It is with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to our Online Learning Community called NASA INSPIRE. We had high hopes that we might avoid the axe that has fallen on many NASA education programs, and were working diligently behind the scenes to secure funding. But with the lack of a continuing resolution from congress we are facing what NASA calls the 'sunsetting' of our program. The OLC server will close on September 30.
We have had a tremendous success in the five years that INSPIRE has been available. For many students it was just a way to connect with NASA. But for some it was a vital part of their growth into a STEM based career. I am as proud of you all as any teacher could be of their students. I will miss our weekly chats, and the chance to meet you all during the summer experiences.
I want to encourage you to continue your STEM education. You can obtain excellent resources from the Technology Student Association (http://www.tsaweb.org) and may already have a club in your area.
Jim Gerard
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
NASA Catches Bright Fireballs Over the Southeast
By William Cooke, Marshall Space Flight Center, AL
Early Wednesday morning ( September 4), at 3:27:20 AM Eastern Time, a piece of an asteroid, about 2 feet in diameter and weighing over 100 pounds, entered Earth’s atmosphere above the Georgia/Tennessee border, just south of Cleveland. The meteor was moving northeast at 56,000 miles per hour, and began to break apart north east of Ocoee, at an altitude of 33 miles. A second, fragmentation occurred less than half a second later, at an altitude of 29 miles. NASA cameras lost track of the fireball pieces at an altitude of 21 miles, by which time they had slowed to a speed of 19,400 mph. Sensors on the ground recorded sound waves (“sonic booms”) from this event, and there are indications on Doppler weather radar of a rain of small meteoritic particles falling to the ground east of Cleveland, Tennessee.
Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations. From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire13
Early Wednesday morning ( September 4), at 3:27:20 AM Eastern Time, a piece of an asteroid, about 2 feet in diameter and weighing over 100 pounds, entered Earth’s atmosphere above the Georgia/Tennessee border, just south of Cleveland. The meteor was moving northeast at 56,000 miles per hour, and began to break apart north east of Ocoee, at an altitude of 33 miles. A second, fragmentation occurred less than half a second later, at an altitude of 29 miles. NASA cameras lost track of the fireball pieces at an altitude of 21 miles, by which time they had slowed to a speed of 19,400 mph. Sensors on the ground recorded sound waves (“sonic booms”) from this event, and there are indications on Doppler weather radar of a rain of small meteoritic particles falling to the ground east of Cleveland, Tennessee.
Recorded by all six NASA cameras in the Southeast, this fireball was one of the brightest observed by the network in 5 years of operations. From Chickamauga, Georgia, the meteor was 20 times brighter than the Full Moon; shadows were cast on the ground as far south as Cartersville.
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire13
Monday, August 26, 2013
Contest: What Would you Send to the ISS?
By John Entwistle, NASA Education Specialist
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, today announced a four-week contest titled “What Would You Send to the ISS?”, which is open to the general public for submissions. Unlike Requests for Proposals CASIS has previously released, submissions for this contest can simply be ideas or concepts, not precise proposals for research. The contest runs through September 16, 2013, just in time to get your students’ creative juices flowing.
To learn more about this contest and how to submit an idea, visit http://www.iss-casis.org/Opportunities/Solicitations/RFIYourIdeaInSpace.aspx
Be sure to check out all of the ISS-related NASA Now classroom videos and featured lessons on the NES Virtual Campus. Just log into the Virtual Campus and search for “ISS” to see the list of 16 classroom-ready resources to inspire you and your students.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, today announced a four-week contest titled “What Would You Send to the ISS?”, which is open to the general public for submissions. Unlike Requests for Proposals CASIS has previously released, submissions for this contest can simply be ideas or concepts, not precise proposals for research. The contest runs through September 16, 2013, just in time to get your students’ creative juices flowing.
To learn more about this contest and how to submit an idea, visit http://www.iss-casis.org/Opportunities/Solicitations/RFIYourIdeaInSpace.aspx
Be sure to check out all of the ISS-related NASA Now classroom videos and featured lessons on the NES Virtual Campus. Just log into the Virtual Campus and search for “ISS” to see the list of 16 classroom-ready resources to inspire you and your students.
