2 February 2010
NASA announces twenty-four hour-long potential launch windows for its new Solar Dynamics Observatory – a spacecraft designed to study the sun’s atmosphere simultaneously over a range of wavelengths in “small scales of space and time”
Monitoring the architecture of science: a studious, imaginative investigation of space-bound and land-based far-traveling and distant-looking orbiting and non-orbiting structures
an ongoing weekly project distributed by e-mail running from February 2009 to February 2010.
Posted in atmosphere, brightness, light, observation, satellite, searching, small scale, solar, sun, wavelength with no comments
26 January 2010
Public weather data analyzed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) – collected from thousands of meteorological stations worldwide, satellite measurements of sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research station data – shows 2009 to be the second warmest year yet recorded
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #51 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in antarctic, earth, global warming, heat, observation, ocean, software, teamwork, temperature, weather with no comments
19 January 2010
Using its new infrared-sensitive Wide Field Camera 3, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope documents a patch of southern sky and records images of the earliest and most distant galaxies ever seen
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #50 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in brightness, distance, galaxy, infrared, light, searching, telescope, time, unseen with no comments
12 January 2010
NASA’s Kepler telescope has located five new Jupiter-sized exoplanets – named Kepler 4B, 5B, 6B, 7B and 8B – which orbit their respective stars once every 3.2, 3.5, 3.2, 4.9 and 3.5 Earth days; also found are two “hot companions,” mysterious objects each circling its own star and measuring temperatures of 26,000ºF
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #49 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in brightness, circle, explosion, heat, jupiter, massive, orbit, satellite, searching, stars, telescope, temperature, unseen with no comments
5 January 2010
NASA’s Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor Satellite (ACRIMSAT) enters its tenth year of monitoring the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth, discovering ties to global warming
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #48 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in earth, global warming, irradiance, ocean, satellite, solar energy, sun, temperature with no comments
29 December 2009
On December 29, 2009, NASA plans to “pop off” the lens cap on its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, currently covering the mechanisms keeping the craft cold – including its coldest detector, now at an internal temperature of less than -447º F
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #47 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in heat, high-resolution, imaging, infrared, invisibilty, map, pixels, radiation, satellite, unseen with no comments
22 December 2009
The Suzaku orbiting x-ray observatory has detected the largest mass of heavy elements – chromium and manganese – yet found outside the Milky Way while observing the central region of the Persius cluster
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #46 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in atoms, chromium, energy, heavy elements, manganese, milky way, observation, orbit, persius cluster, ultra-massive, wavelength, x-ray with no comments
15 December 2009
On Tuesday December 8, 2009, the Large Hadron Collider produced the highest energy particle collisions ever achieved inside a laboratory
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #45 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in collision, earth, energy, laboratory, large hadron collider, mimicry, particle accelerator, time with no comments
8 December 2009
As of November 17, 2009, the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite has completed 60 percent of its first of two all-sky surveys
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #44 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in all-sky, continuous, map, rotate, satellite, survey with no comments
1 December 2009
After recording no “targets” in its observation log on November 24 and 25, the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory records nine targets on November 26 and seven targets on November 27 and 28
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #43 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in galaxy, log, observation, stars, targets with no comments
24 November 2009
The Cassini spacecraft, orbiting within the Saturn system since 2004, took images in July 2009 revealing significant periodical brightness variation in the planet’s rings; these variations, potentially caused by a collision with comet or asteroid in the 1980s, are characterized by “rippled” or “corrugated” areas that extend for up to 11,000 miles
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #42 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in asteroid, brightness, comet, illumination-geometry, imaging, light, rings, satellite, saturn, searching, seasons, sun with no comments
17 November 2009
On November 13, 2009, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft made its third and final swing-by of Earth, using Earth’s gravity to propel it towards its future destinations: a “close encounter” with asteroid 21 Lutetia in July 2010 and its approach to – and landing on – the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet in mid-2014
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #41 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in asteroid, comet, comet-landing, gravity, orbit, satellite, swing-by with no comments
10 November 2009
NASA’s Mars Reconaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HIGHRISE) has captured images of the Phoenix lander on Mars’ northern plains, where it has endured a year of wintry conditions and is currently covered in carbon dioxide frost
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #40 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in co2, frost, high-resolution, imaging, mars, mars-landings, orbit, seasons, winter with no comments
3 November 2009
