WebProNews

Tag: NASA

  • NASA: James Webb Space Telescope Is An Engineering Marvel

    NASA: James Webb Space Telescope Is An Engineering Marvel

    NASA released a great video for space junkies visually illustrating the scientific marvel that the James Webb Telescope is and will be. “Webb is a technological challenge like no other,” says a NASA spokesperson. “Born of the efforts of thousands of people across the United States, Canada and Europe. The James Webb Space Telescope is your telescope. Use it to explore. To challenge theories. To see sights yet unseen. It’s yours to unfold the beauty and mystery in the Universe, and our place in it.”

    https://youtu.be/4F2gopYE9SA
    NASA: James Webb Space Telescope Is An Engineering Marvel

    An Engineering Marvel. An Exploration Powerhouse.

    This is your telescope. An engineering marvel. An exploration powerhouse. Use it to look back in time and explore the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang; to peer into atmospheres of planets orbiting the stars. It’s your eye-piece to the uncharted, unknown and unimagined. This is the largest, most complex and challenging space telescope ever constructed. It will change our understanding of the universe and our place in it. The James Webb Space Telescope.

    Equipped With a Mirror 6 Times the Size of Hubble

    Equipped with the largest primary mirror ever to be flown in space; at 6 and a half meters, it’s more than 6 times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope primary mirror. Webb’s four, cutting-edge, infrared instruments and cameras operate at super cold temperatures; temperatures colder than the surface of Pluto. Getting this cold is done with the help of the largest sunshield ever flown; a 5-layer, tennis court-size sunshield that blocks heat from the Sun, Earth and Moon.

    Equipped With a Mirror 6 Times the Size of Hubble
    Webb’s four, cutting-edge, infrared instruments and cameras operate at super cold temperatures.
    Webb operates at temperatures colder than the surface of Pluto.
    Webb has ther largest sunshield ever flown; a 5-layer, tennis court-size sunshield.

    Webb Could Help Us Find Life On Other Worlds

    Webb will be the first telescope to detect light from the most distant galaxies in the Universe. These first galaxies formed about 13.5 billion years ago, only 300 or so million years after the Big Bang. Webb carries advanced technologies to tackle some of the most fundamental questions about the Universe. How did the first galaxies form and evolve? Are there chemical signatures of the building-blocks the life on other worlds? Is our solar system unique?

    Webb will be the first telescope to detect light from the most distant galaxies in the Universe.
    Are there chemical signatures of the building-blocks the life on other worlds?

    Launching Webb Is An Incredible Engineering Challenge

    Launching such a large telescope into space is an incredible engineering challenge. Fully deployed, Webb is too large to fit inside any rocket fairing. Engineers designed it to be folded, like origami, to squeeze inside the European Space Agency’s 5-meter diameter, Ariane 5 rocket fairing.

    Fully deployed, Webb is too large to fit inside any rocket fairing.
    It is designed to be folded, like origami, to squeeze inside the ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket fairing.

    Deployment Is An Intricate Ballet

    After launch, controllers on the ground deploy Webb remotely. Deployment is an intricate ballet. For nearly 3-weeks, controllers carefully unfold Webb. After this delicate dance, Webb’s golden mirrors are precisely aligned using motors behind each hexagonal mirror segment, adjusting them to form one, perfect mirror. Once the instruments are cooled, the exploration will begin

    After launch, controllers on the ground deploy Webb remotely.
    Deployment is an intricate ballet.
    For nearly 3-weeks, controllers carefully unfold Webb.
    Webb’s golden mirrors are precisely aligned using motors behind each hexagonal mirror segment.
    Webb’s mirrors are then adjusted to form one, perfect mirror.

    Webb Is a Technological Challenge Like No Other

    Webb is a technological challenge like no other. Born of the efforts of thousands of people across the United States, Canada and Europe. The James Webb Space Telescope is your telescope. Use it to explore. To challenge theories. To see sights yet unseen. It’s yours to unfold the beauty and mystery in the Universe, and our place in it.

    Webb is a technological challenge like no other.
    Webb is born of the efforts of thousands of people across the United States, Canada and Europe.
  • Christina Koch Sets Record For Longest Spaceflight By Woman

    Christina Koch Sets Record For Longest Spaceflight By Woman

    Christina Koch checked off another milestone in her NASA career, taking the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, according to CBS News.

