12 posts tagged Russia

15 Years of the International Space Station

The first International Space Station component, the Russian Zarya module, was launched in November 1998. In the 15 years since, NASA and its global partners have built a world class orbiting laboratory, establishing a continuous human presence in space since 2000 and paving the way for future exploration beyond.

Credit: NASA

Russian Missile Lights Up Space Station’s Sky

On Oct. 10, 2013, American astronaut Mike Hopkins tweeted that he saw something weird in the sky, and posted a somewhat shaky image of it. A few hours later Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano posted a sharper shot, the one shown above. The cloud of light is obvious; you can see the curve of the Earth below, a few stars in the sky, and the thin green line casued by airglow, a chemical process that causes air molecules to glow faintly at bnight.

ISS101 on Twitter posted a link to an article from the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces website, a site that gives the public and politicians information on Russian weapons information. The article claimed a Topol missile had been launched at 13:39 UTC. Russia Today also has an article about it.

The missile has three stages (like the old Saturn V rockets that took humans to the Moon), and what the astronauts saw may have been a fuel dump from the second stage, or the last of the fuel leaking away after the booster phase was complete. In space, the cloud would expand more or less freely, moving rapidly as it traveled along with the booster in its path. In the photo, you can see a slight streaking to the cloud, most likely due to motion.

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Credit: , ESA/NASA

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Russia may build its own space station after 2020

Russian space officials say Russia may build its own orbital space station after 2020. The project will be given the go-ahead in the event Russia’s partners on the International Space Station fail to agree to extend the useful life of the ISS.

A new orbital station of Russia is under consideration. Apart from doing research, it will assemble interplanetary expedition complexes for missions to the Moon, Mars and Lagrangian points.

The Multirole Laboratory Module (MLM) is supposed to be connected to the ISS in 2014 although the project has been experiencing certain problems. The MLM, two research and power modules, the node and, possibly, the ISS service module will make up a national orbital station to operate during the period from 2020 until 2040.

 In 1986, the Soviet Union became the first country to build a permanent space station. Russia’s space station, the Mir, ended its life in 2001, when it was sent to its watery grave in the Central Pacific.

Image Credit: NASA

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Russian Scientists Report Asteroid Near-Miss

A 15-meter (approximately 50 feet) asteroid, similar to the one that exploded above Russia in February, was detected hours before it narrowly missed the Earth over the weekend, Russian scientists said.

Vladimir Lipunov of the Moscow State University and the Sternberg Astronomical Institute said on Sunday a network of telescopes operated by his team recorded a celestial body approaching the planet.

The asteroid was discovered on Friday night by our station near Lake Baikal and nine hours later it flew within 11,300 kilometers of the Earth surface, below the orbit of geostationary satellites. It was about 15 meters in size.

The scientists originally thought that it could be a man-made object, such as a spent rocket booster, but rejected the idea when they couldn’t find a match in the space junk catalogue.

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Credit: Moscow State University/MASTER/Vladimir Lipunov

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Yuri Gagarin’s cause of death made public

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin died in mysterious circumstances in March 1968, but the cause of the first man in space’s death has finally been revealed.

For more than 20 years, according to Russia Today, Gagarin’s colleague and the first man to conduct a spacewalk Aleksey Leonov, has been attempting to gain permission to disclose details about what happened. He has now finally be allowed.

The official report at the time concluded that Gagarin and his instructor, Vladimir Seryogin, attempted to avoid an object in the air – geese or a hot air balloon – by perming a manoeuvre that led to a tailspin and collision with the ground.

However, Leonov says things weren’t quite that simple. Another jet was flying dangerously close to Gagarin’s craft, in extremely bad weather. The jet’s passage pushed Gagarin’s plane into a tailspin forcing it to crash.

It’s unknown who was piloting the other jet – that information has been kept confidential as the individual is still alive, albeit in poor health. “I was asked not to disclose the pilot’s name. He is a good test pilot. It will fix nothing,” Leonov said.

The full story can be found over at Russia Today.

Credit: Duncan Geere

Russian Meteorite Not Asteroid Debris

The meteorite that hit Russia’s Urals on Friday morning was not debris from the 2012 DA14 asteroid which is due to pass close by the Earth later the same day, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

The agency’s experts confirmed there is no link between the meteorite and the asteroid, ESA said on its official Twitter, but provided no details of its analysis.

The 2012 DA14, which is roughly 50 meters (165 feet) in size, will pass 27,000 kilometers (17,100 miles) from the Earth – closer than satellites in the geosynchronous orbit, which is 36,000 kilometers.

The 2012 DA14 flyby will take place at 19:24 GMT, about 16 hours after the meteorite incident in Chelyabinsk Region which left at least 400 injured, mostly from glass broken by the shock wave as the meteorite flew past.

The asteroid was linked to the meteor by numerous media reports. Tatiana Bordovitsina, an astronomy professor at Tomsk State University in western Siberia, told RIA Novosti two hours before the ESA statement that the meteorite could have been debris preceding the asteroid, but said a more thorough examination of the incident was needed.

