Small-sat flinger Rocket Lab beat the winds to get the mysterious National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payload off the New Zealand launchpad this morning.

After multiple holds due to ground winds, the Electron lifted off at 02:56 UTC on 31 January from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on the New Zealand Mahia Peninsula.

Dubbed “Birds of a Feather”, the mission was the 11th of the company’s Electron booster. While the details of the payload were light (NRO doesn’t like talking too much about its toys), the launch represented the second time Rocket Lab attempted to steer the spent booster back to Earth.

The launch itself went nominally, with main engine cut-off occurring just after two minutes, 30 seconds. The first stage then separated and began its journey back home while the second stage ignited to send the payload to orbit. Rocket Labs’ Kick Stage was then used to shepherd the satellite to the desired orbit.

Chief exec Peter Beck is keen on recovering those first stages and, like the previous mission, the Electron was fitted with the equipment necessary to survive a return to Earth (right up until smacking into the sea).

A reaction control system on the first stage spun the booster around 180 degrees at the six minute, 30 second mark and then maintained the correct angle of attack during the descent. A minute later, the spent booster encountered what Rocket Lab calls “The Wall” as the atmosphere became denser and the rocket decelerated from supersonic to subsonic speeds.

Beck described the aerodynamic forces involved as akin to “perching three elephants atop the Electron stack” in a chat with The Register back in August last year.

As with its predecessor, the booster made it back to Earth and disintegrated upon impact with the ocean – as planned – approximately nine minutes after launch.

Stage 1 made it all the way in again!

— Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) January 31, 2020

Those hoping for a SpaceX-style propulsive landing on legs will be disappointed. Rocket Labs’ plans will see the returning booster eventually equipped with a parachute and snatched by helicopter.

The gang will then recycle the things to augment the production lines should the launch frequency ramp up in the way Beck hopes.

Source: US’s secret spy payload offloaded: Rocket Lab demos missile muscle with second Electron guided home

This first images from NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope show a close-up view of the sun’s surface, which can provide important detail for scientists. The image shows a pattern of turbulent “boiling” plasma that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures—each about the size of Texas—are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. That hot solar plasma rises in the bright centers of “cells,” cools off and then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection. (See video available with this news release.)

Solar magnetic fields constantly get twisted and tangled by the motions of the sun’s plasma. Twisted magnetic fields can lead to solar storms that can negatively affect our technology-dependent modern lifestyles. During 2017’s Hurricane Irma, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that a simultaneous space weather event brought down radio communications used by first responders, aviation and maritime channels for eight hours on the day the hurricane made landfall.

Finally resolving these tiny magnetic features is central to what makes the Inouye Solar Telescope unique. It can measure and characterize the sun’s magnetic field in more detail than ever seen before and determine the causes of potentially harmful solar activity.

“It’s all about the magnetic field,” said Thomas Rimmele, director of the Inouye Solar Telescope. “To unravel the sun’s biggest mysteries, we have to not only be able to clearly see these tiny structures from 93 million miles away but very precisely measure their magnetic field strength and direction near the surface and trace the field as it extends out into the million-degree corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun.”

Better understanding the origins of potential disasters will enable governments and utilities to better prepare for inevitable future space weather events. It is expected that notification of potential impacts could occur earlier—as much as 48 hours ahead of time instead of the current standard, which is about 48 minutes. This would allow for more time to secure power grids and critical infrastructure and to put satellites into safe mode.

he Inouye Solar Telescope combines a 13-foot (4-meter) mirror—the world’s largest for a solar telescope—with unparalleled viewing conditions at the 10,000-foot Haleakalā summit.

Focusing 13 kilowatts of solar power generates enormous amounts of heat—heat that must be contained or removed. A specialized cooling system provides crucial heat protection for the telescope and its optics. More than seven miles of piping distribute coolant throughout the observatory, partially chilled by ice created on site during the night.

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The dome enclosing the telescope is covered by thin cooling plates that stabilize the temperature around the telescope, helped by shutters within the dome that provide shade and air circulation. The “heat-stop” (a high-tech, liquid-cooled metal donut) blocks most of the sunlight’s energy from the main mirror, allowing scientists to study specific regions of the sun with unparalleled clarity.

[…]

“This image is just the beginning,” said David Boboltz, program director in NSF’s division of astronomical sciences and who oversees the facility’s construction and operations. “Over the next six months, the Inouye telescope’s team of scientists, engineers and technicians will continue testing and commissioning the telescope to make it ready for use by the international solar scientific community. The Inouye Solar Telescope will collect more information about our sun during the first 5 years of its lifetime than all the solar data gathered since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the sun in 1612.”

Source: NSF’s newest solar telescope produces first images, most detailed images of the sun

DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid.  DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space.  The DART mission is in Phase C, led by APL and managed under NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program at Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

Two different views of the DART spacecraft. The DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance & Asteroid Camera for OpNav) imaging instrument is based on the LORRI high-resolution imager from New Horizons. The left view also shows the Radial Line Slot Array (RLSA) antenna with the ROSAs (Roll-Out Solar Arrays) rolled up. The view on the right shows a clearer view of the NEXT-C ion engine.

The binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos is the target for the DART demonstration. While the Didymos primary body is approximately 780 meters across, its secondary body (or “moonlet”) is about 160-meters in size, which is more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth. The Didymos binary is being intensely observed using telescopes on Earth to precisely measure its properties before DART arrives.

Fourteen sequential Arecibo radar images of the near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos and its moonlet, taken on 23, 24 and 26 November 2003. NASA’s planetary radar capabilities enable scientists to resolve shape, concavities, and possible large boulders on the surfaces of these small worlds. Photometric lightcurve data indicated that Didymos is a binary system, and radar imagery distinctly shows the secondary body.

Simulated image of the Didymos system, derived from photometric lightcurve and radar data. The primary body is about 780 meters in diameter and the moonlet is approximately 160 meters in size. They are separated by just over a kilometer. The primary body rotates once every 2.26 hours while the tidally locked moonlet revolves about the primary once every 11.9 hours. Almost one sixth of the known near-Earth asteroid (NEA) population are binary or multiple-body systems.

Credits: Naidu et al., AIDA Workshop, 2016

Illustration of the DART spacecraft with the Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) extended. Each of the two ROSA arrays in 8.6 meters by 2.3 meters.

The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6.6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera (named DRACO) and sophisticated autonomous navigation software. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.

