Space Jump Success: Baumgartner Leaps From 24-Mile Altitude

Source: Mashable

Felix Baumgartner jumped from a capsule dangling from a balloon at 127,900 feet today, breaking the record for the highest altitude skydive in history.

Even though he detected a problem with a heater that was designed to keep his visor clear, he leapt from the capsule anyway, parachuting safely to earth.

The daredevil space jump was an Internet sensation, with the live stream video on YouTube of the space jump breaking all records by orders of magnitude. At this writing, YouTube had more than 8 million people watching its livestream.

The launch had been delayed several times because of wins, which must be nearly calm for the balloon to begin its ascent. For the balloon to get from the ground near Roswell New Mexico to its maximum altitude of 127,800 feet took nearly 2 1/2 hours, but once Felix Baumgartner leapt from the capsule, he quickly plummeted to earth. It’s not clear yet if he broke the sound barrier.

Signs point to interstellar space for Voyager 1 probe

Source: Spaceflight Now

More than 35 years after launching from Earth and now at the frontier of the solar system, NASA's Voyager 1 probe may be tasting interstellar space for the first time, according to scientists analyzing fresh data from the distant explorer.

Launched in September 1977 to fly past Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 is now cruising 11.3 billion miles away and opening its distance by 300 million miles each year.

It takes 17 hours for a radio signal to travel between Earth and Voyager 1. Its twin explorer - Voyager 2 - is lagging slightly behind at a distance of 9.2 billion miles from Earth.

The nuclear-powered probe's computers have about 68 kilobytes of memory. An 8-gigabyte iPod Nano holds more than 100,000 times as much data.

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Mission to the Edge of Space

Mission dress rehearsal successfully completed. Weather looks favorable for a launch Tuesday Oct. 9.

UPDATE: Mission Update: Cold front pushes the launch to Tuesday Oct 9th. We'll send another update as soon as we get the green light for launch.

• Follow this madness

Falcon 9 Rocket Poised for Launch

07 October 2012, 03:25 PM EDT

SpaceX has hoisted the Falcon 9 rocket to launch today's Dragon flight to the space station into liftoff position ahead of tonight's planned blastoff at 8:35 p.m. EDT (0035 Monday GMT).

• You can watch the launch live below beginning at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT)

Curiosity Rover to Scoop Up 1st Mars Samples This Weekend

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will scoop up its first batch of Martian soil samples this weekend, scientists announced today (Oct. 4).
The 1-ton Curiosity rover arrived at a sandy patch called "Rocknest" on Wednesday (Oct. 3). Mission scientists have deemed it a good spot for the robot's maiden scooping activities, which should begin Saturday (Oct. 6), if all goes according to plan.

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Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest Ever View of the Universe

Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004.

By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time.

The new full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies and includes very deep exposures in red light from Hubble's new infrared camera, enabling new studies of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The XDF contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view.

The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

More:  HubbleSite

All systems go for Felix Baumgartner's 23-mile-high freefall toward sound barrier

His blood could boil. His lungs could overinflate. The vessels in his brain could burst. His eyes could hemorrhage.

And, yes, he could break his neck while jumping from a mind-boggling altitude of 23 miles (37 kilometers).

But the risk of a gruesome death has never stopped "Fearless Felix" Baumgartner in all his years of skydiving and skyscraper leaping, and it's not about to now.

Next Monday over New Mexico, he will attempt the highest, fastest free fall in history and try to become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier.

"So many unknowns," Baumgartner says, "but we have solutions to survive."

The 43-year-old former military parachutist from Austria is hoping to reach 690 mph (1,110 kph), or Mach 1, after leaping from his balloon-hoisted capsule over the desert near Roswell.

• Read more...

The astronomical unit (AU) gets fixed

Earth–Sun distance changes from slippery equation to single number.

149,597,870,700 metres

Without fanfare, astronomers have redefined one of the most important distances in the Solar System. The astronomical unit (au) — the rough distance from the Earth to the Sun — has been transformed from a confusing calculation into a single number. The new standard, adopted in August by unanimous vote at the International Astronomical Union's meeting in Beijing, China, is now 149,597,870,700 metres — no more, no less.

More information: Nature 

Bright New Comet on the Way

Bright New Comet on the Way
There’s another comet on the way. And this might be a great one. Called Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), this comet is about as far away as Jupiter, but it’s expected to buzz the Sun late next year and, if it stays intact, may become as bright as the full Moon.

The comet was discovered by a Russian team of astronomers at the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON). At magnitude +18, the comet is currently beyond the reach of amateur telescopes. But the orbital elements have been calculated, and they show the comet will come amazingly close to the Sun– just 2 million km— on November 28, 2013. In mid-November through December 2013 and into January 2014, the comet may reach negative magnitudes, possible as bright as -11 to -16, which means it will be visible during the day!

Because their composition is not exactly known, each comet is unpredictable. So no one can knows for sure how bright this comet will become, or if it will survive its close encounter with the Sun.  Still, this is promising news. And this comet, unlike many recent bright comets, will be visible at mid-northern latitudes.

Southern stargazers will get their own bright comet next year. Comet Pan-STARRS is expected to become visible without optical aid next March, and come within 45 million km of the Sun on March 9, 2013.

So get your binoculars, telescopes, and cameras ready. Next year should be a good one for bright comets, perhaps the best year since 1996 when Comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp graced our skies…

• Source: One Minute Astronomer 
• More... Space.com

Braai Facts: The sun loses 4 million tons of mass per second.

Some facts when you hit that silent moment at a boring braai: 

The sun becomes four million tonnes lighter every second (not minute or hour -  every second).  If there is no reaction. Leave the braai immediately and go home!

It is because  of the fussion taking place in its core. Every second  600 million tonnes of hydrogen are turned into 596  million tonnes of helium. That means that 4 million tonnes goes missing every single second.  That mass is converted into energy, giving us some sunlight.

Why is it not running out of "steam"?  It's total mass is two thousand million  million  million  million tonnes.

Chew on that!

Source:  The Sky at Night. Answers to Questions from Across the Universe -  Patrick Moore and Chris North.