Space Shuttle Station, Moon, Mars, Solar Systems, Earth, Universe

Iran Reports Launch of Small Satellite into Orbit

2012-02-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

Iran successfully launched a new small satellite into orbit early Friday, state media reported, the latest in the country's ambitious space program that has raised concerns in the West because of its possible military applications.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called in to the launch site, saying he was "hopeful this act will send a signal of more friendship among all human beings," the official IRNA news agency reported.

IRNA said the domestically-made satellite, Navid, or Gospel, was designed to collect data Relevant Products/Services on weather conditions and monitor for natural disasters.

It said the satellite weighs about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) and would orbit Earth at an altitude of up to 234 miles (375 kilometers), circling the planet 15 times a day. It's of a type known as miniaturized or microsatellites, which are cheaper to produce and allow for less costly launch vehicles.

Produced at an Iranian engineering university, Navid is the third small satellite that Iran has launched in recent years and is expected to remain in orbit for about two months. IRNA said Navid has advanced control technology, a higher resolution camera and photocells to generate power Relevant Products/Services.

The satellite was sent into orbit by a missile launch-vehicle dubbed Safir, or Ambassador in Farsi, which IRNA said has 20 percent more launch power compared to earlier versions of satellite carrier missiles.

Thanks: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news

NASA’s New Satellite Captures Amazing Hi-Res Image of Earth

2012-01-26T02:25:00.000-08:00

NASA’s newest Earth-watching satellite, has taken a high declaration image of Earth, one of the most good-looking such images ever created. It’s available in 8000×8000 pixel resolution, and it takes a while to download it, but it’s definitely worth it.

The satellite, named after the “father of satellite meteorology,” Verner E. Suomi, is designed to create fabulous images of Earth, monitor for natural disasters and improve weather forecasts as well as our understanding of long-term climate changes.

The image is a composite, using a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on Jan. 4, 2012. It echoes the legendary “Blue Marble” photograph, taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on Dec, 7, 1972,

The Blue Marble 2012, as NASA named the new photo, is available in high resolution .
Now, where do we sign up for a 8000×8000 pixel screen so we can use this baby as desktop background?

Thanks: http://mashable.com/2012/01/26/hi-res-image-earth/

Plasma cloud heading towards Earth: Nasa

2012-01-23T01:24:00.000-08:00

An enormous sunspot set freed a splotch of charged plasma Thursday that space weather watchers predict will blast past the Earth.
Satellite operators and power companies are keeping a close eye on the incoming cloud, which could distort the Earth's magnetic field and disrupt radio
communications, especially at higher latitudes.

"Our simulations show potential to pack a good punch to Earth's near-space environment," said Antti Pulkkinen of the Space Weather Laboratory at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Greenbelt, Md But "we're not looking at an extreme event here."

The front edge of the burst should arrive Sunday morning, said Joseph Kunches, a spokesman for the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo.
"At first glance, it was, 'Oh my God, it's at the center of the (sun's) disk, it ought to go right to the Earth,'" Kunches said.

But upon further review and "head-scratching" Thursday, NOAA's space weather team calculated that most of the plasma blob should pass harmlessly over the top of our planet.

"It's more of a glancing blow," Pulkkinen said.

Thanks : http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Space Inc: NASA to boldly go with private firm

2012-01-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

A startup space transportation firm hired by NASA to fly cargo to the International Space Station is delaying a planned February 7 test flight to allow more time to prepare for the mission.

The launch of Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station has not yet been rescheduled.

The flight will be the second and possibly last test flight before privately owned SpaceX begins delivering cargo to the station under a $1.6 billion NASA contract.

The firm, based in Hawthorne, California, and founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, hopes to combine its two remaining test flights into one with a berthing at the space station, pending NASA's approval.

SpaceX successfully launched, orbited and landed a Dragon capsule during a test flight in December 2010

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/space-inc-nasa-to-boldly-go-with-private-firm-20120118-1q5ms.html#ixzz1jmTC4oL6

China opens 2012 with ZiYuan-3 launch via Long March 4B

2012-01-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

China launched a new high-resolution remote sensing satellite on Monday at 03:17 UTC using the Long March 4B (Chang Zheng-4B -Y26) launch vehicle from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, the ZiYuan-3 its first high-resolution geological mapping satellite, to be used for civil purposes.

The ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) is the first of a new series of high-resolution civilian remote sensing satellites, grown from a project that was initiated in March 2008.

The new satellite carries three high-resolution panchromatic cameras and an infrared multispectral scanner (IRMSS). The cameras are positioned at the front-facing, ground-facing and rear-facing positions.

Two cameras (front-facing and rear-facing) have a spectral resolution of 3.5m and 52.3km ground swath while the ground-facing camera has a spectral resolution of 2.1m and 51.1km ground swath. The IRMSS has a spectral resolution of 6.0m and 51.0km ground swath.

At launch the satellite had a mass of 2,630 kg. The satellite is equipped with two 3 meters solar arrays for power generation and will orbit a 505.984 km sun-synchronous solar orbit with 97.421 degree inclination. This orbit will have a re-visit cycle of 5 days.

Operational period will be four years with a possible life extension to five years.

The new satellite will conduct surveys on land resources, help with natural disaster-reduction and prevention and lend assistance to farming, water conservation, urban planning and other sectors, surveying the area between 84 degrees north and 84 degrees south latitude.

Read More: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com

Earth 'being showered with mercury'

2011-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

Earth is being showered with mercury from the upper atmosphere that can land anywhere and enter the food chain, a study has shown.

The poisonous metal is released as a vapour by burning fuel before falling back to Earth in a form that is easily taken up by aquatic ecosystem - the ecosystem in a body of water.

Thousands of tonnes of mercury vapour are pumped into the atmosphere each year.

Scientists discovered that over time the elemental mercury is oxidised by chemistry in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. It can then be deposited back on Earth, either in rain or snow or after being carried on air currents.

Bacteria transform the oxidised mercury into methyl mercury, which can easily enter the food chain and contaminate fish.

US scientist Dr Seth Lyman, who led the research while at the University of Washington Bothell, said: "Much of the emitted mercury is deposited far from its original sources. Mercury emitted on the other side of the globe could be deposited right at our back door, depending on where and how it is transported, chemically transformed and deposited."

Mercury from coal burning in Asia, for example, could circle the globe several times before being oxidised and carried back to the Earth's surface.

Source : http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jOEobkWCdYsIyY-ZZvu6Qc3cHQtQ?docId=N0514961324167600156A

Lunar eclipse draws crowd at Griffith Observatory

2011-12-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

The paparazzi staked out a spot in the Hollywood Hills before dawn. The western sky was the red carpet, the moon the day's celebrity.

That was the scene early Saturday at the Griffith Observatory, where several hundred people gathered in the dark with binoculars, cameras and telescopes to watch a total lunar eclipse — the last one until 2014.

"It's a celestial festival out here," Capm Petersen, 39, said as he set up his camera before the big event.

The crowd began gathering on the observatory's lawn shortly after 4 a.m. in anticipation of "totality" — the moment when the Earth fully blocks the sun, leaving the moon in its shadow.

"I used to play with a telescope as a kid and picked it back up again a few years ago. I usually do deep-space stuff — nebulas and galaxies," said Evan Warkentine, 33, who monitored a telescope with a camera attached to it that sent images to a laptop. "But this is too good to pass up."

The real anticipation was for what could happen once the eclipse began. Depending on the sky's clarity, sunlight skimming Earth's edge can leave an eclipsed moon a mysterious glowing red or orange.

Source:latimes.com

New 'Super-Earth' Found With Fine-Tuned Telescope Readings

2011-12-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

A distant planet barely bigger than Earth has been discovered in our galaxy, but it might have been missed if not for the combined efforts of several observatories both on and around our home planet.

U.S. space agency astronomers say the hard-to-detect data gathered during multiple readings by the Kepler space telescope and two ground observatories revealed tiny clues they needed to make the improbable discovery of a so-called super-Earth planet that otherwise would have gone undetected.

NASA's orbiting Kepler probe initially detected the super-Earth - a distant rocky planet about the size of the Earth - in our Milky Way galaxy about 350 light years from our solar system. Overlapping readings taken by two ground-based telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona confirmed the discovery.

Discovering a relatively small, Earth-sized planet so far away is remarkable because usually only distant planets at least as big as our solar system’s monstrous gas-giant, Jupiter, can be detected - and Jupiter has nearly 320 times more mass than the Earth, with 120 times more surface area.

source:www.voanews.com

'Heartbeat' of Earth's Atmosphere Detected from Space

2011-11-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

Lightning flashes in the skies above the Earth about 50 times every second, creating a burst of electromagnetic waves that circle around the planet's atmosphere Some of these waves combine and increase in strength, creating something akin to an atmospheric heartbeat that scientists can detect from the ground and use to better understand the makeup of the atmosphere and the weather it generates.

For the first time, scientists have detected this heartbeat — called the Schumann resonance — from space. This detection was surprising because the resonance was thought to be confined to a particular region of the atmosphere, between the ground and a layer of Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere.

"Researchers didn't expect to observe these resonances in space," said Fernando Simoes, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "But it turns out that energy is leaking out and this opens up many other possibilities to study our planet from above."

Simoes co-authored a study on the detection of this resonance made by the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite.

source: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com

New Earth-like planet may have water, life

2011-11-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

Scientists claim to have discovered a potentially habitable planet which has an environment much similar to that of the Earth and may contain water and even life The exoplanet, called Gliese 581g, is located around 123 trillion miles away from the Earth and orbits a star at a distance that places it squarely in the habitable or the Goldilocks zone, the scientists said.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that the planet could contain liquid water on its surface, meaning it tops the league of planets and moons rated as being most like Earth, they said “Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet,” said lead researcher Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common,” Prof. Vogt was quoted as saying byDaily Mail The new findings are based on 11 years of observations of the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581 using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope by a team from UC Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The team reported the discovery of two new planets around Gliese 581. This brings the total number of known planets around this star to six, the most yet discovered in a planetary system outside of our own Like our solar system, the planets around Gliese 581 have nearly-circular orbits, the team said. Gliese 581 has a mass three to four times the Earth's and orbits its star in just under 37 days.

Earth’s outer core ‘poor in oxygen’

2011-11-24T01:40:00.000-08:00

Oxygen is the most abundant element in the planet, so it is not unreasonable to expect that it might be one of the dominant “light elements” in the core The composition of the Earth's core remains a mystery. Scientists know that the liquid outer core consists mainly of iron, but it is believed that small amounts of some other elements are present as well.

Now, a new research from a team including Yingwei Fei from Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory has revealed that oxygen does not have a major presence in the outer core This has major implications for our understanding of the period when the Earth formed through the accretion of dust and clumps of matter.

According to current models, in addition to large amounts of iron, the Earth's liquid outer core contains small amounts of so-called light elements, possibly sulfur, oxygen, silicon, carbon, or hydrogen Earth’s outer core ‘poor in oxygen’The team provides new experimental data that narrow down the identity of the light elements present in Earth's outer core.

High-speed impacts can generate shock waves that raise the temperature and pressure of materials simultaneously, leading to melting of materials at pressures corresponding to those in the outer core The team carried out shock-wave experiments on core materials, mixtures of iron, sulfur, and oxygen. They shocked these materials to the liquid state and measured their density and speed of sound travelling through them under conditions directly comparable to those of the liquid outer core.

