Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 52 i All About Space

Moon discovered around dwarf planet Makemake NASA’s Hubble has spied a natural satellite orbiting the small world © NASA; ESA; ESO New images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found an unsurprising feature of distant icy dwarf planet Makemake: a moon. Nicknamed MK 2, the moon is 1,300-times fainter than Makemake and was spotted around 20,900 kilometres (13,000 miles) from the dwarf planet. NASA estimates its size to be 160 kilometres (100 miles) across. By comparison, Makemake is 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) across. Makemake, discovered in 2005, is no forgettable celestial body either. Second only to Pluto, Makemake is the second brightest dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a vast reservoir of frozen detritus formed 4.5 billion years ago. While other satellites have been detected around dwarf planets, this is…

Permission to abort How to save your crew if there’s an emergency @ Adrian Mann; NASA; SpaceX; Sierra Nevada Corporation; Robert Markowitz Emergency push In the case of an emergency, the Launch Abort System (LAS) provides 1,780,000N (400,000lb) of thrust to pull Orion and its crew away from the rocket. Launch Abort System The LAS is essentially a spire with thrusters that will be attached to the top of Orion. Emergency system This is how Orion will launch abort, although SpaceX’s Dragon uses thrusters built into the capsule. Up to speed In just three seconds, the LAS can go from zero to an additional 800km/h (500mph). Flip and detach Once safely away from the rocket, the LAS flips round and detaches from Orion. G-force The astronauts will be subjected to…

Tim Peake’s top 10 space images From the lens of the astronaut's camera (and the ones onboard the ISS), here’s some of the best photography from Low-Earth Orbit © ESA; NASA…

1 Enceladus The ring bearer Inner rings The broad Cassini Division separates the A Ring from the inner B, C and D Rings. A Ring Saturn’s brightest ring is the A Ring, divided by the narrow Encke Gap. The ultra-fine F Ring runs around its outer edge. E Ring The E Ring is a broad, largely transparent ring of scattered icy particles. Orbit of Enceladus Enceladus’ orbit around Saturn coincides with the densest part of the E Ring. Geyser faults Tidal forces create a liquid water ocean that erupts as icy plumes along weak fault lines in the southern hemisphere, known as ‘tiger stripes’. Fragmented material Small ice fragments trailing behind Enceladus are ground down into ever-finer particles as they orbit Saturn. Mass: 1.1 x 1020 kg (2.4 x 1020…

7 Titan The second Earth Weak sunlight Titan’s distance from the Sun and its thick atmosphere mean that the surface receives about one per cent of the sunlight that Earth receives. Solid methane Methane frosts coat a landscape of rock and water ice. Tiny Sun From Saturn, the Sun is ten per cent of the size as seen from Earth. Landscape runoff Methane rainfall onto highland areas runs downhill and collects in methane lakes. Methane loss Methane evaporates from lakes back into the atmosphere. Giant planet Saturn’s huge bulk is largely hidden by a hazy atmosphere. Methane lakes Methane rains out of the atmosphere at the winter pole to form large lakes. Mass: 1.3 x 1023 kg (2.9 x 1023 lb) Diameter: 5,150km (3,200mi) Parent planet: Saturn Discovered: 1655, Christiaan…

10 Miranda The chiselled satellite Mass: 6.6 x 1019 kg (1.5 x 1020 lb) Diameter: 470km (292mi) Parent planet: Uranus Discovered: 1948, Gerard Kuiper The smallest of five satellites known to orbit Uranus before the Voyager 2 flyby of 1986, Miranda is one of the strangest worlds in the Solar System. Voyager images revealed an extraordinary patchwork of terrains, seemingly put together at random. Some parts are heavily cratered, some relatively uncratered (indicating their youth as they have been less exposed to bombardment from space). One prominent feature is a pattern of concentric ovals resembling a racetrack while, elsewhere, parallel V-shapes form a chevron-like scar. An early theory to explain Miranda’s jumbled appearance is that it is a Frankenstein world – a collection of fragments from a predecessor moon that…

Solar flapper To explore another planet faster than a rover and in more detail than a satellite, we need to fly, and the best way to do it may be to copy birds © Adrian Mann “The SSA's low mass would be a great advantage for missions exploring other planets, where every kilogram costs millions of pounds to send” Flapping wing flight The IPMC material acts like the muscles of a bird, working to flap the wings. This is a very efficient form of flight, providing lift, control and propulsion from a single structure. Collapsible structure As it is made of thin flexible films, the SSA can be folded up into a very small volume, making it easy to pack into a mission. Several models could be rolled up together.…

