Space: Strange Different Neighborhood Just Outside Our Solar System

Image via Wikipedia

From Denny:  Just when you think "the grass is greener on the other side," as the proverb goes, well, in our celestial neighborhood, it just might be true.  This week scientists are reporting Life is a lot different and downright strange just next door beyond our solar system.

What they find odd is the amount of oxygen present.  Oxygen is actually dancing around like an all night party at a hip bar inside that solar system.  In fact, there is more oxygen there than in the immediate interstellar space (that vast region between stars).

Scientists have yet to determine the reason for so much oxygen.  The speculation for now is that perhaps oxygen is hidden in dust or ice.

From David McComas, Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio, Texas:  "We discovered this big puzzle, that the matter just outside of our solar system doesn't look like the material inside."

The Social Poets: American Flags On The Moon: What Happened To Them Since 1969?

Image via Wikipedia

The Social Poets: American Flags On The Moon: What Happened To Them Since 1969?: "From Denny: How many in America can remember where they were when the astronauts planted the American flag on the moon? You know they made six trips.

Whenever we celebrate our summer holiday on the Fourth of July, often our thoughts turn to remembering various places with which we associate it. Football games, the giant tattered flag waving back at us from Ground Zero on 911, Memorial Day parades and bedecked graves, the White House flag at half mast when a Senator or President dies, a flag draped coffin of a fallen warrior from a foreign war returned home with respect.

The space shuttle program ends this week in hot steamy July. Have you ever wondered what happened to those old flags on the moon after all these decades?"

Rare 500 Year Lunar Eclipse Gets Viewed By 1.5 Billion

Check out this incredible and rare cosmic show.

From Denny:  For the first time in 500 years a total lunar eclipse falls on the same day as the Winter Solstice. This is one astronomical event you won't want to miss in the middle of the night on December 20th and 21st. You will be known for generations in your family as The One who witnessed the rare total lunar eclipse since it only occurs about every 500 years. This particular "celestial shadows" is considered to be the best one viewed from North America until 2014 (assuming we all survive the Mayan calendar of 2012). :) This will also be the only total lunar eclipse viewed for this year of 2010.  And you will get to be one of the 1.5 billion to view it best, up to three billion will witness parts of the eclipse.

When is it? Officially, in our Western Hemisphere it begins exactly on the Winter Solstice day of 21 December at 12:29 AM EST or on 20 December at 9:29 PM PST just as the moon begins to enter Earth's outer shadow, called the penumbral.

Check out this NASA lunar eclipse chart to see who in the world gets the best viewing of the total lunar eclipse, go here  North and Central America get the best seats in the cosmic house.  Parts of Europe, northwestern Africa and parts of Australia will get to view the rare event. Japan and Korea get good seats.  However, southern and eastern Africa and India, you get stuck in the cheap seats with no viewing available.  Guess it's static on your cosmic TV set.

One thing about being a lunar eclipse you don't need to worry about protecting your eyes like for a solar eclipse.  It's expected to last about 72 minutes for viewing experience.

When do lunar eclipses occur?  Well, like a good cosmic referee the Earth gets in between the moon and the sun to stop the fight. What happens is that the moon eventually passes through a point in its orbit where the Earth gets between it and the sun.  Then the moon enters the shadow of the Earth and voila! it's a lunar eclipse.

What is a total lunar eclipse?  That's when the entire moon is completely inside the Earth's shadow.  The Earth's atmosphere bends the sun's rays so that some still reach the moon, making the moon still visible in an eclipse.

Watch for the changes of the moon in stages.   Look to the upper left edge of the moon at 1:33 AM EST (10:33 PM PST).  This is the beginning of the partial phase of the eclipse.  What is happening is that the Earth's dark shadow, called the umbra, will start to slowly creep over the face of the full moon.

Stage two:  The eclipse will reach its totality by 2:41 AM EST (11:41 PM PST).  There should  be a coppery glow to the moon, sometimes called a "blood moon."  What produces that is the sunlight gets bent by our atmosphere and travels around the Earth's curvature.  What's really cool when you pull out the binoculars or small telescope to view it better is that the moon will give this illusion of seeming to glow from within from its own light.  Guess that's where the song writers get that "moon magic" romantic notion.

If you are lucky enough to have clear skies, then by 3:18 AM EST (12:18 AM PST) the sun, the Earth and the moon will be forming an almost straight conga dance line.  This is when the light of the moon will appear its dimmest.