By comparing their data with observations, they conclude that oxygen cannot be a major light element component of the Earth’s outer core, because experiments on oxygen-rich materials do not align with geophysical observations

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Russia profits at NASA expense

2011-11-21T00:02:00.000-08:00

Almost (3)three weeks ago at Kennedy Space Center(KSC), government and business leaders celebrated the prospect of a return to U.S. manned space flight within four (4) years and more than 500 (Five Hundred) new jobs that was before Congress got hold of NASA's budget. Now it's the Russians who can celebrate.

Boeing announced Oct. 31 that it would assemble a manned capsule at Kennedy Space Center that could be ready to launch there by 2015. The company said its plan eventually would create 550(Five hundred and fifty) jobs on Florida's Space Coast, which has been hammered by the end of the shuttle program but Boeing cautioned that its launch schedule and hiring plans would depend on sufficient federal dollars to support commercial space development. Last week, Congress slashed by more than half President Obama's funding request in that category. The president wanted $850 million. Lawmakers put up about $400 million.

A cut that size might postpone the first manned flights from a U.S. company — whether it's Boeing or one of its rivals — by two years or more, industry analysts say. That'll prolong U.S. dependence on Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, NASA's only option until a U.S. successor to the shuttle is ready.

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Space station dumping rubbish over us

2011-11-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

US space agency Nasa has revealed how the International Space Station (ISS) deals with its trash - it throws it out over New Zealand happily none of it makes it to the surface of Earth but occasionally the romantic shooting star in the eastern sky may be no more than a plunging rubbish bin.

Nasa's Earth Observatory site has published a photo of a the rubbish, packed into a Russian unmanned supply ship, heading to Earth in the caption they say it happened over "the southern Pacific Ocean". The metadata says the photo was taken just north east of the Chatham Islands - suggesting they tossed out the garbage while floating around 300 kilometres above New Zealand.

In their caption, Nasa says several times a year, robotic spacecraft carrying a variety of items-including food, water, fuel, oxygen, medical supplies, replacement parts, and research materials-are launched from Earth to dock with the ISS "After the cargo has been transferred to the ISS, the spacecraft is refilled with refuse, and then undocked and de-orbited-essentially using the Earth's atmosphere as an incinerator for both the spent spacecraft and the refuse," Nasa says.

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SpaceX, NASA schedule next Dragon flight for early 2012

2011-11-13T21:38:00.000-08:00

The first SpaceX demonstration flight to the International Space Station will launch no sooner than January as NASA awaits final delivery of flight software before clearing the mission to proceed, according to space agency sources NASA manifest document shows the launch set for Jan. 12. SpaceX has a date on the Air Force-run Eastern Range for liftoff Jan. 7, at the earliest.

But an agency official familiar with the mission described the date as challenging and said February is a more likely timeframe for the flight SpaceX and NASA previously stated Dec. 19 was the earliest the mission could blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla SpaceX officials, including founder and CEO Elon Musk, have consistently cautioned media and observers the test flight would likely occur in January, at the earliest.

During the test flight, an unmanned Dragon capsule will lift off from Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket and reach the International Space Station a few days later. After making sure the Dragon's systems are healthy with a flyby of the space station, NASA will approve the spacecraft's final approach within about 30 feet the complex then astronaut Don Pettit will grapple the Dragon with the space station's Canadian-built robotic arm and berth the automated cargo ship to the lab's Harmony module.

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to supply the space station with food, crew logistics, experiments, spare parts and other necessities with 12 flights of the company's Dragon cargo craft but SpaceX must first show the spacecraft works and can safely reach the space station.

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Super-Powerful X-Ray Beam Will Probe the Center of the Earth

2011-11-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

It is much easier to get to Mars than to get deep inside this planet, so for all our knowledge about things like earthquakes and the magnetic field, Earth’s interior is actually very poorly understood. To study how metals interact at the prodigious pressures within, scientists squeeze small particles in the lab and heat them up — but this is an inexact science and difficult to do. A newly revamped X-ray beam facility in Europe may be able to improve matters, and shed some light on just what is going on at the center of our planet the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility inaugurates its new ID24 beam today, in preparation for experiments next spring. It will enable scientists to exact extreme pressures and temperatures on metals, aiming to understand how they act at Earth’s core. It will also be able to study new chemical catalysts and battery technology, among other atomic reactions.

A synchrotron is a type of particle accelerator — the Tevatron is one — that can be used for a wide range of applications. One such application involves harnessing the accelerated particles' electromagnetic radiation for scientific imaging. Synchrotron light sources use a series of magnetic fields to bend this radiation into different wavelengths of light. At ESRF, beamlines branch off from the particle acceleration ring to capture the particles’ (usually electrons) radiation. The new beamline, ID24, will enable incredibly fast X-ray absorption spectroscopy this works by firing an intense X-ray beam at a sample, and watching how atoms of the different elements inside the sample absorb the X-rays — it’s an active probe, monitoring its own experiments.

The beamline has an array of germanium detectors that can take 1 million measurements per second, according to an ESRF news release. So scientists could take a small sample of iron, put it in the beamline, heat it to 10,000 degrees, and watch what happens. This would conceivably help scientists understand how iron behaves 1,500 miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and what are the melting points of other metals present in the mantle and core. This, in turn, could shed some light on things like Earth’s dynamo, which creates its magnetic field.

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Asteroid to Just Squeeze Past Earth

2011-11-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

Astronomers are tracking an asteroid about the size of an aircraft carrier that on Tuesday will pass by Earth, within the moon's orbit, in the closest approach of such an object in a generation the 1,300-foot-wide asteroid, known as 2005 YU55, poses no hazard, experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

They are monitoring the spinning space rock by radar as it nears and eventually speeds past Earth at a distance of 201,000 miles the asteroid is going 29,000 miles per hour, according to astronomers at the University of Arizona it is the first time since 1976 that an asteroid has come so close to Earth, and the first time astronomers have ever had this much advance notice.

By astronomers' calculations, the asteroid is expected to make its closest approach to Earth at 6:28 pm EST Tuesday. The asteroid is too dim to be seen with the naked eye and its gravity is too weak to affect tides or earthquake activity, said experts at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration its most important effect may be the adrenaline it has generated this week among the planetary astronomers tracking it through NASA's Deep Space Network antennas, the Arecibo radio-telescope in Puerto Rico and hundreds of telescopes world-wide.

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Huge sunspots turning toward Earth

2011-11-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

As the Sun rotates roughly once per month, we see different features come into view… and the latest is an enormous sunspot system which just came around the limb of the Sun:

That shot was taken by the Mexican "amateur" astronomer César Cantú, and shows the spots — called Active Region 1339 — from November 4. The size of this system is staggering; the whole thing is well over 100,000 km (60,000 miles) across, and the dark cores are each about the size of our entire Earth!

That image was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in the ultraviolet, where violent activity is easier to see. NASA made a video of the flare, and you should take a look. It’s pretty amazing.

So we have a recipe for some action here: big spots, known to be active, and they’re riding the Sun’s surface as it rotates them more fully toward us. Over the next week and a half we might get some more flares from them, and maybe some coronal mass ejections… and that means we might get more aurorae. Stay tuned here; if any occur I’ll report them as soon as I hear. Also keep your browser pointed at SpaceWeather.com, which always has the latest info as well.

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Giant crack glimpsed in Antarctic ice sheet

2011-11-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

A massive crack is growing wider in the Antarctic ice sheet and could break apart in the coming months, forming an iceberg the size of New York City, NASA scientists warned on Thursday.

The crack in western Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier stretches for at least 18 miles (30 kilometers) and runs 165 feet (50 meters) deep.

The rift is widening at a rate of 6.5 feet (two meters) per day, said NASA project scientist Michael Studinger.

When the ice breaks apart, it will produce an iceberg more than 340 square miles (880 square kilometers), said Studinger, who is part of the US space agency's IceBridge project.

But the process is not a result of global warming, he said.

"We expect that later this year or early next year there will be a pretty large iceberg forming as part of a natural cycle," he added.

"These are cyclical events that occur every few years. The last big calving event occurred in 2001, so in general people have been expecting something to happen like that very soon.

"For us it is very exciting to actually see this while it is happening."

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Asteroid 2005 YU55 will zip by Earth next week

2011-11-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

A close encounter of the harmless kind comes next Tuesday when an aircraft-carrier-size asteroid races past Earth.
The asteroid, dubbed 2005 YU55, will come within 202,000 miles of Earth, closer than the moon, before zipping farther into space. Carbon-colored and dark, the asteroid measures some 1,300 feet wide. It will be the closest visit by a space rock this size in more than three decades.

"This is not a potentially hazardous asteroid, just a good opportunity to study one," says National Science Foundation astronomer Thomas Statler. NASA and the NSF plan a series of radar telescope and other observations starting Friday, aimed at mapping the asteroid's surface and chemistry.

"The radar measurements should be pretty spectacular," Statler says.

"A lot of asteroids are out there, so the more we know about them, the better," says astronomer Phil Plait of Discover Magazine's BadAstronomer blog. "This one is a clean miss, but we are going to learn a lot of science from it passing by."

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NASA Launches Multi-Talented Earth-Observing Satellite

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite soared into space early today aboard a Delta II rocket after liftoff at 5:48 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

NASA’s National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, successfully separated from the Delta II 58 minutes after launch, and the first signal was acquired by the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. NPP’s solar array deployed 67 minutes after launch to provide the satellite with electrical power. NPP is on course to reach its sun-synchronous polar orbit 512 miles (824 km) above Earth.

“NPP is critical to our understanding of Earth’s processes and changes,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver. “Its impact will be global and builds on 40 years of work to understand our complex planet from space. NPP is part of an extremely strong slate of current and future innovative NASA science missions that will help us win the future as we make new discoveries.”

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Asteroid could yield clues about formation of Earth

2011-10-31T03:03:00.000-07:00

An asteroid a quarter of a mile wide could yield clues about how Earth is formed when it streaks past our planet next week, missing by just 200,000 miles.

The giant lump of space rock, which is about the size of an aircraft carrier, will pass between Earth and the Moon on Tuesday, November 8.

The asteroid, which is known as 2005 YU55 and is orbit around the Sun, has not been this close to Earth in 200 years and will come closer to Earth than any of its size in the past 35 years.

The last time a similarly large rock passed by at such a short distance was in 1976 – but it went largely unnoticed because everybody – Nasa included – failed to notice it.

Now astronomers who missed that event will have another chance of a close encounter as the enormous rock shoots by at about 11.30pm on Tuesday, November 8.

It will not be visible to the naked eye but amateur astronomers stand a good chance of catching a glimpse of it provided they have a telescope at least 6in in diameter.

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NASA's future rides on commercial space success

2011-10-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

For NASA to achieve any of its lofty goals for the future, the commercial space industry must succeed, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver said.

The space agency has bet big that private spaceships will be ready to carry cargo and astronauts to orbit soon. The future of the International Space Station, as well as the future of NASA's robotic science missions and human deep space ambitions, depend on that outcome, Garver said yesterday (Oct. 20) here at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

"In order to make good on the entire plan, it is this part of the plan that must be successful," Garver said.
NASA: Pay now or pay later for space rides

After 30 years of carrying astronauts into low-Earth orbit, NASA retired its space shuttle program earlier this year.

"Contrary to what you might have heard, that marks the beginning, not the end," Garver said. "With the support of the president and Congress, NASA has made a renewed commitment to human spaceflight."

