Space Shuttle Re-entry over Minneapolis Tuesday AM

Those of you who follow the blog know my inner geek lets me include space as part of the natural world. I just have to pass along this very cool and rare opportunity. As you may know, the US space shuttle program is coming to an end and the shuttles will soon be retired. There are very few opportunities left to watch the shuttle orbit overhead. There are even fewer opportunities to watch one land. The landing flight of the space shuttle does not usually take it over Minnesota but the current shuttle mission is scheduled to re-enter the earth's atmosphere right over the twin cities. This is known as a rare descending node re-entry. Here is the current predicted ground track. It also takes the shuttle over Chicago.

The ephemeris online shows the shuttle will first appear over the twin cities at 6:14 AM and will transit and disappear by 6:19 AM. The prime sighting will be at exactly 6:16 when the shuttle will be 67° high in the sky and passing within 43 miles of St. Paul. The shuttle should appear roughly from the north. Sunrise is at 6:20 tomorrow so it is hard to say whether we will be able to see the shuttle streak across the sky like a meteor of fire or whether it will be washed out against a brightening sky. If you go out to watch, be sure to listen as well. The shuttle will be traveling at supersonic speeds and will produce a double sonic boom. It takes about 1 minute 30 seconds for the sound to reach earth after the shuttle passes overhead.

The shuttle was supposed to land on Monday but the landing was scrubbed due to poor weather. The old route would not have taken it over Minnesota. If weather is poor at Kennedy Space Center in Florida the shuttle will land in California and we'll unfortunately miss the show.

I'll be up for it. We'll see what the weather has in store.

~Kirk

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Fireball Meteor Over Midwest Last Night

If you were lucky enough to be outside last night around 10:00 pm you may have witnessed this fireball meteor that flew over the midwest last night. The video was captured on a dashboard camera of a Howard County (Iowa) Sheriff Department cruiser.



The meteor was also picked up on Doppler Radar out of LaCrosse WI. It shows up best looking at the storm relative motion view at 10:10 pm. This shows the meteor at a height of between 6000 and 12,000 feet. There were reports of sonic booms. The Twin Cities was cloudy at the time but people saw the meteor in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri.


~Kirk

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Lichens can live in space!

(photo credit: Tigerente)

That's the news from the ESA (European Space Agency). The lichen species Xanthoria elegans successfully survived for 18 months on the exterior of the International Space Station in an experiment where it was exposed to the vacuum of space as well as wild temperature fluctuations and bombardment by cosmic rays and high levels of UV radiation from the sun. It is pretty incredible that something could survive all that. Space is one of the most hostile environments to life you can imagine. Humans would die extremely quickly in exposed space.

Let's be clear though, the lichen wasn't really growing, it was just surviving. Lichens have the ability to wait it out of conditions aren't just perfect for growth. Show me lichens growing in space and then I'll be completely blown away. Maybe I'm reading the reports wrong but it seems like the lichens just shut down and waited for conditions to improve.

Xanthoria elegans is a foliose lichen that grown on rocks. It is clearly very adaptable as even here on earth it is found in habitats as diverse as grasslands, sea shores and boreal forests.

I'd be very interested to see an experiment where lichens are sent to mars to see if they will grow in the thin martian atmosphere.

~Kirk

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Space Station over the Twin Cities

And now for something completely different. This is the first astronomy related post to the Twin Cities Naturalist. I'm a fan of astronomy and stargazing and strongly consider it part of being a naturalist. There's a great opportunity to stretch your space science geek muscles coming up and I figured I should tell everyone about it.

The International Space Station will fly over the Twin Cities at 11:19 p.m. on July 6th. It is not especially rare to have a fly-over but this one should be good as it will 87 degrees up in the sky so almost right overhead. If you haven't seen it before you should check it out.

I remember the first fly-over I saw was years ago but as the space station grows they keep getting brighter and brighter.

Here's an animation of how the station has changed over the years.

If you miss it there is another pass on the 8th at 10:33 pm that will be only slightly lower elevation (84 degrees)

The ISS passing overhead looks like a really bright star. Don't expect to see much. With a telescope you can actually make out the solar panels. You could try to make out some detail with binoculars. Tracking is tricky and it is bright but some people have reported seeing a few shape details from Earth.

At any rate, it is fun to watch it glide by and to think that there are people living up there in space.

~Kirk

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