This week in space: special post

Earth Has a Second Moon, Astronomers Say

In a research paper called "The population of natural Earth satellites", astronomers say that Earth has a second moon at any given time. While these moons are small, the scientific implications of this discovery are phenomenal.

Think about it: instead of having to send crews to asteroids, now we know that they come to us—they orbit Earth and we can intercept them to learn more about the origins of our solar system. All with a small price tag.

Interesting, however how do they know it wasn't an ET craft?

Read more HERE

This week in space

Course excellent, adjustment postponed

This makes me very very happy. I can't wait for this thing to touch down and start exploring!

Excellent launch precision for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission has forestalled the need for an early trajectory correction maneuver, now not required for a month or more.

Read more HERE

Good and bad news comes with NASA’s 2012 budget

We need to pour more money into space exploration and research before China is eons ahead of us.

On November 14, President Obama signed an Appropriations bill that solidified NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2012. The space agency will get $17.8 billion. That’s $648 million less than last year’s funding and $924 million below what the President had asked for. But it’s still better than the $16.8 billion proposed earlier this year by the House of Representatives.

Read more HERE

Caltech-led team of astronomers finds 18 new planets

I love that we are finding new planets a few different ways and that we are finding an incredible amount of them. Maybe soon we'll be able to detect life on them, or at least find some good candidates to listen to.

Discoveries of new planets just keep coming and coming. Take, for instance, the 18 recently found by a team of astronomers led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Read more HERE

Listening to the stars

While I'd rather be listening to planets with the potential of having life on them... this is good reserach too.

It is almost night on the island of Puerto Rico. Astronomer Joanna Rankin raises her head toward the sky. A few of the brightest stars shine through blue cracks in a ragged dome of gray clouds. To her back, a jungle throbs with the insistent call of frogs. In front of her, a giant bowl made of perforated metal dips steeply and rises on the other side of the valley, a thousand feet away. It looks like a colossal contact lens dropped from outer space.

Read more HERE

China post office offers letters from space

Ummm huge gimmick.

China's post office is hoping to boost business by allowing customers to send letters postmarked from space. Emails will be sent to a computer aboard Tiangong-1, a spacecraft currently orbiting the earth, and rerouted to a special China Space Post Office branch on the ground in Beijing, the country's space programme said on its website.

Read more HERE

This Week in Space

I'm afraid there isn't much this time around for This Week in Space, but here is what I do have.

Cosmic particle accelerators get things going

See, who needs the LHC at CERN when the universe does it on a much grander scale...

ESA's Cluster satellites have discovered that cosmic particle accelerators are more efficient than previously thought. The discovery has revealed the initial stages of acceleration for the first time, a process that could apply across the Universe.

Read more HERE

The cool clouds of Carina

Isn't it just beaitufl how stars form? I swear the universe is full of absolutely stunning things.

Observations made with the APEX telescope in submillimetre-wavelength light reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy, is an ideal arena in which to study the interactions between these young stars and their parent molecular clouds.

Read more HERE

This week in space

Discovery of two types of neutron stars points to two different classes of supernovae

See I love when stuff like this happens as it just proves we know very little about how things work. The great thing is when we do discover new things it betters are understanding and makes the universe a more interesting place.

Astronomers at the universities of Southampton and Oxford have found evidence that neutron stars, which are produced when massive stars explode as supernovae, actually come in two distinct varieties. Their finding also suggests that each variety is produced by a different kind of supernova event.

Read more HERE

Stellar extremophiles

Not only is it curious that these stars exist where they do, but the composite image is quite beautiful.

Back in the 1970s, biologists were amazed to discover a form of life they never expected.  Tiny microorganisms with ancient DNA were living in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park.  Instead of dissolving in the boiling waters, the microbes were thriving, ringing the springs with vibrant color.

Read more HERE

Forget exoplanets. Let's talk exomoons

While the current technology isn't even able to detect Ganymede in our own solar system via the methods proposed, future missions could do it. In fact, I remember not too long ago when we weren't even sure of exoplanets and last I looked (November 7th, 2011) we've discovered 697 extrasolar planets in 573 systems and 81 multiple-planet systems so in the next 50 years we could easily have discovered that many exomoons!

It wasn’t that long ago that astronomers began discovering the first planets around other stars. But as the field of exoplanetary astronomy explodes, astronomers have begun looking to the future and considering the possibility of detecting moons around these planets. Surprisingly, the potential for doing so may not be that far off.

