Fist I want to start to say how pleased I am for hosting the English space carnival and would personally like to thank Fraser Cain of universe today for allowing me to host the Carnival. This is my first time ever, and I will try my best!

I would first like to start to tell a little about me. My name is Assi; I'm a 19 year old girl who lives in Sweden. I have a burning interest in astronomy and want to become an astronomer one day. Right now I'm working at the Gothenburg observatory here in Gothenburg, Sweden.  I've been reading every space carnival, and I'm happy that there are so many people who love space and everything that astronomy has to offer. I hope you will enjoy reading this week's entries. As this is my first time hosting, I also want to welcome you all to astronomi.blogg.se, a Swedish blog about astronomy.

(At the left, a picture of me and the swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang!)
 

But now for the exciting part, that is to say the space carnival number 75. A lot of things have happened, and I will try my best to summary everything.

Astroprof's Page has written an interesting post about the India's space agency (ISRO). ISRO is India's first payload beyond Earth orbit, and it will join China's Chang'e 1 and Japan's Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft, which are already in orbit around the Moon. The astronomy prof. is telling us shortly about the race between Soviet Union and the United States, which began first in 1960s. Now USA is the most active space agency, but when Japan, China, the European Space Agency, and now India that are actively investigating beyond Earth orbit, perhaps a new race will start? why they should be proud of Chandrayaan-1mission . , visit his blog!

The next trip takes us more beyond Earth. Many of you have read about the IBEX mission. NASA's IBEX, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, is a mission to explore the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space. Stochastic Scribbles is writing that the heliosphere is the region of space where our Sun reigns, swept out by the solar wind, while interstellar space is full of the interstellar gas and dust that pervades our galaxy. The main question is how IBEX is going to explore the heliosphere without actually getting there? Stochastic Scribbles has a really good explanation, and gives us a great answer to the question. Energetic neutral atoms are the main actors, such as solar winds, protons, high speed, neutral hydrogen and so on. Red more about his on Yoo Chul Chung's blog, Stochastic Scribbles .

Now to an object more close to earth, in other words satellites. DJ at Orbital Hubis writing about the intact ESA satellite named XMM-Newton X-ray. It is not good to lose contact with a spacecraft. This means that it has a technical fault on board or may have collided with another Object. It can be garbage or even meteorites. Several astronomical observations have managed to take pictures of the satellite in orbit around the Earth. Now, the land investigators can estate that the satellite is intact, which is bad news. But they have managed to capture a weak radio signal from the XMM-Newton and this indicates that it is still alive. Engineers hope to restore it soon. Good writing Orbital hub!
 

Out of cradle, or Kenneth Murphy telling us a little about asteroids and other orbital debris. Asteroids could provide a huge amount of resources. Should we not then learn to harvest them? We do of course it with plants and animals on earth. To look further out on the margins for sources of obscure elements that are necessary for things we use every day, for an example TV's. He has written a well-formulated speech with a lot of facts and interesting links, and this post needs to be read.

Stuart Atkinson at Cumbrian Sky  is saying what he thinks about exploration in space. We have explored every corner of the Earth, and we know it so well. But what about the outer space, or our solar system?  "Today's explorers aren't human beings." In other words, today's exploreras are telescopes and CCD cameras. And Oppertunitys final  resting place should be Victoria, if  Stuart Atkinson would guess.


Ethan Siegel at Stars with a bang is telling us about the different sizes in the space and universe. Everything from planets to galaxies, and with pictures you really get the size difference

I really love this one, an experiment with liquids. Robert Simpson at orbiting frog shows us a really cool experiment, using vegetable oil, water, alcohol, washing up liquid and golden syrup. You really need to read this.. Great work!



Centauri Dreams will send "Remembering Starwisp," a look at Robert Forward's design for an interstellar flyby probe that could reach the Centauri stars in 21 years. Starwisp was ingenious and took advantage of microwave technologies rather than laser-beaming, a method that offers powerful advantages but also an interesting set of problems. Centauri dreams, or Paul Gilster is discussing about both.

Astronomical distances is something that many find difficult, I am one of them. Mike Simonsen is writing a funny speech about the national debt, and why it is an astronomical figure “Maybe it should be measured in light dollars.”



The the crew of Apollo 7 was honored on Friday with the space agency's highest award, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.This Forty years after flying NASA's first manned Apollo mission. Collectspaceis writing about the price, but also giving us a history lesson about the Apollo mission.

