NASA's air-safety project criticized

NASA shut down a massive air-safety survey project without ever properly evaluating, explaining or publicizing its purpose and results, and thus lost a chance for valuable insight into safety issues, the space agency's inspector general said Monday.

The watchdog office said NASA should interpret and analyze the results of its interviews with some 30,000 pilots, but NASA in a written response continued to reject that idea.

NASA will evaluate the methodology that its staff used in the $11.3 million project, but going further to actually report on the findings isn't worthwhile because the interviews, which were stopped at the end of 2004, are less relevant with the passage of time, wrote the agency's associate administrator, Jaiwon Shin.

The intent of the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service was to help prevent aviation accidents by viewing air safety through the eyes of pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and air traffic controllers. Their insights would add to the picture provided by other aviation monitoring programs, the audit said.

The interviews ran from 2001 to 2004. The program came to light when NASA last fall rejected an Associated Press request for the results, stating that disclosing the information could have a negative effect on airline profits and public confidence in the air lines. Congress launched an investigation, and NASA's own inspector general began its audit.

Asked for comment, NASA spokesman David Mould said Monday night that he was unaware that the audit had been released and that he would look at it.

The audit criticized the way the project was run from the beginning. It also said the partial results that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin posted on the Internet under pressure from Congress did not help the public understand the project or its value.

Griffin has said he saw little value in the program, but the audit disagreed.

"The government may have missed an opportunity to foster a deeper understanding of the aviation safety environment from 2001 to 2004 because its working groups were unable to reach a consensus on the validity or value of the NAOMS data," the audit found. "As a result NASA was reluctant to publish a report detailing research and conclusions garnered from the collected NAOMs survey data."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23889157

Running Man

Thought this was a cool picture of something that we can see with a pretty simple telescope.

Visible to the naked eye as the middle "star" in Orion's "sword," this spectacular object looks great through any size telescope and at any magnification.

Move north of the Orion Nebula to find the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973-5-7). The two bright stars involved with the nebula are 42 Orionis (magnitude 4.6) and 45 Orionis (magnitude 5.2). Because the Running Man Nebula is a reflection nebula, observe it without a nebula filter. Its light is reflected starlight scattered throughout the gas and dust, not reddish light emitted by hydrogen (which a nebula filter transmits).

www.astronomy.com

Rare Supernova Found.

Astronomers have spied a faraway star system that is so unusual, it was one of a kind -- until its discovery helped them pinpoint a second one that was much closer to home.

In a paper published in a recent issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Ohio State University astronomers and their colleagues suggest that these star systems are the progenitors of a rare type of supernova.

They discovered the first star system 13 million light years away, tucked inside Holmberg IX, a small galaxy that is orbiting the larger galaxy M81. They studied it between January and October 2007 with the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham in Arizona.

The star system is unusual, because it’s what the astronomers have called a “yellow supergiant eclipsing binary” -- it contains two very bright, massive yellow stars that are very closely orbiting each other. In fact, the stars are so close together that a large amount of stellar material is shared between them, so that the shape of the system resembles a peanut.

In a repeating cycle, one star moves to the front and blocks our view of the other. From Earth, the star system brightens and dims, as we see light from two stars, then only one star.

The two stars in this system appear to be nearly identical, each 15 to 20 times the mass of our sun.

José Prieto, Ohio State University graduate student and lead author on the journal paper, analyzed the new star system as part of his doctoral dissertation. In his research, he scoured the historical record to determine whether his group had indeed found the first such binary.

To his surprise, he uncovered another one a little less than 230,000 light years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way.

The star system had been discovered in the 1980s, but was misidentified. When Prieto re-examined the data that astronomers had recorded at the time, he saw that the pattern of light was very similar to the one they had detected outside of M81. The stars were even the same size -- 15 to 20 times the mass of the sun -- and melded together in the same kind of peanut shape. The system was clearly a yellow supergiant eclipsing binary.

“We didn’t expect to find one of these things, much less two,” said Kris Stanek, associate professor of astronomy at Ohio State. “You never expect this sort of thing. But I think this shows how flexible you have to be in astrophysics. We needed the 8.4-meter LBT to spot the first binary, but the second one is so bright that you could see it with binoculars in your back yard. Yet, if we hadn’t found the first one, we may never have found the second one.”

“It shows that there are still valuable discoveries hidden in plain sight. You just have to keep your eyes open and connect the dots.”

The find may help solve another mystery. Of all the supernovae that have been studied over the years, two have been linked to yellow supergiants -- and that’s two more than astronomers would expect.

Prieto explained why. Over millions of years, a star will burn hotter or cooler as it consumes different chemical elements in its core. The most massive stars swing back and forth between being cool red supergiants or hot blue ones. They spend most of their lives at one end of the temperature scale or the other, but spend only a short time in-between, where they are classified as yellow. Most stars end their life in a supernova at the red end of the cycle; a few do at the blue end. But none do it during the short yellow transitional phase in between.

At least, that’s what astronomers thought.

Prieto, Stanek, and their colleagues suspect that yellow binary systems like the ones they found could be the progenitors of these odd supernovae.

“When two stars orbit each other very closely, they share material, and the evolution of one affects the other,” Prieto said. “It’s possible two supergiants in such a system would evolve more slowly, and spend more time in the yellow phase -- long enough that one of them could explode as a yellow supergiant.”

The discovery of this yellow supergiant binary system is just the first result of a long-term LBT project to monitor stellar variability in the nearby universe. That project is led by Ohio State professor of astronomy, Chris Kochanek. He and Rick Pogge, also a professor of astronomy, are coauthors on the paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Their collaborators were from the University of Minnesota, the Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Steward Observatory, the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, the Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, the University of Notre Dame, and the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory. They used observations from the 8.4-meter LBT and from the 2.4-meter telescope at the nearby MDM observatory.

The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. The LBT Corporation partners are: the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona university system; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max Planck Society, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; Ohio State University; The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota, and University of Virginia.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Source.

Star Gazing?

The Pleiades star cluster will have a beautiful encounter with the slender moon in the western sky after sunset on April 8. Usually the moon's brightness overpowers nearby stars, but not when it's such a thin crescent. Binoculars will reveal the spectacle as the moon passes just below the famous Seven Sisters.

The Pleiades (pronounced PLEE-ah-deez) are lovely by themselves, and on a clear night they can be seen with the unaided eye in the constellation Taurus the Bull. Known prehistorically, the cluster is identified as a group of women in many cultures around the world, from Australian Aborigine to Native American.

Saturn will be high in the southeast as darkness falls on April evenings, one of the first "stars" to appear and a fine sight in any telescope. It will be visible much of the night in the constellation Leo the Lion, near Leo's brightest star, Regulus. Saturn's rings will open slightly during April, but they will be nearly edge-on and invisible to us by the end of the year. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, will be due south of the planet on April 2 and 18 and due north on April 10 and 26.

Jupiter will rise around 3 a.m. local daylight time at the beginning of April and two hours earlier by month's end. Wait until the brilliant white object is high in the southern sky and then use binoculars to see its four largest moons, which Galileo discovered with one of the first telescopes. These tiny bits of white light are strung out in a straight line on both sides of Jupiter, and they seem to slide back and forth along the line from one night to the next as they orbit the planet. You may need to steady your binoculars by resting your elbows on a surface to keep the image from wobbling. The only times you won't see all four moons are when one or more are crossing in front of the planet or behind it.

Mars will be conspicuous during April, glowing bright orange high in the west after dark as it passes through the stars of the constellation Gemini the Twins. This will be a good chance to compare the similar colors of Mars and the bright star Pollux as they draw closer. Binoculars will make the colors stand out.

Mercury will be lost in the sun's glare during most of April for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. By month's end, it will appear below the Pleiades star cluster low in the west-northwest half an hour after sunset. Those in the Southern Hemisphere will be able to see the small planet in early morning twilight for the first half of the month.

Starting in April, Venus will be hidden in the glare of the sun for an unusually long time for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. The brilliant planet will be on the far side of the sun from us as it moves from morning to evening twilight. Not until July will Venus again be visible near the western horizon. Seen from the Southern Hemisphere, Venus will rise 90 minutes before the sun and be conspicuous in the morning sky.

Light pollution

A great deal of energy and money is wasted on inefficient, improperly directed outdoor lighting. To help call attention to this problem of light pollution, the International Dark-Sky Association is encouraging people in the United States to turn off unnecessary outside lighting during National Dark-Sky Week, which lasts until April 4.

Meteor shower

The Lyrid meteor shower will peak on the night of April 21-22. About 20 Lyrids per hour are normally visible after midnight, but this year the full moon's glare will hide the fainter ones. To minimize this effect, try watching from a place where the moon is blocked by a building or trees. The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but they will seem to come from a point called the radiant in the constellation Lyra the Harp, which gives the shower its name. Lyra's bright white star Vega will be almost at the radiant, and the meteor count should be highest when Vega is well above the eastern horizon, beginning around midnight local time in the Northern Hemisphere and lasting the rest of the night. The later the hour, the more meteors there will be.

Summer Triangle

Spring weather can be fickle, but a reliable sign that the seasons are changing is the appearance of a trio of bright white stars called the Summer Triangle. Vega will be the first to rise each night in the east, leading the way high across the sky. The other stars are Altair in the constellation Aquila the Eagle to the south and Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan to the north. When you are looking from Deneb to Altair, you are also looking at the Milky Way, though it's usually obscured by city lights. If you find a place dark enough for you to see the Milky Way, keep the location in mind -- you'll also see a lot more meteors and other celestial objects from there.

Moon phases

The moon will be new on April 5, at first quarter on April 12, full on April 20 and at third quarter on April 28.

Source.

Galexy Discovered 11.4 Billion Light Years Away

UC Irvine scientists have discovered a cluster of galaxies in a very early stage of formation that is 11.4 billion light years from Earth – the farthest of its kind ever to be detected. These galaxies are so distant that the universe was in its infancy when their light was emitted.

The galaxy proto-cluster, named LBG-2377, is giving scientists an unprecedented look at galaxy formation and how the universe has evolved. Before this discovery, the farthest known event like this was approximately 9 billion light years away.

“When you observe objects this far away, you are actually seeing the universe as it was a very long time ago,” said Jeff Cooke, a McCue Postdoctoral Fellow in physics and astronomy at UCI and lead author of this study. “It is as if a timeline is just sitting out there in front of you. These galaxies represent what the universe looked like well before the Earth existed.”

Using the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, Cooke detected LBG-2377 while looking for single galaxies. At first, it appeared to be a bright, single object. But after analyzing the wavelengths of its light (galaxies emit light with telltale colors) he discovered it was three galaxies merging together, and likely two additional smaller galaxies.

Scientists use light to look back in time. Because light takes a measurable amount of time to travel, detecting it on Earth today allows scientists to view the source as it was billions of years ago. In the case of LBG-2377, scientists believe the light has been traveling for 11.4 billion years, beginning just a few billion years after the Big Bang when the universe was only 15 percent of its current age. By comparison, the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

The process of galaxy formation largely is a mystery. Current theory is that large galaxies formed over time from the interaction and merging of smaller galaxies. This process began more than 12 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang. Scientists have observed galaxies merging over a large range of distances and time, providing hard evidence to reinforce the theory. However, using current technology, it is difficult to detect this process at the most extreme distances, when galaxy formation was in its infancy.

Scientists believe galaxy clusters form in a similar manner. As galaxies congregate and interact in large, dense regions of space, the cluster grows with time. Witnessing this process first-hand helps scientists confirm their theory and deepen their understanding of the universe. Galaxy clusters can be detected at extreme distances with current technology because they are bright, but they are difficult to find.

Clusters closer to Earth contain upwards of 1,000 galaxies. Our Milky Way galaxy belongs to a lesser grouping of galaxies called the Local Group, which contains more than 35 galaxies, but only a few bright ones.

“We believe LBG-2377 is a seed that eventually will grow into a massive galaxy cluster,” said James Bullock, director of the Center for Cosmology at UCI and a study co-author.

“Our finding suggests that this is a monster structure being born in a very bright, catastrophic event with a lot of gas and matter collapsing at once,” Bullock said. “We are not just seeing one solitary galaxy. We are seeing a bunch of bright galaxies coming together at the dawn of structure formation in the universe.”

This research is reported in the online bulletin astro-ph. Scientists Elizabeth Barton and Kyle Stewart of UCI, along with Arthur Wolfe of the University of California, San Diego, worked on this study. The research was funded by a Gary McCue Postdoctoral Fellowship and the National Science Foundation.

Source.

Exploding Stars

The Hubble Space Telescope caught images of the early stages of an exploding star, also known as a supernova. The star, which was discovered in March of 2006, named Supernova SN2006bc, is almost 60 million light years from earth. It is located in a spiral galaxy called NGC 2397. Astronomers from northern Ireland have been studying the galaxy to help scientists understand why some stars explode in giant supernovae and others collapse to form blackholes.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/31/hubble-star-supernova.html

Large "Peanut Star" Shares Material

A newfound pair of stars, set 13 million light years away in the Holmberg IX galaxy, are so massive and close that it is speculated the two share material with one another and give the appearance of a "peanut star". The stars are about 15 times as massive as our sun. Read the rest here.

Would You Like to be Buried on the Moon?

Well Houston-based Celestis, Inc. has announced plans to launch cremated human remains to the surface of the moon as soon as 2009! One gram of human ashes can be sent to the moon for the small fee of $9,995. Family members are allowed to watch the launch, and the deceased person will have his or her name inscribed on a plaque, while the rest of the ashes will be scattered in the ocean near the launch site. For $29,985, Celestis will launch 14 grams total of the cremated remains of two people together. Kind of a hefty fee, but if you're a rich astronomer it sounds like a cool idea. Read the details here.

Japan, China to Extend Lunar Orbit Missions

Japanese and Chinese mission managers stated that each nations' lunar orbiters are halfway throught their year long lunar orbit, and are performing "flawlessly". The success has prompted a likely extension to each mission. They are debating whether or not to leave them in orbit and have these satellites be the first step towards a lunar landing, or to land them on the moon's surface now. You can read the full story here .

New early indicators of life

New research from the University of North Carolina (very prestigeous) suggests that finding cellulose microfibers may be another way to detect life; if this is true, than it pushes back direct evidence of life on Earth by about 200 million years.
""So in looking for evidence of life on Mars, for bacteria or higher plants that existed on Mars or other planets in the solar system, then looking for cellulose in salt deposits is probably a very good way to go. Cellulose appears to be highly stable and more resistant to ionizing radiation than DNA. And if it is relatively resistant to harsh conditions such as those found in space, it may provide the ideal 'paper trail' in the search for life on other planets.""

To find out more about how cellulose is linked to early forms of life, check out the full article here

Exploding Star And Rare View Of Early Stages Of A Supernova

The latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a sharp view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2397. This image also shows a rare Hubble view of the early stages of a supernova - SN 2006bc, discovered in March 2006.

NGC 2397, pictured in this image from Hubble, is a classic spiral galaxy with long prominent dust lanes along the edges of its arms, seen as dark patches and streaks silhouetted against the starlight. Hubble’s exquisite resolution allows the study of individual stars in nearby galaxies.

Full Story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080331112033.htm

-Ryan

New Organic Molecule Discovered in Space

An organic molecule closely related to an amino acid, an "amino acetonitrile", was found by a radio telescope in Spain. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Spain discovered a very hot and dense gas cloud, called "The Large Molecule Heimat", near the galactic center in the constellation Sagittarius. Since 1964, over 140 molecular species have been found in space but much attention has been given to searching for "bio-molecules", especially interstellar amino acids. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6760

Jules Verne ATV ready to dock at ISS

On March 9, 2008, from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the Jules Verne ATV was launched into circular orbit at 51.6 degrees relative to the equator. The purpose of the launch was to prove that the ATV could safely dock with the International Space Station (ISS). The other main objective is to demonstrate that the ATV can perform an escape maneuver commanded by the ISS crew when the ATV is just 12 meters away from the station. After several days spent in a parking orbit 2000 km away from the ISS, the Jules Verne ATV is ready to dock, and the first docking attempt can be followed live on April 3rd.

Underground Oceans on Titan?

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has long been thought of as one of the better possibilities for life beyond the Earth. The moon is larger than Mercury and our moon, although not as massive, and was discovered in 1655 by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens. The moon has a geologically diverse landscape, featuring liquid hypercarbon or methane lakes at its polar regions. Its rich nitrogen atmosphere makes it even more similar to earth, although its low temperature (only about 90 degrees above absolute zero). Recently, astronomers were able to penetrate the thick atmosphere of Titan to photograph its landscape, and from 2005-2007 they began mapping its geological features. On a later flyby, however, they discovered that these features had shifted as much as 19 miles; for such a dramatic plate shift in such a short time, scientists theorize that the surface may be shifting over a giant ocean, possibly water (much of the planet is made up of water-ice). ""We believe that about 62 miles beneath the ice and organic-rich surface is an internal ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia," says Bryan Stiles of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)." See the full story here.

Image Credit: Titan, imaged above, may have an ocean beneath its crust. JPL/NASA

Touchdown!

Two days ago on March 27, the mission crew of STS-123 landed. At a briefing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Endeavour Commander Dominic Gorie talked about the storybook ending to an awesome mission: "We've had one of the most remarkable missions I could have ever imagined," said Gorie. Gorie said the five spacewalks were an ambitious achievement and again praised his crew for their hard work. The next mission, STS-124, is slated to launch in May.

Full article: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=pod&id=186

Lunar Photography over spring break

Over spring break I took one of the telescopes from the Physics department to outer King County to get away from the sky haze. I intended to take photos of star clusters and galaxies with my digital SLR camera. However, those who stayed in WA for break would know the weather never really cleared up. On the clearest night, I went out to take photos, but found the moon was so bright I could see little else. So that is what I took photos of. The photo below is a mosiac of 11 photos of the moon stitched together, as the telescope could only see part of the moon at a time. The full size image is 30 megapixels, or 5400x5400 pixels. Click this link to see a larger version.

Next I will post some photos taken in the infrared. Next time weather clears up, Bernie and I will be heading up to the tower to try and capture some stars.

Days may have 25 hours in near future due to Earth’s decelerating rotation

Not enough hours in the day? Can't seem to squeeze in enough time to get everything done? Worry no more! This article points out that, due to the earths decreased rotation, our days are actually lengthening. So much so, that our days may soon have an extra hour! Who's psyched?

Days are gradually growing longer. To the layman this means that in the northern hemisphere days are longer in summer than they are in winter. But geoscientists interpret this phrase as follows: they found that days grow longer not only in spring time. The reason for that is the Moon, first and foremost. Its gravity creates permanent waves in oceans and in Earth’s depths. Thus our planet seems to waver, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote.

Earth resembles a rotating figure skater. To slow rotations down, a figure skater stretches his or her arms out. That is why in the far future there will be 25 hours in a day. A British astronomer managed to prove that Earth’s rotation has been slowing down since 700 B.C.

Full article here: http://newsfromrussia.com/science/earth/28-03-2008/104707-earth_rotation-0

Organic Molecule in Space?

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn have detected for the first time a molecule closely related to an amino acid: amino acetonitrile. The organic molecule was found with a 30-meter radio telescope in Spain and two radio interferometers in France and Australia in the Large Molecule Heimat, a giant gas cloud near the galactic center in the constellation Sagittarius.

The Large Molecule Heimat is a very dense, hot gas clump within the star-forming region Sagittarius B2. In this source of only 0.3 light-year diameter, which is heated by a deeply embedded newly formed star, most of the interstellar molecules known to date have been found, including the most complex ones such as ethyl alcohol, formaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, glycol aldehyde (a basic sugar), and ethylene glycol.

Starting from 1965, more than 140 molecular species have been detected in space, in interstellar clouds as well as in circumstellar envelopes. A large fraction of these molecules is organic or carbon-based. A lot of attention is given to the quest for so-called bio-molecules, especially interstellar amino acids. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and therefore key ingredients for the origin of life, have been found in meteorites on Earth, but not yet in interstellar space.


This model shows amino acetonitrile. The simplest amino acid, glycine, has long been searched for in the interstellar medium but has so far not been unambiguously detected. Since the search for glycine has turned out to be extremely difficult, a chemically related molecule was searched for, amino acetonitrile, probably a direct precursor of glycine.

The scientists from MPIfR selected the Large Molecule Heimat, as the source has been named by experts, and investigated a dense forest of 3700 spectral lines from complex molecules with the IRAM 30-meter telescope in Spain. Atoms and molecules emit light at very specific frequencies, which appear as characteristic lines in the radiation spectrum. By analyzing these spectral lines, astronomers can determine the chemical composition of cosmic clouds. The more complex a molecule is, the more possibilities it has to radiate its internal energy. This is the reason why complex molecules emit many spectral lines, which are very weak and therefore difficult to identify in the line jungle.

"Still, we were finally able to assign 51 very weak lines to the molecule amino acetonitrile" says Arnaud Belloche, scientist at MPIfR and first author of the research paper. This result was confirmed at 10 times higher spatial resolution with two radio telescope arrays, the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in France and the Australia Telescope Compact Array. These observations showed that all the candidate lines were emitted from the same position in the Large Molecule Heimat, "a strong proof of the reliability of our identification".

"Finding amino acetonitrile has greatly extended our insight into the chemistry of dense, hot star-forming regions. I am sure we will be able to identify in the future many new, even more complex organic molecules in the interstellar gas. We already have several candidates!" says Karl Menten, director at MPIfR.

-Provided by the Max Planck Institute in Germany

Joyrides to Space!

The rocket engine making company XCOR Aerospace has announced that it will be prepared to send ordinary civilian passengers into space in two years! The craft (named the Lynx) that will be used for these trips is still in prototype phase, but it will be a two-person craft designed to take off like an airplane but return to Earth like a space shuttle. The Lynx is the size of a very small airplane which, apparently, gives it an advantage over potential competitors because it is cheaper to make and can complete multiple trips a day.
The passengers lucky (and wealthy) enough to go for one of these 'rides' will be treated to a thirty-minute journey to the edge of the atmosphere and a few minutes of weightlessness.
Another company, Virgin Atlantic, has unvieled designs for a craft that will serve the same purpose but seat eight people and provide five minutes of weightlessness.
The catch for all companies in the race for space joyrides will be to design a relatively small, cheap, yet safe, craft that can travel to and from suborbital altitudes multiple times every day without damage.

http://www.dailyastronomy.com/story.asp?ID=273914&Title=Space%20Cadets,%20Grab%20Your%20Sunscreen:%20Space%20Tourism%20Set%20for%20Liftoff

Astronomers Coordinating International Observatories In White-dwarf Watch

ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — Judi Provencal is star-struck, but not so much by the glitz and glam of Hollywood.
You have to look heavenward through a telescope to see the object of her fascination--to pale stars called white dwarfs, their brilliance faded because all of their nuclear fuel has been burned up.
For Full Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080326103544.htm

Endeavour calls it a night with safe landing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven returned to Earth on Wednesday, making a rare nighttime touchdown to wrap up "a two-week adventure" at the international space station.
The shuttle swooped through the darkness and landed on NASA's illuminated runway at 8:39 p.m., an hour after sunset.
"Welcome home, Endeavour," Mission Control radioed. "Congrats to the entire crew."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23818541/

Ancient Asteroids Discovered

Three asteroids have been recently discovered that appear to be among the oldest objects in our solar system. They are relatively unchanged since they were first formed, thus they could give us clues as to what the Solar System's first few million years of existence were like.
Scientists used a SpeX Instrument and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawai'i to study the asteroids. Scientists can tell general age by the presence of CAI, or calcium-aluminum rick inclusions.
P.S. Just a fun fact: today is the point in the moon's orbit where it is farthest from Earth!

