Total Solar Eclipse - November 14, 2012 Cairns, Australia

On November 14, 2012 from 5:45 to 7:40 AM (Australia time) the solar eclipse shadow will sweep across Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef region.

I will be in Cairns, Australia to observe this amazing event. Below is map showing the path of the eclipse. As you can see the majority of the Moon's shadow will be casted over the Pacific Ocean.

And a more up-close view of where in Australia people can observe this event. This particular region has not seen a total solar eclipse since 17AD and the next one won't happen for over 200 years. Needless to say, many spectators are expected to come and safely view the Moon dance in front of the Sun. 

How exactly does a total eclipse happen?

Would you like to know more about the Australia 2012 Solar Eclipse?

NASA Sun Earth Day Australia 2012 Eclipse

Here is a preview from the Australia News TV Station

More information about the Australia Eclipse November 14, 2012 here

Being intimate with the Russian ЭПП Electrical Food Warmer

 

Today was a fairly easy day. Canadian Astronaut David Saint-Jacques (he is @Astro_DavidS on Twitter) and I were learning about some of the ISS components inside the Russian segments. First, let me tell you a little about David. 

(on a site note, when we first met, he reminded me of The Wiz in Seinfeld - I wish I had a crown with me for him to put on! Ok, off topic, sorry David)

Born in Quebec, raised outside of Montreal, Canada, David speaks French and English fluently. But not just that. He has a pretty good handle on Spanish, Russian and Japanese! What's even more amazing, David has a medical background and an astrophysics one! Plus he has a commercial pilot license! His postdoctoral research included the development and application of the Mitaka Infrared Interferometer in Japan and the Subaru Telescope Adaptive Optics System in Hawaii.

After that he joined the Astrophysics group at Université de Montréal. His international experience also includes engineering study and work in France and Hungary and medical training in Lebanon and Guatemala.

In October of 2011 David was part of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations project, known as NEEMO. 

NEEMMO sends groups of astronauts, engineers, doctors and professional divers to live in an underwater habitat for up to three weeks at a time. These crew members, called aquanauts, live in Aquarius, the world's only undersea laboratory, located about 19 metres below the surface, 5.6 km off Key Largo in the Florida Keys.

David was a crew member of NEEMO 15, the first undersea mission to simulate a visit to an asteroid. For part of the mission, he was supported by his colleague CSA Astronaut Jeremy Hansen who, as CAPCOM, provided information and directions from the Key Largo surface to the NEEMO 15 team.

The undersea environment is the closest analogue on Earth to a gravity-weak asteroid, making it the best place to test relevant exploration concepts. During NEEMO 15 the crew evaluated different strategies for anchoring themselves to its surface, traveling along its terrain and collecting data. They also coordinated their efforts with DeepWorker submersibles, one-seater submarines built and developed by Nuytco in British Columbia, Canada.

Told you, David is another one of those interesting people to get to meet and know. 

Anyway, today I learned about the Russian ЭПП Food Warmer. David told me to get "intimately" familiar with the device. Since I always follow instructions...

The electric food warmer is designed to heat foods in cans, and plastic pouches.

The ЭПП consists of a heater, an automated unit, and a control panel. The warmer contains a number of cells for heating food. The heating elements inside the cells conform to the shape of the various packages.

The Service Module has two food warmers, “Подогреватель пищи 1”, “Подогреватель пищи 2” (Food warming 1, Food warming 2), connected to onboard outlets. The foods are warmed to 65°C (149°F) within 30 minutes. The food warmer operates automatically. The foods are inserted into the warmer to the maximum depth of the cells. Any combination of foods may be warmed – from one meal ration to four.

I am glad that David realized that giving me instructions like "get yourself intimately familiar with..." just don't work all that well with me. Glad we first learned about the food warmer and not the Russian space toilette...

Welcome to Star City, Russia

After a pretty uneventful flight Astronaut Reid Wiseman and I made it to Moscow. From there we drove to Star City. Let me tell you, it is cold here. I watched "Wonder Years" on the plane. I had forgotten how many wonderful Apollo references this show has. Was truly great. 

