NASA and The ESA Are Going To Jupiter and Saturn

NASA has just released a major announcement. Two outer planet flagship missions have been given the go ahead for further studies and eventual implementation.

1. The Europa Jupiter system mission

2. The Titan Saturn system mission.

What is too cool about this announcement is that most everybody was expecting approval of one or the other, not both. NASA and the European Space Agency working closely together hope to finally answer the question, is there life elsewhere in the universe.



The Europa Jupiter mission has been given priority, launch date 2020. Two orbiters, one built by NASA one by ESA will arrive at Jupiter in 2026. The orbiters will study Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

I was able to reach Dr.Richard Greenberg over the phone and ask him a few questions about the Europa Jupiter mission. Dr. Greenberg is Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. He has written two books on Europa, "Unmasking Europa" a book for general audiences and "Europa The Ocean Moon" a more detailed book and suited for undergraduates.

Dr. Greenberg was part of a science definition team assembled by NASA to put together facts they already knew about Jupiter, Saturn and their moons and to come up with the best ideas for the two missions. When I asked Dr. Greenberg what his research group's main goal was now, he stated to continue to do research and interpret what they now know as much as possible so that when the mission is finally designed and run it will be done with as much knowledge as possible.



Dr. Greenberg who's background is in Celestial mechanics, meaning the study of the orbits and rotations of planets and their moons, first put forth the idea that the moons of Jupiter, specifically Europa might be affected by tides created by Jupiter's enormous pull on little Europa, creating what we see as crisscrossing lines or cracks on Europa's surface, that an ocean is just below a thin layer crust and that if we were able to examine the slush that comes up through the cracks created by the enormous tidal waves we could very well find some type of oceanic substances and perhaps samples of any organisms that might be present in the ocean.

I also asked him what we hope to learn from the Europa Jupiter mission that we haven't already discovered through the Galileo mission to Jupiter. He mentioned things like the orbiter being equipped with a laser altimeter which would measure the topography of the surface ice, something new. Radio tracking, allowing the gravitational field of Europa to be measured, not been done before, putting the two experiments results together will determine the amplitude of the tides, providing further confirmation of the unseen ocean.

The new NASA orbiter will be equipped with a very high resolution camera, you see the problem with the Galileo mission to Jupiter was the main antenna never opened so they had a limited amount of high resolution images sent back, not anywhere near the amount they would have liked, the new camera will produce near meter scale imaging, to see up close and personal, to image the surface perhaps at just the right time when slush is breaking through to the surface. Now, very cool, an orbiter radar, maybe able to once and for all determine the thickness of Europa's ocean covering crust, but most critical determine linkages between the ocean and the surface, the connection between the ocean and Europa's surface are what make it possible for life to flourish.




The Titan Saturn mission will consist of a NASA orbiter and an ESA lander and research balloon, the lander will actually land in one of the northern lakes of Titan and test for signs of life while the orbiter flys through the plumes of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons again looking for any signs of life.

When all is said and done, two very exciting missions to look forward to. Looking for and finding life even microbial in our own solar system, our own backyard, increases the chances that we are not alone, that there is someone else out there, maybe even watching us right now.

Earthshine Refraction and Moon Illusion

Actually I went out just to capture the celestial gathering of Saturn and the Moon, the image below, when by chance I got a cool image of a squashy honking big brown Moon, may not be the proper astronomical terms, but the Moon looked astronomical none the less.

Notice the Moon's flat bottom, this is caused by the refraction of the Moon's light back onto itself from all the dust and water particles in our lower atmosphere, kind of bends the light upwards onto itself. The same particles scatter the blues of the Moonlight and allow the reds through to be seen by us, hence a red brown Moon. Then we have what we call the Moon illusion, because the Moon being so close to the ground, our mind by comparing it to the Earthly surroundings make the Moon seem very large.


The Earthshine is caused by the Sunlight reflecting off the Earth onto the Moon lighting up the Moon's night side, the bright part of the Moon we see in the images is the Sunlight reflecting off the Moon directly to us, what we call Moonlight.


Below are some more Moon with Earthshine images I took on my outing.







