Beautifully illustrated poems celebrating Space and Science - Joanna Tilsley

“The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper,” the influential biologist E.O. Wilson said in his spectacular recent conversation with the former Poet Laureate Robert Hass, exploring the shared creative wellspring of poetry and science.

A beautiful embodiment of it comes from 30 Days, an unusual and bewitching series of “quantum poetry” by xYz, the pseudonym of British biologist and poet Joanna Tilsley, who began writing poetry at the age of eight and continued, for her own pleasure, until she graduated college with a degree in biology.

In April of 2013, while undergoing an emotional breakdown, Tilsley took a friend up on a dare and decided to participate in NaPoWriMo, an annual creative writing project inviting participants to write a poem a day for a month.

Immersed in cosmology and quantum physics at the time, she found herself enchanted by the scientific poetics of nature as she strolled around her home in North London.

Translating that enchantment in lyrical form, she produced a series of thirty poems on everything from DNA to the exoplanet Keppler-62F, a “super-Earth-sized planet orbiting a star smaller and cooler than the sun,” to holometabolism, the process by which the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly, to the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human being to see Earth from space.

 I had been reading a lot about cosmology and new physics at the time, and as I took my habitual walks across the marshes surrounding my home in North London, I pondered deeply upon the dimensions of space and time through which I was passing, as well as existing euphorically in the moment with the first stirrings of spring. 

The poems followed naturally through; in fact they burst out of me, allowing me to weave a pattern of deep emotion through a weft of scientific fact.

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NASA's Van Allen Probes Detects an Impenetrable Barrier in Space

Two donuts of seething radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen radiation belts, have been found to contain a nearly impenetrable barrier that prevents the fastest, most energetic electrons from reaching Earth.

A cloud of cold, charged gas around Earth, called the plasmasphere and seen here in purple, interacts with the particles in Earth's radiation belts, shown in grey, to create an impenetrable barrier that blocks the fastest electrons from moving in closer to our planet.

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard

The Van Allen belts are a collection of charged particles, gathered in place by Earth’s magnetic field. They can wax and wane in response to incoming energy from the sun, sometimes swelling up enough to expose satellites in low-Earth orbit to damaging radiation.

The discovery of the drain that acts as a barrier within the belts was made using NASA's Van Allen Probes, launched in August 2012 to study the region.

A paper on these results appeared in the Nov. 27, 2014, issue of Nature magazine.

“This barrier for the ultra-fast electrons is a remarkable feature of the belts," said Dan Baker, a space scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and first author of the paper.

"We're able to study it for the first time, because we never had such accurate measurements of these high-energy electrons before."

Understanding what gives the radiation belts their shape and what can affect the way they swell or shrink helps scientists predict the onset of those changes. Such predictions can help scientists protect satellites in the area from the radiation.

Visualization of the radiation belts with confined charged particles (blue & yellow) and plasmapause boundary (blue-green surface)

The Van Allen belts were the first discovery of the space age, measured with the launch of a US satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958.

In the decades since, scientists have learned that the size of the two belts can change, or merge, or even separate into three belts occasionally.

But generally the inner belt stretches from 400 to 6,000 miles above Earth's surface and the outer belt stretches from 8,400 to 36,000 miles above Earth's surface.

A slot of fairly empty space typically separates the belts. But, what keeps them separate? Why is there a region in between the belts with no electrons?

Enter the newly discovered barrier. The Van Allen Probes data show that the inner edge of the outer belt is, in fact, highly pronounced. For the fastest, highest-energy electrons, this edge is a sharp boundary that, under normal circumstances, the electrons simply cannot penetrate.

"When you look at really energetic electrons, they can only come to within a certain distance from Earth," said Shri Kanekal, the deputy mission scientist for the Van Allen Probes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and a co-author on the Nature paper. "This is completely new. We certainly didn't expect that."

The team looked at possible causes. They determined that human-generated transmissions were not the cause of the barrier. They also looked at physical causes.

Could the very shape of the magnetic field surrounding Earth cause the boundary? Scientists studied but eliminated that possibility. What about the presence of other space particles? This appears to be a more likely cause.

The radiation belts are not the only particle structures surrounding Earth. A giant cloud of relatively cool, charged particles called the plasmasphere fills the outermost region of Earth's atmosphere, beginning at about 600 miles up and extending partially into the outer Van Allen belt.

The particles at the outer boundary of the plasmasphere cause particles in the outer radiation belt to scatter, removing them from the belt.

