Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 25th, 2016
Opportunity image from Navigation Camera on Sol 4266.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Still running after all those years!
NASA’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars 12 years ago this week. The veteran robot touched down on the Red Planet on Jan. 24, 2004, PST (early Jan. 25, UTC).
Opportunity is alive and well, working through the lowest-solar-energy days of the mission’s seventh Martian winter. It has been using a diamond-toothed rock grinder and other tools in recent weeks to investigate clues about the planet’s environmental history.
Opportunity is now exploring the western rim of a 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) crater named Endeavour, doing so since 2011. This winter, the rover is inspecting rocks on the southern side of “Marathon Valley – a feature that slices through Endeavor Crater’s rim from west to east.
A dozen years on Mars. Opportunity Mars rover snagged this image using its Navigation Camera on Sol 4266.
Credit: NASA/JPL
This is a location where observations by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have mapped concentrations of clay minerals that would have formed under wet, non-acidic conditions.
“With healthy power levels, we are looking forward to completing the work in Marathon Valley this year and continuing onward with Opportunity,” said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager, John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
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History-making Viking Mars landers touched down on the Red Planet in 1976 – four decades ago this year.
Credit: NASA
The seminal Viking orbiter and lander Mars missions of the 1970s were a landmark enterprise, giving the U.S. a big plus in the Red Planet exploration column. That epic NASA saga of exploration took place 40 years ago this year.
Now, for the first time, over 300 artifacts from the Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project (VMMEPP) are available to people around the world.
The artifact availability comes via a partnership between VMMEPP and the Google Cultural Institute. The Google Cultural Institute and its partners are putting the world’s cultural treasures at the fingertips of Internet users and are building tools that allow the cultural sector to share more of its diverse heritage online.
Virtual exhibition
Firm footing on Mars. Image taken by the first Viking Mars lander.
Credit: NASA
This new virtual exhibition enables users to see a complete set of the Viking Mission Bulletins that guided the public and press through mission preparation, launch and discoveries; a previously unpublished detailed specification for the Viking Meteorology Instrument; a unique White House document required for mission launch; and a 1967 Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) Viking Sterilization Reference Booklet, representing early standards and procedures that would later become the industry standard that continues today.
Educate future generations
The Viking preservation work is being spearheaded by Rachel Tillman, Executive Director and Founder of VMMEPP.
“For our organization, this launch is significant, as it supports both of our key objectives with one singular event – to preserve the history of Viking and to inspire and educate future generations,” Tillman said in a press statement.
First panorama taken by Viking 2 Mars lander.
Credit: NASA
Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project
Credit: VMMEPP
“Our resources are already being utilized by students from elementary through graduate school, aerospace professionals, and writers who will continue the cultural influence that Viking began,” Tillman added.
All in the Viking family
Tillman said that “it is personally important to us to honor the men and women of Viking, many of whom were never recognized for their roles. Viking brought conflicting interests and individuals together into a cohesive team and ‘family’ that changed the face and direction of space exploration.”
Resources
For more information on the Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project (VMMEPP), go to:
http://www.thevikingpreservationproject.org
The initial Viking Mars Mission Education and Preservation Project Collection can be viewed at:
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/exhibit/the-viking-mars-mission/RQKiJsUJbOktIw
Landscape of the Imhotep region on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta orbiter cruising along with Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko continues to churn out staggering up-close images of the celestial wanderer.
One of those images shows the comet area known as Imhotep.
This smooth dusty terrain covers about 0.8 square kilometers etched with curvilinear features stretching hundreds of meters and which have been found to change in appearance over time.
Many large boulders are scattered within the smooth terrain, including the boulder Cheops. Smaller but more numerous boulders are associated with exposed cliff faces and are most likely the product of erosion.
Water ice revealed
As noted in a European Space Agency (ESA) statement, in some debris falls, detailed analysis has revealed the presence of water ice on the comet.
Particularly eye-catching is the new image is distinctive layered and fractured material. Similar patterns are also seen in exposed cliff-like faces where Imhotep transitions into the Khepry region.
Lastly, a number of small round features are visible. They have a well-defined rim with a smooth interior and appear slightly raised from the surrounding material.
“One explanation for their appearance is that they are ancient sites of active regions covered by dust and are now being revealed by varying erosion of the overlying layers,” the ESA press statement explains.
To take your own cruise around the comet, make use of this viewer tool to aid navigation around the comet’s regions.
Up, up, and away! Blue Origin repeat success. January 22, 2016 liftoff from West Texas launch site.
Credit: Blue Origin
Chalk up yet another victory for Blue Origin, the “start-up and go” rocket company backed by Amazon.com founder and moneymaker, Jeff Bezos.
“The very same New Shepard booster that flew above the Karman line and then landed vertically at its launch site last November has now flown and landed again, demonstrating reuse,” reported Bezos via blog.
“This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of 333,582 feet (101.7 kilometers) before both capsule and booster gently returned to Earth for recovery and reuse,” Bezos explained.
The January 22, 2016 flight of the suborbital space tourism booster occurred at the West Texas launch site of Blue Origin.
