Sunday, April 30, 2017
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Science Museum, London Acquires British Astronaut’s Soyuz for Display [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, which landed with British astronaut Tim Peake, is bound for Science Museum, London in 2017.
The spacecraft that returned Britain’s first professional astronaut to Earth in June will land on display in London next year.
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-19M descent module, which touched down from the International Space Station with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and Expedition 46/47 flight engineer Tim Peake, will go on exhibit at the Science Museum, London in early 2017.
“You do become very attached to your spacecraft because it definitely does save your life,” said Peake in a statement released by the Science Museum Group on Monday (Dec. 5). “I’m absolutely delighted that my Soyuz spacecraft, the TMA-19M, is going to be returning here to the UK and may serve, hopefully, as [an] inspiration for our next generation of scientists and engineers.” [Russia’s Manned Soyuz Space Capsule Explained (Infographic)]
The 1.7 ton (1.5 metric ton) capsule, which flew Peake and his two crewmates, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, to and from the station, was acquired by the Science Museum Group (SMG), which is responsible for several UK cultural institutions.
“Russian ingenuity led to the birth of the space age,” said Ian Blatchford, SMG’s director. “Today it still plays a critical role, notably in long duration missions to pave the way for the next great leap into the cosmos.”
“It is a great honor to be here to officially acquire the first flown human spacecraft in the [SMG] collection, one which allowed Tim Peake to make his historic journey,” he stated.
Blatchford’s signing of the acquisition agreement for Soyuz TMA-19M coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first Soyuz launch in 1966.
The display of the Soyuz TMA-19M descent module builds on the Science Museum’s recent exhibition, “Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age,” which brought in 140,000 visitors, making it the museum’s most popular exhibit in its history. “Cosmonauts” included the display of Soyuz TM-14, which flew the first mission to Russia’s Mir space station after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.
The exhibition, which ran from September 2015 to March 2016, also included the construction and display of a two-thirds scale replica of a Soyuz orbital module built entirely from a quarter of a million LEGO bricks.
SMG acquired the Soyuz TM-19M from RSC Energia, the Russian contractor responsible for building the Soyuz and a partner in the “Cosmonauts” exhibition.
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft in Kazakhstan after its return from 185 days at the International Space Station in June 2016.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
“We’re very honored that a descent vehicle produced by our corporation will take its rightful place in the collection of one of the most important science museum groups in the world,” said Vladimir Soltnsev, general director of Energia. “I would like to hope that this special symbol of Russia will become one of the highlights of the Science Museum.”
Soyuz TMA-19M is the latest Russian spacecraft to land on display in the home country of one of its crew.
In September, the Soyuz TMA-03M descent module, which landed with Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers from the International Space Station in 2012, debuted on display at Space Expo in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Similarly, the Soyuz capsules that returned U.S. space flight participants Charles Simonyi and Greg Olsen to Earth are exhibited in Seattle and New York City, respectively.
Other astronauts’ Soyuz capsules are on display in Cuba, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Poland, Romania and Vietnam.
Soyuz TMA-19M will not be the only flown spacecraft on exhibit at the Science Museum, London when it premieres next year. The museum also has on display NASA’s Apollo 10 command module, which flew to the moon in May 1969 on a full-up dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. The capsule, named “Charlie Brown,” is on long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Science Museum, London Acquires British Astronaut’s Soyuz for DisplayFriday, April 28, 2017
War and Peace: James S.A. Corey on New ‘Expanse’ Novel [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
“Babylon’s Ashes” by James S. A. Corey
In “Babylon’s Ashes” (Orbit, 2016), the people of Earth, Mars and the asteroid belt deal with the aftermath of a stunning blow from the violent Free Navy, and Capt. James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante take on a desperate mission to regain equilibrium.
The new novel, releasing today (Dec. 6), is the sixth entry in James S.A. Corey’s “The Expanse” series, which continues at a hard burn of one book per calendar year. Season 2 of the associated TV series on Syfy is promised for early 2017.
Space.com caught up with Corey — actually the author duo Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck — to hear about their favorite aspects of the new novel, the writing process and the series’ ultimate ending, which they can’t wait to reach. (Be warned: minor spoilers related to character appearances are below.) [Turning a Sci-Fi Series Into a TV Epic: Q&A with ‘The Expanse’ Authors]
“One of the things that we always look at when making these is ways to make them not feel like the one before,” Abraham told Space.com. “What we wound up with, with ‘Babylon,’ was this story that was clearly a huge, sprawling story about war and the effects of war and what happens to those little families that are caught up in it. This is our ‘War and Peace.'”
