Jupiter is One Crazy Planet

“Now that she’s back in the atmosphere

With drops of Jupiter in her hair,

hey, hey, hey.”   

              Train  “Drops of Jupiter”

No way would any girl want drops of Jupiter in her hair! 

The super-cold hydrogen clouds would freeze her, or the liquid metallic hydrogen surrounding its core mantle would melt her.

But it’s okay to mesmerize her with the sights of Jupiter…just look up at the bright planet Jupiter directly overhead at dark.  The king of the planets is wandering through Gemini Twins, and will be with us through the Spring of 2014.

Jupiter from the Hubble Space Telescope

With any telescope, the giant planet can be seen as a flattened disk with four, star-like moons surrounding it. Two dark bands and grey polar caps are easy to see, and with a serious backyard telescope the detail is amazing.

Jupiter has three times the mass of all the other planets combined—yet it is 1,000 times smaller than the Sun. To put the gigantic size in another way, every planet, moon and asteroid in the Solar System can comfortably fit inside the globe.

There is probably no solid surface to Jupiter.  Most of the 88,800-mile diameter globe is filled with an exotic mixture of – 100 degrees F. cold liquid hydrogen and helium. 

Deep inside the gravity pressure cooker of Jupiter, there may be an Earth-size rocky or liquid core of metallic hydrogen spinning many times a minute.  This creates an electric dynamo, making Jupiter emit more radiation than it receives from the Sun.

One of the many amazing discoveries by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft from 1995-2003 was the intense radiation belts around Jupiter that electrify the surrounding space to a million degrees hot! 

If we could see this electromagnetic system around the “star” Jupiter when looking up tonight, it would be a circle as big as our Full Moon! The NASA spacecraft Juno is headed to Jupiter to study this incredible, high-energy environment.

      The high-altitude hydrogen clouds we see in a telescope are only 5,000 miles thick at the most, just a fraction of the planet’s 44,432-mile radius.

      These cloud tops are an incredibly cold -230 degrees below zero.  And Jupiter has a thin, ropy ring girdling its equator like a hoola-hoop—first discovered by the 1970s Voyager space craft that NASA sent whizzing by. 

      The official moon count is reaching 70 as small, asteroid-like ones are added by advanced research. 

      The Jovian moons we see in a telescope are the same one’s discovered by Galileo in 1610.  Callisto and Ganymede are icy moons larger than the planet Mercury. 

IO, EUROPA, GANYMEDE & CALLISTO

      Two moons, Io and Europa are active worlds in their own right. Both are about the size of Earth’s own Moon.  Io has at least 30 volcanoes spewing sulfuric material into the inner space of Jupiter. Europa is a prime sign for extraterrestrial life in our Solar System.  Europa’s icy surface is fractured with signs of the liquid water heated underneath the alien surface features. Planetary scientists have lobbied NASA for years to provide funds to send a spacecraft to Europa and probe beneath the ice for life.  

The other moons of Jupiter range in size from 1,000 miles to 10 miles in diameter, many with irregular shapes and different compositions.  Some can be seen in serious backyard telescopes. 

Through even the cheapest backyard telescopes, you can watch the four Galilean moons move from side to side of the planet. The moons pass in front of or go behind planet and disappear for a while.  Sometimes all four moons are one side. This Jovian celestial ballet is predictable for centuries in advance.

Though huge in size, Jupiter’s clouds roar around the globe once every 10 hours on the average.  The rotation is so quick it flattens the planet! And inside the clouds are giant cyclones, like the huge Great Red Spot, three times the size of Earth and visible for more than 300 years.  There are intense electrical storms, and incredible aurora at both magnetic poles.   

THE GREAT RED SPOT

Jupiter is located next to the asteroid belt and its immense gravitational influence actually sucks in passing comets and errant asteroids.

That means that Jupiter is taking hits for the inner planets of the Solar System, our Earth included.  Once a rare event to record, amateur astronomers are now recording two or three hits on Jupiter each year with their automated backyard telescopes and digital video cameras.

Just look around the solid bodies of the Solar System and one sees the damage done by violent impacts that mostly occurred in the first quarter of our 4 billion year existence. 

Our Moon alone has more than 100,000 visible impacts, and the planet Mercury is also densely covered with craters.  Natural erosion on Venus and our Earth has wiped away all but the most recent impacts.  On Mars, its less dynamic atmosphere has allowed many crater impacts to still be visible.

      Just like the dramatic impact scars caused by the 1994 comet collision, something struck Jupiter's backside July 19^th causing a supersonic reaction with the atmosphere that created an energy explosion equivalent to dozens of atomic bombs. 

      Yes, if that cosmic debris had impacted Earth, there would be a global catastrophe no matter whether it hit the land or ocean.

      And right at this moment, there are 1,067 Near Earth Asteroids (NEAR) in orbit about the Sun that could smack into us.  They are being monitored by NASA...we hope!  You can check them out at www.spaceweather.com.

      And you can check out all the amazing spacecraft photos and latest news about Jupiter on many websites, including NASA and Jet Propulsion Lab. 

Reconnect with Antiquity Amid the Starry Sky  

“The sad and solemn night

Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;

The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;

All through her silent watches, gliding slow,

Her constellations come,

and climb the heavens, and go.” 

