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| Space pioneer: Neil Armstrong poses for a NASA portrait ahead of the historic 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Credit: Corbis/DailyMail |
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Neil Armstrong dies at 82
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Newly discovered mineral embedded in meteorite
Scientists Find New Primitive Mineral in Meteorite
Science Daily
June 26, 2012
— In 1969, an exploding fireball tore through the sky over Mexico, scattering thousands of pieces of meteorite across the state of Chihuahua. More than 40 years later, the Allende meteorite is still serving the scientific community as a rich source of information about the early stages of our solar system's evolution. Recently, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discovered a new mineral embedded in the space rock -- one they believe to be among the oldest minerals formed in the solar system.
Dubbed panguite, the new titanium oxide is named after Pan Gu, the giant from ancient Chinese mythology who established the world by separating yin from yang to create the earth and the sky. The mineral and the mineral name have been approved by the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification. A paper outlining the discovery and the properties of this new mineral will be published in the July issue of the journal American Mineralogist, and is available online now.
"Panguite is an especially exciting discovery since it is not only a new mineral, but also a material previously unknown to science," says Chi Ma, a senior scientist and director of the Geological and Planetary Sciences division's Analytical Facility at Caltech and corresponding author on the paper.
The Allende meteorite is the largest carbonaceous chondrite -- a diverse class of primitive meteorites -- ever found on our planet and is considered by many the best-studied meteorite in history. As a result of an ongoing nanomineralogy investigation of primitive meteorites -- which Ma has been leading since 2007 -- nine new minerals, including panguite, have been found in the Allende meteorite. Some of those new finds include the minerals allendeite, hexamolybdenum, tistarite, and kangite.
Nanomineralogy looks at tiny particles of minerals and the minuscule features within those minerals.
"The intensive studies of objects in this meteorite have had a tremendous influence on current thinking about processes, timing, and chemistry in the primitive solar nebula and small planetary bodies," says coauthor George Rossman, the Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Mineralogy at Caltech.
Panguite was observed first under a scanning electron microscope in an ultra-refractory inclusion embedded in the meteorite. Refractory inclusions are among the first solid objects formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of Earth and the other planets. "Refractory" refers to the fact that these inclusions contain minerals that are stable at high temperatures and in extreme environments, which attests to their likely formation as primitive, high-temperature liquids produced by the solar nebula.
According to Ma, studies of panguite and other newly discovered refractory minerals are continuing in an effort to learn more about the conditions under which they formed and subsequently evolved. "Such investigations are essential to understand the origins of our solar system," he says.
Additional authors on the American Mineralogist paper, "Panguite, (Ti4+,Sc,Al,Mg,Zr,Ca)1.8O3, a new ultra-refractory titania mineral from the Allende meteorite: Synchrotron micro-diffraction and EBSD," are John R. Beckett, senior research scientist at Caltech; Oliver Tschauner from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas; and Wenjun Liu from the Argonne National Laboratory. The study was supported through grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA's Office of Space Science.
Science Daily
June 26, 2012
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Panguite is embedded in a piece of the Allende meteorite.
(Credit: Chi Ma / Caltech) |
The Allende meteorite is the largest carbonaceous chondrite -- a diverse class of primitive meteorites -- ever found on our planet and is considered by many the best-studied meteorite in history. As a result of an ongoing nanomineralogy investigation of primitive meteorites -- which Ma has been leading since 2007 -- nine new minerals, including panguite, have been found in the Allende meteorite. Some of those new finds include the minerals allendeite, hexamolybdenum, tistarite, and kangite.
Nanomineralogy looks at tiny particles of minerals and the minuscule features within those minerals.
"The intensive studies of objects in this meteorite have had a tremendous influence on current thinking about processes, timing, and chemistry in the primitive solar nebula and small planetary bodies," says coauthor George Rossman, the Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Mineralogy at Caltech.
Panguite was observed first under a scanning electron microscope in an ultra-refractory inclusion embedded in the meteorite. Refractory inclusions are among the first solid objects formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of Earth and the other planets. "Refractory" refers to the fact that these inclusions contain minerals that are stable at high temperatures and in extreme environments, which attests to their likely formation as primitive, high-temperature liquids produced by the solar nebula.
