The powers that be have decreed that some ereas of physic are more equal than others. The BBC has a good summary.

The skinny is that they are giving the chop to:

• Support for the Integral space telescope and the Veritas observatory.
• Bison, an observatory network pursuing solar-terrestrial physics.
• Astrogrid, which ties together astronomy datasets for research, will also lose its financial support.
• The eMerlin radio astronomy network, based on the famous Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, will get an STFC contribution but will need extra resources to continue.

The STFC said discussions with stakeholders were taking place to ensure its viability. And it added that other investments, notably in the international Square Kilometre Array project led by the University of Manchester, meant Jodrell would continue to be an important hub for radio astronomy research.

Areas considered to be a high priority for the UK include work on detecting gravitational waves, and space telescopes that image the Universe in the infrared.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Physics names winners and losers

From The Planetary Society weblog: The place: the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in central Siberia, northeast of Lake Baikal; the time: 7:14 a.m. on the morning of June 30, 1908. Within minutes the “Tunguska Event,” the largest asteroid impact in modern recorded history, was over.

100 years ago today!

Read More.

There is a lot more to the universe than the light you and I can pick up with our eyes and brains. Although its a shame that we can’t see them naturally we can use technology to reveal the wavelengths of light normally invisible to us. Visible light is only part of the electromagnetic spectrum (a very small part) and I thought it would be interesting to see some familiar objects in unfamiliar ways.

The electromagnetic spectrum is usually split into seven parts: the radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma ray. You can find a good schematic of the EM spectrum over on Wikipedia. We obviously see things in the visible, but some creatures, such as bees, see some of the ultraviolet (one reason there are so many purple flowers). Here is a picture of a Geranium in the visible and then the UV. You can find more images like these, for all kinds of flowers over at this website.

But this is an astronomy blog and so here are some objects seen in multiple wavelengths. Some of them may surprise you. First up is the Moon. Here we have it in the radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-ray.

The infrared image (top right) shows various bright spots. These are warm areas on the Moon. The brightest spot, in the bottom-center of the Moon is the crater Tycho, which also shows up brightly in the visible and UV images. The X-Ray picture is from ROSAT (bottom-right). Here we see the Moon shown in its quarter phase to highlight that it is only reflecting X_Rays from the Sun and not giving any off itself. The Submillimetre (microwave) image (top-centre) was taken using the SCUBA camera on the JCMT in Hawaii. This is a camera normally used to image dust in nebulae and faint galaxies.

Next let’s look at something more exotic but still familiar, the Andromeda Galaxy. Also called M31, this is closest neighbouring galaxy in the wider universe and is just about visible from a good site. We are seeing this in the radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-ray.

You can really start to see now why observing objects in different wavelngths can tell us something about them that we didn’t know before. The different details in each image are coming from different parts of the galaxy. In the top-center image, which is taken at 175 micrometres, we are seeing the dust lanes between stars in the galaxy. The X-Ray image in the bottom-right shows us only the extremely energetic objects, which as we can see, are located predominantly toward the centre.

Another easy to spot object, which you may know of is M45, also known as the Pleiades or Subaru. Once again here it in the radio, microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-ray.

The most impressive image here in my opinion is the X-Ray image from ROSAT (bottom-right). It looks to me like something from Doctor Who. It is also interesting to note that M45 doesn’t show up as much in radio frequencies. In the top-centre image we can see only some of the stars. This is because M45 is a young cluster and some of the surrounding dust still obscures the stars in this far-infrared image.

I thought I’d save the best til last: here is the Earth. Now its tricky to get pictures of our own planet - because we’re on it. We’re lacking in any good radio images of the Earth because you can do radio astronomy perfectly well without putting telescopes in space. However I really like these images because they really took me by surprise. In order, these images show the Earth in infrared, visible, ultraviolet, extreme-ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma rays.

The first image shows the infrared emission on the Earth from water vapour. Like the two UV images, this picture is from an extensive network of Earth-observing satellites that are attempting to investigate how our planet operates. Tectonics, oceanography and climate change are just three of the many topics being studied to ever-more depth by NASA, ESA and researchers the world over. The X-Ray image (bottom-centre) shows an aurora on the Earth’s north pole. Other than this high-energy interaction between the atmosphere and the Sun, the Earth seems to be invisible at this wavelength.