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6757

Clouds delay Endeavour’s homecoming

NASA aims for rare nighttime landing

Space shuttle Endeavour is seen with Earth in the background after undocking from the international space station on Monday. View related photos

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - Clouds moved in at virtually the last minute and thwarted NASA's effort to bring the space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven back to Earth early Wednesday evening.

Mission Control instructed the astronauts to take another swing around the planet and aim for a later, nighttime landing, in hopes that the sky would clear. It will be NASA's second and last shot of the day at bringing Endeavour home.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23812434/

Planet Or Failed Star? One Of Smallest Stellar Companions Seen By Hubble

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet. The riddle is that it is also large enough to be a brown dwarf, a failed star.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060908171058.htm

-Ryan

Stunning Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Detected Halfway Across Universe

ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2008) — A powerful stellar explosion detected March 19 by NASA's Swift satellite has shattered the record for the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye.

For the full article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080321093110.htm

Mercury In Color

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2008) — One week ago, the MESSENGER spacecraft transmitted to Earth the first high-resolution image of Mercury by a spacecraft in over 30 years, since the three Mercury flybys of Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975. MESSENGER's Wide Angle Camera (WAC), part of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), is equipped with 11 narrow-band color filters, in contrast to the two visible-light filters and one ultraviolet filter that were on Mariner 10's vidicon camera.

For Full Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080123085313.htm

Ancient Asteroids From the Beginning

Three asteroids have been found which seem to be from the oldest years of our solar system. They appear, for the most part, unchanged and are approx. 4.55 billion years old, according to the team of scientists led by University of Maryland's Jessica Sunshine. Apparently these asteroids are now candidates for future space missions which would collect and bring back samples which could provide more information towards understanding the solar system's earliest years. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6757

Ocean May Exist Beneath Titan's Crust

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan. "With its organic dunes, lakes, channels and mountains, Titan has one of the most varied, active and Earth-like surfaces in the solar system," said Ralph Lorenz, lead author of the paper and Cassini radar scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. Using data from the radar's early observations, the scientists and radar engineers established the locations of 50 unique landmarks on Titan's surface. They then searched for these same lakes, canyons and mountains in the reams of data returned by Cassini in its later flybys of Titan. They found prominent surface features had shifted from their expected positions by up to 19 miles. A systematic displacement of surface features would be difficult to explain unless the moon's icy crust was decoupled from its core by an internal ocean, making it easier for the crust to move.

Full Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080320150828.htm

College Students Organize First-ever Remote Astronomy International Messier Marathon

For the first time in history, amateur astronomers will have an opportunity to participate in an international competition. Michael and Evan have formulated plans to dramatically demonstrate the unbelievable efficiency of using remote astronomy to accomplish this popular challenge. The Messier Marathon is frequently performed at Star parties. Michael and Evan have added a new twist and set out to break all pre-existing world record

Anyone up for the one of a kind Remote Astronomy Challenge purposed by two college students can read about and investigate its purpose here. Sounds like an interesting challenge.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/03/prweb796114.htm

-Ryan

Electron acceleration theory applicable on Jupiter

With all the discussions on waves and electrons and radiation we've been having the past several weeks, I found this article to be quite interesting. It says that scientists have discovered that "Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter's magnetic field in the same way as they do on Earth." Dr Richard Horne says, "We've shown before that very low frequency radio waves can accelerate electrons in the Earth's magnetic field, but we have now shown that exactly the same theory works on Jupiter, where the magnetic field is 20,000 times stronger than the Earth's and the composition of the atmosphere is very different. This is the ultimate test of our theory." The significance of this?: "Understanding how electrons are accelerated will help scientists make better predictions of when satellites are at risk of damage by high-energy charged particles."

Furthermore more as the article explains, "The discovery also has other scientific implications for Jupiter -- it overturns a theory that has held sway for more than 30 years. According to Dr Horne, 'For more than 30 years it was thought that the electrons are accelerated as a result of transport towards Jupiter, but now we show that gyro-resonant wave acceleration is a very important step that acts in concert. Once the electrons are accelerated, they are transported closer to the planet and emit intense synchrotron radiation out into interplanetary space. Our theory provides the missing step to explain this high intensity radiation from Jupiter, which was first detected on Earth more than 50 years ago.' The paper 'Gyro-resonant electron acceleration at Jupiter', is published in Nature Physics on 9 March 2008."

Click here for the link to the full article.

Seas found on Saturn's moon Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft on voyage to Saturn and its moons for the Cassini-Huygen mission determined existence of oceans and rivers on Saturn's moon Titan during the past two weeks. The Huygen probe has reported that there are rivers and seas made of liquid methane rather than water on the moon. While at the same time another study suspects that there is an ocean of water with a little bit of ammonia 62 km below Titan's icy surface. The evidence for this ocean layer is that the surface of the moon seems to have been sliding around the core over the years. Furthermore, scientists have hopes that the evidence of organic molecules on the moon in combination with the ocean layer and planetlike atmosphere of the moon could help unlock the mysteries to the evolution of life.

Click here for a video on MSNBC.com or here for the full article.

Life on mars?

Salt deposits may have evidence of life on Mars: study
3 days ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US scientists have discovered salt deposits on the surface of Mars, indicating that water was once plentiful and pointing to sites that could provide evidence of past life, a study said Thursday.
The deposits were discovered by a team of scientists led by Mikki Osterloo at the University of Hawaii using thermal images from the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft, according to research in the March 21 issue of US journal Science.
The researchers have discovered some 200 separate salt deposits in the southern hemisphere of Mars and at mid- to low-level latitudes at terrain the scientists described as ancient and heavily cratered.
"Many of the deposits lie in basins with channels leading into them," said journal co-author Philip Christensen from the University of Arizona.
"This is the kind of feature, like salt-pan deposits on Earth, that's consistent with water flowing in over a long time," he added.
According to Osterloo, the deposits "range in area from about one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) to about 25 square kilometers (about 10 square miles)."
The deposits appear to be disconnected, so "we don't think they all came from one big, global body of surface water," she said.
Instead "they could come from groundwater reaching the surface in low spots. The water would evaporate and leave mineral deposits, which build up over years," she said.
The scientists estimate that these deposits were probably formed between 3.9 and 3.5 billion years ago.
There are several geological indications that Mars in its past had much more humid and hotter weather than today's dry and cold conditions.

link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5isL9WOob1SvQCP_EKuav-zoNswLg

Hubble Telescope Finds Signs of Life On Distant Planet

The Hubble Space Telescope made a historic discovery when looking at a planet in a distant solar system. They found, for the first time, an organic molecule in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized planet, proving that water and methane existed. The planet is 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula called HD 189733b.

Full article: http://www.dailyastronomy.com/story.asp?ID=272630&Title=Hubble%20Telescope%20Finds%20Signs%20of%20Life%20On%20Distant%20Planet

Salt Found on Mars

Scientists have found new evidence of chloride minerals (salts, specifically) in several places on Mars, showing where water was once abundant and possibly offering evidence of former life on Mars. Using a Mars-orbiting camera made at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility, Mikki Osterloo and a team of scientists found and mapped these Martian chloride deposits in the planet's middle to low latitudes within old, cratered land all over the planet. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6754

Star Explodes Halfway Across Universe- whoa

Star Explodes Halfway Across Universe
By Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON — The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye.