                       William Cullen Bryant circa 1860                                                                                                                                                                             

       A moonless week like this one is what turns people on to amateur astronomy by appealing to the genetic, celestial DNA that seems to flow through mankind.

       And if you go out and recognize the mighty Orion the Hunter taking command of the night, you are well on the way to being an amateur astronomer.

       To gaze upon the stars, the Moon and planets is to make a connection with every human being who has looked up at the dazzling night sky and wondered.

       That’s because when it comes to the pattern of stars tossed the sky, no one owns the original.  These are the same stars of Orion—or Taurus or Gemini—that all people who’ve walked the Earth have laid their eyes upon.

Ancient Zodiac Mosaic

       It’s exciting for me to think about not just great astronomers like Galileo and Copernicus looking at these same stars. But people like the Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Jesus and the Egyptian builders of the pyramids, all saw the same stars I do tonight.

       There are 6,000 or so stars seen with the naked eye from both hemispheres of Earth, and their positions have changed very little during the 10,000 years of civilized man.

       To the stargazers over the centuries, these patterns of stars have become friendly acquaintances whose positions give us a sense of time and familiarity with the seasons.

       Monuments like Stonehenge were built to the rhythm of the stellar seasons, while civilizations worshiped the sighting of certain stars which seemed to trigger the time to plant or harvest.  And then there are the mystical events that often terrorized ancient people when the Sun disappeared behind the Moon, and the Moon disappears in the Earth’s shadow—the total solar and lunar eclipses.

       Even though each star in the night is moving through the Universe at speeds around 30,000 mph, the distance between the stars is so vast that it takes millions of years to see any change in the familiar constellations.   

       So, nothing seen tonight in 2014 is any different than what Moses of The Bible saw thousands of years ago. Confucius was inspired by the same stars that the writers of the Psalms when they so beautifully penned the praises to the Creator.

       “The heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.”  Psalm 19:1

Photo by MarQ

       After years of watching the parade of constellations rise and set, a history of people, places and things become engrained in the subconscious of the avid stargazer. And it is those memories, like seeing distant relatives, which draws me to the stars, no matter what time of year.

       But Winter is always special, as the brightest stars and boldest constellation patterns are on display.  Many of the brightest stars of the night have distinctly Arabic names, kept by the star-mappers over antiquity.

       Orion’s shoulders are Betelgeuse and Bellatrix; his knees are Rigel and Saiph. The three stars of the distinctly angled belt of the giant hunter are, from left to right, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

The name of each bright star adds to the personality of the night sky. Let your imagination run wild as you realize each star is like a human—a specific size and temperament—each star with its own alien planets and their moons, as well as possible comets, asteroids and other objects yet unknown.

These are also the winter nights to behold the brightest star of all, Sirius, well below Orion and also called the “Dog Star” in the Big Dog, Canis Major. And way above it is Procyon, in the Little Dog, Canis Minor. 

       Above Orion is the “V”-shaped stars making the horns of Taurus the Bull, one of the oldest recognized star patterns going back to forgotten civilizations.  The animal’s eye is reddish Aldebaran, “The Follower.” Just what this star is following is in the Bull’s shoulder, the cluster of Seven Sisters, or The Pleiades, a source of celestial folklore from the Chinese to the Native North Americans. Another fainter star cluster, The Hyades is at the point of the “V,” and they are the half-sisters of The Pleiades in mythology.

       A purely Roman constellation is above Orion and another ancient one.  Founding brothers of Rome, mythical Castor and Pollux head the side by side string of stars making up Gemini the Twins. 

       A Greek man with a strange name of Auriga is the inventor of the chariot.  And he is immortalized by a lopsided wheel shape group of stars. Auriga’s brightest star, Capella, is a yellow one.

       Different cultures in different eras of mankind have arranged the stars and given them names in their native tongues. Whole cultures have put the stars into patterns that immortalize their gods and heroes.  Today, the names of 88 constellations are universally agreed upon, as are the stars names on the modern celestial charts.

       The patterns of the constellations look the way they are only from our perspective in the Solar System. 

       From any planet or object orbiting our Sun, the constellations look the same.  But if we rocketed to the nearest stars, that would change the perspective and alter the familiar dot-to-dot patterns. 

       Connecting those points of light into arbitrary formations have merely served as landmarks to navigate the celestial realm as seen from Earth. Some stars are near, some are far, but seen side-by-side they make up patterns that are given borders by their specific sky coordinates.  

Photo by MarQ

       Modern light pollution has robbed the night of its faintest stars once seen by the naked eye. Few of us can see the Milky Way from our own suburban backyards.  And the number of stars realistically seen from an average neighborhood is maybe half of what it was just 50 years ago.

       When someone gets in the country or mountains on a dark, moonless night and takes the time to look up, their dark adapted eyes can leave them breathless with the splendor of the night.

       The many multitudes of stars that can be seen from a dark observing sight gives the 21^st Century stargazer a hint at what could be seen in the night sky just 200 years ago when there was no electricity.  For thousands of years, the skies were so dark for civilized cultures to ponder.  Modern man can hardly imagine the impact.  The false science of astrology is one lasting influence. 

       Again, unlike the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre, or the statute of the Pieta at the Vatican, no one owns the original when it comes to the night vault of stars overhead.

       They are there for the asking, ready for you to examine, marvel at or mediate upon. 

       Looking up, like every person who has walked the Earth, gives you some cosmic connection to be enjoyed and cherished.

