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Long-distance Voyager
(May 25, 2013)
Ed Stone, now 77, has been the sole Project Scientist with the Voyager
1 and 2 missions for the past 36 years -- and has no intention of
retiring. He looks forward to seeing both spacecraft pass safely into
interstellar space. Read
more (Nature) |
Missions to the icy moons
(May 24, 2013)
Far from the warm inner regions of the solar system, in orbit around
the great gas giants are moons full of surprises. Several NASA spacecraft
have flown by or orbited Jupiter and Saturn and their impressive collections
of moons. Next up, the European Space Agency plans to launch its heavily-instrumented
JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) to investigate the four big moons
of Jupiter—Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and Io—in 2022 for arrival
in 2030. Read
more (Americaspace.com) |
Astronomy at the high frontier
(May 23, 2013)
The atmosphere is a problem for astronomers for two big reasons: it’s
turbulent, so it smears out the light from cosmic objects, and it
blocks out huge swathes of the electromagnetic spectrum. To see the
universe in extreme clarity and observe in regions of the spectrum
such as the far ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma-rays, instruments have
to be lofted into space. Read
more (Americaspace.com) |
Secrets of the Magellanic Stream
revealed
(May 23, 2013)
Given enough time, bits of matter and energy just floating around
in space can and will organize themselves into pretty much anything
– from a pint of beer to a classic corvette. They could also
organize themselves into "Boltzmann brains" centers of consciousness
that just pop up randomly in the void. The appearance of Boltzmann
brains all around the cosmos in the far future could be a problem
because ultimately it would mean that the experience of the Boltzmann
brains would vastly outweigh our own (read the whole article to understand
why). But, it seems, we may not have to worry anyway, thanks to string
theory. Read
more (New Scientist) |
Secrets of the Magellanic Stream
revealed
(May 22, 2013)
It seems that the Magellanic Stream – a long ribbon of gas –
that wends its way around the halo of the Milky Way contains material
that has been stripped out from both the Large and Small Magellanic
Clouds. Observations of the Stream also suggest a new theory: that
the Clouds have not always been close neighbors of ours.
Read
more (Nature) |
Kepler's amazing planetary haul
(May 20, 2013)
The Kepler planet-hunting mission may (we don't know yet) be over,
but astronomers have enough data from it to keep them busy for years.
This graphic shows 1,235 of the 2,740 planet candidates that the Kepler
mission has found. Read
more (NASA/Kepler) |
NASA to install quantum computer
(May 17, 2013)
Quantum computers are no longer pie-in-the-sky devices being talked
about theoretically or tinkered with in labs. A $15 million D-Wave
Two quantum computer, made by Canadian company D-Wave Systems, is
going to be installed at NASA's Ames Research Center later this year.
Read
more (BBC) |
The end for Kepler?
(May 16, 2013)
One of the Kepler Space Telescope's reaction wheels has frozen, meaning
that it can no longer be pointed at targets in the sky. The spacecraft
is now in safe mode while engineers try to free the wheel or devise
some means by which the mission can be continued. Read
more (New York Times) |
Neutrino astronomy is born
(May 16, 2013)
We may be seeing the dawn of a completely new branch of astronomy
– neutrino astronomy – with the announcement today that
the IceCube experiment at the South Pole has now detected 28 of these
elusive particles of such high energy that they must have come from
outside the solar system. Read
more (BBC) |
50 years ago, the final Mercury launch
took place
(May 15, 2013)
Launched on this day in 1963, the final mission of Project Mercury
– America's first crewed space program. It carried astronaut
L. Gordon Cooper into orbit aboard his Faith 7 capsule. Cooper was
so relaxed while waiting on the launch pad, he actually managed to
nod off! He had another opportunity to sleep once in space because
this 22-orbit mission was the first in American manned spaceflight
history to last more than a day. (Vostok 2, however, holds the record
for the first full-day manned mission of all.) Read
more |
Magnetar found at galactic center
(May 14, 2013)
Astronomer Dale Frail, using the Very Large Array, has made an exciting
discovery at the center of our galaxy. Seeking to find out more about
an X-ray flare from close to the supermassive black hole at the heart
of the Milky Way, he found that the flare was coming from a magnetar
– a highly magnetized neutron star. The magnetar's regular radio
pulses should prove valuable in measuring the warping of space-time
near the black hole and testing predictions of Einstein’s general
theory of relativity. Read
more (Nature) |
Safe return for Hadfield and his
ISS expedition crewmembers
(May 14, 2013)
They do it differently in Russia. No splashdown in the sea to be winched
aboard an aircraft carrier. You get to sit in a field in a comfy chair
with a beach towel over you, while an interested crowd looks on! The
return to Earth, earlier this day, of ISS expedition crew Chris Hadfield,
Roman Romanenko, and Tom Marshburn. Read
more (BBC) |
Deadly pandemic steps closer
(May 13, 2013)
When we (Dirk Schulze-Makuch and I) wrote our book Megacatastrophes,
we included a "catastrophometer" reading at the end of each chapter.
