This exceptional man has not just let this historic moment fly by (pardon the pun) but he has taken this amazing opportunity and experience and made it even more memorable by documenting in detail his orbital routine with massive amounts of images and videos to constantly feed down to the world. Using the simple means of Facebook and Twitter (in which he has a total social network following of roughly 1 million people!) he has opened up the stars to us humble folk who could only dream of being where he is today. He has given so many people the courage to hope they too could be there themselves one day! But for those of us who will only dream of such a thing (maybe due to a crippling fear of heights and flying that holds us back!) He has really made us feel that we are there with him and has given us a detailed glimpse into everyday life on the space station and a detailed running picture book of the stunning view only space can give us of our wondrous blue planet. My daunting challenge has been to sift through the mesmerising stack of images that Hadfield has taken in his short few months in space and pick his greatest hits, so to speak! This has been a near impossible task and every person will have their own favourites but let me tread the waters and give you my top 10 pictures and my top five videos produced by Commander Chris Hadfield since 19 December 2012.

Top 10 Images

“A snail (sic) island on the waters around Indonesia, with transparent insides.” 15/4/13

Obviously this is my own personal favourite of Chris Hadfield’s top images and there is something truly lovely and very funny about this image. I wonder if the people on the island are as relaxed as the island’s image may suggest!

Number 9

“Malta and Gozo, glowing in the Mediterranean under a halo of cloud on their hills” 16/2/13

This is an absolutely stunning image of Malta and its mystical island of Gozo, said to be the home of the Greek nymph Calypso, which translates as “to hide” or “conceal” . Quite apt as in this image as the beautiful island is only peeking from behind the clouds and darkness and could easily be mistaken for an unusual golden object in space!

Number 8

“Cloud Vortex Spinning its wheels on the Chilean coast” 14/4/13

Whilst in space not only is Hadfield giving us a glimpse of the beauty of our landscapes but he is giving us an insight into the workings of the planet, revealing the complexities of our planet’s climate with images such as this phenomenal vortex cloud.

Number 7

“Ancient Saharan stone, burnished by eternal sand and wind” 28/4/13

The Sahara seems to be a favourite landscape for Hadfield as he has stated before about how beautiful and unusual the land is and perfect to capture from space. There are many images captured of the Saharan desert that reveal the strange interaction between sand and wind that create such hypnotic images.

Number 6

“Tonight’s Finale: I have no idea what this Brazilian outcrop looks like on the ground, but from orbit, it’s a brain.” 12/4/13

This amazing image most likely resembles nothing like a brain on the ground but this image is another example of how our planet’s random layout can reveal such strange yet beautiful creations.

Number 5

“A clear Dublin night in early spring.” 9/4/13

We may be a tiny country but we have not been forgotten from space with Hadfield taking many pictures of us from the remotest corners of the Emerald Isle to this magical image of the busy nightlife of Ireland’s capital, Dublin. Maybe his partiality to this small country is due to the fact that his daughter is studying in Trinity College in Dublin. Click this Link to watch an interview the proud daughter gave about her inspirational father.

Number 4

“Tonight’s finale: Australia. Jackson Pollock would have been even further inspired by seeing the Outback from orbit.” 24/1/13

No, this is not a secret Jackson Pollock abstract piece of artwork that’s been hiding away in some vault for many years but instead is the stunning, crazy landscape of Australia! When asked by a Reddit user “Which part of the world looks the coolest from space?” he replied that it was Australia with it’s ‘colours and textures’ being ‘severely artistic,’ and I don’t think many people could disagree with that statement when looking at this beautiful, natural “painting” coming in at number 4!

Number 3

“The incredibly green lush wetness of the Amazon basin.” 6/2/13

This really is an incredible image of the Amazon worthy of 3^rd place in my books. With a warm sunset reflecting off the Amazonian river giving the impression of liquid gold winding its way through the forest, it really gives a rich and majestic feel to one of the world’s most stunning features.

Number 2

“Seven billion hearts, but I can see only one. #ValentineFromSpace” 14/2/13

To make this beautiful image my second favourite I am obviously a romantic at heart and Hadfield must too, as he posted this snap of the island of Corfu. This was originally taken on 7 January 2013 but he reused it on Valentine’s for the obvious reason of the islands resemblance to a heart and this became heavily tweeted across the world.

Number 1

“The beautiful and violent ugliness inside a naked volcano. Chad, Africa.” 25/4/13

The top image for me has changed every day that I have been writing this article, even up to the last hour it has been changed about. I have finally rested on this more recent image of a rare glimpse inside a volcano. This image gives us one of those views of something not often seen without smoke billowing forth from it. A very formidable image yet you cannot look away, a definite favourite of mine and hopefully yours.

There are so many more images taken by Chris Hadfield that a top 50 could easily be made, but that would take a very long time to go through. He has taken amazing pictures of many countries including lots more of Ireland. To see lots more click on the following link.

Top 5 Videos

Chris Hadfield did not just document images during his time so far on the space station but has also given us a glimpse of what it is really like in the space station for an astronaut, the fun, the gross and the downright weird. So here are the top 5 Videos from Commander Chris Hadfield.

Number 5 – Chris Hadfield’s snapshots from space

Not content with providing us with all those amazing images from space, Hadfield gave us a detailed account of what he uses to take those amazing and detailed images.

Number 4 – Sleeping in Space

Hadfield not only provides us with the complicated aspects of living in Space but the mundane that many may well wonder about, including sleeping in space, and yes even astronauts wear pyjamas!

Number 3 – Nail Clipping in Space

No topic is too gross for Commander Hadfield and he can even tackle the topic of nail clipping in Space!

Number 2 – Chris Hadfield’s Space Kitchen

Eating in Space is quite different from here on Earth and here Hadfield gives us a glimpse at making and eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich!

Number 1 – Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies: ISS (Is Somebody Singing)

Chris Hadfield has been a man of many firsts and as well as being an astronaut he is also a very keen musician. With this in mind maybe it will explain that before he went up on this expedition he wanted to make it historic for more than one reason. Not only is he the first Canadian commander of the ISS but he also recorded the first song from space with the lead singer of the band the Barenaked Ladies, Ed Robertson. And maybe it might be my love of country music showing, but I can’t quite get the tune out of my head. Maybe that is why Hadfield’s patch looks similarly like a guitar pick!

If you are interested in learning more about this amazing astronaut who has really taken to social media as a method of showing us the life of an astronaut and the beauty of our world then you can follow him on twitter – @Cmdr_Hadfield or on Facebook – Col.Chris Hadfield.

(Article by Kerry Scullion, Education Support Officer)

The twin stars of Zeta Reticuli can be seen at the far right. (image credit: Google Sky)

Reticulum (literally “the net” but used in the sense of an archaic form of eyepiece reticule) is a constellation of the southern hemisphere’s sky (we cannot see it from Northern Ireland). Diamond-shaped, the constellation lacks bright stars and is apparently an unimpressive sight. Only just visible to the unaided eye, Zeta Reticuli was first referred to as such in 1756. Can I just repeat that Zeta Reticuli has been seen in the sky without a telescope for centuries. Anyone who tells you it was not discovered until after the Hill’s story became famous is utterly wrong.

Through a telescope Zeta Reticuli can be clearly seen to be two stars (you can do this without a telescope if the sky is dark enough). The two stars are both very similar in mass, diameter, temperature and brightness to our own Sun (Zeta 1, a G3 class star, is slightly smaller, cooler and more orange than the Sun, while Zeta 2 is G2 class, almost identical to the Sun). They orbit a common centre of mass approximately midway between them and are separated by at least 3750 AU (about 0.06 light years). By the standards set by objects in our own Solar System, this is a huge distance; about a hundred times as far as Pluto is on average from the Sun. A beam of light from one of the stars would take three weeks to reach its companion.