According to Ma, studies of panguite and other newly discovered refractory minerals are continuing in an effort to learn more about the conditions under which they formed and subsequently evolved. "Such investigations are essential to understand the origins of our solar system," he says.
Additional authors on the American Mineralogist paper, "Panguite, (Ti4+,Sc,Al,Mg,Zr,Ca)1.8O3, a new ultra-refractory titania mineral from the Allende meteorite: Synchrotron micro-diffraction and EBSD," are John R. Beckett, senior research scientist at Caltech; Oliver Tschauner from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas; and Wenjun Liu from the Argonne National Laboratory. The study was supported through grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA's Office of Space Science.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Behold the rings of Jupiter - that's right, we said Jupiter!
By EDDIE WRENN
DAILY MAIL
June 22, 2012
It is probably one of the least-known facts of our solar system - but Jupiter has a ring system.
Yes, the giant gas planet, the biggest planet in our system, has rings, which were first discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft - which, 33 years later, is making its own voyage of discovery on the very edge of the solar system.
Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons.
As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Adrastea, for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporise and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit.
Pictured above is an eclipse of the sun by Jupiter, as viewed from Galileo. Small dust particles high in Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the dust particles that compose the rings, can be seen by reflected sunlight.
The rings are not as well-known as Saturn and Uranus, partly because not many photographs of them exist.
The system is mainly composed of dust - caused by the collisions of meteorites on Jupiter's moons, and dust escaping from one of Jupiter's 60-plus moons, and the rings are probably as old as Jupiter.
Intriguingly, one of the moons of Jupiter, called S/2000 and about four kilometres in diameter, appears to have gone missing since it was first spotted in 2000. It is possible it crashed into a larger moon Himalia at 170 kilometres in diameter, and may have created its own ring.
DAILY MAIL
June 22, 2012
Yes, the giant gas planet, the biggest planet in our system, has rings, which were first discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft - which, 33 years later, is making its own voyage of discovery on the very edge of the solar system.
Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons.
As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Adrastea, for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporise and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit.
 |
| This is it: The rings are shown in profile, created by small meteorite impacts on the moons of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA |
The rings are not as well-known as Saturn and Uranus, partly because not many photographs of them exist.
The system is mainly composed of dust - caused by the collisions of meteorites on Jupiter's moons, and dust escaping from one of Jupiter's 60-plus moons, and the rings are probably as old as Jupiter.
Intriguingly, one of the moons of Jupiter, called S/2000 and about four kilometres in diameter, appears to have gone missing since it was first spotted in 2000. It is possible it crashed into a larger moon Himalia at 170 kilometres in diameter, and may have created its own ring.
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| The moons of Jupiter, with the rings circling in the same plane. Image credit: NASA |
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Scorpion's Stellar Nursery (VIDEO)
- Most Detailed Look Ever...
SPACE.COM
Deep in the heart of the Scorpius constellation lies the chaos of dust, gas and developing stars of the NGC 6357 galaxy. Its light has been captured by the huge mirror of Europe's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the closest look to date.
SPACE.COM
Deep in the heart of the Scorpius constellation lies the chaos of dust, gas and developing stars of the NGC 6357 galaxy. Its light has been captured by the huge mirror of Europe's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the closest look to date.
Monday, March 5, 2012
History of planetary catastrophes...The Mysterious Tunguska Event - Carl Sagan
In the history of the solar system, and even in human history, there are clear records of extraordinary and devastating catastrophes… On the landscapes of other planets, where the records of the past are better preserved, there is abundant evidence of major catastrophes. It’s all a matter of time scales. An event which is improbable in a hundred years, may be inevitable in a hundred million years. Even on the Earth in this century there have been bizarre natural events.
Carl Sagan
Cosmos – A Personal Voyage (1980) [video]
The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).
Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 510 kilometres (36 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.
Although the meteor or comet burst in the air rather than directly hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 5 megatons[4] to as high as 30 megatons of TNT, with 1015 megatons the most likely—roughly equal to the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear bomb tested in late February 1954, about 1,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and about one-third the power of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles). It is estimated that the shockwave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. This possibility has helped to spark discussion of asteroid deflection strategies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
---
Carl Edward Sagan, Ph.D. (1934-1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage", which has been seen by more than 600 million people in over 60 countries, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history.