    The previous record holder, Peggy Whitson, spent 288 consecutive days in space, and still holds the overall U.S. record of nearly 666 days over five flights. Koch, as of December 28, has spent 289 consecutive days in space and is expected to reach 328 days by the time she returns to Earth in early February.

    “It’s a huge honor,” Koch told ‘CBS This Morning.’ “Peggy is a heroine of mine who’s also been kind enough to mentor me through the years. You know … it’s not so much how many days you’re up here, but what you do with each of those days. That reminds me to bring my best every single day.”

    Along the way, Koch also was part of the first all-female spacewalk on October 18, when she and Jessica Meir “ventured outside to replace a faulty battery charge-discharge unit. It was the first EVA by two women in the 54 years since the late Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov carried out history’s first spacewalk in 1965.”

    With a newfound focus on space, this is an important milestone for the history books.

  • Nvidia Becomes the Latest Corporate Patron of Blender

    Nvidia Becomes the Latest Corporate Patron of Blender

    Blender is a “free and open source 3D creation suite.” Originally released in 1994 as an in-house application for a Dutch animation studio, Blender has gone on to become a staple in the animation community. The software is used extensively by NASA and has been part of projects such as Spider-Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Man in the High Castle.

    Being open-source software, Blender relies on donations to support development, with both individuals and corporations donating to the effort. Nvidia has now become the latest corporation to commit to the highest donation level, contributing at least €120,000 a year. This makes them the second company, along with Epic, to achieve “Patron” level support.

    Per Blender’s Twitter announcement:

    “NVIDIA joined the Blender Foundation Development Fund at Patron level. This will enable two more developers to work on core Blender development and to keep NVIDIA’s GPU technology well supported for our users. Thanks NVIDIA for the trust in our work! https://fund.blender.org #b3d”

    Continued support of open-source software, especially such a well-known and widely used package as Blender, is a good thing for everyone involved.

  • FAA to Promote Spaceports and Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It’s About Time

    FAA to Promote Spaceports and Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It’s About Time

    Congress is set to approve a Federal Aviation Administration bill that authorizes a significant increase in spending for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). However, what has brought excitement to astrophysicists and space enthusiasts is the provision on spaceports.

    Per SpaceNews, this requires AST to develop a report on spaceport policies, including recommendations on government actions to “support, encourage, promote, and facilitate greater investments in infrastructure at spaceports.” 

    “The bill creates a category of commercial spaceflight vehicles known as “space support vehicles” that cover parts of launch vehicles systems flying for other purposes, such as training or testing. Such vehicles would include the aircraft used by air-launch systems. The bill allows commercial flights of space support vehicles without the need for a full-fledged airworthiness certificate from the FAA.” – SpaceNews

    Renowned astrophysicists, author, and TV host Neil deGrasse Tyson is very excited that the United States is finally getting serious again about space, following the seeming lack of interest by Obama and previous administrations. Many space exploration supporters including Tyson believe this spaceport focus “should have been in progress decades ago”.

    Tyson’s most recent book, Accessory to War, The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military is another great read that you won’t want to miss.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to Fox Business News about the spaceport announcement:

    In my field, we are overwhelmingly liberal and anti-war. Yet, the entire history of my field goes back to the service of military conquest, hegemony, and empire building. We were the ones who knew how to navigate the night’s sky and how to apply those navigational tools to the earth’s surface, enabling for you to find out what countries you want to conquer or to colonize. There have been astronomers sitting next to explorers right from the beginning.

    Just look at GPS, something that started out as a military intended utility has now become a fundamental driver of so many elements of our modern economy from Uber to Tinder. So this relationship is long and deep.

    There’s a lot of interesting things going on today with the FAA’s announcement that they want to stimulate and promote spaceports and commercial access to space. That really should have been in progress decades ago. This is important because you need someone to think it through from the beginning so if and when it becomes a thing there has been a lot of intelligent analysis regarding the safety of who’s sending you to space, regarding the safety of who’s down range from whatever is launched, and the safety of your duration in space.

    Think of what the FAA has done for us to this day. We have one of the safest aviation records the world has ever seen. You want that to also be true for any activities that occur in space, especially space tourism, which will get you the average person taking these trips rather than just the flyboy macho person who will take the 50 percent risk of dying. You want to turn this into something that people might want to do.

    The first trillionaire will be the person who exploits space resources on asteroids, comets, etc…

  • Pluto Image Hits Instagram First as NASA Shares New Horizons Flyby

    Pluto Image Hits Instagram First as NASA Shares New Horizons Flyby

    After more than nine years and a mind-blowing three billion plus miles, NASA’s New Horizons probe has finally made it to Pluto.

