Universe Today

January 15, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

A Winged MESSENGER Flies By Mercury

On January 14 the MESSENGER spacecraft skimmed just 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface of Mercury in the first of three flybys of the planet. Today (Jan. 15) the spacecraft will turn back towards the Earth to start down-linking the on-board stored science data it acquired during the flyby. The probe’s equipment gathered data on the mineral and chemical composition of Mercury’s surface, its magnetic field, its surface topography and its interactions with the solar wind. “This was fantastic,” said Michael Paul, a mission engineer. “We were closer to the surface of Mercury than the International Space Station is to the Earth.”

The closest approach was on the planet’s night side, the side facing away from the sun, and the spacecraft flew in the region along the equator. The scientific results will be available for the public at the end of January.

“The engineers and operators pulled off a tremendous feat, acquiring and locking onto the downlink signal from the spacecraft within seconds, providing the necessary Doppler measurements for the Radio Science team.” said MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan, of the Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland. “The spacecraft is continuing to collect imagery and other scientific measurements from the planet as we now depart Mercury from the illuminated side, documenting for the first time the previously unseen surface of the planet.”

The signal from the spacecraft is tracked by the Deep Space Network, an international network of antennas that supports space missions.

In addition to Monday’s rendezvous, MESSENGER is scheduled to pass Mercury again this October and in September 2009, using the pull of the planet’s gravity to guide it into position to begin a planned yearlong orbit of the planet in March 2011. By the time the mission is completed, scientists also hope to get answers on why Mercury is so dense, as well as determine its geological history and the structure of its iron-rich core and other issues.

MESSENGER stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging. Launched in 2004, it already has flown past Venus twice and Earth once on its way to Mercury.

Only one spacecraft has previously visited Mercury. Mariner 10 flew past the planet three times in 1974 and 1975, and mapped about 45 percent of its surface.

With Pluto now considered a dwarf planet, Mercury is the solar system’s smallest planet, with a diameter of 3,032 miles, about a third that of Earth.

A surface feature of great interest to scientists is the Caloris basin, an impact crater about 800 miles in diameter, one of the biggest such craters in our solar system. It likely was caused when an asteroid hit Mercury long ago. Scientists hope to learn about the subsurface of the planet from studying this crater.

True to its name, temperatures on the closest plant to the sun are quite “mercurial,” as Mercury experiences the largest swing in surface temperatures in our solar system. When its surface faces the sun, temperatures hit about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (425 Celsius), but when its faces away from the sun they can plummet to minus-300 Fahrenheit (minus-185 Celsius).

Original News Source: Reuters

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Ulysses Passes Over Sun’s North Pole

Continuing onÂ its epic journey around the Sun, Ulysses has reached the Sun’s north pole just in the nick of time. In fact, its timing couldn’t be better, just as the Sun begins “Solar Cycle 24”. The probe is in a unique orbit, passing over the solar north and south poles, out of the ecliptic plane of the solar system, giving it an unprecedented view of parts of the Sun we cannot observe on Earth. “Graveyards for sunspots” and mysterious coronal holes lurk in these regions and Ulysses will be perfectly placed, directly above.

The joint NASA and ESAÂ Ulysses mission has been a resounding successÂ in its 18 years of operation since launch on board Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-41) in October 1990. The intrepid spacecraft was helped on it’s way by a gravitational assist by the planet Jupiter which flung it over the poles of the Sun. Quietly travelling in a perpendicular orbit (space missions and the planets usually orbit around the Sun’s equator), Ulysses has been measuring the distribution of solar wind particles emanating fromÂ latitudinal locations for one and a half orbits.

As Ulysses passes over the north polar region, the Sun will be observed during a period of minimum activity at this location for the first time. The poles of the Sun are of particular interest to scientists as this is where the fast solar wind originates from open magnetic field lines reaching into space. The dynamics of solar material in this location provides information on how the Sun interacts with interplanetary space and how the solar wind is generated. Observing the solar wind at “solar minimum” will be of massive interest as it may provide some answers as to why the solar wind is accelerated hundreds of kilometers per hour even when activity is at its lowest.

