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17 January – NASA announces that the Kepler space observatory has developed a reaction wheel issue

2 January A study by Caltech astronomers reports that the Milky Way Galaxy contains at least one planet per sta

3 January

8 January

20 January – Scientists prove that quadruple-helix DNA is present in human cells

25 January

An international team of scientists develops a functional light-based "tractor beam", which allows individual cells to be selected and moved at will. The invention could have broad applications in medicine and microbiology

30 January – South Korea conducts its first successful orbital launch

6 February

Astronomers report that 6% of all dwarf stars – the most common stars in the known universe – may host Earthlike planets

Scientists discover live bacteria in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Whillans

American scientists finish drilling down to the subglacial Lake Whillans, which is buried around 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) under the Antarctic ice

10 February NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses its onboard drill to obtain the first deep rock sample ever retrieved from the surface of another plane

15 February A 10-ton meteoroid impacts in Chelyabinsk, Russia, producing a powerful shockwave and injuring over 1,000 people

28 February

Astronomers make the first direct observation of a protoplanet forming in a disk of gas and dust around a distant sta

A third radiation belt is discovered around the Eart

1 March – Boston Dynamics demonstrates an updated version of its BigDog military robot

3 March – American scientists report that they have cured HIV in an infant by giving the child a course of antiretroviral drugs very early in its life. The previously HIV-positive child has reportedly exhibited no HIV symptoms since its treatment, despite having no further medication for a year

researchers replace 75 percent of an injured patient's skull with a precision 3D-printed polymer replacement implant. In future, damaged bones may routinely be replaced with custom-manufactured implants

7 March

A study concludes that heart disease was common among ancient mummies

11 March

12 March NASA's Curiosity rover finds evidence that conditions on Mars were once suitable for microbial life after analyzing the first drilled sample of Martian rock, "John Klein" rock at Yellowknife Bay in Gale Crater. The rover detected water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, chloromethane and dichloromethane. Related tests found results consistent with the presence of smectite clay minerals

14 March CERN scientists confirm, with a very high degree of certainty, that a new particle identified by the Large Hadron Collider in July 2012 is the long-sought Higgs boson

18 March

NASA reports evidence from the Curiosity rover on Mars of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples, including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in the veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock.[177] Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 cm

27 March – A potential new weight loss method is discovered, after a 20% weight reduction was achieved in mice simply by having their gut microbes altered.

NASA scientists report that hints of dark matter may have been detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station

3 April

15 April A functional lab-grown kidney is successfully transplanted into a live rat in Massachusetts General Hospital

18 April – NASA announces the discovery of three new Earthlike exoplanets – Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Kepler-69c – in the habitable zones of their respective host stars, Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. The new exoplanets, which are considered prime candidates for possessing liquid water and thus potentially life, were identified using the Kepler spacecraft

21 April The Antares rocket, a commercial launch vehicle developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, successfully conducts its maiden flight

After years of unpowered glide tests, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipTwo hybrid spaceplane successfully conducts its first rocket-powered fligh

29 April

1 May IBM scientists release A Boy and His Atom, the smallest stop-motion animation ever created, made by manipulating individual carbon monoxide molecules with a scanning tunnelling microscope

A new study finds that children whose parents suck on their pacifiers have fewer allergies later in life

NASA reports that a reaction wheel on the Kepler space observatory may be malfunctioning and may result in the premature termination of the observatory's search for Earth-like

15 May

16 May Water dating back 2.6 billion years, by far the oldest ever found, is discovered in a Canadian mine

27 May Four-hundred-year-old bryophyte specimens left behind by retreating glaciers in Canada are brought back to life in the laboratory

29 May

Russian scientists announce the discovery of mammoth blood and well-preserved muscle tissue from an adult female specimen in Siberia

A new treatment to "reset" the immune system of multiple sclerosis patients is reported to reduce their reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent

4 June

During the Shenzhou 10 mission, Chinese astronauts deliver the country's first public video broadcast from the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory

20 June

China's Shenzhou 10 manned spacecraft returns safely to Earth, having conducted China's longest manned space mission to date

26 June

20 June

20 June

6 July

Scientists report that a wide variety of microbial life exists in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Vostok, which has been buried in ice for around 15 million years. Samples of the lake's water obtained by drilling were found to contain traces of DNA from over 3,000 tiny organisms