To enhance that sprawling feeling, the authors strayed from their usual narrative process: Instead of four alternating viewpoints, two written by each author, the duo experimented with having many more character viewpoints, some of whom just come in for a chapter or two.
“That’s not something we’ve done before, and it’s probably not a thing we’re really likely to do again, but it was cool for this one,” Abraham said.
Among those viewpoints is a familiar character: Michio Pa, a member of the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), which purports to be a government for the people of the asteroid belt. Pa features in the third book in the series, “Abaddon’s Gate,” as well as the novella “The Vital Abyss.” But although readers have seen her before, there’s never been a character viewpoint quite like hers, the authors said.
“Michio Pa is a character we’ve never written before, unlike any character we’ve written before,” Franck said. “I’m hoping people like her. Unlike anyone that’s been a point-of-view character before, she’s a hard-core OPA freedom fighter. She’s a pirate. The pirates have only ever been bad guys. … And I think the end of her story is one of the things that’s going to surprise the fans, too, where that all ends up.”
The authors also revisit Prax, the chief botanist on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, who searched for his daughter in the second novel, “Caliban’s War.” Abrams said that Prax proved one of the most difficult to write because of the way his story wove in with everyone else’s. [First Map of Jupiter’s Giant Moon Ganymede Unveiled (Photos, Video)]
“Prax has this little line that goes through this that shows you part of the story that nobody else is seeing and informs the part of the war and the connections in it that no one person has their eyes on all the time,” Abrams said. “That’s something that came up several times in the book, the way that people have effects on each other and never know, never get to find out what the effect of their work was.”
Unlike Prax, Holden has taken a very active role throughout the series, leaking information and trying to effect change across the solar system. And he keeps doing that, but takes a … subtler tack.
“In the first book, [Holden] was all about, ‘Give people the information and let them make their decisions. They’ll make the right decisions, because people are basically good,'” Abrams said. “We’ve been tearing him down and complicating him and having him grow more and more morally — not even gray, but baroque. He comes to this one with the idea that, yes, you just tell people what they need to know, and they’ll make the right decisions. He hasn’t changed his opinion on that. But the idea of what it is they need to know has changed radically.”
Throughout the story, readers will see Holden try to communicate what it’s like in distant parts of the solar system during the everyday times, rather than solely during crisis, to try and create human connections among the different populations.
“We wrote all of this before the election, so it wasn’t even pointed,” Abrams said.
When asked what they’re looking forward to sharing with readers in the long term, both authors said “the ending.” The series will ultimately span nine books, and so the creators are nearing the home stretch and have to plot carefully to make sure everything leads up to a final, planned moment.
“We always talk about this series in terms of spanning the time between late Apollo 13 and early Buck Rogers, and we’re now edging into the parts of science fiction that are more exotic and more science fictional and wilder,” Abrams said.
“Everything we have been promising since the first book, and we set up in the third book, and we pushed forward in the fifth book, and we created the structures for in the sixth book, they’re all the things we need to have in place to draw the story to a close in books seven, eight and nine,” Abrams added. “Everything we built has been pointing towards a moment at the end of book nine — and I’m looking forward to having all the dominoes that we’ve set up do their thing.”
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34917-babylons-ashes-expanse-book-release.html War and Peace: James S.A. Corey on New 'Expanse' Novel
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]War and Peace: James S.A. Corey on New ‘Expanse’ NovelWhat do Brits REALLY eat on Christmas day? Take this quiz to find out [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
If you gorge yourself to this extent every week you will put on 7 lbs – half a stone.
But do you know what is it that British people will be eating on the day?
Do Brits prefer their roast potatoes or their gravy? And how many of us eat toast on the 25th?
According to new research, collated and analysed by Wren Kitchens, the average Brit will scoff their way through a whopping 5,905 calories this Christmas Day – that’s nearly three times the RDA for the average female and twice the RDA for the average male.
Most Brits opt for a breakfast of toast or fruit salad, but then crack into the selection box by 10am with a side of crisps, nuts and sweets – and over a third have started on the celebratory tipple before noon.
The tricky quiz reveals some surprising stats. Twenty per cent of people eat chicken, 73 per cent of people eat stuffing, 40 per cent of people eat toast, while 66 per cent eat turkey and 80 per cent eat gravy.
