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Category: SpaceRevolution

  • Solar System “Tail” Mapped by NASA’s IBEX

    Solar System “Tail” Mapped by NASA’s IBEX

    NASA today announced that its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has mapped the structure of our solar system’s “tail.” The tail, called the heliotail, is shaped like a four-leaf clover, much like the tails seen around other nearby stars.

    “By examining the neutral atoms, IBEX has made the first observations of the heliotail,” said David McComas, lead author of a paper on the findings published this week in the Astrophysical Journal and an IBEX principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute. “Many models have suggested the heliotail might look like this or like that, but we have had no observations. We always drew pictures where the tail of the solar system just trailed off the page, since we couldn’t even speculate about what it really looked like.”

    Finding the shape of our heliotail, researchers say, was more difficult than measuring the ones found around other stars, since the particles in the heliosphere cannot be detected using conventional measurements. The IBEX was able to detect neutral particles created by collisions at the boundary of the heliosphere and interstellar space. Such particles are not affected by the sun’s magnetic field, allowing researchers to construct a model of the heliosphere’s shape.

    “Since first light in 2008, the IBEX mission team has amazed us with its discoveries at the interstellar boundary, including a previously unknown ribbon of energetic neutral particles stretching across it,” said Arik Posner, a NASA IBEX program scientist. “The new IBEX image of the heliotail fills in a previously blank area on the map. We are first-hand witnesses of rapid progress in heliophysics science.”

    The exact length of the heliotail is still unknown, as it can be seen fading gradually into interstellar space. Also, the clover-shape of the tail rotates the further away it gets from the sun as it becomes more influenced by the local galactic magnetic field.

  • NASA Previews 2020 Mars Rover Mission

    NASA Previews 2020 Mars Rover Mission

    NASA’s Mars 2020 Science Definition Team this week released its recommendations for a rover the agency plans to send to the red planet by 2020. The announcement of the 2020 rover mission came in December 2012. The team of 19 researchers proposed that the rover be prepared to pave the way for a human mission to Mars, a goal President Obama has set for NASA to meet by the 2030s.

    “Crafting the science and exploration goals is a crucial milestone in preparing for our next major Mars mission,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator at NASA. “The objectives determined by NASA with the input from this team will become the basis later this year for soliciting proposals to provide instruments to be part of the science payload on this exciting step in Mars exploration.”

    NASA will be holding open bids for the new rover’s payload and science equipment. The instruments included and the build of the rover will be similar to NASA’s most recent Mars rover, Curiosity. The new rover will build on Curiosity’s discovery that conditions on Mars were once favorable for microbial life. In particular, the new rover will be designed to look for confirmation or signs of past life on the red planet.

    “The Mars 2020 mission concept does not presume that life ever existed on Mars,” said Jack Mustard, chairman of the Science Definition Team and a geology professor at Brown University. “However, given the recent Curiosity findings, past Martian life seems possible, and we should begin the difficult endeavor of seeking the signs of life. No matter what we learn, we would make significant progress in understanding the circumstances of early life existing on Earth and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.”

    The new rover will provide chemical and mineral analysis that can identify biosignatures, and will seek out geological features that may have been formed biologically. In addition, the rover will package Martian rock and soil samples for later return to Earth and perform demonstrations of technology that will be needed for a manned mission to Mars.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL)

  • NASA Shuts Down Galaxy Explorer Telescope

    NASA Shuts Down Galaxy Explorer Telescope

    Just over ten years after its launch, NASA this afternoon decommissioned its Galaxy Evolution Explorer spacecraft. The satellite will no longer be used for science missions, but will remain in orbit for 65 years before burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

    The GALEX telescope was launched in April 2003. Its primary, 29-month mission was to observe early-universe star formation in ultraviolet wavelengths. After its successful first mission, the spacecraft was re-commissioned three more times before the mission was cancelled.

    “GALEX is a remarkable accomplishment,” said Jeff Hayes, NASA’s GALEX program executive. “This small Explorer mission has mapped and studied galaxies in the ultraviolet, light we cannot see with our own eyes, across most of the sky.”

