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‘NASA in the Park’ Returns to Rocket City June 22
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Credits: Downtown Huntsville Inc.
NASA in the Park is coming back to Big Spring Park East in Huntsville, Alabama, on Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. CDT. The event is free and open to the public.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, its partners, and collaborators will fill the park with space exhibits, music, food vendors, and hands-on activities for all ages. Marshall is teaming up with Downtown Huntsville Inc. for this unique celebration of space and the Rocket City.
“NASA in the Park gives us the opportunity to bring our work outside the gates of Redstone Arsenal and thank the community for their continuing support,” Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey said. “It’s the first time we’ve held the event since 2018, and we look forward to sharing this experience with everyone.”
Pelfrey will kick the event off with local leaders on the main stage. NASA speakers will spotlight topics ranging from space habitats to solar sails, and local rock band Five by Five will perform throughout the day.
“NASA Marshall is leading the way in this new era of space exploration, for the benefit of all humankind,” Pelfrey said. “We are proud members of the Rocket City community, which has helped us push the boundaries of science, technology, and engineering for nearly 65 years.”
To learn more about Marshall, visit:
Download NASA in the Park PosterJun 13, 2024
PDF (4.09 MB)
Molly Porter
Marshall Space Flight Center
256-424-5158
molly.a.porter@nasa.gov
In early May, widespread flooding and landslides occurred in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande…
Article 4 hours ago 4 min read California Teams Win $1.5 Million in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge Article 8 hours ago 25 min read The Marshall Star for June 12, 2024 Article 1 day ago Keep Exploring Discover Related TopicsMissions
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Sea Ice Swirls
NASA’s Terra satellite captured floating fragments of sea ice as ocean currents carried them south along Greenland’s east coast on June 4, 2024.
This ice traveled from the Fram Strait, a 450-kilometer (280-mile)-wide passage between Greenland and Svalbard, to the Arctic Ocean. Along the journey, it breaks into smaller pieces and starts to melt in warmer ocean waters, creating the wispy patterns seen here.
Learn more about Arctic sea ice.
Image Credit: NASA/Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview
Sea Ice Swirls
NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope captures closest super star cluster to Earth (image)
Flag Day 2024 – One Small Flag’s Incredible Journey
This article tells the story of one small American flag fortunate enough to be singled out from a group of one thousand flags just like it and embark on an incredible journey. The other 999 flags likely ended up as gifts, but this one flag had a loftier fate. It wasn’t the first American flag to ride on a crewed spacecraft into space, that one flew aboard Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard on May 5, 1961. Or the most famous flag that went into space, the Stars and Stripes planted on the Moon by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin on July 20, 1969, holds that honor. Other American flags have even flown on spacecraft not just to other planets but out of the solar system entirely. And tens of thousands of other small flags have thundered into space aboard space shuttles and returned to Earth for distribution around the world. So what makes this one small flag, known as the Legacy Flag, so special?
Left: Launch of space shuttle Columbia on the STS-1 mission, April 12, 1981. Right: Landing of Columbia, April 14, 1981.
Space shuttle Columbia first lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on April 12, 1981, to usher in a new era of reusable crewed space transportation. It carried not only its two pilots, John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen, but also the Official Flight Kit (OFK), stowed away in the lockers in the shuttle’s middeck, along with food, clothing and other supplies. Many of the OFK items, including 1,000 8-by-12-inch American flags, were destined for distribution after the mission to commemorate its historic significance. Once they returned to Earth and workers removed them from the shuttle’s middeck, NASA distributed many of the flags to various people and organizations. But some remained and ended up in storage at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. As the shuttle program progressed over the next 30 years, the number of flags in storage dwindled as additional recipients were identified. Finally, in 2011 it was time for the last shuttle mission, STS-135, and NASA felt it a fitting tribute to refly one of the flags from STS-1 on the final flight. Since STS-135 delivered supplies to the International Space Station, the flag would remain on board until the next time an American spacecraft carrying American astronauts launched from American soil arrived at the station. At the time, no one knew exactly how long that would take.
Left: Launch of STS-135, July 8, 2011. Right: The crew of STS-135 pose with the Legacy Flag on the flight deck of Atlantis.
