Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!

[LocuMob]

I missed this one last month, a new X-ray telescope.

NASA's newly launched X-ray space telescope is ready to start observing the cosmos

NASA certainly has some interesting toys.

 

[Turboomni]

Even though manned space travel is a smaller part of the space program than years past ,you can't deny the bang for the buck with todays tech in robotics that robot spacecraft is the way to go today.

 

[Turboomni]

It's possible that a refueling port was added to Webb, so that some future space vehicle could be sent up to rendezvous with it and refuel it. Even if so, that would be a much more complicated feat than refueling Hubble was.

I heard or read a report that there is access for refueling if the possibility exists in the future.

 

[Fratzog]

NASA certainly has some interesting toys.

Here is another telescope scheduled to launch in May 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, that should be able to improve on Hubble's work.

Simulated image shows how NASA's Roman could expand on Hubble's deepest view

,A team of astrophysicists has created a simulated image that shows how the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could conduct a mega-exposure similar to but far larger than Hubble's celebrated Ultra Deep Field Image. This Hubble observation transformed our view of the early universe, revealing...

phys.org

 

[amazinblue82]

Will a big-azz rock hit the earth .. again .. one day? yep .. but that ain't today

however, today we will have a "close encounter" with an asteroid. how close? planetary "chin music" distance in cosmic terms .. a mere 1.2 million miles.

Absolutely NO chance of hitting us. But f you had a small telescope, and clear, dark skies, you could see it go whizzing by.

No worries IF you miss it, it'll be be back in a couple hundred years.

---

(source: https://www.wmur.com/article/close-approach-asteroid-telescope-online/38804330#) A kilometer-wide asteroid is whizzing by Earth on Tuesday, and anyone with a small telescope and access to clear, dark skies may be able to catch a glimpse.

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) will pass within 1.2 million miles of Earth, which is a comfortable distance but still close in astronomical terms. That's about five times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

The asteroid won't hit Earth, and NASA scientists say this is the closest it will come for the next two centuries.

The asteroid will make its closest approach at 4:51 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Amateur astronomers may be able to see the asteroid later at night. The editors of Sky & Telescope magazine have put together an excellent guide to spotting the rock, saying it's possible to see it with a 4-inch telescope, even though the moon will be full.

Anyone who catches sight of the asteroid in a telescope should be able to track its motion in real-time across the sky.

If you don't have access to a telescope and clear skies, or don't want to go outside on a chilly January night, you can also watch the approach online Tuesday afternoon. The Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a livestream starting at 3 p.m.

---

By the way - where are these space rocks of planet killer size coming from? Between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, there are TRILLIONS of candidates .. its just a matter of "time" before one breaks loose and/or gets close enough for us to see it coming.

Stuff is hitting the Earth everyday though .. we've all seen "shooting stars". No need to lose any sleep over it though -- we'll have plenty of notice and maybe even some things to defend ourselves against ELE's one day....

 

[thethee]

Let's hope that DART program works out...

 

[68PK21 440.6bbl]

View attachment 510057

Will a big-azz rock hit the earth .. again .. one day? yep .. but that ain't today

however, today we will have a "close encounter" with an asteroid. how close? planetary "chin music" distance in cosmic terms .. a mere 1.2 million miles.

Absolutely NO chance of hitting us. But f you had a small telescope, and clear, dark skies, you could see it go whizzing by.

No worries IF you miss it, it'll be be back in a couple hundred years.

---

(source: https://www.wmur.com/article/close-approach-asteroid-telescope-online/38804330#) A kilometer-wide asteroid is whizzing by Earth on Tuesday, and anyone with a small telescope and access to clear, dark skies may be able to catch a glimpse.

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) will pass within 1.2 million miles of Earth, which is a comfortable distance but still close in astronomical terms. That's about five times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

The asteroid won't hit Earth, and NASA scientists say this is the closest it will come for the next two centuries.

The asteroid will make its closest approach at 4:51 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Amateur astronomers may be able to see the asteroid later at night. The editors of Sky & Telescope magazine have put together an excellent guide to spotting the rock, saying it's possible to see it with a 4-inch telescope, even though the moon will be full.

Anyone who catches sight of the asteroid in a telescope should be able to track its motion in real-time across the sky.

If you don't have access to a telescope and clear skies, or don't want to go outside on a chilly January night, you can also watch the approach online Tuesday afternoon. The Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a livestream starting at 3 p.m.

---

By the way - where are these space rocks of planet killer size coming from? Between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, there are TRILLIONS of candidates .. its just a matter of "time" before one breaks loose and/or gets close enough for us to see it coming.

Stuff is hitting the Earth everyday though .. we've all seen "shooting stars". No need to lose any sleep over it though -- we'll have plenty of notice and maybe even some things to defend ourselves against ELE's one day....

