Space Quest

Star Viewer

2010-01-17T08:28:00.000+01:00

Looking at the stars with Star Viewer is like using Google Maps - in face, it is Google Maps, with a twist. It's very simple to "navigate" through space. Click on the place name on the left of the screen; you will "fly" to the location, a window will open, and video of or about the location will play. You can jump to the Interactive Galaxies Map at the bottom of the page.

Here's a screen shot of what you see if you've clicked on "Crab Nebula":

Click on the picture to see the full size image.

This is a good website to use for beginning space explorers - much easier to use than Google Sky, Stellarium, or even Celestia. Starview brings a great deal of information to one place - after you've had a good look around here, then go exploring with the other sites and apps.

50 Years of Space Exploration

2009-10-14T09:14:00.000+02:00

This is a photo / map of 50 years of space exploration. Click here to see it easily on a Flickr page (click on "all sizes" above the picture), and here to see it in more detail at the National Geographic page.

Get closer to the sky...through your computer

2009-08-24T09:58:00.001+02:00

Life Hacker blog has been highlighting astronomy software recently. Have a look at these:

WorldWide Telescope "... it used to be a Windows-only desktop application. Now, provided you're running an operating system that supports Microsoft's Silverlight browser plug-in, you can enjoy the same star-gazing fun from any browser." (link)

"WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky." (link)

Watch the TED talk about the WorldWide Telescope:

Stellarium "Windows/Mac/Linux: Whether you're a die-hard astronomy buff or someone who'd just like an idea of what constellations are where, Stellarium is a fantastic tool for viewing the night sky from the comfort of your home. ...At its most basic, Stellarium will display the night sky as seen from anywhere on earth. Delving into the more advanced features you can do all sorts of really interesting things like see the constellations for a dozen different cultures—the Pegasus from Greek mythology is the Turtle in the Navajo tradition." (link)

photo credit: poulz

"Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go." (link)

Watch this video from YouTube created with Stellarium:

Celestia is a free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.

"Looking down at Mars's tiny moon Phobos and the giant Valles Marineris rift valley." photo link

This video shows some of the features of Celestia:

You'll find an extensive list of astronomy software at http://www.midnightkite.com/software.html

Going to the Moon

2009-07-22T11:46:00.001+02:00

First, watch this video timeline by Mashable . It begins with the launch of the initiative in Congress in 1961, and ends with video of the USS Hornet recovering the Apollo 11 Module.

The Lift-Off of APOLLO 11

Apollo 11 restored footage: montage

NASA has released a brief montage of restored footage from the Apollo 11 footage.

"Land on the Moon in Google Earth. With Moon in Google Earth, you can take tours narrated by Apollo astronauts, view 3D models of landed spacecraft, zoom into 360-degree photos, and watch rare TV footage of the Apollo missions." link

Download Google Earth 5.0 here.

Sarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands

2009-06-29T18:51:00.000+02:00

download large image (286 KB, JPEG) acquired June 12, 2009

download animation (6 MB, QuickTime)

NASA has published a photo taken by International Space Station astronauts of the Sarychev Peak (Japan) eruption June 12.

"A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, and it is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island. Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption occurred in 1989, with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954, and 1946 also producing lava flows. Ash from the multi-day eruption has been detected 2,407 kilometers east-southeast and 926 kilometers west-northwest of the volcano, and commercial airline flights are being diverted away from the region to minimize the danger of engine failures from ash intake."

Find out more about the erruption, and the photograph at this link.

Ask an astronaut!

2009-04-26T05:42:00.000+02:00

"There's no shower on the ISS. Do you know how astronauts manage to keep themselves clean? There's no up or down in space. How do astronauts adapt to this environment?

Instead of searching the Internet - why not directly ask those who know best? ESA astronaut Frank De Winne is keen to personally answer your questions via ESA’s YouTube channel. " (link)

During his stay on the Station, De Winne's activities will focus on scientific research, technology and education.

Record and upload your questions to ESA’s YouTube channel as a 'Video Response' to
De Winne's video message.
ESA’s YouTube channel is accessible on www.youtube.com/esa.

text from ESA News; video at YouTube

How much do you know about the moon?

2009-04-19T08:24:00.000+02:00

Take this quiz to see if you know a few basic Moon facts:
How old is the Moon?
How was it formed?
How long will the Applo 11 astronaut's footprints last?
What is the shape of the Moon?
How far away from the Earth was the Moon when it was formed?

Take the QUEST Quiz from KQED (Northern California Public Media)

How do you know your facts about the Moon? Where did you learn them? How many answers did you get right? Do you think the answers given in the video are correct?

(You can watch this video at YouTube. YouTube videos are blocked at school.)

Jupiter, its moons and the Sun

2009-03-28T08:43:00.005+01:00

Image credit: NASA/STEREO

NASA's STEREO (Behind) COR1 spacecraft (STEREO is a pair of spacecraft launched in 2006 in opposite directions. They have different angles on the Sun, providing solar astrophysicists a 3D view of our nearest star.) have taken 30 hours of images on March 15-16 (2009) which have been compressed into an 11 second animation by NASA. It shows Jupiter, with its four big moons , as it drifts behind the Sun from the spacecraft’s viewpoint. Read more at the NASA STEREO web page.

Image credit: NASA/STEREO

Thanks to Phil Plait at Discover for pointing us to this video.

Near Earth Objects - DD45's Near Miss

2009-03-18T05:57:00.000+01:00

I listened to an interview with Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, Queens University Belfast on the the March 8 (2009) Naked Scientist podcast from Cambridge.

Chris Smith and Alan discuss DD45, "a small asteroid. It's about between 20-40m across. It was discovered only just over a week ago, on Friday 27^th February. It passed our planet by at a distance of only 72,000km on Tuesday.

Chris - That's extremely close. That's, let's put that in perspective. Satellites orbit the Earth about 25,000 miles out. That's only twice as far away as a geostationary satellite.
Alan - That's right. Occasionally we do spot these small asteroids coming past us. Objects of that size hit the earth probably about once every 2-300 years. We're not quite sure how often they hit us at the moment but they hit us on time scales of centuries.
Chris - Had this thing not been seventy thousand kilometres away and it had actually landed on the Earth what sort of damage would it have done? How would it compare with, say, the object that wiped out the dinosaurs?
Alan - Well, it's much smaller than that. The object that wiped out the dinosaurs was about ten kilometres across and had global consequences. Those objects only hit us about once ever hundred million years. An object that can cause climate change can be as small as one kilometre across, however. Even they only hit us once every million years or so. Something this size may have been similar to the object that entered our atmosphere over Tunguska in Siberia in 1908. It may have exploded low down in the atmosphere if it had entered our atmosphere and perhaps about a few kilometres up. It would have wiped out several square thousand kilometres of ground."

You can download the MP3 of the interview here or listen to it on the podcast web page. The interview was part of the 8th Mar 2009 - Your Questions and Swallowing Swords podcast. I encourage you to subscribe to this podcast - it is always interesting!

Streaming Video from Space

2009-03-11T04:46:00.006+01:00

"Image above: Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov (left) and Commander Mike Fincke conduct a spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV"

This Press announcement from NASA caught our attention yesterday:

HOUSTON -- Internet visitors can now see the Earth as never before -- live from the International Space Station via streaming video, seven days a week.

The streaming video views of Earth and the exterior structure of the station are from cameras mounted outside the laboratory complex, orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour at an altitude of 220 miles. The video is transmitted to the ground -- and Web viewers -- primarily while the astronauts aboard the complex are asleep, usually from about 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. CST. When live feeds are not available, a map showing the current location and path of the station will be streamed from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

The streaming video will include audio of communications between Mission Control and the astronauts, when available. When the space shuttle is docked to the station, the stream will include video and audio of those activities.

Check this web page to see where the space station is in real time (watch this page for a bit, and see how quickly the Station orbits the Earth!) , and this page to help you pinpoint the exact minute when the International Space Station will be visible from your city.

Click on the image to go to the tracker page

There are more videos on NASA's YouTube Channel.

