Space News- SDO: New Eyes On The Sun, Brown Dwarfs, and Team IPX Around The Moon

m0rnin,

s0me m0re space news in additi0n t0 t0nights partial Lunar eclipse.

SDO – Solar Dynamics Observatory. http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Solar Dynamics Observatory was launched on the 11th of February 0f this year. After spending many m0nths m0ving in p0siti0n at Lagrange Point 1 and passing initial checkout procedures, SDO became fully operational last month. Bringing us more then daily updated high definition pictures of the Sun, SDO is already helping to revolutionize our understandings of the Sun and its inner and outer workings. The quality of the data about the Sun we are receiving from the Solar Dynamics Observatory far outshines that of its predecessors, the SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and even the tw0 newer STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecraft. SOHO itself taught us s0 much ab0ut 0ur 0wn Star, and is still operati0nal, well bey0nd its 0riginal missi0n life, but it left us wanting, and s0 SDO was br0ught int0 play. From its vantage p0int at LAG1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) , al0ng side SOHO, the text b00ks 0n Solar Astronomy are being rewritten as we speak. Check 0ut s0me 0f the c00l vide0s 0f activity in the Sun’s atm0sphere, in gl0ri0us HD and OMGWTF 100,000,000FPS xD

New Brown Dwarfs – http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20100624.html

Brown Dwarfs are the categ0ry between Planets/Gas Giants, and Stars. Some call them “failed” stars. Never able to achieve the mass required to sustain a fusion reaction, the Spitzer space telescope is in the pr0cess 0f scanning 0ur skies for these “cool stars”, and we may very well find s0me 0f these stellar 0bjects cl0ser t0 us then the cl0sest kn0wn stars, Proxima, Alpha, and Beta Centauri. One of these 0bjects may well be resp0nsible f0r causing a ruckus 0ut in the Oort Cloud, the distant remains of the formation of our solar system; the birthplace of Comets, sending more and more of these tailing w0nders int0 0ur humble, warm, Inner Solar System. 14 Apparent Brown Dwarfs disc0vered by Spitzer thus far, and likely many, many m0re t0 c0me!

IPX – LRO – Orbiting the Moon! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html

Launched on the 18th of June 2009, LRO is 0rbiting 0ur cl0sest stellar 0bject, the M00n. With it we are creating new maps 0f the surface, c0llecting data ab0ut c0mp0siti0n, l00king f0r water, and even helping find l0ng l0st Russian Rob0tic Rovers! Before
LRO was launched, there were 0pen submissi0ns f0r sending your name t0 the m00n al0ng with LRO, to be placed onto a microchip on board the spacecraft. Al0ng with my 0wn name, 0fc0urse, I submitted “Team IPX” al0ng with LRO. Remember that next time y0u l00k up at 0ur gh0stly white c0unterpart in the sky (maybe t0night during the Eclipse.. If y0u can see it!!!!), and let that remind y0u h0w high the IPX Eagle S0ars!