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Tag: NASA

  • Globular Cluster Aging Revealed in New Study

    Globular clusters are spherical groupings of stars tightly bound by gravity. While these objects are usually 12 to 13 billion years old, a new study has found that clusters can appear to be vastly different ages, depending on the behavior of their member stars.

    Astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope and NASA‘s Hubble Space Telescope to measure the age of the stars found in various globular clusters. The research will be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

    “Although these clusters all formed billions of years ago,” said Francesco Ferraro, team leader of the research and an astronomer at the University of Bologna. “We wondered whether some might be aging faster or slower than others. By studying the distribution of a type of blue star that exists in the clusters, we found that some clusters had indeed evolved much faster over their lifetimes, and we developed a way to measure the rate of aging.”

    The blue star Ferraro refers to is known as a “blue stragler” and is formed when aging stars receive extra mass that allows them to shine brighter. These stars can form when one star pulls matter off of another, or as a result of stellar collisions.

    Since globular clusters form quickly, their member stars all have roughly the same age. The bright, high mass stars in the clusters burn out quickly, leaving what should only be low-mass, dim stars. The blue stragglers, then, gave researchers a chance to study how different globular clusters age.

    Astronomers mapped the location of blue stragglers in 21 different globular clusters. They found three different types of clusters. One group appeared young, with blue stragglers distributed throughout the clusters. Another group appeared old, with their blue stragglers having migrated into a clump near the center of the clusters. The third group was in-between the others, with blue stragglers near the center of clusters and other, further out ones still migrating inward.

    “Since these clusters all formed at roughly the same time, this reveals big differences in the speed of evolution from cluster to cluster,” said Barbara Lanzoni, co-author of the study and an astronomer at the University of Bologna. “In the case of fast-aging clusters, we think that the sedimentation process can be complete within a few hundred million years, while for the slowest it would take several times the current age of the Universe.”

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Prepares to Drill a Rock

    Nearly all of the instruments packed into Mars rover Curiosity‘s frame have been utilized, but once crucial test has yet to be performed. NASA scientists will soon use Curiosity’s percussive drill to powder the interior of a rock for analysis, something that has never been done on Mars.

    To choose the perfect rock for the drilling, the rover is currently driving around in a shallow depression named “Yellowknife Bay.” The area has a different type of terrain than any Curiosity has yet encountered on Mars. It is one of three different terrain types that intersect at an area named “Glenelg,” which has been the rover’s interim destination since around two weeks after it landed back in August.

    The Curiosity team stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the rover’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) and Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) to study rocks while driving toward two particular rocks of intrest. Named “Costello” and “Flaherty,” the two rocks have now been examined using the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

    Curiosity has one more drive planned for this week before the rover team’s holiday break. During the break, the environment in Yellowknife Bay will continue to be studied, and early next year the rover will perform its historic drill sampling. For most of next year, the plans for the rover consist of continued sampling and investigation while driving toward a 5-kilometer-high (3 mile) layered mound named “Mount Sharp.”

  • Mayan Calendar Doomsday Prophecies a Hoax, Says NASA

    Predictions about the end of the world on Friday, December 21 are reaching a fever pitch. From rogue planets to shifting poles, the crazy ideas put forth for how humanity will soon perish resemble countless past doomsday prophecies that haven’t come true.

    It seems that NASA has decided it is its responsibility to debunk all of the Maya Calendar rumors. Already, NASA scientists have participated in an hour-long discussion of how end-of-the-world predictions are not based on reality. In fact, NASA is so confident the world will not end that it has already prepared and released a video for December 22 that explains to bewildered believers exactly why the world will have kept turning.

    NASA is keeping at it, trying to save people from selling their belongings and waiting for an apocalypse that won’t come. A new video has been released by the agency, again speaking out against the doomsday rumors. In it, David Morrison, a senior scientist and astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, goes through each of the most popular doomsday scenarios, tossing them aside like trash.

  • New Crew Lifts Off to the International Space Station [VIDEO]

    The next crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has left the Earth. The Expedition 34 crew today lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:12 am EST.

