NASA MAVEN: Probe Snaps 1st Red Planet Images

The first observations of Mars' upper atmosphere made by NASA's MAVEN probe, which reached the Red Planet on Sept. 21, 2014.

Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado; NASA

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft isn't wasting any time at Mars.

MAVEN sent home its first images of Mars' upper atmosphere early Monday morning (Sept. 22), just eight hours after entering orbit around the Red Planet.

The false-colour images, which NASA released Wednesday (Sept. 24), were captured by MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IVS) instrument when the probe was 22,680 miles (36,500 kilometers) above the surface of Mars, agency officials said.

"Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface," NASA officials wrote in an online description of the image.

"Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud," they added.

"Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds."



The $671 million MAVEN mission is NASA's first effort to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.

MAVEN will use its three onboard instrument suites to measure the rate of gas escape into space, in an attempt to better understand why Mars lost most of its atmosphere over the eons.

NB: The planet's air was relatively thick in the ancient past but is now just 1 percent as dense as that of Earth.

MAVEN's observations should shed light on how and why Mars transitioned from a warm and wet world billions of years ago to the cold, dry planet we know today, mission scientists have said.

The spacecraft is now in a commissioning phase, during which mission team members will lower MAVEN to its final orbit and check out its science gear.

The probe's one-year science mission is scheduled to start in early November.

Japan space agency unveils Hayabusa-2 (MUSES-C) asteroid hunting probe

Artist's impression of Hayabusa (MUSES-C) in proximity to Itokawa's surface.

Japanese space scientists have unveiled the asteroid hunting space probe they hope to launch later this year on a mission to mine a celestial body.

The probe, named Hayabusa-2, is expected to be flung into space on a rocket for a mammoth four year voyage to the unpoetically-named 1999JU3 asteroid.

When it gets there, some time in 2018, it will release a powerful cannon which will fire a metal bullet at the asteroid's barren crust, once the probe itself has scuttled to safety on the far side of the rock.

It will then return to scoop up material uncovered by the cannon blast.

If all goes well, these pristine asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.

At a weekend press conference, Hitoshi Kuninaka, project leader at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said he and his team were readying to redouble their efforts for this "new voyage".

"I'm grateful as the new asteroid probe is now nearly complete," he said, according to Jiji Press.

The probe is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa—the Japanese term for falcon—which returned to earth in 2010 with dust samples after a trouble-plagued seven-year mission.

The spherical 1999JU3 asteroid, which is around a kilometre (half a mile) across, contains significantly more organic matter and water than the potato-shaped rock previously studied by the original Hayabusa.

Analysing this valuable cosmic material could shed light on the mysteries surrounding the solar system and its origins 4.6 billion years ago.

Scientists at JAXA say Hayabusa-2 will build on the work of its predecessor, which was only able to collect surface dust samples that could have been altered by years of exposure to various forms of energy encountered in space.

Despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year journey, including intermittent loss of communication and damage to its motors, the first Hayabasa was hailed as a triumph of science when it returned to Earth.

JAXA's work guiding the craft back to terra firma made it a source of pride for Japan, even inspiring several Japanese feature films.

Kuninaka said there were a number of possible complications and pitfalls that could await Hayabusa-2.

"Of course, I hope things will go smoothly," said Kuninaka.

"We have had many difficulties in the process of developing the new asteroid probe. Space is never an easy place," he said.

Asteroids are believed to retain materials unchanged from the solar system's earliest days, unlike scorched remains such as meteorites or materials on Earth which have been transformed through pressure and heat.

The 1999JU3 asteroid was selected in part because of its make-up and also because of its relative accessibility.

NASA Probe Sees Pluto and Its Moon Charon - Video

A NASA spacecraft hurtling toward a 2015 rendezvous with Pluto has captured an amazing video of the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon.

The New Horizons probe used its onboard telescope to record a video of Charon and Pluto locked in their orbital dance.

The movie is composed of 12 individual images taken from July 19 through July 24, almost exactly one year before the spacecraft's flyby of the distant dwarf planet, which is scheduled for July 14, 2015.

"The image sequence showing Charon revolving around Pluto set a record for close-range imaging of Pluto, they were taken from 10 times closer to the planet than the Earth is," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement. "But we'll smash that record again and again, starting in January, as approach operations begin."

