the brightest planets in the September night sky, if local weather conditions cooperate:

Sep. 4: About half to three-quarters of an hour after sunset, scan the horizon just south of due west to spot the planet Mercury.  Mercury is 27 degrees east of the Sun this evening, the furthest it will get in 2015, but it is still difficult to see from northern latitudes as it sets  in bright twilight less than an hour after sundown. Binoculars will be needed to see it.  Farther south, Mercury sets in a darker sky and is visible to the naked eye, at least early this month.  Mercury will pass between the Earth and the Sun, a condition called inferior conjunction, on the night of September 30th. [Do You Know Venus? Take Our Quiz]

Sep. 10: Venus is rising — or might we say “erupting” — into view along the eastern horizon at the break of dawn at the start of the month; it comes up earlier in a darker sky as each day passes. It will shine at its greatest brilliance (an eye-popping magnitude -4.8 on astronomers’ brightness scale, which is 23 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky) on September 20th, and by month’s end it rises more than two hours before dawn’s early light.  Recall that Venus was at inferior conjunction on August 15th, in line between the Earth and Sun. Now it is swinging away from that line, speeding ahead of the Earth in its faster orbit.  So in a telescope it displays a large, brilliant, beautiful crescent that waxes in phase all month while shrinking in size.  Early in the morning, a narrow crescent Moon can be seen sitting about 2 1/2 degrees to the left of Venus, while about a half dozen degrees to the left of the Moon sits orange-yellow Mars shining at an unusually dim magnitude of 1.8.  In all, a gorgeous eye-catching sight to start the day!

Sep. 11: Jupiter begins emerging into view, in an almost vertical leap up from the east horizon during September’s morning twilight.  Having passed conjunction with the Sun on August 26th, Jupiter rises about an hour before sunup. By month’s end Jupiter will be rising more than 2 hours before sunrise and will be readily visible in the predawn eastern sky.  [101 Best Night Sky Photos of 2014 by Stargazers]

Sep. 18: Saturn, in Libra, is relatively inconspicuous in the southwest when night begins.  It is only about half as bright as it was at opposition last May, but still slightly brighter than Antares, the heart of the celestial scorpion Scorpius.  This evening Saturn can be found about 2 1/2 degrees to the left of a crescent Moon.  Saturn spends September drawing closer to Antares and by the end of the month will be 11 degrees to the star’s right. 

Sep. 25: Mars glides 0.8 degrees to the north of the first magnitude star Regulus; the red planet is then half a magnitude fainter than the bluish star. The contrasting duo is 11 degrees to the lower left of Venus and 10 degrees above and to the right of Jupiter.

Editor’s note: If you capture an amazing view of the August full moon, or any other night sky view, and want to share it with Space.com for a story or gallery, send images and comments in to manaing editor Tariq Malik at: spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer’s Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute, Office of Public Outreach

Credit: NASA/GSFC

If life can spread from star to star, researchers should see a characteristic pattern of overlapping growth. In this theoretical artist’s conception of the Milky Way galaxy, translucent green “bubbles” mark areas where life has spread beyond its home system to create cosmic oases, a process called panspermia. Credit: NASA/JPL/R. Hurt

As astronomers get closer to finding potential signatures of life on faraway planets, a new mathematical description shows how to understand life’s spread — and to determine if it’s jumping from star to star.

If life arose on other planets, did it spontaneously grow from raw materials every time? Or did it dart from planet to planet and star to star, spreading across the universe? Telltale mathematical patterns of where life signatures appear could reveal the answer, authors of the new research said.

“Life could spread from host star to host star in a pattern similar to the outbreak of an epidemic,” study co-author Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said in a statement. “In a sense, the Milky Way galaxy would become infected with pockets of life.” [10 Alien Planets That May Support Life]

The concept of life spreading across different planets and stars is called panspermia — whether microscopic organisms hitch a ride on an asteroid or intelligent beings plot a course for new horizons. Mathematically, both of those situations would show the same basic pattern, the new research shows.

“In our theory, clusters of life form, grow and overlap like bubbles in a pot of boiling water,” the study’s lead author Henry Lin, also at CfA, said in the same statement. With that kind of growth, life would fill the universe much more quickly than if it arose only through spontaneous development.

As telescopes increase in power and researchers learn more about the substances and conditions, spotted from afar, that would herald extraterrestrial life, scientists get closer to potentially identifying such signs of life on other planets. And if life appears in distinct clusters that contain many different stars, it makes it much more likely that organisms can proliferate across the galaxy.

The tricky part is identifying those patterns while embedded inside them, only able to see a certain selection of stars. According to the new research, humans could get lucky and be on the edge of a bubble of life; if that were the case, astronomers would glimpse many instances of life on one side of Earth, and few to none on the other. It would be clear that life is spreading instead of growing spontaneously each time. But even if Earth was in a less favorable location, statistical analysis of the life-filled spots discovered could still reveal the characteristic pattern.

The transfer of life from star to star, through a species’ exploration or by natural events in the galaxy, would drastically speed up the transition from an empty galaxy to a life-filled one, the researchers said in the paper. Then, it might be only a matter of time before humans ran up against something otherworldly.

The research was recently accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) experiment is a state-of-the-art particle physics detector that was attached to the space station in 2011. It will now be joined by the Calorimetric Electron Telescope, a detector that will be used to measure even more energetic cosmic rays. Credit: NASA

In addition to ferrying tons of food, water and supplies to the International Space Station, a Japanese cargo ship that arrived on Monday (Aug. 23) carried an astrophysics telescope that will join the flagship Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in hunting for cosmic rays.