Once launched, DART will deploy Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) to provide the solar power needed for DART’s electric propulsion system.  The DART spacecraft will demonstrate the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) solar electric propulsion system as part of its in-space propulsion.  NEXT-C is a next-generation system based on the Dawn spacecraft propulsion system, and was developed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  By utilizing electric propulsion, DART could benefit from significant flexibility to the mission timeline while demonstrating the next generation of ion engine technology, with applications to potential future NASA missions.

The ROSA array was tested on board the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2017.

Once launched, DART will deploy Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) to provide the solar power needed for DART’s electric propulsion system.  The DART spacecraft will demonstrate the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C)solar electric propulsion system as part of its in-space propulsion.  NEXT-C is a next-generation system based on the Dawn spacecraft propulsion system, and was developed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  By utilizing electric propulsion, DART could benefit from significant flexibility to the mission timeline while demonstrating the next generation of ion engine technology, with applications to potential future NASA missions.

The DART spacecraft launch window begins in late July 2021.  DART will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. After separation from the launch vehicle and over a year of cruise it will intercept Didymos’ moonlet in late September 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth, enabling observations by ground-based telescopes and planetary radar to measure the change in momentum imparted to the moonlet.

Source: Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission | NASA

Ribose is an essential sugar for present life as a building block of RNA, which could have both stored information and catalyzed reactions in primitive life on Earth. Meteorites contain a number of organic compounds including components of proteins and nucleic acids. Among the constituent molecular classes of proteins and nucleic acids (i.e., amino acids, nucleobases, phosphate, and ribose/deoxyribose), the presence of ribose and deoxyribose in space remains unclear. Here we provide evidence of extraterrestrial ribose and other bioessential sugars in primitive meteorites. Meteorites were carriers of prebiotic organic molecules to the early Earth; thus, the detection of extraterrestrial sugars in meteorites implies the possibility that extraterrestrial sugars may have contributed to forming functional biopolymers like RNA.

Source: Extraterrestrial ribose and other sugars in primitive meteorites | PNAS

Astronomers at a Chilean observatory were rudely interrupted earlier this week when a SpaceX satellite train consisting of 60 Starlink satellites drifted overhead, in what scientists are apparently going to have to accept as the new normal.

Launched into orbit on November 11, the Starlink smallsat train took five minutes to pass over the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, according to a tweet from astronomer Clarae Martínez-Vázquez.

“Wow!! I am in shock!!,” tweeted Martínez-Vázquez. “The huge amount of Starlink satellites crossed our skies tonight at [Cerro Tololo]. Our DECam [Dark Energy Camera] exposure was heavily affected by 19 of them!,” to which she added: “Rather depressing… This is not cool!”

Responding to this tweet, astronomer Cliff Johnson, a team member and a CIERA Postdoc Fellow in Astronomy at Northwestern, tweeted out a view of the disrupted data, showing an array of satellite trails strewn across an image of space.

The astronomers were collecting data using the DECam instrument, a high-performance, wide-field imager on the CTIO Blanco 4-meter telescope, as part of the DELVE survey, which is currently mapping the outer fringes of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds as well as a significant fraction of the southern sky at optical wavelengths. Key goals of the project are to study the stellar halo around the Magellanic Clouds and detect new dwarf galaxies in orbit around the Clouds or the nearby Milky Way.

But this research was punctuated as the Starlink train passed overhead during the early morning of Monday, November 18.

Source: Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellites Are Already Causing a Headache for Astronomers

SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship prototype – Mk1 – has experienced a failure at its Boca Chica test site in southern Texas. The failure occurred late in the afternoon on Wednesday, midway through a test of the vehicle’s propellant tanks.

As of a few weeks ago, the Mk1 Starship – which was shown off to the world in September as part of SpaceX’s and Elon Musk’s presentation of the design changes to the Starship system – was to fly the first 20 km test flight of the program in the coming weeks.

The main event of today, the Mk1 Starship’s first cryogenic loading test, involved filling the methane and oxygen tanks with a cryogenic liquid.

During the test, the top bulkhead of the vehicle ruptured and was ejected away from the site, followed by a large cloud of vapors and cryogenic liquid from the tank.

The cryogenic liquid – likely liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen – was carried by the wind and dispersed over the launch complex.

The top bulkhead was seen landing nearby, but its precise location is unknown.

The bottom tank bulkhead appeared to fail as well. A second cloud of vapor appeared out of the base of the vehicle at the same time that the top ruptured – signaling that the entire internal tank structure may have failed.

Source: SpaceX Starship Mk1 fails during cryogenic loading test – NASASpaceFlight.com

Elon Musk is fine with it though. I’m glad I’m not sitting in it!

In recent weeks, China’s space program has made news by revealing some of its long-term ambitions for spaceflight. These include establishing an Earth-Moon space economic zone by 2050, which, if successful, could allow the country to begin to dictate the rules of behavior for future space exploration.

Some have questioned whether China, which has flown six human spaceflights in the last 16 years, can really build a large low-Earth space station, send taikonauts to the Moon, return samples from Mars, and more in the coming decade or two. But what seems clear is that the country’s authoritarian government has long-term plans and is taking steps toward becoming a global leader in space exploration.

By one important metric—orbital launches—China has already reached this goal.

In 2018, the country set a goal of 35 orbital launches and ended up with 39 launch attempts. That year, the United States (29 flights) and Russia (20) trailed China, according to Space Launch Report. It marked the first time China led the world in the number of successful orbital launches.

This year, China is set to pace the world again. Through Sunday, the country has launched 27 orbital missions, followed by Russia (19), and the United States (16). Although nearly a month and a half remain in this year, a maximum of six additional orbital launches are likely from the United States in 2019.

Source: China now launches more rockets than anyone in the world | Ars Technica

While one key official has sought to blame a single individual for the system going dark, insiders warn that organizational chaos, excessive secrecy and some unusual self-regulation is as much to blame.

Combined with those problems, a battle between European organizations over the satellite system, and a delayed independent report into the July cock-up, means things aren’t looking good for Europe’s answer to America’s GPS system. A much needed shake-up may be on its way.

In mid-July, the agency in charge of the network of 26 satellites, the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (EGSA), warned of a “service degradation” but assured everyone that it would quickly be resolved.