The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday.

The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.

However, NASA has no reports that any skywatchers spotted the burst, which lasted less than an hour. Telescopic measurements show that the burst — which occurred when the universe was about half its current age — was bright enough to be seen without a telescope.

"Someone would have had to run out and look at it with a naked eye, but didn't," said Gehrels, chief of NASA's astroparticles physics lab at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The starburst would have appeared as bright as some of the stars in the handle of the Little Dipper constellation, said Penn State University astronomer David Burrows. How it looked wasn't remarkable, but the distance traveled was.

The 7.5 billion light years away far eclipses the previous naked eye record of 2.5 million light years. One light year is 5.9 trillion miles.

"This is roughly halfway to the edge of the universe," Burrows said.

Before it exploded, the star was about 40 times bigger than our sun. The explosion vaporized any planet nearby, Gehrels said.


link: http://www.comcast.net/news/articles/science/2008/03/21/Exploding.Star/

The field of astrobiology has its critics, mainly those who assume that life outside of earth does not exist. However, recent developments in the field have demonstrated that a planet does not have to be a simulacrum of earth to house life. For example, the "resonant interplay of moons in multi-satellite systems leads to an endless tug-and-squeeze that can generate more than enough heat to keep large reservoirs of water in a liquid state, and provide localized sources of energy (such as the churning vents found on ocean floors) that could fuel biology."

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/080306-astrobiology-picture.html

Forecasting Earth-like Worlds

Some interesting bits in this interview with a European astrophysicist. More than 200 exosolar or extrasolar planets have been discovered (that is, planets outside of our solar system). However, most of them resemble Jupiter because these planets (dense and large) are easier to find. None of the exosolar planets discovered resemble earth. Several space programs -- The European COROT and the NASA-run KEPLER -- are underway to find exosolar planets that are approximately the same distance from a star as the earth is to the sun. They will detect photons from the planet's atmospheres and attempt to determine something about their atmosphere. These planets would most likely be similar to earth and therefore support life. Interesting to note that the less massive a planet is, the harder it is to find.

http://www.astrobio.net/amee/spring_2007/interviews.htm

Life Forms Ejected on Asteroid Impact Could Survive to Reseed Earth According to a Study Published in Astrobiology

Astrobiologists, apparently a relatively new filed of study, have tested a theory and determined that it is possible that microorganisms can jump from planet to planet by using meteorites as hosts. In other words, an asteroid or comet that impacts earth or any other planet could send rock fragments into space that almost serve as spores, possibly spreading life to another planet that can support life. I also saw on the history channel that the same theory, called panspermia or lithopanspermia, can account for the sudden emergence of harmful microorganisms, particularly a epidemic during WWI that killed millions.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=24844

Exploring Mars: Icy Promethei Planum

ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2008) — Promethei Planum, an area seasonally covered with a more than 3500 m thick layer of ice in the martian south polar region, was the subject of the High Resolution Stereo Camera’s focus on 22 September 2005 as Mars Express was in orbit above the Red Planet.
Promethei Planum lies at approximately 76° south and 105° east on the Red Planet. The image data acquired in the region has a ground resolution of approximately 40 m/pixel.
An impact crater is approximately 100 km wide and 800 m deep is visible and the crater’s interior is partly covered in ice.
In the area are structures that may have been created by basaltic lava flow from a volcano. This area is covered in ice. The dark dunes towards the bottom of the image are most likely made up of dust originating from this lava flow or volcanic ash. A broad sheet of ice, which is an extension of the south polar ice cap is located south of the lava flow, to the left in the (nadir) image. The steep flanks clearly show white, clean ice. The thickness of the ice is between 900 and 1100 m. Latest results from the Mars Advanced Radar for Ionosphere and Subsurface Sounding (MARSIS) onboard Mars Express have revealed that the thickness of this extension of the south polar ice cap exceeds 3500 m. The total amount of water ice contained at both the south and north poles of Mars makes up the largest water reservoir on the planet today. If polar ice melted, the entire surface of the planet would be covered by an ocean 11-m deep

NASA struggles to wake space station robot

The International Space Station's new $210 million robot, a two-armed giant named Dextre, refused to come to life on command Thursday, jeopardizing NASA's plans to get the robot up and running over the next week.
Mission Control tried to power up the robot's pieces early Thursday soon after they were installed on the station, but there was no response. Engineers plan to make a software fix sometime after 5 a.m. ET Friday that might wake the robot from its sleep.

NEED more??
visit: http://www.dailyastronomy.com/story.asp?ID=270342&Title=NASA%20struggles%20to%20wake%20space%20station%20robot

Astronomy Club Spends night with the Stars

People started to line up to attend the stargazing event between 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. March 7 at Scobee Planetarium, said astronomy Professor David Wood.

This free event takes place the first Friday of every month and is open to the public.

"We make sure we have information tables with pamphlets as well as interactive things like the telescopes set up for the people who don't make it in to the show," Keith Little, marketing director of the San Antonio Astronomical Association, said.

"That way, the kids aren't sad, and the parents can learn with the kids."

Puzzling 'Eye Of A Hurricane' On Venus

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — Venus Express has constantly been observing the south pole of Venus and has found it to be surprisingly fickle. An enormous structure with a central part that looks like the eye of a hurricane, morphs and changes shape within a matter of days, leaving scientists puzzled.

For Full Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080313095626.htm

Google Sky Launches Web-Based Version

Google Earth has become a staple of its Maps product, with developments and updates coming out on a regular basis. The project has grown to include Google Mars, Google Sky, and Google Moon, and just as Google Earth went from a downloadable application to a web-accessible visual tool, so too will Google Sky, which used to be solely a portion of the Google Earth application. And Google won’t let a little lawsuit stop it from developing its Google Sky efforts.

There’s now a web-based version of Google Sky, which doesn’t require a download and can be accessed directly through your browser window. There are a few new exploration features that come with the web-based version of Google Sky, including a search tool for browsing named objects in the sky, multiple optical sky surveys for switching views, and galleries that display images from Hubble and other telescopes.

One benefit of having a dynamic web-based version is that you won’t have to rely on downloadable updates in order to get the latest information. Google Sky web version now lets you find current planet positions. Google Sky’s new web version is available on all web browsers, and is being launched globally, in 26 localized languages.

Highlights of human space flight

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/20973224#20973224


Web extra video
Highlights of human space flight
NBC News Web Extra

Testing for Water on one of Saturn's Moons

The Cassini spacecraft is going to make a close pass to one of Saturn's moons in order to determine the makeup of large plumes coming from the planet's surface. This will hopefully help determine if there is liquid water being stored under the surface of the moon, and would shed more light on the possibility of life on Enceladus.

Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/03/12/saturn.moon.ap/index.html

Searching For A Tiny New Dimension, Curled Up Like The Universe Before The Big Bang

How many dimensions are there in the Universe? Survey says: 4? Yup. Researchers are now researching the possibility of a smaller 4th dimension that was created before the Big Bang.

The universe as we currently know it is made up of three dimensions of space and one of time, but researchers in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech are exploring the possibility of an extra dimension.

---

Sound like an episode from the "Twilight Zone?" Almost, but not quite; according to John Simonetti, associate professor of physics in the College of Science and Michael Kavic, graduate student and one of the investigators on the project.

Get the full story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080310151949.htm

-Ryan

The Future of our Solar System and the Fate of the Earth

Like many stars, the sun is naturally growing in size and brightness over time. Models suspect that the sun has grown 40% in its first 4.5 billion years of existence. If such models are correct, the sun is expected to continue to grow to be 10% brighter over the next 1 billion years. Scientists further predict that in 5.5 billion years the sun's core will run out of hydrogen fuel beginning its quick transformation into a red giant. At this point, the star will surely absorb Mercury and Venus, while Mars and further planets will most likely be pushed away. The fate of the Earth, however, is unknown.