One leg of that commitment is a plan to build a new heavy-lift rocket (called the Space Launch System) and a deep-space crew capsule (called the Multipurpose Crew Vehicle)to take people first to an asteroid and then on to Mars.

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NASA, NOAA: Significant Antarctic Ozone Hole Remains

2011-10-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Even though autumn is in full swing here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring has sprung on the other side of the equator that means it's the time of year in which the ozone hole over Antarctica reaches its maximum size according to a report from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the Antarctic ozone hole stretched some 10.05 million square miles at its peak on Sept. 12, which is the ninth largest sweep on record. Additionally, levels of ozone above the South Pole plunged to their 10th lowest reading in the 26 years on the books.

What does this mean for us?

The ozone layer is an important part of the Earth's atmosphere and its depletion means that more ultraviolet radiation is reaching our planet's surface. When more radiation enters the Earth's atmosphere, it increases world-wide risks of skin cancers and other scary side effects.

The amount of ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere has been in the decline since 1987, when the Montreal Protocol was enacted in attempt to reverse damages. According to information from NASA, the treaty "caused the phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals, which had been used widely in refrigeration, as solvents and in aerosol spray cans." Despite this discontinued use of these chemicals, many still remain in the environment.

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Gaddafi was 'killed in crossfire'

2011-10-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi was killed in crossfire after being captured in his birthplace of Sirte, officials say.

Acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said he had been shot in the head in an exchange between Gaddafi loyalists and National Transitional Council fighters.

He confirmed that Col Gaddafi, who had been taken alive, had died before reaching hospital.

Nato's governing body, meeting in the coming hours, is expected to declare an end to its Libyan bombing campaign.

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that with the death of Col Gaddafi "that moment has now moved much closer".

"After 42 years, Col Gaddafi's rule of fear has finally come to an end," he said. "I call on all Libyans to put aside their differences and work together to build a brighter future."

Wild scenes of celebration continued late into the night in towns and cities across Libya at news of the colonel's death.

Groups of young men fired guns in the air, and drivers honked their horns in celebration.

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NASA Releases Visual Tour of Earth's Fires

2011-10-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

NASA has released a series of new satellite data visualizations that show tens of millions of fires detected worldwide from space since 2002. The visualizations show fire observations made by the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instruments onboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

NASA maintains a comprehensive research program using satellites, aircraft and ground resources to observe and analyze fires around the world. The research helps scientists understand how fire affects our environment on local, regional and global scales.

"What you see here is a very good representation of the satellite data scientists use to understand the global distribution of fires and to determine where and how fire distribution is responding to climate change and population growth," said Chris Justice of the University of Maryland, College Park, a scientist who leads NASA's effort to use MODIS data to study the world's fires.

One of the new visualizations takes viewers on a narrated global tour of fires detected between July 2002 and July 2011. The fire data is combined with satellite views of vegetation and snow cover to show how fires relate to seasonal changes. The Terra and Aqua satellites were launched in 1999 and 2002, respectively.

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NASA, Japan Release Improved Topographic Map of Earth

2011-10-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

NASA and Japan released a significantly improved version of the most complete digital topographic map of Earth on Monday, produced with detailed measurements from NASA’s Terra spacecraft.

The map, known as a global digital elevation model, was created from images collected by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, instrument aboard Terra. So-called stereo-pair images are produced by merging two slightly offset two-dimensional images to create the three-dimensional effect of depth. The first version of the map was released by NASA and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in June 2009.

“The ASTER global digital elevation model was already the most complete, consistent global topographic map in the world,” said Woody Turner, ASTER program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With these enhancements, its resolution is in many respects comparable to the U.S. data from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, while covering more of the globe.”

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NASA head visits Baltimore to show off Webb telescope

2011-10-16T21:16:00.001-07:00

A full-size model of the James Webb Space Telescope, the tennis-court-length receiver that will be assembled in and operated from Maryland, is on display at the Inner Harbor through Oct. 26.

"Webb will find the first galaxies in the universe," said NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. at the unveiling at the Maryland Science Center on Friday.

The orbiting telescope, recently at the center of budget battles in Washington, will be the "most powerful that NASA has ever built," he said.

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Warped Galaxies Reveal Signs of Universe's Hidden Dark Matter

2011-10-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

Warped visions of distant galaxy clusters are offering a reflection of the invisible matter inside them that astronomers are using to map the unseen side of the universe.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have observed the first of a number of galaxy clusters that they hope to use to build a cosmic census of hidden dark matter. Dark matter, thought to make up 98 percent of all matter in the universe, cannot be seen, only felt through its gravitational pull.

To find out where dark matter lies, and how much of it there is, scientists look for an effect called gravitational lensing. This bending of light is caused when mass — including dark matter — warps space-time, causing light to travel a crooked path through it. The end effect is a curvy, funhouse-mirror type view of distant cosmic objects.

One of the first objects observed for the new census is the galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. This conglomeration of galaxies is one of the most massive structures in the universe, and its gigantic gravitational pull causes stunning gravitational lensing.

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NASA to Launch Earth-Observing Satellite

2011-10-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

NASA announced it is planning to launch the very first Earth-observing satellite on Oct. 27.

The ultimate goal for the satellite entitled The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) will be to collect critical data on short and long-term weather patterns and increase our knowledge of climate change.

New state-of-the-art sensors will help scientists uncover specific data on the ozone layer, land cover, atmospheric temperatures and ice cover. The satellite is roughly the size of a minivan and will orbit the Earth’s poles about 14 times a day.

“NPP’s observations of a wide range of interconnected Earth properties and processes will give us the big picture of how our planet changes,” said Jim Gleason, NPP project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “That will help us improve our computer models that predict future environmental conditions. Better predictions will let us make better decisions, whether it is as simple as taking an umbrella to work today or as complex as responding to a changing climate.”

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New NASA satellite to monitor Earth's weather and climate

2011-10-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

A new NASA satellite that will be the first geared at observing key aspects of both Earth's climate and its weather is slated for launch on Oct. 27, the space agency announced Wednesday. The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is the first mission designed to collect critical data to improve weather forecasts in the short-term and increase our understanding of long-term climate change.

NPP's five science instruments, including four new state-of-the-art sensors, will provide scientists with data to extend more than 30 key data records that have been kept for decades by a cadre of Earth-observing satellites. These records, which range from the ozone layer and land cover to atmospheric temperatures and ice cover, are critical for understanding and predicting changes in global climate.

"NPP's observations of a wide range of interconnected Earth properties and processes will give us the big picture of how our planet changes," said Jim Gleason, NPP project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"That will help us improve our computer models that predict future environmental conditions," Gleason added. "Better predictions will let us make better decisions, whether it is as simple as taking an umbrella to work today or as complex as responding to a changing climate."

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NASA-backed space taxi to fly in test next summer

2011-10-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

A seven-seat space taxi backed by NASA to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station will make a high-altitude test flight next summer, officials said on Tuesday.

Sierra Nevada Corp's "Dream Chaser" space plane, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is one of four space taxis being developed by private industry with backing from the U.S. government.

For the unmanned test flight, it will be carried into the skies by WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier aircraft for the commercial suborbital passenger ship SpaceShipTwo, backed by Virgin Galactic, a U.S. company owned by Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group.

The test flight was added after privately held Sierra Nevada got a $25.6-million boost to its existing $80 million contract with NASA.

The test flight will take place from either Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, or from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Ed Mango, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said at a community briefing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

With the retirement of the space shuttles this summer, NASA is now dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the space station, at a cost of more than $50 million per person.

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Astronauts as Alien Life Hunters?

2011-10-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Ever since the last NASA space shuttle mission touched down in Florida on July 21, there has been a spirited debate in articles and blogs across the Internet over the future of humans in space.

Congress has directed NASA to build a super-rocket with the brawny power to hurtle astronauts out of Earth orbit and onto interplanetary destinations.

The largely vague justifications for "boldly going" there emphasize the uniquely American notion of conquering the frontier, "living in space," and planetary colonization as our manifest destiny.

But I'd like to offer a goal that is more tangible and far overarching. On many different levels, space pioneers could focus on answering, arguably, the most profound question every asked by humans: are we alone in the universe?

The answer to this question is equally profound either way it falls. If we find life elsewhere in the solar system, then life is unequivocally a condition of the universe. Find life once it's a miracle, twice, it's a statistic.

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NASA Reschedules Earth Science Satellite Launch

2011-10-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

NASA has announced that the launch of the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket has been rescheduled to October 27th.

NPP represents a critical first step in building the next-generation Earth-observing satellite system that will collect data on both long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions. It will carry the first of the new sensors developed for this satellite fleet, now known as the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), to be launched in 2016.

NPP will extend and improve upon the Earth system data records established by NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) fleet of satellites that have provided critical insights into the dynamics of the entire Earth system: clouds, oceans, vegetation, ice, solid Earth and atmosphere.
The Agency says two items have resulted in additional work to be performed on the NPP launch vehicle and this has resulted in the 2-day delay in the launch date. During systems testing, a hydraulic system leak was detected and the cause was found to be a small crack in a hydraulic tube. A replacement tube was manufactured, installed, and retested. All other similar tubes have been inspected and confirmed to be free of any defects.

Also, a flexible fabric collar connecting two engine system exhaust ducts was found to be damaged following pressurized leak testing. The damaged fabric collar is being removed and replaced

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NASA preps instruments for Solar Orbiter mission

2011-10-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

NASA is currently developing a Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) and Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS). Both instruments will be placed on the European Space Agency’s newly selected Solar Orbiter mission.

 The unmanned spacecraft has been tapped to observe the sun from a closer distance than any previous mission. At its closest approach, the European-led project will operate approximately 21 million miles from the sun's surface - near the orbit of Mercury and roughly 25% of the distance from the sun to the Earth.

As NASA scientist Barbara Giles points out, the unique vantage point will enhance the Orbiter’s ability to forecast space weather.

Indeed, sun storms are capable of producing disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupt power lines and cause widespread blackouts. Such storms may also interfere with satellites, the communications systems of airplanes flying near Earth's poles and cell phone service.

"Solar Orbiter is an exciting mission that will improve our understanding of the sun and its environment," explained Giles.   

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Comets a water source for thirsty early Earth

2011-10-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

The intense heat of the planet immediately after it formed means any initial water would have quickly evaporated and scientists believe the oceans emerged around 8 million years later.

The puzzle is where the water, which is vital for life on Earth, came from.

Past analysis of water-ice from far-flung comets suggested they could have delivered no more than 10 percent of today's oceans because the chemical "fingerprints" did not match up.

But research from Paul Hartogh of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and colleagues published on Wednesday showed a comet called 103P/Hartley 2 has the same chemical composition as the Earth's oceans.

The finding substantially increases the amount of water that could have originated from comets, which are made up of rock and ice with a characteristic tail of gas and dust. Previous models of the early Earth implied most water came from asteroids.

In the case of Hartley 2, researchers using infrared instruments on the Hershel Space Observatory found that ice on the comet has a near identical "D/H" ratio to seawater. D/H measures the proportion of deuterium -- or heavy hydrogen, which has an extra neutron -- compared to ordinary hydrogen in water.

"It was a big surprise when we saw the ratio was almost the same as what we find in the Earth's oceans," Hartogh told Reuters.

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Nasa: Commerial space deliveries 'within months'

2011-10-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

The US space agency Nasa said it expects commercial operators will deliver cargo to space within months, stressing that private missions were crucial to its future human activities.