Reid and I dove right in to Soyuz Thermal Control Systems class. However, I was the one being a huge hit with the interpreter and instructor. They were very patient. It's a not that easy to learn a new system and a new language at the same time.

Here I am pictured in the classroom from this morning with the Soyuz control panel in the background.

The Soyuz TMA spacecraft is designed to serve as the primary International Space Station's crew "to-and-return" vehicle. It is also acting as a lifeboat in the unlikely event an emergency would require the crew to leave the station. Just as over the weekend the crew had to take shelter in their Soyuz capsules due to some space debris.

A new Soyuz capsule is normally delivered to the station by a Soyuz crew every 3 or so months -- the arriving crew then stays on the ISS, while three of the ISS habitants returns to Earth in the older Soyuz capsule.

The Soyuz spacecraft is launched to the space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. It consists of an Orbital Module, a Descent Module and an Instrumentation/Propulsion Module.

This afternoon Reid and I learned all about the ВСК-4. This is the backup periscope we use in the Soyuz to align ourselves for orbital corrections, deorbit burn, and rendezvous with the ISS. The crew uses the target on the orbital complex outer surface for monitoring visually the angular errors between the spacecraft and the orbital complex looking through the ВСК-4 visor.

I forgot to tell you about the fantastic lunch we had. It was cooked by Astronaut Chris Cassidy. It was so delicious, I had seconds.

And I am very happy to report that I only mildly complained of jet lag. The cold, however, is a completely different subject...

After class, and a few minutes of putting my feet up, it was time for dinner. After a quick chicken noodle soup dinner (which I profoundly refused to eat!), Reid and I started to study up on the Soyuz television system for our first big test on Wednesday.

Now I thought it would be a TV system to watch cartoons and maybe some good movies like Armageddon. Turns out that the television system only allows to downlink video from the reentry capsule, provides TV images of rendezvous and docking, as well as it allow data display and downlinking television data via the transmitters.

I thought this would be more fun & games. But it is actually rather hard.

Our planet and our different cultures are truly fascinating and remarkable. What 50 years ago was almost thought to be unthinkable is now happening; we are working, training and traveling to Space together with our Russian friends and cosmonauts. Thanks to our efforts in working together, in achieving one common goal, we get to share our values, believes and culture with our friends from Russia, Japan and European countries. With that also comes learning about each other's customs, something as simple as shaking hands.

Today we learned a few Russian cultural lessons. At the first greeting of the day with someone, you must shake their hand. But, never shake hands through a doorway...this is bad luck. Always walk into the room first and then shake their hand. And if you are wearing gloves, you must take them off first. And if you pass that person later in the day it is impolite to shake their hand again.

It is also bad luck to whistle inside, which I had a hard time getting used to. Especially since I have had the Wonder Years soundtrack stuck in my head.

Oh, I was also caught off guard that most stores outside of Moscow only take cash. ATMs are hard to find. Poor Reid Wiseman had to lend me some rubles to get myself some eggs yesterday. 32 rubles to the dollar. I sure owe him!

Below is one of my favorite pictures of Space East and Space West meeting. By the way, April 12 is Yuri's Night; a worldwide celebration of the first human to visit Space. More info here: http://yurisnight.net/

Gemini 4 Astronauts Meet Yuri Gagarin

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin shakes hand with NASA's Gemini 4 astronauts, Edward H. White II and James A. McDivitt at the Paris International Air Show in June 1965. This first meeting between Gagarin and the Gemini 4 astronauts occurred shortly after the completion of the Gemini 4 mission, where White performed the first American EVA. Yuri Gagarin achieved fame as the first human to orbit Earth. Also shown in the picture (seated) are Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and (standing) French Premier Georges Pompidou.

Time Zones & Times - what it means for NASA SDO

Ever wonder why we have Eastern (or Mountain, or Pacific) Standard Time? You can thank the railroads. On November 18, 1889 railroads in the United States began using the set of "Standard" timezones that we more or less use today. 