       And this moonless Winter week is a terrific time to make that connection…something I’ll be enjoying, and hope you will, too.  

      

      

       Martians Messin’ With NASA Rover? 

              A true Martian “now you don’t see it, and now you do” bit of mystery is fueling the alien conspiracy experts demanding an answer to who left a jelly doughnut right in front of Mars rover Opportunity.

       Even Star Trek renowned actor William Shatner has publically asked NASA what’s up with the mystery rock on Mars. Shatner poised the question via Twitter during a NASA press conference on Opportunity’s latest discovery.

       “Have you ruled out Martian rock throwers?” tweeted Shatner, whose role as Capt. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise is one of Hollywood’s iconic characters.  

       To get you up to speed, while perched in its stationary winter position, Opportunity photographed the rocks near it one day, and 12 days later on Jan. 8 a mystery rock appeared.  The white rock has a red center, and is about the size and shape of a jelly doughnut. The information has made its rounds in the UFO circles, fueling the Internet with all kinds of speculation.

       Mars Rover lead scientist Steve Squyres said the object, called “Pinnacle Rock,” is just that, a stony rock—but unlike any seen before. The space scientist thinks the rock is flipped over, exposing an underside that might not have seen sunlight for millions of years. Squyres answered actor Shatner’s tweet by saying he’d look out for any Martians. 

       Conspiracy writer Rhawn Joseph, has filed a suit against NASA for withholding information about the obviously alien object. The advocate of extraterrestrial life says the Martian rock is a living thing that is growing, like a fungus. In papers filed in a Florida court, Joseph calls for NASA to thoroughly examine the object.  This is exactly what they are doing. 

What is it?

       Keep in mind, this new, “now you see it, yesterday you didn’t” Martian rock is in front of Opportunity, an old rover.  The new rover, Curiosity, is on the other side of Mars in an ancient stream bed at the base of a mountain.

The facts so far and NASA’s best hunch as to what’s happen:

       Analysis with Opportunity’s arm of scientific instruments shows the rock to be nothing like any rocks sampled before. And it literally appeared out of nowhere.  Analysis has shown the rock contains twice the amount of magnesium than any other on Mars. It also has sulfur and manganese—all components of volcanic activity like occurred on Mars two billion years ago.

       Hunches where the Martian “jelly doughnut” came from are:

       -- One of the many frequent dust devils in this part of Mars deposited it Wizard of Oz style.  These tiny twisters have cleaned off the solar panels of Opportunity many times, allowing the batteries to recharge.

       -- The stone is debris from a nearby meteor impact that happened between Opportunity’s Martian days 3,528 and 3,540;

-- The rock was kicked out of one of six wheels of the golf cart-sized Opportunity.  Maybe it’s been stuck awhile during the amazing rover’s 25-mile, 10 year trek across a once wet lake;

-- Aliens left it as a subtle message to mess with us humans on Earth. Don’t laugh. There are extraterrestrial investigators that are dead serious about this. .

This isn’t one of those trick-of-the-light mirages that perpetuated the phony “Face on Mars” hysteria of the 1980s.  That famous image by the 1976 Viking 1 orbiter has been photographed dozens of times by the sophisticated orbiters of the 21^st Century and revealed to be nothing more than an interesting rocky plateau.

"Face on Mars" plateau various lighting  NASA photo

As for what this Martian mystery rock will turn out to be, the verdict is still out. And Steve Squires and his team of Mars experts at Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California are on top of it, in full view of the media and social network. Thus the Jan. 23^rd press conference on Facebook and Twitter.  What was a promised 3-month job for Opportunity’s guaranteed life expectancy has turned into a decade of incredible information gathering.

Opportunity has not moved in six weeks as it waits for the Martian Summer Solstice this week on Feb. 15 and warmer weather to recharge its batteries for power to the wheels.  It is at the rim of a large crater named Endeavour.

Opportunity and its shadow

Mars has become a familiar home to a core group of less than 50 planetary scientists around the world.  They’ll figure it out…but it probably won’t satisfy those alien advocates.  Look for more news at your local grocery store rack of National Enquirer and Globe. 

Apollo 14 Moon Landing Redeemed NASA

 

Apollo 14 moonship Antares February 5, 1972

       The Moon’s crescent to full phase appearance in the evening skies for a couple weeks each month should always serve as a reminder of how far mankind has traveled. 

As your footprints are set firmly in your backyard looking at the dark-splotched globe, there are twelve sets of human footprints that have kicked up moon dust in six places on our celestial neighbor 240,000 miles away.

I never miss an opportunity to remind people that 24 humans made the quarter-million mile journey to the Moon and back. And this is the week of NASA’s triumphant Apollo 14 mission that landed Feb. 5, 1971 almost in the center of the alien world we see in the sky.

       Redeeming the near fatal failure of Apollo 13 in April 1970, the mission of Apollo 14 less than a year later showed the technological prowess of America to solve a problem in front of the eyes of the world.

Stu Roosa, Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchel
Apollo 14 Moon voyagers

       The back-story of the Apollo 14 is an interesting one involving the first American in space, Alan Shepard, and his famous golf shot on the Moon. Then, there are the telepathic experiments, unbeknownst to NASA, by the sixth man on the Moon, Edgar Mitchell, and the red-headed forest ranger Stu Roosa, who seeded the world with “moon trees.”