15 July

ASA engineers successfully test a rocket engine with a fully 3D-printed injector

19 July

NASA scientists publish the results of a new analysis of the atmosphere of Mars, reporting a lack of methane around the landing site of the Curiosity rover

Earth is photographed from the outer solar system. NASA's Cassini spacecraft releases images of the Earth and Moon taken from the orbit of Saturn

29 July – Astronomers discover the first exoplanet orbiting a brown dwarf, 6,000 light years from Earth

exoplanet

7 January

Astronomers

report that "at least 17 billion" Earth-sized exoplanets are estimated to reside in the Milky Way Galaxy

20 February

NASA reports the discovery of Kepler-37b, the smallest exoplanet yet known, around the size of Earth's Moon

10 June

Scientists report that the earlier claims of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a star close to our Solar System, may not be supported by astronomical evidence

25 June – In an unprecedented discovery, astronomers detect three potentially Earthlike exoplanets orbiting a single star in the Gliese 667

11 July For the first time, astronomers determine the true colour of a distant exoplanet. HD 189733 b, a searing-hot gas giant, is said to be a vivid blue colour, most likely due to clouds of silica in its atmosphere

NASA announces that the failing Kepler space observatory may never fully recover. New missions are being considered

15 August

Phase I clinical trials of SAV001 – the first and only preventative HIV vaccine – have been successfully completed with no adverse effects in all patients. Antibody production was greatly boosted after vaccination

3 September

12 September NASA announces that Voyager I has officially left the Solar System, having travelled since 1977

NASA scientists report the Mars Curiosity rover detected "abundant, easily accessible" water (1.5 to 3 weight percent) in soil samples

26 September

In addition, the rover found two principal soil types: a fine-grained mafic type and a locally derived, coarse-grained felsic type

mafic

as associated with hydration of the amorphous phases of the soi

perchlorates, the presence of which may make detection of life-related organic molecules difficult, were found at the Curiosity rover landing site

earlier at the more polar site of the Phoenix lander) suggesting a "global distribution of these salts

Astronomers have created the first cloud map of an exoplanet, Kepler-7b

30 September

8 October The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider"

16 October Russian authorities raise a large fragment, 654 kg (1,440 lb) total weight, of the Chelyabinsk meteor, a Near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013, from the bottom of Chebarkul lake.

Researchers have shown that a fundamental reason for sleep is to clean the brain of toxins. This is achieved by brain cells shrinking to create gaps between neurons, allowing fluid to wash through

17 October

22 October – Astronomers have discovered the 1,000th known exoplanet

4 November - Astronomers report, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy

11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars

5 November – India launches its first Mars probe, Mangalyaan

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has made the first discovery of very high energy neutrinos on Earth which had originated from beyond our Solar System

21 November

1 December – China launches the Chang'e 3 lunar rover mission, with a planned landing on December 16

3 December – The Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence of water in the atmospheres of five distant exoplanets: HD 209458b, XO-1b, WASP-12b, WASP-17b and WASP-19b

9 December NASA scientists report that the planet Mars had a large freshwater lake (which could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life) based on evidence from the Curiosity rover studying Aeolis Palus near Mount Sharp in Gale Crater

12 December NASA announces, based on studies with the Hubble Space Telescope, that water vapor plumes were detected on Europa, moon of Jupiter

14 December – The unmanned Chinese lunar rover Chang'e 3 lands on the Moon, making China the third country to achieve a soft landing there

18 December

nomers have spotted what appears to be the first known "exomoon", located 1,800 light years away

20 December – NASA reports that the Curiosity rover has successfully upgraded, for the third time since landing, its software programs and is now operating with version 11. The new software is expected to provide the rover with better robotic arm and autonomous driving abilities. Due to wheel wear, a need to drive more carefully, over the rough terrain the rover is currently traveling on its way to Mount Sharp, was also reported

55 Cancri e was first discovered in 2004 and is not a habitable world

The world is about twice the width of Earth and is super-dense, with about eight times the mass of Earth.

until now, scientists have never managed to detect the infrared light from the super-Earth world.

pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant planets and paving the way for NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope

Spitzer first detected infrared light from an alien planet in 2005

that world was "hot Jupiter," a gas giant planet much larger than 55 Cancri e that orbited extremely close to its parent star

other telescopes have performed similar feats

Spitzer's view of the 55 Cancri e is the first time the light from a rocky super-Earth type planet has been seen