    And the clearest, most detailed look at the dwarf planet was shared on Instagram.

    This wasn’t accidental.

    “We made an editorial decision to give the world a sneak peek of the image on Instagram,” NASA social media manager John Yembrick told Wired. “We feel it’s important to engage new audiences.”

    NASA has an enormous following on Instagram – over 3.6 million followers. Posts average over 100,000 likes and thousands of comments, so the space agency’s engagement is also high.

    But this is significant, as it’s the first time NASA has used Instagram in this way – debuting a major space photo before it even hits the .gov site. (It has now, by the way).

    SNEAK PEEK of gorgeous Pluto! The dwarf planet has sent a love note back to Earth via our New Horizons spacecraft, which has traveled more than 9 years and 3+ billion miles. This is the last and most detailed image of Pluto sent to Earth before the moment of closest approach – 7:49 a.m. EDT today. This same image will be released and discussed at 8 a.m. EDT today. Watch our briefing live on NASA Television at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv The high res pic will be posted on the web at: http://www.nasa.gov. This stunning image of the dwarf planet was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach. The spacecraft was 476,000 miles (766,000 kilometers) from the surface. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #pluto #plutoflyby #newhorizons #solarsystem #nasabeyond #science

    A photo posted by NASA (@nasa) on

    “The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”

    According to NASA, New Horizons’ lengthy trip to the closest approach at Pluto took around a minute less than predicted when the craft was first launched in January 2006. Simply amazing.

  • NASA Will Give You $5,000 for Your Great Idea about the Manned Mars Mission

    NASA Will Give You $5,000 for Your Great Idea about the Manned Mars Mission

    NASA wants to put people on Mars. You should too.

    It just needs help with some ideas on how that’s gonna work. It’s contest time!

    “NASA is embarking on an ambitious journey to Mars and Tuesday announced a challenge inviting the public to write down their ideas, in detail, for developing the elements of space pioneering necessary to establish a continuous human presence on the Red Planet. This could include shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interactions and medicine, but participants are encouraged to consider innovative and creative elements beyond these examples,” says NASA.

    “Participants are asked to describe one or more Mars surface systems or capabilities and operations that are needed to achieve this goal and, to the greatest extent possible, are technically achievable, economically sustainable, and minimize reliance on support from Earth.

    As if you need a monetary incentive to help NASA send people to Mars, the agency is prepared to offer $5,000 to the three best ideas.

    So, have any thoughts on the matter?

    More on what you need to submit if you’re so inclined:

    NASA seeks technical submissions that describe the development of capabilities and operational events necessary, in both the near- and long-term, to advance this bold journey. Submissions may consist of proposed approaches, capabilities, systems or a set of integrated systems that enable or enhance a sustained human presence on Mars. Solutions should include the assumptions, analysis, and data that justify their value. Submissions should include a process to develop, test, implement, and operate the system or capability.

    Get to thinking, people.

    Image via NASA

  • Hubble Finds Smiley Face Comprising Two Far Away Galaxies

    Hubble Finds Smiley Face Comprising Two Far Away Galaxies

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been providing humanity incredible images from space for a quarter of a century, and it might’ve just given us the happiest picture its ever captured.

    Thanks to two far away galaxies and something called “strong gravitational lensing”, the Hubble has captured something smiling at us out in space.

    What you’re looking at above is a picture of Galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849, according to the European Space Agency. Two galaxies form the “eyes”.

    And the smiley mouth? That’s strong gravitational lensing.

    From the ESA:

    Massive structures in the Universe exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they can warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble’s discoveries, can be explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    In this special case of gravitational lensing, a ring — known as an Einstein Ring — is produced from this bending of light, a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer and resulting in the ring-like structure we see here.

    An earlier version of the image was posted to Flickr by Judy Schmidt in 2012, as part of the Hubble’s Hidden Treasure project.

    So cool. For the idiots out there (myself included), however, let’s just say the universe is smiling upon you. How can you have a bad day now?

  • Mars Rover Due For Major System Reformat

    Mars Rover Due For Major System Reformat

    A mass amount of system resets to NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has prompted the rover team to make plans to reformat the rover’s flash memory.

    The reformat will help prevent the system from losing memory and will wipe out the old and damaged cells within the memory. The reformat will take place next month and several preparations have already been made, including backing up and sending data that is stored in the memory to Earth.

