Suburban spaceman

Can Solar Storms Can Clear Earth Atnosphere of Space Debris

2012-02-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

Intense eruptions due to solar storms may damage satellites and power infrastructures, but they can also cause the early death for many of the space debris orbiting our planet, experts say.

However, scientists predict the sun's activity in 2013 may not be as productive at the cleanup effort as in previous years, still the thermosphere will continue to expand as the sun moves toward its 2013 solar maximum, which could mean that more particles will fall back toward the planet.

According to the NASA, the energy from these intense solar eruptions, known as coronal mass ejections, will cause the atmosphere to expand and create more friction for the space junks in orbit, and the resulting drag could send these debris plummeting back to Earth.

During periods of escalated solar activity such as increases in sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections, the sun dumps more energy into Earth's atmosphere. "When the sun is more active, it ejects more energy in the direction of Earth," Nick Johnson, chief scientist for NASA's Orbital Debris Program in Houston Johnson said. "

In NASA's latest edition of its Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Johnson noted that about half of the pieces of monitored space trash from the Chinese weather satellite that re-entered the atmosphere crashed back to Earth in 2011. In addition, more space trash was added during a collision between an American and a Russian communications satellite in 2009.

NASA tracks more than 500,000 pieces of debris, or "space junk," which travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, as they orbit the Earth. The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.

The threat of collisions with space debris is a serious issue and NASA has a set of guidelines on how to deal with potential collision threats. These guidelines specify evasive action or other precautions when the expected proximity of a piece of debris increases the probability of a collision to ensure the safety of the crew are needed.

In NASA's guidelines, an imaginary box about a mile deep by 30 miles across by 30 miles long, known as the "pizza box" is drawn around the space vehicle. When predictions indicate that a debris will pass close enough for concern and the quality of the tracking data is deemed sufficiently accurate, Mission Control centers in Houston and Moscow work together to develop a prudent course of action.

When these encounters are in advance, the station is ordered to move slightly, known as a "debris avoidance maneuver," to keep the debris outside of the box.

When the tracking data does not warrant such a maneuver or the close pass is not identified in time to make the maneuver, the best course of action could be to move the crew into the Soyuz spacecraft that are used to transport humans to and from the station to allow enough time to isolate those spaceships from the station.

By closing hatches in the event of a damaging collision, the crew would be able to leave the station if the collision caused a loss of pressure in the life-supporting module or damaged critical component.

Additional precautions such as closing hatches between some of the station's modules may be ordered by Mission Controls if the likelihood of a collision is great enough, according to the NASA guidelines.

If the probability of collision reaches limits set in the space shuttle and space station flight rules, debris avoidance maneuvers are planned. Based upon specific flight rules and detailed risk analysis, NASA decides if a collision avoidance maneuver is necessary.

Alternative Sources of Energy: Acoustic Cavitation Fusion

2012-02-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

Scientists the lure of thermonuclear fusion has been incredibly attractive. Thermonuclear fusion held the promise of cheap, clean and unlimited energy.

Research in the field has split into many disciplines, one of these is the experiments in the hot fusion field called "acoustic inertial confinement fusion."

The idea of acoustic fusion is derived from the phenomenon called cavitation. Cavitation occurs when a liquid is exposed to rapid changes in pressure which causes the formation of gas or vapor bubbles.

An acoustic field sends pressure waves through the fluid causing the bubbles to grow and collapse and produces visible flashes of light. The researchers studying the light emitting bubbles speculate that the temperature and pressure of the gas inside bubbles could trigger a fusion reaction.

The tiny bubbles could produce the same effect as that found on the surface of the Sun and could one day be a new energy source.

While the concept has been proven in desktop experiments it's in real life applications that researchers of acoustic fusion run into problems. Building a fusion reactor that generates more energy that it consumes is particularly challenging and many skeptics question whether desktop experiments could work in the real world.

Compared to other forms of fusion power being researched today like magnetic and laser inertial confinement fusion, acoustic fusion requires inexpensive equipment, facilities and materials.

Acoustic fusion is relatively simple and its commercial success could be achieved in the next few years. One company, Impulse Devices has been exploring acoustic fusion and has pioneered the use of Extreme Acoustic Cavitation.

According to Dr. Wylene Dunbar, CEO of Impulse Devices Inc., the company's unique technology generates strong acoustic cavitation but still requires only a few hundred watts of electric power. Impulse's technology has achieved "proof of concept" in several areas and the company is working with several industrial partners to integrate its technology into their processes.

If acoustic fusion works it could provide clean energy for generations to come.

Nasa GRAIL Captures Moon's Far Side [VIDEO]

2012-02-02T01:47:00.000-08:00

Nasa has captured its first unique view of the moon's far side with its lunar spacecraft Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL).

In the Nasa video, which runs for around 30 seconds, the north pole of the moon is clearly seen. Also visible is Mare Orientale, a vast impact basin which looks like a target ring in the bull's eye; it is believed to be over three billion years old and spans about 950 km.

The video also shows the Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-shaped formation in the middle. It is a central peak which was created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact and covers around 149 km.

According to Nasa scientists, the video was taken by Grail which comprises two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students (MoonKAM). It will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.

MoonKAM is a programme organised by Nasa which gives a chance to students to learn more about the moon. Tens of thousands from fifth to eighth grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the MoonKAM Mission Operations Center (MOC).

Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites and made available in the images section of the website. Students will use the images to study lunar features such as craters, highlands, and maria while also learning about future landing sites.

The programme is led by Dr. Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California, San Diego.

The MoonKAM mission will begin in 2012 when Grail satellites are in orbit around the Moon and the dedicated MoonKAM cameras are activated. The mission will last approximately 80 days.

"The quality of the video is excellent and should energise our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, Grail principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

"We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far," said Sally Ride, astronaut from the Nasa.

"In mid-March, the first pictures of the moon will be taken by students using MoonKAM. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering."

Flying People in New York City - YouTube

2012-02-02T01:36:00.000-08:00

Three people were spotted flying around the skies of lower Manhattan last Friday, causing dropped jaws from onlookers.

But while it appeared to be flying "death eaters" of the "Harry Potter" series, it actually turned out to be a clever piece of viral marketing for this week's upcoming film "Chronicle."

In an interview to yahoo! James Percelay, the co-founder of Thinkmodo said he and his partner Michael Krivicka were approached by 20th Century Fox, the studio behind "Chronicle," and they came out with a plan for the viral video.

Those aren't people in the air, but some very intricately designed radio-controlled airplanes. Percelay has not disclosed who exactly was piloting the planes in the video. He only said: "They are expert AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) members with amazing skills."

The UFO In Baltic Sea

2012-02-02T00:38:00.000-08:00

Envisat Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) satellite image acquired July 11, 2010 shows blue-green algae blooms in the Baltic Sea.

The term "Algae bloom" is used to describe the multiplying of phytoplankton, microscopic marine plants that drift on or near the surface of the sea.

While individually microscopic, the chlorophyll that phytoplankton use for photosynthesis collectively tints the surrounding ocean waters, providing a means of detecting these tiny organisms from space with dedicated 'ocean colour' sensors.

Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Poland are pictured bordering the sea.

(Photo: REUTERS/European Space Agency/)

In 2011, an extraordinary circular object was seen on the surface of the Baltic Sea by a group of stranded ship hunters. This year, they claimed again that they have witnessed another strange object with a disc-like shape around 200 meters away- from the area where they first saw the same kind of thing.

The leader of the team, Peter Lindberg, joked that the first thing they have discovered 300 feet below the sea surface might be a UFO, or an unidentified flying object, when interviewed by CNN.

The first bizarre object that was discovered June last year has a diameter of 195 feet. Believers thought of it as a stranded UFO, which had smashed into the sea leaving behind a trail of damage about 900 feet. The story regarding this so-called UFO was exposed at News.com.au.

CNN news revealed how the group found out about the objects.

The hunters were using an imaging technique that tracks down and magnetize a sonar "towfish." The towfish actually appears sideways underwater. They placed the device at the back of the boat, where it suitably produces a sound that echoes to map underwater.

The Baltic Sea is like a breeding ground where you can typically discover retrieved objects. Ardreas Olsson, a sonar expert, said they have identified 20,000 salvaged objects mostly stranded ships in the Baltic Sea. Olsson thinks that there could be over 100,000 things to discover underwater. He's excited to encounter more discoveries.

UFO believers are for sure more than excited to hear updates about the new found object.

MARS HiRISE: Landscape Evolution

2012-02-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

A review of existing images of Mars reveals a diverse landscape.

In some instances, such as around volcanoes and in valleys, a casual glance suggests the features are much like those here on Earth.

Closer inspection, however, often confirms differences in scale and or subtle characteristics relative to their more familiar terrestrial counterparts.

These same images also reveal a Mars that is often very different form the Earth. Some locations are marked by huge jumbles of blocks forming chaotic terrain, whereas others are buried beneath blankets of dust. Bizarre “thumbprint,” “Swiss cheese,” and other surface textures also occur.

Current limits on the resolution of Mars images often preclude distinguishing the of processes responsible for shaping a landscape.

The geomorphic thresholds that influence the efficiency and intensity of surface modification by different processes can often be hard to define. Indeed, different processes can sometimes produce very similar appearing landforms.

Detecting the subtle, diagnostic signatures of past water erosion versus wind or other processes often requires the high resolution imagery that will be obtained by HiRISE.

It is the analysis of HiRISE images that may provide some of the clues for a better understanding of the evolving Martian landscape.

See more of the Feb 1st HiRise Images

NASA Chandra Image: Remnant of an Explosion With a Powerful Kick?

2012-02-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions.

In its more than twelve years of science operations, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied many of these supernova remnants sprinkled across the Galaxy.

The latest example of this important investigation is Chandra's new image of the supernova remnant known as G350.1+0.3.

This stellar debris field is located some 14,700 light years from the Earth toward the center of the Milky Way.

Evidence from Chandra and from ESA's XMM-Newton telescope suggest that a compact object within G350.1+0.3 may be the dense core of the star that exploded.

The position of this likely neutron star, seen by the arrow pointing to "neutron star" in the inset image, is well away from the center of the X-ray emission.

If the supernova explosion occurred near the center of the X-ray emission then the neutron star must have received a powerful kick in the supernova explosion.

Data from Chandra and other telescopes suggest this supernova remnant, as it appears in the image, is between 600 and 1,200 years old.

If the estimated location of the explosion is correct, this means that the neutron star has been moving at a speed of at least 3 million miles per hour since the explosion.

This is comparable to the exceptionally high speed derived for the neutron star in Puppis A, another neutron star moving at a blistering pace within a supernova remnant.

The G350+1+0.3 data provide new evidence that extremely powerful "kicks" may be imparted to neutron stars left behind once the supernova has exploded.

Another intriguing aspect of G350.1+0.3 is its unusual shape. While many supernova remnants are nearly circular, G350.1+0.3 is strikingly asymmetrical as seen in the Chandra data in this image (gold).

Infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (light blue) also trace the morphology found by Chandra.

Astronomers think that this bizarre shape is due to stellar debris field expanding into a nearby cloud of cold molecular gas.

The age of 600-1200 years puts the explosion that created G350.1+0.3 in the same time frame as other famous supernovas that formed the Crab and SN 1006 supernova remnants.

However, it is unlikely that anyone on Earth would have seen the explosion because of the obscuring gas and dust that lies along our line of sight to the remnant.

These results appeared in the April 10, 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

The scientists on this paper were Igor Lovchinsky and Patrick Slane (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Bryan Gaensler (University of Sydney, Australia), Jack Hughes (Rutgers University), Jasmina Lazendic (Monash University Clayton, Australia), Joseph Gelfand (New York University, Abu Dhabi), and Crystal Brogan (National Radio Astronomy Observatory).