The highest ranking we gave was to the possibility of a worldwide
pandemic of disease for which there was no adequate treatment. That
possibility seems to be getting closer ... Read
more (BBC) |
Rock-polluted stars hint at Sun's
future
(May 11, 2013)
By looking at the spectra of two white dwarfs in the Hyades cluster,
astronomers have found signs that rocky objects have fallen into these
stars – evidence of the disruptive effect that late stellar
evolution can have on planetary systems and offering clues as to what
might befall our own solar system in a few billion years time.
Read
more (BBC) |
Remembering Richard Feynman
(May 11, 2013)
Born on this day in 1918, the American theoretical physicist Richard
Feynman who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics with Julian Schwinger
and Shinichiro Tomonaga for their independent work on quantum electrodynamics.
With Murray Gell-Mann, he proposed the quark as a fundamental subatomic
particle. Read
more |
Drill site no. 2 picked for Mars
rover
(May 10, 2013)
The Curiosity science team at JPL have picked a second target for
the rover to start drilling some time in the next few days. Called
'Cumberland,' it's about nine feet (2.75 meters) west of the rock
where Curiosity drilled for the first time, back in February.
Read
more (NASA/JPL) |
This day in 1900: birth of famed
female astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
(May 10, 2013)
Born on this day in 1900, the British-American American astronomer
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin who became the first female full professor
at Harvard and one of the founders of modern astrophysics. Her Ph.D.
dissertation, entitled "Stellar Atmospheres: A Contribution to the
Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of
Stars" (1925), was later acclaimed as the best in 20th century astronomy.
Read
more |
This day in 1946: first V-2 launch
from White Sands
(May 10, 2013)
On this day in 1946, the first successful launch took place of a captured
German V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground. Fired from Pad 33,
the flight reached an altitude of 112.6 kilometers. Read
more |
Moon's water came from Earth
(May 10, 2013)
The message of tiny glass beads inside the Apollo Moon rocks is that
the infant Earth was wet – long before comets and asteroids
delivered more during a heavy bombardment phase. And some of Earth's
early water ended up on the Moon. Read
more (New Scientist) |
Fireball over UK may have come from
Halley's Comet
(May 9, 2013)
Last night, people in many parts of England and Wales watched a fireball
pass across the sky. Since the event happened at the time of the annual
Eta Aquarids meteor shower, the object is suspected to have been debris
from Halley's Comet. Read
more (BBC) |
Deadly dust on Mars may threaten
future explorers
(May 9, 2013) "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise
your kids," sang Elton John. Maybe the second line of that verse should
be changed to "In fact, it's toxic as hell" following the realization
by scientists that Martian dust could prove extremely hazardous to
human health. Not only does it contain fine-grained silicates of the
type that, if breathed in, can damage the lungs, but perchlorates
also seem to be widespread on the Red Planet – chemicals that
can attack the thyroid gland. Meticulous ways to avoid bringing dust
into habitable areas will probably be essential. Read
more (New Scientist) |
Herschel sharpens view of galactic
center
(May 8, 2013)
Observations made by the Herschel Space Observatory, before it ran
out of coolant recently, have given astronomers an unprecedented look
at the region – just a few light-years across – which
surrounds the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.
Shown here is an artist's impression of that region. Read
more (ESA) |
NASA talks up propsects for manned
Mars mission
(May 7, 2013)
NASA appears to be getting serious about sending humans to Mars,although
it insistsw on the importance of a precursor mission, to capture an
asteroid and push it into an orbit near the Moon. The US space agency
still has to overcome two giant hurdles if it is put people on another
planet: financial and technological. Among the latter are the radiation
risks to astronauts of a 1,000-day excution in to deep space.
Read
more (Guardian) |
Fragments from the Tunguska explosion
found?
(May 4, 2013)
Now, this could prove interesting. Bits of whatever it was that exploded
over the Tunguska River area of Siberia on June 30, 1908, have been
found according to Andrei Zlobin from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Was the Tunguska object a small asteroid or a piece of a comet? If
these fragments are from that event we may be able to find out.