"It is months before we have commercial entities carrying cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), not years," said Nasa head Charles Bolden, saying that two companies were preparing to fly final demonstration missions.

Nasa this year grounded its space shuttle fleet while unveiling its new Space Launch System focused on developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle for deep space exploration.

"The Space Station will continue to be the centrepiece of our human space flight activities through at least 2020," said Bolden.

"Commercial transportation of cargo and crew remain crucial, if not critical, to our future aboard the International Space Station," he added.

The Nasa chief spoke at a meeting of heads of space agencies from Russia, Europe, Japan and India at the International Astronautical Federation's annual congress.

"In November, working with our international partners, we'll start out again for the red planet with the Mars Science Laboratory, which will have the most sophisticated set of science instruments ever deployed to the planet's surface and serve as precursor as human missions to the planet," said Bolden.

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NASA satellite shows boiling sun in stunning detail

2011-10-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

It is a view of the sun like no other. These stunning images show the boiling inner workings of our star in a way no human eye could possibly hope to detect.

The mesmerising pictures, taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Satellite or SDO, show the energy thrown off by the sun in wavelengths invisible to the human eye such as X-rays and ultraviolet light. It has allowed us new understanding of how the star works.

The clarity of the SDO images means that it will feed back to Nasa on Earth more comprehensive science data on the sun than any other spacecraft. Every day it sends out 1.5 terabytes of data, equal to 500,000 songs on an MP3 player.

Some of the images show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the Sun’s surface.

The satellite was launched in February 2010 and chief scientist Dean Pesnell said it has already reshaped our theories of how the star works - as well as allowing an insight into the recent violent activity on the surface of the star.

During its five-year mission, it will examine the Sun's magnetic field and provide a better understanding of the role the Sun plays in Earth's climate.

It will determine how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and converted into such violent solar events such as turbulent solar winds.

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SpaceX Plans 100% Reusable Spacecraft With Retrorocket Re-entry

2011-10-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

Private aerospace company SpaceX plans to develop reusable spacecraft that gently land on Earth or other planets using retrorockets, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The idea is for both the space capsule and its rocket booster to be capable of “propulsive landing,” where after their reentry into the atmosphere using heat shields, the spacecraft would be lowered gently to a planet’s surface using rocket thrusters.

For Musk’s 100% reusable spacecraft idea to become reality, there’s much rigorous testing to be done. So far, SpaceX has done design work to figure out if it’s possible.

According to Discovery, Musk said the following at the National Press Club in New York Thursday: “Now, we could fail — I’m not saying we are certain of success here — but we are going to try to do it. And we have a design that on paper — doing the calculations, doing the simulations — it does work.”

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NASA Reduces Estimate of Near-Earth Asteroids

2011-09-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

New observations by a NASA space telescope that mapped the entire sky suggest that there are fewer potentially threatening asteroids in the solar system than previously thought.

The latest survey by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, telescope found significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously estimated, according to NASA.

The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, including those the size of the one thought to be responsible for the dinosaurs' extinction 65 million years ago.

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sphere twice in infrared light from January 2010 to February 2011. The asteroid-hunting portion of the mission, called NEO (Near Earth Object) WISE, used the data to catalog more than 157,000 asteroids in the main belt and discovered more than 33,000 new ones.

"NEOWISE allowed us to take a look at a more representative slice of the near-Earth asteroid numbers and make better estimates about the whole population. It's like a population census, where you poll a small group of people to draw conclusions about the entire country," said Amy Mainzer, lead author of the new study and principal investigator for the NEOWISE project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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Another dead satellite to fall in November

2011-09-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

A defunct NASA satellite that fell to Earth last week sparked some worldwide buzz, but it's not the only spacecraft falling out of space.

The decommissioned German X-ray space observatory, called the Roentgen Satellite or ROSAT, will tumble to Earth sometime in early November, but it's still too early to pinpoint exactly when and where debris from the satellite will land, according to officials at the German Aerospace Center.

The 2.4-ton spacecraft's orbit extends from the latitudes of 53 degrees north and south, which means the satellite could fall anywhere over a huge swath of the planet — stretching from Canada to South America, German Aerospace officials said. [ 6 Biggest Uncontrolled Spacecraft Falls From Space ]

The latest estimates suggest that up to 30 large pieces of the satellite could survive the intense and scorching journey through Earth's atmosphere. In all, about 1.6 tons of the satellite components could reach the surface of the Earth, according to German Aerospace officials.

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NASA Plans High-Speed Space Communications System

2011-09-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

NASA is working on a laser-based optical communications system that will drastically reduce the time it takes to transmit multimedia from space, with data moving at rates up to 100 times faster than current systems.

The space agency aims to show off a high-speed communications system through a Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) in 2016. LCRD is one of three next-generation space technologies NASA is working on as part of its plans to create more sophisticated solutions to meet goals for the future of its space program.

Now that NASA has retired its space shuttle program, the agency aims to send manned spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit and push the boundaries of current space communications, among other aims.

To the latter point, while it currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, LCRD will allow for actual streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the moon, according to the space agency.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center came up the idea for the LCRD, which is now being developed by a cross-organizational team that also includes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. NASA will fly the system into space on a commercial communications satellite developed by Space Systems/Loral.
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Map of Earth’s Salinity released by NASA’s Aquarius

2011-09-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, NASA launched the Argentine SAC-D satellite that has a number of instruments whose sole goal is that of providing scientists with important data about the environment. Aquarius is the main instrument on-board the satellite, whose mission is to measure global sea surface salinity to better predict future climate conditions. Today, NASA released the first global map of the salinity of the Earth’s seas produced by the satellite.

By studying the surface salinity of the world’s oceans, scientists can have a better understanding of key climatic processes that occur. Variations in the oceans’ salinity drive currents for example, and consequently influence the climate worldwide.

In the past, salinity would be measured by instruments lowered from ships, however accuracy wasn’t quite the strongest point of this technique. With Aquarius, salinity can be measured in more discrete means, as the satellite is capable of retrieving salinity with a resolution of 0.2 parts per thousand. That is a concentration change equivalent to about one millilitre of salt in six litres of water.

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How will the International Space Station fall to Earth?

2011-09-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

If a dead bus-size satellite's crash-landing can cause such a stir, global panic may well ensue when it's time for the enormous International Space Station to come down to Earth.

But that panic would be misplaced, NASA officials say. Though the orbiting lab is far larger than the space agency's defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which made an uncontrolled re-entry through Earth's atmosphere late Friday night, the station's eventual demise will pose little threat to folks on Earth.

That's because — unlike UARS — the huge structure will be deorbited in a controlled way, with its debris shower aimed into a stretch of empty ocean. [ Complete coverage of NASA's falling satellite ]

"We've done a lot of studies," said Kirk Shireman, deputy manager of NASA's space station program. "We have found an orbit and a change in velocity that we believe is achievable, and it creates a debris footprint that’s all in water in an unpopulated area."

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Neil Armstrong says US space program 'embarrassing'

2011-09-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, told lawmakers Thursday that the end of the space shuttle era has left the American human spaceflight program in an "embarrassing" state.

"We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future," Armstrong told the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

"For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable."

Armstrong was part of a four-member panel of space experts who told lawmakers that NASA needs a stronger vision for the future and should focus on returning humans to the Moon and to the International Space Station.

"A lead, however earnestly and expensively won, once lost, is nearly impossible to regain," said the US astronaut, now 81, who was commander of Apollo 11 and walked on the Moon in 1969.

President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program that would have returned humans to the Moon and called on NASA to instead focus on new, deep-space capabilities to carry people to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by 2030.

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Satellite falling to Earth, nobody knows where

2011-09-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

A bus-sized, 6.5-ton, 20-year-old NASA climate satellite that is falling out of orbit is likely to hit Earth on Friday, but nobody can say where. The chances are slim that anyone will see any of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite's 26 assorted pieces that are expected to survive re-entry into the atmosphere. The chances that someone on the planet will be hit by one of those chunks are 1 in 3,200.

The chance that any particular person (in other words, you) will be hit is infinitesimal: one in trillions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says.

But that hasn't stopped a flurry of excitement among space enthusiasts who track satellites and a welter of giddy articles about the possible risks.

FoxNews.com is offering a widget that will allow readers to track the satellite's progress in real time. Paddypower.com, an Irish gambling website, is taking bets on where debris will land. Odds of at least one piece landing in Ireland were 66 to 1, for example.

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Earth to satellite: When will you hit _ and where?

2011-09-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

NASA scientists are doing their best to tell us where a plummeting six-ton satellite will fall later this week. It's just that if they're off a little bit, it could mean the difference between hitting Florida or landing on New York. Or, say, Iran or India.

Pinpointing where and when hurtling space debris will strike is an imprecise science. For now, scientists predict the earliest it will hit is Thursday U.S. time, the latest Saturday. The strike zone covers most of Earth.

Not that citizens need to take cover. The satellite will break into pieces, and NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth will get hurt at 1 in 3,200. But any one person's odds of being struck have been estimated at 1 in 21 trillion.

As far as anyone knows, falling space debris has never injured anyone. Nor has significant property damage been reported. That's because most of the planet is covered in water and there are vast regions of empty land.

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Global Warming: Deep Oceans Could Delay Effects for Decade-Long Periods

2011-09-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

Earth's temperatures will likely stabilize for a period as deep ocean waters absorb enough heat to mask the effects of global warming for up to a decade, a new study indicates.

Earth's "missing heat" has long been a mystery for climate scientists as the last decade saw an incessant growth in greenhouse gas emissions did not elevate surface temperature as much as expected.

The joint U.S.-Australian study, based on computer simulations of global climate, points to ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) as the main location of the "missing heat" during periods such as the past decade when global air temperatures showed little trend.

The study conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmosperic Research and the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia was published in the Sept. 18 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.

“We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future," said the NCAR's Gerald Meehl, who led the study.

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NASA's giant rocket gives JSC a lift

2011-09-19T01:56:00.000-07:00

After a lengthy tug of war between the White House and Congress, NASA has finally - some would say grudgingly - unveiled plans for a massive booster rocket to propel U.S. astronauts on future expeditions into deep space.

It's a victory for Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and other lawmakers who fought to keep a heavy-launch vehicle in the space agency playbook after the Obama administration canceled the Constellation "return to the moon" program.

Whether the new rocket with the unassuming name Space Launch System (SLS) becomes reality depends upon the nation's manned space program getting the necessary $18 billion in funding over the next six years. The total price tag for the project is $35 billion.

Sen. Hutchison is hopeful the current budget-cutting bent in Congress does not interfere with a schedule that would have the first test flight of the booster in 2017.

She told the New York Times that the Republican leadership sees manned space flight "as part of the American spirit and most certainly part of the American economy and America's national security where we cannot afford to be in second place."

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Super-Earth Could Support Life, Scientists Say

2011-09-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

Super-Earth, a new alien planet, could potentially support life, astronomers announced Monday. The planet is among 50 other planets discovered by a new telescope from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Scientist discovered a group of alien planets that include 16 super-Earths, which are more massive that Earth. One alien planet, called HD 85512 b, orbits at the edge of its star’s habitable zone where water could exist, the Washington Post reported. This phenomenon has caught astronomer’s attention because it suggests that conditions on the planet could support life.

“If we are really, really lucky, this planet could be a habitat” like Earth, said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, according to the Post.

Astronomers have not determined whether the new super-Earth has an atmosphere. To establish this, astronomers need to capture an image of the planet and study the light for signs of water, carbon dioxide and other gases.

