YO THAT SHIT BALLER AS FUCK HOLY SHIT

It made it!

Thank you SpaceX. You just gave us the keys to our dreams. So much is now possible…

(Image credit: SpaceX SES-10 stream)

I wish I’d found this before Episode 19, dang it! Such good gifs of astronauts, though.

Coffee in Space: Keeping Crew Members Grounded in Flight

Happy National Coffee Day, coffee lovers! 

On Earth, a double shot mocha latte with soymilk, low-fat whip and a caramel drizzle is just about as complicated as a cup of coffee gets. Aboard the International Space Station, however, even just a simple cup of black coffee presents obstacles for crew members.

Understanding how fluids behave in microgravity is crucial to bringing the joys of the coffee bean to the orbiting laboratory. Astronaut Don Pettit crafted a DIY space cup using a folded piece of overhead transparency film. Surface tension keeps the scalding liquid inside the cup, and the shape wicks the liquid up the sides of the device into the drinker’s mouth.

The Capillary Beverage investigation explored the process of drinking from specially designed containers that use fluid dynamics to mimic the effect of gravity. While fun, this study could provide information useful to engineers who design fuel tanks for commercial satellites!

The capillary beverage cup allows astronauts to drink much like they would on Earth. Rather than drinking from a shiny bag and straw, the cup allows the crew member to enjoy the aroma of the beverage they’re consuming.

On Earth, liquid is held in the cup by gravity. In microgravity, surface tension keeps the liquid stable in the container.

The ISSpresso machine brought the comforts of freshly-brewed coffees and teas to the space station. European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti enjoyed the first cup of espresso brewed using the ISSpresso machine during Expedition 43.

Now, during Expedition 53, European astronaut Paolo Nespoli enjoys the same comforts. 

Astronaut Kjell Lindgren celebrated National Coffee Day during Expedition 45 by brewing the first cup of hand brewed coffee in space.

We have a latte going on over on our Snapchat account, so give us a follow to stay up to date! Also be sure to follow @ISS_Research on Twitter for your daily dose of space station science.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

What is an upcoming project/mission you're most excited for?

It is likely that I’ll be assigned a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) within the next few years.  We’ve had a continuous presence on the Space Station for 17 years now, along with our international partners (Russian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japanese Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency).  Missions on the ISS typically last 6 months.  I’m incredibly excited to contribute to the impressive array of scientific experiments that we are conducting every day on ISS (I am a scientist after all!), and very much look forward to the potential of going for a spacewalk and gaining that perspective of gazing down on the fragile blue ball that is our home from above.  Beyond that, being part of test missions on the Orion spacecraft (currently under construction at NASA!) would be an extraordinary opportunity.  The current NASA plan is to send astronauts in Orion in a mission that will go 40,000 miles beyond the Moon in the early 2020s, reaching a distance further than that ever travelled by humans.  I’d certainly be game for that! 

Does Mars Have Rings? Not Right Now, But Maybe One Day

NASA - Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) patch. March 20, 2017 As children, we learned about our solar system’s planets by certain characteristics – Jupiter is the largest, Saturn has rings, Mercury is closest to the sun. Mars is red, but it’s possible that one of our closest neighbors also had rings at one point and may have them again someday. That’s the theory put forth by NASA-funded scientists at Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, whose findings were published in the journal Nature Geoscience. David Minton and Andrew Hesselbrock developed a model that suggests that debris that was pushed into space from an asteroid or other body slamming into Mars around 4.3 billion years ago alternates between becoming a planetary ring and clumping together to form a moon. One theory suggests that Mars’ large North Polar Basin or Borealis Basin – which covers about 40 percent of the planet in its northern hemisphere – was created by that impact, sending debris into space. “That large impact would have blasted enough material off the surface of Mars to form a ring,” Hesselbrock said. Hesselbrock and Minton’s model suggests that as the ring formed, and the debris slowly moved away from the Red Planet and spread out, it began to clump and eventually formed a moon. Over time, Mars’ gravitational pull would have pulled that moon toward the planet until it reached the Roche limit, the distance within which a planet’s tidal forces will break apart a celestial body that is held together only by gravity.

