I love that this happened just down the road from where I live. Police called out to a 999 call about an unexplained object in the night sky solved the mystery straight away for their when they realised it was actually the Moon. Well worth listening to.
REPOST: This was originally written in 2007 but is being reposted because of some discussion it generate elsewhere.
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.
August 1st 2008 will see a solar eclipse visible across much of Asia, Europe, the Middle East and some portions of North America. Maximum totality is seen in Siberia, but you can also see the Moon totally obscure the Sun in many parts of China (and the North Pole if you’re about). The eclipse is often being called the 2008 Olympic Eclipse because it comes just days before the commencement of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
In other parts of the Old World, a partial eclipse will be seen. The regions covered by partial eclipse are seen in the above diagram outlined in light blue, with totality in dark blue. If you want to know the details of what can be seen in your area, then I’d use the very handy Google Map provided by NASA.
This map allows you to double-click anywhere and find the start, maximum and end times for the eclipse that is visible in your locality. For example, in Cardiff the eclipse begins at 0930 (BST) and ends an hour and a half later. You are also told the eclipse magnitude, which is basically a measure of how much of the Sun’s face, the Moon will cover. In Cardiff this will be around 21%.
Check out the site for info on your own area and if you plan to watch the eclipse, don’t forget to either project the Sun’s image onto a piece of paper, or order a set of eclipse viewing glasses.
From Wired, a nice, little, true story about some twelfth century monks and the crater they may have seen being formed.
I can hardly type this without thinking of the Muppets’ ‘Pigs in Space’. Whilst writing about space debris recently, and preparing to do a talk on the subject of stuff that we’ve put into space, I got to once again thinking about those frogs that NASA put into space in 1970 (for which this very blog is named).
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. 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.
Selene, the JAXA spacecraft that has been mapping the Moon using its Laser Altimeter, has had a major new data release. These preliminary images form part of what will be a dataset of many million points covering the Moon’s surface in 3D, high resolution photography and topography.
The maps are being made to help us better grasp the surface of the Moon in terms of its shape and size but also its mineral content. This will enable governments (and maybe others?) to plan the best sites for future manned Moon missions and the best locations for a future manned base.
You can read much more via the official JAXA Selene site. Here you will also find more high definition pictures.
Orbiting Frog has been a busy place in 2008! We are only a small way into the year but already Orbiting Frog seems to have overspilled to the extent to which I feel the need to recap and regroup. So just in case you missed anything, here is a quick overview of what’s been going on here in the past couple of months.
My experimentation with Google Earth and Google Sky has led to several items being created. In Google Earth, the ISS Locator, 100 Brightest Satellites Tracker and the Advanced Any Satellite Tracker have all been very popular and downloaded a combined 5,600 times already. In Google Sky my SCUBA data layer has now been access over 1,500 times and for some reason has inspired several emails - thanks for those! There is also last year’s IRAS 100 Micron all sky coverage for Google Sky which I had forgotten all about.
The LookUp iPhone and iPod Touch app has also been popular. Apple featured it as a Staff Pick and it hung around in the Top 10 for some time. It is now accessed about 2,000 times a day and a recent TUAW bump has kept it visible on the Apple web apps site.
The week of the lunar eclipse led me to post a video on what would be seen. I hosted the video on YouTube to reduce server load and was quite surprised however when it became one of the top videos of the week. You can have quite laugh reading the comments on the YouTube page. No one seemed to grasp that it was made on a computer and several accuse me of tricking them.
The Orbiting Frog Shop launched not too long ago and has been selling lots of t-shirts. More designs will appear all the time so keep your eyes peeled, and if anyone spots one in the wild, I’d love to hear about it.
I have now joined the crew at the Carnival of Space by hosting the 40th edition. The Carnival is a great place to pick up new RSS feeds and bloggers.
Finally I’d just like to thank everyone for taking such an interest. Thanks for all the emails and for actually reading the blog. Now I’m off to create a real blog post (i.e. not about myself) before having some lovely Swiss lunch. Yum.
