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Mars Base

Asteroid Miners Wanted to Tap Space Rock Riches | Planetary Resources | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/lanetary-resources-hiring.html

sciByte44 Asteroid AsteroidMining

shared by Mars Base on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • One of the reasons that we chose to announce the company at this time is because we're beginning to aggressively search for the world's best engineers, to complement our team
  • looking for engineers to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots
  • not a motley crew led by Bruce Willis
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • among its investors Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
  • company's advisers include filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
  • Water can be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, the chief components of rocket fuel
  • platinum-group metals it plans to extract will help lower the cost of many products here on Earth, including hand-held electronic devices and monitors for televisions and computers.
Mars Base

Dawn Finds Asteroid Vesta is Rich in Hydrogen - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...roid-vesta-is-rich-in-hydrogen

scibyte64 dawn

shared by Mars Base on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The giant asteroid Vesta appears to have
  • hydrogen
  • Dawn spacecraft reveals hydrated minerals in a wide area around Vesta’s equator
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Dawn did not find actual water ice, there are signs of hydrated minerals such as hydroxyl
  • source of the hydrogen within Vesta’s surface appears to be hydrated minerals delivered by carbon-rich space rocks that collided with Vesta at speeds slow enough to preserve their volatile content
  • pitted terrain – looking much like potholes – mark where the volatiles, perhaps both hydroxyl and water, released from hydrated minerals boiled off
  • Hydroxyl has recently been found on the Moon in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles
  • scientists thought there might be a chance that water ice may have
  • around the giant asteroid’s poles
  • unlike Earth’s Moon, however, Vesta has no permanently shadowed polar regions
  • strongest signature for hydrogen actually came from regions near the equator. And there, water ice is not stable
  • The holes that were left as the water escaped stretch as much as 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across and go down as deep as 700 feet (200 meters
  • collisions converted the hydrogen bound to the minerals into water, which evaporated
  • The pits look just like features seen on Mars, but while water was common on Mars, it was totally unexpected on Vesta in these high abundances
  • ults provide evidence that not only were hydrated materials present, but they played an important role in shaping the asteroid’s geology and the surface we see today
  • the first direct measurements describing the elemental composition of Vesta’s surface
  • elemental investigation by the instrument determined the ratios of iron to oxygen and iron to silicon in the surface materials
  • new findings solidly confirm the connection between Vesta and a class of meteorites found on Earth called the Howardite, Eucrite and Diogenite meteorites
  • have the same ratios for these elements
  • n, more volatile-rich fragments of other objects have been identified in these meteor
Mars Base

'Space Selfie' Telescope Could Hunt Alien Planets … If It Raises A Cool $2M - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...planets-if-it-raises-a-cool-2m

scibyte98 CrowdSourcing Arkyd

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • A crowdfunded telescope
  • is now considering a search for alien planets.
  • Planetary Resources Inc. (the proposed asteroid miners) announced a new “stretch goal” for its asteroid-hunting Arkyd-100 telescope.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • If the company can raise $2 million — double its original goal — it promises to equip the Arkyd telescope to look at star systems for exoplanets
  • partnering with exoplanet researchers at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Arkyd would use two methods to hunt down planets
  • Transiting, or seeing the dip in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it;
  • Gravitational microlensing, or finding planets by measuring how the gravity of the star (and its planets) distorts light from stars and galaxies behind
  • If it can raise $1.3 million, Planetary Resources proposes to build a ground station at an undisclosed “educational partner” that would double the download speed of data from the orbiting observatory
  • Two more stretch goals will be revealed if Arkyd receives 11,000 backers and 15,000 backers
Mars Base

Online Game on How Earth's Moon Formed Nabs Honors | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/oon-formation-online-game.html

scibyte80 LunarGame

shared by Mars Base on 01 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • An online game that allows players to build their own moon and sculpt its features has won big praise in science art competition
  • "Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME,"
  • measures how and when players learn as they discover more about how the Earth's moon formed
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • by extension, the solar system.
  • received an honorable mention in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge
  • When they look at the moon, players are seeing what actually created those features
  • It makes moon observations more meaningful
  • Named for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene works in two parts
  • In the first round, players aim asteroids of varying sizes, densities, and radiations so that they collide with one an
  • Too much force, and the rocks ricochet off one another
  • even if you overshoot your target, the gravity of the growing moon may tug just enough to pull the new piece into the pack
  • participants a chance to watch accretion in action
  • developing moon is constantly compared to the real-life one, and players strive to make as close a match as possible
  • After all of the small asteroids have melted together to form a smooth new moon, it's time to scratch up the surface
  • Players can aim asteroids of varying sizes at the body, and select areas where lava breaks through the crust
  • Because the accretion and surface-sculpting processes for the moon echo that of the rest of the planets, players also develop an understanding of how the early solar system formed
  • kids ages nine and up engage in the game, they build concrete knowledge that can be applied into any learning environment that they later experience, a process that serves to make learning more intuitive
  • Though the game is effective for high school and college students, and slanted to match the national standards for those age ranges
  • was more attractive to middle school students
  • One of the primary goals of Selene is to allow
  • team to analyze the learning process
  • means the game requires a login, and for minors, parental permission must be given.
  • analyzation takes time
  • able to provide a quick overview of my game play
  • can tell from looking at your data what your experiences were
  • That under-the-hood ability to study learning is why the project was so attractive in terms of funding to NASA and the National Science Foundation
  • d a prototype of the game was developed by CyGaMEs in May of 2007.
  • first version was released in 2010. But the game is constantly being improved as the understanding of the learning process grows
  • also looking at expanding it to mobile platforms in the near future.
  • recognition is of course a great honor and encouragement — but more importantly, may drive more players to the website so that we can collect more data
  • More players, of course, means more information that can be gathered about how participants learn
  • At the same time, more people can learn about how the moon formed, growing their understanding of the nearest celestial body.
  • http://selene.cet.edu/
Mars Base

