Water ice deposits in craters around Mercury's north pole are seen in this mosaic image taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft, superimposed with a radar image. Courtesy: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory

It’s rare that astronomers declare news with great certainty, given the awesome scope of their work and the level to which they must rely on data gleaned from objects so far away that superlatives quickly run out.

So Thursday’s announcement about the confirmation of water ice (as opposed to, say, carbon-dioxide or methane ice) in Mercury’s poles was, as the scientists put it, an “exclamation point” rather than a plain old period.

Three separate research papers, published in Science Express this week, all arrived at the same conclusion: that the planet closest to the Sun harbors a wealth of water ice, plus dark deposits believed to be organic compounds delivered by comets and asteroids.

The amount of ice is astounding—something on the order of 100 billion to a trillion metric tons.  Or, as David Lawrence of the MESSENGER Mercury mission team says, the rough equivalent of layering Washington, D.C. with 2 to 2.5 miles of ice.

CLUES FOR ASTROBIOLOGY

The evidence derives from data gathered by the MESSENGER spacecraft that’s orbiting around Mercury.  Part of its mission has been to confirm theories about the presence of water ice, first ventured 20 years ago when radar measurements from Earth discovered “radar bright” areas in Mercury’s polar regions.

With MESSENGER actually orbiting the tiny planet, scientists could apply three key tests: a neutron spectrometer, which tests for the presence of hydrogen; the reflectance of the polar deposits at near-infrared wavelengths; and thermal models of the surface based on the planet’s actual topography.

“To have them all come together in this way is like getting a key that turns, and the door opens,” says Lawrence, senior scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

The confirmation of a long-held theory has an even larger ramification—Mercury as a planet of astrobiological interest, says Sean Solomon, principal investigator of the MESSENGER mission.

“Messenger has revealed a very important chapter in the story of how water ice and other materials have been delivered to the inner planets we think by comets and asteroids,” he says.  “It’s amazing this history is so well-preserved on the planet closest to the sun.

“This isn’t to say we expect to find life on Mercury, but in the book of life there are some early chapters, and Mercury may indeed tell us something about those early chapters.”

Watching Malin’s time lapse, “Island in the Sky,” it’s easy to forgot how subtle sky movements usually are as clouds swim by, bobbing like waves, and warm daylight gives way to cold blue, and then black sky pinpricked with light.

You’re reminded that the world is in constant motion, and we’re simply hitching a ride on some large, rotating orb.

Malin, who lives in Austria, sounds reverent when he speak of La Palma, which lies at the far end of the Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa.  He’s made a dozen visits there since 2006, and got permission from the Astrophysics Institute of the Canaries to stay several days at the observatory that sits on Roque de los Muchachos, nearly 8,000 feet above sea level.

“Sometimes you get the feeling you’re standing on Mars,” he says. “The stars in the Milky Way are so bright, you get a shadow on your feet.”

Malin did a lot of camping and hiking to get his shots, using several cameras that could individually shoot 990 pictures in a row.  He changed camera batteries every few hours during the night and amassed thousands of pictures that he first started stringing together for his 2011 time-lapse “The Island.”

“I started getting a sense for time again—a sense of the universe,” he reflects. “This I really appreciate.”

If you want to know what he means, click on the video and watch the universe pass by.

The Sun's corona radiates in this composite view of the 2009 total solar ecilpse over the Marshall Islands. Courtesy Vojtech Rusin

When the Moon slips between the Earth and Sun this week, Slovak astronomer Vojtech Rusin will be ready on a hotel balcony in Cairns, Australia to witness his 19th total solar eclipse.  StarStruck spoke with the National Geographic grantee, part of an international team, about what it takes to follow the stellar phenomenon.

• You’ve traveled around the world to observe solar eclipses. What’s different or special about this trip?

Total solar eclipses happen regularly around 75 times per 100 years.  This eclipse is very important for studying the finest possible structure of the solar corona—the uppermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere—which influences the Earth and its magnetic field.

• You’ve seen 18 total solar eclipses. Was any one particularly memorable?

My first one, in Africa, in 1973—it was like my first love.  Everyone remembers their first love!  I traveled through the Sahara from what was then Czechoslovakia to Niger.  The eclipse lasted 6 minutes and 45 seconds, one of the longest durations ever observed.