NASA Lidar Lasers to Map Earth's Forests in 3D

An artist's conception of the 3D maps of forest architecture that data from GEDI could produce.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

A new laser instrument developed for the International Space Station is expected to generate incredible 3D maps of Earth's forests.

The instrument called Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) uses lidar, a special kind of laser technology, to create detailed 3D maps and measure the biomass of forests.

NASA has already launched a satellite designed to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but the new instrument, once launched, will allow scientists to estimate the total amount of carbon stored here on Earth inside trees.

"(GEDI) lidar will have a tremendous impact on our ability to monitor forest degradation, adding to the critical data needed to mitigate the effects of climate change," Patrick O'Shea, chief research officer at the University of Maryland, said in a statement.

Scientists already knew that trees absorb carbon. What scientists don't know is how much they store.

This is a problem because scientists can't predict how much extra carbon would escape into the atmosphere if a forest was destroyed or if planting new trees would be enough to offset the emissions.

"One of the most poorly quantified components of the carbon cycle is the net balance between forest disturbance and regrowth," Ralph Dubayah, the (GEDI) principal investigator at the University of Maryland, said in the same statement.

GEDI's lidar instrument works by shooting streams of light particles at the Earth that then reflect back and are picked up by a detector.

The time it takes the particles to reach Earth and bounce back is converted into a distance.

Every material that the light particles pass through on their journey leaves behind a "fingerprint" that the detector can read.

That means that light particles that pass through leafy tree canopies will look different than the particles that pass through branches or trunks. The unique markers will allow scientists to construct detailed 3D maps of forest architecture.

The lidar pulses will measure the height of trees to about a 3-foot (1 meter) accuracy and allow scientists to estimate the total biomass in a forest and how much carbon it's storing.

GEDI will have three lasers that will shoot out a total of 14 laser beams that will cover about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers). The team of engineers behind GEDI estimate that it will send out about 16 billion laser pulses every year.

Piers Sellers, deputy director of Goddard's Sciences and Exploration Directorate, said GEDI's data will be invaluable when it's combined with historic records of carbon levels collected by satellites like Landsat and MODIS which have been hovering over Earth for decades.

Scientists will also combine the 3D maps with images, maps and data collected from other satellites.

The ultimate goal is to create a database that will monitor changes in forests over time.

Scientists hope the combined data will reveal more about land use, biodiversity and climate change effects.

NASA officials estimate that engineers will complete GEDI by 2018. Once aboard the space station, it will scan most tropical and temperate forests between 50 degrees north and 50 degrees south latitude.

Space Station Astronauts Grow a Water Bubble in Space

During Expedition 40 in the summer of 2014, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman, along with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst, explored the phenomenon of water surface tension in microgravity on the International Space Station.

The crew "submerged" a sealed GoPro camera into a floating ball of water the size of a softball and recorded the activity with a 3-D camera. (Video: NASA)

Note: You will need red-blue stereoscopic 3D vision glasses to view the video.

Virgin Galactic 'ignored' space safety warnings: expert

Virgin Galactic "ignored" repeated warnings in the years leading up to the deadly crash of its spacecraft in California, a rocket science safety expert said Sunday, as investigators hunted for clues to the accident.

Carolynne Campbell, a rocket propulsion expert with the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS), said she could not speculate on the cause of Friday's crash without "all the data."

However, she said multiple warnings about the spacecraft's motor and the fuel used to power it had been issued to Virgin since 2007, when three engineers died testing a rocket on the ground.

"Based on the work we've done, including me writing a paper on the handling of nitrous oxide, we were concerned about what was going on at Virgin Galactic," she told reporters.

"I sent copies of the paper to various people at Virgin Galactic in 2009, and they were ignored."

Campbell said she outlined concerns to Virgin Galactic in a subsequent telephone conversation, but her warning again went unheeded.

"I warned them... that the rocket motor was potentially dangerous," she said.

Campbell's warnings related to nitrous oxide, reportedly used as a fuel component in the doomed craft along with a new substance derived from nylon plastic grains.

A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has been deployed to the Mojave Desert to probe Friday's crash, which left pilot Michael Alsbury dead and and co-pilot Pete Siebold seriously injured.

ESA PROBA-2: Five Years in Space: One Satellite, Three Missions

This artist's view shows Proba-2 fully operational in its final orbit. Its front side is continuously oriented toward the Sun, displaying instruments used for solar observation. 

LYRA (LYman alpha Radiometer) can be seen as the three vertical circles on the right. 

Just below it is SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active pixel system detector and image Processing), the grey surface in the right bottom corner.

