Innehållsförteckning för No. 41 från All About Space

Earth-like ‘sunscreen’ discovered on distant exoplanet New suggests planets proximity stars still possess an ozone layer NASA’s Hubble telescope has detected a stratosphere – one of a number of atmospheric barriers that surround the Earth – on a distant and blisteringly hot planet known as WASP-33b. Our own ‘sunscreen’ barrier contains 90 per cent of our planet’s ozone, so they play a vital role in protecting worlds from the harsh UV rays of a star. However, up until this point, scientists were unsure if the same kind of stratosphere could exist within the harsh atmosphere of hotter planetary bodies. Considering the exoplanet in question remains one the hottest ever discovered – with a record-breaking surface temperature of 3,200 degrees Celsius (5,792 degrees Fahrenheit) – the presence of such a barrier…

NASA spacecraft makes 60,000th orbit of Mars Last month marked a historic milestone for NASA’s ageing 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, with the veteran machine completing its 60,000th lap of the Red Planet. With this new feat under its belt, Odyssey continues to hold the record for the longest orbit of a planet other than the Earth, with over 14 years of service to its name. Despite its long tenure, NASA has no plans to retire the old girl quite yet –›in fact, the space agency plans to use Odyssey as part of a new programme to bring humans to Mars. “This orbital milestone is an opportunity to celebrate Odyssey’s many achievements,” said Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science. “Odyssey will continue to help lay a foundation for the first…

EXPLORE THE MILKY WAY Make like a cosmic tourist and take All About Space’s tour of Earth's galaxy It’s easy to forget the true beauty and splendour of the Milky Way galaxy. With acres of countryside being torn down in favour of cities, the change in our planet’s landscape can only really mean one thing in this regard: light pollution. This yellow to orange hue that plagues many astronomers, washes out the stunning gems that our night sky has to offer, with only the brightest objects managing to shine through the haze. And, with the added appearance of the Moon, it can be very tough to get any observing done that a stargazer feels satisfied with. The fainter and somewhat delicate beauty of our Milky Way galaxy simply can’t compete.…

summer stargazing The summer months have many a space spectacle to offer and the warm weather makes for more comfortable viewing Summer can be a blessing for stargazers and it tends to bring out casual night-sky watchers, too. There are certainly many spectacles to glimpse, from planets and stars, to globular clusters and distant nebulae. It is the globular clusters that can hold particular majesty this time of year. Huge conglomerations of ancient stars, they often contain hundreds of thousands of members, all packed into a relatively small part of space. If you were to find yourself on a planet orbiting one of those stars, you would see tens of thousands of stars in your night sky. The output of the starlight alone from this host would easily be enough…

See the Perseids Your guide to one of the most prolific meteor showers of the year 1 Pick your location The less light pollution you are exposed to, the more meteors you are likely to see. It also pays to be somewhere without many tall trees or buildings around so you can see the horizon towards the north – the top of a hill is ideal. 2 Let your eyes adjust The longer you are in the dark, the more your eyes will adjust to the low light. Allow half an hour to adjust fully and don’t use bright lights like phones. Use a red torch if you need to look at anything non-celestial. 3 Locate the Perseus constellation Not far from the constellation of Cassiopeia, the Perseus constellation is…

Stargazing stories Email the story of how you got into astronomy to photos@spaceanswers.com for a chance to feature in All About Space John Brady Location: West Lancashire, UK Twitter: @Betelgeuse10 Info: Astronomer for ten years Current rig Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer 200P, Coronado SolarMax 60 Solar Telescope Mount: Motorised EQ5 Other: 2.5-metre-high rotating dome observatory, DMK41 CCD camera, Celestron 12x80 binoculars “Ever since I was a kid, I have always looked up to the night sky. I remember my dad taking me on evening walks and showing me the Milky Way arching high overhead. He described the thousands of stars we could see as ‘pepper’ and it’s thanks to this sight that my interest was sparked. Years later, I built a Dobsonian telescope with a ten-inch mirror. For a first attempt…

