I have never seen a night shining cloud; a very odd occurrence. Anybody reading this who has, please jump in and tell about them if you would.

These odd clouds are called PMC’s or Polar Mesospheric Clouds and when they are seen from space, noctilucent or night shining clouds when seen from the ground.

The clouds appear in the high northern and southern latitudes, they apparently are limited to the summer seasons in the respective hemispheres.

A NASA satellite captured an image of the PMC’s. Click the thumbnail to the right for a larger version.

From the Goddard press release (and the source of information here):

“It is clear that PMCs are changing, a sign that a distant and rarified part of our atmosphere is being altered, and we do not understand how, why or what it means,” stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III, Hampton University, Hampton, Va. “These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth’s environment is being altered.”

I liked the image I put up at the top, it shows the clouds of course, it also has a nice star field. I made it into a desktop and while I was at it made a few more, if you like:

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Image Credit: NASA AIM

The Rover Opportunity’s next mission: go down into Victoria Crater. Victoria Crater is a large place and there is much to explore. The rover Opportunity has proven it’s up to the task, as it and it’s sister rover, Spirit have both long exceeded their intended 90 day missions. Each rover has seen its original three month mission turn into a wonderful success lasting over three years — so far.

Considerable time has been spent finding the best place for Opportunity to enter the crater. After nine months of looking around, it appears a place called Duck Bay (lower left in the above image) is the best choice. Duck Bay has slopes of 15 to 20 degrees and exposed bedrock, all the elements for “safe driving.”

“Safe driving” means more than getting down into the crater in one piece; it also means getting out too. Mission managers do not want to strand Opportunity down in Victoria. They seem reasonably sure getting out will not be a problem, or much of a problem at least. There is risk in this mission, but I for one have quite a bit of faith in the driving abilities of the mission managers, they have a proven track record. Let’s just hope the science is worth it, you’d think it would be.

You can learn more about the mission into the crater at Science@NASA.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/University of Arizona/Ohio State University

Hubblesite’s latest release shows the evolution of Jupiter’s cloud bands. If indeed these are the same sections of clouds, and I can only imagine they are, the press release is non-specific about it, the change is really quite remarkable for the short time span indicated.

Here’s the press release:

Massive Jupiter is undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes that have never been seen before with the keen “eye” of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Jupiter’s turbulent clouds are always changing as they encounter atmospheric disturbances while sweeping around the planet at hundreds of miles per hour. But these Hubble images reveal a rapid transformation in the shape and color of Jupiter’s clouds near the equator, marking an entire face of the globe.

Read more »

Lunar transients are very interesting phenomena. I will say I have never see one, but I do know people who have. It so happens, a sponsor of this blog, a partner really, (with their support I was able to build my observatory – they rock!) have a very interesting article in Scientific American on-line that could very well explain what’s going on.

An excerpt is below.

Strange, bright flashes observed on the moon for centuries and often dismissed as the lunar equivalent of UFOs may in fact be emissions of volcanic gas. A researcher says he has reviewed the evidence for so-called lunar transients and found them to occur only in areas of the moon that belch radon gas, suggesting that the flashes could be the result of dust stirred up by such emissions—possibly volcanic in origin.

Read the whole article

On Friday, June 29th, Atlantis will take a ferry ride from Edwards Air Force Base to the Kennedy Space Center. The trip isn’t aboard a “ferry boat”, instead it is mounted to a modified 747 called the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and is attached “piggy back”. It’s known as a ferry-flight. I wonder how the 747 handles having a shuttle on top of it.

I got beyond the fact that it will cost 1.7 million dollars for the trip a long time ago; after all the government spends a lot more money than that for a lot less everyday. I just as soon see them spend the money on this trip than a lot of other things that are soaking up much more money.

Image Credit: NASA

Clump. . . . HAHAHAHA!

Have a look at this bright clump of material in the Saturn’s F-ring.  There is, if you look close what appears to be a diagonal gap running through the ring.  So is the clump just a clump of coalesced material from the ring, possibly material that caused the diagonal gap, or is it a here-to-for unknown moonlet that ended up in the ring?

