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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
02.06.10: Dawn-A New Way to Explore the Solar System.
An asteroid-bound spacecraft is also blazing a trail for technologies of the future. Dawn, NASA’s asteroid rendezvous mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral September 27th, 2007 enroute to explore the asteroids Ceres and Vesta starting next year. But unlike previous solar system missions, Dawn is able to do something that most interplanetary spacecraft can’t; change trajectories. Older traditional chemical rockets rely on their initial imparted thrust to get them on their way, but once that’s applied, the course is set. Beyond gravitational sling-shotting, little can be done to adjust their overall orbital paths, and you can’t park in orbit and visit interesting bodies, a major drawback. Dawn instead utilizes ion thrust engines. These provide a low thrust over a long period of time, rather than a chemical rockets’ high thrust in a short period of time. Although it requires Dawn a lengthy period to build up speed, its Xenon-solar powered drives ultimately win the race where specific impulse is concerned. This also enables it to carry a relatively light load of propellant. In fact, Dawn carries enough Xenon propellant for over 5 years of use. First proposed by none other than American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard in 1906, Ion based propulsion was first tested in 1959 at NASA, and utilized in the first spacecraft aboard SERT-1 in 1964, and then more famously aboard Deep Space 1 in 1998. Many science fiction fans will remember the reference to ion drives in the original Star Trek episode “Spock’s Brain,” and the lineage can no doubt be traced further back in pulp Sci-Fi literature. Other spacecraft, such as the heroic Hayabusa returning to Earth next week and the proposed LISA Pathfinder, also utilize ion technology. Ion drive is well suited for asteroid exploration due to their low gravity fields, but in time missions bound for the major planets and moons could sport ion drives, as well. What Dawn will find as it nears the two asteroids is waiting to be seen; Vesta is a rocky terrestrial-type asteroid which may resemble early proto-solar material that formed rocky worlds like the Earth, and Ceres may even harbor a Europa-style environment, complete with ice enshrouded oceans! Dawn is scheduled to orbit Vesta for a year starting in July, 2011, and arrive at Ceres in February 2015. Perhaps, history will record that it was the ion-drive that truly opened up space exploration, and was ultimately how the solar system was won!