Monday, July 29, 2013
See You Next Year!
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC,FL
Just getting ready to welcome many of our OLC members to the KSC INSPIRE Student Unconference! But I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your participation during this 2012-2013 OLC year. We had a wonderful time working with you, and are ecstatic with the progress you have made! Here is a graphic from our last LiveChat with some cool facts:
We'll be spending August getting ready for our next year of the INSPIRE OLC, so watch for an email that will tell you how you can participate. Until then, Ad Astra!
Just getting ready to welcome many of our OLC members to the KSC INSPIRE Student Unconference! But I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your participation during this 2012-2013 OLC year. We had a wonderful time working with you, and are ecstatic with the progress you have made! Here is a graphic from our last LiveChat with some cool facts:
We'll be spending August getting ready for our next year of the INSPIRE OLC, so watch for an email that will tell you how you can participate. Until then, Ad Astra!
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Pluto, "King of the Kuiper Belt, Prince of the Plutinos”
By Kimberly Ennico, Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, CA
After the New Horizons’ instrument overviews on the first day at the Pluto Science Conference (Jul 22, 2013, we jumped right into Pluto in the Kuiper Belt Context.
Brett Gladman (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) started the conversation by addressing “How does Pluto fit in our understanding of the Kuiper Belt?”
But before we get into that, discussing the Kuiper belt today can be pretty complex. It was only discovered in 1992, but in the years since, over 130,000 bodies with sizes 100 km and larger have been identified (Petit et al 2011), with Pluto being the largest member.
So when we start looking at large numbers of objects, it’s time to classify. So a typical plot to describe these “populations” is shown below, where semi-major axis (distance of body from the Sun) is plotted (horizontal axis, labeled ‘a’ in units AU, where 1 AU is the distance of the Earth from the Sun, Jupiter is ~5 AU, Saturn ~10AU) versus eccentricity (value between 0 and 1 that describes how circular an orbit it, e=0 is circle, e=1 is parabola, 0
And then you have your Classical, your Cold Classical, Hot Classical, Detached, Resonant, and SDO (aka Scattered Disk Objects), etc. Sometimes they group together, others are more uniform across the parameter space.
Kuiper Belt in a/e space.” Cold classical (black open triangles). Resonant Kuiper (open red square). Detached (blue triangles). Pluto is indicated with the yellow-box, it’s a Resonant, as it is in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune. This group of objects, all in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune are the “Plutinos.” (that clumping around 40 AU, red triangles, spanning over a range of e). Resonance numbers are shown at the top of the graph.
Plutinos are also a family of TNOs, Trans-Neptunian Objects, characterized by being in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune (i.e., every time Neptune makes 3 trips about the Sun, the Plutinos make 2 trips). Plutinos are the most dominant of the TNOs. Less numerous are the 1:1 objects, objects known as Trojans.
Definitely KBO soup!
For more information about TNOs and their period relationships with Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_trans-Neptunian_object
After getting down those nomenclature basics, Brett Gladman (who is also lead for a huge ground-based survey of KBOs called the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey/CFEPS) discussed the strengths and pitfalls of the theories put forward to explain the formation and structure of this complex KBO menagerie.
For more information about CFEPS check out http://www.cfeps.net/
How did Pluto get to where it is today? Two leading theories (1) Resonant sweeping of objects formed in TNO regions and (2) resonant trapping explain many things, but no published models explain those resonant structures of the Kuiper belt. And any of these models have issues with the classical and scattering disk populations as well. Theorists, better sharpen your pencils.
So he left us with questions to ponder. Is there a cold primordial Kuiper Belt with edge at 45 AU? Did Pluto likely form as one of hundreds to thousands of >1000km embryos? Did some of these been implanted into the nearby non-scattering belt? Are there others out beyond 100 AU (considered likely, but to discover them, you need to get down to 23-24th mag which is beyond the current survey capabilities until new telescopes and.or techniques come available)?
No doubt, searchers for more TNOs will continue, the classification of the KB will undergo evolution, and theorists will refine their models. And New Horizons will provide a unique data set of an up-close-and-person visit to Pluto and its companions to help constrain those models.