    In January, archival data from GALEX was used to discover the massive NGC 6872 galaxy. At a record 522,000 light-years across (around five time the size fo our Milky Way galaxy), NGC 6872 is the largest spiral galaxy known to exist.

    During its final year, GALEX was loaned to the California Institute of Technology, which used private funding to keep the project going. The telescope was used in its last year to survey the ultraviolet sky for black holes, supernovae, and rare galaxies. Data from these observations are scheduled to be made public later this year.

    “In the last few years, GALEX studied objects we never thought we’d be able to observe, from the Magellanic Clouds to bright nebulae and supernova remnants in the galactic plane,” said David Schiminovich, a GALEX team member and an astronomer at Columbia University. “Some of its most beautiful and scientifically compelling images are part of this last observation cycle.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • NASA Launches IRIS to Study Sun’s Atmosphere

    NASA Launches IRIS to Study Sun’s Atmosphere

    After being delayed for one day over a power outage at Vandenberg Air Force Base, NASA‘s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft was successfully launched on Thursday evening. The satellite will help researchers on Earth study the sun‘s lower atmosphere.

    “Congratulations to the entire team on the successful development and deployment of the IRIS mission,” said Gary Kushner, IRIS project manager at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Atmospheric Laboratory. “Now that IRIS is in orbit, we can begin our 30-day engineering checkout followed by a 30-day science checkout and calibration period.”

    Following its 60-day commissioning phase, IRIS will begin studying how the sun’s surface heats up and moves as it travels through its lower atmosphere. NASA stated that this region of the sun, located between the photosphere and corona, “powers” the solar atmosphere, producing solar wind and ultraviolet radiation. Researchers believe that researching this region can help to better predict solar weather, which can affect both Earth and its surrounding satellites.

    The IRIS was launched using a Pegasus XL rocket strapped to an Orbital L-1011 carrier aircraft. At 7:40 pm, at an altitude of 39,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, the rocket was released from the plane and fired off into orbit. The launch can be seen in the video below, captured by NASA.

  • NASA Ion Engine Completes 48K Hours of Successful Testing

    NASA Ion Engine Completes 48K Hours of Successful Testing

    NASA this week announced that its advanced ion propulsion has completed 48,000 hours (five and a half years) of successful testing. This makes it the longest-tested space propulsion system in NASA history.

    The NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has created a 7-kilowatt class thruster that will be used in future space missions, including deep space missions. The engine runs on solar electricity, converting energy generated by solar panels to accelerate a xenon propellant to speeds of up to 90,000 miles per hour. According to NASA, the engine is a significant improvement in performance over chemical rocke engines.

    “The NEXT thruster operated for more than 48,000 hours,” said Michael Patterson, principal investigator for NEXT at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, where the NEXT’s core ionization chamber was built. “We will voluntarily terminate this test at the end of this month, with the thruster fully operational. Life and performance have exceeded the requirements for any anticipated science mission.”

    The NEXT’s ion acceleration assembly was designed and manufactured by the Aerojet Rocketdyne company, The goal of the NEXT project was to develop a next-generation electric-powered engine for future space missions. The project was part of the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, which is also conducted at the Glenn Research Center. Hall Trusters, Solar Sails, and advanced chemical propulsion systems are also being researched under the program.

    “Aerojet Rocketdyne fully supports NASA’s vision to develop high power solar electric propulsion for future exploration,” said Julie Van Kleeck, VP for space advanced programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “NASA-developed next generation high power solar electric propulsion systems will enhance our nation’s ability to perform future science and human exploration missions.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/Christopher J. Lynch)

  • NASA Has Now Found 10,000 Near-Earth Objects

    NASA Has Now Found 10,000 Near-Earth Objects

    NASA this week announced that it has now discovered more than 10,000 near-Earth objects – asteroids that could pass close to Earth in the future. The agency also bragged that 98% of all near-Earth objects have been uncovered by NASA surveys.

