OK, so Endeavour.

Today, Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to scream off the launch pad at 7:13 pm Eastern Time (4:13 pm Oregon time). Endeavour is scheduled to deliver final components to the Japanese Kibo module of the  International Space Station. Over a series of 16 days and five space walks, astronauts will assemble two platforms located outside of the Kibo module that will serve as a sort of “front porch”.This allows experiments that require direct exposure to open space to occur on the ISS.

Based on where Mission specialist Cristopher Cassidy is sitting in the Shuttle during launch, he will be the 500th person in space!

There will be a free live-via-satellite viewing of the launch at the OMSI in the planetarium today at 3:30. Pray for good weather.

Atlantis Update!

So, today, astronauts on board Atlantis will attempt to grab the Hubble Space Telescope with the shuttle’s robotic arm, and move it into the shuttle’s cargo bay.

A few dinged thermal tiles that form the ablative heat shield were identified on the bottom of the shuttle, but have been deemed not a threat to the shuttle or crew. The tiles are placed on the bottom half of the shuttle to absorb and deflect heat caused by friction during retrograde (re-entry). Since the Columbia disaster, NASA has made it standard practice to photograph and inspect the shield after each launch. This process is actually quite beautiful, as the shuttle has to rotate 360 degrees while in orbit, to give the camera (typically on the ISS) a complete view of the shuttle’s external surfaces.

Here’s a video:

Also, something pretty awesome happened on Tuesday, the first Tweet from Space happened! Astronaut Mike Massimino aka @astro_mike Tweeted the following:

From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!

We sure have come a long ways from the years of radio silence and satellite delay. Even though the Space station doesn’t have a constant Internet connection… soon though, soon.

Gliese Revealed

So, BIG news-well, relativity earth sized news- from the exoplanet front! On Tuesday  astronomers from the Geneva University in Switzerland revealed the discovery of an earth-like rocky planet rotating the star Gliese in the constellation Libra, 20.5 light years away!

There are two rocky exoplanets around Gliese, named Gliese 581 e, and Gliese 581 d.

Gliese 581 e is a rocky planet, roughly 1.9 times the mass of earth, but it orbits too closely to its sun to support life. The discovery of this exoplanet is a major accomplishment in the search for planets outside our solar system, as it is the smallest found to date.

Gliese d (discovered in 2007)  is too massive to be made out of only rock like materials, which could suggest the presence of a large, very deep ocean. It also lies within the Habitable zone, which is the distance from a star that Earth like planets are most likely to be found.

So far 350 exoplanets have been found, but the majority of them have been classified as uninhabitable  “Hot Jupiters“, which are gas giants such as Jupiter, that have expanded to nearly the size of 1,000 earths due to their close proximity to their star.

Liftoff