NASA MAVEN Mars Probe Beams Home First Results

MAVEN spacecraft orbits Mars in this artist's illustration. Image released Oct. 14, 2014. 

Credit: University of Colorado/NASA

NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter has been busy since it arrived at the Red Planet late last month.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission (MAVEN) is designed to probe Mars' thin atmosphere, to help scientists understand what caused the planet to change from a warm, wet world long ago to the cold and dry one it is today. 

The spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars on Sept. 21, and it has already beamed back some amazing new data about Mars' upper atmosphere, researchers said.

In MAVEN's first few weeks of instrument testing at the Red Planet, scientists have already created some of the most complete maps of atomic hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and ozone in the Martian atmosphere ever made. 

One of MAVEN's instruments even collected data as energetic particles blasted out by a massive solar eruption made it to Mars. 


MAVEN is still in the "commissioning phase" of its mission, meaning that the probe hasn't started collecting science full-time. 

The new data were gathered as the spacecraft's ground controllers began turning on its instruments after it arrived at Mars.

This graph shows atomic hydrogen scattering ultraviolet sunlight in the upper atmosphere of Mars, with data obtained by MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph. 

Credit: University of Colorado, NASA


Scientists working with MAVEN weren't able to see exactly how the solar energetic particles (SEPs) affected Mars' atmosphere on Sept. 29 because the instruments necessary for that kind of observation weren't functioning in tandem at that time. 

MAVEN researchers expect, however, that the spacecraft's instruments will be ready to observe the atmosphere during the next Mars-directed solar event.

"After traveling through interplanetary space, these energetic particles of mostly protons deposit their energy in the upper atmosphere of Mars," SEP instrument lead Davin Larson, of the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, said in a statement. 

"An SEP event like this typically occurs every couple weeks. Once all the instruments are turned on, we expect to also be able to track the response of the upper atmosphere to them."

This image shows atomic carbon scattering ultraviolet sunlight in the upper atmosphere of Mars, as observed by MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph. A red circle indicates Mars. Sunlight illuminates the planet from the right.

Credit: University of Colorado; NASA

This image shows atomic oxygen scattering ultraviolet sunlight in the upper atmosphere of Mars, as observed by MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph. 

Most oxygen appears trapped near the planet, marked by the red circle.

Credit: University of Colorado; NASA

Most Water in Lunar Soil generated by Solar Wind

This is a composite image of the lunar nearside taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in June 2009, note the presence of dark areas of maria on this side of the moon. Credit: NASA

A pair of researchers with the Sorbonne Universités, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, has determined that most of the water in the soil on the surface of the moon was formed due to protons in the solar wind colliding with oxygen in lunar dust, rather than from comet or meteorite impacts.

In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Alice Stephant and François Robert describe their study and the results they found.

When NASA astronauts brought back soil and rock samples from the moon, it was assumed by most in the scientific community that everything they found was dry, that there was no water in any of it.

Subsequent analysis using newer techniques has revealed that not only is there water beneath the surface in some places, but the dust on the surface also has small amounts as well.

Once this became known, most scientists assumed the water got there due to comet or meteorite impacts, in this new effort, the research pair suggests that conventional thinking is wrong once again and that the water, at least in the surface dust, comes about due to the impact of solar wind on tiny dust particles.

In studying tiny grains of lunar soil samples, the researchers found that the reduction of oxygen from silicates in the soil by protons from the solar wind was almost certainly the means by which the water was generated.

They came to that conclusion through determining the lithium isotope ratio in the samples (plagioclase rock found on the surface of the moon) which gave the isotope ratio for the hydrogen, from that they were able to calculate the deuterium-hydrogen ratio which they compared to the amount of water actually in the granule sample.

They found that on average, the granules contained just 15 percent water from somewhere else (presumably comets or meteorites) leaving the rest to have been formed due to the solar wind interaction. They note also that for some samples, all of the water was due to solar wind interaction.

The duo is quick to point out that their conclusions only relate to water found on the surface of the moon, where the water below the surface came from is still up for conjecture.

More information: "The negligible chondritic contribution in the lunar soils water" - Alice Stephant, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1408118111

CASTRO Simulations reveal an unusual death for ancient stars

This image is a slice through the interior of a supermassive star of 55,500 solar masses along the axis of symmetry. 

It shows the inner helium core in which nuclear burning is converting helium to oxygen, powering various fluid instabilities (swirling lines). 