Here’s part of the Cassini news release:

The Cassini spacecraft spies an intriguing bright clump in Saturn’s F ring. Also of interest is the dark gash that appears to cut through the ring immediately below the clump. Scientists continue to monitor this ring for small, transient clumps of material, as well as the effects of the shepherd moon Prometheus.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Checking out what Cassini has been up to, and I get a really nice image of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.  To imagine the dark areas in the images could be seas of Methane, you’d think would be crazy thinking.  It’s probably not fantasy.  It could very well be.

Here’s the press release from the Cassini site:

Peering through Titan’s thick haze, the Cassini spacecraft glimpses boundaries between bright and dark terrain on the moon’s trailing hemisphere. The bright terrain at bottom is in northwestern Adiri.

North on Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is up and rotated about 15 degrees to the right.

This view was created by combining multiple images taken using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 938 and 619 nanometers. Some processing artifacts remain in the finished image, including the two small, dark circles below and right of center.

The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 13, 2007 at a distance of approximately 237,000 kilometers (147,000 miles) from Titan. Image scale is 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. Due to scattering of light by Titan’s hazy atmosphere, the sizes of surface features that can be resolved are a few times larger than the actual pixel scale.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here’s a couple of Hubble images of the Dwarf Planet Ceres (left) and asteroid Vesta (right). The images were taken in support of the Dawn mission set to launch on 07/07/07, and means to send a spacecraft to visit each of these and get a very close look.

Ceres and Vesta are located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Mission planning will allow for a gravity assist from Mars in 2009. The spacecraft should reach Vesta first, in September 2011 and after spending 6 or 7 months there will depart for Ceres. Arrival at Ceres should be in February 2015.

It seems like a long time, and it is I suppose, however we always see and learn some new things along the way.

Explore the wealth of information on the Dawn Mission site.

Image Credit:  I got the image from the Dawn Mission site (link above) it is also on Hubblesite and includes larger formats if your interested.

Atmospheric interface has just occurred, landing in less than 30 minutes

Yes, right over San Diego.

Fingers crossed. I hope they get radio contact soon, wondering about the stitch job.

Just 25 minutes out and traveling at 16,600 mph.

Under 20 minutes to go, altitude 227,000 feet traveling at 21,000 fps (Wow!).

Altitude 215,000 feet, 13,000 mph, still a long ways to slow down.

At 16 minutes the speed is still 11,000 mph - makes me wonder when do they actually feel the deceleration let up - meaning: is it gradual or is there a sense of let up at some point?

At 14 minutes 183,000 feet and speed is 9,000 mph, slowing at 1,000 mph per minute.

Wondering about the units NASA TV is giving, seem to be mixing mph and fps…

Speed is down to 4,000 mph hahahaha just 4,000.

They there are!! I can hear them.

The long range cameras have Atlantis on video. Kind of too bad it has to land in California, as a commenter correctly pointed out, it takes over a million dollars and quite a few days to get the shuttle back to Florida. However, it is more important to have the crew safe.

NASA TV has the audio feed messed up badly, it keeps repeating

OK Southern California get ready for a couple of booms?!

Here we go with the HUD on Atlantis, I love this part.

What a sight even if it is on TV.

They are on the ground safe and sound!

Welcome home Atlantis and you too Suni!!

The payload bad doors have been closed in anticipation of Atlantis returning to Earth today.

When and where they will land is weather dependent. It doesn’t look too promising at KSC, but who knows. Edwards Air Force Base is also an option.

The first opportunity is 2:28 pm EDT; the deorbit burn would have to occur at at 1:12 pm EDT.

UPDATE: The shuttle IS coming home, landing site is Edwards Air Force Base. I believe the deorbit burn will be at 2:43 pm EDT and landing at 3:49 pm EDT.

Webcam Image courtesy: NASA/Kennedy Space Center

You can refresh the image by hitting ‘F5′ or reloading the page.

NOAA’s Forecast for KSC:
This Afternoon: Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a high near 87. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming east. Chance of precipitation is 30%.