There is no existing telescope that can handle the task, but astronomers are scheduled to construct a new telescope next year.

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36 light yrs away, hope for an Earth-like planet

2011-09-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

European astronomers said on Monday that they had found what might be the best candidate for a Goldilocks planet yet: a lump of something about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth, circling its star at the right distance for liquid water to exist on its surface - and thus, perhaps, to host life, as we narrowly imagine it.

The planet, known as HD 85512b, is about 36 light-years from here, in the constellation Vela. It orbits its star at about a quarter of the distance that Earth circles the Sun, taking 58 days to make a year. That distance would put it in the star's so-called habitable zone, if the planet is rocky and has some semblance of an atmosphere - "if everything goes right and you have clouds to shelter you," as Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, summarized it. Astronomers cautioned, however, that it would take years and observations from telescopes not yet built before those assumptions could be tested and a search for signs of life could be undertaken.

Neither humans nor their robot helpers are likely to be dispatched toward Vela anytime soon. But the finding did vault HD 85512b to the top of a list of the handful of Goldilocks candidates. The Vela planet was part of a haul of more than 50 new exoplanets - as planets around other stars are called - discussed in a news conference on Monday hosted by the European Southern Observatory. They are the newest fruits of an eight-year observing program by astronomers based at the University of Geneva and led by Stephane Udry and Michel Mayor, working from a telecope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

Space food, shuttle tiles for sale by NASA

2011-09-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

The US space agency is offering schools and universities a special deal on astronaut cuisine and heat tiles from the now extinct space shuttles, just over 20 dollars a pack, NASA said Monday.

"The lightweight tiles protected the shuttles from extreme temperatures when the orbiters re-entered the Earth's atmosphere," NASA said in a statement.

"The food, which was precooked or processed so that refrigeration is unnecessary, is ready to eat or could be prepared simply by adding water or by heating."

Since the items are government property, the price to mail them was set at $23.40 for a package of "Tiles for Teachers" and $28.03 for a three-pack of food items, "Space Food for Schools."

Each shuttle had about 21,000 lightweight heat shield tiles to protect the spacecraft from searing heat which could reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 Celsius).

As part of the offer, NASA posted online a series of three different age-appropriate lesson plans for children seven to 18, but none contained a mention of the 2003 shuttle Columbia disaster.

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UARS Satellite To Hit Earth, Large Amount Of Metal To Hit Ground

2011-09-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

NASA and the US military are tracking the defunct UARS satellite, but they will not know where it will fall until about two hours before it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. The best estimate that they have is that it will make reentry sometime around the end of September.

Air Force Major Michael Duncan, deputy chief of the US Strategic Command’s space situtation awareness division, informed reporters on 9 September that “We continue to say late September is the best estimate that we can give right now. There are so many factors that will affect it between now and that point in time — the atmosphere changes on a daily basis — that it’s impossible to say how that’s going to impact this re-entry.”

What is more, they will only be able to pinpoint an area of within 6,000 miles of where this satellite will come to ground. NASA officials said that there is only a 1-3,200 chance that a person will be hit by falling satellite debris. Still, the odds of the UARS satellite will hit a populated area are rather remote.

According to Nick Johnson, the chief scientist of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston “So those are actually very, very low odds that anyone is going to be struck by a piece of debris.” He has indicated that 26 large pieces of the satellite are expected to survive reentry and hit the ground. In total, about 1,170 pounds of material from the satellite will hit the ground with the largest pieces weighing about 300 pounds. Johnson did say “Throughout the entire 54 years of the Space Age there has been no report of anyone being injured or impacted by any re-entering debris.”

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Gold, platinum on Earth came from outer space

2011-09-08T21:51:00.000-07:00

The gold and platinum that we see on Earth today may have come from outer space following a mammoth meteorite shower more than four billion years ago, scientists have claimed.

Geologists at the University of Bristol also discovered that there is enough gold and platinum in the Earth's core to plate the surface of the globe with a layer of priceless bling four metres thick.

It is believed that huge deposits of gold and other precious metals appeared during the Earth's formation moved into the planet's core when molten iron sank to its centre.

This left the Earth lacking gold and platinum until a cataclysmic meteor shower bombarded the earth 200 million years later, they researchers said.

During the 200-million-year-long shower, a staggering 20 quintillion tonnes of meteorite matter, including gold and platinum, slammed into the earth, the Daily Mail reported.

This mammoth meteorite shower, the researchers believe, replenished the earth's lost reserves of precious metals.

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NASA: 6.5-ton satellite falling back to Earth

2011-09-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

NASA's first major satellite as part of its "Mission to Planet Earth" program is now, ironically, on a much more literal mission back to the planet.

The 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will return to Earth in the next several weeks, according to NASA. At least some pieces of the spacecraft, which is 35 feet long and 15 feet wide, are expected to survive the fiery plunge into the atmosphere and reach the ground.

"It is too early to say exactly when UARS will re-enter and what geographic area may be affected," NASA said in a statement posted on Wednesday (Sept. 7) to its website.

Deployed in September 1991 by space shuttle Discovery's STS-48 crew, UARS was designed to help scientists learn more about the mixture of gases protecting Earth from the harsh environment of space.

By recording data about the chemical compounds found in the ozone layer, wind and temperature in the stratosphere, as well as energy input from the sun, UARS helped define the role that Earth's upper atmosphere has in climate and climate variability.

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NASA May Control Space Station Remotely From Earth

2011-09-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

We're told ground controllers must determine whether they can keep the International Space Station running remotely from Earth.

NASA and Russia have less than two months to decide whether to abandon ship.

And Tuesday, the current crew talked about what they'll do to prepare the space station for a potential solo mission.

It was the making of a perfect technological storm: The end of the NASA space shuttle program. Then, just weeks later, a Russian Soyuz rocket failed on lift-off.

Soyuz was supposed to be the stop-gap taxi service, ferrying astronauts and supplies to the ISS.

On the ground, NASA and Russian experts are testing the rocket to see if it can fly again before the November deadline. If not, humans will abandon the ISS.

For nearly 11 years, humans have continuously manned the $100 billion ISS, running science experiments and expanding the station, but that could soon end.

Crew members will videotape their daily activities to leave behind for a future crew in case it is de-manned. And right now, NASA is trying to determine whether it can run the space station remotely from Earth.

The crew defended the station's costs, but some politicians are already asking if it's financially worth it to restaff the station.

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You may be able to see the closest Supernova in 25-years tonight

2011-09-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

You may be able to gander at the closest supernova to Earth that astronomers have discovered in the last 25-years from your own backyard tonight. All you need to get your eyes on the new supernova is a small telescope or even binoculars. The coolest thing about this supernova is that it is very young. Astronomers think that they may have found the supernova within hours of its initial explosion on August 24.

The team that discovered the supernova was from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley and they used a specialized survey telescope at the Palomar Observatory in southern California. The supernova is the closest to us in many years, but it is still very far from Earth.

Apparently, the star is only 21 million light years away from us, whereas most supernovas that are detected are around 1 billion light years away. The close proximity to us means you can see it with basic tools. The supernova is in the Pinwheel Galaxy and you can see it within the Big Dipper. Check out the video below for tips on finding the supernova.

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Space junk finally falls on Earth

2011-09-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

What is orbital debris?
Orbital debris is the technical term for the man made junk scattered in the space around the earth. Earth's gravity traps these man made objects and particles into orbiting (revolving) around it. NASA estimates that the half century of space exploration has cluttered the space above the earth's atmosphere with millions of detectable objects. Starting from dead satellite the list includes spent parts of rockets and other particles which are released during the flight of any spacecraft. The agency estimates that about 19,000 of these objects are larger than 10cm and another 500,000 particles are between 1 to 10 cm in diameter. Apart from these there are over millions of particles which are smaller than 1 cm. The US Space Surveillance network which tracks this junk has recently reported a significant increase in the past 5 years.

Does this junk pose serious threat to the space projects?

Traveling at the speed which varies from 7 to 10 km/s any collision of the debris among themselves or with any satellite will release a considerable amount of energy. Operational spacecraft are usually protected by debris shield and most of them can withstand the impact of particles which are 1 cm or lesser in diameter. The probability of collision of spacecraft with a particle larger than 10 cm is very low. The worst incident of collision took place in 2009 when an operational American satellite collided with a derelict Russian satellite. NASA consultant Donald J. Kessler has proposed Kessler Syndrome which is a situation in which a large density of the orbital junk could cause chain collisions. One collision will create more debris and increase the likelihood of further collisions. Such collisions will destroy satellites worth millions of dollars and could render space exploration unfeasible for centuries.

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Scientists cook up Jupiter's atmosphere on Earth

2011-08-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

On a rooftop in downtown Atlanta, a group of scientists are cooking up alien atmospheres. Their results will help astronomers understand the data that NASA's Juno spacecraft will send back from Jupiter in 2016.

Jupiter's cloudy bands and Great Red Spot are visible with an amateur telescope. But the elements that compose them are more challenging to detect.

The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, and will spend the next five years journeying to Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. Using myriad instruments, the craft is expected to help scientists come to a greater understanding of the origins and composition of the gas giant.

Cooking up an atmosphere
As the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter was most likely the first to form from the gas and dust that once circled the young sun. Details about its past provide clues to the early history and formation of other planets, including Earth.

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Powerful solar flare aimed away from Earth

2011-08-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

The most powerful solar flare in more than four years exploded from the sun early on Tuesday, but experts say most of the ejected particles will miss the Earth.

If the charged particles had come straight on rather than close to a 90-degree angle, it could have caused electromagnetic storms with uncertain consequences, said Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Some radio communication blackouts were reported Tuesday morning. As it appears now, some particles may strike a glancing blow with the Earth's atmosphere over the next few days.

Today's solar flare is many times larger than last week's coronal mass ejection, which produced aurora borealis across the northern United States. Western Washington was cloudy at the peak of the aurora, which was seen most intensely in Europe.

"The point I would make is that this is an indicator of the ascension of the new solar activity cycle," Kunches said.

The sun is about two years into the current 11-year cycle, which is expected to peak with more severe solar storms sometime between now and 2016, he noted.

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Antimatter Belt Around Earth Discovered

2011-08-09T02:46:00.000-07:00

New research has confirmed the old theory that a layer of antimatter particles encircles Earth. The discovery that a band of antiprotons lie in the magnetosphere, which is beyond the Van Allen belt, proves earlier prediction that Earth's magnetic field could trap antimatter.

According to researchers, the new discovery could help science leapfrog several hurdles in its advanced space exploration projects in future. According to them, the antimatter belt could be a fuel powerhouse, trapping enough energy to fuel a spacecraft.

The study, conducted by Italian, Swedish and Russian scientists, is titled "The Discovery of Geomagnetically Trapped Cosmic-ray Antiprotons," and is published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Van Allen belt lies at an altitude of several hundred kilometers above Earth and is a torus of energetic charged particles around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field. Most of the particles that form the belt come from solar storms, while other particles are from cosmic rays.

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Did Earth have two moons?

2011-08-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

The moon once had a smaller sibling, according to astronomers from the University of California, Santa Cruz. The researchers used computer models to simulate the size, orbit, and ultimate destruction of the second moon that they believe once shared the night skies above our Earth. But what became of our second moon? Here, a brief guide to the new theory:

Where did the second moon come from?
Astronomers believe the second moon was created the same way as our current moon: A Mars-sized planet crashed into Earth, kicking up an enormous ring of debris that orbited our world. Over time, this debris coalesced into our existing large moon, as well as a second, smaller moon. The two satellites co-existed peacefully in the sky for some 80 million years, looking like siblings. They were the same color and shape, though our moon was three times larger than the other.

