Cosmic Diary Marchis

Adapted from MESSENGER Mission News (March 26, 2013)

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) — the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919 — recently approved a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to nine impact craters on Mercury. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the newly designated features are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, or authors or other contributors to the humanities.

Global map of Mercury recently released by the NASA Messenger team. The globe on the left was created from the MDIS monochrome surface morphology base map campaign. The globe on the right was produced from the MDIS color base map campaign. Portraits of the nine artists, musicians and authors honored with the name of a crater on the planet. (adapted from NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington & Wikipedia by F. Marchis)

The newly named craters are

• Alver, for Betti Alver (1906-1989), an Estonian writer who rose to prominence in the 1930s, toward the end of Estonian independence and on the eve of World War II. She published her first novel, Mistress in the Wind, in 1927. She also wrote several short stories, poetry, and translations.

• Donelaitis, for Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-1780), a Lutheran pastor who was considered one of the greatest Lithuanian poets. He is best known for The Seasons, considered the first classic Lithuanian poem. It depicts the everyday life of Lithuanian peasants. His other works include six fables and a tale in verse.

• Flaiano, for Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972), an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, and drama critic especially noted for his social satires. He became a leading figure of the Italian motion-picture industry after World War II, collaborating with writer Tullio Pinelli on the early films of writer and director Federico Fellini.

• Hurley, for James Francis “Frank” Hurley (1885-1962), an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in several expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian Imperial Forces during both world wars. The troops called him “the mad photographer,” because he took considerable risks to obtain photographs.

• L’Engle, for Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007), an American writer best known for young-adult fiction, particularly the award-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.

• Lovecraft, for Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century. He popularized “cosmic horror,” the notion that some concepts, entities, or experiences are barely comprehensible to human minds, and those who delve into such topics risk their sanity.

• Petofi, for Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849), a Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary. He wrote the Nemzeti dal (National Poem), which is said to have inspired the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire.

• Pahinui, for Charles Phillip Kahahawai “Gabby” Pahinui, (1921-1980), a Hawaiian guitar player considered to be one of the most influential slack-key guitar players in the world. His music was a key part of the “Hawaiian Renaissance,” a resurgence of interest in traditional Hawaiian culture during the 1970s.

• Roerich, for Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), a Russian painter and philosopher who initiated the modern movement for the defense of cultural objects. His most notable achievement was the Roerich Pact of 1935, an international treaty signed by India, the Baltic states, and 22 nations of the Americas (including the United States), affirming that monuments, museums, scientific, artistic, educational, and cultural institutions and their personnel are to be considered neutral in times of war unless put to military use.

Ray Espiritu, a mission operations engineer on the MESSENGER team, submitted Pahinui’s name for consideration. “I wanted to honor the place where I grew up and still call home even after many years away,” he says. “The Pahinui crater contains a possible volcanic vent, and its name may inspire other scientists as they investigate the volcanic processes that helped to create Mercury, just as investigation of Hawaiian volcanoes helps us understand the volcanic processes that shape the Earth we know today.”
These nine newly named craters join 95 other craters named since the MESSENGER spacecraft’s first Mercury flyby in January 2008.

“We are delighted that the IAU has once again assigned formal names to a new set of craters on Mercury,” adds MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “These names will make it easier to discuss these features in the scientific literature, and they provide a fresh opportunity to honor individuals who have contributed to the cultural richness of our planet.”

More information about the names of features on Mercury and the other objects in the Solar System can be found at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Planetary Nomenclature Web site:http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/index.html.

MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet Mercury and the first space mission designed to orbit the planet closest to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on August 3, 2004, and entered orbit about Mercury on March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011 UTC), to begin a yearlong study of its target planet. MESSENGER’s extended mission began on March 18, 2012, and ended one year later. A possible second extended mission is currently under evaluation by NASA. Dr. Sean C. Solomon, the Director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, leads the mission as Principal Investigator. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages this Discovery-class mission for NASA.

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Today I would like to share with you an idea for the International Women’s day on March 8 2013.  If you work in an institution, university, or non-profit related to science, have you taken note of the number of women around you? In astronomy and planetary science, it is not too bad even if it is not perfect, but some “hard” science groups, like physics or computer science, clearly have a low proportion of women in their ranks. I will not elaborate on the reasons for such lack of representation; instead , I propose to focus on the bright side.

