Current Events in Astronomy

[calikid]

Interesting current events about the study of the heavens.

[calikid]

Will researchers finally be able to directly photograph a black hole?

What Will First Photos of Black Holes Look Like?

By Clara Moskowitz | SPACE.com

A giant black hole is thought to lurk at the center of the Milky Way, but it has never been directly seen. Now astronomers have predicted what the first pictures of this black hole will look like when taken with technology soon to be available.

In particular, researchers have found that pictures of a black hole ? or, more precisely, the boundaries around them ? will take a crescent form, rather than the blobby shape that is often predicted.

By modeling what these pictures will look like, scientists say they are preparing to interpret the photos that will become available from telescopes currently under construction.

"No one has been able to image a black hole," said University of California, Berkeley student Ayman Bin Kamruddin, who presented a poster on the research last week in Long Beach, Calif., at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "So far it's been impossible because they're too small in the sky. Right now we're just getting some details about the structure, but we don't have an image yet." [Gallery: Black Holes of the Universe]

Black holes themselves are invisible, of course, as not even light can escape their gravitational clutches. However, the boundary of a black hole — the point of no return called the event horizon — should be visible from the radiation emitted by matter falling into the black hole.

"A black hole's immediate surroundings have a lot of really interesting physics going on, and they emit light," Kamruddin said. "Technically speaking, we aren't exactly seeing the black hole, but we are effectively resolving the event horizon."

A new project called the Event Horizon Telescope combines the resolving power of numerous antennas from a worldwide network of radio telescopes to sight objects that otherwise would be too tiny to make out.

"The Event Horizon Telescope is the first to resolve spatial scales comparable to the size of the event horizon of a black hole," said Kamruddin's collaborator, University of California, Berkeley astronomer Jason Dexter. "I don't think it's crazy to think we might get an image in the next five years."

The Event Horizon Telescope already has been gathering some preliminary measurements of the object called Sagittarius A* (pronounced "Sagittarius A-star") at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

Kamruddin and Dexter have matched this data to various physical models and found that they best fit images that are crescent-shaped, rather than the blob shapes called "asymmetric Gaussians" that had been previously used in models.

The crescent shape emerges from the flat doughnut, called an accretion disk, formed by matter orbiting a black hole on its way to falling in. As gas spins around the black hole, one side of the disk comes toward view on Earth, and its light becomes brighter because of a process called Doppler beaming. The other side, representing receding gas, gets dimmer because of this effect.

In the center of the crescent is a dark circle called the black hole shadow, which represents the black hole itself — an incredibly dense object where space-time is extremely twisted.

"There's really extreme bending of light happening because of general relativity and the extremely strong gravitational field," Kamruddin said. Story Continues (http://news.yahoo.com/first-photos-black-holes-look-140317303.html)

[calikid]

The journey to another star sytem begins with leaving our solar system.
Voyager 1 becomes first human-made object to leave solar system

By Elizabeth Landau

At the edge of the heliosphere, you wouldn't know by looking whether you left the cradle of humanity behind and floated out into interstellar space. You would just see unfathomably empty space, no matter which side of the invisible line you were on.

But scientists now have strong evidence that NASA's Voyager 1 probe has crossed this important border, making history as the first human-made object to leave the heliosphere, the magnetic boundary separating the solar system's sun, planets and solar wind from the rest of the galaxy.

"In leaving the heliosphere and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined other historic journeys of exploration: The first circumnavigation of the Earth, the first steps on the Moon," said Ed Stone, chief scientist on the Voyager mission. "That's the kind of event this is, as we leave behind our solar bubble."

A new study in the journal Science suggests that the probe entered the interstellar medium around August 25, 2012. You may have heard other reports that Voyager 1 has made the historic crossing before, but Thursday was the first time NASA announced it. Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/tech/innovation/voyager-solar-system/index.html)

[CasperParks]

The journey to another star sytem begins with leaving our solar system.
Voyager 1 becomes first human-made object to leave solar system

By Elizabeth Landau

At the edge of the heliosphere, you wouldn't know by looking whether you left the cradle of humanity behind and floated out into interstellar space. You would just see unfathomably empty space, no matter which side of the invisible line you were on.

But scientists now have strong evidence that NASA's Voyager 1 probe has crossed this important border, making history as the first human-made object to leave the heliosphere, the magnetic boundary separating the solar system's sun, planets and solar wind from the rest of the galaxy.

"In leaving the heliosphere and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined other historic journeys of exploration: The first circumnavigation of the Earth, the first steps on the Moon," said Ed Stone, chief scientist on the Voyager mission. "That's the kind of event this is, as we leave behind our solar bubble."

A new study in the journal Science suggests that the probe entered the interstellar medium around August 25, 2012. You may have heard other reports that Voyager 1 has made the historic crossing before, but Thursday was the first time NASA announced it. Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/tech/innovation/voyager-solar-system/index.html)

Good story. We don't hear enough from mainstream media on outer space.

[calikid]

Plasma, the fourth state of matter, something I always associated with burning gas, not water!
Strange Super-Earth Planet Has 'Plasma' Water Atmosphere
by Nola Taylor Redd

A nearby alien planet six times the size of the Earth is covered with a water-rich atmosphere that includes a strange "plasma form" of water, scientists say.

Astronomers have determined that the atmosphere of super-Earth Gliese 1214 b is likely water-rich. However, this exoplanet is no Earth twin. The high temperature and density of the planet give it an atmosphere that differs dramatically from Earth.

"As the temperature and pressure are so high, water is not in a usual form (vapor, liquid, or solid), but in an ionic or plasma form at the bottom the atmosphere — namely the interior — of Gliese 1214 b," principle investigator Norio Narita of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan told SPACE.com by email.

Using two instruments on the Subaru Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, scientists studied the scattering of light from the planet. Combining their results with previous observations led the astronomers to conclude that the atmosphere contained significant amounts of water.
Story Continues (http://news.yahoo.com/strange-super-earth-planet-plasma-water-atmosphere-113017775.html)

[calikid]

This galaxy appears as less than 1B years old. Just a baby!

Scientists confirm most distant galaxy ever

By Elizabeth Landau

Scientists say they've found a galaxy that's not just far, far, away -- it's the most distant from our own that's been discovered yet. And it's helping them gain insight about the universe as it existed a long time ago.

Astronomers say the galaxy, called z8_GND_5296, is the most remote one they can confirm with spectroscopy, a technique that looks for the chemical signatures of elements.

In this case, that element was hydrogen, the main fuel of stars. Researchers reported their findings in the journal Nature.

z8_GND_5296 -- no, that's not a typo, or a spam username -- is a window into the past. Because of its distance, it shows what things would have been like 700 million years after the Big Bang.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, so 700 million years after the start is actually quite early by comparison.

Star formation

Besides breaking the distance record, astronomers find the new galaxy exciting because it appears to produce stars at an unusually high rate, said lead study author Steven Finkelstein, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Star-formation rate is measured by how much raw hydrogen the galaxy converts into new stars every year. The z8_GND_5296 galaxy converts hydrogen in the amount of 300 times the mass of our sun into new stars each year.

By contrast, the Milky Way only produces stars at one or two solar masses per year.

Scientists established through previous research that in the first billion years of the universe's history, typical rate of star formation went up, Finkelstein said. Galaxies formed more and more stars over time until about 10 billion years ago, when star formation rates began to decrease.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/tech/innovation/most-distant-galaxy/index.html?hpt=te_t1)

[calikid]

Many places ET might call home.

Earthshaking news: There may be other planets like ours
Doyle Rice
There are likely 40 billion Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers say.

We are not alone.

There are likely "tens of billions" of Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy, according to a study released Monday by astronomers from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Hawaii.

"Planets like our Earth are relatively common throughout the Milky Way galaxy," said astronomer Andrew Howard of the University of Hawaii, who estimates the number at about 40 billion.

In fact, the nearest Earth-like planet may be "only" 12 light years away, which is roughly 72 trillion miles.

In all, about 8.8 billion stars in our galaxy have planets that are nearly the size of Earth and also have a surface temperature conducive to the development of life. But many more stars (those not similar to our sun) also have planets where life could form, which is where the 40 billion-planet figure comes from.

Like Goldilocks tasting the porridge, temperatures must be "just right" for life to develop: Planets must have a so-called "habitable zone" with "lukewarm temperatures, so that water would not be frozen into ice or vaporized into steam but instead remain a liquid, because liquid water is now understood to be the prerequisite for life," said Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at Berkeley.

The discovery was based on the most accurate statistical analysis yet of all the observations from the Kepler telescope, a space observatory launched in 2009 specifically designed to locate planets around other stars. Story Continues (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/04/earth-like-planets-milky-way-galaxy/3433449/)

[calikid]

Always nice to establish proof for a theory, and rule out competing theories.


Gravitational Waves from Big Bang Detected
A curved signature in the cosmic microwave background light provides proof of inflation and spacetime ripples
By Clara Moskowitz

Physicists have found a long-predicted twist in light from the big bang that represents the first image of ripples in the universe called gravitational waves, researchers announced today. The finding is direct proof of the theory of inflation, the idea that the universe expanded extremely quickly in the first fraction of a nanosecond after it was born. What’s more, the signal is coming through much more strongly than expected, ruling out a large class of inflation models and potentially pointing the way toward new theories of physics, experts say.

“This is huge,” says Marc Kamionkowski, professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in the discovery but who predicted back in 1997 how these gravitational wave imprints could be found. “It’s not every day that you wake up and find out something completely new about the early universe. To me this is as Nobel Prize–worthy as it gets.”

The Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 (BICEP2) experiment at the South Pole found a pattern called primordial B-mode polarization in the light left over from just after the big bang, known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This pattern, basically a curling in the polarization, or orientation, of the light, can be created only by gravitational waves produced by inflation. “It looks like a swirly pattern on the sky,” says Chao-Lin Kuo, a physicist at Stanford University, who designed the BICEP2 detector. “We’ve found the smoking gun evidence for inflation and we’ve also produced the first image of gravitational waves across the sky.”

Such a groundbreaking finding requires confirmation from other experiments to be truly believed, physicists say. Nevertheless, the result has won praise from many leaders in the field.Story continues (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-waves-cmb-b-mode-polarization/)

[touched]

Total Lunar Eclipse For Much Of U.S. April 14th ,15th Depending on your location.

Check table in link for your location-

http://www.vercalendario.info/en/moon/united_states-15-april-2014.html

Enjoy !

Cliff-67 :)

[calikid]

Total Lunar Eclipse For Much Of U.S. April 14th ,15th Depending on your location.

Check table in link for your location-

http://www.vercalendario.info/en/moon/united_states-15-april-2014.html

Enjoy !

Cliff-67 :)

Cool, Max eclipse a little past midnight on April 14, 2014 here in California. I'm even working outside that night, hope the cloud cover cooperates!

[Pandora'sParadox]

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=46932

:cool:

[calikid]

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=46932

:cool:

Nice, Saturn's Moon Enceladus joins Jupiter's Moon Europa as possibly having a large interior water ocean under a frozen water/ice exterior.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/images/14-099-enceladus_0_720.jpg

[touched]

Cool, Max eclipse a little past midnight on April 14, 2014 here in California. I'm even working outside that night, hope the cloud cover cooperates!

Reminder - Tonight !

I hope the weather permits for you (and everyone) to see this. It was 80 degrees Saturday here in S.W. Missouri. High of 40 today and snow. Luckily, the clouds opened up,,,,,for now.

[calikid]

Eclipse was very clear here in Cali.
Bright full moon, started to dim about 10pm and near 11pm the shadow started to creep in.
The evening had clear skies and it was a cool 60F. Very comfortable for star gazing.
Full eclipse just after Midnight.
Not nearly as "Blood" colored from my vantage point as the media hyped it, but still an awesome sight. :D

[CasperParks]

The Cosmos News
Astronomers confirmed first Earth size planet in habitable zone: Kepler (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCosmosNews/videos)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4hn_0WIE_E

[majicbar]

The Cosmos News
Astronomers confirmed first Earth size planet in habitable zone: Kepler (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCosmosNews/videos)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4hn_0WIE_E
NASA says next generation space telescopes will not tell us much more about this planet. I wonder if a giant telescope on the moon would do better, I would like to see that in mankind's future.

[Wally]

The Cosmos News
Astronomers confirmed first Earth size planet in habitable zone: Kepler (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCosmosNews/videos)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4hn_0WIE_E

This news may be worthy of it's own thread!

[CasperParks]

This news may be worthy of it's own thread!

I believe you are correct! It is important news.



The Cosmos News
Astronomers confirmed first Earth size planet in habitable zone: Kepler (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCosmosNews/videos)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4hn_0WIE_E

[majicbar]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/galaxy-quartet.html

Professional and Amateur Astronomers Join Forces
Long before the term "citizen science" was coined, the field of astronomy has benefited from countless men and women who study the sky in their spare time. These amateur astronomers devote hours exploring the cosmos through a variety of telescopes that they acquire, maintain, and improve on their own. Some of these amateur astronomers specialize in capturing what is seen through their telescopes in images and are astrophotographers.

What happens when the work of amateur astronomers and astrophotographers is combined with the data from some of the world's most sophisticated space telescopes? Collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers reveal the possibilities and are intended to raise interest and awareness among the community of the wealth of data publicly available in NASA's various mission archives. This effort is particularly appropriate for this month because April marks Global Astronomy Month, the world's largest global celebration of astronomy.

The images in this quartet of galaxies represent a sample of composites created with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data collected by an amateur astronomer. In these images, the X-rays from Chandra are shown in pink, infrared emission from Spitzer is red, and the optical data are in red, green, and blue. The two astrophotographers who donated their images for these four images -- Detlef Hartmann and Rolf Olsen -- used their personal telescopes of 17.5 inches and 10 inches in diameter respectively. More details on how these images were made can be found in this blog post.

Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, the galaxies are M101 (the "Pinwheel Galaxy"), M81, Centaurus A, and M51 (the "Whirlpool Galaxy"). M101 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but about 70% bigger. It is located about 21 million light years from Earth. M81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away that is both relatively large in the sky and bright, making it a frequent target for both amateur and professional astronomers. Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Finally, M51 is another spiral galaxy, about 30 million light years away, that is in the process of merging with a smaller galaxy seen to its upper left.

For many amateur astronomers and astrophotographers, a main goal of their efforts is to observe and share the wonders of the Universe. However, the long exposures of these objects may help to reveal phenomena that may otherwise be missed in the relatively short snapshots taken by major telescopes, which are tightly scheduled and often oversubscribed by professional astronomers. Therefore, projects like this Astro Pro-Am collaboration might prove useful not only for producing spectacular images, but also contributing to the knowledge of what is happening in each of these cosmic vistas.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[calikid]

Kind of creepy, almost looks like a doorway... but to where?


NASA Spots Square-Shaped 'Hole' in the Sun
By by Tariq Malik

A NASA spacecraft has made a surprising find on the surface of the sun: a square-shaped "hole" in the star's outer atmosphere.

The dark square on the sun, known as a "coronal hole," is an area where the solar wind is streaming out of the sun at superfast speeds. NASA captured a video of the sun's square-shaped coronal hole between Monday and Wednesday (May 5-7) using the powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

The coronal hole appears dark in the NASA view because there is less material emitting light in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum used to make the video, according to a NASA video description. [Biggest Solar Storms of 2014 (Photos)]

"Inside the coronal hole you can see bright loops where the hot plasma outlines little pieces of the solar magnetic field sticking above the surface," SDO officials wrote in the video description. "Because it is positioned so far south on the sun, there is less chance that the solar wind stream will impact us here on Earth."
Story Continues (http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-spots-square-shaped-hole-sun-video-102742679.html)

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/6MBzWW0h7Ypv5NF6fj4Ssg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQzMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Nz U7dz01NzU-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_US/News/SPACE.com/NASA_Spots_Square-Shaped_%27Hole%27_in-870c290d151a15c6e93c3169f856816f

[CasperParks]

NASA discovers Mega Earth


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g38LhEv-liI

[majicbar]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/04/gravitational-wave-discovery-challenged_n_5440197.html

In the pressure of "publish or perish", jumping the gun is all too common an occurrence. This is such a case in my opinion. Well thought out techniques and well considered hypotheses are critical when trying to prove groundbreaking ideas. With good referees things will be sorted out and the path to the truth should reappear.

[CasperParks]

Did Pluto's moon have an underground ocean?



Posted at NASA's Google Plus page: Click to view NASA's Google Plus page, there is an artist version of the planet. (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NASA/posts)

Cracks in Pluto's Moon Could Indicate it Once Had an Underground Ocean

If the icy surface of Pluto's giant moon Charon is cracked, analysis of the fractures could reveal if its interior was warm, perhaps warm enough to have maintained a subterranean ocean of liquid water, according to a new NASA-funded study.

Pluto is an extremely distant world, orbiting the sun more than 29 times farther than Earth. With a surface temperature estimated to be about 380 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (around minus 229 degrees Celsius), the environment at Pluto is far too cold to allow liquid water on its surface. Pluto's moons are in the same frigid environment.

Pluto's remoteness and small size make it difficult to observe, but in July of 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will be the first to visit Pluto and Charon, and will provide the most detailed observations to date.

This artist concept shows Pluto and some of its moons, as viewed from the surface of one of the moons. Pluto is the large disk at center. Charon is the smaller disk to the right.


Additional information on exploring Pluto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG5wtcIIAJc

[epo333]

Construction begins on a new alien-hunting telescope
Posted by: Jason McClellan June 19, 2014

Workers took the first step in building the world’s largest optical and infrared telescope on Thursday, June 19 by blowing up the top of a mountain. This alien-hunting telescope will be how large? The answer is extremely large.

As its name describes, the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will be massive. The telescope’s main mirror will be approximately one hundred twenty eight feet in diameter and composed of seven hundred ninety eight hexagonal six foot mirror segments, each of which can be moved independently. As Wired points out, “The current crop of really big telescopes pale in comparison.�


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkDlHjZNpeE#t=80

http://www.openminds.tv/construction-begins-new-alien-hunting-telescope/28379

[calikid]

Haste makes waste.

Big Bang breakthrough team allows they may be wrong

American astrophysicists who announced just months ago what they deemed a breakthrough in confirming how the universe was born now admit they may have got it wrong.

The team said it had identified gravitational waves that apparently rippled through space right after the Big Bang.

If proven to be correctly identified, these waves -- predicted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- would confirm the rapid and violent growth spurt of the universe in the first fraction of a second marking its existence, 13.8 billion years ago.

The apparent first direct evidence of such so-called cosmic inflation -- a theory that the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times in barely the blink of an eye -- was announced in March by experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The detection was made with the help of a telescope called BICEP2, stationed at the South Pole.

After weeks in which they avoided the media, the team published its work Thursday in the US journal Physical Review Letters.

In a summary, the team said their models "are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal," as stated by other scientists who questioned their conclusion. Story COntinues (http://news.yahoo.com/big-bang-breakthrough-team-allows-may-wrong-114835743.html)

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/df76XbLd7T1AfQ9aWplKkQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU1NDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Nz U7dz03Njg-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/a37f0df0e361b37d05a78022870191e6b81575c2.jpg

[CasperParks]

Haste makes waste.

Big Bang breakthrough team allows they may be wrong

American astrophysicists who announced just months ago what they deemed a breakthrough in confirming how the universe was born now admit they may have got it wrong.

The team said it had identified gravitational waves that apparently rippled through space right after the Big Bang.

