Chandra Awaits Comet Siding Spring's Approach to Mars

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Chandra Awaits Comet Siding Spring's Approach to Mars

Chandra Awaits Comet Siding Spring's Approach to Mars:

On October 19th, Chandra will join with telescopes across the world, in orbit around Earth, and even on and around Mars, as Comet Siding Spring makes an extremely close approach to the Red Planet.

This is an extremely exciting event because scientists have determined this comet has been traveling for maybe a million years from the distant Oort Cloud. This will be the first time that humans have ever captured images of a comet from the Oort Cloud, which is an enormous reservoir of left over debris from the formation of the Solar System. (Previous observations and spacecraft visits of comets came from those that originated in the much closer Kuiper Belt.)

As Comet Siding Spring advances toward Mars, it will be moving extremely fast since it is going in the opposite direction from the Red Planet in its orbit. It will also come incredibly close to Mars. At its nearest point, the comet’s distance will be equivalent to only a third of the way between Earth and Moon.

The passage will be so close that Mars will be in the outer atmosphere, or coma, of the comet. Gas molecules and dust particles in this coma could interact with the Martian atmosphere and orbiting spacecraft, and, if large enough, could even make it down to the surface of the planet.

Expansion of the upper Martian atmosphere should increase its cross section to the solar wind, and thus its ability to emit X-rays as Martian atmosphere gas molecules charge exchange with highly-charged solar wind ions. Scientists will be monitoring Mars with Chandra, looking for just such an increase, from 4 hours before closest approach to 11 hours after. Scientists will also be using Chandra to watch the comet from 4 hours before to 6 hours after closest approach to search for its own interaction with the solar wind and any changes caused by its traversing the near-Mars solar wind structure and having Mars travel through its outer coma.

Scientists know that both objects emit X-rays, so they expect to observe a small Chandra signal from each in the 11 hours (54,000 seconds) of observation time. Any increase in these signals due to the comets close flyby should tell us something about their interaction. In a cross-platform coordinated program, the researchers will also be using the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor the Martian aurora, a measure of the planet’s exospheric excitation, as well as the comet's gas production rate, which drives both its X-ray production and its mass/energy input into the Martian atmosphere.

Researchers expect it will take a few days at least to process and analyze the Chandra data after it is obtained on October 19th. Keep checking our website and blog and we’ll post any information as soon as it’s available.

Megan Watzke, CXC

FULL STORY: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/09oct_cometprep/

FASHION WEEK - USA Fashion and Music News
GOOGLE NEWS - Google News Blogger
PINTEREST ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - Google Images Nasa Images
LAST FM - Download Music Legally Direct From Artist
WOMEN COMMUNITY - Women Communty Photography Videos Beauty
DISNEY CHANNEL - Photos and Music News
BABY JUSTIN BIEBER - Google Images Google News
LADY GAGA - Google Images Google News
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - Google Images Universe Pictures
VICTORIA´S SECRET COMMUNITY - Victoria´s Secret Fashion Show Photos

No comments:

Post a Comment

NASA Photos Photography

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Sunday, October 12, 2014