“Just as Earth’s poles are crucial to studies of terrestrial climate change, the sun’s poles may be crucial to studies of the solar cycle.” – Ed Smith, Ulysses project scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The dynamics of low altitude magnetic fields in polar regions are also a focus for interest. As 11-year solar cycles progress, sunspot population increase near the solar equator. As the magnetic field is “wound up”, sunspots (and their associated magnetic flux) drift toward the poles where they slowly disappear as the old magnetic field sinks back into the Sun, quite accurately described as sunspot graveyards. Understanding how this cycle works will help to reveal the secrets of the solar cycle and ultimately help us understand the mechanisms behind Space Weather.

Source: NASA Featured News

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Finding Dark Energy in a Supercomputer

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Dark energy is probably the most influential force in the cosmos, overwhelming the pull of dark matter, and absolutely dominating the meager impact of regular matter. And scientists have absolutely no idea what it is. But a new supercomputer simulation by cosmologists at Durham University might give astronomers a few places to look; to know how to measure this mysterious force.

When dark energy was discovered in 1998, it came as a complete surprise. By measuring the distance to supernovae, astronomers were hoping to calculate the rate at which the Universe’s expansion is slowing down. Instead of slowing down, though, they found that the expansion of the Universe is actually accelerating. Instead of coming together in a big crunch, it looks like dark energy will spread the Universe out faster and faster.

Physicists now believe that dark energy makes up 70% of the Universe, with the remaining amount made of mostly dark matter, and a sprinkling of regular matter. Since that discovery, astronomers haven’t been able to find the source of this dark energy.

So a new simulation, run on Durham University’s Cosmology Machine supercomputer could help astronomers in their search. The simulation looked at the tiny ripples in the distribution of matter in the Universe made by sound waves a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. These ripples have long since been destroyed by the 13.7 billion years of the lifetime of the Universe, but the simulations show they might have survived in some conditions.

By changing the nature of dark energy, the researchers found that the ripples changed in length. In other words, if astronomers can find the ripples in the real Universe, this can help constrain the parameters for dark energy.

Durham University Professor Carlos Frenk said, “the ripples are a gold standard. By comparing the size of the measured ripples to the gold standard we can work out how the Universe has expanded and from this figure out the properties of the dark energy.”

An upcoming ESA mission called the SPectroscopic All-sky Cosmic Explorer (SPACE) should have the capabilities to detect these ripples, and so help put some constraints on the nature of dark energy.

If all goes well, SPACE will launch in 2017.

Original Source: Durham University News Release

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Mark Mortimer

Book Review: An Ocean of Air

Invisible, forceful, noisy and ever-present. We can’t get away from the air surrounding our bodies. It keeps us balanced, allows us to communicate, but most of all facilitates the ready transport of energy and material. Gabrielle Walker in her book An Ocean of Air – Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere reawakens our knowledge and appreciation of this wondrous medium. Her stories amplify the importance that humanity’s placed on air and the results of our continuing interest in this fascinating, ethereal element.

In ancient times, the air was credited with being a fundamental element. Though unseen and barely felt, people recognized it as being an essential commodity. Yet, with the dawn of enlightenment, certain individuals let their curiosity guide them into realms yet visited. Playing with enclosed spaces, altering temperatures, and capturing exhaust from chemical reactions all allowed these investigators to learn more and more about our featureless but very particular and special atmosphere. Now, with certainty, we know about the composition of air’s chemical elements, air’s different layers when ascending, and its role in moving dust and water about the Earth’s surface. But, its been hundreds of years of journeying in fits and starts that resulted in what we know about the air enveloping and protecting Earth’s surface.

Gabrielle Walker’s book gently accompanies the reader along the journey of humankind’s learning about Earth’s atmosphere. Within, she begins with Galileo and his measuring of the weight of air and ends with the confirmation of the existence of the Van Allen protective belts. However her approach for relaying humanity’s progress is far removed from the typical recitation of facts that are found in text books. Rather, she progresses from one unique personality to another during her chronology. For instance, after Galileo, she portrays Evangelista Torricelli, a compatriot of Galileo but who disagreed with some of Galileo’s ideas. She writes how Torricelli experimented but was afraid to promulgate results because of the Church and its belief in the heretical nature of a vacuum. Later, there’s Oliver Heaviside, a striking, very, very strange man who wore a tea cozy on his head and manicured his nails cherry red. Nevertheless, Walker shows Heaviside’s vital influence in defining the attributes of the ionosphere. Such is the state of progress in Walker’s book that the reader quickly accepts the special and complete nature of the individuals who kept adding to our knowledge of the Earth’s atmosphere.