If proven to be correctly identified, these waves -- predicted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- would confirm the rapid and violent growth spurt of the universe in the first fraction of a second marking its existence, 13.8 billion years ago.

The apparent first direct evidence of such so-called cosmic inflation -- a theory that the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times in barely the blink of an eye -- was announced in March by experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The detection was made with the help of a telescope called BICEP2, stationed at the South Pole.

After weeks in which they avoided the media, the team published its work Thursday in the US journal Physical Review Letters.

In a summary, the team said their models "are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal," as stated by other scientists who questioned their conclusion. Story COntinues (http://news.yahoo.com/big-bang-breakthrough-team-allows-may-wrong-114835743.html)

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/df76XbLd7T1AfQ9aWplKkQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU1NDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Nz U7dz03Njg-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/a37f0df0e361b37d05a78022870191e6b81575c2.jpg

True test of science progress, admitting when they got it wrong and moving forward toward a broader understanding.

[majicbar]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1407/filament_sdo_1920.jpg

SDO detail of solar filiment, very impressive.

[majicbar]

NPR radio report of the WOW Signal from 2007. Now there have been several reports of the Australian radio telescope detecting several more WOW signals. But my ears perked up when they said similar signal was detected at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and I think he said Europe as well. This means that a new class of radio signal is being detected, maybe very natural, but then again maybe not. Papers are being reviewed and will be published in the professional journals this year yet.

[calikid]

Missed us by that much.
Projected Trillions of dollars in damage to the US alone if the Earth had been struck.

That was a close one! Study: Massive solar storm barely missed us in 2012
By Carter Maguire

"Here comes the sun" indeed, and it was just barely all right.

Two years ago, modern infrastructure came very close to a serious disruption. The culprit? One of the largest solar storms in recorded history.

Plasma exploding from the surface of the sun in a coronal mass ejection barreled through space and crossed through Earth's orbital path on July 23, 2012.

If the flare had erupted about one week earlier, Earth would have been squarely in the line of fire, Daniel N. Baker wrote in a study published in the journal Space Weather. (Baker is with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado).
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/25/tech/2012-solar-storm/index.html?hpt=hp_c3)

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120713041502-sun-flare-e-horizontal-gallery.jpg

[calikid]

I recall a probe called Stardust a few years back collected dust samples from a comet tail, but Rosetta plans to land probe. That will be exciting!

'We're in orbit!' Rosetta becomes first spacecraft to orbit comet
By Dave Gilbert and Nick Thompson

After a 10-year chase taking it billions of miles across the solar system, the Rosetta spacecraft made history Wednesday as it became the first probe to rendezvous with a comet on its journey around the sun.

"Thruster burn complete. Rosetta has arrived at comet 67P. We're in orbit!" announced the European Space Agency, which is leading the ambitious project, on Twitter.

Rosetta fired its thrusters on its final approach to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, known as "Chury" for short, on Wednesday morning. Half an hour after the burn, scientists announced that the craft had entered into the orbit of the streaking comet.

"After 10 years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the Sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion kilometers, we are delighted to announce finally 'we are here'," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's Director General, in a statement.

"Europe's Rosetta is now the first spacecraft in history to rendezvous with a comet, a major highlight in exploring our origins. Discoveries can start."

ESA tweeted a photo of the comet after Rosetta's maneuver. Chury and the space probe now lie some 405 million kilometers from Earth, about half way between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, according to ESA.

The mission has now achieved the first of what it hopes will be a series of historic accomplishments. In November mission controllers aim to place the robotic lander Philae on the surface -- something that has never been done before.

Previous missions have performed comet fly-bys but Rosetta is different. This probe will follow the comet for more than a year, mapping and measuring how it changes as it is blasted by the sun's energy.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/06/world/rosetta-spacecraft-comet-approach/)

[Garuda]

I recall a probe called Stardust a few years back collected dust samples from a comet tail, but Rosetta plans to land probe. That will be exciting!

'We're in orbit!' Rosetta becomes first spacecraft to orbit comet
By Dave Gilbert and Nick Thompson

After a 10-year chase taking it billions of miles across the solar system, the Rosetta spacecraft made history Wednesday as it became the first probe to rendezvous with a comet on its journey around the sun.

"Thruster burn complete. Rosetta has arrived at comet 67P. We're in orbit!" announced the European Space Agency, which is leading the ambitious project, on Twitter.

Rosetta fired its thrusters on its final approach to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, known as "Chury" for short, on Wednesday morning. Half an hour after the burn, scientists announced that the craft had entered into the orbit of the streaking comet.

"After 10 years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the Sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion kilometers, we are delighted to announce finally 'we are here'," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's Director General, in a statement.

"Europe's Rosetta is now the first spacecraft in history to rendezvous with a comet, a major highlight in exploring our origins. Discoveries can start."

ESA tweeted a photo of the comet after Rosetta's maneuver. Chury and the space probe now lie some 405 million kilometers from Earth, about half way between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, according to ESA.

The mission has now achieved the first of what it hopes will be a series of historic accomplishments. In November mission controllers aim to place the robotic lander Philae on the surface -- something that has never been done before.

Previous missions have performed comet fly-bys but Rosetta is different. This probe will follow the comet for more than a year, mapping and measuring how it changes as it is blasted by the sun's energy.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/06/world/rosetta-spacecraft-comet-approach/)


There's a thread about it, started by majicbar, here
http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?1744-Rosetta-Comet-Mission

[calikid]

NASA seeks YOUR help cataloging photos.
WHo knows, might be a UFO hidden somewhere in the batch!

Image overload: Help us sort it all out, NASA requests
By Eliott C. McLaughlin

NASA is asking for your help.

No, you do not get to go to space.

You do, however, get to view hundreds of thousands of images taken from space. Via The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, NASA is making available images ranging from the Mercury missions of the 1960s to photos recently snapped from the International Space Station.

The hope, NASA says, is that the images "could help save energy, contribute to better human health and safety and improve our understanding of atmospheric chemistry. But scientists need your help to make that happen."

The catalog contains more than 1.8 million photos, about 1.3 million of them from the space station and roughly 30% of them taken at night.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/17/tech/nasa-earth-images-help-needed/index.html?iref=allsearch)

[calikid]

Hi-Def camera with a live feed on the space station.
This could get interesting!

See the UFO? No? Try squinting. Squint harder
By Ben Brumfield

Down on Earth, we all know: Do anything stupid these days, and video of it will turn up on the Internet to embarrass you.

Now, space aliens may be about learn that lesson, too.

NASA deployed live webcams on the International Space Station in March, and UFO enthusiasts monitoring their live feeds online have nabbed unidentified flying objects scooting through Earth's orbit.

They've made screen grabs of the NASA video and posted them online. UFOlogist Scott Waring may have been the first, when he plastered them onto his blog, UFO Sightings Daily, early last week.

Highlighted by a red circle and clearly visible is -- a speck. A white one. An enlargement of the screen grab reveals -- a blur.

A note explains the alleged vehicle's shape: "It has a long line down its middle and a dome on its top, but is rectangle on it lower bottom."

If you still don't recognize it, don't worry, it's not called "unidentified" for nothing. And it's hard to know for sure what it is, with all the meteors, satellites and space junk swarming around Earth.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/tech/innovation/ufo-fun-with-iss-cameras/index.html?iref=allsearch)

[calikid]

Photo of Triton reminds me a precious gemstone, opal.
25 years later? That's a long development process.

NASA Unveils Best Map Ever of Neptune's Moon Triton
By Mike Wall
A scientist has created the best-ever global color map of Neptune's big moon Triton, using images taken by a NASA spacecraft 25 years ago.

Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston produced the map after restoring photos snapped by the Voyager 2 probe during its flyby of Neptune and Triton on Aug. 25, 1989. The new map has also been turned into a minute-long movie of Voyager 2's historic Triton encounter — the first and only time a spacecraft has ever visited the Neptune system.

The new map, which has a resolution of 1,970 feet (600 meters) per pixel, may help bring enigmatic Triton back into the spotlight. Story Continues (http://www.space.com/26907-neptune-moon-triton-map-voyager-2.html)


http://www.space.com/images/i/000/041/540/original/neptune-moon-triton-voyager2.jpg?1408704307

[CasperParks]

It would be surprising if some sort of marine life is found beneath the ice in the waters of Triton and Europa.

[CasperParks]

It would be surprising if some sort of marine life is found beneath the ice in the waters of Triton and Europa.

correction - typo "It would not be surprising" if some sort of marine life is found...

[majicbar]

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/asteroid/small-asteroid-to-safely-pass-close-to-earth-sunday/index.html#.VAezVPldUfU

Only discovered on the 31st of August of this year, (this week), this 60 foot (18 meter) small chunk of rock will glider under the ring of geosynchronous satellites at 25,000 miles from Earth's center, from the press release it looks like this is a one pass wonder, not to return again. It is roughly a bit larger than the bolide that entered over Russia, bu I'm glad to see that it will miss us.

[majicbar]

http://www.space.com/27102-bright-quasar-mystery-solved.html?cmpid=514630_20140910_31383596

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7517/full/nature13712.html

Study has found that the suspected nature of Quasars is driven by it's being a "Black Hole" and the size of the Black hole and the disc of gasses surrounding it and the angle to which it is viewed explain the variations we see in Black Holes.

"Our results show that most of the diversity of quasar phenomenology can be unified using two simple quantities: Eddington ratio and orientation."

[calikid]

http://www.space.com/27102-bright-quasar-mystery-solved.html?cmpid=514630_20140910_31383596

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7517/full/nature13712.html

Study has found that the suspected nature of Quasars is driven by it's being a "Black Hole" and the size of the Black hole and the disc of gasses surrounding it and the angle to which it is viewed explain the variations we see in Black Holes.

"Our results show that most of the diversity of quasar phenomenology can be unified using two simple quantities: Eddington ratio and orientation."

Amazing the variety of theories on Quasars over the years.
Back in the 1970s, (now I feel old!) when I took astronomy at university, the theory was it was a single large star that INCREDIBLY emitted as much radiation as a galaxy.

Would seem that today's better instruments provide a more solid theory.

[calikid]

Always smart to check the expiration date on bottled water before you buy.

Earth's water older than the sun, came from interstellar ice

The water in our solar system -- including up to half of Earth's supply -- has actually been here since before the birth of the sun, according to new research.
by Michelle Starr

Somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the water in the solar system -- including the water on Earth as well as the ice in comets, the discs around Saturn, meteorites and other planets -- was around before the birth of the sun, according to research conducted by astronomers at the University of Michigan.

In a paper published in the journal Science, the team explains that the water originated in the molecular cloud -- the nebula -- that gave birth to the sun, and predates the solar system by around a million years.

In the way of stars, the sun was born from a nebula, a cloud of dust and gas floating in space. As the nebula increased in density, its gravity would have caused it to collapse in on itself, forming a rotating ball of gas. As this ball cools, it becomes denser and its spin increases, and the gas and matter of the nebula around it form a flattened disc of material that swirls into the star's gravitational pull.

This disc is called the accretion disc -- or the protoplanetary disc. As the gas in the centre of the disc stabilises into a fully grown star, so too does the disc stabilise and coalesce into discrete planets and asteroids. A delicate balance of gravitational force (the sun's gravity attracting objects towards the sun) and centripetal force (the resisting force or the planet's spin around the sun -- think of spinning a ball on a rope) hold these objects in the solar system's orbit.

What the researchers sought to discover was whether the water was already extant in the sun's parental nebula, or whether the birth of the solar system also birthed the water within it.

"Why this is important? If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," said Carnegie Institution for Science's Conel Alexander, who contributed to the research.

"But if the early Solar System's water was largely the result of local chemical processing during the Sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere.

To figure out where the water originated, the research team simulated the chemistry of the forming solar system
Story Continues (http://www.cnet.com/news/earths-water-older-than-the-sun-came-from-interstellar-ice/)

[majicbar]

Always smart to check the expiration date on bottled water before you buy.

Earth's water older than the sun, came from interstellar ice

The water in our solar system -- including up to half of Earth's supply -- has actually been here since before the birth of the sun, according to new research.
by Michelle Starr

Somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the water in the solar system -- including the water on Earth as well as the ice in comets, the discs around Saturn, meteorites and other planets -- was around before the birth of the sun, according to research conducted by astronomers at the University of Michigan.

In a paper published in the journal Science, the team explains that the water originated in the molecular cloud -- the nebula -- that gave birth to the sun, and predates the solar system by around a million years.

In the way of stars, the sun was born from a nebula, a cloud of dust and gas floating in space. As the nebula increased in density, its gravity would have caused it to collapse in on itself, forming a rotating ball of gas. As this ball cools, it becomes denser and its spin increases, and the gas and matter of the nebula around it form a flattened disc of material that swirls into the star's gravitational pull.

This disc is called the accretion disc -- or the protoplanetary disc. As the gas in the centre of the disc stabilises into a fully grown star, so too does the disc stabilise and coalesce into discrete planets and asteroids. A delicate balance of gravitational force (the sun's gravity attracting objects towards the sun) and centripetal force (the resisting force or the planet's spin around the sun -- think of spinning a ball on a rope) hold these objects in the solar system's orbit.

What the researchers sought to discover was whether the water was already extant in the sun's parental nebula, or whether the birth of the solar system also birthed the water within it.

"Why this is important? If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," said Carnegie Institution for Science's Conel Alexander, who contributed to the research.

"But if the early Solar System's water was largely the result of local chemical processing during the Sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere.
h
To figure out where the water originated, the research team simulated the chemistry of the forming solar systemw
Story Continues (http://www.cnet.com/news/earths-water-older-than-the-sun-came-from-interstellar-ice/)
This only says that the comets and asteroids formed soon after the supernovas that created the intersteller medium from which our solar system would form. The greater density of the supernovas ejecta make it more likely to gather the material than molecular aggregation in the solar disc which would be warmer and more energetic.

[calikid]

What's next for the European Space Agency? Glad you asked!

From ice to fire: after hopping on a comet, ESA now looks at Mercury
By Jacopo Prisco

After landing a probe on an icy comet and possibly shedding new light on the origins of life on Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now looking at scorching-hot Mercury for its next mission.

The innermost planet of our solar system orbits so close to the Sun that, in some instances, surface temperature surpasses 400 °C. Areas of the planet without sunlight, on the other hand, can become as cold as -170 °C.

No other planet has variations in temperature so severe.

The reason for this is the absence of any significant atmosphere, which Mercury is too hot and too small to retain. With a diameter of just over 3,000 miles, it's just a third larger than the Moon, and smaller than two other moons in the solar system -- Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Ganymede.

ESA's mission to Mercury will tentatively launch on 21 July 2016, to reach Mercury's orbit seven and a half years later, in 2024. The spacecraft is called BepiColombo -- in honor of Italian space pioneer Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo.

Mercury is the least studied of the inner planets, but it has many peculiarities.

"Mercury is special," said Johannes Benkhoff, the project scientist in charge of the BepiColombo mission, "It's the densest planet in our solar system, even denser than Earth - if we consider uncompressed density - and has a magnetic field, like Earth, that no one expected before, so I guess it's a cool planet to go to."

There are many challenging aspects to a mission to Mercury, most prominently its proximity to the Sun, with its mighty gravitational pull and intense radiation.

The planet's high orbital velocity of 48 kilometers per second -- compared to Earth's 30 kilometers per second -- is also an issue. Any probe en route to Mercury must not only cover an average linear distance of 48 million miles, but carefully gauge its velocity so that it can catch the fast planet's orbit without getting sucked into the Sun's gravitational well.

As a result, only two missions have visited Mercury so far.

The first was NASA's Mariner 10, launched in 1973. Story Continues
(http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/tech/innovation/mci-bepicolombo-mercury-mission-esa/index.html?iref=allsearch)

[majicbar]

What's next for the European Space Agency? Glad you asked!

From ice to fire: after hopping on a comet, ESA now looks at Mercury
By Jacopo Prisco

After landing a probe on an icy comet and possibly shedding new light on the origins of life on Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now looking at scorching-hot Mercury for its next mission.

The innermost planet of our solar system orbits so close to the Sun that, in some instances, surface temperature surpasses 400 °C. Areas of the planet without sunlight, on the other hand, can become as cold as -170 °C.

No other planet has variations in temperature so severe.

The reason for this is the absence of any significant atmosphere, which Mercury is too hot and too small to retain. With a diameter of just over 3,000 miles, it's just a third larger than the Moon, and smaller than two other moons in the solar system -- Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Ganymede.

ESA's mission to Mercury will tentatively launch on 21 July 2016, to reach Mercury's orbit seven and a half years later, in 2024. The spacecraft is called BepiColombo -- in honor of Italian space pioneer Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo.

Mercury is the least studied of the inner planets, but it has many peculiarities.

"Mercury is special," said Johannes Benkhoff, the project scientist in charge of the BepiColombo mission, "It's the densest planet in our solar system, even denser than Earth - if we consider uncompressed density - and has a magnetic field, like Earth, that no one expected before, so I guess it's a cool planet to go to."

There are many challenging aspects to a mission to Mercury, most prominently its proximity to the Sun, with its mighty gravitational pull and intense radiation.

The planet's high orbital velocity of 48 kilometers per second -- compared to Earth's 30 kilometers per second -- is also an issue. Any probe en route to Mercury must not only cover an average linear distance of 48 million miles, but carefully gauge its velocity so that it can catch the fast planet's orbit without getting sucked into the Sun's gravitational well.

As a result, only two missions have visited Mercury so far.

The first was NASA's Mariner 10, launched in 1973. Story Continues
(http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/tech/innovation/mci-bepicolombo-mercury-mission-esa/index.html?iref=allsearch)Mercury's rotation is so slow that a day is longer than it's orbital period twice over. Ideally if one land on the dark side near either pole, it could send missions to the daylight side and return. Radioactive plutonium power would be necessary to operate on the night side, experience with the Curiosity rover has proven the success of such a system. The mission profile will be an interesting engineering challenge however it is done.

[calikid]

I can't help but wonder the rate of growth on a black hole this old. Did it start out big? Or just feed over the eons and grow? The idea of a black hole forming from interstellar gas is new to me, only heard of the Supernova formation prior to this.
Scientists discover black hole 12 billion times more massive than the sun

By Susannah Cullinane

Researchers in China have spotted a supermassive black hole, which they say is 12 billion times more massive than the Sun and formed around 900 million years after the Big Bang.

The black hole is larger than any of its age previously seen, the journal Nature reports.

A black hole is a dense region of space that has collapsed in on itself in a way that means nothing can escape it, not even light.

Releasing their findings in Nature, researchers led by teams from China's Peking University and the University of Arizona said the black hole -- named SDSS J010013.02 -- was six times larger than its biggest known contemporaries.

"The existence of such black holes when the universe was less than one billion years old presents substantial challenges to theories of the formation and growth of black holes and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies," they said.

Nature reported that lead researcher Xue-Bing Wu of Peking University and his colleagues first sighted the black hole using a telescope in Yunnan, China, and used additional telescopes around the world to examine it.

In a media release, the University of Arizona said that the black hole powered "the brightest quasar of the early universe." NASA describes quasars as "the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured material, and in the process, heating some of the matter to millions of degrees."

Team member Fuyun Bian, from the Australian National University, said that the light from a quasar was thought to push back material behind it and limit the growth of black holes.

"However this black hole at the center of the quasar gained enormous mass in a short period of time," Bian said.