"We are really excited to see our target and its biggest satellite in motion from our own perch, less than a year from the historic encounter ahead!" he added.

New Horizons was about 265 million miles (426 million kilometers) from Pluto when it took the 12 photos, researchers said.

New Horizons baseline spacecraft design. 

Image Credit: The Boeing Company

Attempt to Move NASA Probe ISEE-3 spacecraft Hits Snag

This artist's rendition shows the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) spacecraft, the which later became Interplanetary Cometary Explorer. 

A private team, called the SEE-3 Reboot Project, is hoping to restart the 36-year-old spacecraft's engines for a new science mission.

Credit: NASA

The quest to rescue a 36-year-old NASA spacecraft will go on for at least another day, as a private group controlling the probe achieved only partial success with an engine firing Tuesday (July 8).

The private team operating NASA's International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 spacecraft (ISEE-3) aimed to fire its engine numerous times to change the probe's trajectory and put it in a more stable position for communicating with Earth but things did not go exactly as planned.

"The first segment was full duration but only partially successful," Keith Cowing, co-leader of the SEE-3 Reboot Project, wrote in a blog post Wednesday (July 9).

"The second and third attempts failed. Possible causes (under investigation) include valve malfunction and fuel supply issues."

Controllers in California, who are beaming commands to ISEE-3 via the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, tried the burns several times.

After resetting the spacecraft and sending more commands, they stopped work for the day when their "window" of communication closed.

They noted that ISEE-3's thruster valve was opening and closing as expected, but the spacecraft wasn't accelerating.

"Either we are low on fuel in System A, or latch valve A is not working," the group said via Twitter, adding that the sun guidance sensor and accelerometers were not showing thrust.

"The ISEE-3 team is working [on] a strategy for tomorrow's pass. More to follow," the team concluded late Tuesday night.



The private group took control of the spacecraft several weeks ago after raising more than $150,000 via crowdfunding and obtaining permission from NASA, which retired the spacecraft in 1997.

ISEE-3 launched in 1978 and worked as a comet chaser and sun probe, among other roles.

The team has not yet determined what to do next with ISEE-3, focusing first on making sure the spacecraft can consistently communicate with Earth.

The clock is ticking for the SEE-3 Reboot Project to change ISEE-3's trajectory; Cowing has said that fuel consumption will become an issue by late July.

Proton Rocket Failure Probe Finds No Evidence of Misconduct

The interdepartmental state commission investigating the recent Proton-M carrier rocket launch failure has so far found no evidence supporting the theory that it was caused by deliberate misconduct, Russia's space agency Roscosmos said Thursday.

"The human factor version, including the possibility of a deliberate violation of production norms, is considered during an investigation into every accident or incident, it's a standard procedure. The commission has no information to prove it," Roscosmos said in a statement.

The commission still views technical failures in the third stage control engine as the most likely cause of the May 16 crash, in which Russia's most technologically advanced satellite was lost, the statement said.

On Thursday, the head of the government commission investigating the Proton crash, Alexander Danilyuk, said he believed a third stage engine glitch was at fault, while not ruling out that the failure occurred because of sabotage.

Last week, Danilyuk said four causes of the Proton-M accident were being considered. The commission quickly excluded a failure in the rocket's control systems.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Thursday criticized investigators for creating troubled waters too soon with half-baked theories.

The Proton-M rocket suffered an unknown failure and was lost May 16, about nine minutes after being launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. The upper stage and its payload, the advanced Express-AM4R communications satellite, burned up in the atmosphere above China, with no debris reaching Earth.

The Express-AM4R satellite was manufactured by Astrium, an aerospace subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), and was built as part of Russia's space program for 2006-2015.

The crashed rocket was insured for 7.8 billion rubles ($224 million). A replacement for the spacecraft will be built in three years time, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media said.

ESA Clean Space: Probing satellites' mysterious death tumbling

On 15 April, the French space agency CNES rotated the Pleiades Earth observation satellite to capture this image of Envisat. 

At a distance of about 100 km, Envisat's main body, solar panel and radar antenna were visible. Image courtesy CNES. 

Down on the ground, death equals stillness - but not in space.

Derelict satellites can tumble in unpredictable ways and ESA's team tasked with developing a space salvage mission want to find out why.

