Antares rocket failed during its launch to ISS and exploded

Dear readers and followers,

The +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.'s Antares rocket lifted off to start its third resupply mission to the International Space Station, but suffered a catastrophic anomaly shortly after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. EDT. The Orbital Sciences team is executing its contingency procedures, securing the site and data, including all telemetry from the Antares launch vehicle and Cygnus spacecraft. Before launch the Orbital team was not tracking any issues.No injuries have been reported, and Orbital reports that all personnel around the Wallops Flight Facility launch site have been accounted for.

Credit video: +NASA Wallops 

"Launching rockets is an incredibly difficult undertaking, and we learn from each success and each setback. Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our work to expand our already successful capability to launch cargo from American shores to the International Space Station.” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of +NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, regarding today's Orbital Sciences Corp's launch mishap.

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. 

Damage was contained to the hazard area, but there may have been a scattering of debris. Public safety is our number one priority. If people find debris in the vicinity of the launch tonight, please stay away & call the Incident Response Team at 757-824-1295.

Source: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. and +NASA


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Antares rocket launch from NASA's Wallops could be seen in Washington D.C. this evening

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[Update]: Orbital Sciences is set to try a second attempt to launch its Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ship today at 6:22 p.m. EDT the launch window is about 10 minutes long. Public viewing of the launch will be available at the NASA Visitor Center at Wallops, as well as at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Assateague Island National Seashore.

The launch of the Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia may be visible in D.C. this evening, October 28th 2014. Coverage of the mission begins at noon and will be live-streamed here.

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc. 

The Orbital Sciences’ rocket will carry Orbital’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft. Its payload is about 5,000 25000 kg of supplies and experiments, dedicated for the International Space Station. The spce launch is scheduled at 6:45 p.m. Today, October 28th. If weather permitting, people from DC should be able to see the rocket approximately 180 seconds after launch, as presented in the following picture. 

Credit image: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.

Source: +Orbital Sciences and Technologies, Inc.

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Comet 67P/ Tchourioumov-Guérassimenko smells terrible

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the European spacecraft, Rosetta is orbiting the distant comet 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko and revealed funny conclusions. It seems that the comet smells terrible. Since early August, the Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) has been ‘sniffing the fumes’ of 67P/C-G with its two mass spectrometers.

Actually, "It stinks" said Kathrin Altwegg, a researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland who runs an instrument called ROSINA that picked up the odor.

Credit image : +European Space Agency, ESA 

The European space agency has realeased the constitution of the analyse: The mix includes ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), formaldehyde (CH2O) and methanol (CH3OH). As the Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator for ROSINA, put it: “The perfume of 67P/C-G is quite strong, with the odour of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulphide), horse stable (ammonia), and the pungent, suffocating odour of formaldehyde. This is mixed with the faint, bitter, almond-like aroma of hydrogen cyanide. Add some whiff of alcohol (methanol) to this mixture, paired with the vinegar-like aroma of sulphur dioxide and a hint of the sweet aromatic scent of carbon disulphide, and you arrive at the ‘perfume’ of our comet.”

Credit image: +European Space Agency, ESA 

Fun for now. But that could change. The comet is currently getting closer and closer to the sun. And like anything you leave out in the sun too long, it will soon start to smell even worse.

After a 10 year journey of some seven billion kilometres, the Rosetta mission is now heading towards its next major milestone : setting the lander Philae on a comet. Rosetta is a robotic space probe built and launched by the +European Space Agency, ESA to perform a detailed study of comet called 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko with both an orbiter and lander module (Philae). On November 12th 2014, a lander is scheduled to touch down on a comet for the first time in the history of spaceflight.

Source: +European Space Agency, ESA




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NASA stops the rumors about 3 days without sun on Earth

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after many rumors and hearsays on the web and social networks since the last week,  +NASA confirms that NONE full day of darkness will occur this year in the days in December 21st, 22nd and 23rd. The land will NOT remain during these three days without sun. The rumor talked about a huge solar storm, but it will not be the case. There are many solar storm each months. In February 2014 a powerful X4.9-class solar flare has been recorded by NASA . This solar flare is the most intense flare of 2014 so far, and one of the most intense of the current solar cycle. Solar flare are really critical, specially for the spacecrafts orbiting Earth. Few weeks ago, the Orb-1 mission of the Antares rocket delayed due to high space radiation environment induced by a high class solar flare. Fortunately, the solar flare was not Earth directed.

