NASA SPACE NEWS

Gingrich call for moon foundation, space contest

2012-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

"We want Americans to think bravely about the future," Gingrich said throughout a campaign rally in Florida, where he outlines a space policy plan that would cut NASA's system of government and get bigger on private-sector space programs champion by President Barack Obama."By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American,"

"We will have profitable near-Earth behavior that include science, tourism and manufacturing, because it is in our interest to acquire so much knowledge in space that we obviously have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching,"

Gingrich is safe in a shut battle with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as Florida prepare to vote on Tuesday in the Republican presidential main. Republicans are looking for a candidate to challenge Democrat Obama in the November election. The rally in Cocoa was now down the road from the Kennedy Space Center. With the departure of the space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly its astronauts to the global Space Station, a service that costs NASA about $60 million per person. China, the only other state that has fly people in space, is not a associate of the station partnership.

In adding to behind the station, a $100 billion laboratory own by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, NASA is operational on a spaceship and heavy-lift rocket that could carry astronauts to asteroids and other destination beyond the station's 240-mile-high (385-km) orbit.

The Obama management also backs the development of privately owned space taxis to break Russia's monopoly on transportation to the station. Congress allotted $406 million for the program for the year that began on October 1.

Gingrich said he required to use 10 percent of NASA's $18 billion budget on prize money for competitions that spur novelty and technological breakthrough in space."I'm ready to invest the prestige of the presidency in communicating and building a nationwide group in favor of space," Gingrich said at a meeting of aerospace executive and group of people leaders after the rally.

"If we do it right, it'll be untamed and it will be just the most fun you've ever seen," he said.

During a discuss in Florida on Monday, Romney said he supposed space should be a priority.

"What we have corrected now is a president who does not have a dream or a mission for NASA. I happen to believe our space program is significant not only for science, but also for profitable development and for military expansion.

Flights rerouted as enormoussolar tempesslam Earth

2012-01-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

Radiation storm are not damaging to humans, on soil at least, according to the US room agency. They can, however, have an effect on satellite operation and small wave radio.

Solar radiation from a huge sun storm - the main in nearly a decade - collide with the Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday, prompt an airline to redirect flights and sky watchers to seek out stunning light displays.US carrier Delta Air Lines said it had attuned flight routes for transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States to keep away from problems cause by the radiation storm.

NASA long-established the coronal mass ejection (CME) began collide with Earth's attractive field around 10:00 AM (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, addition that the storm was now being careful the largest since October 2003.Radiation storm are not harmful to humans, on Earth at smallest amount, according to the US space agency. They can, though, affect satellite operation and short wave radio.

The storm's radiation, likely to carry on bombarding Earth's atmosphere from side to side Wednesday, and its possible disturbance to satellite communications in the Polar Regions encouraged the flight rerouting, airline officials said. Atlanta-based Delta, the world's next largest airline, said "a handful" of routes had their journey attuned "based on potential impact" of the solar storm on infrastructure equipment, spokesman Anthony Black told AFP.

Routes from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul took a more southerly route after the solar flare erupted on Sunday. The airline said it would carry on monitoring solar activity before go back flights to their normal routes.

Due to the strange intensity of the photons raining on Earth, the spectacular aurora borealis - the stunning "Northern Lights" show - which is often seen closer to the Arctic pole at this time of year, has been seen as far south as Scotland and northern England, and at lower latitude in the United States.

The event started late Sunday with a moderate-sized solar flare that erupt right near the centre of the Sun, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center."The flare itself was nothing spectacular, but it sent off a very fast coronal mass ejection itinerant four million miles per hour (6.4 million kilometers per hour)," he told AFP.Space weather watchers said the best aurora sightings are usually around midnight local time. Rob Stammes, who run the Lofoten Polar Light Centre in Lofoten, Norway said the CME's arrival Tuesday had shaped a surge in ground current inside his laboratory.

Re-thinking an Alien World

2012-01-24T23:00:00.000-08:00

Forty light years as of Earth, a rocky world name "55 Cancri e" circles dangerously close to a stellar inferno. Implementation one orbit in only 18 hours, the alien planet is 26 times closer to its close relative star than Mercury is to the Sun. If soil were in the same position, the soil beneath our feet would heat up to about 3200 F. Researchers have extended thought that 55 Cancri e must be a wasteland of dry rock.

Now they’re thoughts again. New comments by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that 55 Cancri e may be wetter and weirder than anyone imagined.

Spitzer recently deliberates the extremely small amount of light 55 Cancri e blocks when it crosses in front of its star. These transits occur every 18 hours, giving researchers repeated opportunity to gather the data they need to approximation the width, quantity and density of the planet.

According to the new observations, 55 Cancri e has a mass 7.8 times and a radius just over twice that of Earth. Those property place 55 Cancri e in the "super-Earth" class of exoplanets, a few dozen of which have been found. Only a handful of known super-Earths, on the other hand, cross the face of their stars as view from our vantage point in the cosmos, so 55 Cancri e is better understood than most.

When 55 Cancri e was discovered in 2004, initial estimate of its size and mass were consistent with a dense planet of solid rock. Spitzer data suggest otherwise: About a fifth of the planet's mass must be made of light rudiments and compounds--including water. Given the intense heat and high pressure these materials likely experience, researchers think the compounds likely exist in a "supercritical" fluid state.

A supercritical fluid is a high-pressure, high-temperature state of matter best describe as a liquid-like gas, and a marvelous in the black. Water become supercritical in some steam turbines--and it tends to melt the tips of the turbine blades. Supercritical carbon dioxide is used to remove caffeine from coffee beans, and sometimes to dry-clean clothes. Liquid-fueled rocket propellant is also supercritical when it emerges from the tail of a spacecraft.

On 55 Cancri e, this material may be literally oozing--or is it sweltering?--out of the rocks.

With supercritical solvents rising from the planet’s surface, a star of terrifying proportions filling much of the daytime sky, and whole years rushing past in a matter of hours, 55 Cancri e teaches a valuable lesson: Just because a planet is similar in size to Earth does not mean the planet is like Earth.

Planck Space Telescope warm Up as intended

2012-01-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

"The High Frequency Instrument has reached the end of its observe life, but the Low Frequency Instrument will carry on observing for another year, and psychoanalysis of data from both instruments is still in the early phase," said Charles Lawrence, the U.S. Planck project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The scientific payoff as of the High Frequency instrument brilliantly winning operation is motionless to come."

NASA plays a significant role in the Planck mission, which is lead by the European Space Agency. In addition to serving with the analysis of the data, NASA contributes several key components to the mission itself. JPL built the state-of-the-art detectors that allowable the High Frequency Instrument to detect icy temperature down to nearly absolute zero, the coldest temperature hypothetically within reach.

Less than half a million years after the cosmos was created 13.7 billion years ago, the initial fireball cooled to temperatures of about 4,000 degrees Celsius (about 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit), releasing bright, visible light. As the cosmos has expanded, it has cooled radically, and its early light has faded and shifted to microwave wavelengths.

By studying pattern stamped in that light today, scientists hope to appreciate the Big Bang and the very early universe, as it appear long before galaxies and stars first shaped.Planck has been measure these patterns by survey the whole sky with its High Frequency Instrument and its Low Frequency Instrument. Mutual, they give Planck supreme wavelength coverage and the ability to resolve faint particulars.

Launched in May 2009, the smallest amount obligation for success was for the spacecraft to complete two whole surveys of the sky. In the end, Planck worked completely in completing not two, but five whole-sky surveys with both instrument. The Low Frequency Instrument will go on surveying the sky for a large part of 2012, as long as data to improve the excellence of the final results. The first results on the Big Bang and very early universe will not approach for a different year.

NASA Discovers New Double-Star Planet Systems

2012-01-18T04:03:00.000-08:00

While long anticipated in both science and science fiction, the existence of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars – like "Tatooine" portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, was not definitively established until the discovery of Kepler-16b, announced in September 2011.

Today, using data from NASA’s Kepler mission, astronomers announced the discovery of two new double-star planet systems – Kepler-34 and Kepler-35 – at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, Jan. 8-12, 2012.

"This work further establishes that such 'two sun' planets are not rare exceptions, but may in fact be common, with many millions existing in our galaxy," said William Welsh of San Diego State University and Kepler participating scientist who led the study. "This discovery broadens the hunting ground for systems that could support life."

The Kepler space telescope detects planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets crossing in front, or transiting, their stars. The Kepler science team requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet.

The two new planets, named Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b, are both gaseous Saturn-size planets. Kepler-34b orbits its two sun-like stars every 289 days, and the stars orbit one another every 28 days. Kepler-35b orbits its smaller and cooler host stars every 131 days, and the stellar pair orbit each other every 21 days. The planets reside too close to their parent stars to be in the "habitable zone"- the region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface.

At 4,900 and 5,400 light-years from Earth, located in the constellation Cygnus, Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b are among the most distant planets discovered. The findings are described in a new study published Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012 in the journal Nature.

NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission's development.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-34-35.html

NASA Helps Kick Off 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition

2012-01-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

An international robotics competition aimed at developing a new generation of technology leaders kicks off at 10:30 a.m. EST Saturday, Jan. 7. NASA, the largest sponsor of the FIRST Robotics Competition, and its centers across the nation will join local technology firms to launch the event. The main competition kickoff will take place at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester and will air live on NASA Television.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology -- is a long-standing challenge to inspire curiosity and create interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among high school students. Encouraging students to pursue STEM studies and careers is the focus of NASA's education programs.

"NASA's Science Mission Directorate is proud to have sponsored this technology revolution for the past 19 years," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This program has given tens of thousands of students a crucial mentoring experience if they choose to be a part of future exploration endeavors in space. FIRST Robotics is fun and exciting and will sustain an unprecedented positive educational impact on our nation's youth."

The FIRST Robotics Competition gives students the opportunity to design, build and test a robot that can perform specific functions. The competition also gives students the opportunity to be mentored by NASA professionals, who help them to explore potential solutions to robotics problems and understand the real-world challenges faced by engineers and researchers.

"FIRST Robotics has had a tremendous impact on students' interest in robotics and invention since its inception," said Leland Melvin, NASA's associate administrator for Education. "In fact, it was a mutual interest in FIRST Robotics that led the agency to a recently announced collaboration with entertainer will.i.am. We are excited to work together to help inspire the next generation to pursue STEM and robotics studies."

During the live broadcast of this year's competition kickoff, inventor and FIRST founder Dean Kamen and designers of the annual challenge will reveal this year's competition scenario. This kicks off a six-week design and building frenzy for students and their engineering mentors.

Each year, participating FIRST teams are presented with a new robotics competition scenario with twists and nuances to challenge both rookie and veteran teams. Each team receives a kit of parts and has six weeks to design and build a robot based on the team's interpretation of the game scenario. Other than dimension and weight restrictions, the look and function of the robots is up to each team.

NASA plays a significant role by providing public access to robotics programs to encourage young people to investigate careers in the sciences and engineering. Through the NASA Robotics Alliance Project, the agency provides grants to teams and sponsors four regional student competitions. NASA engineers and scientists participate with many of these teams as technical participants and mentors to the students. Through these mentoring activities, NASA engineers are able to directly share their expertise and experiences with the nation's next generation of technical leaders.

This year, there will be regional competitions across the country, as well as four additional international competitions in March and April. The FIRST Championship competition will be held April 25-28 in St. Louis.

The program was founded in 1989 by Kamen to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people, their schools and communities. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST is a non-profit organization that designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue academic opportunities.

2012: Fear No Supernova

2011-12-29T01:18:00.000-08:00

Given the incredible amounts of energy in a supernova explosion – as much as the sun creates during its entire lifetime – another erroneous doomsday theory is that such an explosion could happen in 2012 and harm life on Earth. However, given the vastness of space and the long times between supernovae, astronomers can say with certainty that there is no threatening star close enough to hurt Earth.

Astronomers estimate that, on average, about one or two supernovae explode each century in our galaxy. But for Earth's ozone layer to experience damage from a supernova, the blast must occur less than 50 light-years away. All of the nearby stars capable of going supernova are much farther than this.

Any planet with life on it near a star that goes supernova would indeed experience problems. X- and gamma-ray radiation from the supernova could damage the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet light in the sun's rays. The less ozone there is, the more UV light reaches the surface. At some wavelengths, just a 10 percent increase in ground-level UV can be lethal to some organisms, including phytoplankton near the ocean surface. Because these organisms form the basis of oxygen production on Earth and the marine food chain, any significant disruption to them could cascade into a planet-wide problem.

Another explosive event, called a gamma-ray burst (GRB), is often associated with supernovae. When a massive star collapses on itself -- or, less frequently, when two compact neutron stars collide -- the result is the birth of a black hole. As matter falls toward a nascent black hole, some of it becomes accelerated into a particle jet so powerful that it can drill its way completely through the star before the star's outermost layers even have begun to collapse. If one of the jets happens to be directed toward Earth, orbiting satellites detect a burst of highly energetic gamma rays somewhere in the sky. These bursts occur almost daily and are so powerful that they can be seen across billions of light-years.

A gamma-ray burst could affect Earth in much the same way as a supernova -- and at much greater distance -- but only if its jet is directly pointed our way. Astronomers estimate that a gamma-ray burst could affect Earth from up to 10,000 light-years away with each separated by about 15 million years, on average. So far, the closest burst on record, known as GRB 031203, was 1.3 billion light-years away.

