Space
SwRI to build miniature solar observatory for manned suborbital flight
October 23, 2012 11:22 am | News | CommentsSouthwest Research Institute (SwRI) has received funding from NASA to build a miniature, portable solar observatory for developing and testing innovative instrumentation in suborbital flight. The SwRI Solar Instrument Pointing Platform will fly on new, commercial manned suborbital craft to enable spaceborne science and instrument development at a fraction of the cost of unmanned sounding rockets.
U.S. astronaut sees science breakthrough in space
October 22, 2012 11:31 am | News | CommentsAn astronaut departing this week for the International Space Station said Monday that the bulk of the scientific benefits from the orbiting laboratory will be seen over the coming decade, amid questions on whether the estimated $100 billion spent in last 12 years is worth the effort. Portland, Indiana-born Kevin Ford said the station is just now entering the phase where the bulk of science being conducted there will come to fruition.
Milky Way's black hole getting ready for snack
October 22, 2012 10:50 am | News | CommentsGet ready for a fascinating eating experience in the center of our galaxy. The event involves a black hole that may devour much of an approaching cloud of dust and gas known as G2. A supercomputer simulation prepared by two Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicists suggests that some of G2 will survive, although its surviving mass will be torn apart, leaving it with a different shape and questionable fate.
Atom optics to help detect the imperceptible
October 22, 2012 8:43 am | by Lori Keesey | News | CommentsPredicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, the waves occur when massive celestial objects move and disrupt the fabric of space-time. But by the time these waves reach Earth, they are so weak that the planet expands and contracts less than an atom in response. No instrument or observatory has ever directly detected them. A pioneering technology capable of atomic-level precision is now being developed to detect what so far has remained imperceptible.
U.S. astronaut sees science breakthrough in space
October 22, 2012 4:47 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsA U.S. astronaut departing this week for the International Space Station said Monday that the bulk of the scientific benefits from the orbiting laboratory will be seen over the coming decade, amid questions on whether the estimated $100 billion spent in last 12 years is worth the effort.
Mars rover ready for its first soil sample
October 19, 2012 10:12 am | News | CommentsThe ability to ingest solid samples and examine them using X-ray diffraction is a core capability for the Curiosity rover. This week that ability was tested using a small scoop of minerals that has been shaken to remove any residues carried from Earth. These particles have been placed inside CheMin, an analytical instrument about the size of a laptop computer inside a carrying case.
Earth-sized planet found just outside solar system
October 17, 2012 3:20 pm | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsA medium-sized planet that has recently been located by astronomers at Geneva Observatory in Europe is just four light-years away, which is about the closest an extra-solar planet can get to Earth. It is the type of planet they've been searching for across the Milky Way galaxy and they found it circling Alpha Centauri B, a star right next door.
Dark matter filament studied in 3D for the first time
October 17, 2012 8:29 am | News | CommentsExtending 60 million light-years from one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, the filament of dark matter examined recently by the Hubble Space Telescope is part of the cosmic web that constitutes the large-scale structure of the Universe, and is a leftover of the very first moments after the Big Bang. If the high mass measured for the filament is representative of the rest of the Universe, then these structures may contain more than half of all the mass in the Universe.
Blue Origin completes rocket engine thrust chamber test
October 16, 2012 12:11 pm | News | CommentsNASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partner Blue Origin has successfully fired the thrust chamber assembly for its new 100,000 pound thrust BE-3 liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket engine. As part of Blue's Reusable Booster System (RBS), the engines are designed eventually to launch the biconic-shaped space vehicle the company is developing.
How Huygens landed on Titan
October 16, 2012 12:10 pm | by Jia-Rui Cook/JPL and Daniel Stolte/UANews | News | CommentsScientists have pieced together the sequence of events of the farthest touchdown a man-made spacecraft has ever made on an alien world. Their work in tracking the bounces, wobbles, and skids the probe made before coming to rest on Titan reveals new clues about the Saturn moon’s surface and helps plan future missions to moons and planets.
NASA must reinvest in nanotechnology research
October 16, 2012 11:38 am | News | CommentsThe United States may lose its leadership role in space to other countries unless it makes research and development funding and processes—especially in nanotechnology—a renewed and urgent priority, according to a new paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Jump from 24-miles high provides collective moment
October 15, 2012 1:01 pm | by Juan Carlos Llorca and Oskar Garcia, Associated Press | News | CommentsFelix Baumgartner stood poised in the open hatch of a capsule suspended above Earth, wondering if he would make it back alive. Twenty four miles below him, millions of people were right there with him, watching on the Internet and marveling at the wonder of the moment. Nine minutes later he landed, becoming the world's first supersonic skydiver.
Surprises found in Mars rock touched by Curiosity
October 12, 2012 10:18 am | News | CommentsTwo instruments on the Mars rover Curiosity were used to study the chemical makeup of a football-size rock called "Jake Matijevic". In addition to the ChemCam, which had examined a number of rocks, NASA for the first time used an X-ray spectrometer on the new rock, finding that its composition resembles some unusual rocks found in Earth’s interior.