Background information: "The International Space Station, a unique partnership between the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe. Construction began in 1998 and will be completed in 2010. Eighteen crews have lived aboard the orbiting complex since 2000, including the current crew of three. Station residents have conducted important scientific experiments and gathered data to help assist future missions to the moon and Mars." (link)

NASA and Google Launch Virtual Exploration of Mars

2009-02-12T06:14:00.009+01:00

screen shot of Google Earth - Mars

First, he serious science:

"MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA and Google announced Monday the release of a new Mars mode in Google Earth that brings to everyone's desktop a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of the Red Planet.

Besides providing a rich, immersive 3D view of Mars that will aid public understanding of Mars science, the new mode, Google Mars 3D, also gives researchers a platform for sharing data similar to what Google Earth provides for Earth scientists.

The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth. Users also can explore the Red Planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet.

Users can see some of the latest satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other probes orbiting the Red Planet. Viewers can learn about new discoveries and explore indexes of available Mars imagery. The new Mars mode also allows users to add their own 3D content to the Mars map to share with the world.

Today's announcement is the latest benefit from a Space Act Agreement NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., signed with Google in November 2006. Under its terms, NASA and Google agreed to collaborate to make NASA's data sets available to the world." - NASA Press Release 02 Feb 2009

Now, another slant from Google Operating Systems blog:

"Open the latest version of Google Earth, switch to "Mars" and search for "Meliza". Click on the small robotic icon and you'll be able to chat with Meliza, a friendly relative of Eliza, one of the first chat bots. A message informs Earthlings that "Meliza is using an account on a different planet. There may be translation errors." The chat bot has some predefined text related to Mars and it can't answer to many questions, but it's always ready to rephrase your messages.

Here's Meliza's first message: "Greetings, Earthling! What do you think of Google Mars? Have you checked out Valles Marineris? It's like the Grand Canyon, but bigger. Mars is so much better than Earth!"

Image from Google Operating Systems blog.

Did you see the moon?

2009-01-11T08:23:00.000+01:00

You know how sometimes the moon seems huge, and other times it's just a point of light high in the sky? Last night, Jan. 10th, was a perigee Moon - the biggest full Moon of 2009. Did you see it?

This is a slide show of the 101 photos posted on Flickr that have been tagged with "perigee" and "full" and "Moon", licensed under the Creative Commons.

Dr. Tony Phillips at NASA explains why the moon seems to change size:

"Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago. The Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle; it is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. Astronomers call the point of closest approach "perigee," and that is where the Moon will be this weekend.

"Perigee full Moons come along once or twice a year. 2008 ended with one and now 2009 is beginning with another.

"(A)magic moment happens when the perigee Moon is near the horizon. That is when illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects." (link)

Life on Mars?

2009-01-09T18:47:00.000+01:00

"Penelope Boston studies caves and karst formations, and the special biology that lives in them -- both here on Earth and possibly on other planets...So the Mars Rovers didn't scoop up any alien lifeforms. Dr. Boston thinks there's a good chance -- a 25 to 50 percent chance, in fact -- that life might exist on Mars, deep inside the planet's caves. She details how we should look and why." Read more about Dr. Boston at this link.

How was our solar system created?

2008-12-30T20:31:00.000+01:00

This video at YouTube shows "Astronomer Tom Fleming demonstrates how our solar system was created out of a molecular cloud. Taken from the show "FirstScience presents: The birth of the Earth" on FirstScience.tv." Fleming teaches astronomy to non-science majors at the University of Arizona, and is Associate Astronomer at the Steward Observatory.

Science fiction?

2008-12-20T18:13:00.005+01:00

The European Space Agency news portal reports on a new video aimed at students:

"Whether it's Star Trek USS Enterprise, or the iconic space station from 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction has always provided inspiration and ideas for the scientists and engineers that design and build real spacecraft.

The, at times, fine line between science fiction literature and the developments in real life space activities provides the backdrop to ESA's latest Space-in-Bytes video lesson release, titled 'Science fiction – science fact'. "

'Science fiction – science fact', and the previous Space-in-Bytes videos, are available for download in 12 ESA Member State languages. Watch the flash version of the video here, or download the QuickTime version here.

Photo from European Space Agency

A Different View of the Aurora Borealis

2008-12-12T06:23:00.002+01:00

Astronaut Don Pettit created an astounding video using a sequence of still images he shot of the aurora borealis from the International Space Station.

"Watch this extraordinary video he created by stitching dozens of still photographs that he made of the aurora borealis while on his 161-day mission on what he calls simply 'Station.'" (link)

For more on Dr. Pettit and the Earth from space, visit DotEarth

This video is at YouTube (you won't see it in school).

CERN Podcast

2008-11-06T05:31:00.005+01:00

If you own an mp3 player, or can listen to audio on your computer, go to the CERN Podcast page and subscribe to the rss feed. You can also subscribe through iTunes.

What is CERN Podcast?

Take the biggest experiment in the history of the universe (well, this universe anyway). Take some well known people from all sorts of walks of life. Take a former keyboard player from D:Ream, now a physics professor. Mix them altogether for half an hour or so to serve up a cocktail of entertaining chat shows with a bit of particle physics thrown in. And you wouldn’t get that on Channel 4 would you?

The CERN Podcast photo stream is at this page on Flickr.

Listen to the September 30, 2008 podcast by cernpodcast ⋅

(direct link here)

Science and Politics

Ed Vaizey, MP for Wantage and Didcot, visited CERN last spring. He had a Q&A with John Ellis on the physics being done at CERN, was shown around ATLAS and had a chat with Brian Cox about science, politics and UK science funding.

The Sun

2008-10-25T11:21:00.001+02:00

The Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, operated by the Institute for Solar Physics, has captured images that let you see the sun in an entirely new way:

An animation of the sun, seen by NASA's Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) over the course of 6 days, starting June 27, 2005. (Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium) #

On November 8, 2006, Mercury is seen, beginning a transit in front of the Sun. (NASA/TRACE) #

These 21 pictures are at The Big Picture: News Stories in Photographs, from the Boston Globe newspaper. Be sure to click through to the page to see the other amazing photographs. There are also good links to more information about the Sun at the bottomof that page.

(Thanks to Dan Colman for the pointer!)

Mercury up close

2008-10-15T05:37:00.004+02:00

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury and sent more than 1,200 high-resolution images back to Earth. This picture was taken at the closest approach to Mercury, when the spacecraft was at a distance of about 27,000 kilometers (about 17,000 miles). Read the whole story here, and look at the photo gallery.

photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

What happens on Mars?

2008-10-04T18:29:00.003+02:00

This sequence of nine images taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows the sun rising on the morning of the lander's 101st Martian day after landing.

The images were taken on Sept. 5, 2008. The local solar times at the landing site for the nine images were between 1:23 a.m. and 1:41 a.m.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander observed clouds drifting across the horizon in the early morning on the 119th sol, or Martian day, since landing (September 25, 2008).

(photo credit from NASA: Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University)

Are you a scientist?

2008-09-23T06:17:00.004+02:00

Do you know

How windy is it on Venus?

Why Mars Polar Ice Cap is not on the Pole?

What does invisible dark matter have to do with a massive dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way?

What this video is showing?

( Photo: NASA. Click here to see a larger version.)

Find the answers by clicking on the questions. Learn more all the time by subscribing to the RedShift Astronomy News and have an easy to understand digest of science news delivered to your start page or feed reader.

Hurricane Dean seen from the International Space Station

2008-09-01T06:05:00.003+02:00

Thanks to Dan Colman for pointing us to this YouTube video. "The crew members aboard the International Space Station took... a look at the storm from their vantage point. Even from space, the storm expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico Aug. 21 (07)and gain strength as a potential Cat 5 storm, impresses the crew with its size."

This video is at YouTube - we can't see it in school

Mars Web Cam

2008-08-26T06:41:00.004+02:00

ESA: Mars rotation 12 Sep - 8 Oct 2007 (link)
ESA point us to this news story: "The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) mounted on Mars Express was dormant after its first and only operational use in 2003. It is now back in action as the 'Mars Webcam', providing views of the Red Planet that are not obtainable from Earth." "The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) is mounted on Mars Express, ESA's deep-space probe now orbiting the Red Planet." (link)

Students, teachers, scientists, photographers and the general public are invited to help us process the images, remove artefacts, increase sharpness and interpret what the images show. Read the details at this link.