NEWS: Mystery Signal Could be Dark Matter Hint in ISS Detector

The Calorimetric Electron Telescope, or CALET, was due to be mounted on a platform outside Japan’s Kibo laboratory on Tuesday (Aug. 24), joining the $2 billion AMS particle detector, which was attached to the station in 2011.

Once operational, CALET will precisely measure cosmic rays, at even higher energies than AMS.

“Cosmic rays come at you from all directions and all the time … Every time one of these high-energy cosmic rays comes at us and starts triggering the instrument, we record it,” astrophysicist John Wefel, with Louisiana State University, said in a NASA TV interview.

NEWS: Dark Matter Mystery Deepens

Ground-based instruments can indirectly detect cosmic rays by measuring secondary particles that are created when the rays strike the atmosphere. By studying the cosmic rays directly in space, scientists hope to develop a better understanding of where they come from, what they are made of and how they come to have so much energy.

The cosmic rays also may shed light on so-called “dark matter,” which unlike regular matter does not emit detectable electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter, which comprises about 27 percent of the universe, can be indirectly detected by studying how its gravity influences nearby objects.

Regular matter adds up to less than 5 percent of the universe. The rest of the universe, roughly 68 percent, is filled with a mysterious anti-gravity force known as dark energy.

Top 10 Space Stories of the Decade

While AMS can detect electrons, protons, nuclei and antimatter at a range of energy levels, CALET is focused on high-energy electrons.

“CALET addresses many outstanding high-energy astrophysics questions such as the origin of cosmic rays, how cosmic ray accelerate and travel across the galaxy; and the existence of dark matter and nearby cosmic-ray sources,” NASA said in a summary of the program.

The telescope, which will be mounted outside the station, is expected to operate for up to five years. A third astrophysics observatory, known as Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass for the International Space Station, or ISS-CREAM, is due to launch next year.

This article was provided by Discovery News.

NASA’s New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto last month, now has a second target to aim for.

The New Horizons team has selected an object named 2014 MU69, which lies roughly 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, as the next target for up-close study by the spacecraft, NASA announced today (Aug. 28).

However, the space agency still must officially approve a New Horizons mission extension for the second flyby to take place in 2019. [Destination Pluto: NASA’s New Horizons Mission in Pictures]

“Even as the New Horizons spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer,” John Grunsfeld, chief of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.

The $720 million New Horizons probe traveled for nearly 10 years and 3 billion miles (4.8 billion km) to reach Pluto and its moons, becoming the first mission to study the dwarf planet system up close. It will take roughly 16 months for the probe to beam home all the data it collected during the encounter.

The successful July 14 flyby already ensures that New Horizons will go down in history as a roaring success, but the odds are good that the spacecraft will be collecting more data in the future. NASA commonly approves mission extensions for spacecraft that have finished their primary objective and are still in good working order.

Still, the New Horizons team must submit an extension proposal to NASA that will “be evaluated by an independent team of experts before NASA can decide about the go-ahead,” the statement said.

Artist’s impression of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering a Pluto-like object in the distant Kuiper Belt. NASA announced today (Aug. 28, 2015) that it has selected 2014 MU69 as its first choice for the probe’s secondary mission.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker

That proposal is due in 2016, but the New Horizons team must start planning for an encounter with 2014 MU69 right away. The team will execute a series of four maneuvers in October and November of this year to put the probe on a path to encounter the new object. Any later course corrections will require more fuel and “add mission risk,” the statement said. If the extension is approved, the probe is expected to reach 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019.

Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, called 2014 MU69 a “great choice,” for the secondary mission. Discovered in 2014 by the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists estimate it is just under 30 miles (48 km) in diameter, or between 0.5 and 1 percent the size of Pluto.

In 2014, Hubble identified five objects that New Horizons could potentially reach after its encounter with Pluto. The list was later narrowed down to two prime candidates, including 2014 MU69.

The Kuiper Belt is a largely unexplored region of the solar system; NASA’s twin Voyager probes passed through it, but did not make close encounters with any objects, including Pluto. Scientists believe objects in the Kuiper Belt have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, and may therefore serve as a kind of time capsule, containing clues about the formation of Earth and its cosmic family.

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

An image of the Aurora Borealis, taken by night sky photographer Dora Miller (also known as Aurora Dora) on Aug. 22, 2015, in Talkeetna, Alaska. Credit: Dora Miller

Space weather events that have been building over the last week continued to affect Earth early this morning (Aug. 28), increasing the possibility of amped up auroras around the planet’s polar regions.

A string of space weather occurrences this week has led to some beautiful aurora displays, such as the one seen in the picture above. But showers of powerful particles from the sun can also cause problems for power grids, satellites and astronauts, so government agencies are keeping a close eye on the activity.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a G3 Geomagnetic Storm Warning, valid through 3 a.m. EDT (0700 GMT) today. The rating scale for geomagnetic storms ranges from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme) with G3 considered “strong.” NOAA also publishes a map of aurora forecasts based on solar activity.

Solar storms and geomagnetic storms are caused by explosions of particles from the sun, as well as the steady stream of particles called the solar wind. The so-called “K-index” is also used to characterize how severely a storm is affecting Earth’s magnetic field. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) regularly updates its Web page to show the K-index value on an hourly basis, so citizens can see how a solar storm is affecting the planet. The K-index currently shows a rise in activity in the Earth’s magnetic field over the past three days.

The “unrest could continue for another day,” according to Spaceweather.com.

NASA released a statement earlier this week about a mid-level solar flare that peaked at 3:33 a.m. EDT (0733 GMT) on Monday (Aug. 24). Solar flares release high amounts of X-rays and additional energy into space, but they do not cause solar or geomagnetic storms unless they are associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME), which spew clouds of particles. CMEs and the particles in the solar wind can cause reactions with atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere that create the light displays known as the auroras.

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.