Get the best views of Saturn The ringed planet comes to opposition in June. Here’s how to get the best sights of it with your telescope... © J-P Metsavainio; Science Photo Library You’ll need: • Telescope • Camera • Medium power eyepiece • Low power eyepiece • Driven telescope mount The beautiful planet Saturn, famous for its amazing ring system, comes to opposition on 3 June 2016. Opposition means that it is directly opposite the Sun in our skies and is also usually about as close as it can get to us in our respective orbits. This means that it will appear relatively big and bright in the night sky. At this time, Saturn will be in the constellation of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer. This constellation can be considered the…

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex There are star clusters galore and the occasional nebula to see during this month's shorter nights © Rogelio Bernal Andreo; Hubble; ESA; NASA; The Hubble Heritage Team; STScI; AURA Even though the nights are short during June in the Northern Hemisphere, there are many globular star clusters within reach of a backyard telescope. These balls of ancient stars, some of the oldest in the universe, orbit around the Milky Way. Some are easier to spot than others – you may even be able to make out some of the individual stars in the groups. There are some nebulae to be observed, too, although they are clustered around Scorpius and can be tricky to spot in June skies. These nebulae form part of a vast cloud…

Me & My Telescope Send your astrophotography images to photos@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Alan Dyer Alberta, Canada Telescope: Borg 77mm f/4 Astrograph “While my home in rural Alberta in western Canada presents fine opportunities for photographing the night sky, I love heading south as often as I can to visit sites below the equator and take in the wonders of the Southern Hemisphere sky. Only from ‘down under’ can you get the best views of the Magellanic Cloud and southern Milky Way sights such as the Carina Nebula. To capture these spectacles, in April 2016 I spent two weeks under clear night skies near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, billed as the ‘astronomy capital’ of Australia. Most nights were perfect for astronomy –…

Soyuz 11 The tragic mission that changed spaceflight forever @ Getty Images To date, more than 500 people have gone to space, but only three have ever died in space itself. They were the crew of the Soviet Union’s Soyuz 11 mission, and their story is one of both accomplishment and tragedy. The three crew members of Soyuz 11 were Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev, but they were not supposed to have been. Originally, the crew consisted of Alexei Leonov (the first man to walk in space), Valeri Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin. But just four days before launch in 1971, a medical X-ray revealed a risk of tuberculosis in Kubasov. Although this was later found to be a misdiagnosis, the entire crew was grounded, as was the rule…

Cosmic neutrino born in the heart of an ancient exploding black hole New research has linked the 10bn-year-old Blazar Blast with a record-breaking neutrino A team of astronomers using a series of ground-based observatories, including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, have discovered a link between an exploding black hole and a neutral particle normally produced in nuclear beta decay. Around 10 billion years ago, a black hole at the centre of a galaxy known as PKS B1424-418 erupted with a blast so powerful its light was hurled across the universe. The team behind the study has also been studying the origin of the super powerful Big Bird neutrino, with the suggestion its source could be traced back to that very explosion. “Neutrinos are the fastest, lightest, most unsociable and least…

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE BIG BANK? Could there have been a time before the birth of the universe? Written by Kulvinder Singh Chadha Here’s an astounding thought – one that questions the beginning of existence itself: could there have been a time before the Big Bang? In other words, could the universe have existed before we thought it had even started? May there have even been previous universes? Such ideas, once the preserve of high-concept science fiction and philosophical debates, are gaining a new scientific credibility in the 21st century. Some cosmologists are wondering if the Big Bang was merely an intermediate phase and not the true start of the universe at all. Theories such as the ekpyrotic universe, ‘big bounce’ models and cyclic cosmology have all been around for…

NEW SPACE SHUTTLES A new age space travel is about to begin Written by Jonathan O’Callaghan When the Space Shuttle was retired in July 2011, many questioned the decision. Why, people asked, was the US scrapping the only method it had of reaching space? Well, we are about to find out. It may have taken five years, but the long-term goal for manned American spaceflight is finally taking shape, and it involves the extensive use of private spacecraft. On the next few pages, you’ll see the various vehicles that have been funded to replace the Space Shuttle – and take us further into the cosmos than ever before. “The private space age is well underway,” Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president of one of those private companies, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC’s)…

