Astronomical News

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[گلناز]

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Auroras are but one part of a complex system of magnetic fields and charged particles surrounding Earth. Instruments on FASTSAT are beginning to paint a picture of how the different components act in concert. Image courtesy of Bud Kuenzli

Space around Earth is anything but a barren vacuum. The area seethes with electric and magnetic fields that change constantly. Charged particles flow through, moving energy around, creating electric currents, and producing the aurora. Many of these particles stream in from the solar wind, starting out 93 million miles away on the surface of the sun. But some areas are dominated by particles of a more local source: Earth's atmosphere.

These are the particles being watched by FASTSAT’s Miniature Imager for Neutral Ionospheric Atoms and Magnetospheric Electrons (MINI-ME) instrument. For one well-defined event, scientists have compared MINI-ME's observations to those from two other instruments. The event shows a detailed picture of this dynamic region, with a host of interrelated phenomena -- such as electric current and outflowing particles – occurring together.

"We're seeing structures that are fairly consistent throughout a handful of instruments," says Michael Collier at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is the principal investigator for MINI-ME. "We put all of these observations together and it tells a story greater than the sum of its parts."

Unlike the hotter hydrogen coming from the sun, Earth’s upper atmosphere generally supplies cooler oxygen ions that course outward along Earth's magnetic field lines. This "ion outflow" occurs continuously, but is especially strong during periods when there is more solar activity such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections that burst off the sun and move toward Earth. Such activity drives oxygen ions out of our planet’s upper atmosphere, particularly in regions where aurora displays are strong.

"These ion outflow events are important because they help us understand the space weather environment around Earth," says Goddard's Doug Rowland who is the principal investigator for FASTSAT's Plasma Impedance Spectrum Analyzer, or PISA instrument. "The heavy ions flowing away from Earth can act as a brake, or damper, on incoming energy from the solar wind. The flow also indicates ways in which planets can lose their atmospheres – something that happens slowly on Earth, but more quickly on smaller planets with weaker magnetic fields, like Mars."

MINI-ME has been successfully spotting such outflows since the instrument first began to collect data in the winter of 2010. The instrument counts ions as it moves through a part of Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere. This is the region where the particles gain enough speed and energy to overcome Earth's gravity, so it's an ideal place to study the first step in the outflow process.



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This artist's concept drawing shows the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology SATellite (FASTSAT) -- NASA's first microsatellite, which launched on November 19, 2010 and has been collecting data on the dynamic atmosphere surrounding Earth. Credit: NASA

Late on March 31, 2011, the FASTSAT spacecraft flew through an ion outflow with well-defined areas of increased fast moving, or "energetic," particles.

Simultaneous observations from PISA, which measures the density of material in the atmosphere, also showed that this was a highly structured auroral zone. In addition, the scientists turned to the National Science Foundation's Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE), a mission managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which measures current flow and magnetic features through a network of instruments placed on commercial satellites owned by Iridium Communications. AMPERE data showed current structures that were also consistent with what is expected for an auroral zone.

"This is just one event," says Collier. "But it helps confirm the idea that the current and ion-outflows are all connected. As we continue to go through the data, there will be many more events to follow. We'd like to be able to pin down the origin of all these mechanisms in the ionosphere."

Over time, data like this will allow scientists to determine where these ions come from, what drives them, and how their intensity varies with incoming solar activity

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sm...th-region.html

[گلناز]

Highlights Local Firm on Eve of Small Business Saturday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden toured Kegman Inc. of Melbourne, Fla., one company that supplied technology and engineering support to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover.

Bolden's tour of Kegman coincided with the Second Annual Small Business Saturday, a day to support the local small businesses that create jobs, boost the economy and preserve neighborhoods around the country.

"On Saturday, NASA will be launching our most sophisticated science laboratory to date, the Mars Science Laboratory, and the work of dozens of small businesses helped make this happen," Bolden said. "Even in a project as expansive and with dramatic long-range impact, small businesses like Kegman and nearly two dozen other small businesses around the nation are playing a large role."

Kegman Inc. is an economically disadvantaged, woman-owned, veteran-owned small business. It monitors and analyzes the wind impact during launch preparations.

The data is used by the mission's weather officer to determine whether conditions are right to launch the Curiosity rover. The $2.5 billion laboratory will study past and present potentially habitable environments on Mars after it lands on the planet in August 2012.

NASA officials estimate more than 40 American companies, universities and organizations with over 5,000 workers in 31 states and nine countries contributed to the development and construction of Curiosity. Of those companies, at least two dozen are small businesses.

"Curiosity's mission is to get Mars to give up its secrets," Bolden said. "But we can't get Mars to talk without the contributions of companies like Kegman who contribute technology, innovation, component parts and know-how to the project."