This is great enough a separation for each star in the duo to have its own planetary system.  Unlike some other  binary systems where the stars are closer, the skies of any Reticulan planet would not feature two suns. From the planets of one star, the other star would be a brilliantly bright star about 30 times as bright as Venus looks in Earth’s sky and would be visible even in the daytime sky. Each star could have its own habitable zone (or Goldilocks zone, a region where there is enough warmth from a star to allow water to persist as a liquid on the surface of a planet). Another myth about the Zeta Reticuli system I have encountered states that emissions from the two stars contribute to a dangerous level of background radiation in their vicinity. The two stars are too far apart for this and this idea seems to have been dreamed up by the perpetrators of the staggeringly inept Project SERPO hoax.

What are the prospects for life in this star system? Older sources claim these stars to be relatively old (6-8 billion years old is often quoted) but more recent evidence acquired by analysing the stars’ light with spectroscopes suggests these are young stars, possibly only two billion years old (compared to our own Sun’s 4.5 billion year age). Their youth may count against the possibly of higher forms of life existing on Zeta Reticulan worlds. After all there has been life on Earth for most of the planet’s existence, for most of this time terrestrial life has been single-celled micro-organisms, whereas multicellular life, plants and animals and so on, appeared only in the last 600 million years. If the story of life on Earth is typical (and who knows for sure), I would not bet on there being any little grey men, or indeed ladies, on any Zeta Reticulan planets. I should note that there is some controversy over these stars’ ages, see the comments section if you want to know more.

No planets have yet been discovered around either star. There has been a false alarm though. In 1996 astronomers at the European Southern Observatory announced that they had observed evidence of a giant planet around Zeta2. The planet appeared to be tugging on the star causing it to make slight rhythmic movements, suggesting the planet had a mass about a quarter that of Jupiter and was moving in a close orbit (0.14 AU) with a period of 18.9 days. Within days, however, this discovery announcement was retracted as it was recognised that the wobbles in the star’s motion could also be just the star’s slight but regular pulsations. Of course UFO true believers still tell the story of “the scientists who discovered a planet at Zeta Reticulum but the government made them withdraw it”. To the best of my knowledge, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has never looked at this system. Why? Well, its not a conspiracy, rather there is no point as the HST could not resolve any planets at this distance, this is something it was not designed to do.

In 2010, another team of astronomers announced that far-infrared wavelength observations with ESA’s Herschel space telescope showed a ring of cold dust and ice about 100 AU across around Zeta 2 Reticuli. Almost certainly there are comet nuclei and dwarf planets, analogues of our Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea, in this ring. This debris disc is not symmetrical, a possible indication that the material is being gravitationally effected by an unseen planetary companion. To be honest, based on the distribution of exoplanets in the Milky Way it would be very surprising if in fact there were no planets in the Zeta Reticulum system. However as our methods for finding exoplanets are still pretty limited it may be a long time before we know for sure.

The Commercial Towing Vehicle Nostromo and its 1.5 mile long refinery complex appear tiny as they pass in front of LV-426. Also visible are two of LV-426′s fellow moons and the giant planet which is their primary. One of the stars of Zeta Reticuli is rising over the limb of the giant planet. (Image credit: screenshot from Alien)

Until we actually discover any Zeta Reticulan planets the best we can do is watch out for them in science fiction. “Reticulans” were name-checked in the X-Files and appeared on screen as “Chigs” in Space: Above and Beyond. By far and away the best-known fictional world in the vicinity of the Zeta 2 Reticuli system is LV-426 (also called Acheron) from the Alien movies and related works. On this world humans first encountered the awful acid-blooded, drooling horrors sometimes called Xenomorphs (yes, I am deliberately ignoring the Aliens vs Predator movies and I advise you to do the same). LV-426, which went unnamed in the first film, is a tiny rocky world, apparently one of several satellites of a gas giant planet. Originally, its tortured landscape was overlaid by a cold but violently stormy atmosphere of nitrogen with methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia but by its second appearance in Aliens it had been terraformed to give it an atmosphere and climate compatible with human life. The moon was apparently devoid of native life; the Xenomorphs were brought there in a starship belonging to some other enigmatic alien civilisation (I also prefer to pretend Prometheus never happened).  LV-426 is completely fictitious and not based on any speculation by scientists, nor is the “LV-” numbering scheme for planets a real piece of scientific methodology. Dan O’Bannon (1946-2009), who wrote the original story for Alien probably used the name Zeta Reticulum after seeing it in an article about the Hill UFO account.

Zeta Reticuli is an interesting nearby binary star system, but the evidence suggests it is not the home of extraterrestrial visitors to our world.

(Article by Colin Johnston, Science Communicator. This article was inspired by a conversation I had with a caller to the Planetarium last week, I hope he is reading this.)

We’ll start by looking southwards. So once again look about 90 degrees to the right of where the Sun rises in the morning and you’ll be facing in the correct direction. Almost straight ahead of you and fairly low in the sky will be the constellation, Virgo. She represents the goddess of corn and agriculture and so is often depicted holding an ear of wheat in her hand. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation and one of the brightest in the sky at this time of year is Latin for “ear”, and during this month, it marks the point in the pattern closest to the horizon.  Effectively an irregular-shaped torso sprouting four wavering limbs, when completed by your imagination this ‘dot-to-dot’ picture will reveal the maiden lying on her side, head on the right, feet on the left. Another interesting little fact is that out of all the constellations of the Zodiac, Virgo is the one containing the most exoplanets. These are planets that have been discovered outside our solar system and to date, over 26 have been spotted in Virgo’s patch of sky.

Hydra the water snake as seen as at 10pm 15th May from Ireland: slithering just above the horizon this fearsome reptile left its swamp to eat the cattle and terrorise the countryside near the town of Lerna. It was said that any villagers who got in its way died a painful death if they inhaled any traces of its poisonous breath. CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT.
(Image Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

Slightly above and to the right of Virgo is a constellation we located in the April night sky, Leo the lion. We’re now going to use both the stars Regulus in Leo, and Spica, in Virgo to help find our next pattern. Although this pattern is in fact largest of all 88 constellations, it’s by no means the easiest to find, rather, quite the reverse. This is thanks to its composition of dimmer stars. The constellation is called Hydra, the water snake. It is positioned just above the horizon and although this latitude on the celestial sphere generally makes the act of recognition more of a challenge than during a month when the creature has reared its head higher into the heavens, for those of us living in Ireland, May is the only month when the majority of Hydra’s stars appear above the skyline, in turn affording us a better chance of seeing the whole pattern. Hydra’s obscurity has been acknowledged for centuries however, as the single brighter star in the constellation, Alphard, actually means the “solitary one”.

A 1551 artist’s illustration of the mythical water snake, Hydra with its brightest star Alphard, clearly identified. According to Mercator tradition, the mirror image of the star pattern is drawn, reflecting the constellation as seen from ‘outside’ the celestial sphere.
Credit: Gerard Mercator via Wikimedia Commons

To find Hydra start with the star Regulus. Look about half-way down between it and the horizon, a touch to the right, and the brightest star in this whole area of sky will unmistakably belong to Hydra. You have found Alphard. This 2.0 magnitude ‘orange giant’ star, 50 times the diameter of our Sun marks roughly the bottom of the monster’s throat. An upward right hand arc of dimmer stars will lead you to the small head of the snake, recognisable by its more tightly grouped five-star outline. Four other stars immediately east of Alphard and running parallel with the horizon represent the creature’s wriggling upper belly in a flattish ‘W’ formation. From this point the remainder of the water snake becomes more difficult to define, with its two lowest stars resting almost right on top of the celestial equator where they will most likely be hidden from view behind buildings or trees, depending upon your stargazing location. More positively however your chances of discerning the full size of Hydra are quite good, as a final flick of its tail brings its body back up to approximately 17 degrees above the horizon. The final star, Gamma Hydrae, sometimes also known as Dhanab Al Shuja or “snake’s tail”, can easily be found halfway down between Virgo’s Spica and the skyline.