As with impacts, our planet likely has already experienced such events over its long history, but there's no reason to expect a gamma-ray burst in our galaxy to occur in the near future, much less in December 2012.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-supernova.html

The new trend of beach wedding dress

2011-12-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

In recent days a new trend of beach wedding accepted between many people. Dissimilar from the customary formal church wedding, the beach wedding distinguish more enjoyment and Joy. In adding up the white sand, gentle breeze and awesome sea will all make the wedding more idealistic.

As like as choosing the evening gowns for special evening occasion, the beach wedding dresses should be choose. In common, the beach wedding dresses are especially planned for the beach wedding. So, they may be dissimilar from other dresses. This dress appears very simple and makes the wedding more pleasure. The dress with high decorations may make the bride to feel hot during summer.

Apart from the easy line cut, the cloth is also a significant issue. There are many clothes can be useful to the bridal gown, however for the beach weddings, the light fabrics are very much appreciated. In the meantime, the cloth should be air porous.

JEFF ADAMS - ADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN REAL ESTATE

2011-12-27T04:21:00.000-08:00

• All investment has its own advantage and disadvantages. In the case of property, it responds slower than stock markets.

• There are options to influence. The best thing about investing in real estate according to Jeff Adams is that there are many preferences that are available to real estate investor allowing them to borrow funds whenever they want to purchase new property. It is valuable to investors who don’t have upfront cash. This type of options are not available in the case of shares in which the trade allowed is limited, while in property investments, you don’t need to stick to any restrictions.

• Investors can also buy properties that are lower than market value such as foreclosed properties that are intense in the real estate market today. They are sold at very low prices and one can select from a group of properties in order for you to find the most lucrative property that can bring you profits in the future.

• Many bonuses are offered to real estate investors such as tax remuneration. In addition to this, investors can go well with the reduction choice. Investors are given support by the government to let their property to have a useful life.

• Investors are given authority to quote price for their property. This is another advantage of real estate investing over stock investments. Real estate investors can add value to the property by making adding enhancements such as modernizing their property by constructing swimming pool, garage and extra rooms. By doing this, the property is added with substantial value and investors are given full control in quoting the price of the property.

These are the important instructions newbie investors must educate themselves before getting into the real estate market. Jeff Adams scam may sound disheartening to most people, but there is no evidence that Jeff Adams would only want money from you. In fact, these tips are proposed to assist you make money in your investing career.

Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

2011-12-23T00:53:00.000-08:00

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit. The images, obtained by the framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early history.

At this detailed resolution, the surface shows abundant small craters, and textures such as small grooves and lineaments that are reminiscent of the structures seen in low-resolution data from the higher-altitude orbits. Also, this fine scale highlights small outcrops of bright and dark material.

A gallery of images can be found online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/gallery-index.html .

The images were returned to Earth on Dec. 13. Dawn scientists plan to acquire data in the low-altitude mapping orbit for at least 10 weeks. The primary science objectives in this orbit are to learn about the elemental composition of Vesta's surface with the gamma ray and neutron detector and to probe the interior structure of the asteroid by measuring the gravity field.

The Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn Framing Cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/news/dawn20111221.html

Satellite Data Shows that Kirtland’s Warblers Prefer Forests After Fire

2011-12-21T06:04:00.000-08:00

Kirtland’s warblers are an endangered species of lightweight little birds with bright yellow-bellies that summer in North America and winter in the Bahamas. But be it their winter or their summer home, a new study using data from NASA-built Landsat satellites shows that these warblers like to live in young forests and often forests that have been on fire.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed Kirtland’s warblers as endangered in 1967 after a startling decline of over 50 percent in less than ten years. The little birds prefer to nest on the ground amidst large areas of relatively young jack pine trees, and these trees need fire to reproduce. When fires were dramatically suppressed in the 1960s across northern Michigan, Wisconsin and southern Ontario, the warbler’s habitat became scarce.

After an intensive recovery program that focused both on combating invasive cowbirds and managing controlled forest burns, and thus creating warbler-friendly jack pine habitat, the Kirtland’s warbler made an impressive comeback. By 1995 their numbers had tripled.

But those extensive efforts only occurred at the Kirtland’s summer home, so a team of researchers reviewed the conditions of many a warbler’s winter home – the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. They did this by painstakingly putting together Landsat data to create cloud-free images of the isle’s forest cover.

Tropical islands typically have cloud cover, so the team compiled many Landsat images with scenes where the clouds were in different places into one image of clear forest, said Eileen Helmer. She’s a member of the Landsat Science Team for the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) and works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry.

The researchers did this not just once, but ten times, obtaining a record that spans a 30-year time period. According to Helmer, this allows them to tell how long it had been since the forest was last disturbed by fire, crops or grazing.

What the scientists discovered was that, like in their summer homes, Kirtland’s warblers are found in young forests. On Eleuthera, these forests only occur after a disturbance of some sort – like fire, clearing for agriculture, or grazing. And grazing turns out to be a disturbance the warbler can live with just fine. Old forest whose underbrush has been munched on by goats provides the most suitable habitat for warblers, said Helmer.

The results, published in this month's issue of Biotropica, suggest that goat grazing stunts the forest regrowth, so that the tree height doesn’t exceed the height beyond which important fruit-bearing forage tree species are shaded out by taller woody species. Helmer said that understanding how and where the warbler's winter habitat occurs will help conservation efforts in the Bahamas.

Helmer said that a unique feature of warbler’s winter habitat is that the age of this forest correlates very strongly with its height. By tracking the age of the forest after a disturbance, she and her team determined forest height at different times. Helmer said they used image time-series data from Landsat and the Advance Land Imager (ALI) sensor aboard the Earth-Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite to essentially ‘stack’ many images over time. This project is the first time that forest height profiles have been successfully mapped by satellite imagery at a medium resolution that shows a broad area but still resolves human impacts on the land. As in the warbler case, understanding how a forest is put together in three dimensions is important for ecological studies. Helmer adds that this tool may be applied elsewhere around the world due to Landsat’s global coverage and policy of free access to data. Helmer will discuss mapping forest height at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Friday, Dec. 9.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warblers.html

Expedition 29 Welcomes New Crewmates

2011-12-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin docked to the International Space Station’s Poisk mini-research module at 12:24 a.m. EST Wednesday. The trio launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:14 p.m. EST Sunday (10:14 a.m. Monday, Kazakhstan time).

After the hatches between Soyuz and station were opened at 2:39 a.m., Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum of NASA and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov welcomed the new flight engineers aboard for their four-month stay on the orbiting complex.

The six station crew members will have a little less than a week together as the Expedition 29 crew before Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov head home Monday aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft that brought them to the station June 9. Their departure will mark the beginning of Expedition 30, under the command of Burbank. A formal change-of-command ceremony is planned for Sunday.

Three additional Expedition 30 flight engineers -- NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers -- are scheduled to launch to the station Dec. 21.

Burbank is making his third visit to the station. His previous two visits were both aboard space shuttle Atlantis. During the STS-106 mission in September 2000, he helped prepare the station for its first permanent crew. During STS-115 in September 2006, he conducted a 7-hour, 11-minute spacewalk that completed truss installation, activated the solar alpha rotary joint and enabled the solar arrays to be deployed.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition29/exp29_dock.html

Maintaining Crew Health One Step at a Time

2011-12-16T05:50:00.000-08:00

While many of us may not like to exercise, imagine having to do it two hours every day. Astronauts on the International Space Station must exercise at least that much to stay fit. A new space station experiment is studying the difference between exercising on a treadmill in space and on Earth.

Biomechanical Analysis of Treadmill Exercise on the International Space Station, or Treadmill Kinematics, is the first rigorous investigation to determine the most beneficial treadmill exercise conditions to maintain or improve crew health during long-duration spaceflight.

"Exercise activities are developed under the assumption that walking and running in microgravity have the same training effects as under normal gravity," said John De Witt, principal investigator for the experiment with Wyle Integrated Science and Engineering Group in Houston. "However, if there is a difference, we will learn more about the effects, allowing us to develop appropriate exercise prescriptions to increase benefits to crew health and well-being."

Researchers are gathering video and data on the force the body exerts when the foot hits the ground while crew members run and walk on a treadmill at varying weights and speeds. This will determine joint motions and muscle functions that occur during normal exercise. Researchers also are comparing in-flight running styles with running styles on Earth.

"On the space station, locomotion -- running and walking movement -- occurs on a treadmill that isolates vibrations, which increases the potential for training differences in space," said De Witt. "The overall goal of the advanced exercise regimes for the crew members is to increase weight at the joints to provide a greater stimulus for bone and muscle health."

An earlier study on the space station titled Foot Reaction Forces During Space Flight, or Foot, measured foot forces on the previous version of the treadmill. "They weren’t enough to maintain bone," said Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Now we have a better treadmill, a better harness and improved protocols. They will help us determine how to arrive at future exploration destinations strong and ready to explore the surface."

While results of the Treadmill Kinematics analysis will be used to determine the best treadmill conditions for maintaining health during spaceflight, the data gathered may provide researchers with a better understanding of how exercise speed and external loads affect forces experienced by the joints and muscles on Earth.

Fore more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Treadmill_Kinematics.html

Technology Innovation Magazine Highlights the International Space Station

2011-12-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

The International Space Station didn't just make the cover story of the latest publication of NASA's Technology Innovation magazine, the entire issue was devoted to this amazing feat of collaboration and technology.

With assembly complete, the station can now fulfill its purpose as a testbed for research, innovation and technology development in microgravity, according to Joseph Parrish, NASA's deputy chief technologist. In the "Upfront with…" introduction to the magazine, Parrish shared the importance investment plays in moving forward as a global leader in aerospace technology.

"America is the nation we are today because of the technological investments made in the 1960s, because of the engineers and scientists of that generation and those policy makers who had the wisdom and foresight to make the investments required for our country to emerge as a global technological leader," said Parrish.

This sense of excitement as the investment in the space station turns to utilization echoes in the various articles from the issue. Contributors, such as Mark Uhran, NASA's International Space Station assistant associate administrator, shared their perspective on the space station's past and future, including opportunities available for research, technology and partnership.

In a piece titled "An Era of Opportunity, the International Space Station Begins its Next Stage of Partnership and Innovation," Uhran looked back at the developmental timeline that ultimately led to the station's creation. "While the design, assembly, and operations of the station to date are remarkable human achievements in their own right, the opening of the utilization era over the next decade presents unprecedented opportunities for partnerships to advance the research and development of space resources," said Uhran.

Other articles in the publication delve into the areas of scientific focus for research on the orbiting laboratory. These include biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, physical science, human research, technology and educational opportunities. The space station environment, which includes microgravity, extreme temperatures and radiation, provides a unique testing area with tremendous potential for discovery.

The feature titled "Biology in Orbit, How Research Partnerships Growing Plants, Cells, and Animals, and Testing New Drugs on the ISS Pays Off on Earth," spotlights how investigations in space can lead to real changes in everyday lives on the ground. From vaccine development to cell therapy, studies like Space Tissue Loss hold potential that is just starting to be tapped.

"This research helps us better understand adult stem cell biology and how to optimize our regenerative cell population," said Tom Cannon, vice president and co-founder of Tissue Genesis Inc. "This same cell population recovered from adipose tissue (fat) is currently in FDA clinical trials as we begin to translate its tremendous therapeutic potential into the clinic."

The space station's technological developments also can pay off with partnership dividends via industry products for Earth. For instance, a chemical sensor technology originally developed for aerospace fuel delivery safety found a second life as a "Lick and Stick" leak detection system. This technology is a core part of the Advanced Life Support System on the station, and on the ground is used to monitor hydrogen-powered concept cars, measure emissions and detect fires. You can read more in the related article "Innovative Research, 'Lick and Stick' Sensor Systems Enhance Safety and Performance."

Developments such as this sensor generate a ripple effect in related industries, according to Benjamin Ward, Ph.D., with Makel Engineering. "Our partnership with NASA in the development of the lick-and-stick technology has resulted in a wide range of sensor and smart systems products, which have generated a large percentage of company revenues and supported multiple engineering jobs," said Ward.

Inspiration, however, is not limited to corporate developments from station research. In fact, some of the greatest inventions and discoveries may result not from direct innovations, but from the inspirations generated from the educational efforts of the space station crew and their ground counterparts. Learning opportunities take center stage in the feature "Pen Caps and Nanoparticles, Inspiring, Engaging, and Educating the Next Generation through ISS Research."

"As you read about the wonders taking place now on [the] world's orbiting laboratory -- the International Space Station -- dare to dream about where these opportunities will take us over the next 10 or 25 years," said Parrish. "The possibilities are limitless!"

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Innovation_Magazine.html

New Tool for Touring Mars Using Detailed Images

2011-12-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

An improved tool debuts today for viewing channels, dunes, boulders and other features revealed in the huge image files from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The new tool, HiView, offers the best way to take a personal, virtual hike through any of thousands of square miles of Mars observed by HiRISE, seeing details as small as a desk. To watch the tutorial video and download the free HiView application, go to: http://www.uahirise.org/hiview/ .

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been studying Mars with an advanced set of instruments since 2006. It has returned more data about the planet than all other spacecraft combined. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ .

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.

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For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20111207.html

Save your time and money by booking your ticket in online

2011-12-09T02:25:00.000-08:00

People who ready to go for journey will give most preference to travel in bus and nowadays, they also started booking a ticket through online and cyberspace for saving their time and money. Booking a ticket through online or cyberspace will take more than a few seconds. In this fast moving world, online booking is good technique which will be like by every passenger. Online bus tickets can be booked through the internet and you can do at any time of day. The website is open for maximum hours and you can be sure that you do when you have time.

