Hubble pictures Jupiter's 'scar'

Dark disturbance: The WFC-3 has not yet been properly calibrated Hubble has trained its new camera on the atmospheric disturbance on Jupiter believed to have been caused by a comet or asteroid impact. The telescope used the Wide Field Camera 3 fitted on the recent shuttle servicing mission to capture ultra-sharp visible-light images of the scar. The dark spot near the gas giant's southern pole was noticed first by an amateur Australian astronomer. Some of the world's biggest telescopes have since taken detailed pictures. Engineers at the US space agency, Nasa, interrupted the post-servicing commissioning of the refurbished Hubble to use the WFC-3. "Because we believe this magnitude of impact is rare, we are very fortunate to see it with Hubble," said Amy Simon-Miller of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Details seen in the Hubble view show a lumpiness to the debris plume caused by turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere." The pictures augur well for Hubble. Its servicing should give it several more years of life. The WFC-3 will be used to take the deepest images of the cosmos yet. Astronomers cannot be absolutely sure Jupiter was struck by a space object, but the evidence seems compelling. One estimate of the diameter of the impacting body suggests it may have been hundreds of metres wide. "This is just one example of what Hubble's new, state-of-the-art camera can do, thanks to the [shuttle] astronauts and the entire Hubble team," said Ed Weiler, Nasa's chief scientist. "However, the best is yet to come." It is 15 years since Jupiter was famously hit by Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. It broke up into several pieces as it plunged on to the gas giant. There was prior warning of that event and Hubble took some typically remarkable pictures on that occasion, too

'I'll remember eclipse all my life'

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder watched the eclipse in India on board a specially chartered flight Passengers on a special chartered flight to view the total eclipse in India saw spectacular sights. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder, who was also on board, reports. "Ladies and gentlemen, 30 seconds to go. Get your cameras ready and enjoy the view." Captain Oswal's measured tones were in stark contrast to the frenzy his words unleashed. Bounding with enthusiasm, passengers on board Flight 2279 whooped with delight as the sky slowly darkened. The Boeing-737 had been chartered specially for a flight to view the solar eclipse above India. It's the monsoon season and many parts of the country are covered with thick clouds. So some people chose to fly above the clouds, at 41,000 feet, for a closer look. Before sunrise, they gathered at Delhi airport, sleepy but keen. 'Magical' There were veteran "eclipse chasers", first-timers, amateur astronomers, scientists and even young children. For Deepak Bhimani, 70, it was his eighth solar eclipse. "Each time it's as magical as the previous one," he said smiling, as he fiddled with his camera. "Each time I learn something new." 'With the sky pitch black, you could see the galaxy in all its glory' As we board the aircraft, special "solar-view goggles" are handed out, to protect the eyes from damage. The best seats were on what was called the sun-side, where passengers would have an unhindered view of totality, the moment when the sun is completely obscured. The privileged vantage point came at a steep price - $1,600 - while those on the other side of the aisle cost less than half. "It's worth the money, man," grinned Sachin as he positioned his camera against the window. He's travelled all the way from America to be here. There are others like Gerhard from Germany. He was due to witness the eclipse in Shanghai, but was worried about swine flu and decided to come to India instead. An hour into the flight and the sense of anticipation grew as the crew counted down the minutes. The cabin lights were dimmed and people geared up for the spectacle. "There it is, there it, is," shouted one man as ever so slowly, a shadow travelled across the face of the Sun. With the sky pitch black, you could see the galaxy in all its glory. "Look there's Mercury below us," yelled another. "Jupiter, Saturn," as he counted out the planets. Even the cabin crew joined in, special glasses firmly in place. Emotional And then we had the magic moment. The sun transformed into a black orb, crowned in a dazzling white halo - totality. Some cheered, others clapped and a few went quiet. And then it was over, leaving everyone dazed and lost for words. Even the veteran, Deepak Bhimani, was emotional. "It's so hard to describe this feeling - the sense of awe, nature in all its glory," he said, his eyes misty, his voice shaking. A sense that was echoed across the generation. "It was amazing, the moment when you saw the diamond ring," said 11-year-old Shreya Sahai, the youngest on board. "I'll remember it for the rest of my life." The lights sprung back on and the captain announced that we were heading back to Delhi. Flight attendants rolled out breakfast carts. But many on board remained lost in thought as they reflected on the moment when they witnessed one of the world's rarest natural events. From 41,000 feet.