    “Worn-out cells in the flash memory are the leading suspect in causing these resets,” said John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, project manager for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project. “The flash reformatting is a low-risk process, as critical sequences and flight software are stored elsewhere in other non-volatile memory on the rover.”

    NASA also plans to slow down the data transfer rate in order to ensure that the rover is able to handle the reboot without losing any memory.

    The rover is currently 200 million kilometers from Earth, and it takes radio signals 11.2 minutes to reach the rover from Earth. It will take the same amount of time for the signals to travel to Earth from the rover.

    NASA hopes that the reboot will put an end to the resets and problems that the rover is currently experiencing and allow it to function properly. Once the reboot is complete, the rover will continue to travel around Mars, taking photos and collecting samples that will be sent back to Earth.

    The rover has lasted longer than NASA expected. It was designed to stay powered for just three months, but the winds on Mars help clean the solar panels and allow it to charge and stay powered. The rover has been collecting photos and samples from Mars for ten years.

  • Thigh Bone On Mars: Is It Proof Of Alien Life?

    Thigh Bone On Mars: Is It Proof Of Alien Life?

    Since the beginning of time humans have looked up to the heavens and wondered if anything or anyone is looking back. Scientists have said that there could be life on other planets, but most people want to know if there could be intelligent life somewhere out there.

    One of the planets that is most like Earth is Mars and some scientists say that if life were to exist on another planet or if it ever did before our time, it would have happened on Mars.

    There have been numerous probes sent to the red planet to gather evidence about the surface and atmosphere and to collect samples and photos from Mars.

    Some of the things found by these probes have been shocking and several people have claimed that there are many strange shapes on Mars that appear to be objects and structures that were made by humans or another intelligent life form.

    A recent photo from Mars shows what many people believe to be a thigh bone. NASA’s Curiosity rover sent back a collection of photos that show a pile of what appears to be bones. Any bones being present on Mars would be considered a sign that life once existed there, but these bones appeared to belong to a human or large animal.

    People everywhere were talking about the thigh bone, but NASA rained on everyone’s parade pretty quickly and said that the object in the photo was not a thigh bone or any bone for that matter. It was just a weathered old rock that just happened to have a peculiar shape.

    Of course, many people yelled cover up, but NASA maintains that the photo does not show any bones. NASA claims that they want to find proof of life on Mars just as badly as everyone else, but say they are not likely to find it.

    According to NASA, the Curiosity rover has found evidence that Mars was once a habitable place in the ancient past, but there is no evidence that creatures large enough to leave a bone behind ever existed on the planet.

    “If life ever existed on Mars, scientists expect that it would be small simple life forms called microbes,” NASA officials said. “Mars likely never had enough oxygen in its atmosphere and elsewhere to support more complex organisms. Thus, large fossils are not likely.”

    Do you believe there is other intelligent life out there?

  • William Shatner and NASA Share Twitter Exchange

    William Shatner and NASA Share Twitter Exchange

    Iconic actor William Shatner tweeted to NASA on Saturday, and received an update on the status of the International Space Station.

    Back in April, NASA honored Shatner with its highest award bestowed upon civilians, the Distinguished Public Service medal. The medal cited Shatner for “outstanding generosity and dedication to inspiring new generations of explorers around the world, and for unwavering support for NASA and its missions of discovery.”

    Best known for his role as Captain James Tiberius Kirk on Star Trek: The Original Series, Shatner has been somewhat of an informal spokesman for NASA over the past few years, issuing a Star Trek-themed wake-up call to the astronauts of the Discovery mission STS-133 in 2011. In 2012, the actor recorded a message for the occupants of the International Space Station, and also narrated a video regarding NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover:

    Here is the Twitter exchange from Saturday:

    Shatner, an avid Twitter user, has contacted NASA before via the platform, and in 2013 traded tweets with astronaut Chris Hadfield, Canada’s first space station commander:

    Shatner, 83, was recently in the news for panning a new Facebook app called “Mentions,” which is geared toward celebrities, and tracks how many times their names are mentioned in social media.

    Shatner’s assessment of “Mentions”:

    “I’m not quite sure why Facebook released this app for ‘celebrities’. It seems to be ill conceived. I will probably use it to post to my Facebook when I’m on my phone but it doesn’t allow for mail or groups. I will continue to use my regular Facebook App as well as the Pages app.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Supermoon Saturday – See The Pics!

    Supermoon Saturday – See The Pics!

    If you happened to look into the sky early Saturday, you probably witnessed one of the coolest natural phenomenon’s!