Bootes above and to the left of Virgo: Since its christening this character has been associated with the countryside, whether as herdsman, hunter, or ploughman, hence the spear in one hand and the sickle in the other. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT.
(Image credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

Our final constellation in the south is the star pattern of Bootes. According to legend, in his former life Bootes was an Athenian named Icarius (not to be confused with Icarus, the ancient aeronaut). On learning the secret of wine-making he kindly allowed some peasants to sample his produce. However as with many Greek myths there is a sharp twist in the tale. On becoming drunk the peasants got the notion into their heads that they had been poisoned, and so took revenge by killing Icarius. Zeus then placed him in the heavens, giving him his new name, Bootes. You will find him looking down at you from high in the sky, above the constellation of Virgo. You can trace imaginary lines with your finger down from the shoulders of his ‘kite-shaped’ body to a single bright star on his left thigh. Arcturus, a type K1.5 lllpe orange giant star, and more easterly than Spica, is the brightest to be seen in the Southern sky from Ireland at this time of year. Bearing in mind that brighter stars are actually attributed a ‘lower magnitude’, Arcturus has been measured with a luminosity of -0.04 and is estimated to be about 110 times the visual brightness of the Sun.

No pop star or movie star opened the Centennial World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933, rather, as the previous world fair expo had preceded it by about 36 years (also the length of time needed for rays of light to reach Earth from Arcturus), this star did the honours. Crowds were suitably awed when light from this star was detected by photoelectrical cells through observatory telescopes, after which it was converted into an electrical signal, switches were flipped, and the main exhibition lights came on.
(Image credit: Weimer Pursell/US Library of Congress (Prints and Photographs) via Wikipedia)

Being well advanced in years Bootes’ celebrated star has thought to have spent almost all of its main fuel, hydrogen, and is now in the process of converting the accumulated helium into elements such as oxygen and carbon. Astrophysicists believe its destiny will be an explosion of the remaining material followed by the emergence of a tiny white dwarf star marking the centre of the once occupied space. For those of us fascinated by planets and fond of trying a little nocturnal planetary sight-seeing, this month should raise the celestial curtain for you to witness one of the greatest Solar System spectacles of all, the near alignment of no less than three planets! The May finale in the northwest is not to be missed, with the biggest planetary highlights of the night sky, Jupiter and Venus, for once being joined by one of the most elusive players of all, Mercury. The final ten nights of May should allow us to see small, solid, Mercury performing a magnificent do-si-do with the gas giant 311 times its mass, while Venus retains centre stage, rising majestically above the horizon. This remarkable triple conjunction should treat sky watchers to at least 3 main ‘planetary asterisms’, a tight triangle, a scalene triangle, and a straight line. This rare nocturnal gathering of the three disparates won’t be happening again for another 45 years, so it might be worth trying to catch a glimpse!

Planetary juxtaposition at its best: the largest planet and smallest planet in the Solar System to slide past each other on either side of the brightest of them all, Venus. Although the summer sky from the 20th will be much brighter at 10.15pm than it was last month, provided no buildings or trees are obscuring your NW view of the horizon, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter should be bright enough for you to spot an hour after sunset. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)
Credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke

For our naked-eye observers a last quarter Moon will grace our sky on 2 and 31 May, while on the 25^th (24 hours after a full Moon), Earth’s celestial companion will appear at ‘its largest’ since it will be orbiting 50 000km closer to our planet’s surface (its perigee), than when it’s at its apogee, or the farthest point of its elliptical orbital around the Earth. Last but not least, let’s push the ‘light-speed button’ and visit a deep space object or two. The tightly packed collection of stars known as the Messier 13 globular cluster (or M13) can be clearly viewed in the east with a good pair of binoculars in the constellation of Hercules. To find it, let your eyes travel approximately 45 degrees up from the horizon. About two thirds of the way up between the two corner stars marking the right hand side of Hercules’ torso, you should be able to find M13. When we consider that the distance to the nearest star outside our solar system is 4.3 light years away, astronomers’ estimate of up to 100 stars existing inside a 3-light-year-broad zone at the centre of this cluster is quite staggering. After finding M13, swing your lenses up to Alkaid near the zenith, the bright star in the tail of Ursa Major. Just beneath and a few degrees to the right why not see if you can spot M51, the ‘whirlpool galaxy’, famous for its distinctive star-spangled spiral arms.

M13: Observed through binoculars this ‘fuzzy ball’ contains approximately 100 000 stars held together by their own gravity. Where open clusters contain mostly young stars and are more difficult to spot due to their loose structure, denser globular clusters like this one are composed primarily of different kinds of giant stars that are ‘in their old age’ and that have already completed their main sequence.
(Image credit: Copyright: Martin Pugh/NASA)

So as you look above to observe the great sights of the night sky in May, happy hunting and enjoy your interstellar voyage!

(Article by Nick Parke, Education Support Officer)

Prepared before launch, this diagram shows both solar arrays in place. (image credit: NASA)

So what was Skylab?

Skylab was the first and so far last all-American space station to orbit the Earth. It was Earth’s second space station after the Soviet Union’s Salyut 1. Skylab grew out of the Apollo Applications Program (AAP), a 1960s plan to use the hardware developed to send astronauts to the Moon for other purposes. The AAP seemed reasonable and an obvious next step at the time, but budget cuts to NASA, improved technology for unmanned missions and greater knowledge of how difficult space operations are rapidly made it obsolete. Skylab was the only element of the AAP to go ahead.

Skylab in orbit, note the missing solar panel and improvised fabric sunshade (Image credit: NASA)

Why is it worth remembering?

Skylab was the first NASA project designed to explore how space flight could expand and enhance human well-being on Earth (said NASA).  The astronauts who worked on Skylab performed experiments and observations across many fields, including Earth observation, solar astronomy, stellar astronomy, space physics, geophysics, micro-gravity biomedical and biological studies and micro-gravity technology research. A series of projects designed by high school students were carried out on Skylab, to promote science and technology  education.  In many ways it was a precursor to today’s International Space Station.

Skylab at launch. This Saturn 5 was originally built to send Apollo 20 to the Moon (Image credit: NASA)

What was it like?

Skylab was big! About 35 meters (117 feet) long , Skylab (including a docked Apollo CSM) weighed  90.6 tonnes (199 750 lbs). It is still one of the largest crewed spacecraft, outweighed only by Mir and the ISS. Unlike these later space stations, Skylab was launched in one piece rather than assembled from modules placed in orbit over years.  This was because Skylab was converted from the third stage of a Saturn 5 rocket which was completely outfitted with a workshop area and living quarters before launch. The crews visited Skylab and returned to Earth in Apollo CSM spacecraft launched by Saturn 1B rockets.

At one end of Skylab was a docking port for two Apollos  (though only one at a time ever visited) and the Apollo Telescope Mount. This was a complete observatory with its own X-shaped solar array for imaging the Sun in X-ray and ultra violet wavelengths. Skylab astronauts performed spacewalks to change the film in this instrument, transferring the exposed film to a lead safe for storage,

Its large interior volume made Skylab spacious and crew had freedom to move (and play) in this huge volume. A wire mesh grid separated the interior into a workshop and living quarters, making it the first two-storey space habitat.