In the center of the white panel, we can see the SPC (Solar Panel Concentrator), the two vertical triangle mirrors, and below it, the DSS (Digital Sun Sensor), the yellow grey box with a circular hole.


On the satellite's left side can be seen one of its three TPMUs (Thermal Plasma Measurement Units), the circular shape behind the solar panel, and the two extended DSLP (Dual Segmented Langmuir Probe) antennas extending from each corner of the solar array to study the space environment.

Credit: ESA

ESA's Proba-2 celebrates five years in orbit today. From technology demonstrator to solar observatory and now space weather platform, the mission has provided triple value to European scientists.

The second PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy (PROBA) mission was launched in 2009 as part of ESA’s programme for proving new technology in space.

Orbiting at about 725 km, this minisatellite, smaller than a cubic metre, carries four solar and space weather experiments and supports 17 technology demonstrations, providing companies with the flight experience that is essential for European industry to remain competitive.

In the first phase of its life, into early 2010, Proba-2 was extremely successful in verifying, under harsh space conditions, new technologies that will make future European missions more capable and efficient.

These included a new type of lithium-ion battery, an advanced data and power management system, combined carbon-fibre and aluminium structural panels, and new models of reaction wheels.

ESA’s Sun-watching Proba-2 minisatellite shows the aftermath of 18 February’s ‘coronal mass ejection’. 

Acquired at 0445 GMT, a little more than three hours after the initial eruption, the image demonstrates the Sun’s magnetic field reconnecting in the form of loops. 

Look down and left of the centre of the solar disc to clearly see this distinctive belt of loops.

Credit: ESA


Afterwards, Proba-2 continued as a solar observatory, a science mission studying the Sun and the plasma environment surrounding the satellite.

Information from the four solar and space weather sensors are helping scientists to understand our star’s corona and magnetic fields and the mechanisms responsible for solar eruptions.

This information is crucial to understanding ‘space weather,’ the conditions above Earth that can affect spaceborne and ground-based systems and services, or even endanger property and human health.

The importance of Proba-2 data for European space weather services meant that ESA’s Space Situational Awareness programme has been managing the mission since July 2013.

This programme is developing precursor space weather services. In particular, the solar data are used by the Solar Weather Expert Service Centre coordinated by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels.

This centre generates solar weather data products and services for various users throughout Europe, including industry, satellite operators and owners of sensitive ground infrastructure, such as power grids.

Goodbye to TRMM, Japan's first rain radar in space

Artist concept of TRMM in space over the eye of a tropical cyclone. 

Credit: NASA

After 17 years of groundbreaking 3-D images of rain and storms, the joint NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) will come to an end next year.

NASA predicts that science operations will cease in or about April 2015, based on the most recent analysis by mission operations at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

On July 8, 2014, pressure readings from the fuel tank indicated that TRMM was near the end of its fuel supply.

As a result, NASA ceased station-keeping maneuvers that would keep the satellite at its operating altitude of 402 km (249.8 miles).

Atmospheric drag is slowing TRMM, and it has begun its slow drift downward. Some fuel has been retained to conduct debris avoidance maneuvers to ensure the satellite remains safe during the drift down to re-entry, which is predicted to occur in the summer of 2015.

Originally launched in 1997 as a three-year mission, TRMM's extended mission life has provided a boon to the scientific understanding of precipitation and its role in broad weather patterns and climate.

TRMM has allowed scientists to better understand how rain varies daily, seasonally and annually; how El Niño affects global rain patterns; how regional rain events like the Indian monsoon vary throughout the season; and even how humans have affected local precipitation through the effects of urban heat islands, deforestation and pollution.

"TRMM has been the world's foremost satellite for the study of precipitation and climate processes in the tropics, and an invaluable resource for tropical cyclone research and operations," says TRMM Project Scientist Scott Braun at NASA Goddard.

"Data from TRMM will continue to foster science well after the mission ends, and, when combined with data from the new Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory (GPM), launched earlier this year by NASA's partner the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will contribute to a long-term precipitation climate record."

This 3-D image of Hurricane Sandy's rainfall was created using TRMM Precipitation Radar data. 

It shows the storm as it appeared on Oct. 28, 2012. 

Credit: NASA /SSAI, Hal Pierce

Orbiting at an angle to the equator that covers 35 degrees north to 35 degrees south of the equator, TRMM carries five instruments that collectively measure the intensity of rainfall, characteristics of the water vapour and clouds, and lightning associated with the rain events.

One of the instruments, the Precipitation Radar, built by JAXA, is the first precipitation radar flown in space.

It returns images of storms that for the first time have revealed close-up, 3-D views of how rain bands in tropical cyclones develop, potentially indicating how strong the storms might become.