Nearby super-Earth likely a diamond planet
October 11, 2012 11:58 am | News | CommentsLocated by Yale University researchers, a new planet—called 55 Cancri e—has a radius twice Earth’s, and a mass eight times greater, making it a “super-Earth.” Forty light-years away, the placement and chemical signature suggest to planetary scientists that it is composed primarily of carbon, iron, silicon carbide, and silicates. Much of that carbon would in the form of graphite or diamond.
NASA precisely measures expansion of universe
October 4, 2012 10:01 am | News | CommentsThe Hubble constant is named after the astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, who astonished the world in the 1920s by confirming our universe has been expanding since it exploded into being 13.7 billion years ago. This constant, or rate of expansion, is accelerating, and determining the expansion rate is critical for understanding the age and size of the universe. Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have announced the most precise measurement yet of the Hubble constant.
Mars rover Curiosity finds signs of ancient stream
September 30, 2012 6:01 pm | by Alicia Chang, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsThe NASA rover Curiosity has beamed back pictures of bedrock that suggest a fast-moving stream, possibly waist-deep, once flowed on Mars. There have been previous signs that water existed on the red planet long ago, but the images released Thursday showing pebbles rounded off, likely by water, offered the most convincing evidence so far of an ancient streambed.
Measuring the universe's 'exit door'
September 27, 2012 12:06 pm | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe point of no return: In astronomy, it's known as a black hole. Black holes that can be billions of times more massive than our sun may reside at the heart of most galaxies. Such supermassive black holes are so powerful that activity at their boundaries can ripple throughout their host galaxies. Now, an international team, has, for the first time, measured the radius of a black hole at the center of a distant galaxy.
Study: Buddhist idol, found by Nazis, is made of meteorite
September 26, 2012 5:51 pm | News | CommentsIt sounds like an artifact from an Indiana Jones film; a 1,000 year-old ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analysed by scientists and has been found to be carved from a meteorite. The findings reveal the priceless statue, which is the first known carving of a human in a meteorite, to be a rare class of meteorite that fell 15,000 years ago.
Spaceport is built, but who will come?
September 24, 2012 2:06 pm | by Jeri Clausing, Associated Press | News | CommentsNew Mexico Tourism Secretary Monique Jacobson says it will be New Mexico's Sydney Opera House. Virgin Galactic Chairman Richard Branson has hinted it will host the first of his new brand of lifestyle hotels. But the nearly quarter-of-a-billion-dollar Spaceport America in New Mexico project has yet to attract the sort of industrial and investment activity expected, even as it nears phase one completion.
Slow-moving rocks better odds that life crashed to Earth from space
September 24, 2012 9:54 am | News | CommentsMicroorganisms that crashed to Earth embedded in the fragments of distant planets might have been the sprouts of life on this one, according to new research. The research team reports that under certain conditions there is a high probability that life came to Earth during the solar system's infancy when Earth and its planetary neighbors orbiting other stars would have been close enough to each other to exchange lots of solid materials.
Demonstrated: Nanotube transistors can survive space
September 18, 2012 6:02 am | News | CommentsAs part of their investigation of the effects ionizing radiation has on crystalline structures found in single-walled carbon nanotube transistors, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory engineers have recently shown these devices can stand up harsh space environments. This durability has been achieved through a combination of a hardened dielectric material and the natural isolation of the transistor.
Researchers to test alien soils for use in heat shield
September 17, 2012 8:19 am | News | CommentsAn important test is coming up next week to see whether a heat shield made from the soil of the moon, Mars, or an asteroid will stand up to the searing demands of a plunge through the Earth's atmosphere. At stake is the possibility that future spacecraft could leave Earth without carrying a heavy heat shield and instead make one on the surface of another world and ride it home safely.
Astrophysicists get first images for Dark Energy Camera
September 17, 2012 7:08 am | News | CommentsWhen the Dark Energy Camera opened its giant eye last week and began taking pictures of the ancient light from far-off galaxies, more than 120 members of the Dark Energy Survey eagerly awaited the first snapshots. Those images have now arrived.
Visible from space: Curiosity tire tracks on Mars
September 7, 2012 5:15 am | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsTracks from the first drives of NASA's Curiosity rover are visible in a new image captured by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In just one month, it's driven 112 m on the red planet, slightly more than the length of a football field.
Thirty-five years later, Voyager 1 is heading for the stars
September 5, 2012 8:01 am | by Alicia Chang, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsToday marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn. Since leaving the ringed gas giant behind many years ago, Voyager 1 has rocketed toward an invisible boundary that no human spacecraft has ever ventured beyond. Scientists now say, based on instrument readings, that it is about to leave our solar system and venture into interstellar space.