For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory launch and mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

For more information about Small Business Saturday, visit:

http://www.smallbusinesssaturday.com

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[گلناز]

A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that can be seen from the southern hemisphere.



A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that can be seen from the southern hemisphere. (Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team, STScI/AURA; Acknowledgment: P. Goudfrooij, STScI)
› Larger image | globular cluster alone

Aging bright stars in the cluster glow in intense shades of red and blue. The majority of middle-aged stars, several billions of years old, are whitish in color. A myriad of far distant background galaxies of varying shapes and structure are scattered around the image.

The most intriguing object, however, doesn’t seem to belong in the cluster. It is a faint green bubble near the bottom center of the image. This so-called ‘planetary nebula’ is the aftermath of the death of a star. The burned-out central star can be seen inside the bubble. It is uncertain whether the planetary nebula is a member of NGC 1846, or simply lies along the line of sight to the cluster. Measurements of the motion of the cluster stars and the planetary nebula’s central star suggest it might be a cluster member.

This Hubble image was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in January of 2006. The cluster was observed in filters that isolate blue, green, and infrared starlight. As a member of the Large Magellanic Cloud, NGC 1846 is located roughly 160,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Doradus. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

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Artist concept of NASA's MESSENGER, Mars Science Laboratory and Dawn missions. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech › Larger view

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Dawn, Mars Science Laboratory and MESSENGER missions have earned recognition from Popular Science magazine as innovations worthy of the publication's "Best of What's New" Award in the aviation and space category.
Dawn and Mars Science Laboratory are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Dawn is currently orbiting and exploring the massive main-belt asteroid Vesta. The Mars Science Laboratory and its Curiosity rover launched on Nov. 26 on a journey to the Red Planet, where the rover will look for signs of past or present habitability.
The MESSENGER mission is currently orbiting Mercury.
More information on the award winners is online at: http://www.popsci.com/bown/2011/cate...tion-amp-space .

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Dawn and Mars Science Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.
Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, leads the MESSENGER mission as principal investigator. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the MESSENGER spacecraft for NASA.

[رخساره روشنی]

After a four and a half day journey from the Earth, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has
successfully entered orbit around the moon. Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., confirmed the spacecraft's lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

During transit to the moon, engineers performed a mid-course correction to get the spacecraft in the proper position to reach its lunar destination. Since the moon is always moving, the spacecraft shot for a target point ahead of the moon. When close to the moon, LRO used its rocket motor to slow down until the gravity of the moon caught the spacecraft in lunar orbit.
"Lunar orbit insertion is a crucial milestone for the mission," said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. "The LRO mission cannot begin until the moon captures us. Once we enter the moon's orbit, we can begin to buildup the dataset needed to understand in greater detail the lunar topography, features and resources. We are so proud to be a part of this exciting mission and NASA's planned return to the moon."

A series of four engine burns over the next four days will put the satellite into its commissioning
phase orbit. During the commissioning phase each of its seven instruments is checked out and brought online. The commissioning phase will end approximately 60 days after launch, when LRO will use its engines to transition to its primary mission orbit.
For its primary mission, LRO will orbit above the moon at about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, for one year. The spacecraft's instruments will help scientists compile high resolution, three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths.
The satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, examining permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. LRO will return more data about the moon than any previous mission.

[رخساره روشنی]

Across much of the United States, there's not much snow on the ground. There is, however, ice in the air. You can see it around the Moon

"
There was a remarkable halo around the Moon this Friday evening," says photographer Dan Bush of Albany, Missouri. "It was the most vivid and long lasting one I've seen in 15+ years."

Moon haloes are caused by ice crystals in cirrus clouds 5 to 10 km above the ground. Crystals catch the light of the Moon and bend its rays into a luminous ring, as shown above. With the full Moon only two days away, now is a good time to be alert for Moon haloes.

more images: from Francesc Pruneda of Palamós, Catalonia, Spain; from Chris Hetlage of Deerlick Astronomy Village, GA; from Eddie Ledbetter of Register, GA; from Tanner Schaaf of Kingston, Minnesota; from Jim Tegerdine of Marysville, Washington; from Guy of Masset, B.C., Canada

source : www.spaceweather.com

[faezeh_kh]

The High Frequency Instrument aboard the Planck space telescope has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. The sensor ran out of coolant on Jan. 14, as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy.

"The High Frequency Instrument has reached the end of its observing life, but the Low Frequency Instrument will continue observing for another year, and analysis of data from both instruments is still in the early phase," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. Planck project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The scientific payoff from the High Frequency Instrument's brilliantly successful operation is still to come."