Short Sharp Science: Phobos-Grunt could be rerouted to visit an asteroid - 0 views

www.newscientist.com/...os-mission-phones-home-as.html

scibyte23 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 28 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • missed the window of opportunity for its flight to Mars
  • the probe could still be used in another research mission
  • Phobos-Grunt mission scientist Alexander Zakharov said that if the spacecraft is fully operational, the best scientific mission for it would be to study a near-earth asteroid.
Mars Base

The Moon Is 100 Million Years Younger Than Thought | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/100-million-years-younger.html

scibyte104 moon

shared by Mars Base on 24 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • new research suggests.
  • The moon is
  • younger than scientists had previously believed
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • leading theory of how the moon formed 
  • it was created when a mysterious planet — one the size of Mars or larger — slammed into Earth
  • about 4.56 billion years ago, just after the solar system came together
  • new analyses of lunar rocks suggest that the moon, which likely coalesced from the debris blasted into space by this monster impact, is actually between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old
  • make the moon 100 million years younger than previously thought, could reshape scientists' understanding of the early Earth
  • several important implications of this late moon formation that have not yet been worked out
  • , if the Earth was already differentiated prior to the giant impact, would the impact have blown off the primordial atmosphere that formed from this earlier epoch of Earth history
  • Scientists know the solar system's age (4.568 billion years) quite well
  • they can pin down the formation times of relatively small bodies such as asteroids precisely
  • by noting when these objects underwent extensive melting
  • a consequence,
  • of the heat generated by the collision and fusion of these objects' building-block "planetesimals."
  • analysis of meteorites that came from the asteroid Vesta and eventually rained down on Earth reveals that the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) space rock is 4.565 billion years old
  • Vesta cooled relatively quickly and is too small to have retained enough internal heat to drive further melting or volcanism
  • tougher to nail down the age of larger solar-system bodies
  • Earth likely took longer to grow to full size compared to a small asteroid like Vesta
  • every step in its growth tends to erase, or at least cloud, the memory of earlier events
  • Scientists keep getting better and better estimates
  • as they refine their techniques and technology improves. And those estimates are pushing the moon's formation date farther forward in time.
  • The moon is thought to have harbored a global ocean of molten rock shortly after its dramatic formation
  • Currently, the most precisely determined age for the lunar rocks that arose from that ocean is 4.360 billion years
  • here on Earth, scientists have found signs in several locations of a major melting event that occurred around 4.45 billion years ago
  • evidence is building that the catastrophic collision that formed the moon and reshaped Earth occurred around that time, rather than 100 million years or so before
Chris Fisher

NASA - NASA in Final Preparations for Nov. 8 Asteroid Flyby - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...yu55-20111025.html

scibyte20

shared by Chris Fisher on 02 Nov 11 - Cached
  • At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth
  • The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976
  • astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • he next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.
Mars Base

Dazzling Meteor Fireball Lights Up UK Night Sky | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ball-video-united-kingdom.html

scibyte64 meteorite

shared by Mars Base on 25 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A spectacular meteor wowed stargazers across the United Kingdom Friday (Sept. 21) when it flared up and shattered into piece
  • spotted by observers across Scotland and northern England as well as Ireland
  • Many observers captured views of the meteor on camera
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • video of the Sept. 21 meteor shows what appears to be a fireball created as a small space rock breaks apart in Earth's atmosphere. Pieces of the meteor can easily be seen separating from the main body in his view
  • many witnesses to wonder if it was sparked by a man-made piece of space junk falling out of orbit
  • experts have conclusively tied the event to a naturally occurring space rock burning up in Earth's atmosphere
  • Veteran satellite tracker Marco Langbroe
  • the fireball was definitely a meteor.
  • sighting reports to determine the fireball's trajectory and studied videos posted by witnesses to determine how long it lasted
  • ack-of-the-envelope reconstruction therefore shows that this must have been a meteoric fireball, quite likely of asteroidal origin, and we definitely can exclude a satellite re-entry
  • meteor in space is called a meteoroid. Only when it flares up in the night sky does it become a meteor. Any remains of the object that reach the ground, meanwhile, are called meteorites
  • Earlier this year, a rare daytime fireball surprised U.S. observers in California and Nevada when it unleashed a sonic boom that some mistook for a small earthquake. The meteor was caused by a minivan-size asteroid and created several meteorites that NASA retrieved in a follow-up search
Mars Base

Private Groups Set Sights on Deep Space | Mars, the Moon & Asteroids | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ht-deep-space-exploration.html

scibyte84 PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation announced
  • (Feb. 27) that it aims to launch two people on a 501-day Mars flyby mission in January 2018
  • main goals are to generate excitement about space travel and test out technologies that will be needed to put boots on Mars in the future
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • mission would combine a commercial space capsule and inflatable module into a single spacecraft that will carry a man and a woman, possibly a married couple, to Mars and back. 
  • A number of companies and nonprofit organizations are developing plans to visit Mars, the moon and asteroids, for a variety of purposes
Mars Base

Huge Asteroid Apophis Won't Hit Earth in 2036 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/d-apophis-earth-safe-2036.html

scibyte77 Apophis

shared by Mars Base on 11 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 11 Jan 13
     
    Apophis
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