    The crew consists of NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield. The crew is currently riding the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft and is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Friday morning.

    The trio are expected to stay on the ISS until May of next year. They will join three people already onboard the space station – Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and Roscosmos Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, who have been on the station since October. Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the ISS in March, when the current crew of the space station returns to earth.

    The focus of this expedition, according to NASA, is scientific research including human physiology tests. The crew will serve as subjects for the examination of astronaut bone loss while also conducting experiments (such as on how fire behaves in space), observations of Earth, human research, and technology demonstrations.

    The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft was captured by NASA, and can be seen below. Temperatures were far below freezing at the time of the launch.

  • NASA Looks Back on a Historic Year in Space [VIDEO]

    This year, as usual, was a historic year for NASA, spaceflight, astronomy, and space exploration. Though NASA’s share of the U.S. federal budget has been falling for years now, the agency has an uncanny knack for stretching its budget and providing industry and the scientifically curious with almost daily discoveries.

    To commemorate another memorable year, NASA has released a rather long look back at the highlights of 2012. A few of the highlights include the successful first privatized resupply mission to the International Space Station by the SpaceX Dragon capsule, the landing of Mars rover Curiosity on the surface of Gale Crater, and the improvements made to the Orion capsule and the heavy-lift rocket that will carry astronauts into deep space. NASA has even included the deaths of Ray Bradbury and Neil Armstrong, and the launch of Rovio’s Angry Birds Space mobile game as part of the year’s space news.

  • NASA Probes Smash Into Moon Mountain as Planned

    NASA’s GRAIL project spacecrafts, Ebb and Flow, crash-landed on the surface of the moon yesterday afternoon. The impact had been pre-planned, and occurred as predicted at 5:28 pm December 17, 2012. The landing site has been named in honor of Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space and a member of the GRAIL mission team.

    “Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride’s contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her.”

    The GRAIL probes were crashed into the moon at 1.7 kilometers per second (3,760 mph) because they had fulfilled their primary and extended missions, were low in orbit, and did not have enough fuel to be of any further use. The Sally K. Ride impact site, located on the southern face of a lunar mountain near Goldschmidt crater, was chosen to avoid the disturbance of U.S. and Russian historical sites scattered across the moon’s surface.

    The site was in shadow at the time of impact, so no images of the event were recorded. However, NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be able to snap photos of the crash site in several weeks.

    During their time in orbit, Ebb and Flow collected data that allowed scientists to create the highest-resolution gravity map of any celestial body.

    “We will miss our lunar twins, but the scientists tell me it will take years to analyze all the great data they got, and that is why we came to the moon in the first place,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you.”

    NASA provided live interviews and analysis by the GRAIL team in the moments leading up to the mission’s destructive finale. A recording of the events can be seen below.

  • NASA Probes Prepare to Slam Into the Moon

    NASA Probes Prepare to Slam Into the Moon

    NASA‘s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes today completed a burn that irreversibly altered their orbit and have begun skimming the surface of the moon. Over the weekend, the probes, named Ebb and Flow, will orbit ever closer to the surface of the moon. On Monday, December 17, at around 5:28 pm EST the probes will slam into the side of a lunar mountain while traveling at approximately 3,760 miles per hour.

    “NASA wanted to rule out any possibility of our twins hitting the surface anywhere near any of the historic lunar exploration sites like the Apollo landing sites or where the Russian Luna probes touched down,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Our navigators calculated the odds before this maneuver as about seven in a million. Now, after these two successful rocket firings, there is zero chance.”

    The crash landing is a planned event, necessary because the probes’ low orbit and fuel levels make them useless for any further study. The impact will take place near the moon’s north pole, close to a crater named Goldschmidt. The area will be in shadow at the time, and no photos or video of the event are expected.

    NASA will, however, be live-streaming commentary of the event starting at 5 pm EST on Monday. The commentary will come from the control room at the JPL and will include interviews with the GRAIL team. It can be viewed on NASA TV or on the JPL Ustream channel.