Yes, there are more and more women in science, some of them even reaching the highest level of responsibility in their field.  One of the issues is that women are not as vocal as the men with a similar job. Is  that a secondary effect due to  years of being the underdog in a field, hence spending your energy fighting against stereotypes and nasty comments? Or it is simply because after getting the recognition of your peers, women enjoy their work and make the best of it? The main issue is that all kids need examples when they grow up, and highlighting  woman scientists could help girls think that they can also achieve their dream and become scientists, engineers, astronauts or a successful business woman.

This long preamble brings me to my idea. On Friday March 8, we should make sure that the women in our institutions enjoy a coffee or a lunch together. Let them talk and exchange their thoughts, and take pictures to show the world that there are women in science, and sharing their experience on Twitter  (hashtag #WomenOfScience). They are here, not a majority, but they are an important part of scientific work and discussion.

I look forward to seeing pictures from your institution. SETI Institute will post pictures on their Twitter/Facebook/Google+ accounts as well.

Clear Skies

Franck M.

Almost 12h after the event, it is time to gather my notes on the russian meteor event (#RussianMeteor) and my thoughts on this impact and those which may come soon.

Meteor captured from a dashboard camera near Chelyabinsk, Russia

What do we know?
(I collected these pieces of information from numerous of my colleagues. Thanks)

Today February 15 2013 a meteor exploded over the region of Chelyabinsk, Russia near the Southern Ural Mountains at 9:20:26 am LT (03:20:26 UTC). The explosion  occurred at an altitude of ~15-20 km  and the bolid impact speed was estimated to ~20 km/s with a trajectory oriented from North-East to South-West. Almost instantaneously,  several recordings of the meteor impact were available on the web, thanks to the presence of dashcam in most of the russian cars and also because this part of Russia is heavily populated. On a side note, this event puts an end to any romantic Valentin Day dinner that most of the Californian astronomers had planned, since it was still Feb 14 for us.

The explosion, or sonic boom, was recorded by several instruments including an infrasound station from University of Western Ontario, USGS seismometers  and the Meteosat-9 geostationnary satellite.   The blast caused significant damages in the area (see the video above) and several hundred of people were injured, mostly because the shockwave blew out windows. I read one report of a factory building which roof collapsed.  The contrail has this weird dual shape, possibly because the meteoroid split in half shortly after entering in Earth atmosphere.

The entry of the meteor was definitely at low angle, so the blast is due to the sonic boom, not to a direct impact. In other words, the meteor fragmented in Earth atmosphere. The presence of several small impact craters have been mentioned but not confirmed yet. One of them is a hole in a frozen lake and the russian media reported that divers will start tomorrow to search for fragments at the bottom of the lake.

Possible fragment impact above a frozen lake (Photo: Vladislav Petlyuk)

The big picture

There are several back-to-the-envelop estimates of the size and mass of the body but roughly the bolid had a diameter of 15m, a Mass of 7,000 tons (assuming a rocky density of 3 g/cc) . NASA scientists claim that the explosion was due to the largest rock crashing on the planet since Tunguska in 1908 (energy 10-15 MegaTons of TNT equivalent). Peter Brown, from University of Western Ontario determined a total energy of 300 kilotons of TNT equivalent  for the Russian meteor, so ~20 Hiroshima bombs.  It was  larger than  the Oct 2009 Indonesia event (50 kTons TNT  eq) and Sikhote-Alin fall (Feb 1947,  10 kTons TNT eq).  Interestingly based on the statistical study of near-Earth asteroid population, we can estimate that a #RussianMeteor-like event should happen every ~30 years.

Potential damage to Earth from NEA impact. I added the russian meteor on this graph (red square) with an energy of 300 kTons TNT eq, corresponding to a frequency of impact of 30 years. Adapted from LSST website. credit: A. Harris, SSI/LLST

The existing (Catalina Sky Survey, Pan STARRS) and future surveys (LSST) are dedicated to search for large impactors. These searches are motivated by the George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act, which calls for NASA to detect 90 percent of NEOs with diameters of 140 meters or greater by 2020. As you can see on the graph above only ~10 percent of those asteroids have been discovered so far. For smaller ~15m asteroids equivalent to the #RussianMeteor, the survey is very incomplete since only 0.1 percent of those asteroids are known.

Should we spend our limited space money to build extremely large facilities to search for these small ~15m asteroids? I don’t think so, since we don’t have yet a complete understanding of the technologies needed to mitigate those events, and considering the current lack of financial resources, we should  be more imaginative than building larger aperture telescopes.