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I. Lovchinsky et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Read more/access all images

Space Radiation Doomed Russian Phobos Satellite

2012-02-01T11:47:00.001-08:00

Space radiation most likely caused the demise of a Russian Mars probe that got stuck in Earth orbit shortly after launch and ultimately crashed back to the surface earlier this month, Russia's Federal Space Agency chief said today (Jan. 31), according to media reports.

Russian space chief Vladimir Popovkin said that an investigation pointed to cosmic radiation as the likely culprit in the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission, but also suggested that an imported spacecraft component may not have been adequately hardened for the harsh radiation environment in space, reported the Associated Press.

"Two components of the onboard computer system were spontaneously rebooted and it switched into a standby mode," Popovkin said in a televised remark, according to the Russian news service Ria Novosti. "The most likely reason [for the glitch] is the impact of heavy charged space particles."

Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probe malfunctioned shortly after its November 2011 launch, preventing it from continuing on toward Mars.

Short-term memory is based on synchronized brain oscillations

2012-01-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

In each of the two brain regions (IPF and V4) brain activity shows strong oscillations in a certain set of frequencies called the theta-band.

Credit: Stefanie Liebe, MPI for Biological Cybernetics

Holding information within one's memory for a short while is a seemingly simple and everyday task.

We use our short-term memory when remembering a new telephone number if there is nothing to write at hand, or to find the beautiful dress inside the store that we were just admiring in the shopping window.

Yet, despite the apparent simplicity of these actions, short-term memory is a complex cognitive act that entails the participation of multiple brain regions.

However, whether and how different brain regions cooperate during memory has remained elusive.

A group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany have now come closer to answering this question.

They discovered that oscillations between different brain regions are crucial in visually remembering things over a short period of time.

It has long been known that brain regions in the frontal part of the brain are involved in short-term memory, while processing of visual information occurs primarily at the back of the brain.

However, to successfully remember visual information over a short period of time, these distant regions need to coordinate and integrate information.

To better understand how this occurs, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics in the department of Nikos Logothetis recorded electrical activity both in a visual area and in the frontal part of the brain in monkeys.

The scientists showed the animals identical or different images within short intervals while recording their brain activity. The animals then had to indicate whether the second image was the same as the first one.

The scientists observed that, in each of the two brain regions, brain activity showed strong oscillations in a certain set of frequencies called the theta-band.

Importantly, these oscillations did not occur independently of each other, but synchronized their activity temporarily: "It is as if you have two revolving doors in each of the two areas.

During working memory, they get in sync, thereby allowing information to pass through them much more efficiently than if they were out of sync," explains Stefanie Liebe, the first author of the study, conducted in the team of Gregor Rainer in cooperation with Gregor Hörzer from the Technical University Graz.

The more synchronized the activity was, the better could the animals remember the initial image. Thus, the authors were able to establish a direct relationship between what they observed in the brain and the performance of the animal.

NASA IBEX: Video - Glimpses of the Interstellar Material Beyond our Solar System

2012-01-31T11:04:00.000-08:00

A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy.

The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath.

On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, but rebound off the heliosheath, never to enter the solar system. Neutral particles, on the other hand, are a different story.

They saunter across the boundary as if it weren't there, continuing on another 7.5 billion miles for 30 years until they get caught by the sun's gravity, and sling shot around the star.

There, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer lies in wait for them. Known as IBEX for short, this spacecraft methodically measures these samples of the mysterious neighbourhood beyond our home.

IBEX scans the entire sky once a year, and every February, its instruments point in the correct direction to intercept incoming neutral atoms.

IBEX counted those atoms in 2009 and 2010 and has now captured the best and most complete glimpse of the material that lies so far outside our own system.

The results? It's an alien environment out there: the material in that galactic wind doesn't look like the same stuff our solar system is made of.

NASA Launches Blast Off! A New Facebook Game

2012-01-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

NASA announced yesterday that it’s launched a new game on Facebook, with a goal of testing people’s knowledge about science, the space program, and pop culture.

The game was developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA’s Internet Services Group.

The game, called Space Race Blast Off is a pretty straightforward, multi-player trivia game. Players choose an avatar, then compete against two other players to see who can get the most points.

Winners earn achievements in the form of badges. The overall goal of the game is to provide more public outreach for NASA.

“Space Race Blastoff opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications in the press release. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

I tried out the game and am actually ashamed to admit it wasn’t until my fourth round playing that I finally beat my competitors. Which got me a Robert Goddard badge – something I’m quite happy about.

Not only am I a big Goddard fan, but I spent most of my time at my alma mater, WPI, at Goddard Hall – the home of the university’s chemistry and biochemistry programs.

If you’re going to play, be warned. The questions are actually pretty tough. Word of advice if you want to give it a shot: learn your astronauts. That’s definitely my weak point.

Make sure you have a good grasp of the periodic table, too. That said, it’s a fun game to play.

You can check out the game for yourself here.

Space Debris: ISS Orbit Raised to Avoid Collision with China Space Junk

2012-01-31T01:06:00.000-08:00

Specialists of Russia's Mission Control Center raised the orbit altitude of the International Space Station (ISS) in the early hours of Sunday to prevent a possible collision with a Chinese satellite fragment, a spokesman for the Center said.

"The maneuver was performed using Zvezda service module engines," the spokesman said.

The altitude of the ISS orbit was raised by 1.7 kilometers to 391.6 kilometers, he said, adding that the maneuver lasted 64 seconds.

NASA earlier reported on its website that 32 hours after Russia's Progress-M-14M docks with the ISS - which occurred at 4.08 am Moscow time (00:08 GMT) on Saturday - a fragment of the Chinese Fengyun-1C weather satellite is likely to pass in dangerous proximity to the space station.

The satellite fragment approached the ISS several times in the past, most recently on January 24, but there was no need to change the station's altitude at that time, the spokesman said.

The aging Fengyun-1C satellite was destroyed in 2007 during Chinese anti-satellite missile tests. Thousands of its fragments have since remained in orbit.

Solar Flares Solution to Vanishing Electrons

2012-01-31T00:36:00.000-08:00

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have solved the mystery behind vanishing electrons on Earth. The scientists conducted an experiment which suggested solar flares were the major reason behind the mystery.

During the experiment, the researchers installed three networks of orbiting spacecrafts, positioned at different distances from Earth to catch escaping electrons in the act. The data shows that a majority of the electrons were stripped away from the radiation belt by solar wind particles, when the solar flare reached Earth.

According to the researchers, when flares erupt on the Sun's atmosphere, parts of the magnetized outer layers of the Sun's atmosphere crash onto Earth's magnetic field, thereby triggering geomagnetic storms that are capable of damaging satellites and affecting electrons present on Earth.

The fact that these electrons were missing was discovered back in the early 1960s. Initial hypothesis suggested they were lost to the Earth's atmosphere, while others said they were not permanently lost merely drained of energy (temporarily) so they appeared absent. The mystery has now been solved.

"During the onset of a geomagnetic storm, nearly all the electrons trapped within the radiation belt vanish, only to come back with a vengeance a few hours later," said Vassilis Angelopoulos, a Professor at the UCLA, "It's a puzzling effect."

"This is an important milestone in understanding Earth's space environment," said Drew Turner, an Assistant Researcher at UCLA, "We are one step closer towards understanding and predicting space weather phenomena."

Saturn: Plan to Fly A Nuclear powered Drone craft to Titan

2012-01-31T00:16:00.000-08:00

Scientists have proposed a plan to send a nuclear-powered drone to Saturn's moon Titan, which is 10 times more distant from the sun than Earth and has a methane atmosphere that is four times a dense.

Led by BYU professor Jani Radebaugh, the plan is to put the drone in Titan for a year-long flight so it can observe the moon which shares many similarities with the Earth like rivers, oceans, mountains, sand dunes and winds.

"Titan is a really interesting place as far as understanding the processes on the early Earth," said Radebaugh.

"It orbits at a good distance, has organic molecules of carbon and hydrogen, there's energy in the atmosphere and perhaps occasionally water on or near the surface - those are the main things considered necessary for life."

According to the scientists, the proposed drone will operate on a nuclear battery that can power a couple light bulbs.

The battery would power a propeller except when it needed to beam data back to radio telescopes on earth, however, prior to these transmissions, the drone would climb high into Titan's atmosphere.

Power would then shift to the radio cone in the drone's nose as the aircraft glides back down to its usual flight altitude, the researchers explained.

Published in the Experimental Astronomy, Radebaugh and her group noted that while transporting the drone to Titan would take up to 7 years, once there the communication relay time would take a mere 90 minutes.

Titan is of great interest to scientists because it is the only moon in the solar system known to have clouds and a mysterious, thick, planet-like atmosphere.

TITAN
Recent researches have also found Titan to be more Earth-like than previously thought. Here are some interesting facts about this object in the solar system.

• Titan is the biggest of the 53 known moons orbiting Saturn. It is a cold world enclosed by a thick, hazy atmosphere that is yet to be penetrated by telescopes and cameras.

• Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system with an equatorial radius of 2,575 km (1,600 miles). It's bigger than Earth's Moon and the planet Mercury.
• Titan's surface temperature is about -289 degrees Fahrenheit (-178 degrees Celsius).

• Titan orbits Saturn at a distance of about 1.2 million km (745,000 miles), taking almost 16 days to complete a full orbit.

• Titan was discovered on 25 March 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens.

Radebaugh wants to collect the data from Titan to get more information on how the moon's geology has formed.

"One of the main things we're looking for is life or precursors for life. Titan has a lot of molecules made of carbon and hydrogen, there's water ice bedrock, and water volcanoes," Radebaugh said.

"With water, organic molecules, and energy, that's all the ingredients for life. It's a really good place to look for precursory biology," she added.

NASA ISS Image: Western Europe at Night

2012-01-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center.

The British Isles partially obscured by solar array panels at left, the North Sea at left center, and Scandinavia at right center beneath the end effector of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System or Canadarm2.

The image was taken by the station crew on Jan. 22, 2012.

Image Credit: NASA

Spider Silk Skin can Stop a bullet

2012-01-30T04:29:00.000-08:00

Dutch artist Jalila Essaïdi and cell biologist Abdoelwaheb El Ghalbzouri have blended spider silk with human skin to produce material that is three times stronger than kevlar.

In the first clip, the bioengineered skin cushions a bullet fired at half speed. But its resistance has its limits: when shot at a full speed of 329 m/s, the bullet pierces the material and travels through it. The same tests were also performed with piglet skin, human skin and human skin fused with regular silkworm silk, which were all penetrated by bullets of both speeds.

An international team worked together to create the new material. First, transgenic goats and silkworms equipped to produce spider-silk proteins spun out the raw material at the synthetic biology lab at Utah State University. The cocoons were then shipped to South Korea, where they were reeled into thread, before being woven into fabric in Germany. The modified silk was then wedged between bioengineered skin cells developed by biochemist Abdoelwaheb El Ghalbzouri at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. After five weeks of incubation, the hybrid skin was ready for target practice.

In addition to exploring the material artistically, Essaïdi is also looking into practical uses, such as skin transplants. Spider silk is already being developed by other teams for high-tech applications, which range from artificial corneas to brain implants.

For more about spider silk spin-offs, check out our full-length feature: "Stretching spider silk to its high-tech limits". Or you might also like to find out about the science behind a lavish golden spider-silk cape, currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

ESA VEGA Launch - Video

2012-01-30T04:22:00.001-08:00

Click on the image to visit the ESA website and play video!

'Artis de Marsis' Zoo Mascot in the ESA Cupola

2012-01-30T04:09:00.000-08:00

'Artis de Marsis' (Amsterdam zoo mascot) in the ESA Cupola of the ISS.

Credit: ESA/NASA

NASA's Dawn: Does Asteroid Vesta Have Water Ice?

2012-01-30T00:41:00.000-08:00

Astronomers from NASA have discovered a giant asteroid - Vesta - that is expected to have water ice. They believe Vesta may have stayed frozen for billions of years. This is contrary to earlier Earth-based observations that the surface of the Vesta is dry.