Before the U.S. had time zones, how did people traveling across the country know what time it was? Until the invention of the railway, it took such a long time to get from one place to another, that local "sun" time could be used. When traveling to the east or to the west, a person would have to change his or her watch by one minute every 12 miles in order to always have the correct time.


When people began traveling hundreds of miles in a day by train, calculating the time became a problem. Railroad lines needed to create schedules for departures and arrivals, but every city had a different time!

Navy Yard officials set a clock to the official time in Brooklyn, New York CREDIT: “Taking the time, Brooklyn Navy Yard,” 1890-1901. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number LC-D4-21274 A.

Navy Yard officials set a clock to the official time in Brooklyn, New York

CREDIT: “Taking the time, Brooklyn Navy Yard,” 1890-1901. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number LC-D4-21274 A.

At first the railroad managers tried to address the problem by establishing 100 different railroad time zones. With so many time zones, different railroad lines were sometimes on different time systems, and scheduling remained confusing and uncertain.

Finally, the railway managers agreed to use four time zones for the continental United States: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Local times would no longer be used by the railroads. The U.S. Naval Observatory, responsible for establishing the official time in the United States, agreed to make the change. At 12 noon on November 18, 1883, the U.S. Naval Observatory began signaling the change. 


As Greenwich Mean Time (the official time used by the U. S. Naval Observatory) was transmitted by telegraph, authorities in major cities and managers of the railroads reset their clocks. All over the United States and Canada, people changed their clocks and watches to match the time for the zone they lived in. Quickly, the confusion caused by the many different standards of time was resolved.

This 1892 train map shows the route of the Burlington &. Quincy Railroad and the new time zones CREDIT: Rand McNally and Company. “Burlington Route,” 1892. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. Call Number G3701.P3 1892 .R3 RR 357.

This 1892 train map shows the route of the Burlington &. Quincy Railroad and the new time zones

CREDIT: Rand McNally and Company. “Burlington Route,” 1892. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. Call Number G3701.P3 1892 .R3 RR 357.

The color blobs in this figure on the very top show the timezones used today around the world. Before standard time each community kept track of time. Some important times (such as noon) where announced by ringing bells or another signal. Imagine a train arriving in one town before it left the last one! Not everyone was happy and some towns continued to use local solar time until 1918.

Today we release SDO marked in Coordinated Universal Time (diplomatically called UTC) and International Atomic Time (similarly, TAI). TAI is the number of seconds since midnite January 1, 1958. A series of laboratories keep track of the march of time. UTC maps TAI to almost local solar time at the Greenwich Meridian in England (the line where longitude is 0). This means that UTC has leap seconds to keep up with the slowing down of the Earth's rotation. Right now we have added 34 leap seconds to UTC. We like TAI because it is easy to do differences in time by subtracting the TAI times. This is not true for UTC.

When you look an SDO timestamp it will say Z or UTC if the time is UTC; T or TAI when it is TAI.

Today's Sun in 304 angstrom - is shows the ~50,000 degrees C. Chromosphere

Sunspots

This week we have been seeing the largest sunspot/active region in years. In fact, the entire group is larger than Jupiter. So let's take a look at the history of Sunspots and also see how big this sunspot group labeled AR1339 (for Active Region) really is. 

This image is from November 7, 2011 and it shows the large active region 1339. On the lower right corner you have a size comparison between Earth, Jupiter and the AR 1339

This is AR1339 again on November 8, 2011. Look at this amazing image! 

What were sunspots? Galileo had guessed they were clouds floating in the Sun's atmosphere, obscuring some of its light. Their true nature only emerged in 1908 when George Elery Hale, leader among US astronomers, showed that they were intensely magnetic. Their magnetic field was as strong as that of a small iron magnet, some 3000 times stronger than the field near the surface of the Earth--yet those fields often extended over areas larger than the entire surface of the Earth. Apparently the magnetic field somehow slowed down the flow of heat from the Sun's interior, causing the sunspots to be slightly darker than the rest of the Sun.