"The Virtual Telescope offers a new, Premium option: we offer now a HD quality streaming to those supporting the Virtual Telescope by donations."

There's 1/2 a dozen web browser clicks I'll never get back...

.

 

[amazinblue82]

here's what the Virtual Telescoope folks put on line after they tracked the asteroid. I believe this is sped up to compress about 120 minutes of observations into less than one minute.

---

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There are "real time" tracking videos ..

.. taking snapshots every few minutes for two hours .. where you (when they pointed out the asteroid in the "sea of dots") can see ONE dot move relative to the others. The background "dots" (due to distance from us - all probably stars) look fixed by comparison.

This depicted alignment of asteroid 1994 PC1 and Earth wont happen again for 200 years. Looks like Mars & Earth are the only two planets that need to keep an eye on this one as Mercury and Venus orbits do NOT cross 1994 PC1's

---

Basically same way Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto 100 years earlier .. but way less painstaking/eye-straining because the software/photography advancements since then.

 

[68PK21 440.6bbl]

here's what the Virtual Telescoope folks put on line after they tracked the asteroid. I believe this is sped up to compress about 120 minutes of observations into less than one minute.

---

Very generous of them to put up a 480p version, if they play the tube right they could make way more than what ever their premium option is.

Plus I was waiting for the Pong Paddle to come out towards the end.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

Very generous of them to put up a 480p version, if they play the tube right they could make way more than what ever their premium option is.

Plus I was waiting for the Pong Paddle to come out towards the end.

 

[thethee]

“Webb, welcome home!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

Orbital Insertion Burn a Success, Webb Arrives at L2 – James Webb Space Telescope

 

[amazinblue82]

“Webb, welcome home!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

Orbital Insertion Burn a Success, Webb Arrives at L2 – James Webb Space Telescope

View attachment 511304

Sorry for the "nerd dive" here ... this illustration seems to definitely answer the question I had about the "orientation" of Webb around L2.

Somebody correct me if you see it different please.

The "dotted" blue lines are like "axes".

Moving L to R, the far right is like a magnification of the blue circle on far left -- the "blue circles" being an illustration of Webb's "managed" orbit around L2.

the horizontal ("X") axis is the orbital "plane" of the solar system planetary disk aound the Sun, drawn out through the magnified inset, where it passes through "Y" and "Z" dotted blue lines drawn through/also intersecting L2.

Far right also depicts a Webb thrust "burn" to help "insert" it in orbit around L2.

my point is I am convinced that Webb's orbit is sort of "perpendicular" to the solar plane, and with a radius so BIG that Webb is rarely if ever at all in the "shade".

The hot side is ALWAYS hot, hence the two sided Webb architecture and the elaborate structures necessary to maintain the cold side ALWAYS at single degree Kelvin so it can "see" in IR light.

If Webb never sends us one image, the technical accomplishment to put it in position at L2 (the design, the launch, the origami-like "unfolding") is extraordinary. Still hurdles before first pic .. but most really hard stuff is accomplished. Kudos to those folks!

Webb is gonna astound us .. that is my hope as a science nerd. Can't wait.

 

[SPF Required]

I am right there with you. I will never look at my little 4” Schmidt-Cassagrain the same. (But still love that it opens my kids eyes to worlds far beyond our personal grasp).

 

[thethee]

If Webb never sends us one image, the technical accomplishment to put it in position at L2 (the design, the launch, the origami-like "unfolding") is extraordinary.

^^ This

 

[amazinblue82]

I am right there with you. I will never look at my little 4” Schmidt-Cassagrain the same. (But still love that it opens my kids eyes to worlds far beyond our personal grasp).

I had a Celestron model .... don't recall which one exacxtly but it was a 4 incher as well.

Part of my "natural sciences" (even though I went to business school) distribution course work as an undergrad was spent in Astronomy class (on the roof of Angell Hall 40 years ago this month) in Astronomy class.

A classmate who was just checkin' boxes on the distribution sold (more like "gave') me telescope is parents bought him just for the class.

It was like a $400 retail then (think $1,200 in 2021 dollars), I got it for $50 (still a lot for a poor college kid back then) when he went home after the winter term.

I lost that telescope over the years (didn't make back from Europe in the 1990's when I was an ex-pat there -- was "missing" from the seatainer )

One aside: guess who was hawking Celestrons in the 80's? I HAD to have one after that

 

[thethee]

here's what the Virtual Telescoope folks put on line after they tracked the asteroid. I believe this is sped up to compress about 120 minutes of observations into less than one minute.

---

---

There are "real time" tracking videos ..

View attachment 510291

.. taking snapshots every few minutes for two hours .. where you (when they pointed out the asteroid in the "sea of dots") can see ONE dot move relative to the others. The background "dots" (due to distance from us - all probably stars) look fixed by comparison.

