APOD 4.8

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called Space Shuttle Rising, uploaded on May 25.  It is an image of the space shuttle Endeavor rising out of the clouds, and into its orbit. 


This picture was taken during the Endeavor's final launch.  This particular image has been widely circulated throughout the web, and was taken by a non-copyrighted spacecraft in training.  NASA is given credit for this image.  The picture is one of many photos of the spacecraft, many others of which were taken when the space shuttle was under the clouds.  The mission is called STS-134, and it contains six crew members.  Lift off was in the morning on May 16.  Behind the shuttle, there is a visible trail of smoke, along with a blazing flow of gases closer by the Endeavor.  If one looks closely, it is seen that part of the smoke has a shadow to it, which helps to indicate which direction the light source is coming from.  The mission is scheduled to come back next week, but in the meantime, it is docked with the International Space Station.  The space craft will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2(AMS), Experts Logistics Carrier-3(a high pressure gas tank), and other additional spare parts for the Dextre robotic helper to the International Space Station.

Observation 5/20/11

Tonight, I went out to look at the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 10:00 p.m.  It is a really cloudy night, and I looked all around, but wasn't able to spot any stars.  Nor could I find the moon from where I was, but by observing its cycle, I know that it is currently in its waning gibbous phase.  And, that it should be in the southeast direction in the sky.

Biography On Edwin Hubble

Edwin Hubble

Edwin Powell Hubble was born in 1889 in Missouri, but moved to Illinois before his first birthday.  He then moved to Chicago with his family when he was nine years old, and he attended the University of Chicago when he came of age.  It was there that he earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.  Then he went to go to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and because of his father’s dying wish, he studied law, literature, and Spanish, while putting his science related studies on hold.  After completing his studies, Edwin went back to America in 1913, and spent a year teaching at a school in Indiana.  But, he then realized that he could no longer deny his proclivity to science, and he decided to enroll as a graduate student at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.  His work somehow drew him back to the University of Chicago.  In 1917, he received a PhD, and his thesis was titled Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae, which eventually became the roots for the work that changed astronomy as we knew it.  Right after finishing his studies, he was offered a position at the Yerkes Observatory.  Instead, Hubble chose to fight in World War I, but got injured and ended up heading to the Mount Wilson Observatory.  There, he got access to both the 60-inch and 100-inch Hooker reflectors, with which he used in helping to invent the 200-inch Hale telescope.  Hubble proved to be one of the greatest astronomers of the twentieth century.  It is this man of many discoveries that the Hubble Space Telescope is named after.

Hubble used the 100-inch Hooker reflector and the most powerful telescope in the world to take extremely detailed measurements of several spiral nebulae.  He pointed out many Cepheid variables in the nebulae.  After going through a series of measurements, he concluded that the nebulae couldn’t all be within the Milky Way Galaxy, and that it must lie in other galaxies.    In this way, Hubble helped to measure the size of out galaxy.

Once conquering the problem of discovering the correct extent of the universe, he moved on to the problem of the redshift.  He measured the galaxies and showed that their light was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.  Hubble came to a conclusion that the galaxies have to be receding from the earth at high velocities.  He created a law that states that the farther away a galaxy is from us, the more quickly it is going away from us. 

Despite all of his achievements and scientific breakthroughs, Edwin was never nominated for the Nobel Prize.  It wasn’t because nobody thought anything of his achievements, it was because astronomy wasn’t thought of as important at the time.  However, Hubble tried to get this to change, but he died in 1953, which was the year that astronomy was finally named as a branch of physics.  If these changes had been made while Hubble was still alive, he most likely would’ve been the one to receive the Nobel Prize. 

Edwin Hubble left a huge legacy in his telescope.  It is his name, and his name only, that embellishes the Hubble Space Telescope, which has gone through a decade of bringing back amazing images from space back to the earth.

APOD 4.7

For this week's APOD, I chose the picture called The Last Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor, uploaded on May 18. Four days ago was the last trip into Earth's orbit for the Space Shuttle Endeavor.  This picture was taken only moments after the initial liftoff, as the six astronauts inside prepare to reach new heights, ones in which the atmosphere is so thin that it is unbreathable.


There is only one more trip for any space shuttles in the U.S., which will take off from Atlantis in mid-July.The mission that this particular shuttle is on is called STS-134.  It docked with the International Space Station on May 18, 2011. The mission taking off in mid-July will also dock with the space station.  The Endeavor will deliver many things to the International Space Station, including a detector which is named the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.  The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is at the Johnson Space Center Project Office.  Its mission is to use the unique environment of space to enhance knowledge of the universe and, hopefully, lead to the understanding of it's origin.  It is a high profile space-based particle physics experiment, which is led by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The detector's job is to, over time, recognize a good amount of certain types of dark matter, charged antimatter, and strangelets.  Strangelets are small, unique interesting pieces of matter, which have electrons orbiting the strangelet, instead of being found within the strangelet.

Works Cited: Edwin Hubble

Works Cited

"Astronomer Edwin Hubble - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Web. 14 May 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/

"Biography of Edwin Powell Hubble (1889 - 1953)." Main Hubble Page. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/hubble_bio.php>.

"Edwin Hubble Biography Pt.1." Edwin Hubble. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://www.edwinhubble.com/hubble_bio_001.htm>.

"Hubble Biography." MacTutor History of Mathematics. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Hubble.html>.

Millis, John. "Edwin Hubble Biography." Space & Astronomy at About.com. Web. 08 May 2011. <http://space.about.com/od/astronomerbiographies/a/EdwinHubble.htm>.

Observation 5/14/11

Tonight, I went outside and observed the sky from my driveway in Sarasota at about 11:30 p.m.  It was a really cloudy, hazy night, and I was unable to spot any stars.  But, I did find the moon in the southwest portion of the sky.  It is in its waxing gibbous phase currently, and is approximately 90% of the way illuminated.

Zooniverse Activities

This week, I continued to work on the projects on the Zooniverse website during class.  I kept working on the Milky Way Project and the Galaxy Zoo Hubble Project.  On Galaxy Zoo Hubble, I find more and more that I am stumbling upon a lot more stars, that appear to be shining brightly in their galaxies.  In the Milky Way Project, I am continuing to find it increasingly easier to pin point the parts of the Milky Way that an expert from Zooniverse might also draw a bubble around.  Overall, I find these projects interesting and I enjoy getting to see so many different objects from our galaxy.