The evidence for sunspot magnetism was their emitted light. Glowing gases emit light in narrowly defined wavelengths (i.e. colors), a different set for each substance. In 1897, however, Pieter Zeeman found that when such light was emitted from the region of a strong magnetic field, the emission split into slightly different wavelengths, with a separation that increased with the strength of the field. The colors of the light emitted from sunspots were "split up" in just this way.

The method was later improved by Babcock and others, allowing astronomers to observe not only the magnetic field of sunspots but also the weak fields near the Sun's poles. It turned out that the Sun has a polar field somewhat like the Earth's, but that it reverses its polarity during each 11-year cycle.

Sunspots have also led us to a better understanding of the Earth's own magnetic field. The face of the Sun consists of ionized hot gas ("plasma"), hot enough to conduct electricity. Sunspot fields were evidently produced by electric currents, and it was well known that such currents could be generated by a "dynamo process," by the motion of an electric conductor (e.g. the flow of solar plasma) through a magnetic field.

In 1919 Sir Joseph Larmor proposed that the fields of sunspots were due to such dynamo currents. He suggested that a closed chain of cause-and-effect existed, in which the field created by these currents was also the field which made them possible, the field in which the plasma's motion generated the required currents. Many features of sunspots remain a mystery, but Larmor's idea opened an era of new understanding of magnetic processes in the Earth's core.

Sunspots are caused by the uneven rotation of the Sun, the equator rotating faster than the polar regions. That stretches out magnetic field lines, crowding them together and making their magnetic field stronger. Strong magnetic field (under the surface) pushes away the solar gas, which therefore gets less dense, so that regions of strong field tend to float up to the top, the way oil floats to the surface of water. Where it breaks the surface, sunspots occur. 

The solar surface and interior rotation rate, where red regions represent areas of slightly faster than average rotation while areas in blue show slower rotational rates. Credit: NSO

But we still do not understand a lot--why exactly the Sun rotates unevenly, why the north-south magnetic polarity reverses every 11-year cycle, how sunspots slow down the flow of solar heat (which makes them dark). 


Credit: NASA SDO / GSFC & NSO

NASA IT Summit 2011

Dear Blog!
I am so very sorry for not having updated you more frequently the last 6 weeks. But my travels have kept me so busy. The trip from San Diego to the Space Coast for STS-135 was epic. My visits to NASA Stennis and Glenn were productive. My participation at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference and the NASA Helio Education and Public Outreach retreat was educational. And now I am at the NASA IT Summit in San Francisco "Making IT Stellar at NASA". Why am I here?

It is not just about IT. This is about exchanging ideas, sharing best practices, learning what's new and cutting edge around IT, social media and education.

This morning's keynote address by Lynn Tilton (CEO of Patriarch Partners LLC) was very inspirational. "Dream the dream, have one foot in reality and the other one in the future!"

Then there was a social media session "Becoming a Social Organization; Taking a Strategic Approach to Social Media by Anthony Bradley with Gartner. Lots of great information how social media works. It's not just about mass, it is about community and engagement, about outreach and sharing, about social feedback and listening.

While broadcasting some of the interesting facts, I was asked what my thoughts were on the following statement:

"I don't see how education can happen with 140 characters!" 

My first initial thought was a statement Anthony Bradley made a couple hours earlier "If you don't think social media works, then you are doing it wrong!". But it really takes a few characters to capture somebody's interest or to inspire somebody to learn more by following a link, looking up information, picking up a book etc. It's not so much about actually educating right there, but building the foundation to build on.

So I decided to ask the Twitterverse what they think. Keep in mind, I do not have a huge following on Twitter. It's not about the mass. But the people who do follow me, they are engaged, they are interested and they want to learn, share and feel part of the team.

What happened after I asked my followers for their thoughts on that statement truly shows the power of one social media platform alone. In this case Twitter; 140 characters or less. It started a round of discussions, people sharing their thoughts, experiences, ideas and tips. By simply asking "What do you think about the statement that you cannot educate in 140 characters" an educational round of discussions started.