A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel "Contact", the basis for the 1997 Robert Zemecki's film of the same name starring Jodie Foster.
During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.
http://www.carlsagan.com
Please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience
http://www.youtube.com/ScienceMagazine
http://www.youtube.com/ScienceTV
http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker
http://www.youtube.com/SagansCosmos
Cosmos – A Personal Voyage (1980) [video]
The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).
Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 510 kilometres (36 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.
Although the meteor or comet burst in the air rather than directly hitting the surface, this event is still referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 5 megatons[4] to as high as 30 megatons of TNT, with 1015 megatons the most likely—roughly equal to the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear bomb tested in late February 1954, about 1,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and about one-third the power of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
The explosion knocked over an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 square miles). It is estimated that the shockwave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. This possibility has helped to spark discussion of asteroid deflection strategies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
---
Carl Edward Sagan, Ph.D. (1934-1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage", which has been seen by more than 600 million people in over 60 countries, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history.
A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel "Contact", the basis for the 1997 Robert Zemecki's film of the same name starring Jodie Foster.
During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.
http://www.carlsagan.com
Please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience
http://www.youtube.com/ScienceMagazine
http://www.youtube.com/ScienceTV
http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker
http://www.youtube.com/SagansCosmos
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Laptop used to control the ISS lost...but NASA says not to worry?
NASA loses laptop with command code for ISS
RT News
Published: 02 March, 2012, 03:22
Edited: 02 March, 2012, 20:37
Four dozen high-tech computing devices disappeared from the offices of NASA over a two-year span, including one laptop that contained the code needed to command the International Space Station.
No big deal, guys!
A laptop with the algorithm used to control the ISS was one of 48 gizmos and gadgets that NASA either reported lost or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, tells the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Although the incidents date back to nearly three years ago, Martin has only now informed Congress of the accidents. They are discussed in a written statement he authored and published this week under the title “NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency’s Information Security.”
For the Cliff Notes version, we’ve got you covered. Information security at NASA: not so good.
Over the course of ten pages, Martin makes mention of what he says are five issues that NASA believes, based on their “extensive audit and investigative work,” make up NASA’s “most serious challenges in the admittedly difficult task of protecting the agency’s information.”
For starters, we suggest putting a damn lock on the safe.
Martin goes on to list those challenges as including a “lack of full awareness of Agency-wide security posture,”“shortcomings in implementing a continuous monitoring approach to IT security” and the “slow pace of encryption.” Also, however, he adds that one “challenge” in particular, is the ability to handle a sophisticated cyber attack.
Now, what separates a sophisticated cyber attack from a stupid, simple-minded one is something Martin would have to extrapolate on a bit more. But in regards to losing four dozen mobile computing devices — well, keeping a close eye on those things isn’t rocket science. And if it was, you’d expect NASA of all agencies to be able to handle it, wouldn’t you?
According to the congressional testimony, NASA spends around $1.5 billion each year on IT-related activities, which includes approximately $58 million on IT security. And while the statement acknowledges that losing sensitive information could “adversely affect national security,” Martin makes note that lapses have caused concern time and time again. He also admits that security within the agency is not up to snuff, while at the same time revealing that NASA is a “regular target” of such attacks.
The 48 missing mobile devices isn’t the biggest number in the report, though. In 2010 and 2011, reveals the report, NASA reported over 5,400 incidents where either malicious software was found on computers or unauthorized users were granted access to the agency’s systems. For the sake of pointing out the significance of how spectacular of a security flaw this is, we will publish this line as a standalone statement:
NASA SUFFERS OVER 5,000 SECURITY BREACHES A YEAR ON A SYSTEM THAT IS IN CHARGE OF GIANT, SPACE-SURFING MISSILES.
You would only assume that if they can land a man on the moon, surely they could install a copy of McAfee Antivirus.
