ALIENS??

By Pam Eastlick

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

I don’t feature articles about space very much in this column, but a couple of entries from the files caught my eye this week. There’s increasing speculation that life is common in our solar system. The Curiosity rover on Mars is actively looking for signs that life once existed on the red planet, and the water moons of Jupiter and Saturn could harbor much bigger life forms than the microscopic bacteria suspected to exist on Mars.

An experiment by the European Space Agency on board the International Space Station is giving some credibility to theories that life on Earth just may have originated in outer space and it’s also helping create some awesome new sunscreens!

In 2008, European scientists sent the suitcase-sized Expose-E experiment package to the Space Station. It was filled with organic compounds and living organisms and the experiment was designed to test their reaction to outer space. When astronauts go on a spacewalk, they spend hours in protective suits to survive the hostile conditions but no such effort was made to protect the bacteria, seeds, lichens and algae attached to the outside of the Space Station in this experiment.

Our atmosphere does a wonderful job of protecting life on Earth by absorbing harmful UV rays and keeping temperatures relatively stable but the space samples in Expose-E were subjected to the full power of the Sun’s rays. They also had to cope with temperatures that changed from -12ºC to +40ºC as they orbited Earth.

The samples returned to Earth in 2009 and the results recently published in a special issue of the journal Astrobiology. Lichens proved to be the ultimate survivors. They went dormant in space but when they returned to Earth, they continued to grow normally. The space lichens have attracted some interest from cosmetic companies who want to study how they survived unprotected in space for 18 months. Their research could lead to new ingredients for sunscreen.

Living organisms that can survive in open space supports the idea of ‘panspermia’: life spreading from one planet to another, or even between solar systems. Organisms might be able to colonize planets by hitching rides on asteroids. ESA will explore this intriguing theory further on future Station missions using different living samples.

The Expose-E experiment where organisms and organic chemicals were exposed to vacuum. Future Expose units will study the effects of outer space on other organisms and organic chemicals. (Credit: ESA)

So, is there a possibility that we may, in fact, be Martians? Who knows, but there’s also news of some puzzling electronic interference on one of our Mars spacecraft that had scientist scratching their heads for a while.

Most people don’t realize that in addition to the Curiosity rover that’s currently exploring the Martian surface, we also have at least three functional spacecraft that orbit Mars and return pictures and data constantly. Although they’ve shown us that there are no large life forms on Mars, one of them recently had a puzzling interruption of its data stream.

The Mars Express spacecraft was dutifully sending back data on the Martian crust when its signal kept getting interrupted. NASA scientists had no idea what was causing it. Now researchers at Boston University have an answer and no, it’s not the aliens, it’s the Sun.

They analyzed ion and electron densities at various altitudes in the Martian atmosphere following a solar flare. Very high-energy protons ejected from the Sun during a flare strike carbon dioxide atoms in the Martian atmosphere so hard they knock loose an electron, creating a free electron and a positive ion. If enough of these electrons and ions build up in the atmosphere, they interfere with radio waves like the ones sent out by the Mars Express.

Life that survives in outer space and the Sun causing trouble on Mars. The universe is a strange and wonderful place!

Happenings in the Sky

By Pam Eastlick

Greetings all! I’ve just returned from viewing the total solar eclipse in Cairns Australia which happened on Wednesday morning. Interestingly enough, although Guam was far outside the path of totality, there was just a little bit of eclipse here too. Don’t worry that you missed something spectacular though. There was only a small sliver covered when the Sun rose on Wednesday and it wasn’t worth trying to see, especially since staring at the Sun is a good way to damage your eyes!

There are a couple of things happening this weekend that will be easier to see. There’ll be a smiley face crescent Moon near Mars tonight in the western sky after sunset, but the big news is space rocks. This weekend is the peak time for the Leonid meteor shower. Last month’s Orionids were a bit of a bust and I’m afraid they’re not predicting a great Leonid shower this year. The good news is that since new Moon was Wednesday, there’s no Moon to block your view of the meteors. The Leonids are predicted to peak tomorrow morning before dawn. You can expect to see about 20 meteors an hour or a meteor every three minutes.

Meteor showers are notoriously hard to predict though because they’re comet trails that are wide bands of debris and not single point sources. So a meteor shower usually lasts several days. The peak of last year’s Leonid meteor shower actually occurred about 12 hours before the predicted time.

Whenever the peak of the shower occurs, your only time to see the Leonids from Guam will be between midnight and sunrise any morning this weekend. Because Earth crosses the dusty comet path in roughly the same place in its orbit every year, a meteor shower has a radiant point; a place in the sky where the meteors come from.

The radiant point for the Leonids is in the constellation Leo the Lion. Leo rises in our sky just after midnight and will be high overhead in the east just before dawn. So if you’re an early riser, or you wake up in the wee hours and can’t get back to sleep, go out and watch the eastern sky. You’ll see leftovers from the dawn of time hitting the earthly windshield.