Skylab as launched showing damage and a jammed solar panel. Power diverted from the ATM’s solar array made up for the missing solar panel.(Image credit: NASA)

Everything went fine then?

No! It was almost a total failure! During the Skylab’s launch, the airflow ripped a meteoroid shield clean off, taking one of two solar panels with it and preventing the other from unfolding. This damage resulted in reduced power for the station and caused its interior to overheat. When the first crew arrived 11 days later, their first task was to repair as much of the damage as possible. After several challenging spacewalks to make substantial repairs, including freeing the jammed solar panel, and fitting a parasol sunshade which cooled the internal temperatures to 23.8 degrees C (75 degrees F), the crew came on board. Very much forgotten today, these repairs were a very impressive achievement as the astronauts and the engineers on the ground saved a hugely expensive project from ignominious failure.

Astronaut Gerald Carr in Skylab. He and the rest of the crew of Skylab 4 grew imposing beards in their rocky sojourn in orbit. (Image credit: NASA)

Who were the Skylab crews?

Three, three-man crews (these were still the days when the NASA astronaut corps was an all-boys’ club) occupied the Skylab workshop for a total of 171 days and 13 hours. Skylab missions included both rookies and veteran astronauts, including some who had walked on the Moon.  The crews did nearly 300 scientific and technical experiments, including medical experiments on humans’ adaptability to zero gravity, solar experiments and detailed Earth resources experiments. The final crew set an endurance record of 84 days living in orbit. Confusingly the three missions were designated Skylab 2, 3 and 4 (Skylab 1 was the original launch).

What was life on Skylab like?

For those of us used to earthly comforts life on Skylab would have seemed Spartan but to the experienced astronauts who stayed there it was luxurious compared to earlier vehicles like Gemini and Apollo. There was space to move around, in fact space to lose things in, exercise gear and sort of real food to eat, the space station even had a shower and toilet. Rather than wearing white overalls, crews sported ensembles of jackets, t-shirts and slacks of mustard-coloured fabric (it was the 1970s after all). There was no washing machine, so dirty clothes were simply discarded. For their leisure times, astronauts brought music on cassettes  (if you don’t know what these were ask your grandparents) and paperback books (permitted only after overcoming opposition from NASA’s safety gurus who feared books would be a fire hazard).

The final Skylab Apollo CSM. These Apollo spacecraft (and the one used on the Apollo Soyuz Test Project) had white-painted Command Modules, unlike the foil-covered ones used on lunar flights. (Image credit: NASA)

Was there a downside to living on Skylab?

Putting people in orbit is expensive so the mission planners tried to get as much work out of the crews as feasible, planning long and busy schedules of work. These seemed fine as planned on Earth. In practice, the astronauts discovered micro-gravity made everything slow and difficult. Work on Skylab often fell behind schedule.  The final Skylab crew, all rookie astronauts, kept failing to complete tasks on time. They found mission control unsympathetic, and were told to work through their meal and rest times to catch up.  The crew had been under a cloud from the start of the mission since they decided to conceal the fact that two of them had been violently spacesick. Unfortunately they had not realised Skylab was bugged and an open mike relayed their whispered plotting to Mission Control. Things never recovered from this frosty start, and the crew’s complaints about their workload fell on deaf ears. About six weeks into the 84 day flight, the Skylab 4 crew rebelled, turned off the radio and took an unofficial day off to relax and sightsee. These were all disciplined career military men, so things must have been bad for them to stage this protest. Obviously this orbital strike was career suicide and none of the trio ever flew in space again.

1978: Space Shuttle Columbia boosts Skylab into a higher orbit, saving the giant space station. Alas this never happened. (Image credit: NASA)

What happened to Skylab?

After the last crew went it continued to orbit Earth, but it was not intended to remain derelict, NASA maintained contact with the empty outpost in the hope it would soon be brought back to life.  It was still stocked with air and water. Regular Space Shuttle flights were expected to begin in 1977 and there was a general belief that visiting Shuttle missions could easily refurbish and expand Skylab. Perhaps Skylab would have a second life as the core of a vast and elaborate orbiting base for future exploration. Unfortunately as we all know, the Space Shuttle development project was severely delayed. Worse still, mother nature conspired to doom Skylab. Solar activity caused our atmosphere to expand, so the space station met increasing drag as it circled Earth. Its orbit was clearly decaying and plans were made to redirect one of the Space Shuttle test flights to rendezvous with Skylab to fit a rocket motor to boost it into a higher orbit. Unfortunately Skylab was predicted to fall back to Earth before 1980 and it was clear that the Shuttle would not be ready in time.  Its impending fate prompted rather more interest than its successful career as a research centre, but not the panic we would probably see today. The empty Skylab spacecraft fell to Earth on 11 July 1979, scattering debris over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia. Today recovered fragments of Skylab are in museums. A complete back up Skylab is on public display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

(Article by Colin Johnston, Science Communicator)

The Dragons of Azrael is the brainchild of Martin Ryan from D-Signs and Displays Ltd.  Based in Coalisland, the company are unique, creative and forward thinking.  They design and manufacture a wide range of visual displays for the sign, display, exhibition, theatre and film industries.

Amazing visual effects
(Image credit: Sinead McNicholl)

On the Friday before we opened the first ever performance of this new concept the lorries and vans began to unload the seemingly never ending contents of materials.  It was hard to imagine what was going to be created as all the staff waited with baited breath to see what would unfold.  What we were treated to on Monday was a stunning set with lifelike trees and undergrowth as our main hall was transformed into the landscape of Planet Azrael.  We had a huge cave and a space-craft adorning the stage area which was stunning.  To complement the set we also had special lights and lasers which were hoisted up onto our roof.  The place looked incredible, now we awaited the audience.

The spacecraft was out of this world! (Image credit: Armagh Planetarium)

We had a range of schools booked in to experience the Dragons of Azrael and they were also treated to a digital theatre show and a tour of the exhibit areas.  Many schools had not visited us before and some had never been to Armagh, so it was satisfying to know that we were helping others experience our facilities.  As well as schools, we also held a late night Tuesday and a full schedule of shows on the Saturday for the public.  The feedback was very positive with “oohs” and “ahhs” a plenty!

Our Narrator Arriel
(Image credit: Sinead McNicholl)

I sat in on all the shows myself, and it is a credit to the cast and crew as I was always looking forward to the next one!  Arriel is the narrator of the show, and the main character.  He is human and invites the children to come with him on the journey to Azrael.  Azrael is a planet where Dragons reside, and is a place where imagination has been lost.  It was prophesied that imagination would return when the chosen one was born!

Little Azazel emerges from the egg
(Image credit: Armagh Planetarium)

When we arrive at the planet we are met with a baby egg which begins to shake, suddenly it hatches and we meet our little star Azazel.  Arriel thinks he could be the chosen one to bring back imagination as he can read the thoughts of the children and is inspired by poetry, art and dance.  Just as we begin to believe we could have the chosen one, we are interrupted by two very mischievous Dragons by the name of Arlon and Anius.  These cheeky twins almost steal the show as they interact with Arriel, Azazel and indeed the audience.  In a longer “Dragons of Azrael” show I think we could be seeing a lot more of these very popular twins!

The cheeky twins!
(Image credit: Sinead McNicholl)

The twins don’t believe that Azazel is the chosen one, but then we hear a rap of thunder, the lights change and there is smoke coming out of the cave.  The room almost feels like it is vibrating as we await to see what is happening.  Arriel tells us not to be afraid, it is the Grand Master Argon who has come back because he wants to meet the chosen one.  Argon is old and wise but he doesn’t take any cheekiness from the twins which send the audience into outbursts of laughter when they interact with one another.  We learn that little Azazel is the chosen one and the world of Azrael will be changed forever as it will now have lots of creativity, lots of art, singing, dancing and poetry!