Our space budget could be better used on setting an alert system similar to the existing ones for tsunamis, volcanoes, and in some countries earthquakes. They could help save life and could avoid a disaster. What come in my mind first are technologies that we are handling and to which we don’t have a complete control, such as nuclear power plants. A warning of a few minutes could be crucial to avoid major disaster in case of a impact with a >15m asteroid nearby a nuclear facility. The 2012 Fukishima nuclear power plant accident is a vivid example of catastrophic and worldwide ripple effects after a localized natural disaster. Without getting into those extreme cases, our society and its economy rely on  transportation (e.g. bridge, trains, commercial jets) that could  be affected by 15m-meteor impact, so an early warning system could save a lot of lives and reduce the number of injuries.

NEOSSat: Canada's Sentinel in the Sky (credit: Canadian Space Agency)

Spending a few hundred million of dollars to set up an alert network an array of small telescopes around Earth (in space) should be the new challenge of a civilization aware of the danger coming from space and willing to mitigate it. The Canadian Agency is leading the effort on this topic with the development of NEOSSat, a micro-satellite dedicated to detecting and tracking asteroids and satellites, to be launched on February 25 2013.

Let’s also keep in mind that the cost of this alert system should be shared by most of the nations, since there is no borders from space. It was a bad day for Russia, and also a reminder for us that space is not a friendly place.

Clear skies,

Franck M.

An important message 
We are asking YOU, the US-based SETI Institute Fans,  our followers on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to help us save science from sequestration. Send a FAX or write a letter and even send a tweet to your members of Congress. Today is the day you should act to save science!

Background

The AAS is a member of a coalition of 3,200 national organizations named NDD United. The coalition has worked actively to communicate to Congress that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is necessary and that significant cuts to the non-defense discretionary (NDD) portion of the federal budget called for by the 2011 balanced budget amendment in the form of a sequester would have wide-ranging and negative impacts. The sequester is scheduled to be implemented on March 1st.

The White House budget office estimates that this $85 billion sequester will require across-the-board cuts of five percent for non-defense discretionary programs and eight percent for defense discretionary programs. With only seven months left in FY 2013, the effective cuts for some programs could even reach nine percent for non-defense and 13 percent for defense. While we cannot predict specific programmatic impacts at this point, these additional cu ts will clearly mean fewer grants, deferred missions, layoffs of contractor personnel, and furloughs of Federal employees.

NDD United delivered a letter to Congress on February 11th  (http://publichealthfunding.org/uploads/NDD3200Letter.Final.Feb2013.pdf) and is calling for all members of the Coalition to speak out to their member of Congress via Twitter on Thursday, February 14th.

AAS members may also make contact directly by phone, fax, or letter, if they do not use Twitter or are unfamiliar with its use. Sending email is not an efficient way of communicating with Congress, so do not utilize this communication medium.

What You Can Do Today

The AAS asks all members to take a moment today to contact their members of Congress.

If you use Twitter, use your members’ twitter handle and the sample tweets below to make your voice heard. A slightly outdated but complete list of members’ twitter handles are available here: http://govsm.com/w/House and here: http://govsm.com/w/Senate.

If you’d prefer to make a call, send a FAX or write a letter, use the AAS’ Contacting Congress resource to find your members’ office numbers [ http://aas.org/contacting-congress ]. A brief message indicating that you want your member of Congress to take a balanced approach to deficit reduction and that you are against the sequester will be sufficient. Specifics are not required at this time.

Template & Sample Tweets from the NDD United are appended below. BE SURE TO
CUSTOMIZE THE CONTENT FOR YOUR USE…DO NOT CUT AND PASTE!

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Template

We need to invest in education, public safety, research, & infrastructure [ insert member twitter handle]. #NoMoreCuts to these vital areas!

Sample

We need to invest in education, public safety, research, & infrastructure @MaxBaucus.
#NoMoreCuts to these vital areas!

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Template

Discretionary investments have already been cut by nearly $1.5 trillion. [insert member twitter handle] make sure there are #NoMoreCuts! #sequester

Sample

Discretionary investments have already been cut by nearly $1.5 trillion. @MaxBaucus make sure there are #NoMoreCuts! #sequester

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Template (links to NDD national sign-on letter)

Remember [insert member twitter handle], over 3200 groups want you to say #NoMoreCuts to discretionary investments! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t #sequester

Sample

Remember @MaxBaucus, over 3200 groups want you to say #NoMoreCuts to discretionary investments! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t #sequester

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Template

#Sequestration means an 5.1% cut to #[insert issue area of concern] funding in 2013. [insert member twitter handle] make sure there are #NoMoreCuts! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t

