First All-Sky Infrared Catalogs Released After 25 Years

All-sky surveys represent one of the most important tools in astronomy today. They allow experts to set reference points for their studies, and also to compare various celestial objects between themselves, and with newly discovered ones. For the first time in more than a quarter of a century, a new series of infrared all-sky surveys, covering in excess of 1.3 million light sources, has been made available, under the name of the AKARI All-Sky Catalogs. The information is available here and here, ScienceDaily reports.

“The release of the catalogs is very timely. Many of the objects detected by AKARI and contained in these catalogs will be prime candidates for future investigation at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths with Herschel. These catalogs will be very useful for astronomers preparing for the next opportunity, in May, to propose observations with Herschel,” the AKARI project scientist for the European Space Agency (EAS), Alberto Salama, explains. He shares that the new datasets could be used to derive more information on subjects such as the traits of nearby stars, on how planetary systems form around new stars, or on how stars started forming very early in the history of the Universe.

Launched in February 2006, the AKARI spacecraft was Japan's first infrared astronomical satellite. Its mission ran between May 2006 and August 2007, during which time it did a full sweep of the visible sky, imaging all the targets that eventually ended up forming the catalogs. Its two main instruments were the Infrared Camera (IRC), which worked in the 9- and 18-micrometer bands, and the Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS), which looked at the sky in the 65-, 90-, 140-, and 160-micrometer bands. IRC holds the record for most infrared sources discovered, at 70,000 objects, with FIS trailing some distance away, with only about 430,000 objects identified.

Each of the two catalogs features data from one of these two instruments. As such, rather than producing a single, large dataset, experts decided to split the information into the AKARI-IRC Point Source Catalog and the AKARI-FIS Bright Source Catalog. Behind this ambitious project was the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which managed the AKARI mission in collaboration with ESA. Scientists from the Seoul National University, in South Korea, have also contributed to developing the satellite and its instruments. Survey-data processing took place at the ESA European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC) near Madrid, Spain.

Japan to launch 'space yacht' propelled by solar particles

Japan is to launch a "space yacht" propelled by solar particles that bounce off its kite-shaped sails, the country's space agency said Tuesday.

A rocket carrying the Ikaros -- an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun -- will blast off from the Tanegashima space centre in southern Japan on May 18.

"Ikaros is a 'space yacht' that gets propulsion from the pressure of sunlight particles bouncing off its sail," Yuichi Tsuda, space systems expert at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), told journalists.

The flexible sails, which are thinner than a human hair, are also equipped with thin-film solar cells to generate electricity to create "a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure", Tsuda said.

"Solar sails are the technology that realises space travel without fuel as long as we have sunlight. The availability of electricity would enable us to navigate farther and more effectively in the solar system."

Ikaros, which has cost 1.5 billion yen (16 million dollars) to develop, will be the first use of the technology in deep space, as past experiments have been limited to unfolding its sails in orbits around the Earth, said Tsuda.

JAXA plans to control the path of Ikaros by changing the angle at which sunlight particles bounce off the silver-coloured sail.

Ikaros will be a short cylindrical shape when it is released into space and will then extend its 14-metre (46 foot) sail, JAXA said.

The name of the spacecraft alludes to Icarus, the figure from Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun and fell into the sea, but Tsuda promised that "this Ikaros will not fly into the sun".

The same rocket will also launch Japan's first satellite bound for Venus, called the Akatsuki, or PLANET-C, which will work closely with Venus Express, a satellite sent earlier by the European Space Agency.

In coming years, JAXA may launch other bold projects.

An expert panel to the government has proposed Japan send a wheeled robot to the moon in five years and build the world's first lunar base by 2020, a Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy official said Tuesday.

Under the plan, the robot's tasks would include setting up an observation device, gathering geological samples and sending data back to Earth. The robot would also set up solar panels to generate energy, the official said.

The expert panel initially considered sending a two-legged humanoid but judged a "rover-type" robot more practical. "It is still difficult for a biped robot to walk on a bumpy surface, even on Earth," the official said.

The team also envisions building the world's first station on the moon by about 2020, which would be staffed by advanced wheeled robots, he said.

The group estimates the unmanned mission would cost Japan 200 billion yen (two billion dollars) over the next 10 years.

The 20-member team -- made up of experts from JAXA as well as business and academia -- advises Transport Minister Seiji Maehara.

It plans to submit a report to Maehara, the minister in charge of space exploration, by late June, which would be discussed at the Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy, chaired by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

JAXA Gets Ready to Launch Venus Probe

Officials at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announce that they have entered the final stages of preparing the organization's new space probe for flight. The Akatsuki spacecraft will fly to our neighboring planet Venus, where it will conduct science for Japan. This is the first such mission that the Asian country sets up. American and Russian crafts have reached Venus on several occasions, and have mapped and analyzed it extensively, but now JAXA wants to have a go at it too, Nature News reports. The main goal of the mission is to determine exactly why the Venus, which has so much in common with Earth, is so inhospitable to life.