The Grand Master Dragon
(Image credit: Sinead McNicholl)

We are left with Arriel bringing us back to Planet Earth, happy that Azrael has been changed for the better.  The laser lights indicate our travel across time and space, and then all of a sudden we are back home again!

The amazing set by D-signs and Displays
(Image credit: Sinead McNicholl)

The use of lighting also adds greatly to the production.  The use of lasers is amazing as it gives us a sense of movement and of travelling to the Dragon world.  The smoke adds to the atmosphere and we are captured and taken-in by the storyline.

I can truly say that the “Dragons of Azrael” is a magical heart-warming production that transports you through the Cosmos.  This was only a pilot show at Armagh Planetarium and a taster of things to come!  There are much bigger things in store for this production.  I was honestly quite sad to see the set being taken down but am pleased that the future looks bright for the Dragons and many more children will be enchanted by it.  If I were you I would most definitely be looking out for it at a venue close to you soon.

For more information on the “Dragons of Azrael” please contact Martin Ryan at D-Signs and Displays.  If you visited the Planetarium and seen the show, please leave your comments below!

(Article by Sinead McNicholl, Education Support Officer)

Comet ISON may be the greatest comet of this century as it skims through the atmosphere of the Sun this autumn.  The Hubble Space Telescope has just the best image yet of this emissary from the outer darkness.

This close-up look at Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) is from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This image was captured on 10 April 2013, when the comet was at a distance of 386 million miles (slightly further than Jupiter) from the Sun. This image was taken in visible light. The blue false colour was added to bring out details in the comet’s structure. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team)

When the image was made, the coma, the ‘head’ of the comet, was approximately 5000 km (3100 miles) across, about the same size as the planet Mercury. A dust tail extended about 92 000 km (57 000 miles) further, about a quarter of the distance from Earth to the Moon.

Even at its great distance the comet is already active. Faint rays of sunlight are warming the surface of the solid, icy nucleus causing frozen volatiles to sublimate. A close examination of the dusty coma surrounding the nucleus reveals a strong jet of escaping vapour blasting more dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet’s nucleus. Note that the nucleus is too small to be seen in the image and is completely obscured by the coma anyway.

 So far the comet has been highly active yet preliminary measurements from the Hubble images suggest that the nucleus of ISON is no larger than four miles (6.5 km) across which is remarkably small. Astronomers are using these images to accurately estimate the size of the nucleus to better predict the comet’s activity when it skims within a million kilometres of the Sun’s incandescent surface on 28 November 2013.

(Article by Colin Johnston, Science Communicator)

One common myth about meteorites is that they contain strange unusual minerals, elements that would bring Superman to his knees like Kryptonite. Meteorites do contain some elements which are slightly radioactive but they are no more radioactive than some Earth rocks.

Hoba meteorite in Namibia largest known to have fallen, watch out for the radiation…or not! (Image credit:wikimedia.org)

2. Meteorites are red hot when the land

Meteorites can travel at speeds of up to 70km/sec, and are burning up as they travel through the Earth’s atmosphere. This entry through the atmosphere causes the outside meteorite to become heated, change shape and often leave behind a burnt fusion crust. However, whenever a meteorite finally lands on the ground it is not glowing red hot. This is because of the ablation process which occurs on entry, the hot outside layer dissipates, as the meteorite has been travelling so fast only the outside has become heated. Also the meteorite has been in space for billions of years and its core is pretty cold. As the meteorite becomes nearer to the ground it has often slowed down and cooled enough that when it lands on the ground its often just ambient temperature.

Fireball streaking across the sky; red hot in sky but not on landing. (Image credit: Wikimedia)

1. 3.      Meteorites are uncommon

Bright fireballs zooming across the sky are not something you see all the time, and events like this are spectacular and rare, but this doesn’t mean that space debris isn’t falling to Earth all of the time. The Earth is hit with roughly 40 000 tonnes of space debris, bits leftover from the Solar System formation each year. Often some of the pieces fall into the seas and oceans and those that can hit land can often be pretty small. Not all meteorites are huge. Chances are if you were to run a magnet through the contents in your house guttering you may find some micro-meteorites.

A microscope identifies little meteorites. (image credit: Wikimedia.org)

1. 4.      Meteorites are worth their weight in gold

Meteorites can be valuable however this is not the case with every one. Larger meteorites would be more valuable than smaller pieces. Meteorites which are rarer would be of more value than typical stone meteorites. Pallasites are a rare stony-iron type of meteorite. They are distinguished by their appearance of nickel iron studded with bits of minerals such as olivine. Other meteorites from the Moon and Mars are rare. They’re thought to have landed on the Earth as meteorites due to an impact that dislodged them, these unusual meteorites very special to have in a collection. Media and hype is another way of a piece becoming valuable, I would imagine many are willing to spend some money on owning a piece of the Russian meteorite that landed earlier this year some pieces have reportedly been sold for over £7000. However, if you do perhaps stumble across an unusual piece of rock which turns out to be extra-terrestrial don’t give up the day job to live of the returns just yet!

1. 5.      Venus Fly Traps were brought to Earth by meteorites

The Venus fly trap is a carnivorous species of planet, sharing its name with a celestial body. This plant is one of a few that traps its pray and slowly dissolves it to feed. It also hibernates in winter, requires soil with little nutrients to grow and only grows naturally within a 75 mile radius of a town in North Carolina.  It all sound rather extra-terrestrial! Makes sense then perhaps that this little myth was doing the rounds for a while that Venus Fly Traps have been suggested to have grown as a result of meteorites falling to Earth. A weird and wonderful plant but it is not from Space. Other carnivorous ancestors to the Venus Fly trap can be found around the world and there are no impact craters in Carolina.

Men are from Mars, Flytraps are from…Venus? (Image credit: Wikimedia.org)

1. 6.      Meteorites are bits of asteroids

Meteorites are pieces of stone and metal that fall and land on the Earth. Most meteorites come from broken pieces in the asteroid belt or bits that were left over in the formation of the Solar System. However meteorites can also land on the Earth from the Moon or Mars. Lunar meteorites share the same composition with rocks brought back from the Apollo missions. Martian meteorites have some pockets of gas trapped inside glass which is the same composition as the Martian atmosphere.

Meteorite on Mars (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell)

7.      18^th Century museums threw away their collections of meteorites

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, intellectuals began challenging faith and traditional view points in favour of a more scientific approach. During this time it is thought that many meteorites were thrown out as it was believed to be ludicrous that rocks could fall from the sky. It would have been an embarrassment to keep hold of these specimens. However, when exploring this, there is little evidence to suggest a mass removal but instead it seems a handful of European museums got rid of a few meteorites in total, not quite entire collections!

8. Russia is intending to build a meteorite shield

A modern myth but after the impact in Russia in February, It has been reported that Roscosmos, the Russian Space agency have decided to build a shield to protect them from any future danger.  The project which is fittingly called Citadel but it is not strictly a shield extending across the country. It is more of an action plan such as training for people, early warning systems and greater observations on other near earth objects. Not quite the same as President Reagan’s Cold War Star Wars initiative in the 1980s.

Reagan’s Strategic Defense Intitiative to protect America from Ballistic missiles, could Russia be planning the same for Near Earth Objects? (Image credit: Wikimedia.org)

9. Meteorites have brought alien life to Earth

A popular idea perhaps more likely to be expected in the realms of Science fiction has appeared in a paper published at the beginning of this year. In this paper, the authors claimed to have analysed a meteorite that landed in Sri Lanka in December 2012 and discovered that is contained fossilized diatoms (one-celled phytoplankton.)  Therefore they suggest this proves that life was brought to Earth via space debris. However, when analysed further despite contamination being ruled out by the authors, the meteorite was found on the ground and the diatoms have been identified in great shape and the fresh water kind not fossilized at all. Not therefore concrete evidence of Panspermia.