Just a reminder if you want to enter the "Find and Photograph The Daytime Moon Contest" now is the time to take your Pics. The Moon will be in it's New Moon Phase tomorrow but will start waxing to larger crescents after that, closing date will be November 3rd, lots of opportunity to get your daytime crescent Moon and maybe even win 50 pairs of Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D glasses, think of the possibilities, all the 3D parties you could throw, great stocking stuffers, boggles the mind.

I'll leave you now with an animated daytime crescent Moon complete with clouds.

Lunar Halo, Conjunction and Family Images

Having a great time here in Kelowna, been mostly cloudy so far but I was still able to do some astronomy, the image above was taken when we had a break in the clouds, what is quite remarkable about it is the sky only cleared for about half an hour, and that when it did clear there was a Lunar halo, a nice touch to my Saturn, Regulus Lunar conjunction. the two white dots just above and to the right of the top of the Moon are Saturn,the top dot, and Regulus the bottom dot.

Lunar, Saturn, Regulus Conjunction, May 12, 2008.


The above image is an image of the conjunction I took just before the sky cleared, the image below was the gathering of the heavenly bodies the night before, May 11, 2008.


Lunar, Saturn, Regulus Conjunction May 11, 2008.


Been taking lots of images with the camera of the mountains, family and various statues, yes people I am officially a tourist. Got my camera bag around my shoulder, my camera in my hand, ready to go. Never really used the camera for taking regular type images, makes sense though, usually have the camera on the tripod , put it in the car, get to point b, take celestial picture, head home. Below are some of my vacation images and an animated gif of my New favorite image, my Lunar Halo.

Cathy, Amanda, Dave



Cathy and Grandogs


Plane flying over Wood Lake


City Park

Ogopogo

Mars and Saturn Lunar Conjunctions

We had a couple of Lunar conjunctions, on April 11th. there was the Mars/ Moon conjunction, the image above, I had clear skies for that one and with the earthshine made for a pretty picture. The image below was the Saturn /Lunar conjunction of April 14th. Had lots of fast moving clouds with little earthshine, image below, still made for a pretty image, note the fast moving clouds, at least they broke to give me a view of Saturn the Moon and Regulus, or the technical official name Alpha Leonis, the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion.

Another friendly reminder about the upcoming Lyrid meteor shower Monday the 21st. through to the morning of the 22nd. This is the peak time for the shower, it actually starts April the 16th. through to the morning of the 25th. They are calling for snow the 21 and 22 here in Saskatoon so I was out to see what I could see last Thursday night, the last clear sky to be had for a week or so, I saw around 6 an hour average over the 3 hours I was out, not bad for a non peak night, and a huge one right over my head, where the camera wasn't pointing. I got a shot of a couple meteors I will post after the event in case I get a break in the clouds on the 21st. Look to the NE around 11 pm EDT for the show to begin. The radiant or the place where the meteors appear to emanate from is the Lyra constellation. Expect 10- 15 an hour, by the way they are short and very fast, at least the ones I saw. The Moon will be full so will take a little away from the contrast but hey it's a meteor shower, nothing better then wishing on a falling star.

One of the things I try to do here at Black holes is make the sky a little more user friendly, more enjoyable so that when you go out for a walk at night you know a little bit more, like what is that bright star next to the Moon, or where to look for a conjunction or when the next meteor shower is. Our Royal Astronomical Society of Canada President Scott Young came up with a TOP TEN list of ways to turn young people off astronomy, it was of course written for other amateur astronomers but you can still get a laugh or two out of it.

10: Show them a deep sky object in a small or medium sized scope as their first look.

9: Bash the Tasco scope they already own as not worth using.

8: Lapse into jargon and spew technical details and costs of your gear, and how you need to have perfect gear and perfect conditions or it's not worth observing.

7: Rant about light pollution without a good idea of what to say.(This can make astronomers sound like fringe environmentalists.)

6: Spend time talking with the inner circle at a Centre meeting and ignore the newbies.

5: Explain how using a computer-aided telescope isn't real astronomy.

4: Assume the newbie at the public star night will see the same level of detail that your 35-years-of-experience-eyes can see.

3: Show them Venus, Mercury, an asteroid, an outer planet or dwarf planet, a double star, a variable star, a planetary nebula, a galaxy, a star cluster, or about any northern-hemisphere deep-sky object other than the Orion Nebula.

2: Show them Mars, EXCEPT at a favourable opposition in a big scope with good seeing and a red filter.