In recent years, satellites beginning uncontrolled reentries have been tracked, such as Russia's Phobos-Grunt and Germany's Rosat.

In a few cases, satellites suffering unexpected failures in orbit have also been followed, including ESA's Envisat and Japan's ADEOS-II. In every case, the satellite has been seen to be tumbling - but the reason why remains a mystery.

Similarly, when control of a satellite is temporarily lost, ESA's Operations Centre team in Darmstadt, Germany, are accustomed to fixing the satellite's attitude as a prelude to recovery - helping to better understand the satellite's status.

ESA's Clean Space initiative - tasked with reducing the space industry's environmental impact on Earth and space - is seeking to transform our understanding of how large, dead objects behave in space, encompassing launcher upper stages as well as satellites.

The aim of a new study is to combine detailed computer analysis with a range of ground-based observations, some which have only rarely been tried.

Optical telescopes and ground radar are today's favoured monitoring methods, but the study will also investigate the potential of optical and radar satellites in nearby orbits for space-to-space observations.

Highly accurate laser ranging will also be attempted. A global network of ground stations would bounce lasers off a satellite's retroreflectors - like 'cat's eyes' built into a motorway.

Laser ranging can pin down a satellite's position to within centimetres, but has seldom been attempted on out-of-control objects.

The hope is that sustained observation of particular objects over time will give new insights into the kind of factors influencing attitude changes, and how this motion is likely to change over time.

Meanwhile, specialised simulations will seek to pin down these drivers and develop reliable forecasts of how derelict satellites behave.

The long list of potential perturbations include changes in the satellite's centre of gravity as parts break off, atmospheric drag, the faint but steady push of sunlight, micrometeoroid and debris impacts, internal magnetic fields, outgassing and fuel leaks, exploding batteries and even the sloshing of leftover fuel.

For Clean Space, this study is of more than academic interest. The team is planning a dedicated satellite salvage mission called e.DeOrbit and improving our knowledge of a target's condition will help to fine-tune the design.

Bidders are welcome on the study contract. For more information, check the invitation package, accessible here.

VAMP: Northrop Grumann Inflatable Aircraft Could Cruise Venus Skies

Artist's concept of an inflatable airship cruising through the skies of Saturn's huge moon Titan. 

Aerospace firms Northrop Grumman and L'Garde have been developing a Venus-specific version of this vehicle called VAMP (short for Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform). 

Credit: Northrop-Grumman

A big robotic airship could ply the skies of Venus for up to a year, giving scientists an unprecedented look at Earth's hellishly hot "sister planet," the craft's developers say.

For the past year, engineers at aerospace firms Northrop Grumman and L'Garde have been working on an unmanned concept vehicle called the Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform.

Using a mixture of powered flight and passive floating, VAMP could stay aloft for long periods, collecting a variety of data about Venus and its atmosphere.

Further, no big breakthroughs are required to get VAMP — which remains in the design phase — up and running, team members say.

"There are no major technology unknowns," Northrop Grumman's Kristen Griffin told reporters in December at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting in San Francisco.

"It really is something that could be developed when the [scientific] community is ready for it."

View a Caltech presentation on VAMP (pdf)

VAMP A Venus airship
VAMP is a big but incredibly light inflatable aircraft. While its 151-foot (46 meters) wingspan dwarfs that of NASA's now-retired space shuttle, the triangular VAMP would tip the scales at just 992 pounds (450 kilograms).

In the vehicle's envisioned mission architecture, VAMP hitches a ride to Venus orbit with a carrier spacecraft, then deploys and inflates (with hydrogen or some other buoyant gas) while still linked to this mothership.

VAMP then detaches and spirals down toward the planet, hitting the atmosphere in a slow, smooth entry that requires only minimal thermal-protection gear.

This critical maneuver would be far less dramatic than the August 2012 entry, descent and landing of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which space agency officials dubbed "seven minutes of terror," Griffin said.

"This would be more like an hour and a half of trepidation," she said.

VAMP would then cruise through Venus' skies at altitudes ranging between 34 miles and 43 miles (55 to 70 kilometers), using propellers to get high up during the day and floating passively at lower altitudes after sunset.

Solar panels would power the craft's propellers, while night-time operations would be supported by batteries or an advanced stirling radioisotope generator (ASRG), which converts the heat produced by radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity, VAMP's developers say.