There's a gallery of images from the VMC at this page. "The VMC is not a scientific instrument per se and it was designed for relatively low-resolution, fixed-focus operation. Its images should therefore not be compared to those coming from other Mars Express instruments." (link) Photo on the right is the "First image of Mars volcanoes 23 Mar 2007" from ESA

Is it a Planet?

2008-08-22T05:29:00.006+02:00

Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute, says that if a non-stellar object is massive enough to be round and orbits a star, it ought to be a planet.

This definition would include Ceres, 2the largest and most massive object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is less than half the diameter of Pluto."

Astronomy Magazine's website has a news story , "The Great Planet Debate", about the meeting August 14 - 16 at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where Scientists debated about what makes a planet a planet.

Being Scientists, their definition of "round" is probably a little more complex than yours or mine: round is the shape of bodies that are in "hydrostatic equilibrium," where the pressure from an essentially fluid interior is balanced against gravity and centrifugal force at the body's surface to round the object. This makes planetary objects fundamentally different from small, irregularly shaped asteroids and comets."

If you want to find out more,

Visit this page, which has links to the papers contributed to the meeting (topics such as Ceres and Pluto: Dwarf Planets: A New Way of Thinking about an Old Solar System John Ristvey and Lucy McFadden) visit this page, where there is a retelling of the opening debate:

"Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and host of Nova ScienceNow, and who is in the camp that Pluto is not a planet, began his opening statements with "It's simple. The word 'planet' has lost all scientific value." He went on, saying "planet" doesn't tell you much and you have to ask all sorts of questions such as is it big or small, rocky or gaseous, in the habitable zone or not, etc. "If you have to ask twenty questions after I say I've discovered a planet, the word has lost its utility.""

Visit this page, which highlights the fine points of defining a planet:

"Labeling planets based on their dynamics around the sun distinguishes the planets as Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

>But if Earth were orbiting the sun out in the Kuiper Belt, based on a dynamical definition and the mass of Earth, it would not be a planet, Sykes and other scientists pointed out."

Visit this page, which follows the debate's progress:

"Sykes did not abandon his call for a new definition based solely on roundness, but agreed that the important issue is not Pluto's status or how many planets there are,broadening our perspective on the solar system. "It's not a battle over which list you want to have or what numbers you want to have, but what's the basis for looking at things [from different perspectives].""

Audio of part of the debate is posted here, with these links: Listen Now and Listen Now

CERN's Large Hadron Collider!

2008-08-11T09:23:00.006+02:00

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

What is matter? What is the universe made of? What is "dark matter"? What does all this have to do with Space? This video will help you understand what's going on at CERN.

If you're really interested, watch this video podcast "Brian Cox: An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider":

Download links and more information about the TED talks at this web page.

You can also listen to this CERN podcast episode:

Chris Morris visits the LHC - Physicist Brian Cox guides satirist Chris Morris around the Large Hadron Collider. Produced by yada-yada for Cern

Information about the rap video:
"There has been a lot of interest in the original mp3, lyrics, and vocals for remixing. You can find all that here:
https://www.msu.edu/~mcalpin9/lhc_rap/la rgehadron.html

Images came from:
particlephysics.ac.uk, space.com, the Institute of Physics, NASA, Symmetry, and Marvel

The talented dancers doubled as camera people, with some work by Neil Dixon. Stock footage is CERN's.

Will Barras is responsible for the killa beats:
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~s9527813/

The rapper has a day job (we agree this is a good thing) as a science writer.
http://www.katemcalpine.com" (link)

REEL NASA

2008-07-11T16:51:00.003+02:00

Do you want to know what it's really like to be an astronaut?

Watch the videos at the REEL NASA channel on You Tube. This playlist of 8 videos about the European Space Agency's Columbus launch includes What Not to Wear Behind the scenes with the astronauts of STS-122 suiting up for a training exercise weeks before their launch; Two Strapping Guys STS-122 Mission Specialist Leland Melvin talks to the men who help suit up and strap in the astronauts for flight training modules and the real deal; Teamwork: a universal language STS-122 Mission Specialists Leland Melvin and Hans Schlegal, European Space Agency astronaut, 'come together' here in this video as partners and friends.

Look at this page to see all the channels at REEL NASA.

CERN

2008-07-06T17:08:00.000+02:00

We were talking in class about CERN and the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and the upcoming experiments. Here's a press release from CERN:

"LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern. Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies." (link)

Here's a video from CERN about the LHC, explaining how it works.

This link takes you to the web page of the LHC. You can read about the schedule, the design, and updates on the operation.

This video is an introduction to CERN.

Meet WALL-E

2008-06-23T13:49:00.002+02:00

NASA and Disney have signed a Space Act Agreement for a series of http://draft.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifeducational and public outreach activities related to Disney-Pixar's new movie, WALL-E, opening in theaters nationwide on June 27, 2008.

This collaboration highlights the similarities between the movie's storyline and NASA's real-life work in robot technology, propulsion systems and astrophysics. Disney-Pixar's WALL-E is set 700 years in the future. The film's main character is the only rover-robot left on Earth. He meets a new robot named Eve, and together they take a journey through the universe.

"Great ideas for future exploration of the universe start with the imagination," said Robert Hopkins, chief of strategic communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We hope that with the help of our new robot friend WALL-E, NASA can encourage young people to learn about science and technology and become the explorers of tomorrow." (link)

Visit WALL-E's web site here, the NASA site here, and the Disney page for the movie here.

There are several posts on the VNOG blog (written by Victor Navone, the animator for WALL-E) about the development of WALL-E)

Wall-E Spotted in LA! from Blink on Vimeo.

Is there life on....?

2008-06-06T19:00:00.005+02:00

This morning one of our Year 6 students asked me if I thought there might be life on another planet. His class had been talking about it, using this web site for a reference. I had recently heard this podcast from The Naked Scientists (Cambridge University) about life on Mars.

In one portion of the podcast, Chris Smith says

"Writing in this week's Science, Cornell researcher Steven Squyers and his colleagues describe how the movement of their rover, Spirit, which has a broken wheel, carved a furrow into the Martian surface, revealing a layer of very white-coloured material. Intrigued, the team turned the rover's instruments on the light coloured layer and identified it as silicate, a mineral which forms around structures such as hydrothermal vents and fumaroles when hot mineral-laden water emerges, cools and drops its cargo of salts.
"On Earth, environments like this contain abundant forms of life, and silica turns out to be extremely good at preserving them. So this discovery, say the researchers, is important for two key reasons. First it confirms that Mars had significant water in the past, but second it also pinpoints an important place to look for life in future."

Later in the show, he interviews Susan Conway, of the Open University, about what shaped the surface of Mars. Here's a bit of their conversation from the end of the interview:

(Chris has asked Susan her opinion about what formed the gullies visible on Mars in recent photographs. She explains that there are several hypotheses.)

Chris - What's your gut feeling at the moment?

Susan - I think it's water, personally. It's all up for debate, we'll have to see

Chris - If it is water, looking at the terrain, when do you think water last ran?

Susan - It could be anything in the last 100,000 years.

Chris - Which is very recent, isn't it?

Susan - it is very recent, yes.

Chris - Which means, if there was life there it could still have been viable up until 100,000 years ago which is a blink of an eye isn't it?

Susan - Yeah. If the water formed these features and then has gone back into the ground and we still have liquid water beneath the ground little micros still could be living there in the rock, eating the rock, eating the water and still sitting there waiting for us to discover them."

You can subscribe to the Naked Scientist podcast through iTunes, or on the program's web site.

You can download the Life on Mars episode below:

.

If you want to read more about the concept of life, go to this Wikipedia for Schools page. There is an interesting article about extra-terrestrial life at this page of the Wikipedia for Schools,

Ulysses - freezing to death

2008-06-05T04:50:00.007+02:00

What is the Sun? How does it work? What's Solar Wind? What's the heliosphere? What's a gravity-assist manoeuvre? What is "space weather"?