    The probes began orbiting the moon on January 1, 2012. In their year of orbit, Ebb and Flow collected data that helped scientists create the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body to date.

  • NASA Video Shows Three-Mile-Long Asteroid Swing By Earth

    On Wednesday, December 12, the three-mile-long asteroid named “Toutatis” made its closest approach to earth. NASA scientists working at the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California were able to capture radar images of the object as it swung by. The images have been assembled into a video showing the asteroid as it tumbled past Earth.

    Toutatis was only 6.9 million kilometers (4.3 million miles) from Earth at its closest approach, about 18 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. The radar images indicate that it is elongated and irregularly shaped, with ridges and possibly craters. Astronomers also stated there were some “interesting” bright glints in the images that could indicate surface boulders. The asteroid rotates very slowly, rotating every 5.4 days and precessing every 7.4 days. The images that make up the video were taken over the course of two days on Wednesday and Thursday.

    The orbit of the asteroid is well understood, and the Earth was not in any danger. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets that pass close to Earth through the Near-Earth Object Observations Program, also known as “Spaceguard.” Over the next four centuries (the time in which the object’s motion can be accurately computed) there is no possibility of Toutatis hitting the Earth. In 2069, the asteroid will pass only 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Earth.

  • NASA Tests Liquid Hydrogen/Oxygen Engine For Upcoming Heavy Rocket

    NASA on Thursday tested the powerpack assembly for the J-2X engine, an important component of NASA’s next-generation heavy-lift rocket.

    The J-2X powerpack assembly was test-fired at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The engine will power the upper stage of NASA’s proposed Space Launch System (SLS), a 143-ton rocket that will eventually carry human crews into deep space on the Orion spacecraft. According to NASA, it is the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen engine developed in the U.S. in decades.

    “The determination and focus by teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Stennis on designing and perfecting the J-2X engine helps show the great strides of progress made on the overall program,” said Todd May, SLS Program Manager. “We are inspired to stay the course and pursue our goal of exploring deep space and traveling farther than ever before.”

    The powerpack of the engine has performed 13 tests and burned millions of pounds of propellants this year. It was tested separately from the engine for thoroughness, and under a wider range of conditions. NASA stated that the tests have provided “a trove” of data about the performance of the device’s turbopump and flexible ducts.

    “These tests at Stennis are similar to doctor-ordered treadmill tests for a person’s heart,” said Tom Byrd, J-2X engine lead in the SLS Liquid Engines Office at Marshall in Huntsville, Ala. “The engineers who designed and analyze the turbopumps inside the powerpack are like our doctors, using sensors installed in the assembly to monitor the run over a wide range of stressful conditions. We ran the assembly tests this year for far longer than the engine will run during a mission to space, and acquired a lot of valuable information that will help us improve the development of the J-2X engine.”

    NASA engineers will soon remove the powerpack assembly from its test stand and begin tests of the fully integrated engine. The preparations will need to be complete by 2014, when the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) will be launching an Orion capsule flight test.

    (Image courtesy NASA/SSC)

  • NASA to Crash GRAIL Probes Into the Moon

    NASA this week detailed its plans to crash two lunar-orbiting probes into the moon next week. On Monday, December 17 at 5:28 p.m., the probes, named Ebb and Flow, are part the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) project. They will descend and impact a lunar mountain near the moon’s north pole.

    The crash-landing is purposeful, as the probes’ low orbit and low fuel levels make it impossible for them to be of any further use for scientific studies. The probes have successfully completed their primary and extended science missions.

    Just last week, NASA revealed a gravity map of the moon that was based on GRAIL data taken by the probes. The map is the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body to date, and will provide researchers with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets formed.

    “It is going to be difficult to say goodbye,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Our little robotic twins have been exemplary members of the GRAIL family, and planetary science has advanced in a major way because of their contributions.”

    Ebb will be the fist probe to hit the moon’s surface, with Flow following 20 seconds later. The spacecrafts will be travelling at 1.7 kilometers per second (3,760 miles per hour) when they hit the surface. The area of the moon where the probes are expected to impact will be in shadow at the time of impact, so no images of the event are expected.