Fossilized bacteria from Mars? (Image credit: http://journalofcosmology.com/JOC21/PolonnaruwaRRRR.pdf)

10. Meteorites always create a huge crater

The Barringer Meteor Crater  (Image credit: Wikimedia.org)

Craters like the Barringer Meteor crater in near Flagstaff, Arizona is the result of a meteorite impact with Earth. The crater is 1.2km wide and is thought to have been formed 50 000 years ago. Fragments of iron meteorites have been recovered, but they are small in comparison to the size of crater as most of the meteorite would have burnt up on entry.  On the other hand many other meteorites fall to the ground and leave a hole no bigger than the meteorite itself, like the Bovedy meteorite which landed in Northern Ireland in 1969. To identify the crater a white flag was left sticking out of the ground marking the site of impact.

(Article by Martina Redpath, Education Support Officer)

Back to the past! (Image by Kerry Scullion, based on NASA and Wikimedia images)

Now time travel does not come cheap. Alma comes with the expensive price tag of £1billion but it will be well worth the money. It is the product of three ideas fused into one. Europe, America and Japan had plans for their own arrays; the Millimeter Array (MMA) of the United States, the Large Southern Array (LSA) of Europe and the Large Millimeter Array (LMA) of Japan.  They had all planned to build their respective arrays in Chile and this seemed a little over the top to many involved in each of the projects. It was a signing of a resolution between Europe and the USA in 1997 that started the ball rolling on the ALMA in which they agreed to pursue a common project, essentially build one instead of two together. Years of discussions and proposals, resolutions and agreements followed resulting in the ALMA Agreement being signed in February 2003 between Europe and USA. Not long after, in September 2004 Japan agreed to build the ACA or the Atacama Compact array to form the Enhanced ALMA. Together they have built the amazing ALMA which has been well worth the effort.

Welcome to Mars? The plains of Chajnantor (Image credit: ESO)

The location chosen was very important. Chile alone is no stranger to high powered telescopes with many scattered across the country, including ESO’s (European Southern Observatory) VLT (Very Large Telescope) and E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope). The appeal as well is in that the Southern sky offers some very unique viewpoints such as the very centre of our Milky Way Galaxy! For the ALMA they chose the high, flat plateau in the Chilean desert of Atacama, called the Altiplana de Chajnantar. This site was optimal for the ALMA with an altitude of 5,000 meters; it is the highest telescope on the planet as well as the most powerful. It is unique also in its harsh surroundings. It is extremely dry in this area of Chile with less than 100mm of rainfall which is perfect for a radio wave detecting telescope.

Looking like some vision from the mind of Chris Foss or Gerry Anderson, a cyclopean ALMA transporter trundles across the desert. (Image credit: ESO)

The ALMA itself is a massive scale telescope with many, many parts. It consists of 66 antennae that are up to 39 foot wide and weighing up to a whopping 100 tons! Spread out over 70,000 square feet on the plateau. The power of this telescope is roughly the same as a massive telescope that would be 14 kms (8.6miles) in diameter, roughly the same distance from Belfast to Lisburn! These dishes will use the technique of interferometry to collect faint radio waves from space and collate all their information together to create an image. This is a very precise process and requires that all the information coming from each of the antennae to meet at the exact same time and point, within one millionth of a millionth of a second to combine and create an image. To do this all the antennae can be simultaneously aimed in one direction of the sky, the antennae capture the signals coming from that area and it gets converted to digital format which is then transmitted to a supercomputer that combines all the signals to create usable date for scientists to use. It is quite similar to how human hearing operates. For people to hear we direct our ears towards a sound, it then reaches the eardrum where the sound is collected and converted into an electrical impulse, which the auditory nerve transmits to the brain, which then analyses the sound and tries to distinguish who or what the sound is. So this remarkable telescope has taken design ideas from the humble human hearing system! What is also special about the ALMA is that these antennae are adjustable! Depending on what scientists are trying to see they can move the antennae using impressive vehicles that weigh 130 tons and have 28 wheels!

ALMA+HST= Antennae Galaxies (Image credit: ESO/ESA/NASA)

The main benefits of using radio waves for the world’s most powerful telescope rather than one that collects optical light is that radio waves can look through dense cosmic dust clouds of space and really see what’s lurking deep in space.  It will also help us better understand how planets and stars are formed which is usually hidden behind magnificent clouds and nebulae! One of the first images taken was in the summer of 2011 when there were a sufficient number of antennae to start testing how powerful it could be and they were not disappointed! They targeted a pair of colliding galaxies known, aptly called the Antennae Galaxies can came up with one of the best submillimeter-wavelength image ever made of the messy galaxies! We could see so much more than what normal visible light could, essentially clouds of cool gas where new stars where forming. Definite hope for what the future holds for this ground-breaking telescope.

Tides of Light! Stars forming near the Galactic Centre. (Image Credit: ESO)

Nearly 20 years of hard work between Europe, the USA, and Japan and of course Chile has resulted in an impressive giant of human astronomical technology. With its inauguration on 13 March it has already began delivering images that are already breaking preconceptions. On the 5 April they released an image of star formation that is the closest they have ever recorded to the supermassive black hole that lurks at the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy. It has always been believed that the region that is many light years out from the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is too perilous for any star formation to successfully occur with the devastating black holes gravity ripping apart any attempt at infant stars forming. But low and behold, ALMA has discovered large molecular clouds that have become so massive and dense that their own, internal gravity has begun, which would lead to the formation of a star. These are early observations and of course more studying of this area will be required but already a giant leap towards astronomical possibilities has been unveiled by this astonishing telescope.

A vision of the future. How the completed array will look. (Image credit: ESO)

The ALMA is a telescope that could truly reveal our origins and confirm the beliefs that we truly are made of stardust. With images that will be 10 times sharper than the first space based optical telescope, the Hubble, it will hopefully astound us all. With its already early discoveries it looks extremely promising that this is an astronomical giant we need to keep our eyes on and who knows, maybe we could find out if we are not the only miracle that happened in the Universe and through these intricate radio signals we might have the same success as some of the sci-fi movies such as the enthralling Contact!

(Article by Kerry Scullion, Education Support Officer)

Looking southeast: the night sky at 10pm April 15th. Click to enlarge.
(Image credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

If we look at star charts we can see the night sky divided up into degrees with grid lines. A simple method for locating celestial objects and measuring distances across the heavens for a stargazer of any age is to stretch your arm out in front of your face towards your chosen area of sky. Either the palm or back of your hand should be slightly visible as it continues the sloping angle of your arm away from your face. If your information tells you that a celestial object lies approximately 5 degrees away from another marker, turn your palm inwards with your first three fingers together pointing towards the sky and your little finger pulled in. The breadth you can see across the tips of these 3 fingers will give you an approximation of 5 degrees on the night sky’s celestial sphere. So to commence your free celestial star show position yourself in the direction where the Sun rises in the morning (East). Heels together, but with your right foot now at a right angle to your left to point to south, adjust your stance so you are facing ESE.

