Neil Armstrong's wife finds priceless bag of missing space equipment

The ‘McDivitt purse’ and its contents had been lost for four decades.

Credit: Getty

The bag full of power cables and utility clamps may not have looked very interesting when Carol Armstrong found them stuffed in a closet in her Ohio home.

Yet the items, which had lain hidden for more than four decades, were actually priceless mementos from the most famous space mission of all, during which her husband became the first person to walk on the Moon.

The so-called “McDivitt purse” contained objects carried in the Eagle lunar module during the historic Apollo 11 mission, and included the camera that filmed Neil Armstrong’s descent on to the Moon’s surface on 20 July 1969.

Neil Armstrong’s McDivitt purse, stowed in the lunar module during Apollo 11. 

The white cloth bag was returned to Earth, despite being scheduled to remain on the moon, and was stashed in Armstrong’s closet until his death in 2012.

The objects, which were supposed to be left on the Moon so as to not add extra weight to their capsule on its launch off the lunar surface, will go on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum alongside other artefacts from the mission. Experts said they were “of priceless historical value”.

Mounted in the right-hand window of the lunar module Eagle, this Data Acquisition Camera filmed the first landing on the moon. 

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin later repositioned it to film their work on the lunar surface.

Allan Needell, curator in the space history department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, said: “Seeing such things with one’s own eyes helps us to appreciate that these accomplishments are not just books or movies but involve real people and real things, and that they involved an extraordinary amount of detailed engineering and planning”.

Ms Armstrong found the bag after her husband’s death in 2012 and emailed the curators saying it contained “assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft”.

Mr Needell said: “For a curator of a collection of space artefacts, it is hard to imagine anything more exciting.”

A smiling Neil Armstrong in the Apollo 11's Lunar Module cabin after the EVA.

Credit: NASA

Among the 18 objects were cables, netting, mirrors and the waist tether Armstrong used.

There was also the 16mm camera which filmed the landing on the moon and the planting of the US flag, alongside a bracket for the camera, a 10mm lens and a lens shade.

They were put in the “purse”, named after Apollo 9 commander Jim McDivitt, who first suggested taking a spare bag to temporarily carry items, as there was no time to return them to storage.

A picture still survives of the bag in Buzz Aldrin’s hands in 1969.

Mr Needell said: “As far as we know, Neil has never discussed the existence of these items and no one else has seen them in the 45 years since he returned from the moon.”

Armstrong had not mentioned the items to his biographer James Hansen.

Two artifacts from the bag, the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that was mounted in the window of the lunar module Eagle to capture the historic landing and a waist tether that Armstrong used to support his feet while briefly resting on the moon, are currently on display at the museum in a recently opened exhibition.

For more detailed information about the purse and its contents, head over to NASA.

Milky Way's missing satellite galaxies: Interactive dark matter

The simulated distribution of DM in a Milky Way-like galaxies for standard, non-interacting dark matter (top left), warm dark matter (top right) and the new dark matter model that interacts with the photon background (bottom) are shown. 

Smaller structures are erased up to the point where, in the most extreme model (bottom right), the galaxy is completely sterilized. 

Credit: Credit: Durham University

Scientists believe they have found a way to explain why there are not as many galaxies orbiting the Milky Way as expected.

Computer simulations of the formation of our galaxy suggest that there should be many more, smaller galaxies around the Milky Way than are observed through telescopes.

This has thrown doubt on the generally accepted theory of cold dark matter, a substance that scientists predict should allow for more galaxy formation around the Milky Way than is seen.

Now cosmologists and particle physicists at the Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) and the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP), at Durham University, working with colleagues at LAPTh College & University in France, think they have found a potential solution to the problem.

Writing in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), the scientists suggest that dark matter particles, as well as feeling the force of gravity, could have interacted with photons and neutrinos in the young Universe, causing the dark matter to scatter.

Scientists think clumps of dark matter, or halos, that emerged from the early Universe, trapped the intergalactic gas needed to form stars and galaxies.