The information was transmitted from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which entered into orbit around Vesta in July.

The asteroid is reportedly the second largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is approximately 480km (300 miles) in diameter. It doesn't have a permanent shadow because its axis is tilted to roughly 27 degrees, meaning the asteroid sees seasons similar to the ones we experience on Earth. As a result, almost every part of Vesta's surface is expected to see the Sun, at some point during the year.

The average temperature on Vesta is, however, around minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit... the reason why water ice is able to survive in the soil.

According to the astronomers, the presence of water ice on Vesta gives us an idea about the tiny world's formation and evolution, its history of bombardment by comets and its interaction with the environment in surrounding space. Furthermore, the fact that Vesta may have reserves of water ice could lead to a greater understanding of the solar system.

Meanwhile, the Dawn is also investigating the role of water in the evolution of planets, by studying Vesta and Ceres... two bodies in the asteroid belt that are considered remnant protoplanets (young planets whose growth was interrupted when Jupiter formed).

The spacecraft is looking for water using the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND) spectrometer, a data collection process well suited to the Dawn's current low orbit position.

"On average, it's colder at Vesta's poles than near its equator, so in that sense, they are good places to sustain water ice," said Timothy Stubbs from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "But they also see sunlight for long periods of time during the summer seasons, which isn't so good for sustaining ice. So if water ice exists in those regions, it may be buried beneath a relatively deep layer of dry regolith."

"Hopefully, we'll know in the next few months whether the GRaND spectrometer sees evidence for water ice in Vesta's regolith. This is an important and exciting time in planetary exploration," he added.

"Our perceptions of Vesta have been transformed in a few months as the Dawn spacecraft has entered orbit and spiraled closer to its surface," said Lucy McFadden, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard, "More importantly, our new views of Vesta tell us about the early processes of solar system formation. If we can detect evidence for water beneath the surface, the next question will be is it very old or very young, and that would be exciting to ponder."

ESA INTEGRAL: reveals new facets of the Vela pulsar wind nebula

2012-01-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

This image shows the Vela pulsar wind nebula as observed with ESA's INTEGRAL observatory (blue pixellated image) and with other high-energy astronomical facilities (coloured contours).

The INTEGRAL image shows emission detected at hard X-ray energies, between 18 and 40 keV, with the IBIS imager on board INTEGRAL, after subtraction of the point-like source corresponding to the inner nebula.

The contours show soft X-ray emission detected by the German ROSAT telescope between 0.5 and 2 keV (green) and by the Birmingham Spacelab 2 telescope between 2.5 and 12 keV (cyan), and very-high energy gamma-ray emission detected with the H.E.S.S. Telescopes above 1 TeV (magenta).

The Vela pulsar wind nebula is a cloud of highly energetic electrons and positrons that are injected by the pulsar into its surroundings and radiate across the electromagnetic spectrum. The location of the Vela pulsar is marked with a cross.

The image measures roughly two degrees on the horizontal side. North is up and East is to the left. Copyright: ESA/INTEGRAL/IBIS-ISGRI/F. Mattana et al./ROSAT/H.E.S.S. /Spacelab 2.

Russia to postpone next manned space launches

2012-01-30T00:17:00.000-08:00

Russia is set to pospone the next two manned launches for the International Space Station (ISS) for several weeks due to technical problems with the Soyuz spaceship, an industry source told Interfax Friday.

The source told Interfax that the Soyuz TMA-04M vessel had not withstood tests to its pressure chamber ahead of the planned mission on March 30 and the first flight would be postponed to mid-April or the first half of May.

"This re-entry capsule now cannot be used for manned spaceflight," the source said.

That mission would fly with the re-entry capsule that was due to go up on the next mission on May 30 and as a result that mission would also likely be postponed to the middle or end of June.

The re-entry capsule goes inside the spacecraft and is the portion that eventually returns the astronauts to Earth when the mission is over.

Russia now has sole reponsibility for taking US and other international astronauts to the ISS following the withdrawal of the US space shuttle but its own space programme has been hit by a string of problems in the last months.

We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth - Film

2012-01-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

We Were Wanderers On A Prehistoric Earth from James W Griffiths on Vimeo.

“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth,” says the narrator Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.

We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil.”

The palpable menace that permeates Conrad’s classic novella has been edited out of the narration in this short film, made for Tourism Malaysia by British filmmaker James W. Griffiths.

What remains is a poetic sense of wonder for a natural world that is no longer frightening, no longer in need of being subdued.

In the original, the twisting and turning sentences are like a microcosm of a journey up the winding Congo River, into the metaphorical darkness that lies at the heart of all men. Out of the stillness of the page, Conrad’s imagination washes over us in a rolling wave of words:

The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not.

Griffiths can be forgiven for defanging Conrad. We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth is a beautiful film, a quiet meditation on the unspoiled rainforest of West Malaysia shot in November by cinematographer Christopher Moon, who also collaborated with Griffiths on last year’s award-winning Nokia cellphone film Splitscreen.

The music is by Lennert Busch, the sound design is by Mauricio d’Orey, and Conrad’s words are spoken by Terry Burns.

Genetic study links body clock receptor to diabetes

2012-01-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

A study published in Nature Genetics today has found new evidence for a link between the body clock hormone melatonin and type 2 diabetes.

The study found that people who carry rare genetic mutations in the receptor for melatonin have a much higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The findings should help scientists to more accurately assess personal diabetes risk and could lead to the development of personalised treatments.

Previous research has found that people who work night shifts have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Studies have also found that if volunteers have their sleep disrupted repeatedly for three days, they temporarily develop symptoms of diabetes.

The body's sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the hormone melatonin, which has effects including drowsiness and lowering body temperature.

In 2008, a genetic study led by Imperial College London discovered that people with common variations in the gene for MT2, a receptor for melatonin, have a slightly higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The new study reveals that carrying any of four rare mutations in the MT2 gene increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes six times.

The release of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels, is known to be regulated by melatonin. The researchers suggest that mutations in the MT2 gene may disrupt the link between the body clock and insulin release, leading to abnormal control of blood sugar.

Professor Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body's biological clock.

This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people's risk of diabetes.

"We found very rare variants of the MT2 gene that have a much larger effect than more common variants discovered before. Although each mutation is rare, they are common in the sense that everyone has a lot of very rare mutations in their DNA. Cataloguing these mutations will enable us to much more accurately assess a person's risk of disease based on their genetics."

In the study, the Imperial team and their collaborators at several institutions in the UK and France examined the MT2 gene in 7,632 people to look for more unusual variants that have a bigger effect on disease risk.

They found 40 variants associated with type 2 diabetes, four of which were very rare and rendered the receptor completely incapable of responding to melatonin. The scientists then confirmed the link with these four variants in an additional sample of 11,854 people.

Professor Froguel and his team analysed each mutation by testing what effect they have on the MT2 receptor in human cells in the lab. The mutations that completely prevented the receptor from working proved to have a very big effect on diabetes risk, suggesting that there is a direct link between MT2 and the disease.

More information: A. Bonnefond et al. 'Rare MTNR1B variants impairing melatonin receptor 1B function contribute to type 2 diabetes' Nature Genetics, published online 29 January 2012.

Expedition 26 Soyuz Landing: Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft

2012-01-29T02:09:00.000-08:00

You might have noticed in post-landing pictures that nobody approaches the “bottom” part of the Soyuz descent module. Ever wondered why?

Many people have suggested that it might be very hot. In fact, that is not the case.

The real heat shield is ejected at an altitude of ca. 5,5 km when the capsule is already hanging under the parachute.

Others have suggested that there might be a danger of accidental firing of the retrorockets.

Although this sounds like a reasonable suggestion, we are not aware that this presents a risk.

These are two sources of danger that we know of:

1) The gamma-ray altimeter
This device is responsible for generating a signal before ground impact (ca 0,74m) that causes retrorockets to fire

2) Antenna deployment

There are three UHF antennas on the bottom of the descent module. When the descent modules comes to a stop laying on its side, the highest one of the three is automatically deployed eight minutes after ground contact, or earlier by the crew.

For deployment, the panels covering the antennas are shot away by explosive charges. In case of positive contact with the rescue squad, the crew is typically told to inhibit further antenna deployment; however, a residual danger remains, hence the Keep-Out-Zone.

Commander Scott Kelly: Expedition 26 Soyuz Landing

2012-01-29T01:56:00.000-08:00

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly listens to reporters questions while wearing a traditional Kazakh hat at the Kustanay, Kazakhstan airport on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 after he and fellow crew members Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka landed in their Soyuz TMA-01M capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

NASA Astronaut Kelly, Russian Cosmonauts Skripochka and Kaleri are returning from almost six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 25 and 26 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly performs the traditional sighing of the helicopter that flew him from Arkalyk to Kustanay, Kazakhstan after he and Expedition 26 Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri landed in their Soyuz TMA-01M capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

Expedition 26 Soyuz Landing - Alexander Kaleri

2012-01-29T01:53:00.000-08:00

Expedition 26 Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri listens to reporters questions while wearing a traditional Kazakh hat at the Kustanay, Kazakhstan airport on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 after he and fellow crew members Scott Kelly and Oleg Skripochka landed in their Soyuz TMA-01M capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

Expedition 26 Soyuz Landing - Oleg Skripochka

2012-01-29T01:50:00.000-08:00

Expedition 26 Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka listens to reporters questions in traditional Kazakh dress at the Kustanay, Kazakhstan airport on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 after he and fellow crew members Scott Kelly and Alexander Kaleri landed in their Soyuz TMA-01M capsule near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.

Expedition 26 Soyuz Landing - Kazakhstan

2012-01-29T01:40:00.000-08:00

Russian support personnel work to help get crew members out of the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

A Russian all terrain vehicle (ATV) takes Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly to a helicopter from the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Kelly and Expedition 26 Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

NASA Astronaut Kelly, Russian Cosmonauts Skripochka and Kaleri are returning from almost six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 25 and 26 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly is helped as he exits a Russian all terrain vehicle (ATV) that delivered him to a helicopter from the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Kelly and Expedition 26 Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 16, 2011.

NASA Astronaut Kelly, Russian Cosmonauts Skripochka and Kaleri are returning from almost six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 25 and 26 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Orbital Space debris update

2012-01-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

The latest Orbital Debris Quarterly News has the good news that, barring another satellite collision or other debris-creating event, the number of catalogued debris should drop over the next two years.

The deliberate destruction of the Fengyun-1C satellite in January 2007 created 3,218 pieces of trackable debris, and only about 200 of those have re-entered the atmosphere.

As the solar activity increases leading up to solar maximum in 2013, more of that debris should be cleared out.

NB: Readers in the northern latitudes should look out for more auroras.

Speaking of space debris, an experiment from 1963 deliberately placed millions of tiny copper needles in medium Earth orbit.

Project West Ford created an artificial ionosphere to help the military, back in the days before communication satellites.

The needles were 0.7 inches long and less than half the diameter of human hair (17.8 micrometers).

These were the right size dipole antennas for the 8 GHz wavelength used in the study.

Most of them re-entered the atmosphere by 1970, but there are still some in orbit today.

Electric fields (blue) and magnetic fields (red) radiated by a dipole antenna.

A spacecraft from an earlier attempt in 1961 is also still in orbit. Protests over this experiment led to the addition of a consultation clause in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

The result was, basically, all nations should sumit controversial proposals to the group before they did something that might wreck space for the rest of us.

If they had introduced more of these orbiting dipole antennas into the Earth's atmosphere, they could have wrecked global radio and microwave telescope observations.

World’s Most Powerful X-Ray Laser Created

2012-01-28T08:40:00.000-08:00

Scientists from the Oxford University in the UK and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have invented a powerful X-ray laser - the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).

For the first time, this laser will allow the heating of matter up to 2 million degrees Celsius, in a controlled setting.

