Amateur Astronomer Captures Jupiter

Image Credit: NASA/Damian Peach

This image of Jupiter and its moons, icy Io and, the largest of Jupter's moons, Ganymede was acquired by amateur astronomer Damian Peach, when Jupiter was close to opposition. 

South is up and the "Great Red Spot" is visible in the image.

Ground-based astronomy will play a vital role in the success of NASA's Juno mission.

Because Jupiter has such a dynamic atmosphere, images from amateur astronomers will assist the JunoCam instrument team predict what features will be visible when the camera's images are taken.

With its suite of science instruments, the Juno spacecraft will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map the planet's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere and observe the planet's auroras.

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Juno's primary goal is to improve our understanding of Jupiter's formation and evolution.

The spacecraft will spend a year investigating the planet's origins, interior structure, deep atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Juno's study of Jupiter will help us to understand the history of our own solar system and provide new insight into how planetary systems form and develop in our galaxy and beyond.

Juno's principal investigator is Scott Bolton, Director of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, Colo., is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency, Rome, is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment.

Antlia dwarf galaxy peppers the sky with stars

The myriad faint stars that comprise the Antlia Dwarf galaxy are more than four million light-years from Earth, but this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image offers such clarity that they could be mistaken for much closer stars in our own Milky Way.

This very faint and sparsely populated small galaxy was only discovered in 1997.

This image was created from observations in visible and infrared light taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The field of view is approximately 3.2 by 1.5 arcminutes.

Although small, the Antlia Dwarf is a dynamic site featuring stars at many different stages of evolution, from young to old.

The freshest stars are only found in the central regions where there is significant ongoing star formation. Older stars and globular clusters are found in the outer areas.

It is not entirely clear whether the Antlia Dwarf is a member our galactic neighborhood, called the Local Group.

It probably lies just beyond the normally accepted outer limits of the group. Although it is fairly isolated, some believe it has interacted with other star groups.

NGC 3109

Evidence comes from the small, spiral, irregular galaxy, NGC 3109, close to the Antlia Dwarf (shown visible in this second image).

Both galaxies feature rifts of stars moving at comparable velocities; a telltale sign that they were gravitationally linked at some point in the past.

NASA Space Shuttle Enterprise Lands in NYC on April 23

CREDIT: Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum

Conceptual rendering of Space Shuttle Enterprise as it will be displayed on the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in the summer of 2012

NASA's space shuttle Enterprise, which never flew in space but did pave the way for the United States' historic 30-year shuttle program, will arrive in New York City on April 23, local space museum officials announced Thursday (March 1).

Space Shuttle Enterprise

The prototype orbiter's arrival in the Big Apple will start its journey to a new display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted World War II aircraft carrier-turned-museum complex.

Enterprise, which since 2003 has been on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, will be flown atop NASA's shuttle carrier aircraft, a Boeing 747, from Dulles Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

Weather permitting, the ferry flight will come less than a week after NASA's most-flown Space Shuttle, Discovery, arrives at the Udvar-Hazy Center to take Enterprise's place within the Smithsonian's collection.

Tiny Galaxies Hide Dark Secret

Credit: P-A Duc/CEA-CNRS/NRAO-NASA

Galaxy NGC5291 (orange, at the center) and its ring of debris (in blue) as seen by the Very Large Array interferometer.

Researchers have found evidence for the presence of dark matter in dense star-forming groups (shown in red), where 'recycled' dwarf galaxies exist.

ESA Hubble Image: Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter

Credit: ESA/Hubble

A ghostly ring of dark matter floating in the galaxy cluster ZwCl0024+1652, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to date for the existence of dark matter. 

Astronomers think the dark-matter ring was produced from a collision between two gigantic clusters.

Neanderthals were ancient mariners

Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago, although not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers.

Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. 

Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. 

That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow.

Now, George Ferentinos of the University of Patras in Greece says we can rule out the former. The islands, he says, have been cut off from the mainland for as long as the tools have been on them.