    Before their final flight, the probes will both empty their propellant tanks by firing their main engines. This will show exactly how much fuel each probe has remaining, helping NASA engineers improve computer models that predict fuel consumption for future missions. After the burn, the probes will skim the surface of the moon for several hours until the lunar mountain rises in front of them.

    “Our lunar twins may be in the twilight of their operational lives, but one thing is for sure, they are going down swinging,” said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Even during the last half of their last orbit, we are going to do an engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently.

    “Such a unique end-of-mission scenario requires extensive and detailed mission planning and navigation. We’ve had our share of challenges during this mission and always come through in flying colors, but nobody I know around here has ever flown into a moon mountain before. It’ll be a first for us, that’s for sure.”

  • Radio-Emitting Jet Detected From Andromeda Black Hole

    Astronomers revealed this week that they have detected an intense radio emission from a black hole’s radio-emitting jet. The emission was moving at more than 85% the speed of light, though it was also “quite variable.” The observations, published this week in the journal Nature, are the first detection of radio-emitting jets from a stellar-mass black hole outside the Milky Way galaxy.

    The emission is from an X-ray source that was discovered in January, when it flared and rapidly brightened in the Andromeda galaxy (M31). The ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), as it’s currently classified, is only the second ever seen in the Andromeda galaxy. Observatories and telescopes, including NASA‘s Swift space telescope, have been observing the object for nearly a year.

    “There are four black hole binaries within our own galaxy that have been observed accreting at these extreme rates,” said Matthew Middleton, an astronomer at the Anton Pannekoek Astronomical Institute. “Gas and dust in our own galaxy interfere with our ability to probe how matter flows into ULXs, so our best glimpse of these processes comes from sources located out of the plane of our galaxy, such as those in M31.”

    According to astronomers, the gas around black holes becomes compressed, it is heated to temperatures high enough to emit X-rays. At a certain point called an Eddington limit, the X-ray emissions become intense enough to push back gas that is spiraling into the object. Theoretically, this caps the rate at which a black hole can ingest matter.

    “Black-hole binaries in our galaxy that show accretion at the Eddington limit also exhibit powerful radio-emitting jets that move near the speed of light,” said Middleton.

    The jets seen coming from the M31 ULX are special because they could represent a rare middle-of-the-road black hole of hundreds to thousands of solar masses. Black holes that have been detected generally are either “lightweight” and created by stars of up to a few dozen solar masses, or they are “heavyweight” and represent millions to billions of solar masses. The supermassive “heavyweight” black holes are generally found in the centers of galaxies, such as the one spotted last month that is 17 billion times more massive than the sun.

    “The discovery of jets tells us that this particular ULX is a typical stellar remnant about 10 times the mass of the sun, swallowing as much material as it possibly can,” said Middleton. “We may well find jets in ULXs with similar X-ray properties in other nearby galaxies, which will help us better understand the nature of these incredible outflows.”

    (Image courtesy Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF/ESA/M. Middleton et al.)

  • NASA’s Hubble Takes Census of Early Galaxies

    Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered seven previously unseen galaxies that formed over 13 billion years ago – a time when galaxies were just beginning to form. The new discovery has provided researchers with a “statistically robust” sample of early galaxies, revealing how abundant such galaxies were at the beginning of the universe.

    The images come from a Hubble survey of the Ultra Deep Field (UDF), a patch of sky that has been studied intensely. Astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3) instrument to obtain the “deepest” near-infrared images of any Hubble observation.

    The findings, which are collected in a paper that has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, show a smooth decline in the number of galaxies when looking back to only 450 million years after the big bang. The observations support the hypothesis that galaxies formed continuously over time and could have provided enough radiation to re-ionize the universe.

    “Our study has taken the subject forward in two ways,” said Richard Ellis, the team leader of the research and an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. “First, we have used Hubble to make longer exposures. The added depth is essential to reliably probe the early period of cosmic history. Second, we have used Hubble’s available color filters very effectively to more precisely measure galaxy distances.”