    Saturday, July 12 marked the first supermoon of the summer and was captured in hundreds of photographs across the globe.

    So, what is a “supermoon?” According to the Weather Channel, a supermoon occurs when a new or full moon coincides with a perigee – when the moon is closest to the Earth. While they are incredibly beautiful, perigee moons are not that uncommon, and two are expected within the next two months- August 10 and September 9.

    “Generally speaking, full Moons occur near perigee every 13 months and 18 days, so it’s not all that unusual,” Geogg Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory said in a statement for NASA. “In fact, just last year there were three perigee Moons in a row, but only one was widely reported.”

    According to NASA, the supermoon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal for those who saw it.

    Check out some pictures of the supermoon below.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Curiosity Rover Celebrates First Year on Mars

    Curiosity Rover Celebrates First Year on Mars

    NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover touched down on the Red Planet in August 2012, nearly two years ago. However, today marks the one year Martian anniversary of the rover’s presence on Mars, a feat many thought would never been seen.

    Mars, being further away from the sun than Earth, takes 687 days for one revolution to occur, meaning that a year is considerably longer on Mars than here on Earth.

    Over the course of one year, the Curiosity rover was able to surpass expectations for its mission, despite some mechanical hiccups.

    The goal of the Mars rover mission was simply to discover whether or not life would have been feasible on the fourth planet from the sun. While many thought the answer to that question would not have been possible until Curiosity reached Mount Sharp, the Curiosity rover was able to surprise everyone by solving the riddle much sooner than anticipated.

    Curiosity landed near an ancient riverbed, called Yellowknife Bay, where it promptly collected samples with its drill for analysis. Scientists were ecstatic when two mudstone slabs showed all of the necessary ingredients needed for life on Mars: mild water, the essential elements of life, and a chemical energy source similar to what microbes use here on Earth.

    While the Curiosity rover celebrated its first initial victory, it would soon suffer two defeats. The first would come when Curiosity failed to detect any methane in Mars’s atmosphere, leading many scientists pondering the viability of life on the planet considering almost all organisms produce methane as a byproduct of metabolism.

    The next hang-up occurred when Curiosity was sidelined from driving due to damages to its front wheels, forcing NASA scientists to think of innovative ways to drive and paths to take in order to ensure Curiosity was able to continue its mission.

    During its first year, Curiosity had also been able to measure radiation exposure and levels on Mars, aiding scientists in their studies to determine what type of shielding astronauts would need if they were to visit the Red Planet in the future.

    Currently, Curiosity is making its way to Mount Sharp to study geological layering to gain more information about ancient environments. Let’s hope it lasts long enough to complete its mission.

    Image via Twitter

  • Mars Flying Saucer Test Postponed By NASA

    Mars Flying Saucer Test Postponed By NASA

    NASA is preparing to launch a “flying saucer” into Earth’s atmosphere in order to test the technology that may be used to land on Mars. However, the test has been postponed many times due to incliment weather conditions. The next chance to launch the flying saucer will be on June 14.

    According to the agency, the flying saucer test will be conducted in order to test technology that will aid in landing spacecraft, and maybe even humans, on Mars.

    NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the LDSD or the Lowe Density Supersonic Decelerator. It looks similar to a flying saucer. The dish is part hard shell and part inflatable bladder. Project Manager Mark Adler said that the balloon is “big enough to fill the Rose Bowl.”

    Scientists have long been waiting to get the LDSD to take flight, since they also have long-term Mars plans including robot sample missions, and even crewed missions further down the line. Adler said that they have been using the same parachute design for 40 years. “The last time we did a test like this was 1972.”

    The latest Mars rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, weighed around a ton. The new technology that is now being tested will allow heavier loads, twice as heavy as the Mars Science Laboratory, to land on Mars.

    The LDSD will be ascending into the skies while dangling from a balloon filled with helium. It will be launched from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility, which is located in the island of Kauai in Hawaii. When the LDSD reaches 23 miles high, the balloon will break and drop to Earth. The rocket attached to the saucer will then be fired.

    “We want to test them here – where it’s a lot cheaper – before we send them to Mars,” Adler said.

    Image via YouTube

  • ‘The Beast’ Asteroid Set to Pass Earth on June 8th

    ‘The Beast’ Asteroid Set to Pass Earth on June 8th

    On Sunday, June 8th, an asteroid nicknamed “The Beast” will approach uncomfortably close to the Earth – 3.25 times the distance between the Earth and the moon, to be exact.