You’ll also see an incredibly bright beacon in the eastern sky. That’s not an airplane or a UFO; it’s the planet Venus. Venus will be 20 degrees above the eastern horizon at 5:30 a.m. and you’ll see a bright triangle of stars. Venus is the top ‘star’ on the right, Arcturus, the 4^th brightest star is the left point of the triangle and that ‘star’ a fist-width below Venus isn’t a star either. That’s Saturn. The bright star very close to Venus on the right is Spica, the 15^th brightest star. If you turn completely around and measure three fist-widths above the western horizon you’ll see another bright star. That one isn’t a star either, it’s Jupiter.

Saturn and Venus are headed for a very close rendezvous later this month when they’ll be less than a degree apart. Get up early and watch the show every morning as Venus gets closer and closer to Saturn. Pre-dawn skies are breathtaking. Your eyes are already adjusted to the dark and you’ll see things you could never see in the evening. Rise early this weekend and catch planets and a meteor shower in action.

THE GRAND DESIGN

By Pam Eastlick

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

I’m sure that most of you are aware that I’m ‘the Star Lady’ and that I run the Planetarium at the University of Guam but in this column, I try to feature all sorts of scientific news. However, next week we have a couple of very interesting and unusual sky events that you’ll want to know about for a couple of reasons.

Although you probably missed it, there was a partial solar eclipse over Guam on Monday morning, the 21^st of May. I called it the Commuter Eclipse because it happened between 7 and 9 a.m. The Moon only covered about a third of the Sun and not too many people saw it here because of the clouds.

Next Monday evening, 4 June, we’re going to have a partial lunar eclipse. Now lunar eclipses aren’t particularly unusual: there are usually two lunar eclipses each year and they also occur in pairs with solar eclipses. Whenever there’s a solar eclipse at new Moon, there’s always a lunar eclipse visible somewhere on the Earth either at the full Moon two weeks before the solar eclipse or two weeks after.

But here’s the unusual thing. Solar and lunar eclipses do occur in pairs, but it is not common at all to be able to see both pairs. In the twenty years that I’ve been the Star Lady, we’ve never been able to see both the lunar and solar eclipse of an eclipse pair.

You may have missed the partial solar eclipse, but you stand a pretty fair chance of seeing the partial lunar eclipse on Monday. The Earth’s shadow will cover about a third of the Moon just as the Moon’s shadow covered about a third of the Sun in the solar eclipse.

To see it, just go outside next Monday night, the 4^th of June and find the full Moon in the eastern sky. The eclipse starts at 8:00 p.m. (although there won’t be much to see), reaches maximum coverage just after 9:00 p.m. and will be over by 10:00 p.m.

I’ve commented many times that watching a lunar eclipse is sort of like watching paint dry so I recommend that you go outside a few minutes before 9:00 p.m. and find the Moon. If it’s cloudy, keep checking until the clouds part in the Moon’s vicinity. And, of course, since Pacific Islanders and most Asians have the belief that a lunar eclipse can harm an unborn baby, if you’re pregnant you might want to stay indoors on Monday night.

There’s a much rarer event happening on Wednesday of next week. In fact, it’s literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. We’re having a transit of Venus. A transit occurs when Venus passes directly between the Earth and the Sun and appears as a small moving black dot on the Sun’s face. Venusian transits occur in pairs eight years apart and we saw a portion of the first transit of this pair in 2004 on Guam. The next transit of Venus is in 2115 and trust me, you’ll miss it!

Seeing a transit of Venus involves looking at the Sun and that’s a dangerous proposition. You can use a mirror to reflect the Sun’s image into a darkened area or you can use a pair of #15 welder’s goggles to look directly at the Sun. Venus is large enough that you don’t need magnification to see it. But remember YOU DO NEED EYE PROTECTION!

I’ll have some viewing stations set up in the covered walkway between the Science Building and the classroom annex to the north of the building on Transit Day. The transit will start shortly after 8:00 a.m. and after that, Venus will make its slow progress across the face of the Sun. It will leave the Sun’s face around 2:30 p.m. and I plan to be there for the entire transit. (Barring necessity breaks).

Like the lunar eclipse, watching the entire Venusian transit would be very much like watching paint dry, but there is this to think about. You’ll never see another Venusian transit. So why don’t you stop by UOG sometime between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the 6^th of June and witness a once-in-a-lifetime event with the Star Lady.

I’m going to Cairns Australia in November for the total solar eclipse with the nice folks at KPRG and I’ll have information about that trip. I hope you can join me to witness celestial mechanics in action!

MISSIONS TO MARS

By Pam Eastlick

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

It’s been a long time since I dipped into the space file and since that’s the file that’s really near and dear to my heart, it’s time. I am honored to be a Solar System Ambassador. One of the things I do is participate in their wonderful webinars and pass that direct information on to you. Last week, we learned about the latest rover mission to Mars, and the astounding way they plan to land it.

Our Mars rovers just keep getting bigger and bigger. Sojourner, the first Mars rover, launched in the ‘90’s, was about two feet across. Spirit and Opportunity, the next pair of explorers, have decks the size of card tables and although Spirit stopped phoning home two years ago, Opportunity is still going strong. Spirit and Opportunity landed in (are you ready?) 2004! for a one-year mission. I think both these rovers deserve a round of applause!