    One of the galaxies spotted by the new Hubble survey could even be the furthest galaxy yet discovered. It’s redshift indicates its light has just reached Earth from only 380 million years after the big bang. The previous record holder, seen just 420 million years after the big bang, was announced just one month ago.

    The new survey also shines light on the debate over whether early galaxies could have provided enough radiation to re-ionize the universe by warming the cold hydrogen that formed after the big bang. Astronomers believe that e-ionization made the universe transparent to light.

    “Our data confirm re-ionization was a gradual process, occurring over several hundred million years, with galaxies slowly building up their stars and chemical elements,” said Brant Robertson, an astronomer at the University of Arizona. “There wasn’t a single dramatic moment when galaxies formed. It was a gradual process.”

    (Image courtesy NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech), and the UDF 2012 Team)

  • Cassini Spots “Mini Nile River” on Saturn’s Titan

    The Cassini probe orbiting Saturn and its moons has photographed what the European Space Agency (ESA) is calling a “miniature extraterrestrial version of the Nile river” on Saturn’s moon Titan. The formation is a river valley on the the moon’s surface that runs for over 400 km (248 miles) from its source to a large sea. The radar image is the first time such a long river system has been photographed in high resolution anywhere except Earth.

    “Though there are some short, local meanders, the relative straightness of the river valley suggests it follows the trace of at least one fault, similar to other large rivers running into the southern margin of this same Titan sea,” said Jani Radebaugh, a Cassini radar team associate at Brigham Young University. “Such faults – fractures in Titan’s bedrock – may not imply plate tectonics, like on Earth, but still lead to the opening of basins and perhaps to the formation of the giant seas themselves.”

    Researchers explained that they believe the river is filled with liquid because it is dark along its entire extent in the image. This indicates a smooth surface, and Titan is the only other object in the solar system known to have stable liquid on its surface. The liquid likely isn’t water, though. Titan’s environment contains liquid hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane.

    “This radar-imaged river by Cassini provides another fantastic snapshot of a world in motion, which was first hinted at from the images of channels and gullies seen by ESA’s Huygens probe as it descended to the moon’s surface in 2005,” said Nicolas Altobelli, ESA’s Cassini Project Scientist.

    The Cassini probe recently celebrated its 15th birthday since launch. In its time around Saturn, the probe has found lakes on Titan, signs of water ice on Enceladus, and followed huge storms in Saturn’s atmosphere.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL–Caltech/ASI)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity to Drill Rocks in Yellowknife Bay

    NASA reported this week that Mars Rover Curiosity recently drove 19 meters (63 feet) toward an area called “Yellowknife Bay. The drive represents the rover’s fourth consecutive driving day since leaving an outcrop called “Point Lake.” Curiosity has now driven a total of 598 meters (0.37 miles) on the surface of Mars.

    On the way, scientists used the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to determine a rock outcrop’s composition and document its layering, seen above. Also, the last sample Curiosity had been carrying with it from the “Rocknest” site was placed into the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument to further test its chemical composition.

    The drive was cut short when the rover detected a tilt that activated software to automatically stop, as a precaution. Curiosity was not in immediate danger and is not stuck or tipped over.

    “The rover is traversing across terrain different from where it has driven earlier, and responding differently,” said Rick Welch, mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We’re making progress, though we’re still in the learning phase with this rover, going a little slower on this terrain than we might wish we could.”

    The rover will soon step down 20 inches into Yellowknife Bay and choose a rock to examine and drill. The rover team is currently checking for a safe way down into the bay, which is a temporary destination before Curiosity turns southwest to it’s main destination, an area on the slope of nearby Mount Sharp. This will be the first use of Curiosity’s rock-powdering drill while on Mars.

    NASA also this week released a video update on Curiosity’s mission, bringing fans up to speed on where the rover is and what it has accomplished.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

  • NASA Releases Preemptive “Why the World Didn’t End” Video

    There are only nine days left until December 21, 2012 – the end of the world if conspiracy theorists are to be believed. That’s the day the Maya calendar supposedly ends and ushers in the apocalypse.