The reason is that in the course of ballooning outward, the Sun will blow off a substantial share of its mass, says the author of the article. Thus, the Sun’s gravitational grip on its planets will be weakened, and they will retreat to more distant orbits. The Earth will wind up about where Mars is now, "on the border line between being engulfed or escaping engulfment," as Dr. Livio put it. Whether or not the Earth is engulfed depends on which of two effects wins out. At the same time that the Earth is retreating to a safer position, tidal forces between it and the expanding Sun will try to drag the planet inward and downward.

Read the article here to see what some scientists have determined to be Earth's inevitable fate after much research and calculations.

Assemble the with care

Astronauts bound for the space station this week will have a new and interesting task ahead of them when they arrive. Traveling with them on the shuttle are the parts for a new robot they will assemble in space to help with the daily tasks of the space station and help avoid some of the more dangerous tasks normally assigned to humans. Dextre, is a new robot built by the canadian space program and is designed with screwdrivers, wrenches and lights build into its arms. Read more here.

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/S/SPACE_SHUTTLE_ROBOT?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-03-08-15-23-23

Ancient Lake on Mars?

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has brought back images from Mars of "impact megabreccia" (I googled this and it means huge areas of mixed-up, broken rock held together by a finer-grained material, found in impact craters and volcanoes here on Earth) and what might possibly have been a once-habitable ancient lake. It seems this possible lake filled the crater, Holden crater, long ago and it now holds some of the best-exposed lake deposits and old megabreccia ever on Mars, including minerals that formed "in the presence of water and mark potentially habitable environments". Very exciting! Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6711

If Alpha Centauri Has Earth-Like Planets, We Can Detect Them

We're holding out hope for the next generation of planet-finding observatories to locate Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. But hold on, maybe we don't need a super space observatory like ESA's Darwin just yet. In fact, if our nearest neighbour Alpha Centauri has Earth-sized planets, we should be able to detect them with established techniques… right now, with the observatories we have today. Written by Fraser Cain

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/10/if-alpha-centauri-has-earth-like-planets-we-can-detect-them/

Planet Orbiting the Nearest Star?

A rocky planet similar to Earth may be orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors and could be detected using existing techniques, according to a new study led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The closest stars to our Sun are in the three-star system called Alpha Centauri, a popular destination for interstellar travel in works of science fiction. UCSC graduate student Javiera Guedes used computer simulations of planet formation to show that terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around the star Alpha Centauri B and to be orbiting in the "habitable zone" where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface. The researchers then showed that such planets could be observed using a dedicated telescope.

"If they exist, we can observe them," said Guedes, who is the first author of a paper describing the new findings. The paper has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal.

Coauthor Gregory Laughlin, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC, said a number of factors converge to make Alpha Centauri B an excellent candidate for finding terrestrial planets. The Doppler detection method, which has revealed the majority of the 228 known extrasolar planets, measures shifts in the light from a star to detect the tiny wobble induced by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. Factors that favor the use of this technique for Alpha Centauri B include the brightness of the star and its position in the sky, which gives it a long period of observability each year from the Southern Hemisphere, Laughlin said.

Detecting small, rocky planets the size of Earth is challenging, however, because they induce a relatively small wobble in their host stars. According to Laughlin, five years of observations using a dedicated telescope would be needed to detect an Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri B.

Coauthor Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University is leading an observational program to intensively monitor Alpha Centauri A and B using the 1.5-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The researchers hope to detect real planets similar to the ones that emerged in the computer simulations.

"I think the planets are there, and it's worth a try to have a look,"
Laughlin said.

To study planet formation around Alpha Centauri B, the team ran repeated computer simulations, evolving the system for the equivalent of 200 million years each time. Because of variations in the initial conditions, each simulation led to the formation of a different planetary system. In every case, however, a system of multiple planets evolved with at least one planet about the size of Earth. In many cases, the simulated planets had orbits lying within the habitable zone of the star.

www.astronomy.com

Mars And Venus Are Surprisingly Similar

ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2008) — Using two ESA spacecraft, planetary scientists are watching the atmospheres of Mars and Venus being stripped away into space. The simultaneous observations by Mars Express and Venus Express give scientists the data they need to investigate the evolution of the two planets’ atmospheres.

For Full Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305105128.htm

Spring Is Aurora Season

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2008) — What are the signs of spring? They are as familiar as a blooming daffodil, a songbird at dawn, a surprising shaft of warmth from the afternoon sun. And, oh yes, don’t forget the aurora borealis. Spring is aurora season. For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights. Canadians walking their dogs after dinner, Scandinavians popping out to the sauna, Alaskan Huskies on the Iditarod trail -- all they have to do is look up and behold, green curtains of light dancing across the night sky. Spring has arrived!

For Full article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306161746.htm

Astronomy, Star Gazing, and Green Laser Pointers

Need help spotting stuff in the sky or pointing it out to fellow stargazers? You could rely on your hands and fingers, or you could use something far more technical, and frankly, cooler. Green Laser Pointers! Yes. It's true.

"There is nothing more frustrating in astronomy that than unsuccessfully trying to identifying an object in the night sky to a companion by waving your arms, pointing fingers, describing and gestulating. An elegant, simple and very effective solution to this problem is to use green lasers pointers to point out objects in the sky.

Green laser pointers are high technology gadgets that are becoming more and more popular in astronomy. Not only are green laser pointers ideal for pointing out celestial objects, they are also very useful for aligning telescopes and for atrophotography."

Why green laser pointers?

Get the full story here.

"http://lh6.google.com/AstroTasmania/RdPrxvN8QRI/AAAAAAAACaA/PraEn9Sq0uI/_DSC0007.JPG?imgmax=512

-Ryan

Gauging Age of Universe Becomes More Precise

The universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years, astronomers said last week. That age, based on precision measurements of the oldest light in the universe, agrees with results announced in 2006. Two additional years of data from a NASA satellite known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have narrowed the uncertainty by tens of millions of years. “Everything is tightening up and giving us better and better precision all the time,” said Charles L. Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and the leader of the group analyzing the data. “It’s actually significantly better than previous results. There is all kinds of richness in the data.” About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to combine into hydrogen atoms. That released a burst of light, which over the billions of years since has cooled to a bath of microwaves pervading the cosmos. Yet there are slight variations in the background, which the NASA satellite has been measuring since 2001. Those variations have given evidence supporting an idea known as cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of its existence. The new set of data is precise enough to differentiate between various proposed models of inflation. “Some of them are now completely ruled out, some of them are hanging at the edge and some of them are perfectly fine,” Dr. Bennett said. “We are sorting between these things.” Astronomers can also now see strong evidence for the universe being awash in almost massless subatomic particles known as neutrinos. This sea of primordial neutrinos created in the Big Bang was expected. “The new result is that it’s not consistent with zero anymore,” said Edward L. Wright, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and another member of the team. As more years of data are gathered, Dr. Bennett said, astronomers may even be able to deduce new unusual types of neutrinos that have so far not been detected in particle accelerators. The new data also refine findings that the earliest stars switched on 400 million years after the Big Bang. The starlight started breaking up interstellar hydrogen atoms back into charged protons and electrons — creating a fog that deflected the cosmic microwaves — but took half a billion years to break apart all of the atoms.

Saturn's moon sports dusty halo

Who'd have guessed that Saturn has its own moon-sized vacuum cleaners, circling the ringed planet and sucking up electrons from the plasma at the orbit of the icy moons. Or that one of Saturn's moons has its very own vacuum in the form of a hitherto-unknown dust halo, not quite visible as a ring, around the midsection of Rhea, discovered by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Cassini is carrying among its instruments a pair of ion-mass and ion-beam spectrometers built by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"Los Alamos is in a unique position to have this expertise in building space instrumentation," says Hazel J McAndrews, coauthor of the paper on the findings.

