I'm an Astronomer! (Oops!)

See the pretty picture of the Iris Nebula that I took? This is the result of endless hours of work. It goes with a 15-page report about the photometry of the surrounding stars, the flux ratios in different bands of the nebula, and other random science stuff. I enjoyed this class, but I know now that astronomy is not my cup of tea. It's a rather passive form of space exploration, and I'd much rather work on the vehicle to get there.

Special thanks to my lab partners, Mikaela and Mia.

Space Junk

Orbital debris is a topic of much concern. At several thousand miles per hour, even a small object like a pebble could do serious damage to a spacecraft or a spacesuit.

That's why NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office tries to catalog, predict and control the activity of space junk in LEO.

There can also be another potentially deadly problem, known as the Kessler effect, or collisional cascading, in which one piece of wondering orbital debris collides with a satellite, and that satellite in turn sends out more pieces of shrapnel that will eventually collide with other satellites--a domino effect.

This problem can be combated by deorbiting old satellites or boosting them into a graveyard orbit.

In 2009 there was a collision between two satellites that added a good deal of orbital debris into LEO. It was the first time there was such a drastic collision in space between two man-made satellites. Here is a video plotting the statistical trajectories of the resulting debris:



I did not know this until just recently, but they have actually had to move the International Space Station on several occasions because of overlapping trajectories with cataloged space debris

Just a tidbit I picked up surfing the net yesterday.

Random Tidbit(s)

If only Earth could be orbiting a start in this cluster:

Then we might actually have the means to visit other worlds. It this star cluster, called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, M13, hundreds of thousands of stars fit into an area about 150 light years across. Of course, the more you pack into an area of space, the greater the probability of catastrophic events, but I still like to imagine zipping around the galaxy exploring strange new worlds, like in Star Trek. In fact, that is pretty much the only thing I enjoyed about the recent feature film Avatar; the plot structure stunk and the storyline was disgusting, but I liked how the movie-makers were able to create a realistic feeling of space travel.

It is a very boring morning, hence the very random post. But in general I am excited to be graduating soon, and I look forward to this summer in preparation for college!