This "snapshot" from a CASTRO simulation shows one moment a day after the onset of the explosion, when the radius of the outer circle would be slightly larger than that of the orbit of the Earth around the sun. 

Visualizations were done in VisIT. 

Credit: Ken Chen, University of California at Santa Cruz

Certain primordial stars, those 55,000 and 56,000 times the mass of our Sun, or solar masses, may have died unusually.

In death, these objects, among the Universe's first-generation of stars, would have exploded as supernovae and burned completely, leaving no remnant black hole behind.

Astrophysicists at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the University of Minnesota came to this conclusion after running a number of supercomputer simulations at the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota.

They relied extensively on CASTRO, a compressible astrophysics code developed at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Computational Research Division (CRD).

Their findings were recently published in Astrophysical Journal (ApJ).

First-generation stars are especially interesting because they produced the first heavy elements, or chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium.

In death, they sent their chemical creations into outer space, paving the way for subsequent generations of stars, solar systems and galaxies.

With a greater understanding of how these first stars died, scientists hope to glean some insights about how the Universe, as we know it today, came to be.

"We found that there is a narrow window where supermassive stars could explode completely instead of becoming a supermassive black hole, no one has ever found this mechanism before," says Ke-Jung Chen, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSC and lead author of the ApJ paper.

"Without NERSC resources, it would have taken us a lot longer to reach this result."

"From a user perspective, the facility is run very efficiently and it is an extremely convenient place to do science."

More information: Astrophysical Journal, iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/790/2/162

NASA Plans to test making rocket fuel ingredient on Mars

NASA plans to make oxygen, a key ingredient of rocket fuel, on Mars early next decade.

Space agency officials Thursday unveiled seven instruments they plan to put on a Martian rover that would launch in 2020, including two devices aimed at bigger Mars missions in the future.

The $1.9 billion rover will include an experiment that will turn carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen.

It could then be used to make rocket fuel and for future astronauts to breathe, said NASA associate administrator for exploration Bill Gerstenmaier.

Taking fuel to Mars for return flights is heavy and expensive.

The device, named MOXIE, works like an engine but in reverse, said Michael Hecht, the scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is running the test project.

It will make about three-quarters of an ounce of oxygen an hour.

If it works, then a larger scale device, 100 times bigger than MOXIE, would be launched two years before astronauts go, currently slated for some time in the 2030s. NASA first plans to send astronauts to an asteroid.

The bigger device would start making enough oxygen for the return trip before astronauts ever launch to Mars, Hecht said.

The other part of rocket fuel, the propellant, can be made from light hydrogen that is brought from Earth or other chemicals mined from Martian dirt or atmosphere.

John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said the new rover, a clone of the chassis of the current Curiosity machine, "will lead to getting humans to Mars in the future."

Mars on average is about 140 million miles from Earth and opportunities to send spaceships to there come only every 26 months. The trip to Mars takes about 9 months, but can be as short as half a year.

The rover is scheduled to land on Mars in 2021.

NASA also plans to collect interesting rocks, put them in sealed vials for future flights to pick them up and return them to Earth for detailed study.

This would likely be another robotic mission or it could just wait for astronauts. NASA hasn't yet figured out how the rover will store the rocks.

Breathing Silk leaf maker claims material will aid space journeys - Video

Julian Melchiorri, a graduate of the Royal College of Art has developed a synthetic biological leaf.

Potential applications range from the material being used on buildings' facades, or even for support on space journeys for oxygen.

Julian Melchiorri said Silk Leaf, a man-made, biological leaf involves a material extracted directly from the fibers of silk.

Julian Melchiorri

Melchiorri said the synthetic biological leaf he developed, which absorbs water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen, is like a real leaf, and could enable long-distance space travel, according to a report in Dezeen.

This material, he said, has an amazing property.

Choloroplast

"I extracted choloroplasts from plant cells, and placed them inside this silk material."

The material work and breathes as a leaf does. "It's very light…low energy-consuming." He also said, "My idea was to use the efficiency of nature in a man-made environment."

The synthetic leaf could, among other applications, be used to make long-distance space travel that much more imaginable.

The Dezeen report includes pictures of the leaf transformed into lighting and building applications.

He said he thought about applications on smaller and larger scales.

He imagined its being used as a free surface in interior design, or for outdoor applications.