Matt Plowman of Cardiff Sports Nutrition warns us not to make it a habit: “Eating 6000 calories each day would not only cause you to gain a stone every two weeks, but you’d also become incredibly ill.
“You’d risk becoming insulin resistant – this can happen within two days of eating meals with that amount of fat and is a precursor to diabetes.
“The body can also become overloaded with free radicals, causing inflammation within the body and damaging cells.”
The research, which forms part of Wren Kitchens’ Festive Feast campaign, reveals that the average Brit would need to head out on a 21.5 hour-long walk this Boxing Day in order to reverse the damage of Christmas Day’s calorific feast.
Alternatively, you could run on a treadmill for nearly eight hours.
If it really was Christmas every day, the average Brit could be tipping the scales 26st heavier this time next year – it would be like eating 118 chicken nuggets or 26 Krispy Kreme doughnuts every day.
Despite our best intentions it’s easy for healthy eating and exercise to slip down the agenda as Christmas approaches.
Express.co.uk listed someways you can help fight the festive fat.
The average 5,905 festive feast is the equivalent to:
12 McDonald’s Big Macs
22 pork pies
22 Subway 6″ turkey subs
26 Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts
32 Dominos cheese & tomato pizza slice
53 bags of Quavers
55 Kitkats (2 fingers)
63 slices of Hovis white bread
118 Burger King chicken nuggets
131 McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes
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http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/diets/740374/Christmas-day-calories-turkey-chicken-what-do-people-REALLY-eat What do Brits REALLY eat on Christmas day? Take this quiz to find out
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]What do Brits REALLY eat on Christmas day? Take this quiz to find outGlowing Clouds Shine in Electric Blue Over Antarctica (Photos) [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Electric-blue noctilucent clouds shining over Antarctica on Nov. 26, 2016, as imaged by NASA’s AIM spacecraft.
New images from NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite mission show glowing, electric-blue clouds in the twilight sky over Antarctica.
These magnificent clouds — also known as noctilucent clouds, or NLCs — form in an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere called the mesosphere, and can be seen in summer night skies from high latitudes. Data collected from AIM on Nov. 17 shows an early start to this year’s noctilucent, or night-shining, cloud season in the Southern Hemisphere, according to a statement from NASA.
“This year, AIM saw the start of noctilucent cloud season on Nov. 17, 2016 — tying with the earliest start yet in the AIM record of the Southern Hemisphere,” NASA officials said in the statement. “Scientists say this corresponds to an earlier seasonal change at lower altitudes. Winter-to-summer changes in the Antarctic lower atmosphere sparked a complex series of responses throughout the atmosphere, one of which is an earlier noctilucent cloud season.” [Noctilucent Clouds Got an Early Start in 2013 (Video)]
Noctilucent clouds are Earth’s highest clouds, as they take shape in the mesosphere, which lies about 50 to 53 miles (80 to 85 kilometers) above the planet’s surface. The clouds form when water molecules cling to fine atmospheric debris (such as dust or remnants of disintegrating meteors) and freeze to form ice crystals. The mesosphere is the coldest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, with temperatures averaging about minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 Celsius).
Since these clouds form at such high altitudes, they reflect light even after the sun has dipped below the horizon. Noctilucent clouds are generally seen during the summer in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, when the mesosphere is most humid from water vapor. The summer is also when the mesosphere is the coldest, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 210 degrees F (minus 134 C), largely due to seasonal airflow patterns, NASA officials said.
Electric-blue noctilucent clouds shining over Antarctica from Nov. 17 through Nov. 28, 2016, as imaged by NASA’s AIM spacecraft.
Credit: NASA/HU/VT/CU-LASP/AIM/Joy Ng, producer
AIM launched in 2007 on a dedicated mission to study night-shining clouds and the mesosphere. Data collected from the mission has shown that the noctilucent cloud season can start anytime between Nov. 17 and Dec. 16 in the Southern Hemisphere.
In addition to studying these mystifying clouds, the AIM mission — operated by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland — strives to help scientists better understand the connection between the mesosphere and other parts of the atmosphere, weather and climate.
“AIM data has shown us that changes in one region of the atmosphere can effect responses in another distinct, and sometimes distant, region,” NASA officials said in the statement. “Scientists call these relationships atmospheric teleconnections. Now, due to natural precession, the (AIM) spacecraft’s orbit is evolving, allowing the measurement of atmospheric gravity waves that could be contributing to the teleconnections.”