Image above: The image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows one of Mars’ two moons, Phobos, passing directly in front of the other, Deimos, in 2013. New research suggests the moons consolidated long ago from dust rings around the planet and, in the distant future, may disintegrate into new rings. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ. Phobos, one of Mars’ moons, is getting closer to the planet. According to the model, Phobos will break apart upon reaching the Roche limit, and become a set of rings in roughly 70 million years. Depending on where the Roche limit is, Minton and Hesselbrock believe this cycle may have repeated between three and seven times over billions of years. Each time a moon broke apart and reformed from the resulting ring, its successor moon would be five times smaller than the last, according to the model, and debris would have rained down on the planet, possibly explaining enigmatic sedimentary deposits found near Mars’ equator. “You could have had kilometer-thick piles of moon sediment raining down on Mars in the early parts of the planet’s history, and there are enigmatic sedimentary deposits on Mars with no explanation as to how they got there,” Minton said. “And now it’s possible to study that material.” Other theories suggest that the impact with Mars that created the North Polar Basin led to the formation of Phobos 4.3 billion years ago, but Minton said it’s unlikely the moon could have lasted all that time. Also, Phobos would have had to form far from Mars and would have had to cross through the resonance of Deimos, the outer of Mars’ two moons. Resonance occurs when two moons exert gravitational influence on each other in a repeated periodic basis, as major moons of Jupiter do. By passing through its resonance, Phobos would have altered Deimos’ orbit. But Deimos’ orbit is within one degree of Mars’ equator, suggesting Phobos has had no effect on Deimos. “Not much has happened to Deimos’ orbit since it formed,” Minton said. “Phobos passing through these resonances would have changed that.” “This research highlights even more ways that major impacts can affect a planetary body,” said Richard Zurek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. He is the project scientist for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, whose gravity mapping provided support for the hypothesis that the northern lowlands were formed by a massive impact. Minton and Hesselbrock will now focus their work on either the dynamics of the first set of rings that formed or the materials that have rained down on Mars from disintegration of moons. Curiosity is part of NASA’s ongoing Mars research and preparation for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s. Caltech manages JPL, and JPL manages the Curiosity mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ For more information about NASA missions investigating Mars, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/ Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Laurie Cantillo/Dwayne Brown/JPL/Guy Webster/Purdue University/Steve Tally/Emil Venere/Writer: Brian Wallheimer. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

Yes, sure its fun to see a lady spin around like that, but I had one of my friends ask me - “Where do you even use this mate?”

Here’s one application that I know very well off.

Spin Stabilization

If you have ever seen a rocket launch, you might know that sometimes the rockets are given a spin while launching. This is known as spin stabilization.

Basically, the rotational inertia of the rotating body will stabilize the rocket against any disturbances and help maintain its intended heading.

The same principle is used in rifling of firearms as well. **

YoYo DeSpin

Okay, now there is the question how to “De-spin” the rocket:

Well, you do what the lady does: stretch out your arms and you will slow down !

The rocket has weights connected to a cable that stretch out and almost immediately the rocket slows down. This maneuver is known as the YoYo DeSpin. ( Damn good name ! )

All thanks to the conservation of angular momentum !

Have a good one !

* Another method to stabilization : 3-axis stabilization

** Bullets spin stabilization - post

** Source rocket launch video

Ep. 9 Eclipses and Other Dis-astra - HD and the Void

There are a several amazing, prophetic, portentous astronomical events you can see with the naked eye, and two are coming up! Hear about auroras, meteor showers, and the total eclipse that will be sweeping the United States in August 2017.

In the ancient world (and, honestly, today too) there’s nothing spookier than the sky doing something weird. Auroras, meteors, comets, and eclipses all fell under the category of scary, prophetic bad omens, but don’t worry! In this podcast I explain what they are! There are also some opportunities to see these astronomical events in action coming up. The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak August 11-13 and there will be a total eclipse of the Sun (or a partial eclipse, depending where you’re viewing it from) across North America on August 21, 2017.

Below the cut are sources, music credits, vocabulary list, and the transcript of this episode. Check out the glossary, it’s a big one! There are also some cool eclipse-viewing resources I’ll highlight so you can view this phenomenon safely. 

Let me know what you think I should research by messaging me here, tweeting at me at @HDandtheVoid, or asking me to my face if you know me in real life. And please check out the podcast on iTunes, rate it or review it if you’d like, subscribe, and maybe tell your friends about it if you think they’d like to listen! 

(My thoughts on the next episode were spectroscopy, probes through the ages, and the transit of Venus. Let me know by the 2nd and I’ll have the next podcast up on August 14th, barring any delays due to trip fatigue!)

Glossary

auroras - a light display that occurs when a magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by solar wind that charged particles scatter into the upper atmosphere and lose their energy.

comet - a small, icy body that orbits the Sun. When its orbit takes it close to the Sun, the comet warms up and releases gases and debris that produce a visible atmosphere, sometimes called the comet’s tail.

corona - the hot outer atmosphere of the Sun.

eclipse - when three celestial bodies line up so that one obstructs the visibility of the other two. A solar eclipse can be partial (only part of the Sun is obscured by the Moon), total (all of the Sun is hidden by the Moon), or annular ( the Moon is close to Earth and appears too small to completely cover the Sun completely). 

