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Category Archives: Astronomy

Burke Teachers Taking Flight

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Omaha Burke High School teachers Judi Little and LeeAnn Vaughan are among 24 educators who have been selected to fly on NASAs Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy aircraft, carrying the worlds largest airborne telescope.

Their flights are set to take place May 5th-10th as part of the Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program.

SOFIA is an extensively modified Boeing 747SP jetliner equipped with a 100-inch (2.5 meter) diameter telescope. The observatory flies from its home base in Palmdale, California, and the educators aboard work side-by-side with NASAs own astronomer teams. The educators witness all stages of scientific research from preparations and observations to data analysis and publication. The observatory enables the analysis of infrared light to study the formation of stars and planets, the chemistry of interstellar gases and the composition of comets, asteroids and planets.

Typically, educators make two flights in the NASA aircraft, then implement classroom lessons and public outreach programs based on their experiences.

SOFIAs Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program began in 2010. During its brief history, the program has already flown 26 educators from 14 states on science flights.

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Burke Teachers Taking Flight

Southern Oregon astronomers taking NASA telescope flight

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MEDFORD, Ore. A projected map cuts through the semidarkness of North Medford High Schools planetarium and shimmers into focus on the domes curved ceiling.

Its a flight path, showing planned liftoffs from Palmdale, Calif., on Wednesday and Thursday and a soaring route over Oregon, Washington, parts of Canada, Iowa and Idaho before a return to base; two 10-hour jaunts with no planned landings.

Sunset to sunrise, well fly all night, says Robert Black, North Medfords astronomy teacher and planetarium director.

What hes describing is no typical airplane flight. Black, 50, along with friend and fellow amateur astronomer Dave Bloomsness, 61, of Southern Oregon Skywatchers, will fly aboard SOFIA NASAs Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy the worlds largest flying telescope. They are among 24 educators selected from across the country for SOFIAs Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program.

Working alongside astronomers and other scientists, they will help collect infrared images and data pertaining to the study of interstellar gases, star formation and destruction, and black holes all at 45,000 feet in the Earths stratosphere, about twice the altitude of a domestic airliner flight. When they return, they will implement classroom lessons and public-outreach events based on their experiences.

Its a huge opportunity. Im really excited, Bloomsness says.

Educators have been taking similar flights since the Ambassadors program began in 2010.

Black says his mentor, Gary Sprague, took a flight in the 1980s aboard the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a modified C141A military-cargo plane that ran research and observation flights from 1975 until its retirement in the 1990s. SOFIA took over in 2010.

Thats one of the high points of his career, Black says of Spragues flight. He volunteered to fly; somebody got sick. It was an accident for him, serendipity.

The opportunity for Black and Bloomsness didnt come by lucky accident. It took a meticulous application process, combined with weeks of advanced astronomy study.

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Southern Oregon astronomers taking NASA telescope flight

Carnival of Space #351

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Carnival of Space. Image by Jason Major.

Welcome, come in to the 351st Carnival of Space! The carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. Im Susie Murph, part of the team at Universe Today and now, on to this weeks stories!

Leading off the big news this week, CosmoQuest kicked off a 36-day fundraiser with a 36-hour Hangoutathon this weekend! You can go over there to find links to the schedule and the videos on YouTube, and you can still donate to help DO SCIENCE!

And if youre wondering about what kind of science they do, in the first of what will be a series, Nicole Gugliucci explains the first peer-reviewed science paper to come from CosmoQuest citizen science. Why do we count craters, anyway?

Another worthy organization is discussed in Jason Majors article over at Universe Today. A penny for NASA this is the goal of Penny4NASA.org, an outreach group that strives to increase the funding if just by a little of the worlds most accomplished, inspirational, and powerful space exploration administration. (Before you know, it isnt.)