Putting Centaurs and TNOs in Context. This time plotting inclination (the degrees from the ecliptic plane) vs. semi-major axis in AU. Object sizes are reflected in the symbol sizes. Location of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are shown. Just another way to look at that awesome & diverse Outer Solar System. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_object
Next, Cesar Fuentes (Arizona State) phoned in about his work on the “Size Distribution (SD) of the Kuiper Belt.” Size distribution is basically counting the number of objects as a function of size. Coagulation (of small particles) and gravitation instability (of larger particles) shape the size distribution. Size distribution is expected to change due to collisions. Different distances from the sun also appear to have different size distributions.
He stepped us through recent size distribution models from Schlichting, Fuentes & Trilling (2013) and Kenyon & Bromley (2013) where they even have some including the “collisional factor” influence on the size distribution over time periods.
All the Size Distributions show a “rollover” around H~9, D=70km. Nesvorny et al. 2013 investigates this further. Is the break due to collisional and therefore separate the primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
Even more questions to ponder: Can we use size distributions to evaluate primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
And then he left us with a tantalizing experiment with the New Horizons mission: If New Horizons can provide data sets enabling “crater counting,” we will be able to measure the impactors on Pluto. This can aid in understanding KBO populations, addressing specifically, formation time, timescales for surface activity, and origins of bodies like Nix & Hydra. What would a 0.1-100km impactor size distribution look like?
Pluto, be it Prince of the Plutinos or King of the Kuiper Belt, will always remain a key part to these questions above. And data sets from New Horizons will provide many new angles to answering questions about “Where did Pluto form and why did it wind up where it is now.”
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
After the New Horizons’ instrument overviews on the first day at the Pluto Science Conference (Jul 22, 2013, we jumped right into Pluto in the Kuiper Belt Context.
Brett Gladman (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) started the conversation by addressing “How does Pluto fit in our understanding of the Kuiper Belt?”
But before we get into that, discussing the Kuiper belt today can be pretty complex. It was only discovered in 1992, but in the years since, over 130,000 bodies with sizes 100 km and larger have been identified (Petit et al 2011), with Pluto being the largest member.
So when we start looking at large numbers of objects, it’s time to classify. So a typical plot to describe these “populations” is shown below, where semi-major axis (distance of body from the Sun) is plotted (horizontal axis, labeled ‘a’ in units AU, where 1 AU is the distance of the Earth from the Sun, Jupiter is ~5 AU, Saturn ~10AU) versus eccentricity (value between 0 and 1 that describes how circular an orbit it, e=0 is circle, e=1 is parabola, 0
And then you have your Classical, your Cold Classical, Hot Classical, Detached, Resonant, and SDO (aka Scattered Disk Objects), etc. Sometimes they group together, others are more uniform across the parameter space.
Kuiper Belt in a/e space.” Cold classical (black open triangles). Resonant Kuiper (open red square). Detached (blue triangles). Pluto is indicated with the yellow-box, it’s a Resonant, as it is in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune. This group of objects, all in 3:2 Resonance with Neptune are the “Plutinos.” (that clumping around 40 AU, red triangles, spanning over a range of e). Resonance numbers are shown at the top of the graph.
Plutinos are also a family of TNOs, Trans-Neptunian Objects, characterized by being in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune (i.e., every time Neptune makes 3 trips about the Sun, the Plutinos make 2 trips). Plutinos are the most dominant of the TNOs. Less numerous are the 1:1 objects, objects known as Trojans.
Definitely KBO soup!
For more information about TNOs and their period relationships with Neptune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_trans-Neptunian_object
After getting down those nomenclature basics, Brett Gladman (who is also lead for a huge ground-based survey of KBOs called the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey/CFEPS) discussed the strengths and pitfalls of the theories put forward to explain the formation and structure of this complex KBO menagerie.
For more information about CFEPS check out http://www.cfeps.net/
How did Pluto get to where it is today? Two leading theories (1) Resonant sweeping of objects formed in TNO regions and (2) resonant trapping explain many things, but no published models explain those resonant structures of the Kuiper belt. And any of these models have issues with the classical and scattering disk populations as well. Theorists, better sharpen your pencils.
