Importance of space technology in Pakistan in 2012.
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Institute of space technology pakistan accreditation
Institute of space Technology Pakistan Accreditation
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Space Ship of Russia Crashes in space Latest image
Space Ship of Russia 'crashes' after failed launch Latest image
A NASA image released on June 7, 2011 shows the International Space Station (ISS) and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of around 220 miles. A Russian cargo space ship has failed to reach the proper orbit shortly after blasting off for the ISS news agencies quoted space industry sources as saying.
A Russian supply ship carrying cargo for the International Space Station on Wednesday failed to reach orbit shortly after blast-off, with reports saying it may have crashed into the Earth.
The unmanned Progress-M-12M vessel was carrying some several tonnes of supplies for the international crew on board the space station but failed to reach the correct orbit, Russian space agency Roskosmos said.
"According to preliminary information, on the 325th second, there was an operating problem with the propulsion system that led to its emergency shutdown," Roskosmos said in a statement.
"The Progress M-12M cargo craft was not placed in its assigned orbit," said the two-sentence statement.
The Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying it may have crashed into Siberia while RIA Novosti said it could have hit Russia's Altai region on the border with Mongolia and China.
RIA Novosti quoted a local official in the Gorni Altai region as saying a blast had been heard at a distance of 100 kilometres but there were no reports of casualties.
The cargo vessel had blasted off at 5:00 pm Moscow time (1300 GMT) on a Soyuz-U rocket from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Interfax news agency said it was the first problem with a Russian or Soviet cargo delivery to space since 1978.
A Russian space expert said the accident should not immediately threaten the safety of the six-person crew because they had a two-to-three months supply of fuel and oxygen.
"But considering that the (US) shuttles no longer fly, Russian mission control may decide to reduce the size of the ISS crew because of supply problem," analyst Sergei Puzanov told Interfax.
RIA Novosti also reported that mission control had stopped receiving trajectory data from the craft after the apparent accident.
Another source told Interfax that the "emergency situation" occurred in the third stage of the 5:00 pm (1300 GMT) rocket launch.
"Our experts are examining the situation," the Russian space official said.
The news comes just weeks after the end of the US space shuttle programme made Russia the world's only link with the ISS and its alternating multinational crew.
Russia has experienced five launch failures in the past nine months but has until now not had any recent problems with Soyuz rocket missions that fly to the ISS.
Russia in December suffered one its most embarrassing space failures in recent times when three navigation satellites for the new Russian Glonass system crashed into the ocean off Hawaii instead of reaching orbit.
Officials later admitted that a simple fuel miscalculation was to blame. In February, Russia then put its new Geo-IK-2 military satellite into the wrong orbit, rendering it useless for defence purposes.
And only last week, Russia lost its new Express-AM4 digital television, telephone and Internet satellite after a failed launch from Baikonur.
(c) 2011 AFP
A NASA image released on June 7, 2011 shows the International Space Station (ISS) and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of around 220 miles. A Russian cargo space ship has failed to reach the proper orbit shortly after blasting off for the ISS news agencies quoted space industry sources as saying.
The unmanned Progress-M-12M vessel was carrying some several tonnes of supplies for the international crew on board the space station but failed to reach the correct orbit, Russian space agency Roskosmos said.
"According to preliminary information, on the 325th second, there was an operating problem with the propulsion system that led to its emergency shutdown," Roskosmos said in a statement.
"The Progress M-12M cargo craft was not placed in its assigned orbit," said the two-sentence statement.
The Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying it may have crashed into Siberia while RIA Novosti said it could have hit Russia's Altai region on the border with Mongolia and China.
RIA Novosti quoted a local official in the Gorni Altai region as saying a blast had been heard at a distance of 100 kilometres but there were no reports of casualties.
The cargo vessel had blasted off at 5:00 pm Moscow time (1300 GMT) on a Soyuz-U rocket from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Interfax news agency said it was the first problem with a Russian or Soviet cargo delivery to space since 1978.
A Russian space expert said the accident should not immediately threaten the safety of the six-person crew because they had a two-to-three months supply of fuel and oxygen.
"But considering that the (US) shuttles no longer fly, Russian mission control may decide to reduce the size of the ISS crew because of supply problem," analyst Sergei Puzanov told Interfax.