Scattering the dark matter particles wipes out the structures that can trap gas, stopping more galaxies from forming around the Milky Way and reducing the number that should exist.

Two models of the dark matter distribution in the halo of a galaxy like the Milky Way, separated by the white line are shown. 

The colours represent the density of dark matter, with red indicating high-density and blue indicating low-density. 

On the left is a simulation of how non-interacting cold dark matter produces an abundance of smaller satellite galaxies. 

On the right the simulation shows the situation when the interaction of dark matter with other particles reduces the number of satellite galaxies we expect to observe around the Milky Way. 

Credit: Durham University

Lead author Dr Celine Boehm, in the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, at, Durham University, said: "We don't know how strong these interactions should be, so this is where our simulations come in.

"By tuning the strength of the scattering of particles, we change the number of small galaxies, which lets us learn more about the physics of dark matter and how it might interact with other particles in the Universe.

"This is an example of how a cosmological measurement, in this case the number of galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, is affected by the microscopic scales of particle physics."

There are several theories about why there are not more galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, which include the idea that heat from the Universe's first stars sterilised the gas needed to form stars.

The researchers say their current findings offer an alternative theory and could provide a novel technique to probe interactions between other particles and cold dark matter.

Co-author Professor Carlton Baugh, in the Institute for Computational Cosmology, at Durham University, said: "Astronomers have long since reached the conclusion that most of the matter in the Universe consists of elementary particles known as dark matter.

"This model can explain how most of the Universe looks, except in our own backyard where it fails miserably.

"The model predicts that there should be many more small satellite galaxies around our Milky Way than we can observe.

"However, by using computer simulations to allow the dark matter to become a little more interactive with the rest of the material in the Universe, such as photons, we can give our cosmic neighbourhood a makeover and we see a remarkable reduction in the number of galaxies around us than originally thought."

The calculations were carried out using the COSMA supercomputer at Durham University, which is part of the UK-wide DiRAC super-computing framework.

More information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org/look… 0.1093/mnrasl/slu115

Review says NASA Curiosity rover missing 'scientific focus and detail'

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this self-portrait, composed of more than 50 images using its robotic arm-mounted MAHLI camera, on Feb. 3, 2013. 

The image shows Curiosity at the John Klein drill site. A drill hole is visible at bottom left. 

Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Marco Di Lorenzo / Ken Kremer

NASA's planetary senior review panel harshly criticised the scientific return of the Curiosity rover in a report released yesterday (Sept. 3), saying the mission lacks focus and the team is taking actions that show they think the $2.5-billion mission is "too big to fail."

While the review did recommend the mission receive more funding, along with the other six NASA extended planetary missions being scrutinised, members recommended making several changes to the mission.

One of them would be reducing the distance that Curiosity drives in favor of doing more detailed investigations when it stops.

The role of the senior review, which is held every two years, is to help NASA decide what money should be allocated to its extended missions.

This is important, because the agency (as with many other departments) has limited funds and tries to seek a balance between spending money on new missions and keeping older ones going strong.

Engineering acumen means that many missions are now operating well past their expiry dates, such as the Cassini orbiter at Saturn and the Opportunity rover on Mars.

In examining the seven missions being reviewed, the panel did recommend keeping funding for all, but said that 4/7 are facing significant problems.

In the case of Curiosity, the panel called out principal investigator John Grotzinger for not showing up in person on two occasions, preferring instead to interact by phone.

The review also said there is a "lack of science" in its extended mission proposal with regard to "scientific questions to be answered, testable hypotheses, and proposed measurements and assessment of uncertainties and limitations."

Opportunity rover’s 1st mountain climbing goal is dead ahead in this up close view of Solander Point at Endeavour Crater. 

Opportunity has ascended the mountain looking for clues indicative of a Martian habitable environment. 

This navcam panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 3385 (Aug 2, 2013). 

Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer

Other concerns were the small number of samples over the prime and extended missions (13, a "poor science return"), and a lack of clarity on how the ChemCam and Mastcam instruments will play into the extended mission.

Additionally, the panel expressed concern that NASA would cut short its observations of clays (which could help answer questions of habitability) in favor of heading to Mount Sharp, the mission's ultimate science destination.

"In summary, the Curiosity … proposal lacked scientific focus and detail," the panel concluded, adding in its general recommendations for the reviews that principal investigators must be present to avoid confusion while answering questions.

The other missions facing concern from the panel included the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Express and Mars Odyssey.

The Universe Is Missing Some Light

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope and computer simulations have revealed that the universe has much less ultraviolet light than previously thought.

Credit: Ben Oppenheimer and Juna Kollmeier

An extraordinary amount of ultraviolet light appears to be missing from the universe, scientists have found.

One potential source of this missing light might be the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the mass in the cosmos but a simpler explanation could be that ultra violet light escapes from galaxies more easily than is currently thought, according to the new research.

This puzzle begins with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, which makes up about 75 percent of known matter. High-energy ultraviolet light can convert electrically neutral hydrogen atoms into electrically charged ions.

The two known sources for such ionizing rays are hot young stars and quasars, which are supermassive black holes more than a million times the mass of the sun that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart stars and gobble matter.

Astronomers previously found that ionizing rays from hot young stars are nearly always absorbed by gas in their home galaxies. As such, they virtually never escape to affect intergalactic hydrogen.

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph

However, when scientists performed supercomputer simulations of the amount of intergalactic hydrogen that should exist and compared their results with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, they found the amount of light from known quasars is five times lower than what is needed to explain the amount of electrically neutral intergalactic hydrogen observed.

"It's as if you're in a big, brightly-lit room, but you look around and see only a few 40-watt lightbulbs," lead study author Juna Kollmeier, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

"Where is all that light coming from? It's missing."

The researchers are calling this giant deficit of ultraviolet light "the photon underproduction crisis."

"In modern astrophysics, you very rarely find large mismatches like the one we are talking about here," Kollmeier told reporters.

"When you see one, you know that there is an opportunity to learn something new about the universe, and that's amazing."

"The great thing about a 400 percent discrepancy is that you know something is really wrong," study co-author David Weinberg at Ohio State University said in a statement.

"We still don't know for sure what it is, but at least one thing we thought we knew about the present day universe isn't true."

Strangely, this missing light only appears in the nearby, relatively well-studied cosmos.

When telescopes focus on light from galaxies billions of light years away, and therefore from billions of years in the past, no problem is seen.

In other words, the amount of ultraviolet light in the early universe makes sense, but the amount of ultraviolet light in the nearby universe does not.

"The authors have performed a careful and thorough analysis of the problem," said theoretical astrophysicist Abraham Loeb, chairman of the astronomy department at Harvard University, who did not take part in this research.

The most exciting possibility these findings raise is that the missing photons are coming from some exotic new source, not galaxies or quasars at all, Kollmeier said.

For example, dark matter, the invisible and intangible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe, might be capable of decay and generating this extra light.

"You know it's a crisis when you start seriously talking about decaying dark matter," study co-author Neal Katz at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst said in a statement.

Missing Malaysian jet satellite data released

The Malaysian government has released 47 pages of raw satellite data used to conclude that the missing Malaysia Airlines jet crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysian acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein made the comments about the data from satellite company Inmarsat as he toured a newly constructed terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Families of the passengers on board the plane, which disappeared in March over Southeast Asia while carrying 239 people, have been demanding that the raw data be made public.

The fate of the plane and those on board has become one of the great aviation mysteries of modern times.



Inmarsat, the company whose satellites communicated with the missing plane in its last hours, had said it didn't have the authority to release the data, but last week, Inmarsat and Malaysian authorities said they were trying to make the raw data accessible.

