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Tag: NASA

  • Fate of Comet ISON Still Undetermined

    Fate of Comet ISON Still Undetermined

    More than one week on from comet ISON‘s close approach to the sun, astronomers are still working hard to determine what exactly happened to the object.

    The comet approached the sun on November 28 after traveling for millions of years from outside our solar system. NASA and ESA researchers used a wide array of instruments to capture the comet’s approach, including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. For several hours during the comet’s approach astronomers were not able to observe the object due to the sun’s brightness, and many had assumed that the comet had disintegrated due to its proximity to the sun. However, NASA and ESA instruments were able to catch a glimpse of what was left of the comet on its way out of its approach.

    Following its approach, astronomers observed a glint that was far less bright than the comet had been in the days previous to the approach. In the days since the object has faded away to almost nothing. Researchers are now trying to work out whether the remainder seen after approach was the ice core of the comet that survived or whether it was simply reduced to debris by that time.

    NASA today stated that researchers are continuing to research exactly what happened while the comet was out of view. What can be confirmed already is that the comet shrank “considerably” during its approach and that at this time it is likely only dust.

    Astronomers are hoping that the vast amount of data collected on ISON will provide new discoveries for years to come. A video of the comet’s approach and the aftermath was released this week by NASA. The footage comes from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):

  • Bill Nye Urges Obama to Up Planetary Science Budget

    Bill Nye Urges Obama to Up Planetary Science Budget

    Bill Nye is urging President Obama to make sure the Planetary Science Division of NASA receives as much funding as Americans spend on dog toys per year. His magic number is $1.5 billion.

    As of right now, the White House’s budget proposes $1.2 billion in funding for NASA’s Planetary Science Division, a figure that the Planetary Society says would “effectively cripple one of our best and most effective programs of exploration.”

    “We argue that $1.5 billion per year – with no increases for the next five years – is the minimum necessary to pursue the most important scientific goals for solar system exploration. This includes returning a sample of Mars to the Earth for analysis, sending a mission to explore the subsurface ocean of Europa, and to keep a steady pace of exciting, cost-effective missions exploring the depths of our solar system. This level is consistent with past funding amounts, so it’s not unprecedented,” says the Planetary Society.

    That $1.5 billion would equal less than 9% of NASA’s total budget, which in its entirety is less than a half a percent of the total federal budget.

    Below is Bill Nye’s open letter, in full:

    Mr. President,

    The space program, NASA, is the best brand the United States has. Everywhere in the world, people respect and admire what NASA does. Right now, what NASA does best is explore the Solar System through the Planetary Science Program.

    People around the world shared the seven minutes of terror as we lowered an extraordinary car bristling with extraordinary instruments onto the surface of Mars from a crane held aloft in that alien sky by rockets. Many thought it was impossible because nothing like it had ever been done before. You and your family remember applauding as a replica of that rover rolled by in the inaugural parade.

    Over the last few years, Congress has added back funding for the planetary program that the Office of Management and Budget has cut. We all understand it’s a push and pull process–a negotiation. But planetary science deserves special attention, because it is special. It is a remarkable value in which we should maintain or even increase our investment. We recommend that planetary science receive $1.5 billion dollars a year. That’s less than 10 percent of NASA’s budget, which in turn is less than 0.5% of the federal budget.

    The planetary science division of the space program accomplishes extraordinary things, because it is extraordinary. We want to look for signs of life on other worlds, places like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. That work is done by our planetary explorers, scientists and engineers, who really are seeking signs of life on another world. Such a discovery would be astounding. It would, as so many astronomical discoveries have, change the course of human history.

    Planetary exploration not only brings us astonishing discoveries from other worlds, it inherently leads to innovation, because we invest in solving problems which have never been solved before. That in turn creates new businesses and economic growth. But more importantly, supporting a robust space program raises everyone’s expectation of what’s possible. With a space program, everyone in our society comes to believe and expect that any problem we face can be solved. It’s inherently optimistic. It’s part of our national character.

    So Mr. President: we strongly recommend that you make sure that funding for the planetary science program is at least $1.5 billion dollars per year. It will keep our current missions flying, ensure we create new missions, and it will lead to amazing new innovations, new businesses, and new discoveries for our future. Investing in planetary science changes the world.