Below are some of the responses. Would you like to participate remotely? You can! The NASA IT Summit 2011 wants you to be part of it. To chat during the session, please go to the session on the IT Summit Remote Engagement Site: http://open.nasa.gov/itsummit/

Use hashtag #NASAIT on Twitter.

@craigfifer: My first reaction is "Sounds like that person is a great candidate for education."

@craigfifer: 2nd reaction is, regardless of your beliefs, consider the 10 Commandments. Each 1 is ~140 chars, & they educated a society. 

@ocaptmycapt: Education is awareness, it's opening dialogue, it's accessibility - that's 140 characters; they were dead wrong. 

@craftlass: Sometimes brevity is the key to understanding. Less chance to get mired in details, more to see the big picture #NASAIT 

@craftlass:  Also, education is best when conversational. In 140 no party gets to run on, conversation improves dramatically #NASAIT 

@tigergirl528:  GrrrOWL! www.mathplayground.com What can't we do in 140 characters? The pen is mightier than the sword! 

@tigergirl528: #140WordsorLESS www.sesamestreet.org/games are cool = 92 

@tigergirl528:  #140WordsorLESS nga.gov/kids/kids.htm = 107 left 

@nasa_edge:  Definitely not quality, but I believe you can receive some form of education. Engagement possibly. 

@catherineq: Perhaps not in a "traditional" sense but *inspiration* happens and that is vital for successful education. 

@marimikel: Brevity doesn't preclude information. Educating people in 140 characters is completely possible! 

@mswz: " This morning during #NASAIT - thoughts? "I don't see how any education can happen in 140 characters" " Out of the loop. 

@jaymay: Doesn't happen in 140 chars. Happens over course of many tweets, time. Twitter's not about one-time hit, but 'relationship' 

@stubek: If a person says education cannot happen in 140 characters, they are narrow minded and against innovation PERIOD #FB #NASAIT 

@stubek: Education in 140 characters is as simple as a quick fact or a headline with a URL and more details #NASAIT 

@harbingeralpha:  "I don't see how kids can talk to one another over text." "I don't see how video games are anything but play." "I don't see..." 

@harbingeralpha: my 11 year old brother can see the value, perhaps the speaker needs a chat with him and many others. 

@harbingeralpha: my less political answer = "Haters gonna hate." 

@tim846: Twitter is a GREAT way to connect & empower. Check out our SXSW panel: yur.is/SXSWi2012 

@rocketman528: Quite a lot of education takes place in 140 characters! Almost every major science result/news article is tweeted:-D #NASAIT


@sluggernova: beyond 1st engmt/link, learning outcomes can be w/in social space. E.g. new ideas, crowdsourced knowledge. Mass collab. #NASAIT  

Space Fair 2010 - Melaka Planetarium, Malaysia

Debbie and I with some of our new friends!

Opening day at Melaka Planetarium!!! There were hundreds and hundreds of people from all over Malaysia who came to see us today. Some of the school groups took over3 hours to get here. They must really love science.Today I got to learn about how big the solar system really is. The students working with us set up a giant balloon, complete with sunspots, to represent the Sun. The Earth was a23 mm marble. They had all the other planets there, the moon, the asteroids, even a model of the Kuiper Belt objects and Pluto.

I love their faces - this is what interest looks like!

Visitors had to figure out which Earth ball was the right size for the balloon Sun. Then they got to figure out how far away the tiny Earth marble should be placed from the balloon Sun. It was 270 meters – almost 3 football fields away! It made me feel like Earth was very small and fragile. They also had a map that showed where in the city the other planets would be in our model. The farthest one, Neptune, was WAY outside the city. That was hard enough to understand. Then they showed us a 360 mm (14”) ball,and said it was the scaled size of the nearest star. I asked how far away the nearest star would be from the Sun, on our scale. You won’t believe this – it would be 72,000km(40,000 miles) away!

The kids are learning about spectroscopes and about me!

Part of my local team! They are great!

And as you can see, it's hands-on science teaching!

Here the kids are learning about the scale sizes! They loved it.

Some of my new Malaysian friends! Thank you for your hospitality and interest!