Welcome home, Tim Peake! After six months of adventure among the stars, the British astronaut is finally ready to make his return trip to Earth Written by Dominic Reseigh-Lincoln After six months orbiting the Earth onboard the International Space Station (ISS), British astronaut Tim Peake is preparing to make his return to terra firma. It only seems like yesterday that the 44-year-old beat 8,000 other candidates to become the first UK astronaut to head into space without a private contract. Ever since he was propelled out of our atmosphere from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan we’ve followed Peake’s journey, from his arrival at the ISS to the final weeks of his mission (and every awe-inspiring photo and wry tweet in between). To celebrate Peake’s imminent return next month we’re taking a look…

Hubble finds a hiding galaxy Located just over 110 million light years away, the space telescope has uncovered one of the most elusive galaxies ©NASA Initially proposed by astrophysicist Mike Disney back in 1976, this striking galaxy known as UGC 477 was recently uncovered in the constellation of Pisces. UGC 477 belongs to a class of galaxies known as low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies, which are much more diffusely distributed than Andromeda and the Milky Way. With a brightness up to 250-times fainter than the night sky, these structures are considered to be incredibly challenging to detect – this is because LSB galaxies a great hydrogen gas rather than stars. As they are in a region devoid of galaxies and are therefore unable to merge with other structures, they have…

2 Callisto The most cratered world Mass: 1.1 x 1023 kg (2.4 x 1023 lb) Diameter: 4,821km (2,996mi) Parent planet: Jupiter Discovered: 1610, Galileo Galilei The outermost of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, Callisto is the third largest moon in the Solar System and is only slightly smaller than Mercury. Its main claim to fame is the title of most heavily cratered object in the Solar System; its dark surface is covered in craters down to the limit of visibility, the deepest of which have exposed fresh ice from beneath and scattered bright ‘ejecta’ debris across the surface. Callisto owes its cratered surface to its location in the Jupiter system – the giant planet’s gravity exerts a powerful influence, disrupting the orbits of passing comets and often pulling them to their doom…

8 Hyperion The spongy satellite Mass: 5.6 x 1018 kg (1.2 x 1019 lb) Diameter: 270km (168mi) Parent planet: Saturn Discovered: 1848, William Bond, George Bond and William Lassell Hyperion is the strangest looking satellite in the Solar System, its surface resembling a sponge or coral with deep, dark pits rimmed by razor-sharp ridges of brighter rock and ice. But that’s not the only thing that’s strange about Hyperion; it was the first non-spherical moon to be discovered and has a distinctly eccentric orbit. Rather than matching its rotation to its orbital period, it spins in a chaotic pattern, with its axis of rotation wobbling unpredictably. Like all moons in the outer Solar System, it’s mostly made of water ice but its surface is unusually dark. When Cassini flew past…

11 Mimas The real-life Death Star @ NASA; Science Photo Library; ESO; JPL-Caltech; Space Science Institute; Lunar and Planetary Institute; USGS Mass: 3.8 x 1019 kg (8.4 x 1019 lb) Diameter: 396km (246mi) Parent planet: Saturn Discovered: 1789, William Herschel When NASA’s Voyager space probes sent back the first detailed images of Mimas in the 1980s, scientists and the public were shocked by its resemblance to the Death Star space station from the hugely successful Star Wars films. A huge crater (named after William Herschel, who discovered the moon in 1789) dominates one hemisphere and is almost the exact size and shape of the planet-killing laser dish dreamt up by George Lucas many years before. But Mimas has more to offer than pop cultural references. Mimas is the innermost of…

The Meteorite Man Geoff Notkin, a world expert on meteorites and presenter of award-winning adventure TV series Meteorite Men, talks of his ongoing search for space rocks Interviewed by David Crookes “When you see a shiny black meteorite on the ground and it’s only been on the Earth for two or three days, it’s exciting. After all, it’s the newest extraterrestrial arrival to Earth” INTERVIEWBIO Geoff Notkin Geoff Notkin wears many hats; the former punk rock musician is a science writer, photographer, traveller and businessman. But most of all, he is a meteorite specialist who has appeared in programmes for some of the world’s top broadcasters such as the BBC, National Geographic and PBS. He is best known for co-hosting the hugely popular Science Channel programme, Meteorite Men with Steve…