1: Mock their misconceptions or beliefs about the universe the first time you meet them(and they meet you).

I'd like to leave you with one of the cloudy Moon images I took a few nights ago as an animated Gif

Total Lunar Eclipse February 20, 2008

Total Lunar Eclipse February 20, 2008

Almost Totality February 20, 2008

Start of Lunar Eclipse, February 20, 2008



Saturn and Eclipsed Moon February 20, 2008

They were calling for snow right up to the day before, but those silly weather guys were wrong, the weather was great, got some good pics of the eclipse, makes me a happy Bob, got a picture of the February Full Snow Moon and a picture of a Total Lunar Eclipse all in the same night, the last Total Lunar Eclipse till 2010. Native Americans called the February Full Moon, "Full Snow Moon" because it was usually the month with the heaviest snow falls and hunting became very difficult, in fact some North American tribes such as the Kalapuya called it the Full Hunger Moon.

Some interesting facts about an eclipse; during totality the Moon's brightness is reduced by a factor anywhere from 10,000 to 1,000,000 times; during an eclipse the Earth gets between the Moon and the Sun, the reds and oranges of the lunar eclipse are caused by the Sun's light passing through and being refracted through our Earth's atmosphere which scatters or blocks the blues and allows the reds and oranges of the Sunlight through to the Lunar surface much in the same way it does for Sunrises and Sunsets, in fact the color of the Moon during totality is the direct result of all the Sunrises and Sunsets happening simultaneously around the world at the time of the eclipse. If the Earth had no atmosphere, the Lunar surface would be totally black.

Total Lunar Eclipse August 28, 2007

Some more great news, Shuttle Atlantis and her crew landed safely Wednesday at 9:07 am EST. after a successful mission to deliver Europe's first permanent orbital laboratory to the ISS. During it's 13 day mission Atlantis circled the Earth 202 times covering 5.3 million miles.

UPDATE: The US shot down the spy satellite late Wednesday, they figure they got the fuel tank. The missle was launched from the USS Lake Erie from the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii at 10:26 EST. over 130 miles high and 24 minutes after the launch.

Due to high swells in the North Pacific the US has missed it's first window of opportunity to shoot down the crippled spy satellite Wednesday, they have another 10 days to give it a go before the satellite will tumble to the ground and supposedly release it's toxic gases.

I'll leave you now with my latest Sunset as an animated gif.

Lunar Surface In HD 3-D

People, this has got to be the coolest thing ever in the world, or should I say Solar System. Kaguya the Japanese Moon orbiter has released the first ever super high def 3-D images of the Lunar surface and released them in movie form!!! They were taken with Kaguya's onboard terrain camera, which is basically two cameras in one, one pointing forward and one pointing behind the orbiter, therefore being able to take stereoscopic images. There are 3 movies released, two of which can be viewed by the general population without 3-D glasses, the third or anaglyph images movie has to be viewed with 3-D glasses, which of course I just happen to have, and is it the sweetest thing ever, just feels and looks more real. You may ask how did I come by 3-D glasses. Good question, when I purchased my copy of Spy Kids 3-D Game Over , believe it or not came with 4 pairs of 3-D glasses! You may also ask, why I would purchase a copy of the kids movie Spy Kids 3-D game Over, because I used to be a spy kid when I was a kid. My parents bought me a Secret Sam outfit.

Secret Sam came with a gun you put together, white bullets, a cool periscope you could attached to the gun, so you could spy ducked down behind something, but the coolest thing you got with it is an actual working camera that as you can see from the lower left of the picture, fit into the briefcase, you could then close the case and activate the camera with a secret button on the outside of the case and take the enemy's picture like a spy without them knowing about it. I think that was the point when my love for cameras started, I just remember taking a lot of pictures with that camera and my Dad having to get them all developed the old way, you know we didn't have digital back when I was a kid, sorry for the major tangent, back to space stuff.

Not to be outdone NASA just released the highest ever resolution of a couple of Saturn's UFO shaped moons. Atlas 24x11 miles big and pan 20x13 miles big. Both images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera. Both moons orbit around Saturn in Saturn's outer rings.

Saturn's rings formed due to a few major moons orbiting Saturn colliding, the resulting debris quickly fell into orbit around Saturn forming the rings we know of today, scientist figure that some smaller particles attached themselves to a couple of the larger core rocks forming the UFO shaped moons Pan and Atlas.