The head director of +NASA Charles Bolden did a announcement witht he aim to stop the rumors and ask people to stay calm. 

The rumor is used to come back on the web each year. This hearsay talked about a plunge into total darkness for three days on Earth;this is the incredible event announced for centuries by different traditions and religions and supposed support the transformation of the Earth in our time..... only rumors !!

So you could stay calm and enjoy the end of 2014 with your friends and family in peace.

Source: +NASA

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Counting down before the landing of Rosetta mission on the comet

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After a 10 year journey of some seven billion kilometres, the Rosetta mission is now heading towards its next major milestone : setting the lander Philae on a comet. Rosetta is a robotic space probe built and launched by the +European Space Agency, ESA to perform a detailed study of comet called 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko with both an orbiter and lander module (Philae).

On November 12th 2014, a lander is scheduled to touch down on a comet for the first time in the history of spaceflight. “We don’t know exactly what awaits us there,” says lander Project Manager Stephan Ulamec from the +DLR, German Aerospace Center .

Philae’s landing site, currently known as Site J, is located on the smaller of the comet’s two ‘lobes’, with a backup site on the larger lobe. The sites were selected just six weeks after Rosetta arrived at the comet on August 6th, following its 10-year journey through the Solar System. Site J was chosen unanimously over four other candidate sites as the primary landing site because the majority of terrain within a square kilometre area has slopes of less than 30º relative to the local vertical and because there are relatively few large boulders.

Credit image: +European Space Agency, ESA 

Landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will enable scientists to carry out experiments in situ for the first time. Comets are considered to be witnesses to the birth of the Solar System. Will the surface of the comet be in a primordial state? Do comets show evidence of prebiotic molecules and water, and did they therefore play a role in the origin of life on Earth? The Rosetta mission is expected to help answer such questions.

  Credit video: +DLR, German Aerospace Center 

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Source: +DLR, German Aerospace Center


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Astronauts complete spacewalk to fix power regulator on ISS

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Two NASA astronauts wrapped up a spacewalk of around 6 hours last wednesday October 15th to replace a failed power regulator. Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore also relocated equipment on the ISS’s exterior to begin setting the stage for a reconfiguration of the orbiting complex to accommodate future commercial crew vehicles.

Credit image: +NASA TV

Wiseman, the lead spacewalker for Wednesday’s excursion, and Wilmore switched their suits to battery power at 8:16 a.m. EDT, signaling the start of the spacewalk (EVA-28). The spacewalk timeline was set up to ensure that Wiseman and Wilmore could remove the faulty sequential shunt unit (SSU) during a night pass when the arrays were not generating power. A few moments before passing into orbital darkness, the spacewalkers were treated to a spectacular view of Egypt, the Nile river and the Red Sea passing by 418 km below. "I see Cairo, can't quite make out the pyramids, though," Wiseman observed.

For the highest priority task of the spacewalk, Wiseman and Wilmore exited from the Quest airlock and translated out to the starboard side of the station’s integrated truss structure. There they replaced a failed power regulator known as a sequential shunt unit, which failed in May. The unit regulates power from the 3A solar array. The station has since operated normally on seven of its eight power channels, but replacing the unit provides the station team with more flexibility and redundancy in managing the primary power system and assures enough power for all the planned science. 

Timing was a factor for the replacement of the sequential shunt unit. The spacewalkers needed to remove the failed suitcase-sized unit and install its replacement while the station passed through the Earth’s shadow and electricity was not being generated by the solar array.

Working in darkness at the far right side of the station's solar power truss, at the base of the channel 3A solar array, Wiseman was initially unable to drive open a bolt holding the faulty SSU in place. 

Using a ratchet wrench and a bit of elbow grease, he successfully "broke torque" on the bolt and pulled the shorted SSU out of its mounting bracket. He then ran into problems bolting down the replacement. 

The remainder of the spacewalk focused on moving equipment installed on the port side of the station’s truss in preparation for the relocation of the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module, or PMM, currently expected to take place next summer. The relocation of the PMM and the installation of international docking adapters scheduled to be delivered to the complex in 2015 will configure the station for future commercial crew vehicles and provide an additional berthing port for commercial cargo spacecraft.

