JPL Open House, Part 3.

The last day of the JPL open house pictures, and some information for citizen scientists that want to find their own planets.

We saw this line for a movie and thought…what the heck, so after a brief stay in line we entered JPL’s Earth Science Center.

As we were waiting for the theater to open, a JPL scientist showed us the interactive NASA mission program that you can download from http://eyes.nasa.gov/earth/download.html.  They also have the current solar system missions as well.

Earths gravity shown in the extreme from data collected by the GRAIL spacecraft.  I bet you didn’t know that the gravity on Earth changed so much.  I certainly didn’t.

A view of heat distribution and how it affects climate change.  I also didn’t know that about 1/3 of the NASA/JPL budget goes toward Earth mission science.  Their motto is “Earth, your future our mission.”  It is very reassuring that someone is interested in looking out for our planet.

Yeah! the movie was in 3D!  Here we learned that the SMAP spacecraft was in the final assembly area ready to leave for Vandenburg to be prepped for launch.  And we could still see it.

Down the hill and following the breadcrumbs we went to look at the spacecraft.

The front of the building.  We didn’t go in here, this was just taken while waiting in the really, really long line.  It did move very fast, however, and it was in the shade, so it wasn’t bad at all.

Major props to the person that works in the Space Craft Assembly Facility with the TARDIS on their monitor.  Whovians everywhere support you.

A poster diagram of the SMAP spacecraft.

The SMAP spacecraft with a mannequin helper for scale.  The craft is large even when folded up.

A scale model of SMAP deployed.  The large antenna on top will be rotating four times per minute once the craft is in orbit.  Makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

Crowds of people enjoying a break from all this science!  A soda and a pretzel gave me the strength to go on…

…towards the exit.  After five hours, I had to go to other activities.  But you can be sure that I’ll be back as long as they keep having this event.

Tomorrow is the wrap-up of my JPL open house adventure…and a new mission for me to hunt for my own planet.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

JPL Open House, Part 2.

There is just too much good stuff at JPL.  I still haven’t gotten through everything and I have gone three times already.

Another scale model spacecraft.  This is of Herschel a collaboration between JPL, NASA and the ESA and was and the largest infrared telescope ever launched.  Last year Herschel’s liquid helium (used to cool the instruments and see cosmic IR) ran out ending the mission.

Instruments from the Spiztez Infrared space telescope are demonstrated on a family.  Although Spitzer’s coolant ran out like Herschel’s, two short-wavelength modules are still operable and continue to be used.

The engineer for the new starshade spacecraft gave us an overview of the technical difficulties she is facing working on this spacecraft and its search for extra-solar planets.

This was by far the most intriguing exhibit to me.  This group is using low cost, everyday equipment to hunt for ex0-planets.  I think I have everything needed to join the hunt!  I am going to do a whole post on this because of the fantastic opportunity for citizen scientists to discover new worlds!  I almost had to be dragged away from this exhibit.

More to come.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

JPL Open House Part 1.

Among the many, many other events this past weekend, there was the can’t miss event…the JPL open house.  Restored after the sequester and budget cuts, this event should be on top of NASA’s outreach budget.  Although there is no advertising (except for a few emails and social media posts), the last event drew more than 400,000 people.

Although I don’t have and numbers for this years event, the staff people that I talked too said that Saturday had more visitors than the facility had ever had.  I was there on Sunday, and it was packed as well.  We arrived 40 minutes early and were still in line over 1/4 mile from the entrance.  There were so many people waiting that they actually opened up early to avoid problems.  When I left at noon (for another event that I needed to attend), the line of cars waiting to get in was backed up over a mile on the 210 freeway!

This year I started at the front of JPL.  There are two lanes of traffic, one takes you to the rear parking lot and one takes you to the front.  Last year we went to the rear parking lot.

At the entrance is the rover exhibit.  Above is a copy of the Spirit/Opportunity rovers that JPL uses to help them understand what is happening on Mars.

