Out of Space

A new crater on the Moon

Duncan Steel • May 21, 2019

• Arizona State University,
• Beresheet,
• impact crater,
• Israel,
• Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,
• lunar surface,
• moon,
• NASA,
• Satellite,
• space,
• Spacecraft

The scar on the lunar surface produced when the Israeli space probe ‘Beresheet’ slammed into the Moon on April 11 has just been spotted using an orbiting NASA satellite.  Three nations have so far landed spacecraft on the Moon: the USA, the Soviet Union/Russia, and China. A fourth nation, Israel, has attempted to join this club, but its probe (named Beresheet) … Read More

Talking satellites and space in Washington

Duncan Steel • May 16, 2019

• commercial space business,
• communications,
• defence,
• geostationary orbit,
• launchers,
• Low Earth orbit,
• military,
• Orbital Imagery,
• remote sensing,
• rockets,
• satellite ground stations,
• satellites,
• space,
• space exploration

The annual beanfeast for the US satellite industry — featuring major participation from European nations and companies in particular — is the SATELLITE congress held at the Washington Convention Center, a few blocks from the White House. It was an amazing event to attend, compared to the sort of low-key conferences we have in New Zealand.  Now I’m back in … Read More

Imagine an asteroid impact due in 2027: How would you tackle it?  

Duncan Steel • May 09, 2019

• asteroids,
• comets,
• craters,
• ESA,
• impacts,
• mass extinctions,
• NASA,
• near-Earth objects,
• planetary defence,
• space missions

It’s now scientifically possible to predict potential asteroid impacts years in advance. But knowing that such a calamitous event is going to occur, due to the clockwork of the heavens, presents its own problems. Can we divert it, and if so, how? Similarly, if the impact is inevitable, can we model what is going to happen far ahead of time, … Read More

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Defending the planet from asteroids

Duncan Steel • May 02, 2019

• asteroids,
• comets,
• cosmic impacts,
• near-Earth objects,
• planetary defence,
• satellites,
• space,
• space agencies

Astronauts, astronomers, planetary scientists, space researchers and aerospace engineers are meeting near Washington DC to discuss how we might deal with any asteroid found to be heading for a cataclysmic collision with Earth, perhaps causing a global catastrophe. That is, if it was actually found before it caught us unawares.  As I type this I am sat in a large, … Read More

Orbit of the newly-launched R3D2 satellite

Duncan Steel • Apr 02, 2019

• Low Earth orbit,
• Orbits,
• rocket lab,
• satellites,
• space

Last Friday Rocket Lab successfully launched another satellite from the Mahia Peninsula. In this post I describe the satellite’s orbital path, and how it will slowly vary in time over the next week.  Rocket Lab successfully launched another satellite into orbit from the Mahia Peninsula soon after midday last Friday (March 29th), a wonderful achievement. Well done to … Read More

The NZ Aerospace Challenge

Duncan Steel • Mar 31, 2019

• aerospace,
• Big Data,
• data analysis,
• Earth observation,
• environmental management,
• environmental monitoring,
• Fresh water pollution,
• image processing,
• land pollution,
• NZ fresh water management,
• remote sensing,
• satellites,
• sensors,
• soil pollution,
• space,
• unmanned aerial vehicle,
• water pollution

An open competition soon to start will provide a wonderful opportunity for smart people of any age in New Zealand to take on the challenge of how we might assess water and soil pollution using satellite and drone data. What they might choose to do in attacking such environmental problems is limited only by their imaginations, and technical capabilities. All … Read More

Happy New Year (and a missed Easter)

Duncan Steel • Mar 25, 2019

• astronomy,
• Computus,
• dates,
• dating,
• Easter,
• Gregorian calendar,
• Julian calendar,
• New Year

As I write it is March 25th, which was the date of New Year in Great Britain and its colonies until 1752. Indeed, throughout history it was a common date for the start of the civil year in a wide range of European states and principalities, being the traditional date of the vernal equinox, and so the beginning … Read More

Does Earth have a natural prime meridian?

Duncan Steel • Mar 20, 2019

• astronomy,
• Calendars,
• Easter,
• Equinoxes,
• Greenwich,
• Gregorian calendar,
• Jalali calendar,
• Julian calendar,
• mapping,
• prime meridian,
• time keeping,
• vernal equinox,
• Washington DC,
• year length

We are generally habituated to using the Greenwich meridian as the global standard for mapping and time-keeping, despite it being only 135 years since its adoption. As I show here, if the Catholic Church had adopted in 1582 a more-precise calendar in terms of year length then a natural prime meridian results, in a location that might appear surprising. Read More

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On the Shoulders of Giants?

Duncan Steel • Mar 16, 2019

• Edmond Halley,
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
• history of science,
• Isaac Newton,
• mathematics,
• mechanics,
• optics,
• physics,
• Robert Hooke,
• Royal Society of London,
• Shoulders of Giants,
• thomas young

Isaac Newton is often thought to be the inventor of the apparently self-deprecating phrase ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, but he was not: actually it had been in use for over 500 years before he repeated it in 1675. Of more significance is that Newton wrote it in a letter to … Read More

New Zealand from Space

Duncan Steel • Mar 11, 2019

• cyanobacteria,
• Egmont National Park,
• European Space Agency,
• Lake Elsemere,
• Mount Taranaki,
• New Zealand,
• North Island,
• Orbital Imagery,
• Satellite imagery,
• Sentinel satellites,
• south island,
• Southern Alps,
• Tongariro National Park,
• Volcanoes,
• water pollution

The European Space Agency’s current Earth observation image of the week features New Zealand in all its glory. Let us take it as read that NZ is a beautiful, breathtaking country. Myriad artistic renditions and simple tourist snaps bear witness to that, but it is also truly an amazing sight when seen from high above, by satellites in orbit. Read More

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