Astronomer discovers 'giant hole' on Jupiter

Jupiter, largest planet in the solar system. Photo Courtesy: NASA.

In a startling discovery, an amateur Australian astronomer has spotted a giant hole, the size of the Earth, on planet Jupiter -- a finding corroborated by US space agency NASA.

Anthony Wesley said he spotted the dark "scar" which had suddenly appeared on Jupiter through a homemade telescope, from the yard of his rural home near Canberra on Sunday night, 'The Times' reported.

"About 11 pm, I went inside to have a break and watch the British Open golf on TV, and by the time I came back out at about 1 am the impact point had rotated around into view.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'That wasn't there before' and then I realised Jupiter had actually been hit by something," the 44-year-old was quoted by the leading British newspaper as saying.

Wesley immediately set about alerting the global space community to his find, e-mailing photographs and footage to various amateur and professional Jupiter experts around the world.

Even Nasa confirmed Wesley's discovery on Monday and released their own images. The pictures, taken by the American space agency's infrared telescope in Hawaii, show a "scar" in the atmosphere near Jupiter's south pole.

NASA astronomers believe that the "scar" in Jupiter's atmosphere near the south pole of the gas giant indicate that it has apparently been struck by an object, possibly a comet.

It comes 15 years after Jupiter was bombarded by pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, and in the same week the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the moon landings.

"I remember watching Jupiter back then, so I grew up with those images of the Shoemaker-Levy. So it was a very surreal feeling to suddenly see this appear on Jupiter again," Wesley, an IT consultant, said.

Glenn Orton, a Nasa scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, praised the discovery. "We were extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event. We couldn't have planned it better," Orton said

Endeavour crew prepares for 2nd spacewalk

This image provided by NASA shows the underside of the crew cabin of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Photo Courtesy: AP

The space shuttle Endeavour's seven-member crew spent a busy day on the International Space Station (ISS), preparing for the second of five scheduled space walks, NASA said.

The crew were awakened at 5:13 am Central Time (1013 GMT) to the sounds of "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, a song chosen by one of the crew members.

The bulk of the day's schedule was taken up with moving equipment from the Endeavour onto the ISS, and with preparations for Monday's space walk.

Astronauts Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn will prepare their space suits and tools for the walk, while four other members of the crew install the Integrated Cargo Carrier, which is loaded with replacement batteries for the ISS.

Later on Sunday, Canadian astronaut Julie Payette and flight engineer Bob Thirsk are scheduled to talk with Canadian news media and dignitaries via audiolink, the US space agency said.

Saturday, Tim Kopra and Wolf carried out a five hour and 32 minute spacewalk to complete construction of the Japanese Kibo laboratory.

"The third and final piece of Japan's Kibo laboratory was assembled on orbit on Saturday, a symphony of robotic and spacewalking performances by the 13 member orchestra aboard the International Space Station complex," NASA said in a statement.

Russia still blue over moon landing

In this July 20, 1969 file photo, Astronaut Edwin E Aldrin Jr poses beside the US flag on the moon. Photo Courtesy: AP.

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, it was a first for the Soviet Union - the first time the US had beaten the USSR in the space race.

Forty years later, the memory of that loss of primacy still seems to sting the Russian soul. When state TV channel Rossiya reported last week on the restoration of video footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the account gave a lot of attention to dubious conspiracy theories that the landing was faked.