So he left us with questions to ponder. Is there a cold primordial Kuiper Belt with edge at 45 AU? Did Pluto likely form as one of hundreds to thousands of >1000km embryos? Did some of these been implanted into the nearby non-scattering belt? Are there others out beyond 100 AU (considered likely, but to discover them, you need to get down to 23-24th mag which is beyond the current survey capabilities until new telescopes and.or techniques come available)?
No doubt, searchers for more TNOs will continue, the classification of the KB will undergo evolution, and theorists will refine their models. And New Horizons will provide a unique data set of an up-close-and-person visit to Pluto and its companions to help constrain those models.
Putting Centaurs and TNOs in Context. This time plotting inclination (the degrees from the ecliptic plane) vs. semi-major axis in AU. Object sizes are reflected in the symbol sizes. Location of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are shown. Just another way to look at that awesome & diverse Outer Solar System. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_object
Next, Cesar Fuentes (Arizona State) phoned in about his work on the “Size Distribution (SD) of the Kuiper Belt.” Size distribution is basically counting the number of objects as a function of size. Coagulation (of small particles) and gravitation instability (of larger particles) shape the size distribution. Size distribution is expected to change due to collisions. Different distances from the sun also appear to have different size distributions.
He stepped us through recent size distribution models from Schlichting, Fuentes & Trilling (2013) and Kenyon & Bromley (2013) where they even have some including the “collisional factor” influence on the size distribution over time periods.
All the Size Distributions show a “rollover” around H~9, D=70km. Nesvorny et al. 2013 investigates this further. Is the break due to collisional and therefore separate the primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
Even more questions to ponder: Can we use size distributions to evaluate primordial from the evolved KBO populations?
And then he left us with a tantalizing experiment with the New Horizons mission: If New Horizons can provide data sets enabling “crater counting,” we will be able to measure the impactors on Pluto. This can aid in understanding KBO populations, addressing specifically, formation time, timescales for surface activity, and origins of bodies like Nix & Hydra. What would a 0.1-100km impactor size distribution look like?
Pluto, be it Prince of the Plutinos or King of the Kuiper Belt, will always remain a key part to these questions above. And data sets from New Horizons will provide many new angles to answering questions about “Where did Pluto form and why did it wind up where it is now.”
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Monday, July 22, 2013
Introducing the Pluto Science Conference Jul 22-26, 2013
By Kimberly Ennico, Research Scientis, NASA Ames Research Center, CA
The mind of a scientist understands, embraces, and executes the scientific method, the process by which an idea is created, then tested by experiment or model, validated or refuted, and then, when validated, culminates in the description of the results to the larger community through a publication. The cycle begins again, sometimes building on previously published work, or in some cases, the birth of new ideas to the scene, most likely inspired by previous knowledge.
A key component to a scientist’s work is the attendance and interaction with colleagues at scientific conferences. At such gatherings we can see examples of the scientific method in a multitude of stages: the birth of a new idea, the suggestion of methods to carry-out the experiment or computation, a presentation that disproves an approach requiring the scientist to start anew, through the description of the results of the recent experiment or computation.
~150 people are to gather this week at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD to share ideas, debate hypothesis, and explain experiments related to the emissary from our Solar System’s Third Zone, the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons. The timing is crucial to have these conversations because in two years from now, in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will do close fly-by of the Pluto system, a system never before visited by another spacecraft. The forum provides an update of the mission and its measurement capabilities and encourages healthy dialog among theorists who have predictions, laboratory spectroscopists who can build examples of chemistry happening on these icy bodies, and observers who have been monitoring and documenting the changing nature of Pluto and its environment.
Details about the Pluto Science Conference can be found here:
https://dnnpro.outer.jhuapl.edu/plutoscience/Home.aspx
I’ll be providing summaries of the meeting content and discussions through a series of blog posts this week.
What do we know about Pluto so far?