RIA Novosti also reported that mission control had stopped receiving trajectory data from the craft after the apparent accident.
Another source told Interfax that the "emergency situation" occurred in the third stage of the 5:00 pm (1300 GMT) rocket launch.
"Our experts are examining the situation," the Russian space official said.
The news comes just weeks after the end of the US space shuttle programme made Russia the world's only link with the ISS and its alternating multinational crew.
Russia has experienced five launch failures in the past nine months but has until now not had any recent problems with Soyuz rocket missions that fly to the ISS.
Russia in December suffered one its most embarrassing space failures in recent times when three navigation satellites for the new Russian Glonass system crashed into the ocean off Hawaii instead of reaching orbit.
Officials later admitted that a simple fuel miscalculation was to blame. In February, Russia then put its new Geo-IK-2 military satellite into the wrong orbit, rendering it useless for defence purposes.
And only last week, Russia lost its new Express-AM4 digital television, telephone and Internet satellite after a failed launch from Baikonur.
(c) 2011 AFP
Saturday, August 6, 2011
jupiter in space - jupiter s mass
NASA launches spacecraft on 5-year trip to Jupiter
In this photo provided by NASA, an Atlas V rocket launches with the Juno spacecraft payload from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday, Aug. 5, 2011. NASA launched the spacecraft atop an unmanned rocket that blasted into a clear midday sky as scientists cheered and yelled "Go Juno!" It was the first step in Juno's 1.7 billion-mile voyage to the gas giant Jupiter, just two planets away but altogether different from Earth and next-door neighbor Mars. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls).
(AP) -- A sun-powered robotic explorer named Juno rocketed away Friday on a five-year journey to Jupiter, the solar system's most massive and ancient planet.Hundreds of scientists and their families and friends watched from just a few miles away, cheering and yelling, "Go Juno!" as the NASA spacecraft soared into a clear midday sky atop an unmanned rocket.
"It's fantastic!" said Fran Bagenal, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is part of the project. "Just great to see the thing lift off."
It was the first step in Juno's 1.7 billion-mile voyage to the gas giant Jupiter, just two planets away but altogether different from Earth and next-door neighbor Mars.
Juno is solar powered, a first for a spacecraft meant to roam so far from the sun. It has three huge solar panels that were folded for launch. Once opened, they should each stretch as long and wide as a tractor-trailer. Previous spacecraft to the outer planets have relied on nuclear energy.
With Juno, scientists hope to answer some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system.
"How Jupiter formed. How it evolved. What really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us," said Juno's chief investigator Scott Bolton, an astrophysicist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Bolton said Jupiter is like a time capsule. It got most of the leftovers from the sun's creation nearly 5 billion years ago - hence the planet's immense size - and its enormous gravity field has enabled it to hold onto that original material.
Jupiter is so big it could hold everything in the solar system, minus the sun, and still be twice as massive. Astronomers say it probably was the first planet in the solar system to form.
Juno will venture much closer to Jupiter than any of the eight spacecraft that have visited Jupiter since the 1970s. Juno represents the next step, Bolton said.
"We look deeper. We go much closer. We're going over the poles. So we're doing a lot of new things that have never been done, and we're going to get all this brand-new information," Bolton said.
The $1.1 billion mission - which will end with Juno taking a fatal plunge into Jupiter in 2017 - kicks off a flurry of astronomy missions by NASA.
Juno's liftoff appeared to create more buzz than usual, given the hiatus in human launches from the United States - the space shuttle program ended two weeks ago. NASA's long-term goal is to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the mid-2030s.
There are a few special passengers aboard Juno, though.
Attached to the probe are three little Lego figures specially made of space-grade aluminum. They represent the Italian physicist Galileo, who discovered Jupiter's four biggest moons; the Roman god Jupiter; and his wife Juno, for whom the spacecraft is named.
If all goes well, Juno will go into orbit around Jupiter's poles - a first - on July 4, 2016.
The oblong orbit will bring Juno within 3,100 miles of the cloudtops and right over the most powerful auroras in the solar system. In fact, that's how the spacecraft got its name - Juno peered through clouds to keep tabs on her husband, Jupiter.
Juno will circle the planet 33 times, each orbit lasting 11 days for a grand total of one year.