    The 10,000th near-Earth object was discovered on June 18, 2013 by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope on Maui, Hawaii. The telescope is operated by the University of Hawaii, and receives NASA funding. The asteroid, 2013 MZ5, is around 1,000 feet (300 meters) wide but is not considered a potential danger to the Earth.

    “The first near-Earth object was discovered in 1898,” said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Over the next hundred years, only about 500 had been found. But then, with the advent of NASA’s NEO Observations program in 1998, we’ve been racking them up ever since. And with new, more capable systems coming on line, we are learning even more about where the NEOs are currently in our solar system, and where they will be in the future.”

    This new announcement comes just as NASA has issued a “Grand Challenge” to find and combat potentially hazardous asteroids. The agency is accepting ideas on how to locate, explore, and redirect an asteroid, as well as plans to deal with potential “doomsday” asteroids that might be headed toward Earth.

    “Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone,” said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program. “But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth.”

    According to NASA, only around 10% of known near-Earth objects are large enough (over 1 kilometer) to have doomsday-like consequences, were they to hit Earth. Luckily, none of them are on a collision-course with Earth, though the Near-Earth Object Observations program estimates that “a few dozen” of these large asteroids are still undiscovered.

    (Image courtesy PS-1/UH)

  • The ‘Supermoon’ Explained by NASA

    The ‘Supermoon’ Explained by NASA

    This weekend’s full moon sparked curiosity and plenty of social media speculation. The “supermoon,” as it’s dubbed, appeared as a larger full moon, pleasing amateur astronomers and photographers alike.

    Though there are plenty of photos of the moon to be found on the internet today, a clear explanation for why the moon appeared as it did is rather harder to come by. Though many unfounded rumors and theories have been put forward, NASA can alway be counted on to state things plainly.

    The agency has put out a new video succinctly explaining the supermoon phenomenon. Michelle Thaller, the assistant director for science communication at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, explains that a supermoon is when a full moon occurs near the moon’s perigee – the point at which the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit. That’s it. Nothing too apocalyptic or prophetic. In fact, a supermoon, Thaller says, is only around 12% larger than a normal full moon.

    (Image courtesy NASA/Bill Ingalls)

  • Billion-Pixel Panorama of Mars Released by NASA

    Billion-Pixel Panorama of Mars Released by NASA

    During its 10 months on the red planet, Mars rover Curiosity has taken hundreds of high-quality photographs of the Martian landscape. Now, NASA has released a photo of Mars sporting over 1 billion pixels.

    The panorama is pieced together from almost 900 different photographs taken by cameras on Curiosity. The complete image is 1.3 billion pixels in size and can be viewed in multiple ways on NASA’s Mars Exploration Program website.

    The photos show a patch of Mars named “Rocknest,” where Curiosity took its first scoop of Martian soil in October 2012. The mountain seen in the distance is Mount Sharp, the current long-term destination for the rover.

    “It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras’ capabilities,” said Bob Deen, a researcher with the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “You can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details.”

    The photos that comprise the panorama were primarily taken using Curiosity’s Mast Camera, with further images coming from the Mastcam’s wide-angle camera. The photos were taken over the course of several Martian days, explaining the inconsistent illumination and shadows seen in different parts of the image.

    Curiosity is currently preparing to shift into a distance-driving mode, and will soon be heading five miles to an area at the base of Mount Sharp.

  • NASA Issues ‘Grand Challenge’ to Combat Killer Asteroids

    NASA Issues ‘Grand Challenge’ to Combat Killer Asteroids

    NASA and astronomers around the world have been tracking asteroids for decades now. Though asteroids seem to be constantly be giving the Earth a close miss, no ‘doomsday’ asteroids have yet been found. That doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, though, hurdling toward Earth with the potential to end life as we know it.

    With that in mind, NASA this week issued a “Grand Challenge” to find all asteroids that could potentially threaten human existence and develop the means to deal with them. The challenge was issued at an asteroid initiative industry and partner day at NASA Headquarters.

    “NASA already is working to find asteroids that might be a threat to our planet, and while we have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth’s orbit, we need to find all those that might be a threat to Earth,” said Lori Garver deputy administrator at NASA. “This Grand Challenge is focused on detecting and characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with potential threats. We will also harness public engagement, open innovation and citizen science to help solve this global problem.”