Read more HERE

NASA ready for November launch of car-size Mars rover

This mars rover really had me excited a while ago when it was supposed to be carrying a 3-D camera provided for and funded by James Cameron, until NASA nixed the camera... which they had no real reason to do other than to cover up something.

NASA's most advanced mobile robotic laboratory, which will examine one of the most intriguing areas on Mars, is in final preparations for a launch from Florida's Space Coast at 10:25 a.m. EST (7:25 a.m. PST) on Nov. 25.

Read more HERE

Does the Pluto system pose a threat to New Horizons?

It would suck if this thing gets all the way out there, then smashes into some body around Pluto's orbit. Lousy thing is, it's quite possible.

With nearly two-thirds of its journey complete, the New Horizons spacecraft is still alive and well. It recently experienced a “hibernation wakeup” which started on November 5th and will last until November 15th… and it will sleep again until a month-long call in January. However, the real “wakeup call” may be when it reaches the complicated Pluto system. Watch out for that rock!

Read more HERE

Russia's attempts to save Mars probe unsuccessful

Alright, so after NASA cancelled Curiosity's 3D camera provided by Cameron I was suspicious they were trying to hide something. Now this Russian mission to Mars is stuck in EARTH orbit... what are the powers that be trying to hide that they had to sabotage this Russian craft? What are they hiding from the Russians? What are they hiding from the general population?

As Russia's space agency struggled Thursday to fix a probe bound for a moon of Mars that instead got stuck in Earth's orbit, some experts said the chances of saving the $170 million craft looked slim.

Read more HERE

This week in space

Quarter-mile-wide asteroid coming close to Earth

Now it's stuff like this that keeps me up late at night, because truth be told, we can't see it all and one of these could come crashing through our atmosphere any day.

An asteroid bigger than an aircraft carrier will dart between the Earth and moon on Tuesday - the closest encounter by such a huge rock in 35 years.

Read more HERE

Researchers complete 520-day mock mission to Mars

Could you imagine 520 days in a small environment with the same people? Oh wait, it's called prison and we've seen that people can do it for hundreds of years.

Pale but smiling, an international crew of researchers on Friday walked out of a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars.

Read more HERE

Space science on the wings of starfighters

While this is all fine and dandy, I don't care about sub-orbital research, I care about traveling out of our orbit and far far away.

A NewSpace company based out of New Port Richey in Florida is working to provide suborbital access to space for firms with scientific payloads. The Star Lab project is an experimental suborbital launcher, designed to provide frequent, less expensive access to sub-orbit. This could allow educational and scientific institutions across the nation to conduct experiments that would normally be impractical.

Read more HERE

Space junk problem? Just fire a laser!

Hrmm, this will work once you can create a powerful enough laser, however... what will it do to the atmosphere? Then of course the next logical step of this is planetary defense weapons for when the Syndic try to attack the alliance (see the Lost Fleet series).

Imagine yourself as an astronaut performing scientific experiments and crowd-stunning aerobatics. Suddenly, ear-stinging, blaring alarms go off. Mission Control radios that all space station personnel should evacuate to the rescue vehicles because a piece of deadly space debris is headed your way.

Read more HERE

Kepler space telescope mission extension proposal

All I can say is they better keep funding it. Kepler has found a lot of cool things and will continue to do so as long as it's functional and funded.

Some potentially good news for exoplanet fans, and Kepler fans in particular – Kepler scientists are asking for a mission extension and seem reasonably confident they will get it. Otherwise, funding is due to run out in November of 2012. It is crucial that Kepler receive renewed funding in order to continue its already incredibly successful search for planets orbiting other stars. Its primary goal — and the holy grail of exoplanet research — is finding worlds that are about the size of Earth, orbiting in the “habitable zone” of stars that are similar to our Sun, where temperatures could allow liquid water on their surfaces.

Read more HERE

City lights could reveal E.T. civilization

Hrmm searching for E.T. via light pollution... not a bad idea.

In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, astronomers have hunted for radio signals and ultra-short laser pulses. In a new paper, Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Edwin Turner (Princeton University) suggest a new technique for finding aliens: look for their city lights.

Read more HERE

Scientists study the 'galaxy zoo' using Google Maps and thousands of volunteers

I love crowd sourced projects like these. I also love that this stuff is available to the general population... there is no benefit to mankind by hording knowledge, it should be shared.

The reddest galaxies with the largest central bulb show the largest bars -gigantic central columns of stars and dark matter-, according to a scientific study that used Google Maps to observe the sky. A group of volunteers of more than 200,000 participants of the galaxy classification project Galaxy Zoo contributed to this research.

