The Wind from the Sun

FOCUS (MASDEX) waived “Go Ahead”

ejbfly — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:59:59 +0000

The former Munich Advanced Structural Deployment Experiment, now called FOCUS ( a First in Orbit Curing experiment by University Students ) has been officially approved for the REXUS programme of the German Aerospace Center DLR. FOCUS will demonstrate the possibility to manufacture large space structure by means of in orbit curing, and will be launched on a Orion sounding rocket in March 2011.

More information can be found on the project’s website

http://sites.google.com/site/focusrexus/

IKAROS to launch in 2010

ejbfly — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:40:22 +0000

JAXA’s next solar sailing experiment is due to launch as a piggyback with Venus Climate Orbiter.

more information

Ultra Deep Field 2009

ejbfly — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:36:02 +0000

Hubble used it’s new Widefield Camera 3 to update “the most important picture ever taken”

See www.nasa.gov/hubble for detailed information

MASDEX

ejbfly — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:21:36 +0000

The Munich Advanced Structure Deployment EXperiment has been approved by DLR authorities to compete for a place in it’s REXUS programme. MASDEX investigates the deployment of large structures by a novel approach, which is based on in-orbit curing of the matrix resin of composite structures. A successful selection by the REXUS board would provide the MASDEX team with additional financing and the possibility to launch a demonstrator on a Orion sounding rocket for micro gravity testing.

Setting Sail

ejbfly — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:48:58 +0000

Supported by a recent large donation, Planetary Society is picking up new speed for launching it’s LightSail 1 spacecraft. With hardware acquired from Nasa’s discontinued NanoSail program, PS plans to launch soon, the very first demonstrator of sailing on the wind from the sun.

Find more information at the Planetary Society’s website

First Light

ejbfly — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:36:12 +0000

Just got my “new” digital camera, a Ricoh GX, and hat to try some basic level astro photography. This resulted in the below picture of the moon, which is a composite of 10 individual images. The raw material was captured via afocal projection through 10×40 binos and then processed with Giotto.

M64

ejbfly — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:02:17 +0000

Hubble imagery of Messier 64 shows us one of the most dynamic looking galaxies. With its huge dust clouds mixed into vast regions of it’s spiral arm system and the numerous bright stars in blue and red colors, she is a beauty in the sky. But M64 also tells us about it’s own striking history as parts of the outer dust bands rotate counter-wise to the inner parts of the galaxy. This property can be revealed with Doppler spectroscopy and it is believed that the events taking place at the boundary between the two differently rotating regions are responsible for the high activity of star formation in M64. The cause for this dual spinning of M64 is probably the merging of two different galaxies in the past. One bigger, a smaller dust rich one with opposite spin.

Mathematics?

ejbfly — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:46:32 +0000

As mankind tries to describe the universe success is made in many areas. But it seems that we are as far from something “true” as were the ancient greeks. Maybe this is the case because out language of description, mathematics as we know it, is not well suited for the universe. For sure Mathematics today are more powerful then ever, but this is no reason to regard it as powerful enough to deliver a true insight into nature at the end.

Obviously nature does not calculate! Even simple addition can be seen as nonsense when we let loose of our commen human viewpoint. Think about how additon might have been come into use. A table with one Newtonian Apple on it. Our ancient fellow might have performed repeatedly the experiment of adding another apple to the one of the table and discovered the simple law: one apple plus one apple makes two apples. But when we allwo as to take a more panoramic view of the whole scene we might recognize that nothing has happend at all. There have been two apples there all the time. Addition is just an illusion generated by the human desire to draw borders and to divide problems into subsets to make them accesible to our brain. without a concept of independet closed reagion, addition is not. Nature seems not to have any such concept, because everything interacts with everything all the time. Therefore addition and all of mathematics build upon it, has nothing to do with physical reality.

…. Just an Idea

550 AU

ejbfly — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:15:10 +0000

A deep space mission to a distance of 550AU, where the gravity lensing effect of our own sun generates a most powerful relativistic telescope, is one of the great challenges for 21st century spaceflight. It is especially demanding with respect to propulsion, in order to keep travel time in a feasible range. Solar Sailling might be one answer…

An already a few years old, but nevertheless very well written overview of the current and past undertakings in theis sector is available via Centaury Dreams.

Click here!

Astronomy on Youtube

ejbfly — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:37:43 +0000

Of course there are hundreds of well done clips on cosmology, astronomy etc., but the two produced by Tom Darnell are diamonds worth watching over and over again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9HLIOnTapE&feature=channel_page

In my opinion, especially his “Hubble Deep Field” video is a masterpice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw&feature=channel