The Milky Weigh We’ve talked about its size, but how much does the Milky Way weigh? That’s something scientists have been trying to work out with new methods. At the moment, it is thought to have up to a trillion times the mass of the Sun. However, recent research by Columbia University observed the ‘stream-like structure’ of stars in a globular cluster called Palomar 5 at our galaxy’s edge. Measuring this stream, the scientists could notice ‘wiggles’ caused by our Milky Way‘s mass. This showed that the bulk of the galaxy is 210 billion solar masses – but it does not take into account its outer regions, which may bring it much closer to the initial figure.…

Mars Explorer’s Guide Mars Mars is a fascinating place to explore due to its amazing geology and potential for ancient life How to get there 1. Departing Earth Any trip to Mars needs to depart around the time of opposition, when both Earth and Mars are roughly lined up on the same side of the Sun and the distance between them is at a minimum. 2. Short hop The average Earth-Mars distance at opposition is 77 million km (48 million mi), though the distance travelled along a smooth transfer orbit could be up to 100 million km (62 million mi), taking about six months with currently feasible technology. 3. Arrival at Mars The crewed spacecraft to Mars would probably be relatively small, with most of the equipment needed to survive…

SPACE EXPLORATION Why aren’t we sending human-like droids to planets we intend to land on? Sammie Woodrow The main reason is that we don’t really need one. Most exploration tasks that are performed on a planet can be done exceptionally well by a rover and for a fraction of the cost of an android. A human-like android would be extremely expensive to produce and would still not match a human in terms of adaptability, thinking on the spot and having the dexterity needed to perform minute tasks. One area where a human-style robot would prove useful is on space stations. Here, you could send an android to carry out scheduled repairs in a dangerous environment, rather than risking an astronaut. In fact, NASA is currently testing a ‘Robonaut’ on the…

DEEP SPACE Is it possible to get blinded by a star? Stephanie Harding If you were close enough to a star, then it would certainly blind you. Since the stars are many light years away from us, the heat and light that’s emitted from them doesn’t cause any problems when we observe them in the night sky. If it were possible nowadays to travel to these stars, then you would not be able to look directly at them since their strong light would blind you. Due to our relatively close proximity to our nearest star, the Sun, you should never look at it without protection – such as a telescope that has a solar filter attached or a specialised solar telescope, that’s specially built to look at the Sun’s bright…

ASTRONOMY Why do some astronomers use large magnification binoculars instead of a telescope? Harry Mitchell Binoculars offer many advantages over telescopes at the lower end of the stargazing budget. As an entry point to astronomy, binoculars are often easier to set up and use for a beginner since they require nothing more than pointing them skyward, looking through them and adjusting the focus. Telescopes, on the other hand, can be trickier to ensure they are working optimally. Another advantage of binoculars is that you use both your eyes to view. This helps boost contrast due to the brain getting confirmation of what it’s seeing from two sources. This acts to make it a little easier to see fainter objects. As people grow more familiar and wish to explore deeper, they…

A VIXEN BT81S-A BINOCULAR TELESCOPE AND EYEPIECE SET! Peer deeper into the universe – with both eyes – in our latest competition Vixen BT81S-A Binocular Telescope Cost: £799/$1,400 Take in the cosmos with both eyes with the Vixen BT81S-A, a binocular telescope that features air-space double objective lenses to provide you with pleasant views of a wide selection of objects free of pesky colour fringing. Capable of housing a variety of eyepieces with a versatile 1.25” fitting, the BT81S-A’s eyepiece holders are tilted at an angle of 45 degrees for comfortable viewing. With its lightweight design, this binocular telescope can be transported to your favourite remote observing sites with ease. With multi-coated optics, the Vixen BT81S-A promotes optimum light transmission for exceptionally clear, crisp views with remarkable depth and perception…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Just another night sky at La Silla So we’re understating it a little: this is a somewhat special photo even for the spectacular skies astronomers experience regularly at the site of the European Southern Observatory. There are the nightly regulars among the blanket of stars, including the Pleiades (the bright cluster in the upper middle of the photo) and the California Nebula (the red smear off to the right). But there are a couple of celestial visitors to the scene: a brief flash of a meteor (the yellow streak left of centre) and Comet Lovejoy (the object with the green tail at centre), which won’t return to our skies for another 8,000 years. This vista was captured by ESO’s photo ambassador Petr…