Another researcher, Chris Willott, told Nature that a possible explanation could be that some black holes were formed by the collapse of a very large gas cloud -- rather than that of a single star.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/world/space-black-hole-new/index.html)

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyQpHfUJ_Qik0M80-G5QZ5L_k8kqLSGSjWPrlkvOonRTddriRV

[CasperParks]

I can't help but wonder the rate of growth on a black hole this old. Did it start out big? Or just feed over the eons and grow? The idea of a black hole forming from interstellar gas is new to me, only heard of the Supernova formation prior to this.
Scientists discover black hole 12 billion times more massive than the sun

By Susannah Cullinane

Researchers in China have spotted a supermassive black hole, which they say is 12 billion times more massive than the Sun and formed around 900 million years after the Big Bang.

The black hole is larger than any of its age previously seen, the journal Nature reports.

A black hole is a dense region of space that has collapsed in on itself in a way that means nothing can escape it, not even light.

Releasing their findings in Nature, researchers led by teams from China's Peking University and the University of Arizona said the black hole -- named SDSS J010013.02 -- was six times larger than its biggest known contemporaries.

"The existence of such black holes when the universe was less than one billion years old presents substantial challenges to theories of the formation and growth of black holes and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies," they said.

Nature reported that lead researcher Xue-Bing Wu of Peking University and his colleagues first sighted the black hole using a telescope in Yunnan, China, and used additional telescopes around the world to examine it.

In a media release, the University of Arizona said that the black hole powered "the brightest quasar of the early universe." NASA describes quasars as "the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured material, and in the process, heating some of the matter to millions of degrees."

Team member Fuyun Bian, from the Australian National University, said that the light from a quasar was thought to push back material behind it and limit the growth of black holes.

"However this black hole at the center of the quasar gained enormous mass in a short period of time," Bian said.

Another researcher, Chris Willott, told Nature that a possible explanation could be that some black holes were formed by the collapse of a very large gas cloud -- rather than that of a single star.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/world/space-black-hole-new/index.html)

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyQpHfUJ_Qik0M80-G5QZ5L_k8kqLSGSjWPrlkvOonRTddriRV

Lot of great scientific theories regarding black holes. As we progress into the stars, many of those theories could be upended.

Exploration of our Environment is not strictly Earthbound and must include solar, planetary and beyond.

[calikid]

So..... 6 more weeks of winter?

Comet flyby: OSIRIS catches glimpse of Rosetta’s shadow

Images from the OSIRIS scientific imaging camera taken during the close flyby on 14 February have now been downlinked to Earth, revealing the surface of Comet 67P/C-G in unprecedented detail, and including the shadow of the spacecraft encircled in a wreath of light.

The image released today shows an area near the edge of the comet’s “belly” close to the Imhotep-Ash regional boundary, where a mesh of steep slopes separates smooth-looking terrains from a craggier area. The image was taken from a distance of 6 km from the comet’s surface and has a resolution of 11 cm/pixel. It covers an area of 228 x 228 m.

To better identify the exact region on the comet, in the graphic below we compare the new OSIRIS narrow-angle camera image with a wider view of the comet, along with the NAVCAM image taken at 14:15 UT, noting that there are uncertainties in the distance to the surface and change in perspective between the images. Indeed, while the match on the smooth-looking region at the bottom of the NAC image in the displayed orientation is good, it is harder to match the upper half because of the lack of shadows in the NAC image, and because the geometry/viewing perspective has changed between the images. This means that the NAC image would have to be distorted and "draped" over the surface to fit the NAVCAM properly. To better understand the relationship of the images, you can download a short movie that fades through the images here.

During the flyby, Rosetta not only passed closer by the comet than ever before, but also passed through a unique observational geometry: for a short time the Sun, spacecraft, and comet were exactly aligned. In this geometry, surface structures cast almost no shadows, and therefore the reflection properties of the surface material can be discerned.

“Images taken from this viewpoint are of high scientific value,” says OSIRIS Principal Investigator Holger Sierks from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. “This kind of view is key for the study of grain sizes.”

As a side effect of this exceptional observational geometry, Rosetta’s shadow can be seen cast on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G as a fuzzy rectangular-shaped dark spot surrounded by a bright halo-like region.

The shadow is fuzzy and somewhat larger than Rosetta itself, measuring....
Story Continues (http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/03/03/comet-flyby-osiris-catches-glimpse-of-rosettas-shadow/)

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/files/2015/03/ESA_Rosetta_OSIRISnac_20150214T12.39.20-1024x1024.jpg

[calikid]

To bad Venus has runaway greenhouse gases. Might have been more habitable than Mars. If only....
Naked Venus: What it looks like under its cloud clothes

Take a peek beneath the carbon-dioxide clouds of Venus with radar data that sees its surface secrets.

by Amanda Kooser

Venus is a shy planet that hangs out in the solar system, 25 million miles away from Earth. When seen from a ground telescope here, it looks like a clouded marble. The surface is hidden away under a thick coating of carbon-dioxide clouds.

It turns out Venus is hiding some dramatic surface features ranging from volcanoes to craters. A new image released by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) lifts the veil for a look at what lies beneath the clouds.

The image came about by combining the work of the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (a radio telescope in West Virginia) and the radar transmitter at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

The NRAO explains how it works: "The radar signals from Arecibo passed through both our planet's atmosphere and the atmosphere of Venus, where they hit the surface and bounced back to be received by the GBT in a process known as bistatic radar."

The result is an image showing mountains and craters.
Story Continues (http://www.cnet.com/news/naked-venus-what-it-looks-like-under-its-cloud-clothes/)


http://bigonlinenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ce610_venus-578x330.jpg
The picture of Venus was combined with radar information collected in 2012.
NRAO/AUI/NSF, Arecibo

[calikid]

Fires the imagination, can some primitive lifeform possibly exist in that cold dark ocean?

Jupiter's Moon Ganymede Has a Salty Ocean with More Water than Earth
By Miriam Kramer

A salty ocean is lurking beneath the surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found.

The ocean on Ganymede — which is buried under a thick crust of ice — could actually harbor more water than all of Earth's surface water combined, according to NASA officials. Scientists think the ocean is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick, 10 times the depth of Earth's oceans, NASA added. The new Hubble Space Telescope finding could also help scientists learn more about the plethora of potentially watery worlds that exist in the solar system and beyond.

"The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place," Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, said during a news teleconference...
Story Continues (http://news.yahoo.com/jupiters-moon-ganymede-salty-ocean-more-water-earth-182011679.html)

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/6Qa2IGNPW56yx9rj7vczrw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM3NztweG9mZj01MDtweW 9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_US/News/SPACE.com/Jupiter%27s_Moon_Ganymede_Has_a-1ca79ce25af474bd03678c4e311c6c56

[CasperParks]

Fires the imagination, can some primitive lifeform possibly exist in that cold dark ocean?

Jupiter's Moon Ganymede Has a Salty Ocean with More Water than Earth
By Miriam Kramer

A salty ocean is lurking beneath the surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found.

The ocean on Ganymede — which is buried under a thick crust of ice — could actually harbor more water than all of Earth's surface water combined, according to NASA officials. Scientists think the ocean is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick, 10 times the depth of Earth's oceans, NASA added. The new Hubble Space Telescope finding could also help scientists learn more about the plethora of potentially watery worlds that exist in the solar system and beyond.

"The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place," Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, said during a news teleconference...
Story Continues (http://news.yahoo.com/jupiters-moon-ganymede-salty-ocean-more-water-earth-182011679.html)

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/6Qa2IGNPW56yx9rj7vczrw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM3NztweG9mZj01MDtweW 9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02NzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_US/News/SPACE.com/Jupiter%27s_Moon_Ganymede_Has_a-1ca79ce25af474bd03678c4e311c6c56

New life forms are discovered in Earth's oceans at greater and greater depths, plus at both poles. It is highly possible oceans under layers of ice and or land have life on other planets.

[majicbar]

Haste makes waste.

Big Bang breakthrough team allows they may be wrong

American astrophysicists who announced just months ago what they deemed a breakthrough in confirming how the universe was born now admit they may have got it wrong.

The team said it had identified gravitational waves that apparently rippled through space right after the Big Bang.

If proven to be correctly identified, these waves -- predicted in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- would confirm the rapid and violent growth spurt of the universe in the first fraction of a second marking its existence, 13.8 billion years ago.

The apparent first direct evidence of such so-called cosmic inflation -- a theory that the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times in barely the blink of an eye -- was announced in March by experts at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The detection was made with the help of a telescope called BICEP2, stationed at the South Pole.

After weeks in which they avoided the media, the team published its work Thursday in the US journal Physical Review Letters.

In a summary, the team said their models "are not sufficiently constrained by external public data to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal," as stated by other scientists who questioned their conclusion. Story COntinues (http://news.yahoo.com/big-bang-breakthrough-team-allows-may-wrong-114835743.html)

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/df76XbLd7T1AfQ9aWplKkQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU1NDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Nz U7dz03Njg-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/a37f0df0e361b37d05a78022870191e6b81575c2.jpg

In a discussion posted in space.com another experiment better positioned has confirmed the general idea of the inflationary growth of the Universe, see:

http://m.space.com/28808-did-cosmic-inflation-really-jump-start-the-universe-kavli-hangout.html?cmpid=514630_20150314_41999316&adbid=10152693957401466&adbpl=fb&adbpr=17610706465

[calikid]

While it was not visible from my vantage point in the U.S., photos look quite striking of the recent solar eclipse. Amazing red loops.

Reports from March 20’s Total Solar Eclipse
By: Kelly Beatty

With risky prospects on far-northern islands and at a premium aboard aircraft, observers looked on with awe as the Moon's shadow swept across the Arctic Ocean.

Today's total solar eclipse has come and gone, and now some of the stories of diehard amateur astronomers who went to great lengths and costs to observe it can be told.

Earth-Moon geometry combined to create a path of totality that began over the North Atlantic well south of Greenland, just missed clipping Iceland, and then arced up into the remote Arctic Ocean before lifting off Earth at the North Pole. The only bits of dry land in this eclipse's unusually wide swath (due to the lunar shadow's relatively glancing contact) were the remote Faroe Islands and the Svalbard archipelago.

Observers who trekked to the Faroes had mixed success. Some observers saw none of the eclipsed Sun at all. From a spot southwest of Tórshavn, the capital and largest city, David Baron caught only a glimpse of the partial phases leading up to the big event. "I saw the corona for about two seconds before third contact," he reports. "A half hour later, the skies became gloriously clear." At the Vagar airport, onlookers caught about 1¼ minutes of totality. "The diamond ring through cloud (with iridescence) was amazing," says Paul Deans, "and the prominences and corona were stunning." But clouds rolled in before third contact, and about 5 minutes later, it was raining.

It was a different story in Svalbard, farther northeast along the track. There crystal clear skies — and bitter cold — ruled the day. Here's a report from Canadian meteorologist Jay Anderson:

"We had an exceptional eclipse on Svalbard, with crystal-clear skies, light winds, and bitter temperatures. The Sun was perfectly positioned in a notch in the hills to the south, while prominent snow-mantled mountains set off the north. The corona was a stunning solar-max prototype. I counted eight helmet plumes as seen through binoculars but could have added more. Two prominences stood out on the top and left and several minor ones completed the lunar necklace. We saw shadow bands on ingress and egress, for about 15 seconds at each contact.
Story Continues (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/reports-march-20-total-solar-eclipse-032020153/)

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/March_2015_total_eclipse_Wong.jpg

[calikid]

Got up at 6am today.
Picked up the newspaper and read there was a total lunar eclipse.... At 5am. D'oh!
Just missed it.

[calikid]

Possibly mineral deposits? What do YOU think?

Weird Bright Spots on Dwarf Planet Ceres Still a Mystery in New Maps
by Elizabeth Howell

Strange bright spots on the surface of the Ceres continue to mystify scientists even as NASA's Dawn spacecraft is beaming the best maps yet of the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt.

The latest photos of Ceres from Dawn, which NASA released on Monday (April 13), were captured just before the spacecraft entered orbit around the dwarf planet in March. Dawn is now in the shadow of Ceres, forcing scientists to wait until later this month before catching their next day lit view of the surface.

While about 10 bright spots on Ceres have been detected in photos by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Dawn spacecraft has revealed that the two most prominent are in a crater about 57 miles wide (92 kilometers).
Story Continues (http://www.space.com/29110-mystery-bright-spots-ceres-dawn-maps.html)

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/046/968/i02/DwarfplanetCeres.jpg?1429061864

[calikid]

About 10 weeks out and counting. The first close up/fly by shots of Pluto are on track for July 2015.

NASA's New Horizons probe is visiting Pluto — and just sent back its first color photos
by Joseph Stromberg

No spacecraft has ever visited Pluto. That's going to change on July 14, when NASA's New Horizons probe will fly within 6,200 miles of the dwarf planet after a nine-year journey.

"This is pure exploration," Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, said during a Tuesday press conference in which the probe's first color photos of Pluto and its moon Charon were released. "We’re going to turn points of light into a planet and a system of moons before your eyes."


...........Next month, New Horizons will start taking sharper ones. As Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society puts it, every photo the probe takes will be the best photo ever taken of Pluto. They may show polar ice caps, mountains, and perhaps even volcanic activity.
Story Continues (http://www.vox.com/2015/4/14/8412031/pluto-new-horizons)

https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WPOhES30rNp6WENsllP3CGlvj0E=/600x0/filters:no_upscale%28%29/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2520286/20130726_new_horizons_diagram_f840.0.jpg

[CasperParks]

I am looking forward to those images of Pluto.

[calikid]

Another one bites the dust. What do you do when your probe is out of gas, and no service station is in sight? Odd they can't just park it in orbit.

Spacecraft to make death dive into Mercury
By Amanda Barnett

.....The NASA spacecraft MESSENGER (an acronym for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is about to crash onto Mercury.

The probe was launched in 2004 and traveled more than six and a half years before it started orbiting Mercury on March 18, 2011. Now, MESSENGER is running out of fuel and NASA says it will hit the planet's surface at 8,750 mph (3.91 kilometers per second) around April 30.

You won't be able to see it hit because Messenger will crash on the side of Mercury facing away from Earth.

There's no way to save the spacecraft, but mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, have been doing what they can to delay the inevitable. They've been using the little bit of fuel left on board to maneuver the spacecraft to keep it in orbit. They'll do one final maneuver on Friday, April 24.

"Following this last maneuver, we will finally declare the spacecraft out of propellant, as this maneuver will deplete nearly all of our remaining helium gas," mission systems engineer Daniel O'Shaughnessy said at a recent media briefing. "At that point, the spacecraft will no longer be capable of fighting the downward push of the sun's gravity."
Story continues (http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/us/nasa-messenger-spacecraft-crashing-on-mercury/index.html)

[calikid]

The "death dive" did help unveil the age of Mercury's magnetosphere. Apparently MUCH older than once thought at 4,000,000,000 years old. Nearly as old as the planet itself.


Mercury’s magnetosphere is almost as old as the planet itself, says new study



By Justin Beach, National Monitor | May 09, 2015




Data from the Messenger spacecraft shows that Mercury’s magnetic field is nearly 4 billion years old.




Last week NASA’s Messenger mission, to study the planet Mercury, came to an abrupt halt when the spacecraft finally ran out of fuel and crashed. However, data from the mission will continue to provide new information about Mercury for some time to come.

The latest discovery about the planet closest to the sun is that its magnetosphere is nearly 4 billion years old. The discovery provides new insight into the history of Mercury and the early history of our solar system.

The study, published in Science Express, uses data gathered in 2014 and 2015 during one of Messengers closest passes to Mercury. The spacecraft was within The spacecraft was within 10 miles of the planet when the data was acquired.




Scientists have known that Mercury had a weak magnetosphere for awhile. While it is not as strong as the Earth’s, it is thought to be the only other body in the inner solar system to have a magnetosphere. The magnetic field is generated by molten iron within the spinning core of the planet.

Mars is thought to have had a magnetosphere at one time, but it was lost at some point about 3 billion years ago. That roughly corresponds to the time when Mars is thought to have lost much of its water and atmosphere.

This presents a challenge for those hoping to “terraform” Mars. While it is possible to introduce more water and possibly microbial and plant life to the planet, there is no known way to reboot a magnetosphere.

The Earth’s magnetosphere blocks most of the solar wind and solar radiation. Without it the Earth would be much warmer, dryer and level of radiation would be much higher. Although Mercury also has a magnetosphere, its proximity to the sun makes it much to warm to support life, as we know it.

Being close to the sun also makes Mercury more of a target for asteroids and meteors. In addition to its heavily cratered surface, Mercury’s black color comes from a rain of cosmic dust, left by asteroids orbiting the sun over billions of years according to a report published in March.

Mercury’s magnetosphere could, however, help to explain how the planet has managed to retain small amounts of ice, despite the heat. In addition to providing data on Mercury’s magnetosphere, the messenger mission showed that the planet has ice at its poles as well as buried deep inside some of its craters.
Story Continues (http://natmonitor.com/2015/05/09/mercurys-magnetosphere-is-almost-as-old-as-the-planet-itself-says-new-study/)

http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/merc_mag/fig1.gif

[calikid]

9 years later, expecting spectacular images. :)


NASA probe makes history at Pluto
By Amanda Barnett


NASA says its New Horizons spacecraft completed a historic flyby of Pluto on Tuesday, making its closest pass over the small, icy world at 7:49 a.m. ET.

The unmanned, piano-sized spacecraft was expected to be traveling nearly 31,000 miles per hour when it passed about 7,750 miles over Pluto.

It's the first mission to Pluto and its five moons.

Because the spacecraft will be busy gathering data during the flyby, it won't phone home to update its status until around 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

"That's going to be a very highly anticipated event," Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator said at a briefing Monday.

The wait will be a tense one.



"There's that small element of danger, so I think we're all going to breathe the final sigh of relief at 9 p.m., and that's when we can really call it a successful flyby," Stern said.

Quiz: Test your knowledge of Pluto

When will you see photos from the flyby? It takes four hours for the probe to get a signal back to Earth, and then NASA has to process the data. Mission managers expect the images from the close encounter to be released online and on NASA TV at 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Scientists on Monday said New Horizons already has settled one debate about Pluto -- it's size. Information gathered by the probe indicates Pluto is 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter. That's somewhat bigger than earlier estimates, and it means Pluto is larger than all other known solar system objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Probe is carrying ashes of man who discovered Pluto

The probe already has beamed back several crisp photos of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

"Pluto and Charon are both mind-blowing," Stern told CNN on Saturday. "I think that the biggest surprise is the complexity we're seeing in both objects."

The mission completes what NASA calls the reconnaissance of the classical solar system, and it makes the United States the first nation to send a space probe to every planet from Mercury to Pluto. The probe traveled more than 3 billion miles to reach Pluto. Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/14/us/nasa-new-horizons-pluto-flyby/index.html)


http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/tn-p_lorri_fullframe_color.png

[calikid]

New pics of Pluto arriving. Looking good!

The Icy Mountains of Pluto
New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago -- mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system -- and may still be in the process of building, says Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team leader Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.. That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and would have once been heavily cratered -- unless recent activity had given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.

Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other process must be generating the mountainous landscape.

“This may cause us to rethink what powers geological activity on many other icy worlds,” says GGI deputy team leader John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The mountains are probably composed of Pluto’s water-ice “bedrock.”

Although methane and nitrogen ice covers much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to build the mountains. Instead, a stiffer material, most likely water-ice, created the peaks. “At Pluto’s temperatures, water-ice behaves more like rock,” said deputy GGI lead Bill McKinnon of Washington University, St. Louis.