Read
more (MIT) |
Chandra peers at spiral galaxy smash-up
(May 2, 2013)
Researchers have used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to take a closer
look at the scene of a mighty collision between two large spiral galaxies.
The central supermassive black holes of the galaxies are spiraling
in toward each other; meanwhile, the merging systems are undergoing
a vigorous burst of star formation. Read
more (NASA/Chandra) |
CERN closes in on antimatter secrets
(Apr 30, 2013)
Does antimatter respond differently than matter to gravity –
falling "up" instead of "down". Surprisingly, we don't know. But that
may be about to change thanks to an experiment at CERN called ALPHA
– Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus which is designed to
make and trap antimatter atoms. Read
more (BBC) |
Suborbital passenger flights come
a step closer
(Apr 29, 2013)
Today, Virgin Galactic completed the first rocket-powered flight of
its space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). The test, conducted by teams
from Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, marks the start of the
final phase of vehicle testing prior to commercial service from Spaceport
America in New Mexico. Read
more (Virgin Galactic) |
A brief guide to general relativity
(Apr 29, 2013)
At the link below is a brief introduction (drawing on material from
my book Gravity's Arc) to the General Theory of Relativity
– Einstein's theory of gravity, which describes gravitational
forces in terms of the curvature of spacetime caused by the presence
of mass. As the American physicist John Wheeler neatly put it: "Space
tells matter how to move; matter tells space how to curve."
Read
more |
Strange star pair tests Einstein's
theory of gravity
(Apr 26, 2013)
An exotic binary star system consisting of the most massive known
neutron star and a white dwarf in close proximity has enabled one
of the most precise tests to date of Einstein's general theory of
relativity. Once again the theory has come through with flying colors.
Read
more (ESO) |
IceCube registers two super-energetic
neutrinos
(Apr 25, 2013)
The IceCube detector in Antarctica has detected its first two neutrinos,
potentially opening a new window on the cosmos outside the electromagnetic
spectrum. The events have estimated energies of 1.04 ± 0.16 and 1.14
± 0.17 PeV (PeV = 1,000 trillion electronvolts), hundreds of times
greater than the energy of a proton at the Large Hadron Collider.
Read
more (IceCube) |
Super-efficient star-making galaxy
found
(Apr 24, 2013)
The galaxy at the tip of the arrow, shown magnified in the box, lies
nearly 6 billion light-years away and is one of the most efficient
converters of gas to stars in the universe. SDSSJ1506+54 has been
caught in a short-lived phase of evolution, possibly triggered by
the merging of two galaxies into one. The star formation is so prolific
that in a few tens of millions of years, the gas will be used up and
SDSSJ1506+54 will mature into a giant elliptical galaxy.
Read
more (NASA/JPL) |
First Antares launch goes well
(Apr 22, 2013)
Yesterday's flawless launch of a new medium-sized rocket, the Antares,
from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, followed by the successful
deployment of a dummy payload in orbit, will come as a huge relief
to NASA and the rocket's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corporation.
NASA no longer has a manned spaceflight capability or, indeed, any
means of its own of reaching the International Space Station. Eventually,
it's hoped, Antares and OSC will join SpaceX as a provider of payload
launches to the ISS. Read
more (BBC) |
On this day in 1972, Apollo 16 was
on the Moon
(Apr 22, 2013)
Hard to believe that it's been 41 years since Apollo 16, the penultimate
Apollo mission to the Moon, stood on the lunar surface. Since that
great era of manned space exploration in the late 'sixties and early
'seventies, humans have not ventured again beyond low Earth orbit.
Read
more |
Lonely galaxies may trace a dark
matter filament yet
(Apr 20, 2013)
Most galaxies huddle together in clusters, both large and small. Our
own Milky Way, for example, is part of the Local Group of a few dozen
galaxies and is "only" two and a half million light-years away from
its nearest large neighbor (Andromeda, M31). But not all galaxies
live in clusters. Some exist in the immense "voids" of the cosmos,
alone or in tiny groups of two or three, tens of millions of light-years
away from any other galaxy. Such is the case with VGS_31, a trio of
stunted galaxies, possibly aligned with a small dark matter filament.
Read
more (New Scientist) |
Kepler spots most Earth-like exoplanets
yet
(Apr 19, 2013)
The Kepler space telescope has found two new planetary systems that
include three super-Earth-size planets in the habitable zone, the
range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an
orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Kepler-62f is
only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the exoplanet closest
to the size of our planet known in the habitable zone of another star.