Those problems, adds the report, have indeed caused the disruption of mission operations and is estimated to have costs NASA $7 million in just one years’ time. In their defense, however, the agency has issued 21 audit reports during the last five years, which have spawned 69 IT-related recommendations. Whether or not they followed through with those, however, is anyone’s guess. Regardless, Martin does make note that the agency has identified that there is indeed “weakness” in regardless to its IT security. That, you see, is something you shouldn’t have to admit to. Over the span of just ten pages, the word “weakness” appears four times.
One of those weaknesses is indeed the ability to monitor mobile devices that are lost. The damage, reveals the report, has been not just the loss of the code used to command and control the International Space Station (that one-million-pound hunk of machinery that NASA allocated $72.4 billion towards), but also Social Security numbers and other sensitive data.
Don’t worry too hard, though. NASA says that eventually they will able to remediate these issues. It’ll take a bit of work though. "Until NASA fully implements an agency-wide data encryption solution, sensitive data on its mobile computing and portable data storage devices will remain at high risk for loss or theft," reads Martin’s report.
And if you were wondering, “risk” appears an average of twice-per-page in the report.
Additional Readings:
Nasa sells shuttle PCs without wiping secret data
RT News
Published: 02 March, 2012, 03:22
Edited: 02 March, 2012, 20:37
 |
Cosmonaut participate in a session of extravehicular
activity (EVA) to continue outfitting the International Space
Station (AFP Photo / NASA)
|
No big deal, guys!
A laptop with the algorithm used to control the ISS was one of 48 gizmos and gadgets that NASA either reported lost or stolen between April 2009 and April 2011, the agency’s inspector general, Paul Martin, tells the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Although the incidents date back to nearly three years ago, Martin has only now informed Congress of the accidents. They are discussed in a written statement he authored and published this week under the title “NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency’s Information Security.”
For the Cliff Notes version, we’ve got you covered. Information security at NASA: not so good.
Over the course of ten pages, Martin makes mention of what he says are five issues that NASA believes, based on their “extensive audit and investigative work,” make up NASA’s “most serious challenges in the admittedly difficult task of protecting the agency’s information.”
For starters, we suggest putting a damn lock on the safe.
Martin goes on to list those challenges as including a “lack of full awareness of Agency-wide security posture,”“shortcomings in implementing a continuous monitoring approach to IT security” and the “slow pace of encryption.” Also, however, he adds that one “challenge” in particular, is the ability to handle a sophisticated cyber attack.
Now, what separates a sophisticated cyber attack from a stupid, simple-minded one is something Martin would have to extrapolate on a bit more. But in regards to losing four dozen mobile computing devices — well, keeping a close eye on those things isn’t rocket science. And if it was, you’d expect NASA of all agencies to be able to handle it, wouldn’t you?
According to the congressional testimony, NASA spends around $1.5 billion each year on IT-related activities, which includes approximately $58 million on IT security. And while the statement acknowledges that losing sensitive information could “adversely affect national security,” Martin makes note that lapses have caused concern time and time again. He also admits that security within the agency is not up to snuff, while at the same time revealing that NASA is a “regular target” of such attacks.
The 48 missing mobile devices isn’t the biggest number in the report, though. In 2010 and 2011, reveals the report, NASA reported over 5,400 incidents where either malicious software was found on computers or unauthorized users were granted access to the agency’s systems. For the sake of pointing out the significance of how spectacular of a security flaw this is, we will publish this line as a standalone statement:
NASA SUFFERS OVER 5,000 SECURITY BREACHES A YEAR ON A SYSTEM THAT IS IN CHARGE OF GIANT, SPACE-SURFING MISSILES.
You would only assume that if they can land a man on the moon, surely they could install a copy of McAfee Antivirus.
Those problems, adds the report, have indeed caused the disruption of mission operations and is estimated to have costs NASA $7 million in just one years’ time. In their defense, however, the agency has issued 21 audit reports during the last five years, which have spawned 69 IT-related recommendations. Whether or not they followed through with those, however, is anyone’s guess. Regardless, Martin does make note that the agency has identified that there is indeed “weakness” in regardless to its IT security. That, you see, is something you shouldn’t have to admit to. Over the span of just ten pages, the word “weakness” appears four times.