"In line with our commitment towards greater transparency, all parties are working for the release of the data communication logs and the technical description of the analysis for public consumption," Inmarsat and the Malaysian aviation officials said in a joint statement.

Publication of the raw satellite data could allow for independent analysis of what happened on March 8, the day the Boeing 777 veered sharply off its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and dropped off radar screens.

Analysts have said the data could help discount some theories about what happened to the jetliner, and potentially fuel new ones.

Malaysia and Australia, the two countries at the forefront of the search, have said that an analysis by international experts of all the available information -- including the satellite data -- leads them to conclude that the plane ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.

But months of searching above and below the surface of the ocean has so far failed to find any physical trace of the missing passenger jet.

The single Inmarsat satellite that detected the plane’s pings measured the frequency of only eight pings in total. From that, engineers plotted the plane’s likely course across the Indian Ocean using a combination of the Doppler effect to calculate the plane’s velocity with respect to the satellite and trigonometry to then map the plane’s flight path and ultimately determine where it likely crashed after emptying its fuel tanks.

The ten Inmarsat satellites orbiting Earth were built as part of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) and have never before been used for this type of mission, said Inmarsat Senior Vice President, Chris McLaughlin.

NASA Maven: Looking for Mars' missing atmosphere - Video

NASA's MAVEN satellite will measure the process affecting the remaining atmosphere on Mars. 

These include incoming Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs), escape on a molecule-by-molecule basis (Jeans Escape), the effect of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and extreme solar ultraviolent radiation (EUVs). 

Credit: The Lunar and Planetary Institute and LASP

Ninety kilometers over our heads, the sky is glowing. During the day, the Sun turns the top of our sky into a sea of electrons.

They flow over one another without friction, creating plasma. Radio waves that hit these electrons bounce back to Earth, allowing transmissions to literally turns corners and circle the globe.

The free electron layer conducts current and responds to magnetic fields. As a result, during solar storms this part of the atmosphere lights up, creating undulating auroras.

While liberated, the electrons devise visual spectacles and technical challenges, but the atoms they leave behind must content themselves with being ions.

For this reason, this part of our atmosphere is known as the ionosphere. It's the largest part of our atmosphere, and does a commensurately big job.

It absorbs x-rays that would otherwise destroy life on Earth. If it weren't for our atmosphere, Earth might look a good deal more like Mars.


Why Mars doesn't look more like Earth is the subject of ongoing study. The loss of most of the atmosphere is believed to have been a major factor in Mars turning away from the path of water, warmth and habitability.

Uncovering where that atmosphere went, when and why is the mission of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) satellite.

Scheduled to arrive in September, MAVEN carries with it two instruments designed to probe the remaining ionosphere for clues about the past four billion years, and what will happen going forward.

Our first direct glimpse at ions in the upper atmosphere will be courtesy of the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS). Mass spectrometers like NGIMS are ubiquitous in the world of physical science.

They function like the ionosphere itself: by bombarding specimens with electrons and creating ions. This process allows mass spectrometers to divine the contents of a liquid, solid or gas.

Small and durable, as well as extremely useful, mass spectrometers have been placed on dozens of satellites and rovers, including NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

To find Mars' missing atmosphere, NGIMS will search for certain elements and molecules in the Martian ionosphere: helium, argon, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide.

It will note how often each occurs in its neutral and ionized states over 170 miles of sky. It will also count the abundance of heavy and light versions of atoms, also known as isotopes.

Counting isotopes may hold the key to atmospheric loss. The Earth, the Sun and Jupiter have balanced amounts of heavy and light argon isotopes.

These bodies have also retained their atmospheres over time. Mars has too much heavy argon and almost no atmosphere. The heavy argon left behind likely represents the original volume of the atmosphere; light argon reflects the lost air.

"The lighter atom in an isotope pair is able to leave the upper atmosphere just a bit faster than the heavier atom," said NGIMS principle investigator Paul Mahaffey.