On July 8, 2011, space shuttle Atlantis lifted off to begin STS-135, the final mission of the program with Christopher J. Ferguson, Douglas G. Hurley, Sandra H. Magnus, and Rex J. Walheim aboard, and two days later they docked with the station. The six international crewmembers of Expedition 28 welcomed them aboard. The long-term plan for the little flag was publicly revealed during a live TV session between the crew and President Barack H. Obama. “I also understand that Atlantis brought a unique American flag up to the station,” said President Obama. Shuttle Commander Ferguson explained that before their departure they would present the flag to the crew aboard the station, where “it will hopefully maintain a position of honor until the next vehicle launched from U.S. soil brings U.S. astronauts up to dock with the space station.”
Left: The crews of STS-135 and Expedition 28 pose with the Legacy Flag. Right: The crews of STS-135 and Expedition 28 place the Legacy Flag on the hatch of the Harmony module.
On July 18, near the end of the docked phase of STS-135, during a televised ceremony the crews placed the flag, flanked by the patches of the first and last space shuttle missions, on the forward hatch of the Harmony module, from where Atlantis would soon depart and where the next American crewed spacecraft would dock. After the shuttle and its crew left, the flag remained on the hatch for a while, but as time passed, onboard crews needed to use that area for stowage and so they moved it to a nearby wall for safekeeping. In 2015, to further safeguard the flag against damage or loss, Mission Control asked the onboard crew to place it in a stowage bag. As sometimes happens with stowage bags, this one moved around and ended up in a different module of the station. Three years later, during a general inventory of stowage bags, the crew found the flag and placed in a Ziploc bag with the words “Flown on STS-1 & STS-135. Only to be removed by crew launching from KSC” attached.
Left: The Legacy Flag, placed between the STS-1 and STS-135 patches on the Harmony module’s forward hatch as Atlantis prepared to depart. Middle: In May 2014, during Expedition 40, astronauts mounted the flag on a wall near the Harmony module’s hatch to allow that area to be used for stowage. Right: The Legacy Flag in July 2018 during Expedition 56, placed in a Ziploc bag for safety.
On May 30, 2020, a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39A, the same pad used for STS-1 and STS-135, carrying SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on its Demo 2 mission. Aboard were Doug Hurley, who flew aboard the last shuttle mission, and Robert L. Behnken, the first American astronauts launched aboard an American spacecraft from American soil since STS-135. Once in orbit, Hurley and Behnken announced that they had christened their spacecraft Endeavour. The next day, Endeavour docked with the station, and Hurley and Behnken came aboard, welcomed by Expedition 63 Commander NASA astronaut Christopher J. Cassidy and Flight Engineers Anatoli A. Ivanishin and Ivan V. Vagner representing Roscosmos. Mounted on the open hatch as they floated aboard the station was our intrepid little flag, in space for nine years, and 39 years after making its first trip into space. After their arrival, Cassidy, Hurley and Behnken held a press conference and proudly displayed the flag and how it stood as a symbol of the return of American launch capability. The flag’s nine-year journey came to end when Hurley and Behnken brought it back to Earth on Aug. 2, 2020. The flag first went on display at SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California, then toured the country for a few months, making its final public appearance at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston in December 2021. Currently in storage at JSC, the Legacy Flag will fly again, possibly on even more distant journeys.
Left: The Harmony module’s forward hatch bearing the Legacy Flag, opened to welcome the SpaceX Demo 2 crew. Middle: NASA astronauts Robert L. Behnken, left, Douglas G. Hurley (holding the Legacy Flag), and Christopher J. Cassidy during a press conference. Right: The Legacy Flag in its display case after its return to Earth.
During its time on the space station, the Legacy Flag saw 100 visitors from many nationalities come and go, some of them more than once. Most stayed six months, some stayed longer, up to almost one year. A few made short visits of about a week. During all that time, the space station remained a busy beehive of activity, with hundreds of experiments conducted by the international crews. Many astronauts ventured outside, to repair equipment, place new experiments out, or bring older ones back inside. And in that time, the flag traveled more than 1.3 billion miles.
Explore More 10 min read 55 Years Ago: Manned Orbiting Laboratory Cancellation Article 2 days ago 15 min read 55 Years Ago: Star Trek Final Episode Airs, Relationship with NASA Endures Article 1 week ago 6 min read 25 Years Ago: STS-96 Resupplies the Space Station Article 2 weeks agoFlag Day – One Small Flag’s Incredible Journey
This article is for students grades 5-8.
