The scale of things

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Highlights mine.

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Kepler Team Has Some Success in Reaction Wheel Recovery Attempt
Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson | July 25, 2013


^ A diagram of the Kepler space telescope. Credit: NASA

In May of this year, the Kepler planet-hunting telescope lost its ability to precisely point toward stars, putting its exoplanet search in jeopardy. Two of the four reaction wheels failed, and Kepler scientists say the spacecraft needs at least three reaction wheels to be able to point precisely enough to continue the mission. In the latest update from Kepler, mission manager Roger Hunter says that the team has made a little headway and had initial success in testing the two failed reaction wheels. But the big test will come later to see how much friction the two wheels generate with continued use.

On Thursday, July 18, 2013 the team initiated recovery tests on the spacecraft’s two failed wheels in order to characterize how the two wheels (Reaction Wheels (RW) 4 and 2) operated and to determine if either could be returned to full use.

RW4 did not spin in the positive (or clockwise) direction but the wheel did spin in the negative (or counterclockwise) direction. Wheel 4 is thought to be the more seriously damaged of the two, Hunter said.

Then, on Monday, July 22 the team tested RW2, and that wheel responded positively to test commands and spun in both directions.

“Over the next two weeks, engineers will review the data from these tests and consider what steps to take next,” Hunter said. “Although both wheels have shown motion, the friction levels will be critical in future considerations. The details of the wheel friction are under analysis.”

Too much friction from the reaction wheels can cause vibration and impact the pointing precision of the telescope.

Kepler has found over 2,700 planetary candidates, with 130 confirmed planets, from the size of Earth’s moon to larger than Jupiter. There are two years of data that has yet to be combed through to detect the faint periodic dimming of distant starlight – the telltale sign of a planet transiting the face of its host star.

Still, the loss of Kepler would be a blow to the search for planets orbiting other stars. Earlier this year, Kepler team members said if the spacecraft could no longer do planet-hunting, there’s a chance it could do something else, such as asteroid hunting or other astronomical observations… just something that doesn’t need as precise ability for pointing.

Source: Kepler Mission Manager Update

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How High is Space?
Universe Today, Fraser Cain | July 25, 2013

More here.

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I remembered this time-lapse as a really fun listen and watch!

Björk sings a love song titled, It’s Oh So Quiet, that alternates music of a hushed cabaret setting with a BIG band sound of a Broadway show. You’re listening to some fun music while watching some natural wonders in Iceland, a video published nine months ago, produced by an astrophotographer and journalist with a sense of humor .

^ Frost, Fire and Northern Lights in Iceland | Jean-Luc Dauvergne, astrophotographer, journalist

See VIMEO NOTES.

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Simon Lacey, composer, put it properly when he wrote that his compositions were influenced by classical sounds of music rather than saying he wrote classical music. There is a difference for listeners who’ve been musically trained, and the reason for writing phrases like, ‘sounds of classical music’, or ‘sounds like classical music’, which is a different genre, if you will.

The composition you’ll hear in the video immediately below is stunning, because I didn't expect to hear real—not synthesized—piano and stringed instrument(s?) played beautifully. Yeah, I got up and walked around listening to Lacey’s artistically creative composition of blended, instrumental textures, sounds and dynamics sensitively performed while, at one moment, seamlessly drawing in the voice over, all of which are, in my opinion, quite the manifest musical treasure, these days, online and off.

I’ve added links and highlights in Mr. Lacey’s text, below.

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^ The Thought of Floating in Space | Simon Lacey, composer

About QOMM | A Quarter Of A Million Miles
Simon Lacey, 2013

I was inspired to write the first pieces for A Quarter Of A Million Miles after reading Michael Collins’ book ‘Carrying The Fire’. Collins was the Command Module pilot on the Apollo 11 mission, sometimes described as ‘the forgotten man’, orbiting the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module. The American aviator Charles Lindbergh wrote to Collins shortly after their return to earth that his part in the mission was one of ‘greater profundity... you have experienced an aloneness unknown to man before.’