The researchers tested the laser on a piece of aluminum foil and created hot dense matter (or a solid plasma).

The process of heating took less than a trillionth of a second.

According to the scientists, this represents a major step forward in understanding the composition of the more extreme forms of matter found in stars and giant planets; this could also help in experiments aimed at recreating the nuclear fusion process that powers the Sun.

"The LCLS X-ray laser is a truly remarkable machine," said Sam Vinko, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University, "Making extremely hot, dense matter is important scientifically if we are ultimately to understand the conditions that exist inside stars and at the center of giant planets within our own solar system and beyond."

"The LCLS, with its ultra-short wavelengths of X-ray laser light, is the first that can penetrate a dense solid and create a uniform patch of plasma - in this case a cube one-thousandth of a centimeter on a side - and probe it at the same time," said Bob Nagler from the SLAC.

"Those 60 hours when we first aimed the LCLS at a solid were the most exciting 60 hours of my entire scientific career," said Justin Wark, also from Oxford, "LCLS is really going to revolutionize the field, in my view."

Chandra X-Ray Image: Dark Energy

2012-01-27T13:10:00.000-08:00

The composite image on the left is of the galaxy cluster Abell 85, located about 740 million light years from Earth.

The purple emission is multi-million degree gas detected in X-rays by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the other colors show galaxies in an optical image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

This galaxy cluster is one of 86 observed by Chandra to trace how dark energy has stifled the growth of these massive structures over the last 7 billion years. Galaxy clusters are the largest collapsed objects in the Universe and are ideal for studying the properties of dark energy, the mysterious form of repulsive gravity that is driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

The illustration above shows snapshots from a simulation by Volker Springel, representing the growth of cosmic structure when the Universe was 0.9 billion, 3.2 billion and 13.7 billion years old (now).

This shows how the Universe has evolved from a smooth state to one containing a vast amount of structure.

Gas is shown in these snapshots, where the yellow regions are stars and the brightest structures are galaxies and galaxy clusters.

The growth of these structures was initially driven only by the attractive force of gravity, but then later there was competition with the repulsive force of dark energy.

Understanding the nature of dark energy is one of the biggest problems in science. Possibilities include the cosmological constant, equivalent to the energy of empty space, a modification in general relativity on the largest scales, or a more general physical field.

To help decide between these options, Chandra was used to study the increase in mass of galaxy clusters with time over the last 7 billion years.

The results are remarkably consistent with those from previous results that measure the expansion of the Universe using distance measurements, revealing that general relativity works as expected on large scales.

The cluster work, in combination with other studies, also provides the strongest evidence to date that dark energy is the cosmological constant, or that `nothing weighs something'.

Chandra Image: Abell 3376

2012-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Two different teams have reported using Chandra observations of galaxy clusters to study the properties of gravity on cosmic scales and test Einstein's theory of General Relativity.

Such studies are crucial for understanding the evolution of the universe, both in the past and the future, and for probing the nature of dark energy, one of the biggest mysteries in science.

This composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3376 shows X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ROSAT telescope in gold, an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey in red, green and blue, and a radio image from the VLA in blue.

The "bullet-like" appearance of the X-ray data is caused by a merger, as material flows into the galaxy cluster from the right side. The giant radio arcs on the left side of the image may be caused by shock waves generated by this merger.

The growth of galaxy clusters like Abell 3376 is influenced by the expansion rate of the universe - controlled by the competing effects of dark matter and dark energy - and by the properties of gravity over large scales.

By contrast, observations of supernovas or the large-scale distribution of galaxies, which measure cosmic distances, depend only on the expansion rate of the universe and are not sensitive to the properties of gravity.

In the first of the new studies of gravity, an alternative theory to General Relativity called "f(R) gravity" was tested.

In this theory, the acceleration of the expansion of the universe does not come from an exotic form of energy but from a modification of the gravitational force.

Mass estimates of galaxy clusters in the local universe were compared with model predictions for f(R) gravity.

Data from geometrical studies, such as supernova work, were also used. Using this comparison between theory and observation, no evidence was found that gravity is different from General Relativity on scales larger than 130 million light years.

This limit corresponds to a hundred-fold improvement on the bounds of the modified gravitational force's range that can be set without using the cluster data.

In the second study, a comparison was made between X-ray observations of how rapidly galaxy clusters have grown over cosmic time to the predictions of General Relativity.

Once again, data from geometrical studies such as distances to supernovas and galaxy clusters were incorporated.

Nearly complete agreement was seen between observation and theory, arguing against any alternative gravity models with a different rate of growth.

In particular "DGP gravity" (named after its inventors Gia Dvali, Gregory Gabadadze, and Massimo Porrati) predicts a slower rate of cluster growth than General Relativity, because gravity is weakened on large scales as it leaks into an extra dimension. Like f(R) gravity, the DGP model is designed to avoid the need for an exotic form of energy causing cosmic acceleration.

Chandra observations of galaxy clusters have previously been used to show that dark energy has stifled the growth of these massive structures over the last 5 billion years and to provide independent evidence for the existence of dark energy by offering a different way to measure cosmic distances.

Near Earth Asteroid's near-miss

2012-01-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

An Asteroid, estimated to be about 36ft in diameter, will pass within around 37,000 miles of the Earth at 4pm.

Although the asteroid – named 2012 BX34 – will travel past less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon, experts said there is no cause for concern.

"It's one of the closest approaches recorded," said Gareth Williams, associate director of the US-based Minor Planet Center.

"It makes it in to the top 20 closest approaches, but it's sufficiently far away ... that there's absolutely no chance of it hitting us," he told the BBC.

The asteroid's path makes it the closest space-rock to pass by the Earth since object 2011 MD in June 2011.

arlier estimates put the asteroid's closest distance at as little as 12,000 miles, near the distance at which geostationary satellites reside, but observations overnight showed it will pass at a more comfortable distance.

Although the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, Dr Williams said that keen backyard astronomers could get a look.

ESA: First Vega rocket assembled on launch pad - images

2012-01-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

ESA’s new Vega rocket is now fully assembled on its launch pad. Final preparations are in full swing for the rocket’s inaugural flight.

Flight VV01 will lift off from the new Vega launch site at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, carrying nine satellites into orbit: the LARES laser relativity satellite and ALMASat-1 from ASI with seven CubeSats from European Universities.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2012

Vega's upper composite, comprising LARES, ALMASat-1, seven CubeSats and the fairing, was transferred to the pad on 24 January and added to the vehicle at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut, 2012

Bus-Size Near Earth Asteroid Buzzes Earth in Close Flyby

2012-01-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

A small asteroid the size of a city bus zoomed between Earth and the moon's orbit Friday (Jan. 25) just days after its discovery, but it never posed a threat to our planet, NASA says.

The asteroid 2012 BX34 passed within 36,750 miles (59,044 kilometers) of Earth when it made its closest approach at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT). The space rock is about 37 feet (11 meters) wide and would have broken apart in Earth's atmosphere long before it reached the ground, if it had reached the planet at all, NASA scientists said.

"Asteroid 2012 BX34 is small," astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a Twitter message. "It wouldn't get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try."

The space rock passed Earth at a distance that is only about 0.17 times that between the Earth and the moon. For comparison, the moon typically orbits Earth at a distance of about 240,000 miles (386,000 km).

Panoramic view of SpaceX ship Interior - Dragon

2012-01-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

Click on the Image to visit the SpaceX Panoramic website.

Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft being developed by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.

The Dragon spacecraft is comprised of 3 main elements:

the Nosecone, which protects the vessel and the docking adaptor during ascent;
the Spacecraft, which houses the crew and/or pressurized cargo as well as the service section containing avionics, the RCS system, parachutes, and other support infrastructure; and
the Trunk, which provides for the stowage of unpressurized cargo and will support Dragon’s solar arrays and thermal radiators.

In December 2008, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires.

The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion.

Though designed to address cargo and crew requirements for the ISS, as a free-flying spacecraft Dragon also provides an excellent platform for in-space technology demonstrations and scientific instrument testing.

SpaceX is currently manifesting fully commercial, non-ISS Dragon flights under the name “DragonLab”. DragonLab represents an emergent capability for in-space experimentation.

Dragon Spacecraft with Solar Panels deployed

Dragon Highlights:

Fully autonomous rendezvous and docking with manual override capability in crewed configuration
6,000 kg (13,228 lbs) payload up-mass to LEO; 3,000 kg (6,614 lbs) payload down-mass
Payload Volume: 10 m3 (350 ft3) pressurized, 14 m3 (490 ft3) unpressurized
Supports up to 7 passengers in Crew configuration
Two-fault tolerant avionics system with extensive heritage
Reaction control system with 18 MMH/NTO thrusters designed and built in-house; these thrusters are used for both attitude control and orbital maneuvering
1290 kg of propellant supports a safe mission profile from sub-orbital insertion to ISS rendezvous to reentry
Integral common berthing mechanism, with LIDS or APAS support if required
Designed for water landing under parachute for ocean recovery
Lifting re-entry for landing precision & low-g’s
Ablative, high-performance heat shield and sidewall thermal protection

To ensure a rapid transition from cargo to crew capability, the cargo and crew configurations of Dragon are almost identical, with the exception of the crew escape system, the life support system and onboard controls that allow the crew to take over control from the flight computer when needed.

This focus on commonality minimizes the design effort and simplifies the human rating process, allowing systems critical to Dragon crew safety and ISS safety to be fully tested on uncrewed demonstration flights.

For cargo launches the inside of the spacecraft is outfitted with a modular cargo rack system designed to accommodate pressurized cargo in standard sizes and form factors.

For crewed launches, the interior is outfitted with crew couches, controls with manual override capability and upgraded life-support.

To Read More about the Dragon visit the SpaceX website

Vega: ESA's new small launcher - YouTube

2012-01-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

Building Costs are being kept to a minimum by using advanced low-cost technologies and existing production facilities used for Ariane launchers, making access to space easier, quicker and cheaper.

ESA ESO VLT: Ancient Galaxies Snapped

2012-01-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

Light traveling for 10 billion years now gives astronomers a glimpse into the largest galaxies in the Universe.

Found in the Fornax constellation, these galaxies (highlighted in red) burst on the cosmic scene with very rapid, intense star formation.

MARS HiRISE Image: Very Fresh Impact Crater Superposing a Wrinkle Ridge in Hesperia Planum

2012-01-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

The ridge captured in this HiRISE image is called a wrinkle ridge.

This wrinkle ridge is located in Hesperia Planum, a region of over two million square kilometers (over 770,000 square miles) in the southern highlands of Mars.

It is located northwest of the Hellas basin and adjacent to Tyrrhena Patera and contains abundant orthogonal and intersecting wrinkle ridges.

Wrinkle ridges are long, winding topographic highs and are often characterized by a broad arch with superposed narrow asymmetric ridges. These features have also been identified on the Moon, Mercury, and Venus.

Their origin is attributed to horizontal compression or shortening of the crust due to faulting and folding. They commonly have asymmetrical cross sectional profiles and an offset in elevation on either side of the ridge.

Superposing or located on top of the wrinkle ridge, is a very fresh impact crater. We can tell that this crater is fresh because of its relatively sharp or crisp rim and unmodified shape.

If you look closely, you can see faint rays of relatively fine material, boulders, and smaller secondary craters radiating from the crater and superposing the wrinkle ridge and older surrounding craters.

NASA Mars orbiter HiRise Image: Wind's handiwork

2012-01-26T05:17:00.000-08:00

Some images of stark Martian landscapes provide visual appeal beyond their science value, including a recent scene of wind-sculpted features from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The scene shows dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes inside an impact crater in the Noachis Terra region of southern Mars.

Patterns of dune erosion and deposition provide insight into the sedimentary history of the area.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been examining Mars with six science instruments since 2006.