This story tells the tale of one small American flag fortunate enough to embark on an incredible journey. It wasn’t the first flag to ride into space, or the most famous flag that went into space — that honor probably goes to the Stars and Stripes planted on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969. So what makes this one little flag so special? Let’s let the flag tell its own story.
Here I am launching into space aboard the space shuttle Columbia for the first time in 1981.Credits: NASA
Workers packed me away with many other small flags like me – there must have been a thousand of us – just 8-by-12-inch Stars and Stripes, in a locker aboard space shuttle Columbia. We took off on STS-1, the shuttle’s very first mission in 1981, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Although we couldn’t see anything, we could feel the vibrations and noises of the liftoff, the ride a bit rough for the first two minutes, then much smoother until we reached space. Once in orbit, we could hear the two astronauts working as they tested the new spaceship.
And two days later, I’m back on Earth!Credits: NASA
Then after just two days, we came home, making a smooth landing in California. Thirty years later, someone had the idea to send me into space again, this time on the very last space shuttle mission, STS-135. And this time I would be making a much longer trip, since I would be left aboard the International Space Station.
Here I am starting my second trip into space in 2011, this time aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.Credits: NASA
So I roared off into space again in 2011, this time aboard space shuttle Atlantis. I had four friends to keep me company, Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus, and Rex Walheim. They actually took me out of my locker, and we all took pictures together. That made me feel really special.
Here I am posing with my friends Doug, Chris, Sandy, and Rex aboard Atlantis.Credits: NASA
But there was more in store for me: Two days after our launch we arrived at the space station; wow, what a huge place this was! I met even more astronauts here, from America, Russia, and Japan! President Barack Obama called to congratulate the crews, and I heard him talking about me and what a unique American flag I was. I would have a position of honor aboard the station until the next team of Americans arrived aboard an American spacecraft launched from American soil. I couldn’t have been more proud!
Here I am with all 10 crewmembers aboard the station, from America, Russia, and Japan.Credits: NASA And here I am, taking my position of honor on the space station’s hatch.Credits :NASA
The astronauts made a TV show and I was the star. They placed me in my position of honor on the forward hatch of the space station, between the patches of the first and last space shuttle missions. I stayed on the hatch for a while, but as no spacecraft arrived through that portal for a few years, the crews needed the space to store their stuff.
Here I am between the STS-1 and STS-135 patches on the station’s forward hatch.Credits: NASA
Worried I might be injured, they slipped me into a plastic cover and placed me on a wall near the hatch. People grew concerned about me and thought it would be good to put me away in storage for safekeeping, at least temporarily, so that’s what happened. And while I waited, the bag I was in got moved around, and after a few years, people weren’t really sure where I was. But luckily, they found me and placed me in a safer bag and wrote these words, “Flown on STS-1 & STS-135. Only to be removed by crew launching from KSC,” to let everyone know I was that special flag.
Later I was moved to a nearby wall.Credits: NASA Later still, placed in a Ziploc bag for safety, with the words to let everyone know I was that special flag.Credits: NASA
Two more years went by, and I began to hear rumblings that I might be needed again. My newest friend on the space station, Chris Cassidy, cleared out the area around the hatch. Was I about to resume my position of honor? Excitement was building, and Chris and his two crewmates, Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner prepared the station for its newest arrivals. Apparently two Americans had launched aboard an American spacecraft from American soil, the first time in nine years.
Here I am welcoming the SpaceX Demo 2 crew.Credits: NASA Doug is holding me up to the camera during a press conference.Credits: NASA
My long wait was over! Chris placed me on the now-open hatch, and first Bob Behnken and then Doug Hurley, my old friend from Atlantis, floated inside the station! I was there to welcome them aboard! Once again, I starred in another TV show. After returning to Earth with Doug and Bob – I’m told I had traveled 1.3 billion miles – I went on display in several places. And now I hear rumblings of another possibly more distant journey awaiting me. We’ll just have to see.
Here I am all dressed up for public display after my return to Earth.Credits: NASA Share Details Last Updated Jun 13, 2024 Related Terms Keep Exploring Discover More STEM Topics From NASA
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California Teams Win $1.5 Million in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge
By Savannah Bullard
After two days of live competitions, two teams from southern California are heading home with a combined $1.5 million from NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge.