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34913-noctilucent-clouds-antarctica-satellite-photos.html Glowing Clouds Shine in Electric Blue Over Antarctica (Photos)
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Glowing Clouds Shine in Electric Blue Over Antarctica (Photos)Thursday, April 27, 2017
Vega Rocket Launches Turkish Earth-Observation Satellite [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Arianespace launched Göktürk-1 for Turkey Dec. 5 atop a Vega rocket.
WASHINGTON — Arianespace lofted Turkey’s Göktürk-1 Earth-observation satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit Dec. 5 aboard a Vega rocket, marking the eighth success for the European light-lift vehicle.
Göktürk-1 prime contractor Telespazio reported signal acquisition 68 minutes after its 8:51 a.m. EST (1351 GMT) liftoff from Europe’s Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite separated from Vega’s upper stage 57 minutes into the launch.
Göktürk-1 is the bigger brother of Turkey’s Göktürk-2, which despite the name ordering, launched in December 2012 aboard a Chinese Long March 2D. Compared to its 400-kilogram, medium-resolution predecessor, Göktürk-1 weighs in at 1,060 kilograms and sports a sharper, sub-meter camera with an onboard digital imaging storage system. [Satellite Quiz: How Well Do You Know What’s Orbiting Earth?]
Delays related to export complications between partners in France, Italy and Turkey, along with the prolonged completion of an Ankara, Turkey-based assembly, integration and test facility stretched out the time between contract signing in July 2009 and today’s launch.
With these complications in the past, Göktürk-1 is now ready to begin its seven-year mission from 700 kilometers up. The satellite is designed to provide very high-resolution images for civilian and military applications.
Telespazio, through an agreement with the Turkish Undersecretariat for Defence Industries, produced the ground segment and is handling launch, entry into orbit and test services. Once complete, the Turkish Air Force will operate the satellite.
Partner Thales Alenia Space built the Göktürk-1 satellite with several Turkish partners, notably Turkish Aerospace Industries and Tübitak Space Corp., manufacturers of Göktürk-2. The satellite manufacturing team based Göktürk-1 on the Proteus spacecraft platform, which Thales Alenia Space designed collaboratively with the French space agency CNES.
Thales Alenia Space also created the requisite Ankara assembly, integration and test center that, after opening in 2015, can integrate multiple satellites simultaneously.
“Our valued co-operation with Turkey and its aerospace industries, has given life to a modern, efficient Integration Centre in Ankara,” Donato Amoroso, deputy CEO of Thales Alenia Space, said in a Dec. 5 press release.
For Arianespace, the Göktürk-1 launch marks its 10th mission of the year. The European launch provider has one more launch to round out 2016. In a brief speech following the launch, Arianespace Chairman and CEO Stephane Israel said an Ariane 5 dual-launch of Brazil-based Embratel Star One’s Star One D1 and Japan-based Sky Perfect JSAT’s JCSAT-15 satellites should occur before Christmas.
Göktürk-1 used the second of 10 Vega rockets Arianespace purchased from European Launch Vehicle, the public-private joint venture between Avio and the Italian Space Agency, of which Avio owns 70 percent. Both of the Vega launches since the procurement took place this year. Israel said Vega’s next appearance will be in March 2017 for the Copernicus program’s Sentinel-2B satellite.
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
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http://www.space.com/34912-turkish-satellite-launch-vega-rocket.html Vega Rocket Launches Turkish Earth-Observation Satellite
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Vega Rocket Launches Turkish Earth-Observation SatelliteGet a Skywatching Grant to Watch the ‘Great American Eclipse’ [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Phases of a total solar eclipse. The next total solar eclipse will be on Aug. 21, 2017, visible across the United States.
On Aug. 21, 2017, the first total solar eclipse to cross over the continental United States in nearly four decades will occur — and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has launched a new website and small grants program to engage skywatchers in the viewing experience.
The eclipse, which has also been called the “Great American Eclipse,” or “All-American Eclipse,” will darken skies from Oregon to South Carolina along a stretch of land that’s about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. This event is the first total solar eclipse “to touch the U.S. mainland since 1979, and the first to span the continent since 1918,” AAS officials said in a statement.