NASA plays an important role in the Planck mission, which is led by the European Space Agency. In addition to helping with the analysis of the data, NASA contributed several key components to the mission itself. JPL built the state-of-the-art detectors that allowed the High Frequency Instrument to detect icy temperatures down to nearly absolute zero, the coldest temperature theoretically attainable.

Less than half a million years after the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago, the initial fireball cooled to temperatures of about 4,000 degrees Celsius (about 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit), releasing bright, visible light. As the universe has expanded, it has cooled dramatically, and its early light has faded and shifted to microwave wavelengths.

By studying patterns imprinted in that light today, scientists hope to understand the Big Bang and the very early universe, as it appeared long before galaxies and stars first formed.

Planck has been measuring these patterns by surveying the whole sky with its High Frequency Instrument and its Low Frequency Instrument. Combined, they give Planck unparalleled wavelength coverage and the ability to resolve faint details.

Launched in May 2009, the minimum requirement for success was for the spacecraft to complete two whole surveys of the sky. In the end, Planck worked perfectly in completing not two, but five whole-sky surveys with both instruments.

The Low Frequency Instrument will continue surveying the sky for a large part of 2012, providing data to improve the quality of the final results. The first results on the Big Bang and very early universe will not come for another year.

Read the full European Space Agency news release at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Planck/SEMXWNMXDXG_0.html .

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists will work together to analyze the Planck data. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and http://www.esa.int/planck.

[رخساره روشنی]

Big sunspot 1402 erupted on Jan. 23rd, producing a strong M9-class solar flare and a fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME). Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the CME should reach Earth on Jan. 24th at 14:18 UT (+/- 7 hr) and Mars a little more than a day later. Strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud reaches Earth. Our magnetic field is still reverberating from a CME impact on Jan. 22nd, so another blow could spark impressive auroras at high latitudes. Sky watchers in northern Europe, Canada, Alaska, and northern-tier US states such as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin should be alert for Northern Lights.

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2nd Optical Data Reduction Workshop

Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics
School of Astronomy and Astrophysics
18th – 20th Bahman 1390
7th – 9th February 2012
Tehran, IRAN

Application Deadline
11th Bahman 1390
31st January 2012


Scientific and Organizing Committee

Ehsan Kourkchi (IPM)
Farhang Habibi (IPM)
Alireza Molaeinejad (IPM)
Saeed Tavassoli (IPM)
Hanieh Kiaee (IPM)
Anoushiravan Rouzrokh (IPM)


Program & Topics

Imaging and Photometry
An introduction to Astronomical
Imaging and Data Reduction

Methods and Tools
1- IRAF data reduction facilities
2- SExtractor (Source extraction and
catalog production)
3- Data Analysis

HERE

[Astronomy]

Hubble Zooms in on a Magnified Galaxy

Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest "magnified" galaxy yet discovered.
This observation provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of a galaxy vigorously forming stars when the universe was only one-third its present age.
A so-called gravitational lens is produced when space is warped by a massive foreground object, whether it is the Sun, a black hole, or an entire cluster of galaxies. The light from more-distant background objects is distorted, brightened, and magnified as it passes through this gravitationally disturbed region.



A team of astronomers led by Jane Rigby of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens.
The results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, in a paper led by Keren Sharon of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. Professor Michael Gladders and graduate student Eva Wuyts of the University of Chicago were also key team members.
The presence of the lens helps show how galaxies evolved from 10 billion years ago to today. While nearby galaxies are fully mature and are at the tail end of their star-formation histories, distant galaxies tell us about the universe's formative years. The light from those early events is just now arriving at Earth. Very distant galaxies are not only faint but also appear small on the sky. Astronomers would like to see how star formation progressed deep within these galaxies. Such details would be beyond the reach of Hubble's vision were it not for the magnification made possible by gravity in the intervening lens region.
In 2006 a team of astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile measured the arc's distance and calculated that the galaxy appears more than three times brighter than previously discovered lensed galaxies. In 2011 astronomers used Hubble to image and analyze the lensed galaxy with the observatory's Wide Field Camera 3.
The distorted image of the galaxy is repeated several times in the foreground lensing cluster, as is typical of gravitational lenses. The challenge for astronomers was to reconstruct what the galaxy really looked like, were it not distorted by the cluster's funhouse-mirror effect.
Hubble's sharp vision allowed astronomers to remove the distortions and reconstruct the galaxy image as it would normally look. The reconstruction revealed regions of star formation glowing like bright Christmas tree bulbs. These are much brighter than any star-formation region in our Milky Way galaxy.
Through spectroscopy, the spreading out of light into its constituent colors, the team plans to analyze these star-forming regions from the inside out to better understand why they are forming so many stars.

www.Hubblesite.org