For more than ten years, this planet has fallen in scientific neglect, in the sense that new missions to investigate it have been placed on hold. But JAXA is about to break the cycle with the May 18 launch of its Venus Climate Orbiter spacecraft, which is being shipped this week to the Tanegashima Space Center. According to mission scientists for Akatsuki, one of the primary objectives for the new mission is to determine precisely what drives the atmosphere of our scorching-hot neighbor to rotate around Venus at speeds of up to 60 times higher than that of the planet's rotation.

There aren't many space experts that can answer the question as to why studying Venus was placed on hold. Evidence collected throughout its mission by the Venus Express spacecraft, built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), suggests that the planet may have once been covered in oceans. It would also appear that its density is very similar to Earth's, and also that the cores of the two planets are very similar in composition. Given these data, why does our neighbor look and feel so inhospitable to life. Discovering the changes that led to this transformation is among the top objectives for the Venus Climate Orbiter spacecraft.

Venus is known to rotate at a speed of roughly 6.5 kilometers per hour. Experts have determined as well that the atmosphere moves around the planet at about 400 kilometers per hour. In addition, the body is enveloped in sulphuric acid clouds and is battered by temperatures on the range of 460 degrees Celsius. This is largely caused by global warming effects, set forth by an atmosphere made of 95 percent carbon dioxide. The magnetic field around it is also too weak to defend emergent life forms against very strong solar winds.

Earth Rise By KAGUYA on two occasions

KAGUYA taking "Earth-rise" by HDTV (Nov. 7, 2007) [HD]

KAGUYA (SELENE) taking "Earth-rise" by HDTV on Nov. 7, 2007. Aspect ratio 16:9 and HD quality in English narration. (C)JAXA/NHK

KAGUYA taking "Full Earth-rise" by HDTV (Apr. 5, 2008) [HD]

KAGUYA (SELENE) taking "Full Earth-rise" by HDTV on Apr. 5, 2008. Aspect ratio 16:9 and HD quality in English narration. (C)JAXA/NHK

The Future of Hope - Kibo Prologue to the Future - STS-127 2J/A Mission [HD]

The 2J/A Mission (STS-127), the last of the Kibo designated assembly flights, will deliver Kibo's external experiment platform, the Exposed Facility (EF), and an external stowage pallet, the Experiment Logistics Module-Exposed Section (ELM-ES), to the ISS. (JASRAC:V-0901126)

Last Photos of the Moon Captured by the HDTV Camera Aboard KAGUYA (SELENE)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) would like to release the final still images taken by the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" just prior to its maneuvered falling to the Moon. The images are attached below. The KAGUYA was launched on September 14, 2007, and was controlled to be dropped to the Moon on June 11, 2009, as its mission was completed.

The series of continued shots was taken with an interval of about one minute by the HDTV (Teltephoto) while the KAGUYA was maneuvered to decrease its altitude toward the impact position (around GILL crater.)

We can see the approaching Moon surface as the KAGUYA went closer to it. After the final image, the KAGUYA moved into the shaded area to make its final landing, thus it was pitch dark while taking an image. This is the very final image shooting of the Moon by the KAGUYA HDTV.

You can enjoy images taken by the KAGUYA HDTV through JAXA Digital Archives, the KAGUYA Image Gallery, and the JAXA channel on YouTube.


JAXA Website Digital Archives http://jda.jaxa.jp/jda/p1_e.php

(Search by selecting the following: Subject: Observation Images, Category: Moon and Planet Exploration, Mission: Moon)

JAXA KAGUYA Image Gallery> http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/selene_viewer/index_e.html

YouTube JAXA Channel http://www.youtube.com/jaxachannel

NHK Website Kaguya Archives http://www3.nhk.or.jp/kaguya/archive/index_e.html

Attachment: The very final images taken by the HDTV (Teltephoto) http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/06/20090619_kaguya_hdtv_e.html#at

Kaguya Smashes on the Lunar Surface

The Japanese lunar space probe Kaguya was maneuvered to an uncontrolled crash landing on the surface of the Moon near the South Pole around 80.4 degrees east longitude and 65.5 degrees south latitude at 2:35 PM EST today to complete the spacecraft's final scientific endeavor, according to the Japanese JAXA space agency.

Kaguya hit the Moon at an oblique angle traveling approximately 6,000 km/hr. Clues to the end of Kaguya will come from high-res images of the crash site taken by future lunar orbiters. No photographs of the crash flash have been reported by Earth-bound astrononers this evening.