Read
more (NASA/JPL) |
Early starburst challenges galaxy
evolution theories
(Apr 18, 2013)
Here's another new observation that's going to keep theorists on their
toes. ESA's Herschel space telescope has spotted a galaxy, far, far
away (and therefore long, long ago), that is in a furious phase of
star formation (the picture here is just as an artist's impression).
The finding calls into question some models of how the first galaxies
formed. Read
more (ESA/Herschel) |
Erupting blazar amazes astronomers
(Apr 17, 2013)
A blazar – an active galaxy whose jet is pointing roughly along
our line of sight – called Markarian 421 is currently putting
on the brightest sustained display of gamma-ray emission ever seen
by astronomers. And its timing couldn't have been better, coinciding
with the start of a global program to monitor it and a meeting of
some of the world's top astrophysicists. Read
more (BBC) |
Are we close to understanding dark
matter?
(Apr 16, 2013)
It seems as if the net might be closing on dark matter. Less than
two weeks after it was announced that the AMS experiment attached
to the International Space Station may have caught a whiff of the
elusive stuff comes news that three events detected by the Cryogenic
Dark Matter Search deep in a mine in Minnesota may have been triggered
by WIMPs (Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles) – a popular
dark matter candidate. Read
more (BBC) |
Final act of a Sunlike star
(Apr 15, 2013)
I have a special fondness for planetary nebulae because they were
the subject of my university research many years ago. Here's a recently-taken
image of one such object – IC 1295, a glowing shell of gas lying
about 3,300 light-years away in the constellation Scutum. It was captured
by the ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Read
more (ESO) |
Old Soviet space probe spotted on
the surface of Mars
(Apr 12, 2013)
It looks like the Soviet lander Mars 3 has been found – 42 years
after it became the first spacecraft to touch down safely on the Red
Planet. What appear to be the main components of the spacecraft have
been seen in high resolution images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter. Read
more (Americaspace.com) |
52 years ago, humans became spacefaring
(Apr 12, 2013)
On this day in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit
the Earth. The flight of his spacecraft, Vostok 1, was fully automated,
although Gagarin was provided with a key in a sealed envelope (never
opened) to take control in an emergency. Vostok 1 completed a single
orbit in a mission lasting 108 minutes, from launch to landing. After
re-entry, Gagarin ejected and made a planned descent with his own
parachute. However for many years the Soviet Union denied this, because
the flight would not have been recognized for various FAI world records
unless the pilot had accompanied his craft to a landing.
Read
more |
NASA outlines plans to capture an
asteroid
(Apr 11, 2013)
NASA has announced its intention to capture and redirect an asteroid
robotically, and then visit it with astronauts to study it and return
samples of it to Earth. The space agency's Associate Administrator
for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier explained
that the mission will afford valuable experience in deep space operations
to send humans to more distant destinations in the solar system, including
Mars. Read
more (NASA/JPL) |
Powerful new tool in the hunt for
exoplanets
(Apr 9, 2013)
The rate at which planets are found around other stars is set to go
up dramatically over the next decade, thanks to powerful telescopes
that will be joining the search both on the ground and in space. Now
NASA has announced plans to launch a new exoplanet mission to continue
and expand upon the outstanding work being done by Kepler. TESS –
the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – will be the first
space-based mission that hunts for planetary transits (the same method
used by Kepler) over most of the sky. It is scheduled for lift-off
in 2017. Read
more (Nature) |
Strange new worlds
(Apr 8, 2013)
The second part of my article on exoplanets. The number and variety
of planets discovered around other stars over the past two decades
are stunning. Giant planets in tiny orbits, worlds around red dwarfs
and pulsars, and planets wandering free through space are among the
curiosities that have come to light. Read
more (Americaspace.com) |
Planets, planets, everywhere ...
(Apr 6, 2013)
It's been only about 20 years since the first planets were found outside
our solar system. Today almost 900 exoplanets are known and that number
is set to increased dramatically. According to current estimates there
may be at least one planet for every star in our galaxy -- 100 to
400 billion planets in the Milky Way alone. Read
more (Americaspace.com) |
Did life get an energy boost from
meteorites?
(Apr 5, 2013)
Most life on Earth today uses the molecule ATP (adenosine triphophate)
as its main energy-storage chemical. But enzymes are needed to make
ATP and tap its energy supply, so when life was first getting started
it probably used something simpler. The question is, what? Many origin-of-life
researchers think the most likely ancient biological energy storage
took the form of a chemical called pyrophosphate. Terry Kee of the
University of Leeds, England, however, begs to differ. He suggests
it may have been pyrophosphite and that it came from phosphite minerals
delivered to Earth by meteorites. Read
more (New Scientist) |
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