The total lunar eclipse ends at 3:53 AM EST (12:53 AM PST).  The moon emerges completely out from the umbra, the Earth's dark shadow, by 5:01 AM EST (2:01 AM PST).  By about 15 to 20 minutes later, the fainter penumbral shadow, the Earth's outer shadow, will finally roll off the moon's upper right edge.  The full moon returns to its normal party animal self in the cosmos.

How often do total lunar eclipses occur?  Answer: about four to five times per decade in any one location.  Our last total lunar eclipse was on 20 February 2008.  There are two total lunar eclipses expected to occur in 2011.  In the Eastern Hemisphere, on June 15th, there will be the first total lunar eclipse to kick off the year. In the western half of North America on December 10th there will be the second of the year just before the moon sets.  There won't be any total lunar eclipse treats for North America until 14 April 2014.

That strange blood red color

Astronomers are wondering how dark or how coppery red the moon will appear in this total lunar eclipse this year.  They are pondering the possibility of how the Earth's atmosphere might affect the color of the moon because of Mount Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland last spring and the Mount Merapi volcano in Indonesia in October.  It could be possible that some ash clouds and dust are riding high in the Earth's atmosphere.  That might cause the moon to appear darker, maybe even black and invisible during the totality.

Lunar eclipse color unpredictable this year 

Right now color possibilities are unpredictable this year.  The color could be the usual coppery-hue, the blood red or orange, chocolate brown or even gray.  It will depend upon how much light the Earth's atmosphere refracts as its shadow creeps across the moon.  So, keep looking up, keep a journal of what you see to tell the grand kids, and, enjoy!



*** Photo from NASA


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Why Black Holes Burst With Light When Galaxies Merge

*** Scientists got good news about the odd behavior of supermassive black holes from NASA's cosmic gossip, the Swift satellite.




Photo by NASA/Swift/NOAO/Michael Koss and Richard Mushotzky The optical counterparts of many active galactic nuclei (circled) detected by the Swift BAT Hard X-ray Survey. Galaxies are in the process of merging. These nuclei were known prior to the Swift survey. Swift has found dozens of new ones in more distant galaxies. - space.com


From Denny: Astronomers finally solve a mystery that has bedeviled them for decades. They have wracked their brains trying to figure out why black holes suddenly "light up" when galaxies collide and merge. It does seem like a contradiction that something that sucks up energy and is "black" could suddenly be lit up like a Christmas tree.

NASA Swift satellite

Astronomers got the good news recently from NASA's Swift satellite that relayed back the information like a good cosmic gossip. The word is that supermassive black holes are lighting up like crazy with hard X-rays when their parent galaxies merge.

The numbers the astronomers throw out to us are massive and practically beyond comprehension. Currently, it's just 1% of supermassive black holes that display this peacock preening behavior of putting on a good show in the universe. What's the amount of energy they give off? It's astounding at 10 billion times the sun's energy. Yeah, I'd say that would qualify them to be labeled as Active Galactic Nuclei or AGN. What an understatement! :)

Our Milky Way Galaxy's center black hole

Supermassive black holes can contain a lot of energy, on the scale of one million to one billion the times of the sun's mass. Oh, gee, our humble little Milky Way galaxy only holds in its black hole about three to four solar masses. It must have a small fuel tank. In fact, by normal standards, our Milky Way black hole is downright quiet. It experiences outbursts and then periods of quiet. Maybe it's sulking like any teenager.

"It's kind of lucky that we're in the 90 percent that aren't very active, so there are not a lot of hard X-rays being produced and coming our way and disturbing Earth's atmosphere," says Meg Urry, an astrophysicist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Supermassive black holes

These high-energy displays of supermassive black holes have had scientists creating theories for years. Until now, there was no way to prove or disprove those theories. Now, some of those past theories were confirmed, especially the ones that promoted the idea that the violence of galactic mergers could fuel the growth of central black holes.

"We find that about 25 percent of black holes found by Swift are in the process of merging," comments Michael Koss, University of Maryland in College Park, at a NASA teleconference. "Many of these galaxies are very close to us, so we see the severe distortion of the galaxy shapes," he explained. "In addition, we see that the galaxies are very close to each other and therefore will merge and interact very strongly."

Within the next billion years or so scientists figure about 60% of those active galaxies will merge completely, creating giant black holes.