Then we go over to Brian Wangs Next Big Future blog, where he give us the scoop on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosters successful return to Earth, where it deployed its landing legs, and hovered for a moment. The ability, known as a soft landing, could allow the company to dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight and one day land rockets on Mars. Then Brian covers SpaceXs intentions to use the Spacex Heavy lift vehicle and the Spiderfab robotic assembly machine to create structures in orbit cheaper and easier, such as space-based mirror farms to collect solar energy.

Next, we go over to Vega00.com where, until now, the orbital stability of the two nearest planets to 55 Cancri has been a mystery. Now, a new computational simulation shows that this is possible. (This article is written in Spanish.)

Then, Zain Husain over at BrownSpaceMan.com explains What are white holes? Its just a theory for now and possibly all it will ever be however, why is that? Here we take a look at the definition of a white hole and what we understand about them.

Next, over at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory blog, they explain how professional and amateur astronomers can join forces to study the skies, since amateurs have one resource that professionals often lack time to focus on one research project in depth.

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Carnival of Space #351

Southern Oregon astronomers taking NASA flight

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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - A projected map cuts through the semidarkness of North Medford High Schools planetarium and shimmers into focus on the domes curved ceiling.

Its a flight path, showing planned liftoffs from Palmdale, Calif., on Wednesday and Thursday that will soar over Oregon, Washington, parts of Canada, Iowa and Idaho before returning to base; two 10-hour jaunts with no planned landings.

Sunset to sunrise, well fly all night, says Robert Black, North Medfords astronomy teacher and planetarium director.

But the route isnt for a typical airplane flight, the kind with a cramped seat and a bag of stale crackers.

Black, 50, along with friend and fellow amateur astronomer Dave Bloomsness, 61, of Southern Oregon Skywatchers, will fly aboard SOFIA - NASAs Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy - the worlds largest flying telescope. They are among 24 educators who were selected from across the country for SOFIAs Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program.

Working alongside astronomers and other scientists, they will collect infrared images and data pertaining to the study of interstellar gases, star formation and destruction, and black holes - all at 45,000 feet in the Earths stratosphere, about twice the height for a domestic plane flight. When they return, they will implement classroom lessons and public outreach events based on their experiences.

Its a huge opportunity. Im really excited, Bloomsness says.

Educators have been taking similar flights since the Ambassadors program began in 2010.

Black says his mentor, Gary Sprague, took a flight in the 1980s aboard the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a modified C141A military cargo plane that ran research and observation flights from 1975 until its retirement in the 1990s. SOFIA took over in 2010.

Thats one of the high points of his career, Black says of Spragues flight. He volunteered to fly. Somebody got sick. It was an accident for him, serendipity.

The rest is here:

Southern Oregon astronomers taking NASA flight

The sky is no limit for sibling astronomers

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WICHITA, Kan. In 1961, after NASA shot Alan Shepard into space, a 9-year-old boy named Steve Hawley asked his mother to buy him a dime-store telescope.

Several years and several telescopes later, he asked his mother and father to help pay for college. To study astronomy.

Some parents might ask how staring at stars would get him a job. But Bernie and Jeanne Hawley said yes.

Steve Hawley became the astronomer and astronaut who used the robot arm of the space shuttle Discovery in 1990 to lift the Hubble Space Telescope out of the cargo bay while flying in orbit at 17,398 mph.

Hubble weighed 11 tons. At 43 feet it was the length of a large school bus. And Steve Hawley, from Salina, Kan., parked it expertly in space, 360 miles above Earth.

The Hubble has made what scientists say are the most astonishing discoveries in human history. It's still up there making more.

Hawley has a unique relationship with the Hubble. He deployed it, repaired it years later in space. Now he is one of the long list of scientists who get to tap on an office keyboard and tell Hubble what to look for.

John Hawley, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Virginia, can list many other historic Hubble discoveries off the top of his head:

_The age of the universe: 13.7 billion years.

_Vivid, compelling evidence that everything in creation started with a Big Bang.

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The sky is no limit for sibling astronomers


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