Father & Son DIY Outer Space Filming

Keeping the same theme as the previous post, here is a less technologically advanced way of capturing video footage from the stratosphere. A father and his seven year old son built a homemade spacecraft and sent it almost 19 miles into the air. An insulated case held a video camera, an iPhone, and GPS equipment. Hand-warmers were packed on the inside in order to keep the equipment from freezing in the cold temperatures.

All in all they spent 8 months preparing for the mission. The father, Luke Geissbuhler, added: "It would have to survive 100 mph winds, temperatures of 60 degrees below zero, speeds of over 150 mph, and the high risk of a water landing. To retrieve the craft, it would need to deploy a parachute, descend through the clouds and transmit a GPS coordinate to a cell phone tower. Then we have to find it."

Booster Cam Video of Atlantis Launch

NASA has just released this video from space shuttle Atlantis' launch into orbit on July 8th. Multiple cameras provide unique angles from the ground at Kennedy Space Center (0:00), through takeoff and separation (2:22), to the water landing somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean (4:37). One of the most crisp and impressive angles starts at approximately 18:00 into the video.

What If Planets Orbited Earth With Our Moon?

Obviously this could never happen, but it's an exercise in creating perspective! This incredible video created by Brad Goodspeed illustrates how large each planet would appear in the sky if it shared an orbit with the moon (380,000 kms from Earth). He doesn't include the smaller planets and also omits Saturn. He went with representatives of the size classes of planets to keep the maximum dramatic effect. Watch in HD and get ready to feel small! You can follow Brad Goodspeed on Twitter @BradGoodspeed

2012: The World Isn't Ending

The rumors have been flooding the internet for years and as we approach that infamous date, the media hype-machine is at its peak. You might hear words like Apocalypse, Armageddon, and Doomsday being loosely thrown around. Books have been published on the topic, programs about it have been aired on TV networks including The History Channel and The Discovery Channel, and a few years ago the major motion picture 2012, starring John Cusack, became one of the year's highest grossing films. So what's really going on here? Should we give up our jobs and focus on outfitting underground bunkers to make those last moments with our loved ones as pleasant as possible while we await our impending doom? Simply put: NO! There are a number of theories out there attempting to support this idea of mankind's demise, but they're all wrong:

The Mayan Calender

The Mayan Civilization lived by a Long Count linear calender lasting approximately 144,000 days, which was a period of time known as a b'ak'tun. According to Mayan stories of creation, the Gods failed in their first three attempted worlds. They succeeded on the fourth attempt and placed mankind into this world. The previous world was said to have ended after 13 b'ak'tuns (5125 years). The date marking the end of the third world and the start of the fourth world was set at August 11th or 13th, 3114 BC. This means that the current world will reach the end of its thirteenth b'ak'tun on December 21st or 23rd, 2012 AD.

Although the calender's cycle comes to an end, records show that the Mayans believed a new cycle would begin, just as it had in the past. Associating the end of the cycle with the end of the world has been called "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in." In fact, the present day Mayan groups living in Guatemala have adopted an entirely new calendar system, and no longer consider the 13th b'ak'tun significant. Furthermore, Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun has acknowledged that "apocalypse" is a concept introduced by the Western world and has no connection with Mayan beliefs.

Polar Shift or Geomagnetic Reversal

This theory stems from observations that our planet's magnetic field is weakening, and implies that there will be a shift of the north and south poles. To add some more spice to the story, approaching solar storms are supposed to speed up the process. Some of this is partially true, in that the Earth does naturally go through geomagnetic reversals (the last one occurring 780,000 years ago) and we are affected by periodic solar storms.

The doomsday supporters try to paint the picture of this geomagnetic reversal as an overnight ordeal that will flip Earth and create chaos. In reality, the process is thought to take 5000 years to complete and has no particular start-date. In regard to the solar storms, astronomers do not expect the approaching storms to be anything out of the ordinary, and have found no evidence that links them to kick starting a polar shift.

Planet X Nibiru & Alien Invasion

These are two of the most imaginative theories. The first suggests that a massive unknown planet is on a collision course with Earth. This is simply impossible, since we would already be aware of the presence of such an object if it were supposed to hit us within the next two years. The second suggests hostile extraterrestrial lifeforms taking over. Sure, aliens could invade, but we have yet to prove that aliens exist, let alone are capable of invading.