One of those weaknesses is indeed the ability to monitor mobile devices that are lost. The damage, reveals the report, has been not just the loss of the code used to command and control the International Space Station (that one-million-pound hunk of machinery that NASA allocated $72.4 billion towards), but also Social Security numbers and other sensitive data.
Don’t worry too hard, though. NASA says that eventually they will able to remediate these issues. It’ll take a bit of work though. "Until NASA fully implements an agency-wide data encryption solution, sensitive data on its mobile computing and portable data storage devices will remain at high risk for loss or theft," reads Martin’s report.
And if you were wondering, “risk” appears an average of twice-per-page in the report.
Additional Readings:
Nasa sells shuttle PCs without wiping secret data
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Ever wondered what the solar system would like all the way from the surface of Pluto? Well, you don`t have to anymore...
The outer limits: Incredible video shows what the sun would look like seen from the freezing surface of dwarf planet Pluto
Daily Mail
By ROB WAUGH
Last updated at 2:44 PM on 15th February 2012
An artist's impression based on data from the European Southern Observatory shows what a sunny day on the distant dwarf planet Pluto might look like.
On average, Pluto is 40 times further from the sun than the Earth is.
From Pluto, our sun would be 1,000 times dimmer than it is seen from Earth. The dwarf planet's surface is covered with patches of frozen methane, with a hazy atmosphere including methane gas.
What the sun might look like from the surface of Pluto: From the distant dwarf planet, the sun would be 1,000 times dimmer than it is seen from Earth. The 'haze' over the surface is Pluto's atmosphere., credit: DailyMail
The computer-generated artist's impression is based on one possible idea of what Pluto's surface is like, where the surface is covered with patches of methane. In another idea, the whole surface is covered by a thin layer of methane frost.
Pluto, which is about a fifth the size of Earth, is composed primarily of rock and ice.
The surface is about -220C. But the atmosphere above it is much warmer in places, according to measurements taken by the European Southern Observatory in 2009, when the video was made.
'With lots of methane in the atmosphere, it becomes clear why Pluto's atmosphere is so warm,’ said Emmanuel Lellouch, lead author of the paper reporting the results. The upper atmosphere is about 50 degrees warmer than the surface.
‘It is fascinating to think that with CRIRES we are able to precisely measure traces of a gas on an object five times smaller than our planet and located at the edge of the Solar System,’ says co-author Hans-Ulrich Käufl.
‘The combination of CRIRES and the VLT is almost like having an advanced atmospheric research satellite orbiting Pluto.’
[click here for the video]
video link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2101376/The-outer-limits-Incredible-video-shows-sun-look-like-seen-freezing-surface-dwarf-planet-Pluto.html
Daily Mail
By ROB WAUGH
Last updated at 2:44 PM on 15th February 2012
On average, Pluto is 40 times further from the sun than the Earth is.
From Pluto, our sun would be 1,000 times dimmer than it is seen from Earth. The dwarf planet's surface is covered with patches of frozen methane, with a hazy atmosphere including methane gas.
What the sun might look like from the surface of Pluto: From the distant dwarf planet, the sun would be 1,000 times dimmer than it is seen from Earth. The 'haze' over the surface is Pluto's atmosphere., credit: DailyMailThe computer-generated artist's impression is based on one possible idea of what Pluto's surface is like, where the surface is covered with patches of methane. In another idea, the whole surface is covered by a thin layer of methane frost.
Pluto, which is about a fifth the size of Earth, is composed primarily of rock and ice.
The surface is about -220C. But the atmosphere above it is much warmer in places, according to measurements taken by the European Southern Observatory in 2009, when the video was made.
'With lots of methane in the atmosphere, it becomes clear why Pluto's atmosphere is so warm,’ said Emmanuel Lellouch, lead author of the paper reporting the results. The upper atmosphere is about 50 degrees warmer than the surface.
‘It is fascinating to think that with CRIRES we are able to precisely measure traces of a gas on an object five times smaller than our planet and located at the edge of the Solar System,’ says co-author Hans-Ulrich Käufl.
‘The combination of CRIRES and the VLT is almost like having an advanced atmospheric research satellite orbiting Pluto.’