Exeligmos cycle - a cycle that is 3 times the saros cycle, or 669 months. It is more accurate means of predicting eclipses and additionally predicts eclipses that will be visible from a location close to the initial eclipse.

Inex cycle - a cycle of 28 years and 345 days long used to predict an eclipse that’s visible in the opposite hemisphere. For example, if an eclipse happens in the Northern hemisphere, one Inex cycle later there will be an eclipse visible in the Southern hemisphere. The Inex cycle does not ensure that both kinds of eclipses will be of the same type. 

meteor - a small rocky or metallic body in space, smaller than asteroids. Contact with the Earth’s atmosphere causes a meteor to burn up in a streak of light. Many meteors entering the atmosphere within a few minutes of each other is called a meteor shower. If a meteor impacts on Earth’s surface without burning up, it is then classified as a meteorite. 

penumbra - a region where only a portion of the light source is obscured. When the light source is completely blocked, this darkest part of a shadow is called the umbra. 

perihelion - an object’s closest approach to the Sun in its orbit. Its greatest distance from the Sun is called its aphelion. 

perigee - a satellite’s closest approach to the Earth in its orbit. Its greatest distance from Earth is called its apogee. 

radiant - the point in the sky where objects appear to come from. For example, the Perseid meteor shower appears to come from the constellation Perseus. 

Saros cycle - a cycle of 223 months that is used to predict eclipses.

solar prominence - a large, bright feature anchored to the Sun's surface and extend outwards into the Sun's corona. A prominence forms in about a day out of plasma, a hot gas made of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. Stable prominences may last for several months, looping hundreds of thousands of miles into space as plasma flows along a structure of the Sun’s magnetic field that has burst outward, releasing the plasma.

syzygy - the straight-line alignment of three celestial bodies.

Script/Transcript

Sources

Perseids via EarthSky

Perseids via NASA

Meteor showers and viewing tips via StarDate

Comet Swift-Tuttle via NASA

My local library’s information and recommended reading list for learning about eclipses. Love you, Multnomah County!

Map of the Path of Totality across the United States

Solar eclipse map and calendar via the Exploratorium website

Free eclipse glasses at libraries via Lunar and Planetary Institute

Guide to making a pinhole camera to view the eclipse via NASA

Historical eclipses via NASA

Historical eclipses via Astronomy Magazine

“Even if the Moon, however, does sometimes cover the Sun entirely, the eclipse does not have duration or extension; but a kind of light is visible about the rim which keeps the shadow from being profound and absolute.”

Solar prominence via NASA

Solar flares via NASA

Fred Espenak’s guide to eclipses. He’s a former NASA astrophysicist who’s credited with all the eclipse predictions so I trust him.

Some good but confusing charts on solar eclipse Saros cycles via NASA

“Van den Bergh placed all 8,000 solar eclipses in von Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse (1887) into a large two-dimensional matrix. Each Saros series was arranged as a separate column containing every eclipse in chronological order. The individual Saros columns were then staggered so that the horizontal rows each corresponded to different Inex series.”

A Danish webpage on calculating eclipses

Hawks, Ellison. The Boy’s Book of Astronomy. Frederick A. Stokes Co: New York, 1914. Located in Google Books preview. (Heads up, this is a fairly racist source.) 

Richard Cohen. Chasing the Sun. Random House: NY, 2010.

Robert A. Henning: “different forms, wavering, many colours diffusing and changing, sometimes far away, sometimes filling the heavens around and above, plunging great dropping spears and sheets of colour earthward towards your very head as though a great hand were dropping colour like burning oil” (43).

Ernest W. Hawkes: “whistling, crackling noise” (44).

Jeremy Belknap: “like running one’s thumb and forefinger down a silk scarf” (44).

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: ‘Eclippse’ by Radical Face off his album Sunn Moonn Eclippse. Check out the video in the album link, it’s amazing.

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

Sunset on Mars

(Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Don Davis)

Ep. 4 Henges and Archaeoastronomy - HD and the Void

Henges are only one type of astronomical tracking and observation monument. Other kinds include using big rocks that already exist and then building something close enough to observe its interaction with the Sun; building an observatory or a big p...

Henges! What the heck are they? And why is the word for studying them (and various monuments around the world that serve a similar purpose) so friggin long? Archaeoastronomy? What even is that? I got quite a few requests for this one so hopefully I did it justice... in my own special, somewhat contrary way.

