CrowdSourcing Space Science: NASA Launches DiskDetective

WISE Image
Credit : NASA

NASA has launched  DiskDetective.org,  a crowdsourced science project aimed at engaging the general public in identifying planetary nurseries in the debris fields surrounding stars.

RELEASE 14-038

NASA-Sponsored ‘Disk Detective’ Lets Public Search for New Planetary Nurseries

NASA is inviting the public to help astronomers discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from the agency’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission through a new website, DiskDetective.org.

Disk Detective is NASA’s largest crowdsourcing project whose primary goal is to produce publishable scientific results. It exemplifies a new commitment to crowdsourcing and open data by the United States government.

“Through Disk Detective, volunteers will help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope,” said James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate.

WISE was designed to survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. From a perch in Earth orbit, the spacecraft completed two scans of the entire sky between 2010 and 2011. It took detailed measurements on more than 745 million objects, representing the most comprehensive survey of the sky at mid-infrared wavelengths currently available.

The full NASA Press Release is here:

The WISE spacecraft was recently reactivated after spending more than two years in hibernation after it ran out of coolant required for two of its four instruments. Now targeted at Near Earth Objects, the NEOWISE mission  has been revealing previously undiscovered asteroids at a prolific rate. This Universe Today article gives a good summary of the mission history, and NASA’s ingenuity in finding ways to extend the life of an already successful spacecraft.

NEOWISE
Credit : NASA

Hubble Spots a Blue Planet, but its Not What You Think

NASA Press Release

RELEASE 13-202
 NASA Hubble Finds a True Blue Planet

WASHINGTON — Astronomers making visible-light observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have deduced the actual color of a planet orbiting another star 63 light-years away.

The planet is HD 189733b, one of the closest exoplanets that can be seen crossing the face of its star.

Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measured changes in the color of light from the planet before, during and after a pass behind its star. There was a small drop in light and a slight change in the color of the light. “We saw the light becoming less bright in the blue but not in the green or red. Light was missing in the blue but not in the red when it was hidden,” said research team member Frederic Pont of the University of Exeter in South West England. “This means that the object that disappeared was blue.”

Earlier observations have reported evidence for scattering of blue light on the planet. The latest Hubble observation confirms the evidence.

If seen directly, this planet would look like a deep blue dot, reminiscent of Earth’s color as seen from space. That is where the comparison ends.

On this turbulent alien world, the daytime temperature is nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and it possibly rains glass — sideways — in howling, 4,500-mph winds. The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean as it does on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles. Silicates condensing in the heat could form very small drops of glass that scatter blue light more than red light.

Hubble and other observatories have made intensive studies of HD 189733b and found its atmosphere to be changeable and exotic.

HD 189733b is among a bizarre class of planets called hot Jupiters, which orbit precariously close to their parent stars. The observations yield new insights into the chemical composition and cloud structure of the entire class.

Clouds often play key roles in planetary atmospheres. Detecting the presence and importance of clouds in hot Jupiters is crucial to astronomers’ understanding of the physics and climatology of other planets.

HD 189733b was discovered in 2005. It is only 2.9 million miles from its parent star, so close that it is gravitationally locked. One side always faces the star and the other side is always dark.

In 2007, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope measured the infrared light, or heat, from the planet, leading to one of the first temperature maps for an exoplanet. The map shows day side and night side temperatures on HD 189733b differ by about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This should cause fierce winds to roar from the day side to the night side.

European Southern Observatory Stars in “Hidden Universe”

Innerspace.net prinicipally covers the world launch industry, but  from time to time it is useful to remind ourselves of just why the drive to lower launch costs is  important in the first place.  One reason among many, to more fully and affordably explore the stunning nature of the universe around us.  In recent years, perhaps no institution has done a better job of giving us glimpses of that universe than the thoroughly ground based European Southern Observatory located in Chile’s remote Atacama Desert.  So, in a summer movie season fully stocked with sometimes mind numbing action thrillers, it might be pleasant change of course to check out “Hidden Universe” an IMAX 3D film featuring in part the outstanding work of the ESO.

From the ESO Press Release:

“Russell Scott directed the film, and worked on location during the shooting in November 2012. “The experience of filming in the Atacama Desert at such world-class observing facilities has been amazing,” he says. “Some of the otherworldly locations among the Andes mountains almost make you feel like you’re on another planet, and this sensation of nature — beyond what we are used to — is exactly what I want to transmit to the audience.”

From these extreme locations on Earth, the audience will be taken on a breathtaking tour of deep space in the cinematic medium that does it best: IMAX 3D. Viewers will peer deep inside vivid galaxies and nebulae, travel over the terrain of Mars, and witness stunning images of the Sun. The Universe is brought to life through real images and previously unseen giant-screen 3D simulations based on astronomical data gathered by the VLT, ALMA, and other telescopes such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, creating an immersive IMAX 3D experience.”

Hidden Universe opened June 28th at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio as well as Copenhagen, Denmark and two loactions in Australia, Sidney and Melbourne.

A Planet is Born

A Planet Being Born?
Credit : ESO Very Large Telesope

For the first time ever, astronomers may have captured a direct image of a planet being born. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope  in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope,  an international team based in Switzerland found what appears to be the birth of gas giant planet around the star HD 100546, 335 light years away from Earth.

The apparent discovery, which may be difficult to officially confirm, came when astronomers using a special optic instrument on the VLT, noticed a distinct “blob” in the vast ring of gas surrounding the young star system.  HD 100546 is already thought to have one large planet orbiting six times further out from the star than Earth is from our own Sun, but the object which is the subject of the current story is further still,  more than 10 times the Earth /Sun distance.  If it is indeed a planet, the distant location may challenge current theories of how gas giants are formed.

The full story may be found here.

An idle thought.  One staple of science fiction both written and on the screen, is the discovery of ancient remains of much older sentient race, now departed.   Such civilizations are frequently referred to as the  “First Ones” or something close to that. As we now develop the technologies to actually observe planets and stars in formation, and gaze out on a galaxy which is plainly filled with a startling array of planetary systems, could it  be that most science fiction writers really missed the boat on this, and we are actually the “first ones, ” living in a much earlier epoch of life in the galaxy than we so frequently imagined?