The close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across.
Story Continue (http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto)


Image Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/nh-plutosurface.png?itok=sqfvH2GP

[earthman]

What gets me is this probe cost a zillion bucks and the shots on the approach look like crap. Sure, these look pretty good but you know your going to take shots on the approach, then why not put a camera that works better for far away shots. NASA kills me on this. I would love to have seen those area's that were odd shaped formations. There idiots..

[majicbar]

What gets me is this probe cost a zillion bucks and the shots on the approach look like crap. Sure, these look pretty good but you know your going to take shots on the approach, then why not put a camera that works better for far away shots. NASA kills me on this. I would love to have seen those area's that were odd shaped formations. There idiots..

What you are forgetting is that the "principal investigators" have first call on the images taken on the mission. Science quality images are closely held, Public Information Office images are of lower quality and offer little chance that real science can be done on them by someone who is not a "principal investigator", preserving the real discoveries to the "principal investigators". It is a game, in a year the embargo on the science images will be over and we will see what we really have.

[earthman]

And they wonder why we don't trust them. Planetary Resources has those cheap satellites you can buy with good imagers on them. Love to get ahold of one of them. Do our own imaging. To far for Pluto but around our area, we could do our own work. I love astronomy and would love to have a look around for our self's.

[Wally]

From space.com
"NASA Finds Closest Earth Twin Yet in Haul of 500 Alien Planets" (http://www.space.com/30026-earth-twin-kepler-452b-exoplanet-discovery.htmlhttp://www.space.com/30026-earth-twin-kepler-452b-exoplanet-discovery.html)

From NASA
"NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth" (http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-kepler-mission-discovers-bigger-older-cousin-to-earth)

[calikid]

Crab monster on Mars? Mmmmm. Needs cocktail sauce!

NOT the photo.
https://forgottenfilmcast.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/attack-of-the-crab-monsters-6.png?w=560

.
What The Heck Is This Thing On Mars?
Don't worry -- we're not about to be invaded by crab monsters.
By Ed Mazza

A NASA image of Mars being passed around on social media over the weekend has imaginations running wild.

The photo shows a stone formation in front of what may be a kind of cave. Some say it looks a bit like a crab monster straight out of a science fiction tale.

Here's a closer look at the photo:
http://img.huffingtonpost.com//asset/scalefit_630_noupscale/55bef7401d00002f0014396a.jpeg?cache=YWGmhB7QYj
But don't worry, future missions to Mars are unlikely to encounter any crab monsters.

Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETI Research, said he gets images showing formations such as this one about once a week.

"Those that send them to me are generally quite excited, as they claim that these frequently resemble SOMETHING you wouldn't expect to find on the rusty, dusty surface of the Red Planet," he said via email. "It's usually some sort of animal, but occasionally even weirder objects such as automobile parts. Maybe they think there are cars on Mars." Story Continues (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mars-crab-monster_55bef689e4b0d4f33a0333e9)

[newyorklily]

NASA releases photos of the far side of the Moon as it passes by the Earth. The pictures were taken by the Dawn spacecraft from about a million miles away.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/08/05/from-million-miles-away-stunning-nasa-images-show-moon-crossing-earths-face/?cmpid=NL_SciTech

Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

[majicbar]

NASA releases photos of the far side of the Moon as it passes by the Earth. The pictures were taken by the Dawn spacecraft from about a million miles away.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/08/05/from-million-miles-away-stunnLast month, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) captured a series of test photos with its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera. From its lofty perch 1 million miles from Earth, EPIC looked on as the moon transited our planet: ing-nasa-images-show-moon-crossing-earths-face/?cmpid=NL_SciTech

Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

It was not DAWN that took this image, rather it was the DSCOVR, the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Dawn is busy at Ceres.

[newyorklily]

It was not DAWN that took this image, rather it was the DSCOVR, the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Dawn is busy at Ceres.
Thank you for the correction. We have so many up there I'm starting to get them confused. :eek:

Sent from my LGLS660 using Tapatalk

[calikid]

NASA is finally showing that side.
Can anyone see signs of life? Bases?

From a million miles away, stunning NASA images show the moon crossing Earth’s face
A NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has captured a series of stunning images of the Moon passing the Earth’s sunlit side.

The images were captured last month by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel camera and telescope.

The series of images show the fully illuminated “dark side� of the moon that is never visible from Earth, according to NASA. Taken between 3:50 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. ET on July 16, the images show the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America.

Positioned between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR’s primary mission is real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The satellite is orbiting 1 million miles from Earth.
Story Continues
(http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/08/05/from-million-miles-away-stunning-nasa-images-show-moon-crossing-earths-face/?cmpid=NL_SciTech)

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/...pid=NL_SciTech

[calikid]

Without NASA involved to air brush images from the Moon's far side, maybe China can publish some interesting photos when their probe arrives.

China to explore 'dark side' of the moon
By Shen Lu, Katie Hunt and Tiffany Ap

China has confirmed it plans to send a spacecraft to land on the moon's "dark side" before 2020, state media reports -- a mission, which, if successful, would make it the first country to do so.

The mission will be carried out by the lunar probe Chang'e-4, Zou Yongliao, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences said at a deep space exploration forum on Tuesday.

In May, Wu Weiren, the chief engineer for China's Lunar Exploration Program told state-run broadcaster CCTV that China would send the Chang'e-4 spacecraft to orbit the moon before sending a rover to the surface.

"We probably will choose a site on which it is more difficult to land and more technically challenging... Our next move will probably see some spacecraft land on the far side of the moon," Wu said.

China successfully landed a spacecraft -- the Chang'e 3 -- on the moon in December 2013, becoming only the third nation after the United States and Russia to land on the moon's surface.

While the side of the moon not visible from earth has been observed by various probes, a landing has never been attempted.

When contacted by CNN earlier this year, Wu declined to comment further.

The Chang'e 4 spacecraft was initially designed as a backup for the Chang'e-3, which released a lunar rover named "jade rabbit," which is still working on the moon.

The Chang'e-3 mission marked the completion of the second phase of China's lunar exploration program, which focused on orbiting and landing on the moon.

Next phase

In March, China's official news agency Xinhua reported that China will start its third phase in 2017 by launching the Chang'e-5 spacecraft.

Its mission includes orbiting, landing on the moon and then returning to earth.

After making a soft landing on the moon, the lander will dig and collect rock samples from up to two meters below the surface.

Ouyang Ziyuan, a senior consultant with the lunar exploration program and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Chang'e-5 will be launched at the newly-built Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan, an island off southern China.

"Since Chang'e-3 successfully completed its mission, we have had more time to explore a more comprehensive mission for Chang'e-4," he said.

"That's why it's possible for Chang'e-5 to launch to the moon before Chang'e-4."

Ouyang said at the time he wasn't authorized to give details of the mission to the moon's far side.

Last week, China released detailed images of Chang'e-5's planned moon landing site.

Captured by an orbiting service module they were taken from a point 30 kilometers, or about 19 miles, from the moon. The pictures had a resolution of one meter, according to China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.

Space race?

Some security experts fear China's ambitious lunar exploration program could mean a future of Chinese dominance over the moon's resources.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/asia/china-moon-exploration-dark-side/index.html)

[majicbar]

http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet-49523

Not only do they think that they have found the large body that they label as the Ninth Planet, but whole groups of planet sized bodies from the early days of the solar system.

[Wally]

space.com also has several articles about this.


http://www.space.com/31670-planet-nine-solar-system-discovery.html

[calikid]

HighDef pictures from the lunar surface (http://moon.bao.ac.cn/ceweb/datasrv/dmsce1.jsp).
VERY Cool.
The Jade Rabbit lives!

Chinese photos show moon's surface in vivid detail

China has released hundreds of high-resolution photos taken by its Chang'e-3 lunar lander and rover, showing the moon's surface in vivid detail.

The China National Space Administration made the images, video clips and scientific data available on its website in a rare show of openness for the country's usually secretive space program.

China sent its first unmanned lunar probe, the Yutu, or "Jade Rabbit," to the moon in 2013 as part of its Chang'e-3 mission, becoming only the third nation after the United States and Russia to land on the moon's surface.

Despite a shaky start to its mission, the Jade Rabbit is still working and sending images and data back to earth.

The images show the moon's crust in true color and spectacular detail. The tracks of the Jade Rabbit rover are clearly visible in some pictures. The full data sets are available for the public to download on the (Beijing) website (http://moon.bao.ac.cn/ceweb/datasrv/dmsce1.jsp).

CNN Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/01/asia/china-moon-photos-jade-rabbit/index.html)

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160201135846-01-china-moon-surface-photos-exlarge-169.jpg

[calikid]

Surprising a planet can be held in orbit by a star's gravity at such a great distance.

Largest Solar System Ever Discovered Dwarfs Our Own
by Mike Wall, Space.com

A huge alien world orbits 600 billion miles (1 trillion kilometers) from its host star, making its solar system the largest one known, a new study reports.

Astronomers have found the parent star for a gas-giant exoplanet named 2MASS J2126, which was previously thought to be a "rogue" world flying freely through space. The planet and its star are separated by about 7,000 astronomical units (AU), meaning the alien world completes one orbit every 900,000 years or so, researchers said. (One AU is the average distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million km).
Image: Alien Planet 2MASS J2126
Alien Planet 2MASS J2126 University of Hertfordshire/Neil Cook

For comparison, Neptune lies about 30 AU from the sun, Pluto averages about 40 AU from Earth's star and scientists think the newly hypothesized "Planet Nine" never gets more than 600 to 1,200 AU away from the sun.
Story Continues (http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/largest-solar-system-ever-discovered-dwarfs-our-own-n505246)

[calikid]

Please remember, it is NEVER a good idea to stare at the Sun without a light filtering device. :nono:

Little Mercury a black dot as it crosses vast face of sun
Marcia Dunn

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – For the first time in 10 years, Mercury passed directly between the Earth and sun on Monday, resembling a black dot against the vast, glowing face of our star.

Many stargazers turned to the Internet as NASA provided close-to-real-time images of the 7½-hour trek, courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Although the solar system’s small, innermost planet appeared to be trudging along, it actually was zooming past the sun at 106,000 mph.

The cosmic show — which began at 7:12 a.m. EDT — was visible from the eastern U.S. and Canada, as well as Western Europe, western Africa and most of South America. Those places were privy to the entire event. The audience grew as the sun rose across North America, revealing Mercury’s relatively rare transit. Story Continues (https://www.yahoo.com/news/mercury-makes-rare-move-across-sun-101125924.html)

[calikid]

If we ever develop FTL drives, at least we now have destinations to reach for!

NASA's Kepler Mission Announces Largest Collection of Planets Ever Discovered
NASA.gov

NASA's Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date.

“This announcement more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler,” said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth.”

Analysis was performed on the Kepler space telescope’s July 2015 planet candidate catalog, which identified 4,302 potential planets. For 1,284 of the candidates, the probability of being a planet is greater than 99 percent – the minimum required to earn the status of “planet.” An additional 1,327 candidates are more likely than not to be actual planets, but they do not meet the 99 percent threshold and will require additional study. The remaining 707 are more likely to be some other astrophysical phenomena. This analysis also validated 984 candidates previously verified by other techniques.

"Before the Kepler space telescope launched, we did not know whether exoplanets were rare or common in the galaxy. Thanks to Kepler and the research community, we now know there could be more planets than stars,” said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters. "This knowledge informs the future missions that are needed to take us ever-closer to finding out whether we are alone in the universe."

Kepler captures the discrete signals of distant planets – decreases in brightness that occur when planets pass in front of, or transit, their stars – much like the May 9 Mercury transit of our sun. Since the discovery of the first planets outside our solar system more than two decades ago, researchers have resorted to a laborious, one-by-one process of verifying suspected planets.

This latest announcement, however, is based on a statistical analysis method that can be applied to many planet candidates simultaneously. Timothy Morton, associate research scholar at Princeton University in New Jersey and lead author of the scientific paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, employed a technique to assign each Kepler candidate a planet-hood probability percentage – the first such automated computation on this scale, as previous statistical techniques focused only on sub-groups within the greater list of planet candidates identified by Kepler.

"Planet candidates can be thought of like bread crumbs,” said Morton. “If you drop a few large crumbs on the floor, you can pick them up one by one. But, if you spill a whole bag of tiny crumbs, you're going to need a broom. This statistical analysis is our broom."

In the newly-validated batch of planets, nearly 550 could be rocky planets like Earth, based on their size. Nine of these orbit in their sun's habitable zone, which is the distance from a star where orbiting planets can have surface temperatures that allow liquid water to pool. With the addition of these nine, 21 exoplanets now are known to be members of this exclusive group. Story Continues (https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-kepler-mission-announces-largest-collection-of-planets-ever-discovered)

[calikid]

Impressive 10 footer lights up the early morning sky in Phoenix. Captured on many video cameras.

Meteor streaks across Arizona sky
By David Williams

Yes, Phoenix, that was a meteor.
A fireball lit up the skies around Phoenix Thursday, leaving groggy residents wondering if it was a meteor, an explosion or something else.

Sky just lit up in the east like an explosion. Several flashes, with a trail.

NASA said a small asteroid zipped into Earth's atmosphere above Arizona at a breezy 40,000 mph. After lighting up Phoenix, NASA estimates it moved south, with pieces of the meteor landing somewhere north of Tucson.

A Phoenix Police Department spokesman told CNN that they got more than 60 calls about the meteor, which was seen at about 4 a.m. (7 a.m. ET).
"Many of the callers mistakenly believed they were being burglarized due to the accompanying sound created," Sgt. Jonathan Howard said.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/02/us/arizona-possible-meteor-irpt/index.html)

[calikid]

Recent "auroras" that hubble telescope photographed on the north pole of Jupiter, will be a great phot capture when the probe gets a bit closer.

NASA's Juno spacecraft sends back first image of Jupiter and its moons
By Claire Corkery

NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter has returned its first image after being sent into orbit last week.
The picture, taken from the spacecraft's JunoCam camera 2.7 million miles away from Jupiter, shows the planet's famous Great Red Spot as well as three of its four largest moons -- Io, Europa and Ganymede.
Its second-largest moon, Callisto, is not in sight.

The Juno spacecraft entered Jupiter's orbit on July 4 and took the image around six days later.
While the first high-resolution images of the gas giant are still a few weeks away, scientists are very pleased with the first image, which means the mission is so far a success.

"This scene from JunoCam indicates it survived its first pass through Jupiter's extreme radiation environment without any degradation and is ready to take on Jupiter," Scott Bolton, principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement.
"We can't wait to see the first view of Jupiter's poles."
The Juno spacecraft is now moving away from Jupiter on a large arc but will move in again in August, enabling the JunoCam on board to take more close-up images.
The aim of its mission is to help scientists to understand more about the largest planet in our solar system, which is the fifth planet away from the sun.
Story Continues (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/health/nasa-juno-jupiter-image/index.html)

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160713085648-nasa-jupiter-0713-01-exlarge-169.jpg

[calikid]

New IR photos of the southern regions of Jupiter.


Jupiter's Southern Aurora in Infrared Light
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

Juno captured this infrared image of Jupiter’s southern lights on Aug. 27, 2016. Such views (http://www.space.com/12495-jupiter-juno-mission-photos-gallery.html) are not possible from Earth.

http://www.space.com/images/i/000/058/039/original/jupiter-juno-southern-lights.jpg

[whoknows]

New IR photos of the southern regions of Jupiter.


Jupiter's Southern Aurora in Infrared Light
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

Juno captured this infrared image of Jupiter’s southern lights on Aug. 27, 2016. Such views (http://www.space.com/12495-jupiter-juno-mission-photos-gallery.html) are not possible from Earth.

http://www.space.com/images/i/000/058/039/original/jupiter-juno-southern-lights.jpg

What a sight... I re-watched Brian Greens "Fabric of the Cosmos" series the other day and what always blows me away is how interconnected everything is.

[aquila]

betelguese has gone nova

[Garuda]

betelguese has gone nova

Based on what?

Recent calculations estimate that will only happen in about 100 000 years from now (which is a far more precise prediction than they could make before).

See, e.g. : http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/09/08/betelgeuse_astronomers_give_it_100_000_years_befor e_it_explodes.html

[aquila]

white rhinocerus have gone extinct

e.t. alien wishing to know what the white rhinocerus was will have to inquire into story books

or the internet

scientist ask silly questions like are we alone in the universe

in a way man is alone

its each civilization to himself

and with the white rhinocerus gone

man is even lonelier

[Garuda]

white rhinocerus have gone extinct

e.t. alien wishing to know what the white rhinocerus was will have to inquire into story books

or the internet

scientist ask silly questions like are we alone in the universe

in a way man is alone

its each civilization to himself

and with the white rhinocerus gone

man is even lonelier

I fail to see what this has to do with astronomy...

Please stay on topic.

[aquila]

in the general scheme of things extinction of a living organism is no less significant than a star going bust

when a living thing goes extinct it does so from the universe

the loss is absolute

which is why the issue of conservation of habitat and preservation of the species is a priority

as to the issue of betelguese going nova

the conclusion is based on erratic oscillations of the star

the change in star diameter and fluctuation of light emitted

behavior which is distinctly defined in stellar evolution

but there is also the problem of time factor

what is being witnessed is approx 590 years old

betelguese probably went nova a few hundred years ago

what is being witnessed on earth today must be the last days of the star's pre detonation phase

[calikid]

MOD NOTICE

in the general scheme of things extinction of a living organism is no less significant than a star going bust

when a living thing goes extinct it does so from the universe

the loss is absolute

which is why the issue of conservation of habitat and preservation of the species is a priority

as to the issue of betelguese going nova

the conclusion is based on erratic oscillations of the star

the change in star diameter and fluctuation of light emitted

behavior which is distinctly defined in stellar evolution

but there is also the problem of time factor

what is being witnessed is approx 590 years old

betelguese probably went nova a few hundred years ago

what is being witnessed on earth today must be the last days of the star's pre detonation phase

Aquila, you have been warned repeatedly about going off topic.
This thread is about "Current Events in Astronomy".
"Extinction of a living organism" is NOT suitable subject matter for this thread.
Your supposition that Betelgeuse has gone Nova is just a guess, lacking support from anyone in the Astronomy community, not a current event.

Please take 3 days off from posting to clear your head and sort out the differences.
You have been suspended.

[Wally]

From space.com
First-Ever Binary Alien Planets Possibly Found? (http://www.space.com/34121-first-ever-binary-alien-planets.html)

[earthman]

NASA to Hold Media Call on Evidence of Surprising Activity on Europa. Now this sounds interesting. I'm sure there is probably life under the ice there. Going to be hard to have a look though.

[calikid]

NASA to Hold Media Call on Evidence of Surprising Activity on Europa. Now this sounds interesting. I'm sure there is probably life under the ice there. Going to be hard to have a look though.


A few details:


NASA to release details of ‘surprising activity’ on Europa




However, NASA sought to quell some of the more outlandish expectations by stipulating that its new findings were most certainly “NOT aliens”.

Monday, we’ll announce new findings from Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Spoiler alert: NOT aliens

Participants in the teleconference will include: Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division; William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; Britney Schmidt of the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Jennifer Wiseman, senior Hubble project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Story Continues (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/21/nasa-to-release-details-of-surprising-activity-on-europa/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/science/2016/09/21/europa-large_trans++9mmU6HeJmoR0vFje__daQJRCIaGYm-85Y3eQULs8m5U.jpg

[Wally]

A few details:


NASA to release details of ‘surprising activity’ on Europa




However, NASA sought to quell some of the more outlandish expectations by stipulating that its new findings were most certainly “NOT aliens�.

