Comikaze Expo 2015...

Happy Halloween, Everyone! Earlier today, I drove down to the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend the annual comic book expo that's created and hosted by none other than Stan Lee himself. Like my last visit two years ago (when I met and got an autograph by Alyssa Milano), I went to this year's Comikaze specifically to meet two lovely actresses from various sci-fi and comic book TV shows over the years: Danielle Panabaker and Summer Glau. I last saw Ms. Glau at an event back in 2008, when she was promoting the now-defunct FOX TV show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Since then, she's appeared on such TV programs as the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory and the CW Network's Arrow. Danielle Panabaker herself is one of the main stars on CW Network's The Flash.



After I attended the photo ops for Ms. Panabaker and Ms. Glau, I went to Stan Lee's museum exhibit inside the West Hall of the convention center (all of the celebrity photo ops took place inside the South Hall)...mostly to see if it had the suit worn by Paul Rudd in last July's Ant-Man (my favorite Marvel flick this year— Sorry Avengers: Age of Ultron). It didn't...but it did have the cool life-size statue of the new shrinkable member of the Avengers shown directly below. In regards to Age of Ultron, I definitely needed to take a pic with the Hulkbuster statue shown in the last image at the bottom of this entry. Of course, this statue isn't full-scale; otherwise, the Hulkbuster suit would've probably been too tall to fit under the ceiling of the West Hall. That is all.

New Horizons Update: Three Burns Down, One to Go...for Now

NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

On Track: New Horizons Carries Out Third KBO Targeting Maneuver (Press Release)

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully completed the third in a series of four maneuvers propelling it toward an encounter with the ancient Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, a billion miles farther from the sun than Pluto.

The targeting maneuver, performed with the spacecraft’s hydrazine-fueled thrusters, started at approximately 1:15 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and lasted about 30 minutes – surpassing the Oct. 25 propulsive maneuver as the largest ever conducted by New Horizons. Spacecraft operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, began receiving data through NASA’s Deep Space Network at approximately 8:15 p.m. EDT on Wednesday that indicated a successful maneuver.

The four maneuvers are designed to alter New Horizons’ path to send it toward a close encounter with MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. The flyby would be part of an extended mission that NASA still must approve; the New Horizons team will submit a formal proposal to NASA for that mission in early 2016. The science team hopes to bring the spacecraft even closer to MU69 than it came to Pluto on July 14, which was approximately 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers).

Capping the series, the fourth and final KBO targeting maneuver is scheduled for Nov. 4. As the New Horizons team learns more about the orbit and location of MU69 – the KBO was only discovered in summer 2014 – it will plan additional maneuvers to refine the path toward the prospective flyby in 2016 and beyond.

At the time of yesterday’s maneuver, New Horizons, speeding toward deeper space at more than 32,000 miles per hour, was approximately 79 million miles (127 million kilometers) beyond Pluto and 3.17 billion miles (5.1 billion kilometers) from Earth. The spacecraft is currently 900 million miles (1.45 billion kilometers) from 2014 MU69. All systems remain healthy and the spacecraft continues to transmit data stored on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system in July.

New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.

Source: New Horizons Website

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NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

DARN IT— I Should've Removed My Sunglasses!

So earlier today, I was working at a TV studio in Studio City when I finally ran into a cute actress who I've had a crush on for almost three years. Won't mention her name (though you'd probably figure out who she was if you browsed through my journal entries for June and July of this year), but I will point out that every time I work at this particular lot, I pass by the soundstage her show tapes in just to see if she's loitering nearby. Of course, I probably wouldn't say 'hi' to her—as I either run the risk of her shrugging me off (as the saying goes: You should never meet your idol), and her alerting me to security—just because. I do background acting work; it's definitely a 'no-no' to approach principal actors unless they approach you first. However, methinks that this only applies to the specific show I'm working in that day. I haven't worked on the show this actress is on since November of 2012, so it might not have been as risky just to give her a quick 'hello' (and to tell her that I'm a big fan of her sitcom—hint, hint) before walking away. Didn't want to bug her as she was too busy browsing on her smartphone...which is what she was doing while sitting outside of her soundstage during a quick break this afternoon.

