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Astronomy
NASA Kepler Mission Offered Opportunity to Send Names Into Space
PASADENA, Calif. -- How cool is it to have your name on board the spacecraft that discovers the first known Earth-like planet beyond our solar system?
NASA announced an opportunity for anyone to submit their name to be included on a DVD and rocketed into space as part of NASA's Kepler Mission, launched in February 2009 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
"This mission will provide our first knowledge of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system," said Kepler Mission principal investigator William Borucki.
The Name in Space DVD will be mounted on the exterior of the spacecraft in November 2008. A video of the DVD being mounted on the spacecraft will be taken and posted on the Kepler mission Web site prior to the spacecraft being shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in December of this year. A copy of the DVD with all of the names and messages will be given to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington.
"It's a way for the public to participate in our space program," explained David Koch, deputy principal investigator for the Kepler Mission. According to Koch, there's no limit to the number of names that can be submitted for inclusion on the DVD.
"We're looking for several million names," Koch said. "The only limitation is people's interest."
Certificates of Participation were available for printing from the Kepler mission Web site.
The certificate states that the person whose name has been submitted has been included on the list of names launched in 2009 with the Kepler spacecraft into orbit around the sun. There is no charge for participating in the project or for printing the certificate.
Name in Space is an international activity associated with the International Year of Astronomy 2009 in recognition of the 400th anniversary of Johannes Kepler's publication of his first two laws of planetary motion.
Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. NASA Ames is the home organization of the science principal investigator and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. Kepler mission development is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system.
The following Kepler Mission image and many other graphics, charts, spacecraft model downloads for making your own model, and other related materials may be obtained at http://kepler.nasa.gov/.
The following diagram shows the field of view the Kepler Mission will be examining:
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The February 2008 lunar eclipse reportedly was a spectacular site in North America and Europe. Unfortunately (for eclipse observing purposes - not otherwise!), the Webmaster was in Tahiti in the South Pacific at the time, and the eclipse was not visible there.
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The planet Mars was in opposition and relatively close to Earth. It was closest on the night of December 24, 2008 - Christmas Eve. The image (created by the Webmaster with Starry Night TM astronomy software) below shows how it would have looked through a very large telescope from LPS at 11:00 PM on December 24.
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The Small Magellanic Cloud (Image courtesy of NASA)
The Cat's Eye Nebula (Image courtesy of NASA)
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The "LPS Astronomy Club" was formed in the summer of 2003 and has drawn good numbers of interested attendees, including more than 50 people on the tennis courts for “Mars Night" in August of 2003. More than 60 Pointers turned out for "Perseids Meteor Shower and General Astronomy Night" in August of 2007.
Remember – participation in "club" events is open to all interested Pointers and their guests!
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Here's a sky chart for 10:00 p.m. on July 26, 2004, showing the region around Polaris (the North Star), including The Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major - The Great Bear), Ursa Minor (The Little Dipper - The Lesser Bear), and portions of some other constellations and various stars. The constellation outline "stick figures"clearly indicate the constellations' shapes. In this view, one can readily see why The Big Dipper (called "The Plow" in the UK) is only a part of Ursa Major. (It's the bear's hindquarters and tail.)
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The Historic Transit of Venus on June 8, 2004
In this NASA photo, taken at 10:05:43 UT (Universal Time) - or 6:05:43 EDST, the relatively tiny disk of Venus (lower right), passing between the Sun and the Earth, looks rather like the navel on an orange.
A transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun is among the rarest of planetary alignments. The last transit occurred 120 years ago in 1882, while this one took place on June 8, 2004. The planet moved westward with respect to the Sun and inscribed a chord through the Sun's southern hemisphere. Moving with an angular speed of 3.2 arc-minutes per hour, Venus took about 6.2 hours to cross the Sun's disk.
The transit began with contact I, when the limb of Venus was externally tangent with the Sun. It took about 19 minutes for the planet's disk to cross the solar limb, where it became internally tangent with the Sun at contact II. The period between contacts I and II is known as ingress. At the end of ingress, the entire disk of Venus was seen silhouetted against the Sun's disk as it began its slow six-hour passage across our star.
Contact III occurred when Venus reached and first touched the opposite limb of the Sun. Another 19 minutes elapsed as the planet gradually exited the solar disk. Finally, the transit ended with contact IV, when Venus's disk completely exited the Sun, and the planet vanished from sight. The period from contact III to IV is referred to as egress.
(The above text is from an article by Fred Espenak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.)
A transit of Venus will happen next on June 6, 2012, but not again until the year 2117.
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The Perseids Meteor Shower
The Perseids are probably the best-watched of any annual meteor shower. They come in mid-August when it's warm and comfortable to be outside. They are bright, numerous, and dependable (if the weather is clear!). They peak in mid-August
When skies are dark and clear, observers often see as many as one hundred Perseids per hour--an impressive display. This year, however, skies weren't dark. A glaring full moon wiped out many faint meteors and reduced by a factor of two or three the number you could see.
There's no special direction you have to face. Perseids [and other meteor showers] can appear anywhere in the sky. When you see a Perseid, trace its tail backward. It will lead to the constellation Perseus.
"Perseid meteors stream out of a point in Perseus called the radiant," he explains. Because of foreshortening, meteors near the radiant appear short and stubby. Meteors away from the radiant are longer and more eye-catching.
The Perseids are a northern meteor shower. Because of the way the comet's orbit is tilted, dust from Swift-Tuttle falls on Earth's northern hemisphere. Perseus is easy to spot from Europe and North America, but it barely peeps above the horizon of, e.g., Australia and New Zealand. Southern hemisphere sky watchers saw very few Perseids.
(Parts of the above public domain article are from NASA.)
For more information about meteors, comets, and other astronomical topics, go to:
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Astronomy Web Site Links:
(Excellent, customizable sky charts and other data:)
(Muskegon Astronomical Society:)
(Outstanding site...:)
(A great list of links:)
(Orion Telescopes and Binoculars:)
(Astronomy Picture of the Day:)
(AstroWeb - index and links:)
(Jet Propulsion Lab Images and Videos:)
(Excellent perspectives on the universe:)
(Astronomy Homework Help:)
(According to their site: “Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All travel in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.”):
According to this site, there are:
Number of superclusters in the visible universe = 270 000
Number of galaxy groups in the visible universe = 500 million
Number of large galaxies in the visible universe = 10 billion
Number of dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 100 billion
Number of stars in the visible universe = 2000 billion billion
(As shown below, for a great screensaver, download the one from SETI@home. Every time your Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence screensaver/program is working, you'll be participating in the worldwide “search for ET”:)
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Why not join SETI in "The Search for ET"?
Instead of wasting your computer's inactive time with flying toasters or other such screen savers, why not download and use the screensaver/program from SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence)? You'll actually be analyzing data from the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico on your own computer. Millions of individuals around the world have been joining in the data analysis for years. They haven't found sure signs of ET life yet, but who knows when they - or you - might?
You simply download a raw data bundle, let your computer analyze it when its not otherwise in use, and, when finished, quickly send the results back to SETI and get a new data bundle to analyze. It's quick, easy, and FREE to download the software and to use it.
Click on the link below to join in the SETI at home search:
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If there are any particular astronomical topics, photos, or information that you would like to see on this page, please e-mail your request to us at: thethompsongp@aol.com
(Border images credit: NASA/Hubble Heritage Team)
© LPS original materials Copyright, 2002 - 2012 Little Point Sable Association All rights reserved.
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