The airship could carry up to 44 pounds (20 kg) of scientific gear if scientists wanted it to fly as high as 43 miles but a minute sacrifice in maximum altitude — just a mile or so — would allow VAMP to tote a 440-pound (200 kg) payload, team members say.

Data gathered by the vehicle's onboard instruments would be relayed back to Earth via the carrier spacecraft, which would remain in Venus orbit.

Venus' strong winds would sweep VAMP around the planet every 6 days or so. The aircraft could conceivably keep studying Venus for a year before the gradual loss of its buoyant gas brought its mission to an end.

NB: The lead-melting temperatures at Venus' surface make long-term rover and lander missions difficult, but conditions high in the atmosphere are much more benign.

NASA MAVEN Launch: Robotic Mars Probe on its way

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, beginning its 10-month journey to the Red Planet.

Credit: NASA TV

NASA launched its newest Mars probe toward the Red Planet Monday (Nov. 18) on a mission to determine how the Martian atmosphere transformed the world into the desolate wasteland it is today.

The robotic spacecraft, called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe (MAVEN), launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here at 1:28 p.m. EST (1828 GMT), beginning a 10-month journey to Mars.

"Liftoff of the Atlas 5 with MAVEN, looking for clues about the evolution of Mars through its atmosphere," NASA launch commentator George Diller said as the rocket climbed into a cloudy Florida sky.

NASA MAVEN Spacecraft Launching Monday Will Probe Mars Atmosphere Mystery

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians prepare the MAVEN spacecraft for encapsulation inside its payload fairing.

Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

MAVEN, NASA's newest Mars probe is set to launch Monday (Nov. 18), on a mission to help figure out how the Red Planet shifted from a warm and wet world long ago to the cold, dry place we know today.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, (MAVEN) is scheduled to lift off atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday at 1:28 p.m. EST (1828 GMT).

After a 10-month cruise through deep space, MAVEN will start studying the Red Planet from orbit, seeking clues about how Mars lost most of its atmosphere in the ancient past. You can watch the launch live on SPACE.com via NASA TV beginning at 11 a.m. EST (1400 GMT).

"MAVEN will begin to look at those processes that tell us what happened to Mars' atmosphere, and why Mars perhaps underwent a major climate change in its past," Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary science division, told reporters in a pre-launch briefing late last month.

NASA Cassini Image: Saturn, Earth Shine

The Cassini spacecraft's onboard cameras acquired a panoramic mosaic of Saturn that allows scientists to see details in the rings as they are backlit by the sun. 

This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

A NASA spacecraft has revealed an unprecedented view of Saturn from space, showing the entire gas giant backlit by the sun with several of its moons and all but one of its rings, as Earth, Venus and Mars all appear as pinpricks light in the background.

The spectacular image, unveiled Tuesday (Nov. 12), is actually a mosaic of 141 wide-angle images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft taken in natural colour, which mimics how human eyes might see the ringed planet.

Stretching 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across, the panorama captures all of Saturn's rings up to the ethereal E ring, the second outermost one.

The pictures that make up the mosaic were snapped on July 19, 2013 — the same day that Cassini took advantage of a rare opportunity to photograph Earth without interference from the sun, which was totally eclipsed by Saturn at the time.

From its far-flung perch millions of miles away, Cassini captured amazing portraits of Earth as a pale blue dot as thousands of people on the ground waved in honour of the global picture day.

Carolyn Porco

"In this one magnificent view, Cassini has delivered to us a universe of marvels," Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's imaging team at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., said of the new image in a statement from NASA.

"And it did so on a day people all over the world, in unison, smiled in celebration at the sheer joy of being alive on a pale blue dot."

Earth can be spotted as a blue dot to the lower right of Saturn, while Venus shines to the upper left of the gas giant. Mars, visible as a faint red dot, sits above and to the left of Venus.

Beyond inspiring wonder, this new view of Saturn also promises to help scientists study the planet's rings, which are best observed when light shines behind them, Cassini researchers say.

“This mosaic provides a remarkable amount of high-quality data on Saturn's diffuse rings, revealing all sorts of intriguing structures we are currently trying to understand," Matt Hedman, a Cassini participating scientist at the University of Idaho in Moscow, said in a statement.

ALMA probes mysteries of jets from giant black holes

This detailed view shows the central parts of the nearby active galaxy NGC 1433. 