    Thank you.

    Bill Nye
    Chief Executive Officer
    The Planetary Society

    Image via The Planetary Society, YouTube

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Has Fired its Laser a Lot

    Mars Rover Curiosity Has Fired its Laser a Lot

    NASA today officially announced that Mars rover Curiosity has fired its infrared laser more than 102,000 times. The 100,000th blast came back near the end of October, when the rover shot over 300 blasts at a rock named “Ithaca” from a distance of over four meters. Curiosity has now blasted over 420 different Martian targets using its laser.

    “Passing 100,000 laser shots is terribly exciting and is providing a remarkable set of chemical data for Mars,” said Horton Newsom, ChemCam co-investigator and a senior research sceintist at the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico.

    Researchers use the laser to blast a small spot on Martian rocks, creating an ionized gas that can be analyzed with Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera instrument to determine the chemical make-up of the sample. According to NASA, the laser is used to blast targets with 30 pulses, which creates a pinhead-sized marking. Each blast lasts for only five one-billionths of a second and delivers more than one million watts.

    Curiosity is currently back on-track for a months-long journey to the base of a Martian mountain named Mount Sharp. There researchers are hoping to compare exposed rock layers to the geology already observed near the rover’s landing site.

    The rover’s progress last month was stymied by two separate incidents that cause the rover’s science operations to be temporarily suspended. In early November Curiosity experienced a software glitch that caused an unexpected reboot. Just days after having the issue corrected, the rover experienced a “soft short” that lowered its operating voltage significantly.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

  • New Saturn North Pole Storm Images Released

    New Saturn North Pole Storm Images Released

    NASA today released new images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft. The images are the highest-ever resolution photos of the planet’s north pole.

    The images depict the so-called “hexagon” jet stream located near the north pole of Saturn. The formation is so-named because of its six sides. The hexagon is a gigantic storm covering the pole that can reach wind speeds of up to 150 meters per second. The images depict a top-down view of Saturn and show the full 30,000 kilometer diameter of the storm. As a comparison, the diameter of earth is only around 12,700 kilometers.

    “The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are notoriously turbulent and unstable,” said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology. “A hurricane on Earth typically lasts a week, but this has been here for decades — and who knows — maybe centuries.”

    Images of the hexagon taken in the visible light spectrum were unveiled by NASA earlier this year. The images being taken are now possible due to Saturn passing its equinox in 2009.

    These newest images were taken using the Cassini probe’s high-resolution cameras over the course of 10 hours. Researchers were then able to analyze the photos using false color, allowing them to pick out the different substances that make up the giant storm. They observed smaller vortices within the storm that spin the opposite direction as the main storm, as well as differences in the concentration of haze particles within the storm.

    “Inside the hexagon, there are fewer large haze particles and a concentration of small haze particles, while outside the hexagon, the opposite is true,” said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University. “The hexagonal jet stream is acting like a barrier, which results in something like Earth’s Antarctic ozone hole.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton)

  • Astronomers May Have Spotted a Double Black Hole

    Astronomers May Have Spotted a Double Black Hole

    Astronomers this week revealed that a double black hole system may have been found. An object known as WISE J233237.05-505643.5 was spotted at the center of a galaxy 3.8 billion light-years from our solar system. The jet shooting up out of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy appears to be wavy, rather than straight. This suggests that another supermassive black hole may be close by, affecting the material shooting from the other’s jet.

    The rare sighting was take from data collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and followed up on using the Australian Telescope Compact Array. The WISE observatory has recently been reactivated to search for asteroids that are potentially hazardous to Earth.

    “At first we thought this galaxy’s unusual properties seen by WISE might mean it was forming new stars at a furious rate,” said Peter Eisenhardt, a co-author of a paper on the object published recently in the Astrophysical Journal and a WISE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “But on closer inspection, it looks more like the death spiral of merging giant black holes.”

    According to NASA, only a handful of so-called black hole binary candidates have been found over the years. This new finding is yet another of those candidates, though astronomers are being cautious in confirming the hypothesis. Several factors have pointed to the double black hole explanation including jet and the strange clumping of dust and gas in the accretion disc surrounding the object.