Collins’ poetic and eloquent account conveys the infinity and beauty of space and tells the story of humans pushing themselves up to (and possibly beyond) what was thought possible. The style and sound of the music [are] an attempt to evoke this story – melodic classical influences combined with a modern, cinematic production, half of the pieces featuring a classical soprano and the others having a solo violin at the forefront. Real instruments are combined with sound effects, atmospheres, synths and snatches of speech from the Apollo mission to give the pieces a unique flavour.

The first recording sessions for A Quarter Of A Million Miles took place in London in December 2012 with some very exciting and talented collaborators and the album is scheduled to be completed in 2013. The soprano parts are sung by classical chart topper and Classical Brit nominee Natasha Marsh and the violin solos were performed by Jack Liebeck, who was recently featured on the soundtracks to the films Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina and was a Classical Brit winner in 2010 for Young British Classical Performer.

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Many links in original.

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Richard Feynman on Good, Evil, and the Zen of Science, Plus His Prose Poem for the Glory of Evolution
by Maria Popova | Brain Pickings dot org

“I . . . a universe of atoms . . . an atom in the universe.”

“Everyone’s moral behavior is much more variable than any of us would have initially predicted,” psychology researchers David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo wrote in their fascinating exploration of the good and evil in all of us, and hardly is this variability more critical than in matters that profoundly affect not merely the fate of the individual but also the future of society at large. In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (public library) — the same indispensable anthology that gave us The Great Explainer’s insights on the universal responsibility of scientists and the role of scientific culture in modern society, titled after the famous film of the same name — Richard Feynman explores the capacity of science to be a catalyst for both good and evil, and the moral choices steering the direction of the dial:

“The first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things. Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also to the credit of the moral choice which led us to good work. Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. Such power has evident value — even though the power may be negated by what one does.

“I learned a way of expressing this common human problem on a trip to Honolulu. In a Buddhist temple there, the man in charge explained a little bit about the Buddhist religion for tourists, and then ended his talk by telling them he had something to say to them that they would never forget — and I have never forgotten it. It was a proverb of the Buddhist religion:


“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.”

“What, then, is the value of the key to heaven? It is true that if we lack clear instructions that determine which is the gate to heaven and which the gate to hell, the key may be a dangerous object to use, but it obviously has value. How can we enter heaven without it?

“The instructions, also, would be of no value without the key. So it is evident that, in spite of the fact that science could produce enormous horror in the world, it is of value because it can produce something.”

But, for Feynman, science has another value, an entirely personal one, captured in the famous Feynmanism after which this very book is titled. This glorious intellectual enjoyment, he argues, is far too frequently dismissed by those who stress scientists’ moral obligations to society, but it is of equal importance:

“Is this mere personal enjoyment of value to society as a whole? No! But it is also a responsibility to consider the value of society itself. Is it, in the last analysis, to arrange things so that people can enjoy things? If so, the enjoyment of science is as important as anything else.

“But I would like not to underestimate the value of the worldview which is the result of scientific effort. We have been led to imagine all sorts of things infinitely more marvelous than the imaginings of poets and dreamers of the past. It shows that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man. For instance, how much more remarkable it is for us all to be stuck-half of us upside down — by a mysterious attraction, to a spinning ball that has been swinging in space for billions of years, than to be carried on the back of an elephant supported on a tortoise swimming in a bottomless sea.”

He concludes by illustrating his point with what could be best described as a prose poem about the magnificence of evolution, what Richard Dawkins termed “the magic of reality”, Einstein extolled as the ineffable spirit of the universe, and Carl Sagan celebrated as the reverence of nature. The poetic eloquence for which Feynman remains known, which hardly anyone has mastered since, except perhaps Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox, makes for a beautiful read on par with Diane Ackerman’s Cosmic Pastoral. Feynman writes:

“I have thought about these things so many times alone that I hope you will excuse me if I remind you of some thoughts that I am sure you have all had — or this type of thought — which no one could ever have had in the past, because people then didn’t have the information we have about the world today.

