Spacers

Asteroid To Buzz Earth Wednesday

Spacers Quickie
A small asteroid is set to buzz the Earth on Wednesday. 2010 AL30 is just 36 feet wide and will make its closest approach about 7:45am EST, passing within 80,000 miles of Earth. There is no chance of an impact and the object will not be visible with the naked eye, but may be picked up with a reasonable powered telescope - but you have to know where to look.

The weird orbit of 2010 AL30, an ellipse almost exactly 1 year long, has some astronomers suggesting that it may in fact be man-made - possibly an old rocket body launched in the early days of space exploration.

The asteroid will pass through the constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Pisces as it makes its pass, so there will be some familiar markers to make observing it a little easier.

Happy Buzzing, Spacers!

SpaceHead

Shuttle Launch Date May Be Hosed

An errant cooling system hose on the Tranquility node which failed during a test may delay the planned February 7th launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour to the ISS on the STS-130 mission. The hose ruptured during the test, causing no damage to the payload but necessetating a repair and further tests. There is already a week of built-in buffer time to cater for just such an event, but NASA isn't sure if this is enough time to complete the repair and remain on track for the scheduled launch time. Analysis of the failure will continue over the next few days before an announcement is made on its impact on the launch date.


Engineers at Kennedy continue to prepare Endeavour for launch as Florida is still enduring unusually cold temperatures. Pre-launch propellant testing will continue until Thursday. Meanwhile, the six astronaut crew continues final training and preparations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. At the moment they are reviewing equipment that will be used during the mission and practicing rendezvous procedures with the ISS in simulators.


Keep an eye on Spacers for STS-130 udates.

SpaceHead

January Video Roundup

A bit of a different roundup this January, I've collected a few short videos that sum up the space events nicely. There is a lot of buzz about the new Cupola that will fly to the ISS in early Febraury, so the first video takes a short look at what all the fuss is about.



A video about the rollout of Endeavour.



And finally an interesting video about a recent NASA effort to save Sea Turtles from the freezing temperatures in the wetlands around the Kennedy Space Center.



Happy Viewing, Spacers!

SpaceHead

It Be Cold In Olde England

Thanks to Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy for spotting this absolutely gorgeous picture of the British Isles from space amidst a not-so-liberal dousing of snow.


I notice that my old stomping ground in Northern Ireland isn't quite as badly covered as the inland areas, but wow that is one incredible picture. From my warm and cozy desert here in Arizona it is hard to picture what it was like to endure cold like that, but I do remember that the snow was fun - for about the first five minutes, then you had to deal with removing it manually because the DOE (Department Of the Environment) was 'taken by surprise' and didn't grit the roads the night before, causing widespread chaos because of un-passable roads. Still, it had its upsides, the ritual of the making of the snowman and watching my old dog Chewie - a very furry collie - run around the back garden rolling up snowballs in her fur then depositing them around the house. Priceless.


Happy Freezing, UK Spacers!

SpaceHead

Endeavour Heads To Freezing Pad

Space Shuttle Endeavour rolled out to launch pad 39A this morning, braving freezing cold temperatures as it made its way in preparation for a February 7th launch date. Mission STS-130 is the first of five launches this year, the final year of the Space Shuttle program, and is set to deliver a new node to the International Space Station called Tranquility, which comes equiped with a 7 window Cupola.


The cold temperatures are not unusual at the Florida cape in January, and although the early morning trip began at a sub-zero 4:13am, the hardware was not affected. Launches are not permitted when the weather drops below 2 Celcius (36f), but hauling the Shuttle to the pad is fine as long as the crawlerway - the path to the pad - is not blocked by snow.


Spacers will be keeping a close eye on the launch preparations so stay tuned for updates as STS-130 approaches.

SpaceHead

Five New Worlds

The Kepler Planet Hunting Mission is in full swing now and has just released details of five new extra-solar planets - planets outside our solar system, around other stars. The incredible thing about this find is that unlike previous finds which tended to be on the heavy side due to the limitations of the method of discovery, these planets are all comparatively light. Most are larger than Jupiter in size, with one somewhat smaller than Jupiter but still larger than Earth.



The techniques employed to detect planets have historically been limited to transitions in front of a parent star - effectively a dip in brightness, and small shifts in the position of the parent star due to the pull of the planet's gravity as it orbits. The gravity technique is more adept to finding heavier planets and has a limited capability to detect the likes of an Earth-like planet. Kepler refines the transition technique with a much higher resolution and the dark environment of space.

This is a very exciting find coming from the analysis of just 43 days of data. There is over 8 months of data available to date, so expect a lot more announcements from Kepler in the near future.

Happy Planet Hunting, Spacers!

SpaceHead

Earth Passes Go - Collects $200

Happy New Year, Earthlings!

So, the Earth has successfully made it once more around the Sun, just like it has over 4 billion times before. This particular trip is marked by a peculiar form of measurement instigated by a bizarre highly evolved species of that planet called Humans, where a period of 10 trips around the Sun is packaged up into a neat little unit called a Decade. Some people confuse the finer points of this unit of measurement with others like a Century and a Millennium, but this is wholly understandable due to the human's own ambiguity surrounding it.


In contrast to the billions of trips around the Sun that the Earth has made itself, the humans have a more humble measuring system in place that on the face of it seems like they have only made 2,010 trips around. The numbering system begins with the birth of a special human over two millennia ago, and causes arguments amongst various human sects due to it being 1 based. The first trip around the Sun was called Year 1, so major milestones like centuries are complete at the end of the year the major digit rolls over - eg the 1st century ended on the last day of year 100, and the 2nd century began on the first day of year 101.

Decades however are not measure in the same way, instead being given a nickname that is based on their major digit. For example, the 80's - a 10 year period spanning from the beginning of the 1980 to the end of the 1989. This is markedly different from the 8th Decade of the 20th Century, which began on the 1st day of 1981 and ended on the last day of 1990.

The 21st century is still in its 1st decade, which ends on the last day of 2010, but with the passing of 2009 we entered the 2nd nicknamed decade. The first decade was, for me at least, called the 'Noughties', which comes from the old English word for nothing, Nought. I haven't decided yet what to nickname the 2nd, but suggestions range from; the 'Teenies', to the boring old 'Tens'. We'll yet see what popular culture ends up calling it, but for now, the Noughties were a very interesting decade for me, how were they for you?

Happy Decade, Spacers!

SpaceHead