Orion and the Seven Sisters (#Extant E4)

I livetweet CBS' sci-fi show Extant every Wed night on Twitter at 8pm - check out the storify at the end of the article or click here!

On the last episode of CBS's new sci fi show Extant, Molly lies in bed with her son Ethan and discusses a very popular set of stars known as the Pleiades Star Cluster. This cluster of stars has been very prominent in the sky over human history, and many cultures have created stories around them.

A color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey
Credit: NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech

One of the most famous stories, which Molly shares with Ethan, is that of the seven sisters. According to Space.com:

"Native Americans thought the cluster formed when a group of women chased by bears asked a stone to help them run from the animals. The stone rose up, protecting them and forming Devil's Tower in Wyoming. The women then became the stars of the cluster.

In Greek mythology, Orion the Hunter chased the seven sisters around Earth. After crying out to the gods for help, the sisters were turned into the stars of the cluster. The gods also placed Orion in the sky after the sting of a scorpion killed him."

Tough break for the women in these culture's, huh? I guess they are always being hunted. In any case, it's pretty amazing that different cultures all have stories that are somewhat similar.  The power of the human mind.

For a recap of the complete episode of Extant (spoiler alert), please check out the Storify below!

#Extant E3: See Things First, Hear Them Later

I livetweet CBS' sci-fi show Extant every Wed night on Twitter at 8pm - check out the storify at the end of the article or click here!

Me and Astronaut Doug Wheelock in front of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the day before liftoff

In last night's episode of Extant, Molly (played by Halle Berry) sees a rocket lifting off, heading into space and likely docking with the space station.  It reminded me of when I attended a shuttle launch. One of the most fascinating things was seeing the shuttle launch .... in silence.  Then, 15 seconds later ... WWWWOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHH you get blasted by the full sound of the rocket launching from the Earth.  Why did it take so long?

In the above video, we start to hear sound about 15 seconds after we see it. Why is that? Well, the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) is much, much, much faster than the speed of sound (1130 ft per second). So if something is more than 1130 ft away from us, we should see it one second before we hear it.  If it's 2260 ft away, we'll see it two seconds before we hear it. For 15 seconds, the math works out to just over 3 miles, which is the actual distance from the shuttle launch pad to the Kennedy Space Center press site that I was at.

This is the exact same reason why you see lightning before you hear thunder - if the lightning is far enough away, the light reaches your eyes way before the sound reaches your ears! You can also calculate how far away the lightning is by using the same method I used to calculate how far I was from the shuttle launch pad.

If you want to check out the livetweet of the show (watch out, there are spoilers), check out the Storify below!

Thank The Moon, Think of Mars #Apollo45

Image Credit: NASA

When US astronauts successfully walked on the moon 45 years ago, it was the culmination of years of science being leveraged to do something that most thought was impossible. Unfortunately, this was not done solely for the sake of science - it was also to have a leg up on the Soviet Union. The US was "behind" in the Cold War space race, since the Soviet Union launched the first satellite (Sputnik) and the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin).

Image Credit: NASA

With NASA's new plan, entitled Next Giant Leap, to launch manned missions to Mars, we have an opportunity to leverage the positive scientific aspects of the moon landing without the xenophobia and Cold War mentality that perpetrated it. This time, we're doing it just for the science, and it involves a freaking ASTEROID.  

By practicing with the moon and an asteroid, our astronauts can learn how to become reliant on being in space for the several months that it takes to get to Mars. The space shuttle has been retired, but NASA is building a more powerful rocket (the Space Launch System or SLS) to carry the new Orion spacecraft to Mars.  Exciting days are ahead!

#Extant E1, E2: Float On

On the first two episodes of CBS's Extant, astronauts float inside of the show's space station. How is this possible?

Floating happens because the space station is traveling extremely fast (about 5 miles a second) while constantly falling towards the Earth due to gravity.  The only force on the station is gravity towards the Earth, but its "sideways" speed of 5 miles a second is just enough so that it balances out the Earth's pull and the station remains in orbit around the planet. Since the station feels the full effect of a force (gravity), anything inside of station is free of that force. Thus, weightlessness! 

As scary as it is to imagine, if you were in a falling elevator, you would also experience weightlessness! All of the force is on the elevator and you are inside of it, free of that force.  Now imagine that elevator falling in space, but also being pushed at 5 miles a second and ... bingo! Space station!

For more info, please check out Universe Today.

For the live tweet of episode 2 of Extant, check out the Storify below.

Antares Spacecraft Delivers and Gets Trashed

Private companies are once again helping NASA achieve its missions. SpaceX has grabbed most of the news, but Orbital Sciences is another company on the move. Orbital's Antares rocket launched this past weekend with the its Cygnus spacecraft on board, filled with 3,300 lbs of valuable supplies for our astronauts in the ISS.  Supplies on the Cygnus spacecraft include:

• Nanosatellites designed to take images of Earth. The more pics, the better!
• TechEdSat-4, which will help small samples to be returned to Earth from the space station.Being able to send small samples back to the planet, instead of needing to launch a retrievable spacecraft to collect it, will result in much quicker experiment turnaround.  
• Satellites (SPHERES) to enable 3-D mapping and robotic navigation inside the space station.

After the supplies are moved from the Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS, Cygnus gets trashed.  No, Cygnus doesn't stop by a local bar - the astronauts literally fill the spacecraft with trash and send it back down to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Gotta go out with a bang!

 Check out an amazing pic by one of NASA's incredible photographers:

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls