The new planet was discovered on January 4, 2010. Its size was determined as 3.878 earth radii; orbital elements: semi-major axis - 0, 0455 AU. That is, the inclination is 89, 76 °, the orbital period is 3.2 Earth days. The temperature on the surface of the planet is 1800 ° C.
The paradox of the situation is that the exoplanet Kepler-4b is located at a distance of 1630 light years from Earth in the constellation Draco. In other words, we see this planet as it was 1630 years ago! It should be noted that the KEPLER space observatory detected not a planet, but the flickering of a star elusive to the human eye, around which the exoplanet Kepler-4b revolves, periodically obscuring its disk. This turned out to be quite enough for KEPLER to determine the presence of a planetary system (in just the last 3 years, the device has detected 2300 such objects).
Gagarin's smile, photographs of space depths obtained from the Hubble orbiting telescope, lunar rovers and landing in the icy ocean of Titan, a fire-breathing team of thirty (!) Jet engines of the first stage of the N-1 rocket, an air crane of the Curiosity rover, radio communication on range of 18, 22 billion km - just at this distance from the Sun the Voyager-1 probe is now located (4 times farther from the orbit of Pluto). The radio signal comes from there with a delay of 17 hours!
When you get acquainted with astronautics, you come to understand that most likely this is the true destiny of Mankind. To create a technique of transcendent beauty and complexity for exploring the Universe.
Russia returned to scientific space
Literally a few months before the sensational story with Phobos-Grunt, the Zenit launch vehicle launched the Russian Spekr-R space telescope (better known as Radioastron) from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Surely everyone has heard about the wonderful Hubble telescope, which for 20 years has been transmitting from near-earth orbit amazing photographs of distant galaxies, quasars and star clusters. So, Radioastron is a thousand times more accurate than Hubble!
Despite the international status of the project, the Radioastron spacecraft is almost entirely created in Russia. A group of domestic scientists and engineers of the NPO named after Lavochkin was able to implement a unique project of a space observatory in conditions of total underfunding and neglect of science. It's a shame that this triumphant breakthrough in space research did not get into the field of view of our media at all … but the chronicle of the fall of the Phobos-Grunt station was broadcast for days on all TV channels.
It is no coincidence that the project is called international: Radioastron is a ground-space interferometer consisting of a space radio telescope installed on the Spektr-R apparatus, as well as a network of ground radio telescopes: radio telescopes in Effelsberg (Germany), Green Bank are used as synchronous antennas (USA) and a giant 300-meter antenna of the Arecibo radio telescope on about. Puerto Rico. The space component moves in a highly elliptical orbit thousands of kilometers away from the Earth. The result is a single radio telescope-interferometer with a base of 330 thousand kilometers! The resolution of Radioastron is so high that it can distinguish objects seen at an angle of several microseconds.
And this is not the only space observatory created by Russian specialists in recent years - for example, in January 2009, the Kronas-Foton spacecraft was successfully launched into near-earth orbit, designed to study the Sun in the X-ray region of the spectrum. Or the international project PAMELA (aka the artificial Earth satellite "Resurs-DK", 2006), designed to study the radiation belts of the Earth - Russian specialists have once again proved their highest professionalism.
At the same time, readers should not get the false impression that all the problems have been left behind and there is nowhere to go any further. In no case should one stop at the achieved results. NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japan Space Research Agency annually launch space observatories and various scientific instruments into orbit: the Japanese Hinode satellite for the study of solar physics, the American 22-ton Chandra X-ray observatory, the Compton gamma observatory, the infrared telescope. Spitzer ", European orbital telescopes" Planck "," XMM-Newton "," Herschel "… by the end of this decade, NASA promises to launch a new supertelescope" James Webb "with a mirror diameter of 6, 5 m and solar a backboard the size of a tennis court.
The Martian Chronicles
Recently, there has been an extraordinary interest of NASA in the exploration of Mars, there is a feeling of the imminent landing of astronauts on the Red Planet. Numerous vehicles have explored Mars up and down, NASA specialists are interested in everything: orbital scouts carry out detailed mapping of the surface and measurements of the planet's fields, descent vehicles and rovers study geology and climatic conditions on the surface. A separate issue is the presence of oil and water on Mars - according to the latest data, the devices still found signs of water ice. So it’s just a small matter - to send a person there.
