GeekwithEnvy

Space

Watch a Rocket Launch Headed Toward Moon

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LADEE Launch Viewing Map - Elevation
LADEE Launch Viewing Map – Elevation (Image Credit: Orbital.com)

On September 6, 2013 at the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in Virginia, the Minotaur V rocket will launch NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment (LADEE) into a lunar transfer orbit. The rocket will take LADEE in a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth that will continue for 23 days.

During that time period the spacecraft will orbit the Earth 3.5 times, as time progresses the Moon’s gravitational field will increase the perigee of the orbit and the spacecraft will fire its thrusters to enter an orbit around the Moon. LADEE is on a 100 day mission to examine the atmosphere of the Moon from 50km above its surface.

The targeted launch window is on September 6, 2013 from 11:27 – 11:31 PM EDT. The map above shows the locations at which you will likely be able to see the launch. As you get further from the launch site, the rocket will appear lower and lower on the horizon and anything below 5º will likely be too low to see. For more information on this project and a link to a Google Earth (KMZ) file to help you find out where to see the launch, head to Orbital’s mission update page.

 

NASA Plans To Put Asteroid in Orbit Around The Moon

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The mission is clear, NASA wants to capture and redirect an asteroid that’s about 7-10 meters in diameter, weighs around 500 tons and is reasonably close to Earth. After the asteroid is captured it will be placed in an orbit around our Moon. The next step will be to send up a manned spacecraft to intercept the now lunar orbiting asteroid/spacecraft and hitch onto it. Astronauts will then go outside the spacecraft and take samples of the asteroid to bring back to Earth.

This type of mission obviously requires an incredible amount of preparation and initial planning. One of the first steps will be improving asteroid detection here on Earth, then finding a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) that we can capture. An asteroid suitable for capture would need to be relatively stable and slow moving, it can’t be spinning wildly end-over-end tumbling through space or it would be to difficult to grab. Part of the capture process involves the capturing spacecraft matching the rotation of the asteroid in order to be able to catch it, this process is demonstrated in the animated video above. Next, we would need to focus on the asteroids composition, after all, if we are going to make a mission out of it we mine as well pick the most interesting asteroid, perhaps one with valuable resources.

This mission will also be the first step that mankind has taken toward intercepting an asteroid, which is significant not only for researching the asteroid itself but also in learning ways to in which to protect our planet from future asteroid impacts, especially ones that could cause widespread destruction. We currently have no “real” plans for protecting our only home and although it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, we should still be preparing and expanding our knowledge in this area. Asteroid mining techniques could also prove to be very useful on long missions into the far reaches of our solar system. We could possibly use asteroids as a source of fuel or for harvesting elements needed to sustain life or to build structures.

The goal is to make all of this happen by 2025. You can read more about the Asteroid Initiative on NASA’s official page.

 

Area 51 Officially Confirmed by US Government

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Area-51-map
Official US Government Map of Area 51 (Image Source:National Security Archive)

Newly declassified information actually contains the first official acknowledgement of Area 51 by the government along with information on just exactly what was going on behind closed doors. Area 51 is mentioned many times in the documentation and is also shown in a declassified map (shown above).

The primary use of Area 51 according the the newly released history was, no surprise here, to test out secret US government projects, but more interestingly, the declassified history points out the secretive development of the U-2, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft used by the CIA and USAF to gather intelligence. The documents go into great detail and include information like the names of pilots, code names, locations, inter-govermental co-operation details, cryptonyms and more.Alien Sign

Unfortunately, for those who are awaiting acknowledgement of extraterrestrial life, you will have to wait a little longer. There are clearly no references to knowledge of alien life forms, but there is a ton of awesome, once highly secretive and classified information that’s now available to the public.

You can read the history of the U-2 project at the official National Security Archive website. The site contains many images, maps, videos and even offers up some highlights from the documentation, it’s definitely worth a look.

Voyager 1 Leaves the Solar System, Maybe?

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Voyager Spacecraft ( Source: NASA/JPL)

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is the most distant human-made object at over 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from our sun. The mission of the Voyager spacecraft both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. After major success, the mission was extended to have Voyager 2 explore Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 is still operating and sending back data after more than 35 years later. The new mission of the Voyager spacecraft named, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), is to explore space outside of our solar system, which is all new territory for us.

We have been anticipating Voyager 1 to finally leave our solar system completely and enter interstellar space, one group thinks we have done just that. UMD research scientist Marc Swisdak,  James F. Drake and Merav Opher of Boston University believe that recent data suggests that Voyager 1 is now in interstellar  space, this conflicts with NASA’s view of the data in which they believe the spacecraft is still on the outer edge of our solar system.

It’s a somewhat controversial view, but we think Voyager has finally left the Solar System, and is truly beginning its travels through the Milky Way”

It’s all about our sun’s magnetic field and how it interacts with the magnetic field of interstellar space. The direction that the magnetic field of interstellar space is coming from is the source of controversy. As NASA writes, “Other models envision the interstellar magnetic field draped around our solar bubble and predict that the direction of the interstellar magnetic field is different from the solar magnetic field inside. By that interpretation, Voyager 1 would still be inside our solar bubble.”. This is in contrast to the view that the interstellar magnetic field direction is the same as that which originates from our sun, which would mean that Voyager 1 left our solar system back on July 27th, 2012.

This is obviously new for everyone and discussions will need to continue in order to better understand what’s going on at the edge of our solar system. The best thing we can do is continue to analyze new data as it comes in and hopefully it will provide a clearer picture.

You can read the original article from NASA about this topic and you can learn more about the Voyager spacecraft from a post we did last year.

 

Catch The Perseid Meteor Shower Tonight and Tomorrow

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Meteors in the Night Sky

On August 11th (tonight) and 12th, you can look up at the night sky to witness the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

Streaks of light will appear across the sky as massive amounts of space dust enter the atmosphere. Earth is moving through a part of it’s orbit that contains tons of debris leftover from the comet  Swift-Tuttle, this “dust” enters our atmosphere and burns up rapidly, creating the light show we see here on the Earth’s surface.  The name of the meteor shower derives from the word Perseides, referring to the sons of Perseus from Greek Mythology.

This shower is nothing new however, it’s been observed for thousands of years, in fact it’s first observation dates back to 36 AD!

Don’t have a clear view of the night sky? No worries, Slooh has you covered, you can watch the feed below.