UAE launches project to send unmanned probe to Mars

Oil-rich United Arab Emirates on Monday launched a project that aims to send the first Arab unmanned probe to Mars by 2021.

The Gulf state set up the UAE Space Agency to supervise and finance the "Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) to execute and manage all stages of the Mars probe project," a statement said.

The two entities signed a seven-year partnership agreement Monday, setting the timing as well as legal and financial frameworks for the Mars project, said the statement.

In July the UAE government revealed a plan to create a space agency to drive the project.

It said at the time that UAE investments in space technologies have already topped 20 billion dirhams ($5.44 billion).

The UAE, a seven-emirate federation formed in 1971, will become the ninth country in the world with space programmes to explore the Red Planet, according to the statement.

On Oct 20th his Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Monday attended the signing of an agreement to build the first Arab Islamic probe to reach Mars.

The agreement emphasises the importance of building a national base of research, developing specialised national cadres during the coming years, and the commitment of international partners in conveying all necessary knowledge to the national work team which will, in turn, contribute to building a solid scientific base for developing the UAE space sector.

“We started today a seven-year journey with a national team; through it we will cross hundreds of millions of miles to build globally competitive Emirati individuals. We say to the people of our region join us in building a new history for our Arab nation,” Shaikh Mohammad said on his social media account.

Upon completion, the probe is expected to reach Mars in nine months, an achievement which will make the UAE one of nine nations around the world with a Mars exploration space programme.

The probe’s estimated time of arrival on Mars, the year 2021, coincides with the 50th anniversary of the creation of the UAE.

Space is considered a key factor for economic security, used for satellite communications, broadcasting, meteorology and observing natural disasters.

The UAE’s current national investments in technology-related projects and industry is more than Dh20 billion, which includes Yahsat satellite communications company and Thuraya telecommunications company.

The UAE Space Agency was earlier set up by Shaikh Mohammad for supervising and organising all space activities, developing the sector, ensuring knowledge transfer, enhancing the UAE’s position as a global player in aerospace, and maximising the contribution of space industries to the national economy. The agency will report to the Cabinet and enjoy financial and administrative independence.

The UAE’s purpose is to build Emirati technical and intellectual capabilities in the fields of aerospace and space exploration and to enter the space industry and to make use of space technology in a way that enhances the country’s development plans.

Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space

The cover of Lynn's Sherr's book about Sally Ride called "Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space." 

Credit: Simon & Schuster

Lynn Sherr, the author of the recently-released biography, "Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space," paid tribute to the late astronaut Thursday (Oct. 2) on the allegedly, satirical, US news program "The Colbert Report."

The nearly 7-minute interview covered everything from the Space Race to Ride's unique place in history as NASA's first female astronaut.

Colbert started the interview by asking Sherr why NASA didn't prioritise getting women into space when the Russian space agency had sent two women to space before Sally Ride flew to orbit for the first time in the 1980s.

"NASA didn't think that women were a priority," Sherr replied.

"First there was the race to get to the moon … but before Sally Ride flew, the only three females NASA had flown were two spiders and a monkey."

Ride flew to space during a NASA shuttle mission for the first time in 1983. She died at 61 in July 2012 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Ride is the first known lesbian astronaut, a fact that was never revealed by NASA.

It was only after her death that it was revealed she was gay and had a long standing partnership with Tam O'Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University and childhood friend.

O'Shaughnessy was also a science writer and, later, the co-founder of Sally Ride Science and now serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board of the organisation.

India Mars Orbiter: Red Planet triumph, but at home red tape binds space firms

As India celebrated becoming the first Asian nation to reach Mars, S.M. Vaidya, head of business at conglomerate Godrej’s aerospace division that made the spacecraft’s engine and thruster components, sounded surprisingly downbeat.

The mission was, indeed, a major achievement, he said, and one of which the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) should be proud.

But a single trip to Mars was not enough to sustain a promising yet relatively small industry, he added, and ISRO should be doing more to foster it.

“Unless they fly more, they will not buy more from us,” Vaidya told Reuters, shortly after news broke on Wednesday that Mangalyaan, Hindi for “Mars craft”, had entered into orbit around the Red Planet about 10 months after launching.

“How many Mars missions are you going to have?”

India’s successful mission, completed on a shoestring budget of $74 million, has boosted its prestige in the global space race and, back on Earth, raised the profile of Indian companies involved in the project.

But Godrej and some other firms are frustrated at what they say is the slow execution of projects and lack of government support, which are hampering India’s efforts to compete with China and Russia as a cheaper option for launching satellites.