Monday, we’ll announce new findings from Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Spoiler alert: NOT aliens

Participants in the teleconference will include: Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division; William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; Britney Schmidt of the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Jennifer Wiseman, senior Hubble project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Story Continues (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/21/nasa-to-release-details-of-surprising-activity-on-europa/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/science/2016/09/21/europa-large_trans++9mmU6HeJmoR0vFje__daQJRCIaGYm-85Y3eQULs8m5U.jpg

From space.com
On Jupiter's Moon Europa, More Tantalizing Signs of Giant Water Plumes
(http://www.space.com/34196-jupiter-moon-europa-giant-water-plumes.html)Maybe this is what they are talking about? With the new Juno probe we should be able to get more definitive info.

[Wally]

On a similar note Pluto may also have an underground Ocean.
From space.com Pluto's 'Heart' Hints at Deep, Underground Ocean (http://www.space.com/34179-plutos-heart-hints-at-deep-underground-ocean.html)

[Wally]

It looks like Europe's ExoMars lander has crash landed. At least the orbiter is in good working order.
http://www.space.com/34471-exomars-mission-96-percent-successful-esa.html

[touched]

Hello everyone. It's been awhile.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere or not within the forum. :

Strange Signals From 234 Stars Could Be E.T. - Or Human Error


http://https://www.newscientist.com/article/2109139-strange-signals-from-234-stars-could-be-et-or-human-error/#.WAF4e9bANFw.facebook


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHWxxbl0K0Q

The spectral class and signal to noise ratio is interesting. More observations are needed and are being conducted. It is still too premature to conclude e.t. at this time but the data is very interesting !

Cliff

[Garuda]

Hello everyone. It's been awhile.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere or not within the forum. :

Strange Signals From 234 Stars Could Be E.T. - Or Human Error


http://https://www.newscientist.com/article/2109139-strange-signals-from-234-stars-could-be-et-or-human-error/#.WAF4e9bANFw.facebook


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHWxxbl0K0Q

The spectral class and signal to noise ratio is interesting. More observations are needed and are being conducted. It is still too premature to conclude e.t. at this time but the data is very interesting !

Cliff

Hi Cliff, thanks.

We've got two threads dedicated to it already:
- http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?2111-Alien-Civilization-Spotted
- http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?2210-Are-There-Megastructures-Orbiting-Distant-Star

[Wally]

Hope this is okay to post in this thread, though it might not exactly be considered 'current'
Winston Churchill's essay on alien life found (http://www.nature.com/news/winston-churchill-s-essay-on-alien-life-found-1.21467)
If anybody can find a link to the actual essay itself that'd be great.

[calikid]

Hope this is okay to post in this thread, though it might not exactly be considered 'current'
Winston Churchill's essay on alien life found (http://www.nature.com/news/winston-churchill-s-essay-on-alien-life-found-1.21467)
If anybody can find a link to the actual essay itself that'd be great.

I did read excerpts of Winston Churchill’s essay "Are We Alone in the Universe?" yesterday, but didn't see a link to the entire paper.
Possibly copyright issues still being resolved.

News reports "The 11-page article.....recently resurfaced at the US National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Missouri."

[Longeyes]

Major announcement from NASA about exoplanets today 1pm EST
Will be in their live feed

[A99]

Hmmm, interesting. I can't recall them ever making a formal announcement about new exoplanets before but it does seem like more and more of them are being discovered. Thanks for the tip and will keep an eye open at 1 pm today for this announcement.

[A99]

Will moon mining be BANNED? International space law could prevent billionaires from extracting precious metals from the lunar surface



Five firms are planning to head to the moon to mine its surface this year
Google's Lunar Xprize competition will give a firm £25 million ($30 million) in reward for landing a rover on the moon
But a space law states that parties can't appropriate any part of space



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4187356/Will-moon-mining-BANNED.html#ixzz4ZQMdjt6E


Space laws? Set by whom? Someone in the comments section of this article asked that question and I think it's a good one.

At any rate, it seems like private commercial interest of the moon and making trips back and forth to it would help to advance space travel, on a technological level, far more that what NASA has accomplished thus far.

If mining the moon is their incentive, then so be it (at least for now).

The people who travel on those ships would not be under orders from the gov't to suppress UFO sightings out in space either.

We do indeed live in interesting times, don't we?

[A99]

Here's the live streaming link for that exoplanet announcement at NASA:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/watch-heres-nasa-may-found-beyond-solar-system/

It just started.

[calikid]

Will moon mining be BANNED? International space law could prevent billionaires from extracting precious metals from the lunar surface



Five firms are planning to head to the moon to mine its surface this year
Google's Lunar Xprize competition will give a firm £25 million ($30 million) in reward for landing a rover on the moon
But a space law states that parties can't appropriate any part of space



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4187356/Will-moon-mining-BANNED.html#ixzz4ZQMdjt6E


Space laws? Set by whom? Someone in the comments section of this article asked that question and I think it's a good one.

At any rate, it seems like private commercial interest of the moon and making trips back and forth to it would help to advance space travel, on a technological level, far more that what NASA has accomplished thus far.

If mining the moon is their incentive, then so be it (at least for now).

The people who travel on those ships would not be under orders from the gov't to suppress UFO sightings out in space either.

We do indeed live in interesting times, don't we?




Thought you might like this post I made back in 2007, on another forum.
Relevant to your "mining" query.
Thank you WayBack machine. ;)



Response to IVO5000 dated 5/15/2007
IVO has a point. Not only will commercial space travel prove an impetus to disclosure, mining operations on the moon may hasten the process as well.

It has been know for years that Helium3, ejected by the sun for eons, has been collecting on the surface of the moon. Unfortunately for us, the earth's magnetosphere prevents it from accumulating on earth.

Fusion reactors have been constructed using Hydrogen, but the release of neutrons had the nasty habit of destroying the interior walls of the reactor. A bad thing.
When using He3, the release of neutrons is almost negligible.

If stacks of gold bars existed on the moon, we would still loose money transporting them back to earth.
But when He3 can be processed on the moon and transported back to earth it will be a BIG money maker.
The amount of energy generated by a small quantity of He3 in a fusion reactor is phenomenal.
Prepare for a land grab on the moon by Europe, China, Russia, the USA, and anyone else that can make it there.

Like IVO said; "we all know how corporate greed works".
It may just work to OUR advantage this time around.


CaliKid


BTW, did they make a distinction between "outer space" vs empty space existing on a Foreign body, like the Moon or Mars?
I would think the space between the Earth and the Moon would be "unclaimable", but if a nation decided to invest in a mining/processing operation on the Moon, why not fence it in and stake a claim?

[A99]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/02/03/08/3CCA039A00000578-4187356-image-a-1_1486112307584.jpg
The international treaty to which virtually every country in the world is a party to states that parties cannot appropriate any part of Space

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4187356/Will-moon-mining-BANNED.html#ixzz4ZROe8oFM

It sounds like outerspace/the space between... say the Earth and the Moon, as an example of that, is inclusive in this international treaty when talking about celestial bodies and who can claim them. It's saying that they belong to all nations and not just those ones who were there first... and this includes any part of 'outerspace' too.

Excellent post on what Ivo was saying about He3 and it sure sounds like we need it here on Earth for nuclear power plants. We've had the technology to get to the moon since the late 60's so I'm wondering why we've been holding off on making trips back and forth to the moon for that gas. When you think about it, that's very unsettling.

The law is only addressing space exploration and not exploitation for monetary gain of the celestial body's resources by any nation; let alone any private commercial conglomeration.

[Longeyes]

Here it is 7 earth sized planets orbiting s small star but three maybe in the sun's habital zone
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around

[A99]

Thanks for that link. Do we currently have the technology to at least send signals to those 3 habitable planets in that system to see if we can get a response back from them?

[A99]

This program sounds very promising in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Breakthrough Initiatives is a program founded in 2015 and funded by Yuri Milner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner) to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence) over a span of at least 10 years. The program is divided into multiple projects. Breakthrough Listen will comprise an effort to search over 1,000,000 stars for artificial radio or laser signals. A parallel project called Breakthrough Message is an effort to create a message "representative of humanity and planet Earth".[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Initiatives#cite_note-1) The project Breakthrough Starshot aims to send a swarm of probes to the nearest star at about 20% the speed of light.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Initiatives#Breakthrough_Listen

They are going to be sending off nanoships into space too!

[epo333]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/02/03/08/3CCA039A00000578-4187356-image-a-1_1486112307584.jpg
The international treaty to which virtually every country in the world is a party to states that parties cannot appropriate any part of Space

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4187356/Will-moon-mining-BANNED.html#ixzz4ZROe8oFM

It sounds like outerspace/the space between... say the Earth and the Moon, as an example of that, is inclusive in this international treaty when talking about celestial bodies and who can claim them. It's saying that they belong to all nations and not just those ones who were there first... and this includes any part of 'outerspace' too.

Excellent post on what Ivo was saying about He3 and it sure sounds like we need it here on Earth for nuclear power plants. We've had the technology to get to the moon since the late 60's so I'm wondering why we've been holding off on making trips back and forth to the moon for that gas. When you think about it, that's very unsettling.

The law is only addressing space exploration and not exploitation for monetary gain of the celestial body's resources by any nation; let alone any private commercial conglomeration.




IMO, International Law effectively ends, once a party, state, or corporation, leaves earths atmosphere. So IF say Google or IBM has the ways and means to land on and exploit the moon (or space in between) than its their business! Maybe even claim a sovereign territory. In World History, similar events took place on the high seas and claims of lands abroad.

Something like . . ."The Luna State of GOOGLE" . . .


JMO

[A99]

Well, if it's He3 that they are after, we don't have nuclear fusion power reactors/plants yet but soon we will. I think you're probably right... the company that can get back and forth to the moon and exploit its resources will end up owning the moon. The one that can successfully set that up first, can claim the moon as their own.

[A99]

The company that will be the most successful at setting up a processing factory on the moon will probably be Bigelow Aerospace... they own MUFON/BAASS too but that's besides the point. Google and other companies may partner with them on this venture but Bigelow will be running the show. Since Bigelow Aerospace Inc is a major player in the Industrial/Military Complex... the gov't will be running things too. Which brings us back to where we are now with gov't suppression of information on UFOs and anything related to it. That will continue, as always. Bigelow Aerospace and the Federal gov't are two sides of the same coin.



In February 2010, following the announcement of NASA's post-Augustine Commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_of_United_States_Human_Space_Flight_Plans_C ommittee) plans to reorient human-to-orbit plans more in the direction of commercial launch providers, Robert Bigelow said "We as a company have lunar ambitions. ... and we also have Mars ambitions as well."[65] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-65) In April 2010, Bigelow suggested positioning a space station at Lagrangian point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) L1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point#L1). He also said his proposed private Moon Base would consist of three BA 330s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BA_330).[23] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-sdc20100414-23)
In March 2013,[28] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-8nn20130523-28) Bigelow signed a contract (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Act_Agreement) with NASA to "look at ways for private (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_spaceflight) ventures to contribute to human exploration missions, perhaps including construction of a moon base"[18] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-nbc20130419-18) and to act as a clearinghouse with other commercial companies to extend commercial activity at conceptual lunar expeditionary bases in ways that are not a mainline part of NASA's current focus for human spaceflight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_spaceflight), which is asteroid exploration missions.[28] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-8nn20130523-28) The Bigelow report released later in 2013 identified "an uncertain regulatory environment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime_uncertainty) as a major obstacle to commercial activities" on the moon.[66] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-sn20150206-66)
In December 2014, the FAA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Commercial_Space_Transportation) (AST) completed a review of the proposed Bigelow lunar habitat, and indicated that "it was willing to use its authority to ensure Bigelow could carry out its [lunar] activities ... without interference from other [US] companies licensed by the FAA" [and that the FAA would] use its launch licensing authority, as best it can, to protect private sector assets on the Moon and to provide a safe environment for companies to conduct peaceful commercial activities without fear of harmful interference from other AST licensees."[66] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#cite_note-sn20150206-66)


Source: Wiki

[A99]

http://i.imgur.com/1PaTV5e.jpg

[calikid]

Well, if it's He3 that they are after, we don't have nuclear fusion power reactors/plants yet but soon we will. I think you're probably right... the company that can get back and forth to the moon and exploit its resources will end up owning the moon. The one that can successfully set that up first, can claim the moon as their own.

We may not have commercial fusion reactors yet, but I believe there have been small scale government research reactors constructed, and currently a large international funded (multi-Billion$$) facility is under construction in Europe.
Don't recall anticipated completion date, somewhere between 2020 and 2030.

Once that fusion reactor comes on-line, a demand for fuel will exist.
More than one fuel can be used, but as stated before, He-3 produces the least amount of damaging emissions during the fusion process.
Making He-3 a high value commodity.
And the race for lunar mining resources will be on.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/ironsky/images/2/2e/He3_Refinery.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120812190654
HE-3 Lunar Factory from the Sci-Fi movie "Iron Sky".

[A99]

Thanks for pointing that out... If they start going to the moon to get that gas soon, they may also speed up the process to develop the commercial version so that it's up and ready to go in three years.

[calikid]

Not to wander to far OT, but growing up in the 60s I recall the US mindset of those times.
The USSR had put up the Sputnik satellite and launched Yuri Gagarin into outer space in the Vostok spacecraft, where he completed an orbit of the Earth April 1961. 🚀
This launched (forgive the pun) the space race.
Competition to avoid "a gap" between nation's space technologies.
It is interesting to note the apparent lack of initiative by the USA until prodded into responding/catching up.
If history holds true, once China implements a genuine startup for lunar mining, perhaps that old competitive spirit will re-ignite here in the US.

[A99]

I think you're on to something here. China's ambitions to get to the moon first and mine it is not to be taken lightly. Yesterday, I saw a You Tube video where Bigelow was expressing the same sentiment in a very forceful manner so as to tell the public that we need to be paying attention to this so as to imply that we need to focus on setting up a permanent base on the moon as soon as possible... if not sooner.

It's going to be like the wild, wild west up there and if China starts mining the moon before we do... we're in big, big trouble.

[earthman]

You know of our CubeSat 4 UFO Disclosure project but now we have a backer that wants me to send 3 CubeSat's to the Moon to image it. THey are willing to pay for it and I already talked to the rocket company that is launching the first one for us. They gave me a good price for the 3 and looks like we are a go. It will be late next summer in 2018. SO if there is something on the moon we will see it for our self.

[A99]

Keep us updated on this... how exciting!

[CasperParks]

You know of our CubeSat 4 UFO Disclosure project but now we have a backer that wants me to send 3 CubeSat's to the Moon to image it. THey are willing to pay for it and I already talked to the rocket company that is launching the first one for us. They gave me a good price for the 3 and looks like we are a go. It will be late next summer in 2018. SO if there is something on the moon we will see it for our self.

Sounds like a good project!

[calikid]

You know of our CubeSat 4 UFO Disclosure project but now we have a backer that wants me to send 3 CubeSat's to the Moon to image it. THey are willing to pay for it and I already talked to the rocket company that is launching the first one for us. They gave me a good price for the 3 and looks like we are a go. It will be late next summer in 2018. SO if there is something on the moon we will see it for our self.

Nice to see you Earthman.
For those of us who missed your appearances on radio talk shows, would appreciate an update on the current project (http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?2192-Cube-Sat-for-Disclosure&p=46672&viewfull=1#post46672).
Launch date ?
Package/payload status?

[calikid]

From what I can tell, gray scale images from the Juno probe are sent back to Earth, where amateur astronomers "colorize" the photos and upload them to the gallery.
Some are pretty spectacular!

NASA's $1 billion Jupiter probe just sent back breathtaking new images of the gas giant
By Dave Mosher

A probe the size of a basketball court has taken unprecedented new images of Jupiter.

NASA's $1 billion Juno spacecraft, launched in August 2011, took five years to reach and settle into orbit around the gas giant, which is more than 415 million miles from Earth.

The probe has so far photographed Jupiter's poles for the first time, detected bizarre cloud formations, recorded mysterious auroras, and scanned deep into the planet's thick cloud tops.

Juno repeatedly swings by Jupiter in a wide arc to minimize time inside the planet's intense radiation belts, which can damage sensitive electronics.

NASA planned to fire Juno's thrusters in October to increase the frequency of these flybys - from once every 53.5 days to every two weeks - but sticky engine valves botched that operation. So instead the maneuvers happen about once every two months.
Story Continues (https://amp.businessinsider.com/new-jupiter-images-nasa-juno-2017-3)

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/58dbd3a177bb709d0a8b48aa-1334-1400.jpg
An image of Jupiter's South Pole.

For the Image Gallery (https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?source=public&ob_from=&ob_to=)

[CasperParks]

Calikid, thanks for posting!

Fantastic images...

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com

Atmosphere Around Low-mass Super-Earth Detected (http://astrobiology.com/2017/04/atmosphere-around-low-mass-super-earth-detected.html)

[Wally]

From space.com

Enceladus' Subsurface Energy Source: What It Means for Search for Life (http://www.space.com/36469-enceladus-energy-souce-search-for-life.html)
Potential Energy Source for Life Spotted on Saturn Moon Enceladus (http://www.space.com/36455-saturn-moon-enceladus-energy-source-life.html)

[Wally]

From cnn.com

NASA: Nearby ocean worlds could be best bet for life beyond Earth (http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/us/nasa-europa-enceladus-ocean-worlds-announcement-trnd/)

[Wally]

From www.space.com and cnn.com

Newfound Alien Planet Is Best Place Yet to Search for Life (http://www.space.com/36521-alien-planet-best-bet-search-for-life.html)

Newly discovered 'super-Earth' may be the 'most exciting exoplanet' (http://us.cnn.com/2017/04/19/world/super-earth-exoplanet-habitable-zone-lhs1140b/index.html)

[calikid]

As the movie 'Gravity" showed us, space junk can have catastrophic results.
Have to wonder about the trade off between launching inexpensive payloads, and the continual growth in number of objects than can present a danger to future projects.

Could Cubesats Trigger a Space Junk Apocalypse?
Tereza Pultarova, Space.com Contributor


The growing popularity of small satellites as well as the upcoming deployment of low-Earth orbit mega-constellations will likely greatly increase the amount of space junk as well as the frequency of catastrophic collisions, a study led by the United Kingdom's University of Southampton suggests.

Tiny satellites such as cubesats have democratized access to space. But for space environment researchers, the technology, praised for its low cost and short timeline from design to launch, is something of a headache.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has already experienced a nearly "Gravity"-like scenario last August, when a 0.4-inch (1 centimeter) fragment cut a 16-inch (40 cms) hole into a solar panel of the agency's flagship Earth-observing satellite Sentinel-1A. [Space Particle Slams Into Satellite, Damages Solar Array (Video)]

"Seven fragments have been produced in that accident that are now tracked by the surveillance system," Holger Krag, the head of ESA’s Space Debris Office, said yesterday (April 18) during an opening session of the 7th European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany.

"One of them generated a conjunction alert with sister spacecraft Sentinel-1B, which is flying in the same orbit but 180 degrees apart," Krag added.

The low-Earth orbit (LEO) environment is getting increasingly cluttered, with some 100 to 150 cubesats being deployed each year. Over the next 50 years, the trend might result in a 50 percent increase in the number of collisions far more damaging than that involving Sentinel-1A and a 30 percent increase of space debris objects larger than 4 inches (10 cm), experts have said.