“For instance, I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves . . . mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business . . . trillions apart . . . yet forming white surf in unison.

“Ages on ages . . . before any eyes could see . . . year after year . . . thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? . . . on a dead planet, with no life to entertain.

“Never at rest . . . tortured by energy . . . wasted prodigiously by the sun . . . poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.

“Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves . . . and a new dance starts.

“Growing in size and complexity . . . living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein . . . dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

“Out of the cradle onto the dry land . . . here it is standing . . . atoms with consciousness . . . matter with curiosity.

“Stands at the sea . . . wonders at wondering . . . I . . . a universe of atoms . . . an atom in the universe.”

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is absolutely fantastic in its entirety. Complement it with Feynman’s little-known sketches and drawings and his graphic-novel biography.

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^ Beauty | The Feynman Series, Part 1


^ Honors | The Feynman Series, Part 2


^ Curiosity | The Feynman Series, Part 3

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Could We Move The Sun?
Universe Today, Fraser Cain | August 1, 2013



More here.

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Sunrise, Moonrise, Planetrise, As Seen from Space | Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy | Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013, at 1:35 PM


^ Sunrise from space, with a late crescent Moon adding a poetic touch. Photo by NASA

International Space Station astronaut Karen Nyberg has tweeted some amazing photos from space over the past few weeks, but this one may be the most remarkable, and she may not have even noticed why when she took it! [UPDATE: She did notice; see below.]

The picture above shows sunrise as seen from 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth, our planet’s silhouette just beneath the overexposed curve of our atmosphere. The Sun is a mix of reddish colors, the blue and green light scattered away from it by particles in the air. What makes this image immediately special, though, is the quiet presence of the Moon, a thin crescent, off to the right. The Moon is a waning crescent, meaning its nearing the end of it's monthly orbital cycle, the lit part we see shrinking every day as the apparent distance between the Moon and the Sun dwindles.

But we’re not done. I wanted to see if I could tell just when this picture was taken, so I fired up some astronomy software to see where the Moon was today—it turns out the photo was taken just a few hours ago as I write this, very probably in the afternoon (UTC) on Sunday, August 4, 2013.

But I noticed that, according to the my software, Mercury was in the sky between the Moon and Sun. Wondering if it would be visible in the photo, I cranked up the brightness and saw not only what I’m pretty sure is Mercury, but also another bright “star” that I strongly suspect is Jupiter!


^ Tweaking the photo a bit, two planetary interlopers appear: Mercury and Jupiter. Photo by NASA

The positions and brightnesses all match, so I think we have a hit. The two planets should have been visible by eye from the space station, but the glare from the bright Sun may have swamped them, which may be why Nyberg didn’t mention them. Once I post this article I’ll tweet it to her; if she responds I’ll write an update!

UPDATE (18:15 UTC on Aug. 4, 2013): I sent a tweet to Nyberg, and she responded: "@BadAstronomer @NASA I DID see Jupiter & Mercury & was disappointed when I didn't see them in my photo. Thanks! Took this ~11:20 GMT today." Here's the whole conversation:


^ That day when I had a Twitter conversation with an astronaut who was orbiting the Earth at the time.

OK, wow, so today just got a lot cooler.

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^ The Sun’s Magnetic Field is about to Flip | ScienceCasts

See NANCY ATKINSON, Universe Today.


Wilcox Solar Observatory.

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Thank you very much for the Feynman posts of last week, Allegro. They were uplifting and appreciated.

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Thank You, Perelandra .