The husband-and-wife duo of Terra Engineering, Valerie and Todd Mendenhall, receive the $1 million prize Wednesday, June 12, for winning the final phase of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. With the Terra Engineering team at the awards ceremony are from left Daniel K. Wims, Alabama A&M University president; Joseph Pelfrey, NASA Marshall Space Flight center director; NASA’s Break the Ice Challenge Manager Naveen Vetcha; and Majed El-Dweik, Alabama A&M University’s vice president of research & economic development. NASA/Jonathan Deal
Since 2020, competitors from around the world have competed in this challenge with the common goal of inventing robots that can excavate and transport the icy regolith on the Moon. The lunar South Pole is the targeted landing site for crewed Artemis missions, so utilizing all resources in that area, including the ice within the dusty regolith inside the permanently shadowed regions, is vital for the success of a sustained human lunar presence.
On Earth, the mission architectures developed in this challenge aim to help guide machine design and operation concepts for future mining and excavation operations and equipment for decades.
“Break the Ice represents a significant milestone in our journey toward sustainable lunar exploration and a future human presence on the Moon,” said Joseph Pelfrey, Center Director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “This competition has pushed the boundaries of what is possible by challenging the brightest minds to devise groundbreaking solutions for excavating lunar ice, a crucial resource for future missions. Together, we are forging a future where humanity ventures further into the cosmos than ever before.”
The final round of the Break the Ice competition featured six finalist teams who succeeded in an earlier phase of the challenge. The competition took place at the Alabama A&M Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on June 11 and 12, where each team put their diverse solutions to the test in a series of trials, using terrestrial resources like gravity-offloading cranes, concrete slabs, and a rocky track with tricky obstacles to mimic the environment on the Moon.
The husband-and-wife duo of Terra Engineering took home the top prize for their “Irresistible Object” rover. Team lead Todd Mendenhall competed in NASA’s 2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge, facilitated through NASA’s Centennial Challenges, which led him and Valerie Mendenhall to continue the pursuit of solutions for autonomous lunar excavation.
Starpath Robotics earned the second place prize for its four-wheeled rover that can mine, collect, and haul material during the final phase of NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge at Alabama A&M’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama. From left are Matt Kruszynski, Saurav Shroff, Matt Khudari, Alan Hsu, David Aden, Mihir Gondhalekarl, Joshua Huang and Aakash Ramachandran.NASA/Jonathan Deal
A small space hardware business, Starpath Robotics, earned the second-place prize for its four-wheeled rover that can mine, collect, and haul material. The team, led by Saurav Shroff and lead engineer Mihir Gondhalekar, developed a robotic mining tool that features a drum barrel scraping mechanism for breaking into the tough lunar surface. This allows the robot to mine material quickly and robustly without sacrificing energy.
“This challenge has been pivotal in advancing the technologies we need to achieve a sustained human presence on the Moon,” said Kim Krome, the Acting Program Manager for NASA’s Centennial Challenges. “Terra Engineering’s rover, especially, bridged several of the technology gaps that we identified – for instance, being robust and resilient enough to traverse rocky landscapes and survive the harsh conditions of the lunar South Pole.”
Beyond the $1.5 million in prize funds, three teams will be given the chance to use Marshall Space Flight Center’s thermal vacuum (TVAC) chambers to continue testing and developing their robots. These chambers use thermal vacuum technologies to create a simulated lunar environment, allowing scientists and researchers to build, test, and approve hardware for flight-ready use.
The following teams performed exceptionally well in the excavation portion of the final competition, earning these invitations to the TVAC facilities:
- Terra Engineering (Gardena, California)
- Starpath Robotics (Hawthorne, California)
- Michigan Technological University – Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (Houghton, Michigan)
“We’re looking forward to hosting three of our finalists at our thermal vacuum chamber, where they will get full access to continue testing and developing their technologies in our state-of-the-art facilities,” said Break the Ice Challenge Manager Naveen Vetcha, who supports NASA’s Centennial Challenges through Jacobs Space Exploration Group. “Hopefully, these tests will allow the teams to take their solutions to the next level and open the door for opportunities for years to come.”
NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with support from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Ensemble Consultancy supports challenge competitors. Alabama A&M University, in coordination with NASA, supports the final competitions and winner event for the challenge.
For more information on Break the Ice, visit:
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
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Sulphur Makes A Surprise Appearance in this Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
At our current level of knowledge, many exoplanet findings take us by surprise. The only atmospheric chemistry we can see with clarity is Earth’s, and we still have many unanswered questions about how our planet and its atmosphere developed. With Earth as our primary reference point, many things about exoplanet atmospheres seem puzzling in comparison and generate excitement and deeper questions.