ISRO did not reply to questions for this article.

The Mangalyaan was built in 15 months with two-thirds of its parts manufactured by domestic firms such as Godrej & Boyce and India’s largest engineering company, Larsen & Toubro.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he wants to expand India’s 50-year-old space program. The government has increased funding for space research by 50 percent to almost $1 billion this financial year.

But the program is still small, and the small number of launches limits the growth potential of private companies that supply them.

Between 2007 and 2012, ISRO accomplished about half of its planned 60 missions, government data showed. The government cited “development complexity” as the reason for the delay in some missions.

Add caption

Between 2012 and 2017 the target is 58 missions.

The agency has completed 17 missions so far, and ISRO did not say why the number remained low.

Some company executives and experts do not see that changing any time soon, with the absence of heavy rocket launchers, too few launch facilities and bureaucratic delays hampering growth.

Read the full article here

ESA ARTES: Opening doors to space

Credit: ESA

The same device that opens doors on buses and planes could be used to meet peak energy demands on satellites.

Most satellites use small rechargeable batteries that can store large amounts of energy.

Supercapacitors do not hold as much, but they have a special ability to deliver very high bursts for a few seconds.

They're durable, too, and can easily last the 15 years of a satellite's life.

On municipal buses, they are charged during braking and supply electricity to open and close the doors when the vehicle stops, and help to get it moving again.

On the new EADS Airbus A380, supercapacitors help to operate the aircraft's heavy doors. In an emergency, they can even do it independently of the aircraft's central power system.

ESA recently joined forces with the Eggo company and Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic, and Airbus Defense and Space (EADS) France to look at if these supercapacitors could be useful on telecom satellites.

While a typical space battery can deliver around 200 W/kg, banks of supercapacitors can deliver up to 50 times more power for short durations.

The studies carried out under ESA's ARTES programme found that this could keep a satellite's power supply from fluctuating as instruments draw energy.

If the electricity supply to instruments falls too low this could cause them to switch off or work below par.

Bank of supercapacitors. 

Credit: ESA

Other applications include the pyrotechnic separation mechanisms on rockets, high-power radar for Earth observation, and electric propulsion for repositioning and decommissioning satellites.

On top of this, smaller and lighter batteries could be used in combination with supercapacitors.

"Our work on supercapacitors reflects ESA's commitment to ensuring that the European and Canadian space industries remain at the very forefront of developments in electric energy storage systems for telecommunications," notes ESA's Energy Storage Engineer, Brandon Buergler.

ISRO MoM: First images of Mars transmitted - Update

One of the first images taken by the ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft, released on September 25, 2014, shows the surface of Mars seen from a height of 7,300m.

Credit: ISRO

India's spacecraft has beamed back its first photos of Mars, showing its crater-marked surface, as the country glowed with pride Thursday after winning Asia's race to the Red Planet.

ISRO Scientists present a print of MoM's first image of Mars to India's PM Narendra Modi.

Credit: ISRO, Hindustan Times

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) uploaded one of the photos onto its Facebook page, showing an orange surface and dark holes, taken from a height of 7.3 kilometres (4.5 miles).

ISRO also posted the photo on Twitter, with the caption "The view is nice up here."

A senior ISRO official told reporters several photos have been successfully received, while a spokesman for the government agency said the spacecraft was working well.

India became the first Asian country to reach Mars on Wednesday when its unmanned Mangalyaan spacecraft entered the orbit after a 10-month journey on a shoestring budget.

The mission, which is designed to search for evidence of life on the planet, is a huge source of national pride for India as it competes with Asian rivals for success in space.

India's first Mars orbiter Mangalyaan captured this photo of the Martian atmosphere just after arriving at Mars on Sept. 24, 2014 Indian Standard Time. 

The Indian Space Research Organisation released the image on Sept. 25.

Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation

India beat rival neighbour China, whose first attempt flopped in 2011 despite the Asian superpower pouring billions of dollars into its programme.

At just $74 million, India's mission cost is less than the estimated $100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster "Gravity".

It also represents just a fraction of the cost of NASA's $671 million MAVEN spacecraft, which successfully began orbiting the fourth planet from the sun on Sunday.

The true test of success will come from the quality, value and extent of the scientific data collected by both spacecraft and their ability to advance our understanding of Mars and our Solar System.

An Indian Space Research Organisation official uses a scale model of the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to explain how parts of the orbiter works, at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore on September 15, 2014

Credit: ISRO

India now joins an elite club of the United States, Russia and Europe who can boast of reaching Mars.