Since 1996, NASA has organized 11 scientific expeditions to Mars (of which 3 ended in failure):
- Mars Global Serveyor (1996) - an automatic interplanetary station (AMS) was in the Martian orbit for 9 years, making it possible to collect a maximum of information about this distant mysterious world. After completing the mission to map the surface of Mars, the AMS switched to relay mode, ensuring the operation of the rovers.
- Mars Pathfinder (1996) - "Pathfinder" worked on the surface for 3 months, during the mission the Mars rover was used for the first time.
- Mars Climate Orbiter (1999) - an accident in the orbit of Mars. The Americans confused the units of measurement (Newton and pound-force) in their calculations.
- Mars Polar Lander (1999) - the station crashed on landing
- Deep Space 2 (1999) - the third failure, the AMC is lost under unknown circumstances.
- Mars Odyssey (2001) - searched for traces of water from Martian orbit. Found. Currently used as a repeater.
- Mars Exploration Rover A (2003) and Mars Exploration Rover B (2003) - two probes with the Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B) rovers. Spirit got stuck in the ground in 2010 and then went out of order. His twin still shows signs of life on the other side of the planet.
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) - The "Mars Reconnaissance Orbital" surveys Martian landscapes with a high-resolution camera, selects optimal sites for future landings, examines the spectra of rocks, and measures radiation fields. The mission is active.
- Phoenix (2007) - "Phoenix" explored the circumpolar regions of Mars, worked on the surface for less than a year.
- Mars Science Laboratory - On July 28, 2012, the Curiosity rover began its mission. The 900-kilogram vehicle is supposed to crawl 19 km along the slopes of Gale Crater, determining the mineral composition of the Martian rocks.
Further - only the stars
Among the great achievements of Mankind are four starships that have overcome the gravitational pull of the Sun and have gone forever to infinity. From the point of view of the biological species homo sapiens, hundreds of thousands of years are an insurmountable obstacle on the way to the stars. But for an immortal craft floating in a void without friction and vibration, the chance of reaching the stars is close to 100%. When - it doesn't matter, because time has stopped forever for him.
This story began 40 years ago, when they first began to prepare expeditions to explore the outer planets of the solar system, and continues to this day: in 2006, the new device "New Horizons" entered the battle for space with the forces of nature - in 2015 it will conduct several precious hours in the vicinity of Pluto, and then leave the solar system, becoming the fifth starship, assembled by human hands
Gas giants beyond the orbit of Mars are strikingly different from the planets of the Terrestrial group, and deep space makes completely different requirements for astronautics: even higher speeds and nuclear power sources on board the AMS are needed. At a distance of billions of kilometers from the Earth, there is an acute problem of ensuring stable communication (it has now been successfully solved). Fragile devices must withstand the severe cold and deadly streams of cosmic radiation for many years. Ensuring the reliability of such space probes is achieved by unprecedented control measures at all stages of flight preparation.
The lack of suitable space engines imposes severe restrictions on the trajectory of flight to the outer planets - the gain of speed occurs due to "interplanetary billiards" - gravitational maneuvers in the vicinity of celestial bodies. Woe to the scientific team who made an error of 0.01% in the calculations: the automatic interplanetary station will pass 200 thousand kilometers from the calculated rendezvous point with Jupiter and will forever deviate in the other direction, turning into space debris. In addition, the flight should be organized so that the probe, if possible, passes close to the satellites of the giant planets and collects as much information as possible.
The Pioneer 10 probe (launched on March 2, 1972) was a true Pioneer. Despite the fears of some scientists, he safely crossed the Asteroid Belt and first explored the vicinity of Jupiter, proving that the gas giant emits 2.5 times more energy than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter's powerful gravity changed the trajectory of the probe and flung it away with such force that Pioneer 10 left the solar system forever. Communication with the AMS was interrupted in 2003 at a distance of 12 billion km from the Earth. In 2 million years, Pioneer-10 will pass near Aldebaran.
