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Shuttle and Hubble Passing In Front of the Sun
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 16, 2009 09:36 PM
from the ad-astra-per-alia-porci dept.
from the ad-astra-per-alia-porci dept.
GvG was one of several readers to point out this "incredible photo clearly showing the silhouette of Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope as they passed in front of the Sun was taken Wednesday, May 13, 2009, from west of Vero Beach, Florida. The two spaceships were at an altitude of 600 km and they zipped across the sun in only 0.8 seconds." The image is all over the Web now, for good reason.
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Hubble Repair Mission At Risk 224 comments
MollyB writes "According to Wired, the recent collision of satellites may put the Atlantis shuttle mission to repair Hubble in the 'unacceptable risk' status:
'The spectacular collision between two satellites on Feb. 10 could make the shuttle mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope too risky to attempt. Before the collision, space junk problems had already upped the Hubble mission's risk of a "catastrophic impact" beyond NASA's usual limits, Nature's Geoff Brumfiel reported today, and now the problem will be worse. Mark Matney, an orbital debris specialist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas told the publication that even before the collision, the risk of an impact was 1 in 185, which was "uncomfortably close to unacceptable levels" and the satellite collision "is only going to add on to that."'"
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Challenges Ahead In Final Hubble Servicing Mission 130 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "Space shuttle Atlantis is slated to lift off Monday on the fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble with four mission specialists alternating in two-astronaut teams will attempt a total of five spacewalks from Atlantis to replace broken components, add new science instruments, and swap out the telescope's six 125-pound (57-kilogram) batteries, original parts that have powered Hubble's night-side operations for nearly two decades. 'This is our final opportunity to service and upgrade Hubble,' says David Leckrone, senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. 'So we're replacing some items that are getting long in the tooth to give Hubble longevity, and then we'll try to take advantage of that five- to 10-year extra lifetime with the most powerful instrumental tools we've ever had on board.' Some of the upgrades are relatively straightforward and modular: yank out old part, put in new. But they're big parts: The 'fine guidance sensors' sound delicate but weigh as much as a grand piano back on Earth. But what's different this time is that the astronauts will also open up some instruments and root around inside, doing Geek Squad-like repairs while wearing bulky spacesuits and traveling around the planet at 17,000 mph. 'We have this choreographed almost down to the minute of what we want the crew to do. It's this really fine ballet,' said Keith Walyus, the servicing mission operations manager at Goddard. 'We've been training for this for seven years. We can't wait for this to happen.'"
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Atlantis Links Up To Hubble For Repairs 132 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Space Shuttle Atlantis has finally caught up with the Hubble Space Telescope after following it for several hours. The 'link up' between the Space Shuttle and Hubble was a very delicate one as the two were flying through space at 17,200 MPH, 300 miles above the Earth's surface. The robotic arm of the shuttle grappled the telescope at 1:14 PM EDT today. The telescope will be latched to a high-tech Lazy Susan device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work."
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Astronomy Picture of the Day (Score:5, Informative)
It was todays astronomy picture of the day!
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Re:Astronomy Picture of the Day (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Astronomy Picture of the Day [ISS] (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's one with the space-station taken a few years ago:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060921.html [nasa.gov]
Parent
Re:Astronomy Picture of the Day (Score:5, Interesting)
nary a sunspot
no faculae here at all
last chance to see this
Parent
Reminds me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Reminds me... (Score:5, Funny)
...my eye's...I can't see anymore...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
may I suggest that you try the goggles?
Re:Reminds me... (Score:5, Informative)
Your understanding seems off -- the picture we're discussing is a photograph in every sense. "Trick of perspective" is an odd way to speak of it, since the perspective is simply that as visible from the ground, where the photo was taken.
Parent
Re:Reminds me... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reminds me... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Reminds me... (Score:4, Funny)
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Fly (Score:3, Funny)
is that me or is that a housefly on an orange.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's just you.
It's actually a mosquito on a grapefruit.
Re:Fly (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know *why*, but that is indeed what the sun looks like if you watch it heavily filtered in a telescope, or use a telescope to project it on a surface.
Parent
Limb darkening (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limb_darkening [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Fly (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAA, but the sun appears spherical instead of like a big flat bright disc because it is indeed a spherical object - not a big flat bright disc.
Parent
Re:Fly (Score:5, Informative)
Sensible question but a non obvious answer.
We see spherical objects as spherical because of the shadows and light reflected from it causing different intensities of light reaching our eyes from it.
The sun is different, it has no shadows or light landing on it. It is the light source. If you assume that the sun is a black body of a constant temperature across its surface, the light reaching us from anywhere on its surface is constant which would make it appear to be a completely flat disc. This effect is due to two cos(theta) terms cancelling each other out if you want to do the maths and would be true no matter what the shape that the sun (or any perfect black body) actually was. If for example, the sun was a cube, we would just see the silhouette of the cube as a flat surface and none of the sides.