       Shepard was an American hero who on May 5, 1961 took a 15 minute, suborbital trip to the edge of outer space, rocketing off Cape Canaveral inside Mercury spaceship called “Freedom 7” and landing near Bermuda.  While training for a Gemini mission, he was diagnosed with an inner ear disorder called Meniere’s Syndrome that affected his walking balance.  Shepard was given a desk job, sharing rein over the astronaut corps with Deke Slayton, another Mercury astronaut grounded because of heart arrhythmia. Together, they chose the crews for Gemini and Apollo. 

Shepard in 1961 Mercury spacesuit

In 1968, Shepard had ear surgery to fix his problem and was cleared for flight.  He put himself on the Apollo 13 flight crew, but later moved to Apollo 14 for more training as NASA’s oldest astronaut at age 47 when his Saturn V rocket roared off launch pad 34-B.  Shepard died in 1998 from leukemia.

The third member of the crew, Stu Roosa, orbited the Moon in the Command Module called Kitty Hawk for two days. He would have commanded and walked on the Moon with Apollo 18 had the mission not been cancelled.

Roosa was a former smoke jumper, and was coaxed by the Forest Service to take 500 seeds of trees with him to lunar orbit.  The seeds were germinated and grown by the Forest Service and disseminated throughout America.  The “Moon Trees” include included Sycamore, Sweet gum, Redwood, Douglas Fir and Loblolly Pine (one of which is alive and well on the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee).   Roosa died in 1994 of pancreatitis.

       The destination for the third landing was the original target for Apollo 13, with a little rougher terrain than the flat land of Apollo 11 and 12.  Called Fra Mauro, the hilly moonscape is near the middle of the Moon.  Fresh debris tossed out of 1,000-foot wide Cone Crater millions of years ago was the goal, and Shepard hit the target with the moonship called Antares.

Apollo 14 landing site at Fra Mauro
3D rendering from NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter 

       NASA added a big handheld drill to bore into the surface and bring back three-foot core samples of lunar history.  Also, a wheeled rickshaw to carry tools was toted around with some effort in the very fluffy areas of moon dust, some places a foot deep.

       A color, vidicon tube television camera sent back the live images of the two, four-and-a-half-hour Extra Vehicular Activities (EVAs) to the public. For the first time the commander, Shepard, was easily distinguished from Mitchell by the red stripes on his arms and legs. That red stripe to tell spacewalkers apart is still used today aboard the International Space Station. Though the videos from the Moon were in color and clear, the American public wasn’t as captivated by the lunar exploration as they were with Apollo 11 in July 1969.  And on Apollo 12, the video camera was damaged when accidently pointed at the Sun, eliminating any live television from the second Moon landing in November 1969.

Mitchell trots with map

       The alien world of one-sixth gravity proved a formidable match for the two astronauts, who struggled uphill in ankle deep moon dust in an attempt to reach the rim of Cone Crater and have a look inside.  But tired, disoriented and running out of oxygen time in their moon suits, Shepard and Mitchell had to reluctantly turn back.  Photos taken in 2009 by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showed their foot tracks stopping just 30 yards from the rim!

Shepard holding core sample tube
lunar rickshaw carried tools

The two astronauts worked hard and efficiently, bringing back almost 100 pounds of moon rocks and core drillings. They deployed a science station called ALSEP and detonated explosive charges for detection by a seismometer.

TV image of Shepard's golf shot

TThen, there was a little time for athletics.  Before walking up the ladder to end the second moonwalk, Shepard took out of his leg pocket a Wilson six iron golf club and stuck it to a sampling tool metal pole.  Then he dropped two Titleist golf balls on the lunar surface, and with one inflated spacesuit arm took a couple mighty golf swings!  Actually, Shepard needed several swings in his stiff moon suit to smack the golf balls.

Not to be outdone, Mitchell took a tool handle and flung it like a javelin across the Moon’s surface. It was a moment of distraction in the serious business of Moon exploration, and captured on video.  You can check it out on YouTube, along with all the moonwalks and NASA space highlights.

Shepard and Mitchell spend 33 hours on the Moon, each less than 10 hours outside.  Meanwhile, Roosa was busy in the Apollo mothership Kitty Hawk, making 13 orbits as the most isolated human from Earth, taking hundreds of valuable photos of future Apollo landing sites.

Enjoying the triumphant, three-day trip back in their mothership called Kitty Hawk, the trio landed Feb. 9, 1971 in the Pacific Ocean.  They were quarantined aboard the Navy ship New Orleans against any moon germs until Feb. 27—the last moon voyagers to be kept in isolation. 

       Shepard’s conquest of the Moon was symbolic as he was the only member of the “Original Seven” Mercury astronauts to have met President John F. Kennedy and fulfill his challenge to land a man on the Moon.

       Shepard was the quintessential jet-jockey test pilot, cocky and living the fast life.  In fact, the character Garrett Breedlove portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1983 movie, Terms of Endearment, is partially based on Shepard’s bravado. He parlayed his Mercury flight into the first astronaut millionaire through real estate investments around Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

 In May 2011, the US Postal Service issued a first-class stamp in Shepard’s honor as the first American in space, the first US stamp to depict a specific astronaut.