"There are two trends that concern us when it comes to space debris," Hugh Lewis, aerospace engineering lecturer from the University of Southampton, said at the conference. "One is the deployment of very large constellations such as OneWeb or SpaceX. The other is the upturn in the number of small satellites being launched into low-Earth orbit."
Story Continues (https://www.yahoo.com/news/could-cubesats-trigger-space-junk-112200959.html)

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/04/Pasted-image-at-2017_04_20-04_06-PM-1024x526.png&w=1484

[Wally]

Our Discovery of a Minor Planet Beyond Neptune Shows There May Not Be 'Planet Nine' After All (http://www.space.com/36561-minor-planet-beyond-neptune-and-planet-nine.html)

Well, that's kind of a disappointment. :(

[CasperParks]

Alltime10s (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi_crMdUZnrcsvkCa8pt-g)
10 Astronomical Events That Will Happen In Your Lifetime


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0zDyCnH_4

[calikid]

One of the final Cassini photos, showing Earth as a distant speck through Saturn's rings, is reminiscent of that famous photo of Earth taken by Voyager as it passed Neptune all those years ago. The Voyager photo encouraged Carl Sagan to write a book, The Pale Blue Dot (https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Dot-Vision-Future/dp/0345376595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493747451&sr=8-1&keywords=the+pale+blue+dot).

Maybe someone will likewise be inspired by this photo, and give us another profound self perspective.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/7656_MAIN_PIA21445_figA.jpg

[Wally]

From space.com
Planet 10? Another Earth-Size World May Lurk in the Outer Solar System (http://www.space.com/37295-possible-planet-10.html)
While a Mars sized object would likely be a lot harder to detect than a Neptune size object on the plus side it may be considerably closer.

[calikid]

From space.com
Planet 10? Another Earth-Size World May Lurk in the Outer Solar System (http://www.space.com/37295-possible-planet-10.html)
While a Mars sized object would likely be a lot harder to detect than a Neptune size object on the plus side it may be considerably closer.

Would be pretty amazing if we are spotting all those extra-solar worlds, only to discover we overlooked a "new" planet within our own solar system.
Talk about missing the forest for the trees!

[Wally]

From phys.org
Possible first sighting of an exomoon (https://phys.org/news/2017-07-sighting-exomoon.html)

At the size of Neptune that would make it larger than Earth. Could this planetary system qualify as a binary planet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_planet)?

[calikid]

A new source of gravity waves for LIGO to detect?
Rumours swell over new kind of gravitational-wave sighting

Gossip over potential detection of colliding neutron stars has astronomers in a tizzy.
By Davide Castelvecchi
Astrophysicists may have detected gravitational waves last week from the collision of two neutron stars in a distant galaxy — and telescopes trained on the same region might also have spotted the event.

Rumours to that effect are spreading fast online, much to researchers’ excitement. Such a detection could mark a new era of astronomy: one in which phenomena are both seen by conventional telescopes and ‘heard’ as vibrations in the fabric of space-time. “It would be an incredible advance in our understanding,� says Stuart Shapiro, an astrophysicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Story continues (https://www.nature.com/news/rumours-swell-over-new-kind-of-gravitational-wave-sighting-1.22482)

[calikid]

On September 15, 2017 Cassini will orbit lower and lower until crashing into Saturn. Out of fuel, the end will ensure no Earth microbes containment any of Saturn's moons, that might harbor life.

Cassini: The Grand Finale Toolkit

After two decades in space, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is nearing the end of its remarkable journey of exploration. Having expended almost every bit of the rocket propellant it carried to Saturn, operators are deliberately plunging Cassini into the planet to ensure Saturn's moons will remain pristine for future exploration—in particular, the ice-covered, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus, but also Titan, with its intriguing pre-biotic chemistry.

Beginning in 2010, Cassini began a seven-year mission extension in which it completed many moon flybys while observing seasonal changes on Saturn and Titan. The plan for this phase of the mission was to expend all of the spacecraft's propellant while exploring Saturn, ending with a plunge into the planet's atmosphere. In April 2017, Cassini was placed on an impact course that unfolded over five months of daring dives—a series of 22 orbits that each pass between the planet and its rings. Called the Grand Finale, this final phase of the mission has brought unparalleled observations of the planet and its rings from closer than ever before.

On Sept. 15, 2017, the spacecraft will make its final approach to the giant planet Saturn. But this encounter will be like no other. This time, Cassini will dive into the planet's atmosphere, sending science data for as long as its small thrusters can keep the spacecraft's antenna pointed at Earth. Soon after, Cassini will burn up and disintegrate like a meteor. Story Continues
(https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/grand-finale/overview/)


https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/40_CGF_STILL_00022_1600.jpg

[A99]

Life existed on Mars, shocking discovery suggests

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/09/07/life-existed-on-mars-shocking-discovery-suggests.html


Scientists have found key evidence which suggests life may once have existed on Mars.
Nasa's Curiosity rover has detected boron, a key ingredient for life, on the dusty surface of the Red Planet.

The discovery is a huge boost in the hunt for extraterrestrials and could back up a theory suggesting life on Mars may have been forced underground (https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3217383/life-on-mars-may-have-been-forced-underground-when-disaster-turned-it-into-a-frigid-desert/) when disaster turned the planet into a "frigid desert".

Patrick Gasda, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory said: "Because borates may play an important role in making RNA - one of the building blocks of life - finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life could have once arisen on the planet.
"Borates are one possible bridge from simple organic molecules to RNA. Without RNA, you have no life.
"The presence of boron tells us that, if organics were present on Mars, these chemical reactions could have occurred."
RNA is ribonucleic acid, a nucleic acid present in all modern life which is involved in the decoding and expression of genes from DNA.
It is known to be unstable, so unless boron is present it decomposes quickly.

Gasda's work is detailed in a study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
It describes how Nasa's buggy found the element in calcium sulphate mineral "veins" in the rocky surface.
That means boron was present in Mars groundwater and indicates that the Gale crater, where Nasa's robo buggy is right now, may have been home to life.

It bolsters the bizarre theory that life originated on Mars and was carried to Earth on an asteroid.
Astronomer Caleb Sharf has previously claimed: "We can find pieces of Mars here on Earth and we suspect that there are pieces of Earth on Mars.
"If that material can carry living organisms on it, it's possible that we are Martian."

These hypotheses have forced bonkers scenarios in which officials have asked Nasa experts whether life existed there in recent times.
Dana Rohrabacher, an American senator, publically asked a project scientist overseeing Nasa's Mars 2020 rover mission if aliens ever lived on the Martian surface (https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4050676/is-there-an-ancient-alien-civilisation-on-mars-nasa-finally-answers-this-age-old-question/).

He quizzed: "You have indicated that Mars was totally different thousands of years ago.
"Is it possible that there was a civilisation on Mars thousands of years ago?"
Nasa's Ken Farley responded: "So, the evidence is that Mars was different billions of years ago, not thousands of years ago, and there is no evidence I'm aware of..."

However, there soon may be life on Mars if tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has his way (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1854993/elon-musk-to-reveal-next-step-in-mission-to-build-city-on-mars/).
The Space X founder has announced plans to put humans on the surface of the Red Planet by 2030.


Additional info from http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a28096/boron-on-mars-could-be-crucial-for-life/

The discovery of boron in the Gale Crater on Mars has given scientists a clue to the potential of life having once existed on the Red Planet.
"Because borates may play an important role in making RNA—one of the building blocks of life—finding boron on Mars further opens the possibility that life could have once arisen on the planet," said Patrick Gasda, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico and lead author of a paper published today (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074480/abstract) in Geophysical Research Letters.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D29hjfiSHzc

The discovery, made in December 2016, marks the second confirmation of boron on the Martian surface. The first came in 2013 (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064624), when scientists discovered boron in Martian meteorite. The find in Gale Crater, which NASA calls (https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/prelaunch/landingsiteselection/galecrater2/) a "fascinating place to explore because of the mountain of layered materials in the middle," marked the first time the substance has been actually detected on Mars.
RNA, ribonucleic acid, is present in every living thing we know of. Several scientists, including co-discoverer of DNA Francis Crick, have advocated a theory known as an "RNA world (http://www.panspermia.org/rnaworld.htm)," in which RNA was the initial starting point of life. The theory goes that the original proto-life was made of individual RNA strands that held genetic information and could self-replicate. When boron is dissolved in water, which was also believed to have existed at one point on Mars, it can stabilize with a sugar called ribose long enough to create RNA.
Of course, there are a whole lot of ifs here. There still isn't any evidence of life on Mars. But boron was only discovered four years ago and confirmed just last year. The search is only getting started, and plans to continue in 2020 (http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25386/nasa-air-traffic-control-mars-spacecraft/) and beyond, if we can get a sample of Martian soil back to Earth (http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/news/a27991/nasa-bring-mars-rocks-to-earth/).
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a28096/boron-on-mars-could-be-crucial-for-life/

[Wally]

Another story on Planet 9

New Clues Emerge for the Existence of Planet 9 (http://www.universetoday.com/137422/new-clues-emerge-existence-planet-9-1/amp/)

Hopefully they'll be able to find it soon.

[calikid]

And how cool would it be to grab a piece of that rock, and run a few tests?

Mysterious Visitor From Another Solar System Flew by Earth, Leaving Astronomers Baffled
By Meghan Bartels

Astronomers may have spotted our first visitor from outside the bounds of our solar system: a hunk of ice called A/2017 U1 that a Hawaiian telescope identified on October 19. It's already headed back out away from Earth, and while scientists can study it for another few weeks, they say that after it waves goodbye, we'll never see it again.

Everything flying around space is pretty weird, but this one is extra weird, which is why astronomers are so excited about it—in fact, although scientists first dubbed it a comet, they're now not even sure what it is. The object's path has been difficult to track back in time from when it was first identified, but scientists are pretty sure it doesn't belong to our solar system. That would make it the first interstellar visitor to be observed.

And if it turns out to be truly out of this world, it would be precisely what astronomers have been looking for. "We have long suspected that these objects should exist," said Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, which runs the telescope that spotted A/2017 U1, in a press release. "What's most surprising is that we've never seen interstellar objects pass through before."
Story Continues (https://www.yahoo.com/news/mysterious-visitor-another-solar-system-202914722.html)

[CasperParks]

And how cool would it be to grab a piece of that rock, and run a few tests?

Mysterious Visitor From Another Solar System Flew by Earth, Leaving Astronomers Baffled
By Meghan Bartels

Astronomers may have spotted our first visitor from outside the bounds of our solar system: a hunk of ice called A/2017 U1 that a Hawaiian telescope identified on October 19. It's already headed back out away from Earth, and while scientists can study it for another few weeks, they say that after it waves goodbye, we'll never see it again.

Everything flying around space is pretty weird, but this one is extra weird, which is why astronomers are so excited about it—in fact, although scientists first dubbed it a comet, they're now not even sure what it is. The object's path has been difficult to track back in time from when it was first identified, but scientists are pretty sure it doesn't belong to our solar system. That would make it the first interstellar visitor to be observed.

And if it turns out to be truly out of this world, it would be precisely what astronomers have been looking for. "We have long suspected that these objects should exist," said Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii, which runs the telescope that spotted A/2017 U1, in a press release. "What's most surprising is that we've never seen interstellar objects pass through before."
Story Continues (https://www.yahoo.com/news/mysterious-visitor-another-solar-system-202914722.html)

Good article, thanks for sharing link...

[calikid]

A planet so big it might be a failed star.
.
Astronomers just spotted a planet so huge they aren’t even sure it’s really a planet.
By Mike Wehner.
Even if you have only cursory knowledge of the planets in our Solar System, you know that Earth is on the smaller end of the spectrum in terms of mass. Mercury and Mars are even smaller, but Saturn and the mighty Jupiter, of course, are on the other end of the spectrum. But in the grand scheme of things, Jupiter isn’t actually all that mighty at all, and a new discovery of an absolutely massive planet residing in our galaxy’s “bulge� has scientists struggling to explain how it can even be a planet at all.

The new planet, which was discovered using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is named OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, but what it lacks in a flashy name it more than makes up for in sheer size. The planet is estimated to be over 13 times the mass of Jupiter, which is so huge that astronomers are considering the possibility that it’s not actually a planet.
Story continues (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/astronomers-just-spotted-planet-huge-aren-t-even-232923824.html).

[calikid]

Earth to ET. Is anybody listening?

Scientist take risk sending secret message to Aliens.
By Chris Ciaccia.

If “the truth is out there,� scientists are determined to find it — so much so that they’ve sent a message into space trying to contact aliens.

But a response could take 25 years — if it comes at all.

Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) International sent an encoded message into space using radio waves known as “Sonar Calling GJ273b,� which the organization’s president and founder Doug Vakoch believes could be received by intelligent life.

“[The message is] distinctive because it’s designed with extraterrestrial SETI scientists in mind. We sent the sort of signal we’d want to receive here on Earth,� he said in an interview with CNET.

METI’s purpose, along with the well-known Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), has a number of missions, including understanding and communicating “the societal implications and relevance of searching for life beyond Earth, even before detection of extraterrestrial life.�

It also conducts programs to “foster increased awareness of the challenges facing our civilization’s longevity,� among other directives.

The San Francisco-based METI sent its message toward the red dwarf star GJ 273 (also known as Luyten’s Star), 12 light-years away from Earth. The message was sent in October from the Eiscat transmitter in Tromsø, Norway, and included details such as basic math and science, as well as information on humankind’s understanding of time.

In a statement obtained by CNET, METI said it wanted to know if intelligent life understood the message and then go from there.

“In a reply message, I would first want to know that the extraterrestrials understood what we said in our first message,� METI said in the statement. “The easiest way to do this is to repeat our message, but in expanded form. We tell them that ‘1 + 1 = 2.’ They could let us know that they understand that ’10 + 10 = 20.'�

Pressing ahead despite concerns

While some luminaries, such as Stephen Hawking, have warned against
Story Continues
https://nypost.com/2017/11/16/scientists-take-risk-sending-secret-message-to-aliens/

[calikid]

New PBS special.

'Black Hole Apocalypse'
By Hanneke Weitering

A new NOVA documentary takes viewers on a virtual journey into a black hole and delves into the exciting new things scientists have learned about the most bizarre places in the universe. The two-hour special "Black Hole Apocalypse" premieres on PBS tonight (Jan. 10) at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT.

Hosted by astrophysicist Janna Levin of Columbia University, "Black Hole Apocalypse" breaks down the basics of black holes and explains some of the latest groundbreaking discoveries in black hole research. With the help of spectacular computer-generated imagery, Levin leads a virtual tour through the cosmos and straight into a black hole — the point of no return.

Black holes are places in space where the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. In a black hole, the laws of physics as we currently understand them break down. While they're incredibly massive, "black holes aren't objects," Levin explains in the documentary. "Black holes are just nothing. They're empty." [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]

If you have a hard time wrapping your head around the concept of a black hole, you're certainly not alone. Black holes are a mind-boggling concept for even the most brilliant astrophysicists. Fortunately, though, you don't need to know anything about black holes or astrophysics to understand the science in "Black Hole Apocalypse." And even black hole experts will be able to appreciate the documentary for its entertainment value alone.
Story Continues (https://www.space.com/39344-black-hole-apocalypse-pbs-premiere.html)

[calikid]

Here's hoping the weather co-operates. Only rains a few days a year here in California, but always seems to be during the cool stuff.... like meteor showers, etc.

Make the Most of January’s Total Lunar Eclipse
By: Bob King

It's fun to watch the Moon fatten up this month knowing that when it's full, we'll have a total lunar eclipse. Be sure to mark the date — Wednesday morning, January 31st.

This will be the year's only eclipse of any kind for U.S. observers, so it's worth the effort to get up early to see it. For observers in the Western Hemisphere, the event happens in the pre-dawn or dawn sky close to the western horizon only an hour or two before sunrise; the farther west you live, the higher the Moon will be in the sky and the more of the eclipse you'll see.
Story Continues (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/january-lunar-eclipse/)

http://wwwcdn.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/Umbra_color_schematic.jpg

[Wally]

From space.com
NASA's TESS Satellite Launches to Seek Out New Alien Worlds (https://www.space.com/40320-spacex-nasa-tess-exoplanet-satellite-launch.html)
It'll be awesome if they find spectroscopic evidence for life beyond Earth, we'll just have to wait and see.

[calikid]

From space.com
NASA's TESS Satellite Launches to Seek Out New Alien Worlds (https://www.space.com/40320-spacex-nasa-tess-exoplanet-satellite-launch.html)
It'll be awesome if they find spectroscopic evidence for life beyond Earth, we'll just have to wait and see.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) program certainly sounds ambitious.
Checking the brightest stars in Earth's sky for planets. Two year program, supposed to review 200,000 star systems.

[Wally]

From Newsweek
Scientists Recognize First Asteroid Intruder From Another Solar System and Stuck in Ours
(http://www.newsweek.com/scientists-recognize-first-asteroid-intruder-another-solar-system-and-stuck-936520)

Hopefully we can send a probe to study it in detail.

[calikid]

Maybe not blue skies on Mars. But patches of blue firma are found in enhanced photos.

A Large Streak of ‘Blue’ was Found on the Red Planet
by CNN Wire

Mars is often referred to as the Red Planet, but pictures from one of NASA’s orbiters showed what appeared to be a striking blue sand dune.

The images were captured by the Mars Renaissance Orbiter, using the HiRISE camera, described on its website as “the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet.”
Story Continues (https://fox40.com/2018/06/27/a-large-streak-of-blue-was-found-on-the-red-planet/)

https://tribfox40.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/s095642124.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&w=300

[calikid]

Not so great for USA viewers, but Africa & Asia should have a great Lunar Eclipse show this coming Friday.

Total Lunar Eclipse - July 27–28, 2018.


The second total lunar eclipse of 2018 will be visible in large parts of Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America. Totality will last for 103 minutes, making it the longest eclipse of the 21st century.
Story Continues (https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2018-july-27)

https://c.tadst.com/gfx/ios/app/eclipse-100.png

[Wally]

From space.com
Mars' South Pole May Hide a Large Underground Lake (https://www.space.com/41272-mars-liquid-water-below-ice-cap.html)

[calikid]

Sounds like a good day to park your plane.
.
Air Force remains silent after huge meteor hits near US military base.
A meteor hit the earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force last month, but the US Air Force has made no mention of the event.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed an object of unspecified size travelling at 24.4 kilometres per second struck earth in Greenland, just 43 kilometres north of an early missile warning Thule Air Base on the 25th of July, 2018.

Director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen, tweeted about the impact, but America’s Air Force has not reported the event. Story Continues (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/08/03/air-force-remains-silent-after-huge-meteor-hits-near-us-military-base.html)

[Wally]

From space.com Some new news regarding Kepler-1625b

First Exomoon Found? Neptune-Sized World Possibly Spotted Orbiting Alien Planet (https://www.space.com/42008-first-exomoon-discovery-kepler-1625b.html)

[calikid]

The NASA "InSight" lander has touched down safely on MARS. November 2018.

NASA’s InSight beams back breathtakingly clear photo of Mars
NASA’s spacecraft that landed on Mars Monday has beamed back its first clear photo of the desolate Red Planet.

“There’s a quiet beauty here. Looking forward to exploring my new home,” NASA tweeted late Monday, hours after its new InSight lander touched down.