    Of course, there isn’t any actual evidence that the world will end next week. In a Google Hangout earlier this month, scientists with NASA pointed out this lack of evidence and dismissed the claim as another in an endless progression of doomsday prophecies as old as humanity.

    But NASA didn’t stop at debunking the December 21 predictions. The agency has just preemptively released a video detailing why the world didn’t end on that day. The video is dated and presented as if someone will be watching it on December 22, with a narrator that calmly explains why the world will have not ended next week. It’s a sign of scientists’ incredible confidence that the world will not end.

    The video doesn’t gloat or condescend. Instead, it calmly lays out the facts that the Maya calendar never predicted the end of the world, that no asteroids or rogue planets are on their way toward Earth, and that the Sun is not a current danger to our planet.

  • Researchers 3D Print Objects Using Synthetic Lunar Soil

    It seems that every space program in the world wants to build a moon base at some point in the future. The only problem is actually getting the materials up there to construct the buildings. Researchers may have made it a little easier with their latest 3D printing experiment.

    Researchers from Washington State University recently experimented with a novel idea – what if they could use lunar soil and convert it into useful objects through 3D printing? NASA provided the synthetic regolith and the researchers got to work on making objects with it. The results indicate that manned missions to the Moon and Mars could theoretically print tools using the surface soil on the planets.

    The efforts of WSU is just the latest in utilizing 3D printing for space missions. NASA has already played around with the idea of using 3D printers to construct satellites. It only makes sense to considering including the technology in future space missions that aim for planets.

    The most interesting aspect of all of this, however, is using natural materials in the printing process. Typical 3D printers use plastic, but said plastic can be very expensive when constructing large objects. Being able to use natural materials, like sand, can be very cost effective, and perhaps create even stronger materials than what can made via plastic.

    [h/t: Fabbaloo]

  • NASA Prototype Forecasts Storms For Transoceanic Flights

    A new NASA-funded system developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is now providing weather forecasts so that plane flights can avoid major storms over remote ocean regions.

    The prototype system provides eight-hour forecasts that are designed for air traffic controllers and pilots. The system combines satellite data and computer weather models to map storms over the world’s oceans. The technology is based on NCAR systems that alert pilots and air traffic controllers of storms over the continental United States. The new system’s creation was inspired in part by the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009 when it encountered thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean.

    “These new forecasts can help fill an important gap in our aviation system,” said Cathy Kessinger, lead researcher on the project at NCAR. “Pilots have had limited information about atmospheric conditions as they fly over the ocean, where conditions can be severe. By providing them with a picture of where significant storms will be during an eight-hour period, the system can contribute to both the safety and comfort of passengers on flights.”

    Predicting the turbulence associated with storms over oceans is somewhat harder than storms over land. Geostationary satellites in orbit are unable to see within clouds the way ground-based radar can. Pilots often have to choose between massive detours or flying directly through an area that may contain storms associated with windshear, icing conditions, lightning, hail, or severe turbulence.

    Currently, pilots on transoceanic flights get preflight briefings, with weather updates every four hours in the case of extreme storms. The planes used for such flights also have an onboard radar, which is of little use for planning while in-flight.

    “Turbulence is the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation,” said John Haynes, Applied Sciences program manager at NASA Headquarters. “This prototype system is of crucial importance to pilots and is another demonstration of the practical benefit of NASA’s Earth observations.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/NCAR Research Applications Laboratory)

  • NASA Issues Contracts For Future Manned Spaceflights

    NASA Issues Contracts For Future Manned Spaceflights

    NASA today announced that it has awarded three different companies contracts to develop technology that will enable commercial manned spaceflight from U.S. soil.

    The Boeing Company, Sierra Nevada Corporation Space System, and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) were all contracted for around $10 million. The companies will begin developing integrated crew transportation systems that will launch American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). These programs will end NASA’s recent reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the ISS.