Nostradamus & Einstein

Once all of the other theories have been exhausted, some people turn to the predictions of the great astrologer Michel de Nostradamus. His prophecies are gathered from four-line poems which were written in the 1500s. Analyzing the content of these poems is highly subjective and must be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering that they are written using vague, ambiguous language in an effort to avoid his own persecution by the Christian church.

A more modern figure, Albert Einstein, supposedly said something on the lines of: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Not to play down the importance of bees on our planet, but we must keep in mind that Einstein was a physicist, not a beekeeper.

In this day and age, fear and paranoia run ramped through our society. Companies in different industries try to capitalize on this by feeding the public with sensationalism. It is important to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism when taking in this sort of information, especially when science-fiction writers are co-authoring documentaries on The History Channel. All in all, the world is not coming to an end on 2012, but if you still don't feel comfortable, listen to this statement released by Donald Yeomans, the head of NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission:

The Known Universe

At the end of 2009 The American Museum of Natural History released this video entitled 'The Known Universe' as part of their Visions of the Cosmos exhibition. There are many similar "zoom out from the earth" videos, including the Morgan Freeman narrated IMAX film 'Cosmic Voyage', but this is by far the most impressive and accurate. It starts with the Himalayas and zooms out through our atmosphere and into the depths of the dark space beyond. Every star, planet, and quasar seen is carefully plotted based on the 4D Digital Universe Atlas maintained by astrophysicists at the AMNH. To enjoy the full experience, watch it in full screen HD quality.

Solar Music

For the first time ever, musical sounds resonating from the longitudinal vibrations of the Sun's atmosphere have been captured by scientists. Combining complicated mathematics and information acquired by satellite, a team of solar physicists from the University of Sheffield have revealed these harmonious sounds caused by the movement of giant magnetic loops in the solar corona, the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere. Play the video below to listen!

Professor Robertus von Fáy-Siebenbürgen from the University of Sheffield's Department of Applied Mathematics said: "The results of our latest coronal research, presented in the Parliament at Westminster, allow us to gain a fundamentally new insight into the fascinating but at the same time very mysterious solar atmosphere. I'm most proud to have such talented young scientists within my research group and department."

SDO Satellite Views Sun

NASA has just released the first images from a new satellite which serves the purpose of predicting disruptive solar storms. The satellite was launched on February 11th and according to chief scientist Dean Pesnell, it has already disproved at least one theory, although he didn't give any more information.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite has three instrument packages to measure atmospheric and space physics. During its 5 year mission it will examine the sun's magnetic field and also provide better explanations for the sun's role in Earth's climate and atmospheric chemistry.

A multiwavelength extreme UV image of the sun taken at the end of March is shown above. False colors trace the temperatures of different gases, red being relatively cool (107,500 F) and blue/green being hotter (1.8 million F). Below you can see a video taken by the SDO which shows the solar prominence eruption on March 30, 2010 (Credit: NASA/Goddard). The video loops through one viewpoint, then zooms out and gives you a wider perspective.

Cassini Captures First Space Lightning Video

The Cassini spacecraft has managed to capture a series of images showing lightning flashes on the night side of Saturn. Astronomers put these images together and were able to construct the first ever video of lightning strikes on another planet. But that's not at all. NASA researchers also extracted the radio waves that the lightning bolts gave off, and were able to add a soundtrack to the movie.

"This is the first time we have the visible lightning flash together with the radio data," said Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave scientist at the Space Research Institute in Graz, Austria.

The difficulty with seeing lightning on Saturn is the visual obstruction caused by the planet's rings which reflect sunlight and obscure the flashed from storms on the surface. The first images capturing lightning on Saturn were taken in August 2009 during a storm that lasted from January to October of that year. The images used for the video were much brighter and were taken during a later storm in November 2009. The areas lit by the lightning flashes are approximately 300 km in diameter. The 11 second clip below (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/University of Iowa) is the first time humanity has ever captured video footage of lightning storms on another planet:

Searchers Set Record Finding Meteorites

The luminous fireball that lit up Alberta and Saskatchewan's night sky last fall, previously covered on Markit Science (Meteorite Spotted + Found!), has set a Canadian record for the number of meteorites recovered from a single fall. Scientists from University of Calgary have searched for the scattered remnants and have found more than 1000 fragments in fields near Lloydminster on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.

