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Space News Update — February 27, 2015 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Successful spacewalk ends with water leak

Story 2:

Calm regions protect organic molecules around a supermassive black hole

Story 3:

Dark Energy Camera Takes Accidental Gigantic, Magnificent Picture of Comet

Lovejoy

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Successful spacewalk ends with water leak

Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Terry Virts floated outside the International Space Station Wednesday for the second of three spacewalks to help ready the lab complex for dockings by commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX. Back inside the station’s airlock, Virts reported a small amount of water in his space helmet, but officials said he was never in any danger.

Even so, given a near-catastrophic helmet leak in July 2013, engineers will need to troubleshoot the latest issue to make sure the suit’s internal systems are healthy enough for Virts and Wilmore to carry out a third planned spacewalk Sunday.

The problem was not noticed until Wilmore and Virts had returned to the station’s airlock at the end of a successful six-hour 43-minute excursion. Along with a small blob of cold water floating in his helmet, Virts reported a water absorption pad at the back of the helmet, one of several safety measures implemented in the wake of the 2013 incident, was wet.

“Terry was saying he’s got some water in his helmet, he just noticed it a minute ago,” European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti told flight controllers in Houston. “It’s about 3 inches in diameter, it’s kind of pooling on the front side of the helmet above his eye level, and he does feel a little bit of squishiness in the back of the HAP (helmet absorption pad).”

A few minutes later, she said the pad was moist, but not saturated, possibly indicating the water flow did not begin until very late in the spacewalk. The frightening 2013 water intrusion was caused by clogged pores in an internal filter, but it was not immediately known what might have caused the problem Wednesday.

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“It’s not drink bag water,” Virts reported after his helmet was off. “The drink bag bite valve was dry the whole time, that whole area of the helmet was dry and if you taste the water, it has a chemical taste, not exactly like chlorine but something like that. So it’s some type of technical water, it’s not drink bag water.”

Virt’s suit, serial number 3005, experienced a similar water intrusion after a spacewalk in December 2013, one of two that followed the much more serious incident the previous July. The December incident occurred at about the same time as the one Wednesday, when the airlock’s pressure was holding at 5 pounds per square inch for routine post-spacewalk leak checks. How that timing might play into the troubleshooting was not known.

“At first, I saw just a little bit of water pooled in my helmet and it seemed normal because I was face down and that’s where water pools,” Virts said. “Except for when there’s no gravity, so that’s not normal.”

The issue will be reviewed during an already planned space station Mission Management Team meeting Friday.

The spacewalk began at 6:51 a.m. EST (GMT-5) and ended six hours and 43 minutes later, at 1:34 p.m., when the astronauts began repressurizing the station’s Quest airlock.

During a six-hour 41 minute EVA Saturday, Wilmore and Virts laid out eight bundles of cables near the front of the space station that will supply power and data to new docking port mechanisms that will be launched and installed later this year.

During Wednesday’s outing, they first removed a protective cover from a docking port extension on the front end of the space station that was once used by visiting space shuttles. The cover turned out to be fairly stiff, but the astronauts managed to stuff it in a stowage bag as planned.

Virts spent more than two hours lubricating the intricate capture mechanisms on the end of the station’s Canadian-built robot arm. Using a long tool known as a BLT, for ball-screw lubricating tool, Virts applied the grease to internal components in a bid to reduce friction in the mechanism when the capture systems are activated.

While that work was going on, Wilmore worked on the left side of the station around the Tranquility module, making preparations for upcoming module relocations. He removed a protruding valve and a handrail to improve clearances for one of the module moves and released launch locks on Tranquility’s forward and aft berthing ports.

The astronauts ran ahead of schedule throughout the spacewalk, leaving time at the end to accomplish a few additional tasks to get a head start on their third spacewalk Sunday, assuming it stays on schedule.

The goal of that excursion is to install antennas and associated cabling to permit communications with approaching and departing U.S. crew ferry capsules. Initial test flights are expected in 2017. By the end of their third EVA, Wilmore and Virts will have laid out and connected multiple cable bundles stretching some 670 feet.