    “These contracts represent important progress in restoring human spaceflight capabilities to the United States,” said Phil McAlister, director of the Commercial Spaceflight Development Division at NASA Headquarters. “NASA and its industry partners are committed to the goal of safely and cost-effectively launching astronauts from home within the next five years.”

    Starting next year, the companies will work with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to develop spacecrafts, launch vehicles, and ground & mission operations that meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements. In mid-2014, the companies will begin competing with one another to test and verify their systems for crewed demonstration flights to the ISS.

    SpaceX could have a leg up on its competition. The company in October of this year completed the first privatized resupply of the ISS using its Dragon capsule. The capsule carried 882 pounds of supplies to the ISS and brought back 1,673 pounds of used material in a successful mission.

    (Image courtesy SpaceX)

  • NASA Simulations Show How Wide Binary Stars Could Form

    Scientists with NASA‘s Astrobiology Institute team at the University of Hawaii have used computer simulations to reveal what causes binary stars to form.

    The researchers have concluded through their research that the widest binary star systems began as three stars, rather than two. To determine this, the scientists ran 180,000 simulations of the motions of newborn triple stars still shrouded in their cloud cores. The research appears in a paper to be published this week in the journal Nature.

    Binary stars are pairs of stars that orbit each other. “Wide” binary stars refers to pairs of stars that orbit each other while separated by as much as one light-year. Until now, scientists have not been able to describe how these pairs were able to form, since most stars are born in compact systems with two or more stars at the center of a cloud core. Less massive stars are often flung to the outskirts of cloud cores, and can be found orbiting a pair of larger stars near the center. What the new paper describes is how these systems may have evolved into a system with only two wide-orbiting stars instead of three.

    “What may have happened is that the stars in the close binary merged into a single larger star,” said Bo Reipurth, lead author of the paper and an astronomer with the Institute for Astronomy at UH. “This can happen if there is enough gas in the cloud core to provide resistance to their motion. As the two stars in the close binary move around each other surrounded by gas, they lose energy and spiral toward each other. Sometimes there is so much gas in the core that the two close stars spiral all the way in and collide with each other in a spectacular merging explosion.”

    The nearest wide binary system to Earth is Alpha Centauri. Proxima Centauri is a smaller star that orbits Alpha Centauri at a distance of around one-quarter of a light year (15,000 astronomical units).

    (Image courtesy Karen Teramura/Wei-Hao Wang/UH Institute for Astronomy)

  • Look At NASA’s “Earth At Night” Imagery With Google Maps

    Last week, we saw new photos of the Earth at night from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

    Google announced today in a Google+ post that there is a new layer in Google Maps, which lets you explore the imagery. You can do so at Google’s Earth Builder site, where Google says:

    This new global view and animation of Earth’s city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and 13 days in October 2012. It took 312 orbits to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet. Data provided by NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC

    Here’s a video NASA put out:

  • NASA Releases Spectacular New Views of the Earth at Night

    A new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite has taken photos of the unclouded Earth at night that are of higher detail than any before. NASA today released the images to the public, providing updated desktop wallpapers for thousands of people. Absurdly large versions of the image can be found here.

    The new images depict the glow of both natural and human-made light all across the planet. A new sensor on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite launched last year has allowed scientists to observe the Earth more accurately than ever during the night. According to NASA, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor is sensitive enough to detect the glow produced by the light from a single ship at sea.

    “For all the reasons that we need to see Earth during the day, we also need to see Earth at night,” said Steve Miller, a researcher at NOAA’s Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. “Unlike humans, the Earth never sleeps.”

    The video below shows the images as a globe and describes just what it is that is creating the bright parts of the images. Aside from electric light from cities and towns, ships on the Nile River, oil fires in the Middle East, and wildfires in the Australian Outback can be seen. Of particular intrest, as always, is the stark contrast between North Korea and South Korea. The sharp line of the Korean Demilitarized Zone can clearly be seen, illustrating just how different life is for Koreans on either side of the 38th parallel.