It wasn’t resolved however, and six days later the system was not only still down but getting increasingly inaccurate, with satellites reporting that they were in completely different positions in orbit than they were supposed to be – a big problem for a system whose entire purpose is to provide state-of-the-art positional accuracy to within 20 centimeters.

Billions of organizations, individuals, phones, apps and so on from across the globe simply stopped listening to Galileo. It’s hard to imagine a bigger mess, aside from the satellites crashing down to Earth.

But despite the outage and widespread criticism over the failure of those behind Galileo to explain what was going on and why, there has been almost no information from the various space agencies and organizations involved in the project.

Source: One man’s mistake, missing backups and complete reboot: The tale of Europe’s Galileo satellites going dark • The Register

The rest is in the article itself

Explore the scale of the universe

Source: The Size of Space

A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard has found 20 new moons orbiting Saturn.  This brings the ringed planet’s total number of moons to 82, surpassing Jupiter, which has 79. The discovery was announced Monday by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

Each of the newly discovered moons is about five kilometers, or three miles, in diameter. Seventeen of them orbit the planet backwards, or in a retrograde direction, meaning their movement is opposite of the planet’s rotation around its axis. The other three moons orbit in the prograde—the same direction as Saturn rotates.

Two of the prograde moons are closer to the planet and take about two years to travel once around Saturn. The more-distant retrograde moons and one of the prograde moons each take more than three years to complete an orbit.

Source: Saturn surpasses Jupiter after the discovery of 20 new moons and you can help name them! | Carnegie Institution for Science

In a paper published on the online research archive arXiv in August, Columbia astronomy students Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford proposed the idea of a “lunar space elevator,” which is exactly what it sounds like—a very long elevator connecting the moon and our planet.

The concept of a moon elevator isn’t new. In the 1970s, similar ideas were floated in science fiction (Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise, for example) and by academics like Jerome Pearson and Yuri Artsutanov.

But the Columbia study differs from previous proposal in an important way: instead of building the elevator from the Earth’s surface (which is impossible with today’s technology), it would be anchored on the moon and stretch some 200,000 miles toward Earth until hitting the geostationary orbit height (about 22,236 miles above sea level), at which objects move around Earth in lockstep with the planet’s own rotation.

Dangling the space elevator at this height would eliminate the need to place a large counterweight near Earth’s orbit to balance out the planet’s massive gravitational pull if the elevator were to be built from ground up. This method would also prevent any relative motion between Earth’s surface and space below the geostationary orbit area from bending or twisting the elevator.

These won’t be problems for the moon because the lunar gravitational pull is significantly smaller and the moon’s orbit is tidally locked, meaning that the moon keeps the same face turned toward Earth during its orbit, therefore no relative motion of the anchor point.

After doing the math, the researchers estimated that the simplest version of the lunar elevator would be a cable thinner than a pencil and weigh about 88,000 pounds, which is within the payload capacity of the next-generation NASA or SpaceX rocket.

The whole project may cost a few billion dollars, which is “within the whim of one particularly motivated billionaire,” said Penoyre.

Future moon travelers will still have to ride a rocket, though, to fly up to the elevator’s dangling point, and then transfer to a robotic vehicle, which would climb up the cable all the way up to the moon.

Source: A Moon Space Elevator Is Actually Feasible and Inexpensive: Study | Observer

The European Space Agency was forced to perform a “collision avoidance maneuver” to prevent its Aeolus spacecraft from potentially smashing into one of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, in what is quickly becoming an all-too-common occurrence. According to SpaceX, it never received the expected alert that a collision was possible.

ESA pumped out a series of tweets yesterday describing the incident, in which the Aeolus satellite “fired its thrusters, moving it off a collision course with a @SpaceX satellite in their #Starlink constellation” on Monday morning. Launched in August 2018, the Aeolus Earth science satellite monitors the planet’s wind from space, allowing for better weather predictions and climate modeling.

[…]

Experts in the ESA’s Space Debris Team “calculated the risk of collision between these two active satellites,” determining that the safest option for Aeolus was to increase its height and have it pass over the SpaceX satellite, according to an ESA tweet. It marked the first time the ESA had to perform “a collision avoidance manoeuvre’ to protect one of its satellites from colliding with a ‘mega constellation,’” noted the space agency.

[…]

But as the ESA tweeted yesterday, as “the number of satellites in orbit increases, due to ‘mega constellations’ such as #Starlink comprising hundreds or even thousands of satellites, today’s ‘manual’ collision avoidance process will become impossible…”

[…]

An ESA graphic identified the culprit as being Starlink 44. The maneuver was done a half-Earth-orbit before Aeolus’ closest approach to the Starlink satellite. Jeff Foust from SpaceNews provides more insight into the incident:

Holger Krag, director of ESA’s Space Safety Programme Office, said in a Sept. 3 email that the agency’s conjunction assessment team noticed the potential close approach about five days in advance, using data provided by the U.S. Air Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron. “We have informed SpaceX and they acknowledged,” he said. “Over the days the collision probability exceeded the decision threshold and we started the maneuver preparation and shared our plans with SpaceX. The decision to maneuver was then made the day before.”

The odds of a collision were calculated at 1 in 1,000, which was high enough to warrant the maneuver. ESA scientists assessed the threat using data gathered by the U.S. Air Force, along with the “operators’ own knowledge of spacecraft positions,” according to SpaceNews.

In a statement emailed to Gizmodo, a SpaceX spokesperson said the Starlink team “last exchanged an email with the Aeolus operations team on August 28, when the probability of collision was only in the [1 in 50,000 range], well below the [1 in 10,000] industry standard threshold and 75 times lower than the final estimate.”

Once the U.S. Air Force’s updates showed that the probability had increased to more than 1 in 10,000, “a bug in our on-call paging system prevented the Starlink operator from seeing the follow on correspondence on this probability increase,” according to the spokesperson, who said “SpaceX is still investigating the issue and will implement corrective actions…. had the Starlink operator seen the correspondence, we would have coordinated with ESA to determine best approach with their continuing with their maneuver or our performing a maneuver.”

Yikes. This incident reveals the flimsy and primitive state of space traffic management, in which a failed communication led to ESA having to act unilaterally on the issue.

Source: SpaceX Says a ‘Bug’ Prevented It From Receiving Warning of Possible Satellite Collision

Well done, Elon Musk, incompetence does it again.

The European Space Agency (ESA) accomplished a first today: moving one of its satellites away from a potential collision with a “mega constellation”.