[click here for the video]
video link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2101376/The-outer-limits-Incredible-video-shows-sun-look-like-seen-freezing-surface-dwarf-planet-Pluto.html
Friday, February 3, 2012
View all HiRISE images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on the Univ. of Arizona mission page
HiRISE High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
M A R S R E C O N N A I S S A N C E O R B I T E R
NASA/JPL : THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
NASA/JPL : THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
 |
| Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
"Explore Mars, one giant image at a time," by visiting HiRISE`s University of Arizona mission page by clicking here for a full complete catalog of in-depth imagery, video and related content.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The forgotten Mars Odyssey Spacecraft: now the longest serving orbiter on Mars
Mars Odyssey: Red Planet Orbital Record
Uploaded by djxatlanta on Dec 15, 2010; JPL/NASA
NASA's Mars Odyssey, which launched in 2001, has broken the record for longest-serving spacecraft at the Red Planet. The probe began its 3,340th day in Martian orbit at 5:55 p.m. PST (8:55 p.m. EST) on December 15, 2010 to break the record set by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which orbited Mars from 1997 to 2006.
Odyssey's longevity enables continued science, including the monitoring of seasonal changes on Mars from year to year and the most detailed maps ever made of most of the planet. In 2002, the spacecraft detected hydrogen just below the surface throughout Mars' high-latitude regions. The deduction that the hydrogen is in frozen water prompted NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which confirmed the theory in 2008. Odyssey also carried the first experiment sent to Mars specifically to prepare for human missions, and found radiation levels around the planet from solar flares and cosmic rays are two to three times higher than around Earth.
Odyssey also has served as a communication relay, handling most of the data sent home by Phoenix and NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Odyssey became the middle link for continuous observation of Martian weather by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
"Odyssey has proved itself to be a great spacecraft, but what really enables a spacecraft to reach this sort of accomplishment is the people behind it," said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is a tribute to the whole Odyssey team."
Odyssey will support the 2012 landing of the Mars Science Laboratory and surface operations of that mission. Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, will assess whether its landing area has had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and preserving evidence about whether life has existed there. The rover will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface.
"The Mars program clearly demonstrates that world-class science coupled with sound and creative engineering equals success and longevity," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Other recent NASA spacecraft at Mars include the Mars Global Surveyor that began orbiting the Red Planet in 1997. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Phoenix landed May 25, 2008, farther north than any previous spacecraft to the planet's surface. The mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for some microbes, but potentially toxic for others. The solar-powered lander completed its three-month mission and kept working until sunlight waned two months later. MRO arrived at Mars in 2006 on a search for evidence that water persisted on the planet's surface for a long period of time.
credit: JPL/NASA
source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=952
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Uploaded by djxatlanta on Dec 15, 2010; JPL/NASA
NASA's Mars Odyssey, which launched in 2001, has broken the record for longest-serving spacecraft at the Red Planet. The probe began its 3,340th day in Martian orbit at 5:55 p.m. PST (8:55 p.m. EST) on December 15, 2010 to break the record set by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which orbited Mars from 1997 to 2006.
Odyssey also has served as a communication relay, handling most of the data sent home by Phoenix and NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Odyssey became the middle link for continuous observation of Martian weather by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
"Odyssey has proved itself to be a great spacecraft, but what really enables a spacecraft to reach this sort of accomplishment is the people behind it," said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is a tribute to the whole Odyssey team."
Odyssey will support the 2012 landing of the Mars Science Laboratory and surface operations of that mission. Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, will assess whether its landing area has had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and preserving evidence about whether life has existed there. The rover will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface.
"The Mars program clearly demonstrates that world-class science coupled with sound and creative engineering equals success and longevity," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Other recent NASA spacecraft at Mars include the Mars Global Surveyor that began orbiting the Red Planet in 1997. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Phoenix landed May 25, 2008, farther north than any previous spacecraft to the planet's surface. The mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for some microbes, but potentially toxic for others. The solar-powered lander completed its three-month mission and kept working until sunlight waned two months later. MRO arrived at Mars in 2006 on a search for evidence that water persisted on the planet's surface for a long period of time.
credit: JPL/NASA
source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=952
Copyright Disclaimer [Rubaiat`s Blog]:
The use of incidental copyrighted material is covered under 'Fair Use' (Copyright Act, 1976) Title 17 U.S.C Section 107, with particular emphasis on such use for educational and non-profit purposes. Under Sec. 107 of the Copyright Act (1976), allowance is made for 'Fair Use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair Use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of Fair Use (Moe, AllSeeingEye). If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'Fair Use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act-
In Aug 2008, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California, ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material.