The dim blue background image, showing the central dust lanes of this galaxy, comes from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. 

The coloured structures near the centre are from recent ALMA observations that have revealed a spiral shape, as well as an unexpected outflow, for the first time. 

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/NASA/ESA/F. Combes

Two international teams of astronomers have used the power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to focus on jets from the huge black holes at the centers of galaxies and observe how they affect their surroundings.

They have respectively obtained the best view yet of the molecular gas around a nearby, quiet black hole and caught an unexpected glimpse of the base of a powerful jet close to a distant black hole.

There are supermassive black holes—with masses up to several billion solar masses—at the hearts of almost all galaxies in the Universe, including our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

In the remote past, these bizarre objects were very active, swallowing enormous quantities of matter from their surroundings, shining with dazzling brilliance, and expelling tiny fractions of this matter through extremely powerful jets.

In the current Universe, most supermassive black holes are much less active than they were in their youth, but the interplay between jets and their surroundings is still shaping galaxy evolution.

Two new studies, both published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, used ALMA to probe black hole jets at very different scales: a nearby and relatively quiet black hole in the galaxy NGC 1433 and a very distant and active object called PKS 1830-211.

Françoise Combes

"ALMA has revealed a surprising spiral structure in the molecular gas close to the centre of NGC 1433," says Françoise Combes (Observatoire de Paris, France), who is the lead author of the first paper.

"This explains how the material is flowing in to fuel the black hole. With the sharp new observations from ALMA, we have discovered a jet of material flowing away from the black hole, extending for only 150 light-years. This is the smallest such molecular outflow ever observed in an external galaxy."

The discovery of this outflow, which is being dragged along by the jet from the central black hole, shows how such jets can stop star formation and regulate the growth of the central bulges of galaxies.

Ivan Marti-Vidal

In PKS 1830-211, Ivan Marti-Vidal (Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala Space Observatory, Onsala, Sweden) and his team also observed a supermassive black hole with a jet, but a much brighter and more active one in the early Universe.

It is unusual because its brilliant light passes a massive intervening galaxy on its way to Earth, and is split into two images by gravitational lensing.

From time to time, supermassive black holes suddenly swallow a huge amount of mass, which increases the power of the jet and boosts the radiation up to the very highest energies.

Now ALMA has, by chance, caught one of these events as it happens in PKS 1830-211.

More information: These research projects are presented in two papers, "ALMA observations of feeding and feedback in nearby Seyfert galaxies: an AGN-driven outflow in NGC1433", by F. Combes et al. and "Probing the jet base of the blazar PKS 1830−211 from the chromatic variability of its lensed images: Serendipitous ALMA observations of a strong gamma-ray flare, by I. Marti-Vidal et al. Both papers are appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

ESA Euclid to probe dark Universe with Astrium science module

Euclid. Credit: ESA

The module carrying the telescope and scientific instruments of ESA's Euclid 'dark Universe' mission is now being developed by Astrium in Toulouse, France.

Euclid will be launched in 2020 to explore dark energy and dark matter in order to understand the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang and, in particular, its present accelerating expansion.

Dark matter is invisible to our normal telescopes but acts through gravity to play a vital role in forming galaxies and slowing the expansion of the Universe.

Dark energy, however, causes a force that is overcoming gravity and accelerating the expansion seen around us today.

Together, these two components are thought to comprise 95% of the mass and energy of the Universe, with 'normal' matter, from which stars, planets and we humans are made, making up the remaining small fraction. Their nature remains a profound mystery.

"Euclid will address the cosmology-themed questions of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015–25 programme with advanced payload technologies, enabling Europe to become a world leader in this field of research," says Thomas Passvogel, Head of the Project Department in ESA's Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration.

Astrium will deliver a fully integrated payload module incorporating a 1.2 m-diameter telescope feeding the mission's two science instruments, which are being developed by the Euclid Consortium.

The two state-of-the art, wide-field instruments – a visible-light camera and a near-infrared camera/spectrometer – will map the 3D distribution of up to two billion galaxies and the associated dark matter and dark energy, spread over more than a third of the whole sky.

By surveying galaxies stretched across ten billion light-years, the mission will plot the evolution of the very fabric of the Universe and the structures within it over three-quarters of its history.

