Happy 36th Birthday Voyager 1!

By on Sep 5, 2013 in Events | 2 comments

Happy 36th Birthday Voyager 1! We Hope You Aren’t too Lonely!     Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5th 1977. It is one of the most exciting spacecrafts NASA has launched simply because it’s travelling as far as it can go and it’s pushing the boundaries of space exploration. It is traveling at a break-neck speed of 17 km per second! For some comparison Earth orbits at 28 km per second. One of the saddest things is that Voyager 1 will no longer be able to power any of instruments in 2025. It’s amazing to think we were able to build something that would last at least 30 years in space where it’s astronomically difficult to account for everything! One of Voyagers first pictures was of Jupiter.     One of the most controversial topics is whether Voyager 1 has actually left our solar system. This doesn’t mean has it gone past...

Astronomers Find Super-Earth 40 Light Years Away to Likely Have Water-Rich Atmosphere

By on Sep 4, 2013 in Breaking News | 3 comments

Astronomers Find Super-Earth to Likely Have Water-Rich Atmosphere     Located 40 light years away from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus lies a super-Earth called GJ 1214 b. A group of japanese astronomers have been studying it to find out what kind of atmospheric properties it has. The research team used Subara Telescope’s two optical cameras with a blue transmission filter to observe the transit of the super-Earth. The observation would help them discern whether the planet had an atmosphere rich in hydrogen or water. Astronomers found that sky of GJ 1214 b did not show a strong Rayleigh scattering feature, which planets with cloudless hydrogen dominated atmospheres would predict. When combined with the other observations in other colors it led the team to believe that this planet had a water-rich atmosphere.   Planetary transits help astronomers investigate...

The Storms of Saturn

By on Sep 3, 2013 in Solar System | 1 comment

The Terrifying Look on the Storms of Saturn     Saturn is the 2nd largest planet after Jupiter and it may look beautiful through a telescope but it can display some ugly and terrifying storms. The image above for example shows a famous storm on Saturn located in the Northern hemisphere. This storm has been ongoing since 2010 and has left a huge tail that almost circles the entire planet. To give you an idea that’s 300,000 km which is 25x wider than Earth! Actually new data was just released today about the new findings on that storm. It turns out that deep within Saturn below its thick atmosphere is ice water, ammonia ice, and a third unknown which possibly could be hydrosulfide. Now the storms on Saturn work similarly to our puny storms on Earth. Think about thunder storms where water vapor are pushed high into the atmosphere where it results into towering billowing...

The Best Mars Landscapes You Haven’t Seen

By on Sep 2, 2013 in Pictures | 0 comments

You’ve Never Seen Beautiful Mars Landscapes Like this Before! Here are the Best Mars Landscapes   Mars is an incredibly interesting planet and with the help of science fiction as well as space exploration efforts from NASA, ESA, and others we gain some remarkable information. To some Mars has a reputation for being a red desert with nothing exciting to look at. I am here to tell you otherwise. Hopefully by the end of this post you will gain a little excitement about the odd and beautiful landscapes of Mars. Let’s jump right into it!   The south pole of Mars. A permanent ice cap that has frozen water and carbon dioxide that is 3 km thick.   This is a picture of Mars landscape that looks like swiss cheese! Well this actually frozen carbon dioxide that can be found on the southern pole of the Mars ice caps.   Dark sand streaks on Mars. One of the mysteries...

The Rise and Death of the Kepler Mission

By on Sep 1, 2013 in For Your Information | 1 comment

From Scientist to Mission: The Rise and Death of the Kepler Mission     The Kepler mission is one of the most exciting and important missions to astronomers. Its main objective is to discover habitable planets like Earth orbiting around other stars. The mission was launched in March of 2009 and has collected 3,548 candidates of which 150 planets are confirmed (as of September 1st). 150 confirmed planets is certainly no where near the 3,548 candidates so you can imagine this will take several years to process the data. The initial plan was for Kepler to run for 3.5 years and collect data from a particular area in the sky. Here is an image to depict what Kepler is targeting.     Kepler’s camera was one of the largest at the time of launch with a makeup of 42 CCDs at 2200 x 1024 pixels. If you thought your 24 megapixel camera was awesome well it’s not much...