Ferentinos compiled data that showed sea levels were 120 metres lower 100,000 years ago, because water was locked up in Earth's larger ice caps. 

But the seabed off Greece today drops down to around 300 metres, meaning that when Neanderthals were in the region, the sea would have been at least 180 metres deep (Journal of Archaeological Science, DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.032).

LAMIS: A Green Chemistry Alternative for Remote-Controlled Laser Spectroscopy

LAMIS uses the energy of a high-powered laser beam to ablate a tiny spot on a sample, creating a plasma plume for spectroscopic analysis that reveals chemical elements and their isotopes. 

(Image courtesy of Applied Spectra, Inc.)

At some point this year, after NASA's rover Curiosity has landed on Mars, a laser will fire a beam of infrared light at a rock or soil sample.

This will "ablate" or vaporise a microgram-sized piece of the target, generating a plume of ionised gas or plasma, which will be analysed by spectrometers to identify the target's constituent elements.

Future Mars rovers, however, will be able to do even more. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in collaboration with Applied Spectra, Inc., have developed an advanced version of this laser technology that can also analyze a target's constituent isotopes.

This expanded capability will enable future rovers for the first time to precisely date the geological age of Martian samples.

From left, Alexander Bol'shakov, Xianglei Mao and Rick Russo are part of the research team that developed LAMIS, a green chemistry laser spectroscopy technology that can be operated across vast distances. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)

Rick Russo, a scientist with Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division and a pioneer in laser ablation spectroscopy, led the development of LAMIS - for Laser Ablation Molecular Isotopic Spectrometry.

As with the earlier Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technology being used on rover Curiosity, the basic premise is to use the energy of a high-powered laser beam focused to a tiny spot on the surface of a sample to create a plasma plume for analysis.

Each species of atoms or ions within the plasma will emit light with signature spectral emission peaks.

However, whereas LIBS only measures the optical emission spectra of atoms and ions, LAMIS measures the emission spectra of molecules and molecular ions.

This enables LAMIS to identify the specific isotopes of a chemical element within the plasma plume.

"Relative to atomic emission, molecular spectra can exhibit significantly larger isotopic shifts due to the contributions of the vibrational and rotational motion in the molecule," Russo says.

"The trick is to be patient and wait for the hot atoms and ions in the plasma to collide and merge with the ambient environment to form an oxide, or a nitride or fluoride, and then collect the molecular light emissions."

Isotopes of Strontium
Russo and his research group have been using LAMIS to study isotopes of strontium, an alkaline earth metal commonly found in geological and natural materials.

Although strontium's major isotopes are stable (strontium-90 being a notable exception), the percentage of strontium-87 will naturally increase over time as a result of the decay of radioactive rubidium.

Comparing the ratio of strontium-87 to strontium-86 is a standard tool for age dating in geochronology, oceanography and archeology. The ratio of these strontium isotopes is also used to date the origin of historic or forensic samples.

Currently, the standard means of measuring strontium isotopic ratios is by mass spectrometry technologies that involve time-consuming, labour-intensive laboratory sample dissolution work with an extensive array of instrumentation.

This sample dissolution work generates substantial chemical waste. LAMIS offers a green chemistry alternative that is faster, less expensive and can be carried out from across vast distances.

"LAMIS is not yet as sensitive or precise as mass spectrometry but unlike mass spectrometry it does not require chemical dissolution sample preparation, vacuum chambers and a laboratory infrastructure," Russo says.

"All we need is a laser beam and an optical spectrometer and we can perform real-time isotopic analyses of samples at ambient pressures and temperatures."

LAMIS represents what may be the only practical means of determining the geochronology of samples on Mars or other celestial bodies in the Solar System.

Current age estimates of such bodies suffer from uncertainties in the billions of years. That said, LAMIS also has many important applications here on Earth.

Strontium isotope ratios have been a focus in the field of medicine for both treatment and diagnostic purposes.