In particular, Euclid will address one of the most important questions in modern cosmology: why is the Universe expanding at an accelerating rate today, rather than slowing down due to the gravitational attraction of all the matter in it?

The discovery of this cosmic acceleration in 1998 was rewarded with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011 and yet there is no accepted explanation for it.

By using Euclid to study its effects on the galaxies and clusters of galaxies across the Universe, astronomers hope to come much closer to understanding the true nature and influence of this mysterious dark energy.

"We are excited that Euclid has reached this important milestone, allowing us to progress towards launch in 2020, and bringing us ever closer to uncovering some of the Universe's darkest secrets," says Giuseppe Racca, ESA's Euclid Project Manager.

Euclid is an ESA survey mission to investigate the nature of dark matter and dark energy. It was selected as the second Medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme in October 2011 and formally adopted in June 2012.

The mission will be launched in 2020 and will orbit around the Sun–Earth L2 point located 1.5 million km from Earth. Science and spacecraft operations will be conducted by ESA.

NASA Deep Impact Probe Snaps Photos of Comet ISON

The comet that may put on a spectacular light show during a November date with the Sun, was observed by the Deep Impact mission. The spacecraft has also had close fly-bys of comet's Tempel 1 and Hartley 2 and scientific observations of Garradd.

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD (Tony Farnham)

A NASA spacecraft has captured its first photos of comet ISON, an icy wanderer that some scientists say could dazzle as a "comet of the century" when it swings through the inner solar system later this year.

The photos were taken by NASA's Deep Impact probe and reveal comet ISON as a bright, dusty ball moving against a star-filled background. The spacecraft snapped the pictures on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 from a distance of about 493 million miles (793 million kilometers).

Comet ISON has been the focus of much anticipation among scientists and stargazers because of its potential to put on a spectacular display in late November, when it makes its closest approach to the sun.

Some forecasts predict the comet could shine brighter than the full moon. As of mid-January, the comet's tail was more than 40,000 miles (64,400 km).

Some projections state that comet ISON, which is officially designated comet C/20012 S1 (ISON), could shine extremely bright in the nighttime sky, possibly even rivaling the full moon.

Whether the comet will meet expectations or fizzle out remains to be seen, but it has already become a target for NASA and amateur astronomers.

"This is the fourth comet on which we have performed science observations and the farthest point from Earth from which we've tried to transmit data on a comet," Deep Impact project manager Tim Larson, of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement Tuesday (Feb. 5) "The distance limits our bandwidth, so it's a little like communicating through a modem after being used to DSL. But we're going to coordinate our science collection and playback so we maximize our return on this potentially spectacular comet."

NASA Messenger: Mercury's Surface Resembles Rare Meteorites

These image of Mercury by NASA's Messenger probe show the distinctive colour of the planet's northern plains and their surrounding terrain. 

The top image is as Messenger saw the scene, with the bottom image enhanced to bring out features. Image released June 16, 2011. 

CREDIT: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington 

Mercury has a surface unlike any other planet's in the solar system, instead resembling a rare type of meteorite, researchers say.

The finding, based on an analysis of data from NASA's Messenger probe, sheds new light on the formation and history of the mysterious innermost planet, scientists add.

Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system, is also one of the least understood, having received much less attention from scientific missions than Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

NASA set out to change that when it launched the Messenger probe a little more than eight years ago. Messenger became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

Past research based on Messenger data suggested a vast part of Mercury is covered with hardened lava, enough to bury the state of Texas under 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) of once-molten rock, scientists said.

All in all, these mammoth floods of lava cover 6 percent of the planet's surface, an area equal to nearly 60 percent of the continental United States.

They created Mercury's smooth northern plains between 3.5 billion to 4 billion years ago.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/CIW-DTM/GSFC/MIT/Brown University. Rendering by James Dickson and Jim Head.

Perspective view of ancient volcanic plains in the northern high latitudes of Mercury revealed by NASA's Messenger spacecraft.

Purple colours are low and white is high, spanning a range of about 2.3 km.

Width of area spans about 1200 km. Each line is 5 degrees in latitude and longitude.

Lava plains are common in the solar system.

For instance, young Mars spewed lava all across its surface, and it still has the largest volcano in the solar system: Olympus Mons is about 370 miles (600 km) in diameter, wide enough to cover the entire state of New Mexico, and 16 miles (25 km) high, three times taller than Mount Everest.