With each orbit, the spacecraft will pass over a different longitude so that by mission's end, "we've essentially dropped a net around the planet with all of our measurements," Bolton said. That's crucial for understanding Jupiter's invisible gravity and magnetic force fields, he noted.
Radiation is so intense around Jupiter that Bolton and his team put Juno's most sensitive electronics inside a titanium vault - an armored tank, as he calls it.
Juno's experiments also will attempt to ascertain the abundance of water, and oxygen, in Jupiter's atmosphere, and determine whether the core of the planet is solid or gaseous.
After Juno, next up is Grail, twin spacecraft that will be launched next month and go into orbit around Earth's moon. Then comes Curiosity, a six-wheeled, jeep-size rover that will blast off for Mars at the end of November in search of environments conducive to life.
All the upcoming astronomy probes show "we still continue an exciting group of missions," said Colleen Hartman of NASA's science mission office. Robotic missions "have a role to play in how humans explore the universe, and so it's important that, in fact, both these sides of the house do well."
Juno bears nine instruments, including a wide-angle color camera, JunoCam, that will beam back images that the public can turn into photos.
The spacecraft also bears a small Italian-supplied plaque honoring Galileo. It shows his self-portrait, as well as his description of observing Jupiter's moons, in his own handwriting from 1610.
Unlike many other NASA missions, this one came in on cost and on time. It's relatively inexpensive; the Cassini probe launched in 1997 to Saturn, by way of Jupiter, cost $3.4 billion.
©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In this photo provided by NASA, an Atlas V rocket launches with the Juno spacecraft payload from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday, Aug. 5, 2011. NASA launched the spacecraft atop an unmanned rocket that blasted into a clear midday sky as scientists cheered and yelled "Go Juno!" It was the first step in Juno's 1.7 billion-mile voyage to the gas giant Jupiter, just two planets away but altogether different from Earth and next-door neighbor Mars. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls).
(AP) -- A sun-powered robotic explorer named Juno rocketed away Friday on a five-year journey to Jupiter, the solar system's most massive and ancient planet."It's fantastic!" said Fran Bagenal, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is part of the project. "Just great to see the thing lift off."
It was the first step in Juno's 1.7 billion-mile voyage to the gas giant Jupiter, just two planets away but altogether different from Earth and next-door neighbor Mars.
Juno is solar powered, a first for a spacecraft meant to roam so far from the sun. It has three huge solar panels that were folded for launch. Once opened, they should each stretch as long and wide as a tractor-trailer. Previous spacecraft to the outer planets have relied on nuclear energy.
With Juno, scientists hope to answer some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system.
"How Jupiter formed. How it evolved. What really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us," said Juno's chief investigator Scott Bolton, an astrophysicist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Bolton said Jupiter is like a time capsule. It got most of the leftovers from the sun's creation nearly 5 billion years ago - hence the planet's immense size - and its enormous gravity field has enabled it to hold onto that original material.
Jupiter is so big it could hold everything in the solar system, minus the sun, and still be twice as massive. Astronomers say it probably was the first planet in the solar system to form.
Juno will venture much closer to Jupiter than any of the eight spacecraft that have visited Jupiter since the 1970s. Juno represents the next step, Bolton said.
"We look deeper. We go much closer. We're going over the poles. So we're doing a lot of new things that have never been done, and we're going to get all this brand-new information," Bolton said.
The $1.1 billion mission - which will end with Juno taking a fatal plunge into Jupiter in 2017 - kicks off a flurry of astronomy missions by NASA.
Juno's liftoff appeared to create more buzz than usual, given the hiatus in human launches from the United States - the space shuttle program ended two weeks ago. NASA's long-term goal is to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the mid-2030s.
There are a few special passengers aboard Juno, though.
Attached to the probe are three little Lego figures specially made of space-grade aluminum. They represent the Italian physicist Galileo, who discovered Jupiter's four biggest moons; the Roman god Jupiter; and his wife Juno, for whom the spacecraft is named.
If all goes well, Juno will go into orbit around Jupiter's poles - a first - on July 4, 2016.
The oblong orbit will bring Juno within 3,100 miles of the cloudtops and right over the most powerful auroras in the solar system. In fact, that's how the spacecraft got its name - Juno peered through clouds to keep tabs on her husband, Jupiter.
Juno will circle the planet 33 times, each orbit lasting 11 days for a grand total of one year.