"Ulysses, a pioneering ESA/NASA mission, was launched in October 1990 to explore uncharted territories – the regions above and below the Sun’s poles - and study our star’s sphere of influence, or heliosphere, in the four dimensions of space and time.

Originally designed for a lifetime of five years, the mission has surpassed all expectations. The reams of data Ulysses has returned have forever changed the way scientists view the Sun and its effect on the space surrounding it." (link)

The mission will end because of "dwindling electrical power on-board the spacecraft, especially to power the internal heaters required to prevent the attitude control fuel from freezing. Once this fuel freezes, the spacecraft can longer be manoeuvred to keep it pointing at the Earth to maintain its data downlink". (Ulysses Mission Operations Team)

Go to Cold Peril: The Continuing Adventures of Ulysses to read the script of a podcast about the Ulysses Mission
Listen to this story via streaming audio, a downloadable file.

Read more about the Sun and the Ulysses Mission on these pages:

Ulysses Mission overview from ESA

How the Sun affects us on Earth

The Ulysses Space Craft

Click on the picture below to see it full size. It is a screen shot of the ESA's Space Science Missions web site display of information about 10 ESA missions by using a comprehensive 3D model Solar System environment. It shows where the 10 ESA satellites were at the moment I took the shot. Click on this link, then on the Space Science Missions choice, and then Solar System View. (There are other interesting views at that page, too. Go investigate it!)

Buzz Lightyear has finally made it into space!

2008-06-01T08:18:00.002+02:00

Buzz Lightyear is on the ST124 Space Shuttle flight to the International Space Station. Visit this page for an interactive page of games, "live transmissions" and videos from Buzz.

(You could also read what the humans are doing on the flight...)

Life on Mars?

2008-06-01T07:46:00.003+02:00

NASA's Phoenix Mission has landed in the northern polar region of Mars, and there has been lots of exciting pictures, podcasts and articles about the new findings.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech//University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

Visit this page at the Naked Scientists web site, and listen to - or download - their podcast about "how looking in valleys (of the Martian landscape) could tell us what shaped the Martian surface, and how probing Martian mud could reveal signs of life past and present."

The Naked Scientists is "The Naked Scientists are a media-savvy group of physicians and researchers from Cambridge University who use radio, live lectures, and the Internet to strip science down to its bare essentials, and promote it to the general public. Their award winning BBC weekly radio programme, The Naked Scientists, reaches a potential audience of 6 million listeners across the east of England, and also has an international following on the web." Their podcast is always fast-paced and fascinating.

You can listen to a podcast about the countdown for the mission at this link.

Visit the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander web page for the live pictures, videos, statistics and stories about the project.

Background on the mission is at this page.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

There is an Odysen start page on the Mission here, which includes a news search widget for Mars, a news search widget for the Phoenix Mars Lander, a website bookmarker widget with links to NASA, and Movies on Mars, a Flickr photo widget, and a YouTube widget with Mars video clips.

Human Space Exploration

2008-06-01T07:37:00.005+02:00

Credits: ESA - AOES Medialab

The European Space Agency has a story about Human Space exploration in the future (Think about it! You might be the explorer!)

"What is the overall concept of a human mission to Mars? And what is the right mix of human/robotic missions and international partners for future missions to the Moon and Mars?

To land, first, on the Moon and, later, on Mars - in the 2030 timeframe - scientists need a mix of human and robotic missions to know in advance what challenges must be met - to know how humans can survive for years under microgravity, to scout landing zones and to develop precise navigation and artificial intelligence techniques."

You can watch a video about the story at this link.

Dark Matter

2008-05-04T16:50:00.004+02:00

This video, on YouTube, is from the PBS NOVA science program.

"We can't see dark matter, and some skeptics doubt its existence, but many scientists think it makes up 20-some percent of our universe. Astronomer Doug Clowe explains how the Bullet Cluster, a group of galaxies billions of light years away, may shed some light on this mysterious stuff.

Don't miss NOVAscienceNOW, airing every Wednesday night during the summer of 2008 on PBS. Watch past episodes of the program, try out interactives, and more on our Web site: http://www.pbs.org/nova/sciencenow "

Peter Fisher, Experimental Physicist, MIT talked about his work on dark mattter on the NOVA Science Now show, The Big Deal:

"The goal of high-energy physics is to understand the smallest things. How small is small? So there are molecules, there are atoms. Inside the atoms, there's a nucleus, inside the nucleus there are quarks. What's inside the quarks? Is there anything inside the quarks? And that connects with the picture of the universe, because by looking at smaller and smaller things, we understand the biggest thing, which is what the universe looked like, looks like now.

But after 101 years of tremendous intellectual achievement and a lot of hard experimental work, we've come to the conclusion we don't understand 97 percent of the universe, which is, I think, a big shock. And kind of a reminder of how puny we are.

Now, the 97 percent breaks into two parts, dark energy and dark matter. Dark matter, there's some kind of credible ideas that it could be particles. And the new experiments at CERN may be able to tell us something about those particles. But dark energy, no clue. None. Nothing.

That leaves a few percent which we understand very, very, very well. And that's the stuff in this room and on the Earth, and we have a very good theory for that.

So I'm doing a dark matter experiment. I'm actually going to look for the dark matter that's around us. And what I'm really excited about is that we make a big step forward in the big picture. Because ultimately you want a picture of the whole universe, everything—the history, the future, now. And in the next 10 years, all of this is going to come together, I hope. So that's why I'm excited."

There are more transcripts and video segments from NOVA shows about CERN at this link.

Saturn Calling

2008-05-03T11:03:00.002+02:00

Red Shift Astronomy News points us to an article in the News Scientist with

"Jazz musician and composer Jeff Oster has incorporated the eerie sounds of Saturn’s auroras into a jazz piece called ‘Saturn Calling’, which won a 2008 Independent Music Award in the New Age category. "

Read the article, and click on the links to listen to the piece, and check out sound files made from Cassini spacecraft measurements of things like magnetic fields and radio waves in Saturn's environment.

"This blows away every gamma ray burst we've seen so far."

2008-03-26T06:27:00.004+01:00

On March 21, 2008, NASA Science writes about a powerful gamma ray burst detected on March 19th by NASA's Swift satellite. The burst was so large it has shattered the record for the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye. The burst, named "GRB 080319B", was one of four bursts that Swift detected that day, a Swift record for one day. (The quotation in this post's title is from Neil Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.)

This photo shows GRB 080319B, among the stars of the constellation Bootes in a movie made by "Pi of the Sky", a Polish group that monitors the sky for afterglows and other short-lived phenomena. (You'll see the burst is right in the middle of the picture)

"Most gamma ray bursts occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. Their cores collapse to form black holes or neutron stars, releasing an intense burst of high-energy gamma rays and ejecting particle jets that rip through space at nearly the speed of light. When the jets plow into surrounding interstellar clouds, they heat the gas to incandescent visibility. It is this gaseous "afterglow" which was visible to the human eye on March 19th." (link)

The redshift of the burst was measured at 0.94 (A redshift s a measure of the distance to an object.

"A redshift of 0.94 translates into a distance of 7.5 billion light years,meaning the explosion took place 7.5 billion years ago, a time when the universe was less than half its current age and Earth had yet to form. This is more than halfway across the visible universe." (link)

Read the whole story here (Science@NASA), and more about gamma rays here.
The Swift satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. It was built and is being operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and General Dynamics in the U.S.; the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom; Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy; plus partners in Germany and Japan.

Google Sky - your online telescope

2008-03-16T07:22:00.005+01:00

On 13 March 08 the Google Lat Long blog announced "the launch of the web version of Google Sky, which turns your browser into a virtual telescope that can zoom and pan across the entire cosmos. You now have several ways to easily explore the universe:

Powerful search that lets you browse tens of thousands of named objects.
Three optical sky surveys that show you what your naked eye would see if it had a really good zoom lens. Try switching to infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, or x-ray to see the sky in a completely different light. Or blend between these views to create unique visualizations on the fly.
Galleries highlighting the best images from Hubble and many other telescopes.
Current planet positions and constellations.
Overlays of custom KML content. (Simply paste a Sky KML URL into the search box, just like on Google Maps.)
Last but not least, the Earth & Sky podcasts gallery is not to be missed, particularly for those who run a classroom.