"In the United States, more than anywhere else, they are sure of the believability of the steps on the moon," the report said, adding that Armstrong keeps a very low profile. "This also seems strange to many people."

For a dozen years before the July 20, 1969, moon landing, Moscow racked up an extraordinary array of superlatives. It was the first to send a craft into orbit, with the Sputnik satellite in 1957.

The first human to go into outer space was Russian Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Moscow sent the woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; and Alexei Leonov was the first person to venture outside a spacecraft into the endless cosmos, in 1965.

Russia even got to the moon first when the unmanned Luna 2 crashed in 1959. But the drama of the first human footprint on an extraterrestrial body eclipsed everything the Soviets had worked so hard to achieve.

"Beginning with the first flight with a primitive capsule, and then getting to the moon, it was a great achievement for humanity," Russian astronaut Sergei Krikalev said.

"Of course, we would have liked to see the first man on the moon be Soviet, Russian, but that's life ... Our own achievements were very many," he told Associated Press Television News.

In the 40 years since the Apollo 11 landing, the USSR and Russia, which inherited the Soviet legacy, shot ahead of the United States occasionally only to fall further behind.

The Soviet Union put the first space station into orbit with the Salyut 1 in 1971. However, the first crew couldn't get aboard because of docking problems. Another three-man crew later got aboard, but died when a valve failed on the capsule bringing them back to Earth.

Then there was the Mir - the first space station fit for long-term habitation. It achieved early glory. But that quickly faded after 1991, when the Soviet collapse choked off funding for the space program and the Mir suffered a series of accidents, including a collision and fires that tuned it into a symbol of danger and decay.

Earthlings scanned the sky nervously on the day in 2001 when the 140-ton craft plunged to its fiery end. Luckily, it landed in the Pacific Ocean.

In recent years, Russia's space program has earned as a workhorse rather than a racehorse - reliable, cooperative, even stolid.

Its cramped Soyuz manned capsules and unmanned Progress cargo ships had already served as the lifeline to the International Space Station for more than two years when the United States grounded its space shuttles in 2003, after the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry.

The Russian space program will once again be the gatekeepers to the orbiting laboratory in 2010, when the shuttle fleet is grounded for good.

That doesn't mean Russia has lost its ambitions for primacy in space.

The US is busy planning to replace the shuttles. But last year, Russia awarded contracts for design of its own next-generation spaceship to replace the Soyuz. The competing efforts could trigger a new space race.

Russian space officials meanwhile still seem to be dreaming about winning the next stage of the space race.

They keep talk in tantalizing terms about mounting a manned mission to Mars, although they say that would take at least another 20 years to get off the ground. "I think this is fine. It's like sports - at one stage one person wins, at another it's somebody else," said Krikalev

Century's longest Solar eclipse on July 22

File photo of a full solar eclipse. Photo Courtesy: AFP.

Sat-Jul 18, 2009

New Delhi / Press Trust of India

Sky gazers await for the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century on July 22 as it will provide a rare opportunity to witness the grand event for the people in west, central, east and north-east India.

A total eclipse occurs when the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The intensely bright disk of the Sun is replaced by the dark silhouette of the Moon, SPACE President C B Devgun said.

During the total eclipse, totality is visible only from a narrow track on the surface of the Earth. The countries to witness the path of the Moon's umbral shadow are India and Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China.

In India, the shadow sweeps over the cities of Surat, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi and Patna. Travelling across Bhutan, the eclipse will be visible in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Burma (Myanmar), before reaching China at 06:35 IST, he said.

China's largest city Shanghai will experience the total solar eclipse for five minutes, he said, adding across the East China Sea, the eclipse will sweep over Japan's Ryukyu Islands and Iwo Jima.

After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality will be 6 min 38 sec.

A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean, Devgun said.

Greatest eclipse occurs in the South Pacific at 08:05:19 IST. At this instant, the axis of the Moon's shadow passes closest to Earth's center.

