Category Archives: Science

Lunar Eavesdropping: Two Men, a Radio, and Apollo 11 (Part II)

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

As noted in the last post, in a year from now we will be celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and I am hoping that those celebrations will include recognition of a unique accomplishment that is part of the Apollo 11 story but that is widely unknown: the work of Larry Baysinger, a man from my home town of Louisville, Kentucky, who independently detected signals from the Apollo 11 astronauts as they walked on the lunar surface.  Last week’s post introduced Baysinger and Glenn Rutherford, the reporter (and future editor of the Archdiocese of Louisville’s newspaper) who recorded the project for posterity—both of whom I was fortunate enough to meet, four decades later. And, four decades later, Baysinger still had the reel-to-reel tape recordings that he had made.  He transferred the salvageable sections of the tape to digital format.  You can listen to his recording and compare it to NASA’s own recording here: Some years later, … Continue reading →

No Wine Before Its Time

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

You may have heard the news from NASA that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will suffer a delay in its launch date to March 30, 2021? In short, the sophisticated spacecraft plus solar shields were not quite up to specifications, requiring additional time for testing. The JWST is the most celebrated telescope in the making. It is the much-touted “replacement” for the aging (26 year old) Hubble Space Telescope, yet this is hardly a fair comparison. The JWST will have seven times the collecting area of its predecessor and more sophisticated instruments which will enable us to see 13 billion years into the past. This is remarkable as the universe is only 13.7 billion years old. A significant challenge arises because unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST will not be serviceable. It has to survive the agitation of liftoff in a rocket, operate in the bitter cold of space, protect the sensitive astronomical instruments from damaging sunlight, and … Continue reading →

Asteroid 162173 Ryugu from 40 Kilometers

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft is approaching asteroid 162173 Ryugu. The spacecraft has traveled nearly 3.2 billion km since its launch in December of 2014. The spacecraft and asteroid will meet in interplanetary space 280 million km from the Earth. Hayabusa2 on Twitter: Ryugu seen from between 220 ~ 100 km. Are we seeing the history of the asteroid etched on its surface? https://t.co/cNG1ZGsqlI pic.twitter.com/qqTEozetCV — HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) June 21, 2018 Hayabusa2 will survey the asteroid for 18 months, looking for a suitable location from which to take a sample. A Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) with an explosive charge will be released by Hayabusa2 while it orbits the asteroid; this will remove the space-weathered surface of the asteroid at the target site to allow and a fresh sample to be collected. The spacecraft will depart the asteroid in December of 2019, and return its samples to Earth in December of 2020. Hayabusa2 will also deploy four small probes … Continue reading →

Impact on Mars Causes Avalanche

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

The HiRISE instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured this image of a “relatively new” impact crater (within about a decade) that triggered a slope streak. When the meteoroid impacted on Mars’ surface, the resulting explosion carved out a 5 meter crater, and destabilized the area around the crater, which initiated an avalanche. The slope streak left behind from the avalanche is one kilometer long! Slope streaks are created when dust avalanches leave behind a dark swath on Martian hills. The faded scar of an old avalanche is also visible to the side of the new dark streak. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in a polar orbit of Mars, continually monitoring the surface and weather conditions of the planet, and acting as a communications relay for current and future missions.The MRO hosts several scientific instruments including: spectrometers, radar and cameras which scientists use to analyze Mars’ land formations, rock strata and stratification, minerals, and ices. Article source: NASA Image Details … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Members of the Band

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 169 of 169 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in June 2017 June 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper album, and of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Visiting Chicago that month, on my way to buy the Sgt. Pepper re-issue I found myself driving past Fermilab. The main building of Fermilab, 16-story Wilson Hall, is two curved slabs shaped like hands in prayer. It’s been compared to a French gothic cathedral. Rising above the flat Illinois prairie, it’s easily visible from the highway I was on – Kirk Road. The comparison to a church goes beyond its architecture. Fermilab is a classic example of “big science.” For 50 years it’s been home to 1750 scientists and engineers, working on projects ranging from the discovery of subatomic particles to the exploration of the nature of the neutrino. By generating the building blocks of the universe, then smashing them together, they’ve both confirmed and challenged our theories of how reality … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: By Paper, to the Stars

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 168 of 169 in the series Across the Universe