    The passing is uncomfortable for a couple of reasons: 1) Any space object nicknamed “The Beast” should be fear inducing no matter how close it is; and 2) The massive asteroid was only detected six weeks ago, much too late for NASA or any other agency to have diverted the path of such an asteroid if it was on a collision course with Earth.

    The asteroid, officially named 2014 HQ124, lives up to its nickname when one looks at the numbers behind the story.

    “The Beast” measures in at 1,100 feet (335 meters) in diameter – similar in size to a movie theater, football stadium, or a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Currently, the asteroid is hurtling through space at a speed of 31,000 mph. If it was to enter Earth’s gravitational field, its speed would increase to 40,000 mph by the time of impact.

    Asteroid impact expert Mark Boslough, of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, shed some light on how devastating an asteroid of such proportions and traveling at such high speeds would be to the Earth:

    What’s disconcerting is that a rocky/metallic body this large, and coming so very close, should have only first been discovered this soon before its nearest approach. HQ124 is at least 10 times bigger, and possibly 20 times, than the asteroid that injured a thousand people last year in Chelyabinsk, Siberia… If it were to impact us, the energy released would be measured not in kilotons like the atomic bombs that ended World War II, but in H-bomb type megatons… You’d end up with a crater about 3 miles across. An event like that would break windows over 100 kilometers away.

    To add some further perspective, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima exploded with 15 kilotons of force, while “The Beast” would impact the Earth with a 2,000 megaton explosion. (1,000 kilotons equals 1 megaton.)

    If that news wasn’t disconcerting enough, NASA officials estimate that only 30 percent of the estimated 15,000 near-Earth asteroids measuring 460 feet in diameter have been discovered, while less than one percent of those measuring in with a diameter of 100 feet have been found.

    Image via YouTube

  • Meteor Storm Not Over: Watch For Comet Caboose Weds.

    Meteor Storm Not Over: Watch For Comet Caboose Weds.

    Did you witness the witching hour light show in the sky this morning?

    Me neither. It’s always nice to see these kinds of events live; but if you’re like me, you might have missed the Camelopardalid meteor shower on account of cloudy skies. Lucky for the both of us, media capturing the cosmic firework display was posted all over the web today. What’s more – we haven’t necessarily missed the entire dusty trail of Comet-209P/LINEAR. In fact, the tail end of the meteor storm should pass by Earth – starting tonight and visible on Wednesday.

    Although the storm wasn’t as intense as some anticipated, scientists chock this up to “unknowns”.

    That is to say, our current models aren’t as good at predicting meteor showers induced by Jupiter family comets. Because Comet-209P/Linear is among these, the gravity of the massive planet is among the variables making predictions difficult. Another reason forecasts may have been off is because the best way we can determine meteor shower characteristics is based off previous models. Because this guy wasn’t discovered until 2004 (and doesn’t swing around but once every five years), it didn’t give scientists much with which to work.

    “Although this is a far cry from predictions, it is hardly a surprise,” says astronomer Tony Philips of Spaceweather.com. He added, “The parent comet, 209P/LINEAR, is faint and currently produces only a small amount of dust. Most forecasters acknowledged that there might be less dust in Earth’s path than the models suggested.”

    If you’re bummed about missing the show, you might still be able to catch the tail end.

    Provided it’s clear enough on Wednesday, it should be visible in the north sky with a consumer model 3-inch-reflector telescope. If you’re ill equipped to see it, watch the celestial eye goodies unfold live. Also, if you’d like to plan ahead for more atmospheric awesomeness, mark your comet calendars for Perseid meteor shower – which is in August.

    But just in case – you might check the skies tonight. Phillips suggested the spectacle might have fallen short of Earth shattering because perhaps the main event has yet to come. He said, “Another possibility is that the shower is not a dud, just delayed,” and then went on to add, “If models mis-located the debris zone, an outburst could still occur later on May 24th.”

    Hey! That’s today!

    Anyone else got last minute plans for a stellar Saturday night?


    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • El Niño 2014 Might Become a Repeat of 1997

    El Niño 2014 Might Become a Repeat of 1997

    NASA satellite imaging of the Pacific Ocean has revealed data that resembles the conditions which fostered the record-breaking El Niño year of 1997.

    El Niño, which is Spanish for “the boy,” with the capitalized version meaning “Christ Child,” is a system of abnormally high seawater temperatures that develops off the Pacific coast of South America, leading to extreme weather across the Pacific Ocean.