This inclusion of the experimenters, together with their results, makes the book. But, given this focus, the book leans more to the pleasant than technical side of things. Walker seems only to include details of our atmosphere as learned through her chosen individuals. For example, Lavoisier isolated and named the constituent “oxygene”. Yet, aside from a few other elements or compounds, no other constituent parts or their discoverers get identified. Further, the choice of topics, though always fascinating, doesn’t necessarily flow. Properties of the atmosphere begin the book. Later, the reader learns of glaciation and carbon dioxide concentration, then the reason for the direction of trade winds, and finally the effects of the ionosphere on the propagation of radio waves. Accompanying these are tales of the Titanic, Sputnik and global warming. From this, the book altogether feels distinctive but it doesn’t have a comprehensive feel.

Nevertheless, Walker has written a very pleasant book to read. It’s as if she’s collected notes while popping all about in a little time machine. With this, both history and science take on a fascinating and very human dimension. For those who are fascinated by science but have long ago given up on science texts as being far too boring, then this book should easily re-awaken their fascination. Walker’s special rendition of unique, almost crazy individuals who valued knowledge much more than tradition is particularly captivating. Her solid basis on facts is assuring. Her choice of topic, that so often resides in today’s news headlines, proclaims its immediacy. There’s no doubt the average reader will have an entertaining and instructive time with this book.

Combining a famous scientist’s personal characteristics, together with an explanation of their discoveries, brings these great individuals back from the halls of the renown and into the common theatre of life. Gabrielle Walker’s book An Ocean of Air – Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere does just this in rekindling many great discoveries. As well, she includes details of the special characteristics of our atmosphere to remind us of the debt we owe these people in their investigation of the unseen air.

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Podcast: How to Win a Nobel Prize

Just a couple of shows ago, we showed you how to get a career in astronomy. Now that you’ve got your career in astronomy, obviously the next goal is to win a Nobel prize. We’re here at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, which is just one tiny step that a person has to take before you get that Nobel prize. Before you get that call in the middle of the night from Sweden, you’re going to need to come with an idea, do some experiments, write a paper, get published and a bunch of other stuff. This week, we’ll tell you all about it.

Click here to download the episode

How To Win a Nobel Prize – Show notes and transcript

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Make Room at the Moon

Lunar orbit is getting to be a busy place, with several different countries sending spacecraft to the moon. Currently orbiting the Moon are Japan’s Kaguya (also known as SELENE) spacecraft, which has been sending back 3-D movies of the lunar surface, and China’s Chang-e 1, which will gather information on the Moon’s chemical composition with its various cameras, spectrometers and other scientific equipment. In addition, two new missions to the moon will launch this year: India’s Chandrayaan-1 and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Chandrayaan, which means “journey to the moon” in Hindi, will study the moon at many wavelengths, from X-ray, visible and near-infrared to microwave. It will orbit the moon at just 100 km above the surface. The mission is scheduled to launch on April 9.

“The low orbit will give us really high resolution data,” says Detlef Koschny, Chandrayaan project scientist. The principal mission objective is to map the Moon’s surface in unprecedented detail. Current lunar maps show detail from 30 – 100 meters across. Chandrayaan will produce maps with a resolution of between 5 and 10 meters across the whole surface of the moon.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is collaborating with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the Chandrayaan-1 mission. A Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer will produce x-ray spectroscopic mapping of the moon, and the Infrared Spectrometer will observe the Moon’s chemical composition. Another ESA instrument is the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer, which will study the interaction between electrically charged particles from the solar wind and Moon’s surface.

Eight other instruments complete the suite of science instruments, including a 29-kg landing probe which will be dropped onto the Moon’s surface at the beginning of the mission to conduct investigations.

Meanwhile, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is currently undergoing testing at Goddard Spaceflight Center to get ready for its launch on October 28 of this year. LRO will spend at least a year mapping the surface of the moon. Data from the orbiter will help NASA select safe landing sites for astronauts, identify lunar resources and study how the moon’s environment will affect humans.