Even though approaching this actress to say hi was out of the question, I should've at least removed my sunglasses so we could make direct eye contact. The upside of this: She would've remembered me for a couple of more (milli)seconds as I walked away to head back to my car (this encounter took place right after I finished my job assignment inside another stage). The downside: The fact that she knows how I looked like might compel me not to stroll past her soundstage as much anymore. If I did run into her again, she'd recognize me, wonder why I keep passing by her area, and of course, probably alert security. I'm really not making myself look good in this story. But yea— I wish this actress could get a stint on a comic book TV series like Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which is on ABC, the same channel that her sitcom is on...hint, hint), CW's The Flash, FOX's Gotham or CBS' Supergirl (which premieres tonight) just so she could do an autograph signing or photo op at an expo like Stan Lee's Comikaze...which I'm attending on Halloween (next Saturday)!

Anyways, that's all I have to say about today's quick but memorable moment. And in case you're still wondering who I'm talking about, just click on the keyword at the very bottom of this entry. I saw her in person two previous times this year. Carry on.

Photos of the Day: Painting & Vino!

Yesterday, a couple of friends and I went to a restaurant in Huntington Beach to partake in a painting class in celebration of one of my friends' birthday. As you can see from the pics posted with this entry, we painted a spooky tree to commemorate Halloween. I think I could've done a better job if the class didn't have a time limit (it lasted from 6:30 PM to almost 10 PM...but that still wasn't enough time), but it's all good. As for the vino part, we only drank Mai Tai last night. My friend Susie texted earlier that we should have tequila shots at the restaurant, but no one responded. Might have to do with the fact that none of us were interested in possibly getting a DUI after learning how to paint a freaky-looking tree, heh. Plus— We went to The Cheesecake Factory a couple of miles away to get some grub afterwards. I ordered the Classic Burger. And no, there wasn't a waitress who looked like Penny from The Big Bang Theory.

New Horizons Update: Setting Course for the Kuiper Belt!

NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

Maneuver Moves New Horizons Spacecraft toward Next Potential Target (Press Release)

Success in First of Four Such Maneuvers over the Next Two Weeks

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has carried out the first in a series of four initial targeting maneuvers designed to send it toward 2014 MU69 – a small Kuiper Belt object about a billion miles beyond Pluto, which the spacecraft historically explored in July.

The maneuver, which started at approximately 1:50 p.m. EDT on Oct. 22, used two of the spacecraft’s small hydrazine-fueled thrusters, lasted approximately 16 minutes and changed the spacecraft’s trajectory by about 10 meters per second. Spacecraft operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, began receiving data through NASA’s Deep Space Network at approximately 8:30 p.m. EDT that indicated a successful maneuver.

All told, the four maneuvers will change New Horizons’ trajectory by approximately 57 meters per second, nudging it toward a prospective close encounter with MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. That flyby would be part of an extended mission that NASA still must approve; the New Horizons team will submit a formal proposal to NASA for that mission in early 2016.

The remaining three KBO targeting maneuvers are scheduled for Oct. 25, Oct. 28 and Nov. 4.

New Horizons is approximately 74 million miles (119 million kilometers) beyond Pluto and 3.16 billion miles (5.08 billion kilometers) from Earth. The spacecraft is healthy and continues to return data stored on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015.

New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.

Source: New Horizons Website

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NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Kepler Update: Discovering a Real-Life 'Alderaan' (Sort Of)...

CfA / Mark A. Garlick

NASA’s K2 Finds Dead Star Vaporizing a Mini “Planet” (Press Release - October 21)

Scientists using NASA’s re-purposed Kepler space telescope, known as the K2 mission, have uncovered strong evidence of a tiny, rocky object being torn apart as it spirals around a white dwarf star. This discovery validates a long-held theory that white dwarfs are capable of cannibalizing possible remnant planets that have survived within its solar system.

“We are for the first time witnessing a miniature “planet” ripped apart by intense gravity, being vaporized by starlight and raining rocky material onto its star,” said Andrew Vanderburg, graduate student from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the paper published in Nature.

