Obituary for the Jade Rabbit.

March 4, 2014 by nvantreeck

China’s state media made it official. The jade rabbit rover is no more.

Lunar dust, which is probably more than even a Swifter(r) could handle, has been blamed.

However, the Chinese space agency has learned a lot about what it takes to go to the moon and to survive on the Lunar surface. There are more missions planned and as I have said before space is dangerous.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine. As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

And the Award Goes To…

March 3, 2014 by nvantreeck

Last night was the biggest night for movies and actors. So today I am giving the award for best planet hunter to…..Kepler!

Kepler is like the gift that keeps on giving. The Kepler team analyzing the data captured by the now disabled spacecraft have found another 715 exo-planets.

715!

That is almost as many planets that have been identified in the past decade! Kepler had previously identified 246 planets. Over the past 20 years, Kepler is responsible for more than 1/2 of all exo-planets found.

I know that Kepler cannot be fixed, but for the $600M price-tag, and the continued discoveries, I think we should consider putting another Kepler up. This time point it at a different part of the sky, with a wider field and a better camera.

Considering the $8Billion dollar price tag of the James Webb space telescope, Kepler was a bargain. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to see the results from the Webb telescope, but that is years away (if ever).

Although last night was the Academy Awards, I think the trophy for the MTV music awards is more appropriate for Kepler’s big win.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Space, Art And Music.

February 4, 2014 by nvantreeck

I am a fan of all three.

Who can forget the music from 2001 a space odyssey? The images, technology, but the music made everything so real and visceral.

The Art Vinyl company created the award 2004 and lets the public vote for their favorite album art.

This past years award went to Michael Kagan for his 2010 work titled Pilot 2 that was used on the cover of White Lies’ Big TV album.

Other space related album art has won in the past. In 2010, the Klaxons’ album Surfing the Void won for its cat in an astronaut suit album cover. I’m not sure if it really qualifies as space related, but hey, its a cat in a space suit.

It could have been Catanauts and Dogonauts, just as long as everyone gets along. Check out the Dogonauts kickstarter page here.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Commercial Space Programs Expand.

January 27, 2014 by nvantreeck

It comes as no surprise that commercial space programs are expanding at an ever increasing pace. Now the government and NASA are putting unused space program assets to use helping these enterprises along.

NASA will turn over one of its unused space-shuttle launch pads to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) so that they can set up a second site in Florida.

SpaceX current sends routine re-supply missions to the ISS using its Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX won out over protests from rival space company Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

The Government Accountability Office dismissed Blue Origin’s protest. However, the GAO said NASA could consider renting the launch pad under exclusive or multi-use arrangements for the launch pad.

NASA spends around $100,000 a month to maintain the site, so this agreement will help both NASA and SpaceX.

SpaceX is already launching its Falcon rockets from a leased launch pad at Cape Canaveral and it has a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

SpaceX’s locations are a little different from other commercial space enterprises that are basing their operations out of the New Mexico spaceport.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Mother Earth Rising.

December 24, 2013 by nvantreeck

The European Space Agency launched the Gaia satellite last week.

Gaia is the personification of Earth in Greek mythology.

But this Gaia, is designed to map the Milky Way in 3D. Which should look really good on my 3D TV when the movie comes out.

From it vantage point at the L2 Lagrange point, Gaia will measure the motions of the stars in the galaxy orbiting around the super-massive black hole at the center .

Like the original Star Trek television series, Gaia’s five year mission is to measure light curves and position information over time for all the stars in the galaxy. This highly accurate information over time will determine distances for each star that will be used to make a more accurate 3D model of the galaxy.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Exomoons?

December 19, 2013 by nvantreeck

If you have seen the movie Avatar (if you are reading this blog I will assume that you have), then you know the mythical planet of Pandora seems to be orbiting a large gas giant planet.

Although the orbit doesn’t make a whole lot of scientific sense, the model is sound. Exomoons, by definition, orbit an exoplanet. However, just like the movie and perhaps our own Solar system, some of these moons may be capable of sustaining life where their parent planet cannot.

Saturn’s moon Titan is believed to be able to sustain life since we have found oceans of water underneath the frozen surface.

So the prospect of an exomoon harboring life is also plausible.

But how do you find an exomoon orbiting around an exoplanet parsecs away? Teams of scientists are currently working one methods to detect exomoons using the science developed hunting for exoplanets and data already gathered from Kepler.

So perhaps Pandora does exist, but I wouldn’t hold by breath of finding unobtainium anywhere in the Universe.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Oh, The Places We’ve Been (https://plus.google.com/+KevinGill/posts/bGA7kwn48f5)

December 17, 2013 by nvantreeck

I found this amazing graphic (below) that shows where humans have ventured from the planet.

Kevin Gill used his very own creation, the Orbit Viewer WebGL, and data from the NASA/JPL Horizons ephemeris.

First, the program is very impressive itself (props to Kevin) and the graphics are incredible.

If you would like to play with Kevin’s program you can check it out here. It is really amazing.

You can find the original article here.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

China Lands On The Moon

December 16, 2013 by nvantreeck

Sunday night, China’s Chang’e-3 lunar lander and rover successfully landed on the Moon.

China is only the 3rd country in the world to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon (India and the E.U. have crashed probes on the Moon, but not landed).

Although the United States is still the only country to have successfully sent people to the Moon and back, China is working hard to repeat that feat. Ironically, the Chinese spacecraft landed on the same day that America’s Apollo 17 mission left the Moon for their return trip 41 years ago. It has been that long since anyone on Earth tried to land their again.

So congratulations to the Chinese Space Agency for a job well done.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

I Can See You!

August 15, 2013 by nvantreeck

First, we looked at wobbles, then eclipsing bodies. Now the exo-planet hunt is starting to turn up pictures! Yeah! We like pictures.

Astronomers from the Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) Project on top of Mauna Kea have imaged the smallest exo-planet to date.

The value of direct imaging exo-planets is fairly obvious because of the extra information that can be only detected in this fashion. Information about the planet’s luminosity, temperature, atmosphere, and orbit among other planetary properties. However, this method is technically challenging, because these distant planets are not only faint but also close to their bright central stars, the glare of which easily obscures the planet.

Using the images obtained, scientists have determined that the distance between the central star and planet is about 44 AU (the average distance of the Earth to the Sun or 93,000,000 miles), which is larger than Neptune’s orbit and closer to Pluto’s orbit.

Also, the planet has a mass of about three Jupiters.

Eventually, the goal would be to have the technology to image all the exo-planets surrounding distant suns using this method. But we will have to wait for technology to catch up with desire.

– Ex astris, scientia –

Norman

Yesterday’s Pictures Today!

August 14, 2013 by nvantreeck

Well, once again WordPress ate my post yesterday. Sorry about that so here it is again.

This past weekend, I was out at my observatory taking images. Although I haven’t processed all of them yet, I did manage to take some interesting images of the Moon and Venus (and a Joshua tree). Enjoy.