"So facades, ventilation programs…You can soak up air from outdoors, pass it by way of these biological filters and then carry oxygenated air inside."

Artist Impression of Silk Leaf City

He also noted the leaf material may be applicable to space travel.

"NASA is researching different ways to produce oxygen for long-distance space journeys to let us live in space," he said.

"This material could allow us to explore space much further than we can now."

A CNET article called it "an oxygen factory for space travel."

Writing in CNET, Eric Mack brought the significance of the NASA idea to light in asking, "what if we could take those biological oxygen factories into space with us, but without all the land, sun, water, soil, and gravity that forests tend to require?"

The Silk Leaf project was developed by Melchiorri as part of the Royal College of Art's Innovation Design Engineering course in collaboration with Tufts University silk lab.

ESA ATV-5, Georges Lemaître, Fully Loaded and Hatch Closed

ESA’s fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Georges Lemaître, is now scheduled for launch to the International Space Station at 23:44 GMT on 29 July (01:44 CEST 30 July) on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ATV-5 will deliver more than six tonnes of cargo to the Station, again breaking the record for the heaviest spacecraft launched on Ariane.

Everything has been loaded and the ferry is now sealed until it reaches the orbital outpost.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, currently on board the ISS, will be the first to open the hatch of ATV-5, Georges Lemaître, in space when he takes responsibility for the cargo as ‘loadmaster’.

Alexander will manage the unloading of 6.6 tonnes of experiments, spare parts, clothing, food, fuel, air, oxygen and water for the six astronauts living in the 'weightless' (Zero Gravity) laboratory.

ATV-5, Georges Lemaître showing the closed hatch after completion of cargo loading.

Russia reports successful launch of new Angara rocket

Russia successfully test-launched its new Angara rocket on Wednesday after a planned maiden flight overseen by President Vladimir Putin had to be aborted last month.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that the next-generation Angara rocket was launched from Plesetsk at 1200 GMT, Russian news agencies reported, citing a defence ministry spokesman.

Twenty-one minutes after the launch, the rocket reached its planned target in the Far Eastern region of Kamchatka 5,700 kilometres (3,540 miles) away from the launch pad, the spokesman said.

"Yes to Angara!" deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin exclaimed on Twitter.

The Angara was initially scheduled to blast off from Plesetsk late last month when officials reported a sudden automatic launch abort in an embarrassing glitch broadcast live on national television.

Designed to succeed Soviet-era launchers, Angara is the first rocket to have been completely built after the collapse of the Soviet Union and it is designed to reduce Russia's reliance on other former USSR countries.

Officials say it is more environmentally friendly than its predecessors because it is fuelled by oxygen and kerosene rather than hugely toxic heptyl.

ISS Air Revittilisation System: Astronauts will breathe easier

ISS Air Revittilisation System rack represents the state of the art in spacecraft oxygen recovery technology. 

Credit: NASA

For NASA's long-duration human spaceflight missions, travelers will need to recycle as much breathable oxygen in their spacecraft environments, as possible.

To turn that need into a reality, NASA is seeking proposals for lightweight, safe, efficient and reliable systems for regenerating oxygen on future human exploration missions.

The first of two phases of this new NASA solicitation will consist of a detailed design, development, fabrication, and testing of an advanced oxygen recovery technology.

Under a two year Phase II contract, the proposer then will develop a prototype hardware system, capable of an oxygen recovery rate of at least 75 percent.

"Lengthy spaceflight missions in Earth's orbit and beyond must have life support systems that are more self-sufficient and reliable," said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"The spacecraft life support system technologies for this proposal must significantly improve the rate of oxygen recovery while achieving high degrees reliability."

"NASA and its partners (ESA) will need to develop new technologies to 'close' the atmosphere revitalisation loop."

In addition to improving the oxygen recovery rate, the new systems must reduce mass required or take up less space and reduce power consumption.

NASA's goal is to award technology development efforts that will increase the oxygen recovery rate to at least 75 percent without adversely impacting other design requirements.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spectrometer detects helium in Moon's atmosphere

The Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) aboard LRO (shown here in a pre-flight photo) uses a novel method to peer into the perpetual darkness of the moon's so-called permanently shadowed regions.

LAMP "sees" the lunar surface using the ultraviolet light from nearby space and stars, which bathes all bodies in space in a soft glow of ultraviolet light. (Credit: NASA Goddard/Debbie McCallum)

Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 39, doi:10.1029/2012GL051797 , 2012.

Scientists using the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have made the first spectroscopic observations of the noble gas helium in the tenuous atmosphere surrounding the Moon.

These remote-sensing observations complement in-situ measurements taken in 1972 by the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment (LACE) deployed by Apollo 17.

Although LAMP was designed to map the lunar surface, the team expanded its science investigation to examine the far ultraviolet emissions visible in the tenuous atmosphere above the lunar surface, detecting helium over a campaign spanning more than 50 orbits.

Because helium also resides in the interplanetary background, several techniques were applied to remove signal contributions from the background helium and determine the amount of helium native to the Moon.

Geophysical Research Letters published a paper on this research in 2012. "The question now becomes, does the helium originate from inside the Moon, for example, due to radioactive decay in rocks, or from an exterior source, such as the solar wind?" says Dr. Alan Stern, LAMP principal investigator and associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute.

With support from LRO's suite of instruments, LAMP has previously determined that hydrogen, mercury and other volatile substances are present in the permanently shaded regions (PSRs) of the moon.

It has also observed PSRs are darker at far-ultraviolet wavelengths and redder than nearby surfaces that receive sunlight.

These darker regions indicate "fluffy" soils, while the reddening is consistent with the presence of water frost.

In a related study led by Dr. Paul Feldman of Johns Hopkins University and published in Icarus, observations showed day-to-day variations in helium abundances, possibly varying with the solar wind, and also significantly decreasing when the Moon passed behind Earth out of sight from the solar wind.

"If we find the solar wind is responsible, that will teach us a lot about how the same process works in other airless bodies," says Stern.

 If spacecraft observations show no such correlation, radioactive decay or other internal lunar processes could be producing helium that diffuses from the interior or that releases during lunar quakes.

NASA Stennis Space Centre: J-2X Engine 10001 Returns to Test Stand

J-2X engine 10001 is returning back to the A-2 Test Stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center for its second round of tests. 

The developmental engine underwent an initial series of tests last year. 

Both the engine and test stand have been modified to begin simulated altitude testing in the coming months.

The J-2X engine is designed and built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

It is the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be developed in 40 years. 

The J-2X will provide upper-stage power for NASA's Space Launch System, a new heavy-lift vehicle capable of missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

Credit: NASA/SSC

NASA Cassini Saturn's Moon Dione: Oxygen Detected

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has detected the presence of oxygen ions around Saturn's icy moon Dione for the first time.

Nasa has reported that the oxygen ions present on Dione moon are quite sparse and showed that Dione has an extremely thin neutral atmosphere, while Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has a much denser atmosphere.

The study done by an international team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Saturn

Saturn's moon Dione was discovered in 1684 by astronomer Giovanni Cassini. It orbits Saturn at roughly the same distance as our own moon orbits Earth.

"The concentration of oxygen in Dione's atmosphere is roughly similar to what you would find in Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of about 300 miles," stated Robert Tokar, a Cassini team member based at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He added that the presence of oxygen ions in Dione is not enough to sustain life, but said that with similar observations of other Saturn and Jupiter's moons could divulge more details about their habitability.

Nasa launched Cassini spacecraft, named after Giovanni Cassini, in 1997 and sent it on the first leg of its journey to Saturn. Cassini detected the oxygen ions in Dione's when it flew by the moon two years back in 2010.

ESA prepares new technologies for future launchers

ESA and the DLR German Space Center fired a Texus rocket 263 km into space on 27 November to test a new way of handling propellants on Europe’s future rockets.

Texus 48 lifted off at 10:10 GMT (11:10 CET) from the Esrange Space Centre near Kiruna in northern Sweden on its 13-minute flight.

During the six minutes of weightlessness – mimicking the different stages of a full spaceflight – two new devices were tested for handling super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants and then recovered for analysis.

Building on over 30 years of Texus missions, flight 48 was the first to demonstrate a new technology for future launchers.

DLR procured the rocket for this flight, which was performed under ESA’s Cryogenic Upper Stage Technologies (CUST) project as part of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP).

ESA Portal - Europe prepares new technologies for future launchers

Improved upper stage
ESA is working on a restartable cryogenic upper stage to improve Europe’s launchers.

Liquids naturally float around in weightlessness but to ensure engine ignition after a long coast in low-gravity, propellant must be held ready at the tank’s outlet using ‘capillary’ forces – the same force that helps paper towels soak up water.