Read more HERE

This week in space

Russia eyes caves on moon for setting up a lunar base

Wait... you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of 1901's First Man in the Moon story and 1964's First Man In The Moon film.

For the time being, it appears NASA has set aside any ambitions to return to the Moon with human missions. But Russia may consider sending cosmonauts to the lunar surface to set up a colony using natural caves and possible volcanic tunnels as protection from the harsh lunar environment.

Read more HERE

Record-breaking photo reveals a planet-sized object as cool as the Earth

Now the important question, do we start listening to it or do we start broadcasting?

The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona -- will be presented by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Luhman during the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on 20 October 2011. A paper describing the discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Read more HERE

Youngest planet seen as it's forming

That's neat, that's all I really have to say about it.

The first direct image of a planet in the process of forming around its star has been captured by astronomers who combined the power of the 10-meter Keck telescopes with a bit of optical sleight of hand.

Read more HERE

Spitzer detects comet storm in nearby solar system

This is cool as it could add considerable amounts of water to planets in the system, similar to the article just below this.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment," which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth.

Read more HERE

Nearby planet-forming disk holds water for thousands of oceans

If you look back to some of my earlier installments of this week in space you'll find that a generally accepted theory for how planets get their water is from comets and similar bodies in space, now here we have evidence of a water disk that might be how the comets are created to start the process.

For the first time, astronomers have detected around a burgeoning solar system a sprawling cloud of water vapor that's cold enough to form comets, which could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets.

Read more HERE

This week in space

Daring Russian sample return mission to Martian moon Phobos aims for November liftoff

This will be an awesome mission if it is succesful. Returning samples from another moon in our solar system will give us something new to study so that we might unerstand more about our neighborhood. Although, Phobos might not be a moon and in fact a space station or craft ( http://www.enterprisemission.com/Phobos.html )

In just over three weeks’ time, Russia plans to launch a bold mission to Mars whose objective, if successful , is to land on the Martian Moon Phobos and return a cargo of precious soil samples back to Earth about three years later.

Read more HERE

Hubble survey carries out a dark matter census

This might be an idirect method for detecting dark matter, then again it might be detecting something else entirely.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to make an image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The apparently distorted shapes of distant galaxies in the background is caused by an invisible substance called dark matter, whose gravity bends and distorts their light rays. MACS 1206 has been observed as part of a new survey of galaxy clusters using Hubble.

Read more HERE

G299.2-2.9, a middle-aged supernova remnant

I just thought this was beautiful and thought I'd share it.

G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion

Read more HERE

Clearing the cosmic fog of the early universe: Massive stars may be responsible

While an interesting theory with some evidence, I don't much care... again I just thought this was beautiful.

The space between the galaxies wasn't always transparent. In the earliest times, it was an opaque, dense fog. How it cleared is an important question in astronomy. New observational evidence from the University of Michigan shows how high energy light from massive stars could have been responsible.

Read more HERE

Distant galaxies reveal the clearing of the cosmic fog

This is just an interesting look into the early universe, and again a beautiful image.

Scientists have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to probe the early Universe at several different times as it was becoming transparent to ultraviolet light. This brief but dramatic phase in cosmic history occurred around 13 billion years ago. By studying some of the most distant galaxies, the team has been able to establish a timeline for reionisation for the first time. They have also demonstrated that this phase must have happened quicker than previously thought.

Read more HERE

Astronomers find elusive planets in decade-old Hubble data

This is great, we now have a few different ways we are detecing planets... what's great is with this data from 1998 gives us locations of objects then, and if we regularly check those areas of space regularly we will begin to detect more and more planets as we detect ones with longer and longer orbits around their star(s).

In a painstaking re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected back then.

Read more HERE

NASA to test new solar sail technology

There are many applications I can think of for this. It would be a great way to deploy communications relays for missions to the outer reaches of your solar system, after deploying such a network you could then send probes all over our solar system and have them be able to radio back reliably via the network. Could use them on satellites for cheap repositioning in orbit. Then of course you could develop very large ones and push them with masers to get a ship up to a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Solar sails, much like anti-matter and ion engines appear at first glance to only exist in science fiction. Many technologies from science fiction however, become science fact.

Read more HERE

The hazy history of Titan's air

Titan is an excellent candidate for life. Microbrial for almost certain, and possibly even larger forms of life.

What rocky moon has a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Earth-like weather patterns and geology, liquid hydrocarbon seas and a relatively good chance to support life? The answer is Titan, the fascinating moon of Saturn.

Read more HERE

NASA books 1st flight from New Mexico spaceport

This is just great because it gives the fledling private space industry a customer, something very important in getting it going strong.