Having completed its 43-day stay after successfully docking to deliver 5475 pounds of food, computers, science experiments and related items, Japan’s H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) left the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, October 30; the bus-sized craft, now carrying 1600 pounds of trash from the ISS, is due to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #39 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in atmosphere, ionosphere, japan, ocean, re-entry, space-station, thermosphere, trash with no comments
27 October 2009
In the past week, NASA has begun the process of relocating TDRS-1 – a newly retired 25+ year-old tracking and communications satellite – from its geosynchronous orbit to an orbit 300km (136mi) higher, one referred to as “supersynchronous orbit” and “graveyard orbit”
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #38 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, graveyard-orbit, ocean, orbit, retired, satellite, south-pole with no comments
20 October 2009
NASA’s interstellar boundary explorer (IBEX) has recently completed the first all-sky map of the heliosphere – a huge “bubble” of magnetism surrounding the solar system – which reveals a previously unknown bright “ribbon”, glowing not from light but from its source particles
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #37 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in heliosphere, imaging, magnetism, map, satellite, solar-wind, sun with no comments
13 October 2009
On October 12, 2009, NASA launches Operation Ice Bridge, a 158-foot long DC-8 airplane laboratory containing instruments to map changes in sea ice and ice sheets during up to 17 flights over Western Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and Coastal areas; its data will also provide insight into the shape of the terrain below the ice, something not easily observable by satellites in orbit
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #36 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in airplane, antarctic, distance, earth, glaciers, ice, imaging, teamwork, water with no comments
6 October 2009
NASA is developing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) – a new instrument to be launched and attached to the International Space Station in 2010 – to probe the universe for antimatter galaxies, test theories of dark matter, and search for strangelets: a theoretical, ultra-massive form of matter
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #35 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in antimatter-galaxy, dark-matter, space-station, spectrography, strangelets, theory, ultra-massive with no comments
29 September 2009
Observations made by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft showing the presence of water molecules in the polar regions of the moon have been confirmed by two other spacecraft, NASA’s Cassini and Epoxi; while the amounts of water were larger than predicted, levels are still extremely small
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #34 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in imaging, moon, observation, satellite, spectrography, teamwork, water with no comments
22 September 2009
Collaborative data collection by the Centre Nationale D’Etudes Spatiales’ (CNES) COROT satellite and the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph at the La Silva Observatory in Chile suggests the size and speed of Corot 7B, the fastest-orbiting known exoplanet
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #33 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in circle, communication, distance, exoplanet, orbit, satellite, searching, spectrography, stars, teamwork, telescope with no comments
15 September 2009
In an attempt to understand magnetic reconnection – crossing and colliding lines of magnetic force producing massive explosions of kinetic energy – NASA will develop the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS): four puck-shaped observatories to be launched into the magnetosphere in 2014
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #32 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in energy, explosion, magnet, magnetic-reconnection, magnetosphere, observation, power, teamwork with no comments
8 September 2009
Data collected using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) located in Hanford, Washington, USA and Livingston, Louisiana, USA and the Virgo Collaboration based in Cascina, Italy, suggests far fewer gravitational waves were produced by the Big Bang than once assumed
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #31 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, big-bang, communication, earth, gravitational-waves, interferometer, mirrors, observation, teamwork with no comments
1 September 2009
The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) – three jointly-operated telescopes in Arizona, USA and Coonabarabran, Australia – will soon become the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS), a reorganization indicative of a shift in astronomy towards the search for objects that change on short timescales: for example, a star which dims by 7500% in just 10 minutes and fully recovers only 10 minutes later
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #30 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, brightness, chile, communication, earth, high-resolution, imaging, light, observation, searching, stars, teamwork, telescope with no comments
25 August 2009
On January 2, 2004, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft passed through the WILD-2 (pronounced VILT-2) comet and gathered samples of its dense gases and dust in a collection grid filled with Aerogel B and sent back to Earth in 2006 on a special capsule; in August 2009, scientists report finding glycine, an amino acid, among the samples brought home
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #29 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in aerogel, amino acid, comet, dust, earth, isotope, life, teamwork with no comments
18 August 2009
NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is pulling a Centaur rocket set to collide with the moon to try and locate hints of lunar ice; this rocket, however, is lined with icicles collected from humid pre-launch air and frozen during launch, icicles which need to be melted before impact so as to not “pollute” findings with traces of Earth water
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #28 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in distance, foam, icicles, impact, lunar-landings, moon, navigation, physics, rocket, teamwork with no comments
11 August 2009
Mid-month data recording the mean orbital height of the International Space Station (ISS) shows the station to be considerably lower in altitude in July than after a January “re-boost”, a standard decline in altitude caused by fluctuating amounts of atmospheric drag