The constellation in question was SpaceX’s Starlink, and the firing of the thrusters of the Aeolus Earth observation satellite was designed to raise the orbit of the spacecraft to allow SpaceX’s satellite to pass beneath without risking a space slam.

The ESA operations team confirmed that this morning’s manoeuvre took place approximately half an orbit before the potential pileup. It also warned that, with further Starlink satellites in the pipeline and other constellations from the likes of Amazon due to launch, performing such moves manually would soon become impossible.

If plans to orbit thousands more satellites (to bring broadband to remote areas, or inflict it on air-travellers, for example) come to fruition, the ESA team reckons that things will need to be a lot more automated. Acronyms such as AI have been bandied around to create debris and constellation avoidance systems that move faster than the current human-based approach.

We contacted SpaceX to get its take on ESA’s antics, but nothing has yet emerged from Musk’s media orifice. If it does, we will update this article accordingly.

While this is a first for a “mega constellation”, ESA is well practiced at dodging satellites, although mostly dead ones (or debris.) In 2018, the boffins keeping track of things had to perform 28 manoeuvres. A swerve to miss an active spacecraft is, however, unusual.

Aeolus itself was launched on 22 August 2018, and is designed to acquire profiles of the Earth’s winds, handy for understanding the dynamics of weather and improving forecasting.

You can make your own joke about nervous squeaks of flatulence as scientists realised that the spacecraft, designed to spend just over three years in orbit, was headed toward a possible mash-up with one of Musk’s finest.

The incident serves as a timely reminder of the risks of flinging up thousands of small satellites to blanket the Earth with all manner of services. Keeping the things out of the way of each other and those spacecraft with more scientific goals will be an ever increasing challenge if the plans of Musk et al become a reality.

Source: Everyone remembers their first time: ESA satellite dodges a “mega constellation” • The Register

A team of Polish astronomers has created the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way to date, revealing surprising distortions and irregularities along the galactic disk.

Building an accurate map of the Milky Way is not easy.

Our location deep inside the gigantic structure means we can’t observe our galaxy externally, forcing us to envision its form from within. Dense expanses of stars, gas, and dust complicate our view even further. Despite these limitations, we know that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy measuring around 120,000 light-years across, and that we’re located around 27,000 light-years from the galactic core.

[…]

team of scientists from the Astronomical Observatory at the University of Warsaw has compiled the most accurate 3D map of the Milky Way to date. Astronomer Dorota Skowron led the study, which was published today in Science.

Among several other new findings, the updated 3D map shows the S-shaped structure of our galaxy’s distorted stellar disk. The Milky Way is not flat like a pancake, and is instead “warped and twisted,” in the words of co-author Przemek Mroz, who described his team’s work in a related video. That our galaxy is warped was already known, but the new research further characterizes the surprising extent of these distortions. As the new research shows, this warp starts at ranges greater than 25,000 light-years from the galactic core, and it gets more severe with distance.

[…]

The new research also showed that the thickness of the Milky Way is variable throughout. Our galaxy gets thicker with distance from the core. At our location, for example, the galactic disk is about 500 light-years thick, but at the outer edges it’s as much as 3,000 light-years thick.

To create the 3D map, Skowron and her colleagues charted the location of Cepheid variable stars. These young, pulsating supergiants are ideal for this research because their brightness changes in a very regular pattern. Ultimately, the location of Cepheid stars within the Milky Way can be more accurately pinned down than other kinds of stars, which is precisely what was needed for this mapping project.

A sample of over 2,400 Cepheids was used to create the new map, the majority of which were identified with the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, which monitors the brightness of nearly 2 billion stars. In total, the researchers observed the galactic disk for six years, taking 206,726 images of the sky.

[…]

If this work sounds familiar, it’s because research published earlier this year in Nature Astronomy employed a similar technique, in which scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences reached similar conclusions, using a different group of Cepheids for their map. One of the scientists behind the previous research, Xiaodian Chen from the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, took issue with the fact that the authors of the new paper did not cite his team’s work. Nonetheless, he still liked the new science.

Source: Another Study Finds Our Galaxy Is ‘Warped and Twisted’

Since unfurling the spacecraft’s silver solar sail last week, mission managers have been optimizing the way the spacecraft orients itself during solar sailing. After a few tweaks, LightSail 2 began raising its orbit around the Earth. In the past 4 days, the spacecraft has raised its orbital high point, or apogee, by about 2 kilometers. The mission team has confirmed the apogee increase can only be attributed to solar sailing, meaning LightSail 2 has successfully completed its primary goal of demonstrating flight by light for CubeSats.

“We’re thrilled to announce mission success for LightSail 2,” said LightSail program manager and Planetary Society chief scientist Bruce Betts. “Our criteria was to demonstrate controlled solar sailing in a CubeSat by changing the spacecraft’s orbit using only the light pressure of the Sun, something that’s never been done before. I’m enormously proud of this team. It’s been a long road and we did it.”

LightSail is a citizen-funded project from The Planetary Society to send a small spacecraft, propelled solely by sunlight, to Earth orbit.

The milestone makes LightSail 2 the first spacecraft to use solar sailing for propulsion in Earth orbit, the first small spacecraft to demonstrate solar sailing, and just the second-ever solar sail spacecraft to successfully fly, following Japan’s IKAROS, which launched in 2010. LightSail 2 is also the first crowdfunded spacecraft to successfully demonstrate a new form of propulsion.

Source: LightSail 2 Spacecraft Successfully Demonstrates Flight by Light

Over half of the 88 constellations the IAU recognizes today are attributed to ancient Greek, which consolidated the earlier works by the ancient Babylonian, Egyptian and Assyrian. Forty eight of the constellations we know were recorded in the seventh and eighth books of Claudius Ptolemy’s Almagest, although the exact origin of these constellations still remains uncertain. Ptolemy’s descriptions are probably strongly influenced by the work of Eudoxus of Knidos in around 350 BC. Between the 16th and 17th century AD, European astronomers and celestial cartographers added new constellations to the 48 previously described by Ptolemy; these new constellations were mainly “new discoveries” made by the Europeans who first explored the southern hemisphere. Those who made particular contributions to the “new” constellations include the Polish-born, German astronomer Johannes Hevelius; three Dutch cartographers, Frederick de Houtman, Pieter Dirksz Keyser and Gerard Mercator; the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille; the Flemish mapmaker Petrus Plancius and the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.