Engineers at Goddard are building the orbiter and testing spacecraft components to ready them for the harsh environment of space. After a component or entire subsystem is qualified, it is integrated into the LRO spacecraft. The core suite of avionics for the orbiter is assembled and undergoing system tests.

“This is a major milestone for the mission,” said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at Goddard. “Our team has been working nearly around the clock to get us to this point. Reaching this milestone keeps us on the path to sending LRO to the moon later this year.”

Once fully integrated, the spacecraft will ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida in August in preparation for launch. The orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will launch aboard an Atlas V rocket. LCROSS will study the poles of the moon to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed craters. The trip to the moon for the spacecraft will take approximately four days. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter initially will enter an elliptical orbit, also called the commissioning orbit. Once moved into its final orbit, a circular polar orbit approximately 31 miles above the moon, the spacecraft’s instruments will map the lunar surface.

Original News Sources: Chandrayaan Press Release, LRO press release

January 14, 2008April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

MESSENGER and other Significant Mission Events in 2008

Today, the MESSENGER spacecraft will perform a significant task in its mission by making its first flyby of Mercury (see more info below). Additionally, other spacecraft that are out doing their jobs in various locations of our solar system will have significant mission events occur in 2008. Let’s take a look at the big events coming up this year.

January 14: MESSENGER Flyby of Mercury

Messenger, the MEercury Surface Space ENvironment GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft, will be the first spacecraft to visit Mercury in almost 33 years. It will explore and take close-up images of parts of the planet that we’ve never seen before. This is the first of three flybys of Mercury the spacecraft will take before settling into orbit in 2011. MESSENGER’s cameras and other instruments will collect more than 1,200 images and make other observations during this approach, encounter and departure. The closest approach of the flyby will occur at 19:04:42 UTC (2:04:42 EST), but mission managers said pictures from the event may not be released for up to a week.

March 12: Cassini flies through the plume of Enceladusâ€™ geyser

The Cassini spacecraft will fly extremely close to Saturn’s moon Enceladus at an altitude of only 23 km (14 mi), and actually fly through the plume of an active geyser on the moon’s south pole. How such a cold moon could host an area warm enough to have erupting water vapor is a mystery. Scientists are pondering if Enceladus has active ice volcanism, and if so, is it due to ice sublimating, like a comet, or due to a different mechanism, like boiling water as in Old Faithful at Yellowstone. This flyby will help answer those questions.

Cassini will also have several relatively close flybys this year of the moon Titan. The flybys will occur on Feb. 22, March 25, and May 12.

May 25: Phoenix lands on Mars

Phoenix will land in the north polar region of Mars and will help characterize the climate and geology of the Red Planet, as well as possibly determine if live ever arose on Mars. Pursuing NASA’s “Follow the Water” strategy, the lander will dig through soil to reach water ice with its robotic arm and perform numerous scientific experiments. Phoenix launched on Aug. 4, 2007. University of Arizona’s Phoenix page

September 5: Rosetta flyby of Asteroid Steins

The Rosetta spacecraft is on its way to orbit comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, but in the meantime it will pass by Asteroid 2867 Steins. During the flyby, Rosetta will study Steins to determine and characterize the asteroid’s surface composition and morphology. Asteroid Steins is roughly 10 km in diameter.

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

2008 Launch Calendar and Preview

2008 will be a busy year throughout the world and our solar system as various robotic and human missions are slated to begin their journeys of exploration and science. One of the most exciting and nail biting times of a mission is the launch, and following is a list of mission launches that will occur in 2008. Included is information about each mission and links to mission homepages, as well as launch locations, just in case youâ€™ll be in the area. Of course, as the year rolls along, weâ€™ll be covering each of the missions in Universe Today.

2008 Launches:

All launch dates are subject to change. The launches listed are non-military scientific robotic and human missions.

January 30: THEOS (Thailand Earth Observing System) (GISTDA)
Launch site: Yasny, in Orenburg Oblast, Russia Dombarovsky Cosmodrome, Russia
Launch vehicle: Kosmotras Dniepr rocket
THOES will be used for cartography, agricultural monitoring, forestry management, coastal zone monitoring and flood risk management in Thailand. The spacecraft was built by EADS Astrium in France.