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #27 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, atmosphere, distance, drag, earth, orbit, space-station with no comments
4 August 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 marked the end of repairs on and successful pressure testing of the Large Hadron Collider’s (LHC) sector 3-4; repairs in other sectors of the machine, however, will prevent overall restart and beam injection from happening until mid-November
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #26 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, circle, coolant, earth, energy, hardware, impact, large hadron collider, magnet, massive, orbit, particle accelerator, physics, power, repairs, teamwork, technical-errors, vacuum with no comments
28 July 2009
On Sunday, July 26, 2009, the Canberra (Australia) Deep Space Communication Complex – one of NASA’s three worldwide Deep Space Network (DSN) stations collectively providing continuous spacecraft monitoring – communicated with at least ten spacecraft using its four highly sensitive radio antennas
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #25 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, communication, deep-space-network, distance, earth, observation, orbit, radio-telescope, searching, teamwork with no comments
21 July 2009
With new software loaded onto a computer aboard the International Space Station, “Interplanetary Internet” becomes a reality – revolutionizing communication between Earth and instruments flying in space
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #24 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, delay-tolerant-networking, distance, earth, internet, satellite, searching, software, space-station, teamwork, telescope with no comments
14 July 2009
Observations made with the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory suggest evidence of a new type of black hold residing on the outskirts of galaxy ESO 243-49 and weighing over 500 times the mass of the sun
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #23 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in black hole, distance, galaxy, high-resolution, imaging, massive, observation, power, searching, telescope, x-ray with no comments
7 July 2009
A GPS satellite, launched in March 2009, remains out of service due to technical problems: signal distortions that render navigation measurements slightly inaccurate and thus unreliable
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #22 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in civilian, earth, gps, hardware, military, navigation, orbit, satellite, surveillance, teamwork, technical-errors with no comments
30 June 2009
On June 29, 2009 at 11:45 GMT, one of NOAA’s eastern Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) documents the water vapor winds over the southern hemisphere – an ongoing image-taking process repeatedly performed every six hours
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #21 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, database, earth, high-resolution, imaging, observation, orbit, satellite, weather with no comments
23 June 2009
The European Organisation for Astronomical Research (ESO) readies a new 2.5 ton instrument for its Very Large Telescope in northern Chile: the “X-Shooter”, a highly efficient spectrograph capable of recording a celestial object’s entire light spectrum in one single observation
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #20 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in architecture, brightness, chile, distance, high-resolution, light, observation, spectrography, spectrum, telescope, wavelength with no comments
16 June 2009
On June 17 2009, NASA plans to launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a satellite programmed to maintain a polar orbit of the moon that will enable it to fly over dozens of past lunar landing sites – U.S. and Soviet, robotic and human – to investigate the effects of lunar time on the hardware left behind
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #19 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in apollo, hardware, high-resolution, imaging, lunar-landings, moon, observation, orbit, satellite, teamwork with no comments
9 June 2009
As of 3:11pm PST on May 15 2009, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has run out of coolant – the liquid helium keeping its instruments cool – and entered its next phase of exploration: the so-called ‘warm mission
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #18 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in coolant, distance, galaxy, helium, high-resolution, imaging, observation, satellite, searching, telescope with no comments
2 June 2009
Using its Moderate Resolution Spectrometer (MODIS), NASA’s AQUA satellite detects fluorescent red light emitted from Earth’s ocean photoplankton providing valuable data on the health of the oceans and the plant life within
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #17 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in earth, flourescent, light, observation, ocean, orbit, photoplankton, photosynthesis, satellite with no comments
26 May 2009
Cassini, NASA’s spacecraft orbiting and studying the Saturn System, makes a flyby of Titan – Saturn’s largest moon – on May 21 2009 to investigate Titan’s southern hemisphere dune field, referred to as ‘Shangri-La
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #16 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, database, high-resolution, imaging, moon, observation, orbit, satellite, saturn, searching, telescope with no comments
19 May 2009
On May 16, 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope’s 800lb COSTAR corrective optics package – installed in orbit in 1993 to compensate for the spherical aberration in the telescope’s primary mirror – was removed and replaced with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), an instrument designed to study interstellar medium, the space between stars, and the space between galaxies
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #15 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in brightness, communication, imaging, light, observation, orbit, satellite, searching, spectrography, stars, telescope with no comments
12 May 2009
NASA’s SWIFT satellite – a multi-wavelength space-based observatory making observations about gamma-ray burst (GRB) science – records the x-ray afterglow of an event called GRB090423, the most distant cosmic explosion ever seen