Although this has already been mastered for launchers and satellites that use storable liquids, higher-performance cryogenic fluids are more difficult to handle.

On Texus 48, liquid nitrogen represented the cryogenic propellants to ease cost and safety constraints, and simplify the thermal design.

“The launch of Texus 48 demonstrating new technologies for future rockets was a success. It also shows great cooperation with DLR, where joint efforts made this flight possible on time,” said Guy Pilchen, Future Launchers Preparatory Programme Manager.

The Hazy History of Titan's Air

What rocky moon has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Earth-like weather patterns and geology, liquid hydrocarbon seas and a relatively good chance to support life?

The answer is Titan, the fascinating moon of Saturn.

Titan's many similarities to Earth is why astrobiologists are so fascinated by this unusual moon.

Its atmosphere is often viewed as an analog to what the Earth's atmosphere may have been like billions of years ago.

Despite the 800 million miles between the two worlds, both may have had their atmospheres created through the gravitational layering and processing of asteroids and comets.

"Titan provides an extraordinary environment to better understand some of the chemical processes that led to the appearance of life on Earth," says Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez, of the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC) in Barcelona, Spain.

"Titan's atmosphere is a natural laboratory that, in many aspects, seems to have a strong similitude with our current picture of the pre-biotic atmosphere of Earth."

This is remarkable, because it was thought that Earth and Titan were made from a vastly different recipe of materials in drastically different temperatures, he says.

The research paper, "Clues on the importance of comets in the origin and evolution of the atmospheres of Titan," by Trigo-Rodriguez and F. Javier Martin-Torres (Center for Astrobiology, Madrid, Spain), recently published in the journal Planetary and Space Science, offers insight into the atmospheric affinities of Earth and Titan.


Building an Atmosphere From Scratch
Earth presumably formed from scorched, oxygen-poor rocks (planetesimals) located in the inner solar system, while Titan formed from rocks that were rich in oxygen and other volatile chemicals (cometesimals) in the outer solar system.

Trigo-Rodriguez and Martin-Torres believe the vital organic ingredients in the early Earth's atmosphere were vaporized and swept away by solar winds.

The ingredients for the air we breathe today returned about 4 billion years ago, during a cataclysmic rock storm known as the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). During this period, oxygen- and volatile-rich materials from the outer solar system were hurled en masse towards the inner solar system.

Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, says comets may have made small contributions to the water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen content of the Earth's early atmosphere, "but they were not the main source."

This is known because the Deuterium/Hydrogen ratios of our oceans do not match the ratios found in comets. He says asteroids hurled our way during the LHB could be the main source of water on Earth.

Trigo-Rodriguez says he and McKay are basically on the same page. "We think that asteroids and comets were key sources for water and organics," says Trigo-Rodriguez. Four billion years ago, some asteroids contained so much ice that they would have brought just as much water to our planet as comets did.

Trigo-Rodriguez and Martin Torres studied how hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes reacted with their environments on Earth and Titan. They looked at data recorded by the Cassini-Huygens probe to better understand the isotopic ratios in Titan's dense, hazy atmosphere.

Different distances from the Sun, different sizes and different environmental conditions led to different chemical evolutions on the two worlds. Even so, both Earth and Titan were hit by similar water-rich bodies, which provided a volatile-rich source for both atmospheres during the late-heavy bombardment.

Outgassing and collisional processing on both worlds led to the production of molecular nitrogen-dominated atmospheres with similar isotopic ratios of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

Extreme Space Weather at Mercury Blasts the Planet's Poles

The solar wind sandblasts the surface of planet Mercury at its poles, according to new data from a University of Michigan instrument on board NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft.

The sodium and oxygen particles the blistering solar wind kicks up are the primary components of Mercury's wispy atmosphere, or "exosphere," the new findings assert.

Through interacting with the solar wind, they become charged in a mechanism that's similar to the one that generates the Aurora Borealis on Earth.

The findings are published in the Sept. 30 edition of Science.

The Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS,) made by U-M scientists, has taken the first global measurements of Mercury's exosphere and magnetosphere in an effort to better understand how the closest planet to the sun interacts with its fiery neighbor.

The measurements confirmed scientists' theories about the composition and source of the particles in Mercury's space environment.

"We had previously observed neutral sodium from ground observations, but up close we've discovered that charged sodium particles are concentrated near Mercury's polar regions where they are likely liberated by solar wind ion sputtering, effectively knocking sodium atoms off Mercury's surface," said FIPS project leader Thomas Zurbuchen, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences and Aerospace Engineering at the U-M College of Engineering.