"Our direct measurement of the vertical distribution of these isotope pairs will let us understand the physics of escape better and ultimately understand how much of the atmosphere has been lost in the past several billions of years."

22kg IUVS instrument. Credit: LASP, Colorado

As NGIMS tries to catch light argon in the act of leaving the planet, it will also watch space weather and dust storms change the composition of the atmosphere: mixing up molecules near the bottom of the ionosphere and sending others on one-way trips into deep space.

While NGIMS picks out particles one by one, the UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) will be making sweeping, planetary-wide maps.

"IUVS and NGIMS are backups for each other," said IUVS Principle investigator Nick Schneider, "They both measure the composition & structure of the atmosphere.

Nick Schneider

And we're complementary in measuring different isotopes. IUVS measures the [ratio of heavy to light hydrogen] and NGIMS measures isotopes of heavier elements."

As the most powerful ultraviolent spectrograph to ever be sent to another planet, IUVS is exquisitely sensitive to composition and temperature variations of entire upper atmosphere.

The temperature and composition of Mars' atmosphere varies dramatically, not only by altitude, but also by orbit.

At perihelion, when Mars is closest to the Sun, it is 40 million miles closer than at aphelion, when it is farthest away.

The difference in distance means that much more of the Sun's energy will be reaching Mars during certain times of year. As a result, we expect ultraviolet readings at perihelion and aphelion to vary widely.

"But we anticipate seeing changes from other causes too: solar storms like flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's), and dust storms on Mars too," said Schneider.

"These each have the potential to control atmospheric escape on Mars, so we'll be watching them all."

NGIMS instrument, just prior to integration with into the MAVEN spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Goddard

Algorithm finds missing phytoplankton in Southern Ocean

This still image is showing the concentrations of phytoplankton observed by satellites in the Southern Ocean. Credit: Robert Johnson 

NASA satellites may have missed more than 50% of the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, making it far more difficult to estimate the carbon capture potential of this vast area of sea.

But now, new research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Three improved satellite chlorophyll algorithms for the Southern Ocean, has led to the development of an algorithm that produces substantially more accurate estimates of Southern Ocean phytoplankton populations.

That research from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) was led by PhD student Rob Johnson and Associate Prof Peter Strutton

"This new algorithm allows us to detect changes in plankton numbers that have previously gone unnoticed," said Johnson.

"This better understanding of the phytoplankton population will, in turn, allow us to gain a much more accurate idea of how much carbon this ocean can take up."

Phytoplankton
The importance of phytoplankton and their role in our planetary ecosystem cannot be underestimated.

They form the base of the marine food chain, produce half the oxygen on Earth and are partly responsible for the ocean uptake of at least a third of total human induced CO2 emissions.

So it was important to understand why existing ocean colour satellites systematically underestimated the chlorophyll concentration (a proxy for phytoplankton biomass) of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.

To get the observations needed to make valid comparisons and develop the algorithm, the researchers used more than 1000 Southern Ocean phytoplankton samples collected over 10 years and compared these to satellite measurements.

Once this observational data was collected, the new algorithm was used to process satellite data and make comparisons.

It quickly became clear that the algorithm produced a much closer estimate of phytoplankton numbers than past satellite measurements.

Near Earth Object: Asteroid to miss Earth by 17,200 Miles

A wandering asteroid will zoom within close proximity of Earth next week, in what NASA said Thursday is the closest flyby ever predicted for an object this large.

The 2012 DA 14, discovered by chance by astronomers after passing nearby last February, will be just around 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) above Earth's surface when it speeds by, NASA reports.

That's outside the Earth's atmosphere, but closer than the orbit of most weather and communications satellites.

However, despite the close shave, NASA said there was nothing to fear.

"This asteroid's orbit is so well known that we can say with confidence that even considering it's orbital uncertainties, it can pass no closer than 17,100 miles from the Earth's surface. So no Earth impact is possible," said Donald Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"At the same time, it will pass 5,000 miles inside the ring" of satellites, Yeomans told reporters, saying the asteroid's path puts it right in the "sweet spot" to avoid having any damaging impact.