    “We think the jet of one black hole is being wiggled by the other, like a dance with ribbons,” said Chao-Wei Tsai, lead author of the paper. “If so, it is likely the two black holes are fairly close and gravitationally entwined.”

    (Image courtesy NASA)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Resumes Roving

    Mars Rover Curiosity Resumes Roving

    NASA today announced that Mars rover Curiosity resumed its exploration of Mars this weekend. The rover’s exploration had been suspended last week following an unexpected electrical issue.

    This is the second time in November that Curiosity has been reactivated following an unexpected technical glitch. The first occurred when the rover unexpectedly booted into safe mode after a software conflict.

    This latest malfunction saw Curiosity’s voltage drop significantly, down to 4 volts from the steady 11 it had been operating at since shortly after launch. NASA last week attributed the drop to a soft short in which voltage could be leaking through a partially conductive material. NASA stated today that the likely cause of the voltage drop was an internal short in Curiosity’s Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.

    On Saturday, November 23, the rover was found to have returned to its original 11 volt level. Researchers are confident that the drop has not affected the ability of Curiosity to complete its mission, as the rover has a floating bus designed to operate under a range of voltage differences. Having witnessed similar shorts on other machines, however, researchers believe that Curiosity’s voltage could drop again in the future.

    After conducting diagnostic tests on curiosity, NASA resumed science operations with the rover this weekend. Its first task was to deliver a powdered rock sample into a testing lab on the rover. The sample had been kept by Curiosity in its arm since drilling a Martian rock six months ago. The rover is currently on a months-long journey to the base of a mountain named Mount Sharp where the rover will investigate the rock layers exposed at that site.

  • Black Beauty Meteorite from Mars Found in Africa

    Black Beauty Meteorite from Mars Found in Africa

    CNN reports a mysterious meteorite has been discovered in the northern part of Africa, and scientists are dating it at 4.4 billion years. The study was published in the journal Nature.

    Nicknamed “Black Beauty,” the authors of the study believe that this object is the first identifiable example of ancient Martian crust, which would have formed in the first 100 million years that Mars was around. As Florida State University professor and lead author Munir Humayun said, “It’s just pressing its nose against the creation of Mars.”

    The meteorite contained zircon crystals that formed roughly 100 million years after the condensation of dust within the solar system. Humayun said “Since it takes time to build up a crust, and to allow that crust to process itself until it can start growing zircons, it’s pretty amazing that we have such ancient zircon.”

    Here’s a closer image of the 4-billion-year-old rock:


    [YouTube]

    Black Beauty was also found to contain between 10 and 30 times more water than any previously discovered Martian meteorite. Although the scientists are unsure about the living conditions, they are continuing to study the rock in search for Martian fossils or the chemical waste left by primitive lifeforms. Either would leave a trace that scientists could latch onto.

    Carl Agee, a University of New Mexico professor who was not involved in the research, said “If I were going to start looking [for evidence of past life on Mars], this would be the first place I would go, to this meteorite, because it is a sample from the surface.”

    Scientists still aren’t sure if Mars could have supported life, but if there was ever a time that it could, it would have been 4.4 billion years ago. Volcanic processes, similar to those on Earth, would have released massive quantities of Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen gases, and water vapors that could have created an atmosphere or maybe even an ocean.

    Unfortunately for Martian lifeforms, the planet underwent a heavy bombardment by comets and asteroids that may have decimated the biosphere. Earth, meanwhile, underwent a similar bombardment that actually permitted the formation of our biosphere. Mars may be currently inhospitable, but if there was life, Black Beauty would be able to tell us.

    [Main image via YouTube]

  • Astronomers Confirm Milky Way Particle Jet

    Astronomers Confirm Milky Way Particle Jet

    Astronomers this week have revealed the confirmation that the black hole at the center of our galaxy is ejecting a stream of high-energy particles. The new findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

    Researchers for some time have assumed that our Milky Way galaxy has a jet of particles spouting from its center, much like other galaxies similar to it. It is hypothesized that these types of jets are formed as material orbiting a black hole is forced outwards. Observations of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, named Sagittarius A*, have come up short in the past. These new findings confirm both the existence of the particle jet and its intensity, which is weak compared to other jets seen in the universe.