• How have things changed in the four decades you’ve been studying solar coronas? 

It’s changed so much.  One thing is the imaging techniques have become much more

Total solar eclipse, 1980, India. Courtesy Vojtech Rusin

sophisticated, so we don’t have to take very heavy equipment anymore.  Back in 1980 I traveled by truck from Czechoslovakia to near Bangalore, India; it was something like 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).

At each border the customs officers wanted to see documents for every item of the very heavy equipment we were carrying.  We lost a lot of time.  Now we have only a tripod and three telescopes that can be put on one mount, plus a laptop computer.

 • You say this total solar eclipse will last 2 minutes and 3 seconds. How do you calculate so precisely how long the eclipse will last?

Everything is governed by the laws of gravity.  If we know things like the exact positions of bodies, how satellites move around them and the distances between the Earth and Sun, the Earth and the Moon, we can make precise calculations.

• What makes the images you get from each total solar eclipse so different?

The shape of the sun’s corona is constantly changing, this change having a period of approximately 11 years (the solar cycle).  It’s mainly affected by random distributions of magnetic fields on the solar surface entangled by the sun’s rotation. The corona features a plethora of remarkable objects like helmet streamers and polar rays.  There are also coronal mass ejections that create rapid shape change lasting a few hours or so.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson helps Superman view Krypton in a new storyline that weaves real science into fantasy. Courtesy DC Comics

When Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, got a call from DC Comics about its latest Superman storyline, the famed astrophysicist saw an opportunity to make real science a part of superhero lore.

He said to DC: How about I find you a real star that could be home to Superman’s native planet, Krypton?  He did, and here’s how.

Tyson, director of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, saw a chance to infuse fantasy with real science when DC approached him about featuring the planetarium in its latest Superman storyline. Out this week in Superman Action Comics No. 14, “Star Light, Star Bright” tells of the caped superhero witnessing the destruction of his beloved home.

Or, as Tyson points out, watching it many years after the fact, since light from celestial objects takes time to travel and reach our eyes.

Courtesy DC Comics

That was the first clue Tyson had in locating a suitable star system for Krypton. Decked out in the gold sun-and-moon vest that he wears in the comic book, Tyson explained to reporters on Thursday how Superman must have traveled to Earth faster than the speed of light—and through a wormhole—since he arrived on Earth the same age he was when he escaped the disintegrating Krypton. (Remember the infant Kal-El bundled, Moses-like, in his spaceship?)

Figuring that the handsome Clark Kent is now in his strapping 20s, Tyson combed a catalogue of nearby stars and found one some 27 light years away. Not only did the star’s age fit, but it’s also red—the color of Superman’s native Rao.

DC liked the choice of LHS 2520 for yet another reason: It resides in the constellation Corvus, meaning “crow” or “raven” in Latin. Turns out a crow is the mascot for Smallville High, where young Kent and his cronies went to school.

”What more could you want in how this works out?” Tyson exclaimed.

The next challenge was figuring out how Superman could possibly see Krypton from Earth’s Hayden Planetarium. Seeing a star as dim as LHS 2520 is tough enough, let alone a theoretical planet in its orbit. Planets get lost in the glare of their host stars, Tyson said. “It’s like looking at a Hollywood spotlight and trying to spot a firefly.”

So he suggested a technique called interferometry, where astronomers use multiple small telescopes together to achieve the resolution of a much larger one. “You’d need a single telescope the width of the Earth to see Krypton,” Tyson noted.

But even an array of smaller telescopes would require a supercomputer capable of processing and pulling together all the data—something beyond the reach of current technology for a theoretical Krypton.

DC incorporated interferometry into the storyline, with Superman stepping in as the super-processor to enable the climactic viewing from New York City, aka Metropolis.

“I’m a native of Metropolis, and he’s saved Metropolis a few times,” Tyson quipped. “So one thing we could do is help Superman.”

As for his passion for getting real science into the superhero world, Tyson remarked, “There’s so much science, especially in astrophysics, that allows you to be creative. The universe is not just weirder than we imagine; it’s weirder than we could imagine it. So why not mine it?”