The impact site selection was not accidental. The Japanese space agency has long planned to end the mission with a controlled crash in the southern region of the lunar surface. Kaguya has been in lunar orbit since Oct. 2007; it has searched dark craters for evidence of frozen water, mapped the moon's gravitational field, and taken some of the all-time prettiest pictures of Earth's satellite.

Kaguya's Moon Video

Kaguya is a Japanese spacecraft that has been orbiting the Moon since October 2007. It is equipped with several detectors, but also — brilliantly, in my opinion — two HD cameras. The footage below is not a simulation: it’s real imagery of the Moon! Make sure you click the HD button, or go to the YouTube page to see this in full resolution.

This next footage is of the crater Antoniadi, and is stunning. Note the lens flares from sunlight entering the camera and reflecting inside.

Suzaku snaps first complete X-ray view of a galaxy cluster

The joint Japan-U.S. Suzaku mission is providing new insight into how assemblages of thousands of galaxies pull themselves together. For the first time, Suzaku has detected X-ray-emitting gas at a cluster's outskirts, where a billion-year plunge to the center begins.

"These Suzaku observations are exciting because we can finally see how these structures, the largest bound objects in the universe, grow even more massive," said Matt George, the study's lead author at the University of California, Berkeley.

The team trained Suzaku's X-ray telescopes on the cluster PKS 0745-191, which lies 1.3 billion light-years away in the southern constellation Puppis. Between May 11 and 14, 2007, Suzaku acquired five images of the million-degree gas that permeates the cluster.

By looking at a cluster in X-rays, astronomers can measure the temperature and density of the gas, which provides clues about the gas pressure and total mass of the cluster. Astronomers expect that the gas in the inner part of a galaxy cluster has settled into a "relaxed" state in equilibrium with the cluster's gravity. This means that the hottest, densest gas lies near the cluster's center, and temperatures and densities steadily decline at greater distances.

In the cluster's outer regions, though, the gas is no longer in an orderly state because matter is still falling inward. "Clusters are the most massive, relaxed objects in the universe, and they are continuing to form now," said team member Andy Fabian at the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy in the UK. The distance where order turns to chaos is referred to as the cluster's "virial radius."

For the first time, this study shows the X-ray emission and gas density and temperature out to -- and even beyond -- the virial radius, where the cluster continues to form. "It gives us the first complete X-ray view of a cluster of galaxies," Fabian said.

This Suzaku image shows X-ray emission from hot gas throughout the galaxy cluster PKS 0745-191. Brighter colors indicate greater X-ray emission. The circle is 11.2 million light-years across and marks the region where cold gas is now entering the cluster. Inset: A Hubble optical image of the cluster's central galaxies is shown at the correct scale. Credit: NASA/ISAS/Suzaku/M. George, et al.




The massive radio galaxy PKS 0745-191, for which the cluster is named, appears at the center of this Hubble Space Telescope image. The picture forms the inset in the Suzaku image above. Credit: NASA/STScI/Fabian, et al.

In PKS 0745-191, the gas temperature peaks at 164 million °F (91 million °C) about 1.1 million light-years from the cluster's center. Then, the temperature declines smoothly with distance, dropping to 45 million °F (25 million °C) more than 5.6 million light-years from the center. The findings appear in the May 11 issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

To discern the cluster's outermost X-ray emission requires detectors with exceptionally low background noise. Suzaku's advanced X-ray detectors, coupled with a low-altitude orbit, give the observatory much lower background noise than other X-ray satellites. The low orbit means that Suzaku is largely protected by Earth's magnetic field, which deflects energetic particles from the sun and beyond.

"With more Suzaku observations in the outskirts of other galaxy clusters, we'll get a better picture of how these massive structures evolve," added George.

Suzaku ("red bird of the south") was launched on July 10, 2005. The observatory was developed at the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), which is part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in collaboration with NASA and other Japanese and U.S. institutions.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Expedition 20 Lifts Off

Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk launched on a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. › Station Section

Expected KAGUYA impact point on moon.

The Japan's lunar explorer "KAGUYA", which is now in the extended operational phase, has been carrying out observations of the Moon from lower altitude since February 1, 2009, to continue observations in more detail.
The "KAGUYA" will conclude its scientific mission to the Moon through a controlled impact on the lunar surface.

Expected impact date

18:30, June 10, 2009 (GMT) Near side, night time area

Expected impact location

E80, S61

Impact information may be updated because of the latest orbit determination and/or satellite status. The newly information will be posted on SELENE project homepage.

As for the new schedule announcement is planned, May, 29, at 10 a.m., June 5, at 10 a.m., and June 10, at 10 a.m. on (each day and time is the Japan standard time).

SELENE Project homepage : http://www.kaguya.jaxa.jp/index_e.htm