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NASA's Hubble Confirms That Galaxies Are the Ultimate Recyclers

2011-12-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process allows galaxies to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years.

This ongoing recycling keeps some galaxies from emptying their "fuel tanks" and stretches their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years.

This conclusion is based on a series of Hubble Space Telescope observations that flexed the special capabilities of its Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to detect gas in the halo of our Milky Way and more than 40 other galaxies. Data from large ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and Chile also contributed to the studies by measuring the properties of the galaxies.

Astronomers believe that the color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. The three studies investigated different aspects of the gas-recycling phenomenon.

The results are being published in three papers in the November 18 issue of Science magazine. The leaders of the three studies are Nicolas Lehner of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.; Jason Tumlinson of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Todd Tripp of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The COS observations of distant stars demonstrate that a large mass of clouds is falling through the giant halo of our Milky Way, fueling its ongoing star formation. These clouds of hot hydrogen reside within 20,000 light-years of the Milky Way disk and contain enough material to make 100 million suns. Some of this gas is recycled material that is continually being replenished by star formation and the explosive energy of novae and supernovae, which kicks chemically enriched gas back into the halo.

The COS observations also show halos of hot gas surrounding vigorous star-forming galaxies. These halos, rich in heavy elements, extend as much as 450,000 light-years beyond the visible portions of their galactic disks. The amount of heavy-element mass discovered far outside a galaxy came as a surprise. COS measured 10 million solar masses of oxygen in a galaxy's halo, which corresponds to about one billion solar masses of gas -- as much as in the entire space between stars in a galaxy’s disk.

Researchers also found that this gas is nearly absent from galaxies that have stopped forming stars. In these galaxies, the “recycling” process ignites a rapid firestorm of star birth which can blow away the remaining fuel, essentially turning off further star-birth activity.

This is evidence that gas pushed out of a galaxy, rather than pulled in from intergalactic space, determine a galaxy's fate."

The Hubble observations demonstrate that those galaxies forming stars at a very rapid rate, perhaps a hundred solar masses per year, can drive two-million-degree gas very far out into intergalactic space at speeds of up to two million miles per hour. That's fast enough for the gas to escape forever and never refuel the parent galaxy.

While hot gas "winds" from galaxies have been known for some time, the new COS observations reveal that hot outflows extend to much greater distances than previously thought and can carry a tremendous amount of mass out of a galaxy. Some of the hot gas is moving more slowly and could eventually be recycled. The observations show how gas-rich star-forming spiral galaxies can evolve to elliptical galaxies that no longer have star formation.

The light emitted by this hot plasma is invisible, so the researchers used COS to detect the presence of the gas by the way it absorbs certain colors of light from background quasars. Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe and are the brilliant cores of active galaxies that contain active central black holes. The quasars serve as distant lighthouse beacons that shine through the gas-rich "fog" of hot plasma encircling galaxies. At ultraviolet wavelengths, COS is sensitive to the presence of heavy elements, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and neon. COS's high sensitivity allows many galaxies to be studied that happen to lie in front of the much more distant quasars. The ionized heavy elements are markers for estimating how much mass is in a galaxy's halo.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/recyclers.html

New Space Station Camera Reveals the Cosmic Shore

2011-11-28T01:20:00.000-08:00

Part of human fascination with space is the chance to look back at our own planet from afar. The unique vantage from the International Space Station affords a vista both breathtaking and scientifically illuminating.

Here on Earth, both scientists and spectators rely on the station's crew to record and transmit images and videos of what they see to share in their experience. Until recently, reduced lighting conditions at night, combined with insufficiently perceptive equipment, made some of the most beautiful views difficult to capture.

This changed with the arrival of the Super Sensitive High Definition TV, or SS-HDTV, camera on the space station. With the SS-HDTV, the crew can document new and more detailed footage of the dynamic interactions that take place in the area between the Earths' atmosphere and the vacuum of space, known as the cosmic shore.

According to Keiji Murakami, a senior engineer with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, this camera's superior recording capability opens up a significant window of observation. Some may not realize that the station orbits the Earth 16 times a day, experiencing multiple sunrises and sunsets during those 24 hours. The crew actually has a 50/50 chance of a night view. "Half of the Earth view from [station] is a night view. And the day view and night view are very different," said Murakami.

By October, JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa had logged more than 30 hours of video using the camera. While the Earth observations are an amazing sight, they are also an important part of the research goals for the space station. From images taken by crew members aboard station, scientists can research natural phenomena and man-made changes to the planet.

Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, which is similar to the U.S.'s Public Broadcasting System, or PBS, aired the first public videos showing the SS-HDTV camera's capabilities Sept. 18, 2011. The resulting show was appropriately titled "The Cosmic Shore," and it thrilled audiences with a spectacular view of natural phenomena, such as aurora and lightning. Furukawa filmed and narrated the video footage, which also shared man-made wonders, like the lights of Japan at night, in greater detail than previously possible.

Murakami comments on the merit of the SS-HDTV camera system's ability to capture momentary phenomena, like meteors and sprites -- a form of upper atmospheric lightning. "Using this super sensitive camera, we have observed the lightning, sprite, aurora, meteor, noctilucent cloud and airglow," said Murakami. "The phenomena of the sprite has not yet been studied in high definition until now. The color video of the sprite was taken for the first time from space using this camera."

This advanced equipment belongs to JAXA, in cooperation with NHK, and enables recording of the elusive phenomena that occurs within low-light conditions using an Electron Multiplying Charged Coupled Device, or EM-CCD, sensor. After filming, the crew downlinks the videos to the ground using data-relay satellites.

The SS-HDTV also can advance astronomical observations, according to Murakami. This equipment will continue to operate on orbit indefinitely. Even if a failure should occur, there is a backup camera and Panasonic SD card recorder already aboard the station as a precaution. As with many facilities and technology on the space station, this camera provides another asset available to future researchers as they continue to explore the space environment using the orbiting laboratory.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Cosmic_Shore.html

NASA's Chandra Contributes to Black Hole Birth Announcement

2011-11-23T04:45:00.000-08:00

New details about the birth of a famous black hole that took place millions of years ago have been uncovered, thanks to a team of scientists who used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as from radio, optical and other X-ray telescopes.

Over three decades ago, Stephen Hawking placed -- and eventually lost -- a bet against the existence of a black hole in Cygnus X-1. Today, astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole, and with these latest studies they have remarkably precise values of its mass, spin, and distance from Earth. With these key pieces of information, the history of the black hole has been reconstructed.

"This new information gives us strong clues about how the black hole was born, what it weighed and how fast it was spinning," said author Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. "This is exciting because not much is known about the birth of black holes."

Reid led one of three papers -- all appearing in the November 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal -- describing these new results on Cygnus X-1. The other papers were led by Jerome Orosz from San Diego State University and Lijun Gou, also from CfA.

Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole is in close orbit with a massive, blue companion star.

Using X-ray data from Chandra, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, a team of scientists was able to determine the spin of Cygnus X-1 with unprecedented accuracy, showing that the black hole is spinning at very close to its maximum rate. Its event horizon -- the point of no return for material falling towards a black hole -- is spinning around more than 800 times a second.

An independent study that compared the evolutionary history of the companion star with theoretical models indicates that the black hole was born some 6 million years ago. In this relatively short time (in astronomical terms), the black hole could not have pulled in enough gas to ramp up its spin very much. The implication is that Cygnus X-1 was likely born spinning very quickly.

Using optical observations of the companion star and its motion around its unseen companion, the team made the most precise determination ever for the mass of Cygnus X-1, of 14.8 times the mass of the Sun. It was likely to have been almost this massive at birth, because of lack of time for it to grow appreciably.

"We now know that Cygnus X-1 is one of the most massive stellar black holes in the Galaxy," said Orosz. "And, it's spinning as fast as any black hole we've ever seen."

Knowledge of the mass, spin and charge gives a complete description of a black hole, according to the so-called "No Hair" theorem. This theory postulates that all other information aside from these parameters is lost for eternity behind the event horizon. The charge for an astronomical black hole is expected to be almost zero, so only the mass and spin are needed.

"It is amazing to me that we have a complete description of this asteroid-sized object that is thousands of light years away," said Gou. "This means astronomers have a more complete understanding of this black hole than any other in our Galaxy."

The team also announced that they have made the most accurate distance estimate yet of Cygnus X-1 using the National Radio Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The new distance is about 6,070 light years from Earth. This accurate distance was a crucial ingredient for making the precise mass and spin determinations.

The radio observations also measured the motion of Cygnus X-1 through space, and this was combined with its measured velocity to give the three-dimensional velocity and position of the black hole.

This work showed that Cygnus X-1 is moving very slowly with respect to the Milky Way, implying it did not receive a large "kick" at birth. This supports an earlier conjecture that Cygnus X-1 was not born in a supernova, but instead may have resulted from the dark collapse of a progenitor star without an explosion. The progenitor of Cygnus X-1 was likely an extremely massive star, which initially had a mass greater than about 100 times the sun before losing it in a vigorous stellar wind.

In 1974, soon after Cygnus X-1 became a good candidate for a black hole, Stephen Hawking placed a bet with fellow astrophysicist Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, that Cygnus X-1 did not contain a black hole. This was treated as an insurance policy by Hawking, who had done a lot of work on black holes and general relativity.

By 1990, however, much more work on Cygnus X-1 had strengthened the evidence for it being a black hole. With the help of family, nurses, and friends, Hawking broke into Thorne's office, found the framed bet, and conceded.

"For forty years, Cygnus X-1 has been the iconic example of a black hole. However, despite Hawking's concession, I have never been completely convinced that it really does contain a black hole -- until now," said Thorne. "The data and modeling described in these three papers at last provide a completely definitive description of this binary system."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/cygnusx1.html

Giant-Sized Webb Space Telescope Model to 'Land' in Baltimore

2011-11-22T03:36:00.000-08:00

Baltimore's Maryland Science Center is going to be the "landing site" for the life-sized full-scale model of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, and it's free for all to see.

The Webb telescope life-sized model is as big as a tennis court, and its coming to the Maryland Science Center at Baltimore's Inner Harbor from October 14 through 26, 2011. It's a chance for young and old to get a close-up look at the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope in the same size it will be launched into space.

The real James Webb Space Telescope is currently being built, but this model will be constructed in a couple of days. The real Webb will be the largest space telescope ever built. Once in orbit, the Webb telescope will look back in time more than 13 billion years to help us understand the formation of galaxies, stars and planets.

Experts will be on hand to discuss the Webb telescope's deep-space mission, how it will observe distant galaxies and nearby stars and planets, and the progress made to date in building the observatory. Spokespeople will also be available throughout the model exhibition.

The Maryland Science Center is located at 601 Light Street, Baltimore, Md. 21230. For directions and more information, call the center at 410-685-5225.

The full-scale model of the Webb telescope was built by NASA's prime contractor to provide a better understanding of the size, scale and complexity of the observatory. The model is constructed mainly of aluminum and steel, weighs 12,000 lbs., and is approximately 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and 40 feet tall. The model requires two trucks to ship it and assembly takes a crew of 12 approximately four days.

The Webb telescope will add to observations by earlier space telescopes, and stretch the frontiers of science with its discoveries. The model size shows telescope's complexity and how the observatory will enable the Webb telescope's unique mission.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/webb-balto.html

New Study Shows Very First Stars Not Monstrous

2011-11-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

The very first stars in our universe were not the behemoths scientists had once thought, according to new simulations performed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Astronomers "grew" stars in their computers, mimicking the conditions of our primordial universe. The simulations took weeks. When the scientists' concoctions were finally done, they were shocked by the results -- the full-grown stars were much smaller than expected.

Until now, it was widely believed that the first stars were the biggest of all, with masses hundreds of times that of our sun. The new research shows they are only tens of times the mass of sun; for example, the simulations produced one star that was as little as 43 solar masses.

"The first stars were definitely massive, but not to the extreme we thought before," said Takashi Hosokawa, an astronomer at JPL and lead author of the new study, appearing online Friday, Nov. 11 in the journal Science. "Our simulations reveal that the growth of these stars is stunted earlier than expected, resulting in smaller final sizes."

The early universe consisted of nothing more than thin clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms. A few hundred million years after its birth, the first stars began to ignite. How these first stars formed is still a mystery.

Astronomers know that all stars form out of collapsing clouds of gas. Gravity from a growing "seed" at the center of the cloud attracts more and more matter. For so-called normal stars like our sun, this process is aided by heavier elements such as carbon, which help to keep the gas falling onto the budding star cool enough to collapse. If the cloud gets too hot, the gas expands and escapes.

But, in the early universe, stars hadn't yet produced heavy elements. The very first stars had to form out of nothing but hydrogen and helium. Scientists had theorized that such stars would require even more mass to form, to compensate for the lack of heavy elements and their cooling power. At first, it was thought the stars might be as big as one thousand times the mass of our sun. Later, the models were refined and the first stars were estimated to be hundreds of solar masses.

"These stars keep getting smaller and smaller over time," said Takashi. "Now we think they are even less massive, only tens of solar masses."

The team's simulations reveal that matter in the vicinity of the forming stars heats up to higher temperatures than previously believed, as high as 50,000 Kelvin (90,000 degrees Fahrenheit), or 8.5 times the surface temperature of the sun. Gas this hot expands and escapes the gravity of the developing star, instead of falling back down onto it. This means the stars stop growing earlier than predicted, reaching smaller final sizes.

"This is definitely going to surprise some folks," said Harold Yorke, an astronomer at JPL and co-author of the study. "It was standard knowledge until now that the first stars had to be extremely massive."