As stars like our sun age, they puff up into red giants and then gradually lose about half their mass, shrinking down to 1/100th of their original size to roughly the size of Earth. This dead, dense star remnant is called a white dwarf.

The devastated planetesimal, or cosmic object formed from dust, rock, and other materials, is estimated to be the size of a large asteroid, and is the first planetary object to be confirmed transiting a white dwarf. It orbits its white dwarf, WD 1145+017, once every 4.5 hours. This orbital period places it extremely close to the white dwarf and its searing heat and shearing gravitational force.

During its first observing campaign from May 30, 2014 to Aug. 21, 2014, K2 trained its gaze on a patch of sky in the constellation Virgo, measuring the minuscule change in brightness of the distant white dwarf. When an object transits or passes in front of a star from the vantage point of the space telescope, a dip in starlight is recorded. The periodic dimming of starlight indicates the presence of an object in orbit about the star.

A research team led by Vanderburg found an unusual, but vaguely familiar pattern in the data. While there was a prominent dip in brightness occurring every 4.5 hours, blocking up to 40 percent of the white dwarf's light, the transit signal of the tiny planet did not exhibit the typical symmetric U-shaped pattern. It showed an asymmetric elongated slope pattern that would indicate the presence of a comet-like tail. Together these features indicated a ring of dusty debris circling the white dwarf, and what could be the signature of a small planet being vaporized.

“The eureka moment of discovery came on the last night of observation with a sudden realization of what was going around the white dwarf. The shape and changing depth of the transit were undeniable signatures,” said Vanderburg.

In addition to the strangely shaped transits, Vanderburg and his team found signs of heavier elements polluting the atmosphere of WD 1145+017, as predicted by theory.

Due to intense gravity, white dwarfs are expected to have chemically pure surfaces, covered only with light elements of helium and hydrogen. For years, researchers have found evidence that some white dwarf atmospheres are polluted with traces of heavier elements such as calcium, silicon, magnesium and iron. Scientists have long suspected that the source of this pollution was an asteroid or a small planet being torn apart by the white dwarf's intense gravity.

Analysis of the star's atmospheric composition was conducted using observations made by the University of Arizona's MMT Observatory.

“For the last decade we’ve suspected that white dwarf stars were feeding on the remains of rocky objects, and this result may be the smoking gun we’re looking for,” said Fergal Mullally, staff scientist of K2 at SETI and NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “However, there's still a lot more work to be done figuring out the history of this system.”

“This discovery highlights the power and serendipitous nature of K2. The science community has full access to K2 observations and is using these data to make a wide range of unique discoveries across the full range of astrophysics phenomena,” said Steve Howell, K2 project scientist at Ames.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Source: NASA.Gov

OSIRIS-REx Update: One Step Closer to Launch...

Lockheed Martin Corporation

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Begins Environmental Testing (Press Release)

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is undergoing environmental testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems facilities, near Denver, Colorado. OSIRIS-REx will be the first U.S. mission to return samples from an asteroid to Earth for further study.

"OSIRIS-REx is entering environmental testing on schedule, on budget and with schedule reserves," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "This allows us to have flexibility if any concerns arise during final launch preparations."

Over the next five months, the spacecraft will be subjected to a range of rigorous tests that simulate the vacuum, vibration and extreme temperatures it will experience throughout the life of its mission.

“This is an exciting time for the program as we now have a completed spacecraft and the team gets to test drive it, in a sense, before we actually fly it to asteroid Bennu,” said Rich Kuhns, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. “The environmental test phase is an important time in the mission as it will reveal any issues with the spacecraft and instruments, while here on Earth, before we send it into deep space.”

Specifically, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will undergo tests to simulate the harsh environment of space, including acoustical, separation and deployment shock, vibration, and electromagnetic interference. The simulation concludes with a test in which the spacecraft and its instruments are placed in a vacuum chamber and cycled through the extreme hot and cold temperatures it will face during its journey to Bennu.

"This milestone marks the end of the design and assembly stage,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “We now move on to test the entire flight system over the range of environmental conditions that will be experienced on the journey to Bennu and back. This phase is critical to mission success, and I am confident that we have built the right system for the job."

OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to ship from Lockheed Martin’s facility to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center next May, where it will undergo final preparations for launch.

After launch in September 2016, the spacecraft will travel to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and bring at least a 60-gram (2.1-ounce) sample back to Earth for study. OSIRIS-REx will return the largest sample from space since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission returned 170 grams (6 ounces) of lunar soil in 1976.

Scientists expect that the Bennu may hold clues to the origin of the solar system and the source of water and organic molecules that may have made their way to Earth. OSIRIS-REx’s investigation will inform future efforts to develop a mission to mitigate an impact, should one be required.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is building the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

Photos of the Day: Election 2016 Memes...

Just thought I'd share these funny memes that I recently stumbled upon on Facebook. Well— Funny if you're a Democrat or Republican who despises Donald Trump. But mostly a Democrat...because it never gets old hatin' on George Dubya and his apprentice Darth Cheney as well.

Cassini Update: Looking Back at the Start of Its Journey 18 Years Ago...

NASA

Why this anniversary is meaningful: I first read about Cassini back when it was still in development in 1992... I was wondering if I was still gonna be a NASA geek by the time it launched five years later. (Based on the majority of entries that I posted on this Blog this year, that clearly wasn't the case.) I was only two months into my senior year in high school at the time of lift-off. In fact, I recall eating at a restaurant with my classmates from our school's yearbook staff (you heard me) on the day of its launch! This was right after school, of course.

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Oct. 15, 1997, Launch of Cassini Spacecraft to Saturn (Press Release)

On Oct. 15, 1997, a seven-year journey to the ringed planet Saturn began with the liftoff of a Titan IVB/Centaur carrying the Cassini orbiter and its attached Huygens probe. This spectacular streak shot was taken from Hangar AF on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, with a solid rocket booster retrieval ship in the foreground. Launch occurred at 4:43 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 40. After a nearly 2.2-billion mile journey, the spacecraft arrived in the Saturn system on June 30, 2004.

Cassini completed its four-year primary mission in 2008 and went on to perform dozens more flybys of Titan, Enceladus and Saturn's other icy moons, celebrating its 10th anniversary of arrival at Saturn in June 2014. The spacecraft has beamed back to Earth hundreds of gigabytes of scientific data, enabling the publication of more than 3,000 scientific reports. Cassini’s top accomplishments and discoveries include the Huygens probe making the first landing on a moon in the outer solar system (Titan); Saturn’s rings revealed as active and dynamic -- a laboratory for how planets form; the first complete view of the north polar hexagon and discovery of giant hurricanes at both of Saturn's poles, and the first imaging of vertical structures in Saturn's rings.

Cassini will wrap up its time in the region of Saturn's large, icy moons with a series of three close encounters with Enceladus, which started on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015. Images from the flyby will provide the first opportunity for a close-up look at the north polar region of Enceladus. Since Cassini's 2005 discovery of continually-erupting fountains of icy material on Enceladus, the Saturn moon has become one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for present-day habitable environments.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

Red Rover, Red Rover: A Newer (and Dirtier) Selfie on Mars...

NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS

Curiosity Self-Portrait at 'Big Sky' Drilling Site (Press Release)

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Big Sky" site, where its drill collected the mission's fifth taste of Mount Sharp.

The scene combines dozens of images taken during the 1,126th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Oct. 6, 2015, PDT), by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm. The rock drilled at this site is sandstone in the Stimson geological unit inside Gale Crater. The location is on cross-bedded sandstone in which the cross bedding is more evident in views from when the rover was approaching the area, such as http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=7468.

The view is centered toward the west-northwest. It does not include the rover's robotic arm, though the shadow of the arm is visible on the ground. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic's component images. The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, that were used in this mosaic. This process was used previously in acquiring and assembling Curiosity self-portraits taken at sample-collection sites "Rocknest", "John Klein" and "Windjana."

This portrait of the rover was designed to show the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument atop the rover appearing level. This causes the horizon to appear to tilt toward the left, but in reality it is fairly flat.

For scale, the rover's wheels are 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter and about 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. The drilled hole in the rock, appearing grey near the lower left corner of the image, is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter.

MAHLI was built by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

Source: NASA.Gov