A scale model of the wheels for Curiosity. Just to the left of the picture is another booth where JPL staffers line children up and roll over them with a set of Spirit/Opportunity wheels.  It was great fun if the squeals of delight were any indication.  I have a (not so good) video, but I had to reach over three people deep to even try and get that.  It was VERY popular for kids and parents alike.

In one pavilion scale models of several satellites were on display.  The Plank spacecraft is shown above.

A mockup of the instruments on WISE and what they do was being explained to a young lady that was very interested.  It really does help that many of the staffers at JPL are women.  I think it helps overcome some of the biases that society pressures young girls to believe about themselves.  This is a concrete example of what a smart woman is capable of achieving in science.

This is just the first part.  I have a lot more pictures that I will be posting this week so you can see what you missed.

FYI, according to people at JPL, NASA is trying to get this event back on its regular schedule.  So due to the date this event was held (the beginning of the fiscal year), the next open house probably won’t be held until the  March-May 2016 time frame.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

Calling All Amateur Astronomoers…You Input Is Needed.

The Night Sky Network is conducting a new survey of amateur astronomers located in the United States. We wish to better understand the landscape of educational outreach performed by astronomy clubs and assess the needs of the amateur astronomy community for the next five years.

You can take the survey here: http://bit.ly/2014astrosurvey  

Your answers will directly influence the future of the Night Sky Network’s efforts to help astronomers around the country bring the wonders of space and the night sky to the public. We continually work to improve our materials and website and need your input to learn where we can best focus our efforts.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

Wake Up!

The ESA’s Rosetta comet probe has woken up to make its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Rosetta’s mission will take 10 years to complete.

During its trip Rosetta passed by two asteroids, Lutetia and Steins.  The image above shows landslide that happened on Lutetia.

When Rosetta reaches the comet, it will deploy a 220-pound (100 kilogram) lander called Philae.

Once on the comet’s surface the pair of craft will accompany the comet on its journey through the inner solar system, observing at close range how the comet changes as the Sun’s heat transforms the cold surface to a boiling gaseous mass.

Rosetta is about 500 million miles (about 800 million km) from Earth near Jupiter’s orbit.  At that distance radio transmissions take 45 minutes to reach Earth and vice versa.  What is fascinating is that, due to gravity, the radio signals don’t travel in a straight line back and forth.

Once Rosetta’s on-board alarm clock went off it took seven hours to warm up its star trackers,  fire thrusters to slow its spin, turn on its transmitter and send a message back to Earth.  And with all the advances in science the drumming monkey clock was the best we could do (just kidding, atomic clocks were used, although the monkey clock would be fabulously hilarious).

There are a lot of firsts for Rosetta, but the images from the comet as it starts out-gassing should be spectacular.  I just hope Philae doesn’t land on one of the explosive vents that many comets have.  We will know later this year as the comet passes by the Sun.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman

Opening Pandora’s Box With A Death Star.

Two of Saturn’s moons, Mimas and Pandora, were captured together by the Cassini spacecraft.

Pandora is one of the smaller “moons” around Saturn.  It is actually a oblong icy body, although not large enough to form a shpere, it is large enough to have at least two craters 19 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter.  Researchers believe that the elongated shape of Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) may hold clues to how it and other moons near Saturn’s rings formed.

Mimas is 246 miles (396 kilometers) across with one very distinctive feature that makes it look like the death star of film legend. This prominent feature is most likely why  Mimas is rotated 28 degrees to the right.

The ongoing Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency and has been regaling us fantastic images and data about Saturn, it rings and moons.

– Ex astris, scientia –

I am and avid amateur astronomer and intellectual property attorney in Pasadena, California and I am a Rising Star as rated by Super Lawyers Magazine.  As a former Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, I am a proud member of the Armed Service Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association working to aid all active duty and veterans in our communities. Connect with me on Google +

Norman