Now in an extended mission, the orbiter continues to provide insights about the planet's ancient environments and about how processes such as wind, meteorite impacts and seasonal frosts are continuing to affect the Martian surface today.

This mission has returned more data about Mars than all other orbital and surface missions combined.

More than 20,600 images taken by HiRISE are available for viewing on the instrument team's website: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu .

Each observation by this telescopic camera covers several square miles, or square kilometers, and can reveal features as small as a desk.

More information: For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

ESA’s CubeSats near the end of a five year journey

2012-01-26T05:10:00.000-08:00

Xatcobeo, the CubeSat from University of Vigo and INTA, shown here prior to it's launch.

Credits: Universidade de Vigo / INTA

26 January 2012
The excitement is mounting, not only at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, but also in universities across Europe, as ESA's Vega launch vehicle is prepared for its maiden flight.

Among the payloads on board Europe's latest rocket are seven student-built CubeSats sponsored by ESA.

The story of the ESA CubeSats – dubbed the 'ESA Cubs' - began in May 2007, when the Agency decided to include an educational payload, including up to six CubeSats, on the first flight of Vega.

This was followed in January 2008 by the first dedicated CubeSat workshop to be held at European level.

"We didn’t know what to expect, since CubeSat missions were only just starting to become popular amongst universities at that time," said Roger Walker, the Head of Education Projects at the ESA Education Office.

"The level of interest was amazing, with more than 120 people attending the workshop. We were also surprised by the diversity of the projects that were put forward, demonstrating the high creativity of the CubeSats community.

In the end we selected 24 student teams to present their ideas during the workshop at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands."

Read more here at ESA website

NASA MARS Rover Opprtunity: Greeley Haven

2012-01-26T04:50:00.000-08:00

This NASA image is a mosaic of images taken in mid-January 2012 showing the windswept vista northward to northeastward from the location where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is spending its fifth Martian winter, an outcrop informally named "Greeley Haven."

The view includes sand ripples and other wind-sculpted features in the foreground and mid-field.

Picture: NASA/JPL/CALTECH/CORNELL/ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY/AFP/Getty

NASA Earth: The Blue Marble

2012-01-26T04:35:00.000-08:00

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP.

This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012.

The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Laser first: Solves the puzzle of how the Universe got its magnetism

2012-01-26T04:16:00.000-08:00

Scientists have demonstrated for the very first time how a laser can be used to stimulate the formation of magnetic fields, similar to those thought to be involved in the formation of the very first galaxies.

The findings published in Nature (26 January 2012) could help solve the riddle of how the Universe originally got its magnetism.

Magnetic fields exist throughout galactic and intergalactic space and in the stars and planets.

The magnetic fields in our solar system are important, since they shield us from the harmful effects of cosmic rays allowing life to thrive.

What is puzzling is how they were originally created. A way of creating magnetic fields without a magnet has long been theorised, but never before has the process been demonstrated.

A team, led by Oxford University physicists, have used a high-power laser to explode a rod of carbon, similar to pencil lead, in helium gas.

The explosion was designed to mimic the cauldron of plasma – an ionized gas containing free electrons and positive ions – out of which the first galaxies formed.

It was designed to prove a theory, known as the ‘Biermann battery effect’ that demonstrated how magnetic fields could form where none had existed before.

The team found that within a microsecond of the explosion strong electron currents and magnetic fields formed around a shock wave.

Scientists including Bob Bingham and Alex Robinson at the Central Laser Facility at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton laboratory took these results and compared them to existing planetary data.

Using computational resources from STFC’s e-science department, they scaled them through 22 orders-of-magnitude.

They found that their measurements closely matched theories which predict that tiny magnetic fields - ‘magnetic seeds’ – precede the formation of galaxies.

These fields can be amplified by turbulent motions and can strongly affect the evolution of the galactic medium.

Professor Bingham said: “The advantage of using lasers to simulate the early processes in the formation of magnetic fields is that you can create, with a burst of laser light just a billionth of a second long, an effect that in space would take years to develop on an incomprehensible scale”.

Dr Gianluca Gregori from Oxford University, who led the work said: “Our experiment recreates what was happening in the early Universe and shows how galactic magnetic fields might have first appeared.

It opens up the exciting prospect that we will be able to explore the physics of the cosmos, stretching back billions of years, in a laser laboratory here on Earth”.

The experiments were conducted at the Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation de Lasers Intenses laser facility in France.

For further details see the Oxford University press release

CANADA Lego Man in Space - YouTube

2012-01-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

A video posted on YouTube shows the amazing voyage of a Lego man sent into space on a homemade spacecraft by two Toronto students.

Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, used a weather balloon ordered online and a makeshift Styrofoam spacecraft to send the plastic astronaut 15 miles into the stratosphere, reports said.

Their high school principal Lecourgos Papathanasakis confirmed the "amazing voyage" but neither of the teens was immediately available for comment.

The accelerated video clip shows highlights of the Lego man during his 97-minute odyssey.

Ultimately, he is seen holding a Canadian flag with the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space in the background.

Canadian media said the pair had fitted a box tethered to the balloon with four cameras and a cellphone enabled with a GPS (global positioning system) device to capture the journey.

They then added a home-made nylon parachute, using Asad's mother's sewing machine, so the Lego man would return to Earth safely.

The balloon was filled with helium purchased from a party supply store.

The whole enterprise cost less than £320.

The duo then consulted a website to calculate the estimated landing spot of the weather balloon based on launch coordinates, prevailing winds and other data before launching it from a soccer pitch in nearby Newmarket, Ontario.

At four miles in altitude, the balloon travelled out of cell phone range and the GPS signal also cut out, so they went home and waited until Ho's iPad beeped.

The Lego man had called home. It had re-entered the atmosphere, picked up the cell signal again and touched down in a field 75 miles from the launch point.

Michael Reid, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, said what Ho and Muhammad were able to achieve is extraordinary.

"There are people that are doing it, but I haven't seen many examples of 17-year-old kids doing it," Reid said. "It's a pretty impressive accomplishment."

Rice lab mimics Jupiter's Trojan asteroids inside a single atom - YouTube

2012-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

Rice University physicists have built an accurate model of part of the solar system inside a single atom.

In a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Rice's team and collaborators from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Vienna University of Technology showed they could make an electron orbit the atomic nucleus in the same way that Jupiter's Trojan asteroids orbit the sun.

The findings uphold a 1920 prediction by physicist Niels Bohr.

"Bohr predicted that quantum mechanical descriptions of the physical world would, for systems of sufficient size, match the classical descriptions provided by Newtonian mechanics," said lead researcher Barry Dunning, Rice's Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

"Bohr also described the conditions under which this correspondence could be observed. In particular, he said it should be seen in atoms with very high principal quantum numbers, which are exactly what we study in our laboratory."

Bohr was a pioneer of quantum physics. His 1913 atomic model, which is still widely invoked today, postulated a small nucleus surrounded by electrons moving in well-defined orbits and shells.

The word "quantum" in quantum mechanics derives from the fact that these orbits can have only certain well-defined energies.

Jumps between these orbits lead to absorption or emission of specific amounts of energy termed quanta.

As an electron gains energy, its quantum number increases, and it jumps to higher orbits that circle ever farther from the nucleus.

In the new experiments, Rice graduate students Brendan Wyker and Shuzhen Ye began by using an ultraviolet laser to create a Rydberg atom.

Rydberg atoms contain a highly excited electron with a very large quantum number. In the Rice experiments, potassium atoms with quantum numbers between 300 and 600 were studied.

NASA MODIS Image: Winter Storm in the Pacific Northwest

2012-01-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

The image is a false-colour scene that better distinguishes between snow and clouds. The Ice and snow appear red.

A severe winter storm pummeled the Pacific Northwest in January late 2012, icing roads, downing power lines, and prompting avalanche warnings.

On January 20, more than 250,000 customers were without electricity, as utility crews struggled to restore power, news sources said.

Rising temperatures and potential new rainfall raised the possibility of flooding in the days that followed.

Snow still blanketed much of Washington state on January 23, 2012, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images.

Liquid-water clouds are white, and ice clouds are peach. Vegetation is bright green.

Snow blankets the region east of Seattle and Portland, stretching all the way to the Idaho border. In the band of forest along the Pacific Coast, snow may be more prevalent than it appears, as it is sometimes hidden from satellite imagers by trees.

Warmer air blew into the region soon after the storm, adding to hazardous conditions. Flooding closed roads and forced some residents into emergency shelters.

On January 23, KVAL reported that a fresh storm was approaching the region and might drop several inches of rain.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Portland area, as the new round of rain had the potential to push rivers into flood stage.

First Patients Shown to Improve With Embryonic Stem Cells

2012-01-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

Before treatment, the 51-year-old graphic artist was legally blind, unable to read a single letter on a standard eye chart.

She has suffering from Stargardt's disease, the most common form of macular degeneration in young patients, since she was a teenager, and it was getting progressively worse.

A second patient, aged 78, suffered from dry macular degeneration -- the leading cause of blindness in the elderly -- and could not even see well enough to go shopping.

But after being treated with stem cells from a donated human embryo, both women have improved dramatically, researchers said on Monday.

Stem cells are master cells that can differentiate into any of the 200 kinds of cells in the human body.

Their results are the first-ever report of the medical use of stem cells taken from human embryos, making them crucial barometers of whether the controversial technique will ever find widespread therapeutic uses.

In a paper published online in The Lancet on Monday, physicians at the University of California, Los Angeles, and scientists at biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) report that the first two patients in the clinical trial suffered no adverse health effects from the treatment and seem to have benefited from it.

A week after having cells derived from a days-old embryo injected into her eye, the graphic artist could count fingers, and after one month she could read the top five letters on the eye chart.

She can see more color and contrast, has started using her computer, and for the first time in years can read her watch and thread a needle. The macular degeneration patient recently went to the mall for the first time in years.

The safety findings, not any vision improvement, is what people should focus on, said Dusko Ilic, senior lecturer in stem cell science at Kings College London, who was not involved in the work.

"If everyone expects that the blind patients will see after being treated ... it will end up as disaster," he said.

Nevertheless, advocates for the blind are already hailing the results. "At last we are seeing fruits of human embryonic stem cell research entering clinical trials," said Peter Coffey, Director of the London Project to Cure Blindness.

OBJECTIONS AND RISKS
Using human embryonic stem cells for research or treatment has incited controversy for ethical and medical reasons. Some opponents argue that because removing stem cells from days-old human embryos almost always destroys the embryo, the technique amounts to murder.

ACT is the only company currently testing human embryonic stem cells in study patients. Last November, stem-cell pioneer Geron announced that it was halting what had been the first-ever clinical trial of the cells-testing them in patients with spinal cord injuries - and leaving the field.

When Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of ACT, approached ophthalmic surgeon Steven Schwartz of UCLA about leading the clinical trial, Schwartz asked for ethical advice from two of his patients: elderly nuns. They gave him the go-ahead, he said last year.

Even scientists who support stem cell research argue that they could be dangerous to use therapeutically. The very property that makes them so valuable in research - stem cells can morph into any of the kinds of cells in the human body - also makes them risky.

They can form teratomas, a type of tumor that arises when stem cells differentiate into a profusion of cell types.

Another concern is that transplanting cells derived from human embryos could be rejected by the patient's immune system. The ACT team got around that by targeting the eye, which is an "immuno-privileged" site that does not produce a strong immune response to foreign tissue.

In the study, physicians led by Schwartz injected what are called retinal epithelial cells into one eye of each patient.

RPE cells lie at the back of the eye and bathe the retina's rods and cones in substances called growth factors. When RPE cells die, as they do in macular degeneration, so do the photoreceptors, eventually causing blindness.

Transplanting RPE cells grown from stem cells, Lanza reasoned when he began this research almost a decade ago, might rejuvenate the eye's rods and cones, restoring lost vision.

To produce RPE cells, Lanza and his colleagues arranged to obtain days-old embryos created by in vitro fertilization.