So I didn’t get to see the lunar eclipse last night because of the cloud. But no matter! Thanks to the internet I already have a wealth of videos and images available. The one above is from Flickr user Viaan. Here are some of the best I have spotted so far…
This one was posted as a response to my video on YouTube. Viewed from Orlando Florida.
From opposite sides of a continent, these two images let you see that the Earth is round. They are taken at the same time. The first is from Toronto, the second from British Columbia.
This one has annoying music (seriously why do YouTubers do this?) but is still a fairly still capture.
I will end with this amazing montage from Flickr user n8xk, who has other cool images worth taking a look at too. Many more images of the eclipse in the Flickr pool too.
In my previous post, detailing tonight’s Lunar Eclipse (the last until December 2010), I included a YouTube video I made showing what you might expect to see if it is clear. Well included here is the same video plus two more showing the same event from the perspective of the Moon and the Sun.
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.
This Wednesday there will be a total eclipse of the Moon. Totality will last for 51 minutes and will be visible throughout Europe, North America, the Pacific region and Northern Africa. The show kicks off at 00:35 GMT when the Earth’s penumbra touches the limb of the Moon. Totality occurs at 03:26 GMT. This will be the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010.
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?
As a fan of Moon Landing rebuttals and a big Wriststrong supporter, I would love to see this happen. Phill vs Stephen.
I love NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, known to its friends as APOD. So to honour that Great website, which has been running for more than a decade, I here present my own personal top ten list of APODs. They may not be quite the same as anyone else Top Ten but they represent some of the best things about the APOD site as well as being some of the most impressive images.
10: Mars Then and Now
Two images of Mars taken over 100 years apart. The first was drawn by Eugene Antoniadi in 1894, the second is from Hubble during the close approach of Mars in 2003. Its interesting to see what they got right and what they got wrong. Notably the extensive system of Martian Canals, which Percival Lowell was so adamant existed and proved the presence of Martians.
Credit: Tom Ruen, Eugene Antoniadi, Lowell Hess, Roy A. Gallant, HST, NASA
More Historical APODs - Yuri Gagarin, Voynich Manuscript
9: The Surface of Europa
Back in January 1998, when this image appeared on APOD, the Galileo Mission was still sending back amazing new pictures from Jupiter and it’s Moons. This was around the time I first discovered APOD and have been checking it ever since.
Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA
More Groundbreaking APODs - Shadow of Saturn, Pluto’s True Colours
8: Bubble vs Cloud
This 2005 APOD captured my imagination for some reason. You can really see a three-dimensional effect in this beautiful picture. The actual title of the image is ‘ NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula’ but the phrase ‘Bubble vs Cloud’ stuck with me somehow. It just got me thinking about how dynamic all of these giant objects are, even if we will never see it for ourselves.
Credit: Russell Croman
More APOD Nebulae - The Eagle Nebula, Orion Nebula, Carina Nebula
7: Close Up of the Face on Mars
After years of being told by people that there was a giant human face on Mars that an ancient civilisation had once created it was satisfying to see it for real and notice that ‘hey, there is no face’.
Credit: Malin Space Science Systems, MGS, JPL, NASA
More Debunking APODs - Equinox Eggs, Green Flash, The Moon Illusion
6: Binary Black Hole
This composite image shows the x-ray in blue and the radio in pink. You can see two black holes in the middle, which are each streaming out relativistic particles. These two objects are 300 million light years away! This APOD from April 2006 was the first time I had ’seen’ a black hole in any convincing sense.
Credit: X-Ray: NASA/CXC/D.Hudson, T.Reiprich et al. (AIfA); Radio: NRAO/VLA/NRL
More Unseeable APODs - Dark Matter, Neutrinos
5: A Sun Pillar
One of the things APOD does best is show not only planets, nebulae and other distant objects, but also some cool, Earth-bound astronomical tit-bits. This Sun Pillar is created by ice crystals in the atmosphere. They are best seen during the colder months.
