Hello Space Fans and welcome to the 11/11/11 edition of Space Fan News.
First, ESO's VLT takes a very surprising GRB OBS.
Now, if you understood everything I just said, then you are hardcore.
For the rest of you, let me translate that series of astronomical grunts into actual words.
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope takes a very surprising Gamma Ray Burst Observation.
There, that's a little better.
Gamma ray bursts, or GRB's, are the brightest and most energetic explosions in the universe. They are usually found by orbiting wide-field telescopes like NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope, which scans the sky looking for sudden explosions in distant galaxies that are very bright in gamma rays.
Once detected in orbit, their positions are immediately relayed to telescopes on the ground where their brightnesses are measured and recorded for a longer period and in more detail.
The VLT observations show something very exciting. The brilliant light from the gamma-ray burst had passed through its own host galaxy as well as another galaxy right next door.
The galaxies in this image are being seen as they were about 12 billion years ago. Such distant galaxies are very rarely caught in the glare of a gamma-ray burst.
As light from this GRB passed through the galaxies, the gas in between the stars acted like a filter, and absorbed some of the light from the gamma-ray burst at certain wavelengths.
Without the GRB these faint galaxies would be invisible, we would never have seen them.
By carefully analysing the tell-tale fingerprints from different chemical elements the team was able to work out the composition of the cool gas in these very distant galaxies, and in particular how rich they were in heavy elements.
And this is where the surprise comes in. It turns out that these faint galaxies, looking at them from a time when the universe was relatively young - only a billion years or so old - have more heavier elements in them than our Sun does.
Heavier elements in this case are what astronomers call metals, which are any elements heavier than helium.
It is generally expected that galaxies in the young Universe will be found to contain smaller amounts of heavier elements than galaxies at the present day, such as our Milky Way. The heavier elements are produced during the lives and deaths of generations of stars, gradually enriching the gas in the galaxies.
But that's not the case here.
What may be happening is this newly discovered pair of young galaxies is that they must be forming new stars at a tremendous rate, to enrich the gas in them so strongly and quickly with heavier elements.
Further, since the two galaxies are close to each other they may be in the process of merging, which would also provoke star formation when the gas clouds collide. The new results also support the idea that gamma-ray bursts may be triggered when lots of stars are vigorously forming.
Astronomers were only able to find this out because they started observing so quickly after the gamma ray burst was initially discovered - while it was still very bright.
Hopefully, ESO's VLT will be able to capture more GRB OBS'es.
Next, NASA proposes the first test flight of the Orion Deep Space Vehicle in early 2014.
Orion is a multi purpose crew vehicle designed for traveling beyond low Earth orbit, which is where we've been ever since we cancelled the Apollo program.
Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.
This animation shows the proposed flight.
<ANIMATION HERE>
This animation illustrates the proposed flight.
The spacecraft will launch from Cape Canaveral Florida, sometime in early 2014.
This test flight, known as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), is designed to launch a vehicle into an orbit higher than any spacecraft intended for human use since 1973.
The early stages involve orbiting at lower altitudes before firing rockets to boost it to speeds over 20,000 miles per hour.
This Exploration Flight Test, or EFT-1, will fly two orbits to a high-apogee, with a high-energy re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. Orion will make a water landing and be recovered using operations planned for future human exploration missions. The test mission will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to acquire critical re-entry flight performance data and demonstrate early integration capabilities that benefit the Orion, SLS, and 21st Century Ground Systems programs. The agency has posted a synopsis explaining its intention on NASA's procurement website.
"The entry part of the test will produce data needed to develop a spacecraft capable of surviving speeds greater than 20,000 mph and safely return astronauts from beyond Earth orbit," Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier said. "This test is very important to the detailed design process in terms of the data we expect to receive."
To get there,
Orion will launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., perform two orbits, reaching an altitude higher than any achieved by a spacecraft intended for human use since 1973, and then will re-enter and land in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the United States.
I would love to see this properly funded and executed, we really need to get back into the human spaceflight and exploration business.
Finally, remember that asteroid that passed overhead last Tuesday? Well, NASA's SWIFT spacecraft took a movie of it as it passed.
The passage of 2005 YU55 was a great opportunity for astronomers to study asteroids up close and personal.
Although Swift is designed to look for high energy gamma ray bursts like the one we talked about earlier, it can also make valuable observations of passing comets and asteroids as well.
These images were captured in the UV detectors of Swift:
This movie of 2005 YU55 was taken at ultraviolet wavelengths which are unobtainable from ground-based telescopes. For planetary scientists, this movie is a treasure trove of data that will help them better understand how this asteroid is put together, information that may help make predictions of its motion more secure for centuries to come.
Well, that's it for now space fans. Thank you for watching and as always Keep Looking Up!
Further Reading:
ALMA starts observtions:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1137/
Orion 2014 test flight:
VLT observation of Gamma Ray Burst:
Swift watches YU55 go by:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=15013&media_id=120010631
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