This beat the previous record of 700 pieces set after a meteor hit the ground in central Alberta in 1960. Now that the snow has melted, the search continues, and Alan Hildebrand says they are finding dozens of meteorites a day.

Meteorite Spotted + Found!

The fireball seen in the video above was captured by a peace officer's dashboard cam in Devon, Alberta, providing an excellent account of this event. The meteorite fall occurred on 2008 November 20 at 5:26.42 MST. It was seen by thousands of people across the Canadian prairies, sparking a wide range of reactions from sheer awe to fear and panic.

Thousands of meteorites are expected to have rained down over a 20 square km area, but they were difficult to find in the varied terrain of Buzzard Coulee. After quick examination of the suspected region of impact, the first meteorites were located by Ellen Milley, a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary, in a frozen fish pond near the agricultural community of Lone Rock, Saskatchewan.

The largest meteorite fragment to be recovered in the first days was a 13 kg whopper which creating a form fitting indentation 5-10 cm deep before bouncing out and resting on the frozen ground a few cm away. Take a look at the detailed topographical map to see the exact impact location of the large meteorite.

Heads Up, Eclipse!

There will be a total solar eclipse during tomorrow morning's sunrise (August 1). As seen from a narrow track crossing parts of Canada's northern islands, the eclipse is total. The path of totality then sweeps eastward across northern Greenland, across Siberia, and ends at sunset in China.

For those located in Eastern Canada, the last partial solar eclipse visible was 9 years ago, 1999 August 11, and it also occurred at sunrise. There was a more recent solar eclipse on Christmas Day 2000, but clouds and snow hid it. After tomorrow, the next partial solar eclipse visible from this area will happen on November 3, 2013.

To see tomorrow's unusual sunrise, be ready for an early wake up, as the period of total eclipse, or totality, will occur from 7:08am to 7:10am EDT. You will need a proper solar filter to avoid damaging your eyes, or use a pinhole mirror projector. But if you sleep through the alarm, fear not, NASA has you covered. They will be providing a live feed of the event. The coverage, originating in China and reliant on good weather, runs from 6:00am to 8:15am EDT. Follow this link to see it happen!

Wet Moon

A study recently published in Nature magazine is making scientists rethink the theory of how the Moon formed. To recap, the theory states that the Moon was created during a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object. The heat from this impact would have vaporised all water. This new study claims that water was delivered to the lunar surface from the interior in volcanic eruptions approximately 3 billion years ago, implying that the water has been part of the Moon since its existence.

The US Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s successfully collected lunar volcanic glasses, pebble-like beads. Since then scientists have been determining the nature of the chemical elements in the glasses.

Using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) technology, the team from Brown University, the Carnegie Institution for Science, and Case Western Reserve University, were able to detect extremely tiny amounts of water in glasses and minerals.

"We were really surprised to find a whole lot more in these tiny glass beads, up to 46 parts per million," said Erik Hauri, from the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC.

They think that the water was contained in magma which erupted via "fire fountains" on the lunar surface more than 3 billion years ago. The eruptions themselves would have evaporated 95% of the water, but also leave some behind. Since the Moon's gravity is too weak to have an atmosphere, speculations indicate that some of the water vapour was likely forced into space. But some might have drifted towards the cold poles of the Moon, where ice may exists in constantly shadowed craters.

Lets Go To Space

It will be possible before you know it. Xcor Aerospace, a California aerospace company, plans to enter the space tourism industry with a two-seat rocket ship capable of suborbital flights to altitudes of more than 60 kilometers above Earth.

The spacecraft, called The Lynx, is about the size of small private plane, and is expected to fly in 2010. It will take off from a runway like a normal plane, and reach a top speed of Mach 2 and an attitude of 60,000 meters. Then it would descend in a circling glide to a runway landing.

How much will it cost to get up there? Well, the ship will be flown by two pilots and carry up to six passengers, who will pay about U.S. $200,000 each. Apparently passengers will experience 4.5 minutes of weightlessness and will be able to unbuckle themselves to float in the cabin before returning to Earth.

Heads Up!

On September 16, 2007, a meteor traveling at 24,000 km/hour struck into the southern Peruvian town of Carangas. This 1 to 2 meter-long boulder created a 15 meter deep crater, shown above two days after impact.