Pioneer 11 (launched on April 6, 1973) turned out to be an even more daring explorer: in December 1974, it passed 40 thousand km from the upper edge of Jupiter's clouds and, having received an accelerating impulse, reached Saturn in 5 years. delivering clear images of the frenziedly spinning giant and its famous rings. The last telemetry data from "Pioneer-11" was obtained in 1995 - the AMS was already far beyond Pluto's orbit, heading towards the constellation Shield.
The success of the "Pioneer" missions made it possible to carry out even more daring expeditions to the outskirts of the solar system - the "parade of planets" in the 80s allowed the forces of one expedition to visit all the outer planets at once, gathered in a narrow sector of the sky. A unique opportunity was seized without delay - in August-September 1977, two automatic interplanetary Voyager stations took off on an eternal flight. The Voyager flight trajectory was plotted so that after a successful visit to Jupiter and Saturn, it was possible to continue the flight according to the expanded program with a visit to Uranus and Neptune.
After exploring Jupiter and its large moons, Voyager 1 set off to meet Saturn. Several years ago, the Pioneer 11 probe discovered a dense atmosphere near Titan, which undoubtedly interested specialists - it was decided to investigate in detail the largest moon of Saturn. Voyager 1 veered off course in a combat turn and approached Titan. Alas, the harsh manner put an end to further planetary exploration - the gravity of Saturn sent Voyager 1 along a different path at a speed of 17 km / s.
Voyager 1 is currently the furthest from Earth and the fastest object ever created by man. In September 2012, Voyager 1 was located at a distance of 18, 225 billion km from the Sun, i.e. 121 times farther than Earth! Despite the enormous distance and 35 years of continuous operation, stable communication is still maintained with the AMC, Voyager 1 was reprogrammed and began to study the interstellar medium. On December 13, 2010, the probe entered a zone in which there is no solar wind (the flow of charged particles from the Sun), and its instruments recorded a sharp increase in cosmic radiation - Voyager 1 reached the boundaries of the solar system. From the unimaginable cosmic distance, Voyager 1 took its last memorable picture, "Family Portrait" - the researchers saw an impressive sight of the solar system from the side. The Earth looks especially fantastic - a pale blue dot with a size of 0.12 pixels, lost in the endless Space.
The energy of radioisotope thermogenerators will last for another 20 years, but every day it becomes more difficult for the light sensor to find the dim Sun against the background of other stars - there is a possibility that the probe will soon be unable to orient the antenna in the direction of the Earth. But before falling asleep forever, Voyager 1 should try to tell more about the properties of the interstellar medium.
The second Voyager, after a short rendezvous with Jupiter and Saturn, wandered around the solar system a little more, visiting Uranus and Neptune. Dozens of years of waiting and only a few hours to get acquainted with the distant icy worlds - what an injustice! Paradoxically, the delay of Voyager 2 to the point of the least distance from Neptune, in comparison with the estimated time, was 1.4 seconds, the deviation from the calculated orbit is only 30 km.
The 23-watt signal from the Voyager 2 transmitter, after a 14-hour delay, reaches Earth at 0.3 billionths of a trillionth of a watt. Such an incredible figure should not be misleading - for example, the energy that all radio telescopes have received over the years of radar existence is not enough to heat a glass of water by one millionth of a degree! The sensitivity of modern astronomical instruments is simply amazing - despite the tiny power of the Voyager 2 transmitter and 14 billion km. space, long-range space communications antennas still receive telemetry data from the probe at a speed of 160 bit / s.
In 40 thousand years, Voyager-2 will be in the vicinity of the star Ross 248 in the constellation Andromeda, in 300 thousand years the probe will fly by Sirius at a distance of 4 light years. In a million years, Voyager's body will be twisted by cosmic particles, but the probe, which has fallen asleep forever, will continue its endless wandering around the Galaxy. According to scientists, it will exist in space for at least 1 billion years and may by that time remain the only monument of human civilization.