More than half of all missions to the planet have ended in failure.

This photo of Earth was the first photo from India's Mars Orbiter Mission and captured on Nov. 19, 2013. It shows India and the surrounding region from Earth orbit.

Credit: ISRO

The mission's success received front-page coverage in Indian newspapers on Thursday, with the Hindustan Times declaring "MARTIAN RACE WON" and the Times of India saying "India enters super exclusive Mars club."

Indians, from government ministers to office workers and cricketers poured onto Twitter to show their national pride, while school students celebrated by eating traditional Indian sweets.

NASA SERVIR: ISERV tool enables rapid view of Earth images from space

A screen-capture of the new online map showing available images taken by the ISERV camera system. 

Users can click on a location to see a slideshow of images uploaded by project scientists. 

Credit: NASA

Flipping through online photo albums and social media collections of "selfies" is one thing, but when pictures can show land areas where millions of people live, it can put things in a completely different perspective - especially for scientists.



One of NASA's newest tools for effective Earth observation has been orbiting our planet for more than 15 years.

The International Space Station provides a constant, reliable perspective from which to record changes on the surface of Earth.

A new user-friendly online resource will provide images from a space station camera with nearly two years of images to share.

Danny Hardin, left, an NSSTC senior research scientist from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, trains three researchers from El Salvador to use SERVIR, an NSSTC-developed environmental monitoring system.

Credit: SERVIR

The interface is a world map that links to thousands of images made by the ISERV camera: the International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System.

With the click of a mouse, the public can access the images with the ISERV Viewer.

People can view and download specific ISERV captures from a collection of more than 4,000 Earth images. ISERV scientists plan to expand the database to about 60,000 by summer 2015.



ISERV was installed as a technology testbed in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) on the orbiting laboratory in January 2013 and is scheduled to be removed from operation in 2015.

The camera receives and acts on commands from the ISERV team to acquire image data of specific areas of Earth's surface as the space station passes overhead.

Images from ISERV are uploaded quickly to the web due to a new automated georeferencing capability, allowing imagery to be processed and published much faster.

This is critically important when dealing with a disaster situation. Georeferencing is a process in which points in an image can be associated with geographic locations on a map.

The SERVIR project operates via regional "hubs" in Nairobi, Kenya; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Panama City, Panama, and is coordinated from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

The SERVIR hubs can task the ISERV system to image scenes of Earth's surface in their regions of interest to address environmental issues and disasters.

Much as parents can look back to see how their child has changed over the years, scientists hope that the snapshots gathered by ISERV of land areas before and after environmental changes will improve future response to natural disasters.

W3(OH): Alcohol clouds in space

Yes, there is a giant cloud of alcohol in outer space. It's in a region known as W3(OH), only about 6500 light years away.

Unfortunately it is methyl alcohol (commonly known as wood alcohol, though this stuff is not derived from wood), so it isn't suitable for drinking.

There is some ethyl alcohol (the drinkable kind) there as well, but it's not nearly as common.

It might seem strange that there are alcohol clouds in space, but as noted in an earlier post, a great deal of complex molecular chemistry goes on between the molecular clouds and dust in outer space, and all sorts of chemical compounds exist there.

Alcohol is a relatively simple molecule, made of relatively abundant elements (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen), so it shouldn't be surprising that it exists in large quantities in space.

While mention of an alcohol space cloud usually leads to snickers, there is actually some interesting astrophysics going on.

Because of the abundance of similar simple molecules, adding a bit of energy to the mix can lead to a stimulated emission of light, known as an astrophysical maser.

The term maser stands for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

When the same effect occurs with visible light, it is called a laser. In fact the early lasers were known as optical masers. It's the stimulated part that makes lasers and masers particularly interesting.

Normally when an atom or molecule emits light, it happens randomly. The electrons of an atom have a bit of extra energy (are in an excited state), and they drop to a lower energy level by emitting a photon.

This is known as spontaneous emission. Because of the quantum behaviour of electrons, they can only move between specific discrete energy levels.

This means the photons an atom or molecule emits have specific energies, and thus specific colors. This is also why emission spectra have specific patterns.

But if an electron is in an excited state, and the molecule is struck by a photon, then the electron can be triggered to drop to a lower energy level and emit a photon. This is known as stimulated emission.

The catch is that stimulated emission can't be triggered by just any photon, it has to be triggered by a photon of the same energy the electron will emit.

So what happens is a photon of just the right energy strikes the molecule, triggering a stimulated emission, and then the first photon and a new photon of the same energy go along their way.