The sixth man to set foot on an alien world, Edgar Mitchell, is alive and well at age 84 on his ranch outside his hometown of Herford, Texas.  Since 1974, Mitchell has been promoting his Institute of Noetic Sciences. The institute he founded conducts and sponsors research in neglected mainstream science like telepathy, psychic intuition and possible alien influences. 

Edgar Mitchel circa 2000

       Of the 12 moon walkers, four were greatly affected by their lunar voyage.  Mitchell claims he felt a conscience presence in the void of space and on the Moon. 

Mitchell actually went to the Moon with a plan to communicate with several people on Earth telepathically while on the Moon.  While the experiment conclusions were mixed, Mitchell became more engrossed in the paranormal, UFOs and psychic healing. His experiences and belief system are outlined in his book, “The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut’s Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds.”  Enough said.

       Mitchell claims that he sensed the consciousness of another entity in space. And though not a religious experience for him; it was so overwhelming that he’d never be the same.  He .has made controversial statements that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth, as well as expounding the concepts of paranormal research.  

Other moonwalkers who were drastically changed by their experience were Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin, 84, who battled alcohol and pills to suppress ego problems with being the #2 and nearly forgotten moon man; Apollo 15’s James Irwin, deceased, who began a quest to find the Noah’s Ark; and Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke 82, who became a born again Christian and has written that he doesn’t consider the Moon mission among the top 10 events of his life! The other eight seemed to resume have resumed normal, yet very successful lives post-Apollo.   

The mission of Apollo 14 and life of America’s first spaceman, Alan Shepard, is vividly recounted in his book, Moonshot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon. Like any astronaut tell-all, much is censored about their social life. The superstar status of the first Mercury and Gemini astronauts, let alone the Apollo moonwalkers attracted their share of groupies, hucksters and idolizers.  And Shepard was on astronaut who seemed to revel in the attention. 

       The Apollo 14 mission proved America had the know-how and fortitude to continue with its exploration of the Moon.  Though the Apollo program was back and flourishing in the Winter of 1971, the US Congress would cut funding for any more moon missions after Apollo 17 in December 1972. 

The desire to establish an Antarctica-like base camp on the Moon may have been vanquished as sending humans there was being perfected. But America’s satisfaction of six lunar conquests in three and a half year span is still to be praised as one of mankind’s greatest periods of exploration.

China moon rover Jade Rabbit January 2014

And though it might be 50 years after Apollo 14’s mission, mankind will return to the Moon to continue the quest began by Americans.  But they will probably be Chinese spacemen! The Communist nation has boastfully announced the Moon as a goal for their ambitious manned space program. In January, the Chinese landed a successful science station and small rover on the Moon—the first time that had been done since the Soviet Union 37 years ago.

And if the next moon men are Chinese, let’s hope they come in peace for all mankind, just like America did. 

NASA’s Tragedies Heal with Time 

       NASA’s worst moments are the three deadly tragedies that happened in the same week but 36 years apart.

       The deaths of 17 astronauts on the Apollo 1 moonship, the Space Shuttle Challenger and Shuttle Columbia disasters were horrible reminders of the danger of space travel.  Yet all the lives were avenged with the American conquest of the Moon in the 1960s and the construction of the International Space Station in the 2000s.

NASA 1990 Astronaut Group 13 

      In the 50 years of manned space travel, those three fatal NASA spaceships are joined by two death disasters in the Soviet Union space program that claimed four lives. That’s 21 humans killed in five space-related disasters in the dangerous job of building and riding rockets—a death ratio to manned space launches that is actually quite low over five decades.

       Each fatal incident was a hard lesson and a major setback, but the ingenuity of rocket scientists prevailed. And with the improvements made after reach tragedy, it has been since that reentry destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003 that anyone has been killed in space.

       But there have been some close calls with luck on the side of threatened spacefliers.  There have also been some deaths by space workers for NASA and Russia, not to mention some major rocket explosions at the factory or on the launch pad that claimed the lives of about 60 Americans and maybe several hundred Russians.

Astronauts Shuttle Era

       As of Jan. 1, 2014, 533 individuals from 38 countries have orbited Earth, and have spent an accumulative 77 years in space, including 100 total days of space walks.    Since 1961, Russia has launched 126 manned spacecraft, America has put 170 spacecraft with humans into space, and China has five manned flights to its credit—totaling 301 spaceships leaving the Earth. 

And then you have the danger of spacewalks, the first being in 1965 by Russian Alexi Leonov. As of January 1, 2013, there have been exactly 205 humans who made a total of 778 individual spacewalks.  That includes the more than 350 individual spacewalks at the International Space Station lasting about 7 hours each.

 Compared to expected fatalities in military training flights around the world, it’s truly amazing that more people haven’t been killed in space.

       The three US space disasters didn’t have to happen—investigation boards all found human judgment errors created the problem. And in each of the three American disasters, NASA was criticized for creating an atmosphere of flying with accepted risks that stifled those people warning of the impending doom.

Those American tragedies were:

Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee at Saturn V pad January 1967

·      Jan. 27, 1967, launch pad 34B at Cape Kennedy, 6:30 pm: 

      An electrical spark in the haphazard wiring in the new Apollo 1 moonship creates an inferno in the pure oxygen, killing three astronauts. The flash fire was caused by wiring under the commander’s seat, and in only 17 seconds asphyxiated the astronauts as they struggled to open the capsule door—a five minute procedure.  Dead were Gus Grissom, veteran of a Mercury and Gemini spaceflight and the favorite to be the first man on the Moon; Ed White, who performed the first American space walk on Gemini IV; and rookie Roger Chafee.