With each orbit, the spacecraft will pass over a different longitude so that by mission's end, "we've essentially dropped a net around the planet with all of our measurements," Bolton said. That's crucial for understanding Jupiter's invisible gravity and magnetic force fields, he noted.
Radiation is so intense around Jupiter that Bolton and his team put Juno's most sensitive electronics inside a titanium vault - an armored tank, as he calls it.
Juno's experiments also will attempt to ascertain the abundance of water, and oxygen, in Jupiter's atmosphere, and determine whether the core of the planet is solid or gaseous.
After Juno, next up is Grail, twin spacecraft that will be launched next month and go into orbit around Earth's moon. Then comes Curiosity, a six-wheeled, jeep-size rover that will blast off for Mars at the end of November in search of environments conducive to life.
All the upcoming astronomy probes show "we still continue an exciting group of missions," said Colleen Hartman of NASA's science mission office. Robotic missions "have a role to play in how humans explore the universe, and so it's important that, in fact, both these sides of the house do well."
Juno bears nine instruments, including a wide-angle color camera, JunoCam, that will beam back images that the public can turn into photos.
The spacecraft also bears a small Italian-supplied plaque honoring Galileo. It shows his self-portrait, as well as his description of observing Jupiter's moons, in his own handwriting from 1610.
Unlike many other NASA missions, this one came in on cost and on time. It's relatively inexpensive; the Cassini probe launched in 1997 to Saturn, by way of Jupiter, cost $3.4 billion.
©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
International Space Station will forced to sink
Life of International Space Station (ISS) will be finshed at 2020.
Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, its space agency said Wednesday.
"After it completes its existence, we will be forced to sink the ISS. It cannot be left in orbit, it's too complex, too heavy an object, it can leave behind lots of rubbish," said deputy head of Roskosmos space agency Vitaly Davydov.
"Right now we've agreed with our partners that the station will be used until approximately 2020," he said in comments released on Wednesday.
Space junk is becoming an increasingly serious headache.
A piece of space debris narrowly missed the space station last month in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft.
The ISS, which orbits 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments bringing together space agencies from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Launched in 1998, the ISS was initially expected to remain in space for 15 years until an agreement was reached to keep it operating through 2020.
By going into a watery grave, the ISS will repeat the fate of its predecessor space station Mir, which Russia sank in the Pacific Ocean in 2001 after 15 years of service.
Moscow this month proclaimed the beginning of "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the ISS.
Russia is currently developing a new space ship to replace the Soyuz capsule which is single-use, except for the section in which spacemen return to Earth, said Davydov.
Tests of the ship will begin after 2015 and it will have "elements of multi-use whose level will be much higher than they are today," he said, adding that Russia will compete with the United States in building the new-generation ship.
"We'll race each other."
Davydov said it remains unclear what will come after the ISS and whether mankind will see the need for a replacement orbiting close to Earth.
"Lots of our tasks are still linked to circumterrestrial space," he said, while adding that a new space station could be used as a base for building complexes that will explore deeper into space.
"I cannot rule out that it will be used to put together, create the complexes that in the future will fly to the Moon and Mars," he said, stressing that "a serious exploration" could not be done without manned flights.
(c) 2011 AFP
Russia and its partners plan to plunge the International Space Station (ISS) into the ocean at the end of its life cycle after 2020 so as not to leave space junk, its space agency said Wednesday.
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| ISS to be sunk after 2020: Russian space agency |
"Right now we've agreed with our partners that the station will be used until approximately 2020," he said in comments released on Wednesday.
Space junk is becoming an increasingly serious headache.
A piece of space debris narrowly missed the space station last month in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft.
The ISS, which orbits 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments bringing together space agencies from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Launched in 1998, the ISS was initially expected to remain in space for 15 years until an agreement was reached to keep it operating through 2020.
By going into a watery grave, the ISS will repeat the fate of its predecessor space station Mir, which Russia sank in the Pacific Ocean in 2001 after 15 years of service.
Moscow this month proclaimed the beginning of "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the ISS.
Russia is currently developing a new space ship to replace the Soyuz capsule which is single-use, except for the section in which spacemen return to Earth, said Davydov.
Tests of the ship will begin after 2015 and it will have "elements of multi-use whose level will be much higher than they are today," he said, adding that Russia will compete with the United States in building the new-generation ship.