    As part of the challenge, NASA is now soliciting ideas on how to accomplish the goal from private industry and other potential partners. The ultimate goal would be to locate, redirect, and explore an asteroid. The agency is also asking for plans to deal with potential asteroid threats.

    NASA’s Grand Challenges are what they call “ambitious” projects with a large scale that will need significant science and technology breakthroughs to accomplish. The Obama administration has also promoted NASA’s challenges as a part of its Strategy for American Innovation.

    “I applaud NASA for issuing this Grand Challenge because finding asteroid threats, and having a plan for dealing with them, needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort,” said Tom Kalil, deputy director for technology and innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The efforts of private-sector partners and our citizen scientists will augment the work NASA already is doing to improve near-Earth object detection capabilities.”

  • NASA Is Funding A 3D Food Printer, May Be Used In Future Space Missions

    NASA Is Funding A 3D Food Printer, May Be Used In Future Space Missions

    Making food with 3D printers is not a new concept, but it is still largely in the realm of science fiction. NASA wants to make science fiction into reality sooner than later, however, and it’s throwing plenty of money towards those at the cutting edge of the technology.

    Quartz reports that NASA has awarded Systems & Materials Research Corporation a $125,000 grant to continue work on what company head, Anjan Contractor, calls a universal food synthesizer. As currently envisioned, the technology would use cartridges of powders and oils to create complex foods one layer at a time.

    NASA is understandably interested in the technology as it would provide plenty of inexpensive food to space travelers. The current goal is to have the food cartridges last up to 30 years. It would ensure that any long distance space travel plans to Mars and beyond wouldn’t suffer from food spoilage.

    Of course, space travel isn’t the only thing that this particular 3D printer would make easier. Feeding the world’s population would be a cinch if everybody owned a 3D printer and a number of inexpensive food cartridges that only doled out what a person needs so no food is wasted. It seems impossible with our current food production methods, but Contractor’s plans could very well end world hunger.

    The first step in space travel and ending world hunger may just lie in the humble pizza. America’s favorite food seems to be perfectly suited to the 3D printing process as one layer of food is added at a time. In the case of pizza, the dough would be extruded onto a heated plate that bakes the dough as its being printed. Afterwards, a tomato powder would be added while being mixed with water and oil to create the sauce. Finally, a “protein layer” made up of plants or animals would be added to the top.

    A 3D pizza printer may sound like some kind of revolutionary new concept, but NASA has been playing around with 3D printers for quite some time. The agency is even looking into whether or not it could deploy 3D printers to the surface of the moon to build 3D printed structures out of lunar soil.

    As for 3D food printers, NASA may also want to look into Burritob0t or Google’s 3D pasta printer. There’s probably nothing quite like space travel accompanied by a steady diet of starches.

  • Here’s Video of the Biggest and Brightest Explosion on the Moon That NASA’s Ever Seen

    Here’s Video of the Biggest and Brightest Explosion on the Moon That NASA’s Ever Seen

    Two months ago, NASA observed the largest explosion on the Moon that they’ve ever seen. And today, they’re talking about it and have released a cool video that shows the event as it took place.

    The explosion was caused by a meteorite, 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide, weighing in at about 40 kilograms. When it hit the moon, it was travelling at 56,000 miles per hour. According to NASA, it exploded with the force of 5 tons of TNT.

    “On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before.”

    The impact was so bright, in fact, that anyone looking would have seen it without the help of a telescope.

    “It jumped right out at me, it was so bright,” says Marshall Space Flight Center analyst Ron Suggs, who was the first to see the impact.

    This type of lunar strike is common, but NASA has yet to see one this large in the nearly 8 years its been monitoring the moon for such impacts. Here’s why:

    Unlike Earth, which has an atmosphere to protect it, the Moon is airless and exposed. “Lunar meteors” crash into the ground with fair frequency. Since the monitoring program began in 2005, NASA’s lunar impact team has detected more than 300 strikes, most orders of magnitude fainter than the March 17th event. Statistically speaking, more than half of all lunar meteors come from known meteoroid streams such as the Perseids and Leonids. The rest are sporadic meteors–random bits of comet and asteroid debris of unknown parentage.