Space Shuttle Challenger crew
Front: Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair
Back: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnick

·      Jan. 28, 1986, 11:38 am:  Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift-off just 9 miles above the Florida coast.

      This was the 25^th launch in the Shuttle program, and coldest launch conditions ever.  Freezing temperatures compromised a segment of the stacked solid rocket booster on the right side, allowing fire to breach a cold O-ring at the connection of a booster segment, erupting like a blow torch and cutting a support beam holding the rocket in place and shoving it into the huge fuel tank.  Challenger was thrown sideways and broke up at 1,200 mph, the seven astronauts surviving in their cabin segment, possibly knocked unconscious from hypoxia—but three of them tried to activate their emergency oxygen. Free-falling for three minutes, many astronaut insiders believe their colleagues were alive when the cabin hit the Atlantic Ocean at 207 mph with an unsurvivable force. The cabin wasn’t found until March 7 in 1,200 feet of water, 20 miles off shore.  The remains of the crew were returned to their families April 29^th. They are Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith and mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian as part of a teacher-in-space program.  

Space Shuttle Columbia Crew
David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, Ilan Ramon

  

·      Feb. 1, 2003, 9 am, 35 miles above Dallas, Texas: Space Shuttle Columbia is ripped apart at 5,000 mph just 2 minutes from landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

      At blastoff 14 days earlier on its 28^th mission, Columbia was struck by a chunk of insulation that flew off the huge fuel tank, punching a football-sized hole in the right wing. Though the damage was suspected by some engineers, NASA never used spy satellites to check, and the astronauts continued their mission in the Space Lab in the cargo by, unaware of their doomed fate.  Killed were six American astronauts and Israel’s first space flier. They are Commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool and mission specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Israel’s first astronaut, war hero Ilan Ramon. Space Shuttle debris from more than 2,000 locations between East Texas and Western Louisiana included human remains.

Fallen astronaut memorial on the Moon

       All of the 17 killed aboard US spacecraft have been immortalized with their names adorning planetariums, science centers, schools, streets and parks. NASA has the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Space Mirror Memorial at Cape Kennedy.  Constructed of mirror-finished granite, the Sun’s rays are projected through the engraved names of the astronauts. 

       There are 14 dead astronauts and cosmonauts listed on a plaque left in July 1969 at Tranquility Base by Apollo 11 with a mini sculpture of a fallen astronaut. They included spacemen killed in car accidents or succumbed to illness. 

       The two Russian space tragedies could also have been averted.  They are:

        ·      April 24, 1967 – Veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his new Soyuz 1 spacecraft hit the ground at 500 mph after a doomed maiden flight.

              The one-day mission was plagued with system problems, including navigation and cabin cooling. Komarov, unable to control his spacecraft accurately, knew he was likely to die, and called the flawed Soyuz a “devil machine.”

The reentry angle was all wrong, and the parachutes were rippe to shreds, causing the fatal impact. The brave cosmonaut’s cremated remains are in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square in Moscow.

 Georgi Dobravolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov

·      June 30, 1971 – Russia was shocked when their new space heroes were found dead in their seats after a soft landing of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft.

      The three cosmonauts had spent three weeks aboard the new Salyut 1 Space Station, and had been on Russian national TV several times to show off their new home. They were actually the backup crew, replacing the prime crew just four days before launch when a cosmonaut was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After undocking from the Salyut 1 in triumph, they heading for a fiery reentry and a safe landing. But a cabin vent valve accidentally opened about 1/16^th of an inch during reentry, allowing the air to escape, asphyxiating the crew, who were not in helmeted space suits.  The automated landing proceeded perfectly with good telemetry. Mission control thought something was wrong with the radio, thus the silence from the cosmonauts.  When the hatch was opened, found dead were Georgi Dobravolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov.  They are interred in the Kremlin Wall and are the last Russian fatality.  

Soyuz 11 Funeral July 1971

       Five American astronauts and two Soviet Cosmonauts have died while training for flights, including the prime crew of Gemini 9 in February 1966.  Elliot See was piloting the T-38 jet with his partner Charles Bassett in the backseat when they crashed while landing in bad weather at the St. Louis, Missouri factory where, ironically, their Gemini spacecraft was being built. 

Friends Gagarin and Komorov hunting

       In another tragedy, Russian hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space on April 20, 1961, was killed March 27, 1968 when his MiG jet trainer crashed in bad weather.  Gagarin was training for a Moon mission at the time of his death, though some Russian space officials wanted him grounded because of his fame. Gagarin insisted he wanted to fly in space again instead of becoming a political trophy. Ironically, he was the backup pilot in Soyuz 1, and it's said Komorov wouldn't give up the seat despite doubts for his safety in order to keep the iconic Gagarin alive. He is interred in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square.

              The history of the Space Age has also seen many space workers killed while working on rockets or spacecraft in both America and Russia.  Some of the more tragic were:

·      April 4, 1964, Cape Canaveral

      While being mated to the Orbiting Solar Observatory in a test facility, the solid rocket motor was accidently ignited by static electricity, killing three and injuring eight people.