New Cassini shots shed light on Saturn's moon During its ongoing mission to study Saturn and its many celestial bodies, the NASA spacecraft Cassini has snapped brand-new images of the moon Dione during its first flyby of the satellite. The shots, captured by the craft last month during a flyby that took it within 516 kilometres (321 miles) of Dione, show the crater-ridden surface of the moon in incredible new detail. The Cassini spacecraft is set to perform a second and final pass of Dione on 17 August as the NASA vehicle continues the final extension of its mission to Saturn. NASA is planning to send Cassini into a dive that will take it within 474 kilometres (295 miles) of the moon’s surface as it gathers a final packet of…

summer Milky Way Despite the shortage of night hours, the middle of our galaxy takes centre stage for a spellbinding sight during the warmer months If you can observe from somewhere dark, then the summertime Milky Way is one of the most spectacular sights you will ever see in the night sky. The further south you go the better, because the brightest parts of the Milky Way are found in southern constellations such as Sagittarius (the Archer) and Scorpius (the Scorpion). If you are able to travel to locations such as Florida or the Canary Islands on holiday this summer, and venture out to a dark site with no light pollution, you’ll be stunned at how bright the Milky Way appears. It will look like shimmering clouds rising up from…

How to take a solar analemma It’s easy to take this unusual picture of the Sun’s position over time. Here’s how… Over the course of a year, the Sun changes its position in the sky. It moves in both declination (up and down) and in an east/west direction. We see this as the seasons change, as the Sun seems higher in the sky during the summer months (from northern latitudes) than it does in the winter. It is possible to record this very slow motion over the year photographically and this produces a pattern on the picture of the images of the Sun, forming a stretched out figure-of-eight pattern, known as a solar analemma. The analemma itself is an abstract idea, it doesn’t really exist other than as a time-lapse…

How to make a pinhole camera All About Space shows you how to observe the Sun safely, without a telescope and with little to no cost at all It’s one of the safest ways to observe the Sun: a pinhole camera doesn’t require you to look at our nearest star directly (which can damage your eyesight and even blind you) at all. Pinhole projectors are probably one of the cheapest pieces of equipment to view not just events such as solar eclipses, but also sunspots on the solar surface. With just a few simple supplies you can make one of these devices with ease, which lets you observe the Sun from anywhere in the world – and with little to no expense at all. You’re even likely to have some…

What’s in the sky? There are just a few precious hours of truly dark skies at this time of year in the northern hemisphere, but there’s still plenty to see at night The Veil Nebula Viewable time: All through the hours of darkness This is an ancient remnant of a supernova explosion. Sitting just below the southern wing of Cygnus (the Swan), this nebula shows up best at low power through a telescope fitted with an OIII filter. The Veil is part of a larger region known as the Cygnus Loop and is in two parts, the Eastern and Western Veil. The Western Veil is known as the Witch’s Broom. Planetary Nebula M57 Viewable time: All through the hours of darkness M57 is a planetary nebula in Lyra and is…

Olivon T800 With its sturdy outer armour and nitrogen gas-filled optics, the T800 is ideal for observing while staying protected from dew “The Galilean moons – Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto – could be seen” Telescope advice Cost: £349.99 / $509 From: Optical Hardware Ltd Type: Spotting scope Aperture: 3.15” Focal length: 18.9” Best for... Intermediate Small budget Planetary viewing Lunar viewing Bright deep-sky objects The spotting scope is an instrument that’s not very well associated with stargazing. It is most commonly used by the avid nature watcher, who takes great delight in observing birds and other forms of wildlife. Given our experience with the Olivon T800 though, we’ve found it to be an ideal companion for observing the night sky, in particular the Moon and notable star clusters, including…