A map of Venus shows rough surface features named after goddesses or famous women (click to enlarge). MAP: National Geographic Maps. SOURCES: Magellan Synthetic Aperture Radar Mosaics, NASA, JPL, USGS

Armchair astronomers take note: This space atlas is for you.  Yes, that kind of atlas—a series of maps and charts that evokes the ability to navigate a place, usually by ship or some sort of vehicle.  In this case all you need is imagination.

Several years in the making, National Geographic’s Space Atlas features 47 new maps and diagrams, including the major moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  In many cases the maps are remarkably detailed; Mercury’s surface incorporates the latest data from the orbiting Messenger spacecraft.

The crater names on the first planet might surprise you: Mark Twain, Botticelli, Dali, Shakespeare.  There’s a massive impact site called Beethoven Basin.  Mercury’s craters, it turns out, are named for artists, authors, composers, and painters.

On Venus nearly every feature is named after goddesses or famous women—Ishtar, O’Keeffe, Boleyn, Joliot-Curie. 

Cartographer Matt Chwastyk worked with NASA scientists to pull together volumes of data to create the maps.  His favorite part of the atlas?  “The moons, definitely,” he says.  “These are places that no one’s ever likely to step foot on, and we’ve mapped them out.”

BEYOND PLANETS AND STARS

From the planets and moons of our solar system, the atlas extends outward to stars in the Milky Way and celestial phenomena like supernovae and black holes.  The life and death of stars are discussed, along with theories about the universe’s origin and expansion.

“This isn’t just about astronomy, it’s all the sciences,” says Jim Trefil, author of the atlas and Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University.  “Our view of the world is getting deeper and more detailed because we have computers now that can handle the data.”

“Everything you can see is as most 5 percent of the universe,” he adds.  “The rest is dark matter and dark energy.  We didn’t know about either of them 30 years ago.”

The final section of the atlas covers the universe at large.  If you want a real sense of perspective, be sure to look at the nesting sequence at the start of this section.  You see our solar system as part of a local star cluster, then zip out to the cluster’s location in the Milky Way and its local galaxy group, which in turn belongs to a galactic supercluster.

EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN

And what of the nature of the universe itself?  Picture this possibility: our universe as a bubble that’s expanding (via a mysterious force called dark energy) and shedding smaller bubbles at the surface as it does.  Each smaller bubble then becomes its own universe.

“The idea of lots of parallel universes is incredibly intriguing,” says Trefil.  “It’s a very different way of looking at the universe.  We’ve had notions of parallel universes before, but now we have a good theoretical basis—string theory.”

Asked what he would want to know if he could have one question about the universe answered, Trefil replies, “What is dark energy?  It controls the whole future of the universe.”

What would you want to know?

Navajo star ceilings, like this one in Middle Trail Canyon, Arizona, consist of stars painted or stamped on overhanging ceilings of natural rock shelters. Photo © Von Del Chamberlain

These places are now recognized as astronomical heritage sites as part of a joint initiative of UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union.  Their newly launched Web portal—created to encourage discovery and discussion of our astronomical heritage through buildings, monuments, objects, and places—might leave you, well, a little starry-eyed.

What’s beautiful about browsing through the list of sites is how they connect a breadth of cultures across time and space.  You can pick up a bit of history reading through some of the general “heritage themes,” such as Islamic astronomy  and the development of radio astronomy.

The first batch of approximately 50 sites and objects was selected last month at the IAU’s General Assembly meeting in Beijing. They date mostly from 5,000 BC to modern day, though a few go back much further.

The Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile stands at an altitude of 7,200 feet. Photo © Arturo Gómez and José Velásquez / CTIO

In Australia, Aboriginal stone arrangements from as far back as 25,000 BC correspond to the position of the setting sun at the solstices and equinox.  In France, a bovine bone fragment from the Thaïs cave (circa 10,000 BC) bears engraved markings that suggest a record of lunar and solar observations.

“That’s one of my favorites because it gives me the feeling that astronomy has a very long history and is really old,” says Ruediger Schultz, one of the site’s creators.

The online portal stems from a joint project between UNECSO and the IAU to promote sites of potential “outstanding universal value.”  Being recognized as an astronomical heritage site “might be the first step toward being on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, with all its implications,” says Schultz.

Our understanding of the universe and techniques for studying it may have changed over time, but one thing is clear: Our wonder for the cosmos hasn’t ebbed in the least.