The image came after the rover had earlier sent back a somewhat blurry photo. The space agency said that in the interim the spacecraft had opened its solar panels, which allowed it to recharge its batteries for the mission.

“Our Mars Odyssey orbiter phoned home, relaying news from @NASAInSight indicating its solar panels are open & collecting sunlight on the Martian surface,” NASA wrote in the tweet. “Also in the dispatch: this snapshot from the lander’s arm showing the instruments in their new home.”

The InSight spacecraft landed on Mars on Monday after six-month journey to the planet. The dispatch that included the first clear photo of Mars from the mission were relayed to Earth by the Mars Odyssey orbiter.
Story Continues (https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasas-insight-beams-back-breathtakingly-clear-photo-of-mars)


https://a57.foxnews.com/media2.foxnews.com/BrightCove/694940094001/2018/11/27/931/524/694940094001_5972099701001_5972099214001-vs.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

[calikid]

NASA has reached the asteroid and is now making preparations to orbit the body.


Hello, Bennu! NASA Asteroid-Sampling Probe Reaches Its Target Space Rock
November 2018.
By Mike Wall.

The United States' first asteroid-sampling probe has arrived at its target, acing a deep-space rendezvous about 76 million miles (122 million kilometers) from Earth.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sidled up to the diamond-shaped asteroid Bennu today (Dec. 3) at about 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT), wrapping up a circuitous cosmic chase that lasted 27 months.

"#WelcomeToBennu! After two years of travel — and more than a decade of planning and work by my team — I’m here. But Arrival is just the beginning…" team members wrote today via the mission's Twitter account, @OSIRISREx.

OSIRIS-REx is now less than 12 miles (20 km) from Bennu, but the probe is flying along with the space rock rather than orbiting it. Orbital insertion won't come until Dec. 31, after OSIRIS-REx has performed a series of flybys that will bring the probe to within just 4.3 miles (7 km) or so of Bennu's boulder-strewn surface.

During these close encounters, OSIRIS-REx will study Bennu in depth, allowing team members to nail down the 1,650-foot-wide (500 meters) asteroid's mass and precise shape.
Story Continues (https://www.space.com/42612-nasa-osiris-rex-arrives-asteroid-bennu.html)

https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA4MS 8zMTEvb3JpZ2luYWwvYXN0ZXJvaWQtYmVubnUtb3NpcmlzLXJl eC5qcGc/MTU0Mzg2MDkyMQ==

[calikid]

Blasting a hole in the surface? Nothing like shipping a cannon aboard your rover mission.

Japan space probe drops hopping rovers towards asteroid

A Japanese space probe Friday released a pair of exploring rovers towards an egg-shaped asteroid to collect mineral samples that may shed light on the origin of the solar system.

The "Hayabusa2" probe jettisoned the round, cookie tin-shaped robots toward the Ryugu astroid, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

If the mission is successful, the rovers will conduct the world's first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface.

Taking advantage of the asteroid's low gravity, they will jump around on the surface—soaring as high as 15 metres (49 feet) and staying in the air for as long as 15 minutes—to survey the asteroid's physical features with cameras and sensors.

So far so good, but JAXA must wait for the Hayabusa2 probe to send data from the rovers to Earth in a day or two to assess whether the release has been a success, officials said.

"We are very much hopeful. We don't have confirmation yet, but we are very, very hopeful," Yuichi Tsuda, JAXA project manager, told reporters.

"I am looking forward to seeing pictures. I want to see images of space as seen from the surface of the asteroid," he said.

The cautious announcement came after a similar JAXA probe in 2005 released a rover which failed to reach its target asteroid.

Next month, Hayabusa2 will deploy an "impactor" that will explode above the asteroid, shooting a two-kilo (four-pound) copper object into the surface to blast a crater a few metres in diameter.
Story Continues (https://phys.org/news/2018-09-japan-space-probe-rovers-asteroid.html)
.
https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/2018/japanspacero.jpg

[calikid]

Dark side of the Moon? Have to wonder if any alien artifacts will be discovered/revealed.
Also wondering how they plan to power the rover, we have seen rovers fail without exposure to the sun to run solar panels to recharge critical batteries.

China launches lunar rover in historic mission to the dark side of the moon


While the dark side of the moon has been seen and mapped before, the successful landing of Chang'e 4 would represent the first time any spacecraft has touched down there.
China is quickly expanding its space capabilities through the China National Space Administration and state-backed companies.
The Chang'e name comes from the Chinese goddess of the moon.


By Michael Sheetz



China launched the Chang'e 4 spacecraft atop a Long March 3B rocket on Friday in a milestone mission to land a rover on the far side of the moon.

While the dark side of the moon has been seen and mapped before, the successful landing of Chang'e 4 would represent the first time any spacecraft has touched down there. The mission is part of China's heavy investment in lunar exploration and growing capabilities in space through the China National Space Administration.

Chang'e 4 comes about two years after China made the first soft landing on the moon since 1976. Similar in design to that Chang'e 3 craft and its "Jade Rabbit" rover, the Chang'e 4 spacecraft will carry a bigger payload and more capabilities. The space agency will use the craft to study geological conditions on the far side of the moon.

It will take Chang'e 4 about three days to travel to the moon, where it will spend about three weeks in orbit. The lander and rover are expected to touch down on the Von Karman crater sometime around Jan. 1. The crater is a relatively flat spot on the moon's far side, according to a GB Times report, although the landing will present many new challenges for China. The rover will be able to communicate with Earth thanks to a relay satellite China launched into lunar orbit in May.
Story Continues (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/07/china-launches-change-4-rover-mission-to-the-far-side-of-the-moon.html)

[epo333]

Dark side of the Moon? Have to wonder if any alien artifacts will be discovered/revealed.
Also wondering how they plan to power the rover, we have seen rovers fail without exposure to the sun to run solar panels to recharge critical batteries.


I believe the "Dark Side" of the moon does receive a fare amount of sun as it approaches a NEW moon as seen from earth. We never see the side facing away from us, however the side facing away from us goes through the same phases from the Sun's point of view. So to speak.

Much of the side facing us goes through dark phases too.

http://www.moonconnection.com/images/moon_phases_diagram.jpg

That said, the rover may go through several days of darkness.

Or it may have a radioactive type of power generation as used on a few of our probes sent out to the farthest reaches of our solar system.

[calikid]

I believe the "Dark Side" of the moon does receive a fare amount of sun as it approaches a NEW moon as seen from earth. We never see the side facing away from us, however the side facing away from us goes through the same phases from the Sun's point of view. So to speak.

Much of the side facing us goes through dark phases too.

http://www.moonconnection.com/images/moon_phases_diagram.jpg

That said, the rover may go through several days of darkness.

Or it may have a radioactive type of power generation as used on a few of our probes sent out to the farthest reaches of our solar system.

Yes, as we all know it takes 28 days for the Moon to complete one full rotation on it's axis AND one full orbit around the earth. Which mean the moon spends half that time (14 days) with it's face passing into exposure to the Sun, and the other 14 days with it's face transiting into the Earth's shadow.

If I recall the Mars rover would power down for weeks or months at a time when major sandstorms blanketed the planet. Then powered right back up when the storms subsided enough for the Sun to hit the solar panels to recharge the batteries. Probably a similar deal with this new lunar probe. If the Chinese don't land in some deep shadow filled valley.

Interesting point about the nuclear power. I recall early on they used such power sources, but I have a recollection that some years ago, an international treaty was signed prohibiting future use? In case of catastrophic failure (ie launch or re-entry results in high altitude explosion), they wanted to prevent a radioactive cloud from descending down to the Earth (maybe part of the space based weapons restrictions). Have to research that, see if it is still in force.

Reminds me of that lyric from Pink Floyd's ECLIPSE, last song on Dark Side of the Moon album. "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark." :D

[calikid]

Dare I say it, but there does appear to be structures on the surface of this "not to little asteroid" .

In the better resolution of the rock, we see something that appears to be completely artificial! And by the looks of the scale below, one could easily fly a craft right under what looks like a "canopy" of sorts.
<snip image>
.
<snip image>

The image below has been turned 180 degrees. Note the shadow line of the canopy.
.
That entire canopy is about the size of the lower 10 floors of the Empire State Building. :ufo:

<snip Image>]
.
Those certainly are some strange artifacts.
Perhaps you'd like to start another thread to do more photo analysis on such objects?
Offer up your observations and theories?
It's awesome to think about an asteroid being hollowed out to serve as a space port.

However, when I started this thread, its focus was to be on the hard core nuts and bolts science.
For now, I'd like to keep this mainly on topic with analysis limited to the scientific reports coming out of each mission's control center.
Don't recall any reports from NASA about artificial canopies.


Thanks

[M-Albion-3D]

.
Those certainly are some strange artifacts.
Perhaps you'd like to start another thread to do more photo analysis on such objects?
Offer up your observations and theories?
It's awesome to think about an asteroid being hollowed out to serve as a space port.

However, when I started this thread, its focus was to be on the hard core nuts and bolts science.
For now, I'd like to keep this mainly on topic with analysis limited to the scientific reports coming out of each mission's control center.
Don't recall any reports from NASA about artificial canopies.


Thanks


Hey Calikid,

Yes sure no problem.

If you want to move my post, let me know and I'll start a thread.

The "shapes" are strange indeed, but right you are, this thread is focused on astronomy, my opps.

[calikid]

Hey Calikid,

Yes sure no problem.

If you want to move my post, let me know and I'll start a thread.

The "shapes" are strange indeed, but right you are, this thread is focused on astronomy, my opps.

New thread created, and the post was moved. Click Here. (http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?2673-Examination-of-Asteroid-Photographs-ET-Bases)
The new thread covers ALL asteroid photographs. With multiple asteroids under discussion we should included the name of each object, to prevent identity confusion.

[calikid]

NASA's Juno mission is reaching it's half-way point, with it's 16th orbit of the gas giant.


NASA's Juno Mission Halfway to Jupiter Science
.
On Dec. 21, at 8:49:48 a.m. PST (11:49:48 a.m. EST) NASA's Juno spacecraft will be 3,140 miles (5,053 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops and hurtling by at a healthy clip of 128,802 mph (207,287 kilometers per hour). This will be the 16th science pass of the gas giant and will mark the solar-powered spacecraft's halfway point in data collection during its prime mission.

Juno is in a highly-elliptical 53-day orbit around Jupiter. Each orbit includes a close passage over the planet's cloud deck, where it flies a ground track that extends from Jupiter's north pole to its south pole.

"With our 16th science flyby, we will have complete global coverage of Jupiter, albeit at coarse resolution, with polar passes separated by 22.5 degrees of longitude," said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator from the Space Research Corporation in Annapolis, Maryland. "Over the second half of our prime mission — science flybys 17 through 32 — we will split the difference, flying exactly halfway between each previous orbit. This will provide coverage of the planet every 11.25 degrees of longitude, providing a more detailed picture of what makes the whole of Jupiter tick."

Launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Its science collection began in earnest on the Aug. 27, 2016, flyby. During these flybys, Juno's suite of sensitive science instruments probes beneath the planet's obscuring cloud cover and studies Jupiter's auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, interior structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

"We have already rewritten the textbooks on how Jupiter's atmosphere works, and on the complexity and asymmetry of its magnetic field," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "The second half should provide the detail that we can use to refine our understanding of the depth of Jupiter's zonal winds, the generation of its magnetic field, and the structure and evolution of its interior."
Story Continues (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-juno-mission-halfway-to-jupiter-science)
.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/pia22692.jpg

[calikid]

Mars quakes? We'll know soon enough, now that InSight has planted a Seismometer on the Martian surface.

The Mars InSight robot just placed its first instrument on Mars’ surface
by Mike Wehner

NASA’s Mars InSight mission is moving along at a rapid pace. After landing on the planet just a few weeks ago, InSight has spent its days observing its new living space and sending back photos of the ground surrounding it.

NASA’s InSight team has been practicing the tricky task of placing the robot’s sensitive instruments on the surface. Now, with a couple of years of observation and data gathering ahead of it, the bot has successfully deployed the first of its sensor suite, and NASA is very happy with how well things are progressing.

“NASA’s InSight lander has deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars, completing a major mission milestone,” NASA writes in a new blog post. “New images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, its copper-colored covering faintly illuminated in the Martian dusk. It looks as if all is calm and all is bright for InSight, heading into the end of the year.”
Story Continues (https://bgr.com/2018/12/21/insight-mission-mars-nasa-instruments/)

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia22956-1041.jpg

[calikid]

Slow transmission rates, and long distances means a wait before any detailed photos arrive of the 20miles x 10miles bowling-pin shaped object.
NASA's New Horizons Just Made the Most Distant Flyby >Ultima Thule> in Space History. So, What's Next?
By Nola Taylor Redd



NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has completed its epic flyby of the most distant object ever explored, the recently-unveiled fossil from the beginning of the solar system, Ultima Thule. So what's next?

Although the Jan. 1 encounter is over, the mission is far from finished. New Horizons still has images of Ultima Thule to send back, more of the Kuiper Belt to study, and the hope of one day leaving the solar system completely.

With the spacecraft safely past its target, a primary concern is its condition. After all, it can't send home data if it isn't functioning. Fortunately, health doesn't currently appear to be an issue. [New Horizons at Ultima Thule: Full Coverage]

"Everything looks great," Mission Operation Manager Alice Bowman told the press after the flyby.

"We're definitely looking forward to getting down the science data so all of our scientists—and the world — can see what the origins of our solar system has to hold for us."

During its fleeting pass over Ultima Thule, New Horizons filled its hard drive with about 7 gigabytes of data about the tiny Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). With the observations complete, it must begin the arduous task of sending that data back home.
Story Continues (https://www.space.com/42874-new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-whats-next.html)
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https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA4MS 85NDEvb3JpZ2luYWwvdWx0aW1hLXRodWxlLXNoYXBlLmpwZz8x NTQ2NDMzMzM1

[calikid]

Nice job by China to land on the "Dark Side of the Moon". With no line of sight to Earth, all communication happens via Relay satellite in lunar orbit.

China makes history by landing on the far side of the Moon.
Soon—if not already—the lander will deploy a rover named Yutu II.

By Eric Berger.

Declaring that it has opened a new chapter in lunar exploration, the China National Space Administration announced late Monday night that its Chang'e-4 lander had safely set down on the far side of the Moon. No spacecraft has ever made a soft landing there.

According to state media, a Beijing-based control center commanded the spacecraft to begin the landing procedure at 9:15pm ET Monday (10:15am, Tuesday, local time), from an altitude of 15km above the lunar surface. During an 11-minute descent, Chang'e-4 slowed its speed from 1.7 km/s to nearly zero before it landed in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This is in the mid-southern latitudes of the Moon on its far side; it should offer important scientific information about Earth and the early Solar System. Story Continues (https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/china-makes-history-by-landing-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon/)

[calikid]

Black hole picture captured for first time in space breakthrough.

Network of eight radio telescopes around the world records revolutionary image.

Astronomers have captured the first image of a black hole, heralding a revolution in our understanding of the universe’s most enigmatic objects.

The picture shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of a colossal black hole, at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55m light years from Earth.

The black hole itself – a cosmic trapdoor from which neither light nor matter can escape – is unseeable. But the latest observations take astronomers right to its threshold for the first time, illuminating the event horizon beyond which all known physical laws collapse.

The breakthrough image was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes spanning locations from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, in an effort involving more than 200 scientists.

Sheperd Doeleman, EHT director and Harvard University senior research fellow said: “Black holes are the most mysterious objects in the universe. We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have taken a picture of a black hole.”

France Córdova, director of the US National Science Foundation and an astrophysicist, said that the image, which she had only seen as it was unveiled at the press briefing she was chairing, had brought tears to her eyes. “We have been studying black holes for so long that sometimes it’s easy to forget that none of us has seen one,” she said. “This will leave an imprint on people’s memories.”
Story Continues (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/10/black-hole-picture-captured-for-first-time-in-space-breakthrough)

1669

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com

Curiosity Detects Unusually High Methane Levels On Mars (http://astrobiology.com/2019/06/curiosity-detects-unusually-high-methane-levels-on-mars.html)

[Wally]

From nbcnews.com
potentially habitable super earth discovered just 31 light years away (https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/potentially-habitable-super-earth-discovered-just-31-light-years-away-ncna1037491)

And from space.com
Could There Be Life? This Newfound 'Super-Earth' May Be Habitable (https://www.space.com/super-earth-exoplanet-gj-357d-may-support-life.html)

And from nasa.gov
Confirmation of Toasty TESS Planet Leads to Surprising Find of Promising World (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/confirmation-of-toasty-tess-planet-leads-to-surprising-find-of-promising-world)

[Wally]

from space.com

Thousands of Tardigrades Stranded on the Moon After Lunar Lander Crash (https://www.space.com/tardigrades-moon-israeli-lander.html)

Maybe some day in the future we can send something (or somebody) to the crash site and see if any of them are still alive and if so how well they have adapted.

[calikid]

from space.com

Thousands of Tardigrades Stranded on the Moon After Lunar Lander Crash (https://www.space.com/tardigrades-moon-israeli-lander.html)

Maybe some day in the future we can send something (or somebody) to the crash site and see if any of them are still alive and if so how well they have adapted.

The Water Bears were shipped in a kind of suspended animation.
No telling if the crash "released" them or not.
But even if not, it would be very informative to see if they can be revived after exposure to such extreme conditions.

[Wally]

Water Vapor On The Habitable-Zone Exoplanet K2-18b (http://astrobiology.com/2019/09/water-vapor-on-the-habitable-zone-exoplanet-k2-18b.html)

Water Vapor Detected in Atmosphere of an Alien World Nearly Twice the Size of Earth (https://www.space.com/water-vapor-in-atmosphere-of-alien-planet-k2-18b.html)

It'd be interesting if they are able to detect evidence of life.

[Wally]

from CNN:
Astronomer spots possible new interstellar visitor in our solar system (https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/world/another-interstellar-visitor-scn-trnd/index.html)
It would be great if we could send a probe, but considering that The closest it will get is 190 million miles on December 8 I'm not sure if we would be able to get anything to it in a timely fashion.

[Wally]

From Newsweek
Planet Nine Mystery Could Be Caused by a Black Hole, and Dark Matter 'Annihilation Signals' May Help Find It (https://www.newsweek.com/planet-nine-black-hole-halo-dark-matter-annihilation-signals-1462052)
That would probably make it a lot harder to find. :(

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com

Curiosity Observes Oxygen At Gale Crater (http://astrobiology.com/2019/11/curiosity-observes-oxygen-at-gale-crater.html)

[calikid]

I wonder why such a large black hole can't be explained by multiple black holes condensing/merging?
.
Giant black hole 'should not even exist,' stunned scientists say.
By James Rogers.

Stellar black holes are formed by the collapse of massive stars. The mass of an individual stellar black hole in our galaxy has long been estimated to be no more than 20 times that of the Sun, according to researchers.

Now, however, an international team of scientists led by Prof. Liu Jifeng of the National Astronomical Observatory of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has discovered a monster stellar black hole with a mass 70 times greater than the Sun.

"Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our Galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," said Prof. Liu, in a statement.
"We thought that very massive stars with the chemical composition typical of our Galaxy must shed most of their gas in powerful stellar winds, as they approach the end of their life,” Liu added. “Therefore, they should not leave behind such a massive remnant. LB-1 is twice as massive as what we thought possible. Now theorists will have to take up the challenge of explaining its formation."
Story Continues (https://www.foxnews.com/science/giant-black-hole-should-not-even-exist)
.
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2019/11/1862/1048/BlackHoleLB1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

[Wally]

Looks like TESS finally found a planet in the habitable zone. It looks to be right on the inner edge though rather than comfortably in the middle.