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage]
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage]
GRAIL spacecraft`s first ever video of the far side of the moon
GRAIL Returns Unique Moon Video
02.01.12
NASA's GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon. The imagery was taken on Jan. 19 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission's 'Ebb' spacecraft.
Embedded video from
NASA Mission Returns First Video From Moon's Far Side
February 01, 2012
South pole of the far side of the moon as seen from the GRAIL mission's Ebb spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/Caltech-JPL
PASADENA, Calif. -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.
The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the bottom of the screen, is the 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.
The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
The twin spacecraft successfully achieved lunar orbit this past New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Previously named GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft received their new names from fourth graders at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., following a nationwide student naming contest.
Thousands of fourth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the satellites for students to study. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space. Her team at Sally Ride Science and undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach.
"We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far," Ride said. "In mid-March, the first pictures of the moon will be taken by students using MoonKAM. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering."
Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow periodically perform trajectory correction maneuvers that, over time, will lower their orbits to near-circular ones with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
For more information about GRAIL, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grail .
Information about MoonKAM is available at: https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/ .
JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Copyright Disclaimer [Rubaiat`s Blog]:
The use of incidental copyrighted material is covered under 'Fair Use' (Copyright Act, 1976) Title 17 U.S.C Section 107, with particular emphasis on such use for educational and non-profit purposes. Under Sec. 107 of the Copyright Act (1976), allowance is made for 'Fair Use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair Use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of Fair Use (Moe, AllSeeingEye). If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'Fair Use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act-
In Aug 2008, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California, ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material.
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage]
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage]
Friday, January 27, 2012
MRO captures spectacular sand dunes on Mars
The image below shows dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes inside an impact crater in the Noachis Terra region of southern Mars. It was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Image credit: (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
More than 20,600 images taken by HiRISE are available for viewing on the instrument team's website: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu. Each observation by this telescopic camera covers several square miles, or square kilometers, and can reveal features as small as a desk.
HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.
For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see www.nasa.gov/mro.
This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Image credit: (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see www.nasa.gov/mro.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Voyager, the interstellar traveler
 |
| NASA |
Additional Info:
NASA Voyager Fact Sheet
NASA/JPL Mission Page
Friday, January 13, 2012
Preserving man`s history on the moon
Preserving the Moon Landings for Posterity, by Valerie Ross
DISCOVER Magazine Blog
January 11th, 2012 11:13 AM
[Original post: NY Times, by Kenneth Chang, published: January 9, 2012]
BUZZ ALDRIN STEPPED HERE NASA has asked that lunar visitors stay at least 75 meters from the Apollo 11 lander --NASA
Archaeologists, historians, and governments take great care to preserve human history across the globe, protecting monuments of our civilizations and traces of our origins. Even what may seem, at first, like the detritus of existence—footprints left millions of years ago, the contents of well-preserved wastebins—can serve as tangible, informative links to the past.
Now, scientists and officials are working preserve some of humanity’s best-known footprints, left by a giant leap for mankind, by extending those same sorts of historical protections to the Apollo missions’ lunar landing sites. The tricky part is, many such protections require that a site be on the territory of a state or nation—and the US government can’t claim sovereignty over any part of the moon, and doesn’t want to appear as though it’s trying to. But NASA and the New Mexico and California state governments have gotten onboard with the effort to safeguard the sites, spearheaded by New Mexico State University anthropologist Beth O’Leary. A NASA panel recently issued recommendations for protecting the sites that suggest future explorers give a wide berth to the astronautical artifacts left behind, Kenneth Chang reports at the New York Times:
The recommendations, issued in the fall, place greater protections on items from the first
moon mission, Apollo 11, and the last one, Apollo 17. For Apollo 11, the recommendations
ask that any visitor, robotic or human, stay at least 75 meters from the lander.