What happened to our second moon?
About 4.5 billion years ago — before there was even life on Earth — the second moon hit our existing moon in a dramatic, slow-motion collision occurring over several hours. Because the smaller moon was more solid than the still-molten surface of our larger moon, the collision resulted in a "splat" that scattered wrecked pieces of the smaller moon all over the larger moon's far side. That helps to explain why the two sides of our moon are so different.

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NASA's Eyes In The Sky Study Pollution On Earth

2011-08-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

NASA, the agency best known for exploring space, is trying to answer some urgent questions about air pollution right here on Earth.

For much of July, the agency flew research planes between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore as part of a mission known as DISCOVER-AQ. The planes, along with weather balloons and ground stations, were gathering data on how pollutants such as ozone and particulates behave in the atmosphere.

The short-term goal is to learn more about where these pollutants form, how far they travel after forming, and how they are distributed at different elevations in the atmosphere.

The long-term goal is to make it possible to use satellites to provide hour-by-hour monitoring of pollution levels across the country. That would help the Environmental Protection Agency and other parts of government enforce air quality standards.

One reason NASA picked the Baltimore-Washington traffic corridor to fly over is that it's a particularly bad place to inhale.

"It's a rather polluted region," says Ken Pickering, a scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who is part of the DISCOVER-AQ mission. Maryland frequently violates the national ambient air quality standard for both ozone and for particulate matter, he says.

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117 million miles away, NASA craft orbiting asteroid sends revealing photos

2011-08-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

Running along the asteroid’s equator are deep grooves, a surprise to scientists who did not expect to see such features.

“We’re seeing quite a varied surface,’’ said chief scientist Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles. The images were taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which began orbiting the 330-mile-wide rocky body last month and beaming back incredible surface details that the team is only beginning to pore over. It’s the first time that Vesta has been viewed up close. Until now, it has only been photographed from afar.

Since entering orbit, the spacecraft has taken more than 500 pictures. The probe will officially start collecting science data next week once it is 1,700 miles from the surface. It will get as close as 110 miles while it orbits Vesta for a year.

Vesta’s southern section is dominated by a giant crater, the result of a collision eons ago believed to have pelted Earth with numerous meteorites, or broken-off pieces of asteroids. The northern side is filled with older craters.

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The Energy at the Earth’s Core

2011-07-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth’s magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth’s interior into space. Where does it come from? Initially the earth heated up using energy released buy gravitational collapse, and while this energy completely melted the planet, this heat would have all been lost by now as the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. However, the earth is still hot in its core as we can see from all the volcanic activity on our planet. The energy which keeps the core hot and the volcanoes active is produced by radioactive decay. Heavy, radioactive elements such as uranium sank to the Earth's core along with the Iron and Nickel early in Earth's history (when it was all molten) and these radioactive elements have been heating the core (rather like a nuclear power station) ever since.

In 2005 scientists in the KamLAND collaboration, based in Japan, first showed that there was a way to measure the heat contribution directly. The trick was to catch what KamLAND dubbed geoneutrinos — more precisely, geo-antineutrinos — emitted when radioactive isotopes decay.

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Earth's Traveling Companion

2011-07-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

There's something deeply intriguing about the interplanetary objects known as Trojan asteroids.

The great French dynamicist Joseph-Louis Lagrange predicted in 1772 that small bodies might be sharing Jupiter's orbit, in gravitationally stable sweet spots (now called Lagrange points) located ahead of and behind the planet by 60°. But it wasn't until 1906 that the first of these, 588 Achilles, was spotted. Today more than 4,800 Jupiter Trojans are known, with roughly two-thirds in the preceding "Greek camp" (L4) and a third in the trailing "Trojan camp" (L5).

Within the past two decades, astronomers have found four Trojan asteroids sharing the orbit of Mars and seven accompanying Neptune. They've looked for companions to Earth as well, but the geometry is all wrong: Earth's Trojans would spend most of their time in the daylight sky.

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NASA Visualization Explorer Brings Earth Science News to the iPad

2011-07-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

Boldly go where no app has gone before with NASA Visualization Explorer. Courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., this new application will help keep iPad users up to date on the latest NASA research.

NASA Visualization Explorer is a multi-media magazine that blends NOVA-style science news features with movies and photos that offer readers a vantage few other agencies can. The New York Times may have countless satellite bureaus, but none of them orbit the earth (at least not yet).

The application joins NASA App HD for iPad in offering anyone from students to scholars a chance to access real satellite data, stunning images, Hi-res video, and the latest NASA news.

It’s easy for users to keep up with current earth science news using NASA Visualization Explorer because the app’s editors plan to release two new stories each week, in addition to the six that are available in the inaugural version.

While some of the current stories look to the heavens (“Meet NASA’s Earth-Observing Fleet,”) others focus is right here on terra firma (“India’s Disappearing Water,” “Base Camp: West Antarctica”). Future stories may also cover the solar system and beyond, include interviews with scientists, or imagery from a supercomputer’s models.

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NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Chevron forge alliance

2011-07-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Chevron Corp. has forged an alliance with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to see whether technology developed for deep space can boost oil and natural gas production on Earth.

The partnership, announced Monday, will give San Ramon's Chevron a chance to collaborate with an institution known for designing robotic space probes that can function under extreme conditions.

That expertise could benefit Chevron, the nation's second-largest oil company. Some of the company's wells extend 30,000 feet below ground, a region of high heat and intense pressure.

"We get some incredibly interesting ideas from people who are outside of our industry," said Manuel Gonzalez, who manages Chevron's alliances with universities and government labs. "If you focus too much on your own industry, you may miss out on some fantastic ideas that come from a different background."

The collaboration will further one of NASA's longtime goals: finding commercial uses for ideas and technologies developed by America's space program. It could also refine existing technologies, leading to better space probes in the future.

"We are proud that the same pool of talent that sends rovers to Mars, explores our universe and studies Earth's environment will help contribute advanced technology toward our energy future here on Earth," said JPL Director Charles Elachi.

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Shuttle's end - a bittersweet event

2011-07-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Last week's landing of space shuttle Atlantis put NASA out of the manned space flight business, at least for now, and for millions of Americans, this is a bittersweet moment in history. Many people reading this paper have literally grown up with the space program.

Ever since 1962, when John Glenn orbited the earth three times in Friendship 7 before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean, "manned" space flight (which included women) has been part of the American consciousness.

Who can forget April 12, 1981, when the still-experimental shuttle Columbia roared into the Florida sky and we all watched on TV? It was precisely 6 a.m. in Houston, where I lived at the time. Acronyms like STS (space transport system), SCA (shuttle carrier aircraft), SRB (solid rocket booster), and JSC (Johnson Space Center) became part of our lexicon.

Each launch had a number. Columbia's first launch in 1981 was STS-1, the second launch was STS-2, and so on. Last week's landing of STS-135 means there were 135 launches of the five shuttles in our original fleet. Of course, there were only 133 landings.

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NASA Briefing to Preview Upcoming Mission to Jupiter

2011-07-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

will hold a news briefing at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, July 27, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to discuss preparations for the upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter. The briefing will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Juno, scheduled to launch Aug. 5, will improve our understanding of our solar system's beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Juno will get closer to Jupiter than any other spacecraft and will provide images and the first detailed glimpse of its poles.

Briefing participants are:-- Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington -- Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio-- Jan Chodas, Juno project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. -- Steve Levin, Juno project scientist, JPL-- Kaelyn Badura, Pine Ridge High School, Deltona, Fla.; high school student, Juno Education program participant and Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Project

U.S. media without permanent Kennedy accreditation need to apply for credentials by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26. New accreditation for international journalists is closed. Credentialing requests should be submitted online at:

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Bolden Says NASA to Contract Future Low-Orbit Flights

2011-07-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Charles Bolden, administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, discusses the end of the space shuttle program and the outlook for the agency.

With the return of the shuttle Atlantis to Florida today, NASA leaves the business of low-Earth orbital flight and will use U.S. companies to develop spacecraft for taking people and cargo on short trips. Bolden speaks with Mark Crumpton on Bloomberg Television's "Bottom Line." (Source: Bloomberg)

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Atlantis lands to end space shuttle era

2011-07-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

Atlantis' landing in dawn's faintest glimmer of light this morning ended the flawless final mission of NASA's space shuttle program and gave way to NASA's new era of uncertainty, with no more manned space flight launches for many years.

With Commander Chris Ferguson at the helm, Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 a.m. in perfect, cloudless, windless weather. When its wheels stopped a minute later NASA saluted 30 years of triumph and tragedy for a shuttle program that has kept the United States at the forefront of manned space flight since 1981, but is over.

"The space shuttle changed the way we view the world," Ferguson said.

The mission, Atlantis' 33rd and the shuttle program's 135th, carried a year's worth of supplies to the International Space Station. It equipped and stocked that space lab to become the new centerpiece of NASA's manned space flight program until the agency can develop the deep-space rockets it wants. That could take a decade or more.

The $100 billion station, with a six-member international crew (currently three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese,) has been the crowning achievement of the shuttles first launched in April 1981 as a do-all space truck, capable of science, military, commercial and exploration missions.

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Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around Vesta

2011-07-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

After almost four years traveling through space, the NASA Dawn spacecraft reached its destination and entered orbit around the asteroid Vesta on 16 July 2011. On board Dawn, among other instruments, is a Framing Camera for imaging the surface of the asteroid.

Using data from this camera system, scientists at the German Aerospace Center will create detailed maps and elevation models of this celestial body, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and help shed some light on the history of the Solar System.

A mountain, impact craters, areas with furrows and bulges - the first stereo images from DLR are already revealing excellent views of the surface of the asteroid Vesta in 3D. The data that Dawn is obtaining from its orbit at a distance of 16,000 kilometres from Vesta, is still not adequate for high-precision elevation models, but it is being used to test the data handling process.

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Shuttle Astronauts Set to Leave Space Station for Last Time

2011-07-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

The four astronauts onboard shuttle Atlantis are planning to depart the International Space Station to wrap up the final space shuttle flight ever.

Atlantis launched July 8 on the 135th and last voyage of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program. The orbiter delivered a horde of spare parts for the space laboratory, and is now packed full of trash to take back to Earth.

The astronauts closed the hatches between the shuttle and the station Monday (July 18). Atlantis is due to undock and depart from the outpost Tuesday (July 19) at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT).

Ferguson and his crew began their 12th day in space Monday just after 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT Tuesday), waking to the song "Don't Panic" by Coldplay, played especially for pilot Doug Hurley.

"Good morning Houston, I'd like to thank my wife Karen and my son Jack for the great song — they know I really like it," Hurley said. "We are getting ready for undock today. We get to do one last lap of Atlantis around ISS and start our trip home."

After the shuttle undocks, Hurley will steer the ship in a loop around the space station to allow the astronauts to take detailed photos of the outpost from many angles to document the status of its exterior.

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Radioactive decay fuels Earth's inner fires

2011-07-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Half of the extraordinary heat of the Earth that erupts on its surface volcanically and drives the titanic motions of the continents is due to radioactivity, scientists find.

This new discovery shows that the planet still retains an extraordinary amount of heat it had from its primordial days.