FAILED STARS & SUPER JUPITERS All About Space meets brown dwarfs, the strange celestial objects that didn't make the cut as either planets or stars Written by Gemma Lavender The brown dwarf is seen as a stellar failure, a dropout from the school of star formation. These gigantic objects with their puffy gaseous outer layers, are the universe’s students that didn’t quite make the grade. You see, in brown dwarfs, nuclear fusion – the process that gives stars their power – has given up the ghost, leaving them relatively cold and some no hotter than the human body. Neither planet nor star, brown dwarfs fall into the grey area between the most massive gas giant planets like Jupiter (which is why they're known as 'super Jupiters' because of their massive,…

Brown dwarf discovery NASA’s WISE telescope is an expert when it comes to hunting down brown dwarfs © JPL; NASA; University of Arizona 2011: The spacecraft confirms the existence of a new class of brown dwarf known as the Y dwarf. These brown dwarfs can have temperatures as cool as the human body 2013: The discovery of the closest brown dwarfs to Earth is announced. They were discovered using WISE at a distance of 6.6 light years away, and are locked in a binary system called Luhman 16 2014: WISE finds the coldest known brown dwarf, which has an ultra-cool temperature between -48 and -13 degrees Celsius (-54.4 and 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) 2015: NASA’s WISE mission has discovered over 200 brown dwarfs to date…

Cristiano Ronaldo galaxy Evidence of theoretical ancient stars is spotted in a recently discovered galaxy named after a football superstar ©ESO Scientists at the European Southern Observatory are getting more than a little excited after the discovery of this distant and extremely bright galaxy, found using the Very Large Telescope (VLT). CR7 is easily the brightest known in the early universe and shows evidence of being home to theoretical Population III stars, extremely massive and incredibly bright celestial objects that formed after the Big Bang and are suspected to have seeded space with the very first heavy elements. Without them, the next generation of stars and planets would not have been able to form. It’s likely that Population III stars were all high-mass objects that only exist today as black…

SOLAR SYSTEM If the Sun were football-sized, how big would the planets be? David Manderson Next to the Sun the other planets of the Solar System are tiny. The Sun is around 1.6 billion times larger than a football, so we can use this to give us an idea of the size of other objects in our Solar System. Using this scale, the Earth would be two millimetres (0.07 inches) in diameter and 2.3 metres (7.5 feet) away from our football-sized Sun. At this scale, the distance to the furthest planet, Neptune, would be around 70 metres (230 feet) and even the largest planet Jupiter would be smaller than a tennis ball. JB Make contact: @spaceanswers /AllAboutSpaceMagazine questions@spaceanswers.com…

SOLAR SYSTEM How would three Suns affect the Earth? Daniel Gallagher With three suns at the centre of our Solar System, it is likely that the orbit of planet Earth would be disrupted by the new set of gravitational influences these extra stars would cause. A planetary system with three or more stars is known as a multiple-star system. Multiple-star systems are thought to be pretty common in the universe but the rules of planetary formation around these kinds of systems still requires much investigation. It is thought that planets in a multiple-star system would be very unstable and therefore provide little consistency in the conditions needed to support life. ZB…

SPACE EXPLORATION How did the Rosetta mission get its name? Lucinda Lane The mission shares some similarities with a slab of volcanic basalt rock called the Rosetta Stone that was found near the Egyptian town of Rashid (the Egyptian for Rosetta) in 1799. It is this very stone that revolutionised our understanding of the past since, by studying the three carved inscriptions on the stone that were written in both Egyptian and Greek, historians were able to decipher these hieroglyphics – the mysterious written language of ancient Egypt. A result of this breakthrough was that scholars were able to piece together the history of an otherwise lost culture. The Rosetta Stone has provided the key to an ancient civilisation. The European Space Agency’s spacecraft will also allow scientists to unlock…

SOLAR SYSTEM Is there really a face on Mars? Kerry Jones There is a formation on Mars that looks just like a humanoid face in some images, taken in two different frames by the Viking orbiters, which were launched to the Red Planet in the Seventies. The feature is about 2.5 kilometres (1.55 miles) across and can be found near the border between the Martian regions of Arabia Terra and Acidalia Planitia. The majority of people agree that the resemblance to a human face is coincidental and is likely because of lighting effects on the Red Planet’s surface. There are others who think otherwise, however. Science writer Richard Hoagland believes that the ‘face’ is artificial and was erected by an extraterrestrial civilisation. It was in April 1998 when scientists were…