    “For decades astronomers have looked for a jet associated with the Milky Way’s black hole,” said Zhiyuan Li, lead author of a study and an astronomer at Nanjing University. “Our new observations make the strongest case yet for such a jet.”

    Li and her colleagues were able to discover the jet using the combined observations of the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA‘s Chandra Observatory. The team’s observations were able to use data on the jet to determine the spin axis of Sagittarius A*. This could help future astronomers determine how the Milky Way and its central black hole formed and evolved. The new paper has already determined that the object’s spin is parallel to the rotation axis of the galaxy, suggesting that the Milky Way has not merged with any other galaxies in recent galactic history.

    “We know this giant black hole has been much more active at consuming material in the past,” said Frederick Baganoff, co-author of the paper and an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When it stirs again, the jet may brighten dramatically.”

    (Image courtesy NRAO/VLA/NASA/CXC/UCLA/Z. Li et al)

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Halted Over Electrical Issue

    Mars Rover Curiosity Halted Over Electrical Issue

    NASA today announced that Mars rover Curiosity‘s planned research has been suspended temporarily. The rover is still functional, but has been put on hold while researchers examine an electricity issue that has been detected.

    This news comes just a week after Curiosity resumed operations following an unexpected software glitch in early November.

    This new suspension came after NASA researchers detected a voltage change in the rover on Sunday, November 17. Mars Science Laboratory team members measured a change in voltage difference between the rover’s chassis and its power bus. The difference first occurred intermittently before the voltage difference dropped to 4 volts from the 11 volts it has been at during its year on Mars. Researchers will be testing Curiosity’s systems in the coming days to determine the source of the voltage drop.

    “The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short,” said Jim Erickson, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

    A soft short would mean that voltage is leaking through a material that is only partially conductive. Such a situation would explain the change in voltage, but might also indicate a larger issue with the instrument or system where the short originated. NASA stated that another soft short had occurred for Curiosity shortly after it landed last year, dropping the rover’s working voltage difference between the chassis and the power bus to 11 volts.

    This latest short has not harmed the rover and did not even trigger its emergency safe mode. Curiosity is also capable of operating within the new lower voltage, though future shorts could seriously impair the rover’s capabilities.

    (Image courtesy NASA)

  • NASA Successfully Launches its MAVEN Mission to Mars

    NASA Successfully Launches its MAVEN Mission to Mars

    On Monday afternoon NASA successfully launched its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probe from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The probe’s solar arrays were deployed soon after it’s final rocket stage, sending it on its months-long journey to the planet mars.

    The MAVEN spacecraft will take 10 months to journey from Earth to Mars. In the coming weeks researchers will be switching on the spacecraft to check its systems and science instruments.

    “After 10 years of developing the mission concept and then the hardware, it’s incredibly exciting to see MAVEN on its way,” said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “But the real excitement will come in 10 months, when we go into orbit around Mars and can start getting the science results we planned.”

    Once MAVEN arrives in orbit around the red planet, it will be put to use studying Mars’ atmosphere. More specifically, MAVEN will be looking for evidence of just how the once-abundant Martian atmosphere was lost.

    Researchers believe that determining how the planet’s atmosphere was lost could help shed light on how Mars changed from a water-rich environment to desolate landscape that is seen today. Current findings, provided by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, suggest that the loss of the planet’s atmosphere was a major cause of climate change on Mars. The most recent hypotheses concerning the loss of the Martian atmosphere posit that heavier isotopes of carbon caused the planet’s upper atmosphere to be lost.

    “MAVEN joins our orbiters and rovers already at Mars to explore yet another facet of the Red Planet and prepare for human missions there by the 2030s,” said Charles Bolden NASA Administrator. “This mission is part of an integrated and strategic exploration program that is uncovering the mysteries of the solar system and enabling us to reach farther destinations.”

  • Mars-Bound NASA Orbiter MAVEN Set to Launch

    Mars-Bound NASA Orbiter MAVEN Set to Launch

    Mars has been quite the hot spot lately. First, discussions about cultivating a human population on the planet have circulated. Now, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is being prepared for the Monday, November 18th launch that is set for 1:28 p.m. EST.