Outside of the path of totality, skywatchers in North America, Greenland, Iceland, Central America, the Caribbean and parts of northern South America will experience a partial solar eclipse, AAS officials said. [Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)]
The AAS’ new website, www.eclipse.aas.org/, provides information about when and how to watch the event as well as viewing events and links to “more-detailed” solar eclipse websites.
Additionally, the society has launched the Julena Steinheider Duncombe minigrants program to fund educational activities and engage the public in the eclipse. The program is named in honor of astronomer Julena Steinheider Duncombe (1911-2003), who published eclipse predictions for the U.S. Naval Observatory for many years. The AAS solar eclipse task force developed both initiatives.
The total solar eclipse of 2017’s path of totality, stretching from Oregon to South Carolina.
Credit: Michael Zeiler, GreatAmericanEclipse.com
“The event is being called the Great American Eclipse or All-American Eclipse because the moon’s dark shadow crosses the entire continental U.S. but touches no other country as it travels 8,600 miles [13,840 km] across Earth’s surface,” officials said in the statement. “The eclipse presents a unique opportunity to excite people about science and connect them personally to the cosmos. Yet it also presents unique challenges: everyone in the country needs to learn how to view the eclipse safely, and communities along the path of totality need to be ready for an unprecedented influx of visitors.”
A total solar eclipse shines about as brightly as the full moon, but don’t be fooled: Viewing the event without the proper eye protection (including specially made, safe solar filters) even briefly could lead to serious and permanent eye damage. The AAS has developed special eclipse-viewing instructions, which have been adopted by NASA and endorsed by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Optometry. The AAS also features eye safety information for skywatchers on www.eclipse.aas.org.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Get a Skywatching Grant to Watch the ‘Great American Eclipse’Supermoon December 2016: When, Where & How to See It [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
A perigee full moon or “supermoon” is seen, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014, in Washington.
(Updated Dec. 5) This year, the full moons of October, November and December all take place when the moon is at its closest point of approach in its orbit around Earth — a so-called supermoon.
The third and final installment of this supermoon trifecta will be on Tuesday, Dec. 13. The moon will reach peak fullness at 7:05 p.m. EST (0005 GMT on Dec. 14), but it will appear full to the casual observer the night before and after the main event. The online Virtual Telescope Project will host a webcast featuring live views of the supermoon starting at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Dec. 13.
December’s full moon falls on the same night as the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, and unfortunately for skywatchers, that will mean poor meteor-viewing conditions. The light of the full moon will reduce visibility “five to ten fold,” according to a statement from NASA. Under those conditions, skywatchers will likely see fewer than a dozen Geminids per hour. The Slooh Community Observatory will host a webcast for the Geminid shower. You can watch that webcast live on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh. [Supermoon Science: NASA Explains the Extra-close Full Moon (Video)]
Supermoon 2016 Coverage
Supermoon Videos
A full moon occurs each month when the sun, Earth and moon line up, with the moon on the side of the Earth opposite to the sun. The term “supermoon” is used to describe a full moon at its perigee — the point in the moon’s orbit when it is closest to Earth, causing it to appear up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter in the sky, NASA officials said in the statement.
A comparison of the Moon at perigee (its closest to Earth, at left) and at apogee (its farthest from us). The change in distance makes the full Moon look 14% larger at perigee than at apogee. and nearly 30% brighter.
Credit: Sky and Telescope, Laurent Laveder
Naming the full moon
Credit: Karl Tate/SPACE.com
December’s full moon is also known in the Northern Hemisphere as the Full Cold Moon and the Long Nights Moon, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. It follow’s November’s full Beaver Moon, so-named because it arrives at the time of year when hunters would set traps before the waters froze over, to ensure they had enough warm furs for the winter. November’s full moon also has been referred to as the full Frost Moon, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Editor’s note: If you snap an awesome photo of the moon that you’d like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a potential story or gallery, send images and comments to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom,Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34515-supermoon-guide.html Supermoon December 2016: When, Where & How to See It
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Supermoon December 2016: When, Where & How to See ItAnti-Matter Drive To Alpha Centauri? New Short-Documentary Explores | Video [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
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http://www.space.com/34908-anti-matter-drive-to-alpha-centauri-new-short-documentary-explores-video.html Anti-Matter Drive To Alpha Centauri? New Short-Documentary Explores | Video
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Anti-Matter Drive To Alpha Centauri? New Short-Documentary Explores | VideoWednesday, April 26, 2017
‘The Glass Universe’: How Women ‘Computers’ Measured the Stars [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
“The Glass Universe” follows the women of the Harvard College Observatory and their groundbreaking measurements of the stars.