Since the discovery of 55 Cancri e, astronomers have pinned down increasingly strange features about the planet

already knew it was part of an alien solar system containing five exoplanets centered on the star 55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer

But 55 Cancri e stood out because it is ultra-dense and orbits extremely close to its parent star

26 times closer than the distance between Mercury and our own sun

observations revealed that the star-facing side of 55 Cancri e

temperatures reaching up to 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit (1,726 degrees Celsius).

likely a dark world that lacks the substantial atmosphere needed to warm its nighttime side

the planet is oozing

Past observations of the planet by the Spitzer Space Telescope have suggested that one-fifth of 55 Cancri e is made up of lighter elements, including water

the extreme temperatures and pressures on 55 Cancri e would create what scientists call a "supercritical fluid" state

Supercritical fluids can be imagined as a gas in a liquid state, which can occur under extreme pressures and temperatures

On Earth, water can become a supercritical fluid inside some steam engines.

This graphic illuminates the process by which astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have for the first time detected the light from a super-Earth planet, the alien world of 55 Cancri e 41 light-years from Earth.

planet is likely a rocky world covered with water in a supercritical fluid state and topped off with a steam blanket

could be very similar to Neptune, if you pulled Neptune in toward our sun and watched its atmosphere boil away

detailed in the Astrophysical Journal

Spitzer Space Telescope launched in 2003

telescope engineers modified several settings on the observatory to optimize its alien planet vision

conceived of Spitzer more than 40 years ago

provided enough data to complete its mission objective: to determine how many of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets

Based on a statistical analysis

astronomers now estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.

nearly 20 years since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal star

Since then we have learned that most stars have planets of some size and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life

Earth-size planets in Earth-size orbits are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they orbit in the habitable zone of a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold

thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive

rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms

Last week,

provided hope that many such planets actually are rocky

NASA launched the Kepler space telescope in 2009 to look for planets that cross in front of, or transit, their stars, which causes a slight diminution – about one hundredth of one percent – in the star's brightness

150,000 stars photographed every 30 minutes for four years

reported more than 3,000 planet candidates

the Keck Telescopes in Hawaii

help them determine each star's true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.

The team's definition of habitable is that a planet receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun

Independently

focused on the 42,000 stars that are like the sun or slightly cooler and smaller, and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them

Only 10 of these were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life

Accounting for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth, allowed them to estimate that 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.

All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun

analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun

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

This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered "super-Earths," making it a "mega-Earth."

Kepler-10c, circles a sunlike star once every 45 days

It is located about 560 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco

The system also hosts a 3-Earth-mass "lava world," Kepler-10b, in a remarkably fast, 20-hour orbit

Kepler-10c was originally spotted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

By measuring the amount of dimming, astronomers can calculate the planet's physical size or diameter

Kepler can't tell whether a planet is rocky or gassy

Kepler-10c was known to have a diameter

, 2.3 times as large as Earth

This suggested it fell into a category of planets known as mini-Neptunes, which have thick, gaseous envelopes

The team used the HARPS-North instrument on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in the Canary Islands to measure the mass of Kepler-10c

They found that it weighed 17 times as much as Earth - far more than expected.

This showed that Kepler-10c must have a dense composition of rocks and other solids.

Planet formation theories have a difficult time explaining how such a large, rocky world could develop

The early universe contained only hydrogen and helium

Heavier elements needed to make rocky planets, like silicon and iron, had to be created

When those stars exploded

scattered

through space, which then could

later generations of stars and planets

This process should have taken billions of years. However, Kepler-10c shows that the universe was able to form such huge rocks even during the time when heavy elements were scarce.

tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought. And if you can make rocks

This research implies that astronomers shouldn't rule out old stars when they search for Earth-like planets

if old stars can host rocky Earths too, then we have a better chance of locating potentially habitable worlds in our cosmic neighborhood

The Kepler-10 system is about 11 billion years old, which means it formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang

It's massive enough to have held onto

its atmosphere

if it ever had it

If you want to

see a satellite image of the entire planet, there are

weather satellites

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) release images of an entire hemisphere of planet Earth every 3 hours

you can see major weather patterns affecting parts of the Earth. But you really can’t see any specific spot on Earth with any detail

these satellite views is that they’re live.