With stimulated emission, a photon can trigger a molecule to release a photon, and they can trigger even more molecules to release photons, causing a cascade of stimulated emission.

Because the photons all move together (are coherent) the emission is very bright. Because they all have the same energy or colour (are monochromatic), they are bright at that particular wavelength.

Read the full story here

Gravity Team studies how astronauts determine 'up' in space

International Space Station. Credits: ESA

Keeping upright in a low-gravity environment is not easy, and NASA documents abound with examples of astronauts falling on the lunar surface.

Now, a new study by an international team of researchers led by York University professors Laurence Harris and Michael Jenkin, published today in PLOS ONE, suggests that the reason for all these moon mishaps might be because its gravity isn't sufficient to provide astronauts with unambiguous information on which way is "up".

"The perception of the relative orientation of oneself and the world is important not only to balance, but also for many other aspects of perception including recognizing faces and objects and predicting how objects are going to behave when dropped or thrown," says Harris.

"Misinterpreting which way is up can lead to perceptual errors and threaten balance if a person uses an incorrect reference point to stabilize themselves."

Using a short-arm centrifuge provided by the European Space Agency, the international team simulated gravitational fields of different strengths, and used a York-invented perceptual test to measure the effectiveness of gravity in determining the perception of up.

The team found that the threshold level of gravity needed to just influence a person's orientation judgment was about 15 per cent of the level found on Earth, very close to that on the moon.

The team also found that Martian gravity, at 38 per cent of that on Earth, should be sufficient for astronauts to orient themselves and maintain balance on any future manned missions to Mars.

"If the brain does not sense enough gravity to determine which way is up, astronauts may get disoriented, which can lead to errors like flipping switches the wrong way or moving the wrong way in an emergency," says Jenkin.

"Therefore, it's crucial to understand how the direction of up is established and to establish the relative contribution of gravity to this direction before journeying to environments with gravity levels different to that of Earth."

This work builds upon results obtained in long-duration microgravity by Harris and Jenkin and other members of York's Centre for Vision Research on board the International Space Station during the Bodies in the Space Environment project, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.

More information: PLOS ONE, www.plosone.org/article/info%3… journal.pone.0106207

Russia's Space Geckos Found Dead After Landing

Russia's Foton M4 satellite landed back on Earth on Sept. 1, 2014 after a 1.5-month trip into space to study the mating habits of geckos and other experiments. The geckos did not survive.

Credit: Roscosmos

A group of geckos sent to space so that scientists could study the mating habits of lizards in weightlessness have died.

Scientist discovered that the small reptiles didn't survive their outer space trek after the Russian satellite housing them landed back on Earth this weekend.

Researchers still aren't sure when or how the intrepid space geckos died, according to a statement released by Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, on Monday (Sept. 1).

Although the five geckos didn't survive the trip, the Foton spacecraft kept a group of flies alive for the duration of the 1.5-month space journey.

One of the geckos blasted into space onboard the Foton M4 satellite.

Credit: Roscosmos

"After extraction of biological objects from the lander to carry out the initial evaluation, it was found that the fly Drosophila moved spaceflight well, successfully developed and bred," according to a translated version of the Roscosmos statement.

The Foton carrying the geckos, and other experiments, launched to space on July 18. Shortly after the satellite made it to orbit, officials found that the craft wasn't responding to commands from the ground. Mission controllers re-established contact with the animal-filled spacecraft a few days after losing touch with it.

The interior of the Foton M4 spacecraft back on Earth. 

The satellite housed a group of five geckos that died at some point during the space trip. 

Credit: Roscosmos

The geckos got a lot of attention during their time in orbit. Comedian John Oliver even launched a "#GoGetThoseGeckos" campaign on his show "Last Week Tonight" to stage a rescue for the lizards.

"Star Trek's" Sir Patrick Stewart, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and other famous stars lent their support to the mock campaign as well.

"Maybe, just maybe, if we could come together and accomplish one thing as a civilization, we could then build on that progress," Oliver said during a broadcast in July.

"And I think rescuing these space sex geckos might just be that thing. And that is why, I'm issuing a challenge to humanity: Go get those geckos."

This wasn't the first experiment launched to study animal sex in space. Scientists have sent frogs, mice and salamanders into orbit to learn more about sex in weightlessness. In 1994, Japanese killifish became the first vertebrates to reproduce in outer space.

Astronauts See Mount Etna Volcano's Lava and Steam from Space

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this photo of the volcanoes Mount Etna and Mount Stromboli on Aug. 14, 2014.