What’s in the sky? © Science Photo Library; Axel Buhrmann Red light friendly In order to preserve your night vision, you should read our observing guide under red light Jargon buster Conjunction A conjunction is an alignment of objects at the same celestial longitude. The conjunction of the Moon and the planets is determined with reference to the Sun. A planet is in conjunction with the Sun when it and Earth are aligned on opposite sides of the Sun. Opposition When a celestial body is in line with the Earth and Sun. During opposition, an object is visible for the whole night, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise. At this point in its orbit, the celestial object is closest to Earth, making it appear bigger and brighter. Magnitude An…

Viewing Saturn at opposition How to snap the best views of the ringed giant with your smartphone Because Saturn is quite low in the sky for UK observers – barely 18 degrees above the horizon at best – you will need to find an observing site with a clear horizon and preferably away from artificial lights or light pollution. Make sure that the finderscope is well aligned with the main telescope, as this will help to get the planet in the middle of the field of view in your eyepiece. An electric or computer driven mount is helpful to keep your telescope tracking the planet, but this isn’t essential. Don’t overdo the magnification; if Saturn looks fuzzy then you will get a much better view using a low power eyepiece.…

Capture a solar flare We’ve all seen those amazing images of huge prominences and flares bursting from the Sun, but how do you shoot them? @ Getty Images; Malcolm Park You’ll need: • H-alpha solar telescope • Tracking mount • DSLR camera • Camera attachment The Sun ejects matter regularly in the form of solar flares and huge explosions erupting from its surface, as well as prominences, which are slightly less energetic but nonetheless just as impressive. However, because the solar disc is so bright, it is very hard to see these events, even with filters that block the glare. But there are specialist filters that enable us to see these amazing spectacles more easily and in perfect safety. These prominences occur on a layer of Sun called the chromosphere,…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE @ NASA; JPL-Caltech; MSSS Curiosity’s full circle from Mars’ Naukluft Plateau Using its Mast Camera, the Curiosity rover – as part of a long-term campaign to document the geology and landforms on the surface of the Red Planet – acquired a 360-degree panorama on top of Naukluft Plateau, which stands inside Gale Crater. The view that you can see combines dozens of pictures taken during the mission’s 1,302nd sol, or Martian day. The image, which is a scene dominated by remnants of a finely layered ancient sandstone deposit, is a change of pace since the rover first landed on the surface of Mars in 2012. Curiosity has traversed through terrains dominated by mudstones, some of which have contained mineral clays that suggest…

New ExoMars mission set to launch for Mars in 2020 The ESA/Roscosmos partnership will renew the interplanetary team-up for second mission to Mars With the first ExoMars mission scheduled for a 2020 Mars arrival after launching this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, have already signed a deal to get a second underway. The second ExoMars mission will see a Russian-led surface platform working in conjunction with a Europe-led rover. Much like the first ExoMars effort, this new mission will blast off on board a pair of Russian Proton rockets, with the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, selected as a launch site. However, recent findings have revealed the launch date for the new mission will be shifted from 2018 to July 2020. The decision was made…

Mission to the ISS How the Space Shuttles will make their trip to the Space Station Launch Space Shuttle Jettison The SRBs were jettisoned at a height of about 45km (28mi), and the ET at about 113km (70mi). Rocket boosters Space Shuttle was attached to a large orange external tank (ET) and two smaller solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Orion Stages The SLS, like the Space Shuttle, will jettison its spent thrusters along the way to reduce weight. Heavy-lift rocket Orion will launch on top of NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). Dragon V2 Autonomous Dragon V2 is fully autonomous, so the astronauts can sit back and enjoy the ride to the ISS. Rocket launch SpaceX’s Dragon V2 will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket or, maybe in…

4 Dactyl The asteroid moon Close approach Computer models show that Dactyl can come no closer to Ida than 65km (40mi) for its orbit to remain stable. Direction of orbit Dactyl orbits in the same direction as Ida’s rotation. Encounter distance Dactyl was about 90km (56mi) from Ida during Galileo’s flyby. Range of possibilities Green tracks show a range of potential orbits that would fit Galileo’s observations. Mass: Unknown Diameter: 1.4km (0.87mi) Parent planet: Asteroid 243 Ida Discovered: 1993, Galileo space probe The idea that small objects can have their own moons was brought home when NASA’s Jupiter-bound Galileo probe flew past the 60-kilometre (37-mile) long, potato-shaped asteroid 243 Ida in 1993. Several images sent back from the asteroid belt showed a small, egg-shaped object positioned near Ida – a…