·      July 3, 1969, the launch pad explosion of the Soviet Union’s Moon rocket, called N-1. 

China Long March rocket launch

     A secret for decades, the sketchy details reveal a shutdown of all 30 first stage engines of the unmanned vehicle just 5 seconds after ignition, causing the huge rocket to fall back onto the launch pad.  Loss of life was not revealed, those some top rocket scientists are suspected victims. US spy satellites and seismometers recorded the aftermath, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.  

·      June 26, 1973, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, USSR

     Forty-eight technicians were killed when a Vostok 2M rocket blew up during fueling.

·      Feb. 15, 1996, Xichang, China

      A Long March rocket with a communications satellite veered off course immediately after launch crashing into a nearby village less than 30 seconds in flight.  Chinese officials officially said six people

died, but other reports estimated 100 deaths.

       Without a doubt, launching rockets into space is serious business, fraught with danger, yet the rewards are great. Just look at our 21^st Century world so dependent on satellites to provide instant information that drives modern business and pleasure. 

So, when you hear of the anniversaries of the space tragedies of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, take a moment to think of the human sacrifice in this glorious Space Age.

Tribute Corn Maze Drewberry Farm, Brookshire, Texas

     

SPACE ART IS REAL IMPRESSIONISM

       I have often said that science fact is stranger than science fiction.  And the 21st Century images from America’s robotic explorers have taken scientific photos to an artistic level that borders on impressionism.

       Mercury, our Moon, Mars and Saturn are currently under orbital surveillance, and some of their photos are astounding abstracts of alien worlds.

       There are hundreds of images that look like works of art by Picasso, Monet or Rembrandt.  Some are Martian sand dunes, or braided rings around Saturn…and how about an Earthrise over lunar mountains?

 The fabulous photos taken by our robotic warriors in the Solar System have become as iconic as the works of art celebrated in galleries around the world.

       Now the beauty of our Solar System is being celebrated by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC with an exhibit called “Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars.”

The Smithsonian exhibit features photos taken by the two NASA, golf cart-sized rovers that landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet in January 2004.  Some of the spectacular images remind us of vistas in the American Southwest, while others are purely alien art from what is legitimate scientific data.

Tennessee Valley on Mars

       The six-wheeled Mars Excursion Rovers were guaranteed to last 90 days, but have lasted far beyond their warranty—by more than 25 times NASA’s expectations.

       The first rover landed, Spirit, got trapped in a sandy bog and its solar rechargeable batteries died sometime in 2010.  Opportunity is still trucking, now in its 10^th year and exploring the rim of a big crater after driving almost 25 miles from its original landing spot.

       We compare these alien images to all that we know—our vision of earthly lands.  And like the great landscape artists who depict America’s western wonders, the electronic images beamed back to Earth across 50 million miles from Mars are records of worlds in their geologic glory.

       For some great Martian art, check out the Smithsonian website at http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/mer/. The exhibit is open through September 14, 2014.

       Other Mars images taken by NASA’s orbiters also tickle the artist vision, like sand dunes and polar caps that often look like bizarre artwork from surrealists like Dali.

Martian Sand Dunes

       For pure alien abstraction on canvass, it’s hard to beat the amazing images of NASA’s billion dollar Cassini spacecraft and its subject of Saturn, its shattered rings and retinue of 62 moons.  The juxtaposition of rings, moons and the butterscotch globe of our sixth planet give us a billion-mile perspective that can be jaw-dropping. 

       There are photos of a cratered moon against the blackness with edge-wise rings bisecting the crescent planet in the background.  Not to be outdone by the amazing hexagonal shape of the South Pole vortex that is as a dramatic image as it is a physical anomaly that has planetary atmospheric scientists scratching their heads—both left and right brain merging in amazement. 

Saturn's rings and moons

       The Cassini website is filled with photos that boggle the mind as the interplay of sunlight reflecting off the rings can illuminate Saturn’s night side and give an eerie look never seen by human eyes.  Like the amazing photo taken in July 2014 from the backside of Saturn, eclipsing the Sun and showing the Earth as a pale, blue “star” in the sky.

Apollo 8 Earthrise

       There are many historical images from NASA’s space exploration have been ingrained as classic artwork in our minds.  Like the Earth rising over the Moon as first seen by orbiting Apollo 8 in 1968. Or Buzz Aldrin on the Moon with photographer Neil Armstrong’s reflection in his gold face plate.  Or the free-floating image of America’s first spacewalker, Ed White.  And you can't leave out the beauty of our planet Earth from orbit 200 miles high--always keeping astronauts aboard the International Space Station pressed against their windows.  

       Some of the most amazing space art has been taken by the Galileo spacecraft of the 1990s when it spent 8 years orbiting Jupiter.  The swirling colors of the intense cloud bands whipping around the largest planet can look like colored oils mixing in water.  Looking at the complex clouds of Jupiter brings Van Gogh to mind.  Toss in the four giant moons and another 60 smaller moons and the imagery from the Galileo spacecraft can be mind-boggling.

       Space art is not just limited to our Solar System as images from the Hubble Space Telescope have become iconic images of our modern times.  Two amazing Hubble photos that have become part of our culture of art include “The Pillars of Creation” and “Hubble Deep Space Galaxies”, each a scientific bonanza that are imagery as beautiful as any canvass painted by a fine artist.