Giant pyramid on Ceres revealed New Dawn images shed light on an enormous structure on the surface of asteroid-locked minor planet ©NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWRI; NASA/Goddard; NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft continues to study the dwarf planet Ceres, the presence of some new geographical anomalies are fascinating astronomers. While orbiting Ceres at a distance of 4,400 kilometres (2,700 miles), Dawn captured images of an 88-kilometre (55-mile) wide crater that plays host to an intriguing new structure. “The surface of Ceres has revealed many interesting and unique features. For example, icy moons in the outer Solar System have craters with central pits, but on Ceres central pits in large craters are much more common. These and other features will allow us to…

Lights, camera, action! Now you’re ready to shoot your analemma image. Here’s what to do… 1 Planning A good analemma image takes meticulous planning and persistence. You will need to investigate your site for ease of access and general weather conditions, plus it’s a good idea to have a visually interesting foreground. Remember to allow for the time change to daylight saving time (DST) and back again, so work in universal time (UT). Also record the date and time of each shot. Most digital cameras do this automatically, but you’ll need to make sure that it is set up. 2 More planning You can use modern desktop planetarium software to help you in planning your analemma project. Checking out the altitude of the Sun in the sky at the winter…

Me & My Telescope Send your astronomy photos and pictures of you with your telescope to photos@spaceanswers.com and we’ll showcase them every issue Cristo Sanchez Texas, USA Telescope: Celestron Advanced VX 8” Newtonian “Having planned a full night of capturing the night sky, my sights directed me towards imaging a waxing gibbous Moon and the Milky Way, among other deep-sky objects. Since these targets are some of my favourite night-sky sights, they were worth the sleep-deprived night that I used to capture them. “The colourful waxing gibbous Moon brought many smiles from myself and everyone who I had shared it with, for it showed wonderful subtle shades. However, the Milky Way image that depicted myself reaching out to the starry heavens became my all-time favourite, because it clearly illustrated my…

stargazing Month-by-month guides for 2015 There’s plenty still to see this year: which of these should be in every astronomer’s library? 2015 Guide To The Night Sky Cost: £6.99 (approx $11) From: Collins Astronomy The 2015 Guide To The Night Sky, which is the combined efforts of astronomy experts and the Royal Observatory Greenwich, is an ideal companion for observers in Britain and Ireland. The handbook’s authors, Storm Dunlop and Wil Tirion, have provided not just an easy introduction to astronomy but a useful reference for the more seasoned astronomer. One of the things we liked in particular about the 2015 Guide To The Night Sky is that, rather than provide a planisphere-style map, horizon maps for all compass points have been used. This makes it much easier to navigate…

Separating the planets from the stars More massive and hotter than most planets, lighter and cooler than stars Separate gases There’s not too much mixing in the gaseous atmosphere of planets like Jupiter. The king of the Solar System prefers to keep some of its contents separate, with molecular hydrogen and helium gases separate from its metallic hydrogen centre. Nuclear fusion-free With no nuclear reactions occurring in a brown dwarf, its lithium isn’t destroyed – objects that have an abundance of this soft metal are often suspected to be brown dwarfs. These failed stars are thought to be fully convective, meaning that they like to mix up their contents. The industrious star Stars have powerhouses at their centre and there is a great deal of turbulence with plenty of mixing.…

What would the planets look like… …if they were at the same distance from Earth as the Moon? And how would that affect our planet? Moon With a radius of 1,737.4 kilometres (1,079.6 miles), our Moon takes up about as much sky as the Sun, which is how they can appear to be the same size and distance away. Mercury Mercury is approximately 4.5 times more massive than the Moon. This would no doubt affect the tides on Earth. It also has a magnetic field that could affect Earth’s own. Venus Venus in its current state has a very dense, toxic atmosphere, with a surface that can’t be easily viewed. If it were closer, though, the Earth’s magnetic pull might affect that atmosphere, and vice versa. Mars If Mars were…