To better understand the sources of the Earth's heat, scientists studied antineutrinos, elementary particles that, like their neutrino counterparts, only rarely interact with normal matter. Using the Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) located under a mountain in Japan, they analyzed geoneutrinos — ones emitted by decaying radioactive materials within the Earth — over the course of more than seven years.

The specific amount of energy an antineutrino packs on the rare occasions one does collide with normal matter can tell scientists about what material emitted it in the first place — for instance, radioactive material from within the Earth, as opposed to in nuclear reactors. If one also knows how rarely such an antineutrino interacts with normal matter, one can then estimate how many antineutrinos are being emitted and how much energy they are carrying in total.

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Astronauts Woken up by Second Computer Failure

2011-07-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

After getting a little free time Thursday, the last space shuttle crew was woken up to deal with a second computer failure on Atlantis.

The astronauts switched to another of the five main computers on board, and NASA said the shuttle was in "stable condition with no concerns for the crew's safety." A computer had also failed on Sunday.

The crew had gone to bed late Thursday afternoon, but Mission Control woke them up about 1½ hours later because of the failed computer. NASA said they would troubleshoot the problem on Friday.

Sunday's computer glitch occurred just before the shuttle linked up with the International Space Station. Engineers said the problem was likely caused by a bad switch throw. That computer was working again Monday after new software was installed.

The check-and-balance network of computers provides redundancy during the most critical phases of the mission, and will be needed when Atlantis lands next week to close out the 30-year shuttle era.

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NASA chief tells Congress: Save Webb telescope

2011-07-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

NASA chief Charlie Bolden went to bat for the agency's imperiled next-generation space telescope Tuesday, telling members of Congress that the instrument has greater potential for discovery than the iconic Hubble Space Telescope.

A proposed congressional budget bill announced last week would terminate NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an ambitious instrument with a history of delays and cost overruns. But NASA can deliver JWST to space for about the same price as Hubble, Bolden said — and the science returns would be even greater.

"I have tried to explain what I think is the importance of James Webb, in terms of opening new horizons far greater than we got from Hubble," Bolden told members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee Tuesday. "I would only say that for about the same cost as Hubble in real-year dollars, we'll bring James Webb into operation."

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NASA's gift on Neptune's 165th anniversary

2011-07-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

The planet Neptune reached the same spot in its orbit Tuesday that it occupied when it was discovered 165 years ago.

In other words, it's been a full Neptunian year.

The gas giant, which became the solar system's most distant official planet after Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status, reveals luminous pink clouds floating in its blue atmosphere in new NASA images.

They were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope June 25 and 26 to mark the anniversary.

The four NASA images, taken together, give a wraparound view of the planet. They were taken at four-hour intervals, so they cover the entire 16-hour Neptune day.

Neptune also has seasons, just like Earth, because it also is tilted in its orbit -- 29 degrees compared to Earth's 23.

But on Neptune, the seasons last about 40 years each.

The planet was discovered on Sept. 23, 1846, by German astronomer Johann Galle, but the run-up to the discovery goes back to 1781.

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NASA Invites Public to "Virtual Dinner" With Final Shuttle Crew

2011-07-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

The public can share a virtual dinner with the final space shuttle crew on Thursday, July 14 by preparing grilled chicken, barbecue brisket, baked beans and Southwestern corn at home using NASA's recipes.

Food scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston prepared the special "All-American Meal" for the STS-135 shuttle crew, as the iconic American spacecraft makes its last voyage. The four shuttle astronauts, and possibly the six International Space Station crew members, are scheduled to eat the meal on the fifth day of the STS-135 mission.

"Since the mission is in July, we thought it would be fun to have a typical summer meal often enjoyed in our backyards with friends and family," said Michele Perchonok, NASA food scientist and manager of the shuttle food system.

For the special space recipes or "formulations" as they are called by NASA food scientists, plus more information, video and imagery, visit:

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Approaching space junk threatens spacewalk during Atlantis mission

2011-07-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

NASA is monitoring a piece of space junk that might come dangerously close to the shuttle station.

The object will make its closest approach Tuesday -- right in the middle of a planned spacewalk.

News of the space junk came soon after Sunday's docking by Atlantis to the International Space Station. Atlantis is making the very last shuttle flight.

Mission management team leader LeRoy Cain said the size of the space junk is unknown. He said the object might stay at a safe distance, but experts won't know until today. If necessary, Atlantis' thrusters will move the linked craft.

Less than two weeks ago, space station astronauts had to take shelter in their lifeboats because of a piece of junk. It missed by 1,100 feet, the closest encounter yet.

Sunday's docking, the last for the shuttles, was emotional.

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Space Tourism: Filling the Void left by NASA?

2011-07-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

The 135th and very last space shuttle flight before NASA retires the 30-year program launched today, July 8. Today's flight will be Atlantis' 33rd and final mission before it is retired, along with the rest of the agency's orbiter fleet, Endeavour and Discovery. The shuttle's retirement will make way for a new space exploration program aimed at sending astronauts on deep space missions with the hopes of reaching Mars.

But while the engineers, scientists and technicians are sequestered on the ground away from space, who will fill the void?

Enter "space tourism."

Space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes has been around for more than a decade, but new technological discoveries and increased funding have made this once idyllic fantasy a (somewhat) plausible reality.

The public first became obsessed with booking a ride on a rocket in the frenzy of the space race, but once Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, the race was won and over. This led to a decreased emphasis on space exploration by both governments and the general public.

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NASA footing the bill for many to witness final space shuttle launch

2011-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

For one career NASA engineer joining the thousands of Houstonians going to Florida this week for the final space shuttle launch, this trip wasn't necessarily a part of the plan.

Really, he'd have no problem staying at Mission Control in Houston, watching data flow into computer monitors about the shuttle's progress and trajectory as it rockets out of the atmosphere.

That is what Mack Henderson, 72, who began his career working on development of the Saturn V rocket, has done for decades. And it's the reason that he's only attended two spacecraft launches in his 51-year career, one of them for Apollo 12.

This time, however, NASA is paying for him and more than 140 other employees to watch the final space shuttle lift off in person.

"My hope is that after this launch, they'll say, 'Oh, we were just kidding. We're going to fly more space shuttle flights,' " said Henderson, who added that he's happy to be able to witness the milestone but will be sad that the program is ending.

Those may be the sentiments of many of the Houston space-industry workers, past and present, traveling in droves to Florida this week to watch the beginning of the end of NASA's space shuttle era, but they are going anyway.

"In some ways, it's just sad to see it end," said Lisa Reed, 50, who worked for nearly 15 years at NASA before leaving to join a private consulting firm. Reed, who helped train astronauts on docking and life support systems, will watch the launch in Florida with her relatives.

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NASA to launch Jupiter probe Juno in August

2011-07-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

NASA's Juno spacecraft is 30 days away before its first launch window opens, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced on Tuesday.

"One month from today, our first launch window opens at 11:34 a. m. EDT (8:34 a.m. PDT) and lasts 69 minutes," said Jan Chodas, Juno project manager from NASA's JPL in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

"Our primary launch period is 22 days long, and so if weather or other issues come up on Aug. 5, we have 21 more days to get Juno flying. Once we get Juno into space, it's a five-year cruise to Jupiter."

"The launch window is the length of time allotted every day for an attempt to launch the spacecraft," said Chodas. "The launch period is the period of time in days when everything is in the right place to get your mission off to the right start."

For a mission like Juno, getting everything in the right place includes considering the size of the rocket and spacecraft, where our home planet -- and in particular Juno's launch pad -- is pointed at any moment, and its location in space relative to other celestial objects like Juno's final target, Jupiter.

Juno is scheduled to launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from pad 41-C at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core.

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NASA's space shuttle leaves wildly diverse legacy

2011-07-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

The space shuttle was sold to America as cheap, safe and reliable. It was none of those.

It cost $196 billion over 40 years, ended the lives of 14 astronauts and made fewer than half the flights promised.

Yet there were big achievements: major scientific advances, stunning photos of the cosmos, a high-flying vehicle of diplomacy that helped bring Cold War enemies closer, and something to brag about.

Former President George H.W. Bush said the shuttle program “authored a truly inspiring chapter in the history of human exploration.”

NASA’s first space shuttle flight was in April 1981. The 135th and final launch is set for Friday. Once Atlantis finishes its 12-day mission, it and the two other remaining shuttles are officially museum pieces — more expensive than any paintings.

America has done far more for far less. The total price tag for the program was more than twice the $90 billion NASA originally calculated.

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The end of the space shuttle program: next step of NASA

2011-07-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

The International Space Station is the centerpiece of our human spaceflight activities in low Earth orbit. The ISS is fully staffed with a crew of six, and American astronauts will continue to live and work there in space 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Part of the U.S. portion of the station has been designated as a national laboratory, and NASA is committed to using this unique resource for scientific research.

The ISS is a test bed for exploration technologies such as autonomous refueling of spacecraft, advanced life support systems and human/robotic interfaces. Commercial companies are well on their way to providing cargo and crew flights to the ISS, allowing NASA to focus its attention on the next steps into our solar system.

Aeronautics
NASA is researching ways to design and build aircraft that are safer, more fuel-efficient, quieter, and environmentally responsible. We are also working to create traffic management systems that are safer, more efficient and more flexible. We are developing technologies that improve routing during flights and enable aircraft to climb to and descend from their cruising altitude without interruption.

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Former astronaut faces legal battle with NASA

2011-07-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Edgar Mitchell is a pilot, an astronaut, and according to his Presidential Medal of Freedom, a hero. However, according to NASA, Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon is also, "a former NASA employee who is exercising improper dominion and control" of a relic of space history.

"It was a multi-speed camera. You could either take single pictures or a series of frames with it. It was called a Data Acquisition Camera," said Dr. Edgar Mitchell.

Destined for the scrap-heap, lunar modules were often stripped of memorabilia before being abandoned to the lunar surface.

"That was our practice because, the lunar modules were not reusable spacecraft. In fact none of the Apollo mission equipment was really reusable, particularly, the lunar module," said Dr. Mitchell.

Today, Mitchell is in possession of many cosmic keepsakes, including a control stick used to guide the module during landing.

"We had an agreement with NASA management, that small items that didn't exceed our weight limitations, we could bring back. This was the incentives that we used, with little bits and pieces of memorabilia, to spur on the people that worked with us. Particularly the people that didn't fly," said Dr. Mitchell.

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If You Go: Final Shuttle Launch

2011-07-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

Planning to attend the final launch of space shuttle Atlantis on July 8, or just thinking about going?

First of all, we'd like to hear from you — e-mail Patch editor Jason Bartolone so we can talk to you for a possible story or to share your photos with us.

And secondly, here's what you need to know:

Why should I go?

It's a chance to see history. NASA is retiring its space shuttle program, to be replaced with a new space exploration program focused on sending astronauts to deep space and asteroids. STS-135 is the final space shuttle mission.

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NASA: Earth narrowly escapes asteroid’s ‘deep impact’

2011-06-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

The asteroid, which NASA said is almost the same size as a regular commercial bus, passed by Earth at 1700 GMT and kept a distance of at least 12,000 kilometres above the planet before its gravity forced the stray rock from entering out atmosphere.

However, NASA has clarified that despite its size, the asteroid named by scientists as 2011 MD would normally be harmless once it enters Earth's atmosphere as the rock will splinter and burn if its composition is largely made of stones.