    Oh, by the way, the “explosion” is special thanks to the lack of oxygen in the Moon’s atmosphere.

    “The Moon has no oxygen atmosphere, so how can something explode? Lunar meteors don’t require oxygen or combustion to make themselves visible. They hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a crater several feet wide. The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site,” says NASA.

    [NASA via Wired]

  • Voyager 1 Module Added to NASA’s Solar System Viewer

    Voyager 1 Module Added to NASA’s Solar System Viewer

    There’s been some confusion in recent months over whether Voyager 1 has actually exited the Solar System. NASA scientists have reported multiple times that they’ve seen indications that the probe may be outside the heliosphere, only to roll back the fanfare with a deeper analysis of the data.

    Now, NASA is letting everyone in on the agonizing wait with a new feature incorporated into its Eyes on the Solar System software. Eyes on the Solar System is an interactive, 3-D web app that uses up-to-date NASA mission data to depict the Solar System.

    The new module allows users to watch the Voyager 1 probe as it hurtles toward interstellar space. Astronomers believe that Voyager 1 entered a “magnetic highway” at the edge of the Solar System late last year. The ‘Highway” is a region where charged particles can pass both in and out of the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles that surrounds the sun.

    The app will speed up Voyager 1’s journey to one day per second. Navigation data from the project is used to show the probe roll and maneuver through the Solar System.

    NASA researchers are tracking the particles coming from inside the heliosphere and outside of it. They believe that a sustained increase in detected outside charged particles indicates the “magnetic highway” Voyager 1 currently occupies. Scientists are waiting for a magnetic field shift before confirming the probe has left the Solar System.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • NASA Drew a Penis on Mars or We’re All Just Really Immature

    NASA Drew a Penis on Mars or We’re All Just Really Immature

    Either NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover left a deliberate, and truly amazing mark on the red planet – or we’re all just programmed by the internet to see the wiener in everything.

    As you may have expected, the clever minds on reddit first spotted this image. It was subsequently noticed by the likes of Gizmodo and The Huffington Post. Fierce debate ensued. Is it real? If so, did they mean to do it?

    We probably know the answer to the first question. You can find the image on NASA’s website, so it’s not likely photoshopped or anything.

    But just because it’s real, that doesn’t make it intentional.

    I’d like to hope that whoever was controlling the rover had a few too many beers and decided to substitute the forehead of their passed-out buddy for Mars’ vast, blank canvas.

  • NASA Video Shows Sun’s Rise in Activity

    NASA Video Shows Sun’s Rise in Activity

    The sun. We see it nearly every day, and yet most of us spend a considerable amount of time trying to keep it out of our eyes or off our skin.

    NASA, on the other hand, has been staring straight into the sun for years now. The agency launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in 2010 to capture images of the sun, which it does every 12 seconds in 10 different wavelengths. Scientists are using the SDO to learn more about the sun and to improve predictions for solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can affect satellites orbiting Earth.

    In the three years since its launch, the SDO has observed the sun as it ramps up to “solar maximum,” which is the peak of the star’s 11-year solar activity cycle. To demonstrate this increase in the sun’s activity, NASA this week released a video that puts together many of the images taken by the SDO. The time-lapsed video shows two images of the sun per day for three years. It also has some nice background music (“A Lady’s Errand of Love” by Martin Lass).

  • Learn How NASA Uses Google Earth For Space Missions

    Learn How NASA Uses Google Earth For Space Missions

    Google has shown that it has an interest in space what with its founders funding space missions, and the company sending Bugdroid to space. Beyond that, though, the folks at Google create tools that are invaluable to mission strategists at NASA.

    In the latest Google Tech Talk, Matt Deans of NASA’s Intelligent Robotics Group, discusses how the U.S. space agency uses a variety of Web tools and Google Earth to create the Exploration Ground Data System, or xGDS. Here’s more:

    Did you know that NASA uses Google Earth for mission planning and real-time mission operations? Are you curious about the software NASA is developing to carry out future human and robot missions? Would you like to know how modern Web frameworks can be used for data-driven field science?