At least four additional spacewalks are planned later this year to complete the most extensive space station reconfiguration since the end of the shuttle era in 2011. Nearly 900 hours of crew time will be required for the spacewalks, robotic activity and work inside the station to ready the lab for arrivals and departures of Boeing’s CST-100 ferry craft and SpaceX’s piloted Dragon capsule.

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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2. Calm regions protect organic molecules around a supermassive black hole

Researchers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) have discovered regions where certain organic molecules somehow endure the intense radiation near the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy NGC 1068, also known to amateur stargazers as Messier 77 (M77).

Such complex carbon-based molecules are thought to be easily obliterated by the strong X-rays and ultraviolet (UV) photons that permeate the environment surrounding supermassive black holes. The new ALMA data indicate, however, that pockets of calm exist even in this tumultuous region, most likely due to dense areas of dust and gas that shield molecules from otherwise lethal radiation.

Molecules reveal clues to galactic environments Interstellar gas contains a wide variety of molecules, which differ wildly depending on the environment. For example, high-temperature, active star forming regions produce different molecules than would be found in colder interstellar regions. This enables scientists to probe the temperature and density of certain regions by studying their chemical composition.

Astronomers have long been studying the molecular signatures around supermassive black holes: both nearby starburst regions and surrounding rings of dust and gas known as a circumnuclear discs (CND) that spiral-in to feed an active black hole. These regions are important for understanding the evolution of galaxies. However, weak radio emission from the molecules there often makes observations difficult.

ALMA observations trace molecules To better understand the complex and energetic environs around a supermassive black hole, the research team — led by Shuro Takano at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and Taku Nakajima at Nagoya University — observed the spiral galaxy M77, which is located about 47 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cetus (the Whale).

This galaxy is known to have an actively feeding central black hole, which indicates it has a substantial circumnuclear disc. That disc, in turn, is surrounded by a 3,500 light-year wide starburst ring. To probe these areas, the research team added ALMA’s extreme sensitivity and high-fidelity imaging capabilities to earlier observations conducted by the 45-metre radio telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).

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The new ALMA observations clearly reveal the distributions of nine types of molecules in the surrounding disc and starburst ring.

“In this observation, we used only 16 antennas, which are about one-fourth of the complete number of ALMA antennas, but it was really surprising that we could get so many molecular distribution maps in less than two hours. We have never obtained such a quantity of maps in one observation,” said Takano, the leader of the research team.

The results clearly show that the molecular distribution varies according to the type of molecule. While carbon monoxide (CO) is distributed mainly in the starburst ring, five types of molecules, including complex organic molecules such as cyanoacetylene (HC3N) and acetonitrile (CH3CN), are concentrated primarily in the CND. In addition, carbon monosulfide (CS) and methanol (CH3OH) are distributed both in the starburst ring and the CND.

Shielding complex organics around a black hole As the supermassive black hole devours the surrounding material, this disc is heated to such extreme temperatures that it emits intense X-rays and UV photons. When complex organic molecules are exposed to these photons, their atomic bonds are broken and the molecules are destroyed. Astronomers assumed that such regions would therefore be devoid of such complex organics. The ALMA observations, however, proved the contrary: Complex organic molecules are abundant in the CND, though not so in the broader starburst region.

“It was quite unexpected that complex molecules with a large number of atoms like acetonitrile and cyanoacetylene are concentrated around the black hole’s disc,” said Nakajima.

The research team speculates that organic molecules remain intact in the CND due to the large amount of gas there, which acts as a barrier for the X-rays and UV photons, while organic molecules cannot survive the exposure to the strong UV photons in the starburst region where the gas density is comparatively lower.

The researchers point out that these results are a significant first step in understanding the structure, temperature, and density of gas surrounding the active black hole in M77. “We expect that future observations with wider bandwidth and higher resolution will show us the whole picture of this region,” said Takano.

“ALMA has launched an entirely new era in astrochemistry,” said Eric Herbst of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and a member of the research team. “Detecting and tracing molecules throughout the cosmos enables us to learn so much more about otherwise hidden areas, like the regions surrounding the black hole in M77.”

Source: Astronomy Now Return to Contents

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3. Dark Energy Camera Takes Accidental Gigantic, Magnificent Picture of Comet Lovejoy

Oops! In a happy accident, Comet Lovejoy just happened to be in the field of view of the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera, the world’s most powerful digital camera. One member of the observing team said it was a “shock” to see Comet Lovejoy pop up on the display in the control room.