The space agency admitted though that it will be a different story if the asteroid proved to be fortified by iron minerals, which can survive the fiery friction upon impact on the planet's atmosphere.

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Sunset rocket launch may light up Eastern skies

2011-06-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

NASA plans to launch a new military satellite from a Virginia spaceport late Tuesday (June 28), a flight that could potentially create a spectacular sight for skywatchers along the U.S. East Coast.

The U.S. Air Force's Minotaur 1 rocket is slated to blast off from a NASA launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 8:28 p.m. EDT (0028 GMT). The mission: To launch ORS-1, a Department of Defense satellite built for the Operationally Responsive Space Office.

ORS-1 would be the Operationally Responsive Space Office's first working satellite. The spacecaft is considered an "important step to demonstrate the capability to meet emerging and persistent war-fighter needs," NASA officials said in a statement. It is also expected to support the military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs by hosting an innovative sensor system.

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Orion capsule model arrives on the Space Coast

2011-06-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

A massive capsule which looks like the Orion Capsule is now on the Space Coast. NASA crews towed it on the back of a tractor trailer from Edwards Air Force Base in California.

It is called a flight test article, 17 feet wide, and took up two lanes of traffic. It is looks like the Orion Capsule, but it's not designed to travel into space. NASA used it last May to test its effectiveness in the event of an emergency on the rocket if the astronauts had to escape.

Crew members said it was interesting to see the capsule on busy highways.

Wayne Hicks is the NASA Operations Engineer who was one of several people who transported the massive capsule. Hicks said, “Most of the time we were on two way back roads, so it was very interesting that the police that were traveling with us would stop traffic and pull them to the side of the road. We were going on a two way highway going 60 miles an hour, that was fun. "

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The Case of NASA's Contraband Sticky Tape

2011-06-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

What has a tiny sliver of sticky tape being sold in a St. Louis, Mo., auction house got to do with NASA? And why the heck did the government agency swoop in to claim said sticky tape?

Sounding like a storyline crossed between X-Files and a Monty Python sketch, this is an entertaining tidbit of space history that began over 40 years ago.

SEE ALSO: The Case of the Contraband Corned Beef Sandwich

According to The New York Times, the United States attorney's office for eastern Missouri announced Thursday that it had recovered "stolen" government property.

Either the government takes sticky tape pilfering very seriously, or the triangular piece of sticky tape, measuring only 1/8th of an inch wide, was very special. Fortunately for all of us who have "borrowed" rolls of tape from the office, it's the latter. The tape has specks of moon dust stuck to it, dating back to the Apollo moon landings.

But how did the dust get stuck to some sticky tape only for it to appear 40 years later in Missouri?

ANALYSIS: Got Dust? Acoustic Levitation Might Clear It

The story begins with Terry Slezak, the photographer in charge of developing photographs taken by the astronauts who trekked across the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972.

On one occasion, Slezak opened a canister containing photographic film, only to spill moon dust that had collected inside. After all, judging by the photographs (below) and stories from Apollo astronauts, moon dust gets everywhere. The dust spilled over Slezak's hands and film magazine, so to avoid the abrasive dust from damaging the bare film, he used Scotch tape and towels to remove it. The tape, plus moon dust, was left hanging in his dark room.

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The incredible journey of NASA spacecraft Dawn

2011-06-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

NASA spacecraft Dawn, the largest probe ever launched by the agency, is slowly approaching protoplanet Vesta, where it will spend a year in exploratory orbit before moving on to Ceres.

NASA's pioneering Dawn spacecraft, a year late in being launched and 20% over budget, is slowly creeping up on the protoplanet Vesta and is expected to enter orbit around it about July 16, the first stop on a remarkable journey that will later take the craft to the larger dwarf planet Ceres.

The craft, the largest probe ever launched by NASA, is about half-way through its three-month approach phase to Vesta, 96,000 miles away and closing in at the sedate speed of about 260 mph.

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As shuttle program ends, new opportunities emerge

2011-06-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

This is a challenging time of transition for our space industry, but the future is far from bleak for the workers who made the space shuttle program and other NASA ventures successful.

Thousands of highly skilled workers will be laid off when NASA ends the shuttle program. That means as many as 400 workers in Volusia County will lose their jobs.

The layoffs certainly won't help the struggling Florida economy. But hope for the future comes in the form of new aviation-related projects and budding aerospace technologies.

For instance, the growth of new technologies in the Daytona Beach area, including NextGen air-traffic control at Daytona Beach International Airport, could help buoy the regional economy.

Still, it will be a tough transition for the shuttle workers, some of whom have already taken jobs at technology companies in other states. These workers, who worked both for NASA and the private sector assisting the shuttle flights, have solid technical resumes, which are in demand even in this economy.

Volusia County officials hope to keep many of these employees in the area. A local plan to develop aerospace businesses is in place, but depends in large part on the growth of the 90-acre research park planned by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

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How NASA, DARPA Are Keeping Kids Interested In Space

2011-06-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

The end of the Space Shuttle era is slightly depressing. NASA won't be flying its own astronauts into space for a while, either, putting a further damper on the good PR that comes from the visually and intellectually stimulating space program, which encourages students of engineering and science. To keep folks interested, NASA and DARPA are pushing (a little) money into a program that's directly aimed at students themselves.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) are an existing experiment that uses tiny ball-shaped robots that fly inside the International Space Station. They test techniques for keeping real satellites maneuvering in sync so that they can rendezvous and work as part of a swarm--a task that's useful for autonomous satellite servicing, and even the building of future spacecraft.

The offer that NASA's making is that if you design an interesting experiment, and it wins their approval, it'll be used to fly the SPHERES robots for real. In space.

NASA says the program is designed to inspire future scientists and engineers by building critical skills in designing an experiment, in "problem solving, design thought process, operations training, team work and presentation skills." It's dubbed "Zero Robotics," and to register you have to simply visit a couple of NASA websites, design your experiment, and submit it online. Twenty-seven teams will be chosen to have their codes executed by an astronaut operating the SPHERES at a later date.

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NASA capsule makes landing outside Bullock museum

2011-06-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

With NASA moving the spacecraft that could eventually shuttle astronauts into deep space from California to Florida for further testing, the feeling was: Why not show it off along the way?

Thus a road show, with a pricey piece of NASA hardware on display through 7:30 p.m. today outside the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.Known officially as a multipurpose crew vehicle, it's an old-school-looking capsule that resembles the bowl-shaped ones used in the Apollo and Mercury programs.

But as part of the Orion program, the successor to the space shuttle program, it has state-of-the-art propulsion, life support, thermal protection and avionics systems, according to NASA officials.

You can't go into the vehicle, which is a test-ready mockup of one that will deliver four astronauts at a time into space. But you can peek inside for free and talk to engineers who have worked on the vehicle.

The capsule was used in 2010 to test whether a mission could be safely aborted on a launch pad or in flight. During the test flight in New Mexico, a launch abort system propelled the spacecraft off the launch pad to a speed of almost 445 mph in three seconds as it shot a mile into the air. The spacecraft then parachuted to the desert floor.

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DARPA, NASA seek ideas for starship travel

2011-06-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

NASA and DARPA want the U.S. to be sending humans on interstellar space missions by 2111, and officials are seeking your help in accomplishing that goal.

The two agencies today jointly put out a call today for ideas and abstracts for possible presentation at the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium, which is set to be held in Orlando Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.

The project pairs up the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- with NASA's Ames Research Center. With DARPA footing the bill, the two agencies are working to come up with a plan for creating technology that can help humans travel to the stars within 100 years.

"One hundred years is a pretty good period of time to inspire research to go out and tackle problems that will have you asking questions you didn't even know to ask at the beginning," said David Neyland, director of the Tactical Technology Office for DARPA, today. "The investment must have a long-term goal and ancillary benefits to the government and NASA."

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NASA tests shuttle fuel tank before its last launch

2011-06-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Workers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center filled the fuel tank of the space shuttle Atlantis Wednesday in a key test ahead of its scheduled launch next month on the final shuttle flight.

The test was added after structural problems were found last year on a tank later used for the February launch of sister ship Discovery. NASA reinforced metal supports inside both tanks. Wednesday's test was aimed at verifying the Atlantis tank repairs ahead of its scheduled July 8 liftoff.

"It's very straightforward," launch director Mike Leinbach said. "We fill it up, send the final inspection team out to the pad, they'll do their walk-down ... and then we'll get the 'go' for drain. That's it."

A week's worth of X-ray photography will follow to assure that the metal struts withstood the extreme temperatures generated by 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen inside the tank.

NASA was assessing what seemed to be a valve leak in one of the shuttle's three main engines that appeared during the tank test. If the valve needs to be replaced, preliminary indications show the work could be done without impacting the targeted July 8 launch, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said. (NBC News reported that the launch team will assess the potential impact on the launch schedule more fully on Thursday.)

New Vesta Images Dazzle Ahead of NASA Probe's Arrival

2011-06-14T21:21:00.000-07:00

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has sent U.S. space agency scientists tantalizing new images of the mysterious protoplanet Vesta, one month before the unmanned probe is scheduled to arrive at the asteroid-belt object to begin its one-year scientific mission.

The 20 new images revealed a shining outline of Vesta’s jagged, irregular shape, as well as a large unidentified dark feature on its surface that astronomers estimate is 100 kilometers across.

Scientists believe that unraveling Vesta’s many mysteries will provide a kind of “snapshot” of the early Earth’s formation more than four billion years ago. That is because Vesta is largely unchanged since that time, whereas the Earth has evolved dramatically through the ages.

With a diameter of 525 kilometers, Vesta is the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt, a gathering of rocky space debris between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The giant rock's highly-reflective surface makes it the belt's brightest.

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NASA will launch iPhone into space

2011-06-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

A company in Houston called Odyssey Space Research LLC, has created an app to be used for research on the International Space Station. When NASA’s shuttle Atlantis launches later this year on its final mission, it will carry an iPhone or two into orbit for testing.

How will the phone work in free fall? No one’s sure. The photos probably won’t flip when it’s tilted, though.

Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, said the iPhone 4 is a good enough device that it can replace more costly devices that have to be purpose built for space research. The Odyssey app will be used by teachers, scientists and space happy earthlings to “recreate the experiments as if onboard the ISS itself,” Odyssey said.

Another Houston business, NanoRacks LLC, is helping to get the iPhone to the space station.

Any phones that visit the space station, however, won’t be coming back on the shuttle -- Atlantis’ flight will be the last of that program and the phones will be spending months in orbit. A Russian Soyuz capsule will carry them back to earth when their mission is complete.

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NASA will launch iPhone into space

2011-06-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

Wanted: A high-tech high heel worthy of NASA

2011-06-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Creating a product for lunar travel means ultimate attention paid to mass, volume, and versatility. The Moon Life, created by United Nude — the shoe company of Rem D. Koolhaas, big Rem's nephew — isn't rocket-bound anytime soon, but it makes you wonder what our earthly products would look like if every designer were so economical.

The shoe arrives flat-packed and disassembled, its constituent parts made of carbon fiber, leather, and thin-gauge wire.

The customer assembles the parts using inserts corresponding to their shoe size, and spans the wire around the platform.

Thus is formed a ghostly shoe for which a thick bed of moon dust is no obstacle.

According to United Nude, the shoe also functions well in "gravity rich" environments as well, and soon you'll be able to buy it.

The final version of the product is still being refined in anticipation of a very small production run, which will be sold here, as well as at museum gift shops and UnitedNude.com this summer.

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