"We'll race each other."
Davydov said it remains unclear what will come after the ISS and whether mankind will see the need for a replacement orbiting close to Earth.
"Lots of our tasks are still linked to circumterrestrial space," he said, while adding that a new space station could be used as a base for building complexes that will explore deeper into space.
"I cannot rule out that it will be used to put together, create the complexes that in the future will fly to the Moon and Mars," he said, stressing that "a serious exploration" could not be done without manned flights.
(c) 2011 AFP
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
hydrogen peroxide Gas Avaliable in Space
Hydrogen peroxide found in space
Space/Planetary Science Astronomy Astrophysics, comets, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae.
The colourful Rho Ophiuchi star formation region, about 400 light-years from Earth, contains very cold (around -250 degrees Celsius), dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust, in which new stars are being born. The clouds are mostly made of hydrogen, but contain traces of other chemicals, and are prime targets for astronomers hunting for molecules in space. Astronomers using the APEX telescope to observe this region discovered hydrogen peroxide molecules in interstellar space for the first time, in the area marked with the red circle. This is also a rich region for amateur observations. Rho Ophiuchi itself is the bright star near the top of the image. The bright yellowish star in the bottom left is Antares, one of the brightest stars in the sky. Below and to Antares’ right is the globular cluster Messier 4. This image of the region was obtained from the Paranal Observatory by observing with a 10-cm Takahashi FSQ106Ed f/3.6 telescope and a SBIG STL CCD camera, using a NJP160 mount. Images were collected through three different filters (B, V and R) and then stitched together. It was originally created as part of ESO’s Gigagalaxy Zoom project. Credit: ESO/S. Guisard
Molecules of hydrogen peroxide have been found for the first time in interstellar space. The discovery gives clues about the chemical link between two molecules critical for life: water and oxygen. On Earth, hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in the chemistry of water and ozone in our planet’s atmosphere, and is familiar for its use as a disinfectant or to bleach hair blonde. Now it An international team of astronomers made the discovery with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), situated on the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. They observed a region in our galaxy close to the star Rho Ophiuchi, about 400 light-years away. The region contains very cold (around -250 degrees Celsius), dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust, in which new stars are being born. The clouds are mostly made of hydrogen, but contain traces of other chemicals, and are prime targets for astronomers hunting for molecules in space. Telescopes such as APEX, which make observations of light at millimetre- and submillimetre-wavelengths, are ideal for detecting the signals from these molecules.
Now, the team has found the characteristic signature of light emitted by hydrogen peroxide, coming from part of the Rho Ophiuchi clouds.
“We were really excited to discover the signatures of hydrogen peroxide with APEX. We knew from laboratory experiments which wavelengths to look for, but the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the cloud is just one molecule for every ten billion hydrogen molecules, so the detection required very careful observations,” says Per Bergman, astronomer at Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden. Bergman is lead author of the study, which is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a key molecule for both astronomers and chemists. Its formation is closely linked to two other familiar molecules, oxygen and water, which are critical for life. Because much of the water on our planet is thought to have originally formed in space, scientists are keen to understand how it is created.
Hydrogen peroxide is thought to form in space on the surfaces of cosmic dust grains — very fine particles similar to sand and soot — when hydrogen (H) is added to oxygen molecules (O2). A further reaction of the hydrogen peroxide with more hydrogen is one way to produce water (H2O). This new detection of hydrogen peroxide will therefore help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the Universe.
“We don’t understand yet how some of the most important molecules here on Earth are made in space. But our discovery of hydrogen peroxide with APEX seems to be showing us that cosmic dust is the missing ingredient in the process,” says Bérengère Parise, head of the Emmy Noether research group on star formation and astrochemistry at the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, and a co-author of the paper.
To work out just how the origins of these important molecules are intertwined will need more observations of Rho Ophiuchi and other star-forming clouds with future telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — and help from chemists in laboratories on Earth.
This research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
More information: http://www.aanda.o … 61/201117170
Provided by ESO (news : web)
Now, the team has found the characteristic signature of light emitted by hydrogen peroxide, coming from part of the Rho Ophiuchi clouds.