Australian Ronald Ekers, for one, worked on the radio telescope that picked up Armstrong’s heartbeat and other signals during the historic Apollo mission of 1969.  Several decades later, he expected technical chatter when he found himself seated next to Armstrong at a dinner.

Instead the celebrated astronaut brought up Captain James Cook’s 18th-century sailing expeditions, suggesting that going to the moon was “maybe a little dangerous” in comparison.  “I found him an incredible guy,” says Ekers, now a fellow at Australia’s science agency CSIRO.  “He was so humble.”

Neil Armstrong in 1969. The astronaut died on August 25, 2012, at age 82.

Modesty.  Bravery.  Big dreams.  Other worlds.  Armstrong raises these themes among the space scientists at the triennial International Astronomical Union meeting.  Not all of them do work directly impacted by the moon landing.  Many dreamed of being astronauts, yes, but found themselves in the role of looking at space—a more feasible way of reaching the stars.

At 33, extragalactic astrophysicist Raffaele D’Abrusco says he envies his parents for having witnessed Armstrong’s lunar steps.  “Their generation can be proud of something for humankind.  My generation doesn’t have that so much; we don’t seem to have leaders pursuing big dreams.”

Russian astronomer Andrei Dambis was on the competing side of the Cold War space race and regards Armstrong as a hero nonetheless.  “Not many people know how dangerous it is to go into space,” says the Milky Way expert, recalling a classmate who lost her cosmonaut father when a 1970s Soviet spacecraft depressurized.

In a field devoted to looking upward and outward, Armstrong’s legacy is as much about keeping one’s feet on the ground.  IAU president and former Hubble director Robert Williams reflects readily about what he learned from the man he met about a year ago.

“He managed to focus on you rather than talk about himself,” says Williams.  “He led by quiet example and maintained modesty.  I attach great importance to that.”

At the end of her talk on NASA’s exoplanet search, Kepler Mission Scientist Natalie Batalha fast-forwarded to a slide showing U.S. astronaut Sally Ride, who died last month, and Armstrong.  Bringing a philosophical close to a lecture populated with periodic tables of planets and photometry graphs, Batalha offered this thought.  “There will come a day when no one’s left who has stepped on another world.”

Luna Shyr, an editor at National Geographic magazine, owes her name to Neil Armstrong.  She was born on the astronaut’s birthday.  

Rossellini dons antennae and various yellow-and-black get-ups to play each hive member—worker, drone, and queen—in the films, made for National Pollinator Week in June. Her favorite? Not the regal queen but the most uncelebrated. “The drone is always sort of a bum,” she laughs. “Its only responsibility in life is to have sex, so it’s the easiest one to make fun of.” She’s tickled that male bees are born from unfertilized eggs and die after they mate.

She also assumes the role of Burt Shavitz, the Maine beekeeper whose image graces some of the products made by Burt’s Bees, the company he co-founded. “We thought if I play Burt it would add to the comical tone,” says Rossellini.

That kind of absurd touch is part of Rossellini’s creative sensibility. She wore a beard made of shredded New York Times newspapers to play the bearded Burt.

The new films are a natural extension of Rossellini’s educational shorts for the Sundance Channel, Green Porno and Seduce Me, in which she playfully depicts the mating rituals and behaviors of various animals. As with those series, she wrote and directed Burt Talks to Bees, reading books and asking experts a bevy of questions for the scripts.

It also helped that she works with beehives at her local co-op on New York’s Long Island, where the films were shot in her barn because it looks similar to Shavitz’s, but “he has a small one and mine is quite big.” Big enough, in fact, for Rossellini to keep an assortment of beloved animals: two dogs, a cat, chickens, two pigs, and a rabbit.

“I like animals but of course insects are very interesting because they’re so far out,” she muses. “And since I don’t live in Africa or a place where I can go on safaris, insects are totally satisfying.”

With a name like Luna, it’s hard not to have a connection with space.  I share a birthday with Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and would be writing to you as Apollo Shyr if I were male.  Naturally I grew up with a poster of Andromeda on my wall and spent hours imagining ways to explore a black hole and live to tell the tale.

With Breaking Orbit, I hope we’ll keep expanding our community of space lovers and encourage others to join us in discovering the wonders of near and deep space.  Thanks, Victoria, for this opportunity and hello to everyone embarking on this voyage together.