The asteroid is predicted to come closest to Earth on February 15, at around 1924 GMT, plus or minus a minute or two, and will pass over the Indian Ocean off Sumatra.

It will be visible, with a little help from a telescope, in eastern Europe, Australia and Asia, astronomers said.

"What you would see through a small telescope would be something like a star, a small point of light... that moved against a background of stars," said Tim Spahr, of the Harvard-Smithsonian's Minor Planet Center.

The asteroid measures about 150 feet (45 meters) in diameter. That makes it relatively small by celestial standards.

How many Apollo Goodwill Moon Rocks are missing?

Genesis Rock: Missing presumed Lost

The Apollo program, for all its inspirational accomplishments and technical achievements, was a servant of two masters.

The first was a pure scientific enterprise, to learn as much as possible about Earth’s only natural satellite and to push the boundaries of human spaceflight.

The second was political, with Apollo acting as the most compelling symbol of American technical prowess, industry, courage, and will.

This dichotomy is embodied by the Goodwill Moon Rocks program.

A case can be made that no field of study benefitted more from Apollo than the science of geology. Of the approximately 430 kilograms of known lunar materials on Earth, Apollo astronauts obtained roughly 382 kg.

The vast majority of those samples have been used to further our understanding of planetary formation, geochemistry, and the physical history of our solar system.

However, not all of those moon rocks were recovered in the name of science.

Specific lunar samples from Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 were earmarked as political souvenirs.

Precisely 270 prepared lunar rock samples were distributed as part of the Goodwill Moon Rocks program, most of them going to the 50 U.S. states and a number of foreign countries as tokens of appreciation for support of Apollo, NASA, and U.S. interests.

The recipients were charged with keeping custody of perhaps the rarest and most valuable artifacts ever distributed for diplomatic purposes.

Four decades later, no one can account for a significant number of those 270 valuable, and nigh-irreplaceable moon rocks.

ESA XMM Newton and NASA Chandra: Large chunk of missing universe found

Large chunk of missing universe found COSMOS magazine


Scientists using two X-ray telescopes have found evidence for the 'missing matter' in the nearby universe.

This matter is made up of hot diffuse gas, which is known as WHIM (warm-hot intergalactic medium).

To get this result, researchers analyzed X-ray light from a distant quasar that passed through a 'wall' of galaxies about 400 million light-years away.

A large chunk of missing matter - theorised but never before measured - has been discovered as a vast smear of extremely hot intergalactic gas 400 million light-years away.


For the predominant theories about the formation and evolution of the universe to hold true, a certain amount of matter should be present; but large amounts of it have long remained elusive.

Now an international team of astronomers have found most of the missing matter, pinpointing its location using two different X-ray telescopes.

Clues to how galaxies formed
"We didn't just find a 'lost & found' item in the cosmic baryon budget," said Taotao Fang of the University of California at Irvine and lead author of the paper in The Astrophysical Journal, "our findings provide important clues to the question of how galaxies formed and evolved.

"The missing matter we found are the leftovers from the early galaxy formation process," said Fang.

The missing matter has long been hypothesised, and some of it has even been spotted before; but previous observations did not uncover the full extent of this massive gas cloud.
Higher temperatures
"What [previous studies] found is the missing matter at lower temperatures ... about 10-20% of the total missing matter," said Fang. "What we found are missing matter at higher temperatures and account for the majority 80 to 90% of the missing matter."
By using two X-ray telescopes, instead of one visible light telescope as in previous studies, the exact location of the missing matter could be calculated and the results were more robust.
The X-ray telescopes that captured the images identifying the location of the missing matter are housed on NASA's Chandra and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton - which has a command centre in Perth, Australia. Both orbital observatories that have been in space since 1999.

The Vanishing Head Illusion

Blind spots are a quirk of the structure of the eye – use yours to "decapitate" psychologist Richard Wiseman