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Science

Saturn’s Great Hurricane

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“The Rose” in False-Color Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

We haven’t really had the opportunity to see Saturn’s north pole, at least with any great clarity, since the last time we got close which was in 1981 when Voyager 2 was making it’s way past our solar system’s second largest planet. Thankfully, Cassini on Nov. 27, 2012 has offered up an updated and much more detailed view of the northern pole of Saturn and what they found was spectacular.

A massive vortex was discovered that spans 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with clouds whizzing around at 330 miles per hour. It’s like a massive hurricane, one that’s many times as large and powerful as any hurricane on Earth. What’s also interesting about “the Rose” is that we are not sure how long it has actually existed. We will have to keep an eye on this storm and see how things progress throughout the year.

For more details about Cassini and associated projects along with more amazing photos, you can head the NASA’s Cassini page.

Antares Rocket Launch Successful

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The Antares Rocket, which was built as a project between NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp, has made it’s first launch as it  successfully carried a “dummy” payload into space. Liftoff occurred at  5 p.m. EDT on Sunday April 21st from Wallops Island, Va.

One thing you will undoubtably notice in the video above is the rate of acceleration, it’s awfully slow, which is because of the low amount of thrust involved in this launch. As the rocket gains altitude it finally begins to break the sound barrier and make it’s way into space.

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Antares launch (Image Credit: NASA)

 

Today’s successful test flight of Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket from the spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia, demonstrates an additional private space-launch capability for the United States and lays the groundwork for the first Antares cargo mission to the International Space Station later this year. The growing potential of America’s commercial space industry and NASA’s use of public-private partnerships are central to President Obama’s strategy to ensure U.S. leadership in space exploration while pushing the bounds of scientific discovery and innovation in the 21st century. With NASA focusing on the challenging and exciting task of sending humans deeper into space than ever before, private companies will be crucial in taking the baton for American cargo and crew launches into low-Earth orbit. I congratulate Orbital Sciences and the NASA teams at Wallops, and look forward to more groundbreaking missions in the months and years ahead.” – White House Statement

A Quick Look at How Lightning Works and a Cool Video

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It’s that time of year again in most the United States when we start to see warming temperatures and that means a lots of thunderstorms. We see the flash and then hear the rumble of thunder as we witness the power of our planet’s weather system.

Although many of us have experienced a thunderstorm, few truly understand what’s going on out there when lightning strikes. It’s quite clear why it would be difficult to determine exactly what’s going on when a thunderstorm produces lightning, after all, lightning happens in a split second. Thankfully, there are lots of people out there studying storms and using high speed cameras to slow everything down, this helps us get a clearer picture of what’s happening. One of those people is Tom A. Warner, a photographer who has captured some amazing footage of lightning, among many other things.

Lightning occurs when a storm becomes electrified. As the storm moves over an area, it’s negative charge causes the ground around it go become positively charged. This build up and difference in electrical charge is why lightning occurs. What’s even more interesting is that the lighting doesn’t just come lying out of the cloud, at least not initially. A Stepped Leader (-) begins to make it’s way down from the cloud as streamers (+) move upward from the ground. When the streamer meets the step leader then connection is complete and we see the resulting discharge as lightning. In the video above you can clearly see the Stepped Leader searching for the best path for the lightning to take.

Anything can produce a streamer towards a storm cloud, it’s usually a tall object but even you could be producing one. What’s worse is you could become part of the circuit and bam, you’ve been hit by lightning. That’s why it’s important to follow safety guidelines if your caught in a storm

Lightning Animation B
Stepped Leader Animation (Credit: NOAA)
Lightning Animation A
Streamer Animation (Credit: NOAA)

 

 

 

Catch The Lyrid Meteor Shower This Weekend

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The Lyrid Meteor Shower as seen from the International Space Station (Source:NASA)

Every year the Earth passes through an area of debris in space that is left behind from Comet Thatcher. When we pass through this area of dust, we on the Earth’s surface get to see quite a show.

This meteor shower is known as the Lyrid meteor shower and the radiant of the shower (where the shower appears to originate) is near the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, Vega. The shower will be at it’s peek this weekend on April 21 and 22 (Sunday night and early Monday morning).

Unfortunately, many of us will have difficulty observing this event as the Moon will be very bright, almost full. No need to get discouraged though as you should still be able to see many of them anyway, especially farther away from sources of light pollution like bigger cities. As you watch space debris streak across the sky, think about how they are moving at over 100,000 mph or 160,934 km/h, it’s pretty cool stuff.

Powerful Solar Flare Hits Earth

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SunimageNASA
Image Credit: SOHO/Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) consortium

We are getting closer to a solar maximum, the peak of the sun’s activity, which will occur later this year and is part of an 11 year cycle that our Sun goes through. This of course means the the likelihood of major solar flares is quite high. One such solar flare hit the Earth this past Thursday (11th) at 3:16 am EDT and actually caused a short lived radio blackout.

The radio blackout was assigned an R2 on the NOAA Space Weather Scale for Radio Blackouts. The highest rating on the scale is an R5 with the lowest impact being an R1. This is just one of several scales used to determine the intensity of space weather and it’s potential impacts here on Earth. There is also a scale for Geomagnetic Storms and Solar Radiation, all of which can be found on NOAA’s Space weather Scale page.

Increased solar activity can wreak havoc on electronic devices, power grids, satellites and even pose a threat to astronauts in space. In very rare cases, radiation can pose a risk to those flying in aircraft at high altitudes. Fortunately, the Sun has been pretty quite otherwise, with Thursday being the largest event of the year so far.