The results also answer an enigma regarding the first stellar explosions, called supernovae. When massive stars blow up at the end of their lives, they spew ashes made of heavier elements into space. If the very first stars were the monsters once thought, they should have left a specific pattern of these elements imprinted on the material of the following generation of stars. But, as much as astronomers searched the oldest stars for this signature, they couldn't find it. The answer, it seems, is that it simply is not there. Because the first stars weren't as massive as previously thought, they would have blown up in a manner akin to the types of stellar explosions that we see today.

"I am sure there are more surprises in store for us regarding this exciting period of the universe," said Yorke. "NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be a valuable tool to observe this epoch of early star and galaxy formation."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20111110.html

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2011-11-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

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Potential New NASA Mission Would Reveal the Hearts of Undead Stars

2011-11-11T00:55:00.000-08:00

Neutron stars have been called the zombies of the cosmos, shining on even though they're technically dead, and occasionally feeding on a neighboring star if it gets too close.

They are born when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity, crushing the matter in its core and blasting away its outer layers in a supernova explosion that can outshine a billion suns.

The core, compressed by gravity to inconceivable density – one teaspoon would weigh about a billion tons on Earth – lives on as a neutron star. Although the nuclear fusion fires that sustained its parent star are extinguished, it still shines with heat left over from its explosive formation, and from radiation generated by its magnetic field, which became intensely concentrated as the core collapsed, and can be over a trillion times stronger than Earth's.

Although its parent star could easily have been more than a million miles across, a neutron star is only about the size of a city. However, its intense gravity makes it the ultimate trash compactor, capable of packing in an astonishing amount of matter, more than 1.4 times the content of the Sun, or at least 460,000 Earths.

"A neutron star is right at the threshold of matter as it can exist – if it gets any denser, it becomes a black hole," says Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Arzoumanian is Deputy Principal Investigator on a proposed mission called the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) that would unveil the dark heart of a neutron star. "We have no way of creating neutron star interiors on Earth, so what happens to matter under such incredible pressure is a mystery – there are many theories about how it behaves. The closest we come to simulating these conditions is in particle accelerators that smash atoms together at almost the speed of light. However, these collisions are not an exact substitute – they only last a split second, and they generate temperatures that are much higher than what's inside neutron stars."

If NASA approves it for construction, the mission will be launched by the summer of 2016 and attached robotically to the International Space Station. In September 2011, NASA selected NICER for study as a potential Explorer Mission of Opportunity. The mission will receive $250,000 to conduct an 11-month implementation concept study. Five Mission of Opportunity proposals were selected from 20 submissions. Following the detailed studies, NASA plans to select for development one or more of the five Mission of Opportunity proposals in February 2013.

NICER's array of 56 telescopes will collect X-rays generated both from hotspots on a neutron star's surface and from its powerful magnetic field. There are two hotspots on a neutron star at opposite sides, one at each magnetic pole, the place where the star's intense magnetic field emerges from the surface. Here, particles trapped in the magnetic field rain down and generate X-rays when they strike the surface. X-rays are an energetic form of light invisible to human eyes but detectable by special instruments. As the hotspots rotate into our line of sight, they produce a pulse of light, like a lighthouse beam, giving rise to the stars' alternate name, pulsars.

Many pulsars flash several times per second, because of the rapid rotation they inherit as they are born. All stars rotate, and as the parent star's core shrinks, it spins faster, like a twirling ice skater pulling in her arms. A neutron star's powerful gravity can also pull in gas from a neighboring star if it orbits too closely. This infalling gas can spin up a neutron star to even higher speeds; some rotate hundreds of times per second.

The key to understanding how matter behaves inside a neutron star is pinning down the correct Equation Of State (EOS) that most accurately describes how matter responds to increasing pressure. Currently, there are many suggested EOSs, each proposing that matter can be compressed by different amounts inside neutron stars. Suppose you held two balls of the same size, but one was made of foam and the other was made of wood. You could squeeze the foam ball down to a smaller size than the wooden one. In the same way, an EOS that says matter is highly compressible will predict a smaller neutron star for a given mass than an EOS that says matter is less compressible.

So if researchers know a neutron star's mass, all they need to do is find out how big it is to get the correct EOS and unlock the secret of what matter does under extreme gravity. "The problem is that neutron stars are small, and much too far away to allow their sizes to be measured directly," says NICER Principal Investigator Dr. Keith Gendreau of NASA Goddard. "However, NICER will be the first mission that has enough sensitivity and time-resolution to figure out a neutron star's size indirectly. The key is to precisely measure how much the brightness of the X-rays changes as the neutron star rotates."

This change in brightness with time is called a star's light curve, and it appears as a wavy line on a graph.

Because neutron stars pack so much mass into such a tiny volume, they generate strong gravity that actually bends space (and distorts time) in accordance with Einstein's general theory of relativity. This warping of space enables researchers to determine a neutron star's mass if it has a nearby companion, either another neutron star or a white dwarf, a lower-density object that is the core remnant of a less-massive star. Neutron stars with these companions are actually fairly common.

The warping of space produces effects like an orbital shift called precession, which makes the orbit move like a hula-hoop around a dancer. Also, as the neutron star and its companion move around each other, they create ripples in space called gravitational waves. These waves carry away orbital energy, so the neutron star and its companion gradually move closer together and their orbit shrinks. NICER will measure these effects over time, and the greater these effects, the more mass the neutron star has.

Warped space also will let the NICER team figure out a neutron star's size. Suppose we have a neutron star lined up so that you can only see one hotspot, the one on the near side that faces us. As it rotates into view, the brightness increases until the hotspot is pointed directly at us, then the brightness decreases as it rotates away.

This alignment makes the star's brightness highly variable – it's quite bright when the hotspot is pointed at us, and very dim when the hotspot is on the far side out of our view. The drastic change in brightness produces a light curve with large waves, with deep troughs when the star is dim.

However, since light must follow the contours of space, warped space bends light. The distorted space around the neutron star bends its light so much that you can see parts of the far side, including the other hotspot. With the second hotspot visible, at least part of the time, you have bright light more often, so the brightness doesn't change as much. This makes a light curve that appears smoother, with smaller waves.

If a woman wearing stiletto heels walks on a trampoline, she will warp the surface more than if she wears snowshoes. In the same way, the more compact a neutron star is, the more it will bend space and light. This will allow us to see the far-side hotspot more often, which will make its X-ray brightness less variable, and the star will produce a smoother light curve.

The team has models that produce unique light curves for the various sizes predicted by different EOSs. By choosing the light curve that best matches the observed one, they will get the correct EOS and solve the riddle of matter on the edge of oblivion.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/nicer-science.html

NASA's Cassini Makes a New Pass at Enceladus

2011-11-08T00:42:00.000-08:00

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will acquire the first detailed radar images of Saturn's moon Enceladus during a flyby on Sunday, Nov. 6. These will be the first high-resolution radar observations made of an icy moon other than Titan. The results will provide new information about the surface of Enceladus and enable researchers to compare its geological features as seen by radar with those of Titan.

The spacecraft will fly past Enceladus at a distance of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) at its closest point. During the encounter, Cassini's synthetic aperture radar will sweep across a long, narrow swath of the surface just north of the moon's south pole. Cassini will use other radar techniques to map much more of the surface of Enceladus at lower resolutions and determine some of the surface's physical properties as the spacecraft approaches and then speeds away from the icy body.

During this flyby, the mission's visible-light cameras will take images of Enceladus and its famous jets, and the composite infrared spectrometer will make new measurements of hot spots from which the jets emerge. Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph will also make distant observations of Saturn's moon Dione and its environment.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20111103.html

Spitzer Snaps a Picture of the Coolest of Companions

2011-11-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a picture of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- whose temperature is like a hot summer day in Arizona. "We have discovered a new record-holder for the coldest companion imaged outside of the solar system, which is nearly as cold as Earth," said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and lead author of a pair of papers on the findings in The Astrophysical Journal. "We believe the object is a brown dwarf, but it could be a gas-giant planet as well."

Based on the infrared light that it emits, the cool object, named WD 0806-661 B, appears to have a temperature in the range of 80 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit (about 27 to 70 degrees Celsius). On the lower end, WD 0806-661 B offers a rather pleasant terrestrial temperature and is not even as warm as the human body. Researchers ballpark WD 0806-661 B's mass between six and nine Jupiters, which means it could still qualify as a planet, albeit a particularly hefty one made mostly of gas. Instead, they suspect it's a type of failed star, called a brown dwarf.

WD 0806-661 B probably belongs to a recently discovered new class of objects called Y dwarfs, the coldest category of brown dwarfs. Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) announced the unveiling of the first six Y dwarfs in August. Those objects do not orbit stars and instead are floating by themselves in space, unlike WD 0806-661 B. Together, WISE and Spitzer are proving complementary in tracking down ever-cooler brown dwarfs, all the way down to the Y class.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20111019b.html

Know about Foam and Foam Board Insulation Know about Foam and Foam Board Insulation

2011-11-01T01:06:00.001-07:00

A variety of materials like glass, foam, cellulose, aluminum foil etc are used for insulation purposes. But one of the more favored insulation materials is foam. Despite the fact that foam insulation products are costlier than other types of insulating materials, it is widely used.

Higher price may however be deemed justifiable as R-values of the foam insulations range from R-4 to R-8 per inch of thickness. This is roughly three times more than most other insulating materials of similar thickness. It is also seen that if properly installed, foam insulation is a lot more effective than the rest.

When it comes to foam insulation there can be three options - molded expanded Polystyrene (MEPS)/ extruded expanded Polystyrene (XEPS) or Polyurethane or Polyisocyanurate. Any of these should provide you with very effective insulation. Foam insulation can be done as a liquid or using factory made foam boards.

Liquid foam insulation is done either by applying from small spray containers as a liquid or by means of a pressure sprayed product for heavy duty applications. Both types expand and solidify as the chemical mixture cures. Both spray foam and foam boards are equally versatile and can be used to insulate roofs, walls, foundations, entry and overhead garage doors, pipes and tanks, under basement slabs, or over a slab-on-grade floor.

Be it any type of foam insulation, you must take care to protect it from direct sunlight as the sun's ultraviolet rays have the potential to damage them. For roofs, it’s preferable to apply a coating of tar/ acrylic/ silicone/ rubberized paint. Or else, you can also cover the foam with a rubber or plastic membrane or a layer of asphalt and roofing felt.

Foam board insulation is very effective in preventing the oppressive summer heat from penetrating into your home. It also would help you conserve energy and save on your utility bills. Foam board insulation is a rigid foam sheet, usually four by eight feet (1.2 by 2.4 m) in size, used in nearly all aspects of building construction to provide thermal resistance in floors, ceilings and walls.

Polyurethane and Polyisocyanurate foam board are very similar in content. Foam board insulation is usually placed between the exterior finish and the studs of exterior walls. To prevent air infiltration, it is necessary to place rigid insulation boards tightly together and seal the seams with tape or caulk. Polystyrene foam board insulation is done in much the same way as Polyurethane and Polyisocyanurate foam boards, except for the differences in expansion.

Please bear in mind that foam board insulation is susceptible to deterioration through exposure to sun. Though foam insulation offers no food value to insects, still insects can bore holes into it. Therefore it will be necessary for you to take appropriate precautionary measures to protect your insulation from sun and insect damage.

Foam insulation is not easily combustible but if ignited, it burns and emits dense, black, smoke containing pernicious toxic gases. Because of these inherent perils, foams used for construction will require a covering as a fire barrier.

A lot of precaution is necessary to install foam insulation. You may have to use a mask helmet and gloves. It is even advisable to cover your whole body as foam is hyper allergen and it could lead to dermatological problems. It is wiser that you hire an experienced professional to do the job as the health risk is quite high.

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Mexico Vacation Rental: Stay for 7 nights Pay for 6

2011-10-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

Location: Puerto Vallarta, VILLA PARAISO

No of bedrooms: 6

No of restrooms: 6.5

Sqfeet: 13000

No of persons: 14

Unarguably this is one of the paradise villas, as you will have 12 staffs pampering you to the core. You can enjoy the ocean view watching the delightful dolphins or venture deeper with your scuba gear. It boasts of a lot of facilities be it the surround system, the alarm system, swimming pool or its disable friendly features.

All these luxuries and more come to you for a rate of $1638 from April-Dec 15 during the low season and soars up to 2587 afterwards. You can make availability of the discount by booking for 6 nights and getting 10% off or book for 7 nights and get one day free.

The villa may seem a touché expensive but it’s worth its weight in gold. It’s truly one of the paradises on earth.

Book Mexico vacation rentals or any other vacation rentals around the globe with exciting offers/discounts and enjoy your vacations.

15% off at Tuscan Hills Villa, Free spa/pool heating

2011-10-25T02:19:00.000-07:00

A Traveler’s delight would be to vacation or voyage to one of the world’s most popular tourist spot, maybe Florida, Hawaii, California etc. What would even delight them more is to get a luxurious accommodation at discounted rates and now they all get this great opportunity to book this amazing villa called Pretty Mediterranean Style Villa at Tuscan Hills.

This is a 3 bedroom 2 restroom villa which can accommodate 6 persons. One of the major advantages this villa gives you is to save travel time as the major attractions in Florida like Disney word, SeaWorld and Universal Studios are just 15-35 mins away.

The villa also gives you a lot of luxuries like swimming pool, spa, games room etc. There will be free spa/pool heating for renters visiting between 1^st October and 31^st March. You can get 15% discount if booked with 8 weeks of arrival date.