This depicted alignment of asteroid 1994 PC1 and Earth wont happen again for 200 years. Looks like Mars & Earth are the only two planets that need to keep an eye on this one as Mercury and Venus orbits do NOT cross 1994 PC1's

---

Basically same way Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto 100 years earlier .. but way less painstaking/eye-straining because the software/photography advancements since then.

The virtual telescope captures a lot more cool stuff, like the James Webb

Edit: This was supposed to be a gif but I guess those don't work here
James Webb Space Telescope: a new image and video - 24 Jan. 2022 - The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0

 

[amazinblue82]

The virtual telescope captures a lot more cool stuff, like the James Webb

View attachment 511854

Edit: This was supposed to be a gif but I guess those don't work here
James Webb Space Telescope: a new image and video - 24 Jan. 2022 - The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0

Yeah, I have trouble putting gifs in here ... I see other people do it a lot so there must be a way.

Anyway, it works on the link you put in. As with tracking an asteroid, or something else MUCH closer to us than the background stars, you can "record" the movement much more easily.

You can definitely see the "dot" moving -- that is pretty cool (info below from the source).

---

The image above comes from a single 300-second exposure, unfiltered, remotely collected with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. Our robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is marked by an arrow in the center.

At the imaging time, JWST was at about 1.4 millions km from us and it just reached its final destination, the L2 (2nd) Lagrangian point of the Earth-Sun system. As seen from the Sun, that L2 point is directly behind the Earth.

---

As the space nerds know, look up in the night sky and everything you see is moving away from everything else (good explanation here: Why are all the stars fixed in space? - Ask an Astronomer) ... the universe is expanding.

The great distances, however, dont let us see this movement with the naked eye. This doesn't mean our view of sky doesnt change .. the earth is turning so stars/constellations "rise and set" because of that.

But the apparent positions of the stars, relative to each other, does not change. Big Dipper would look exactly the same to somebody looking at it tonight, as it did to somebody looking up at it hundreds of years ago, observing it from the same spot/time on the earth.

Still with the right equipment, we can 'see" this movement.

Wanna get into a space nerd info deep dive, check the work (How Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez found the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way's center) on finding the black hole at Milky Way center by tracking stars orbiting something UNSEEN but MASSIVE as heck.

Observations plus math (plus our wonderful big human brains) .. extraordinary outcomes are definitely possible.

 

[amazinblue82]

First pictures in 6 months? If all goes well?
Can’t wait, this is so wild.
Now watch Voyager I or II Photobomb them.
(Not sure if is possible but would be cool)

i gotta correct myself.

i did NOT think you could take a "picture" of a Voyager spacecraft (too far away and too small). Well it seems like you can .. and can't.

A visible light pic not possible .. too dim. An infra-red one has already been taken I am just learning a decade later. So I still must apologize at @HWYCRZR for my ignorance

source: Voyager Signal Spotted By Earth Radio Telescopes

The signal of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant human-made object -- has been spotted from Earth by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's 5,000-mile-wide (8,000-kilometer-wide) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), which links radio telescopes from Hawaii to St. Croix.

These radio telescopes cannot see Voyager 1 in visible light, but rather "see" the spacecraft signal in radio light. Antennas make up a radio telescope like mirrors and pixels make up an optical one. The telescopes made a special attempt to look for Voyager 1's signal to test their sensitivity.

Voyager 1's main transmitter radiates around 22 watts, which is comparable to a typical ham radio or a refrigerator light bulb. Though incredibly weak by the standards of modern wireless communications, Voyager 1's signal is bright when compared to most natural objects studied by radio telescopes.

The VLBA made this image of Voyager 1's signal on Feb. 21, 2013. At the time, Voyager 1 was 11.5 billion miles (18.5 billion kilometers) away. The image is about 0.5 arcseconds on a side. An arcsecond is the apparent size of a penny as seen from 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away.

The slightly oblong shape of the image is a result of the array's configuration.

---

Voyager 1 is now almost 15 Billion miles away (vs. 12 billion miles away when this "pic" was taken in 2013)

Webb -- an IR telescope multiple times more powerful/sensitive (BUT the ten linked up radio telescopes comprising the VLBA that took the above photo is like having a one GIANT radio telescope on earth) than anything we ever put up there .. can most SURELY pick up the IR signature of one/both of the Voyagers.

Simply put .. looking forward to one of our machines "photobombing" some lesser magnitude natural phenomenon. I am pretty sure now Webb can do it.

 

[Fratzog]

It appears that James Webb has moved even closer to operation. A big part of what remains to be accomplished is exactly aligning the individual main main mirror sections and letting the equipment cool to the specified temperature. Some time in August we should start see infrared images.

 

[Fratzog]

Just for shits and giggles I joined the James Webb FB group. A lot of informed commentary there and some good humour.