Scientists know that black holes grow by making like a vacuum cleaner and cleaning up the nearby gaseous material or by merging with other black holes. These galactic mergers are a way for the suppermassive black holes to actually feed as they also grow.

NASA's Swift satellite and NuStar

NASA's Swift satellite's survey range was calibrated for about 650 million light-years away. It watches for gamma-ray bursts. Did you know that gamma-rays are the most powerful form of energy in the universe since the Big Bang?

Get this, in 2012, there will launch the NuStar mission that will make a great complement to Swift. The NuStar uses two sets of mirror arrays. Those arrays will focus hard X-rays. The NuStar will be able to study even more distant galaxies, going deeper into space and back in time, from seven or even eight billion years ago. OK, now I'm impressed.


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New Astronomy Photos: Cosmic Rosebud, Winds of Change Black Hole, Orion Nebula

Cosmic Rosebud


From Denny: Check out the latest version of Spring buds, the Cosmic Rosebud out in space. NASA's latest WISE space telescope (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) has discovered a vast cloud in deep space, brimming with new stars inside flower-like wisps of interstellar dust. Astronomers do like to wax romantic. This area of pretty glowing space dust is known by its more academic name as the Berkeley 59 cluster.








Winds of Change supermassive black hole


Check out the scary Winds of Change in this galaxy. This is a composite image of the spiral galaxy NGC 1068. There is a supermassive black hole growing rapidly at its center. X-ray readings from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory are shown in red, optical emissions are in green, and radio emissions are in blue.

Get this: the X-Ray data indicates that driven out of and away from the galaxy's center is a strong wind that is so fast it is blowing at a rate of a million miles per hour.

Scientists believe that just an "average" supermassive black hole like this one can alter the evolution of its host galaxy.








Orion Nebula

This is the most dramatic detailed image of the Orion Nebula to date. It comes from the European Southern Observatory’s new VISTA survey telescope (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy). The VISTA is the latest addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. It happens to be the largest survey telescope in the entire world! Its been dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths.





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26 Funny Political Cartoons - 6 Feb 2010

From Denny: The big Super Bowl weekend match up of the New Orleans Saints against the Indianapolis Colts is in full swing party wise in both cities! The cartoonists predicted the Saints would lose against the Vikings in the NFL Championship and were wrong. Everyone in Louisiana is totally convinced the cartoonists are wrong again about the Saints' hope of winning the Super Bowl. People are practically "wired for sound" around here they are so excited about this team. The Saints had a 44 year drought of misery and to see them win this much is like catnip candy.

The rest of this week's visual opinions were devoted mainly to the President's budget spending and cutbacks, especially NASA. Where the cartoonists really went off on was their anger against Toyota's arrogance in this million plus car recall. Toyota has been declaring customer satisfaction for decades - only now America is finding out they have been hiding the truth about their cars.

Now we find out recently that Toyota hasn't been properly reporting to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation as required by law. Then they continue to insist these same dangerous cars are safe. Toyota car owners need to demand a buy back from the manufacturer as these cars are dangerous to everyone on the road driving near them. Short of that the President better do something serious and fast before this spirals out of control. Can you hear the Toyota used car value falling like a rock? Drive those cars until the wheels fall off or get the parent company to take it back. It's called The Lemon Laws in America.

Just when Toyota thought they would get to surge ahead in the American market to capture a larger share and capitalize on General Motors' and Ford's share of bad karma repercussion slap-back - they now experience their very butt kick.

Check out this week's cartoons lampooning everyone in the news!

Super Bowl - the Saints against the Colts in Miami:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by J.D. Crowe - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Milt Priggee - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Joe Heller - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Politics of the national budget wars and public frustration over both parties doing so little to alleviate suffering across America:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Daryl Cagle - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Pat Bagley - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Cameron Cardow - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Mike Keefe - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Brian Fairrington - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Cole - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Larry Wright - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Jeff Parker - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Trever - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Darkow - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Monte Wolverton - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Eric Allie - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Finally repealing the Don't Ask Don't Tell mandate which never made much sense anyway since just about everyone but the clueless knew who was or wasn't gay:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by R.J. Matson - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Cole - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Toyota recall debacle that just keeps on giving to the politicians, comedians and the cartoonists as fodder to keep the public stirred up:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Patrick Chappatte - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Cameron Cardow - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Darkow - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Prez Obama cutting back and downsizing NASA since these guys tend to be wasteful and have been for 40 years, treating the national wallet like it's a money tree. Choose your projects wisely and plan a lot more carefully, then stick to it and quit with the budget overruns. Obama's next stop needs to be the guys who build military aircraft:

See Cartoons by Cartoon by John Cole - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Joe Heller - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Bob Englehart - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Dave Granlund - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Olle Johansson - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

*** For more fun political cartoons on Saturdays, take a look at the recent archives, please visit The Social Poets!


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Astronomy Video: NASA Gives Us View of Saturns Rings Up Close

From Denny: From the photographing spacecraft Cassini comes these awesome photos of Saturn's rings. Almost looks like an animation!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Astronomy: Carina Stellar Nursery Nebula

From Denny: "Where stars are born" takes on new meaning when talking about the cosmic universe! The pillar is actually composed of gases and star dust. This nebula is one happening place for it is a tempestuous environment.

How far away is this star birthing nebula? About 7,500 light years and located in the southern constellation of Carina.

This newest image of this nebula gives a crisper look at the details not previously seen yet are now visible from near-infrared light.

How is this pillar being sculpted? It's a violent sculpting environment of scorching radiation and fast winds which are streams of charged particles from these stars. The result is that new stars form within this new artwork.

Check out what is going on at the top of the pillar structure: streamers of gas and dust flowing off. Very cool photos, NASA, thanks!

California Wildfires Photos: Frightening and from Space too

From Denny: Check out this link to the British news article of the California wildfires.

The devastation is unbelievable for the land and the people. Just the other day I was reading an account from a psychologist that was posted on Digg about how they felt about this experience. Clearly, the psychologist was overwhelmed and stressed, talking about how this event has taken over their lives locally, fading into the dim background all other news in the country or the world.

Of course, in the back of my mind is the Hurricane Katrina experience after the storm, in my area of the country. I know how difficult it is going to be for the survivors of this California wildfire event to rebuild their lives. The insurance companies will not pay them the full amount for what their premiums have paid. The insurance companies will also drag their feet - for years - to finally pay up - and then only when the customer hires a lawyer to pursue them. All the while the customer may be basically homeless unless they have a friend or relative who can help.

Hopefully, with a responsible person in the White House, Obama may choose to slam the insurance companies into doing responsible and moral business practices. Baring that, the whole country needs to demand legislation from Congress with some strong teeth in it to curb bad dogs big business into submission.

The British news article has photos taken from aerial views as well as from space showing the fires raging and the aftermath of when the fire has passed. Incredible photos that are quite impressive, especially from space, go here.

Photo by mbtrama @ flickr

Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

From Denny: My husband was just telling me about a documentary covering this same subject today! So, of course, I went to check it out if Popular Science had anything on it and here it is!

Now that we are more technologically advanced than all those years ago for the moon landing it's a bit chilling to see how fragile and vulnerable we were just jumping out there in space like that.

Here's an excerpt from the PopSci article:

"This month marks the 40th anniversary of humankind's first steps on the moon. Auspiciously timed is Craig Nelson's new book, Rocket Men--one of the most detailed accounts of the period leading up to the first manned moon mission. Here, we have ten little-known Apollo 11 facts unearthed by Nelson during his research.

1. The Apollo’s Saturn rockets were packed with enough fuel to throw 100-pound shrapnel three miles, and NASA couldn’t rule out the possibility that they might explode on takeoff. NASA seated its VIP spectators three and a half miles from the launchpad.

2. The Apollo computers had less processing power than a cellphone.

3. Drinking water was a fuel-cell by-product, but Apollo 11’s hydrogen-gas filters didn’t work, making every drink bubbly. Urinating and defecating in zero gravity, meanwhile, had not been figured out; the latter was so troublesome that at least one astronaut spent his entire mission on an anti-diarrhea drug to avoid it.

4. When Apollo 11’s lunar lander, the Eagle, separated from the orbiter, the cabin wasn’t fully depressurized, resulting in a burst of gas equivalent to popping a champagne cork. It threw the module’s landing four miles off-target.

5. Pilot Neil Armstrong nearly ran out of fuel landing the Eagle, and many at mission control worried he might crash. Apollo engineer Milton Silveira, however, was relieved: His tests had shown that there was a small chance the exhaust could shoot back into the rocket as it landed and ignite the remaining propellant.

6. The "one small step for man" wasn’t actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn’t compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle’s ladder to the surface."

