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Astounding! Mars rovers, Spirit & Opportunity (expected lifespan of 90 days from Jan 3 '04), roving on into 5 yrs
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The US space agency's (NASA) Mars rovers are celebrating a remarkable five years on the Red Planet. The first robot, named Spirit, landed on 3 January, 2004, followed by its twin, Opportunity, 21 days later. Their longevity in the freezing Martian conditions has surprised everyone.
The unmanned rovers Spirit and Opportunity are showing serious signs of wear after an astounding five years roaming Mars, U.S. space agency officials say. Scientists initially thought the remote-controlled machines would last only three months in Mars' freezing climate, said John Callas, rover project manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"These rovers are incredibly resilient considering the extreme environment the hardware experiences every day," Callas said, noting information sent by the rovers have proved water existed on Mars billions of years ago. read more »
135 countries committed to International Year of Astronomy 2009: "The Universe, yours to discover." Began on 1 Jan
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Stargazers around the world are busy preparing for the International Year of Astronomy. A staggering 135 nations are collaborating to bring the Universe closer to Earth. Events and activities will take place over the coming 365 days and beyond, in a spectacle of cosmic proportions.
The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) has been launched by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) under the theme, "The Universe, yours to discover". Thousands of IYA2009 events are described on the national websites, as well as on astronomy2009.org, and a few of the global projects are listed here.
10th anniversary of the first launched module of the International Space Station (ISS)
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Last month marks the 10th anniversary of the first launched module of the International Space Station (ISS). The module Zarya was lifted into orbit on November 20th, 1998 by a Russian Proton rocket lifting off from Baikonur, Kazhakstan. In the decade since, 44 manned flights and 34 unmanned flights have carried further modules, solar arrays, support equipment, supplies and a total of 167 human beings from 15 countries to the ISS, and it still has a ways to go until it is done. Originally planned to be complete in 2003, the target date for completion is now 2011. Aside from time spent on construction, ISS crew members work on a good deal of research involving biology and physics in conditions of microgravity. If humans are ever to leave the Earth for extended periods, the ISS is designed to be the place where we will discover the best materials, procedures and safety measures to make it a reality.
Bread-loaf-sized satellite Firefly on lightning & gamma rays, most powerful natural particle accelerator in atmos.
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Firefly is a new mission to study lightning and gamma rays with CubeSats, small satellites in the shape of a cube.
Firefly, it's called, this new small satellite mission sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It's designed to help solve the mystery of the most powerful natural particle accelerator in Earth's atmosphere: TGFs, or terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. TGFs likely result from thunderstorms.
The mission is the second project under the new NSF CubeSat program. A CubeSat satellite, about the size of a loaf of bread, consists of three cubes attached end to end in a rectangular shape.
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Photo courtesy of NASA/GSFC
Original Source: National Science Foundation
Air, space, and frozen time at the Udvar-Hazy Center - a Smithsonian air museum about aircraft, and more aircraft
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The first thing visitors encounter in the main display area of the Udvar-Hazy Center, the National Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles airport in the Virginia countryside, is a huge black spy plane. It’s an SR-71A Blackbird, the ultimate hot-rod aircraft, one of about 30 built at the Lockheed Skunk Works in California in the 1960s. This one last flew in 1990, traveling the 2,300 miles between Los Angeles and Washington in 1 hour 4 minutes 20 seconds - a transcontinental blur.
But now it’s at a standstill, giving visitors the chance to appreciate its outrageousness. There are the two massive engines on short, stubby wings; the tiny cockpit where the two-man crew was shoehorned in wearing bulky pressure suits; and the sweeping titanium fuselage that was built so loosely, to allow for expansion in the heat of supersonic flight, that the fuel tanks that made up the bulk of the plane routinely leaked, losing as much as 600 pounds of fuel taxiing to the runway.
Photos - a closer look at the Sun in more active times; solar wind has now dropped to lowest levels in 50 years
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A sweeping prominence, a huge cloud of relatively cool dense plasma is seen suspended in the Sun's hot, thin corona. At times, prominences can erupt, escaping the Sun's atmosphere. Emission in this spectral line shows the upper chromosphere at a temperature of about 60,000 degrees K (over 100,000 degrees F). Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structure. The hottest areas appear almost white, while the darker red areas indicate cooler temperatures.