“We were really excited to discover the signatures of hydrogen peroxide with APEX. We knew from laboratory experiments which wavelengths to look for, but the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the cloud is just one molecule for every ten billion hydrogen molecules, so the detection required very careful observations,” says Per Bergman, astronomer at Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden. Bergman is lead author of the study, which is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a key molecule for both astronomers and chemists. Its formation is closely linked to two other familiar molecules, oxygen and water, which are critical for life. Because much of the water on our planet is thought to have originally formed in space, scientists are keen to understand how it is created.
Hydrogen peroxide is thought to form in space on the surfaces of cosmic dust grains — very fine particles similar to sand and soot — when hydrogen (H) is added to oxygen molecules (O2). A further reaction of the hydrogen peroxide with more hydrogen is one way to produce water (H2O). This new detection of hydrogen peroxide will therefore help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the Universe.
“We don’t understand yet how some of the most important molecules here on Earth are made in space. But our discovery of hydrogen peroxide with APEX seems to be showing us that cosmic dust is the missing ingredient in the process,” says Bérengère Parise, head of the Emmy Noether research group on star formation and astrochemistry at the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, and a co-author of the paper.
To work out just how the origins of these important molecules are intertwined will need more observations of Rho Ophiuchi and other star-forming clouds with future telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — and help from chemists in laboratories on Earth.
This research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
More information: http://www.aanda.o … 61/201117170
Provided by ESO (news : web)
Saturday, June 18, 2011
New comet was found by Pan-Starrs s' tlescope
Pan-STARRS telescope spots new distant comet
Image taken at the Pan-STARRS 1 Telescope on the night of June 5-6.
Astronomers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have discovered a new comet that they expect will be visible to the naked eye in early 2013.
Originally found by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, on the night of June 5-6, it was confirmed to be a comet by UH Mānoa astronomer Richard Wainscoat and graduate student Marco Micheli the following night using the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope on Mauna Kea. A preliminary orbit computed by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows that the comet will come within about 30 million miles (50 million km) of the sun in early 2013, about the same distance as Mercury. The comet will pose no danger to Earth.
“The comet has an orbit that is close to parabolic, meaning that this may be the first time it will ever come close to the sun, and that it may never return,” said Wainscoat.
The comet is now about 700 million miles (1.2 billion km) from the sun, placing it beyond the orbit of Jupiter. It is currently too faint to be seen without a telescope with a sensitive electronic detector.
The comet is expected to be brightest in February or March 2013, when it makes its closest approach to the sun. At that time, the comet is expected to be visible low in the western sky after sunset, but the bright twilight sky may make it difficult to view.
Over the next few months, astronomers will continue to study the comet, which will allow better predictions of how bright it will eventually get. Wainscoat and UH Mānoa astronomer Henry Hsieh cautioned that predicting the brightness of comets is notoriously difficult, with numerous past comets failing to reach their expected brightness.
Making brightness predictions for new comets is difficult because astronomers do not know how much ice they contain. Because sublimation of ice (conversion from solid to gas) is the source of cometary activity and a major contributor to a comet’s overall eventual brightness, this means that more accurate brightness predictions will not be possible until the comet becomes more active as it approaches the sun and astronomers get a better idea of how icy it is.
The comet is named C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS). Comets are usually named after their discoverers, but in this case, because a large team, including observers, computer scientists, and astronomers, was involved, the comet is named after the telescope.
C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) most likely originated in the Oort cloud, a cloud of cometlike objects located in the distant outer solar system. It was probably gravitationally disturbed by a distant passing star, sending it on a long journey toward the sun.
Comets like C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) offer astronomers a rare opportunity to look at pristine material left over from the early formation of the solar system.
The comet was found while searching the sky for potentially hazardous asteroids—ones that may someday hit Earth. Software engineer Larry Denneau, with help from Wainscoat and astronomers Robert Jedicke, Mikael Granvik and Tommy Grav, designed software that searches each image taken by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope for moving objects. Denneau, Hsieh and UH Mānoa astronomer Jan Kleyna also wrote other software that searches the moving objects for comets’ tell-tale fuzzy appearance. The comet was identified by this automated software.
The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope has a 1.8-meter-diameter mirror and the largest digital camera in the world (1.4 billion pixels). Each image is almost 3 gigabytes in size, and the camera takes an image approximately every 45 seconds. Each night, the telescope images more than 1,000 square degrees of the night sky.
Provided by University of Hawaii at Manoa