Below the cut is some elaboration on the episode itself, including my sources, music credits, a glossary, some Google Maps images of the locations I talk about, and a transcript (not an exact record of this episode, but it’s the loose, fairly conversational script I was working with). I mention a couple of books and quote a couple people in this episode so if you want to see that written down, those sources are there too. I’m also on Twitter at @HDandtheVoid.

Let me know what you think of this episode, let me know what you think I should research next*, tell me a fun space fact… anything’s helpful at this point!

*(My thoughts were planets or star classifications. Give me some feedback by May 25th so I can start working on it! The next episode will be on June 5th.)

Glossary:

archaeoastronomy - the study of the astronomical practices, celestial lore, mythologies, religions, and world-views of all ancient cultures. The anthropology of astronomy.

equinox - twice a year, in the spring (vernal equinox) and fall (autumnal equinox), the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth’s axis and Earth’s orbit around the sun combine in such a way that the axis is inclined neither away from nor toward the sun. The day and night are of equal length.

henge - a prehistoric monument consisting of a circle of stone or wooden uprights.

kiva - a room used for rituals and political meetings for many Southwest American Indian tribes.

petroglyph - rock carvings made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. The desert varnish on the surface of the rock is chipped off, exposing the lighter rock underneath.

solstice - twice a year, in the summer (Midsummer) and winter (Midwinter), the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth’s axis and Earth’s orbit around the sun mean that the axis is inclined away from or toward the sun. In Midsummer, the day is longest; in Midwinter, the day is shortest.

Script/Transcript (I do tend to embellish in the moment of recording so it’s not exact, but all the facts are there and I can’t know a fact and not talk about it so trust me, all you’re missing is probably another swear word or two)

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, United States of America

Chichen Itza, Yucutan, Mexico

Stonehenge, Salisbury, England

Newgrange, County Meath, Republic of Ireland

Sources:

The definition of ‘henge’

A slightly more exciting definition of ‘henge,’ with pictures

Classifications of henges in the British Isles

The definition of a petroglyph, with pictures

A 3-minute video about solstices and equinoxes that has images of Chichen Itza and Stonehenge as well as Macchu Picchu, via National Geographic

Another explanation of the equinoxes and solstices; no video, though

The great Stonehenge Purchase!

More on the great Stonehenge Purchase!

Neil deGrasse Tyson writes about Manhattanhenge

Find your own city’s henge!

Burl, Aubrey. The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany. Yale UP: New Haven, CT, 2000. Located on Google Books.

Crouper, Heather and Nigel Henbest. The History of Astronomy. Firefly Books: Buffalo, NY, 2007.

Clive Ruggles quote: “Generally people in indigenous cultures in the past tried to make sense of the cosmos—of the world around them—by drawing links between things; things in the sky, things around them in the landscape, and social things too—all mixed in” (14).

G.B. Cornucopia quote: “One of the Chacoan people’s tools was certainly astronomy, and they were interested in astronomy because anyone living in this harsh environment who does not understand their environment will not survive” (11).

Ed Krupp quote: “Usually monumental architecture isn’t dedicated to observing the sky. It’s a way that people express how they feel at home in the universe; but also how they control the universe” (21).

Glowacki, Donna M. Living and Leaving: A Social History of Regional Depopulation in Thirteenth-Century Mesa Verde. U of AZ P: Tucson, AZ, 2015. Located on Google Books.

McCluskey, S. C.  “Historical Archaeoastronomy: The Hopi Example.”  Archaeoastronomy in the New World.  Ed. A. F. Aveni.  London: Cambridge UP, 1982 (31-58).

McCluskey quote: “began watching when the sun ‘went in’ near the cultural center and motel on Second Mesa” (38).

Williamson, R. A. et al.  “Anasazi Solar Observatories.”  Native American Astronomy.  Ed. A. F. Aveni.  Austin: U Texas P, 1977 (203-218).

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: ‘Leaves’ by Patients aka Ben Cooper, who primarily releases music as Radical Face but also has at least three other bands or band names he’s working with/has released music as.

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

Physicists Have Figured Out Where The Sun's Plasma Jets Come From

Things are heating up.

After over a century of observations and several theories, scientists may have finally nailed the origin of the high-speed plasma blasting through the Sun’s atmosphere several times a day. Using a state-of-the-art computer simulation, researchers have developed a detailed model of these plasma jets, called spicules.

The new findings answer some of the bigger questions in solar physics, including how these plasma jets form and why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is far hotter than the surface.

“This is the first model that has been able to reproduce all the features observed in spicules,” Juan Martinez-Sykora, lead author and astrophysicist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in California, told ScienceAlert.

Continue Reading.

Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist and mathematician. She was the lead software engineer for Project Apollo.  Her work prevented an abort of the Apollo 11 moon landing. She’s also credited for coining the term “software engineer."