Where In The Universe Challenge #10
I've been enjoying a few lazy days of summer relaxing by a
lake. The weather has been perfect, the lake is clear and warm, the food and
drinks plentiful; a perfect vacation. But I finally realized (late in the day)
today is Wednesday, and its time for another "Where In The Universe" challenge.
So, here's an image, and your mission is to guess where in the universe this
picture was taken. You get extra points for guessing the spacecraft that is
responsible for the image, too. So take your time, maybe put your feet up and
grab a cold beverage on this warm day and ponder this image for awhile. No
peeking below for the answer until you've made your guess.
(...)
Read the rest of Where
In The Universe Challenge #10
GLAST Powers Up
The GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) spacecraft
blasted off on June 11, 2008, and after acclimating to the cold reaches of
space, the instruments on board are now powering up and have sent back signals
to Earth indicating that all systems are operational. Meanwhile back on Earth, several
bases of operations for the telescope are gearing up for processing data from
the various instruments.
(...)
Read the rest of GLAST Powers
Up
Written by Nancy Atkinson
NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft have been studying the sun since their
launch in 2006. But the mission made a surprising and unexpected
discovery by detecting particles from the edge of the solar system, and
for the first time, scientists have now been able to map the region
where the hot solar wind meets up with the cold interstellar medium.
However, this wasn't done with optical instruments imaging in visible
light, but by mapping the region by means of neutral, or uncharged,
atoms. This breakthrough is a "new kind of astronomy using neutral
atoms," said Robert Lin, from the University of California Berkeley,
and lead for the suprathermal electron sensor aboard STEREO. "You can't
get a global picture of this region, one of the last unexplored regions
of the heliosphere, any other way because it is too tenuous to be seen
by normal optical telescopes." The findings also help clear up a
discrepancy in the amount of energy in the region found by the Voyager
2 spacecraft as it passed through the edge of the solar system last
year.
The heliosphere stretches from the sun to more than twice the distance of Pluto.
Beyond its edge, called the heliopause, lies the relative quiet of
interstellar space, at about 100 astronomical units (AU) - 100 times
the Earth-sun
distance. The termination shock is the region of the heliosphere where
the supersonic solar wind slows to subsonic speed as it merges with the
interstellar medium. The heliosheath is the region of churning plasma
between the shock front and the interstellar medium.
The twin STEREO spacecraft, in Earth's orbit about the sun, take stereo pictures of the sun's surface and measure magnetic fields and ion fluxes associated with solar explosions.
Between June and October 2007, however, the suprathermal electron sensor in the IMPACT (In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients) suite of instruments on board each STEREO spacecraft detected neutral atoms originating from both the shock front and the heliosheath beyond.
"The suprathermal electron sensors were designed to detect charged electrons, which fluctuate in intensity depending on the magnetic field," said lead author Linghua Wang, a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Department of Physics. "We were surprised that these particle intensities didn't depend on the magnetic field, which meant they must be neutral atoms."
UC Berkeley physicists concluded that these energetic neutral atoms were originally ions heated up in the termination that lost their charge to cold atoms in the interstellar medium and, no longer hindered by magnetic fields, flowed back toward the sun and into the suprathermal electron sensors on STEREO.
"This is the first mapping of energetic neutral particles from beyond the heliosphere," Lin said. "These neutral atoms tell us about the hot ions in the heliosheath. The ions heated in the termination shock exchange charge with the cold, neutral atoms in the interstellar medium to become neutral, and then flow back in."
According to Lin, the neutral atoms are probably hydrogen, since most of the particles in the local interstellar medium are hydrogen.
The findings from STEREO, reported in the July 3 issue of the journal Nature, clear up a discrepancy in the amount of energy dumped into space by the decelerating solar wind that was discovered last year when Voyager 2 crossed the solar system's termination shock and entered the surrounding heliosheath.
The newly discovered population of ions in the heliosheath contains about 70 percent of the energy dissipated in the termination shock, exactly the amount unaccounted for by Voyager 2's instruments, the UC Berkeley physicists concluded. The Voyager 2 results are reported in the same issue of Nature.
A new NASA mission, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), is planned for launch later this year to map more thoroughly the lower-energy energetic ions in the heliosheath by means of energetic neutral atoms to discover the structure of the termination shock and how hydrogen ions are accelerated there.
Original News Source: EurekAlert
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANSWER TO WHERE IN THE WORLD>>
This is Lake Erie, in the United States, and the image was taken on May 28th, 2006 at about noon local time, on a nice summer day. The sun is just at the right angle that causes a glint off the water, giving it an icy appearance. The image shows features on the surface of Lake Erie, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Cleveland, Ohio.
The image shows V-shaped wakes of small water craft, as well as broad patterns of larger craft, probably large freighters carrying cargo, that displace and disturb more water during passage. These larger wakes are aligned with the direct course between Detroit and Cleveland (not shown in the image). Some of the broad, ill-defined swaths of light and dark (aligned from lower left to upper right) are streaks of wind-roughened water, which reflect the Sun differently.
This image was taken by an astronaut on board the International Space Station with a Kodak 760C digital camera using an 800 mm lens. They are provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Group, Johnson Space Center.
So, where ever you are, you can now enjoy gazing at a lake, just like I've been doing all week. My lake is a lot smaller than Lake Erie, though. But, enjoy!
www.universetoday.com
2 comments on Where in the universe? and more from Universe Today
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So, that's water, huh? Lake Erie, huh? You could have fooled me! I "took the hint" in the intro about being by a lake and it being hot, so I was thinking along the lines of waterfront or a glen type of place....thinking that what I was looking at had something to do with an area like that after a cool rain. Or, the heat being the point and the water a lesser point, a tremendously magnified view of some expanse of drought land conditions, such the exposed bottom of a dried-up lake. Oh, well. (Sorry, though...I still don't see it as Lake Erie or any other lake, although I can visualize what the description is saying...but my brain still doesn't see what my eyes are supposed to be saying to it.
It amazes me how much is actually out there in space. All of the "things" that keep getting discovered and written about, but also all the satellites and such. It makes me wonder just how much is really out there... now it's really starting to boggle my mind.