Earth and Mercury are the only two magnetized planets in the solar system, and as such, they can somewhat deflect the solar wind around them.

The solar wind is a squall of hot plasma, or charged particles, continuously emanating from the sun. Earth, which has a relatively strong magnetosphere, can shield itself from most of the solar wind. Mercury, which has a comparatively weak magnetosphere and is 2/3 closer to the sun, is a different story.

"Our results tell us is that Mercury's weak magnetosphere provides very little protection of the planet from the solar wind," Zurbuchen said.

Studying Mercury's magnetosphere and space environment helps scientists understand fundamental science about the sun.

ESA Herschel: Astronomers searching for oxygen

ESA’s Herschel space observatory has found molecules of oxygen in a nearby star-forming cloud.

This is the first undisputed detection of oxygen molecules in space. It concludes a long search but also leaves questions unanswered.

The oxygen molecules have been found in the nearby Orion star-forming complex.

While atomic oxygen has been long known in warm regions of space, previous missions looking for the molecular variety – two atoms of oxygen bonded together – came up largely empty-handed.

Even the observed amount of atomic oxygen is far less than that expected and this created an oxygen ‘accounting problem’ that can be roughly voiced as “where is all the oxygen hiding in the cold clouds?”

NASA’s Submillimetre Wave Astronomy Satellite and Sweden’s Odin mission have both searched for molecular oxygen and established that its abundance is dramatically lower than expected.

One possibility put forward to explain this was that oxygen atoms freeze onto tiny dust grains found floating in space and are converted to water ice, effectively removing them from sight.

If this is true, the ice should evaporate in warmer regions of the cosmos, returning water to the gas and allowing molecular oxygen to form and to be seen.

Paul Goldsmith, NASA’s Herschel project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and an international team of investigators went looking for it with Herschel.

They used Herschel’s HIFI far-infrared instrument and targeted Orion, where they reasoned that the forming stars would heat the surrounding gas and dust.

Using three infrared frequencies of the instrument, the Herschel Oxygen Project team were successful. They found there to be one molecule of oxygen for every million hydrogen molecules.

“This explains where some of the oxygen might be hiding,” said Dr Goldsmith. “But we didn’t find large amounts of it, and still don’t understand what is so special about the spots where we find it. The Universe still holds many secrets.”

Oxygen, in all its forms, is the third most abundant element in the Universe and a major ingredient of our planet. It is found in our atmosphere, oceans and rocks, and is critical for life itself because we breathe the molecular form.

Although the search continues for it in space, Göran Pilbratt, ESA’s Herschel Project Scientist, believes this is a breakthrough moment: “Thanks to Herschel, we now have an undisputed confirmation that molecular oxygen is definitely out there. There are still many open questions but Herschel’s superior capabilities now enables us to address these riddles.”

NASA Shuttle Image: The crack in the liquid Oxygen tank

(Image: NASA)

This terahertz image shows the 50cm crack in the foam insulation of the space shuttle's fuel tank, at the joint where the liquid oxygen tank meets the inter-tank flange.

The crack appeared on Friday as the tank was being drained of liquid hydrogen after a fuel leak prevented the shuttle from launching.

A missing chunk of foam insulation was responsible for the breakup of the shuttle Colombia as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere in 2003, causing the deaths of 7 astronauts.

If the fuel leak and the foam crack can be fixed, Discovery's final mission, STS-133, will launch on November 30th. The shuttle will bring supplies and extra storage capacity to the International Space Station.

Repair analysis continues on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. See a Gigapan image of the shuttle awaiting launch here.

Oxygen in White Dwarfs - Near Miss to Supernova

Oxygen on a planet might be a sign of life, but in two peculiar white dwarf stars it could indicate a narrow escape from a violent death. Their oxygen content marks them as failed stellar bombs – the remnants of stars that almost went supernova.

The new stars are among thousands of white dwarfs picked up by the Sloane Digital Sky Survey. Like all white dwarfs they are the dead, cooling cores left behind by mainstream stars, and are mainly made of helium. Usually the second most plentiful ingredient is carbon – but when a group of astronomers led by Boris Gänsicke at the University of Warwick, UK, analysed the spectrum of light from these two white dwarfs, they found that the objects hold far more oxygen than carbon.