Now, in reality, the sun isn't a perfect black body of constant temperature and is both less dense and cooler at the edges than at the centre. This makes the edges darker and makes it look more like a spherical object. The post below on limb darkening gives the details.
Parent
Re:Fly (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't. Look at the image showing the whole sun - it's dark on all sides.
Transit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Transit (Score:5, Funny)
That's no moon....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
... It's the Eye of Sauron.
Re:Transit (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. The STEREO-B satellite is in a heliocentric orbit (i.e., centered on the Sun, not the Earth) outside the Earth's orbit, gradually getting farther behind it because the period of an orbit increases with distance from the Sun. That picture was taken early in the flight, when the geometry still permitted seeing the Moon and Sun in line; it won't happen any more.
Its partner, STEREO-A, is in an orbit inside the Earth's, and gradually getting ahead for the same reason. As the two diverge, they can image the Sun simultaneously and take 3-D pictures of it.
rj
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
small (Score:5, Interesting)
My first thought was that the picture is a reminder of our insignificance relative to the greater universe (and even the quantum universe).
But what daring goes into these missions! Tiny we may be but we have great ambition.
Re: (Score:3)
My first thought was "oh geez! with all the camera technologies we have these days, that's the best we could get??" I want voyeuristic photos of naked female astronauts with 0-g boobs. Give us some serious zoom!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You know how boobs sag?
Imagine that sagging upward.
Or outward.
Re:small (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. But, some are longer than others.
Parent
Re:small (Score:5, Interesting)
a reminder of our insignificance relative to the greater universe
You may have seen this already, but it is still an amazing video emphasizing this point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855LIxE0qP0 [youtube.com]
Parent
Shocking fact (Score:5, Interesting)
I find the most eye opening fact is that the sun is 93,000,000 miles behind the shuttle. It is an awesome display of the scale of the sun.
Re:Shocking fact (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
I didn't think... (Score:5, Funny)
I wondered (Score:4, Funny)
That explains it. I wondered what that fleeting shadow was.
I could see more clearly (Score:4, Funny)
I could see more clearly what was going on if they just cleaned off those two little black specks in the picture.
It's amazing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple??? (Score:5, Interesting)
When seeing a picture of a two-thousand ton manned space ship next to a space telescope with a huge nanometer accuracy mirror being repaired by a crew of people in space suits all whizzing through space with a class G star looming in the background, "simple" was not exactly the first thing which came to my mind.
Parent
Fail. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fail (Score:4, Funny)
thats because god used coreldraw
Parent
Re:fail (Score:5, Funny)
I think you need to spend more time staring at the Sun. Big yellow orb? Check.
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Informative)
This was done with a refracting telescope and a digital camera, and it happened in 0.8 seconds.
What, exactly, were you expecting?
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Informative)
Its not a NASA photo.
http://www.astrophoto.fr/ [astrophoto.fr]
Thierry Legault is a guy with a telescope and camera.
Your not supposed to look directly at the sun and this guy points a telescope at it. I think its pretty good. Who knew what the sun would look like with a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/05/15/check-this-out-amazing-photo-of-the-sun/ [discovermagazine.com]
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Interesting)
Bear in mind that the photo is being taken through many, many miles of air, during the daytime, and the daytime heat causes all kinds of instabilities in the air that will show up as waviness in the image (the same phenomenon causes stars to twinkle at night). Finding steady air at night is hard enough, but getting images this clear during the day is remarkable, even taking the quick shutter speed into account.
Also bear in mind that the Sun is only about 30 arcminutes across as seen from the Earth, meaning that the Shuttle silhouette itself is at most just a very few arcseconds in size. To put it in perspective, it's on the order of getting a clear photo of the text "In God We Trust" on a dime from the other end of a (US) football field while the dime is moving at 4 feet or so per second.
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Funny)
Bear in mind that the photo is being taken...during the daytime...
Definitely should have taken the picture at night.
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Informative)
1) This was done by a guy with a portable telescope and camera that he carts around in the back of his car, not a mountaintop observatory or mega-million satellite.
2) You had to be in exactly the right place at the right time. That is, in a line a few km long for the less-than-one-second that the transit took place.
3) You have to know how to photograph the Sun without frying your equipment or going blind. You need enough magnification to resolve the spacecraft but not so much to miss the target.
4) For a non-professional, this photo took an impressive amount of equipment, configured properly and operated perfectly.
And it's no fake. There's another photo showing the Shuttle and the ISS transiting the Sun and the two are very similar. In that photo, the ISS is the more prominent object.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Funny)
While I realize the difficulty of actually taking this picture, am I the only one who thinks this picture is actually really terrible quality? Or am I just used to much better quality from NASA photos?
They're up there to *fix* the hubble. They haven't actually fixed it yet...
Parent
Re:Crappy quality (Score:5, Funny)
Sure kid, I got one for ya [theknack.net].
Parent
Re:fake? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
NASA [nasa.gov]