Wiseman and Wilmore removed an external TV camera from the bottom of the P1 truss segment. Since that camera had lost its zoom capability, the spacewalkers replaced it on the top of P1 with a new camera.

The astronauts then detached an articulating portable foot restraint and tool stanchion from P1 and moved it inward to the centerpiece of the station’s truss structure, the S0 truss, to get it out of the way for the relocation of Leonardo.

Finally, the Wireless Video System External Transceiver Assembly, or WETA, which receives all the video signals from spacewalking crew members, was transferred from the P1 truss to the top of the Harmony node.

Wednesday’s spacewalk was the 183rd in support of station assembly and maintenance. This was the first spacewalk for Wilmore. Wiseman, who joined Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency for a 6-hour, 13-minute spacewalk on Oct. 7, completed his second spacewalk.

The year's seventh and final planned spacewalk is scheduled for Oct. 22 when station commander Maxim Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev plan to jettison no-longer-needed gear and carry out a detailed photo survey of the Russian segment's exterior.

Source: NASA


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Amazing picture of the comet Siding Spring taken from NASA'rover Opportunity from martian surface

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as you know, All mars orbiter, as the Indian spacecraft, has been repositioned in order to reduce the effect of and not be disturbed by the flyby of the comet Siding Spring. The other orbiters from NASA orbiters around Mars confirmed their healthy status Sunday after each took shelter behind Mars during a period of risk from dust released by a passing comet. The rover opportunity which is on Mar's land took an amazing picture of the comet Siding Spring. 

Credit image: +NASA 

This incredible image showing the comet Siding Spring in the Martian sky was taken by Nasa's opportunity rover on the surface of Mars - the first ever image of a comet from another planet. It is hoped the event will provide researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to gather data on comets.

Source: NASA

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Mars orbiters healthy after Siding Spring comet flyby

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Last week, we informed you that a huge ice comet, called C/2013 A1, will be so close to Mars on Sunday October 19th. All mars orbiter, as the Indian spacecraft, has been repositioned in order to reduce the effect of and not be disturbed by the flyby of the comet Siding Srping. The other orbiters from NASA orbiters around Mars confirmed their healthy status Sunday after each took shelter behind Mars during a period of risk from dust released by a passing comet.

Credit image: +Hubble Space Telescope 

Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter all are part of a campaign to study comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring and possible effects on the Martian atmosphere from gases and dust released by the comet. 

Credit image: +NASA 

The comet sped past Mars today much closer than any other know comet flyby of a planet. Actually, the comet missed the red planet by just 140,000 kilometers.

As we said in Friday October 17th, the comet could be observed from Earth, here, an image of the comet C/2013 A1 taken from the ESA's Optical Ground Station, equipped with a 1-meter telescope, on Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Credit image: +European Space Agency, ESA 

Source: NASA


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ISRO repositioned Mars Orbiter to be not affected by the comet Siding Spring

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Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has repositioned its Mars Orbiter, as the national space agency along with its counterparts around the world are expecting Comet Siding Spring to fly by the Red Planet on October 19. ISRO, but also the US space agency NASA and other space agencies in the world, which have sent their missions to the Red Planet have taken precautionary measures to save their satellites from any possible collision with the space debris, which might be facilitated by the movement of the Comet near Mars. 

Kiran Kumar, Director of Space Application Centre from ISRO aannouncedthat they have repositioned the Mars Orbiter, as the Comet Siding Spring is expected to be close to the Mars on October 19. They have taken the Orbiter to a position farthest from the tail of the Comet so that it doesn't affect the satellite,".

According to NASA, Comet Siding Spring has traveled many billions of km and would come within about 140,000 km of Mars on October 19. The comet comes from the Oort Cloud, material left over from the formation of the solar system. India is the fourth country to send a mission to the red planet. This was in November 2013 !

All five operational spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet — NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN probes, India's Mangalyaan spacecraft and Europe's Mars Express, will observe the flyby. And NASA's Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will crane their necks up to watch from the Martian surface as well.

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The trajectory of the comet Siding Spring so close to Mars

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a comet will buzz Mars this Sunday, October 19th in an epic encounter that has astronomers around the world tingling with excitement. The comet is know by the name Siding Spring, also called as C/2013 A1. The comet will miss the Red Planet by just 140,000 kilometers at 2:27 p.m. EDT (1827 GMT) on Sunday. For comparison, the moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 384,600 km.

