NASA researchers have discovered organic material inside a meteorite the recently fell in Canada’s Tagish Lake. The meteorite is especially valuable because scientists collected it shortly after it crashed in 2000, ensuring it wasn’t contaminated by local bacteria. The meteorite seems to contain many small hollow organic globules, which probably formed in the cold molecular cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the Solar System. Meteorites like this have been falling to Earth for billions of years, and probably seeded the early planet with organic material.
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The Great Observatories View Supernova Remnant N49
Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer – NASA’s three Great Observatories – teamed up to create this beautiful photograph of supernova remnant N49. Under visible light, this is the brightest remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It has a strange lopsided shape; unusual because most supernova remnants are spherical. The new data from the triplet of telescopes have revealed that the strange shape is happening because the remnant is expanding into a region of denser gas on one side.
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Measuring the Shape of Supernove Explosions
Type 1a supernovae are used to measure distance in the Universe because they explode with the same brightness, detonating when a white dwarf star consumes a specific amount of material from a binary companion. The accuracy of these distance measurements depends on the shape of the blast. New research indicates that Type 1a supernovae explosions start out clumpy and uneven, but a second, spherical blast overwhelms the first creating a smooth residue. This sets the limits of uncertainty on distance measurements that use Type 1a supernovae.
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Discovery Launch Planned for December 7
NASA senior managers have picked December 7 for the next launch for the space shuttle Discovery. If all goes well, STS-116 will blast off at 9:35 pm local time (0235 GMT December 8) carrying 7 astronauts, and return to the International Space Station. This time, the construction job will be to install a new section of the station’s girder-like truss, and activate its power and cooling systems.
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Podcast: HiRise View of Mars
If you want to get a good view of something, you’ll want a big telescope, or you want to get close. NASA has decided to both, equipping its new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with the largest spacecraft telescope ever built, and then flying it closer to Mars than any previous spacecraft. This telescope is called the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, and returning the most detailed images ever seen of the Martian surface. Dr. Alfred McEwen from the University of Arizona is the Principal Investigator on the HiRise instrument, and he joins me from Tuscon Arizona.
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Year in Space 2007 Giveaway
Once again, I’ve got a little giveaway for the alert Universe Today reader. This time we’re giving away a copy of the Year in Space 2007 desk calendar, which will be be sponsoring Universe Today until the end of the year. All you have to do to enter is send me an email with the subject line, “Year in Space 2007 Giveaway”, before Saturday, December 2nd at 12:00 noon (Pacific Time). I’ll choose one lucky winner at random from the entrants. Then I’ll throw away all the other emails (for your privacy).
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How Did Early Bacteria Survive Poisonous Oxygen?
Oxygen makes up 21% of the Earth’s atmosphere, and we need it to breathe. But early organisms would have found this environment toxic. Ancient bacteria evolved protective enzymes that prevented oxygen from damaging their DNA, but what evolutionary incentive did they have to do this? Researchers have discovered that ultraviolet light hitting the surface of glacial ice can release molecular oxygen. Bacteria colonies living near this ice would have needed to evolve this protective defense. They were then well equipped to handle the growth of atmospheric oxygen produced by other bacteria that would normally be toxic.
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Flood of New Hi-Resolution Mars Images Released
NASA’s newest visitor to the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has been taking a torrent of photographs at the highest resolution ever captured. The spacecraft’s High Resolution Science Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) has taken almost 100 images since its main science mission began on November 7. The image with this story shows sculptured sand dunes inside Russell Crater on Mars, but an 15 additional images are featured on the HiRISE website.
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Rosetta Prepares for its Martian Close Up
Get ready Mars, you’re about to have a visitor. ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, officially headed towards its 2014 encounter with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, will pass by Mars in February 2007. This close encounter will give scientists an opportunity to test out Rosetta’s optics and scientific instruments on a well photographed target. Rosetta will also get a gravity assisted speed boost as it swings by the planet. Its closest approach will occur on February 25, when its passes just 250 km above the Martian surface.
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Searching for Dark Matter Particles Here on Earth
Astronomers don’t know what dark matter is, but they do know it takes up approximately 25% of the Universe. We can’t see it, but we can measure the effect of its gravity on stars and galaxies. A powerful detector, deep underground in a mineshaft in Minnesota might be able to get to the bottom of the mystery. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search II project will attempt to detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (aka WIMPS). These theoretical particles don’t normally interact with matter, but the occasional rare collision might be detectable.
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