One day Ryan Anderson at Martian chronicles focussed about massive crystals, and it’s the coolest thing according to him. I can agree with him, the picture is cool. These are the largest crystals yet to be found on Earth, with some reaching over 30 feet in length, he says. Read more about these remarkable crystals here


Ryan Anderson at Martian chronicles focussed about massive crystals, and it’s the coolest thing according to him. I can agree with him, the picture is cool. These are the largest crystals yet to be found on Earth, with some reaching over 30 feet in length, he says. Read more about these remarkable crystals here


This is a blog that I really like, I read it almost every day. It’s Philip Plait’s blog, bad astronomy of course, bad astronomy of course, “A woman in York County, Pennsylvania had a rude awakening last night: a six pound chunk of ice fell through her roof and smacked her on the head”. And what does the famous Phil Plait has to say about this? “It doesn’t look like hail. Given the amount and size, I’m thinking it’s simply ice from an airplane, maybe some buildup on a wing that fell off….” Visit his blog and read more about this

Ryan Anderson at Martian chronicles focussed about massive crystals, and it’s the coolest thing according to him. I can agree with him, the picture is cool. These are the largest crystals yet to be found on Earth, with some reaching over 30 feet in length, he says. Read more about these remarkable crystals here

Sadly, black holes can not eat the whole universe. The will eventually pretty much max out and stop growing. FInd out why in Pamela L. Gay’s blog.

“How does one create new knowledge? The process of becoming a (PhD) doctor is to learn how to learn what no one has learned before. A strange goal.” She has interesting comments about that. What does Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, charges Darwin has in common? She has the answer

Last wednesday engineers switched the data management system on the Hubble to the spare "B-side" and the instruments sprung back to life. I think that everyone has read that, am I wrong? Steinn Sigurdsson is guessing they will turn everything on again, slowly, and see if they can maybe not turn on the ACS Solar Blind Channel... Can he be right?

The Great World Wide Star Count is a great event which will let you get out observing and help determine how clear our skies are. It's timed for any evening between 7pm-9pm which makes it a perfect event for Cub/Scout meetings. Or even better a camp! More about that in David Gamey’ blog.
One day Dave Mosher at Space disco has the answer!

Emily Lakdawalla at the planetary society blog is showing us some nice photos of Mercury, the closest planet to ous sun. And she’s showing us a map and showing us the location of all the image releases to date. Good job!

Gum 29 is a huge nebulous region of ionised hydrogen gas sitting around 26,000 light-years from Earth just on the outer part of the Carina spiral arm of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Will Gater is just like me, amazed by pictures of different objects in space, especially nebulas. But it seems like Gum 29 is his favourite, and he has a lot to say about it and nebulas at all. “Astronomers are interested in studying these incredible objects as they can then get a better understanding of what happens to massive stars at the end of their lives and refine their models of stellar evolution”


Ray Villard’s blog, Cosmic ray is worth visiting. He’s writing about Mars and it’s two moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after Greek gods. “So, someday Phobos could fulfill Shklovsky’s idea of it being a space station..” Sounds interesting? Are you like me, love to see space videos, or anything related to astronomy. Well, it’s your lucky day, because Ed Minchau published a good one this time.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” Alexander DeClama is showing a map, also called Moon Society/Lunar Development World Map. Mankind must go back to the Moon. Help me build a network of like minded people to make the dream reality. Can you make he’s dream come true?

Fraser, Kentucky Space's submission is an update on the development of our first satellite, which is nearing completion. Tyler Doering is the student lead on the project and described the conformal coating process, which will protect the cube as it goes to space, as well as documenting with pictures the resulting hardware. Wayne Hall has posted new details about KySat-1, a satellite.

Bruce Cordell has some comments about Alan Shepard, when he’s playing golf on the moon. But not only golf, many other things too, like the Apollo 13 mission.

Space and energy roundup. IEC fusion, Spacex, lunar lander competition and so much more. Do you get a little confused like me? If you do, you need to read Brian Wang has an interesting post about this subject, and you won’t be confused anymore.

Or are you more interested in Russian aerospace? David Portree has many information about many different rockets here.

And last, but not least, Alice Enevoldsen is having a vote. See about what here, Alice Enevoldsen’s blog

Thanks for reading this!
// Assi