    The Exploration Ground Data System (xGDS) is a suite of reusable software tools for human and robotic missions. xGDS supports mission planning, ingesting and managing geo-referenced and time-series data, and visualization/analysis. xGDS is highly modular, Web-based and makes extensive use of Apache, Django, the Google Earth plug-in, JQuery, and
    MySQL.

    In this talk, I will discuss the use cases that xGDS was designed to support and describe how it is implemented. I will show how the Intelligent Robotics Group has used xGDS for exploration missions involving astronauts (Arizona), planetary rovers (Canada and Hawaii), and personal submarines (British Columbia and Florida). And, I’ll briefly talk about how xGDS can be used for other applications, such as crisis and disaster response.

  • SpaceX Problem Alters Dragon Capsule Schedule

    SpaceX Problem Alters Dragon Capsule Schedule

    The second SpaceX mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) began early this morning as a Falcon 9 rocket lifted the Dragon capsule into orbit.

    Though the launch was successful, a problem with three of the capsule’s four thruster pods delayed the opening of its solar arrays. SpaceX engineers had to wait until the capsule was over its Australia-based ground station to “command inhibit override” and reactivate enough of the thruster pods to deploy the arrays. While only one of the thruster pods was reactivated, it was enough to successfully deploy the arrays.

    SpaceX spent hours trying to reactivate the two thruster pods that were still malfunctioning. At around 3 pm EST Space X founder Elon Musk tweeted that the thruster pods were back online and that the capsule is no longer drifting:

    The problems caused the capsule to miss one of its scheduled burns that would take it toward its scheduled docking with the ISS. As a result, the docking could be delayed.

    SpaceX and NASA have scheduled a teleconference for 3 pm EST. More details about the Dragon capsule and its docking schedule should be revealed during the call.

    The Dragon capsule is carrying 1,200 pounds of cargo and science equipment that will be delivered to the ISS’s crew of six international astronauts. The capsule is scheduled to return with refuse and used equipment on March 25. SpaceX successfully completed its first resupply mission to the ISS back in October 2012 when it delivered 882 pounds of supplies to the satellite.

    The launch of the capsule can be seen in the video below, which NASA released earlier today:

  • Radiation Belt Around Earth Discovered by NASA

    Radiation Belt Around Earth Discovered by NASA

    NASA this week revealed that its Van Allen Probes have discovered a third radiation belt around the Earth. Before now, the Earth’s Van Allen belts were thought to be two belts of radiation surrounding the planet.

    The newly discovered belt of radiation was observed for four weeks before a shockwave from the sun blew it apart. The new belt could improve researchers’ understanding of how the belts react to space weather, and in particular solar winds. The research was published this week in the journal Science.

    “Even 55 years after their discovery, the Earth’s radiation belts still are capable of surprising us and still have mysteries to discover and explain,” said Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “We thought we knew the radiation belts, but we don’t. The advances in technology and detection made by NASA in this mission already have had an almost immediate impact on basic science.”

    The new belt was detected by the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) on-board the Van Allen Probes. The probes discovered that a region thought to be one belt had actually become two distinct belts with space in between.

    “This is the first time we have had such high-resolution instruments look at time, space and energy together in the outer belt,” said Daniel Baker, lead author of the study and REPT instrument lead at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. “Previous observations of the outer radiation belt only resolved it as a single blurry element. When we turned REPT on just two days after launch, a powerful electron acceleration event was already in progress, and we clearly saw the new belt and new slot between it and the outer belt.”

    The Van Allen Probes were launched back in August with the mission of studying the Van Allen belts and how space weather can affect them. By December of last year data from the probes was already revealing to scientists just how much influence the sun has over the Earth’s magnetosphere.

    “The fantastic new capabilities and advances in technology in the Van Allen Probes have allowed scientists to see in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles and will provide insight on what causes them to change, and how these processes affect the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science.