Enjoy vacations booking this villa at discounted rates. Find worldwide vacation rentals for any vacation to any place in the world.

Solar power vents attics benefits

2011-10-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

Solar powered attic vents can be used to control heat and moisture. Today there are alternatives to roof louvers that are smart and effective. The solar varieties work of the principle of solar energy. These collect the energy from the rays of the sun during your day when your attic is at its warmest. Using this energy, it generates electricity. This electricity is used to operate an extremely high energy efficient motor that is placed inside the power vent. So what does this mean to you? You are generating free electricity and getting free power! You are not only reducing the total usage of electricity in your house but you are also using a source of energy that is renewable and works without leaving waste.

There are many types. The roof mounted is one of them. This has a durable high quality two piece construction. This utilizes a solar panel that will collect the rays from the sun and convert it into electricity. This unit will be used to operate a 24 volt DC motor that is housed in the inside of the power vent. These units are rust resistant and a have a steel dome that is galvanized. These are pretty low profile too. The solar panels are usually located in a separated location from the dome or the roof. There is no separate electrical outlet or installation that is required. Also this will work from sunrise to sunset without costing you any money.

The next type is the gable mounted type. This type is used in conjunction with the solar gable attic fans.               The best part about these solar vents & spray foam insulation is that the installation of them is really simple. There is no electrical hookup required. This will save you all the trouble from finding a low priced electrician because there are no complicated wirings that you would have to deal with. All that you need to do is secure the solar panel and the fan. After they are secure, all that is required is the connection of a simple plug from one to another. These systems can be conveniently mounted on your home’s gable and hidden behind a decorative shutter. Also the solar panel will come with brackets. You can use these brackets to mount it on the roof easily.    The solar panels will absorb the incoming rays of the sun and convert it into electricity.

The main advantage of using solar vents is that you can save tons on the electricity that you would otherwise use on cooling or heating your home. You are not only conserving energy but also you are making use of a renewable source of energy that does not leave any waste behind. Also these will help to prevent moisture damage to your attic. Normally moisture would enter your attic through daily activities like laundry cooking or bathing. This moisture would get into your attic and cause damage. Using such a setup would prevent such damage by preventing them moisture to accumulate in the first place.
Source: To know more details About Attic Ventilation For commercial Buildings &
spray foam insulation visit http://www.aaffordableinsulators.com/spray-foam.php

Space Observatory Provides Clues to Creation of Earth's Oceans

2011-10-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface ended up covered in water.

New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans. This remote region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

"Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth," said Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, published online today, Oct. 5. "This finding substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper Belt."

Scientists theorize Earth started out hot and dry, so that water critical for life must have been delivered millions of years later by asteroid and comet impacts. Until now, none of the comets previously studied contained water like Earth's. However, Herschel's observations of Hartley 2, the first in-depth look at water in a comet from the Kuiper Belt, paint a different picture.

Herschel peered into the comet's coma, or thin, gaseous atmosphere. The coma develops as frozen materials inside a comet vaporize while on approach to the sun. This glowing envelope surrounds the comet's "icy dirtball"-like core and streams behind the object in a characteristic tail.

Herschel detected the signature of vaporized water in this coma and, to the surprise of the scientists, Hartley 2 possessed half as much "heavy water" as other comets analyzed to date. In heavy water, one of the two normal hydrogen atoms has been replaced by the heavy hydrogen isotope known as deuterium. The ratio between heavy water and light, or regular, water in Hartley 2 is the same as the water on Earth's surface. The amount of heavy water in a comet is related to the environment where the comet formed.

By tracking the path of Hartley 2 as it swoops into Earth's neighborhood in the inner solar system every six-and-a-`half years, astronomers know that it comes from the Kuiper Belt. The five comets besides Hartley 2 whose heavy-water-to-regular-water ratios have been obtained all come from an even more distant region in the solar system called the Oort Cloud. This swarm of bodies, 10,000 times farther afield than the Kuiper Belt, is the wellspring for most documented comets.

Given the higher ratios of heavy water seen in Oort Cloud comets compared to Earth's oceans, astronomers had concluded that the contribution by comets to Earth's total water volume stood at approximately 10 percent. Asteroids, which are found mostly in a band between Mars and Jupiter but occasionally stray into Earth's vicinity, looked like the major depositors. The new results, however, point to Kuiper Belt comets having performed a previously underappreciated service in bearing water to Earth.

How these objects ever came to possess the telltale oceanic water is puzzling. Astronomers had expected Kuiper Belt comets to have even more heavy water than Oort Cloud comets because the latter are thought to have formed closer to the sun than those in the Kuiper Belt. Therefore, Oort Cloud bodies should have had less frozen heavy water locked in them prior to their ejection to the fringes as the solar system evolved.

"Our study indicates that our understanding of the distribution of the lightest elements and their isotopes, as well as the dynamics of the early solar system, is incomplete," said co-author Geoffrey Blake, professor of planetary science and chemistry at Caltech. "In the early solar system, comets and asteroids must have been moving all over the place, and it appears that some of them crash-landed on our planet and made our oceans."

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For More information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/news/herschel20111005.html

Save electricity bills by using radiant barriers

2011-10-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

Householders own multitude of choices for enhancement that may bump up the value of their home even as improving its comfort.

Are you a home owner and thinking to improve your house completely either by repainting a room or have you thought about projects which could add aesthetic value?

Reduce your house’s heat with the help of radiant barrier as it is easy to use, safe to handle and effectual at plummeting heat loss and it can also turn back the extreme rays of the sun during the summer time and keeping the house cooler too.

Radiant barrier is a comparatively latest item for consumption that consumers are gradually becoming aware of. It has a reflective opus placed in your attic that reflects heat before it enters your home. Just by applying a coat of paint under the decking surface heat could be transferred and it also seals up the cracks and crevices in the wall.

Radiant barriers are materials installed in buildings to condense summer heat gain and winter heat loss, also to cut building heating and cooling energy usage.

The main advantage of attic radiant barrier is that it helps in reducing air-conditioning cooling in warm or hot climates. Radiant barriers generally consist of a slight sheet or veneer of an extremely reflective material, typically aluminum applied to one or double sides of a number of substrate supplies. These substrates consist of Kraft paper, plastic films, cardboard, plywood sheathing, and air infiltration barrier material.

It is expected that a radiant barrier have the potential to slab 97% of the radiant heat immersed through a roof's surface; this can result in a 30-degree cutback in attic or creep space temperature.

Spray foam insulation: It is a general and an essential thing that we insulate our homes to condense speed of heat loss. The insulation is carried by using spray foam in the opening, chink and the crevice such that there is no amend of heat linking the walls of the house and the environment.

Some of the Benefits of Spray Foam Insulation Include:

Reduction in sound diffusion, better environment, Keep Pests Outdoors, reduction in noise levels, Reduction in moisture and the development of Mold, apart from this it also has certain benefits like generating improved environment by plummeting dust, dirt, and pollen, Saving Energy structuring effectiveness & a Green Environment, produces air tight thermal seal, stops air and dampness penetration, Makes your home more comfortable, trim down capacity requirements, maintenance and wear of HVAC equipment.

Attic ventilation keeps the loft cooler in the summer and dry in the winter. Attic ventilation keeps the loft cooler in the summer and dry in the winter. Good exposure to air boosts the act of your insulation, expands the life of your HVAC unit and saves you even more money on energy bills.

Benefits of attic ventilation: it extends the life of your roof, cut downs the load on your HVAC system, stops ice damming in colder regions, and diminishes moisture build-up in the loft.

Source : Know More Details About Radiant Barrier by Visiting

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A Read up About Attic insulation

2011-10-10T04:44:00.000-07:00

When we are considering attic insulation, there are several factors that we should keep in mind. There are two main types of blow in attic insulation. These two are most commonly used. They are cellulose and fiberglass insulation. Also there is the blow in rock wool insulation but the use of it is not so common.

Cellulose, which is most commonly used, is a natural product of wood. It is primarily made out of natural newspaper. To meet the smoke development and flame spread requirements of today’s building codes; a fire retardant chemical is added to the cellulose.

The fiberglass insulation material that is used is the same material that batts or roles of the fiberglass insulation except for the fact that it is chopped or cubed so that it can be easily installed with the help of the insulating blowing machine. The fiber glass insulation will typically consist of 20% to 30% of recycled glass.

The r value of the cellulose that is used is R-3.2 to 3.8 per square inch. The loose filled fiberglass will have an R-value of R-2.2 to 2.7 per inch cube. To achieve the desired R value, you will have to depend on both the depth of the insulation as well as the density.

There are varying R values for ceiling insulation based upon the energy codes as well the climate of your locality. Based on the type of attic that you have, the code requirements may also vary. For example for joist assembled roof assemblies as well as for attics with single rafter may vary. There is a typically a chart on the insulation bag that will have the accurate depths for the various R values.

There are depth markers that are required to be placed in attic space which the WSEC requires to help the inspector and the installer verify the depth of the insulation. These depth markers should be placed within every three hundred square feet of the attic area and these must face towards the attic.

The depth of the insulation is very important; however, checking the density of the insulation is also equally important. The blow in insulation type can be fluffed up after it is installed. This is done so that it meets the required depth without actually meeting the required R value. This will settle over time so that the desired R value is achieved as the R value is lowered after it settles down.

The attic card is the easiest way to document the amount of R value installation. These are usually found stapled near the attic access to the truss. This card will also have information that is cited by the federal trade commission. Sometimes a chart is also attached with this.

Source: If you’re Still Unclear about Attic Insulation Visit Our Website www.aaffordableinsulators.com

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars

2011-10-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.

Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.

"This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now."

A research team led by Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the "habitable zone," the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet.

Scientists detected the new planet in the Kepler-16 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other from our vantage point on Earth. When the smaller star partially blocks the larger star, a primary eclipse occurs, and a secondary eclipse occurs when the smaller star is occulted, or completely blocked, by the larger star.

Astronomers further observed that the brightness of the system dipped even when the stars were not eclipsing one another, hinting at a third body. The additional dimming in brightness events, called the tertiary and quaternary eclipses, reappeared at irregular intervals of time, indicating the stars were in different positions in their orbit each time the third body passed. This showed the third body was circling, not just one, but both stars, in a wide circumbinary orbit.

The gravitational tug on the stars, measured by changes in their eclipse times, was a good indicator of the mass of the third body. Only a very slight gravitational pull was detected, one that only could be caused by a small mass. The findings are described in a new study published Friday, Sept. 16, in the journal Science.

"Most of what we know about the sizes of stars comes from such eclipsing binary systems, and most of what we know about the size of planets comes from transits," said Doyle, who also is the lead author and a Kepler participating scientist. "Kepler-16 combines the best of both worlds, with stellar eclipses and planetary transits in one system."

This discovery confirms that Kepler-16b is an inhospitable, cold world about the size of Saturn and thought to be made up of about half rock and half gas. The parent stars are smaller than our sun. One is 69 percent the mass of the sun and the other only 20 percent. Kepler-16b orbits around both stars every 229 days, similar to Venus’ 225-day orbit, but lies outside the system’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on the surface, because the stars are cooler than our sun.

"Working in film, we often are tasked with creating something never before seen," said visual effects supervisor John Knoll of Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., in San Francisco. "However, more often than not, scientific discoveries prove to be more spectacular than anything we dare imagine. There is no doubt these discoveries influence and inspire storytellers. Their very existence serves as cause to dream bigger and open our minds to new possibilities beyond what we think we 'know.'"

All of us need to reward ourselves over a time for the stress toll taken both physically and mentally by us. One of the best ways to chill out is to take a vacation and here are some amazing worldwide vacation rentals you can consider booking for your vacations.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/images/Kepler-16_transit-art.html

Expedition 28 Crew Lands Safely

2011-09-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Ron Garan landed their Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft in Kazakhstan a few seconds before midnight EDT Friday, with an official landing time of 11:59:39 p.m. Thursday. Russian recovery teams were on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and adjust to gravity after 164 days in space.

The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in April and spent 162 days living and working aboard the International Space Station.

Samokutyaev was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 8:38 p.m. Thursday from the Poisk docking port on the station's Zvezda service module.

The undocking marked the end of Expedition 28 and the start of Expedition 29 under the command of NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, who is scheduled to remain on the station with Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa until November. Borisenko ceremonially handed command of the station over to Fossum on Wednesday. Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft in June.

NASA and its international partners have agreed to a tentative launch schedule with crew flights to the International Space Station resuming on Nov. 14. The Space Station Control Board, with representation from all partner agencies, set the schedule after hearing the Russian Federal Space Agency’s findings on the Aug. 24 loss of the Progress 44 cargo craft. The dates may be adjusted to reflect minor changes in vehicle processing timelines.

According to the current plan, the Soyuz 28 spacecraft, carrying NASA's Dan Burbank and Russia's Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov, will launch Nov. 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and arrive at the station on Nov. 16.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition28/exp28_lands.html

Houston Home Insulations- A Solution to Beat the Houston Heat

2011-09-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

The sun shining bright at the beaches can be enjoyed having a glass of lemonade, relaxing ourselves in the sun tanning our skin. The same relentless heat cannot be enjoyed when you are at home as it’s going to cause you a lot of frustration as you just feel so tiring and the heat only adds to your frustration. You will prefer to set the air conditioner to the lowest temperature possible in order to escape the heat, but once you step out of the room you feel your home is like a furnace.

One useful solution i.e. possible is to plant a lot of trees, but that’s not going to happen as whether we plant trees or not, we are cutting them to build our homes. So instead of thinking in the way of nature we have to think in the way of manmade technology. The technical solution to protect our homes from heat can be insulation.