Now, 205 measurements of Mercury's surface composition, made by the X-ray spectrometer onboard Messenger, reveal how much Mercury's surface differs from those of other planets in the solar system.

"Being the closest planet to the sun does mean its formation history would be different and more extreme than the other terrestrial planets, with hotter temperatures and exposure to a stronger gravitational field," says lead study author Shoshana Weider, a planetary geologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The surface is dominated by minerals high in magnesium and enriched in sulfur, making it similar to partially melted versions of an enstatite chondrite, a rare type of meteorite that formed at high temperatures in low-oxygen conditions in the inner solar system.

"The similarity between the constituents of these meteorites and Mercury's surface leads us to believe that either Mercury formed via the accretion of materials somewhat like the enstatite chondrites, or that both enstatite chondrites and the Mercury precursors were built from common ancestors," Weider said.

NASA Dawn Asteroid Probe Hits Snag on Way to Dwarf Planet, Ceres

An artist's impression of the Dawn spacecraft in orbit around Vesta.

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A NASA spacecraft orbiting the huge asteroid Vesta has suffered a glitch last week, but mission controllers say it will not affect plans for its upcoming trip to Ceres, the largest asteroid or Dwarf Planet, in the solar system.

The malfunction on NASA's Dawn spacecraft occurred during a maneuver on Aug. 8, when one of the probe's reaction wheels that is used to maintain its position in space unexpectedly shut down.

Mission controllers discovered the problem during a routine communications dispatch the following day, on Aug. 9, said Marc Rayman, chief engineer and mission director of the Dawn mission.

"The wheel was operating normally, and then the internal friction increased enough that the software that we call 'fault protection' — it's a system software that looks at parameters on the spacecraft and monitors the performance of the different components — detected something unusual," Rayman reported.

"If something isn't within the limits we've specified, it takes action. In this case, when the friction got up to a certain level, it turned that wheel off."

Three impact craters of different sizes, arranged in the shape of a snowman, make up one of the most striking features on Vesta, as seen in this view from NASA’s Dawn mission. 

In this view the three “snowballs” are upside down, so that the shadows make the features easily recognizable. 

North is to the lower right in the image, which has a resolution of 230 feet (70 meters) per pixel. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

At the time when one of the probe's reaction wheels failed, Dawn was preparing for its departure from Vesta, after spending more than a year studying the asteroid.

The spacecraft completed its science objectives at Vesta on July 24. Since then, Dawn has been using its ion thrusters to gradually spiral away from the space rock.

"The ion propulsion system, while very efficient, is also very gentle," Rayman explained.

"It only gradually climbs away from Vesta, spiraling in ever larger loops until the spacecraft is going fast enough and is far away enough from Vesta that Vesta can no longer hold it in its gravitational grip."

NASA shows off new Mars lander - Morpheus, fueled by Methane

NASA unveils the prototype of a remarkable new landing vehicle this week that is set to form the basis of new space probes to explore the Solar System.

Named Morpheus, the lander is designed to fly to a variety of destinations including Mars, planetary moons or asteroids.

It will incorporate intelligent technology that allows it to register the presence of surface hazards such as boulders and avoid them.

It will also be powered by new "green" propulsion system that uses liquid oxygen and methane because these are fuels that could be readily produced on other worlds.

Another benefit of using methane is that it can be stored for longer in space than can other common rocket propellants. Methane also is cheaper and safer to operate and could be made from ice found on the moon or Mars.

Video of a tethered test of Morpheus. Credit: NASA

The NASA-designed vehicle was manufactured and assembled at JSC and Armadillo Aerospace, and is the second vertical test bed built by the project team. The first, Pixel, was literally put together from spare parts supplied by the commercial company.

NASA converted the Pixel lander to use liquid oxygen and methane as its fuel, fitted it with instruments and carried out early guidance, navigation and control testing. Pixel was flown last year under tether 17 times and three free flights, at Armadillo’s facility near Dallas.

Phobos Grunt: ESA Pursuing Strategies to Maintain Contact with Russian Mars Mission

The European Space Agency (ESA), which was able to established a two-way communication with Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission after its successful contact on Tuesday, said it is pursuing strategies to consolidate contact with the mission.

