The Space Thread

Kate Mulgew call your office...

edited 15th Dec '14 11:30:21 PM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Curiosity rover finds active, ancient organic chemistry on Mars: "NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill.

'This temporary increase in methane—sharply up and then back down—tells us there must be some relatively localized source,' said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Curiosity rover science team. 'There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock.'

Researchers used Curiosity's onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory a dozen times in a 20-month period to sniff methane in the atmosphere. During two of those months, in late 2013 and early 2014, four measurements averaged seven parts per billion. Before and after that, readings averaged only one-tenth that level."

Mysterious martian gouges carved by dry ice: "After the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began beaming back close-up images of the Red Planet, researchers spotted peculiar features along the slopes of dunes: long, sharply defined grooves (pictured) that seem to appear and disappear seasonally. They look like trails left behind by tumbling boulders, but rocks never appear in the sunken pits at the trail ends. Researchers initially took these gullies as signs of flowing liquid water, but a new model suggests they’re the result of sand-surfing dry ice. During the martian winter, carbon dioxide ice freezes over parts of the planet’s surface and sublimates back into a gas during the spring thaw. But according to the model presented here today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, chunks of warming dry ice may also break off from the crests of dunes and skid down slopes."

edited 16th Dec '14 1:10:40 PM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Any pattern, either geographic or chronological to these spikes?

Trump delenda est

NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter mission identifies links in chain leading to atmospheric loss: "Early discoveries by NASA's newest Mars orbiter are starting to reveal key features about the loss of the planet's atmosphere to space over time. The findings are among the first returns from NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which entered its science phase on Nov. 16. The observations reveal a new process by which the solar wind can penetrate deep into a planetary atmosphere. They include the first comprehensive measurements of the composition of Mars' upper atmosphere and electrically charged ionosphere. The results also offer an unprecedented view of ions as they gain the energy that will lead to their to escape from the atmosphere."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Study finds an exoplanet, tilted on its side, could still be habitable if covered in ocean: "Nearly 2,000 planets beyond our solar system have been identified to date. Whether any of these exoplanets are hospitable to life depends on a number of criteria. Among these, scientists have thought, is a planet's obliquity—the angle of its axis relative to its orbit around a star.

Earth, for instance, has a relatively low obliquity, rotating around an axis that is nearly perpendicular to the plane of its orbit around the sun. Scientists suspect, however, that exoplanets may exhibit a host of obliquities, resembling anything from a vertical spinning top to a horizontal rotisserie. The more extreme the tilt, the less habitable a planet may be—or so the thinking has gone.

Now scientists at MIT have found that even a high-obliquity planet, with a nearly horizontal axis, could potentially support life, so long as the planet were completely covered by an ocean. In fact, even a shallow ocean, about 50 meters deep, would be enough to keep such a planet at relatively comfortable temperatures, averaging around 60 degrees Fahrenheit year-round."

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Spacecraft spots probable waves on Titan’s seas: "It’s springtime on Titan, Saturn’s giant and frigid moon, and the action on its hydrocarbon seas seems to be heating up. Near the moon’s north pole, there is growing evidence for waves on three different seas, scientists reported here today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Researchers are also coming up with the first estimates for the volume and composition of the seas. The bodies appear to be made mostly of methane, and not mostly ethane as previously thought. And they are deep: Ligeia Mare, the second biggest sea with an area larger than Lake Superior, could contain 55 times Earth’s oil reserves."

The UK is successfully crowd-funding themselves to the Moon: "An independent British consortium called Lunar Mission One has successfully raised more than £600,000 (AUD$1.1 million) in just one month as part of a Kickstarter campaign to get a UK space probe to the Moon."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Building a Cube Sat mothership

More Photos from the Philae Comet Mission

Who watches the watchmen?

Interesting.

MESSENGER data suggest recurring meteor shower on Mercury: "The closest planet to the sun appears to get hit by a periodic meteor shower, possibly associated with a comet that produces multiple events annually on Earth. The clues pointing to Mercury's shower were discovered in the very thin halo of gases that make up the planet's exosphere, which is under study by NASA's MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft."

Surprising theorists, stars within middle-aged clusters are of similar age: "An examination of middle-aged star clusters reveals an unexpectedly narrow age range among their stars, suggesting that large groups of stars evolve differently than previously understood."

'Perfect storm' quenching star formation around a supermassive black hole: "High-energy jets powered by supermassive black holes can blast away a galaxy's star-forming fuel, resulting in so-called 'red and dead' galaxies: those brimming with ancient red stars yet containing little or no hydrogen gas to create new ones.