All of this is accessible from any web browser, on any operating system, with no extra download required. And since staring up at the cosmos is an experience shared across the globe, we decided to make Google Sky truly worldwide, with 26 localized language editions (this marks our first Maps product to support right-to-left languages). Just visit sky.google.com to get started."

This YouTube video describes how to use the new Google Sky (you won't be able to see it in school):

"Explore beyond your world in your browser with Google Sky, Google Mars, and Google Moon. http://sky.google.com, http://mars.google.com, http://moon.google.com"

A second video you should watch is Google Sky and Hubble in which Astronomers Dr. Carol Christian and Dr. Alberto Conti at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore talk about their work with Google programmers to "assemble a tapestry of Hubble images to embed in the desktop planetarium program."

This is a web application - you don't need to download and install anything in your computer. Go to google.com/sky and start exploring. The site works like a combination of Google Search, + Maps, + a photo album overlay.

Space Shutte Atlantis lands

2008-02-25T15:29:00.003+01:00

The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed last week after a 13 day mission. One of the co-pilots ignited two small motors for 2.44 minutes to slow Atlantis down from 27,000 kilometers per hour to 250 kilometers per hour (km/h).

This made the Atlantis leave its orbit 340 km above the Earth, and begin its decent. It came down at 9000 meters per minute, landing at 9:07 AM at the Kenedy Space Center.

What kind of training do you think a pilot of a space shuttle needs? What kind of math do you need to understand to be able to make the calculations to get the space shuttle back to Earth?

Read more about the landing here, about the mission just ended (STS-122)here, and about the Atlantis in general here. You can read the blog from the mission here.

Hubble from a friend

2008-02-09T07:39:00.001+01:00

House of Oddio: HubbleSite.org

Other people who work in our school are also interested in Space, and beautiful pictures. This post comes from Si, who many of you will know from class.

Timeline view of Google search results

2008-02-05T20:40:00.000+01:00

Google has some experimental views for exploring search results. One of them is called time line view:
"The graph across the top of the page summarizes how dates in your results are spread through time, with higher bars representing a larger number of unique dates. Click anywhere on the graph to zoom in to that particular period of time, and use the text box to the right to specify any range of years, months, or days. Much as in map view, the results below the graph emphasize the dates contained on each page."

See how it works by looking at the results for this search on "space exploration". Type "space exploration view:timeline" into the search bar. The results below the graph are listed by date, below the information source.

What an interesting way to see information about a subject which includes an element of time.

How far is Saturn from the Earth today?

2008-02-01T13:25:00.000+01:00

This picture comes from this web page of Solar System Live, by John Walker, where you can "... lets you view the solar system in a variety of ways for any date between 4713 B.C. and A.D. 8000. An ephemeris can be displayed for any location on Earth and, given orbital elements in the form published in the IAU Circulars, the orbit and position of asteroids and comets can be plotted."

There are other interesting pages to visit on Mr. Walker's site: a direct link to the NASA image of Switzerland from Space ,
Terranova where "Every day around 10 A.M. Universal Time a new planet is created using random parameters, and an image of it, as seen from the bridge from your approaching starship, is produced. Imagine yourself gazing down on another living world and wondering how its people had shaped their world, and the world her people.",
Your Sky "the interactive planetarium of the Web. You can produce maps in the forms described below for any time and date, viewpoint, and observing location. If you enter the orbital elements of an asteroid or comet, Your Sky will compute its current position and plot it on the map. Each map is accompanied by an ephemeris for the Sun, Moon, planets, and any tracked asteroid or comet. A control panel permits customisation of which objects are plotted, limiting magnitudes, colour scheme, image size, and other parameters." and
Calendar Converter which "allows you to interconvert dates in a variety of calendars, both civil and computer-related. All calculations are done in JavaScript executed in your own browser; complete source code is embedded in or linked to this page, and you're free to download these files to your own computer and use them even when not connected to the Internet."

Skywatch podcast

2008-01-01T11:20:00.000+01:00

Podcasts are a great way to learn more about something that interests you. Check out the astronomy/science podcasts in the side bar of this page.

Use this mp3 player to listen to the 13 December 07 podcast of Skywatch:

You can subscribe to the Skywatch podcast by clicking this link
RSS 2.0 feed Show notes and links for the podcast are here.

If you are really, reall, really interested in Astronomy....

2007-12-26T12:43:00.000+01:00

If you are really, really, really interested in Astronomy and want to learn all you can about, check out the online free Univeristy and College level courses.

Open Yale Courses

"Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn."

Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics
with Professor Charles Bailyn

"This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. Particular attention is paid to current projects that promise to improve our understanding significantly over the next few years..."

Materials include the course syllabus, and searchable transcripts, audio and video resource files to download.

MIT Open Courseware

"MIT is committed to advancing education and discovery through knowledge open to everyone.OCW shares free lecture notes, exams, and other resources from more than 1800 courses spanning MIT's entire curriculum."

Hands-On Astronomy: Observing Stars and Planets
"This course features a complete set of lecture notes that cover topics such as explanations for celestial coordinates and time and tips for keeping an observing notebook. There are also notes on elementary optics, electronic photography, and image processing."

Introduction to Astronomy
"Introduction to Astronomy provides a quantitative introduction to the physics of the solar system, stars, the interstellar medium, the galaxy, and the universe, as determined from a variety of astronomical observations and models."

The Solar System
"This is an introduction to the study of the solar system with emphasis on the latest spacecraft results. The subject covers basic principles rather than detailed mathematical and physical models. Topics include: an overview of the solar system, planetary orbits, rings, planetary formation, meteorites, asteroids, comets, planetary surfaces and cratering, planetary interiors, planetary atmospheres, and life in the solar system."

UC Berkeley webcasts

Introduction to General Astronomy
"A description of modern astronomy with emphasis on the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the Universe. Additional topics optionally discussed include quasars, pulsars, black holes, and extraterrestrial communication." Instructor Josh Bloom

Astro C10 / LS C70U Introduction to General Astronomy
"Astro 10 - Fall 2007 - A description of modern astronomy with emphasis on the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the Universe. Additional topics optionally discussed include quasars, pulsars, black holes, and extraterrestrial communication, etc. Individual instructor's synopses available from the department."

Open Learn (The Open University LearnngSpace)

Telescopes and Spectrographs
"This unit looks at how telescopes and spectrographs are designed to improve our ability to observe the universe. You will examine how different technologies have been developed over the last four hundred years to enable us to look deep into space."

The evolving Universe
"The ‘Big Bang’ is said to be the origin of our Universe. This unit will help you to comprehend what happened in the moments immediately after the Big Bang and during the initial cooling period. You will also gain an understanding of how this event turned in to the Universe we live in today."

The Sun
"The sun dominates our lives by defining our day, but how much do you know and understand about it? This unit will help you to explore the workings of the brightest star in our universe looking at its structure and the main processes taking place within it. You will also examine the phenomena of sun spots."

The Moon - Rosetta OSIRIS images

2007-11-28T05:36:00.000+01:00

The Moon was imaged with the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) at 07:36 CET, about nine hours after (ESAS) Rosetta's closest approach to Earth. See other pictures of the Moon and the Earth, and read about Rosetta at the European Space Agency web site.

Read about the origin of the Moon at this page of the NASA RedShift Astronomy web site. "New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that moons like Earth's - that formed out of tremendous collisions - are uncommon in the universe, arising at most in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems."

On this page there is also a link to an animation of "a massive collision between rocky, embryonic planets as big as mountain ranges. Such collisions form the basis of the planet-building process."

In another story, on the Sky and Telescope web site, you can read about a Chinese spacecraft named Chang’e 1 which will study the Moon at close range after successfully settling into lunar orbit on November 5.

5000 orbits of Mars

2007-11-28T05:27:00.000+01:00

The European Space Agency news service has a story about the Mars Express mission, launched in December 2003. On November 23 it completed its 5000th orbit of Mars. The news story describes the details of the mission:
"During its mission to investigate martian mysteries, the orbiter has revolutionised our knowledge of Mars, probing every facet of the Red Planet in unprecedented detail. Some of the most visually astonishing results have been returned by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), which has produced breathtaking, 3D colour images of the diverse martian surface – with its giant volcanoes, sinuous valleys and ice-modified craters."
Read more at the ESA site.

