Curiosity Mars rover is back after a power glitch

Dear followers,

The NASA's space rover Curiosity which explores the Mars's land for 16 months has stopped the whole of the science operations and driving during six days. Actually, an electrical power system glitch had induced a system dysfunction on the space rover. Fortunately, the problem has now been resolved.

This dysfunction is the second trouble observed on the martian rover after an other one which has been observed and which has been assigned to radiation effects. For the moment the cause of this dysfunction has still not been found but the +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers are working on it. “We made a list of potential causes, and then determined which we could cross off the list, one by one,” said rover electrical engineer Rob Zimmerman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Credits: +NASA 

For the moment, Curiosity has already accomplished its primary science goal of discovering a habitable zone at her landing site. This kind of dysfunction could be critical for the Curiosity mission, but the martian rover is safe now.

In the next months, the Curiosity rover will be join by the Maven spacecraft sent by NASA two weeks ago.

Stay tuned for the next news about the red planet discoveries.

Source: NASA

Voyager1 leaves the Solar system

Dear followers,

yesterday +NASA announced a huge step of the history of space conquest. Actually, after 36 years of flight, the spacecraft +Voyager 1 sent Cap Canaveral, has left the solar system and move to the interstellar space. The spacecraft perform a flight of 125 AU. One AU is the distance from the sun to the Earth, which is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. The spacecraft went to the humankind's most distance than ever !

Credits: +NASA / +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

The Voyager-1 spacecraft was built and continue to be operated by +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory  in Pasadena, California. This mission is a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, supported by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at +NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Source

Cassini finds activities on the Saturn's moon, Dione

Dear followers,

The +NASA Cassini spacecraft which explores activities on Dione since 2004 has found some interesting data. The following picture, obtained from Cassini, shows the topography of a mountain known as Janiculum Dorsa on the Saturn's moon, Dione. 

Credit: +NASA 

Scientists have found more evidence for the idea that Dione was likely active in the past. It could still be active now.

Actually, "A picture is emerging that suggests Dione could be a fossil of the wondrous activity Cassini discovered spraying from Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus or perhaps a weaker copycat Enceladus," said Bonnie Buratti of +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who manages the Cassini science team that studies icy satellites. The presence of a subsurface ocean on Dione would boost the astrobiological potential of this once-boring iceball.

Many other little moons in our solar system thought to have a subsurface ocean, such Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa which are among the most geologically active worlds in our solar system.

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Asteroid 1998 QE2 close to Earth on May 31th

Dead followers,

next Friday, on May 31th 2013, the asteroid 1998 QE2 will be close to Earth, closer than about 5.8 million kilometers, or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. The asteroid was discovered on August 19th 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program near Socorro, New Mexico. 

The Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target for the Goldstone and Arecibo telescope in order to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features. The closest approach of the asteroid occurs on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. Pacific (4:59 p.m. Eastern / 20:59 UTC).

"Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin. We will also use new radar measurements of the asteroid's distance and velocity to improve our calculation of its orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could otherwise." said Lance Benner , the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar observations from +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory  in Pasadena, Calif.

+NASA  places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects. Last year, the NEO budget was increased from $6 million to $20 million.

In 2016, +NASA  will launch a robotic probe, called the OSIRIS-REx to the asteroid (101955) Bennu. Aside from monitoring potential threats, the study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the source of water on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that lead to the development of life. 

+NASA  recently announced developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid for human exploration. Using game-changing technologies advanced by the Administration, this mission would mark an unprecedented technological achievement that raises the bar of what humans can do in space. Capturing and redirecting an asteroid will integrate the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration capabilities and draw on the innovation of America's brightest scientists and engineers. 

More information about asteroid radar research is at: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

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