That’s what’s happened with GJ-3470 b, a Neptune-like exoplanet about 96 light-years away.
Astronomers discovered the planet during a 2012 High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) campaign. The campaign was searching for short-period planets orbiting M-dwarfs (red dwarfs). When it was discovered, it was called a hot Uranus. It doesn’t take an astrophysicist to figure out why that term has fallen out of favour, and now it’s called a sub-Neptune planet.
GJ-3470 b is about 14 times more massive than Earth, takes 3.3 days to complete one orbit, and is about 0.0355 AU from its star.
New research presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and soon to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters shows that the planet’s atmosphere contains more sulphur dioxide than expected. The lead researcher is Thomas Beatty, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
“We didn’t think we’d see sulphur dioxide on planets this small, and it’s exciting to see this new molecule in a place we didn’t expect since it gives us a new way to figure out how these planets formed.”
Thomas Beatty, University of Wisconsin, MadisonGJ-3470 b’s atmosphere is well characterized among exoplanets. The JWST has aimed its powerful spectroscopic eyes at the planet and revealed more detail than ever. Spectroscopy examines the light from its star as it passes through the planet’s atmosphere, revealing its chemical constituents.
Sub-Neptunes like GJ-3470 b are the most common type of exoplanet detected. Astronomers have detected carbon and oxygen in two of them, TOI-270d and K2-18b, which are important scientific results. But in GJ-3470 b’s atmosphere, astronomers also detected water, methane, and, more significantly, sulphur dioxide (SO2).
“The thing is, everybody looks at these planets, and often everybody sees flat lines,” said Beatty. “But when we looked at this planet, we really didn’t get a flat line.”
Finding SO2 was a surprise because GJ-3470 b is the smallest and coolest exoplanet to have the compound in its atmosphere. Image Credit: Beatty et al. 2024This is the coldest and lightest exoplanet with sulphur dioxide in its atmosphere. The finding is significant in the effort to understand the different ways that planets form and evolve. The sulphur dioxide probably comes from chemical reactions in the atmosphere, as radiation from the nearby star tears hydrogen sulphide molecules apart, freeing the sulphur, which then bonds to oxygen, forming sulphur dioxide.
The amount of sulphur dioxide is also surprising. There’s about one million times more SO2 than expected.
“We didn’t think we’d see sulphur dioxide on planets this small, and it’s exciting to see this new molecule in a place we didn’t expect since it gives us a new way to figure out how these planets formed,” said Beatty, who worked as an instrument scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope before joining the UW–Madison faculty. “And small planets are especially interesting because their compositions are really dependent on how the planet-formation process happened.”
Astronomers found sulphur dioxide in WASP-39b, a hot Jupiter. But it’s 100 times more massive and two times hotter than GJ-3470 b. It forms the same way on both planets.
This image shows what the powerful JWST found in WASP-39b’s atmosphere. It was the first exoplanet where carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide were detected. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)“On both planets, SO2 is produced through photochemistry on the planetary daysides: light from the star hits the top of the atmosphere and breaks apart sulfur-bearing molecules, and then the sulfur-atom wreckage from those photon/molecule collisions recombines with other molecules in the atmosphere and forms into SO2,” Beatty told Universe Today.
Beatty and his co-researchers tried to identify the pathways that could create SO2 through recombination. But the planet’s coolness led to dead ends.
“Identifying the correct recombination pathways was an important part of understanding SO2 on WASP-39b – but these predicted effectively zero SO2 on a planet as cool as GJ 3470b,” Beatty told Universe Today. It turns out that the atmospheric metallicity allows it to happen.
“As a part of these observations, we determined that the high metallicity of GJ 3470b’s atmosphere (it’s about 100x more metal-rich than WASP-39b) can drive SO2-producing reactions at much lower temperatures,” Beatty explained in an email exchange. “Put another way, we realized that all of the ambient water and carbon dioxide in GJ-3470 b’s atmosphere make the recombination process to form sulphur dioxide much more efficient than on larger giant exoplanets like WASP-39b.”
Astronomers can’t piece together a planet’s formation history without a complete account of its atmospheric constituents. With a complete list, they can start to tell the story of its formation. “Discovering sulfur dioxide in a planet as small as GJ 3470 b gives us one more important item on the planet formation ingredient list,” said Beatty.