“Launch. Land. Repeat” is the mantra from the rocketeers. “Our vision: millions of people living and working in space. You can’t get there by throwing the hardware away.”
After stabilizing the crew capsule, the drogue parachutes extract the main parachutes for landing.
Credit: Blue Origin
New strategy
“Though wings and parachutes have their adherents and their advantages, I’m a huge fan of rocket-powered vertical landing,” Bezos said.
Data from last November’s mission, Bezos added, “matched our preflight predictions closely, which made preparations for today’s re-flight relatively straightforward.”
Bezos said that, thanks to new software, rather than the vehicle translating to land at the exact center of the pad, it now initially targets the center, but then sets down at a position of convenience on the pad, prioritizing vehicle attitude ahead of precise lateral positioning.
“New Shepard landings show this new strategy increases margins, improving the vehicle’s ability to reject disturbances created by low-altitude winds,” Bezos explained.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster executes a controlled vertical landing at 4.2 mph.
Credit: Blue Origin
Orbital vehicle
Bezos made note of work on Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle.
“We’re already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle,” Bezos advised. “Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it’s still many times larger than New Shepard. I hope to share details about this first orbital vehicle this year.”
Check out the posted video of the new test flight at:
Mars true-color globe showing Terra Meridiani.
Credits: NASA/Greg Shirah
A crew of Chinese volunteers will take part in a 180-day isolation study to mimic a human mission to Mars.
According to a January 21 report by the state-run People’s Daily, the four volunteers will be confined within a space capsule consisting of six giant “boxes” constructed by China’s Southern Research Institute of Space Technology.
The six giant boxes involve a low pressure tank, two plant tanks, a resources tank, a life support cabin and a crew cabin.
Capsule details
The crew cabin is 8.2 meters, or three stories high, and the minimum height of all the boxes is some 12 feet (3.6 meters).
The 180 cubic meters provided for the volunteers in the crew cabin is divided into nine parts, including a sleeping area, working and reading areas, cafeteria, gym and medical monitoring area, explains the People’s Daily.
Vegetables, fruits, staple crops and oil plants are cultivated within the 674 cubic meters of the plant tank.
In the resources tank, recycling and purification systems will deal with waste, including human waste, plant debris, waste water and exhaust gas.
Within in the life support area, food is to be stored and processed, and there is a water supply system and air purification system.
High-level experiments
The volunteers are to start the experiment after Spring Festival, with no specific time identified. Chinese New Year — also called Spring Festival — falls on February 8 this year.
The three men and one woman will experience 180 days of isolated life together and conduct more than 20 high-level experiments, including simulation of a journey to Mars, and the establishment of a base station on Mars, according to the People’s Daily report.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image taken on Sol 1228 January 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Today, the Curiosity rover on Mars is at work on Sol 1231.
Mars researchers are continuing their campaign to analyze “Namib Dune” – geared to dropping off a specimen of collected sand in the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite.
Earlier, the sol 1230 plan called for a science block with some Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam), Mastcam, and Navcam observations.
“But unfortunately that had to be cut to save power, so those observations will have to happen over the weekend,” reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).
New image from Curiosity’s Front Hazcam Right B camera, taken on Sol 1230, January 22, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Inlet outlook
With the science block removed, Anderson adds, the first activity on Sol 1230 was a Mastcam observation of the SAM inlet.
After this, the rover was slated to drop off a sample of sand for SAM to analyze.
Then while the arm is active, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was to observe the dump piles, including some night-time observations using the built-in LEDs to illuminate the piles.
Curiosity’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was also on tap to carry out a couple of overnight measurements on two of the dump piles, Anderson notes.
Sample handling system
On Sol 1231, the schedule was to start off with some Navcam and Hazcam images to document where the APXS was making its measurements, plus Mastcam observations of the SAM inlet again.
This is to be followed by some arm activities to clean out the components of the sample handling system.
“Then we’ll dive back in and collect another scoop of material from the dune, sieve it, and deliver it to SAM too. Finally, APXS will be placed on another of our dump piles for an overnight measurement. And of course [Rover Environmental Monitoring Station] REMS and [Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons] DAN will be collecting data each sol of the plan as usual,” Anderson concludes.
This false-color engineering drawing shows the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device. It scoops, sieves and delivers samples. CHIMRA is attached to the turret at the end of the robotic arm on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Moves not previously used
According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Curiosity website, Curiosity’s current work is the first close-up study of active sand dunes anywhere other than Earth.
Furthermore, at its current location for inspecting an active sand dune, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is adding some sample-processing moves not previously used on Mars.
“Sand from the second and third samples the rover is scooping from ‘Namib Dune’ will be sorted by grain size with two sieves,” the JPL site adds. “The coarser sieve is making its debut, and using it also changes the way the treated sample is dropped into an inlet port for laboratory analysis inside the rover.”
Curiosity’s study of dunes is providing information about how wind moves and sorts sand particles in conditions with much less atmosphere and less gravity than on Earth, the JPL website explains.
Search for ET – an ongoing enterprise. Allen Telescope Array is one of many attempts to answer: Are we alone?
Credit: Seth Shostak/SETI Institute
Forget that overused, hackneyed query: Are we alone?