Pillars of Creation by Hubble Space Telescope

       Outer space has been depicted by masters of the space art genre like Chesley Bonestell in the 1950s, to Don Davis of the ’70s and Joe Tucciarone of today. Though what comes out of space artists' minds is based on fact, the "real thing" captured by the imaging electronics of interplanetary robots can blow our minds. Arguably, the vast catalog of two decades of Hubble images contains hundreds of space art masterpieces.

       One unique aspect about all the images captured by NASA's spacecraft during the past 50 years of space exploration--there are no copyrights.  Because American taxes paid for these space probes, their images are accessible free to anybody in the world to do with them as they please.  The Hubble website encourages the printing of its images--even offering some mega files of some photos to cover a wall!  A visit to NASA's website will direct you to any of its spacecraft and their fantastic space images. 

       As mankind probes deeper into the Universe for the facts, our mind can’t be separated from the esoteric beauty of what we find.  It’s just part of the human experience that we bring to the quest of alien worlds. 

2014 HIGHLIGHTS...ANOTHER YEAR OF CELESTIAL FRIENDS

 Two eclipses of the Moon during the “graveyard shift” of early morning will highlight the stargazing in our celestial skies for 2014.

       April 15 the Moon slips into the Earth’s shadow beginning at 2:46 am and be total at 3:46 am. The same celestial magic happens again Oct. 8^th, but dawn will ruin the total phase on our Eastern USA coast. 

Lunar Eclipse October 2004
Photo by MarQ

       The planet Jupiter dominates the winter and late spring as the third brightest star in Gemini the Twins, joining brothers Pollux and Castor.  And then the will be the April close approach of Mars to Earth.   The third and fourth planets will be about 55 million miles apart on April 8th, not super close but a distance that will make it easy to see dark surface markings and bright white polar caps.

The planet Venus will become the pre-sunrise beacon in the east through summer, while Mercury will play its usual back and forth in the morning and evening horizons twice throughout the year.

       The year ends with Saturn bejeweling the autumn in Virgo, a sight in a telescope that simply says “astronomy.”

       Any astronomy year is full of surprises, new discoveries and a closer understanding of just where we humans on Earth fit into the grand scheme of the Universe.  There could be a comet come out of nowhere (like Hale-Bopp in 1997, or there might be another destructive asteroid collide with Earth, like the Russian explosion in February 2013.  Maybe Mars rover Curiosity will turn over a rock and find a fossilized fish skeleton!  Now, THAT would be a surprise for the ages.

Saturn South Pole Hexagonal Vortex

       And there will no doubt be more fabulous images of Saturn and its retinue of fascinating moons from the billion dollar Cassini spacecraft, now in its 10^th year orbiting the ringed world.  One area under study this year is the unique hexagonal hurricane in the center of the south pole, as well as the environment on moon Titan’s surface of lakes and rivers made up of minus -200 liquid methane.

        In the human space frontier, the International Space Station is experiencing its 13^th year of continued occupancy with 12 more astronauts that make up Expeditions 39 and 40 taking residence for 5-month stints.  Business as usual will include more supply missions with modules built by two private contractors who have billion dollar contracts with NASA. 

Still the only ticket to ride to the ISS is the Russian Soyuz TMZ spacecraft—its first generation flown 45 years ago. And an expensive ticket it is with NASA spending up to $60 million for one of three seats on the cramped Soyuz space capsule.

ISS Captures Dragon supply ship 2013

The New Year will show progress in the building of NASA’s four-man Orion space capsule, much like the Apollo spaceship of the 1960s.  And private space entrepreneur Space X is involved in test to convert its Dragon spaceship into a manned vehicle for trips to the ISS. 

       One unique aspect of a new year of stargazing is looking forward to seeing the same old celestial friends that avid amateur astronomers have become familiar with—much like old friends.

       For instance, watching Orion leap over the eastern horizon on its side and then standing straight up in the direct south hours later as a rite of the Winter season.  And with a backyard telescope, there are dozens of celestial sites that include the Great Nebula of Orion, The Pleiades star cluster, and brightest star of all, Sirius.

Orion the Hunter

       When Leo is seen rising in the east, it’s time to think of Spring, reinforced when Hercules joins the early evening.  Then the parallelogram of stars that make up Lyra the Harp with brilliant star Vega signifies Summer time.  And when the Great Square of Pegasus rides high in the eastern sky in the early evening, it’s Autumn time.  And then, again, appears Orion as the cycle of Earth orbiting the Sun continues.

Think of our 365 and one-fourth day trip around the Sun as being on an 800 million mile circle race track.  The Sun is in the middle, and we start out the year looking at the stars of Orion and company in Turn 1. As we approach Turn 2, the grandstands represent the stars of Spring with Leo and friends.  The backstretch is filled constellations that lead into Turn 3 and the Summer stars.  Finally, Turn 4 is where the Autumn stars are seen as we whizz by at 30,000 mph. 

When down the front stretch and looking at Winter’s starry wonders in the stands, we can’t see the stars of Summer on the backstretch of the orbital racetrack because of the bright Sun.  They are in the daytime sky.  So every celestial lap, we are looking in the grandstands of stars, and briefly enjoying the sights as we move at a predictable speed governed by the gravity of the Sun and laws of physics.

That is what makes every celestial year a special one, reacquainting the stargazer with the familiar starry friends.  After all, they are always there—and never let you down.