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen here are some recent images of the Sun in more active times.
A transit of the Moon across the face of the Sun on February 25, 2007 - but not seen from Earth. This sight was visible only from the STEREO-B spacecraft in its orbit about the sun, trailing behind the Earth. NASA's STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft launched in October, 2006 to study solar storms. STEREO-B is currently about 1 million miles from the Earth, 4.4 times farther away from the Moon than we are on Earth. As the result, the Moon appears 4.4 times smaller than what we are used to. (NASA/STEREO) read more »
World's most exclusive club: Russia, US, now China have technology to allow their astronauts to walk in space
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China left its mark in space history Saturday, successfully turbocharging its space program into an orbit that could see a Chinese man walk on the moon before the U.S. has a chance to get back there in 2020.
Shenzhou Vll has been successfully orbiting 343 kilometres above Earth every 90 minutes since it blasted off from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwest Gansu province on Thursday night. It was in its 29th orbit when Zhai made his historic walk. China sent its first man into space in 2003. Two more went up in 2005 and the trio this year are on the country's third manned mission.
When Zhai stepped out of the capsule, he confirmed China's membership in the world's most exclusive club: only Russia and the United States have the technology to allow their astronauts to walk in space.
Russia: Alexey Leonov, the pioneer (March, 1965) read more »
Countdown begins for China’s first spacewalk: Shenzhou-7 spaceship launches into orbit with 3 Chinese astronauts
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After three decades of hoping, 10 years of training, and at least 12 hours preparing his spacesuit, Zhai Zhigang is expected to make history in just 20 minutes tomorrow as the first Chinese astronaut to do a space walk. The 42-year-old former fighter pilot will don a £2m, ten-layered Chinese-designed suit, weighing 120kg (265lb), to exit the Shenzhou VII module.
The Chinese Shenzhou VII spacecraft blasted off at 9:07 p.m. Thursday, carrying three Chinese astronauts into space on this country’s third manned space mission in five years. The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will help China establish a space station by 2020 and eventually will put a man on the moon, accomplishments that would certainly bring the country international prestige.
Large Hadron Collider hibernates after wrong sort of big bang caused by hellion leak, to re-awaken in Spring'09
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Two weeks ago, the most powerful atom smasher to be built had been switched on to global acclaim and scientists were ready to begin experiments that could unlock many of the enduring mysteries of the Universe. They are going to have to wait a little longer. On Friday the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) created the wrong sort of big bang - a fault so serious that CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced last night that the particle accelerator would have to be shut down until next spring for repairs.
Preliminary investigations into the incident, in which a huge quantity of helium leaked from the LHC’s cooling system, have suggested that it was caused by a faulty electrical connection between two of its superconducting magnets. The fault affected a part of the accelerator that is kept chilled to within 1.9C of absolute zero, and it will have to be warmed up to room temperature before the problem can be understood fully and resolved. It will take at least three to four weeks to warm the affected sector and then to open the damaged magnets for inspection, and then another month to re-chill them to their operating temperature. read more »
Biggest physics experiment in history underway: Large Hadron Collider passes operational test, fires first beam
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There was screaming and whistling in physics labs and auditoriums outside Geneva - and around the world - Wednesday, as scientists whooped it up out of sheer joy.
Galactic clash unmasks dark matter: ordinary mater and dark matter separate as two massive galaxies collide
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Striking evidence has been found for the enigmatic "stuff" called dark matter which makes up 23% of the Universe, yet is invisible to our eyes. The results come from astronomical observations of a titanic collision between two clusters of galaxies 5.7 billion light-years away. Astronomers detected the dark matter because it separated from the normal matter during the cosmic smash-up. The research team are to publish their findings in the Astrophysical Journal.
They used the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes to study the object MACSJ0025.4-1222 - formed after an incredibly energetic collision between two large galaxy clusters. Each of these large clusters contains about a quadrillion times the mass of our Sun.
