Carnival of Space 365

WELCOME to Carnival of Space 365. A weekly round-up of Space and Astronomy Blogs that is in its 365 Week. Thats a whole year of weeks! What a week its been, with the Rosetta Probe getting ready for its "Philae Mignon" with Comet 67P. (See what I did there ... huh ...huh) Watching too many cooking shows? Should be doing more science!

OK ... I know its not going to wrap it in bacon.... lets move on.

Astronomy is going off this week, lots of stuff happening!

Dr. Paul Spudis comments on Buzz Aldrin's case for the immediate adoption of a new national goal in space – a human mission to Mars.

The Lunar PLanetary Institute covers a new study in Nature that describes the effects of asteroid bombardment on the early Earth

We take a close look at the surface of Mercury with PlanetMappers as the MESSENGER Spacecraft makes its closest approach to the planet so far.

Also from the team at Cosmoquest - What's the forecast for this year's Perseid Meteor shower, and how can you contribute to citizen science and observations of meteors and fireballs?

Perhaps at this point I can put in a little plug for the brilliant the new App "Fireballs in the Sky" developed by the team at Curtin University. You can measure and report meteors and bolides with your phone as they happen.

Spacewriter talks about "Telescopes to Tanzania", a project of Astronomers Without Borders. There is alot of great work going on in Africa with astronomy right now!

Carolyn Collins Petersen, space/astronomy expert at About.com, takes a look at a few of the many excellent space and astronomy education resources available to educators and outreach professionals.

NASA announced the winners of the high stakes science instrument competition to fly aboard the Mars 2020 rover at a briefing held today, Thursday, July 31, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Scientists analyzing the reams of data from NASA’s Cassini orbiter at Saturn have discovered 101 geysers erupting from the intriguing icy moon Enceladus and that the spewing material of liquid water likely originates from an underground sea located beneath the tiny moons ice shell, according to newly published research.

Success and validation that aligns with what is believed about EmDrive means powerful mainly static thrust. It would be an alternative way to achieve effects that would mimic antigravity. It would enable super efficient planes, better flying cars, and cloud city like applications in a full expression of a mature EmDrive. In the nearer term it would be better satellite propulsion. A US scientist, Guido Fetta, has built his own propellant-less microwave thruster, and managed to persuade Nasa to test it out. The test results were presented on July 30 at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Astonishingly enough, they are positive. Read all about it here including similar experiments in China ......

Next Big Future also reports on producing black light power using Hydrinos.

See what happens when two passions collide. A crafty spacer explores an idea and lives to tell the tale!

I think she nailed it!! - Editor

A look at the density perturbations in the early universe from which galaxies and others structures formed, with a visual explanation of the effect of gravity on these perturbations.

Thanks for joining us this week at the AARTScope Blog where we keep creating the sense of anticipation and discovery that keeps people asking questions. I'll leave you with my image of the Saturn Occultation last night!

So that about wraps it up for this weeks Carnival of Space. For image Credits see the original blogs. The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace @ gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.

Azure planet a colorful twist

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser (Artist impression)

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, determined the true colour of a planet orbiting another star. If seen up close this planet, known as HD 189733b, would be a deep cobalt blue, reminiscent of Earth’s colour as seen from space.

Frédéric Pont of the University of Exeter, UK, leader of the Hubble observing programme and an author of a new paper on HD 189733b said:

"This planet has been studied well in the past, both by ourselves and other teams, but measuring its colour is a real first — we can actually imagine what this planet would look like if we were able to look at it directly."

We all have heard the expression "pale blue green dot" as a description of earth, HD 189733b's color is azure which is a very bright blue with almost no reflected green light. So whilst the planet is simlar color to earth from space but that's where the similarities end. This "deep blue dot" is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI/AURA)

Azure is sometimes used as an evocative adjective not just a color, the azure waters of your favourite beachside destination, or the tiny azure Kingfisher one of Australia's most stunning birds. Dictionaries defines azure as the color of the clear blue sky or a light purple shade of blue. Whilst astronomers love clear blue skies pointing to a night of great observations, the atmosphere of the azure planet HD189733b is anything but plain sailing on a clear day.

Image Credit: JJ Harrison, Julatten, Qld 2011. Wikipedia Commons

Only this week talented amateur astronomer Emmanuel Conseil trapped this planet in front of its parent star during a transit. Emannuel like many other amateur astronomers regularly collaborate on extra-solar planet transits and submit their data to the TRESCA database. HD189733b has over 90 such observations from astronomers around the world.

Image Credit: HD189733b transit - Emmanuel Conseil

At a distance of 63 light-years from us, this turbulent alien world is one of the nearest exoplanets to Earth that can be seen crossing the face of its star. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds.

So the azure blue "seas" here are nothing like the Amalfi coast!

An explanation is provided by Tom Evans of the University of Oxford, UK, first author of the paper:

"We saw the brightness of the whole system drop in the blue part of the spectrum when the planet passed behind its star. From this, we can gather that the planet is blue, because the signal remained constant at the other colours we measured."

The planet's azure blue colour does not come from the reflection of a tropical ocean, but is due to a hazy, turbulent atmosphere thought to be laced with silicate particles, which scatter blue light. Earlier observations using different methods have reported evidence for scattering of blue light on the planet, but these most recent Hubble observations give robust confirming evidence, say the researchers.

Looking out - Looking in!

It is thought that inside the atmosphere the sunsets on HD 189733b could be red. If sodium absorbs red light and dust scatters red light, the atmosphere will redden light shining through it, but will appear blue in reflected light. The colours of Jupiter and Venus are both due to unknown particles within the atmospheres of the planets. Earth looks blue from space because the oceans absorb red and green wavelengths more strongly than blue ones, and reflect the blueish hue of our sky. The shorter blue wavelengths of sunlight are selectively scattered by oxygen and nitrogen molecules in our atmosphere via a process called Rayleigh scattering.

So there we have it an azure blue planet that rains glass - I'll stop right there before I start to think of quirky analogies about what it takes to make glass ceilings come down. ;-)

The new paper, titled "The deep blue colour of HD 189733b: albedo measurements with HST/STIS at visible wavelengths", will appear in the 1 August issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.