This column was first published in The Tablet in June, 2004, and first published here in 2015… read the end to find out what happened! The people who design airplanes say that a plane can’t fly until its weight is matched by the weight of its paperwork. The same must be true for launching spacecraft to another planet. Last month [May 2004] I took part on a NASA panel in Washington DC, reviewing five competing plans to build a planetary probe; in the run-up to the panel I was shipped 30 pounds of paper to read. NASA’s “New Frontiers” program is a development of another project driven by piles of paperwork: the Solar System Decadal Survey commissioned by NASA and executed by the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. After hearing from hundreds of planetary scientists at meetings around the world (and reading white papers solicited and gathered by various international  societies) a committee of graybeards outlined where NASA should be … Continue reading →

Coronal Loops on the Sun

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 12 of 12 in the series Exploring the Solar System

Coronal loops are curving structures that appear as arcs above the photosphere of the Sun. Hot plasma causes these loops to glow in the extreme ultraviolet and X-ray portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electrified plasma flowing along powerful magnetic field lines gives coronal loops their characteristic shape.

Continue reading →

NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found new evidence preserved in rocks on Mars that suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, as well as new evidence in the Martian atmosphere that relates to the search for current life on the Red Planet. While not necessarily evidence of life itself, these findings are a good sign for future missions exploring the planet’s surface and subsurface. The new findings — “tough” organic molecules in 3-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks near the surface, as well as seasonal variations in the levels of methane in the atmosphere — appear in the June 8 edition of the journal Science. Organic molecules contain carbon and hydrogen, and also may include oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. While commonly associated with life, organic molecules also can be created by non-biological processes and are not necessarily indicators of life. “Are there signs of life on Mars? We don’t know, but these results tell us we are on the right track.” – … Continue reading →

Tiny Asteroid Discovered Saturday Disintegrates Hours Later Over Southern Africa

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

A boulder-sized asteroid designated 2018 LA was discovered Saturday morning, June 2, and was determined to be on a collision course with Earth, with impact just hours away. Because it was very faint, the asteroid was estimated to be only about 6 feet (2 meters) across, which is small enough that it was expected to safely disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere. Saturday’s asteroid was first discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, located near Tucson and operated by the University of Arizona.   Although there was not enough tracking data to make precise predictions ahead of time, a swath of possible locations was calculated stretching from Southern Africa, across the Indian Ocean, and onto New Guinea. Reports of a bright fireball above Botswana, Africa, early Saturday evening match up with the predicted trajectory for the asteroid. The asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere at the high speed of 10 miles per second (38,000 mph, or 17 kilometers per second) at about 16:44 UTC … Continue reading →

The Perfect Storm

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Do you ever wonder how the “bumps” in the path of the Sun affect our weather? Probably not, and it certainly is not the leading story in the evening weather report. To the credit of meteorologists, this is because the Sun rarely does come across any “bumps,” or side effects of near collisions with other stars. . From time to time the Sun will approach very closely to other stars in its orbit around the Milky Way. By “close” we mean that another star will pass within about three light-years of the Sun, which for reference is less than the distance between the Sun and the nearest star. . For example, a close passage of the Sun with another star 65 million years ago may have shaken loose several of the trillions of comets surrounding our solar system. Some of these “freed” comets would be sent hurtling into the inner solar system, where one of them could strike the Earth. … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: DIY Religion

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 166 of 169 in the series Across the Universe

This column first appeared in The Tablet in May, 2005; we ran it here at the blog in 2015 Astronomy pulls you out of your day to day world and makes you realize that the universe has bigger questions than “what’s for dinner?” and “why is my boss such a pain?” But what does an astronomer do to pull himself out of a day-to-day already filled with galaxies and black holes? In January, 2005, I began a Jesuit program called Tertianship, a period of study and prayer leading up to final vows where I’ve been challenged to move outside my own familiar modes of spirituality, to work outside my comfort zone. For me, that has meant working with people. For six weeks in May, 2005, I lived at Santa Clara University, talking religion to engineers and scientists in Silicon Valley. The pattern of religious life for these “techies” is familiar: Students are consumed by questions about ultimate truth and the meaning of their own … Continue reading →

Our Interacting Neighbors

The Catholic Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Two of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are easily spotted by eye in the southern hemisphere. Sometimes shortened as “The Clouds,” these much smaller and irregular-shaped “dwarf” galaxies orbit about the Milky Way, and will eventually be assimilated by it. . We have known for a while now of a column of hydrogen gas and stars that connects these two dwarf galaxies. But therein also lies the mystery: where did this stream of material come from? The two close contenders are: close fly-bys of the Clouds with the Milky Way, or close fly-bys of the LMC with the SMC. . Clues to solve this mystery come from studying the stars near the outer edges of The Clouds, which are held more tentatively as a result of the weaker gravitational pull. . Astronomer Dougal Mackey and collaborators (Australian National University) have undertaken a census of stars in the … Continue reading →