The parents, who no longer wanted the embryos, donated them for research. The scientists then removed a single stem cell from one embryo, grew it in the lab to obtain millions of cells, and differentiated them into RPE cells.

The primary purpose of the clinical trial was to determine whether the implanted cells caused any harm. So far, neither patient has experienced inflammation, an indication that their immune system is not attacking the foreign cells.

And there is no evidence that a teratoma formed in either patient. Researchers also found that the RPE cells still survive after being implanted four months ago.

NOT A CURE FOR THE BLIND
The goal of the study was to determine safety and, at most, see whether the therapy can slow down or arrest vision loss, not restore it. "The fact that we're seeing measurable improvements in their vision, persisting for more than four months, is a bonus," Lanza said in an interview.

Although rods and cones cannot be brought back from the dead, he explains, "until you lose them completely you can rescue them." He believes that the transplanted RPE cells both bathed the deteriorating rods and cones in nourishing growth factors and gobbled up fragments of dead rods and cones, keeping the retinal environment healthier for the survivors.

The UCLA physicians plan to enroll a total of 12 Stargardt's patients and 12 macular degeneration patients in the ongoing clinical trial, with groups of three patients each receiving a different number of retinal epithelial cells.

The two patients being reported on Monday each received the smallest dose, 50,000 cells. Other patients will receive at least twice that many. The trial is also expanding across the Atlantic: the first patient was treated at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London last Friday. In a later trial, they hope to treat patients with earlier-stage disease, before so much of their vision has been lost.

David Prentice of the Family Research Council, a pro-life group that has opposed the use of human embryos for research, says the results will require more scrutiny.

"You have to follow the patients longer to know if it's safe," he told Reuters. "People will also want to know if there are other routes to the same end," using sources of stem cells other than human embryos.

Lanza is planning just that. He believes that skin cells "re-programmed" to revert to embryonic status might prove just as good a source or RPE and other specialized cells as human embryonic stem cells.

Called IPS (for "induced pluripotent stem") cells, they can be derived from a patient's own skin cells and pose no risk of immune rejection.

"I think we can be up and running in the clinic with IPS cells in one or two years," Lanza says.

Solar CME: Aurora Bolearis over Norway

2012-01-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

Image Credit: Bjørn Jørgensen

A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun five days ago, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth.

Although most of this cloud passed above the Earth, some of it impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at high northern latitudes.

Pictured above is a particularly photogenic auroral corona captured last night above Grotfjord, Norway.

To some, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen might appear as a large eagle, but feel free to share what it looks like to you.

This round of solar activity is not yet over -- a new and even more powerful solar flare occurred yesterday that might provide more amazing aurora as soon as tonight.

NRL's SoloHI Instrument Selected for Flight on Solar Orbiter Mission

2012-01-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

An artist's concept of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft observing the Sun. The spacecraft is protected by a heat shield to keep the instruments and most spacecraft components at a nominal temperature of about 20° C.

The solar arrays on either side can be tilted to adjust the amount of electricity being generated for the radial distance.

The high gain antenna to send the data down to Earth gets stowed behind the spacecraft to shield it from becoming too hot. (Photo: NASA)

The Naval Research Laboratory's Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI), part of the Solar Orbiter mission, is headed for space.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen the Solar Orbiter mission as the first mission in its Cosmic Vision Program, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has approved SoloHI to proceed to the next phase in the flight instrument development - to develop the preliminary design and to finish the technology development.

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft will study the sun from a closer distance than any mission has ever done. Launch is planned for 2017 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard an expendable launch vehicle.

The NRL SoloHI instrument is an optical telescope, similar to ones that NRL has flown before on missions such as the STEREO mission, but with a new light-weight camera system designed to handle the increased radiation levels that are expected to be seen.

SoloHI's revolutionary measurements will allow scientists to identify coronal mass ejections or CME's, which are space weather events.

These solar eruptions can travel from 60 to 2,000 miles per second and have masses greater than a few billion tons. CMEs can affect electromagnetic fields on Earth impacting power lines, satellite communications, and cell phone service.

SoloHI's detector is a 4K x 4K Advanced Pixel Sensor using CMOS technology. This will be the first time such a large format APS detector has flown. The instrument will make high-resolution images of the corona and solar wind, including CMEs, to determine how they propagate and interact with the background solar wind.

With its large field of view, SoloHI will be able to connect the remote sensing observations of the corona to the plasma being measured in-situ at the spacecraft.

The Solar Orbiter mission includes ten instruments, both remote sensing and in-situ, to study the Sun and solar wind. It will orbit the Sun every 150 days, between roughly the orbits of Mercury and Venus. In addition to this close approach to the Sun, the inclination of the orbital plane will be increased using gravity assists from the planet Venus, from lying in the ecliptic, to being inclined 35Â§ to the ecliptic.

This will be the first time that such instruments will be so close to the Sun, and it will also be the first time that remote sensing instruments will look down on the Sun, explains NRL's Dr. Russell Howard, the principal investigator for SoloHI.

Solar Orbiter will provide scientists with increased understanding of how the Sun influences its environment, and in particular how the Sun generates and propels the flow of particles in which the planets are bathed.

Solar activity affects the solar wind, making it very turbulent, and coronal mass ejections create strong perturbations in this wind, triggering spectacular auroral displays on Earth and other planets.

The objectives of the Solar Orbiter mission are to (1) Determine the properties, dynamics and interactions of plasma, fields and particles in the near-Sun heliosphere, (2) Investigate the links between the solar surface, corona and inner heliosphere, (3) Explore, at all latitudes, the energetics, dynamics and fine-scale structure of the Sun's magnetized atmosphere, and (4) Probe the solar dynamo by observing the Sun's high-latitude field, flows and seismic waves.

NASA Space Shuttle Discovery: National Air and Space Museum

2012-01-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

Discovery is expected to land at Washington Dulles International Airport on April 17 and transfer to the Udvar-Hazy Center on April 19.

Join us to launch Space Shuttle Discovery on its new mission to educate & inspire!

Activities related to the arrival of Discovery — including a fly-over — have not been finalized at this time.

Information on arrival activities, including public events and opportunities, will be released at a later date.

Discovery, the champion of the space shuttle fleet, associated with major historic, scientific and technological achievements, will be the first of the flown space shuttles to go on display.

Exact details will become available in the next few weeks. Check back here for updates. You can also subscribe to the Museum's e-newsletter, What's Up, fan our Facebook page, or follow @airandspace on Twitter for the latest news.

Please note that arrival activities are weather contingent and will be rescheduled in the event of inclement conditions.

For those participating from a distance, many of the activities will be available for viewing on TV or the web. Details coming soon.

Find out more about Space Shuttle Discovery

NASA Video Shows Increase in Global Warming

2012-01-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

Global temperatures have warmed significantly since 1880, the beginning of what scientists call the "modern record."

At this time, the coverage provided by weather stations allowed for essentially global temperature data.

As greenhouse gas emissions from energy production, industry and vehicles have increased, temperatures have climbed, most notably since the late 1970s.

In this animation of temperature data from 1880-2011, reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average.

(Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Visualization credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)

The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century.

The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.

"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," said GISS Director James E. Hansen. "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

The difference between 2011 and the warmest year in the GISS record (2010) is 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C). This underscores the emphasis scientists put on the long-term trend of global temperature rise. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect temperatures to rise consistently year after year. However, they do expect a continuing temperature rise over decades.

The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.

Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. These gases absorb infrared radiation emitted by Earth and release that energy into the atmosphere rather than allowing it to escape to space. As their atmospheric concentration has increased, the amount of energy "trapped" by these gases has led to higher temperatures.

While average global temperature will still fluctuate from year to year, scientists focus on the decadal trend. Nine of the 10 warmest years since 1880 have occurred since the year 2000, as the Earth has experienced sustained higher temperatures than in any decade during the 20th century. As greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, scientists expect the long-term temperature increase to continue as well. (Data source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory, Robert Simmon)

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.

The temperature analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1,000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements.

A publicly available computer program is used to calculate the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same place during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period functions as a baseline for the analysis.

The resulting temperature record is very close to analyses by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie.

"It's always dangerous to make predictions about El Niño, but it's safe to say we'll see one in the next three years," Hansen said. "It won't take a very strong El Niño to push temperatures above 2010."

NASA Cassini Image: Saturn's Moons Mimas And Dione

2012-01-24T05:18:00.000-08:00

Saturn's moon Mimas peeks out from behind the night side of the larger moon Dione in this Cassini image captured during the spacecraft's Dec. 12, 2011, flyby of Dione.

Dione is 698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers, across and its day side dominates the view on the right of the image. Smaller Mimas is on the left and measures 246 miles, or 396 kilometers, across.

Lit terrain seen here is on the Saturn-facing side of Mimas and in the area between the trailing hemisphere and anti-Saturn side of Dione. North on the moons is up and rotated 20 degrees to the right.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 58,000 miles (94,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 42 degrees. Image scale is 1,833 feet (559 meters) per pixel on Dione.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 380,000 miles (611,000 kilometers) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 41 degrees. Image scale is 2 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel on Mimas.

NASA SDO - M8.7-Class Solar Flare - YouTube

2012-01-24T04:44:00.000-08:00

Open University Interactive Learning: The Real Wonder Woman

2012-01-24T03:50:00.000-08:00

Click on the image to visit the Open University site and run the interactive presentation.

The women portrayed in this interactive are just a selection of influential, pioneering and successful women from across the world.

They were chosen for their remarkable contributions to their field, despite their educational, social and economic status.

Many were trailblazers for future women working in male-dominated fields; many had to fight for success and recognition which may have gone ignored.

While this list is by no means exhaustive, we hope it inspires you to celebrate the importance of women's achievements and to learn from their stories.

House made of recycled and salvaged car scraps and local wood

2012-01-24T03:37:00.000-08:00

Click on the image to see more

While the McGee house may look like any other new designer home in the neighborhood, its walls tell a different story.

Designed by husband and wife team Karl Wanaselja and Cate Leger of Leger Wanaselja (ecological) Architecture, the upper outside walls of the house are made from over 100 salvaged car roofs.

In a pursuit to build a house that utilized green technologies and reused materials, the couple sourced car roofs from a selection of gray-colored cars that had been left for parts in local junk yards in Berkeley, California.

Their biggest challenge was sourcing car scraps that were in relatively good condition, without dents and with a good paint finish. The scraps were then cut into long tile-like shapes and used to complete the upper outside walls of the house, rendering a similar appearance to slate.

Chemist finds new material (ZIF-8): Remove radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel

2012-01-24T03:30:00.000-08:00

Sandia chemist Tina Nenoff heads a team of researchers focused on removal of radioactive iodine from spent nuclear fuel.

They identified a metal-organic framework that captures and holds the volatile gas, a discovery that could be used for nuclear fuel reprocessing and other applications. (Photo by Randy Montoya)

The Sandia researchers have used metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to capture and remove volatile radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel.

“This is one of the first attempts to use a MOF for iodine capture,” said chemist Tina Nenoff of Sandia’s Surface and Interface Sciences Department.

The discovery could be applied to nuclear fuel reprocessing or to clean up nuclear reactor accidents.

A characteristic of nuclear energy is that used fuel can be reprocessed to recover fissile materials and provide fresh fuel for nuclear power plants. Countries such as France, Russia and India are reprocessing spent fuel.

The process also reduces the volume of high-level wastes, a key concern of the Sandia researchers. “The goal is to find a methodology for highly selective separations that result in less waste being interred,” Nenoff said.

Part of the challenge of reprocessing is to separate and isolate radioactive components that can’t be burned as fuel. The Sandia team focused on removing iodine, whose isotopes have a half-life of 16 million years, from spent fuel.

They studied known materials, including silver-loaded zeolite, a crystalline, porous mineral with regular pore openings, high surface area and high mechanical, thermal and chemical stability.