Finally we have the gamma ray image (bottom-right). What you’re seeing here are extremely high-energy particles, mostly from outer space, reflecting off the Earth’s atmosphere. The edge of the globe is seen to be much brighter than the center because cosmic rays hit the atmosphere at a shallow angle and are more likely to create detections. There is an imbalance btween the East and West due to the Earth’s magnetic field, which is asymmetrical.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little collection, if you know of any other cool multiple wavelength images - astronomical and otherwise - then please leave a comment with a link.

The paper that caused this trouble describes how LIGO has been used to place a low-limit on some properties of the Crab Nebula pulsar (you can read it here if you like). The way this paper was announced at the AAS meeting in St. Louis made it sound like they had a detection. But they didn’t and don’t (yet). Interestingly, I wasn’t all that excited though. For a few moments I was quite convinced they had finally made a detection and although it would have been historic I could only think of one thing: so what now?

The scientific community has been thinking about gravity waves for a very long time. They are a part of general relativity - although they were conceived of before that. To the non-astronomer, they basically answer the question, ‘what would happen if the Sun suddenly vanished?’. Would the Earth instantly fall out of orbit or wold it take time? Would we see it happened before or after we felt it happen?

The answer is that gravity is ‘transmitted’ via waves and that it travels at the speed of light - so we’d see and feel it at the same time. Gravity is thought to propagate through spacetime, much as light propogates through the electromagnetic field. The ripples it creates in spacetime are very tiny though and so they are extremely hard to detect.

So if you could ’see’ gravitationally energetic events, then what would you do? Well it would allow you to perform a new kind of astronomy. It would open a new spectrum of analysis and viewing on the universe. This new spectrum would range from highly energetic events (e.g. coalescing black holes) to lower energy events (e.g. accretion disks). Mainly it it interesting in the way it would let us look into the physics of black holes.

Huge amounts of money have been ploughed into gravity wave physics. Interestingly the gravity waves groups around the UK always seem to have a lot of money! They use it to meet up and discuss theoretical results. They create lavish PR campaigns and recruit PhD students. They take data with LIGO and its contemporaries. What they do not do, and have not yet ever done, is detect a single gravity wave!

I realise this is political, but it always irks me slightly. Gravity waves have lots of money but no results. ESA is potentially going to bump another project in favour of contributing to LISA, a gravitational wave detector in space.

So I am asking for anyone that knows something about gravity waves to give me some reasons to like the idea of studying them again. I used to when I was a kid. They are very cool, they are high-tech, but they are  - for now - undetected and very, very expensive.

So any general relativity enthusiasts/experts out there who can offer me something to work with? Anyone?

I decided to see what would happen if a 5km asteroid hit the Earth at high speed and landed in water. I’ve been kind and given the asteroid a ‘dense rock’ constitution rather than solid iron.

The above image shows the size of the resulting crater compared to Wales. I’ve centered it on the unfortunate, small town of Builth Wells. Poor buggars. As you can see, the crater is somewhat large!

The crater’s depth is enough to sit several Empire State Buildings inside it. You can also compare the size of the crater to several other famous landmarks.

The site also returns several facts and figures, including the kind of damage that would be caused at different distances from the impact site. As you can see here, the damage would be felt across the UK and Europe. This isn’t even the biggest or densest asteroid that can be simulated.

Go and try it out! Down2Earth can also be used in Spanish and German. It was created by some fellows (not me!) who can often be found lurking in the John Barrowman and David Tennant suites of Cardiff University.

How many other animals have been put into space and why? Looking into the subject, it’s quite entertaining. so here’s my top ten list of animals sent into space:

10. Flies

In 1942 the first animals were put into space. they were ironically flies. Fruit flies and corn seeds took a one way trip on a US V2 rocket, (you know the ones they built using Nazi technology and slaves).

9. Dogs

On November 3rd, 1957 the first animal in orbit was Laika, the Russian space dog. She flew aboard Sputnik 2 and died during the flight. The Soviets flew 10 more dogs on that programme until April 12, 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in orbit.

Belka and Strelka (seriously, who named these dogs?) were the first mammals to be successfully returned to the Earth after orbital flight in 1960. you can them in the picture. The other canine record holders are Veterok and Ugolyok, two dogs that spent 22 days in space before returning unharmed in 1966.

Strelka’s puppy, Pushinka was given as a present to the Kennedys and many of her descendants are known still today.