With mostly empty space between them Saturn’s continually forming and dispersing curved aggregates of ice can range in size from lumps as small as a snowflake to a mass the size of a house.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado

We are looking for the planet Saturn. Low in the sky and around 5 degrees up from the 0-degree horizon, your 3-finger ‘handy’ guide should help you identify what looks like a bright yellow star standing more or less alone. To confirm that it is Saturn you have found, look for a slightly brighter and more blue-white star higher up and diagonally to the right of Saturn. This more south-easterly object is the star Spica. As it’s the second largest planet in our Solar System and more than 9 times the diameter of Earth, why not get hold of a small telescope and feast your eyes on those spectacular icy rings? Stretching to a total diameter of about 270 000km into space and although only around 10 metres thick in places these, these rings which are made predominantly of water ice actually serve as Saturn’s very own cosmic spotlight. Although unable to provide any light in and of themselves this surrounding sheet of multiple icy bodies enhance the brightness of the creamish gas giant by reflecting light from the Sun onto its belly.

Looking west: the night sky at 10pm April 15th. Click to enlarge)
(Image credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

Above you and still spectacularly holding its own while in very close proximity to the brightest nocturnal celestial object, the Moon, this planetary king of the gods will reveal its four largest moons to those who trouble to dig out a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope.  To see these ‘Galilean moons’ in the west you will need to turn to face in the opposite direction from our starting point. Having located the constellation of Orion low on the horizon with the three diamond-like stars of his belt, look across to the right to see the bright orangey star Aldebaran that makes up the left eye of the bull. In your mind above this join up the two diagonal lines of stars that form Taurus’ horns and between them and almost directly above Aldebaran, the bright object you shall see will be the planet Jupiter. Collectively named after the famous astronomer who discovered them in 1610, Jupiter’s largest natural satellites perhaps represent some of the most impressive and most readily accessible extensions of the near celestial objects in our Solar System for the avid sky watcher.

Revealing themselves through a good optical aid as tiny white specks on either side of Jupiter’s planetary disk, these four moons, the largest of which has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury, were first discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.
(Image credit: NASA via Wikipedia)

For those keen for further planetary observation Venus should become visible once again from Saturday 20^th of April, first appearing in the NW at dusk. Until then, the famous bright light reflected off the thick clouds of Earth’s sister planet is being drowned out by the dominant radiance of our nearest star as Venus completes its orbit behind the Sun. From your current westerly view where the Sun sets in the evening, turn 90 degrees to your left and look up, directly above you. At the zenith or highest point above you in the sky should be the seven bright stars that make up the saucepan-shaped ‘Big Dipper’. Forming only the tail and hindquarters of the great bear, Ursa Major, you will need to join up the other seven stars at the front and the other four prominent ones curving down and forwards beneath to complete the head and big paws of this most famous of constellations.

The view looking south: the Great Bear proudly stands across the top of the celestial meridian.
(Image credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

Although making Ursa easy to spot in the heavens, the animal experts among us may recognise that bears do not usually have long tails like a fox or a dog, instead theirs are much shorter and stubby. However as the Greeks apparently had an answer for everything, Ursa’s majestic tail was stretched when the gods came to his rescue and swung him high up in the sky by it to keep him safe from the hunter’s bow. While facing south allow your eyes to drop below the bear’s front legs until they are resting on one of the brightest stars to be seen from the Northern hemisphere at this time of year. If you observe closely and connect it with an arc of stars above it you will see that it forms the bright dot beneath some back-to-front celestial question mark. For those familiar with your signs of the Zodiac however you will instead recognise this as the head and mane of Leo the lion.

High in the south: the night sky at 10pm April 15th.
(Image credit: Stellarium/Nick Parke)

The bright star or grammatical ‘dot’ is called Regulus and is the brightest star within this well-known constellation. Marking the lion’s chest and top of his forelegs it lies in fact about 77.5 light years from Earth. With an estimated diameter of 3.2 times that of the Sun its luminosity is also thought to be 150 times brighter.  If however we could somehow travel this enormous distance within a single lifetime scientists believe that we would be greeted with the sight of not one, but four stars working together to produce this naked-eye single star image from Earth. Regulus or Alpha Leonis (its official title as the brightest star of its constellation group) is in fact a fine example of something astrophysicists refer to as a ‘multiple star system’, a group of stars bound together and orbiting each other as a result of mutual gravitational attraction.Composed of stars Regulus A, B, and C, binary star Regulus A and its suspected white dwarf orbiting star take only 40 days to orbit their shared centre of mass.

According to the Greek myth, the Nemean lion, Leo, was the first beast to be killed as one of the twelve challenges or ‘labours’ assigned to Hercules by king Eurystheus. Hercules’ triumph over the lion however could only be proven by the bringing of the lion’s skin before the king. In what transpired to be a far greater ordeal than just the slaying of any big cat, Hercules initially engaged the lion unaware that the fearsome creature before him possessed not only great strength but the power of immortality. During battle Hercules’s discovery that no arrow could pierce the lion’s tough hide compelled the great hero to wrestle the creature and ultimately end the struggle by choking it with his bare hands.

A closer look at Leo’s ‘royal star’, Regulus.
(Image credit and Copyright: Russell Croman via NASA)

Also worth looking out for this month are: a partial eclipse of the Moon on the 25^th, and the Lyrid meteor shower on the 22^nd. Best observed between moonset and dawn, these meteors should be bright and may even leave trails as they nose-dive through our atmosphere near the constellation Lyra’s star Vega, in the northeast. With 10-20 per hour predicted, but with surges sometimes raising that figure to anywhere up

to 100 shooting stars within an hour, the Lyrids should not disappoint even our naked-eye April stargazers, (provided of course there is no spoiling cloud cover!) If you have a small telescope you can point it northwest to see a collection of stars held together by gravity in an ‘open cluster’ formation. With Orion positioned near the skyline and Taurus to his right, follow up the bull’s right horn. The star marking the tip of his horn along with the brighter star Capella, again diagonally up and to the right of it, form the somewhat tombstone-shaped pattern, Auriga. M36 is the middle cluster of the three Messier objects contained within.

A closer look at the ‘Evil Eye’ galaxy, M64.
(image credit: NASA/The Hubble Heritage Team.)

Once again looking southeast, where we might imagine the tip of Leo’s tail stretching out behind him, we have the pick of at least four galaxies in this patch of sky to go looking for. Revealing themselves through amateur optical aids as fuzzy elliptical smudges, it is still mind-boggling to think that each of these other ‘star cities’ in space, M84, M87, M86, and M64 contain billions of stars. With the first three located in the upper half of the star pattern Virgo and just about level with Leo’s hind legs, M64, a bright spiral, sometimes called the ‘Black Eye’ galaxy should be easy to find, centre of an imaginary line running east from the lion’s back to the brilliant golden star Arcturus in the constellation of Bootes. With a downward arc of cosmic dust blocking the starlight and giving the centre region of the galaxy its ‘black eye’ appearance, along with the theory that the two systems of stars rotating in different directions at 3000 light years and 40 000 light years out from centre point to a previous merger between two galaxies, make this a very interesting deep space object to track down.

So as you look forward to the sights of the April night sky, happy hunting and enjoy the celestial star show put on just for you!

(Article by Nick Parke, Education Support Officer)

Planet Earth’s largest closed ecological system in Arizona, the Biosphere 2 complex. (Image credit: Johndedios via Wikimedia Commons)

So what about the Biosphere today? Does it still exist, and if so how has the project fared with the passing of time? Also what were the results of the human experiments and what do they indicate for the feasibility of future lunar/planetary habitation? These are some of the questions we will seek answers to as we re-examine the Biosphere, 20 years on.

With Biosphere-like space structures featuring in sci-fi films such as Sunshine and even as far back as 1979’s The Black Hole, the essential concept of Earth’s oxygen-rich life-sustaining atmosphere being recreated in space, vegetation beneath glass, has been around for a very long time. Perhaps the Biosphere’s landmark achievement, in terms of potential space technology, was that it mysteriously fused this myth with reality and on a spectacularly lavish scale.