    The NASA/French Space Agency Jason-2 satellite scans the world’s oceans every ten days, measuring changes in sea surface height, along with heat levels in the upper layers of the water. Lately, Jason-2 has presented data from the Pacific that looks a lot like it did in 1997.

    Here is a documentary which describes how researchers attempt to predict El Niño patterns:

    Jason-2 has been detecting a series of Kelvin waves, which are large ripples at sea level that travel across the Pacific from Australia to South America. Kelvin waves are good indicators of El Niño, and both phenomena are linked by wind. Trade winds in the Pacific blow from east to west, which push sun-warmed surface waters toward Indonesia. As a result, the sea level around Indonesia is typically 45 centimeters higher than it is near Ecuador. This area is called the warm pool, and is the largest reservoir of warm water on earth.

    Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commented that “a pattern of sea surface heights and temperatures has formed that reminds me of the way the Pacific looked in the spring of 1997. That turned out to precursor to a big El Niño.”

    Mike McPhaden of NOAA’s Pacific Environmental Research Laboratories in Seattle added, “We can’t yet say for sure that an El Niño will develop in 2014, or how big it might be, but the Jason-2 data support the El Niño Watch issued last month by NOAA.”

    The NOAA and NASA are meticulously monitoring the Pacific trade winds. It will become much more clear in the coming few months whether these recent developments are the forerunner of a major El Niño, or any El Niño at all.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • SpaceX Dragon Cargo Ship Returns To Earth

    SpaceX Dragon Cargo Ship Returns To Earth

    The commercial cargo ship Dragon returned to earth on Sunday after stopping by the International Space Station to pick up over two tons of science experiments and equipment.

    The cargo ship was loaded and prepped on Saturday and released by astronaut Steven Swanson on Sunday. Swanson used the space station’s giant robot arm to release the cargo ship and it only took it five hours to return to earth.

    The Dragon is the only cargo ship that is capable of returning to earth.

    Every other ship burns up during re-entry, but the Dragon was built to travel between Earth and the space station. There have been three other Dragon ships that have been used in other missions.

    NASA tweeted about the release of the ship and anxiously awaited its return to Earth.

    They also tweeted that the ship had made it safely back home.

    SpaceX, the company that designed the Dragon cargo ship, also tweeted updates about the launch and return of the ship.

    The California-based SpaceX and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp have both created cargo ships capable of taking supplies to and from the International Space Station.

    Orbital will make the next delivery in a month. Both companies are used by Russia, Japan and Europe as well. The companies hope to someday transport astronauts the same way they do cargo.

    The supplies and experiments the Dragon brought back to earth will be examined by NASA scientists over the next few months.

    What do you think of the Dragon cargo ships?

    Image via YouTube

  • X-15 Test Pilot Bill Dana Dies at 83

    X-15 Test Pilot Bill Dana Dies at 83

    NASA test pilot and astronaut William Harvey “Bill” Dana passed away Tuesday at age 83.

    According to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, Dana, famed as a research test pilot who flew the X-15 rocket plane and other pioneering aircraft at the dawn of the space age, died at an assisted living facility in a suburb of Phoenix.

    Beginning in the 1950s, Dana piloted more than 60 types of aircraft, ranging from helicopters and sailplanes to the hypersonic X-15, which he flew to a maximum altitude of nearly 59 miles up, while reaching a speed of 3,897 mph.

    Dana developed an interest in aircraft while growing up in Bakersfield, California, and told Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine, “I remember seeing B-25s and P-38s flying over at the start of World War II and there was something very glorious and exciting about the warbirds, and I was attracted to it and I never really lost my ambition to fly those airplane(s).”

    Here is some 1968 X-15 newsreel featuring Dana:

    Dana graduated from West Point, became an Air Force officer and was a fighter pilot in the Korean War. In 1958, he was hired as an aeronautical research engineer at NASA’s High-Speed Flight Station in the Mojave Desert, which now called Armstrong Flight Research Center. He became a test pilot the following year.

    Commenting on his X-15 test flight, Dana said that the plane had a “great big engine and lots of acceleration and things happening very, very fast and I really didn’t catch up with the airplane until I was back down to about Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound), where I had been before in fighter airplanes. There’s a whole staff of engineers in the control room watching every move you make and my fear was that I would do something that would embarrass myself in the eyes of my peers, and that was the fear.” Dana added, “I don’t ever remember being afraid I was going to die.”