NASA confirmed that 2012 DA14 is not on collision course with the planet, but said if the asteroid hit the Earth, the resulting explosion would be 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that obliterated Hiroshima in 1945.

Credit: Ria Novosti

Meteor fall ‘injures hundreds’ in central Russia

A meteor crashing in the Urals of central Russia has reportedly injured at least 400 people, as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings.

Most of those hurt suffered minor cuts and bruises but some received head injuries, Russian media report.

A fireball was seen streaking through the sky above the city of Yekaterinburg, followed by loud bangs.

The meteor is believed to have landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a town in the neighbouring Chelyabinsk region.

Much of the impact was felt in the city of Chelyabinsk, some 200km (125 miles) south of Yekaterinburg.

“We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound,” Chelyabinsk resident Sergey Hametov told AP news agency by phone.

Officials say a large meteor partially burned up in the lower atmosphere, resulting in fragments falling earthwards.

Thousands of rescue workers have been dispatched to the area to provide help to the injured, the emergencies ministry said.

The Chelyabinsk region, about 1,500km (930 miles) east of Moscow, is home to many factories, a nuclear power plant and the Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre.

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Credit: BBC News

Huge Meteor Blazes Across Sky Over Russia; Sonic Boom Shatters Windows

A huge fireball shattered the morning skies over Russia’s Urals region generating a series of powerful sonic booms, blowing out windows and causing widespread panic. The event has been captured by a series of Youtube videos uploaded from eyewitness cameras and CCTV footage.

“Atmospheric phenomena have been registered in the cities of Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and Tyumen,” reports the Russian news agency RT. “In Chelyabinsk, witnesses said the explosion was so loud that it resembled an earthquake and thunder at the same time, and that there were huge trails of smoke across the sky. Others reported seeing burning objects fall to earth.” The region is approximately 900 miles east of Moscow.

Details are currently sketchy, but as this video shows, it was certainly a major event. In another video, an eyewitness trains their camera on billowing smoke overhead just as a series of loud explosions cause windows to shatter and car alarms to be triggered. It’s not thought the loud bangs were caused by surface impacts of meteorites, it’s most likely shock waves (sonic booms) originating from the hypervelocity object.

Over a hundred minor injuries have been reported, mainly cuts from shattered glass and minor concussions.

Multiple news sources are reporting that a “meteor shower” has affected the region, but officials say that the shower was likely caused by the disintegration of a larger object. “Verified information indicates that this was one meteorite which burned up as it approached Earth and disintegrated into smaller pieces,” deputy head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry press office, Elena Smirnykh told Ria Novosti.

Also, there are reports that fragments of the fireball have fallen as meteorites on populated areas. A website with a stunning collection of videos and alleged damage to buildings caused by the object is now online.

ANALYSIS: Asteroid ‘Cruise Ship’ to Miss Earth Feb. 15

This event comes less than a day before the much-anticipated asteroid 2012 DA14 will make its flyby, prompting many across Twitter and other social media platforms to speculate the Russian meteor and DA14 are related. Although the timing is fishy, experts don’t think the two are related. “For one thing, this occurred about 16 hours before DA14 passes. At 8 kilometers per second that’s nearly half a million kilometers away from DA14. That puts it on a totally different orbit,” astronomer Phil Plait pointed out in a Bad Astronomy blog.

This is an incredible event that has happened over a populated (albeit sparsely) region, a powerful reminder that there are many more space rocks buzzing around out there.

Credit: Discovery News

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What happened in Tunguska in 1908?

On June 30, 1908, in a remote part of Russia, a fireball was seen streaking across the daytime sky. Within moments, something exploded in the atmosphere above Siberia’s Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

This event – now widely known as the Tunguska event – is believed to have been caused by an incoming meteor or comet, which never actually struck Earth but instead exploded in the atmosphere, causing what is known as an air burst, three to six miles (5–10 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.

The explosion released enough energy to kill reindeer and flatten trees for many kilometers around the blast site. But no crater was ever found.

At the time, it was difficult to reach this remote part of Siberia. It wasn’t until 1927 that Leonid Kulik led the first Soviet research expedition to investigate the Tunguska event. He made a initial trip to the region, interviewed local witnesses and explored the region where the trees had been felled. He became convinced that they were all turned with their roots to the center. He did not find any meteorite fragments, and he did not find a meteorite crater.

Over the years, scientists and others concocted fabulous explanations for the Tunguska explosion. Some were pretty wild – such as the encounter of Earth with an alien spacecraft, or a mini-black-hole, or a particle of antimatter.

The truth is much more ordinary. In all likelihood, a small icy comet or stony asteroid collided with Earth’s atmosphere on June 30, 1908. If it were an asteroid, it might have been about a third as big as a football field – moving at about 15 kilometers (10 miles) per second.

Because the explosion took place so long ago, we might never know for certain whether it was an asteroid or comet. But in recent decades astronomers have come to take the possibility of comet and asteroid impacts more seriously. They now have regular observing programs to watch for Near-Earth Objects, as they’re called. They also meet regularly to discuss what might happen if we did find an object on a collision course with Earth.

Source & Credit: EarthSky

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