Now astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered that black holes don't have to be nearly so powerful to shut down star formation. By observing the dust and gas at the center of NGC 1266, a nearby lenticular galaxy with a relatively modest central black hole, the astronomers have detected a "perfect storm" of turbulence that is squelching star formation in a region that would otherwise be an ideal star factory.

This turbulence is stirred up by jets from the galaxy's central black hole slamming into an incredibly dense envelope of gas. This dense region, which may be the result of a recent merger with another smaller galaxy, blocks nearly 98 percent of material propelled by the jets from escaping the galactic center."

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Contamination of impacted meteorites can happen quickly: "A team of scientists has published the results of an investigative survey into the Sutter's Mill meteorite that landed in California in 2012.

The results reveal that the meteorite contained a number of features associated with minerals such as olivines, phyllosilicates, carbonates, and possibly pyroxenes, as well as organics.

However, a key conclusion of the paper, and one that is likely to be of keen interest to astrobiologists, is confirmation that meteorites can become contaminated by Earth-based organics very quickly. That means scientists must be extra vigilant in identifying and assessing the effects of terrestrial organic contamination of meteoritic samples."

India launches biggest ever rocket into space: "India successfully launched its biggest ever rocket on Thursday carrying an unmanned capsule which could one day send astronauts into space, as the country ramps up its ambitious space programme.

The rocket, designed to carry heavier communication and other satellites into higher orbit, blasted off from Sriharikota in the southeast state of Andhra Pradesh in a test mission costing nearly $25 million.

'This was a very significant day in the history of (the) Indian space programme,' Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K.S Radhakrishnan said from mission control as fellow scientists clapped and cheered."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Origin of 'theta aurora'—long-standing space mystery—revealed: "Auroras are the most visible manifestation of the sun's effect on Earth, but many aspects of these spectacular displays are still poorly understood. Thanks to the joint European Space Agency and NASA's Cluster mission combined with data from a past NASA mission called the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, or IMAGE, a particular type of very high-latitude aurora has now been explained.

Known as a theta aurora—because seen from above it looks like the Greek letter theta, an oval with a line crossing through the center—this type of aurora sometimes occurs closer to the poles than normal aurora. While the genesis of the auroral oval emissions is reasonably well understood, the origin of the theta aurora was unclear until now. A paper in the Dec. 19, 2014, issue of Science shows that hot plasma funneled into near-Earth space from the sun helps cause these unique aurora."

U.S. Christmas lights seen from space: "Americans sure do love their Christmas lights. It’s a love that even aliens orbiting Earth could notice, NASA scientists suggest. Using data gathered in visible and near-infrared wavelengths by sensors on a NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, researchers compared the average intensity of nighttime lights across the southern United States in December of 2012 and 2013 with the average measured in non-December months from January 2012 through autumn of this year. In urban areas, holiday lights boosted the average intensity of ground-based light by about 20%. But in the suburban fringes of metropolitan areas, light intensity typically grew by between 30% and 50%, the researchers report. "

NASA Wants To Establish A Floating Cloud City To Study Venus: "While Mars may be all the rage right now, a team of NASA scientists has dreamed up an innovative concept that could eventually see humans permanently occupying Venus’ atmosphere, in a floating cloud city."

And now, some music.

edited 18th Dec '14 9:29:43 PM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Signs of Europa plumes remain elusive in search of Cassini data: "A fresh look at data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its 2001 flyby of Jupiter shows that Europa's tenuous atmosphere is even thinner than previously thought and also suggests that the thin, hot gas around the moon does not show evidence of plume activity occurring at the time of the flyby. The new research provides a snapshot of Europa's state of activity at that time, and suggests that if there is plume activity, it is likely intermittent."

Compact galaxy groups reveal details of their close encounters: "Galaxies – spirals laced with nests of recent star formation, quiescent ellipticals composed mainly of old red stars, and numerous faint dwarfs – are the basic visible building blocks of the Universe. Galaxies are rarely found in isolation, but rather in sparse groups – sort of galactic urban sprawl. But there are occasional dense concentrations, often found in the center of giant clusters, but also, intriguingly, as more isolated compact groups (and yes, called Compact Galaxy Groups or C Gs). The galaxies in these Compact Groups show dramatic differences in the way they evolve and change with time compared with galaxies in more isolated surroundings. Why is this? Collisions between galaxies in these dense groups are common, leading to rapid star formation, but there seems to be more to the puzzle.