The next rover is called Curiosity and it’s already on its way to Mars. This one isn’t card table-sized, it’s car-sized and the folks at JPL have come up with a novel way to land all that weight. Spirit and Opportunity were encased in air bags and they bounced their way to a safe landing. Curiosity is far too heavy for balloons, so they’re bringing her down with rockets.

The landing spacecraft will first deploy a parachute. After that slows the free fall a bit, the engines on board the descent stage will fire and fly the rover down to within a mile of the surface. The rover will then be lowered from the bottom of the descent stage on three ropes called a ‘bridle’. The configuration is called the ‘sky crane’.

When the sky crane senses that the rover has touched down, the bridle is cut and the sky crane flies a safe distance from the rover before it crash lands.

The sky crane flies the rover to its destination (Artist drawing courtesy NASA)

Unfortunately, I can see a lot of places where this could go wrong and I wish NASA the best of luck when touchdown occurs next August. This rover is set up to do a lot of complex science and I’ll be rooting for Curiosity all the way.

Curiosity on Mars (Artist drawing courtesy NASA)

You may remember that the Russians also launched a Mars mission at the same time that Curiosity went up last fall. You may also remember that Phobos Grunt (gotta love those Russian names!) failed to leave orbit and eventually reentered Earth’s atmosphere and burned.

What you probably don’t know is that Phobos Grunt went directly over Guam about half an hour before it augured into the southern Pacific off the coast of South America. It happened on the morning of 16 January, so if you saw a bright streak of light in the sky sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m., guess what it was?

And there’s other interesting news about Spirit and Opportunity. They both have rock drilling tools just like Curiosity does and there’s an interesting story about the collars that protect the drill cables. In September 2001, Honeybee Robotics employees in lower Manhattan were building the grinding tools for Spirit and Opportunity. And of course, we all remember what happened in Manhattan in September of 2001.

The aluminum cuffs that serve as cable shields on each of the rock abrasion tools on Spirit and Opportunity were made from aluminum recovered from the destroyed World Trade Center towers. The metal bears the image of an American flag and is a fitting tribute to the people who died on 9/11. One day, both rovers will be silent. In the cold, dry environment of Mars, the onboard memorials to victims of the Sept. 11 attack could remain in good condition for millions of years.

VOYAGING

By Pam Eastlick

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

Greetings everyone, I hope you were able to see the total lunar eclipse last Saturday night. It was spectacular!

And now, I’d like to take a little poll. I want you to think about the electronic equipment in your home. How old is your TV? How old is your computer? Your cell phone? Your DVD player? Now, try to figure out the age of the oldest piece of functioning electronic gear in your house. I’ve got an ancient phone that’s probably 25 years old and that’s the oldest one for me. Does anyone have anything that’s 35 years old and still works?

Well, NASA does. In 1977 the Voyager space probes were launched and both of them are still working just fine, thank you very much, and they’re still returning astounding scientific data. And after almost 35 years, they’re finally leaving the Sun. No, not just the solar system. The Sun.

It is perfectly true to say that ALL the planets are inside the Sun because the Sun not only puts out energy, it also puts out particles. The solar system is embedded in a HUGE sphere of particles that extends far beyond the orbit of Neptune (and Pluto!). It does eventually end, however, and where it ends is called the heliopause (literally translates as ‘Sun stop’).

Both the Voyages are poised just inside the heliopause and they’ve discovered strange and wonderful things (some of which I’ve talked about in this column). Now, for the first time, the Voyagers have detected Lyman alpha lines from our own Milky Way.

So what’s a Lyman alpha line? It’s a line that appears in a spectrograph that shows where a hydrogen electron transitions from one particular energy level to another. We’ve seen lots of Doppler-shifted Lyman alpha lines generated by bright energy sources in other galaxies, but we can’t see the Milky Way’s Lyman alpha lines because our own Sun is so bright it drowns them out, just like city lights drown out all but the brightest stars.

So the Voyagers are now detecting two different kinds of Lyman alpha signals. Some come from those distant galaxies, and the other is from our own Milky Way, something we’re seeing for the very first time. The Lyman alpha signals from distant galaxies help astronomers understand how and when galaxies form.

The Voyagers are now in the heliosheath (just before the actual heliopause) and the Lyman alpha lines produced by the Milky Way are helping the astronomers generate a crude map of the actual edge of our Sun. The Voyagers are at that edge and they’re peering out into infinity.

Unfortunately, they won’t be able to do it forever. The Voyagers are powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium 238 and the Voyager astronomers estimate that both spacecraft will run out of power somewhere around 2025. They no longer rotate the spaceships to conserve power and data are recorded from a fixed direction. But both spacecraft are still returning data and making new discoveries right now. How much 35 year old electronic gear did you say you had that still worked?

I’m reminded of that quote by Sir Isaac Newton. You know, the one that goes “I’m sitting on the beach playing with pebbles while the vast and undiscovered ocean of knowledge stretches before me.” Thanks to the Voyagers, we’re just beginning to enter that vast, undiscovered ocean.