In the mid-19th century, women worked at the Harvard College Observatory as “human computers,” studying photographic plates of stars and unveiling some of the most fundamental discoveries of our universe.
Astronomers at the observatory captured the images on these glass plates nightly. Women, with the job title “computers” in a pre-digital age, would then interpret the observations of their male counterparts and make vital calculations of the stars.
Dava Sobel’s “The Glass Universe” (Viking, 2016), releasing tomorrow (Dec. 6), follows the stories of several women computers at Harvard, including Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Henrietta Leavitt, Annie Jump Cannon, Cecilia Payne, Anna Palmer Draper and Catherine Wolfe Bruce. Based on their calculations, these women measured distances across space based on the brightness of stars, helped determine what stars are made of and created the stellar classification system still used today. [Best Astronomy and Astrophysics Books]
Dava Sobel, author of “The Glass Universe.”
Credit: Mia Berg
Space.com spoke with Sobel about her new book, how she came across the stories of the Harvard Observatory women and what it was like to see the observatory’s original glass plates. “The Glass Universe” will be available for purchase beginning Dec. 6.
Space.com: How did you discover the Harvard College Observatory women’s stories?
Dava Sobel: I first heard about [the women] from Wendy Freedman. At the time, she was with the Carnegie Observatory, where she was the head of the Hubble telescope project to determine the expansion rate of the universe. I was interviewing her for a profile in Omni magazine, and she mentioned Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who was very important to her work [at Carnegie]. I had never heard of Henrietta Leavitt; but her story interested me, and I thought I might write something about her. I later found out she was one of several women at the Harvard Observatory, which was surprising.
Space.com: Why do you think the stories of these women have largely gone untold before now?
Sobel: I actually have several opinions about that. One is that their stories were just told at the time, and then forgotten. This is not a “chip on the shoulder” kind of story — these women really were recognized for what they did, in their own lifetime. The world is so full of accomplished people and information that it’s impossible to keep everything at the forefront of people’s attention. But the story of this group of women, doing the important things they did, just seemed too good to let go.
Space.com: How did you gather all of the different stories you incorporate into the book?
Sobel: A main part of my research took place at Harvard, where all of the glass-plate stacks are still stored. The glass plates are really beautiful and so historic; there is nothing else like them. In fact, the information captured in the glass plates was never fully tapped, so they are now being digitized as part of a project called PHAEDRA, which stands for Preserving Harvard’s Early Data and Research in Astronomy.
I also spent a lot of time going through files of each woman, one by one. There are hundreds of boxes [stored in Harvard’s library] full of old diaries, notebooks and letters, as well as observatory logbooks — there were endless resources. In fact, the hard thing for me was realizing I was never going to be able to get through all of it.
Space.com: How did you choose which information to include and which women to focus on?
Sobel: That part was tough, because there were so many important characters. There were the main women in the story, but then there were also the men and a lot of other people pushing astronomy forward at the time. At first, I thought I would focus on one woman to carry the story. But there really was no one that carried it all the way through, so in the end, the story turned out to be about the glass plates.
Space.com: Who are the women that you chose to spotlight in your story, and was there one who stood out from the rest?
Sobel: I wrote about Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Henrietta Leavitt, Annie Jump Cannon, Cecilia Payne, Anna Palmer Draper and Catherine Wolfe Bruce. I think they each stand out in different ways, and everyone’s story was interwoven; one thing sort of built on another.
Cecilia Payne probably made some of the most important discoveries surrounding the composition of stars, although you could argue that Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s work was the most important because it’s the basis for the astronomical distance scale.
Also, Ms. Cannon worked on the stellar classification system, which was widely adopted by astronomers everywhere. Having this classification system enabled various avenues of research. [How to Tell Star Types Apart (Infographic)]
Space.com: Did you encounter any challenges during your research?
Sobel: Getting through all the material was a challenge in itself. In my earlier books, I mostly wrote about earlier time periods, so there tended to be less material to work with. With “The Glass Universe,” I had an abundance of material, and I really could not read every last paper of the [Observatory’s] annals. I constantly had to make choices, and there was also a lot of science that I had to absorb.
Space.com: How did you find a balance between describing the science and the women’s stories?