Credit: Stan Richard
More Earthbound APODs - Giant Machine, Lenticular Clouds, Aurora
4: Earthrise
This is a Christmas Eve APOD from 2004. The site has never been afraid to put up historical pictures or to be a little poetic when it feels like it. This image was taken around ChristmasEve when the three Apollo 8 astronauts were orbiting the Moon. They returned safely on December 27th, in time to see the 1967 Sunrise back on the Earth.
Credit: Apollo 8, NASA
More Poetic APODs - Martian Love, Huygens Discovery, Liberty Bell
3: Hyperion
Like a 250km sponge, Saturn’s Moon Hyperion is covered in odd craters and has a density so low that it has led researchers to assume it made up of vast deep caverns. This image shows the moon in excellent detail. The images on APOD have steadily improved with improving technology over the years and this amazing Hyperion picture is a great example.
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
More High Resolution APOD - Annual Eclipse, Mars HiRISE, ISS Silhouette
2: Blue Lagoon
Sometimes you see a picture that just takes your breath away. This APOD was just such a picture. This wonderful Lagoon Nebula picture, which to me, looks like a painting, was not taken by Hubble as many might think but by a 20″ telescope on Earth.
Credit: Russell Crowman
More Artistic APODs - Moon from Space, Sombrero in IR
1: Venus Near the Moon
Not a grand finale in one sense, but a stunning picture never-the-less. What APOD has always done best are images like these, taken not by massive telescopes but by normal observers with affordable equipment. The stuff you can see with your eyes and appreciate instantly without explanation. This crisp, detailed image of Venus near the Moon sums up what so many of us like about astronomy, and why the subject remains accessible to just about anyone.
Credit: Jay Ouellet
More Backyard APOD - Moon Animation, Station and Shuttle, Blue Moon
So thank you to Astronomy Picture of the Day for many years of service to the internet. May you long continue to wow us on a daily basis.
APOD is also available as a Google Homepage Gadget, a Netvibes Module, an Apple Dashboard Widget, a Wordpress Widget, a Yahoo Widget, a Windows Vista Gadget , as a Twitter Feed and probably loads more.
If you have other APODs you think deserve attention, leave a link in the comments thread so we can all see.
Every year it comes around now, the email that says Mars will be as big as the Full Moon in August this year. It is a junk email that was a misinterpretation of a Mars approach from 2003 and I’m glad to see that the Bad Astronomer is talking about it along with many others.
Don’t believe everything you read in your emails and for the fifth time this week: “no its not true, sorry”.
I had my first day working for SETPOINT Wales yesterday in their mobile planetarium, the Stardome. I went to Crickhowell High School and had a great (if tiring day) giving a space talk and showing, what felt like hundreds of children, the constellations.
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.
Wired are reporting on a feasability study from the NASA Institute for Advanced Studies on a giant liquid mirror telescope that could potentially be placed on the Moon. Roger Angel or the University of Arizona is the man in charge of this study and he is suggestying it may be possible to build a 100m diameter telescope on the Moon that would be able to collect 1,736 times mnore light than Hubble.
There is currently a 6m liquid telescope under construction in British Columbia, Canada (they already have a working 2.7m model, shown above) but if moved to the Moon a far larger structure could be built and then mantained more easily. With the Moon’s much weaker gravity buildings could be far larger without stressing under their own weight and they would be easier to move around, targeting the sky.
Liquid Mirror Telescopes (LMTs) cost 10 to 20 times less to manufacute than a polished aluminium mirror equivalent and in fact building a 20m LMT for the Moon would cost less than the $4.7 billion dollars NASA is spending on the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s succesor in the sky.
It seems that the ide ais sound enough and it is really just details left to debate. The greatest technical challenge is finding reflective liquids with low freezing points and vapor pressures (i.e. they would freeze or evaporate when placed on the Moon).
Ermanno Borra, of Laval University in Quebec, was the first made the case for an LMT on the Moon back in 1991. Recently, Borra has been experimenting with metal liquid-like films, that reflect light as effectively as aluminum. According to the Wired article, Borra declined to comment on his results until they’ve been published in Nature later this summer.