Spectacular images from "KAGUYA"

2007-11-15T08:52:00.001+01:00

From the press release:
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world's first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007.

The Apollo project was the first mission to take images of Earth rising over the Moon. The KAGUYA successfully shot high-definition images of the Earth-rise showing an impressive image of the blue Earth which was the only floating object in pitch-dark space. These are the world's first high-definition earth images taken from about 380,000 km away from the earth in space.

You can learn more about the mission at its home page.

Fly me to the moons of Saturn

2007-11-12T22:49:00.000+01:00

Do you want to visit the moons of Saturn? Watch this 18 minute video (below) of Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco showing images from Cassini voyage to Saturn. She focuses on Saturn's intriguing largest moon, Titan,with deserts, mudflats and puzzling lakes, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice. You can download audio and video versions of this movie here.

Follow the Space Shuttle Mission

2007-10-27T08:57:00.000+02:00

Space Shuttle Discovery launched on Tuesday, 23 October 07 on a 10 day mission (return to Earth is scheduled for 6 November). It is the 120th Space Shuttle flight, delivering a new module to the Space Station. "The International Space Station continued its on-orbit expansion with the addition of the Harmony module. Harmony was attached to the station at 11:38 a.m. EDT Friday during STS-120’s first spacewalk. The addition of the Harmony module sets the stage for the arrival of new research laboratories from the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency during upcoming shuttle missions."- NASA

"Space station crew members, led by Commander Peggy Whitson, welcomed Discovery Commander Pam Melroy and her crew when they boarded the station.Whitson and Melroy are the first women in NASA history to lead two spacecraft at the same time." - VOA News

See the latests pictures and follow the progress of the flight on the Space Station page of the NASA site. Links on that page opens a flash animation virtual tour of the Space Station (see how the crew lives and works) and videos of each step of the mission.
The launch day video gallery is here.

NASA TV is providing live coverage STS-120, Discovery's mission to the International Space Station. You can also watch the NASA TV station with the NASA TV viewer, or by using a variety of other media formats (Quicktime, Real Player, etc). Click here for details.

NASA FACT: Discovery, first launched in 1984, is named for two famous sailing ships commanded by Henry Hudson and James Cook.

Japan launches its first lunar orbiter

2007-09-14T11:47:00.000+02:00

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Lunar Orbit Explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE) by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 13 (H-IIA F13) at 10:31:01 a.m. on September 14, 2007 (Japan Standard Time, JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center.

The launch vehicle flew smoothly, and, at about 45 minutes and 34 seconds after liftoff, the separation of the KAGUYA was confirmed.

Read the press release here (in English)and here (in Japanese).

The JAXA site also has a page, Space Station Kids, where you can find out what it's like living on a space station, and a photo and video archive page with some great videos and photos.

Google Earth + Sky

2007-08-23T05:21:00.000+02:00

The Google Earth Blog is full of news
about the new release of Google Earth
(4.2 Beta), which includes a way to look
at the sky above the Earth.

From the blog:

"Google has released a number of resources to help show off the new Sky feature:
There is a a new web page devoted to the new Sky feature, A link to more information
about the sources of the imagery (which include NASA, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
and the Digital Sky Survey Consortium), a video showing the Sky application in action.
Today's GE Gallery has six new interesting new tours designed to show off the new
capabilities of Sky. I particularly like the one showing the locations of all the new
extra-solar planets, and the one showing an animation of a star exploding."

Here is the video from the Google Earth Blog, (posted on YouTube).

"This video demonstrates the new "Sky" feature of Google Earth
4.2 just released on August 22, 2007.
It lets you look up at the night sky and zoom in on photographs
taken by powerful telescopes like the
Hubble Space Telescope. It also provides placemarks to cool
things you can see in the universe."

In it's story about the new Google Sky, the BBC writes:

"Sky is not the first time Google has ventured into space.

In March 2006, the company launched Google Mars which allows users to explore the surface of the Red Planet.

Another service, Google Moon, lets users view the sites of the Apollo moon landings.

Both services use data from the US Space Agency Nasa, with which Google signed an agreement in December 2006."

Update 5 September 07: If you go to YouTube.com, and search for "google sky" , you will find about 180 videos about the site, including short tutorials about how to use it.

This one is from the Weather Channel:

The Solar System (Wikipedia for Children)

2007-08-18T09:27:00.000+02:00

SOS Children launches Wikipedia for Schools

29/05/2007

Volunteers at the English Wikipedia and SOS Children have today launched The Wikipedia Selection for Schools. The Selection is about the size of a 15 volume encyclopaedia with 24,000 pictures, 14 million words and articles on 4,625 topics. It includes the best of Wikipedia as well as many thousands of pages of extra material specifically selected to be of interest to children who follow the UK National Curriculum and similar curricula elsewhere in the world.

The selection is organised around National Curriculum subjects
The articles have been cleaned up and checked for suitability for children
Website: http://schools-wikipedia.org/
Available for free as BitTorrent download (2.5GB compressed with full size images) or HTTP download (792MB compressed with only thumbnail images) or on DVD from SOS Children’s offices. See below for download instructions."

This post from SOS children will tell you all about the project - a free encyclopedia you can download for yourself at home, but also use online. Check out the "Solar system" page for a clear definition and description.

Living and Working in Space

2007-08-16T18:52:00.000+02:00

Go to this page on the Futures Channels web site. and watch the 4 minute interview with NASA Chief Mike Griffin.

The Futures Channel is from the USA, "with the goal of using new media technologies to create a channel between the scientists, engineers, explorers and visionaries who are shaping the future, and today’s learners who will one day succeed them."

As you watch the interview, consider Dr. Griffin's viewpoint, and compare it to yours. What points do you agree with him on, and what questions might you put to him, if you could? Read down the page under the video player, and explore the links that interest you. Although the site is designed for Middle and Hight School kids, I think there is a lot here for curious Year 6 kids, too.

If you want to know more about Dr. Griffin, and what he studied in school, read his biography.

NASA Image of the Day

2007-08-15T05:55:00.000+02:00

Nasa Image of the Day displays pictures from three websites : Nasa.gov, Earth Observatory and Astronomy Picture of the Day.

You can switch between theses sites by clicking on the top right corner logo which indicates you where is from the next pictures to display.

By clicking on the left and right bottom arrows, you can browse the pictures archives from each website.

In addition, you can display the description associated with each pictures, by check the "description" box in the modules options.

And of course, by clicking on the picutre, you will open the Nasa's websites in a new window.

My thanks to Olivier Camard for making this post possible.

The Solar System in Google Earth

2007-08-12T09:44:00.000+02:00

The Google Earth Blog has been writing about the work of James Stafford. First he created a a size comparison of every moon (natural satellite of a planet) in the solar system larger in diameter than 100 km - all 34 of them - viewable in Google Earth. Download the 34 moons KML file here (4.5 Mb). See the original release at his Barnabu blog. You can see it here at Google Video.

Then, Mr. Stafford changed the Earth into the Sun (by adding an image overlay) and scaled down the Moons relative to the size of the Sun and added all the planets as 3D models. The result is a a true-to-scale comparison of the main bodies of the solar system. You can download it here: Google Earth Solar System (7 Mb).
Read about it at his page, (http://www.barnabu.co.uk/solar-system-in-google-earth/), and at the Google Earth Blog page (http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/07/the_solar_system_in.html).

You can watch it here, or go to YouTube.com

How many satellites are there in space?

2007-08-10T07:44:00.000+02:00

As I've been gathering information for this blog, I've begun to wonder just how many satellites there are in space? These web pages have helped me find some answers:
I started here at the Science Canada forum. (Be sure to read all the way to the bottom - the page has been updated.)

That page led me to this one, SATCAT Boxscore which is updated daily. It lists the number of satellites by country. (You'll need to know country abbreviations for it to make sense (for example, CH = Switzerland; US = United States) Fortunately, if you click on "Source" you'll come to this page which will tell you everything you need to know!