Various zeolite frameworks can trap and remove iodine from a stream of spent nuclear fuel, but need added silver to work well.

“Silver attracts iodine to form silver iodide,” Nenoff said. “The zeolite holds the silver in its pores and then reacts with iodine to trap silver iodide.”

But silver is expensive and poses environmental problems, so the team set out to engineer materials without silver that would work like zeolites but have higher capacity for the gas molecules.

They explored why and how zeolite absorbs iodine, and used the critical components discovered to find the best MOF, named ZIF-8.

Scientists Propose Use of Cryopreservation To Save Snow Leopards From Extinction

2012-01-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

Scientists from the Monash University are pursuing the possible use of cryopreservation of genetic material for future cloning and other assisted reproduction techniques, particularly the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Cryopreservation, a process where cells or whole tissues are preserved by cooling to low sub-zero temperatures, aims to enable stocks of cells to be stored to prevent the need to have all cell lines in culture at all times.

It is invaluable when dealing with cells of limited life span, thus, this breakthrough procedure could help in the survival of the endangered snow leopard, a large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, researchers said.

The study, which is part of the PhD project of Rajneesh Verma, supervised by Dr Paul Verma, both from the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR), could allow scientists to create reproductive cells from adult snow leopard tissues, which will then be used in breeding this animal.

According to the researchers, the use of iPS have never before been generated from a member of the cat family. For the study, researchers used ear tissue samples taken from adult snow leopards at Mogo Zoo in NSW to generate the iPS cells.

"The power of stem cells is that they can differentiate into all the cell types in the body. This means, they have the potential to become gametes. In fact, mouse iPS cells have given rise to entire off-spring, so the possibilities are enormous," Dr Verma said.

"By generating these stem cells, we've taken the first step in creating reproductive cells from adult tissues of an endangered animal. In the future, we aim to harness the potential of the iPS cells and create off-spring. This would help save species from extinction," he added.

According to Dr. Verma, the breakthrough was significant due to the difficulty of obtaining reproductive cells, or gametes, even from animals in captivity. However, he plans to apply the same techniques to other members of cat family, including the Bengal tiger, the jaguar and the serval.

Associate Professor Peter Temple-Smith of Monash University's Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Professor Michael Holland of the University of Queensland also collaborated in this study which was published in Theriogenology.

New Island Born in Red Sea: NASA (PHOTOS)

2012-01-24T01:09:00.000-08:00

The yet-to-be-named island has formed in the Zubair archipelago, a collection of small islands off the west coast of Yemen, and lies between Haycock Island and Rugged Island, according to NASA.

The new island was first revealed in a photograph by NASA's Earth Observatory's satellite on Dec. 23, in which white ash plume was seen rising from the sea, indicating an eruption.

The undersea eruption occurred in a region which is part of the Red Sea Rift, which is "where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart and new ocean crust regularly forms", according to scientists.

In early January, a new satellite image revealed that the submarine eruption had risen completely above the water surface and a fragment of land surrounding the eruption was spotted, indicating the formation of a new island.

According to scientists, the landmass has now grown to about 530 by 710 meters (1,700 by 2,300 feet) in size.

"In contrast to the fragmented rock that forms when lava interacts directly with water, lava that solidifies on land is tough, so this new island is likely to stick around," the scientists added.

New satellite images, taken on Jan. 15, indicated the eruptions had stopped and the island had already formed, as a part of the Zubair archipelago, which is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the coast of Yemen.

The photographs released by NASA, which are reproduced below, show the formation of the new island:

The Zubair archipelago consisting of Haycock Island and Rugged Island in the Red Sea, off the west coast of Yemen, as seen on Oct. 24, 2007. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

A volcanic eruption is see in the Red Sea in this satellite image taken on Dec. 23, 2011. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

The satellite image, acquired Jan. 7, 2012, suggests that the eruption had risen completely above water and a land surrounding the vent had grown. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

The new island formed on the Red Sea is seen in the image taken on Jan. 15, 2012. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

Antartica (ANSMET): Hundreds of Meteorites Uncovered

2012-01-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

A gang of heavily insulated scientists has wrapped up its Antarctic expedition, with its members thawing out from the experience, but pleased to have bagged more than 300 space rocks.

They are participants in the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program, or ANSMET for short.

Since 1976, ANSMET researchers have been recovering thousands of meteorite specimens from the East Antarctic ice sheet.

ANSMET is funded by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation.

According to the ANSMET website, the specimens are currently the only reliable, continuous source of new, nonmicroscopic extraterrestrial material.

Given that there are no active planetary sample-return missions coming or going at the moment, the retrieval of meteorites is the cheapest and only guaranteed way to recover new things from worlds beyond the Earth.

NASA ISS Mission Control: Mission Badges

2012-01-23T23:56:00.000-08:00

Working Capcom. This decorative panel, returned from ISS, sits in NASA mission control. A Tribute to the missions that built the station.

Russian Space City: ISS Mock-up

2012-01-23T23:49:00.000-08:00

At Space City Russian Segment ISS mockup receives a new addition. A docked Progress supply vehicle. (Right side)

Astronauts undergo Survival Training

2012-01-23T23:39:00.000-08:00

It's much colder this week in Star City for Nemo, Canadian astronaut @Astro_Jeremy & Ivan!

Gene Therapy Researchers develop correction for blindness

2012-01-23T13:50:00.000-08:00

A new gene therapy method developed by University of Florida researchers has the potential to treat a common form of blindness that strikes both youngsters and adults.

The technique works by replacing a malfunctioning gene in the eye with a normal working copy that supplies a protein necessary for light-sensitive cells in the eye to function. The findings are published today (Monday, Jan. 23) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.

Several complex and costly steps remain before the gene therapy technique can be used in humans, but once at that stage, it has great potential to change lives.

"Imagine that you can't see or can just barely see, and that could be changed to function at some levels so that you could read, navigate, maybe even drive — it would change your life considerably," said study co-author William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D., the Rybaczki-Bullard professor of ophthalmology in the UF College of Medicine and a professor and eminent scholar in department of molecular genetics and microbiology and the UF Genetics Institute.

"Providing the gene that's missing is one of the ultimate ways of treating disease and restoring significant visual function."

The researchers tackled a condition called X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic defect that is passed from mothers to sons. Girls carry the trait, but do not have the kind of vision loss seen among boys.

About 100,000 people in the U.S. have a form of retinitis pigmentosa, which is characterized by initial loss of peripheral vision and night vision, which eventually progresses to tunnel vision, then blindness.

In some cases, loss of sight coincides with the appearance of dark-colored areas on the usually orange-coloured retina.

The UF researchers previously had success pioneering the use of gene therapy in clinical trials to reverse a form of blindness known as Leber's congenital amaurosis. About 5 percent of people who have retinitis pigmentosa have this form, which affects the eye's inner lining.

"That was a great advance, which showed that gene therapy is safe and lasts for years in humans, but this new study has the potential for a bigger impact, because it is treating a form of the disease that affects many more people," said John G. Flannery, Ph.D., a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley who is an expert in the design of viruses for delivering replacement genes. Flannery was not involved in the current study.

NASA, ESA, Roscosmos: Agencies Aim at Building Lunar Station

2012-01-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

Moon colonies may exist for the next generation if officials with international space agencies have their way, according to reports.

Russian Space Agency Roscosmos officials said they are currently negotiating with NASA and the European Space Agency to build a visitors site on the moon.

"We don't want the man to just step on the Moon," Roscosmos Chief Vladimir Popovkin said Thursday during a radio interview, according to RIA Novosti, the Russian newswire.

"Today, we know enough about it, we know that there is water in its polar areas," he said, adding "we are now discussing how to begin [the Moon's] exploration with NASA and the European Space Agency."

The lunar base isn't the only option - another idea officials are floating would include a station that would orbit around the moon.

The colony would need an advanced manned transportation system, one that is currently under development, the Roscosmos chief said.

Beyond a possible moon station, Popovkin said Russian officials also plan to send two unmanned missions to the Moon by 2020, the Luna Glob and the Luna Resource.

The Global Exploration Roadmap, published in September by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, outlined a timeline for lunar exploration.

The timeline doesn't give a direct estimate of when a lunar colony may become a reality, but the document, formed in conjunction with 14 international space agencies, estimates that it won't be until 20 years or more.

One of the greatest challenges with exploring or even colonizing the moon is: "Expenses associated with extended surface activities," according to the document.

U.S. and Russian space agencies have talked about developing a permanent lunar outposting since the 1950s, according to RIA Novosti.

ESA Cassini: The two faces of Saturn moon Titan's dunes

2012-01-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

Two different dune fields on Titan: Belet and Fensal, as imaged by Cassini’s radar. It also shows two similar dune fields on Earth in Rub Al Khali, Saudi Arabia.

Fensal is at higher latitude and elevation than Belet and clearly shows thinner dunes with brighter and wider areas in between, suggesting less abundant dune material in this region.

Credits: NASA/JPL–Caltech/ASI/ESA and USGS/ESA

A new analysis of radar data from the international Cassini spacecraft has revealed regional variations amongst Titan's sand dunes. The result yields new clues to the giant moon's climatic and geological history.

Dune fields are common on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, second only to the seemingly uniform plains that cover most of the surface.

They cover about 13% of Titan, stretching over 10 million sq km, roughly equivalent to the area of Canada. Thus they offer a large-scale insight into the moon's environment.

Though similar in shape to the linear sand dunes found in the deserts of Namibia or southern Arabia, Titan's dunes are gigantic by Earthly standards. They are on average 1–2 km wide, hundreds of kilometres long and around 100 m high.

However, their size and spacing vary across the surface, betraying the environment in which they have formed and evolved.

Another difference is that sand on Titan is not made of silicates as on Earth, but of solid hydrocarbons that precipitate out of the atmosphere. These then aggregate into millimetre-sized grains by a still unknown process.

Using radar data from the NASA–ESA–ASI Cassini spacecraft, Alice Le Gall, of LATMOS-UVSQ, Paris and NASA–JPL, California, and collaborators have discovered that the size of Titan's dunes is controlled by at least two factors: altitude and latitude.

The main dune fields on Titan are found in lowland areas. Dunes at higher elevations tend to be narrower and more widely separated, and the gaps between them appear brighter to Cassini's radar, indicating a thinner covering of sand.

This suggests that there is relatively little sand available at higher elevations to build dunes, while more is present in the lowlands.

In terms of latitude, the dunes on Titan are confined to its equatorial region, in a band between 30°S and 30°N.

However, they tend to become narrower and more widely spaced at northern latitudes. Dr Le Gall and colleagues think that this may be due to Saturn's elliptical orbit.

Titan orbits Saturn and so the moon's seasons are controlled by Saturn's path around the Sun. Because Saturn takes about 30 years to complete an orbit, each season on Titan lasts for just over seven years.

The slightly elliptical nature of Saturn's orbit means that the southern hemisphere of the moon has shorter but more intense summers.

As a result, in southern regions, surface wetness due to ethane and methane vapour in the soil is reduced.

The drier the sand grains, the more easily they can be transported by the winds to make dunes.

"As one goes to the north, the soil moisture probably increases, making the sand particles less mobile and, as a consequence, the development of dunes more difficult," says Dr Le Gall.

Soviet Scientists Move on from Mars, Life on Venus likely

2012-01-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

The Soviet Union's landing probe, Venus-13, detected the presence of several objects resembling living organisms, on the surface of the planet Venus in 1982, according to research published in the current issue of Solar System Research.

The photographs taken by the Russian probe show objects resembling a "disk", a "black flap" and a "scorpion", according to Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences who analyzed the pictures and published the findings.

All the objects appear to have changed their locations in different photographs, indicating there was a possibility they were living beings. They "emerge, fluctuate and disappear," explained Ksanfomaliti in his research.

"What if we forget about the current theories about the non-existence of life on Venus, let's boldly suggest that the objects' morphological features would allow us to say that they are living," he adds.