On a final note, don't forget the Geminid meteor shower starts tonight at around 9pm EST, look in the east for the constellation Gemini the radiant of the shower for the start of the show.

Lunar Extravaganza

I'd thought I'd do something completely different with my Moon shots this time round and completely saturate them, it seems to be the latest fad. I have millions of Moons shots, some saturate a little, some a lot, some not at all.

The above image was taken 10 days ago, the Lunar Terminator was framing 4 high profile lunar craters, thought it was a perfect photo op took advantage, took the pic. Plato Crater named after the famous Greek philosopher Plato is the dark crater situated top middle of the image. half in the shadow of the terminator. Copernicus is the light crater right of centre of the moon in this shot, named after the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus advanced the Heliocentric theory of the solar system where the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around. Kepler is the crater just down and to the left of Copernicus, I like to call it paint ball crater because it looks like someone shot the Moon with a paintball gun. Kepler crater was named after Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician first to discover that planet orbit's are ellipses not circles. Finally Aristarchus is the small bright white crater up and to the left of paintball. Aristarchus was another Greek philosopher which among other amazing discoveries was the first to come up with the Heliocentric theory of the solar system over a thousand years before Copernicus. Well that's it, you now know the locations and names of 4 major lunar craters which will help you if they where to casually come up in conversation someday.

All these craters have something special in common, they all have had a number of Lunar Transient Phenomenas or LTP's for short. LTP's are any kind of short-lived activities or events seen on the Moon, over the years they have included red glows, flashes, obscuration and abnormal shadow effects. I belong to the LTP Research Program as an observer one of my duties is to observe the high repeat offending craters such as the ones above and report any unusual events using special report forms. There is a hot line number on their website I linked to above , write it down, you just never know when your going to spot an occurrence.




The Japanese Space Agency's Lunar Orbiter Kaguya is now confirmed orbiting the Moon and has sent back a picture of the Lunar surface from 800 kms high. The picture was not taken with its Hi Def cameras so future images will increase in quality substantially when the cameras are set up and running later this month. When the pictures come through I will post them, they should be pretty awesome. Kaguya's main mission is to understand the Moon's origin and evolution. It is the most comprehensive lunar mission since the Apollo program.


My 3rd. attempt ever of Saturn, getting bigger and a little more detail, still need it to get a little higher up in the sky and once it gets warmer I'll be able to use my electronic microfocuser, nearly impossible to manually adjust focus at 650x which is what the above Saturn is. I'll leave you with one last color saturated Moon pic, enjoy.

Saturn II The Sequel

The above image of Saturn was taken a couple of mornings ago, Scope performed flawlessly, held the 450X Saturn dead center of the camera ccd chip while I was able to stack 60 images at .033 secs each. I tried to squeeze as much detail as possible out of Saturn, but being low on the horizon the atmosphere sucked the life and detail out of it. You can just make out a lower striped cloud band just below the rings, the upper band is partially obscured by the angled rings, I'll be posting more pics of the beautiful planet hopefully with more detail as I get more experienced and Saturn gets higher in the sky. In a couple of years we are going to loose those rings. Saturn is going to be at a viewing angle from Earth where the rings will be straight on, and since the average depth of the rings are only 1 km we won't be seeing much of them, so if your thinking of someday getting a telescope get one before the rings go bye bye. This of course is not permanent, they will come back over time, around 2 years after they disappear they slowly come back into view.

Space Shuttle Discovery is traveling to launch pad 39a at Cape Canaveral in preparation for mission STS (space transportation system) 120. The crew's main mission is to deliver and install the Italian built for the US, Harmony module which will serve as a connecting point between the US destiny lab, the European Space Agency's Columbus module and the Japanese Kibo module. Discovery launch date is set for October 23, don't forget to watch NASA TV as they have some crazy angled camera shots which are always cool to watch.

The rainbow in the above pic is caused by a water truck which sprays water ahead of the crawler-keeps the crawlerway moist and the dust down. The crawler, shuttle combined weight is 175 million pounds, moving at a rate of 1 mph.

Mars Rover Opportunity has gone into Victoria Crater at Duck Bay point. The image above shows opportunity in front of a band of what scientists think and I quote "Is the ancient surface of Mars prior to the impact that created Victoria". By sampling it at several different levels in the crater they are hoping to figure out the processes that led to its formation and its very distinctive appearance.