The weather systems

are happening on the planet right now

If you don’t want a live view

check out

images produced by NASA. Here’s a composite photograph that shows the Earth’s Western Hemisphere, and here’s a view of the Earth’s Eastern Hemisphere.

There were also some amazing new satellite images of the Earth released from the European Space Agency’s 3rd generation Meteosat spacecraft

zoom in, and see some pictures of houses from space

Google Maps and the other internet mapping services are really just customers for the satellite services that actually take these photographs from space

There are a few major services on the market, including GeoEye

DigitalGlobe and Spot Image.

Each company has a fleet of Earth observation satellites, with a capability of resolving features on the surface of the Earth as small as about 45 cm (18 inches). In other words, an object 45 centimeters across would appear as a single pixel in their photographs

GeoEye – 5 satellites: IKONOS, OrbView-2, OrbView-3, GeoEye-1, GeoEye-2 (in 2013).

DigitalGlobe – 4 satellites: Early Bird 1, Quickbird, WorldView-1, Worldview-2

Spot Image – 2 satellites: Spot 4, Spot 5

Each of these services allow customers to purchase satellite imagery directly

the prices are

hundreds or even thousands of dollars for satellite imagery

typically can’t buy directly from the satellite company itself

All of the free satellite images you’re accessing were captured by various spacecraft over the last couple of years

. A live satellite view of your house, is still a few years off.

you can access a live broadcast from NASA’s International Space Station. About 40% of the time, if you follow this link you can see a live view of Earth from the space station.

Another service called Urthecast will be attaching a high definition camera to the International Space Station in 2013 to broadcast a live view of Earth from space.

It receives about the same average stellar energy as Earth does and may have similar temperatures to our planet

These characteristics put it among the top three most Earth-like planets

It receives about the same average stellar energy as Earth does, because red dwarfs shine more dimly than our Sun, and may have similar temperatures to our planet

These characteristics put it among the top three most Earth-like planets, according to the Earth Similarity Index developed by scientists at the University of Puerto Rica in Arecibo

research group

says that if the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme

"However, given the large mass of the planet, it seems likely that it would possess a massive atmosphere, which may well render the planet inhospitable

A denser atmosphere would trap heat and could make it more like a super-Venus and too hot for life," says Professor Tinney.

The planet was discovered from its gravitational pull on its parent star, which causes the star to wobble slightly

This team had previously found, in 2009, that the star has a cold Jupiter-like planet with a near-circular orbit of about nine years, called Gliese GJ b.

new observations with HARPS mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet

first direct estimate of the number of smaller, rocky planets around red dwarf stars

another recent finding which suggested that every star in our night sky has at least one planet circling it — which didn’t include red dwarf stars – and our galaxy could be teeming with worlds

HARPS team surveyed a carefully chosen sample of 102 red dwarf stars in the southern skies over a six-year period

total of nine super-Earths (planets with masses between one and ten times that of Earth) were found, including two inside the habitable zones of Gliese 581 and Gliese 667 C respectively

combining all the data, including observations of stars that did not have planets, and looking at the fraction of existing planets that could be discovered, the team has been able to work out how common different sorts of planets are around red dwarfs

find that the frequency of occurrence of super-Earths in the habitable zone is 41% with a range from 28% to 95%.

Less than 12% of red dwarfs are expected to have giant planets (with masses between 100 and 1000 times that of the Earth).

habitable zone around a red dwarf, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on the surface, is much closer to the star than the Earth is to the Sun

But red dwarfs are known to be subject to stellar eruptions or flares, which may bathe the planet in X-rays or ultraviolet radiation, and which may make life there less likely.”

Gliese 667 Cc. This is the second planet in this triple star system and seems to be situated close to the center of the habitable zone

this planet is more than four times heavier than the Earth it is the closest twin to Earth found so far and almost certainly has the right conditions for the existence of liquid water on its surface

second super-Earth planet inside the habitable zone of a red dwarf

Kepler-36b, appears to be a rocky "super-Earth" 4.5 times as massive as our planet

Kepler-36c, is a gaseous, Neptune-size world about eight times as massive as Earth

planets meet up every 97 days in a conjunction that would make each dramatically visible in the other's sky.