Sample

#Sequestration means an 5.1% cut to #education funding in 2013. @MaxBaucus make sure there are #NoMoreCuts! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t

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Template (links to AIA jobs loss report)

Discretionary cuts to #[insert issue area of concern] harm the #economy! [insert member twitter handle] say #NoMoreCuts! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t

Sample

Discretionary cuts to #education harm the #economy! [insert member twitter handle] say #NoMoreCuts! http://bit.ly/11Bzd0t

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| LINK: http://aas.org/posts/opportunity/2013/02/aas-call-action-let-congress-hear-your-opinion-sequester-ndd-coalition-day

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I mentioned in my previous post the detection of an issue on the Kepler spacecraft which pushed the engineering team to put the space telescope in safe mode for 10 days. The Kepler team announced today that science operation was reinitiated yesterday. That’s a great news!

Kepler Spacecraft and Photometer (credit: NASA)

On January 17, the team detected some recurrent frictions on the reaction wheel #4, since its complete failure would have mean the end of the mission, the telescope scientific operation was halted. Because in  its safe mode configuration, the spacecraft maintains its altitude using its thrusters only, the reaction wheels stop spinning and the lubricant got a chance to spread uniformly inside the wheels, returning the spacecraft to nominal operation. The engineering team took this decision by scrutinizing the activity on the wheels after one of them failed in July 2012.

The transition from safe mode to normal operation happened without any issues and Kepler telescope started collecting data again on January 28 at 5 pm PST. This is a great job done by Kepler engineers which reminds us the challenges of space exploration.

I am confident that more exoplanet discoveries are on the way, and this good news is a relief for the community of exo-planetary astronomers and their friends.

Live long and prosper Kepler!

Clear Skies

Franck Marchis

“Mountain View, we have a problem…”
NASA Kepler Manager at NASA Ames, Mountain View announced today that they interrupted the science operation of the spacecraft, due an issue with one of the reaction wheels.  Kepler is equipped with four reaction wheels which are used to accurately point the telescope. One failed in July 2012 and today the team announced that they detected issues with a second one. Kepler needs three reaction wheels to be used properly, if this one fails the mission is most likely over. That’s not good news.

The team detected an increase of friction on reaction wheel #4 on January 11 2913 just after the completion of Quarter 15 flight operation. This friction persisted after the spacecraft roll, which could lead to the complete failure of the wheel.

To solve this issue, the team reported to have placed the Kepler spacecraft in a “wheel rest” safe mode. Science operation has been interrupted and the spacecraft is now in a position which does not require the use of the reaction wheels. They hope that by resting the wheel for 10 days, the internal lubricant will be redistributed and the wheel will work again in an optimal manner.

One of the Kepler reaction wheel which is jeopardizing the Kepler Mission. (credit: Ball Aerospace)

The spacecraft was equipped with four reaction wheels, three of them are needed for the pointing of the telescope and the fourth one was installed as a backup. If this damaged wheel completely fails, the mission is over. In other words, the spacecraft will be unable to stabilize its pointing and the mission will stop fulfilling its scientific objectives.

Problems with reaction wheels seem quite common on spacecrafts recently. Dawn, another NASA mission designed to explore Vesta and Ceres, also lost two of his reaction wheels this year. Because this spacecraft does not need a pointing as accurate as Kepler, the problem was solved by developing a hybrid strategy relying on two reaction wheels and the thrusters of the probe. I have been told that a similar solution is unfortunately not possible for the Kepler spacecraft.

The Kepler mission has been approved for extension until 2016, providing four additional years to find Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of their stars. The mission therefore already completed its optimal operation time, so it is not surprising that engineering problems are now appearing.  Outer space is not an easy place to be.

Last week, the mission team announced the discovery of 461 additional planet candidates, including two in the Habitable zone of their stars. The Kepler spacecraft is the most prolific planet-hunter so far, with a total number of 2,321 planet-candidates among 3,130 known exoplanets.

We discussed yesterday with Jon Jenkins the recent discoveries of Kepler. He mentioned the latent problem with those reaction wheels, so I am assuming that the entire team, including several SETI scientists, is anxious to know how Kepler will “feel” after this 10-day break.

Last week the French space agency, CNES, announced that COROT, another planet hunter spacecraft was also malfunctioning, and most likely will end the mission officially soon.

Are we witnessing the end of the pioneer planet hunters? I hope not, it is difficult to imagine a world of astronomy without Kepler.

Clear Skies

Franck M.