This Wikipedia page shows a Timeline of artificial satellites and space probes. It was updated fairly recently, and links out to information about everything listed!

But is there a short answer? I went to one of my favorite science sites, "The Naked Scientist" (I listen to their podcast every week!) and found this answer:

"We've obviously got one natural satellite, our Moon. But we've actually launched around 8000 artificial satellites up into orbit around the Earth. However, that's not all there is orbiting around the Earth. As well as these 8000 solid lumps of whole satellite that are up there, we've got lots and lots of little bits of junk swirling around. Now that can be anything from a nut and a bolt that's been lost to astronaut gloves that have been lost during space missions. This stuff can actually be quite a problem, because as it's up there whizzing around at kilometres per second, if it hits another satellite it can seriously damage it and blow some more bits off. So all the time this stuff is accumulating, but there's no easy way to go up and remove it. Eventually all of it will slow down and fall into the Earth but it's up there for a long period of time."

"The Naked Scientists are a media-savvy group of physicians and researchers from Cambridge University who use radio, live lectures, and the Internet to strip science down to its bare essentials, and promote it to the general public. Their award winning BBC weekly radio programme, The Naked Scientists, reaches a potential audience of 6 million listeners across the east of England, and also has an international following on the web." You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, or at the website.

Snowball Fight in the Solar System

2007-08-09T13:45:00.000+02:00

"One of the most surprising objects observed in X-rays are comets. X-rays are normally associated with the hottest things in the Universe, such as black holes. Comets, however, were described by Fred Whipple as being "dirty snowballs". So how does a snowball make X-rays? "

You can download this video here: Snowball Fight in the Solar System

Star (X-ray) Light, Star (X-ray) Bright

2007-08-09T13:40:00.000+02:00

"Remember the line from the children's saying that goes: "Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight"? Looking at the light from stars is exactly how astronomers can learn about them."

You can download this video here: Star (X-ray) Light, Star (X-ray) Bright

Dawn, Mission to the Asteroid Belt

2007-08-09T13:18:00.000+02:00

"NASA\'s Dawn mission is getting ready to launch on an unprecedented tour of two residents of the asteroid belt. This mission will be the first to orbit two different bodies in our solar system. " "Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formations. Ceres and Vesta reside in the extensive zone between Mars and Jupiter together with many other smaller bodies, called the asteroid belt." (NASA)

You can also download this video here: Dawn, Mission to the Asteroid Belt

Click here to go to the NASA Dawn Mission home page, and here for a mission overview. Updates on the Mission status are here. It is scheduled to launch in September.

Black Holes: Tall, Grande, Venti

2007-08-09T13:15:00.000+02:00

"Long before astronomers found evidence that black holes existed, these exotic objects have captured imaginations. In the 21st century, scientists not only have proof that black holes are real, they continue to make startling discoveries both about individual black holes examples and about their populations across the Universe."

You can also download this video here: Black Holes: Tall, Grande, Venti

How Chandra Does What It Does

2007-08-09T12:59:00.000+02:00

"NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, in orbit since 1999, studies the high-energy Universe, where black holes, exploding stars, and mysterious matter hold sway. "

You can download this video here: How Chandra Does What It Does

Peering into the Heart of the Milky Way

2007-08-09T12:57:00.000+02:00

"Humanity has long sought to learn about the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Even after the advent of optical telescopes, the Milky Way's center remained mysterious because gas and dust blocks most visible light along our line of sight. Fortunately, X-ray telescopes like Chandra can detect higher-energy radiation that penetrates this veil of galactic debris."

You can down load this video here: Peering into the Heart of the Milky Way

Giants of the Universe Probe Cosmic Questions

2007-08-09T12:54:00.000+02:00

"Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity. Because of their immense size and mass, galaxy clusters are extremely useful as tools to probe a variety of questions about the Universe as a whole as well as properties of the clusters themselves."

Supernovas: When Stars Die

2007-08-09T12:47:00.000+02:00

"When a star explodes, it leaves behind a debris field of stellar material and high-energy particles known as a supernova remnant. Astronomers use Chandra to study these remnants that can produce intense X-ray radiation for thousands of years. Supernova remnants are responsible for seeding cloud that formed our Sun, planets, and ultimately us with elements like nitrogen and oxygen."

You can down load this video here: Supernovas: When Stars Die

Star Witness News - The Carina Nebula

2007-08-06T08:54:00.000+02:00

The Feature News Story in April 2007 story on the Amazing Space news page presents a zoomable photo of the Carina Nebula. Using zoom and pan tools on the page, you can explore the nebula in great detail.
"The Carina Nebula contains several stars that are among the hottest and most massive known. Each star is about 10 times as hot and 100 times as massive as our Sun. "

You can download PDF of story and photos.
(IMAGE CREDIT: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

SAREPTA

2007-08-05T16:17:00.000+02:00

Sarepta is a special service provided for schools by the Norwegian Space Centre.

"SAREPTA is a space-related website for students and teachers in upper primary and secondary schools. SAREPTA offers resources for project tasks on weather and climate, ice in the Arctic, studies of ocean currents, Sun-Earth interaction, satellite navigation and satellite communication, as well as information on rockets, the International Space Station and space shuttles.

You find a wealth of factual articles, examples and suggestions for teaching and learning activities, links and not to forget a huge archive of actual satellite images. Access to the satellite images requires registration, and are largely granted members of the education community."

When you come to a page where you must log in to continue (for example, to see the image libraries), our username is cdnpyp
and the password is cdnpyp

Sarepta is provided by the Norwegian Space Agency, www.spacecentre.no
and National Centre for Space Related Education, www.narom.no.

European Space Agency - Kids

2007-08-05T15:44:00.000+02:00

The European Space Agency web site's pages for kids feature tabs for "Our Universe", "Life in Space", "Liftoff", "Useful Space", and "Earth", along with Lab, News and Fun sections.
It's only one tiny part of the ESA web site, which has many, many, sections full of news, pictures, videos, etc.
Be sure to visit these pages many times.

The Hubble Site - Black Holes

2007-08-04T14:25:00.000+02:00

The flash animation introduction to this page gives an easy to understand definition of a black hole. The site describes itself this way:
"Black Holes — Gravity's Relentless Pull is an exciting, in-depth exploration of the astronomy and physics of black holes. The site was created in a collaboration between astronomy, education and Web professionals. It offers astronomical images, animations, interactive experiments (some with audio), and an encyclopedia of accurate, up-to-date information.

Black holes are probably the most extreme objects in the Universe. The site shows that even the most mysterious of things can be understood through scientific inquiry. It also explains many basic concepts about physics, astronomy, and science in general, including light, gravity, and the scale of our Universe. Exploration of the site is sure to fascinate and to instill an interest in science. No specific prior knowledge about astronomy or physics is required."

The home page of the Hubble site is also worth exploring. The Black Hole page can be found through the "Explore Astronomy" section.

Print out the Solar System

2007-08-04T12:10:00.000+02:00

On this web page you can download a picture:
"Intention: print it out, study it, or use it to make a scale model of the solar system.

Images from NASA.
Copyable under the Creative Commons license: not for commercial use; please attribute authorship to Jef Raskin."

Astro Pléiades - Claude Nicollier

2007-08-03T09:58:00.000+02:00

"High above Vevey towers the mountain known as Les Pléiades. Here, there is a thematic trail called Astro Pléiades that focuses on the cosmos, the planets and our sun system, dedicated to Swiss austronaut Claude Nicollier. Four different stations contain information that are of interest to those interested in space. And of course, the beautiful landscapes leave nothing to be desired for." For detail descriptions of the trails, and travel information, see My Switzerland.com and Loisirs.ch "On s’éclipse volontiers une journée loin du monde connu pour partir à la découverte de l’infiniment grand dans le parc de Claude Nicollier."

wpher56 has a slide show of photos taken at Les Pléiades at Webshots

Marly Planet Path

2007-08-03T09:50:00.000+02:00

The Marly Planet Path is described on My Switzerland.com:
"Take a walk through our solar system? Thanks to the planet path in Marly, you can do just that! The path begins at the sun, which has a diameter of 1 metre. The path runs alongside the Gerine river and passes through beautiful countryside all the way to the observatory (approximately 5 km away), where you will find the most distant planets, Neptune and Pluto. This informative outing can be combined with a visit to the observatory." Travel and contact information are updated there.