While the comet won't put on a show for skywatchers on Earth, the fleet of robotic explorers at Mars will get an eyeful. They will study the comet, as well as any observable interactions between its shed particles and the thin Martian atmosphere.

Comets are icy leftovers from the solar system's birth, and Siding Spring is a pristine object that has never been "heat-treated" by the sun before. So any insights about the comet's composition and behavior could help researchers better understand how our cosmic neighborhood began taking shape 4.6 billion years ago.

"This is a cosmic science gift that could potentially keep on giving, and the agency's diverse science missions will be in full receive mode," former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. "This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system's earliest days."

All five operational spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet — NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN probes, India's Mangalyaan spacecraft and Europe's Mars Express, will observe the flyby. And NASA's Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will crane their necks up to watch from the Martian surface as well.

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MIT Students debunk Mars One's plan to land humans on Mars by 2025

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PhD students from +Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a study this week that seems to debunk Mars One's plan to land humans on Mars by 2025 using existing technology. They say that without dramatic improvements in equipment life, the space colonists, who would have no way to return to Earth, could starve to death.

The students, part of a research group specializing in large-scale multi-billion dollar space programs, used public available information about the Mars One mission plans to simulate the trip to Mars. They say the problems they uncovered surprised them.

Mars One is looking for 25 to 40 pioneers to leave home forever and live out their lives on the red planet, by growing food and using resources from the Martian environment. These pioneers could enjoy the beauty of the mars surface and the amazing night shy, as taken by the NASA's rover, Curiosity. The non-profit has received more than 200,000 applicants, and there are plans to fund their Mars journey with a global reality show.

The MIT research was conducted to build a framework for analyzing other space colonization plans. But flaws in Mars One's plan jumped out as the students ran the numbers.

Mars One expects to grow crops indoors on Mars. Plants produce oxygen--and too much in a closed environment could feed oxygen-sucking fires. Farming would require machines that separate and vent oxygen without losing nitrogen vital to keep up air pressure. But the technology needed to to keep oxygen under control has never been tested beyond our planet, and Do says hardware tested on Earth can fail in surprising ways after liftoff.

A urine recycling system installed on the International Space Station in 2009 returned drinkable water with 90 percent efficiency in +NASA laboratories. But on the ISS it broke down. Astronauts lose bone mass in zero-gravity, dumping calcium into their waste, and those deposits gummed up the recycler's works. The system is up and running again, but at only 70 percent capacity. On a trip with no return flight and limited resupply, such failures could be deadly, especially when they involve maintaining oxygen supply.

But Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp says the students used incorrect and incomplete data for their study.

"I've talked to very knowledgeable people (experts) with companies like Lockheed Martin, who tell me these technologies will work," he tells Popular Science. He says he hasn't had the time to read the research all the way through, but has looked at the conclusions.

Lansdorp seized on the excess oxygen problem as an example of misplaced alarmism in the research. "This technology has been widely tested on Earth," he says, "and it's very well understood." Similar equipment for scrubbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been used in space for years.

But Lansdorp did not have a solution for what Do called the more serious issue uncovered in the research: replacement parts. The students used the failure rates of parts on the ISS to estimate the need for spares in a Mars colony. Without a resupply mission coming for another two years, a huge portion of the mass included in the initial launch would have to be extra materials.

"They are correct," Lansdorp says, "The major challenge of Mars One is keeping everything up and running." Repairing equipment and suits on Mars is a problem Mars One has yet to solve. Unmanned supply missions in advance of a second human launch are expected to land on the red planet a few weeks after the original colonists arrive, and Lansdorp suggests the first crew could take those stocks in a pinch.

"We don't believe what we have designed is the best solution. It's a good solution," he says. He adds that Mars One has done its own research with better results, but is not an aerospace company. He hopes future feasibility studies from groups like Lockheed Martin will provide answers. In the meantime, their in-house data is under wraps.

And you ? what is your opinion ? Mars One is it a dead mission ? Let us know your feelings about this.