Houston is one of the cities in the United States where one must brave the heat during summers; it can get as hot as 84.5 °F. So in order to make one’s home cozy one needs to consider insulation as an option and at a place like Houston it’s absolutely necessary.

If you are living at Houston and would like to do home insulation, you must consider the options of home insulation available. Attic insulation is considered a basic and effective type of insulation which can make your home feel comfortable and also save energy. Radiant barrier foil can be considered as an option too as it effectively blocks the sunlight away from the attic and an effective way of reducing the energy bills. Spray foam insulation is one method that is been getting popular in recent times.

Based on the design and construction of your home, you need to decide upon an insulation method. Before that you need to follow some basic guidelines like using a thermal detector to find the leaky spots. You might think that having a lot of leaky spots will be of help as a lot of air escapes and you can feel cool but the fact is if you are using your air conditioner to beat the Houston heat, you will never get your home cooled with so many leaky spots. In addition to this, you will find that your energy bill too increases.

Also there are other little details like checking the spots where your piping line enters, internet cable, other connections and also the switch boards. These places would constitute a considerable number of heat losses and having foam insulation done on these places will be a good option. Think about having window curtains which you just close at night to stop the cold air and open in the morning to get the warm breeze.

Insulation is only a part of making the home a cozy place, it is an effective way to beat the heat, but after insulation think of changing the setup of your house to make it feel more cool and comfortable.

Herschel Mission Finds Galactic Growth Slow and Steady

2011-09-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

The Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that galaxies do not always need to collide with each other to drive vigorous star birth. The finding overturns a long-held assumption and paints a more stately picture of how galaxies evolve.

Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important contributions from NASA and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Galaxy mergers play an important role in producing the most powerful starbursts today," said Lee Armus, a co-author of the new study from NASA's Herschel Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "But in the early universe, when most galaxies contained a lot more gas, mergers were not the only way, or even the most common way, to make lots of stars at a rapid rate."

The new results are based on Herschel's observations of two patches of sky, each about one-third the size of the full moon.

It's like looking through a keyhole across the universe. Herschel has seen more than a thousand galaxies at a variety of distances from Earth, spanning 80 percent of the age of the cosmos.

These observations are unique because Herschel can obtain data at a wide range of infrared light and reveal a more complete picture of star birth than ever seen before.

The results appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read more at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEM2Y40UDSG_0.html .

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/news/herschel20110913.html

Space Farm 7 and NASA: A Corn Maze Experience

2011-09-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

Space Farm 7 is a celebration of NASA's space, science and exploration programs that both honors the agency's missions and features a contest, the grand prize winner of which will win four tickets to visit the Kennedy Space Center and dine with an astronaut.

Each of the seven participating farms planted corn mazes that feature designs celebrating NASA's achievements and each of the Space Farms are paired with the closest NASA center in order to highlight that region’s contribution to the agency. The farms are open to the public and feature NASA-related educational games and activities. This outreach project will expose participants to NASA's space exploration and other missions.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/corn_maze.html

Keeping Rocket Engine Fuel Lines Bubble Free in Space

2011-09-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

You are in space...your spacecraft is tumbling out of control, you need to fire your control rockets, the fuel is sloshing all around the inside of the tank...where is your liquid fuel? Without gravity in the space environment, how do you keep the fuel contained so it can be transported to where it is needed? How do you keep gas bubbles out of the fuel lines?

Being able to use all of the fuel in a spacecraft tank has been an ongoing challenge in spacecraft design for the past 50 years, but great advances on the problem are being made using the International Space Station as a laboratory. In the microgravity of space, the "bottom" of the tank is NOT apparent.

When a spacecraft tank is nearly full, the fuel tends to "cling" to all sides of the tank leaving a small gas bubble, or ullage, near the center of the tank. Once the tank has emptied to the point where there is not enough liquid to cover the walls of the tank, it is not clear where the remaining fluid is "positioned." Here on Earth this is not an issue. For example, in the gasoline tank in your car, gravity always positions the remaining fluid at the bottom of the tank, allowing the car's fuel pump to draw the last bit of fuel from the tank.

"Presently, the low risk solution to this problem is to size the fuel tank larger than what is needed for the mission, but this adds extra launch mass and volume to the spacecraft," states Robert Green at NASA's Glenn Research Center. Another method is to add special channel-like structures, called vanes, inside the tank to purposely "wick" the remaining fuel to the exit. A key area of study is how different shapes of channels work and whether they remove any gas bubbles that can get captured in the flow.

Scientists from Germany and the U.S. have been studying these processes as part of an investigation called Capillary Channel Flow, or CCF. The CCF study looks at several capillary channel geometries that mimic the shape and physical characteristics of vanes in fuel tanks.

One set of capillary channel geometries was developed by Michael E. Dreyer at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, or ZARM, at the University of Bremen in Bremen, Germany, and sponsored by the German Aerospace Center, or DLR. The geometries included parallel plates and square-grooves. This part of the investigation was completed in March 2011, after 78 days of nearly continuous ground-controlled operation.

The second set of channel geometries was designed by Mark M. Weislogel at Portland State University in Portland, Ore. Sponsored by NASA, it will begin operation this month. The geometry is a wedge-shaped channel with only one side exposed to the interior of the tank. Weislogel is studying the fluid behavior in the interior corner where the two plates meet. This area forms a wedge-shaped channel geometry, which forces gas bubbles to rise and burst past the liquid surface. This new shape enables the passive separation of gas from liquid.

Every space system that includes a fluid, from drinking water, to radiators, to toilets, can have problems with transport and bubbles. So using the geometry of the channel to remove bubbles can be a real advantage, as Weislogel explained when discussing the importance of studying the wedge shape. "In a spacecraft tank application, if gas bubbles get to the engine, the engine can sputter or stall. If the fuel lines have these wedge-shaped sections, they can expel the gas en route, and the wedge-shaped section takes care of the separation for you," said Weislogel.

The CCF investigation was installed in the Microgravity Science Glovebox, or MSG, a research facility aboard the space station. The MSG facility is designed to accommodate small science and technology experiments in a workbench type environment. The experiment can be controlled from NASA's Glenn Research Center, from Germany, or at Portland State.

"Technologies utilizing capillary flow can be used in applications on Earth," explained Green. "CCF results may potentially be applied for improving fluid flow in miniaturized biological devices used for health screening and analysis -- referred to as lab-on-a-chip."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/CCF.html

X2.1 Solar Flare and CME

2011-09-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Sunspot 1283 erupted with another flare yesterday that peaked at 6:20 PM ET. This was an X2.1 class flare, some four times stronger than the earlier flare. Flares can affect Earth's ionosphere, through which high frequency radio waves travel, and cause radio blackouts. This strength flare can cause a "strong" radio blackout, categorized as R3, which has the potential to cause about an hour-long blackout.

This flare, too, had a coronal mass ejection (CME) – an eruption of a giant cloud of solar material -- associated with it. Early models suggest that both CMEs will not travel directly toward Earth, but perhaps just graze our atmosphere in the North, potentially causing auroras in the northern latitudes.

Further updates on the event will be provided as they become available.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News090711-X2.1flare.html

GRAIL Launch Milestones

2011-09-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

NASA's GRAIL spacecraft are set to launch to the moon aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket on Sept. 8, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. There are two instantaneous (one-second) launch windows at 5:37:06 a.m. and 6:16:12 a.m. PDT (8:37:06 a.m. and 9:16:12 a.m. EDT). The launch period extends through Oct. 19. The launch times occur approximately four minutes earlier each day.

GRAIL's primary science objectives are to determine the structure of the lunar interior, from crust to core, and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

The lunar orbiters are nestled inside the top of a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7920H-10C rocket, the most powerful Delta rocket in NASA's inventory.

On launch day, Sept. 8, NASA TV commentary coverage of the countdown will begin at 3 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. EDT). The coverage will be webcast at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

Live countdown coverage on NASA's launch blog also begins at 3 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. EDT) at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/launch/grail_blog.html . Coverage features real-time updates of countdown milestones, as well as streaming video clips highlighting launch preparations and liftoff. To access these features, and for more information on GRAIL, visit http://www.nasa.gov/grail and http://grail.nasa.gov .

The launch will also be online, with a live chat available, on Ustream TV, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . To follow the GRAIL launch on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/NASAJPL and http://twitter.com/NASA .

Here is a timeline of expected launch milestones:

Launch

At liftoff, the rocket's first-stage engine and six of its nine strap-on solid rocket motors will ignite, and the rocket will be airborne, carrying GRAIL up and over the Atlantic Ocean.

First six solid rocket motors are jettisoned

GRAIL's Delta II is carrying nine strap-on graphite-epoxy motors. The first six will be ignited at the time of liftoff. The remaining three will be ignited shortly after the first six strap-on motors burn out.

Fairing separates

After the Delta's first stage completes its tour of duty, its second stage, which will provide 9,645 pounds of kick for GRAIL, will begin the first of two scheduled burns.

Shortly after ignition of the rocket's second stage, the Delta's 30-foot-long (8.88-meter-long) nose cone, or fairing, will separate and be jettisoned as planned, providing the GRAIL twins with their first taste of exo-atmospheric existence.

Parking at 17,500 miles per hour

The Delta's second stage will temporarily stop firing, as planned, and the rocket and GRAIL will begin a planned coast phase, also known as a "parking orbit" at about 90 miles (nearly 167 kilometers up).

GRAIL heading from Earth to the moon

The Delta's second stage will begin a second burn. This approximately four-and-a-half-minute-long burn will place GRAIL on its desired trajectory to the moon.

Spacecraft begin to separate from second stage

The GRAIL-A spacecraft begins its separation process from the Delta's second stage. The GRAIL-B spacecraft separates about 8 minutes later. At this point, the moon is three-and-a-half months away.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20110907.html

NASA Announces Media Telecon About Opportunity Rover

2011-09-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

NASA will host a media teleconference on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 12:30 p.m. PDT (3:30 p.m. EDT) to discuss progress of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Opportunity reached the Martian Endeavour crater earlier this month after years of driving.

The teleconference participants are:

-- Dave Lavery, program executive, Mars Exploration Rovers, NASA Headquarters, Washington

-- Steve Squyres, principal investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

-- Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator, Mars Exploration Rovers, Washington University in St. Louis.

-- John Callas, project manager, Mars Exploration Rovers, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. They continued to work for years in bonus mission extensions. Spirit finished communicating in 2010, after six years of operation.

Opportunity, still very active, reached the rim of Endeavour crater on Aug. 9. The arrival gives the rover access to geology different from any it explored during its first 90 months on Mars.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20110830.html

Moderate Labor Day Solar Flare Eruption

2011-09-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

At 9:35 PM ET on September 5, 2011, the sun emitted an Earth-directed M5.3 class flare as measured by the GOES satellite. The flare erupted from a region of the sun that appears close to dead center from Earth's perspective, an active region designated number 1283. The flare caused a slight increase of solar energetic protons some 26,000 miles above Earth's surface.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) -- another solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space -- was associated with this flare. The CME is a relatively slow one, traveling at under 200 miles per second.

Further updates on the event will be provided as they become available.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News090611-m5.3flare.html

NASA Invites 150 Twitter Followers to Lunar Launch

2011-09-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency's Twitter accounts to a two-day launch Tweetup Sept. 7-8. The Tweetup is expected to culminate in the launch of the twin moon-bound GRAIL spacecraft aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The launch is targeted for 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 8. The two GRAIL spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail from crust to core. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about the moon and provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

Tweetup participants were selected from more than 800 people who registered online. They will share their Tweetup experiences with their followers through the social networking site Twitter.

Participants represent the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Spain and the United Kingdom. Attendees from the U.S. come from 32 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Beginning at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday, Sept. 7, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when attendees talk with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; Jim Adams, deputy director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington; Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; Sami Asmar, GRAIL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium in New York. To watch the broadcast, visit: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup . The event will also be streamed live, with a moderated chat, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

Participants also will tour NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, including a close-up visit to the launch pad.

Reporters interested in interviewing Tweetup attendees should contact Stephanie Schierholz at 202-358-1100 or stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov. Reporters interested in covering the afternoon program Sept. 7 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex must secure access through Andrea Farmer by 2 p.m. PDT (5 p.m. EDT) Sept. 6 at 321-449-4318 or afarmer@dncinc.com.

Previously, NASA invited groups to attend the launch of the Juno spacecraft on its way to Jupiter and five space shuttle launches: Atlantis' STS-129, STS-132 and STS-135 missions, Discovery's STS-133 mission and Endeavour's STS-134 mission.

To follow participants on Twitter as they experience the prelaunch events and GRAIL's liftoff, follow the #NASATweetup hashtag and the list of attendees at: http://twitter.com/nasatweetup/grail-launch.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20110901.html

NASA's Chandra Finds Nearest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes

2011-09-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon.

The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago.

"If this galaxy wasn't so close, we'd have no chance of separating the two black holes the way we have," said Pepi Fabbiano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., who led the study that appears in this week's online issue of the journal Nature. "Since this galaxy was right under our noses by cosmic standards, it makes us wonder how many of these black hole pairs we've been missing."

Previous observations in X-rays and at other wavelengths indicated that a single supermassive black hole existed in the center of NGC 3393. However, a long look by Chandra allowed the researchers to detect and separate the dual black holes. Both black holes are actively growing and emitting X-rays as gas falls towards them and becomes hotter.

When two equal-sized spiral galaxies merge, astronomers think it should result in the formation of a black hole pair and a galaxy with a disrupted appearance and intense star formation. A well-known example is the pair of supermassive black holes in NGC 6240, which is located about 330 million light years from Earth.