From astrobiology.com
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Finds An Earth-Size Habitable-Zone World (http://astrobiology.com/2020/01/transiting-exoplanet-survey-satellite-finds-an-earth-size-habitable-zone-world.html)

From space.com
NASA's TESS Planet Hunter Finds Its 1st Earth-Size World in 'Habitable Zone'
(https://www.space.com/nasa-tess-first-earth-size-habitable-exoplanet-toi-700d.html)

[calikid]

Cannot help but wonder if there is some intelligence behind the signal.

A Rare Fast Radio Burst has been Found that Actually Repeats Every 16 Days
by Evan Gough

A team of scientists in Canada have found a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) that repeats every 16 days. This is in stark contrast to other FRBs, which are more sporadic. Some of those sporadic FRBs occur in clusters, and repeat irregularly, but FRBs with a regular, repeatable occurrence are rare.

A Fast Radio Burst is a pulse of radio emissions that lasts only milliseconds. The first one was discovered in 2007 by astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic, and is called the Lorimer Burst. Since that time, many more have been discovered, but their origin is still unclear, though we know their source is extra-galactic.

The team of scientists have published a paper presenting their findings. It’s titled “Periodic activity from a fast radio burst source.” They’re working with data from CHIME, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment.
Story Continues (https://www.universetoday.com/144968/a-rare-fast-radio-burst-has-been-found-that-actually-repeats-every-16-days/)

[epo333]

LMH covered FRBs on her weekly chat-cast last night. (Among other topics)

Starting at 14:20 to about 18:17


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkgQukRU0dU

One might enjoy the entire hour . . . :cool:

[epo333]

Earth has acquired a brand new moon that's about the size of a car.


Space 26 February 2020
By Leah Crane


Earth might have a tiny new moon. On 19 February, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a dim object moving quickly across the sky. Over the next few days, researchers at six more observatories around the world watched the object, designated 2020 CD3, and calculated its orbit, confirming that it has been gravitationally bound to Earth for about three years.


Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235427-earth-has-acquired-a-brand-new-moon-thats-about-the-size-of-a-car/#ixzz6FAhkQyIZ

[Wally]

Earth size planet in the habitable zone.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1637/earth-size-habitable-zone-planet-found-hidden-in-early-nasa-kepler-data/
NASA discovers remarkably Earth-like exoplanet hidden in old telescope data (https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-discovers-remarkably-earth-like-exoplanet-hidden-in-old-telescope-data/)
.
1710

[calikid]

Fast Radio Burst detected within our galaxy for the first time.

Radio Signal Coming from Inside the Milky Way Detected by Astronomers
By Hannah Osborne

A radio signal coming from a source within the Milky Way has been detected by astronomers.

The signal is a fast radio burst (FRB), bright radio bursts that last milliseconds and appear to come from deep space. Because they are short-lived, they were often only identified in satellite data after the signal was recorded. Finding where they came from and what produced them has been largely a mystery.

The first FRBs were discovered over a decade ago. Since then, scientists have been trying to work out what is causing them. Suggestions have included cataclysmic events, such as the collision of two neutron stars or a collapsing black hole. But these hypotheses were questioned when a repeating FRB was uncovered. A black hole can only collapse once, because when the FRB repeated scientists realized either there must be another explanation, or more than one source can produce these bursts.
Story Continues (https://www.newsweek.com/radio-signal-milky-way-frb-1501479)

[Wally]

From NBC news:
In the atmosphere of Mars, a green glow offers scientists hints for future visits (https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/atmosphere-mars-green-glow-offers-scientists-hints-future-visits-n1231201)

From Space.com:
Weird green glow spotted in atmosphere of Mars (https://www.space.com/mars-atmosphere-green-glow-exomars-tgo.html)

[Wally]

From space.com

6 exomoons orbiting alien worlds (https://www.space.com/six-exomoons-possibly-discovered.html)

Newfound 'super-Earth' exoplanets bear clues about atmospheres of alien worlds (https://www.space.com/gliese-887-super-earth-exoplanet-atmospheres.html)

[CasperParks]

Comet Neowise appears in Earth's skies, article at NBC News click here to read. (https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/new-comet-neowise-appears-earth-s-skies-n1233431)

[calikid]

A Cable Snapped, and the Arecibo Observatory Went Dark. Here’s Why That Matters
An accident in the middle of the night damaged one of the world’s most important observatories—and scientists still don’t know what caused it.
By Nora McGreevy

Since it was installed in 1963, the gargantuan Arecibo Observatory has played a key role in the study of the universe. Formally known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, the radio telescope consists of a huge saucer-like construction, suspended by cables 500 feet above a 1,000-foot-wide dish, all overlooking a panoramic view of the Puerto Rican rainforest.

At 2:45 a.m. in the morning on August 10, one of those supporting cables snapped. The three-inch-wide cable flailed around wildly, damaging the telescope’s Gregorian dome and slashing a 100-foot-long gash through the dish below, reports Dennis Overbye for the New York Times.

Luckily, no one was hurt, reports Daniel Clery for Science magazine. However, the observatory will be shut down temporarily for repairs, scientists announced in a statement from the University of Central Florida (UCF), which manages the observatory for the National Science Foundation.

Officials do not yet know what caused the damage. In a news conference on August 14, researchers said they still needed to assess the full scope of the damage. Subsequent repairs could mean that the observatory is closed for weeks or possibly months, reports Hanneke Weitering for Space.com.

“We have a team of experts assessing the situation,” says Francisco Córdova, observatory director, in the UCF statement. “Our focus is assuring the safety of our staff, protecting the facilities and equipment, and restoring the facility to full operations as soon as possible, so it can continue to assist scientists around the world.”

Ramon Lugo, director of the Florida Space Institute at UCF and principal investigator on the Observatory, tells Science that the cable in question had been added to stabilize the telescope when the Gregorian dome, a large antenna, was installed in the 1990s. The cable had been designed to last for 15 to 20 years, so it’s unclear why it failed, reports Space.com.

As NASA researcher Ed Rivera-ValentÃ*n tells Maddie Sofia of NPR’s Short Wave, the Arecibo Observatory has been used for nearly 60 years to track asteroids as they careen toward Earth—a key part in our defense strategy against the interstellar objects, and a practice that helps us avoid the same fate as the dinosaurs.
Story Continues (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cable-snapped-and-arecibo-observatory-went-dark-heres-why-matters-180975688/)
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https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/YBLsqtvpf7nT3-wie5PcKMfXi-c=/1024x596/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/79/d4/79d40255-18e3-4949-9442-225e50363d2d/webarecibodishdamage.jpg

[Wally]

From space.com
The phosphine discovered in Venus' clouds may be a big deal. Here's what you need to know. (https://www.space.com/phosphine-venus-clouds-chemical-explained.html)

From astrobiology.com
Possible Marker Of Life Spotted On Venus (http://astrobiology.com/2020/09/possible-marker-of-life-spotted-on-venus.html)

Life on Venus would certainly be exciting, And it may be easier to get a sample return of the upper atmosphere than it would be to get a soil sample from Mars

[Wally]

From NASA
NASA Missions Spy First Possible ‘Survivor’ Planet Hugging White Dwarf Star (https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-missions-spy-first-possible-survivor-planet-hugging-white-dwarf-star)

[calikid]

Could use garlic. :D
Astronomers see a black hole 'spaghettify' a star in real time

Coming too close can mean being instantly transformed into some very unpleasant pasta.
By Eric Mack

It's one of those astounding events that sounds like science fiction, but is just plain science. Astronomers say they were able to capture the process of a star being ripped into strips and devoured by a black hole in unprecedented detail.

Story Continues (https://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-see-a-black-hole-spaghettify-a-star-in-real-time/)
1733

[calikid]

Nasa announces 'exciting' new discovery about the Moon.

A live NASA broadcast from SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a modified 747 aircraft).
10/26/2020 1205pm EST.

Water has been known to exist within the Moon's deep crater's shadows.
It has been newly discovered that water also exists out in the open, on sun lit surfaces.
Previously it had been thought water in the open would be lost to space.
This discovery means much more water may exist on the moon.
Water has many uses beyond drinking. Such as fuel, or media for experiments, etc.
If water can be used from the moon, it would help reduce payload weight.
Further research on why the water remains in the open, when exposed to sunshine, is planned.

[calikid]

Sad follow up to Sept 2020 story about damaged Aerocebo Radio Telescope.
.
After Suffering Irreparable Damage, It’s Lights Out for the Arecibo Observatory’s Iconic Telescope
By Rasha Aridi
.
After 57 years of gazing into the universe and helping astronomers unravel the cosmos' mysteries, the Arecibo Observatory's world-renowned telescope in Puerto Rico will be torn down, reports Alexandra Witze for Nature.

The observatory has three towers equipped with cables that hold up the telescope's enormous, 1,000-foot reflector dish. In 2017, Hurricane Maria battered the already deteriorating telescope. This August, an auxiliary cable slipped out of its socket, inflicting a 100-foot-long gash in the dish. Three months later, a main cable connected to that same tower snapped, causing more devastating damage. Teams of engineers looked for remedies to help save the telescope, but repairs would be too risky for a construction team to safely undertake, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN.

Given the age of the telescope, it would need more intensive maintenance in the future since the cables were weaker than originally thought. For this reason, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced yesterday that plans to decommission the telescope were underway.
Story continues (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-suffering-irreparable-damage-its-lights-out-arecibo-observatorys-iconic-telescope-180976367/)





https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/OgYV-BnM-7Pa58-ZeH1rXVKCgUM=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/f1/ed/f1ed0dd4-18d2-4b76-a6b3-3e30cd65e6a2/2020-11-07_12-42-16.jpg

[epo333]

Sad follow up to Sept 2020 story about damaged Aerocebo Radio Telescope.
.
After Suffering Irreparable Damage, It’s Lights Out for the Arecibo Observatory’s Iconic Telescope
By Rasha Aridi
.
After 57 years of gazing into the universe and helping astronomers unravel the cosmos' mysteries, the Arecibo Observatory's world-renowned telescope in Puerto Rico will be torn down, reports Alexandra Witze for Nature.

The observatory has three towers equipped with cables that hold up the telescope's enormous, 1,000-foot reflector dish. In 2017, Hurricane Maria battered the already deteriorating telescope. This August, an auxiliary cable slipped out of its socket, inflicting a 100-foot-long gash in the dish. Three months later, a main cable connected to that same tower snapped, causing more devastating damage. Teams of engineers looked for remedies to help save the telescope, but repairs would be too risky for a construction team to safely undertake, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN.

Given the age of the telescope, it would need more intensive maintenance in the future since the cables were weaker than originally thought. For this reason, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced yesterday that plans to decommission the telescope were underway.
Story continues (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-suffering-irreparable-damage-its-lights-out-arecibo-observatorys-iconic-telescope-180976367/)





https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/OgYV-BnM-7Pa58-ZeH1rXVKCgUM=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/f1/ed/f1ed0dd4-18d2-4b76-a6b3-3e30cd65e6a2/2020-11-07_12-42-16.jpg


Bummer:::


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AASKr_iHc&feature=emb_logo

[calikid]

Moon rocks arrive on Earth for the first time since 1976 as China lunar mission ends

By Sophie Lewis


Moon rocks arrive on Earth for the first time since 1976 as China lunar mission ends

By Sophie Lewis

December 16, 2020 / 2:43 PM / CBS News

For the first time in more than 40 years, a capsule has returned to Earth carrying samples of rocks from the moon — thanks to a Chinese spacecraft that touched down Wednesday afternoon.

According to state media, a capsule from the uncrewed Chang'e 5 probe landed with its parachutes in the Siziwang district of the Inner Mongolia region just after 1:00 p.m. ET Wednesday, early Thursday morning in the region.
Story Continues (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moon-rocks-return-earth-first-time-since-1976-china-lunar-mission-change-5/)

[calikid]

This mission includes a small Helicopter called "Ingenuity", how cool is that?

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover landing will be must-see TV
The next robot on Mars will touch down in a few weeks, and the views will be truly other-worldly.
by Eric Mack

NASA is just weeks away from landing a shiny new robot on the surface of Mars, and for the first time, we'll be able to see and hear what it's like to touch down on another world.

Perseverance is due to land in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, the first artificial object to land on the surface since the Mars Insight lander in 2018 and the first rover since Curiosity touched down in 2012.

But the new rover on the block is carrying more audio-visual gear than its predecessors to capture portions of the pivotal entry, descent and landing, or EDL, phase of the mission. A camera mounted on the back shell of the spacecraft is pointed up and will be able to catch a view of the parachutes that will deploy during descent to slow Perseverance as it comes in for its landing. Beneath this is a downward-pointing camera on the descent stage, which further slows and orients the rover for landing.
Story Continues (https://www.cnet.com/news/nasas-perseverance-mars-rover-landing-will-be-must-see-tv/)

[calikid]

NASA's Mars rover Perseverance successfully touches down on the red planet
by Denise Chow
.

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg charged with 3…
NASA's Perseverance rover nails Mars landing, ready to search for life

NASA kicked off a new era of Mars exploration Thursday with the successful landing of Perseverance, a car-size robotic explorer that will search for traces of ancient life on the planet and collect what could be the first rocky samples from Mars that are sent back to Earth.
.
The rover touched down at around 3:55 p.m. ET, after executing a daring and dramatic landing that had been nicknamed the "seven minutes of terror." Perseverance is now NASA's fifth rover to land on Mars and is set to begin a two-year mission to roam its surface and search for signs of ancient microbial life.
Story Continues (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasas-mars-rover-perseverance-successfully-touches-down-on-the-red-planet/ar-BB1dOfwO?OCID=ansmsnnews11)


.
Still waiting for the "Seven Minutes of Terror" video to be released by NASA (https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8865/touchdown-nasas-mars-perseverance-rover-safely-lands-on-red-planet/)!
.
https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/rockcms/2021-02/329/210211-mars-perseverance-rover-se-111p-951c48_1b13f916ca33097971e771daf052d3849068aba9.fi t-2000w.jpg

[calikid]

Fairly spectacular view (https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-sends-sneak-peek-of-mars-landing) of the "Sky Crane" lowering of the car sized Rover to Mars surface, from downward facing cameras.
.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/rover_drop.jpg?itok=Szjpa6ka

[calikid]

First flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity delayed until next week.
By Georgina Torbet .
.
We’ll have to wait a little longer to see the data on the first test flight of the tiny Mars helicopter Ingenuity, currently sitting on the Martian surface. NASA had planned to run the helicopter’s first test flight today, Sunday, April 11, but the flight has now been delayed until next week.

Now, the first test flight will take place on Wednesday, April 14 at the earliest. The delay is due to an issue spotted during a test of the rotor blades on Friday, April 9.

“During a high-speed spin test of the rotors on Friday, the command sequence controlling the test ended early due to a “watchdog” timer expiration. This occurred as it was trying to transition the flight computer from ‘Pre-Flight’ to ‘Flight’ mode. The helicopter is safe and healthy and communicated its full telemetry set to Earth,” NASA wrote in an update.
Story Continues (https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/ingenuity-test-flight-delayed/)
.
https://img.dtcn.com/image/digitaltrends/heliocopter-120011-720x720.jpg

[calikid]

A brief, but historic flight.
.
NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its historic first flight
By Ashley Strickland.

The Ingenuity helicopter has successfully completed its historic flight on Mars and safely landed back on the surface, according to NASA.
The first powered, controlled flight on another planet took place at 3:34 a.m. ET.
Unlike when the helicopter's fellow traveler, the Perseverance rover, landed on Mars on February 18, there was a bit of wait to know how the helicopter fared in its attempt.

The helicopter team was in mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, early Monday morning to receive and analyze the first data from Ingenuity's flight attempt.

Live coverage began on NASA's site Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. ET, shortly before confirmation of the flight's success at 6:46 a.m. A postflight briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.
Story Continues (https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/world/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-first-flight-scn-trnd/index.html)

[epo333]

Perseverance rover has created oxygen on Mars

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/images/news_large/news-moxie.jpg

NASA's car-sized rover has successfully managed to turn the Martian atmosphere into breathable oxygen.
The space agency has been celebrating a lot of scientific firsts recently such as the maiden flight of the Ingenuity helicopter which last week marked the first powered, controlled flight on another world.

Not to be outdone, the Perseverance rover has now achieved its own first for science by converting some of the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen - something that had never done before on another planet.

To accomplish this, it used an on-board instrument known as the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment - or MOXIE - a car battery-sized device described as a 'mechanical tree'.

o make oxygen, the device works by splitting carbon dioxide molecules which are comprised of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.

Such an achievement is important because if it is possible to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, future settlers will be able to produce their own breathable air.

It will also be possible to create fuel on Mars as well, reducing the need to ferry it from Earth.

"This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars," said NASA's Jim Reuter, associate administrator for the agency's space technology mission directorate.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/344827/perseverance-rover-has-created-oxygen-on-mars

[Wally]

From CNN
Massive object could be an interstellar moon, a rare find (https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/world/exomoon-second-candidate-scn/index.html)

[Wally]

A meteor from outside the solar system.
US military confirms an interstellar meteor collided with Earth (https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/13/world/interstellar-meteor-discovery-scn/index.html)
Let's hope they are successful in their search for more pieces of the object.
Still it will be fascinating to see the results when they analyze the bit they already have.

[Wally]

The Webb telescope is ready and releasing its first images.
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

[CasperParks]

The Webb telescope is ready and releasing its first images.
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

I'm hoping they look at some of the planets that only 12.5 light-years away, and make those images public.

[Wally]

NASA's James Webb telescope snaps its first picture of an exoplanet (https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/09/01/nasas-webb-takes-its-first-ever-direct-image-of-distant-world)

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com
New Evidence For Liquid Water Beneath The South Polar Ice Cap Of Mars (https://astrobiology.com/2022/09/new-evidence-for-liquid-water-beneath-the-south-polar-ice-cap-of-mars.html)

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com
A Catalog Of Habitable Zone Exoplanets (https://astrobiology.com/2022/10/a-catalog-of-habitable-zone-exoplanets.html)
the data can be found at:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.02484

[Wally]

From astrobiology.com
ESPRESSO and CARMENES Discover Two Potentially Habitable Exo-Earths Around A Star Near The Sun (https://astrobiology.com/2022/12/espresso-and-carmenes-discover-two-potentially-habitable-exo-earths-around-a-star-near-the-sun.html)

[Wally]

From NASA
NASA’s TESS Discovers Planetary System’s Second Earth-Size World (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-tess-discovers-planetary-systems-second-earth-size-world)

From space.com
Astronomers find 2nd Earth-size planet in intriguing alien solar system (https://www.space.com/tess-second-earth-size-habitable-zone-exoplanet)

[Wally]

From NASA:
Webb Discovers Methane, Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere of K2-18 b (https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18b)
The discovery of dimethyl sulfide is interesting if it turns out to be true.

[epo333]

5 Incredibly Rare Things That Will Appear in The Sky in 2024

2024 promises to be an exceptional year in astronomy. This year, we will witness four eclipses, encounter two bright naked-eye comets, and observe several planetary conjunctions that you won't want to miss.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXAUnwKbE4o&t=322s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXAUnwKbE4o&t=322s