"It's extreme – these things look very different from any white dwarfs we've seen before," says team member Danny Steeghs.

Creating so much oxygen requires a nuclear furnace fiercer than that needed for a carbon-rich mixture, so the stars that spawned these white dwarfs must have been hot and massive. Simulations suggest that they must have been almost too big to end their days gently – any larger, and they would have grown a core so massive and dense that it would inevitably have collapsed, releasing enough energy to blow the rest of the star apart in a supernova explosion.

Video: Water on the Moon - Hydrogen, Oxygen and Energy

Watch the Video of Water on the Moon here.......

Surprise! Water (hydroxyl) found on the Moon

Never mind Evian or Perrier the next new thing for the discerning diner may be Moon or Lunar Water.

There appears to be, to the surprise of most planetary scientists, water everywhere on the Moon. Although, how many refreshing drops future astronauts might be able to drink, is not clear.

Data from three spacecraft indicate the widespread presence of water or hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom as opposed to the two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms that make up a water molecule. The discoveries are being published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science.

“It’s so startling because it’s so pervasive,” said Lawrence A. Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a co-author of one of the papers that analyzed data from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration instrument aboard India’s Chandrayyan-1 satellite. “It’s like somebody painted the globe.”

For decades, the Moon has been regarded as a completely dry place. The dark side is more than ice cold, but when it passes into sunlight, any ice should have long ago been baked away. The possible exceptions are permanently shadowed craters near the Moon’s poles, and data announced this month by NASA verified the presence of hydrogen in those areas, which would most likely be in the form of water.

If water is somehow more widespread, that could make future settlement of the Moon easier, especially if significant water could be extracted just by heating the soil. Oxygen would also be a key component for breathable air for astronauts, and hydrogen and oxygen can also be used for rocket fuel or power generation.

The history of the spacesuit

Is this an early example of the evolution of the mobile phone. It certainly reminds me of some of the Motorola models that I used to sport as a keen young executive about town. No, its some early and cumbersome, spacesuit models. These have certainly developed and improved over the years, thankfully for the astronauts. Here we show you the evolution and history of the spacesuit.


Astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, is shown here in NASA's first spacesuit, designed for the Mercury programme (1958-1963).

The suits were adapted from US Navy pressure suits for high-altitude flights and not designed to be worn on spacewalks. That's because the suits folded in on themselves at the joints, decreasing the volume in the suit. That increased the pressure in the rest of the suit, making it hard for astronauts to bend their legs or arms. As a result, the suits were used only as protection against emergency losses of pressure. (Image: NASA Headquarters)


Spacesuit design took a step forward during NASA's Gemini programme, which featured the agency's first spacewalk on 3 June 1965. To insulate astronauts from the low pressures and temperature extremes of space, Gemini suits boasted extra layers and balloon-like "bladders" filled with gas to maintain pressure, while also maintaining flexibility.

Gus Grissom (left) and John Young, the crew of the first manned Gemini mission, a five-hour orbital flight on 23 March 1965, are shown here in the suits, which are attached to portable air conditioners to keep the astronauts cool. (Image: NASA Johnson Space Center)

The acid test for the Gemini spacesuit came on 3 June 1965, when astronaut Edward White ventured from the capsule for a 23-minute spacewalk - the first such foray for a US astronaut.

White used a gas-powered gun to manoeuvre in space. Oxygen was provided through an 8-metre 'umbilical' cord connected to the Gemini 4 spacecraft. (Image: NASA Johnson Space Center)


To allow lunar explorers greater flexibility, the Apollo suits were built with bellow-like rubber joints at the shoulders, hips, elbows and knees.

Here engineer Bill Peterson fits test pilot Bob Smyth in an early incarnation of the Apollo suit in 1964. The dark straps are part of a restraint harness for the Lunar Excursion Module. (Image: NASA Johnson Space Center)


By the time of the first Moon landing in 1969, the Apollo suits boasted a backpack that provided enough oxygen for breathing, ventilation and suit pressure for 7 hours of Moon walking. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is pictured here exploring the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. Although the suits performed well in the six missions to land on the Moon, lunar dust became a worry. Astronauts reported that sharp, abrasive lunar dust damaged the suits, wearing through layers and infiltrating seals.