    The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter is already on the launch pad located in Florida at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. According to NASA, the Atlas V rocket, which is attached to MAVEN, was placed on the Launch Complex 41 pad on Saturday at 10:20 a.m. EDT.

    This recent expedition is partly the result of increasing interest over the transition of the Red Planet from a wet, potentially-life-sustaining planet to the dry, vast dessert that now stretches across the region. No punches have been pulled with devoting necessary resources into this recent mission to Mars as $671 has reportedly been set for the project.

    Scientists hope that MAVEN will gather information about the upper atmosphere of Mars where suspicions regarding the loss of magnetic field inside the planet’s core may provide answers for the current geological landscape. The spacecraft is set for a 10 month journey to the Red Planet. MAVEN will not actually begin orbiting Mars until sometime close to September 22, 2014.

    Those excited about watching live stream coverage of the launch, can see the coverage as NASA continues providing updates through Twitter and MAVEN’s own blog.

    [Image Via NASA]

  • Hubble Finds Young Milky Way-Like Galaxies

    Hubble Finds Young Milky Way-Like Galaxies

    Astronomers this week detailed findings showing how our own galaxy, the Milky Way, may have looked when it was first forming.

    The research, published recently in The Astrophysical Journal, shows that the Milky Way was likely once a blue-hued, gas-filled, low-mass object. It then gained mass and became a flat disc shape with a slight bulge in its center. Over time, the galaxy and the supermassive black hole at its center grew and formed the spiral shape that we observe today.

    “You can see that these galaxies are fluffy and spread out,” said Shannon Patel, another co-author of the study and an astronomer at Leiden University. “There is no evidence of a bulge without a disk, around which the disk formed later.”

    The research used the Hubble Space Telescope to perform deep-sky surveys of 400 galaxies chosen from a catalog of more than 100,000 galaxies for their similarities to the Milky Way. Astronomers were able to observe those Milky Way-like galaxies and place them each along an 11 billion year-long development path. They found evidence that our galaxy’s peak star formation period occurred when the universe was only 4 billion years old, with stars forming at a rate of around 15 per year.

    “For the first time, we have direct images of what the Milky Way looked like in the past,” said Pieter van Dokkum, a co-author of the study and an Astronomer at Yale University. “Of course, we can’t see the Milky Way itself in the past. We selected galaxies billions of light-years away that will evolve into galaxies like the Milky Way. By tracing the Milky Way’s siblings, we find that our galaxy built up 90 percent of its stars between 11 billion and 7 billion years ago, which is something that has not been measured directly before.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/ESA)

  • NASA Declares Commercial Space Program a Success

    NASA Declares Commercial Space Program a Success

    Over one year on from the first successful commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA today declared its commercial space program a complete success. This comes as NASA is ending its Comercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative, which has achieved its goal of creating reliable and cost-effective commercial transportation of materials to and from the ISS.

    “America’s best days in space exploration are ahead of us thanks to the grit and determination of those in government, and the private sector, who dare to dream big dreams and have the skills to turn them into reality,” said Charles Bolden, NASA administrator. “We’ve ended the outsourcing of space station resupply work and brought those jobs back home to America. The commercial space industry will be an engine of 21st century American economic growth and will help us carry out even more ambitious deep space exploration missions.”

    Two years ago NASA shut down its Space Shuttle program, leaving the U.S. without a reliable way to transport astronauts or supplies to the ISS and back. The country has had to rely on foreign space programs for its space transportation needs. Now, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences will be providing spaceflight capabilities for materials for all currently planned U.S. experiments on the ISS.

    With the COTS program now ended, NASA is looking to the private sector for future manned spaceflight missions. The agency is now looking for commercial partners to transport astronauts to the ISS and back. This initiative could be complete by as soon as 2017.

    “The COTS program was a great success — not only for NASA and the commercial space industry, but also the American taxpayer,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX . “Together, NASA and SpaceX restored cargo transport capabilities to the United States and also laid the foundation for the future transport of American astronauts. SpaceX appreciates NASA’s ongoing support and is honored to partner with them in these efforts.”

  • Mars Rover Curiosity is Back in Action

    Mars Rover Curiosity is Back in Action

    NASA today announced that Mars rover Curiosity is now out of safe mode and operating normally. The rover had rebooted into safe mode unexpectedly last week while transferring data between the rover and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Curiosity is expected to resume its exploration functions starting tomorrow, and the rover team has already begun planning for the upcoming days.