In an update posted on its website, ESA said its 15 m-diameter antenna at Perth, Australia, was again used to contact Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft during the night of Nov. 23-24.

A total of five communication passes were available between 20:19 and 04:08 GMT.

Teams working at the Perth station and at ESA's Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany, were delighted to see a clear signal during the first of the passes.

"The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft's radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received," said Wolfgang Hell, ESA's Service Manager for Phobos-Grunt.

Hell said the signals received from Phobos-Grunt during the second contact were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft's orbital position.

Hell explained that one of the two low-gain antennas on Phobos-Grunt was oriented toward Perth, thus, communication worked.

The second contact was short and so it was used only to uplink commands while in the next three passes the spacecraft's orbital position changed, and the second, opposing, antenna had to be used, but no signal was received from Phobos-Grunt.

"Our Russian colleagues will use this result for troubleshooting and to plan their commands for us to send tonight," says Manfred Warhaut, ESA's Head of Mission Operations.

Another five communication slots are available during the night of 24-25 November, and the Perth tracking station will again be allocated on a priority basis to Phobos-Grunt, ESA said.

If revived, the Phobos-Grunt mission may still have a short window to journey across space and visit a new target, such as an asteroid, Russian space officials said.

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Mission Video

Plutonium powered and as big as an SUV, NASA's Curiosity rover is crammed with souped-up sensors and a new sky-crane landing system

Download: Printable Curiosity PDF poster (also available as a high-res JPEG image)

THE flying-saucer-shaped probe hurtles through space, firing thrusters and flinging off weights to point its heat shield forwards for the scorching trip through Mars's atmosphere. 

Once it has slowed, the heat shield drops away and, 10 kilometres above the surface, a parachute billows out. More weights are jettisoned, pointing the craft's radar-tipped belly towards the fast-approaching ground.

Russian MARS Probe Phobos-Grunt: Infographics image

Source: SPACE.com

Hayabusa asteroid probe faces moment of truth

Following a mishap during its rendezvous with an asteroid in 2005, and other technical problems, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa was all but given up for dead.

Miraculously it has been nursed back to life, and it is now hurtling towards Earth, on track to hurl a small but potentially momentous capsule into the Australian outback on Sunday, 13 June.

No one knows whether Hayabusa managed to grab a dust sample when it landed on the asteroid Itokawa. If it did, this would be a first. Even more significantly, the dust will give us clues as to how the Earth formed, as well as insights into how to prevent it being destroyed by an asteroid impact. Find out more in this New Scientist briefing.

Where is Hayabusa now?
At 0900 Japan time today (11 June) the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that Hayabusa was 1,142,550 kilometres from home, following its fourth and final "trajectory correction manoeuvre" on Wednesday. This nudged Hayabusa into the position needed for an 18-kilogram capsule – hopefully containing a sample of asteroid soil – to land at the intended target, the Woomera test tange in South Australia.

How will the Hayabusa land?
Three hours before re-entry, when the spacecraft is 40,000 kilometres from Earth, Hayabusa will release its sample recovery capsule. The capsule will then enter the atmosphere as a fireball, experiencing temperatures of up to 3000 °C, says Hitoshi Kuninaka, a senior member of the Hayabusa project at JAXA.

At an altitude of 10 kilometres, the capsule will deploy a parachute and an antenna that will be used to track it as it lands at Woomera. Once the landing point is confirmed, the capsule will be collected and airfreighted to Japan. Only when it has reached the Sagamihara Curation Center near Tokyo will we know what, if anything, is inside.

What went wrong on Itokawa?
When Hayabusa landed on the asteroid in 2005, it was supposed to fire two metal pellets onto its surface, pushing up material into the cone-shaped sampling capsule for collection. But just after landing, the fuel thruster leaked, causing the spacecraft to enter a "safe" mode, in which all unnecessary systems were shut down.

Given the malfunction, how could the capsule contain any dust?
Because gravity on Itokawa is extremely weak, Hayabusa is likely to have puffed up a plume of dust when it landed. Kuninaka is hopeful that some of this may have entered the capsule, though he admits there is no evidence this has happened.

Michael Zolensky, curator of stratospheric dust at the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science directorate at NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, also predicts that there is something interesting inside the capsule. Even microscopic samples could be "sliced up" and analysed to give information about the chemical composition of asteroids, he says.