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #14 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in brightness, communication, definitions, distance, explosion, gamma-ray, observation, power, satellite, searching, stars, teamwork, telescope with no comments
5 May 2009
TACSAT3, an experimental tactical satellite designed by the US Military towards integrating low-cost space technology onto “tactical battlefields”, is set to launch around 8PM on Tuesday, May 5, from Pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #13 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, earth, high-resolution, imaging, military, satellite, surveillance with no comments
28 April 2009
Drifting more than 4,461,000km from Earth and communicating with a round-trip light time of 29.7 seconds, the Kepler Space Telescope is turned on: it receives a 100 degree field of view containing 14 million stars, 100,000 of which are considered “ideal candidates” for Earth-sized planet-searching
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #12 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in brightness, communication, distance, earth, galaxy, high-resolution, imaging, observation, pixels, searching, stars, surveillance, telescope with no comments
21 April 2009
Through a series of images taken over a seven year time period, the Hubble Space Telescope tracks changes in the brightness of a beam of hot gas – called HST-1 – emerging from a black hole in elliptical galaxy M87
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #11 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in black hole, brightness, distance, galaxy, gas, imaging, observation, physics, power, telescope with no comments
14 April 2009
Locating the production sites of the industrial team responsible for designing and building the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory, the largest ever infrared space observatory at the time of its launch, May 6 2009, part 2 of 2
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #10 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, distance, earth, energy, imaging, observation, orbit, physics, power, satellite, stars, sun, teamwork, telescope, twins with no comments
7 April 2009
Locating the production sites of the industrial team responsible for designing and building the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory, the largest ever infrared space observatory at the time of its launch later in 2009, part 1 of 2
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #9 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, distance, earth, observation, orbit, physics, power, satellite, stars, sun, teamwork, twins with no comments
31 March 2009
The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) – a pair of nearly identical space-based observatories, one ahead of the earth in its orbit, the other behind – continues beyond its two year mission to observe and document the sun and its coronal mass ejections (CMEs), powerful eruptions spewing up to 10 million tons of the sun’s atmosphere into interplanetary space at speeds up to 1 million miles per hour
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #8 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, definitions, distance, earth, imaging, orbit, power, satellite, stars, sun, teamwork, twins with no comments
24 March 2009
By analyzing data from optical satellite instruments such as ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) – an imaging device flying on the Terra satellite launched in 1999 – GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) monitors over 52,000 of Earth’s glaciers
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #7 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, database, distance, earth, glaciers, imaging, observation, orbit, satellite, teamwork with no comments
17 March 2009
Leyte Geothermal Prodction Field, Philippines, made up of the 112.5 megawatt (MW) Tongonan Production Field, the 132.0MW Upper Mahiao Power Plant, the 232.0MW Malitbog Power Plant, the 180.0MW Mahanagdong “A” and “B” power plants, and 51.0MW optimization plants – the largest wet steam producing field in the world – generates electricity from geothermal sources to send to Cebu and Luzon, Philippines, via submarine cables
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #6 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in definitions, earth, electricity, energy, magma, philippines, power with no comments
10 March 2009
Profiling the Delta II “expendable space launch vehicle” in recognition of its 139th successful launch – carrying the Kepler planet-searching telescope into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 17 pad 17-B on March 6, 2009, around 10:49pm
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #5 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in definitions, distance, observation, orbit, physics, power, rocket, teamwork, telescope, transport with no comments
3 March 2009
Diagramming Earth’s orbits: An investigation prompted by NASA’s NOAA-N Prime weather satellite reaching its polar orbit (2/6/09); the proliferation of orbital debris as two satellites collide in Low Earth Orbit (2/18/09); NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory’s failure to make orbit (2/24/09); and two launches – by Norway and Canada respectively – of new communications satellites into geostationary orbit (Thor 5, 2/11/09 and Telstar 11N, 2/26/09)
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #4 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, definitions, distance, orbit, physics, satellite, surveillance with 1 comment
24 February 2009
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, CA will use 192 focused and energy-amplified laser beams to create a mini-star for a fraction of a second, in hopes to generate useable energy
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #3 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in earth, energy, laser, nuclear, physics, power, stars with 1 comment
17 February 2009
Seventeen radio telescopes jointly and simultaneously observe three quasars using the technical process of electronic real-time very long baseline interferometry (e-VLBI) for 33 hours on January 15-16 2009
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #2 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in communication, distance, e-VLBI, observation, quasar, teamwork, telescope with 1 comment
10 February 2009
Celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope’s 102,716.58th orbit around the Earth, February 10 2009, 7:42AM
Click here to download Monitoring the architecture of science #1 as a high-res PDF.
Posted in distance, energy, observation, orbit, physics, satellite, telescope with no comments
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