IAU and the 88 Constellations

Originally the constellations were defined informally by the shapes made by their star patterns, but, as the pace of celestial discoveries quickened in the early 20th century, astronomers decided it would be helpful to have an official set of constellation boundaries. One reason was to aid in the naming of new variable stars, which brighten and fade rather than shine steadily. Such stars are named for the constellation in which they reside, so it is important to agree where one constellation ends and the next begins.

Eugène Delporte originally listed the 88 “modern” constellations on behalf of the IAU Commission 3 (Astronomical Notations), in Délimitation scientifique des constellations. (Delporte, 1930)

Constellation Figures

In star maps it is common to mark line “patterns” that represent the shapes that give the name to the constellations. However, the IAU defines a constellation by its boundary (indicated by sky coordinates) and not by its pattern and the same constellation may have several variants in its representation.

The constellations should be differentiated from asterisms. Asterisms are patterns or shapes of stars that are not related to the known constellations, but nonetheless are widely recognised by laypeople or in the amateur astronomy community. Examples of asterisms include the seven bright stars in Ursa Major known as “the Plough” in Europe or “the Big Dipper” in America, as well as “the Summer Triangle”, a large triangle, seen in the summer night sky in the northern hemisphere and composed of the bright stars Altair, Deneb and Vega. Whilst a grouping of stars may be officially designated a constellation by the IAU, this does not mean that the stars in that constellation are necessarily grouped together in space. Sometimes stars will be physically close to each other, like the Pleiades, but constellations are generally really a matter of perspective. They are simply our Earth-based interpretation of two dimensional star patterns on the sky made up of stars of many differing brightnesses and distances from Earth.

 

Constellation Names

Each Latin constellation name has two forms: the nominative, for use when talking about the constellation itself, and the genitive, or possessive, which is used in star names. For instance, Hamal, the brightest star in the constellation Aries (nominative form), is also called Alpha Arietis (genitive form), meaning literally “the alpha of Aries”.

The Latin names of all the constellations, their abbreviated names and boundaries can be found in the table below. They are a mix of the ancient Greek patterns recorded by Ptolemy as well as some more “modern” patterns observed later by more modern astronomers.

The IAU adopted three-letter abbreviations of the constellation names at its inaugural General Assembly in Rome in 1922. So, for instance, Andromeda is abbreviated to And whilst Draco is abbreviated to Dra.

Charts and tables

The charts below were produced in collaboration with Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg). Alan MacRobert’s constellation patterns, drawn in green in the charts, were influenced by those of H. A. Rey but in many cases were adjusted to preserve earlier traditions. The images are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Quick links : And , Ant, Aps, Aqr, Aql, Ara, Ari, Aur, Boo, Cae, Cam, Cnc, CVn, CMa, CMi, Cap, Car, Cas, Cen, Cep, Cet, Cha, Cir, Col, Com, CrA, CrB, Crv, Crt, Cru, Cyg, Del, Dor, Dra, Equ, Eri, For, Gem, Gru, Her, Hor, Hya, Hyi, Ind, Lac, Leo, LMi, Lep, Lib, Lup, Lyn, Lyr, Men, Mic, Mon, Mus, Nor, Oct, Oph, Ori, Pav, Peg, Per, Phe, Pic, Psc, PsA, Pup, Pyx, Ret, Sge, Sgr, Sco, Scl, Sct, Ser, Sex, Tau, Tel, Tri, TrA, Tuc, UMa, UMi, Vel, Vir, Vol, Vul , Chart text legend

