"Our
loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.
Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves
but also
to that Cosmos,
ancient and vast, from which we spring." Dr Carl Sagan (RIP).
Drakes Equation Andromeda Space Images & Video Manned flight (ISS & Shuttle) Aristarchus
Two of the most memorable experiences I had in recent years were firstly, in Dorset UK, in 1983. I took my young son out at midnight to go satellite tracking and we looked at a heavens unspoiled by city lights and pollution - thousands or millions of stars glistened in a clear sky. It was breathtaking. Secondly, in 1998, my wife and I stayed at my sisters in Cornwall. Her bungalow is on top of a hill overlooking St Ives on the right and Penzance on the left. I went out to look at the night sky and was struck by a scene of infinite beauty - the whole sky was pitch black, no lights, no clouds, no moon, no pollution, nothing except a blanket of millions of stars! The entire Milky War was spread out over my head - what a sight! As if that wasn't enough, I had some fairly powerful binoculars with me, so the sky became full of stars even in the "dark" patches. I looked to the east and saw a particularly bright object, it was Jupiter in all her glory, through the bino's I could see three moons clearly. Now I know how Galileo must have felt, astounded and bewildered. When I got home to the sprawling metropolis of Birmingham, the same sky, yielded hardly a glimmer due to artificial light - how horrible! City people are missing such a spectacle. My first lunar eclipse was observed in the dark skies of Devon, in Tiverton to be exact. Much better than the cities!
Ever since I was a child, I have fantasized about the night sky. Dreamt about flying to the stars, about alien life forms coming here. Even then, before all the current UFO hysteria in films etc, I used to wonder what would happen if one landed. I have spent a lifetime watching meteors hurtle to destruction in our atmosphere. I have seen a UFO too! During the "Cold War" I observed hundreds of satellites pass over my head, now I have to really search for them, the best are the polar satellites. Every now and then the new International Space Station passes overhead. But Great Britain is not exactly underneath the crossroads of local space!
As a youngster I would avidly watch all those programmes on TV showing the Mercury space shots, and then Gemini. Cheering the Americans and booing the Soviet successes, brainwashed by the propaganda I suppose. The US propaganda, even in space programmes ,were quite obviously anti soviet! I would devour anything in the media, cutting out all those newspaper pictures of newly discovered terrain in our solar system. Those first pics of Mercury, the cloud cover on Venus, the "canals" of Mars. What an age - so many discoveries - such spectacular successes. The tragedies too - that awful day when I saw the news about the death of those three astronauts, Grissom, Chaffee & White. The feeling of dismay. Then the same feelings when I sat in my living room watching Challenger as it rose to its funeral pyre. Watching live on TV seven explorers disintegrate before my eyes. They did reach the final frontier. I watched every footage of TV on Apollo missions, including all those beautiful moon walks and "rover" drives across the lunar landscape! Oh I wish! And that lunar astronaut doing the Galileo gravity test - it worked!
The spectacular success of the Voyager spacecrafts opened still further the boundaries of human knowledge. Those never to be forgotten pictures of Jupiter, its moons, its rings. Of Saturn and its moons and spectacular rings (who does not know what the Cassini division is now!). Onwards to Uranus and Neptune and into the realms of interstellar space. Will a Klingon Bird of Prey, eons from now, spot an old piece of space debris, voyager 2, and blast it into millions of bits for target practise, just as in the Star Trek film? Who knows what is in the future? (Do we humans have a future?).
Voyagers
Surpass 10,000 Days Of Operation
The intrepid twin Voyager spacecraft, launched about two weeks apart in the
summer of 1977 and now heading out of the solar system, continue making history.
On
Jan. 5, 2005 the Voyager
team noted a milestone with a nice round number: 10,000 days since Voyager 2's
launch. On
Jan. 21, 2005 Voyager 1
also passed 10,000 days. Both spacecraft are still going strong and are
returning valuable science data. Each Voyagers' cosmic ray detector,
magnetometer, plasma wave detector and low-energy charged particle detector all
still operational. In addition, the Ultraviolet Spectrometer on Voyager 1 and
the Plasma Science instrument on Voyager 2 continue to return data. Both
spacecraft are expected to continue to operate and send back valuable data until
at least the year 2020.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tenthop.html 2011 - For the
past two years or so, Voyager 1 has detected phenomena unlike any encountered
before in all its years of exploration. These observations and what they may
infer about the approach to the termination shock have been the subject of
on-going scientific debates. While some of the scientist believed that the
passage past the termination shock had already begun, some of the phenomena
observed were not what would have been expected. So the debate continues while
even more data are being returned and analyzed. However, it is certain that the
spacecraft are in a new regime of space. The observed plasma wave oscillations
and increased energetic particle activity may only be the long-awaited precursor
to the termination shock. If we have indeed encountered the termination shock,
Voyager 1 would be the first spacecraft to enter the solar system's final
frontier, a vast expanse where wind from the Sun blows hot against thin gas
between the stars: interstellar space.
Those damn shadows get everywhere! (Babylon 5) One of the best ever sci-fi TV series and wow - that Susan Ivanova!
What's that above you, moving across the sky? Check it out with a visit to NASA Space tracker linked below - real time updates on main Earth orbital spacecraft
Thanks to NASA, JPL and others for some great pictures! Visit NASA at www.nasa.gov
Images - NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
http://www.astronomy.com/home.asp
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/ Deep Space 1
http://ulysses-ops.jpl.esa.int/ Ulysses Mission
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/ Odyssey Mission
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/spacecraft.html "Live" Spacecraft Tracker
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/index.html NASA TV
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ntvweb.html - NASA webtv
http://www.sciforum.com - recommended forum site
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ - You too can help! Click Here
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/ - Window on the Universe
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/io/
- IO Factsheet
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/europa/
- Europa Factsheet
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/europa/
- Callisto Factsheet
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/news/missionnews.html
- Mission Updates
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/voyager.htm
http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/2009/12/voyager-spacecrafts-solve-fluf.html