    From data sent to Earth after the reboot, researchers were able to determine that a software error in a catalog file was the cause of the malfunction. The file error conflicted with new software that had been installed that same day. A fix was pushed out on Sunday, allowing the rover team to begin resuming normal planning operations.

    “We returned to normal engineering operations,” said Rajeev Joshi, a Curiosity software and systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We are well into planning the next several days of surface operations and expect to resume our drive to Mount Sharp this week.”

    Curiosity is currently on a months-long trek to the base of a Martian mountain named Mount Sharp. There, researchers are hoping to the layered rock formations at the mountain to the soil and rocks the rover has already examined closer to its landing site.

    Along the way the rover will be stopping at five waypoints to conduct observations and compare the landscapes found along its planned route. At the first of these waypoints, named “Darwin,” Curiosity examined small sandstone pebbles for researchers to better understand how they formed.

  • Astronomers Spot Newborn Star Spouting Gas

    Astronomers Spot Newborn Star Spouting Gas

    NASA today unveiled a new image of the stellar object known as HH 46/47. The picture shows that the object is a newly-formed star that is shedding some of the gasses from which it formed. The new observations have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

    HH 46/47 can be seen throwing out huge jets of gas traveling out from the newborn star. Normally objects of this sort would be hidden behind the dust and gas from which they form. The HH 46/47 image was captured using the combined observations of the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA). Spitzer captured the object’s infrared light while ALMA was able to see submilimeter-wavelength light, both of which can pass through the surrounding dust clouds.

    “Young stars like our sun need to remove some of the gas collapsing in on them to become stable, and HH 46/47 is an excellent laboratory for studying this outflow process,” said Alberto Noriega-Crespo, a researcher at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology who led the team studying HH 46/47. “Thanks to Spitzer, the HH 46/47 outflow is considered one of the best examples of a jet being present with an expanding bubble-like structure.”

    Though the image is fascinating on its face, the new observations have significance for astronomers. Researchers hope to use the new images to learn about how gas jets from newborn stars affect their surroundings. Noriega-Crespo and his team have already discovered that the gas jets are traveling faster than previously thought, which could have a significant impact on surrounding star formation.

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/ALMA)

  • Hubble Telescope Spots Six-Tailed Asteroid

    Hubble Telescope Spots Six-Tailed Asteroid

    Astronomers today announced that an asteroid with six “comet-like” tails has been discovered. The asteroid, currently named P/2013 P5, was imaged twice in September by the Hubble Space Telescope. Its strange tails were seen changing position over the course of just a few days. A paper describing the asteroid was published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    Astronomers currently hypothesize that these tails are made of dust that is expelled from the asteroid. The paper’s authors believe that the asteroid has begun rotating so fast that parts of its surface are now breaking off from its surface.

    “We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it,” said David Jewitt, lead investigator on the paper and an astronomer at the University of California at Los Angeles. “Even more amazing, its tail structures change dramatically in just 13 days as it belches out dust. That also caught us by surprise. It’s hard to believe we’re looking at an asteroid.”

    Modeling of the asteroid and its orbit have shown that its tails could have been formed by a series of “dust-ejection events” that happened between April and September of this year. Solar winds are believed to have strewn the dust into tail-like structures. That same radiation is also believed to have increased the asteroid’s rate of rotation, causing surface dust to slide together and eventually off of the asteroid all together.

    P/2013 P5’s nucleus is only approximately 1,400 feet wide, making the asteroid’s gravitational pull very weak. It is thought to be a piece of a larger asteroid that broke off around 200 million years ago.

    “We were completely knocked out,” said Jewitt. “This is just an amazing object to us, and almost certainly the first of many more to come.”

    (Image courtesy NASA, ESA, D.Jewitt/UCLA)

  • New Bacteria Found in NASA, ESA Clean Rooms

    New Bacteria Found in NASA, ESA Clean Rooms

    Researchers this week revealed that a new genus of bacteria has been discovered in some of the cleanest places on Earth. A paper published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology names the new bacteria “Tersicoccus phoenicis.”