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The US secret space drone finally came home

Dear readers and followers,

The US Air Force’s mysterious X-37B robotic space plane returned to Earth on Tuesday October 14th after nearly two years in space. But while it is no secret that the Air Force has sent the unmanned spacecraft into orbit at least three times, the service refuses to say what the machine has been doing up there. The spaceship was launched on December 11th, 2012, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

While most Air Force and industry officials refuse to talk about the program at all, sources familiar with the program indicated that the X-37B is designed to carry experimental payloads of sensors, like various high-tech cameras of various types, electronic sensors and ground-mapping radars.

The idea is that the X-37B carries “specialized” sensors packages that can be reconfigured as needed for each mission when the aircraft returns to Earth. That ability to reconfigure the robotic spacecraft makes the X-37B cheaper and more flexible than a satellite, which goes up once with one package of sensors and is eventually discarded. Satellites can often cost billions of dollars and cannot reconfigured or reused, unlike the X-37B. Further, the X-37B can maneuver more freely once it is in space. Unlike a satellite, which is placed into orbit with a finite amount of fuel, the X-37B can be topped with more fuel for its thrusters when it returns to Earth. It can even change orbits. That ability gives the spacecraft much more flexibility than a traditional satellite. 

The X-37B returned to Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, according to the Air Force. 

Ever since the X-37B made its first flight back in 2010, outlandish rumors and bizarre conspiracy theories have dogged the Boeing built space drone. Some wags suggested in the past that the X-37B would be used to tap into the communications of foreign satellites, however the Pentagon has other easier and more effective means to listen in on those spacecraft. 

An even more outlandish theory was that the X-37B would be used to physically interfere with foreign satellites, maybe even abducting those machines from orbit. However, the possibility that Air Force would have designed the X-37B for that kind of mission was extremely remote. It would be very easy to trace that sort of activity back to the U.S. government since governments and amateurs alike can easily track the X-37B.

Another theory that was batted around was that the X-37B was some kind of orbital bomber that could strike at foreign lands with only a few moments notice. Technically, that could be semi-feasible—and indeed the Pentagon is working a weapon that would be able to hit targets anywhere on Earth in less than an hour that could be launched from within the continental United States.

However, the X-37B is not likely to be designed for that so-called “conventional prompt global strike” mission, though it is not entirely inconceivable that it could carry a weaponized payload. But any sophisticated foe like Russia or China has the ability to track the X-37B in orbit very easily and it may not be particularly useful in such a capacity.

And then there would be the political backlash. Space-based weapons are a hugely controversial topic and the U.S. is not likely to deploy such systems given the proclivities of the Obama administration. It’s one of the many reasons why informed observers—like Brian Weeden, a former officer with the U.S. Air Force’s Space Command, have long considered the space plan to be an orbital spy. And it’s probably no coincidence that the X-37B’s orbit takes it over North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. There are some items in those countries that the Pentagon might want to see from space.

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Volcanos activity on the moon

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Volcanic activity continued on the moon until it halted a billion years ago, or so scientists have long thought about the Moon. However, a new discovery by a group of geologists at +Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration shows that the moon has seen small but widespread eruptions of basaltic lava during the last 50 million years, a geologically recent period.

Credit image: +NASA 

The discovery was announced in a paper published online October 12th in Nature Geoscience. The science team identified 70 small volcanic features scattered across the moon's dark volcanic plains, or maria. The features show as a combination of smooth, low, rounded mounds near patches of rough, blocky terrain. The scientists refer to these unusual areas as irregular mare patches.

The features are too small to be seen from Earth, averaging less than 500 meters across their largest dimension. One feature named Ina has been known for a long time, having been imaged from lunar orbit by Apollo 15 astronauts in the 1970s. Several early studies indicated that Ina could be very young (10 million years or less), but only a few irregular mare patches were known then, and their significance was unclear.

It was not until the scientists had high-resolution images showing the entire moon that the full extent and significance of the small lava features were understood. These images are the product of the two Narrow Angle Cameras that form part of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera system. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera's Science Operations Center is located on ASU's Tempe campus.

Credit image: +NASA 

The crater-counting dates are linked to laboratory ages provided by Apollo and Luna samples. The results show that instead of lunar volcanism stopping abruptly about a billion years ago, it ended more gradually, continuing until less than 50 million years ago.