Feb. 5: Progress 28P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz
The 28th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station (ISS).

Feb. 7: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-122 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
STS-122 will deliver the Columbus European Laboratory Module to the ISS, and is the twenty-fourth mission to the space station.

February 22: ESAâ€™s ATV Jules Verne (ESA)
Launch site: ELA-3, Kourou, French Guiana
Launch vehicle: Ariane 5
The European Space Agencyâ€™s first Automated Transfer Vehicle â€œJules Verneâ€? will dock with the ISS to bring supplies and equipment to the station.

Mid to Late March: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-123 (NASA)
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Mission STS-123 will deliver the pressurized section of the Kibo Japanese Experiment Logistics Module (ELM-PS) on the twenty-fifth mission to the ISS.

April 8: Soyuz ISS 16S (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz
Flight of the manned Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft to the International Space Station with members of the Expedition 17 crew. The capsule will remain at the station for about six months, providing an escape vehicle for the crew.

April 9: Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO)
Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India
Launch vehicle: Indiaâ€™s PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle)
Indiaâ€™s lunar orbiter mission will create a 3-D atlas of the moon, as well as conduct chemical and mineral mapping of the entire lunar surface. NASA’s Chandrayaan webpage

April 24: Space Shuttle Mission STS-124 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-124 will transport the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module – Pressurized Module (JEM-PM) and the Japanese Remote Manipulator System (JEM-RMS) to the International Space Station.

May 14: Progress 29P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz
The 29th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station (ISS).

May 15: GOCE satellite (Gravity field and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer)(ESA)
Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia
Launch vehicle: Rokot / Briz KM
GOCE will measure the Earth’s gravity field and model the geoid, or hypothetical surface of the Earth, with extremely high accuracy and spatial resolution. It also will provide insight into the physics and dynamics of the Earth’s interior, such as volcanism and earthquakes.

May 16: GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17 – Pad 17-B
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II
GLAST the will have the ability to detect gamma rays in a range of energies from thousands to hundreds of billions of times more energetic than the light visible to the human eye. Radiation of such magnitude can only be generated under the most extreme conditions, thus GLAST will focus on studying the most energetic objects and phenomena in the universe, such as black holes, gamma ray bursts, neutron stars and cosmic rays. GLAST follows in the footsteps of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.

June 15: OSTM/Jason 2 (Ocean Surface Topography Mission)
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC-2
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II
This will be a follow-on to the Jason mission to measure sea surface height and determine the variability of ocean circulation at decadal time scales with combined data from the Topex/Poseidon mission and Jason . This is a joint U.S., Canadian and European project.

July 15: IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer)
Launch Site: Reagan Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL Rocket
IBEX’s science objective is to discover the global interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium. It will take a set of global energetic neutral atom images to determine the strength and structure of the termination shock, and study the properties of the solar wind flow beyond the termination shock and in the heliotail.

July 20: GOES-O Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta IV
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are actively engaged in a cooperative program, the multimission series N-P. This series will be a vital contributor to weather, solar and space operations, and science. The weather satellite will orbit 22,300 miles above the planet to monitor conditions across the U.S.

July 31: Herschel–Planck (ESA)
Launch site: CSG, Kourou, French Guiana
Launch vehicle: Ariane 5
One rocket will launch two different spacecraft, the Herschel infrared space observatory and the Planck mission to study the cosmic microwave background radiation. Herschel is a 3.5 meter diameter reflecting telescope with instruments cooled to close to absolute zero to observe at wavelengths that not been previously explored. After a four-month journey from Earth, Herschel will spend at least three years in orbit around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system. Planck will image the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation Field over the whole sky.

Aug. 7: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-125 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly seven astronauts into space for the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, the crew will repair and improve the observatory’s capabilities through 2013.

Aug. 12: Progress 30P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz rocket
The 30th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station.

Sept. 18: Space Shuttle Mission STS-126 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
ISS assembly flight ULF2 will deliver a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station.