    The “berry-shaped” bacteria was found in spacecraft clean rooms on two different continents. One was a NASA clean room located at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the other is a European Space Agency (ESA) clean room located in Kourou, French Guiana. Spacecraft clean rooms are kept spotless to ensure that no contamination from Earth escapes the planet on spacecrafts. The rooms are cleaned with chemicals, ultraviolet radiation, heat, and other methods.

    Researchers are now sequencing the bacteria’s DNA and developing methods to eliminate the bacteria from clean rooms.

    “We want to have a better understanding of these bugs, because the capabilities that adapt them for surviving in clean rooms might also let them survive on a spacecraft,” said Parag Vaishampayan, lead author of the paper and a microbiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This particular bug survives with almost no nutrients.”

    According to NASA, microbiologists often survey the bacteria able to survive in clean rooms. Though other new species of bacteria have been found in clean rooms, Tersicoccus phoenicis is the first to be discovered in a clean room but not outside of one. Existing bacteria databases checked by Vaishampayan and his colleagues failed to turn up the new bacteria anywhere but these two clean rooms.

    “We find a lot of bugs in clean rooms because we are looking so hard to find them there,” said Vaishampayan. “The same bug might be in the soil outside the clean room but we wouldn’t necessarily identify it there because it would be hidden by the overwhelming numbers of other bugs.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • 8.8 Billion Earth-Like Planets Inhabit the Milky Way

    8.8 Billion Earth-Like Planets Inhabit the Milky Way

    The AP via NBC News took notice of a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: apparently, Earth is one of 8.8 billion similar planets in the Milky Way that fall inside the “Goldilocks zone,” the area around a sun where a planet’s orbit is neither too hot nor too cold for life.

    A NASA press release cites Kepler Telescope data as ushering in a new era of astronomy. Data from Kepler was used in the recent study; that data helped to conclude that 22 percent (+/- 8 percent) of the stars in the Milky Way have Earth-like planets.

    Kepler examined only a fraction of our galaxy (42,000 stars), and the 8.8 billion figure is just an extrapolation, but the findings are revolutionary. If there are 8.8 billion stars in the Milky Way, then that means there are at least 8.8 billion Earth-like planets. Geoff Marcy, a University of California-Berkeley planet hunter and a co-author of the study, said “Just in our Milky Way galaxy alone, that’s 8.8 billion throws of the biological dice.”

    William Borucki, an Ames/Kepler science principal investigator, said “The impact of the Kepler mission results on exoplanet research and stellar astrophysics is illustrated by the attendance of nearly 400 scientists from 30 different countries at the Kepler Science Conference… We gather to celebrate and expand our collective success at the opening of a new era of astronomy.”

    William Chaplin, professor of astrophysics for the University of Birmingham in the UK, said “Kepler has revolutionized asteroseismology by giving us observations of unprecedented quality, duration and continuity for thousands of stars. These are data we could only have dreamt of a few years ago.”

    The next step in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations involves atmospheric observations. Kepler’s total count for “Goldilocks” worlds comes out to 3538, but most of those would not be capable of holding carbon-based life. Since hundreds of Earth-like worlds are missed for every one Kepler spots, the 22 percent figure is considered final and accurate. MIT astronomer Sara Seager concurred, saying “Everything they’ve done looks legitimate.”

    [Image via NASA.gov]

  • India Mars Mission Under Way, Despite Odds

    India Mars Mission Under Way, Despite Odds

    India seeks to join the United States and the former Soviet Union in a singular space exploration achievement: sending an unmanned probe to Mars successfully. India’s space agency (ISRO) hopes to demonstrate their nation’s capacity to reach the orbit of the Red Planet and carry out some experiments of their own.

    The 300-day journey is successful less than half of the times it has been attempted. CNN noted in their report that a Japanese Nozomi orbiter failed to reach Mars in 1998. Other failed attempts include the UK’s Beagle 2 probe in 2003 and a Chinese probe that was sent as part of the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission.

    The BBC spoke with Prof. Andrew Coates of University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, who said “I think this mission really brings India to the table of international space exploration. Interplanetary exploration is certainly not trivial to do, and [India] has found some interesting scientific niches to make some measurements in.”