NASA has booked a charter suborbital flight from Virgin Galactic's spaceport operations in southern New Mexico.

Read more HERE

This week in space

Water supersaturation in the Martian atmosphere discovered

This is just more of a reason for us to step up and get to Mars, set up a space port, start mining material usesful for fuel and construction and start expanding our presence in the solar system.

New analysis of data sent back by the SPICAM spectrometer on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has revealed for the first time that the planet's atmosphere is supersaturated with water vapour. This surprising discovery has major implications for understanding the Martian water cycle and the historical evolution of the atmosphere.

Read more about it HERE

SpaceX says 'reusable rocket' could help colonize Mars

Exactly. I love Elon Musk as he is one of the few people in the U.S. pushing manned space flight forward.

The US company SpaceX is working on the first-ever reusable rocket to launch to space and back, with the goal of one day helping humans colonize Mars, founder Elon Musk said Thursday.

Read more about it HERE

China launches module for space station

Here the Chinese are pushing further ahead of us. They have far more brain power than the U.S., they have a society that isn't going to halt a space program over a few launchpad deaths, and they are building their own space station. Oh, might I add they have a manned moon mission in the works.

China launched an experimental module to lay the groundwork for a future space station on Thursday, underscoring its ambitions to become a major space power.

Read more about it HERE

Snafu as China space launch set to US patriotic song

Bwahahahahahahaha.

It was supposed to be a patriotic tribute to China's technological prowess. Instead, a video showing the launch of China's first space station module inadvertently glorified the country's biggest rival.

Read more about it HERE

Galaxy caught blowing bubbles

That is absolutely beautiful.

Hubble's famous images of galaxies typically show elegant spirals or soft-edged ellipses. But these neat forms are only representative of large galaxies. Smaller galaxies like the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg II come in many shapes and types that are harder to classify. This galaxy's indistinct shape is punctuated by huge glowing bubbles of gas, captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Read more about it HERE

Heavy metal stars produce Earth-Like planets

Well, this gives us a good idea of where to start looking for more planets. Although, we are alreayd finding a LOT of planets very easily (but mostly gas giants).

New research reveals that, like their giant cousins, rocky planets are more likely to be found orbiting high metallicity stars. Furthermore, these planets are more plentiful around low mass stars. This could have important implications for the search for life outside of Earth.

Read more about it HERE

This week in space

Computer simulation shows Solar System once had an extra planet

Hrmm, Nibiru ring a bell anyone?

A new study published on arXiv.org shows that, based on computer simulations, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may not have been the only gas giants in our solar system. According to David Nesvorny from Colorado’s Southwest Research Institute, our current solar system could never have happened without the existence of a fifth planet.

Read more about it HERE

Globular clusters on a plane

Ok, so does anyone else feel like a galaxy comes along, cannibalizes another, then takes a big fat dump and leaves it along a plane before moving on to the next?

Globular clusters are generally some of the oldest structures in our galaxy. Many of the most famous ones formed around the same time as our galaxy, some 13 billion years ago. However, some are distinctly younger. While many classification schemes are used, one breaks globular clusters into three groups: an old halo group which includes the oldest of the clusters, those in the disk and bulge of the galaxy which tend to have higher metallicity, and a younger population of halo clusters. The latter of these provides a bit of a problem since the galaxy should have settled into a disk by the time they formed, depriving them of the necessary materials to form in the first place. But a new study suggests a solution that’s not of this galaxy.

Read more about it HERE

An X1.4 Solar Flare and a CME

Nothing really to say here, X class falres just interest me.

A large coronal mass ejection (CME) shot off the West (right) side of the sun at 6:24 PM ET on September 21, 2011. The CME is moving away from Earth at about 900 miles per second.

Read more about it HERE

Exploring an asteroid with the Desert RATS

Other than in movies, like Armageddon, I don't think we need a vehicle for landing on and exploring asteroids yet, we aren't quite ready for mining the asteroid belt.

Earlier this month, European scientists linked up with astronauts roaming over the surface of an asteroid. Desert RATS, NASA’s realistic simulation of a future mission, this year included a European dimension for the first time.

Read more about it HERE

NASA completes Orion spacecraft parachute testing in Arizona

Parachutes, seriously? We know that there is a secret space program not in the public view that has had anti gravity capabilities for ages now.

NASA this week completed the first in a series of flight-like parachute tests for the agency's Orion spacecraft. The drop tests at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona support the design and development of the Orion parachute assembly.

Read more about it HERE