However, NGC 3393 is a well-organized spiral galaxy, and its central bulge is dominated by old stars. These are unusual properties for a galaxy containing a pair of black holes. Instead, NGC 3393 may be the first known instance where the merger of a large galaxy and a much smaller one, dubbed a "minor merger" by scientists, has resulted in the formation of a pair of supermassive black holes. In fact, some theories say that minor mergers should be the most common way for black hole pairs to form, but good candidates have been difficult to find because the merged galaxy is expected to look so typical.

"The two galaxies have merged without a trace of the earlier collision, apart from the two black holes," said co-author Junfeng Wang, also from CfA. "If there was a mismatch in size between the two galaxies it wouldn't be a surprise for the bigger one to survive unscathed."

If this was a minor merger, the black hole in the smaller galaxy should have had a smaller mass than the other black hole before their host galaxies started to collide. Good estimates of the masses of both black holes are not yet available to test this idea, although the observations do show that both black holes are more massive than about a million suns. Assuming a minor merger occurred, the black holes should eventually merge after about a billion years.

Both of the supermassive black holes are heavily obscured by dust and gas, which makes them difficult to observe in optical light. Because X-rays are more energetic, they can penetrate this obscuring material. Chandra's X-ray spectra show clear signatures of a pair of supermassive black holes.

The NGC 3393 discovery has some similarities to a possible pair of supermassive black holes found recently by Julia Comerford of the University of Texas at Austin, also using Chandra data. Two X-ray sources, which may be due to supermassive black holes in a galaxy about two billion light years from Earth, are separated by about 6,500 light years. As in NGC 3393, the host galaxy shows no signs of disturbance or extreme amounts of star formation. However, no structure of any sort, including spiral features, is seen in the galaxy. Also, one of the sources could be explained by a jet, implying only one supermassive black hole is located in the galaxy.

"Collisions and mergers are one of the most important ways for galaxies and black holes to grow," said co-author Guido Risaliti of CfA and the National Institute for Astrophysics in Florence, Italy. "Finding a black hole pair in a spiral galaxy is an important clue in our quest to learn how this happens."

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 controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/H-11-278.html

Florida- A vacation to go

2011-08-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

If you are the kind of person who enjoys being swept by the cool breeze of wind, while you are dozing off in a chaise longue on the golden sands of a beautiful beach and love to watch the blue sky dipping into the deep blue sea, then traveler you got to visit Florida. Florida is the much famed sunshine state but what makes it the great holiday destination is the fact that it can live up to the hype given by the tourists. Florida has a lot of places that travelers would love to see be it beaches, theme parks, museums and many more places that tourists would die to go for. Each beach in Florida has its own specialty, if you would like to row a boat in the peaceful seas then you got to try Dania beach or crescent beach. For the party animals you have to visit Miami Beach and south beach to experience night life at its heights. You will be in for good diving adventures when you visit Panama City beach, experience the underwater world of scuba diving, snorkeling etc here.

Don’t spend all your vacation at the beaches alone, there are some great theme parks in Florida like the Disneyworld theme park, it consist of a number of divisions like the magic kingdom, animal kingdom, Epcot and more. Universal is another theme park which has a lot of rides and attractions. There are a number of theme parks which are down the pipeline too, so you will be pleasantly surprised with a new attraction every year. Do visit Florida and enjoy your vacation booking one of the Florida villas or Orlando villas. Book a Florida villa now.

NASA Moon Mission in Final Preparations for September Launch

2011-08-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission to study the moon is in final launch preparations for a scheduled Sept. 8 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

GRAIL's twin spacecraft are tasked for a nine-month mission to explore Earth's nearest neighbor in unprecedented detail. They will determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"Yesterday's final encapsulation of the spacecraft is an important mission milestone," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our two spacecraft are now sitting comfortably inside the payload fairing which will protect them during ascent. Next time the GRAIL twins will see the light of day, they will be about 95 miles up and accelerating."

The spacecraft twins, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, will fly aboard a Delta II rocket launched from Florida. The twins' circuitous route to lunar orbit will take 3.5 months and cover approximately 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) for GRAIL-A, and 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) for GRAIL-B.

In lunar orbit, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. Regional gravitational differences on the moon are expected to expand and contract that distance.

GRAIL scientists will use these accurate measurements to define the moon's gravity field. The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface of our natural satellite.

"GRAIL will unlock lunar mysteries and help us understand how the moon, Earth and other rocky planets evolved as well," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate launch opportunities separated by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is 8:37 a.m. EDT (5:37 a.m. PDT); the second is 9:16 a.m. EDT (6:16 a.m. PDT).

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20110825.html

Sunspot Breakthrough

2011-08-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

Imagine forecasting a hurricane in Miami weeks before the storm was even a swirl of clouds off the coast of Africa—or predicting a tornado in Kansas from the flutter of a butterfly's wing in Texas. These are the kind of forecasts meteorologists can only dream about.

Could the dream come true? A new study by Stanford researchers suggests that such forecasts may one day be possible—not on Earth, but on the sun.

"We have learned to detect sunspots before they are visible to the human eye," says Stathis Ilonidis, a PhD student at Stanford University. "This could lead to significant advances in space weather forecasting."

Sunspots are the "butterfly's wings" of solar storms. Visible to the human eye as dark blemishes on the solar disk, sunspots are the starting points of explosive flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that sometimes hit our planet 93 million miles away. Consequences range from Northern Lights to radio blackouts to power outages.

Astronomers have been studying sunspots for more than 400 years, and they have pieced together their basic characteristics: Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism that float in solar plasma. Although the details are still debated, researchers generally agree that sunspots are born deep inside the sun via the action of the sun’s inner magnetic dynamo. From there they bob to the top, carried upward by magnetic buoyancy; a sunspot emerging at the stellar surface is a bit like a submarine emerging from the ocean depths.

In the August 19th issue of Science, Ilonidis and co-workers Junwei Zhao and Alexander Kosovichev announced that they can see some sunspots while they are still submerged.

Their analysis technique is called "time-distance helioseismology," and it is similar to an approach widely used in earthquake studies. Just as seismic waves traveling through the body of Earth reveal what is inside the planet, acoustic waves traveling through the body of the sun can reveal what is inside the star. Fortunately for helioseismologists, the sun has acoustic waves in abundance. The body of the sun is literally roaring with turbulent boiling motions. This sets the stage for early detection of sunspots.

"We can't actually hear these sounds across the gulf of space," explains Ilonidis, "but we can see the vibrations they make on the sun's surface." Instruments onboard two spacecraft, the venerable Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the newer Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) constantly monitor the sun for acoustic activity.

Submerged sunspots have a detectable effect on the sun's inner acoustics—namely, sound waves travel faster through a sunspot than through the surrounding plasma. A big sunspot can leapfrog an acoustic wave by 12 to 16 seconds. "By measuring these time differences, we can find the hidden sunspot."

Ilonidis says the technique seems to be most sensitive to sunspots located about 60,000 km beneath the sun’s surface. The team isn't sure why that is "the magic distance," but it's a good distance because it gives them as much as two days advance notice that a spot is about to reach the surface.

"This is the first time anyone has been able to point to a blank patch of sun and say 'a sunspot is about to appear right there,'" says Ilonidis's thesis advisor Prof. Phil Scherrer of the Stanford Physics Department. "It's a big advance."

"There are limits to the technique," cautions Ilonidis. "We can say that a big sunspot is coming, but we cannot yet predict if a particular sunspot will produce an Earth-directed flare."

So far they have detected five emerging sunspots—four with SOHO and one with SDO. Of those five, two went on to produce X-class flares, the most powerful kind of solar explosion. This encourages the team to believe their technique can make a positive contribution to space weather forecasting. Because helioseismology is computationally intensive, regular monitoring of the whole sun is not yet possible—"we don’t have enough CPU cycles," says Ilonidis —but he believes it is just a matter of time before refinements in their algorithm allow routine detection of hidden sunspots.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/sunspot-breakthru.html

Aerogels: Thinner, Lighter, Stronger

2011-08-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Picture preparing a bowl full of a sweet, gelatin dessert. The gelatin powder is mixed with hot water, and then the mixture is cooled in a refrigerator until it sets. It is now a gel. If that wiggly gel were placed in an oven and all of the moisture dried out of it, all that would be left would be a pile of powder.

But imagine if the dried gelatin maintained its shape, even after the liquid had been removed. The structure of the gel would remain, but it would be extremely light due to low density. This is precisely how aerogels are made.

Aerogels are among the lightest solid materials known to man. They are created by combining a polymer with a solvent to form a gel, and then removing the liquid from the gel and replacing it with air. Aerogels are extremely porous and very low in density. They are solid to the touch. This translucent material is considered one of the finest insulation materials available.

Although aerogels were first invented in the 1930s, NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has invented groundbreaking methods of creating new types of aerogels that could change the way we think about insulation.

Aerogels' Porous Materials

Since their invention, aerogels have primarily been made of silica. The silica is combined with a solvent to create a gel. This gel is then subjected to supercritical fluid extraction. This supercritical fluid extraction involves introducing liquid carbon dioxide into the gel. The carbon dioxide surpasses its super critical point, where it can be either a gas or a liquid, and then is vented out. This exchange is performed multiple times to ensure that all liquids are removed from the gel. The resulting material is aerogel.

"That is the key step that makes an aerogel different from other porous materials," says Mary Ann Meador, a research chemical engineer and team lead for aerogels at Glenn. "Maintaining the gel structure is the most important thing."

Aerogels provide very effective insulation, because they are extremely porous and the pores are in the nanometer range. The nano pores aren't visible to the human eye. The existence of these pores makes the aerogel so adept at insulating.

"The pores are so small, and gas phase heat conduction is very poor," Meador says. "Molecules of air cannot travel through the aerogel, so there is poor heat transfer through the material."

Traditional silica-based aerogels have been successfully used in many applications, such as providing insulation on a Mars Rover. They have also been used in many commercial products. When aerogels are used for commercial purposes, they are typically in pellet form or in a composite with other materials. Aerogels have been combined with batting to create insulating "blankets," as well as filled in between panes of glass to create translucent panels for day-lighting applications.

Silica-based aerogels are very light, as they are about 95% porous. Silica aerogels are very useful, but they have limitations—they are very fragile.

Aerogel Innovations

NASA, along with industry partners, has investigated the use of different types of aerogels for multiple uses. With funding from NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program (Hypersonics and Subsonic Fixed Wing Projects) and the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA's Glenn Research Center has developed two cutting-edge methodologies that revolutionize aerogel technology.

The first innovation is a method of creating aerogels that are reinforced by polymers. The method changes the surface of the gel as it reacts with a polymer. The result is that the interior surface of the aerogel gets a thin layer of polymer, which greatly strengthens the aerogel.

"If you were to compare a polymer-enforced silica aerogel with the same density silica gel, the polymer enforced aerogel is about two orders of magnitude stronger," Meador says.

These polymer-enhanced aerogels offer the same insulation properties as typical aerogels and can be translucent. They share the same positive attributes of silica aerogels, and are much less fragile. The Glenn team has created many different aerogels featuring different polymers using their patented method. Glenn has also collaborated with Aspen Aerogel of Northborough, Mass. to create a polymer-enhanced aerogel that was combined with fibers to create a new product.

The second innovation is a method of creating aerogels made completely of polymers. These polymer-based aerogels are extremely strong and flexible. They can also be made into a bendable thin film.

Aerogels in Flight

The Glenn team is currently working on a NASA project called the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD). The HIAD is an inflatable reentry vehicle that is folded and stowed inside a launch vehicle. Prior to entering the atmosphere, the HIAD is inflated and becomes rigid. This helps the spacecraft slow down, safely descend and land on Earth, Mars, or any other planet that has an atmosphere.

The HIAD enables larger masses to be carried through the atmosphere more slowly and safely, and it reduces the heat to which the vehicle is subjected. The HIAD is covered by a Flexible Thermal Protection System, which uses aerogels as an insulator to protect the payload.

The thin film polymer-based aerogel is well suited to the needs of the HIAD. The HIAD (funded by the Hypersonics Project of the Fundamental Aeronautics Program) is scheduled to flight test in 2012. An important component will be the Flexible Thermal Protection Systems (funded by the Hypersonics Project and the Space Technology Program under the NASA Chief Technologist). The Flexible Thermal Protection Systems use baseline aerogel insulation blankets, created by Aspen Aerogels. Subsequent test launches may include the new thin film polymer-based aerogel as an improvement over the baseline insulation.

"The project would like an aerogel that is more flexible, more foldable and doesn't dust, doesn't shed insulation particles, so it is not a hazard or messy to handle. In response to that, we started looking at different kinds of polymers and techniques that could make that sort of aerogel more flexible," Meador says.

The team determined that the presence of silica in an aerogel precluded the ability of an aerogel to be flexible, so they started exploring ways to create an aerogel made completely with polymers. They developed a method of creating polymer based aerogels that are completely flexible, and can be made into an extremely thin film—a capability not previous available. These aerogels are also stable even when subjected to high temperatures.

The polymer-based aerogel is 85-95% porous, meaning it offers the same advantages of traditional aerogels. It is equally light in weight, and has the same properties of thermal conductivity as silica based aerogels. But these aerogels offer unprecedented flexibility, along with their durability and strength, and the ability to be made into a thin film.

"I was amazed and surprised when we determined it could be made into a flexible thin film," Meador says. "It was a 'whoa' moment! It was better than we expected."