  • NASA Measures Fast-Spinning, Supermassive Black Hole

    NASA Measures Fast-Spinning, Supermassive Black Hole

    NASA today revealed that it has teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to, for the first time, measure the spin rate of a supermassive black hole.

    Using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the ESA’s XMM-Newton, astronomers were able to observe the black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy NGC 1365. The object was found to be spinning nearly as fast as physics will allow, providing researchers with new information about how black holes behave.

    “This is hugely important to the field of black hole science,” said Lou Kaluzienski, a NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

    The measurements, to be published in the journal Nature, also provide clear evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The data shows that X-rays around the black hole are being warped by the object’s high gravity.

    “We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole,” said Fiona Harrison, coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole’s incredibly strong gravity.”

    Both the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton telescopes were needed to penetrate the gas clouds that obscure NGC 1365’s center. NuSTAR detects high-energy X-ray radiation, while the XMM-Newton detects lower-energy X-rays. By simultaneously observing the X-rays emitted by iron in the black hole’s accretion disc, the telescopes were able to determine that the X-ray distortion was coming from the black hole instead of gas clouds. This means that astronomers can now use iron signature distortions to measure black hole spin rates.

    “If I could have added one instrument to XMM-Newton, it would have been a telescope like NuSTAR,” said Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist at the European Space Astronomy Center. “The high-energy X-rays provided an essential missing puzzle piece for solving this problem.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Russian Meteor Blast Explained by NASA [VIDEO]

    Russian Meteor Blast Explained by NASA [VIDEO]

    On February 15, when the world’s astronomers were busy watching Asteroid 2012 DA14 make a close flyby of Earth, a different space rock entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shockwave following the meteor’s destruction shattered windows and damaged property throughout the Russian town.

    Later that week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it was studying the event, which it predicted may happen every “several of tens to 100 years. The object was found to have been around 17 meters wide and was found to have exploded with a force of nearly 30 times that of the bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, Japan.

    This week, NASA has announced that it is also analyzing the event. The agency has released a video detailing everything known about the meteor to date.

    In addition to information already disclosed by the ESA, the NASA video reveals that astronomers have been able to devise the meteor’s orbit based on the trajectory of its fireball. The object is now thought to have come from the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Reports of the makeup of the meteor’s debris seem to confirm it was made of stone and a bit of iron, which is common for objects in the asteroid belt.

  • NASA Visualizes Global Sea Surface Salinity

    NASA Visualizes Global Sea Surface Salinity

    NASA just released this new video looking at sea surface salinity around the globe. The visualization comes from NASA’s Aquarius instrument aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, from December 2011 through December 2012.

    NASA says Aquarius will provide the global view of salinity variability needed for climate studies.

  • NASA Report Explains Satellite Launch Failure

    NASA Report Explains Satellite Launch Failure

    NASA this week released an eight-page report detailing all its engineers have learned about a failed satellite launch that took place on March 4, 2011.

    The launch of a Taurus XL T9 rocket, designed by Orbital Science Corporation, was meant to carry the Glory climate change monitoring satellite into orbit. The rocket instead failed to reach orbit, costing the agency around $388 million.

    A “mishap investigation board” put together by NASA in the aftermath of the failure determined that the rocket’s fairing system failed to open fully, causing the destruction of the rocket and its payload.

    Fairings are clamshell-shaped nosecone devices that surround satellites on their way to orbit. Normally, fairings are jettisoned soon after launch when friction heat from the Earth’s atmosphere is no longer a concern. When Glory’s fairing failed to open, the fairing’s mass altered the rocket’s trajectory. NASA states in its report that the launch vehicle “likely broke up or burned up, or both, because of reentry loads and aerodynamic heating.”

    Though the fairing was determined to be the cause of the failure, the NASA board was unable to figure out exactly why the fairing had not opened. The board, though, did narrow down the possibilities to some sort of failure with the frangible joint components of the fairing’s side rail system. Both NASA and Orbital are continuing to investigate the fairing system, and will be making improvements to future designs based on their findings.

    (Image courtesy NASA)