Image: (left) Charon Discovery Image July 1978; (right) New Horizons’ LORRI instrument spots Charon July 2013 from 6AU away
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
A key component to a scientist’s work is the attendance and interaction with colleagues at scientific conferences. At such gatherings we can see examples of the scientific method in a multitude of stages: the birth of a new idea, the suggestion of methods to carry-out the experiment or computation, a presentation that disproves an approach requiring the scientist to start anew, through the description of the results of the recent experiment or computation.
~150 people are to gather this week at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD to share ideas, debate hypothesis, and explain experiments related to the emissary from our Solar System’s Third Zone, the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons. The timing is crucial to have these conversations because in two years from now, in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft will do close fly-by of the Pluto system, a system never before visited by another spacecraft. The forum provides an update of the mission and its measurement capabilities and encourages healthy dialog among theorists who have predictions, laboratory spectroscopists who can build examples of chemistry happening on these icy bodies, and observers who have been monitoring and documenting the changing nature of Pluto and its environment.
Details about the Pluto Science Conference can be found here:
https://dnnpro.outer.jhuapl.edu/plutoscience/Home.aspx
I’ll be providing summaries of the meeting content and discussions through a series of blog posts this week.
 |
| The diameters of Pluto and Charon shown with respect to the USA for scale. |
- Highly elliptical (e = 0.25), Highly inclined (i = 17 deg), 248 year orbit
- Rotational period of 6.387230 days
- Small (diameter = 2328 ± 42 km), Rock/Ice object (“Icy Dwarf”)
- Density is 2.03 ± 0.06 g cm-3, Mass = 0.0022 MEarth
- Bright surface frosts of N2, CH4, CO, and C2H6 produce albedo of ~55%
- Highly variegated surface (bright and dark regions)
- Reddish in color, probably due to surface organics
- Tenuous, variable atmosphere (mostly N2; 2-10 µbars at the surface & going up)
- Discovered, by accident, in July 1978 by James Christy (USNO)
- In circular orbit ~19,573 km from Pluto, with a 6.3872273 day period
- Tidally-locked spin period (i.e., spin-orbit synchronous)
- Diameter is 1212 ± 3 km (about half of Pluto’s Diameter: “Binary Planet”)
- Density is 1.66 ± 0.06 g cm-3 (vs 2.03 ± 0.06 g cm-3 for Pluto)
- Surface has crystalline H2O-ice and NH3-hydrate (recent?)
- Average albedo ~35%, neutral color (variegation change over time?)
- Average T ~ 50 K, low thermal inertia (high porosity)
- No atmosphere detected yet (~10-300x lower pressure than Pluto’s)
Image: (left) Charon Discovery Image July 1978; (right) New Horizons’ LORRI instrument spots Charon July 2013 from 6AU away
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
Friday, July 19, 2013
LiveChat Round Up 7/18/2013
By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
I hope you all enjoyed my LiveChat last night on Spacecraft Preservation and Display. It was to highlight a website that I created 16 years ago called A Field Guide to American Spacecraft. The Field Guide tells you were all the historic spacecraft are located, along with boilerplates, models, and mockups (don't know what they are? Watch the archive!). I have been collecting information and photographs of these relics, and now can include the space shuttle orbiters as well.
Check out the archived chat if you missed it, and don't forget to take the quiz to earn points. Yep, points still count! On Monday we will make a final tally and then invite our Level 10 leaders to a special Tuesday chat with astronaut Dr. Larry DeLucas. Keep working!
Next weeks chat will be the final for the summer, and there will be no quiz, but come and support your fellow OLC members who will be sharing their 3-D models they constructed for the Designing Future Space VSE this past week. And who knows, we may even play another round of Space Bingo!
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
I hope you all enjoyed my LiveChat last night on Spacecraft Preservation and Display. It was to highlight a website that I created 16 years ago called A Field Guide to American Spacecraft. The Field Guide tells you were all the historic spacecraft are located, along with boilerplates, models, and mockups (don't know what they are? Watch the archive!). I have been collecting information and photographs of these relics, and now can include the space shuttle orbiters as well.
 |
| New Atlantis display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex |
Next weeks chat will be the final for the summer, and there will be no quiz, but come and support your fellow OLC members who will be sharing their 3-D models they constructed for the Designing Future Space VSE this past week. And who knows, we may even play another round of Space Bingo!
Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire12
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