Credit: Reid Wiseman/NASA

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station have captured a one-two punch of incredible views from space of Mount Etna and another active volcano in Italy spewing steam and lava.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst managed to photograph both Mount Etna and Mount Stromboli from their positions on the space station earlier this month.

Gerst caught sight of the two Italian volcanoes and their lava flows at night, while Wiseman captured the mountains during daylight.

Both photos give viewers a different perspective of the massive volcanoes. The images were taken from the same angle, and thanks to that specific shot alignment, space fans can orient themselves to see the red lava flows in Gerst's photo.

Without the context provided by Wiseman's daytime image, the lava would be much more difficult to spot.

European astronaut Alexander Gerst uploaded this photo of two volcanoes, Mount Etna and Mount Stromboli, by night on Aug. 1, 2014. 

Credit: Alexander Gerst Twitter / ESA

Gerst has quite a bit of experience with volcanoes.

Before flying to space, he was awarded his doctorate for research he did investigating volcanic eruptions and active volcanoes.

While working toward his master's degree, Gerst also developed new techniques that could help scientistsbetter predict when volcanoes might erupt, according to ESA.

Mount Etna was actually the first erupting volcano Gerst climbed, according to a Twitter post sent out in July.

Mount Etna is the largest volcano in Europe, standing at 10,900 feet (3,328 meters) high.

It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, but it hasn't had a major eruption since 1992.

The active volcano is almost always discharging gas, ash or lava.

This isn't the first time Mount Etna's active phase has been seen from space. NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg caught sight of the volcano from her post aboard the international Space Station in October 2013.

That same year, Canadian astronaut Chris Hatfield also snapped an amazing image of the active volcano's ash floating through clouds and out to sea.

Both Gerst and Wiseman are about halfway through with their first spaceflight. They launched to the space station in May and are expected to return to Earth in November.

Hello Kitty Is in Space and Wants Your Messages

Hello Kitty in Space: Japan's iconic mouthless cat is riding aboard the small satellite Hodoyoshi 3 and will beam messages from space as part of a 40th anniversary celebration by Sanrio Co., Ltd.

Credit: Sanrio Co., Ltd.

Hello Kitty, Japan's lovable feline toy, is now a cat-stronaut.

Not only is the intrepid kitty orbiting the Earth in a small satellite, but she's ready to beam messages from space for fans.

Images from Sanrio Co., Ltd., the company responsible for the cute pop culture cat, show Hello Kitty in space clutching a toy while stunning views of Earth fill a small window in the background.

The Earth views are real, with Sanrio launching Hello Kitty as a passenger on the small nanosatellite Hodoyoshi 3 in June.

A digital display sits above the window to show messages from Earth.

"Hello Kitty is standing by to deliver your messages from space!" reads a message on Sanrio's space Hello Kitty website.


Sanrio posted a YouTube video of Hello Kitty in space to launch the message campaign. The mission is part of Sanrio's 40th anniversary celebration for the toy this year.

Sanrio representatives announced Hello Kitty's space mission on Tuesday (Aug. 12) and began taking submissions for "thank you" messages to a person's family or friends to be presented by Hello Kitty in space.

The messages can be 180 characters long and in Japanese or English, but only 10 messages will make it to space.

A selection committee will review the submissions and make a final decision on which messages have the right stuff.

For the project, Sanrio company sent a 1.6-inch (4 centimeters) Hello Kitty aboard the Hodoyoshi 3, one of two satellites (Hodoyoshi 4 was the other) built by the University of Tokyo's Nanosatellite Center.

The figure is riding in a compartment about 28 inches tall (70 cm), and about 20 inches wide and deep, according to a Sanrio statement.

Hodoyoshi 3 launched from Russia on June 19 alongside 36 other satellites. The spacecraft's primary mission is to test space technology and snap high-resolution photos of Earth from space.

Hello Kitty in Space
Sanrio's Hello Kitty in Space mission isn't the first time the mouthless Japanese cat has ventured toward space.


In 2013, seventh grader Lauren Rojas of Antioch, California launched a Hello Kitty doll into Earth's stratosphere as part of a science project at Cornerstone Christian School.

Credit: Melody Green via YouTube

According to a Reuters report, the Hodoyoshi 3 satellite is about the size of a trash can and is part of a larger $40 million project by Japan's education and science ministry to promote interest in science and engineering.

Applications for Hello Kitty's space missions are being accepted through Aug. 25, and submissions can be sent in by people outside of Japan, according to Sanrio representatives.

The messages will be transmitted from space between Aug. 26 and Sept. 8, and featured on the Hello Kitty 40th anniversary website, according to Sanrio representatives.