The magnitude of total solar eclipse will be approximately 1.080. This solar eclipse is the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132.

The next total solar eclipse will be on July 11, 2010 which will be seen in South pacific, Chile and Argentina.

Oldest dinosaur burrow discovered

A burrow photographed from above, showing a cross section, with the entrance on the right side and chamber on the left The world's oldest dinosaur burrows have been discovered in Australia. Three separate burrows have been found in all, the biggest 2m long, each built to a similar design and just big enough to hold the body of a small dinosaur. The 106-million-year-old burrows, the first to be found outside of North America, would have been much closer to the South Pole when they were created. That supports the idea that dinosaurs living in cold, harsh climates burrowed underground to survive. The only other known dinosaur burrow was discovered in 2005 in Montana, US. Described two years later, this burrow dated from 95 million years ago and contained the bones of an adult and two juveniles of a small new species of dinosaur called Oryctodromeus cubicularis. It provides an alternative explanation for how small dinosaurs might have overwintered in polar environments Palaeontologist Anthony Martin Now the older burrows have been found by one of the researchers who made the original Montana discovery. "Like many discoveries in palaeontology, it happened by a combination of serendipity and previous knowledge," says Anthony Martin of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, US. "In May 2006, I hiked into the field site with a group of graduate students with the intention of looking for dinosaur tracks. We did indeed find a few dinosaur tracks that day, but while there I also noted a few intriguing structures." Martin returned to the site, a place dubbed Knowledge Creek that lies 240km from Melbourne, Victoria, to study these structures, once in July 2007 and again in May this year. His first reaction was one of astonishment. "I was scanning the outcrop for trace fossils, and was very surprised to see the same type of structure I had seen in Cretaceous rocks of Montana the previous year," says Martin. That original structure turned out to be the burrow of O. cubicularis,which Martin described with colleagues David Varricchio from Montana State University, Bozeman, US, and Yoshi Katsura of Gifu Prefectural Museum in Seki City, Japan. "So to walk up to the outcrop and see such a strikingly similar structure, in rocks only slightly older, but in another hemisphere, was rather eerie." Twisting structures Within the rock, which forms part of the so-called Otway group of rocks that have yielded a rich diversity of vertebrate fossils, Martin found three separate burrows less than 3m apart, which he describes in the journal Cretaceous Research. Two of the burrows formed a semi-helix, twisting down into the rock that was once soil. The largest and best preserved, dubbed tunnel A, turns twice before ending in a larger chamber. In total, it is more than 2.1m long. Martin calculates that an animal around 10kg in size would have made each burrow. Modern animals which create such burrows include aardwolves, alligators, coyotes, gopher tortoises and striped hyenas. Twisting burrows can help stop predators getting in and keep the temperature and humidity constant. Martin can't be sure which species of dinosaur made the burrows, but he is struck by how similar their designs are to the burrow made byO. cubicularis. A variety of small ornithopod dinosaurs were also known to have lived in the area during the same time in the Cretaceous. These ornithopods stood upright on their hind legs and were about the size of a large, modern-day iguana. Surviving the cold Martin has ruled out a variety of other factors that could have created the burrows. The fact that they were made by dinosaurs makes sense, he says. Twenty years ago, researchers in Australia, including Patricia Vickers-Rich of Monash University in Clayton and Thomas Rich of the Museum of Victoria, first proposed that some dinosaurs may have climbed into burrows to survive harsh climates they couldn't escape from by migrating. "It gives us yet another example of how dinosaurs evolved certain adaptive behaviours in accordance with their ecosystems," Martin says. "Polar dinosaurs in particular must have possessed special adaptations to deal with polar winters, and one of their behavioural options was burrowing. It provides an alternative explanation for how small dinosaurs might have overwintered in polar environments." Martin now hopes that palaeontologists will be on the look out for a range of different types of dinosaur burrow, and for dinosaurs that are physically adapted to burrowing into soil.