Arguably, the real question at hand may be how to cope with crowds of extraterrestrial civilizations.
With increasing regularity we learn of exo-planet detection. But with those observations, is the prospect of locating other starfolk a sure bet?
For more details, please read my new Space.com story:
When Will We Make Contact with Intelligent Aliens?
by Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist
January 21, 2016 02:00pm ET
http://www.space.com/31662-alien-civilizations-when-make-contact.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
It’s no wonder we haven’t heard from extraterrestrials. That’s because they are long-gone, extinct.
Astrobiologists from Australian National University (ANU) call it the “Gaian bottleneck” – life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly.
“Early life is fragile, so we believe it rarely evolves quickly enough to survive,” contends Aditya Chopra from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and lead author on a new paper published in the journal, Astrobiology.
Early microbial life on Venus and Mars, if there was any, failed to stabilize the rapidly changing environment, adds co-author Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver from the ANU Planetary Science Institute.
Different bottleneck scenarios and their fossil predictions. (A) Emergence Bottleneck. Life rarely emerges even on
wet rocky planets. Few planets will have life or even fossils of extinct life. On the few planets where life does emerge, it
persists for billions of years. (B) No Emergence Bottleneck. Life emerges with high probability and usually persists for billions
of years. Thus, life will be abundant on planets throughout the Universe. There will be many planets where life persisted for
billions of years and then went extinct. On the oldest uninhabited planets, fossils of complex life will be abundant. (C) Gaian
Bottleneck. Life emerges with some probability (possibly quite high), but it goes extinct within a billion years (green).
Alternatively, some small fraction of inhabited planets successfully pass through the Gaian bottleneck (light green). The Gaian
bottleneck model predicts that the vast majority of the fossils in the Universe will be from extinct microbial life.
Graphic: Astrobiology
Sliding into oblivion
They propose a potentially universal sequence of events on initially wet rocky planets, a kind of sliding scale into oblivion:
- Hot, high bombardment, uninhabitable.
- Cooler, reduced bombardment, continuous volatile loss.
- Emergence of life in an environment with a tendency to evolve away from habitability.
- Inability to maintain habitability, followed by extinction.
The scientists suggest new life would commonly die out due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets.
“One intriguing prediction of the Gaian Bottleneck model is that the vast majority of fossils in the universe will be from extinct microbial life, not from multicellular species such as dinosaurs or humanoids that take billions of years to evolve,” suggests Lineweaver.
Riding a wild bull
Chopra and Lineweaver conclude in their paper:
“Between the early heat pulses, freezing, volatile content variation, and runaway positive feedbacks, maintaining life on an initially wet rocky planet in the habitable zone may be like trying to ride a wild bull. Most life falls off. Life may be rare in the Universe, not because it is difficult to get started, but because habitable environments are difficult to maintain during the first billion years.”
To read this intriguing Astrobiology paper, go to:
This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Researchers at Caltech have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system.
Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown discovered the planet’s existence through mathematical modeling and computer simulations. However, the object has yet to be observed directly.
The new research is reported in the February 2016 issue of The Astronomical Journal.
Should-be-there world
This should-be-there world has been nicknamed Planet Nine by the researchers, and has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the Sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles).
In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the Sun, according to a Caltech press statement.
Start searching
Brown notes that the putative ninth planet—at 5,000 times the mass of Pluto—is sufficiently large that there should be no debate about whether it is a true planet.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Diagram was created using WorldWide Telescope.
“I would love to find it,” says Brown. “But I’d also be perfectly happy if someone else found it. That is why we’re publishing this paper. We hope that other people are going to get inspired and start searching.”
If Brown’s name sounds familiar, he played a significant role in the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet.
“All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there is a real planet out there still to be found,” Brown says. “Now we can go and find this planet and make the solar system have nine planets once again.”
The paper in The Astronomical Journal is titled “Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System.”
These findings by Batygin and Brown are available at:
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22/pdf
Check out this informative video by the researchers at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=6poHQ2h00ZA
A Planet Nine animation can be viewed at:
If you’re a woman looking for inspiration to pursue a career in the space and technology industries, take a look at the Rocket Women website.
The site provides a platform through which women interested in the space and technology industries can gain information about a career and have questions answered.
“My mission is to inspire women around the world and provide advice on working in the space and technology industries,” explains Vinita Marwaha Madill.
Madill has founded Rocket Women. Its aim is to inspire women to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and use those skills to consider a career in the space industry.
Inspirational women
Madill has been involved in spacesuit design for the European Space Agency (ESA) along with working as an Operations Engineer for the International Space Station at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).
The informative Rocket Women website highlights inspirational women, STEM organizations, and details why Rocket Women was formed.
Courtesy: Rocket Women
While there, you’ll find a new article from Glamour magazine:
“Would You Go to Mars? Meet the Four Women Astronauts Who Can’t Wait to Go” by Ginny Graves, published on January 6, 2016.
The article features the newest four female members of NASA’s astronaut corps, describing how they felt the moment they realized they were chosen in 2013 and how they were inspired to apply for space travel.
For further details, go to Vinita Marwaha Madill’s Rocket Women site at:
