December 2008 Topic: VLA/Arecibo

The Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico and the Arecibo Radio telescope in Puerto Rico are two of the premier radio telescopes in the world.

The VLA consists of 27 radio antennas, each 82 feet in diameter. The data from the antennas is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 422 feet in diameter. The Arecibo Radio telescope, run by Cornell University, is 1,000 feet in diameter (the size of a football field), 167 feet deep, and covers an area of about 20 acres. These two telescopes “view” the universe by listening to “sounds” given off by astronomical objects, as opposed to visually viewing objects.


November 2008 Topic: Solar & Heliospheric Observatory

The Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), launched on December 2, 1995, is an international collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency to study the Sun from its deep core to the outer corona and the solar wind. SOHO lies around 1 million miles from the Earth, moving around the Sun in step with the Earth, giving us uninterrupted views and data from our closest star. SOHO is helping us understand the interactions between the Sun and the Earth’s environment better than has been previously possible.


October 2008 Topic: CASSINI-HUYGENS

Cassini-Huygens is an international collaboration between three space agencies and 17 nations. Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency are studying the data streaming back from Saturn on a daily basis.

The Cassini spacecraft is the first to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit. It entered orbit on June 30, 2004, and the Huygens Probe dove into Titan's thick atmosphere in January 2005. The sophisticated instruments on both spacecraft are providing scientists with vital data and the best views ever of this mysterious, vast region of our solar system.


September 2008 Topic: SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE

The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched into space on August 25, 2003. Spitzer obtains images and spectra by detecting the infrared energy, or heat, radiated by objects in space. Most of this infrared radiation is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and cannot be observed from the ground. Spitzer is the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space. It was named after Lyman Spitzer, Jr. (1914-1997), a renowned astrophysicist. Spitzer is the final mission in NASA's Great Observatories Program; a family of four orbiting observatories, each observing the Universe in a different kind of light -- visible, gamma rays, x-rays, and infrared.


August 2008 Topic: MESSENGER

The pioneering Mercury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission orbited the mysterious terrestrial planet in early 2008, looking closely at its surface, its crust, its atmosphere, and its magnetic field. Loaded with seven advanced scientific instruments and one radio science experiment to pack in as much science as possible, the spacecraft was the first mission to Mercury since 1975.


July 2008 Topic: CHANDRA

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is part of NASA's fleet of Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitizer Space Telescope, and the now de-orbited Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Chandra allows scientists from around the world to obtain unprecedented X-ray images of exotic environments to help understand the structure and evolution of the universe. Already surpassing its 5-year life, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is rewriting textbooks and helping advance technology.


June 2008 Topic: SPIRIT & OPPORTUNITY

NASA's twin robot geologists, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, were launched toward Mars in the Summer of 2003, in search of answers about the history of water on Mars. They landed on Mars in January of 2004. Both rovers are still in operation. The Mars Exploration Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet.


May 2008: DEEP IMPACT MISSION

Comets are time capsules that hold clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system. They are composed of ice, gas and dust, primitive debris from the solar system's distant and coldest regions that formed 4.5 billion years ago. Deep Impact, a NASA Discovery Mission, was the first space mission to probe beneath the surface of a comet and reveal the secrets of its interior. In 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft arrived at Comet Tempel 1 and impacted the comet.


April 2008 Topic: THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency, was launched in April of 1990. Since that time, it has given us more information about the Universe than any other instrument ever built. Its eight foot diameter mirror and a variety of scientific instruments let astronomers “see” objects in variety of wavelengths of light. The incredible power of the telescope is such that if the telescope was in NY, it could easily read the date off of a dime in Washington, DC. The Hubble Space Telescope has also given us a more accurate age of the Universe -- approximately 14 billion years old.


March 2008 Topic: GPS

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a network of 24 satellites originally intended for military applications which the government made available for civilian use in the 1980's. GPS satellites orbit the Earth twice a day and transmit signal information to GPS receivers on Earth which take this information and calculate the user's exact location.


February 2008 Topic: KITT PEAK OBSERVATORY

Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) houses the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth for nighttime astronomical observations and daytime study of the Sun. Founded in 1958, KPNO operates three major nighttime telescopes, shares site responsibilities with the National Solar Observatory and hosts the facilities of consortia which operate 25 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes. Kitt Peak is located 56 miles southwest of Tucson, AZ., and has a visitor center which is open to the public.


January 2008 Topic: NEW HORIZONS

The New Horizons Spacecraft is the first Mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. It will be the first spacecraft to visit the planet Pluto, and its moon, Charon. Launched in January of 2006, it will reach Pluto in 2015. It is currently in between Jupiter and Saturn. Traveling at more than 36,000 mph, the spacecraft operates on less power than two, 100 watt light bulbs.


December 2007 Topic: MARS

Mars, the “Red Planet”, is the forth planet from the Sun, and about half the size of the Earth. Probably more like Earth than any other planet, Mars has four seasons, changes in climate, and most likely, underground water. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers have been operating on Mars for several years.


November 2007 Topic: SPACE DEBRIS

Comets, meteors, and asteroids are the “debris” of the Solar System, left over from its formation 4.5 billion years ago. In recent years, scientists have “crashed” space probes into asteroids to study them, and have collected samples from comets. Information from these types of missions gives us clues as to what the Solar System was like billions of years ago.


October 2007 Topic: PLUTO

Discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the Sun. Between 1979 and 1999, Pluto's highly elliptical orbit brought it closer to the Sun than Neptune, providing rare opportunities to study this small, cold, distant world and its companion moon Charon.

In 2006, a new definition of the word “planet”, demoted Pluto to “dwarf planet” status. However, this new definition is not fully supported by the astronomical community, and many Astronomers still refer to Pluto as the 9th planet in our Solar System.


September 2007 Topic: URANUS

Uranus (pronounced YOOR un nus) has been revealed as a dynamic world with some of the brightest clouds in the outer solar system and 11 rings. The first planet found with the aid of a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel. It was originally known as Planet George, as Herschel named it after the King of England. The seventh planet from the Sun is so distant that it takes 84 years to complete one orbit.

Even though Uranus is tipped on its side and experiences seasons that last over 20 years, the temperature differences on the summer and winter sides do not differ greatly because the planet is so far from the Sun. Near the cloud tops, the temperature of Uranus 357 degrees below zero.


August 2007 Topic: NEPTUNE

The eighth planet from the Sun, Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical predictions rather than through regular observations of the sky.

Galileo had recorded it as a fixed star during observations with his small telescope in 1612 and 1613. But when Uranus didn't travel exactly as astronomers expected it to, a French mathematician, Urbain Joseph Le Verrier, proposed the position and mass of another as yet unknown planet that could cause the observed changes to Uranus' orbit. Le Verrier sent his predictions to Johann Gottfried Galle at the Berlin Observatory, who found Neptune on his first night of searching in 1846.

Nearly 2.8 billion miles from the Sun, Neptune orbits the Sun once every 165 years. It is invisible to the naked eye because of its extreme distance from Earth. Interestingly, due to Pluto's unusual elliptical orbit, Neptune is actually the farthest planet from the Sun for a 20-year period out of every 248 Earth years.


July 2007 Topic: MOON

How did the Moon come to be? The leading theory is that a Mars-sized body once hit Earth and the resulting debris (from both Earth and the impacting body) accumulated to form the Moon. Scientists believe that the Moon was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago (the age of the oldest collected lunar rocks).

From Earth, we see the same face of the Moon all the time because the Moon rotates just once on its own axis in very nearly the same time that it travels once around Earth. Patterns of dark and light features on the nearside have given rise to the fanciful "Man in the Moon" description. The light areas are lunar highlands. The dark features, called maria, are impact basins that were filled with dark lava between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago.

Seismometers planted by the Apollo astronauts in the 1970s have recorded small quakes at depths of several hundred miles.

More than 70 spacecraft have been sent to the Moon; 12 astronauts have walked upon its surface and brought back 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil to Earth.

During July, our NASA Space Place Bulletin Board will feature the Moon, and our live programs will show images of the Moon.


June 2007 Topic: JUPITER

Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, lies approximately 484 million miles from the Sun, and takes 12 years to orbit our closest star. It would take approximately 12 Earths to line up along its Equator.

The most massive planet in our solar system, Jupiter resembles a star in composition. Had it been about 80 times more massive, it would have become a star rather than a planet.

In 1610, using his primitive telescope, Galileo saw four small 'stars' near Jupiter. He had discovered Jupiter's four largest moons, now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. They are known today as the Galilean satellites. We now know that Jupiter has 63 moons, the most in the solar system.

Jupiter is famous for the “Great Red Spot”, a hurricane that can hold three Earths, and has been going on continuously for 400 years.

During June, our NASA Space Place Bulletin Board will feature the planet Jupiter, and our live programs will show images of this planet.


May 2007 Topic: VENUS

Venus, also known as Earth’s Sister Planet, is similar to the Earth in size, mass, composition, and distance from the Sun. But the similarities stop there.

Venus is covered by thick clouds, which hold in the heat, and cause a “runaway Greenhouse Effect”. The temperature on the planet is always around 900 degrees. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with droplets of sulfuric acid.

Venus rotates once in 243 (Earth) days, and it revolves around the Sun in 225 days, making the day, longer than its year.

During May, our NASA Space Place Bulletin Board will feature the planet Venus, and our live programs will show images of the planet taken from spacecraft.