"Indeed, the Lab's expertise in understanding Earth's magnetosphere makes it particularly well suited to this type of research - as scientists like to say, 'the same physics apply on Earth as on Saturn, but it's just a different laboratory'," says Wilson.

The Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) consists of three separate analyzers designed to measure the electrically charged particles trapped within Saturn's magnetosphere. Los Alamos played a major role in the design and construction of two of them: an ion mass spectrometer (IMS), which incorporates a novel design developed at Los Alamos to identify the different atomic species in Saturn's magnetospheric plasma; and an ion beam spectrometer (IBS), which is based on a design used by Los Alamos scientists on several previous solar wind research missions.

Key insights into the ion data have come from Los Alamos teammate Robert J. Wilson, a doctoral graduate of the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London. Wilson, having focused on planetary magnetospheric studies, is examining Saturn's magnetosphere, particularly the plasma properties, densities, pressure, and speed of rotation - all data that will aid understanding of the global Saturnian system and aid the many researchers creating computer simulations of the ringed planet by providing known values.

"This moon carves a hole in the plasma," Wilson notes, and even though the spacecraft does not rotate to give the instruments a view of all possible directions, he and other experts in the field have put their expertise to the test in understanding what their data can tell them about this unique feature of the icy moon.

Source.

New Discovery At Jupiter Could Help Protect Earth-orbit Satellites

Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter's magnetic field in the same way as they do on Earth, according to new research published in Nature Physics this week. The discovery overturns a theory that has held sway for more than a generation and has important implications for protecting Earth-orbiting satellites.
We were kind of talking about this during class!

Full story here.

The campaign to broadcast the first ever advertisement into space is launched March 7 with University of Leicester space scientists playing a key part in the process.
Click here for full story.

No Pure Liquid Water in Martian Gullies

Apparently the 2006 report that what apeared to be bright spots of places where liquid water flowed on Mars are incorrect. New findings show it to be unlikely that water flowed through these 'Martian gullies" anytime since 1999 as had been previously thought. Scientists at the University of Arizona used topographic data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiement camera to get incredibly detailed images of Mars and found that pure liquid water was completely ruled out. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6677

Dust off your camera

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, home to the largest and most technologically advanced planetarium in the Pacific Northwest, is sponsoring an astronomy photo contest in celebration of the upcoming 2009 International Year of Astronomy. The winner will have their picture featured on the cover and one of the months of a 2009 astronomy calendar, along with 11 other honorable mention winners. All winners also receive an OMSI membership and discounts on merchandise. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on March 31st, so there's still time! All submissions should be emailed to calendarcontest@omsi.com (limit is 3 entries per person).

Matter and Energy only 4.62%?

NASA's most recently look into the history of the universe has provided us with some very interesting data on the composition of our universe, as well as the most accurate measurement yet of its age. The universe is now known to be about 13.73 billion years old (+/- 120 million). More found at http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/index.html

French Astronaut Growing Plants in Space

A French astronaut is tending a garden at the International Space Station in hopes of being able to grow crops on future space voyages. There are plenty of positive implications if this is successful, but it will take 10-15 more days until he can bring the plants back to Earth for analysis. Read about it here.

Mars and Venus

Space crafts researching the atmospheres of Mars and Venus are revealing how similar the two planets are to one another.

The new observations show that, despite the differences in size and distance from the Sun, Mars and Venus are surprisingly similar. Both planets have beams of electrically charged particles flowing out of their atmospheres. The particles are being accelerated away by interactions with the solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles released by the Sun.

More at: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6710

Mikey Pannier

Before You Vote, Don't Forget About Space

"Advocates of NASA's plan to return to the moon are concerned that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he will raid NASA's budget to fund education. While the issue of space exploration hasn't gotten much attention this campaign season, it is a topic on which the candidates do differ."

More information at NPR.org

Probe Almost Ready For Antartica (Maybe Europa?)

Peter Doran, professor at University of Illinois in Chicago will lead a team and a WV bug sized robot to hang out in Lake Vostok, a mile wide lake beneath miles and miles of solid ice.

More information can be heard or read at NPR.org

Scientists Simulate Black Hole in Experiment!

Scientists have simulated a black hole event horizon by running light and infrared pulse waves directly at eachother through fiber optics. The light was then overcome by the infrared. They have not successfully tested their theories with dense objects, though they hope these new studies will help explain Hawking radiation and help physics develop a "theory of everything". It's complicated but interesting. Read it here.

Twin Earth Nearby?

A new study from UC Santa Cruz graduate student Javiera Guedes suggests that a planet in the "hospitable zone" for developing water may be formed around the nearby star Alpha Centauri. The study will be published in the Astrophysical Journal, and by using the Doppler detection method (for a period of 5 years) astronomers will be able to confirm if there is a planet there (and if there is it would be a likely candidate for water). Read the whole thing here.

Avalanche on Mars

Pictures taken last month by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show at least four avalanches that sent up huge clouds of dust and debris. Although they do not know how often avalanches like these occur, scientists are eager to discover active changes to the planet's surface, which does not happen often.

Full article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/03/03/mars.avalanche.ap/index.html

Mars and Venus More Similar Than We Thought

Two ESA spacecrafts, Venus Express and Mars Express (clever names), have been observing the two planets' atmospheres to find out more about their evolution. Apparently planetary scientists are pleased with what they've found by comparing the planets, which are, somewhat surprisingly, similar. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6710

One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Advertising?

It seems that the UK is so desperate for funding of their asrtronomy program, that they have agreed to broadcast an add for Doritos--in space. In addition to the funding, scientists are hopeful that this will increase the likelihood of making contact with extra terestrial life, remarking that this technique far exceeds the methods previously used. If there is life out there, they hope to find it.

"The cosmic stunt marks a small step for man, a giant leap for advertising hype and underlines the desperation of British astronomers to find new sources of funding as they struggle to cope with swingeing cuts that now threaten institutions such as Jodrell Bank, the world famous observatory in Cheshire.

Although each and every television advert already broadcast has leaked into the heavens, the caper marks the first time one is to be targetted at an other worldly market, a zone in the constellation Ursa Major that could harbour alien worlds, the snack manufactuer Doritos announces today."

More Here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/03/07/scispace107.xml

-Ryan

Once-habitable lake found on Mars

New spacecraft images reveal that a lake that might once have been habitable may have filled a crater for a long time on early Mars. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the images that suggest the debris-strewn Holden Crater once held a calm body of water that could have harbored life. However, there is no convincing evidence that life does or ever existed on Mars. With this new information, the Holden Crater is one of six landing sites under consideration for the next mission to Mars.

Full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19934328/

Venus and Mars More Similar Than We Thought

Through 'comparative planetology" two ESA spacecrafts, Mars Express and Venus Express (clever names), are observing the atmosphers of these planets as they are "stripped" away into space. They are able to look into the evolution of the planets' atmospheres and make comparisons between the two. Apparently these spacecrafts are very good at what they do and so far have found that Venus and Mars are similar planets, despite their size difference. Check it out:

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=6710

Saturn's moon Rhea may have rings

I know that someone already wrote about Rhea having rings, but here's a second article about it

Ringed Moon Circles Ringed Planet: Saturn's Moon Rhea Also May Have Rings
ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2008) — NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of material orbiting Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon. This is the first time rings may have been found around a moon.