Oct. 12: Soyuz ISS 17S (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz
The manned Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft flies to the International Space Station with members of the Expedition 18 crew. The capsule will remain at the station for about six months, providing an escape vehicle for the crew

October TBD: SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) & Proba-2 microsatellite (ESA)
Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia
Launch vehicle: Rokot
SMOS will measure microwave radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface at L-band (1.4 GHz) using an interferometric radiometer. Proba-2 is a technology demonstration satellite.

Oct. 28: LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) & LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
LRO will spend at least a year mapping the surface of the moon to help select safe landing sites for astronauts, identify lunar resources and study how the moon’s environment will affect humans. LCROSS will study the poles of the moon to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed craters.

Dec 1: SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
SDO will help to understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. This is the first Space Weather Research Network mission in the Living With a Star Program of NASA.

Dec 15: OCO (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) (NASA)
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, California – Launch Pad SLC 576-E
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket
OCO will collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that may have an influence on this greenhouse gas. OCO is a new Earth orbiting mission sponsored by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program.

January 12, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Radioactive Hot Spots on Earth’s Beaches May Have Sparked Life

We’ve heard about life being created in a puddle of primordial chemical soup, sparked by lightning strikes, or organic molecules falling to Earth from comets or planets, such as Mars. But now, there is an alternative. Early Earth was radioactive; the Moon also had a lower orbit, generating strong tidal forces. Due to the close proximity to abundant water, radioactive beaches may have possessed all the essential ingredients for organic compounds, and eventually life, to thrive.

Research by the University of Washington, Seattle, suggests that perhaps the highly radioactive environment of Earth some 4 billion years ago may have been the ideal time for life to form. The orbit of the Moon also had a part to play in this offbeat theory.

Through strong tidal forces by a Moon that orbited far closer to the Earth than it does today, radioactive elements accumulated on the beaches could be gravitationally sorted. The chemical energy in these beach hot spots was probably high enough to allow self-sustaining fission processes (which occurs in natural concentrations of uranium). The main product from fission is heat, therefore powering chemical processes and the generation of organic, life-giving compounds.

“Amino acids, sugars and [soluble] phosphate can all be produced simultaneously in a radioactive beach environment.” – Zachary Adam, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington Seattle.

This is a hard theory to understand, it is well known that radioactivity breaks down organic molecules and causes a whole host of problems for us carbon-based creatures. But in the early Earth, devoid of plants and animals, radioactive processes may have provided energy for life to begin in the first place.

This theory also partially explains why life may be a very rare occurrence in the universe: there must be the correct concentration of radioactive elements, on the surface of a water-dominated developing planet, with tidal forces supplied by a closely orbiting stellar body. The Earth may, after all, be unique.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

January 11, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Red Dwarfs Have Teeny Tiny Habitable Zones

As space telescopes get larger and more sensitive, the search for Earth-sized worlds surrounding other stars is about to get rolling. But astronomers are going to need to know where to look. A team of researchers are working on a survey of nearby stars, calculating the habitable zones around them. When the search begins, astronomers are going to want to study these regions.

The Research Consortium on Nearby Stars (RECONS) is a survey using relatively small telescopes to study the habitable zones in the nearby stars. The team uses measurements of various stars brightnesses at optical and infrared wavelengths matched with their distances to get a sense of the stars’ habitability.

After gathering together a big list of potential candidate stars, the researchers can then categorize stars by size and temperature to find ones that might harbour life.

“Once we have good values for the temperatures and sizes of the nearby stars, we can estimate how hot planets will be at different distances from the stars,” explains Justin Cantrell, a Doctoral Candidate in Astronomy at Georgia State University. “We consider those stars that would have surface temperatures suitable for liquid water to be in the traditional habitable zone.”

The researchers were looking for habitable zones around red dwarf stars, which can be 50-90% smaller than the Sun and much cooler. The comprise 70% of the stars in the Milky Way, but they’re harder to spot because they put out less light.

They were surprised to learn that these red dwarf stars have tiny habitable zones. When they added up the habitable zones of 44 red dwarf stars nearby the Sun, they found they didn’t add up to equal the habitable zone of a single Sun like star.

So even though these red dwarfs are common, they’re not great candidates for life. Earth-type stars would need to be perfectly positioned in their tiny habitable zones to be good candidates for life.

Original Source: Georgia State University News Release