ISON is going to be bright!

Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok recently discovered a comet with a magnitude of 18.8. It has been designated C/2012 S1 (ISON). At the current time ISON is located beyond the orbit of Jupiter. 

Around the end of November, 2013, ISON will travel within a distance of 1.8 million km (or .012AU) from the solar surface. The solar heating could heat the comet enough to make it visible to an Earthling's naked eye. ISON will then loop back around, if the comet survives such a close proximity orbit with the Sun without accelerating into the sun, and travel by Mars in early October and then the Earth in late December.   

Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok

ISON has been traveling for millions of years from the Oort Cloud to reach Earth. The surface of the comet is very dark and should measure kilometers across. By the summer of 2013 ISON should be visible in the smaller of telescopes. As ISON travels past the Earth, the gas and dust geysers will gather force, and the space surrounding the comet will become brilliant as the Ice below the surface turns into gas and erupts. This process will reflect the light of the Sun. By late November, ISON will be visible to the naked eye just after dark in the same direction in which the Sun is setting. ISON will then make its inevitable return to orbit the Sun. ISON will orbit the Sun at an estimated distance of 2 million km.  At this point, ISON will be viewable by the unaided eye for months. Eventually, ISON will orbit more rapidly, possibly becoming very bright. Once ISON reaches this point, it will become dangerous to view without the proper instrumentation.

Related Links:

www.cometchaser.de/discoverystories/Comet-discoverers.html

www.nasa.gov

Image Credit: http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2012/09/25/newly-discovered-comet-c2012-s1-ison-will-pass-extremely-close-sun-next-year/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-biggest-star-of-2013-could-be-ison--the-comet-of-the-century-8431443.html?action=gallery&ino=2

Two Satellites To Crash Into Luna

Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (twin spacecraft) will be given their final orders on Monday, 12/17/12. They will be crashed into a mountain-like geographic structure near Luna's north pole. Both of the spacecraft have been orbiting Luna in close orbit for the past year mapping Lunar gravity. The “GraIL” spacecraft have mapped the Lunar crust as well with unprecedented detail. The space craft are running low on fuel, but as Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stated, “"In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that this mission would have gone any better than it has.” The two spacecraft are projected to collide with the Lunar surface around 5:28pm EST on Monday. When the spacecraft were orbiting at about 55 km above the lunar surface, the Gravity maps they created revealed that Luna has a shallower and much more fractured crust than expected. Researchers state that this is the result of asteroid and multiple comet impacts billions of years ago.

Maria Zuber

As lead scientist Maria Zuber, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated "We knew that the moon had been bombarded by impacts, but what we found is just how broken up and fractured the crust of the moon is." Recently discovered of subterranean cracks filled with lava presented evidence of the body's expansion during its early existence. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be responsible for attempting to survey the crash sites after the collisions. Unfortunately, no pictures can be expected as the region where the impact will take place will be dark during the time of the collision. We can only look forward to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's findings once they are officially released. As Maria Zuber said, "These are two small spacecraft with empty fuel tanks, so we're not expecting a flash that is visible from Earth." 

Lunar Gravity Map

The findings that are presented by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will help us further understand the early developmental stages of the Luna's existence. We can hope to obtain knowledge of Luna's future based on the body's past. It seems as technology and science advance, we get the most amazing opportunities to really learn about the universe. I do not think that they are making a mistake by investing more time into Luna. The findings we shall soon be exposed to could help us to gather more information to the early years of our own solar system. 

Image Credits:

NASA

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/zuber-mercury-0201.html

Curiosity Sparks Some Curiosity.

John Grotzinger, Scientist for the California Institute of Technology, had some interesting things to say at the fall meeting for the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on 10/03/2012. The team announced that Curiosity did detect organic compounds in the first scoop of martian soil from the "Rock Nest" area on Mars, but it is still unclear if the organic compounds are indigenous to Mars.

John Grotzinger had made a statement two weeks prior, to December 3rd, 2012, saying that Curiosity had made a "discovery for the history books." Grotzinger responded to the hype over his comment stating, "You have to be careful about what you say and even more careful about how you say it. We're doing science at the speed of science in a world that goes at the speed of Instagrams. The enthusiasm that our team has is just misunderstood." This is a great and humbling reality of the world in which we currently reside. The discovery of organic compounds in the soil sample is a very exciting discovery. The possibilities these compounds would suggest are phenomenal. The scientists on the Curiosity team seemed to just be expressing their excitement and enthusiasm about the discovery, and it was taken far to directly by the general public. That raises the question in my mind; Would a high percentage of our population even know what a "discovery for the history books" would entail? To me, it seems like a bunch of presumptuous critics jumped on a bandwagon of erroneous dilettantes. In other words, some people think that evidence of extraterrestrial life must in some way resemble science fiction movies. Curiosity is simply on a two year mission to discover whether or not Mars can support microbial life. This discovery of carbon based compounds, or organic compounds, could possibly lead to this conclusion. Once the Curiosity team can refute the possibilities that the rover carried these compounds with it from Earth, or that the compounds are not part of the "background fall of cosmic materials," the discovery will be quite noteworthy. From the words of Paul Mahaffy, a NASA researcher who is SAM's lead scientist, "We really consider this a terrific milestone." The team still has a great bit of work ahead of them and, in my opinion, it will be well worth the wait for the official results of this discovery.

Image Credit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16226.html

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Hey everyone. Here I will be talking about topics in physics. I will cover issues in classical mechanics to Planck’s Quantum Hypothesis, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. I have a wide range of topics that are bouncing around in my head like particles in the third excited state. Feel free to email me if you have any ideas or topics that you would like to discuss. There are many questions relating to M-Theory and other string theories and I plan on spending an intensified amount of time in this realm. I would just like to thank everyone that is visiting my blog and I look forward to discussing the dimensions of physics with all of you. Of course, I will also try and post interesting stories in the world of science as well.