Charts Graphical Legend

Charts

Name / Pronunciation	Abbr.	English Name	Genitive / Pronunciation	Downloads
Andromeda an-DRAH-mih-duh	And	the Chained Maiden	Andromedae an-DRAH-mih-dee	Constellation charts GIF (117 KB) PDF (829 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Antlia ANT-lee-uh	Ant	the Air Pump	Antliae ANT-lee-ee	Constellation charts GIF (111 KB) PDF (815 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Apus APE-us, APP-us	Aps	the Bird of Paradise	Apodis APP-oh-diss	Constellation charts GIF (155 KB) PDF (836 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Aquarius uh-QUAIR-ee-us	Aqr	the Water Bearer	Aquarii uh-QUAIR-ee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (124 KB) PDF (879 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Aquila ACK-will-uh, uh-QUILL-uh	Aql	the Eagle	Aquilae ACK-will-ee, uh-QUILL-ee	Constellation charts GIF (108 KB) PDF (820KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Ara AIR-uh, AR-uh	Ara	the Altar	Arae AIR-ee, AR-ee	Constellation charts GIF (114 KB) PDF (807 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Aries AIR-eez, AIR-ee-yeez	Ari	the Ram	Arietis uh-RYE-ih-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (118 KB) PDF (805 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Auriga aw-RYE-guh	Aur	the Charioteer	Aurigae aw-RYE-ghee	Constellation charts GIF (122 KB) PDF (381 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Boötes bo-OH-teez	Boo	the Herdsman	Boötis bo-OH-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (147 KB) PDF (823KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Caelum SEE-lum	Cae	the Engraving Tool	Caeli SEE-lye	Constellation charts GIF (97 KB) PDF (780 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Camelopardalis cuh-MEL-oh- PAR-duh-liss	Cam	the Giraffe	Camelopardalis cuh-MEL-oh- PAR-duh-liss	Constellation charts GIF (156 KB) PDF (888 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Cancer CAN-ser	Cnc	the Crab	Cancri CANG-cry	Constellation charts GIF (108 KB) PDF (814 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Canes Venatici CANE-eez (CAN-eez) ve-NAT-iss-eye	CVn	the Hunting Dogs	Canum Venaticorum CANE-um (CAN-um) ve-nat-ih-COR-um	Constellation charts GIF (106 KB) PDF (790 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Canis Major CANE-iss (CAN-iss) MAY-jer	CMa	the Great Dog	Canis Majoris CANE-iss (CAN-iss) muh-JOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (134 KB) PDF (849 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Canis Minor CANE-iss (CAN-iss) MY-ner	CMi	the Lesser Dog	Canis Minoris CANE-iss (CAN-iss) mih-NOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (83 KB) PDF (766 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Capricornus CAP-rih-CORN-us	Cap	the Sea Goat	Capricorni CAP-rih-CORN-eye	Constellation charts GIF (98 KB) PDF (818 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Carina cuh-RYE-nuh, cuh-REE-nuh	Car	the Keel	Carinae cuh-RYE-nee, cuh-REE-nee	Constellation charts GIF (143 KB) PDF (882 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Cassiopeia CASS-ee-uh-PEE-uh	Cas	the Seated Queen	Cassiopeiae CASS-ee-uh-PEE-ye	Constellation charts GIF (139 KB) PDF (846 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Centaurus	Cen	the Centaur	Centauri	Constellation charts GIF (178 KB) PDF (549 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Cepheus	Cep	the King	Cephei	Constellation charts GIF (200 KB) PDF (873 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Cetus SEE-tus	Cet	the Sea Monster	Ceti SEE-tie	Constellation charts GIF (122 KB) PDF (873 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Chamaeleon cuh-MEAL-yun, cuh-MEAL-ee-un	Cha	the Chameleon	Chamaeleontis cuh-MEAL-ee-ON-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (183 KB) PDF (834 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Circinus SER-sin-us	Cir	the Compass	Circini SER-sin-eye	Constellation charts GIF (131 KB) PDF (818 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Columba cuh-LUM-buh	Col	the Dove	Columbae cuh-LUM-bee	Constellation charts GIF (99 KB) PDF (797 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Coma Berenices COE-muh BER-uh-NICE-eez	Com	the Bernice’s Hair	Comae Berenices COE-mee BER-uh-NICE-eez	Constellation charts GIF (101 KB) PDF (788 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Corona Australis cuh-ROE-nuh aw-STRAL-iss3	CrA	the Southern Crown	Coronae Australis cuh-ROE-nee aw-STRAL-iss3	Constellation charts GIF (107 KB) PDF (787 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Corona Borealis cuh-ROE-nuh bor-ee-AL-iss3	CrB	the Northern Crown	cuh-ROE-nee bor-ee-AL-iss3	Constellation charts GIF (89 KB) PDF (771 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Corvus COR-vus	Crv	the Crow	Corvi COR-vye	Constellation charts GIF (74 KB) PDF (763 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Crater CRAY-ter	Crt	the Cup	Crateris cruh-TEE-riss	Constellation charts GIF (75 KB) PDF (787 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Crux CRUCKS, CROOKS	Cru	the Southern Cross	Crucis CROO-siss	Constellation charts GIF (119 KB) PDF (811 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Cygnus SIG- SIG-nu	Cyg	the Swan	Cygni SIG-nye	Constellation charts GIF (174 KB) PDF (866 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Delphinus del-FINE-us, del-FIN-us	Del	the Dolphin	Delphini del-FINE-eye, del-FIN-eye	Constellation charts GIF (81 KB) PDF (767 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Dorado duh-RAH-do	Dor	the Swordfish	Doradus duh-RAH-dus	Constellation charts GIF (108 KB) PDF (795 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Draco DRAY-co	Dra	the Dragon	Draconis druh-CONE-iss	Constellation charts GIF (153 KB) PDF (898 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Equuleus eh-QUOO-lee-us	Equ	the Little Horse	Equulei eh-QUOO-lee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (69 KB) PDF (749 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Eridanus ih-RID-un-us	Eri	the River	Eridani ih-RID-un-eye	Constellation charts GIF (167 KB) PDF (941 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Fornax FOR-naks	For	the Furnace	Fornacis for-NAY-siss	Constellation charts GIF (108 KB) PDF (811 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Gemini JEM-uh-nye, JEM-uh-nee	Gem	the Twins	Geminorum JEM-uh-NOR-um	Constellation charts GIF (122 KB) PDF (832 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Grus GRUSS, GROOS	Gru	the Crane	Gruis GROO-iss	Constellation charts GIF (127 KB) PDF (829 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Hercules HER-kyuh-leez	Her	the Hercules	Herculis HER-kyuh-liss	Constellation charts GIF (156 KB) PDF (829 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Horologium hor-uh-LOE-jee-um	Hor	the Clock	Horologii hor-uh-LOE-jee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (107 KB) PDF (788 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Hydra HIGH-druh	Hya	the Female Water Snake	Hydrae HIGH-dree	Constellation charts GIF (127 KB) PDF (929 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Hydrus HIGH-drus	Hyi	the Male Water Snake	Hydri HIGH-dry	Constellation charts GIF (143 KB) PDF (821 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Indus IN-dus	Ind	the Indian	Indi IN-dye	Constellation charts GIF (131 KB) PDF (834 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Lacerta luh-SER-tuh	Lac	the Lizard	Lacertae luh-SER-tee	Constellation charts GIF (124 KB) PDF (812 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Leo LEE-oh	Leo	the Lion	Leonis lee-OH-niss	Constellation charts GIF (142 KB) PDF (820 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Leo Minor LEE-oh MY-ner	LMi	the Lesser Lion	Leonis Minoris lee-OH-niss mih-NOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (103 KB) PDF (799 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Lepus LEEP-us, LEP-us	Lep	the Hare	Leporis LEP-or-iss	Constellation charts GIF (94 KB) PDF (787 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Libra LEE-bruh, LYE-bruh	Lib	the Scales	Librae LEE-bree, LYE-bree	Constellation charts GIF (111 KB) PDF (819 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Lupus LOOP-us	Lup	the Wolf	Lupi LOOP-eye	Constellation charts GIF (137 KB) PDF (857 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Lynx LINKS	Lyn	the Lynx	Lyncis LIN-siss	Constellation charts GIF (111 KB) PDF (796 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Lyra LYE-ruh	Lyr	the Lyre	Lyrae LYE-ree	Constellation charts GIF (91 KB) PDF (776 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Mensa MEN-suh	Men	the Table Mountain	Mensae MEN-see	Constellation charts GIF (161 KB) PDF (827 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Microscopium my-cruh-SCOPE-ee-um	Mic	the Microscope	Microscopii my-cruh-SCOPE-ee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (87 KB) PDF (776 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Monoceros muh-NAH-ser-us	Mon	the Unicorn	Monocerotis muh-NAH-ser-OH-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (110 KB) PDF (821 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Musca MUSS-cuh	Mus	the Fly	Muscae MUSS-see, MUSS-kee	Constellation charts GIF (134 KB) PDF (828 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Norma NOR-muh	Nor	the Carpenter’s Square	Normae NOR-mee	Constellation charts GIF (118 KB) PDF (803 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Octans OCK-tanz	Oct	the Octant	Octantis ock-TAN-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (140 KB) PDF (821 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Ophiuchus OFF-ee-YOO-kus, OAF-ee-YOO-kus	Oph	the Serpent Bearer	Ophiuchi OFF-ee-YOO-kye, OAF-ee-YOO-kye	Constellation charts GIF (175 KB) PDF (854 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Orion oh-RYE-un, uh-RYE-un	Ori	the Hunter	Orionis or-eye-OH-niss	Constellation charts GIF (181 KB) PDF (873 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Pavo PAY-vo	Pav	the Peacock	Pavonis puh-VOE-niss	Constellation charts GIF (143 KB) PDF (859 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Pegasus PEG-us-us	Peg	the Winged Horse	Pegasi PEG-us-eye	Constellation charts GIF (136 KB) PDF (868 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (2 KB)
Perseus PER-see-us, PER-syoos	Per	the Hero	Persei PER-see-eye	Constellation charts GIF (127 KB) PDF (836 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Phoenix FEE-nix	Phe	the Phoenix	Phoenicis fuh-NICE-iss	Constellation charts GIF (119 KB) PDF (828 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Pictor PICK-ter	Pic	the Painter’s Easel	Pictoris pick-TOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (108 KB) PDF (794 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Pisces PICE-eez, PISS-eez	Psc	the Fishes	Piscium PICE-ee-um, PISH-ee-um	Constellation charts GIF (87 KB) PDF (859 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Piscis Austrinus PICE-iss (PISS-iss) aw-STRY-nus	PsA	the Southern Fish	Piscis Austrini PICE-iss (PISS-iss) aw-STRY-nye	Constellation charts GIF (87 KB) PDF (778 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Puppis PUP-iss	Pup	the Stern	Puppis PUP-iss	Constellation charts GIF (185 KB) PDF (868 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Pyxis PIX-iss	Pyx	the Compass	Pyxidis PIX-ih-diss	Constellation charts GIF (84 KB) PDF (775 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Reticulum rih-TICK-yuh-lum	Ret	the Reticle	Reticuli rih-TICK-yuh-lye	Constellation charts GIF (107 KB) PDF (786 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Sagitta suh-JIT-uh	Sge	the Arrow	Sagittae suh-JIT-ee	Constellation charts GIF (90 KB) PDF (773 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Sagittarius SAJ-ih-TARE-ee-us	Sgr	the Archer	Sagittarii SAJ-ih-TARE-ee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (163 KB) PDF (878 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Scorpius SCOR-pee-us	Sco	the Scorpion	Scorpii SCOR-pee-eye	Constellation charts GIF (194 KB) PDF (874 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Sculptor SCULP-ter	Scl	the Sculptor	Sculptoris sculp-TOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (119 KB) PDF (810 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Scutum SCOOT-um, SCYOOT-um	Sct	the Shield	Scuti SCOOT-eye, SCYOOT-eye	Constellation charts GIF (120 KB) PDF (784 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Serpens SER-punz	Ser	the Serpent	Serpentis ser-PEN-tiss	Constellation charts (Serpens Caput) GIF (112 KB) PDF (780 KB) TIF Constellation boundary (Serpens Caput) TXT (1 KB) Constellation charts (Serpens Cauda) GIF (126 KB) PDF (791 KB) TIF Constellation boundary (Serpens Cauda) TXT (1 KB)
Sextans SEX-tunz	Sex	the Sextant	Sextantis sex-TAN-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (83 KB) PDF (782 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Taurus TOR-us	Tau	the Bull	Tauri TOR-eye	Constellation charts GIF (115 KB) PDF (832 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Telescopium	Tel	the Telescope	Telescopii	Constellation charts GIF (148 KB) PDF (834 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Triangulum try-ANG-gyuh-lum	Tri	the Triangle	Trianguli try-ANG-gyuh-lye	Constellation charts GIF (89 KB) PDF (764 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Triangulum Australe try-ANG-gyuh-lum aw-STRAL-ee	TrA	the Southern Triangle	Trianguli Australis try-ANG-gyuh-lye aw-STRAL-iss	Constellation charts GIF (124 KB) PDF (815 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Tucana too-KAY-nuh, too-KAH-nuh	Tuc	the Toucan	Tucanae too-KAY-nee, too-KAH-nee	Constellation charts GIF (127 KB) PDF (806 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Ursa Major ER-suh MAY-jur	UMa	the Great Bear	Ursae Majoris ER-suh muh-JOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (174 KB) PDF (885 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Ursa Minor ER-suh MY-ner	UMi	the Little Bear	Ursae Minoris ER-suh mih-NOR-iss	Constellation charts GIF (135 KB) PDF (800 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Vela VEE-luh, VAY-luh	Vel	the Sails	Velorum vee-LOR-um, vuh-LOR-um	Constellation charts GIF (131 KB) PDF (850 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Virgo VER-go	Vir	the Maiden	Virginis VER-jin-iss	Constellation charts GIF (98 KB) PDF (831 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Volans VOH-lanz	Vol	the Flying Fish	Volantis vo-LAN-tiss	Constellation charts GIF (123 KB) PDF (812 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)
Vulpecula vul-PECK-yuh-luh	Vul	the Fox	Vulpeculae vul-PECK-yuh-lee	Constellation charts GIF (124 KB) PDF (805 KB) TIF Constellation boundary TXT (1 KB)