Previous theories stated that objects like this would break apart and scatter before reaching the ground. New analysis of particles at the crash site indicate that the meteor stayed intact as it streamed through the Earth's atmosphere. Research presented this month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference suggests that the fragments were likely trapped and smoothed into an aerodynamic shape by the shock wave created by its movement through the atmosphere.

The meteor's surprising arrival is making the scientific community question how many more may have similarly crashed into Earth. Although, I can't help but wonder how many more are still to come...

Two Eyed Telescope

The world's most powerful telescope is now looking into space with both of its eyes wide open. The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) partners have recently announced that it has successfully achieved first binocular light.

The first binocular light images have been released, and show three false-color renditions of the galaxy NGC 2770. The galaxy is 102 million light years from our Milky Way, and has a flat disk of stars and glowing gas.

The telescope is located on Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona, and cost $120 million to put together. This large optical telescope uses 2 massive 8.4 meter diameter primary mirrors mounted side-by-side. The mirrors, which have a unique honeycomb structure, are working in tandem and will be capable of operating as a single instrument.

Check out the news release video below for a more in depth look:

Making Space For Advertising

This is one of the EISCAT 500MHz Ultra Frequency Radars located in Svalbard. On June 12th, it will be broadcasting the first ever advertisement into space. The transmission is being directed at a solar system 42 light years away from Earth, with planets orbiting the star '47 Ursae Majoris'. It is very similar to our Sun and is believed to host small terrestrial planets able to support life.

The advertisement will move at the speed of light and will continue for an indefinite period. The signal will pass the moon in 1.2 seconds. After 4.5 minutes it will pass Mars, and in under 9 minutes the signal will zip by the Sun. After 5.5 more hours it will travel past Pluto and exit our solar system.

The big question in your mind: "What's the ad?"

The British public is being asked to shoot a 30-second ad on their perspective of 'life on earth'. To my surprise, the competition is being run by Doritios, as part of its new 'You Make It, We Play It' campaign. It is being undertaken in association with experts + academics from the University of Leicester.

Oh, the ad will also be broadcast on terrestrial TV, so check back in June. That makes it three for Svalbard, my appreciation for the archipelago grows weekly. Check Frozen Seeds + Marine Monster Excavated

Moon Ring

The Cassini spacecraft has detected what appears to be a large debris disk around Saturn's 1520 kilometer wide moon Rhea. If confirmed, it would be the first ring system ever found around a moon.

Scientists believe that the halo probably contains particles ranging from the size of grains to boulders. It's not certain how the rings have originated. One explanation may be that they came from an ancient asteroid/comet collision, which spattered material around Rhea.

The finding was described in a study published in the March 7 issue of the journal Science.

Cosmic Yellow Pages

The Milky Way has approximately 200 billion stars, at least half of which have orbiting planets. If you estimate that each solar system holds 5 planets, that means there are ~500 billion planets in our galaxy. Surely some of these planets have Earth-like conditions, allowing for evolution to occur. Perhaps civilizations have formed and technology has grown strong enough to emit signals.

Seti-scientists are listening in closely. 300 miles north of San Francisco, deep in the desert, the giant Allen Telescope Array is being expanded. Shown above, the array is a collective of computer-controlled radio antennas designed to work as one integrated unit. Eventually there will be 300 dishes searching for potential alien messages drifting through space.

Unfortunately, they've been searching for 50 years, and haven't heard a peep. In their defense, up until 1995, scientists didn't even know if planets existed beyond our solar system (exoplanets). This made it difficult for them to decide where exactly they should be looking.

Technology prevailed again, and a flurry of exoplanets have recently been discovered. More than 260 to be exact... but none of them anything like Earth. Then, in early 2007, an impressive discovery was made from an observatory in northern Chile. Astronomers found Gliese 581C: the smallest planet ever found orbiting a main sequence star. It was 5.5 times the mass of our planet, and appeared to be at the right distance from its star to support life. For now, other than its location, all other information about this planet is completely speculative.

In 2009, Nasa plans to launch Kepler, a space telescope looking for new worlds. It is designed to be sensitive enough to detect Earth-like planets, and will scan 100,000 stars, day + night, for four years. Nasa's calculations predict that at least 50 Earth-like planets should be found.

All of this information will be very useful for the Allen Telescope Array. Instead of aimlessly looking through the entire galaxy, they can focus their efforts only on planets capable of supporting life.