    ISRO hopes to learn about Mars’ watery past and search out sources of methane gas where NASA’s Curiosity rover may have failed. Telescopic detection of methane gas in Mars’ atmosphere cause scientists to suspect an as-yet-undetected source of methane, and since atmospheric methane on Earth is partially produced by microbes, some would suggest the possibility that a biosphere is buried on Mars.

    Some have criticized India’s space-faring direction, but chief Oxfam executive Nisha Agrawal told the BBC that “India is home to poor people but it’s also an emerging economy, it’s a middle-income country, it’s a member of the G20. What is hard for people to get their head around is that we are home to poverty but also a global power… We are not really one country but two in one. And we need to do both things: contribute to global knowledge as well as take care of poor people at home.”

    The first Indian satellite was launched into Earth’s orbit in 1975. In 2008, ISRO shot an unmanned probe into the moon’s orbit, and the first manned Indian space mission is planned for 2016, although the “first Indian in space” trophy goes to cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, who flew aboard a Soviet flight in 1984.

    Here is footage of the probe launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India’s east coast:

    [Image via this YouTube video of the launch]

  • Mars Rover Curiosity Drove Itself For Two Days This Weekend

    Mars Rover Curiosity Drove Itself For Two Days This Weekend

    NASA this week announced that Mars rover Curiosity this weekend drove itself over the surface of Mars for two days. The rover used its autonomous driving mode to scope out driving routes on its own, traveling 262 feet closer to its destination. The feat represents the first time the rover has completed a two-day journey on its own.

    Curiosity is approaching an area researchers have named “Cooperstown,” where it is expected to examine surface conditions with its arm instruments. The rover has not used its arm instruments to examine the Martian landscape since late September, when it examined sandstone pebbles at the “Darwin” site. Darwin was the first of five planned waypoints along the rover’s months-long journey to its current destination at the base of a mountain named Mount Sharp.

    Mars rover team members are hoping to use Curiosity’s autonomous driving capabilities over two-day periods more often in the coming months. This is expected to speed up the rover’s journey toward Mount Sharp, especially during weekends and holidays.

    The Cooperstown site Curiosity is approaching is, according to NASA, around one-third of the way to Mount Sharp. The rover will be examining the site to compare its layered rock formations to what the rover has found earlier in its mission at Yellowknife Bay, as well as what it will find once it arrives at Mount Sharp.

    “What interests us about this site is an intriguing outcrop of layered material visible in the orbital images,” said Kevin Lewis, a participating scientist for the mission at Princeton University. “We want to see how the local layered outcrop at Cooperstown may help us relate the geology of Yellowknife Bay to the geology of Mount Sharp.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • LADEE’s Laser Sets Space Download Record

    LADEE’s Laser Sets Space Download Record

    NASA has revealed that its Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) set a record for transmitting data from the moon to Earth. The record was set on October 18, when the device transmitted data to Earth at 622 Mbps – six times the speed of other systems sent to the moon. The experiment represents the longest two-way laser communication in history.

    The LLCD is an instrument on-board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer satellite (LADEE). LADEE is a robotic probe launched back in September on a 100-day mission to examine the moon’s atmosphere. In addition to the record-setting download rate, the LLCD instrument also demonstrated a 20Mbps upload rate.

    “It was amazing how quickly we were able to acquire the first signals, especially from such a distance,” said Don Cornwell, LLCD manager. “I attribute this success to the great work accomplished over the years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) and their partnership with NASA.”

    According to NASA, the LLCD is half the weight of older radio instruments and uses 25% less power. The instrument has now been used to carry high-definition video between the Earth and the moon. The device can also provide constant measurements of the distance between the Earth and the moon.

    “Just imagine the ability to transmit huge amounts of data that would take days in a matter of minutes,” said Cornwell. “We believe laser-based communications is the next paradigm shift in future space communications.”

    The LLCD instrument will continue to be tested throughout the next month. Researchers will be testing the laser communications during the day, during the different phases of the moon, and for different locations on Earth.

    “LLCD is the first step on our roadmap toward building the next generation of space communication capability,” said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation at NASA. “We are encouraged by the results of the demonstration to this point, and we are confident we are on the right path to introduce this new capability into operational service soon.”