The Apollo suit had to be relatively light so that astronauts could move around in the Moon's gravity and weighed about 82 kg (180 pounds), including its backpack. Later space shuttle suits, by comparison, were more than 1.5 times as heavy - but they were worn in the weightless environment of low-Earth orbit. (Image: NASA Kennedy Space Center)

NASA astronauts now use a two-piece spacesuit for spacewalks called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). Unlike the Apollo suits, which were custom-made to fit each astronaut, the EMU has interchangeable parts that can be used to accommodate a range of body sizes.

The EMU is pressurised at about a third of atmospheric pressure, so astronauts must camp out in a relatively low-pressure airlock before spacewalks to remove nitrogen dissolved in the blood and tissues. Moving too quickly to lower pressures can cause that nitrogen gas to create bubbles and obstruct blood flow, which can sometimes be fatal. The suit can weigh about 180 kg (400 lb) and operate for about 8 hours in space. It has a lifetime of 30 years. (Image: NASA Johnson Space Center)

NASA's EMU suits are not the only gear used for spacewalks. Here, astronaut Mike Fincke wears a Russian Orlan suit while performing work outside the International Space Station during the six-month Expedition 9 mission in 2004. (He and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka were originally going to use US suits but discovered problems with the suits, including a failed cooling unit.)

Unlike NASA's EMU suits, which have separate pants and torso sections, Orlan suits are entered through a hatch at the back. That allows astronauts to get into and out of them quickly without assistance. The suit weighs nearly 110 kg (240 pounds), can spend 7 hours in space and is designed to last for 12 spacewalks. (Image: NASA)

China's Feitan suit had a public debut in September 2008, when one of the astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 7 performed the country's first spacewalk.

The spacesuit is reportedly modelled after Russia's Orlan suit. Here one of the Shenzhou 7 crew members emerges from the spacecraft after landing in north China. (Image: China National Space Administration)

Gloves are possibly the most important part of the spacesuit from an astronaut's perspective. In addition to cranking levers and handling power drills, astronauts use their hands - rather than their feet - as their primary mode of "walking" around their spacecraft during spacewalks. The gloves are pressurised, making it difficult for astronauts to move their fingers.

The Apollo spacesuits used two sets of gloves - an inner layer (left) consisting of cloth-covered pressure bladders, and an outer layer made of cloth, Mylar and a metallic mesh. The outer gloves were used on spacewalks to protect against micrometeorites, scratches and heat. (Image: NASA-JSC)

In May 2007, engineer Peter Homer of Southwest Harbor, Maine, won $200,000 when his design for a spacesuit glove beat NASA's in an agency-sponsored competition. His company, Flagsuit LLC, is building on that design and is working with the firm Orbital Outfitters on spacesuits for suborbital tourist trips.

Homer says that unlike current gloves, which are pleated in a way that causes the fingers to curve like a banana, his gloves bend at the same points where our fingers do. That makes it easier for astronauts to move their fingers - important since spacewalks are so labour-intensive that they often leave astronauts' hands bruised and their fingernails bent backwards. (Image: Flagsuit.com)

For decades, NASA has been working intermittently on a next-generation spacesuit that will offer more flexibility and could be used at higher pressures, to eliminate the need for camping out before spacewalks, or breathing in pure oxygen to avoid decompression sickness, or the bends. The Mark III suit (left), one prototype that began development in the late 1980s, boasts a rear-entry system and bearings at the joints to allow astronauts the ability to kneel and perform other tasks.

In the push to return to the Moon, NASA signed a contract in February 2009 with the firm Oceaneering International, Inc, to develop suits for the crew of the shuttle's replacement, the Orion capsule, which is set to fly as early as 2015. Long-time spacesuit developer Hamilton Sundstrand contested the award, but the two firms now plan to work together on the suits, which are intended to share components with a future suit to be designed for the Moon (right). (Image and illustration: NASA)

So far, suits for spacewalks and moonwalks have had to rely on air to maintain pressure around an astronaut's body. But space farers might be able to wear a slimmer design in the future that could allow them to move more freely. This "Biosuit", developed by MIT engineer Dava Newman and colleagues, uses tight layers of material to maintain pressure.

The suit is patterned with stiff lines that do not extend when an astronaut moves a part of their body. These "lines of non-extension" provide a stiff skeleton but do not restrict an astronaut's movement. The team expects it will take several more years of development before the suits can be used in space. Other researchers are developing high-tech spacesuit materials that could one day heal themselves, generate electricity and kill germs. (Image: Donna Coveney)