Charts Text Legend

Each constellation comes with the following basic information:

1. Name
2. Pronunciation of the name
3. Abbreviation
4. English Name
5. Genitive
6. Pronunciation of the genitive
7. Chart for screen view (GIF)
8. Chart for printing (PDF in A4 format)
9. Boundary coordinates (TXT)

Explanation of the fields:

1. The name is the Latin name adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1930.
2. Pronunciation as described above.
3. Abbreviation, the standard three-letter form of the Latin name.
4. The popular name in English.
5. The genitive is the possessive form of the constellation’s name in Latin. For example, alpha Orionis is the alpha star in the constellation of Orion.
6. Pronunciation as described above.
7. Chart in GIF format, 1000 pixels wide.
8. Chart in PDF format, to be printed in A4 format.
9. A text file containing a set of coordinates that defines the boundaries of the constellations in the sky. The format is:
   HH MM SS.SSSS| DD.DDDDDDD|XXX

   Where:
   HH MM SS.SSSS defines the right ascension hour, minute and second with J2000 coordinates
   DD.DDDDDDD defines the declination with J2000 coordinates
   XXX is the abbreviation of the constellation name
   | is the separator of the fields

   Example:
   22 57 51.6729| 35.1682358|AND

Source: The Constellations | IAU

Stars have served as a basis for navigation for thousands of years. Polaris, also dubbed the North Star in the Ursa Minor constellation, is arguably one of the most influential, even though it sits 434 light years away.

