Archive | Space | Armed with Science

Saturday Space Sight: Saturn’s Hexagon

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on April 27, 2013 at 7:57 am {no comments}

Saturn’s north polar hexagon basks in the Sun’s light now that spring has come to the northern hemisphere. Many smaller storms dot the north polar region and Saturn’s signature rings, which appear to disappear on account of Saturn’s shadow, put in an appearance in the background.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft‘s wide-angle camera using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 750 nanometers.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 403,000 miles (649,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 21 degrees. Image scale is 22 miles (35 kilometers) per pixel.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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Star Wars Software Engineer Teaches Computer Science at Naval Academy

Filed under Education & Culture, Space by jtozer on April 24, 2013 at 7:38 am {no comments}

Hollywood may be a long way from Annapolis, but through the experiences of Cmdr. Kevin Blenkhorn, one of the creators of Yoda in the most recent Star Wars films, midshipmen can get a taste of what happens behind the bright lights.

(Graphic by Jessica Tozer)

Blenkhorn (USNA ’91) served 10 years on active duty before pursuing a civilian career in computer graphics with Industrial Light & Magic, the company behind such graphically complex films as Star Wars, Avatar, and Star Trek.

“I had the privilege of working on episodes one and three of Star Wars,” said Blenkhorn. “It’s great to work with people who are on the cutting edge of technology. The people who were hired to work on that movie pushed computer science to the max, further than any other company. It was the peak of my computer graphics career.”

He maintained his status as an active reservist and when the opportunity arose to apply as a faculty member at the academy, he put his application in.

“I’ve always wanted to come back,” he said. “I was lucky to get accepted and return to the Naval Academy.”

Blenkhorn’s work on the CGI Yoda has gotten good reviews. According to film critic Nathan Adams of the website FilmSchoolRejects, “With this new change Lucas has unified the whole look of the prequel trilogy. You can check out the old and busted puppet Yoda in contrast to the new hotness CG Yoda.”

Now a permanent military professor and associate chair of the academy’s Computer Science Department, Blenkhorn shares his civilian experiences with midshipmen on a daily basis.

“Based on my experience at Star Wars, I always tell people that they should ask for what they want,” he said, something he learned from a grad school professor who encouraged his class to apply to Industrial Light & Magic when the company first started working on Star Wars.

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Saturday Space Sight: Space Station Solar Arrays

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on April 20, 2013 at 7:34 am {no comments}

This close-up picture of a Zvezda Service Module array, reflecting bright rays of the sun, thus creating an artistic scene, was photographed by one of the Expedition 35 crew members as part of an External Survey from International Space Station windows that was recently added to the crew’s task list.

Image Credit: NASA

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Saturday Space Sight: New York City Nightlife

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on April 13, 2013 at 7:42 am {no comments}

One of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station exposed this 400 millimeter night image of the greater New York City metropolitan area.

For orientation purposes, note that Manhattan runs horizontal through the frame from left to the midpoint. Central Park is just a little to the left of frame center.

Image Credit: NASA

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NRL Scientists “See” Flux Rope Formation for the First Time

Filed under Space, Videos by jtozer on April 12, 2013 at 7:20 am {no comments}

Naval Research Laboratory scientists have observed, for the very first time, the formation of solar flux ropes, which are a type of solar magnetic field.

Models of flux ropes have been drawn by theorists in the past, but scientists had never before observed them at the time they formed.

The NRL team made their discovery using high-resolution images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and from the NRL-developed Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) telescopes aboard NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO).

These flux ropes have been seen with coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, before, but scientists had argued for years about whether the flux ropes formed before the CME or were formed on-the-fly as the eruption occurred.

The answer will determine whether the dominant mechanism for CMEs is plasma instability or changes in the magnetic field connectivity via magnetic reconnection, respectively.

The observations made by visiting scientist Dr. Spiro Patsourakos, and NRL researchers Drs. Angelos Vourlidas and Guillermo Stenborg clearly reveal that the flux rope forms before the CME occurs.

In observations from July 18, 2012, the NRL team observed a small burst of light off the West limb of the sun. These flares of light are usually the evidence of an eruption of solar material, in a CME. But the July 18th burst of light was not a CME.

As the scientists continued their observations, they saw magnetic field lines that twisted and kinked to form slinky shapes.

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Saturday Space Sight: Light Echoes from V838 Mon

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on April 6, 2013 at 7:19 am {no comments}

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon’s outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002.

Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before — supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash.

In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000 light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above spans about six light years in diameter.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA

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Saturday Space Sight: Landforms on Mars

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on March 30, 2013 at 7:29 am {no comments}

This image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) flying onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.

Gully landforms like those in this image are found in many craters in the mid-latitudes of Mars. Changes in gullies were first seen in images from the Mars Orbiter Camera in 2006, and studying such activity has been a high priority for HiRISE. Many examples of new deposits in gullies are now known.

This image shows a new deposit in Gasa Crater, in the Southern mid-latitudes. The deposit is distinctively blue in enhanced-color images. This image was acquired in southern spring, but the flow that formed the deposit occurred in the preceding winter.

Current gully activity appears to be concentrated in winter and early spring, and may be caused by the seasonal carbon dioxide frost that is visible in gully alcoves in the winter.

Written by: Colin Dundas

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

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Saturday Space Sight: Hubble Sees ‘Space Invader’ Image

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on March 23, 2013 at 7:51 am {no comments}

The gravitational field surrounding this massive cluster of galaxies, Abell 68, acts as a natural lens in space to brighten and magnify the light coming from very distant background galaxies.

In this photo, the image of a spiral galaxy at upper left has been stretched and mirrored into a shape similar to that of a simulated alien from the classic 1970s computer game “Space Invaders!” A second, less distorted image of the same galaxy appears to the left of the large, bright elliptical galaxy.

This image was taken in infrared light by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, and combined with near-infrared observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. It is based in part on data spotted by Nick Rose in the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA
Acknowledgement: N. Rose

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