Un paseo espacial de 8 horas
Los astronautas Doug Wheelock y Tracy Caldwell Dyson han realizado la primera de las dos caminatas programadas por la NASA para reparar el sistema de refrigeración de la Estación Espacial Internacional (EEI).
La caminata, cuarta para Wheelock y primera para Caldwell Dyson y que inicialmente estaba prevista para el viernes, comenzó finalmente este sábado a las 11.19 GMT, 24 minutos más tarde de lo anunciado. Ha durado hasta las 19.22 GMT, lo que supone una duración de 8 horas y 3 minutos.
De esta forma, Wheelock y Caldwell han realizado el paseo más largo de la historia de la Estación Espacial Internacional y el sexto en toda la historia del espacio.
La operación se realizó a unos 350 kilómetros de la Tierra. Hombro a hombro, los astronautas sacaron mangueras de la bomba rota para poder desarmarla. La pérdida apareció al sacar el último de cuatro conductos. Los astronautas debieron limpiar el amoníaco liberado. Por momentos surgió la preocupación de que el fluido venenoso hubiera manchado los trajes. Cuando Wheelock y Caldwell regresaron a la ISS no tuvieron sin embargo problemas.
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La NASA subrayó que el equipo de seis personas en la ISS nunca se encontró en peligro. Todos los sistemas importantes siguen trabajando normalmente y la situación sólo se volverá crítica si falla el segundo sistema de refrigeración antes de que el primero sea reparado.
El módulo Quest, la preparación
Los astronautas pasaron la noche en el módulo Quest donde su sistema sanguíneo se preparó para prevenir problemas de descompresión.
La NASA dio luz verde el viernes a los preparativos que durante una semana ha estado realizando la tripulación de la estación espacial junto con los equipos en tierra para sustituir una de las bombas del sistema de refrigeración que dejó de funcionar el sábado pasado.
En esta primera caminata espacial los astronautas se centraron en retirar el elemento de la bomba de amoniaco estropeada y poner la pieza de reemplazo en su lugar.
Otra caminata el miércoles
La agencia espacial ha programado una segunda caminata espacial el miércoles para conectar las tuberías de fluido del amoníaco a la bomba nueva.
Los directores de la misión prevén hacer una revisión final de este plan a principios de la próxima semana para incorporar información actualizada sobre la situación de la estación después de la primera caminata espacial.
Esta salida ha sido todo un reto para los astronautas ya que han tenido que manipular las tuberías por las que circula el amoniaco, por lo que se requerían numerosos descansos durante las siete horas previstas.
La ingeniera de vuelo Shannon Walker fue quien guió el brazo mecánico Canadarm2 para colocar a Wheelock en la posición adecuada para reemplazar el módulo dañado con un repuesto que está almacenado en la plataforma 2.
Estos módulos pesan 354 kilos y los astronautas han tenido que desconectar y reactivar cinco conexiones eléctricas y cuatro dispositivos de desconexión rápida, entre otras tareas.
Ésta es la 15ª caminata espacial de tripulantes de la EEI utilizando trajes espaciales estadounidenses y ejecutada sin la presencia de un transbordador espacial.
Como viene siendo habitual aprovechamos el post para dar un repaso a las ultimas noticias y videos de los diferentes eventos y misiones de las agencias espaciales internacionales. NASA, ESA, JAXA….etc
‘This beautiful new image shows two colliding galaxies as seen by NASA’s Great Observatories.’
http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/podcasts/
Lurking Dragon, Graceful Swan
A beautiful nugget from Spitzer’s “Hidden Universe.” Behind a dark veil of dust in the constellation Sagittarius, a lurking dragon has been revealed by the infrared eye of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
The red dots along its dark filaments are baby stars forming at a furious rate. The dark Dragon appears to fly away from M17, its brightly glowing neighbor known alternately as the Omega or Swan nebula. Oddly, astronomers have found that both the Dragon and the Swan are forming roughly the same numbers of stars.
If so, why should they look so different from one another? The answer may be that dragons, rather than ugly ducklings, grow up to become swans. While the Dragon is forming fairly large type B stars, only in the Swan do we find the very largest O stars. Their brilliant glare illuminates and disperses the dust, creating a nebula that is equally vivid in infrared and visible light.
The gas and dust clouds in this region appear to be passing through the Sagittarius spiral arm, a kind of gravitational traffic jam. Astronomers have long believed clouds will bunch up when they enter a spiral arm, triggering the gravitational collapse needed to form stars. When the first generation of smaller stars form in the Dragon, they seem to further compress the nearby dust.