The pic above is one of my Total Lunar Eclipse photos blown up to 24"x36" and hung in my office, I'm happy it turned out so well, cool.

Jupiter, Saturn, Hole and HD Earth

Okay people we have a lot to cover today so lets get started, not really but I've always wanted to say that. My power engineering teacher said that a few nights back, I thought at my age I'd never hear those dreaded words again, you know your teacher would rush in to the class with a bunch of books under their arm and say those words and you'd be thinking crap, brain already full.

The image above is my first attempt at Jupiter taken last year. You can see Europa off to the right. Jupiter is the 5th. planet from the Sun, takes 11 years to orbit the Sun and has 63 confirmed moons. Jupiter is our largest planet, has 2.5 times the mass as all the other planets combined, Jupiter is made up mostly of gases with a rocky core.

The image below is my first attempt at Saturn taken last year as well. That is exactly what you'd see looking through an amateur telescope, beautiful. Saturn is the only planet that would float in water because it is made up of gases, no rocky core. It is the 6th. planet out from our Sun and takes around 29 years to complete one orbit. Saturn has 60 confirmed moons. In the image you can see 3 of Saturn's moons, starting from the closest moon from Saturn going out they are, Dione , Titan , Iapetus. I will post updates when I take more images with newer better equipment when the weather allows, looks like April, we have a long cold winter here and it seems to be starting early.


The Mars Odyssey Spacecraft acouple weeks back had discovered entrances to several possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano Arsia Mons, below is a close up of one of the caves, now they are saying and I quote, "Martian Caves are interesting not only for their geology but as possible habitats for future human colonists" I posted a picture below of the cave and of the habitat that was in the film Race To Mars , where would you want to live? The hole looks deep and dark, probably where the aliens are hiding, where as the habitat doesn't have aliens or things that bite, oh and has a big screen TV, probably High Definition, I vote the habitat.

I can see it all now, NASA sends a group of terraformer Scientists with hoes and rakes, and first aid kits with flare guns, not a real gun between them, one of them goes to investigate the caves by themselves, doesn't come back, another scientist without a gun goes to look for the first one, that one doesn't come back, you get my drift, the aliens pick them off one by one. Scientists need to watch more scary sci fi shows.

The Japanese satellite Kaguya on its way to the Moon has taken the first High Definition video of Earth from beyond it's orbit, 68,350 miles to be exact. The video has not been released yet but a still image (below) has, you can see the western coast of South America in the image. I'm looking forward to more High Def stuff from this satellite.

NASA Missions Updates

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. September 10th. NASA's Cassini spacecraft made it's closest flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus. Cassini took images of Saturn's 3rd. largest two toned moon (the pic below) from 1640 kms high. This bizarre moon has a mountain range that runs along the equator. It also has two different colored hemispheres, dark and white, too weird. In Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey Astronaut Dave Bowman finds an alien monolith waiting for him on Iapetus.

A few of NASA's goals on this flyby are:

1. Determine the characteristics and geological history of Iapetus.

2. Define the different physical processes that created the surface of Iapetus.

3. Investigate composition and distribution of surface materials on Iapetus-particularly the dark organic rich material and condensed ices.

Iapetus is cool, my third fav moon in the universe, the first being our moon but my second fav moon in the universe is Mimas shown below.

Mimas is Saturn's 7th. largest moon, whatever hit the little moon that caused the large crater at the top nearly destroyed it, there are fracture lines on its opposite side. Mimas is made up of ice and water with a little smattering of rock. May the force be with you.

NASA's rover, Opportunity started into the Victoria Crater on Tuesday but when it had slipage problems it backed out again. NASA is now trying to figure out whether or not the loose ground is going to be a problem for Opportunity and may prevent Opportunity from doing any science in the crater at all.

The Phoenix Mars Lander which was launched on my birthday August 4, 2007, the day not the year was my birthday, is doing well. NASA did some tests and all its crucial stuff that has to be working like its landing radar checked out well. The Phoenix Lander will be landing on Mars May 25th, 2008 to perform various on board tests with it's cool built in lab. The lander has travelled more than 50 million miles but has another 600 million to go. Below is an artistic rendition of the Phoenix Lander on the surface of Mars.