Sobel: I like to think of a particular person that I’m telling the story to when I’m working — who is the audience? In this case, my imagined audience was my daughter [age 35]. She is extremely interested in women’s history, especially during this time period. However, I think it’s safe to say she knows very little about astronomy. So that was my target; the astronomy would be explained and described so that she could follow it.
Space.com: In your opinion, what impact did the women of the Harvard College Observatory have on the field of astronomy, and how are we benefiting from their work today?
Sobel: By creating a system [for stellar classification], the women infiltrated every observatory in the world. Astronomers needed a common language for talking about the categories of stars, and the stellar classification system became that language, which we still use today. Their contributions also showed that women were suited for this type of work.
Space.com: How did Edward Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, empower the women “computers”?
Sobel: He had the idea to bring photography into astronomy on a large scale, which was a bold ambition. Then, he entrusted the glass plates to the women: He gave them the work of interpretation and accepted their creation of the [stellar] classification system.
Pickering also called on volunteers, and astronomy today remains a science where amateurs can make a big contribution. He was aware of that, and issued broad invitations for amateurs — especially graduates of the new women’s colleges — to join in on the observations of the variable stars [stars whose brightness increases and decreases], and show the world their education was worth something. Women didn’t have many ways to prove the benefits of their higher education, and that was a serious area of contention in the late 19th century. [‘Rise of the Rocket Girls’ Tells the Stories of NASA’s Women Pioneers]
Space.com: Can you describe some of the significant discoveries the Harvard women made?
Sobel: Mrs. Fleming did a lot of the initial classification work and, in the course of that, discovered hundreds of variable stars. Ms. Maury looked at the nuances of spectral lines and, through that work, came up with a way to distinguish giant stars from dwarf stars. Henrietta Leavitt discovered a means for creating the distance scale. Cecilia Payne showed that differences observed in the spectra [wavelengths of light given off by a star] were really dependent on temperature — you could actually determine the temperature of stars based on the appearance of the spectra. Payne’s doctoral thesis also argued that the stars consisted mostly of hydrogen — which now we know is true but, at the time, nobody expected.
Space.com: Many of these early discoveries were not only founded by women, but also funded by women. Can you describe the significance of that?
Sobel: That is one of the more surprising parts of the story. Anna Draper had been her husband’s, Henry Draper, assistant, and they had rearranged their lives to devote themselves to astronomy. They were making revolutionary headway on photographing the spectra of the stars. So when her husband died at age 45, Mrs. Draper, who was an heiress and had a lot of money, felt she owed it to him to continue his work.
Space.com: What message do you hope to send to readers?
Sobel: I think “The Glass Universe” is an encouraging story for young women. It shows girls have been going into science for a long time and doing work to distinguish themselves and earn high honors, even a hundred years ago.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34864-glass-universe-women-computers-measured-stars.html 'The Glass Universe': How Women 'Computers' Measured the Stars
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]‘The Glass Universe’: How Women ‘Computers’ Measured the StarsNat Geo’s ‘Mars’ Colonists Grow Even More Ambitious in New Episode [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Scene from “Mars,” a National Geographic Channel miniseries due to air in November.
Tonight’s new episode of National Geographic’s “Mars” miniseries will demonstrate the importance of thinking realistically about big dreams while expanding a human settlement on the Red Planet.
The docudrama “Mars” combines real science with a scripted portrayal of the first human mission to the planet, which takes place in the year 2033. Nonfictional documentary segments throughout each episode offer a glimpse at what real scientists and engineers in 2016 are doing to prepare humanity for such an ambitious mission.
In the fourth episode of the six-part miniseries, which airs on the National Geographic Channel at 9 p.m. EST, the future Mars explorers struggle with finding and pushing their own limits. Meanwhile, mission controllers on Earth start dreaming bigger and bigger, potentially putting the Mars colonists at risk. [‘Mars’: The Epic National Geographic Channel Miniseries in Pictures]
Ed Grann, the French CEO of Mars Mission Corporation (played by Olivier Martinez), will announce his ambitious goals of expanding the human settlement on Mars — more people, habitats, power generators and greenhouses — ahead of schedule. Grann says he would like to see the Mars colony become self-sustaining, meaning that it will no longer require any supplies shipped from Earth, within the next 15 years.