But there’s more to the planet’s story than the SO2 and other atmospheric chemicals. It follows a polar orbit, which is a strong clue that the planet has been bullied out of its original orbit. It’s also extremely close to its star and has likely lost much of its atmosphere, blown away into space by the star’s powerful stellar wind. It may have lost 40% of its atmosphere.
“That migration history that led to this polar orbit and the loss of all this mass — those are things we don’t typically know about other exoplanet targets we’re looking at,” Beatty said. “Those are important steps in the recipe that created this particular planet and can help us understand how planets like it are made.”
The post Sulphur Makes A Surprise Appearance in this Exoplanet’s Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today.
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Catching Comet 13P Olbers This Summer
A little known periodic comet graces northern hemisphere summer skies.
Short summer nights present a tough dilemma for nighttime astronomy: to stay up late, or wake up early? Summer 2024 gives you at least one reason to opt for the former, as periodic Comet 13P/Olbers graces the evening sky.
The History of the CometThe comet was first spotted on the night of March 6th, 1815 by astronomer Heinrich Olbers (of Olbers’ Paradox fame) observing from Bremen, Germany. The orbit was later described by Carl Gauss and Friedrich Bessel as just shy of 74 years, about five years off of the present value.
A sketch of Comet 13P Olbers from 1887 by William Robert Brooks. Credit: Public Domain The Comet’s OrbitComet 13P/Olbers is on a 69 year orbit, which takes it from a perihelion 1.175 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun just outside of the Earth’s orbit, out to an aphelion of 32.5 AU out beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Perihelion for the comet occurs June 30th, 2024 at 1.175 AU from the Sun and 1.919 AU from the Earth.
The orbit of Comet 13P Olbers. Credit: NASA/JPL A Synopsis of the Current ApparitionIn 2024, Comet 13P Olbers loiters low to the west this summer for northern observers at dusk. This is because it’s approaching Earth along our line of sight. The comet will seem to hang about 20-30 degrees above the horizon on summer evenings for mid-latitude northern hemisphere observers.
The location of the comet in the evening sky in mid-June. Credit: StellariumHere’s our look at what to expect from the comet month-by-month. Unless otherwise noted, ‘Passes near’ means a closest approach of less than one angular degree:
June17-The orbital path of the comet is edge on as seen from our point of view, and the comet may exhibit a spiky anti-tail.
19-Passes into the constellation of the Lynx.
28-Passes near the +4.3 magnitude star 31 Lyncis.
The celestial path of the comet through September 1st. July5-Passes near the +4th magnitude star 10 Ursae Majoris. (note: 10 Uma is one of the several ‘stray stars’ littered across the sky that found themselves on the wrong side when constellation borders were formalized in 1922. Thus, the star calls Ursa Major its home constellation, though it’s now located in the Lynx(!)
9-Crosses into the constellation Ursa Major.
11-Crosses back into the Lynx.
13-Crosses into the constellation Leo Minor.
20-Passes closest to Earth, 1.876 AU distant.
28-Crosses back into the constellation Ursa Major.
The observed and projected light curve for Comet 13P Olbers. Credit: Weekly Information on Bright Comets. August13-Crosses into the constellation Coma Berenices.
14-Passes in front of the open star cluster Melotte 111.
16-Passes 1.3 degrees from the +4.3 magnitude star Gamma Coma Berenices.
19-Passes near the +10th magnitude galaxy NGC 4565.
21-Passes three degrees from the North Galactic Pole.
25-Passes near the +9th magnitude galaxy Messier 65 (the Black Eye Galaxy).
September1-May drop back down below +10th magnitude.
Observing a comet like 13P Olbers is as simple as sweeping the suspect target field at low power, and looking for a tiny ‘fuzz ball’ that’s out of place. Binoculars work great in the regard. Visually, binocular comets in the +6th to +10th magnitude range look lots like a bright globular cluster that stubbornly refuses to snap into focus. It was for this very reason that French astronomer Charles Messier established the first rough deep sky catalog in 1774, to mark the ‘false comets’ in the sky.
One thing’s for sure: we’re definitely due for the next naked eye ‘Great Comet’ for the 21st century… in the meantime, be sure to hunt down comet 13P Olbers on its 2024 apparition.
The post Catching Comet 13P Olbers This Summer appeared first on Universe Today.