    Aviation enthusiasts pay their respects:

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Meteor Shower to Light Up Night Sky

    Meteor Shower to Light Up Night Sky

    Halley’s Comet isn’t scheduled to make its next appearance in the inner solar system for another 47 years, but the debris left in the wake of the comet’s 1986 trip to the Sun is still causing quite a light show for Earth.

    This week our planet is passing through the debris cloud left by Halley’s Comet. The celestial event will light up the sky in both the northern and southern hemispheres with a meteor shower. The peak of the meteor shower can be seen late tonight, early on the morning of May 6.

    Though nearly everyone on Earth will have a chance to see this week’s meteor shower, people in the southern hemisphere will see the greatest number of meteors. According to NASA as many as 30 meteors an hour will appear in the night sky of the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere will get an even grander light show with as many as one meteor every minute at the peak of the shower. Peak rates of meteors can generally be seen sometime between 3 am to 5 am with dawn bringing an end to optimal viewing conditions.

    This yearly event is named the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. The name for the shower comes from the fact that, from the perspective of the Earth’s surface, the meteors appear to be streaming from the constellation Aquarius. Though the Eta Aquarid meteor shower isn’t as spectacular as the annual mid-November Leonids, the mild weather predicted for much of the U.S. could make tonight’s event perfect for an early-morning meteor party.

    The skies over the U.S. are expected to be much clearer than they were last Monday, but not everyone will have prime viewing conditions for the meteor shower. For those people NASA will be streaming footage of the night sky from its Marshall Space Flight Center on its Ustream page. Located in Huntsville, Alabama, the location is predicted to have clear skies for optimal meteor shower viewing.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Ganymede Sea Could Be Layered and Harbor Life

    Ganymede Sea Could Be Layered and Harbor Life

    For decades now Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has been one of the more interesting objects in our solar system. The moon is one of the few that is known to have a large ocean beneath an icy layer, leading to speculation that primitive life may have evolved somewhere inside.

    This week astronomers have announced a discovery that increases the likelihood that Ganymede harbors life. A new study published in the journal Planetary and Space Science has developed a model of Ganymede’s seas that is layered between sheets of ice.

    “Ganymede’s ocean might be organized like a Dagwood sandwich,” said Steve Vance, lead author of the study and a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “This is good news for Ganymede. Its ocean is huge, with enormous pressures, so it was thought that dense ice had to form at the bottom of the ocean. When we added salts to our models, we came up with liquids dense enough to sink to the sea floor.”

    Vance and his colleagues looked at how dense saltwater ice might behave in the deep high-pressure oceans on Ganymede. Using a new computer model of the moon they showed that the crystal structure of such ice can make it more dense than water, causing the ice to sink. The phenomenon is strange enough that lighter ice formed at the bottom of the sea might actually “snow” upward through the sea.

    The new findings do not count out possible life in Ganymede’s seas, and could in fact support such ideas. According to the new study the water nearest to Ganymede’s core could be salt water, making the possibility of life more likely than if this layer were simply ice.

    The study’s authors also believe these findings could apply to many of the “super-Earth” exoplanets that have been discovered in recent years. A few of these planets have been found orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, meaning liquid water could be maintained on or within them.

    Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • William Shatner Gets NASA Medal Honor

    William Shatner Gets NASA Medal Honor

    Actor William Shatner has received NASA’s highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service medal.

    Shatner’s award came as a result of several projects he has worked on with NASA over the years. Shatner hosted the NASA documentary celebrating the 30th anniversary of space shuttle missions. He also recreated his famous Star Trek television introduction (“Space … the Final Frontier …”) in one of the last wake-up calls for the astronauts of the STS-133 mission.

    “William Shatner has been so generous with his time and energy in encouraging students to study science and math, and for inspiring generations of explorers, including many of the astronauts and engineers who are a part of NASA today, ” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “He’s most deserving of this prestigious award.”

    The medal was presented to Shatner in Los Angeles at his annual Hollywood Charity Horse Show, where he raises money for a variety of children’s causes. The citation for the medal reads, “For outstanding generosity and dedication to inspiring new generations of explorers around the world, and for unwavering support for NASA and its missions of discovery.”

    Over the years, many people have been honored with the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the public version of the Distinguished Service Medal reserved for astronauts. These include Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2004; Carl Sagan in 1977; and Shatner’s old boss, Gene Roddenberry, in 1993.

    Shatner, a prolific Twitter user, responded to the honor on his account.

    Image via NASA