Total solar eclipse seen in Russia, China: Sun and Moon put on show, draw millions of sky-watchers across Asia and worldwide
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The new Moon drew its shadow across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere earlier today, totally eclipsing the Sun along a track that crossed the Arctic, Siberia, and interior China. Thousands of eclipse chasers had stationed themselves along the path in anticipation. The Moon's shadow arced over the Earth as the lunar body passed directly between our planet and its star. In all, the path of darkness covered about 10,200km (6,300 miles). Russia saw the longest full eclipse, for two minutes, 27 seconds, at 1021 GMT - but the UK and most of Europe experienced just a partial eclipse.
"Totality" began at sunrise at 0921 GMT in Queen Maud Gulf off Victoria Island in the territory of Nunavut, Canada. The instant of greatest eclipse occurred at 1021 GMT close to the Russian city of Nadym, before totality came to an end at 1121 GMT near the Chinese city of Xi'an, in Shaanxi province.
Tourists and amateur and professional astronomers flocked to towns in the best viewing locations along the path of totality. In Novosibirsk, Siberia's cultural and scientific capital, more than 5,000 foreign tourists were expected to show up in the city. China experienced the eclipse just a week before the opening ceremony of Beijing's Olympic Games. Chinese TV was due to broadcast the eclipse live, with crowds of people gathered along the Silk Road, a fabled trading route through the country's western deserts. Eclipses were once viewed as unlucky events in China, but the country's media had rebranded the event as "the Olympic eclipse", reports said, hoping for good fortune ahead of the sporting jamboree.
The eclipse allowed astronomers a glimpse of the Sun's corona - its outer atmosphere of super-heated gases. The area is usually impossible to see because of the bright light of the Sun, but is visible during a total eclipse as the Sun's light is obscured. Total solar eclipses usually take place about once every 18 months, and always at new Moon - when the lunar body sits directly between the Sun and the Earth. However, they do not happen every new Moon. The lunar orbit is slightly tilted to that of our planet and therefore the Moon's shadow often misses the Earth.
The world's next total eclipse of the Sun comes less than a year from now, on July 22, 2009. It will begin at sunrise in India, cross parts of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, and thickly inhabited areas of China, and will end at sunset over the South Pacific. The next total solar eclipse for North America comes on August 21, 2017. The path of totality will sweep from Oregon to South Carolina.
The Moon's shadow has two parts: an umbra and a penumbra. The umbra is the "inner" part of the Moon's shadow, and people inside this zone will witness the full glory of the eclipse. The penumbra is the Moon's faint "outer" shadow. It will only give surface viewers a partial eclipse.
In London, where the Moon's disc took its biggest bite out of the Sun at 1016 BST (0916 GMT), a maximum of 12% of the star was blotted out. Conditions were better further north. In Lerwick in the Shetland Isles, the Moon obscured as much as 36% of the Sun.
Astronomical groups reminded the public that viewing the Sun without protective equipment - even in partial eclipse phases - could result in a retinal burn and permanent eye damage. Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be done through proper solar telescopes or glasses, or through a pinhole projection system.
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Photos courtesy of Joe Rao, EPA/Toms Kalnins and John Sun
Original Source: BBC News (with videos) and Sky & Telescope
Related Article: Solar Eclipse Wows Airborne Skywatchers Over Arctic Circle
Image Gallery: In photos: 'Solar Eclipse Around the World'
Stunning: the Earth and Moon hang in space as seen from Mars; Images: NASA's discovery of water ice on Mars. What’s next?
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The announcement by NASA of the discovery of water ice on Mars by its Phoenix Lander probe made big news everywhere. The discovery involved the observation of water ice sublimating into the air - that is, the water went from solid to vapor state without reaching the liquid stage. The Martian atmosphere has perfect conditions for sublimation - extremely thin, dry and cold. How cold? Well, you can check the Live Martian Weather Report, with data from a station on board the Phoenix Lander.
What more do we know about Mars' atmosphere? It's hundreds of times thinner than Earth's atmosphere and is made of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen, water, and methane. We also know, from observations that it can support dust storms, dust devils, clouds and gusty winds. With an amazing number of six current live probes exploring Mars (two rovers, a lander, and three orbiters), there are many thousands of images available. Only a few, however show atmospheric phenomena. Presented here are some of the best images of Martian atmosphere (and beyond) in action.
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These and more photos courtesy of ESA, NASA, JPL (see original source: Boston Globe)
Related article: Can the Martian arctic support extreme life?