Planetary News

Feburuary 12, 2003

ISAS to Launch MUSES-C Early in May

(Artist's concept of MUSE-C Courtesy: ISAS)

The Institute of Space and Astronautical Institute, ISAS, has rescheduled launching MUSES-C, the world's first sample return mission from Asteroid 1986SF36 early in May this year. ISAS decided last December to postpone the lift-off of the spacecraft due to its broken O-ring of a regulator for altitude control system.

The asteroid, a tiny minor planet with a diameter of about 300 x 700 meters, is orbiting at a distance of about 300 million meters from Earth. The spacecraft has been in a perfect condition for launching with the troubled O-ring changed and functional wholesomeness of the altitude control system confirmed by a series of investigations to date. The spacecraft will reach the asteroid in mid-summer 2005 as initially planned despite its prolonged boost.

Aboard the robotic spaceship are names of 877,490 people from around the world. ISAS and The Planetary Society of Japan, TPS/J, jointly sponsored the public campaign, "Let's Fly to Meet Your Star Prince" from May 10 through July 26, 2002. The names, enclosed inside the target marker, will be released down on the asteroid surface before the spacecraft starts collecting samples.

MUSES-C will finish sample collection by the end of the same year to bid farewell to the asteroid. The onboard canister containing samples will be detached from the spacecraft in July 2007 to softland on the ground by deploying a parachute. For details of the MUSES-C mission, click

http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/enterp/missions/index.html http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/enterp/missions/muses-c/index.html

Unveiled Dark Nebula

Japan's near infrared camera disclosed the interior of a dark nebula for the first time in the astronomical history. SIRIUS, an acronym for the simultaneous three-color Ii infrared imager for unbiased survey, revealed a structure hidden beneath a veil of the dark nebula in Constellation Lupus, located 450 light years from Earth.

(Courtesy : Nagoya University and National Observatory)

A dark nebula comes out just as a dark void in space when observed by visible light, because it absorbs light emitted from background stars. Meanwhile, infrared light can transmit through a dark nebula to come up with an image of a structure inside. Notice the red-brown dragon-like structure in the image. It is the never-before seen image of the composition made from dense gas and dust. You can see numerous stars shining behind.

Nagoya University and National Observatory of Japan joined forces in developing this near infrared simultaneous three-band camera to cover Magellanic Clouds and other star-forming regions that can only be observed in the southern hemisphere. The special camera has been mounted on the 1.4-meter telescope at the observatory in Sutherland, South Africa.

http://www.z.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~sirius/

Space Weather Forecasts by Japanese University

The Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory of Nagoya University, has established a system called GEDAS, a space weather system in terms of forecasting hostile spatial events to traveling airplanes, orbiting satellites, broadcasting and communication systems on Earth. Those unfavorable events take place in the ionoshpere in the form of magnetic storms caused by intense solar activities.

GEDAS is an acronym for Geospace Environment Data Analysis System to illustrate the ionospheric conditions as a space weather map on a real time basis. The laboratory has been collecting data every ten minutes from satellites, radar and other ground-based observations, as well as from simulation algorithms thereby analyzing them to come up with space weather maps which are available on the Internet. For further details, click

http://gedas22.stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp/index.html