A team led by Dr Iraklis Konstantopoulos of the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) has now obtained spectacular images of some C Gs with the Dark Energy camera attached to the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). This camera, constructed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, is able to image large areas of the sky to unprecedented faint limits. The team aims to combine these images with spectroscopic data from the AAO that will reveal the velocities of the galaxies, leading to a much better understanding of their gravitational interactions."

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Off-world manufacturing is a go with space printer: "On Friday, the BBC reported on a NASA email exchange with a space station which involved astronauts on the International Space Station using their 3-D printer to make a wrench from instructions sent up in the e-mail. Quite a marker for things to come? An object, after all, was designed on Earth and then transmitted to space for manufacture, indicating such events may have an impact on the economics of supply and demand for space missions. Astronauts would be more self-reliant on future long-duration space missions if on-demand manufacturing were in place, as an alternative to launching the actual items from Earth. NASA in this recent episode was responding to a request by ISS commander Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench. Previously, said the BBC, if astronauts requested a specific item they could have waited months for it to be flown up on one of the regular supply flights. The BBC posed the question, 'If a 3D printer can churn out something as useful as a tool in space, what else is possible?' The sky is no longer the limit. 'Spare parts, components, even equipment, according to the company behind the printer, Made In Space. And that's just the start.'"

'Dinosaur eggs' spotted on Rosetta’s comet: "There are places on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko where cauliflowerlike textures appear in the dusty crust, like goose bumps under the skin. Scientists using the Rosetta spacecraft—which arrived at 67P in August and became the first mission to orbit and land on a comet—now think they may have discovered the source of these patterns on cliff faces and in deep pits: layer upon layer of rounded nodules, 1 to 3 meters across. These spherules, dubbed dinosaur eggs, could be the fundamental building blocks that clumped together to form the comet 4.5 billion years ago."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Clocking the hot gas gushing from the Milky Way's core: "Many galaxies are shooting material out of their cores, and in 2010 astronomers were surprised to discover that our galaxy was one of them, giving us a front-row seat on the phenomenon. They used the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to detect two huge lobes of gamma ray–emitting gas that extend far above and below the Milky Way's center. Now, other astronomers have clocked the speed of this outflow in work that may eventually resolve the key question raised by its discovery: What caused it? A black hole or a burst of star birth?"

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Video gives astronaut's-eye view inside NASA's Orion spacecraft: "New video recorded during the return of NASA's Orion through Earth's atmosphere this month provides a taste of the intense conditions the spacecraft and the astronauts it carries will endure when they return from deep space destinations on the journey to Mars."

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Astrophysicists offer new research, tool for identifying habitable zones: "Research by a University of Texas at Arlington astrophysicist sheds greater light on S-type and P-type binary stars and forms the basis for BinHab, a new online tool that can be used to calculate the regions of binary systems favorable for life, commonly known as habitable zones. In P-type systems the planet orbits both binary stars. In S-type systems, the planet orbits only one of the stellar components with the second component left to agitate the setting of the planet."

New chemical analysis of ancient Martian meteorite provides clues to planet's history of habitability: "A new analysis of a Martian rock that meteorite hunters plucked from an Antarctic ice field 30 years ago this month reveals a record of the planet's climate billions of years ago, back when water likely washed across its surface and any life that ever formed there might have emerged."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Scientists 'map' water vapor in Martian atmosphere: "Scientists have created a 'map' of the distribution of water vapor. Their research includes observations of seasonal variations in atmospheric concentrations using data collected over ten years by the Russian-French SPICAM spectrometer aboard the Mars Express orbiter. This is the longest period of observation and provides the largest volume of data about water vapor on Mars."

The Milky Way's new neighbor: Tiny and isolated dwarf galaxy discovered: "The Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, is part of a cluster of more than 50 galaxies that make up the ‘Local Group’, a collection that includes the famous Andromeda galaxy and many other far smaller objects. Now a Russian-American team has added to the canon, finding a tiny and isolated dwarf galaxy almost 7 million light years away. The new galaxy, named KKs3 is located in the southern sky in the direction of the constellation of Hydrus and its stars have only one ten-thousandth of the mass of the Milky Way."

