NASA Shuttle Endeavour Takes Off and Bids Farewell To Edwards Airport - Video

The retired Space Shuttle took off from the Air Force base for the last time, starting the last leg of its 3 day whirlwind tour of the United States.

It will land in Los Angeles after flying by several California landmarks.

Credit: NASA

Where to See America's Greatest Spaceships (Infographic)

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

For more than 50 years, Americans have been launching into space, first aboard tiny capsules and later on the winged, reusable space shuttles and space station.

Much of that long space legacy is on display at museums across the United States. See where you can find some of the most iconic U.S. spacecraft that ever flew in the SPACE.com infographic above.

RBSP Mission: Energetic particles in the magnetosphere emit radio waves - Video

Energetic particles in the magnetosphere emit radio waves that are audible to humans. The NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission's (RBSP) instrumentation captured an instance of the event. The 'chorus' phenomenon is well known by scientists. Credit: NASA / SPACE.com

The Science of Procrastination - And How To Manage It - YouTube

From AsapSCIENCE — who have previously brought us the scientific cure for hangovers, the neurobiology of orgasms, and how music enchants the brain — comes this illustrated explication of the science of procrastination and how to manage it, a fine addition to these five perspectives on procrastination.

Among the proposed solutions is the Pomodoro technique, a time-management method similar to timeboxing that uses timed intervals of work and reward.

Human motivation is highly influenced by how imminent the reward is perceived to be — meaning, the further away the reward is, the more you discount its value. This is often referred to as Present bias, or Hyperbolic discounting.

NASA Dawn Vesta: Satellite detects Hydrated Minerals on Giant Asteroid

This map from NASA's Dawn mission shows the global distribution of hydrogen on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. 
Credit: NASA JPL-Caltech UCLA PSI MPS DLR IDA.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed that the giant asteroid Vesta has its own version of ring around the collar.

Two new papers based on observations from the low-altitude mapping orbit of the Dawn mission show that volatile, or easily evaporated materials, have colored Vesta's surface in a broad swath around its equator.

Pothole-like features mark some of the asteroid's surface where the volatiles, likely water, released from hydrated minerals boiled off.

While Dawn did not find actual water ice at Vesta, there are signs of hydrated minerals delivered by meteorites and dust evident in the giant asteroid's chemistry and geology. The findings appear in the journal Science.

One paper, led by Thomas Prettyman, the lead scientist for Dawn's gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., describes how the instrument found signatures of hydrogen, likely in the form of hydroxyl or water bound to minerals in Vesta's surface.

"The source of the hydrogen within Vesta's surface appears to be hydrated minerals delivered by carbon-rich space rocks that collided with Vesta at speeds slow enough to preserve their volatile content," said Prettyman.

A complementary paper, led by Brett Denevi, a Dawn participating scientist based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., describes the presence of pitted terrain created by the release of the volatiles.

Vesta is the second most massive member of the main asteroid belt. The orbit at which these data were obtained averaged about 130 miles (210 kilometers) above the surface.

Dawn left Vesta earlier this month, on Sept. 4 PDT (Sept. 5 EDT), and is now on its way to its second target, the dwarf planet Ceres.

Scientists thought it might be possible for water ice to survive near the surface around the giant asteroid's poles.

Unlike Earth's moon, however, Vesta has no permanently shadowed polar regions where ice might survive.

The strongest signature for hydrogen in the latest data came from regions near the equator, where water ice is not stable.

In some cases, other space rocks crashed into these deposits later at high speed. The heat from the collisions converted the hydrogen bound to the minerals into water, which evaporated.

The holes that were left as the water escaped stretch as much as 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across and go down as deep as 700 feet (200 meters). Seen in images from Dawn's framing camera, this pitted terrain is best preserved in sections of Marcia crater.

"The pits look just like features seen on Mars, but while water was common on Mars, it was totally unexpected on Vesta in these high abundances," said Denevi.

"These results provide evidence that not only were hydrated materials present, but they played an important role in shaping the asteroid's geology and the surface we see today."

ESA's GAIA: Billion-pixel space camera passes critical tests

Artist impression of GAIA in orbit observing and monitoring the Milky Way.

The most powerful camera ever designed for space is on track for launch next year following punishing tests to prove it can withstand that environment.

The European Space Agency's Gaia mission will scan the sky with a one-billion pixel detector, producing a 3D map of the Milky Way from its location 1.5 billion km from Earth.

Two telescopes aboard the spacecraft will chart the sky from an orbit around the Sun over five years, noting the position, motion, colour, brightess and composition of around a billion stars in our own galaxy and beyond. These observations will help astronomers learn how our galaxy formed and evolved.

Gaia is also designed to photograph large numbers of other celestial bodies, from asteroids in our own Solar System to more distant galaxies and around 500,000 quasars near the edge of the Universe.

The probe's camera is made up of 106 sensitive electronic detectors made by UK company e2v Technologies, of Chelmsford, Essex, who have also supplied imaging systems for the Curiosity probe now on Mars.

These are basically advanced versions of the chips found in home digital cameras. They were put together like a mosaic to make one huge sensor by EADS scientists at Toulouse, France, for the European Space Agency.

Each detector is slightly smaller than a credit card but thinner than a human hair. Together they are powerful enough to record stars up to a million times fainter than the eye can see.

Gaia is due to be launched by a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. When it arrives at the spot called a Lagrangian point (L2) it will fly in a naturally synchronised orbit with Earth and operate at a super-chilled temperature of –110°C.

A giant sunshade on the spacecraft will protect the instruments by keeping them permanently shielded from the heat of the Sun.

Scientists at Toulouse recently checked that Gaia’s service module, housing electronic units to run the science instruments, as well as the units that provide the spacecraft resources, such as thermal control, propulsion, communication, and attitude and orbit control, would function OK in extreme conditions.

During 19 days of tests, they enclosed it in a barrel-shaped chamber at Intespace's test facility where Gaia was subject to vacuum conditions and subjected to a range of temperatures.

The process was similar to that which the James Webb Space Telescope will undergo inside a revamped chamber for NASA.

It experienced temperatures as low as –170°C and tests verified that the spacecraft's instruments could still work properly.

Gaia Project Manager Giuseppe Sarri said: “The thermal tests went very well; all measurements were close to predictions and the spacecraft proved to be robust with stable behaviour.”

He added: “The latest thermal test marks a major milestone achieved in the development of Gaia,” says Giuseppe. “It demonstrated that the service module is compatible with working in space and that we are on track for launch by the end of next year.”

David Byrne and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin discuss Science and Music

David Byrne and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music, discuss the inner workings of music. Byrne’s new book, How Music Works, is an absolute must-read.

The conversation is part of SEED magazine’s Science Is Culture series, pairing artists and scientists to explore the intersection of science and society.