Aerogel Applications

The thin films, which are fabricated through a collaboration with the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, have also been sent to other government agencies and NASA centers, which has garnered interest in the technology.

"Usually when people see them, they say 'Wow, this is an aerogel?'" Meador says.

Other NASA centers have expressed interest in further exploring these thin polymer aerogels, for applications like cryogenics or in the next space suit. Polymer aerogels are ideally suited for use in a vacuum, like in space, as well as in different gravity scenarios, such as the moon or other planets.

Governmental agencies are also interested in exploring the thin polymer aerogels for use in shelter applications, such as insulated tents. Industry has also taken notice, with possible applications in refrigeration, building and construction, updating historical structures, and many other insulation needs, especially when there isn't a lot of room and smaller, more effective insulation is needed.

Aerogels and the Future

Polymer-enhanced aerogels and polymer-based aerogels have numerous potential applications, both in space, on distant planets and on our own Earth. They are light, durable and extremely effective at insulating and preventing heat transfer. NASA has taken aerogels to the next level, beyond what was previously imagined, and uncovered a world of possibilities for this versatile material.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/aerogels.html

New Rover Snapshots Capture Endeavour Crater Vistas

2011-08-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has captured new images of intriguing Martian terrain from a small crater near the rim of the large Endeavour crater. The rover arrived at the 13-mile-diameter (21-kilometer-diameter) Endeavour on Aug. 9, after a journey of almost three years.

Opportunity is now examining the ejected material from the small crater, named "Odyssey." The rover is approaching a large block of ejecta for investigation with tools on the rover's robotic arm.

Opportunity and Spirit completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit ended communications in March 2010.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20110819.html

A Cosmic Inkblot Test

2011-08-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

If this were an inkblot test, you might see a bow tie or a butterfly depending on your personality. An astronomer would likely see the remains of a dying star scattered about space -- precisely what this is. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared view of what's called a planetary nebula, which is a cloud of material expelled by a burnt out star, called a white dwarf. This object is named the Dumbbell nebula after its resemblance to the exercise equipment in visible-light views.

"It is interesting how different Spitzer's view of the Dumbbell looks compared to optical images," said Dr. Joseph Hora, the principal investigator of the observations from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

In Spitzer's infrared view, the diffuse green glow, which is brightest near the center, is probably from hot gas atoms being heated by the ultraviolet light from the central white dwarf. A collection of clumps fill the central part of the nebula, and red-colored radial spokes extend well beyond. Astronomers think these features represent molecules of hydrogen gas, mixed with traces of heavier elements. Despite being broken apart by the ultraviolet light from the central white dwarf, much of this molecular material may survive intact and mix back into interstellar gas clouds, helping to fuel the next generation of stars.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20110810.html

Space Storm Tracked from Sun to Earth

2011-08-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.

"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Researcher Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."

CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. When they sweep past our planet, they can cause auroras, radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages. Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.

"We have seen CMEs before, but never quite like this," says Lika Guhathakurta, program scientist for the STEREO mission at NASA headquarters. "STEREO-A has given us a new view of solar storms."

STEREO-A is one of two spacecraft launched in 2006 to observe solar activity from widely-spaced locations. At the time of the storm, STEREO-A was more than 65 million miles from Earth, giving it the "big picture" view other spacecraft in Earth orbit lack.

When CMEs first leave the sun, they are bright and easy to see. Visibility is quickly reduced, however, as the clouds expand into the void. By the time a typical CME crosses the orbit of Venus, it is a billion times fainter than the surface of the full Moon, and more than a thousand times fainter than the Milky Way. CMEs that reach Earth are almost as gossamer as vacuum itself and correspondingly transparent.

"Pulling these faint clouds out of the confusion of starlight and interplanetary dust has been an enormous challenge," says DeForest.

Indeed, it took almost three years for his team to learn how to do it. Footage of the storm released today was recorded back in December 2008, and they have been working on it ever since. Now that the technique has been perfected, it can be applied on a regular basis without such a long delay.

Alysha Reinard of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center explains the benefits for space weather forecasting:

"Until quite recently, spacecraft could see CMEs only when they were still quite close to the sun. By calculating a CME's speed during this brief period, we were able to estimate when it would reach Earth. After the first few hours, however, the CME would leave this field of view and after that we were 'in the dark' about its progress."

"The ability to track a cloud continuously from the Sun to Earth is a big improvement," she continues. "In the past, our very best predictions of CME arrival times had uncertainties of plus or minus 4 hours," she continues. "The kind of movies we've seen today could significantly reduce the error bars."

The movies pinpoint not only the arrival time of the CME, but also its mass. From the brightness of the cloud, researchers can calculate the gas density with impressive precision. Their results for the Dec. 2008 event agreed with actual in situ measurements at the few percent level. When this technique is applied to future storms, forecasters will be able to estimate its impact with greater confidence.

At the press conference, DeForest pointed out some of the movie's highlights: When the CME first left the sun, it was cavernous, with walls of magnetism encircling a cloud of low-density gas. As the CME crossed the Sun-Earth divide, however, its shape changed. The CME "snow-plowed" through the solar wind, scooping up material to form a towering wall of plasma. By the time the CME reached Earth, its forward wall was sagging inward under the weight of accumulated gas.

The kind of magnetic transformations revealed by the movie deeply impressed Guhathakurta: "I have always thought that in heliophysics understanding the magnetic field is equivalent to the 'dark energy' problem of astrophysics. Often, we cannot see the magnetic field, yet it orchestrates almost everything. These images from STEREO give us a real sense of what the underlying magnetic field is doing."

All of the speakers at today's press event stressed that the images go beyond the understanding of a single event. The inner physics of CMEs have been laid bare for the first time -- a development that will profoundly shape theoretical models and computer-generated forecasts of CMEs for many years to come.

"This is what the STEREO mission was launched to do," concludes Guhathakurta, "and it is terrific to see it live up to that promise."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/solarstorm-tracking.html

NASA Researchers: DNA Building Blocks Can Be Made in Space

2011-08-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a "kit" of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life.

"People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960's, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life," said Dr. Michael Callahan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space." Callahan is lead author of a paper on the discovery appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules. For example, previously, these scientists at the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have found amino acids in samples of comet Wild 2 from NASA’s Stardust mission, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Amino acids are used to make proteins, the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions.

In the new work, the Goddard team ground up samples of twelve carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. They extracted each sample with a solution of formic acid and ran them through a liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates a mixture of compounds. They further analyzed the samples with a mass spectrometer, which helps determine the chemical structure of compounds.

The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA called nucleobases, as well as hypoxanthine and xanthine. DNA resembles a spiral ladder; adenine and guanine connect with two other nucleobases to form the rungs of the ladder. They are part of the code that tells the cellular machinery which proteins to make. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are not found in DNA, but are used in other biological processes.

Also, in two of the meteorites, the team discovered for the first time trace amounts of three molecules related to nucleobases: purine, 2,6-diaminopurine, and 6,8-diaminopurine; the latter two almost never used in biology. These compounds have the same core molecule as nucleobases but with a structure added or removed.

It's these nucleobase-related molecules, called nucleobase analogs, which provide the first piece of evidence that the compounds in the meteorites came from space and not terrestrial contamination. "You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogs if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they're not used in biology, aside from one report of 2,6-diaminopurine occurring in a virus (cyanophage S-2L)," said Callahan. "However, if asteroids are behaving like chemical 'factories' cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, due to the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid."

The second piece of evidence involved research to further rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination as a source of these molecules. The team also analyzed an eight-kilogram (17.64-pound) sample of ice from Antarctica, where most of the meteorites in the study were found, with the same methods used on the meteorites. The amounts of the two nucleobases, plus hypoxanthine and xanthine, found in the ice were much lower -- parts per trillion -- than in the meteorites, where they were generally present at several parts per billion. More significantly, none of the nucleobase analogs were detected in the ice sample. One of the meteorites with nucleobase analog molecules fell in Australia, and the team also analyzed a soil sample collected near the fall site. As with the ice sample, the soil sample had none of the nucleobase analog molecules present in the meteorite.

Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial," says Callahan.

"In fact, there seems to be a 'goldilocks' class of meteorite, the so-called CM2 meteorites, where conditions are just right to make more of these molecules," adds Callahan.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorites.html

Calm and cool beach waters with San Francisco holidays

2011-08-17T00:57:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a place where you can get the feel of present comfort in adding up to natural freshness then here is your answer San Francisco. It is a super idea to experience the all in one that is the aquatic activities, calm and novelty, you should spend some time at the beaches of San Francisco staying in a beach rental home. Here are the few places to enjoy your desired feel.

Ocean Beach

Ocean Beach is the foremost pleasant beach in San Francisco. If you are fed up with the hectic city life and desiring for a break to sooth your soul and find a new relation with the nature, you should visit this beach. The best part of this Beach is it is located in the city and there’s no need of a long travel. For adventure seekers, In the San Francisco city Ocean Beach is the best surfing place. This is one of the main surfing spot in the city. The beach features unbelievable combination of surf, sand and sun.

Aquatic Park

Aquatic Park is an urban beach located in the center of city. It is the highlight of the San Francisco tourism because of its nearness to city's major attractions such as Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf. Apart from serene atmosphere and spectacular sunsets, the beach is also famous for Ghirardelli Sundae and sourdough bread bowl filled with clam broth.

Baker Beach

Baker Beach has a half mile long stretch of fine powdery sand. The specialty of the beach is you are allowed for a nude beach for this you need to take some time from your San Francisco holidays and visit the northern section of the beach. There are many small activities like swimming, surfing and ocean-side kite flying that you can enjoy in the waters of Baker Beach.

Honeycomb Carbon Crystals Possibly Detected in Space

2011-08-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted the signature of flat carbon flakes, called graphene, in space. If confirmed, this would be the first-ever cosmic detection of the material -- which is arranged like chicken wire in flat sheets that are one atom thick.

Graphene was first synthesized in a lab in 2004, and subsequent research on its unique properties garnered the Nobel Prize in 2010. It's as strong as it is thin, and conducts electricity as well as copper. Some think it's the "material of the future," with applications in computers, screens on electrical devices, solar panels and more.

Graphene in space isn't going to result in any super-fast computers, but researchers are interested in learning more about how it is created. Understanding chemical reactions involving carbon in space may hold clues to how our own carbon-based selves and other life on Earth developed.

Spitzer identified signs of the graphene in two small galaxies outside of our own, called the Magellanic Clouds, specifically in the material shed by dying stars, called planetary nebulae. The infrared-sensing telescope also spotted a related molecule, called C70, in the same region – marking the first detection of this chemical outside our galaxy.

C70 and graphene belong to the fullerene family, which includes molecules called "buckyballs," or C60. These carbon spheres contain 60 carbon atoms arranged like a soccer ball, and were named after their resemblance to the architectural domes of Buckminister Fuller. C70 molecules contain 70 carbon atoms and are longer in shape, more like a rugby ball.

Fullerenes have been found in meteorites carrying extraterrestrial gases, and water has been very recently encapsulated in buckyballs by using new laboratory techniques. These findings suggest fullerenes may have helped transport materials from space to Earth long ago, possibly helping to kick-start life.

Spitzer definitively detected both buckyballs and C70 in space for the first time in July 2010 (see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-243). It later spotted buckyballs -- equivalent in mass to 15 full moons -- in the Small Magellanic Cloud. These latter results demonstrated that, contrary to what was previously believed, fullerenes and other complex molecules could form in hydrogen-rich environments (see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-351).

According to astronomers, the graphene, buckyballs and C70 might be forming when shock waves generated by dying stars break apart hydrogen-containing carbon grains.

The team that performed the Spitzer research is led by Domingo Aníbal García-Hernández of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain. The results appear in the Astrophyscial Journal Letters. García-Hernández is also the lead author of the study that used Spitzer to detect heaps of buckyballs in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Read the news release from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson at http://www.noao.edu/news/2011/pr1103.php .

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer .

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20110815.html

Unusual Fault Pattern Surfaces in Earthquake Study

2011-08-16T02:06:00.000-07:00

Like scars that remain on the skin long after a wound has healed, earthquake fault lines can be traced on Earth's surface long after their initial rupture. Typically, this line of intersection is more complicated at the surface than at depth. But a new study of the April 4, 2010, El Mayor–Cucapah earthquake in Baja California, Mexico, reveals a reversal of this trend. Superficially, the fault involved in the magnitude 7.2 earthquake appeared to be straight, but at depth, it’s warped and complicated.

The study, which was led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory geophysicist Eric Fielding serving as a coauthor, is available online in the journal Nature Geoscience.

In a standard model, transform plate boundary structures -- where two plates slide past one another -- tend to be vertically oriented, which allows for lateral side-by-side shear fault motion. However, as the study found, the 75 mile (120 kilometer) long El Mayor–Cucapah rupture involved angled, non-vertical faults and the event began on a connecting extension fault between the two segments.

The new analysis indicates the responsible fault is more segmented deep down than its straight surface trace suggests. This means the evolution and extent of this earthquake's rupture could not have been accurately anticipated from the surface geology alone, says the study’s lead author Shengji Wei. Anticipating the characteristics of earthquakes that would likely happen on young fault systems (like the event in the study) is a challenge, since the geologic structures involved in the new fault systems are not clear enough.

Jean-Philippe Avouac, director of Caltech's Tectonics Observatory and principal investigator on the study, says the data can be used to illustrate the process by which the plate boundary -- which separates the Pacific Plate from North America -- evolves and starts connecting the Gulf of California to the Elsinore fault in Southern California.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110811.html