Aerospace

Solar Prominence in Stereo

The STEREO project, a constellation of two identical solar probes, one ahead of the Earth (STEREO A) and one behind the Earth (STEREO B), simultaneously imaged a solar prominence from their divergent perspectives. This video was featured on NASA’s SOHO Pick of the Week.

The video below shows the mass ejection in synchronized timing from ahead and behind the Earth.

In the left panel (behind), you can see the event emerging from near the top of the solar disk, while on the right panel (ahead) it is occurring above the solar horizon. In these times when there are few sunspots, the old solar machine is still cranking out the good old nuclear fusion.

Liftoff

Last evening, we paused the DVD player to watch the liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery. After a couple of aborted countdowns earlier in the week, Discovery, once again, roared into space from the Florida Coast.

Damsel snapped this image with her camera just at the moment of liftoff. Click to enlarge.

liftoff.jpg

From NASA:

With seven astronauts and a host of experiments and equipment on board, space shuttle Discovery completed a flawless ascent into orbit Friday night to begin a two-day chase of the International Space Station. With Commander Rick “C.J. ” Sturckow at the controls, the shuttle lifted off on-time at 11:59 p.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will rendezvous and dock with the station Sunday and the crew will begin transferring equipment to the outpost during the 13-day mission.

SOHO – Solar Wind Illustrated

Even in the doldrums of an extended solar minimum, our nearest star continues to be dynamic in it’s (mostly) unseen behavior. This week’s SOHO Pick of the Week illustrates some of this unseen activity in this animation.

A few areas of this rather unremarkable solar image taken in extreme ultraviolet (UV) light on August 4, 2009, provide good starting points for explicating some of the unseen features of the Sun. For one thing, the darker polar coronal holes at the Sun’s poles (top and bottom) are the source of open magnetic field lines (red) that head way out into space. They are also the source regions of the fast solar wind, which is characterized by a relatively steady speed of approximately 800 km/s.

A more variable slow solar wind (gray) flows from all other areas of the Sun, carrying particles out into space. The solar wind defines the breadth of our solar system, the heliosphere. The image also shows a dark coronal hole at lower latitudes, just about facing towards Earth. The high speed solar wind particles (white) blowing from there will likely reach Earth in a few days and may spark some auroral activity. Lastly, magnetic loops (yellow) above the one sizeable active region arc out and connect back to an area of opposite polarity. Hot particles in these loops make them visible in UV light.

Safe to say, there is more than meets the eye when studying the Sun.

Nobody knows for sure, but the lack of sunspot activity could continue and make the next solar cycle one of the longest minimums in modern times. Shall we call it the Gore Minimum?

20th Anniversary of the B2 Spirit Rollout

Out of the Black and into the Blue

B2 Spirit in flight over Edwards Air Force Base

On July 17, 1989 at Edwards Air Force Base, Northrop and the United States Air Force rolled out this magnificent aircraft. I watched the closed circuit TV coverage from the media center at Northrop Electro-Mechanical Division in Anaheim, California.

Damsel and I later had the privilege to visit the B2 production facility in Palmdale for a group tour and a fly-by. It was spectacular.

Photo taken by The Flying Kiwi at the 2005 Air Show at Edwards Air Force Base. Be sure and visit the link for more photos from the air show. Click image to enlarge.

A Non-Military War Hero

jerry-huben.jpgAfter 68 years on the job, 88 year old Jerry Huben is calling it quits. During his career in aircraft engineering, Jerry contributed to the effort in every war since WW2. In doing so, he is just as heroic as many that were on the front lines.

Just like “Rosie the Riveter,” folks like Jerry got us through some pretty tough times and kept us safe and free. God bless him in retirement.

Image: Jerry Huben.

From the Daily Breeze:

Huben’s career at Northrop gave him an intimate view of the aerospace industry from the days when it was dominated by propeller-driven aircraft to the current age of stealthy flying wings.

After receiving a one-year certificate in engineering, Huben took a riveting job with what was then called Northrop Aircraft Co. in Hawthorne. That was Nov. 10, 1941, two years after Jack Northrop founded the business.

Huben was 20 years old.

He had wanted to work as an engineer, but Northrop didn’t have many engineering openings, he recalled.

About three weeks later, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor changed America and the direction of Huben’s career.

He transferred to Northrop’s engineering department as the nation’s aerospace industry kicked into high gear.

“After that, things really took off,” Huben said. “The company was running round the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In engineering, we worked 10 hours a day, six days a week.”

Huben said a hearing impairment kept him out of the war.

America’s involvement in World War II also motivated Huben in his job.

“I felt compelled very much to give it (my) all and follow my imagination and dedication to helping the war (effort),” he said.

Among the planes Huben worked on were the P-61 Black Widow, T-38 Talon, F/A-18 Hornet and B-2 Spirit, which is a flying wing virtually invisible to radar.

Kepler Spacecraft Launch

kepler.jpgLast evening, we tuned into NASA TV to watch the launch of the Kepler Spacecraft. The countdown procedures went as originally anticipated and the launch was successful.

Kepler’s mission is to statically observe a patch of our galaxy consisting of roughly one hundred thousand stars. The instrumentation consists of a photometer which will monitor the emissions of the stars to try and detect extra-solar planets. The spacecraft can detect the slight dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it.

Of course, the orbits of such planets would have to be at an angle where the transit would align with Kepler’s line of sight. I’m hoping that the NASA scientists factor the probability of alignment into their equation to determine the planetary count.

The image above (click to enlarge) is an artist’s rendering of what our galaxy might look as viewed from outside our Galaxy. Our sun is about 25,000 light years from the center of our galaxy. The cone illustrates the neighborhood of our galaxy that the Kepler Mission will search to find habitable planets. Credit: Jon Lomberg.

Space Gridlock

After the collision of two polar-orbit satellites this week, it is worth the time to take a look at just how crowded the ‘technosphere’ is getting. This graphic presents an interesting perspective of the situation. But, in reality, if the the relative size of satellites in this picture were in the same scale as the planet, none of them would occupy even a single pixel – that is to say, they would be invisible. Click for large image.

Beehive of Satellites

From today’s NASA Image of the Day:

A Beehive of Satellites

The launch of the first artificial satellite by the then Soviet Union in 1957 marked the beginning of the utilization of space for science and commercial activity. During the Cold War, space was a prime area of competition between the Soviet Union and the U.S.

In 1964 the first TV satellite was launched into a geostationary orbit to transmit the Olympic games from Tokyo. Later, Russian launch activities declined while other nations set up their own space programs. Thus, the number of objects in Earth orbit has increased steadily — by 200 per year on average.

The debris objects shown in the images are an artist’s impression based on actual density data. However, the debris objects are shown at an exaggerated size to make them visible at the scale shown.

Image Credit: European Space Agency