The quest to discover life in outer space has been a never-ending one for scientists. The planet Mars is generally considered the most promising field for such endeavors.

Venus, the second planet from the sun, is equally usually least considered during such discussions, particularly since the atmosphere consists mostly of carbon dioxide and no data suggesting life ever existed has been found.

In addition, the planet's extremely hot temperatures further supports belief life could not have existed on its surface.

ESA ENVISAT & ERS Satellites detect abundance of fresh water in the Arctic

2012-01-23T02:46:00.000-08:00

ESA satellites show that a large dome of fresh water has been building up in the Arctic Ocean over the last 15 years.

A change in wind direction could cause the water to spill into the north Atlantic, cooling Europe.

The results are remarkable: since 2002, the sea surface in the studied area has risen by about 15 cm, and the volume of fresh water has increased by some 8000 cubic km – around 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean.

Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at University College London and the UK’s National Oceanography Centre used data from ESA’s ERS-2 and Envisat satellites to measure sea-surface height over the western Arctic from 1995 to 2010.

The results were published yesterday in the online version of the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience.


	Mean sea surface

The scientists conclude that the dome could be a result of strong Arctic winds accelerating a large ocean circulation known as the Beaufort Gyre, causing the sea surface to bulge.

A change in the direction of the wind would cause the fresh water to spill into the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even reach the north Atlantic.

This could slow a key ocean current, stemming from the Gulf Stream, and subsequently cool Europe.

This current keeps the continent relatively mild compared to other areas at similar latitudes.

“When we looked at our data on a year-to-year basis, we noticed that the changes in the sea surface height did not always follow what the wind was doing, so we thought about reasons why this might happen,” said Katharine Giles, CPOM research fellow and lead author of the study.

“One idea is that sea ice forms a barrier between the atmosphere and the ocean. So as the sea ice cover changes, the effect of the wind on the ocean might also change.

“Our next step is to look into how changes in the sea ice cover might affect the coupling between the atmosphere and the ocean in more detail to see if we can confirm this idea.”

Sea ice can be measured by different types of satellite data. Radar altimeters on satellites such as the two used in the study, Envisat and ERS-2, can be particularly useful when observing inaccessible areas like the Arctic.

NASA SOHO: New Solar Flare spark bright Aurora Borealis

2012-01-23T01:10:00.000-08:00

Another coronal mass ejection erupted this morning. Here's the evidence from the SOHO satellite

Credit: NASA and SpaceWeather

NASA Kepler: Discovers tiniest Solar System

2012-01-23T00:59:00.000-08:00

Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the tiniest solar system found so far.

The system consists of a single red dwarf star, known as KOI-961 and three planets which are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the radius of Earth.

The planets are thought to be rocky - like Earth - but orbit much closer to their star making them too hot to be habitable.

ATV Edoardo Amaldi: Launch Campaign Proceeding Towards March Launch

2012-01-23T00:24:00.000-08:00

Fueling is underway for Europe's third Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) at the Spaceport in French Guiana, which will be launched by Arianespace in March aboard an Ariane 5 on an International Space Station servicing mission.

This process is being performed in the S5B hall of the Spaceport's S5 payload preparation facility, where the large cargo vessel was integrated and received its cargo.

Named after Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi, the ATV will carry a fuel load estimated at 6,060 kg.

Of this total, approximately 2,200 kg. is for use on the spacecraft's travel to the International Space Station after launch by Ariane 5, and for the post-mission de-orbiting; some 3,000 kg. will be consumed in attitude control and re-boost maneuvers while the ATV is mated to the International Space Station; and the remaining 860 kg. is destined for transfer from the ATV to the station's Russian portion.

Liftoff of the ATV Edoardo Amaldi is scheduled for March 9 from the Spaceport, carrying some 6,960 kg. of dry cargo, water, gas and propellant for delivery to the International Space Station.

Arianespace's mission will follow Ariane 5 launches of ATVs in February 2011 and March 2008. The ATV program is managed by the European Space Agency, with production of the spacecraft performed by an Astrium-led industry consortium.

In separate activity, the cargo module for Europe's fourth ATV, named after Albert Einstein, was transferred from its production location in Turin, Italy to Bremen, Germany on December 30 for final testing.

Shipment of the full ATV - consisting of the cargo section and service module - to French Guiana is expected in the second half of this year, for a launch on Ariane 5 targeted for early 2013.

Satellite observes spatiotemporal variations in mid-upper tropospheric methane over China

2012-01-23T00:07:00.000-08:00

To understand the profile of methane in China and provide data for validation of satellite products, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were made at a ground-based hyperspectral remote sensing laboratory at the National Satellite Meteorological Center.

Atmospheric methane (CH4), one of the main greenhouse gases, has increased dramatically worldwide since the pre-industrial era. However, much work is needed to build on intermittent and scattered observations since the 1960s and systematic study since the 1980s.

Since 1983, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has coordinated global in-situ measurement of methane. Quantification of methane emissions still has large uncertainties, mainly because of undersampling over most regions of the globe by surface observation networks.

In particular, spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China are not well understood, because of limited in-situ measurements.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying and his group at the National Satellite Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration tackled this problem using satellite observations.

Using Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) methane data from 2003 to 2008, they revealed spatiotemporal variations of mid-upper tropospheric methane in China.

Their study shows that in the mid troposphere, a center of low CH4 concentration is located over western China, attributable to minimal industrial and agricultural activity. The lowest CH4 mixing ratio in the upper troposphere is over southern China, related to atmospheric transport from the ocean.

A seasonal cycle of methane has been discovered. One peak in summer and the other in winter over eastern, northeastern and northwestern China. Only one peak (in summer) occurs over southern and western China.

Before 2007, CH4 mixing ratio was nearly stable. The average mixing ratio during the last 6 years over major northern hemispheric countries is similar.

However, there has been a significant increase in tropospheric CH4 concentrations after 2007 in most northern hemispheric areas, with slightly larger increases over China.

Dr. ZHANG Xingying has stated that the trend of CH4 based on satellite observation is still somewhat uncertain, because of the short, 6-year dataset. More satellite data of higher quality are needed for further trend analysis.

To understand the profile of methane in China and provide data for validation of satellite products, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were made at a ground-based hyperspectral remote sensing laboratory at the National Satellite Meteorological Center.

A Bruker FTIR instrument (IFS 120 M, made in Ettlingen, Germany) with 0.008 cm-1 spectral resolution, was used for observations. Several years of data have been collected.

Implementation and promotion of this work will publicize methane spatiotemporal variations and their potential sources. In so doing, informed efforts may be mounted to reduce methane emission and resulting global climate change.

The National Satellite Meteorological Center manages satellite climate products in China. Two payloads for greenhouse gas monitoring are in development for the next satellite. One of the payloads is similar to AIRS for mid-upper tropospheric greenhouse gases.

The other is for low tropospheric greenhouse gases, and uses a near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer. Meanwhile, more in-situ measurements have been carried out in China for more detailed investigation of greenhouse gases.

Dr. XIONG Xiaozhen, an expert from NOAA, is in charge of AIRS methane product retrieval. He believes that this study is the first to use satellite data for analyzing mid-upper tropospheric methane over China, and represents important step in the study of climate change.

Aurora Borealis from Abisko, Sweden

2012-01-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

These fantastic live images of the Aurora Borealis are from Abisko, Sweden

ESA DLR Scientists assess likelihood of Earth-impacting comets

2012-01-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

According to geological and observational records, the chance of a Near Earth Object (NEO) hitting our planet is entirely possible.

Now, a new international project called NEOShield will assess the likelihood of Earth’s collision with a deadly asteroid or comet and decide what to do about it should the event occur.

Led by the German space agency’s (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research, the project began last week and will involve researchers from across Europe, Russia and the US.

According to Jonathan Amos of the BBC, an object around the size of a car enters the Earth’s atmosphere about once a year. An object the size of a football field enters the Earth’s atmosphere about every 2,000 years and every few million years, a rock enters the Earth’s atmosphere that could cause truly catastrophic damage.

While over 90 percent of these rocks have been identified and do not appear to be coming near the Earth, scientists will focus their efforts on investigating the other 10 percent and researching methods to deflect or lessen the effects of such an impact.

At the end of the three and a half year study, NEOShield scientists are hoping to propose their findings to politicians and launch a mission to demonstrate the appropriate technology, saving us from any scenarios reminiscent of Armageddon or Deep Impact.

Image: ESA

ESA ISS Image: Flying on a Vacuum Cleaner

2012-01-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Flying on a vacuum cleaner. Every Saturday we vacuum the filters and clean all the surfaces.

Credit: ESA/NASA

Meteor impact crater in Canada

2012-01-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

Meteor impact crater in Canada

Credit: ESA/NASA

Huge Solar Flare to engulf Earth

2012-01-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

A long-duration solar flare that first erupted on the sun is heading towards Earth. The flare can disrupt long-range radio communications. On the other hand, it can create a beautiful display of the northern lights (aurora borealis) on Saturday.

Astronomers from NASA discovered the M-class, medium-sized solar flare erupting on the sun on Thursday, at 8:42 A.M. EST. Solar flares are classified into three types: X-class, M-class and C-class.

X flares are the biggest and can lead to radio blackouts, as well as having long-term radiation effects on Earth. M flares are medium-sized flares that affect the Earth's polar region. Finally, C-class flares are small-sized flares and are, usually, barely noticeable.

According to NASA's Space Weather Services, the solar flare is travelling at 630 miles per hour and it is likely to reach Earth on Saturday.

MARS: Meteorites in Morocco confirmed

2012-01-21T01:32:00.000-08:00

This handout photo provided by Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection shows an external view of a Martian meteorite recovered in December 2011 near Foumzgit, Morocco following a meteorite shower believed to have occurred in July 2011.

Darryl Pitt/Macovich Collection/AP

A hail of Martian meteorites crashed to Earth last July, and collectors and scientists around the world are snapping up the ultra-rare rocks for display and study.

The meteorites fell in the Moroccan desert in July and were recovered a few months later.

Scientists confirmed today (Jan. 17) that the rocks are Martian, presumably blasted off the Red Planet by an asteroid strike.

The rocks are a rare treat for researchers, allowing them to investigate relatively pristine chunks of Martian material. Such freshly delivered pieces of the Red Planet have been found on only four other occasions, the last time in 1962.

As a result of their scarcity and scientific value, the rocks are selling for incredibly high prices — 10 times the price of gold or more. News of the meteorites' Martian origin was first reported by the Associated Press.

"In the world of meteoritics, a fall is as good as it gets," said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and meteorite curator at the University of New Mexico.

"We know that everything we're looking at is Martian, and that there's nothing in there that is confusing matters." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

NASA Saturn Cassini: Closest Dione Flyby

2012-01-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.

The image was taken in visible light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera during the spacecraft's flyby of Dione on Dec. 12, 2011.

This encounter was the spacecraft's closest pass of the moon's surface, but, because this flyby was intended primarily for other Cassini instruments, it did not yield Cassini's best images of the moon. Higher resolution images were obtained during earlier flybys (see PIA07638).

Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) is closest to Cassini here and is on the left of the image.

Potato-shaped Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears above the rings near the center top of the image. Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers across) is on the right.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than one degree above the ring plane.

The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers) from Dione. Image scale is 2,122 feet (647 meters) per pixel on Dione.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Costa Concordia cruise ship's Bell

2012-01-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

Police scuba divers inspect around the Costa Concordia cruise ship which ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island

Picture: REUTERS/Centro subacquei dei Carabinieri

An iceberg floating in Neko Harbour, Antarctica

2012-01-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

An underwater/above-water split picture of an iceberg floating in Neko Harbour in the Antarctic.

Brazilian photographer, Daniel Botelho, captured not only the tip of the iceberg but the massive hunks of underwater ice as well.

Picture: Daniel Botelho / Barcroft USA