A few science jobs

A few positions in astronomy and space science are opening as the academic year prepares to yawn into action.

Starting with PhD places, and two places, one in Stockholm and one in Southampton, are being advertised in the area of high latitude aurora and radar studies. The two positions are to be closely linked and the students based at each of the institutions should expect to travel to visit the other one at some point. The project will involve studying the structure of aurora using novel imaging techniques, spectra and radar studies. Contact Betty Lanchester at Southampton or Nickolay Ivchenko at the School of Electrical Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm for details and to apply.

Over at SarahAskew, she attempts in this post to entice PhD qualified researchers to consider the area she’s worked in for the past three years. Sandra Chapman of Warwick University is advertising for a PDRA to help create mathematical models of turbulence in the solar system plasmas, such as the solar wind. Further details here. Martin Fullekrug of Bath University offers a postdoctoral position studying the impact of lightning discharges on the atmosphere. Further details on the job, which will involve spending the summer in remote parts of Southern France taking electromagnetic data, can be found here and the application system is here. ESA wants applications for its 2011 postdoctoral fellowships, which will last for a year and will take place in the field of space science. Further details on this scheme are here.

The American Association of Variable Star Observers is looking for a web developer for its newly relaunched website. Further information on this position is here.

Of course, with all the citizen science projects around, you don’t need to be a specific researcher to contribute to science, as users of the Einstein@Home project have found. A new puslar has been discovered, sitting alone in space. Measurements of its magnetic field suggest the pulsar was either born with a low power magnetic field or it had a companion star, like most pulsars, but lost it. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, believed to be spun up by the deposition of matter through an accretion disc onto its surface. The transfer of angular momentum from the disc to the pulsar leaves it spinning very rapidly. The new object spins at a rate of 41 times a second. Einstein@Home users donate their PC downtime to crunching astronomical data. They search for the signatures of gravitational waves in archived LIGO data and for pulsars in archived Arecibo data. The press release is here.

Some science and society stuff

The Royal Astronomical Society has released a booklet (that can be downloaded here). Called A New View of the Universe, it advertises itself as Big Science for the Big Society and aims to show the impact on wider society of astronomy and space science.

One big impact made is satellite communications. Fifty years ago today, Echo 1A, also known as Echo 1, was launched. A 30 metre diameter balloon, its job was to act as a mirror so radio transmissions could be bounced over the horizon to far off places. It handled telephone, radio and television signals and reentered the atmosphere eight years later. The Echo satellites allowed research to be carried out on atmospheric density (the drag on the satellite orbits), solar pressure (light reflecting off the surfaces and transmitting momentum, the basis of solar sail technology) and gossamer structures.

But that isn’t the only iconic part of the space program undergoing an anniversary today. Thirty three years ago, the space shuttle Enterprise made its first unmanned glide to the ground. Here’s some footage from 1977 of the device breaking free from the air craft carrying it:

Watch that and remember the space shuttle program may not survive to see the thirty-fourth anniversary, the alien Fox Mulder of this cartoon may have to find another shape for his calendar.

Of course aliens, the possibility that somewhere in this massive universe another speck of dust around a star may be crawling with living things, has been known to make an impact on our culture too. Movies, not necessarily 100% accurate, or indeed anywhere near, and books have kept us entertained. Some people have taken the entertainment value a little too far, but that’s a problem with runaway hypotheses too detached from hard science. Like Chinese whispers, science can turn from potentially plausible to possible in just the flick of a journalist phrase or copy editor’s decision.

The best bet in these cases is to reengage people with the scientists and scientific facilities. Outreach programs such as this recent photowalk conducted at five particle physics facilities around the world enable direct communication between the public and researchers. Instant packets of information sent via protocols developed at CERN and in many cases using communication methods developed for the space age show one way in which Big Science has contributed to making a much smaller society.

More #Meteorwatch mentions as the Perseids proceed to peak

The twitter Meteorwatch will enter its second night tonight with the shower expected to peak this evening. News reports are coming in far and wide with the BBC giving an overview of the shower, an expert opinion and then another overview. National Geographic also have an article on how to see the shower and Wired have a quick note. The usual suspects put up their own Perseid pieces too, such as Astronomy Now and Sky and Telescope. NASA have put out a release of their own and will be hosting a live webchat from 8-9pm BST as well as an all night live Meteorwatch for those in the USA timezones at this website. The UK Space Agency have also put out a release and the RAS have done the same. Images of Perseids are already cropping up on spaceweather.com and data from the International Meteor Organisation suggest the Zenithal Hourly Rate is up to around 53 already, suggesting more than a meteor overhead a minute by the time we hit the peak. And just to end with, here’s a more audiovisual way to take in all that information:

Some sunspot stuff

Following the recent couple of hits to the Earth from Coronal Mass Ejections, the large sunspot associated with them, 1092, has been photographed visible in the sunset (as well as appearing in the odd report or two on the Moscow wildfires – though it should be stressed solar storms have no role in wildfires, they only light up the aurora). Meanwhile a video of a sunspot’s evolution as it moves towards death has been posted here.

Some spaceflight news

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have conducted the second of three planned spacewalks to replace a failed module in the cooling system ammonia pump. The Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) was carried out by astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, the same pair who conducted the first. It was followed by NASA TV and NASA’s twitter feed.

The walk began at 13:27 BST, having been delayed by more than an hour to make further preparations. It began with that disconnect valve for the third and final line to the pump. This time, it disconnected easier and without a leak. The line was removed and examination appeared to show ice crystals were responsible for the previous problems. Five cables and four bolts later, the pump had a grapple bar placed onto it to enable it to be manhandled out of position. The thing was then positioned on the truss for storage and some preparations for the third spacewalk, which will install the spare pump, were done. Then the spacesuits were decontaminated and the walk ended after 7 hours and 26 minutes.

Highlights can be seen on NASA’s Youtube Channel and below:

The ISS isn’t the only thing having coolant issues at the moment. The infrared space survey telescope WISE is heating up. Infrared spacecraft are kept cool in order to prevent radiation from the warm probe overwhelming the signal from the cosmos. The Sun, which is required to shine on the spacecraft to generate electricity, heats the craft up and two coolant tanks keep the temperature low enough for the different sensors to pick out their signals. The operating temperature for WISE is 12 degrees Kelvin. The sensor operating at the longest wave radiation, detecting the coolest objects, was overwhelmed with radiation from the spacecraft as the secondary tank ran out of coolant and the probe warmed above 31 K. The primary tank still has plenty to go and should keep the spacecraft cool enough to conduct surveys with the remaining channels. The telescope completed an all sky survey with all channels operating and is presently rechecking half the sky to confirm previous observations and observe variations in signals.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, essentially a telescope for particles other than photons, is to be shown off to the press in Florida on the 26th of August before being prepared to head off to the ISS, where it will act as a new module. Further information and details on how accredited members of the media can apply to be there are here.

And finally, NASA’s efforts to spread the cost and energy of space activities has led to Isreal. The agency has signed a Statement of Intent for Future Cooperation with the Isreal Space Agency as part of ongoing efforts to foster international and interagency missions.