“It reminds us that before we can look out beyond our Galaxy to the far reaches of the Universe, we need to watch out for celestial objects that are much closer to home!” wrote the team on the Dark Energy Detectives blog.

On December 27, 2014, while the Dark Energy Survey was scanning the southern sky, C2014 Q2 entered the camera’s view. Each of the rectangular shapes above represents one of the 62 individual fields of the camera.

At the time this image was taken, the comet was passing about 82 million km (51 million miles) from Earth. That’s a short distance for the Dark Energy Camera, which is sensitive to light up to 8 billion light years away. The comet’s center is a ball of ice roughly 5 km (3 miles) across, and the visible head of the comet is a cloud of gas and dust about 640,000 km (400,000 miles) in diameter.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is designed to probe the origin of the accelerating universe and help uncover the nature of dark energy by measuring the 14-billion-year history of cosmic expansion with high precision.

The camera just finished up the third, six-month-long season of observations, and the camera won’t be observing again until this fall.

You can download higher resolution versions of this image here.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

Sunday, March 1 After dark, Jupiter is the bright "star" to the Moon's lower left, and Procyon is the real star to the Moon's right. Far lower right of there shines Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Sirius is also the nearest star that's visible to the naked eye from northern latitudes, at a distance of 8.6 light-years. Monday, March 2 The bright planet near the waxing gibbous Moon tonight is Jupiter. Looks are deceiving, however. Jupiter is actually 40 times larger than the Moon in diameter, but it's 1,660 times farther away (as of tonight). Another mutual event among Jupiter's moons. Tonight Ganymede occults Io from 11:06 to 11:11 p.m. EST; their combined light dims by 0.6 magnitude at the center of this time. Later Ganymede casts its shadow onto Io, but just a few minutes beforehand, Io disappears behind Jupiter's edge from Earth's viewpoint! (at 12:17 a.m. EST). Tuesday, March 3 Bright Jupiter shines above the Moon this evening. Spot fainter Regulus closer to the Moon's lower left (for North America).

Friday, February 27 Venus and Mars in the western twilight have widened to be 2.7° apart now. Look for faint Mars beneath Venus. Saturday, February 28 Early this evening, the dark limb of the waxing gibbous Moon will occult (cover) the 3.6-magnitude star Lambda Geminorum for telescope users in North America east of the Mississippi and north of the deepest South. Some times: central Massachusetts, 8:00 p.m. EST; Washington DC, 7:56 p.m. EST; Chicago, 6:31 p.m. CST (in twilight); Kansas City, 6:21 p.m. CST (in twilight). See map and detailed timetables of both the disappearance and the (unobservable) reappearance; be careful not to mix these up when scrolling down the table.

Two mutual events among Jupiter's moons. Watch Europa occult (pass in front of) Io from 11:10 to 11:16 p.m. EST this evening. At the center of this time, their combined light is dimmed by 0.6 magnitude, not quite half. Then less than an hour later, Europa casts its shadow onto Io from 12:02 to 12:09 a.m. EST, dimming Io by 0.9 magnitude at the mid-time of this eclipse.

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

No Sightings for Denver through March 7

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Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

6 a.m., Sunday, March 1 - Coverage of U.S. Spacewalk # 31 (Spacewalk scheduled to begin at 7:10 a.m. ET; Wilmore and Virts) (all channels)

12 p.m., Monday, March 2 - Dawn Mission Pre-Close Approach News Briefing (all channels) Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website.

Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

Feb 27 - Comet C/2014 AA52 (Catalina) Perihelion (2.003 AU)

Feb 27 - Comet P/2012 TK8 (Tenagra) Closest Approach To Earth (3.231 AU)

Feb 27 - Comet 120P/Mueller At Opposition (3.514 AU)

Feb 27 - Asteroid 90416 (2003 YK118) Near-Earth Flyby (0.078 AU)

Feb 27 - Asteroid 16421 Roadrunner Closest Approach To Earth (0.871 AU)

Feb 27 - Asteroid 9950 ESA Closest Approach To Earth (2.657 AU)

Feb 28 - [Feb 27] Cosmos-Bars N1 Soyuz U Launch

Feb 28 - Comet 270P/Gehrels At Opposition (4.028 AU)

Feb 28 - [Feb 21] Asteroid 2015 DP53 Near-Earth Flyby (0.051 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 2014 YS34 Near-Earth Flyby (0.098 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 11066 Sigurd Closest Approach To Earth (0.796 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 54439 Topeka Closest Approach To Earth (1.490 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 17058 Rocknroll Closest Approach To Earth (1.524 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 14094 Garneau Closest Approach To Earth (2.063 AU)

Feb 28 - Asteroid 1154 Astronomia Closest Approach To Earth (2.545 AU)

Feb 28 - 15th Anniversary (1990), STS-36 Launch (Space Shuttle Atlantis, DOD)

Feb 28 - Corneluis Gemma's 480th Birthday (1535)

Feb 29 - Lewis Swift's 195th Birthday (1820)

Mar 01 - Comet 75D/Kohoutek Closest Approach To Earth (1.693 AU)

Mar 01 - Comet 92P/Sanguin Perihelion (1.825 AU)

Mar 01 - Comet P/2013 TW5 (Spacewatch) Closest Approach To Earth (5.044 AU)

Mar 01 - Asteroid 161989 Cacus Closest Approach To Earth (0.447 AU)

Mar 01 - Asteroid 2281 Biela Closest Approach To Earth (1.485 AU)

Mar 01 - Asteroid 12608 Aesop Closest Approach To Earth (1.527 AU)

Mar 01 - Asteroid 19535 Rowanatkinson Closest Approach To Earth (2.075 AU)

Mar 01 - Kuiper Belt Object 2013 FZ27 At Opposition (47.963 AU)

Mar 01 - 35th Anniversary (1980), Pierre Laques & Jean Lechaceux's Discovery of Saturn Moon Helene

Mar 02 - [Feb 27] Eutelsat 115 West B/ ABS 3A Falcon 9 Launch

Mar 02 - Comet 6P/d'Arrest Perihelion (1.361 AU)

Mar 02 - Comet P/2013 O2 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (2.668 AU)

Mar 02 - Comet 89P/Russell At Opposition (3.321 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 2 Pallas Occults TYC 0992-00547-1 (11.0 Magnitude Star)

Mar 02 - [Feb 21] Asteroid 2015 DS53 Near-Earth Flyby (0.008 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 2015 DR Near-Earth Flyby (0.027 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 2015 CN13 Near-Earth Flyby (0.029 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 656 Beagle Closest Approach To Earth (1.734 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 3869 Norton Closest Approach To Earth (1.751 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 7644 Cslewis Closest Approach To Earth (1.948 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 51824 Mikeanderson Closest Approach To Earth (2.345 AU)

Mar 02 - Asteroid 5223 McSween Closest Approach To Earth (2.721 AU)

Mar 02 - 20th Anniversary (1995), STS-67 Launch (Space Shuttle Discovery, Spacelab)

Mar 03 - Gonets-M/ DOSAAF-85 Rokot/Briz-KM Launch

Mar 03 - Asteroid 2007 ED125 Near-Earth Flyby (0.031 AU)

Mar 03 - Asteroid 326290 Akhenaten Closest Approach To Earth (0.759 AU)

Mar 03 - Asteroid 5451 Plato Closest Approach To Earth (1.611 AU)

Mar 03 - Asteroid 3933 Portugal Closest Approach To Earth (2.454 AU)

Mar 03 - Asteroid 1268 Libya Closest Approach To Earth (2.712 AU)

Mar 03 - 5th Anniversary (2010), Mars Express, Phobos Flyby

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Russian space agency endorses ISS until 2024

Russia plans to stay part of the International Space Station partnership until 2024, then undock its modules to create a standalone base in orbit, the Russian space agency announced Tuesday.

A statement posted to the Russian space agency’s website said a meeting of the Roscosmos science and technical council considered Russia’s future human spaceflight plans, favoring the continued use of the International Space Station until 2024.

Then Russia plans to remove its modules from the International Space Station to form an all-Russian complex in orbit.