A broad debris disk and at least one ring appear to have been detected by a suite of six instruments on Cassini specifically designed to study the atmospheres and particles around Saturn and its moons.
"Until now, only planets were known to have rings, but now Rhea seems to have some family ties to its ringed parent Saturn," said Geraint Jones, a Cassini scientist and lead author on a paper that appears in the March 7 issue of the journal Science. Jones began this work while at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and is now at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College, London.
Rhea is roughly 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) in diameter. The apparent debris disk measures several thousand miles from end to end. The particles that make up the disk and any embedded rings probably range from the size of small pebbles to boulders. An additional dust cloud may extend up to 5,900 kilometers (3,000 miles) from the moon's center, almost eight times the radius of Rhea.
"Like finding planets around other stars, and moons around asteroids, these findings are opening a new field of rings around moons," said Norbert Krupp, a scientist with Cassini's Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.
Since the discovery, Cassini scientists have carried out numerical simulations to determine if Rhea can maintain rings. The models show that Rhea's gravity field, in combination with its orbit around Saturn, could allow rings that form to remain in place for a very long time.
The discovery was a result of a Cassini close flyby of Rhea in November 2005, when instruments on the spacecraft observed the environment around the moon. Three instruments sampled dust directly. The existence of some debris was expected because a rain of dust constantly hits Saturn's moons, including Rhea, knocking particles into space around them. Other instruments' observations showed how the moon was interacting with Saturn's magnetosphere, and ruled out the possibility of an atmosphere.
Evidence for a debris disk in addition to this tenuous dust cloud came from a gradual drop on either side of Rhea in the number of electrons detected by two of Cassini's instruments. Material near Rhea appeared to be shielding Cassini from the usual rain of electrons. Cassini's Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument detected sharp, brief drops in electrons on both sides of the moon, suggesting the presence of rings within the disk of debris. The rings of Uranus were found in a similar fashion, by NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory in 1977, when light from a star blinked on and off as it passed behind Uranus' rings.
"Seeing almost the same signatures on either side of Rhea was the clincher," added Jones. "After ruling out many other possibilities, we said these are most likely rings. No one was expecting rings around a moon."
One possible explanation for these rings is that they are remnants from an asteroid or comet collision in Rhea's distant past. Such a collision may have pitched large quantities of gas and solid particles around Rhea. Once the gas dissipated, all that remained were the ring particles. Other moons of Saturn, such as Mimas, show evidence of a catastrophic collision that almost tore the moon apart.
"The diversity in our solar system never fails to amaze us," said Candy Hansen, co-author and Cassini scientist on the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Many years ago we thought Saturn was the only planet with rings. Now we may have a moon of Saturn that is a miniature version of its even more elaborately decorated parent."
These ring findings make Rhea a prime candidate for further study. Initial observations by the imaging team when Rhea was near the sun in the sky did not detect dust near the moon remotely. Additional observations are planned to look for the larger particles.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument was designed, built and is operated by an international team led by the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Md.
Adapted from materials provided by NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306160209.htm

aurora's continued...

For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights.

This is a bit of a puzzle. Auroras are caused by solar activity, but the Sun doesn't know what season it is on Earth. So how could one season yield more auroras than another?

"There's a great deal we don't understand about auroras," says UCLA space physicist Vassilis Angelopoulos. For instance, "Auroras sometimes erupt with little warning and surprising intensity. We call these events sub-storms, and they are a big mystery." What triggers the eruptions? Where is sub-storm energy stored? (It has to gather somewhere waiting to power the outburst.)

And, of course, why springtime?

To answer these questions and others, NASA has deployed a fleet of five spacecraft named THEMIS (short for "Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms") specially instrumented to study auroras. Angelopoulos is the mission's principal investigator.

The THEMIS mission uses five identical spacecrafts to study auroras and the substorms that ignite them. This is an artist's concept of one of the THEMIS probes. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center's Conceptual Image Lab [View Larger Image]

Auroras are more than just pretty lights in the sky. Underlying each display is a potent geomagnetic storm with possible side effects ranging from satellite malfunctions in orbit to power outages on terra firma. Telecommunications, air traffic, power grids and GPS systems are all vulnerable. In a society that relies increasingly on space technology, understanding these storms is vital.

Launched in February 2007, THEMIS has already observed one geomagnetic storm with a total energy of 500,000 billion (5 x 10^14) Joules. "That's approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake," says Angelopoulos. "This storm moved twice as fast as anyone thought possible," crossing an entire polar time zone in 60 seconds flat!

THEMIS may have found the storm's power supply. "The satellites have detected magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the Sun," says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras." Sibeck likens them to ropes because the magnetic fields in question are organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner's rope. Solar wind particles flow along the ropes in whirligig trajectories leading from the Sun to Earth.

Spring is the aurora season

Check out these awesome picture that were taken in the Spring.

First binocular light images

March 6, 2008
The Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham, Arizona, has taken celestial images using its twin side-by-side, 27.6 foot (8.4-meter) primary mirrors together, achieving first "binocular" light.

U.S., Italian and German partners in the telescope, known as the LBT, are releasing the images today. First binocular light is a milestone not only for the LBT - now the world's most powerful telescope - but for astronomy itself, the partners say.

The first binocular light images show three false-color renditions of the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. The galaxy is 102 million light-years from our Milky Way, a relatively close neighbor. The galaxy has a flat disk of stars and glowing gas and is tipped slightly toward our line of sight.

The first image combines ultraviolet and green light and emphasizes the clumpy regions of newly formed hot stars in the spiral arms. The second image combines two deep red colors to highlight the smoother distribution of older, cooler stars. The third image is a composite of ultraviolet, green and deep red light and shows the detailed structure of hot, moderate and cool stars in the galaxy. The cameras and images were produced by the Large Binocular Camera team, led by Emanuele Giallongo at the Rome Astrophysical Observatory.

This is the second of three LBT first binocular light images taken January 11 and January 12. It shows a false-color rendition of the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. Large Binocular Camera team, Rome Observatory [View Larger Image] The LBT has a light-collecting area equivalent to a single 39-foot (11.8-meter) surface and will combine light to produce the image sharpness equivalent to a single 75-foot (22.8-meter) telescope. It is located on 10,480-foot Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona. "To have a fully functioning binocular telescope is not only a time for celebration here at LBT, but also for the entire astronomy community," UA Steward Observatory Director, Regents' Professor and LBT Corp. President Peter A. Strittmatter says. "The images that this telescope will produce will be like none seen before. The power and clarity of this machine is in a class of its own. It will provide unmatched ability to peer into history, seeing the birth of the universe." Regents' Professor and Steward Observatory Mirror Lab Director Roger Angel was one of the UA astronomers who conceived the basic idea for the LBT in the early 1980s. The UA Mirror Lab, world-renowned for pioneering mirror technologies, cast the LBT mirrors in its giant rotating furnace and polished them by a unique stressed-lap technique to virtual perfection. Angel was involved earlier in UA research that is developing adaptive optics technologies for giant telescopes, technologies that defeat atmospheric turbulence. "The LBT gives me the most satisfaction of any astronomy project I've worked on, because it is very revolutionary, and because it has given Arizona the largest and the best telescope in the world," Angel says. "When all the pieces are in place, the LBT will take images sharper than any other telescope. I think it's the most likely telescope to take the first pictures of planets around other stars because of the unique advanced technologies used to build it."

This is the third image of NGC 2770 taken January 11 and 12. Large Binocular Camera team, Rome Observatory [View Larger Image]

International cooperation that saw the project through to completion "is remarkable," says John P. Schaefer, chairman of the LBT Corp. board of directors and member of the Research Corp. board of directors. "The LBT project was once just an idea, and now it is the world's most advanced telescope, made possible by international collaboration of over 15 institutions. The completion of this one-of-a-kind instrument reflects what can happen when people come together and work towards a common goal."

LBT Director Richard Green says, "The amount of time and work that was put into this project to reach the point where we are today is immense. We have gone through challenging moments, but to see the telescope operational with both mirrors is a great feeling. Everyone who has worked on this, at all levels, is enormously proud of what has been accomplished."