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Some of you know that recently some of UKIRT's work on Mauna Kea has switched to a NASA-led project called "Planetary Protection". UKIRT's main role is to use infrared light to help understand the composition of both asteroids that might threaten the Earth and also orbital debris that might either re-enter the Earth's atmosphere or collide with other objects orbiting Earth.
There is now a fascinating website (no connection with UKIRT) which has live "3-D" tracking of objects orbiting the planet, including satellites, rocket bodies and orbital debris. You can zoom in and out, re-orientate the display and click on objects to find out what they are. Maybe useful if you're star-gazing and wondering what's that "satellite" you can see. Red dots are satellites, blue dots are rocket bodies and grey dots are debris. There's a lot off stuff out there.
http://stuffin.space/
Unfortunately you'll likely need a decent internet connection, but if you do, enjoy!
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TomK,
Thank you. It's really cool! Thankfully I have a pretty good internet connection.
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If you space "junkies" enjoyed the website of space debris, here's a video you might enjoy(also requiring a good internet connection) of a 3D journey through the Milky Way Galaxy, based on 400,000 photos by the Spitzer Space Telescope:
http://petapixel.com/2015/07/06/a-3d-fly...pe-photos/
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Imiloa Planetarium has it all in 3 d pretty cool
http://www.imiloahawaii.org/35
aloha
Dan Dolaptchieff
HPP
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I've seen that before... I find it interesting... Is the ring that is forming around the earth the path of a gyroscoping orbit? Or is that just the junk that naturally forming around a strong gravitational pull?
Anyway... here is another site. Not sure about internet usage on this but it's really cool. (along the same lines)
http://stars.chromeexperiments.com/
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Tomk, i'm sure a google search would avail me some pertinent knowledge, but if you could would you mind elucidating for those less educated in the astrophysical sciences just what a "rocket body" might be?
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It's the result of a program the Russians ran several years back that was marketed at Star Trek conventions. For a surprisingly reasonable fee, due to the crude Russian rockets excess payload capacity, Trekkies could arrange for their Earthly remains to be ejected into Earth orbit along with the regular rocket payload.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
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I was so tempted not to reply because I love oink's response. Not a trekkie but I thought of "the place where astronomers go to die".
Rocket bodies are literally the bodies of rockets. Rockets that launch stuff into space generally consist of two or more stages. There's an initial stage that blasts the rocket into the upper reaches of the atmosphere where it is discarded and generally returns to Earth but burns up in the atmosphere. The second or third stages take the payload into orbit but are then discarded. These rocket remains, generally rather large parts of the original rocket, can stay in orbit for many years or even decades. They are uncontrolled (no fuel left) and can be hazardous to spacecraft. However, they are easy to track because they are big.
Ericlp, that ring or band full of satellites (i.e. red dots) is geosynchronous orbit. It's an orbit above the equator where a satellite orbits the Earth at the same rate the Earth rotates, so satellites there remain above the same point on Earth. It's where most of the communication, TV and weather satellites are placed, so it's a little crowded, well, relatively speaking.
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http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-exoplanets...58023.html
by Elizabeth Howell, Astrobiology Magazine
July 9, 2015 11:23 AM
screw the protesters, ancient exoplanets are where it's at.
"...the age of Kepler-444 and its planets to an astounding 11.2 billion years old. That's nearly 2.5 times as old as our solar system. None of Kepler-444's planets are thought to be habitable, as they circle the star at a scorchingly close distance. However, Campante said that finding those planets is a great stride forward in the search for older, habitable worlds, and the best may be yet to come."
"The researchers observed Kepler-444 with the W.M. Keck telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii to learn more about its chemical composition.
The star is deficient in iron but is rich in what are called "alpha elements," such as silicon, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. These elements were all formed in the first stellar explosions of our universe, when older stars ran out of fuel to burn and spread these elements far and wide. These elements make the composition of the star's orbiting planets a bit of a surprise, Campante said."
