APOD 3.5

Look out! Well, not really. Recently, the Sun released a Class X Solar Flare. It's not going to do much other cause some Auroras near the poles. What is a flare? Well, a flare is the release of a pent up energy stored inside some twisted magnetic fields (usually located on sunspots) on the Sun. The release of energy causes radiation on all levels of the EMS, or ElectroMagnetic Spectrum.

An X-Class Flare on the Sun.

So that's the flare, but what does "X-Class" mean? It doesn't mean some fancy doomsday flare by some evil villain, despite literary authors love for the letter 'X'. Actually, the classification of 'X' reflects the size of the flare. Flares are divided into three sizes; 'X', 'M', and 'C'. Respectively, they mean Large, Medium, and Small. Large X-Class flares have been known to cause planet-wide radio blackouts, and some long lasting radiation storms. Now, since we haven't experienced any of these effects, I'm going to assume the flare wasn't pointed in out direction. In addition, flares are usually accompanied coronal mass ejections, but I believe I've covered them in a previous blog entry...

APOD 3.4

Hey guys, look! It's Orion! No, really, it is. You don't believe me, do you? Well, allow me to explain. This is a "step-focus" image that allows us to determine the heat, and therefore the class, of stars. If you look at the center of each "bow-tie", then you can connect those dots to reform the familiar constellation of Orion.

A step-trace photograph of Orion

The most notable stars within this photo are the top-left and the bottom-right. These stars are respectively Betelgeuse and Rigel. Betelgeuse has a more orange hue to it because it is the only star in the constellation to be classified as a red giant star, with temperatures of 3000 Kelvin, where as Rigel is a blue super-giant, with temperatures of 30,000 Kelvin.

APOD 3.3

This picture seems simple enough. Here we have a shot of the module Kounotori2 preparing to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). The Kounotori2 was launched a week prior to this photo being taken.  One might wonder; who would wait such a long time from being launched to finally arriving at the station? Robots. The Kounotori2 is a remotely controlled module that is guided up by staff on the ground. The convenience of this method is being able to launch when a window opens up, and then spend as much time as needed in transit to the ISS once in orbit. If it were a human controlled module, then it would need to be launched at a certain date in order to arrive at the ISS within it's limited transit time. Shorted up: Robots give schedule flexibility.

Kounotori2 preparing to dock at the ISS

The arm being extended to capture the incoming module is the Canadarm2. Any ideas where it's from? Canada + Arm = Canadarm. Brilliant, eh?