How does our galaxy measure up? All About Space compares the Milky Way to other famous celestial sights WISE J224607.57-052635.0 Distance: 12.5 billion ly Diameter: <100,000 ly Discovered earlier this year, this might be the brightest galaxy in the universe, blazing with the brightness of 300 trillion Suns. It is slightly smaller than the Milky Way. Small Magellanic Cloud Distance: 200,000 ly Diameter: 7,000 ly This irregular dwarf galaxy is one of our nearest neighbours, and is also the most distant object that can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky. The Sombrero Galaxy Distance: 28 million ly Diameter: 50,000 ly Also known as M104, this galaxy is instantly recognisable for its sombrero-like shape – hence the name – which surrounds a large bulge at its centre.…

Manned mission to Venus Once believed to be off limits for human exploration, NASA is considering how Venus might be better to visit than Mars © Adrian Mann HAVOC airship Crewed airships like these would enter the atmosphere of Venus packed into a heat shield, before inflating in flight to stay in the high atmosphere. Lifting gases Balloons float when they weigh the same as or less than the air they displace. Venus's lower atmosphere is more dense than Earth's air, so the airship's lifting gas could be a breathable nitrogen-oxygen mix, serving a dual purpose. Solar panels The airships are solar electrically powered; these panels will be more effective than on Earth as Venus receives more power per unit area, being closer to the Sun. Ascent rocket Once the…

DEEP SPACE Would a galaxy disappear if all of its stars went supernova? Neil Breen If all the stars in a galaxy went supernova the structure would not disappear, although what would remain from the explosion would no longer be called a galaxy! When massive stars end their life in a supernova they throw off the shells of their material into space to create a supernova remnant. This means that the object that was once called a galaxy would instead become a huge cloud of swirling gas and dust. Only stars which are at least eight times as massive as our Sun are able to go supernova at the end of their lives. Galaxies tend to be full of stars of all different sizes and so there is virtually no…

DEEP SPACE Are moons a very common object in the universe? Sheryl Brown Yes. Our Moon is an interesting object, once believed to be unique within our Solar System, but we now know that the other planets in our neighbourhood are home to a host of their own natural satellites. At present, we are aware of 176 moons within our Solar System, with the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn having over 60 moons each. Studies of our own solar neighbourhood suggest moons are a common feature in planetary formation. Current techniques aren’t quite able to detect exomoons (moons around the alien worlds, known as exoplanets) with certainty, but we already have five candidates that further technique refinements or additional observing hardware may be able to confirm, as we continue to…

SPACE EXPLORATION Do rocket launches affect the ozone layer? Trudie Greene It has been claimed that the chemicals released from some rockets, particularly the Space Shuttle’s Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), are responsible for a notable amount of damage to our planet’s ozone layer – the region of Earth’s atmosphere that absorbs the majority of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation to keep life on the surface safe. Studies into how rocket launches affect the planet’s delicate layering, however, indicate that they only have a very small impact of less than seven-thousandths of a per cent, relative to other sources such as volcanic activity and powerful solar flares. GL…

DEEP SPACE If we look back far enough in time, would we be able to see the Big Bang? James Watkins It’s not possible to see the Big Bang, the event that brought our universe into existence, for a single reason: the light that was emitted when the cosmos was less than 100,000 years old couldn’t go anywhere and hence reach us today since it was trapped and tightly packed into a young and very dense universe. The light that is thrown out by distant galaxies that we can see today comes from the matter which emitted it. It means that this light is able to reach us and we are able to look back in time at them. But as we go back we hit a wall after the…

Kathryn Thornton The record-breaking spacewalker with the ‘greatest job in the world’ Born 17 August 1952 in Montgomery, Alabama, from an early age Kathryn Thornton combined her passion and enthusiasm for physics with hard work and dedication. She graduated from Sidney Lanier High School in 1970, then followed her love of physics to achieve a bachelor’s degree in the subject from Auburn University in 1974. Thornton then went on to get a master’s and a PhD in physics from the University of Virginia in 1977 and 1979. Thornton’s work during her PhD led to NATO awarding her a postdoctoral fellowship to continue her research in Germany. In 1980, she returned to America and became a physicist at the United States Army Foreign Science and Technology Center. In 1984, aged 31,…