8. Fish

Several fish have visited space. specifically the species Mummichog, Japanese Killfish and Zebra Danio. The Killfish were in fact the only survivors of the Columbia distaster.

More than anything I was simply pleased to find out there is an animal called a Mummichog.

7. Spiders

Experimenting with low gravity environments is obviously a big reason behind putting animals in space. So can a spider build a web in orbit? The answer is yes. Anita and Arabella were two garden spiders that flew on SkyLab in 1973.

The webs were seen to be finer that on Earth and to have variations in thickness throughout each web, unlike the highly uniform webs spun on Earth. Anit’s remains are still kept in a jar at the Smithsonian for all to see. You can see her web above.

6. Cats

Two cats have graced the skies, both put there by the French. The first was Felix in 1963, who survived his trip despite having electrodes implanted into his brain. The second cat’s name does not seem to be obvious, but he did not survive. I can has spacesuit?

5. Newts

In 1985, the Russians sent 10 newts into space after amputating their forearms. They were trying to study the regeneration of cells in low-gravity.

4. Mice and Rats

Many mice have been into space. The US reportedly put loads of them up there in the 1950s, but only the first one survived. In the 1960s, China, the USA and Russia all put many mice into space and into orbit. Nothing much seems to have come of this so far as popular culture is concerned. Douglas Adams, may have had other things to say about that though.

Russia flew rats and mice, as well as hordes of other animals, during its Bion programs in the 60s and 70s. Bion spacecraft (shown above) were designed to test organisms in space. As you can see they look very comfortable. If only NASA had made them, they would have at least had cupholders.

3. Frogs

My favourite space dwellers are the Orbiting Frogs that were sent up in 1970. Why? Well of course it was to sudy motion sickness in space. Don’t you know that frogs get carsick?

The Orbiting Frog Otolith housed the bullfrogs for a week as they circled the Earth. Scientists measured their vital signs and once the experiment was over the simply left the frogs to work it out for themselves. Needless to say it pleases and disturbs me greatly that there are possibly still two frogs up there somewhere.

Also, Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese journalist, carried a tree frog with him on a visit to Mir in 1990.

2. Tortoises

The tortoise is held in my esteem on this blog entry because it is the unlikely holder of not one, but two space records! In 1968 a Russian Tortoise became the first animal to go into deep space when it orbited the Moon and returned safely to the Earth.

There must be something about Tortoises that Russian space scientists like (or dislike) because a Tortoise also hold the record for longest flight time in orbit. In 1976 two tortoise and a fish spent 90.5 days in orbit on Salyut 5. They were never recovered and the craft burned up during re-entry in 1977.

1. Monkeys

Of course I had to end with monkeys. On June 11th, 1948 a monkey named Albert was the first to be put into space by NASA the Americans. He was under anesthetic during the launch and never returned. Many other monkeys have famously been put into space.

In 1959, Able and Baker, a rhesus and squirrel monkey respectively, were the first to survive spaceflight. It sounds like the premise of a Warner Brothers’ cartoon. They were placed in the nosecone of a missile and shot nearly 400 hundred miles above the surface of the Earth and over a distance of 1,700 miles. They travelled at 100,000 mph for 16 minutes. Needless to say they experience G-forces above and beyond anything normal (Wikipedia says 16g).

Able died a few days later from complications related to one of his implanted electrodes, but Baker lived until 1984 in the NASA Spaceflight centre in Huntsville, Alabama, possibly running the place.

In 1961, Ham the Chimp was launched into orbit. He was been trained to operate his craft (seriously, Warner Bros again?). He survived and lived a life of luxury afterwards. He appeared many times on television and even starred in a film with Evel Knievel!

17 more monkeys and chimps were flown in the years that followed, by the US, Russia and France, including two that went up on one of the first space shuttle missions.

I would like to end on the tragic is the story of Gordo. A young squirrel monkey from South America, Gordo also flew in the nosecone of a missile. In fact he paved the way for Able and Baker to do so more successfully a year later. He rocketed upward and survived the 10g launch, to the delight of NASA supervisors. However, during the 100,000 mph re-entry, whilst experiencing a whopping 40g, Gordo’s parachute failed to deploy. The squirrel monkey, sealed in the nosecone, sonicly-boomed into the ocean, more than a 1000 miles from Florida. He has never been recovered.