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Millions of Tons of Gas Hangs Over Our Star | Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy | Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013, at 8:00 AM


^ The Sun boils with ionized gas in this image by Paco Bellido. Click to ensolarnate. Photo by Paco Bellido, used by permission

That is a gorgeous shot of the Sun (which you really want to click to embiggen) taken by Spanish astronomer Paco Bellido on July 23. He was using a Coronado Solarmax telescope that was equipped with a special filter that shows warm hydrogen roiling on and above the surface of the Sun.

The image is inverted, so that dark material appears bright and vice versa. Long curls of filaments hang across the Sun’s face; megatons of hydrogen plasma suspended by our star’s powerful magnetic field. They really look three-dimensional, don’t they? Bellido made a red/green anaglyph version if you have the glasses for it, and that makes those filaments really pop out.

Sometimes filaments collapse back onto the Sun’s surface, and sometimes they erupt away. Alan Friedman, whose work has been on this blog many, many times, was observing the Sun on July 26 and caught one suspended without visible support above the Sun’s limb:


^ Another view, three days later, by Alan Friedman. Click to massively embiggen. Photo by Alan Friedman, used by permission

In fact that hydrogen is trapped in the Sun’s magnetic field, so it was being supported (and, I’ll add, when a filament is seen against the backdrop of space it’s called a prominence). Friedman’s image is also inverted—he created a positive one for purists, too, if you'd like to see it. In the larger version of his picture you can see tremendous detail, but note that the Sun is about 1.4 million kilometers (860,000 miles) across, so something that looks small still dwarfs our entire planet! That filament you see wrapping around the Sun at the upper left is probably 300,000 km in length—almost enough to stretch from the Earth to the Moon.

I’ll note that we should now be approaching the peak of the solar magnetic cycle, when sunspots should be numerous and activity on the rise. However, the Sun hasn’t been holding up its end of the bargain; it’s still way below what we’d expect it to be doing. This whole cycle has been weird literally since it started, and I’m still not sure what the Sun’s going to do. Will it come roaring back, or will it continue to fizzle? Only time will tell.

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Australian Time-Lapse Makes Me Want to Stand on My Head | Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy | Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013, at 11:00 AM


^ The horns of the Sun; an annular eclipse rising into the Australian sky. Photo by Teoh Hui Chieh, from the video.

Since I’m heading down to Australia, here’s a wonderful time-lapse video made from shots taken in May by Malaysian photographer Teoh Hui Chieh. There are some remarkable directions taken in this video, which I’ll note below.

(Note: Chieh has a collection of pictures used in this video and from her visit to Australia on Flickr and has a blog called My Dark Sky, where she documents her work; she has a description of the video there as well.)



At 20 seconds or so, there is a nice 360-degree all-sky view. Usually these are fixed, with the camera motionless while the stars move in the sky, but Chieh set it so that the stars don’t move and the horizon does. It generates a decidedly odd feeling, a view I’m not used to seeing.

At 1:28 the May annular solar eclipse rises into view; the Moon was in between the Earth and Sun, but happened to be at a part of its orbit when it was farther from Earth than on average, so it appeared smaller. This means it couldn’t completely block the Sun.

Notice too that as the Sun and Moon rise they move up and to the left. That always get me; in the Northern Hemisphere the Sun and Moon rise moving to the right. Seeing the Sun rise backward always throws me off, but that’s the way things are for folks south of the equator, standing on their heads as they do.

At 3:13 you see Orion setting, and Chieh played with the star trails to make them match the music, trailing one way and then another. I was impressed by that; it really adds some great drama to the video. The next few sequences get their timing stretched and zoomed to match the music as well. Very cool.

And throughout the video are the stars and sights we don’t get in the northern latitudes: the Southern Cross, Alpha and Beta Centauri, the Coal Sack, the Magellanic Clouds. Many of these objects should be up in the sky and visible while I’m in Australia. I hope to get some pictures while I’m down there. I don’t know when I’ll get to see them again with my own eyes.

Until then, I suppose, I can watch amazing videos like this one.