9 Pan and Atlas The flying saucers Mass: 4.9 x 1015 kg (1.1 x 1016 lb) and 6.6 x 1015 kg (1.6 x 1016 lb) Diameter: Average of 28km (17mi) and 30km (19mi) Parent planet: Saturn Discovered: 1990 and 1980, Voyager 2 Saturn’s moons Atlas and Pan are the smallest moons in the Solar System. But despite their size, their influence can be seen clearly from Earth in the form of the prominent ‘gap’ they create in the planet’s ring system. These two worlds are perhaps the best-known examples of shepherd moons – small satellites that orbit in or around the ring systems of the giant planets. As their name suggests, when coupled with the influence of distant outer moons, such satellites help to herd the particles orbiting in the…

Explorer’s Guide Jupiter The largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter is a colourful gas giant wracked with violent storms and wreathed in deadly radiation belts Jupiter is an unmissable sight in Earth’s night sky – shining brighter than any star, it is beaten only by our nearest planetary neighbour, Venus. But while Venus is relatively small and nearby, Jupiter is a distant monster – large enough to swallow up all the other planets in our Solar System with room to spare. Jupiter is the closest of the gas giants – worlds formed largely out of the light elements hydrogen and helium. Despite being the lightest element of all, hydrogen accounts for 75 per cent of the planet’s overall mass, with nearly all the rest being helium, and only a…

DEEP SPACE How weclassify we Gordon Barnett It'll be tricky. The temptation might be to put alien life in the same categories as we do on Earth – plant, reptile, mammal– but alien life forms could surprise us by being completely beyond our expectation. It is difficult to say exactly what alien life will be like because it will not necessarily have evolved in the same way life has on our own planet. However, there are several broad categories that alien life might fit into. The simplest categories are microbial life and more complex life forms, which may have varying degrees of intelligence. Beyond that, astrobiologists tend to look for planets that may have an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but alien life could have different chemistries and breathe different gases instead –…

This month’s planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are easily visible in the night sky throughout the warmer nights of June Planet of the month Saturn Right Ascension: 16h 43m 25s Declination: -20° 28’ 03” Constellation: Ophiuchus Magnitude: +0.8 Direction: South Having been visible for several months in the morning skies, the ringed planet Saturn has slowly edged ever west of the Sun, gradually brightening in apparent magnitude and gaining in apparent diameter. As far as UK-based observers are concerned, this is not exactly the most favourable of Saturnian oppositions as the planet will be rather low above the southern horizon at best – an occupant of the southern regions of the constellation of Ophiuchus (the ‘Serpent Bearer’). And what’s more, Saturn will continue to travel through the most southerly zodiacal…

Mare Undarum A favourable libration in June skies provides an ideal opportunity to view the lava-filled craters on the Moon’s eastern edge @ NASA Top tip! An impressive libration this month will see Mare Crisium, Mare Undarum, Mare Marginis and Mare Smythii visible in the early evenings between 7 and 12 June. A Moon filter will improve contrast and tone down any glare that often washes out intricate features of the lunar surface. Last month we took a look at Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises), a vast oval-shaped dark plain near the Moon’s northeastern edge – a lunar sea (or maria in Latin) so sizeable that it can easily be seen with the keen, unaided eye as a dusky spot near the lunar limb. Mare Crisium may be looked…

Filming a solar flare Safely catch the details and prominences of the Sun's surface Without a doubt, a video camera is the best piece of kit to use to get really amazing images of the Sun in H-alpha. You’ll need to focus it carefully and have enough memory and storage to save the video file. Shoot 200 frames or so and then open the video file in computer software such as Registax. Follow the processing instructions and you should get some amazing results. Don’t forget, the Sun can be quiet at times, so you aren’t guaranteed a good prominence or solar flare every time you film it – be patient. Remember to always take care when using an optical aid to view or image the Sun. 1 Observe the Sun…

The Northern Hemisphere Late night astronomers are treated to an array of deep-sky objects during the warmer months © Wil Tirion; ES0; NASA Summer is officially here, with the solstice falling on 20 June. The short summer nights are warm but leave little time for observing. Still, this shouldn’t put you off as there’s still plenty to see. The constellation Boötes rides high with Arcturus (magnitude -0.05), the brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, and is high to the south after sunset. Look out for the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra, not far from the celebrated Ring Nebula (M57) – a planetary nebula that looks like a smoke ring through a small telescope. Towards the southern horizon are the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpius where the centre…