But will the Mars crew and their new colony be ready to dream bigger? Are there limits to how much and how fast a human colony on Mars can safely expand? Technology and ambitions aside, how will the original Mars crew deal with the arrival of more colonists? Tonight’s episode, titled “Power,” will explore tricky and controversial issues like these. [Red Planet Law: How We’ll Share Mars When We Settle]
Experts interviewed for the nonfictional portion of the show discuss the innate human drive to explore and settle new places. They compare colonization of Mars with human settlements in Antarctica. “What happens in the Antarctic is what will likely happen on Mars,” David Dinges, a sleep psychologist and chronobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says in an interview segment on the show. As with settlers in Antarctica, those who go to Mars will face a cold, lifeless and inhospitable environment that will likely kill people, he says.
In National Geographic’s “Mars” mini-series, Mars colonists build in indoor greenhouse and grow crops to become self-sustaining.
Credit: National Geographic Channels/Robert Viglasky
Despite the conflicts and struggles of starting a civilization on a bare and foreign planet, things will begin to look up for the Mars crew in tonight’s episode. After a treacherous journey from the landing to the arrival at their new home, the crew’s lives are starting to look a bit more normal; crops are growing, science experiments are happening, and two crewmembers become the first to make out on Mars.
As more crewmembers arrive on the Red Planet, watch how the new Martians’ relationships flourish, and clash, on the National Geographic Channel tonight (Dec. 5) at 9 p.m. EST.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34906-nat-geo-mars-episode-4-growing-ambitions.html Nat Geo's 'Mars' Colonists Grow Even More Ambitious in New Episode
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Nat Geo’s ‘Mars’ Colonists Grow Even More Ambitious in New EpisodeTuesday, April 25, 2017
Trump Names Insider to Lead NASA Transition [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
NASA’s famous emblem.
WASHINGTON — The transition team for President-elect Donald Trump has named a congressional staffer and former NASA official to the “landing team” overseeing transition planning for the space agency.
In a Nov. 29 statement, the office of President-elect Trump announced that Chris Shank will serve on the landing team for NASA, the first individual named to date to handle transition issues for the space agency. The selection came after the transition team selected several dozen other people to serve on landing teams for cabinet-level departments and other agencies.
Shank has extensive experience with NASA, both working in the agency itself as well as on Capitol Hill. He joins the transition team after serving as policy director for the House Science Committee and, before that, as deputy chief of staff for Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the committee. Shank also served on the committee’s staff from 2001 to 2005. [Related: What a Trump Administration Means for NASA]
Shank worked for NASA from 2005 to 2009, during the tenure of administrator Mike Griffin. At NASA, he was director of strategic investments, responsible for the development of the agency’s budget. He also led the agency’s office of strategic communications, working on legislative affairs and public outreach. After leaving NASA, he briefly worked for the Applied Physical Laboratory and Honeywell before returning to Congress.
As part of the incoming administration’s landing team for NASA, Shank will get access to agency information and personnel to guide overall transition efforts. Traditionally, new administrations name several people to transition teams for NASA, suggesting that others will join him in the coming weeks.
Shank was on the agency side of the transition process eight years ago, when he was at NASA while the incoming Obama administration brought its transition team into the agency, which included future NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.
“In a transition period, folks need to maintain their integrity, and be forthcoming,” Shank advised in a panel session on space policy at the American Astronautical Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium in March that also featured Garver, who argued that NASA was in fact not that forthcoming during the transition after the 2008 election.
While the Trump transition office publically announced the appointment Nov. 29, NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot said late that day that the agency had not yet received formal notification.
“We expect to finally get an agency review team into place,” Lightfoot said, referring to the formal name for a landing team, in an interview prior to accepting an award on NASA’s behalf by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation here. “We’re working on, basically, telling the story of what we’re going to be doing.”
The transition has not caused any major issues for NASA so far, despite the delay in getting a landing team in place for the incoming administration. “It’s business as usual for us right now,” Lightfoot said, citing work on various agency programs. “When the review team gets in place, we’ll have our time with them and get a chance to see what they’re thinking, but also share the message of what we’re doing.”
Immediately after Trump won the Nov. 8 election, sources suggested that Mark Albrecht, former executive secretary of the National Space Council and, later, president of International Launch Services, would be named to lead the NASA transition for the president-elect. Instead, the Trump transition team named Albrecht Nov. 29 to the Department of Defense landing team, which now numbers more than a dozen people.
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
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http://www.space.com/34859-trump-names-insider-to-lead-nasa-transition.html Trump Names Insider to Lead NASA Transition
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Trump Names Insider to Lead NASA Transition