[…]

n the star map above, the orange lines denote the twelve signs of the Zodiac, each found roughly along the same band from 10° to -30° longitude. These Zodiac alignments, along with planetary movements, form the basis of astrology, which has been practiced across cultures to predict significant events. While the scientific method has widely demonstrated that astrology doesn’t hold much validity, many people still believe in it today.

The red lines on the visualization signify the constellations officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1922. Its ancient Greek origins are recorded on the same map as the blue lines, from which the modern constellation boundaries are based. Here’s a deeper dive into all 88 IAU constellations:

Constellation	English Name	Category	Brightest star
Andromeda	Chained Maiden/ Princess	Creature/ Character	Alpheratz
Antlia	Air Pump	Object	α Antliae
Apus	Bird of Paradise	Animal	α Apodis
Aquarius	Water Bearer	Creature/ Character	Sadalsuud
Aquila	Eagle	Animal	Altair
Ara	Altar	Object	β Arae
Aries	Ram	Animal	Hamal
Auriga	Charioteer	Creature/ Character	Capella

Showing 1 to 8 of 88 entries

PreviousNext

(Source: International Astronomical Union)

[…]

We now know that the night sky isn’t as static as people used to believe. Although it’s Earth’s major pole star today, Polaris was in fact off-kilter by roughly 8° a few thousand years ago. Our ancestors saw the twin northern pole stars, Kochab and Pherkad, where Polaris is now.

This difference is due to the Earth’s natural axial tilt. Eight degrees may not seem like much, but because of this angle, the constellations we gaze at today are the same, yet completely different from the ones our ancestors looked up at.

If you liked exploring this star map, be sure to check out the geology of Mars from the same designer.

Source: Every Visible Star in the Night Sky, in One Giant Map

We may be able to survive and live on Mars in regions protected by thin ceilings of silica aerogel, a strong lightweight material that insulates heat and blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation while weighing almost nothing.

Researchers at Harvard University in the US, NASA, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland envision areas of Mars enclosed by two to three-centimetre-thick walls of silica aerogel. The strange material is ghost-like in appearance, and although it’s up to 99.98 per cent air, it’s actually a solid.

Aerogels come in various shapes and forms with their own mix of properties. Typically, they are made from sucking out the liquid in a gel using something called a supercritical dryer device. The resulting aerogel consists of pockets of air, and is therefore ultralight and can be capable of trapping heat. It can also be made hydrophobic or semi-porous as needed.

The semitransparent solid, therefore, has odd properties that may just help humans colonize the Red Planet. The solid silica can be manufactured to block out, say, dangerous UV rays while allowing visible light through.

However, it’s the trapping of heat that is most interesting here. When the boffins shone a lamp onto a thin block of silica aerogel, measuring less than 3cm thick, they found that the surface beneath the material warmed up to 65 degrees Celsius (that’s 150 degrees Fahrenheit for you Americans), high enough, of course, to melt ice into water. The results were published in Nature Astronomy on Monday.

Welcome to the Hotel Aerogel

The academics reckon if a region of ice near the higher latitudes of Mars was covered with a layer of aerogel, then the frosty ground would melt to produce liquid water as the environment heats up. It’d also be warm enough for humans to live and farm food in order to survive in the otherwise harsh, acrid conditions elsewhere the planet.

“The ideal place for a Martian outpost would have plentiful water and moderate temperatures,” said Laura Kerber, co-author of the paper and a geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Mars is warmer around the equator, but most of the water ice is located at higher latitudes. Building with silica aerogel would allow us to artificially create warm environments where there is already water ice available.”

Source: Humans may be able to live on Mars within walls of aerogel – a wonder material that can trap heat and block radiation • The Register

Amazon wants the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to give it the go-ahead to launch 3,236 satellites that would be used to establish a globe-spanning internet network. Seeking Alpha reported that Amazon expects “to offer service to tens of millions of underserved customers around the world” via the network, which the company is developing under the code-name Project Kuiper.

News of Project Kuiper broke in April, when Amazon uncharacteristically confirmed its work on the project to GeekWire. The company often declines to comment on reports concerning its plans; it seems the development of thousands of internet-providing satellites is the exception. The company had yet to seek FCC approval for the project, though, which is what Seeking Alpha reported today.

So what does this plan to offer space internet with a weird name actually involve? Amazon explained in April:

“Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet. We look forward to partnering on this initiative with companies that share this common vision.”

Expanding Internet access has become something of an obsession among tech companies. Google offers fiber Internet services as well as its own cellular network, Facebook scrapped plans to offer internet access via drones in June 2018, and Amazon isn’t the only company hoping to use low Earth orbit satellites to allow previously unconnected people to finally join the rest of the world online. It’s a bit of a trend.

Source: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3,236 Internet Satellites

Last week, the LightSail 2 officially made its first contact with Earth. The solar-powered spacecraft will be sailing around Earth’s orbit for the next year, all part of a mission to prove that solar sailing is a viable mode of space exploration.

If successful, the hope is that solar sailing could be used in other spacecraft going forward, something that could allow us to explore further in space at a lower cost than is currently possible.

It’s a pretty cool idea and one that could ultimately have an impact on how we explore space in the future. And you can track it in real time from your computer whenever you want.

Now that the LightSail 2 is communicating with Earth, the folks from The Planetary Society that put the vessel in space are making some of its stats available through an online dashboard that’s free for anyone to look at.

With it, you can see things like how long the LightSail 2 has been on its mission, whether or not its sail is stowed, and what the internal temperature of the spacecraft is right now. You can also see where the vessel is right now and what path it’s expected to take, in case you want to try and snag a look as it passes overhead.

If you’re a space fan, it’s a pretty neat thing to check out, especially for that fly-by potential once the sail is deployed. And if that’s not enough, you can also track the LightSail 2’s progress in narrative form on The Planetary Society’s blog.

Source: How to Track the LightSail 2 as It ‘Sails’ Around Earth