INTEGRAL Space Data Center and the Geneva Observatory in Versoix

2007-08-03T08:32:00.000+02:00

If you are thinking about a career in the space sciences, you will be interetested in this web page:

"The Observatory of Geneva is located at the site of Sauverny (town of Versoix, Canton of Geneva), where the buildings of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Geneva (Observatory of Geneva) and the Astrophysics Lab of the EPFL (Federal Polytechnic School at Lausanne) are set up.

These two institutes work closely together at the scientific level and constitute the main gravity centre for astrophysics in French-speaking Switzerland as far as teaching, research and the service to the public are concerned.

The ISDC (Integral Science Data Centre) is located at Ecogia, which also belongs to the town of Versoix. The centre is linked to the Observatory of Geneva and deals with the processing of the data provided by the satellite INTEGRAL (INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysic Laboratory) of the European Space Agency (ESA)." (INTEGRAL is a gamma-ray mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) launched on October 17, 2002. The INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC) is receiving all data from the spacecraft within seconds and is providing INTEGRAL data and the analysis software to the scientific community worldwide.)

"On the two sites of Sauverny and Ecogia, a group of approximately 143 people are employed, including scientists, PhD candidates, students, technical staff (computer and electronics specialists, mechanics), as well as administrative staff..."

Visit the ISDC Picture Gallery

A 2002 press release explains about the project and a bit about gamma-rays.

A November 2006 post in Science Daily and a post at Spaceflight Now describes recent work

"The European Space Agency's gamma-ray observatory, Integral, has spotted a rare kind of gamma-ray outburst. The vast explosion of energy allowed astronomers to pinpoint a possible black hole in our Galaxy."This X-ray image was obtained by ESA's XMM-Newton satellite during the night of 22-23 September 2006, and shows the intense X-ray emission of the X-ray nova IGR J17497-2821. The X-ray nova was first spotted by ESA¹s Integral gamma-ray observatory. Credits: ESA/EPIC/ISDC

The Observatory in Versoix welcomes visitors. Be sure to read the information on this page for schedules, reservations, etc.

The Planetery Footpath in St. Luc

2007-08-03T07:06:00.000+02:00

Not too far away, in St. Luc, in the Valais, there is a Planetary Footpath leading to an observatory. The St. Luc tourism web page describes it this way:
" Enjoy this 6 km long path situated between 2200 and 2500 m above sea level while facing the prestigious “4000” of the Valaisan Alps. You will encounter the 9 planets of the solar system built to scale on works of art. The solar system has been reproduced on a smaller scale all the way along this path, that way, with every step forward, you will move a million kilometres forward through the cosmos. Without noticing it, you will move three times faster than the speed of light. Leaving from the sun, you travel a distance all the greater that the object is remote from the sun. Whilst stopping along this celestial path, you will learn about the planets’ dimensions , their characteristics and above all be able to discover and admire the beauty of one which is only a stone’s throw away – planet Earth! Beyond the simple enjoyment of fresh air and magnificent mountain scenery, we offer you a chance to approach in a more concrete way one of the most astonishing sciences : astronomy."

St. Luc is about a 2 hour drive from Geneva. (You can also go on the train and
Post Bus.) Click here for a map.

Visitor information is available here at My Switzerland.com: "Nature lovers can access the path on foot all year round, via St. Luc or Chandolin. Stargazing evenings are organised for the public several times a year and these provide the opportunity of observing the sun and the moon."

Astro-Venture

2007-08-02T22:51:00.000+02:00

With role-playing, site visitors train for a mission.

"Astro-Venture is an educational, interactive, multimedia Web environment highlighting NASA careers and astrobiology research in the areas of Astronomy, Geology, Biology and Atmospheric Science. Students in grades five through eight are transported to the future where they role play NASA occupations and use scientific inquiry, as they search for and build a planet with the necessary characteristics for human habitation."

What's Vacuum?

2007-08-02T21:17:00.000+02:00

What are you sitting on, atoms? molecules? But what are they made of? Watch this great video and get a new perspective on the Solar System.

See other related videos at from astrophysicist Dr. Jean-Marc Perelmuter, at youtube.com:

The Expansion of the Universe -part one-
The Expansion of the Universe -Part Two-
Astronomy & Cosmos: A New Orbit

Relativity visualized: Space Time Travel

2007-08-02T20:29:00.000+02:00

Visualization of the theory of relativity.

This web page has "online papers, images, movies and paper models by the physics education group, Ute Kraus Theoretische Astrophysik Tübingen The theory of relativity holds a certain fascination for many students (and for the interested public as well). At the same time it is often regarded as abstract and difficult to understand.

Part of the difficulties in understanding relativity are due to the fact that relativistic effects contradict everyday experience. Motion, for example, is a familiar process and everybody "knows from experience" that it entails neither time dilation nor length contraction. A flight with half the speed of light could correct this misjudgment but is not on offer.

A possible alternative are simulations. Images, films and virtual reality let us in a sense experience relativistic flights, gravitational collapse, compact objects and other extreme conditions."

Some of the pages on this site are only in German, but don't let that stop you! Many are in English, and all have illustrations. (Use Altavisa's Babelfish or Google Trashlations to help you get an approximate idea of what the German text says.)

For example, go to Step by Step into a Black Hole,

or watch the video of ""Through the city at nearly the speed of light"

Andromeda, Beauty and the Beast: Spitzer's Hidden Universe

2007-08-02T18:37:00.001+02:00

"In Greek Mythology, the Princess Andromeda was sacrificed to appease a sea monster's appetite. But astronomers are learning that the Andromeda Galaxy is less the spiral beauty and more the voracious beast..."

In this video, Robert Hurt, of the Spitzer Science Center, explains images from the Hubble Space telescope.

Because the school blocks youtube.com and googlevideo.com, you will have to watch these videos from the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) outside of school. You can see the other videos in this series "The Hidden Universe Showcase" (www.spitzer.caltech.edu) at the links below, or subscribe to the video podcast versions through iTunes or on the Spitzer web site.

Large Magellanic Cloud: Spitzer's Hidden Universe

Pillars of Destruction: Spitzer's Hidden Universe

Seeing the First Light: Spitzer's Hidden Univers

Night and Day on an Alien World: Spitzer's Hidden Universe

A Stellar Census of the Sword of Orion: Hidden Universe

Planetary Life After Death: Spitzer's Hidden Universe

You can hear audio podcasts at the Astronomy Media Player from astronomy sites around the world.

Ask an Astronomer

2007-08-02T17:33:00.000+02:00

At this web site from the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) you will find a list of questions that have video answers available. To view a segment, simply select your connection speed after the format you wish to view the answer in. (Windows Media is more common for PC users, and QuickTime is more common for Macintosh users. However, players exist for all formats on all platforms.)

A video podcast version of these videos is available. iTunes users can subscribe directly. Users of other RSS aggregators can bookmark the RSS feed.

"How do stars live and die?"

"Why do we see spiral arms in some galaxies?"

"Can you feel a solar wind?"

"Why doesn't the moon fall down?"

Space Travel 101

2007-08-02T12:17:00.000+02:00

This is a ThinkQuest site - created by students for students:

"Welcome Welcome to Space Travel 101: Fundamentals of Space Travel! Learning about space travel can be fun and educational. This website brings both of these elements together. The purpose of this site is to explain how space travel is possible and introduce missions that, despite the dangers, have continued to be conducted.

Here, you will learn the essentials of spacecraft and missions:

- Where a spacecraft gets energy
- How a spacecraft moves in space
- How astronauts can survive in space
- How a spacecraft re-enters Earth
- The dangers of space travels
- Different types of missions
- Different types of spacecraft

After you have explored all the topics of space travel, we invite you to our interact section. This section incorporates information from the site to test your knowledge of space travel. We have included games such as crossword puzzles, slide puzzles, word searches, and quizzes!"

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01581/SpaceTravelEnglish/main.html