Activity at Ina, the scientists found, ended about 33 million years ago, and at another irregular mare patch, Sosigenes, it stopped only about 18 million years ago. (In contrast, most of the lava flows that make up the dark plains visible by eye from Earth erupted between 3.5 and 1 billion years ago.)

The discovery gives the moon's volcanic history a new chapter. As Braden says, "Our understanding of the moon is drastically changed by the evidence for volcanic eruptions at ages much younger than previously thought possible, and in multiple locations across the lunar maria."

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Water on the moon came from the sun

Dear readers and followers,

on Monday october 6th, scientifs published really interesting work about the origin of water on Moon. Water trapped in rocks on the moon's surface probably originated mostly from streams of energetic particles blasted from the sun and not from cosmic impacts from comets, researchers say.

For years, scientists argued over whether the moon harbored water or not. Recent findings confirmed that water does exist on the moon, although its surface remains drier than any desert on Earth. +NASA officials have suggested this water could one day help support colonies on the moon and missions to Mars and beyond.

It remained uncertain where all of this water came from. One possibility is that it was delivered by impacts from carbonaceous chondrites, meteorites that can be rich in water, and from comets. Another is that water formed on the moon after exposure to the solar wind, streams of high-energy particles from the sun. Atoms of hydrogen in the solar wind can react with oxygen trapped in moon rocks to form water.

To help find out where lunar water came from, scientists analyzed 45 microscopic grains of dust that astronauts on NASA's Apollo 16 and 17 missions brought from the moon. They focused on levels of different isotopes of elements within these dust grains. Isotopes differ from each other in how many neutrons there are in their atoms — for instance, normal hydrogen atoms do not have any neutrons, while atoms of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, each possess one neutron. Water can be made with deuterium as well as with normal hydrogen.

The sun is naturally low in deuterium because its nuclear reactions quickly consume the isotope. All other bodies in the solar system possess relatively high levels of deuterium, remnants that existed in the nebula of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system. By analyzing the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the water in moon dust, the researchers could deduce whether the water originated from the sun or elsewhere, such as chondrites.

One complicating factor in this analysis is that cosmic rays — high-energy particles from deep space — can generate deuterium when they slam into the moon. To account for how cosmic rays can influence deuterium levels on the moon, the scientists also looked at levels of lithium-6, an isotope of lithium that cosmic rays would also generate when they hit the moon. By examining the ratio of lithium-6 to normal lithium, the researchers deduced how often cosmic rays struck the moon and generated deuterium as well as lithium-6.

The researchers expected to find water from chondrites in the interiors of the lunar dust grains and water from both chondrites and the solar wind in the exteriors or rims of these grains. Surprisingly, the water in both the interiors and exteriors of these dust grains apparently originated mainly from the solar wind.

These findings suggest that any water that cosmic impacts bring to the moon is not retained much. At most, an average of 15 percent of the hydrogen in lunar soil may come from chondritic water, the researchers said.

Source: journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Orion spacecraft flight testing

Dear readers and followers,

NASA’s newest spacecraft, Orion, will be launching into space for the first time in December 2014, on a flight that will take it farther than any spacecraft built to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years and through temperatures twice as hot as molten lava to put its critical systems to the test.

Testing of Orion system and capsule continue. Actually, in June 2014, NASA performed tests of the parachute system of the new spacecraft called Orion. A test version of Orion is loaded onto a C-17 for a previous test of its parachute system.

As the flight test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft nears, a new video -- called "Trial By Fire" -- details the spacecraft’s test and the critical systems engineers will evaluate during the Dec. 4 flight. Orion is in the final stages of preparation for the uncrewed flight test that will take it 5800 km above Earth on a 4.5 hours mission to test many of the systems necessary for future human missions into deep space.

Few weeks ago, +NASA has officially announced they have completed a rigorous review of the Space Launch System (SLS). SLS is a heavy-lift, exploration class rocket which is still under development to take humans beyond Earth orbit and to Mars. Finally, after many months of budget difficulty, NASA has approved the program's progression from formulation to development. 

SLS will be the world's most capable rocket. In addition to opening new frontiers for explorers traveling aboard the Orion capsule, the SLS may also offer benefits for science missions that require its use and can’t be flown on commercial rockets.

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Is Pluto a planet? The votes are IN !!

