Are you ready for some free fall?

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner officially announced that sometime this year, he intends to jump from a balloon at a height of nearly 23 miles, breaking the 50-year-old world record for the highest parachute jump held by retired U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger. Kittinger is the Stratos mission’s capcom (short for capsule communicator), which means that he will be the voice in Baumgartner’s helmet. Kittinger’s advice to his successor: “Have fun, enjoy it, and tell us all about it when you get down” [Scientific American].

Baumgartner is a BASE jumper who once flew a glider across the English Channel, but he and his team say they have loftier goals than simply a world record and a huge adrenaline rush. If he makes the jump, Baumgartner could be the first person to break the sound barrier without the benefit of an aircraft, and his crazy stunt could provide valuable data on how that affects the body. Just as Kittinger did, Baumgartner will go up in a balloon, though his pressure suit, capsule and monitoring equipment will be much more advanced [Reuters]. Baumgartner says that a successful test would also benefit future spaceflight, showing that if astronauts had a problem as their craft entered the stratosphere, it theoretically would be possible for them to bail out and safely reach the ground.

Baumgartner’s pressurized, airtight suit is much like those worn by space shuttle astronauts, and Art Thompson, the project’s technical director, explains that it’s vital to his success. The jump height is above a threshold at [62,000 feet] called the Armstrong line, where the atmospheric pressure is so low that fluids start to boil. “If he opens up his face mask or the suit, all the gases in your body go out of suspension, so you literally turn into a giant fizzy, oozing fluid from your eyes and mouth, like something out of a horror film,” Thompson explained. “It’s just seconds until death” [New Scientist].

Hopefully Baumgartner has better luck than others who have tried to fall to Earth from the highest heights. The most recent attempt was made in 2008, by a former French paratrooper, Michel Fournier, who spent years preparing only to have the balloon that was set to take him up break from its moorings and float away [The Independent]. Fournier, however, pledges to try again this year, so it could be a race to jump from the stratosphere—if everybody remembers to keep their balloons strapped down until they’re ready.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: The Daredevils Who Chase One of the Sky’s Greatest Mysteries
DISCOVER: Here’s Your Jetpack
DISCOVER: The X-Prize, an in-depth look at the contest back in 2002

Image: Red Bull Stratos

Just a hair over ten nine years ago, the Cassini spacecraft caromed past Jupiter, stealing a tiny bit of the giant planet’s energy to hasten the space probe’s journey to Saturn. When it passed Jupiter at a distance of about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles), Cassini saw this:

[Click to enjovianate. Seriously, the full-res picture is jaw-dropping.]

This stunning shot is actually a mosaic of 27 images: 9 images to cover the planet in a 3×3 grid, and 3 images at each location to get red, green, and blue exposures to make this near true-color image. While the Voyagers (which also flew past Jupiter) and Galileo (which orbited the planet for about 8 years) took higher-resolution images, this is the sharpest color global view of Jupiter taken.

It’s one of my favorite shots of Jupiter, too, edged out by the crescent view of the planet from Cassini (with the added bonus of a crescent Io) as it left on its way to Saturn. You can see that image and more on the Cassini Jupiter Encounter page. The probe has been in orbit around the ringed planet for a long time now, but when you peruse those gorgeous images, don’t forget that in space, you can almost always get more than just one bird with one stone.

Tip o’ the Red Spot to Carolyn Porco, who mentioned this on her Twitter feed.

“STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence of blunt trauma in northern New York City before and after the distribution of 25,000 baseball bats at Yankee Stadium… …MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Seventy-seven patients sustained bat injuries, 38 (49%) before and 36 (47%) after Bat Day. There were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to age, sex, time of injury, number and distribution of fractures and lacerations, incidence of loss of consciousness, source of history, or dispostion. There was a positive association between the number of cases on a given day and the average temperature that day (r = .5; P < .01). CONCLUSION: The distribution of 25,000 wooden baseball bats to attendees at Yankee Stadium did not increase the incidence of bat-related trauma in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. There was a positive correlation between daily temperature and the incidence of bat injury. The informal but common impressions of emergency clinicians about the cause-and-effect relationship between Bat Day and bat trauma were unfounded.”

Thanks to Timon for today’s ROFL!

Over the weekend, to prepare for my keynote at the Hope Summit 2010 in St. Louis, I went back through the Unscientific America PowerPoint and added a number of updates and new observations. I may blog a number of the changes, but I want to highlight one of them in particular–I added this figure from the latest Science and Engineering Indicators report out of NSF:

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the U.S. is producing an increasing, not decreasing, number of scientists and engineers right now. But China…whoa. The figures above only go through 2007, and in light of that slope, it may well be that China is producing more science and engineering Ph.D.s annually than any other country in the world by now.

What you’re looking at, folks, is the rapid birth of a science superpower.

So when you hear concerns about declining U.S. leadership in science, there is definitely something to it. In fact, those concerns aren’t just rearview mirror watching any more; China is the car that’s blowing past us in the left lane. Whether they are producing scientists who are as talented, as well-trained, or as interdisciplinary as American scientists, I can’t say. But boy are they ever producing scientists.

Can you imagine being in space, calmly watching a star, and all of a sudden…

Kepler’s Supernova Remnant, Went supernova circa October 1604  Image:  NASA/JPL ESA-SOHO Chandra/Spitzer/Hubble

Isn’t that gorgeous?  Spectacular?  Better hope you’re a few light years away from that puppy, because when it goes, it GOES.

In a short time, a star going supernova will radiate as much energy as our Sun could radiate during its entire life span… that’s billions of years.  It will out-shine a galaxy.  The shock wave of the supernova blows out at a velocity of about a tenth of the speed of light.  That’s all or most of that star’s matter coming at you at about 30,000 km/s.  The word “boom” doesn’t quite encompass the process.  We’re talking about one of the most powerful, catastrophic events to occur in the universe.

There are several types of supernovae, and not every star will supernova at the end of its life.  For instance, the Sun won’t.  It doesn’t have enough mass.  It will blow off its hydrogen “crust” as its going from red giant to white dwarf, but it won’t supernova.

SN1994D  NASA/ESA Hubble

The process by which a supernova is initiated varies depending on what type of star we’re talking about, and what type of supernova happens to it.  Just remember, it is a catastrophic breakdown of the mechanics of the star.  The process is irreversible, and unstoppable as far as we know.  Most commonly, the process begins when the core ignites iron, as the fusion of iron takes more energy than it produces.  The star burns hydrogen to helium to carbon to neon to oxygen to iron.  The core begins to collapse when iron fusion begins, and the energy produced in the rebound shockwave of the sudden core collapse (it happens within seconds) appears to be what triggers supernova.  The synthesis of most elements heavier than iron occurs in the supernova.  It’s very dramatic.

A supernova fairly close to the Earth (within 6,000 ly) is believed by some to have triggered the Odovician-Silurian extinction, the second largest extinction event on Earth for total loss of life.  This event occurred right at 443.7 million years ago.  Supernovae are powerful, commanding events, and you don’t want to be anywhere near one when it happens.  We get neutron stars, pulsars, and black holes from the event, not to mention everything else.  In 1054 CE the Chinese astronomers recorded a supernova that was so bright they could see it during the day.  We call what’s left of it the Crab Nebula.

This is the SN1006 remnant (occurred in 1006 CE):

SN1006 Remnant    NASA/JPL  Chandra

This is believed to be the brightest apparent magnitude event to have occurred in recorded history.  It outshone Venus, and was about 1/4 the brightness of the moon.  SN1006 is about 7200 ly away from Earth.  Getting kinda close, there.

Supernovae are fascinating, awe-inspiring events.  They are an expression of almost unimaginable power and force.  They are the death of a star; but in their death, life is created.

Just think – if you are wearing gold jewelry right now, you are wearing something that was created in the power of a supernova.