The image here shows the view from above the North Pole of all low Earth orbit objects as of January 2008. To observe the Earth, satellites must be in low orbits. At higher latitudes, the density of such objects increases.

Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit, of which only 400 lie beyond near orbits or on interplanetary trajectories. Today, it is estimated that only 800 satellites are operational. About 50 percent of all trackable space debris are due to in-orbit explosion or collision events.

We are adding around 200 objects a year into this picture!

The image below, also from the ESA press release, shows all objects, including the geostationary ring of satellites that lie further away from the Earth’s surface.

I’ve always thought that February 29th should be a national holiday. With Britain needing to add a few national holidays to come into line with Europe, why not make February 29th a ‘free’ day, instead of having it stolen away from us each year?

Traditionally of course this is the day that women are ‘allowed’ to propose to men. In fact I was proposed to in 2000 by my friend Emily before an upcoming Las Vegas trip. We had hoped to have acquired an ex-spouse before we went to university. It never happened which is probably for the best.

So what will you be doing with your extra day? Even if you’re at work, some effort should be made to mark the occasion. If you can: have a baby. I’ve always liked that people can be born on a day which leaves them one-quarter the age of everyone else born that year. It acts as a great reminder that try as we might, we can’t quite get such a seemingly straight-forward thing as the calendar right. Why? Astronomy’s fault, of course!

The night-side of the Earth has been lightened, in this video as seen from the Moon, to show where the countries are. Viewing location is the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed in 1969. Note the parts of the Earth that can been ’seen’ here. These are the only places you will see the eclipse from.

This is the video from my previous post about the eclipse. This is the view from Cardiff, UK. Note that toward the end, the horizon comes into view as the eclipse only visible until sunrise here.

In this video from the perspective of the Sun, the Earth’s penumbral shadow on the Moon is drawn on as a circle behind the Earth. Interestingly the Moon is partially shadowed even when the Sun is shining on it from another angle. This is the effect of the different penumbral and umbral shadows, explained here on Wikipedia, or in this exaggerated image:

Enjoy the eclipse is the weather is good where you are. I think I shall have to suffice with photos from last year.

Update: new post shows eclipse from perspective of the Moon and Sun [Link].

During Lunar eclipses the Moon does not go completely black, but rather turns a nice deep red. Last year’s March eclipse was particularly good as the weather was very clear. We can only hope for the same this year.

For more information you can visit NASA’s eclipse page, or check out their handy, one-page guide which I have embedded below.

The embedded video was created using Starry Night at 300x normal speed and the photo shown is one my wife took last year. Nice isn’t it?

Here is a map, also from the NASA site, showing its path over the sky. You can also get a local ephemeris via this link.

For the press release click here.

You can find the video here at Daily Motion

I would guess that this is some part of some rocket reentering the atmosphere, but I’m no expert. Any guesses from anyone else?

In case you haven’t seen the previous post on the matter you can subscribe to Twitter feeds which let you know half an hour before the ISS goes over your home town. The feeds can be found for the following cities:

Over Aix-en-Provence
Over Birmingham
Over Belfast
Over Cardiff
Over Dublin
Over Edinburgh
Over Hong Kong
Over Indianapolis
Over Milton Keynes
Over Manchester
Over New York
Over Paris
Over San Francisco
Over Sydney

Much of September offered only very early morning chances to see the station going by but October will give us much more opportunities in civilized hours as the length of darkness grows.

Enjoy your station-spotting.

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The reason I like talking about space is that I like to put across the idea that we are on a round, spinning planet which is orbiting our star, the Sun. I spoke about the solar system and the Milky Way and also a little on black holes. These were Year 9 children which means they were 13/14 years old. I thik on the whole they enjoyed it, and certainly there were a few kids here and there who I could tell were very into it all. So that was nice.

Today I spotted on digg.com/space that there is a great image taken of our little spinning rock, from another neighbouring one. This is just the kind of thing that I really like, because this picture, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2003, shows the Earth and Moon as well as Jupiter and its moons. Both of these planets would be very much visible from Mars. In fact the Earth must appear quite bright in the Martian sky, much as Venus does here. Click for a larger version - which is well worth doing.

So that you can orient yourself, this diagram shows the angle from which the image was taken and below it is a map showing the area of the Earth which was visible at the time of the photo, you can see that the fuzzy blobs visible were in fact the Americas.