edited 24th Dec '14 1:05:22 PM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Researchers propose ballistic capture as cheaper path to Mars: "Space scientists Francesco Topputo and Edward Belbruno are proposing in a paper they have written and uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the idea of using ballistic capture as a means of getting to Mars, rather than the traditional Hohmann transfer approach. They suggest such an approach would be much cheaper and would allow for sidestepping the need for scheduling launch windows."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Gecko gripper robot could clean-up space junk: "The tiny hairs on gecko feet have inspired a NASA-developed robot that could one day tackle the problem of cleaning up space junk."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Asteroids: Breaking up is hard to do: "Hundreds of thousands of asteroids are known to orbit our Sun at distances ranging from near the Earth to beyond Saturn. The most widely known collection of asteroids, the 'main belt,' contains some of the largest and brightest asteroids and lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers think that the asteroids, like the planets, formed in the early solar system from the gradual agglomeration of smaller particles but that, in the case of asteroids, their growth was interrupted by mutual collisions that caused them to fragment rather than to coalesce into planets.

This is an hypothesis which astronomers are trying to test by gathering new data. Their work has some immediate repercussions: NASA is currently planning an 'Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM)' as part of America's next human spaceflight enterprise. Understanding the origins of asteroid sizes - and then identifying a good one for an astronaut to recover - are prime US goals."

Detecting extraterrestrial life using mechanical nanosensors: "Looking for life on other planets is not straightforward. It usually relies on chemical detection, which might be limited or even completely irrelevant to alien biology. On the other hand, motion is a trait of all life, and can be used to identify microorganisms without any need of chemical foreknowledge. EPFL scientists have now developed an extremely sensitive yet simple motion detector that can be built easily by adapting already-existent technology. The system has proven accurate with detecting bacteria, yeast, and even cancer cells, and is considered for the rapid testing of drugs and even the detection of extraterrestrial life. The work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Professor helps craft marching orders for Mars rover: "These are exciting days for the earthbound scientists who study Mars. Data from a NASA rover creeping across the red planet's surface is rewriting our understanding of Mars' geological history and offering tantalizing clues to the possibility that the planet once harbored life - or, possibly, still does."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Study finds possible alternative explanation for dark energy: "Dark energy is an unknown form of energy that is proposed to drive the accelerated expansion of the universe. A new study by University of Georgia professor Edward Kipreos suggests that changes in how people think about time dilation—the slowing of time predicted by Albert Einstein—can provide an alternate explanation of dark energy.

The new paper makes the case that instead of being reciprocal, time dilation in response to movement is directional, with only the moving object undergoing time dilation."

Dawn spacecraft begins approach to dwarf planet Ceres: "NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to enter Ceres orbit in March 2015.

Dawn recently emerged from solar conjunction, in which the spacecraft is on the opposite side of the sun, limiting communication with antennas on Earth. Now that Dawn can reliably communicate with Earth again, mission controllers have programmed the maneuvers necessary for the next stage of the rendezvous, which they label the Ceres approach phase. Dawn is currently 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) from Ceres, approaching it at around 450 miles per hour (725 kilometers per hour).

The spacecraft's arrival at Ceres will mark the first time that a spacecraft has ever orbited two solar system targets. Dawn previously explored the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months, from 2011 to 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Somewhat tangentially related to the general thread subject: Cinema space tribute

TLDR: A collection of space scenes from movies with Anthony Hopkins reading Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", with "Mountains" from the Interstellar soundtrack as the music.

edited 1st Jan '15 10:16:50 PM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

NASA team hacks Opportunity to treat Mars Rover's amnesia: "NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has been working well into its golden years - after nearly 11 years roaming the Red Planet, it has survived more than 40 times past its warranty. But now, this trusty veteran explorer is experiencing some worrisome memory loss.

The long-lived rover has been having some senior moments, according to John Callas, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission (as Opportunity and its defunct twin Spirit are formally known). The episodes of amnesia stem from faulty flash memory - the kind of memory in your digital camera that allows your pictures to stay saved even after your device is turned off.

But flash memory doesn't last forever - and the seventh, final bank in the flash memory appears to be malfunctioning."

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Well they never dreamed either would last long enough for that to be an issue when they launched the things, that's for sure.

I'm baaaaaaack

If I wanted to insert a fictional asteroid into a particular point in time — for this particular one, it was discovered in early 1996 — how do I determine its sequential number of its official designation (as opposed to its provisional designation)? Is there a list of asteroids and other minor celestial bodies that shows when each had received its designation, so that I could just pick a number based on when the astronomers decided it was time to give it one?

Trivia: The provisional designation for this fictional asteroid is 1996 AQ₂₆.

edited 4th Jan '15 9:50:19 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.