Dear readers and followers,

What is a planet? For generations of kids the answer was easy. A big ball of rock or gas that orbited our Sun, and there were nine of them in our solar system. But then astronomers started finding more Pluto-sized objects orbiting beyond Neptune. Then they found Jupiter-sized objects circling distant stars, first by the handful and then by the hundreds. Suddenly the answer wasn’t so easy. Were all these newfound things planets?

Since the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is in charge of naming these newly discovered worlds, they tackled the question at their 2006 meeting. They tried to come up with a definition of a planet that everyone could agree on. But the astronomers couldn’t agree. In the end, they voted and picked a definition that they thought would work.

The current, official definition says that a planet is a celestial body that: "is in orbit around the Sun, is round or nearly round, and has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit."

But this definition baffled the public and classrooms around the country. For one thing, it only applied to planets in our solar system. What about all those exoplanets orbiting other stars? Are they planets? And Pluto was booted from the planet club and called a dwarf planet. Is a dwarf planet a small planet? Not according to the IAU. Even though a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster.

Eight years later, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics decided to revisit the question of “what is a planet?” On September 18th, a debate has been organized and its goal: to find a definition that the eager public audience could agree on!

Science historian Dr. Owen Gingerich, who chaired the IAU planet definition committee, presented the historical viewpoint. Dr. Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center, presented the IAU’s viewpoint. And Dr. Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, presented the exoplanet scientist’s viewpoint.

Zingerich argued that “a planet is a culturally defined word that changes over time,” and that Pluto is a planet. Williams defended the IAU definition, which declares that Pluto is not a planet. And Sasselov defined a planet as “the smallest spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or stellar remnants,” which means Pluto is a planet.

After these experts made their best case, the audience got to vote on what a planet is or isn’t and whether Pluto is in or out. The results are in, with no hanging chads in sight.

According to the audience, Sasselov’s definition won the day, and Pluto IS a planet.

Source


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Soyuz TMA-14M arrives safely at ISS despite solar array issue

Dear readers and followers,

Expedition 41, the current human increment aboard ISS, has expanded from three to six members, with last night’s safe arrival of Soyuz TMA-14M and its crew of Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Samokutyayev and Yelena Serova, together with U.S. astronaut Barry Wilmore. 

“That little red streak, hidden behind the Dragon solar array is the Soyuz launching.” A remarkable image of the Soyuz TMA-14M ascent, captured by the astronaut Reid Wiseman.

Credit image: NASA

The trio launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Friday, September 26th (local time) (4:25 p.m. EDT Thursday, September 25th), embarking on a six-hour, four-orbit “fast rendezvous” profile to dock with the ISS at 8:11 a.m. Baikonur time Friday (10:11 p.m. EDT Thursday). However, all did not go entirely to plan, following the failure of one of Soyuz TMA-14M’s electricity-generating solar arrays to deploy properly.

The Soyuz TMA-14M crew Barry Wilmore, Aleksandr Samokutyayev and Yelena Serova will spend 168 days in space, forming the second half of Expedition 41 and the core of Expedition 42. 

Credit image: NASA

Source: NASA


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MAVEN delivered the first observations of Mars atmosphere

Dear readers and followers,

the NASA’s spacecraft called MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) has obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding Mars. Piling on to the good news from Mars this week, the US spacecraft Maven sent home its first ultraviolet images from Mars. While they may not be flashy, these images will help determine the composition and variability of the upper atmosphere, and investigate the mystery when the water escaped.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, September 21th. 

Credit image: NASA

The MAVEN spacecraft has been sent with success by the space rocket Atlas 5 last November 2013. Its travel to Mars took 10 months.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36500 km in three ultraviolet wavelength bands:

• Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface.
• Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. 
• Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars’ gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas is present to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases derive from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary science mission, MAVEN observations like these will be used to determine the loss rate of hydrogen and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. 

Tracking the spacial and temporal variation of these gases, along with carbon, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ionized carbon dioxide, will help scientists better understand what processes are driving the atmosphere's composition. The particularly interesting part for the water history of the planet involves measuring the ratio between light water and heavy water: hydrogen (121.567 nm) and deuterium (121.533 nm). 

That's a task that requires a high level of precision, and has been successfully accomplished for the lower atmosphere on Mars before, but never for the upper atmosphere where gas loss is actually taking place. These observations will allow us to determine the amount of water that has escaped from the planet over time.

Source: NASA

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