“In that case, it would protect every footprint from Neil and Buzz and all the flight hardware,”
[NASA's Robert] Kelso said.
For Apollo 17, the protection bubble is even wider — 225 meters — because a lunar buggy
let the last two men on the moon, Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt, cover much
more ground.
NASA’s recommendations aren’t legally binding, and lunar missions by other nations or commercial space outfits can still land wherever they please. But the guidelines do apparently carry some weight: A Lunar X Prize team that intended to land at the Apollo 11 site has changed its plans.
Read more at the New York Times
DISCOVER Magazine Blog
January 11th, 2012 11:13 AM
[Original post: NY Times, by Kenneth Chang, published: January 9, 2012]
BUZZ ALDRIN STEPPED HERE NASA has asked that lunar visitors stay at least 75 meters from the Apollo 11 lander --NASA
Archaeologists, historians, and governments take great care to preserve human history across the globe, protecting monuments of our civilizations and traces of our origins. Even what may seem, at first, like the detritus of existence—footprints left millions of years ago, the contents of well-preserved wastebins—can serve as tangible, informative links to the past.
Now, scientists and officials are working preserve some of humanity’s best-known footprints, left by a giant leap for mankind, by extending those same sorts of historical protections to the Apollo missions’ lunar landing sites. The tricky part is, many such protections require that a site be on the territory of a state or nation—and the US government can’t claim sovereignty over any part of the moon, and doesn’t want to appear as though it’s trying to. But NASA and the New Mexico and California state governments have gotten onboard with the effort to safeguard the sites, spearheaded by New Mexico State University anthropologist Beth O’Leary. A NASA panel recently issued recommendations for protecting the sites that suggest future explorers give a wide berth to the astronautical artifacts left behind, Kenneth Chang reports at the New York Times:
The recommendations, issued in the fall, place greater protections on items from the first
moon mission, Apollo 11, and the last one, Apollo 17. For Apollo 11, the recommendations
ask that any visitor, robotic or human, stay at least 75 meters from the lander.
“In that case, it would protect every footprint from Neil and Buzz and all the flight hardware,”
[NASA's Robert] Kelso said.
For Apollo 17, the protection bubble is even wider — 225 meters — because a lunar buggy
let the last two men on the moon, Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt, cover much
more ground.
NASA’s recommendations aren’t legally binding, and lunar missions by other nations or commercial space outfits can still land wherever they please. But the guidelines do apparently carry some weight: A Lunar X Prize team that intended to land at the Apollo 11 site has changed its plans.
Read more at the New York Times
Did Earth’s Gold Come From Outer Space?
Did Earth’s Gold Come From Outer Space?
(Top 100 Stories of 2011 #53 -DISCOVER)Money never grows on trees, but precious metals do sometimes fall from the sky.
by Elizabeth Svoboda
DISCOVER Magazine
From the January-February special issue; published online December 27, 2011
(Image left: iStockphoto)
The platinum in your wedding ring and the gold in your dental fillings most likely arrived on Earth in a furious meteoric bombardment 200 million years after the planet’s formation, University of Bristol geologist Matthias Willbold reports. According to standard planetary formation models, the gold, platinum, and
tungsten that were present when Earth was born should have quickly bonded to iron and sunk into the planet’s core. Those precious metals are thousands of times more prevalent on the surface of Earth and in its mantle than the models predict.
Willbold proposes that a colossal meteor shower about 4 billion years ago deposited the additional bling. To test his theory, he measured the isotopic mix of tungsten in rocks from an ancient formation that predates the proposed meteor shower. He then compared the readings with isotopes found in more recent rocks. “If you look at really ancient rocks in Greenland, the tungsten composition is different,” he says.
[Related Fact]
The largest gold deposit ever, may not even be on this planet. Eros, one of the closest asteroids to Earth, is thought to have gold valued in excess of a thousand billion dollars. That`s 200,000 times the amount of gold that has ever been mines on Earth.
Source: Gold Rush Alaska (Aired: 02/13/12)
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