This enables a second generation of even more massive O stars to form and light up the area, destroying the surrounding dust clouds. Further downstream from the Swan, a cluster of O stars sits at the center of a blown-out bubble.
This is likely the fading remains of an older nebula, now largely dispersed as it exits the other side of the spiral arm. In this one picture, Spitzer has captured a snapshot of the evolution of a star-forming region. From Dragon, to Swan, to bubble, it heralds a new generation of Milky Way star.
Joint Mars Missions on This Week @ NASA
NASA and ESA, the European Space Agency, have joined forces and resources to explore the Red Planet. The third of three joint missions will return to Earth with a sample taken from the Martian surface. Also, ATHLETE the robotic rover has a stretch run; a revealing composite image of two galaxies that first collided more than 100 million years ago; NASA summer interns learn flight testing with a remote-controlled airplane; and two NASA anniversaries are celebrated August 12.
What’s Up for August 2010
http://www-a.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm
Black Hole Blows a Big Bubble
‘A black hole on the outskirts of the nearby — 12.7 million light years — galaxy NGC 7793 has produced a powerful microquasar. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Very Large Telescope, and the CTIO 1.5-m telescope have pooled their observations of the microquasar, a system containing a stellar-mass black hole being fed by a companion star. Swirling gas forms a disk around the black hole, then twisted magnetic fields create a huge bubble of hot gas about 1,000 light years across.’
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html
El universo conocido por AMNH
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.
Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History
Visualization Software: Uniview by SCISS
Director: Carter Emmart
Curator: Ben R. Oppenheimer
Producer: Michael Hoffman
Executive Producer: Ro Kinzler
Co-Executive Producer: Martin Brauen
Manager, Digital Universe Atlas: Brian Abbott
Music: Suke Cerulo
For more information visit http://www.amnh.org
Comets And Meteor Showers
Have you ever wondered what makes these cosmic fireworks? Meteor showers are just colorful debris of a passing comet or occasionally , the debris from a fragmented asteroid. When a comet nears the sun, its icy surface heats up. This causes clouds of gas, dirt and dust to be released, forming a tail of debris that can stretch for millions of miles.
As Earth passes near this dusty tail, some of the small dust particles hit our atmosphere. They burn up and create great celestial fireworks for us to enjoy.
NASA generates meteor shower forecasts to prevent potential hazards to spacecraft that are launching and orbiting Earth. NASA also monitors these showers to check the accuracy of the forecasts.
You can learn about all of NASA’s missions at http://www.nasa.gov .
Rocks and Ice in the Solar System
Our Solar System consists of the Sun, planets, and moons, but it also contains a multitude of smaller chunks of rock and ice. These objects were left over from the time when our Sun and Solar System formed.
So where are all of these small neighbors? Millions of rocky chunks called asteroids orbit in a region between the four rocky inner planets and the four outer gas giant planets. The Dawn mission is currently on its way to investigate Ceres and Vesta, two of the largest asteroids. Beyond Neptune, there is another swarm of objects made mostly of ice and dust. This is the disc-shaped region known as the Kuiper Belt, the origin of many comets. Some comets originate even farther out, from a giant shell of objects near the edge of the Solar System known as the Oort Cloud.
Our Solar System consists of the Sun, planets, and moons, but it also contains a multitude of smaller chunks of rock and ice. These objects were left over from the time when our Sun and Solar System formed.
So where are all of these small neighbors? Millions of rocky chunks called asteroids orbit in a region between the four rocky inner planets and the four outer gas giant planets. The Dawn mission is currently on its way to investigate Ceres and Vesta, two of the largest asteroids. Beyond Neptune, there is another swarm of objects made mostly of ice and dust. This is the disc-shaped region known as the Kuiper Belt, the origin of many comets. Some comets originate even farther out, from a giant shell of objects near the edge of the Solar System known as the Oort Cloud.
http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/08IYADiscoveryGuide.pdf
NASA and, ESA Unite for Mars Missions
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have joined to share resources and expertise on three future science missions to Mars. In three separate robotic missions (the first in 2016), both agencies will study the possibility of past life on the Red Planet, as well as test communications relays and other geochemical and biological mysteries. The third mission, in the 2020′s, will return to Earth a sample taken from the Martian surface.
Sunday, August 8th, 2010,
by Manuel and is filed under "Aeronautica, Asteroides, Astrofisica, Astronomia, Ciencia, ESA, Geofisica, Hearth, Ingenieria, NASA, Rusia, Science, Technology, Tecnologia, Tierra, Universidad, Universo |
, Astrofisica, Astronomia, Ciencia, EEI, ESA, Hubble, Internacional, NASA, Science, Technology, Tecnologia, Universo ".
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