For the rest of this article just click on the title link! Thanks for visiting as always!

Astronomy Video: Sipping Coffee from Unusual Mug in Weightless Space

From Denny: Did you see this video yet? An astronaut sips coffee from an unusually designed mug to accommodate weightlessness in space. He explains how the mug works to enable an astronaut to drink coffee without resorting to the old school way of sipping out of a plastic bag. They use this mug design for rocket fuel tanks too. Really interesting; take a listen!



NASA space weightless coffee mug fuel tanks rockets technology astronaut video

Astronomy Video 6 - Mysteries of Deep Space: Pulse of Alien Life

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 6th of six videos, enjoy!

Astronomy Video 5 - Mysteries of Deep Space: Search for Alien Worlds

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 5th of six videos, enjoy!

Astronomy Video 4 - Mysteries of Deep Space: Black Holes

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 4th of six videos, enjoy!

Astronomy Video 3 - Mysteries of Deep Space: Exploding Stars

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 3rd of six videos, enjoy!

Astronomy Video 2 - Mysteries of Deep Space: To The Edge of Space

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 2nd of six videos, enjoy!

Astronomy Video 1 - Mysteries of Deep Space: To The Edge of Time

From Denny: These are actually 20 minute long episodes discussing what the Hubble Space Telescope has brought us in new information, exploring the revolution in astronomy. This one is the 1st of six videos, enjoy!

Cool Erupting Volcano Photo Taken From Space!

From Denny: Did you see this awesome photo on the news last night? If you missed it then take a look.

From NASA's Earth Observatory site: "A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Island chain, and it is located on the northwestern end of Matua Island.

Prior to June 12, the last explosive eruption occurred in 1989, with eruptions in 1986, 1976, 1954, and 1946 also producing lava flows. Ash from the multi-day eruption has been detected 2,407 kilometers east-southeast and 926 kilometers west-northwest of the volcano, and commercial airline flights are being diverted away from the region to minimize the danger of engine failures from ash intake.

This detailed astronaut photograph is exciting to volcanologists because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption. The main column is one of a series of plumes that rose above Matua Island on June 12. The plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance. The eruption cleared a circle in the cloud deck. The clearing may result from the shockwave from the eruption or from sinking air around the eruption plume: as the plume rises, air flows down around the sides like water flowing off the back of a surfacing dolphin. As air sinks, it tends to warm and expand; clouds in the air evaporate.

In contrast, the smooth white cloud on top may be water condensation that resulted from rapid rising and cooling of the air mass above the ash column. This cloud, which meteorologists call a pileus cloud, is probably a transient feature: the eruption plume is starting to punch through. The structure also indicates that little to no shearing wind was present at the time to disrupt the plume. (Satellite images acquired 2-3 days after the start of activity illustrate the effect of shearing winds on the spread of the ash plumes across the Pacific Ocean.)

By contrast, a cloud of denser, gray ash—probably a pyroclastic flow—appears to be hugging the ground, descending from the volcano summit. The rising eruption plume casts a shadow to the northwest of the island (image top). Brown ash at a lower altitude of the atmosphere spreads out above the ground at image lower left. Low-level stratus clouds approach Matua Island from the east, wrapping around the lower slopes of the volcano. Only about 1.5 kilometers of the coastline of Matua Island (image lower center) are visible beneath the clouds and ash.

Astronaut photograph ISS020-E-9048 was acquired on June 12, 2009, with a Nikon D2XS digital camera fitted with a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 20 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by M. Justin Wilkinson, NASA-JSC."

Astronomy: Endeavour Launch Scrubbed!

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: Endeavour's launch has been scrubbed! The STS-127 mission is now off. (After such a good write-up on Thursday, sigh...)

What happened to scrub the launch and mission? While the external tank was being filled with hydrogen, apparently a leak developed. From the mission managers, "the leak occurred at eerily the same time in the tanking process as it did with the STS-119 mission." Who said superstition and science still don't mix? :) Actually, they think it may be due to the cycling of the valves.

They still have a couple of chances to launch before the 17th. Otherwise they will have to stand down, as I mentioned in my Thursday post, in favor of an unmanned launch, LCROSS. LCROSS stands for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Well, I bet there are some seriously ticked off astronauts right now...! Better disappointed than badly injured or dead. The secondary launch windows are still open for Sunday or Monday, weather permitting. Let's hope for the best!