The statement said “a configuration of a multi-purpose laboratory module, a (docking) node module, and a scientific power module creates a promising Russian space station to meet the challenges of providing secure access to space (for Russia).”

Russia’s participation in the space station program beyond 2020 has been in doubt since government officials said they were reviewing whether to drop out of the global partnership in the wake of Western sanctions against Russia, which were prompted by the country’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

Russian officials are still finalizing other objectives for its space program from 2016 to 2025 as Russian industry begins consolidating into a government-owned enterprise, a move the country’s leadership says will raise worker wages and improve reliability.

Western sanctions against Russia erected hurdles in the path of what was expected to be a smooth decision in favor of extending the country’s use of the 450-ton orbital laboratory, according to Alexei Krasnov, head of human spaceflight programs at Roscosmos.

Krasnov told reporters in July that Roscosmos submitted a proposal in early 2014 matching NASA’s decision to extend support of the International Space Station from 2020 to 2024. But he said the outcome of the deliberations would be tinted by developments in Ukraine and the U.S. response to the conflict there.

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The Obama administration announced in January 2014 it backed keeping the International Space Station operating until at least 2024, with the possibility to extend its mission to 2028, the 30-year anniversary of the launch of the outpost’s first module.

The Roscosmos science and technology council’s approval sets Russia’s human spaceflight plans until 2025, and another meeting in March will evaluate options for heavy-lift launchers and deep space exploration, said Yuri Koptev, the council’s chairman and a former head of the Russian space agency.

Russia’s space program — as described in the Roscosmos press release — will include a series of robotic missions to lunar orbit and the surface of the moon in the 2020s in preparation for a visit by cosmonauts in the 2030s.

The statement offered no details on the Russian moon mission.

The laboratory module, docking system and scientific power platform Russia intends to use for its follow-on space station are set for launch to the ISS over the next few years after lengthy delays due to funding woes and technical problems.

The statement did not discuss the fate of the oldest Russian components of the International Space Station — the Zvezda service module, the Zarya storage compartment, and smaller docking ports. Most of the older Russian modules will have spent more than 20 years in orbit by 2024, well beyond their original design lifetimes.

Russia currently ferries crews between Earth and the space station, but U.S. commercial capsules are scheduled to begin flying astronauts to the outpost by the end of 2017, ending NASA’s reliance on the Soyuz spacecraft.

Russia will still have responsibility for maintaining the space station’s orbit and steering the complex away from space junk.

The Boeing CST-100 and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft could do limited reboosts of the lab’s altitude, if required, but only the Russian Progress logistics freighter has the power to de-orbit the space station at the end of its lifetime.

The International Space Station’s other partners have not formally signed on for participation in the program after 2020.

The European Space Agency plans to put forward a proposal for more space station funding from European member states at their next high-level budget meeting in 2016, and the head of the Canadian Space Agency said last year Canada would evaluate the value of continuing its contribution to the program before deciding what to do.

Naoki Okumura, president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said in October that Japan would decide by 2016 whether to commit to more years of space station operations.

For all the space station partners — but particularly ESA and JAXA — finding money to pay for the program after 2020 may depend on cutting the cost of operating the complex.

Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Hubble Images a Dusty Galaxy, Home to an Exploding Star

The galaxy pictured here is NGC 4424, located in the constellation of Virgo. It is not visible with the naked eye but has been captured here with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Although it may not be obvious from this image, NGC 4424 is in fact a spiral galaxy. In this image it is seen more or less edge on, but from above, you would be able to see the arms of the galaxy wrapping around its center to give the characteristic spiral form. In 2012, astronomers observed a supernova in NGC 4424 a violent explosion marking the end of a star's life. During a supernova explosion, a single star can often outshine an entire galaxy.

However, the supernova in NGC 4424, dubbed SN 2012cg, cannot be seen here as the image was taken ten years prior to the explosion. Along the central region of the galaxy, clouds of dust block the light from distant stars and create dark patches. To the left of NGC 4424 there are two bright objects in the frame. The brightest is another, smaller galaxy known as LEDA 213994 and the object closer to NGC 4424 is an anonymous star in our Milky Way.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine Larger image

Source: NASA Return to Contents