Named after Earth’s biosphere, the only known life system in space (Biosphere 1), the world’s largest artificially closed system –‘Biosphere 2’ was constructed from 1987 at the foot of the St. Catalina Mountains in Arizona. A feat of engineering in itself, the 3.14 acre glass building and its five ‘biomes’ were completed by Space Biosphere Ventures in 1991. On 16 June 1994 a crew of eight, four men and four women (including the two authors of the project), were sent to live inside Biosphere 2. With no comings, goings, or contact permitted between the ‘Biospherians’ and the outside world for a period of two years, these sole human occupants were to test if life within an artificial recontruction of Earth’s life-supporting environment could be sustained.

Some of the most informative findings of the Arizonian ICE (Isolated Confined Environment) experiment proved to be in regards to the actual effect of the confinement on the mission crew, their working relationships with one another and the direct influence these had on the fulfillment of the overall mission objectives. The Biosphere 2 two-year experiment proved beyond any doubt that the interpersonal relations affects a crew’s productivity. These lessons are of value as in turn, productivity would be of paramount importance when and where a Biosphere 2-type crew would be mankind’s sole representatives as lunar/planetary explorers and on whom potentially crucial scientific discoveries in space may depend.

As a kind of ‘Noah’s Ark’ for plants, animals, and humans, Biosphere 2 sought to recreate the communities of Earth’s main ecosystem districts. These various ‘biomes’ included an agricultural area, a human working and living space, a million-gallon ocean and coral reef, a fog desert, savanna grassland, mangrove swamp, and tropical rainforest, all of which were housed under the manmade structure’s glass and steel canopy. A great facet of these artificial biomes was the unique opportunity they afforded to study climate hypotheticals along with the multiple effects, large and small, expected and unpredicted that these changes would have on the species within. Since twenty minutes of unregulated temperature on a sunny day could permanently damage plants beneath the biosphere’s glass, a natural gas primary generator and a diesel fuel back-up generator in the five-arch Energy Centre could within minutes provide power to maintain control of the biome environments. To this day, 26 air handler units in the basement or ‘Technosphere’ have the ability to heat and cool air and create condensate water for Biosphere 2′s ocean, rain and fog atmospheres.

A closer look at the structure whose project Discover Magazine once described as “…the most exciting venture to be undertaken in the US since President Kennedy launched us toward the Moon.” The building’s architects also won the top ‘Special Award’ in the Pacific Rim 1992 Gold Nugget Award Contest for the Commercial/Industrial Public/Private Special Use Facility category.  (image credit: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons)

With no comings or goings permitted during the Biospherians’ two-year confinement, the experiment among other things set out to test if living inside an artificial reconstruction of Earth’s life-supporting environment in the long-term would be possible. With the Sun’s heat frequently causing Biosphere 2’s contained volume of 161 000 cubic metres of atmosphere to expand, the formation of cracks started to indicate some structural stress on the building’s exterior. The solution for this problem was provided with an additional set of chambers or ‘lungs’ which allowed for the overflow and extraction of air, yet  without compromising the enclosure’s integrity.  Although ‘materially closed’ to the outside world, energy and information (electricity, computer data, video etc.) could come and go.Biosphere 2 supported and was operated by the eight crew members until their confinement was completed on 26 September 1993. The Biosphere 2 contained over 3000 documented species of plants and animals across its five biomes.

This once-flourishing agricultural biome provided the Biospherians with 80% of their nourishment for the two-year period, a figure recognised internationally as ground-breaking in terms of self-sustainability for a closed ecosystem. (Image credit:Daderot via Wikimedia Commons)

Not only did the prolonged Biosphere enclosure provide an excellent opportunity to study the processes of closed ecosystems and the complex interactions between species, but much was learned retrospectively about the social factors and the psychological effect on the mission and its crew. With the Biosphere and space missions crew structure based on the usually highly-effective maritime model, the two-year Arizonian desert experiment  made some interesting revelations. The project data suggested that a more flexible management style independent of interference from Mission Control and giving more autonomy to individual crew members in the execution of their duties could help reduce stress levels. Although the crew members’ personal commitment and belief in the Biosphere ideology was never in question, at some point during the confinement most of the crew said they had the feeling of “wanting to go somewhere”.

Also, three facilities the Biospherians were reported as having valued most highly during their ICE experiment were the private room/sleeping quarters allocated to each of them to which they could retreat, being able to talk to other crew who were simultaneously performing an ICE in Antarctica, and the electronic mail facility which enabled them to maintain some relationships outside of their Biospherian existence.

The crew’s living quarters and ‘lung’ beyond (Image credit: DrStarbuck (Flickr) via Wikimedia Commons)

Despite the fact that each individual on the team had been carefully selected and thoroughly interviewed before being admitted to Biosphere 2, two main groups emerged from among the eight during the Biosphere’s closure. Essentially with differing views on the best mission strategy for the crew,  a correlation was observed identifying interpersonal relations being at their lowest ebb simultaneously with oxygen levels also dropping to their lowest point during the 24 months. With an unusually dark, overcast winter to blame for reduced plant and crop production, lowered oxygen and increased carbon dioxide levels in turn affected the crew’s otherwise improved health. Where the Biospherians’ reduced cholesterol and blood pressure had been a glowing tribute to the vitamin and mineral-rich diet along with the closed system lifestyle concept in general, the changing atmosphere within Biosphere 2 in equal measure demonstrated the fatigue, lack of motivation and hypoxia that could result from a disfunctional biosphere existence. More serious management problems during a second human confinement in 1994 heralded the experiment’s early cancellation and this brought the world’s longest closed system human confinement project to an end. During the period the oxygen dropped, the Biosphere 2 experiment demonstrated that a human crew could operate well between an oxygen level of 16%-19%.

The Biosphere’s beach, million-gallon ocean (containing a coral reef) and savanna grassland beyond. (image credit: Phileco1 via Wikimedia Commons)

Often large-scale ventures that are the manifestations of a radical vision acquire their fair share of critics and objectors. The original Biosphere project in Oracle, US was no different. Many believed that human existence could simply not be supported within an artificially-closed environment, and others thought that it was wrong to try. However not only did it achieve the two year confinement goal for which the media blessed it with international fame, but Earth’s ‘second biosphere’ ultimately provided a harvest of useful scientific, biological, social, and psychological discoveries that could not have been attained any other way. In terms of the usefulness of the Biosphere 2 project for possible future deep-space colonisation NASA have seemed anxious to keep a finger in the Biosphere pie. Involved in the early international conferences that formed the foundational planning for Biosphere 2, and since the main human psychological findings from Biosphere 2 concur with those of other ICEs such as those in the Antarctic, NASA will most likely return to this specialised data in future when planning for deep space missions such as the requisite 8.5 month journey to Mars (interestingly two former Biospherians, Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, are key players in Inspiration Mars, Dennis Tito’s proposed crewed Mars fly-by). Even when oxygen levels were low and the Biospherians’ existence was less pleasant as a result, and although overruled on the issue by the Biosphere’s Mission Control, all crew members wanted the complex to remain sealed for the integrity of the closure experiment. This and the fact that despite some social stresses and frictions during the two-year ICE all crew members were unanimous in their stated desire above all, to see the artificial biosphere’s two-year test through to its conclusion is a tribute to the persistence of the human spirit and vision that has marked the Biosphere 2 venture since its birth.

Since the ICE missions of the ’90s, Biosphere 2 has been reinvented as an ‘open’ scientific research institute and under the management of the University of Arizona educational programs and walk-through tours are offered to the public. Or in its own words, Biosphere 2 exists today “To serve as a centre for research, outreach, teaching and life-long learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the Universe”.

(Article by Nick Parke, Education Support Officer)