At their closest approach, the two planets are separated by five times the distance between the Earth and the moon

as different in density as Earth and Saturn

Kepler-36b and c are actually more like 20 times closer together than any two planets in our neck of the woods

Kepler-36c, which is about 3.7 times wider than Earth, likely has a rocky core surrounded by a substantial atmosphere filled with lots of hydrogen and helium

Kepler-36b, on the other hand, is a super-Earth just 1.5 times wider than our planet. Iron likely constitutes about 30 percent of its mass, water around 15 percent and atmospheric hydrogen and helium less than 1 percent

Kepler-36c orbits once every 16 days, at an average distance of 12 million miles (19 million km). Kepler-36b orbits each 14 days and sits about 11 million miles (18 million km) from the star.

Kepler-36b probably formed relatively close to the star

Kepler-36c likely took shape farther out

large-scale migrations that can bring initially far-flung planets much closer together

Kepler-36b probably sporting lava flows on its surface

orbit roughly three times closer to their host star, known as Kepler-36a, than the hellishly hot planet Mercury does to our sun

Kepler-36a is likely a bit hotter than our star

Curiosity used both of her high resolution color mast mounted cameras to collect a series of Earth/Moon images

Processing has removed the numerous cosmic ray strikes

these are not the first images of the Earth from Mars orbit or Mars surface

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit imaged Earth from the surface in March 2004, soon after landing

Mars Global Surveyor in 2003 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007

NASA’s Cassini orbiter at Saturn captured the Earth and Moon

in 2013

studying the Neptune-sized exoplanet GJ 436b, already known to exist around the red-dwarf star GJ 436

In the Spitzer data, the astronomers noticed slight dips in the amount of infrared light streaming from the star, separate from the dips caused by GJ 436b

review of Spitzer archival data showed the dips were periodic, suggesting a second planet might be orbiting the star and blocking out a small fraction of the star's light. 

diameter would be approximately 5,200 miles (8,400 kilometers), or two-thirds that of Earth

revolve

about seven times the distance of Earth from the moon, with its "year" lasting only 1.4 Earth days

the exoplanet's surface temperature would be more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (almost 600 degrees Celsius

might therefore resemble a cratered, mostly geologically dead world like Mercury

another possibility; that the extreme heat of orbiting so close to GJ 436 has melted the exoplanet's surface

colleagues noticed hints of a third planet

Spitzer has observed evidence of the two new planets several times each

even the most sensitive instruments are unable to measure exoplanet masses as small

mass is required for confirming a discovery

cautiously calling both bodies exoplanet candidates for now.

1,800 stars identified by NASA' Kepler space telescope as candidates for having planetary systems, just three are verified to contain sub-Earth-sized exoplanets

only one exoplanet is thought to be smaller than the Spitzer candidates

planet circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one mile

one of tightest known orbit on record and due to this its formation is deemed as impossible and not suitable for life.

The scientists believe no planet can form so close to its star nor could it have moved to its current position.

Kepler-78b poses a challenge to theorists

When this planetary system was forming, the young star was larger than it is now.

the current orbit of Kepler-78b would have been inside the swollen star

The star of Kepler-78b is slightly smaller and less massive than the sun

Sun-like G-type star, which is  located 400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus

The exoplanet was discovered using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope

follow up observations were made using W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii

he iconic image traveled nearly 240,000 miles in digital form from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the spacecraft.

By transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses that are routinely sent to track LOLA's position, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and tracking.

This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances

"In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use

In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide

Typically, satellites that go beyond Earth orbit use radio waves for tracking and communication

LRO is the only satellite in orbit around a body other than Earth to be tracked by laser as well.

Precise timing was the key to transmitting the image

divided the Mona Lisa image into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels

Every pixel was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095.

Each pixel was transmitted by a laser pulse, with the pulse being fired in one of 4,096 possible time slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking

he complete image was transmitted at a data rate of about 300 bits per second.

The laser pulses were received by LRO's LOLA instrument, which reconstructed the image based on the arrival times of the laser pulses from Earth

This was accomplished without interfering with LOLA's primary task of mapping the moon's elevation and terrain and NGSLR's primary task of tracking LRO.

The success of the laser transmission was verified by returning the image to Earth using the spacecraft's radio telemetry system.

Turbulence in Earth's atmosphere introduced transmission errors even when the sky was clear.

To overcome these effects,

employed Reed-Solomon coding, which is the same type of error-correction code commonly used in CDs and DVDs.

The next step after LLCD is the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), NASA's first long-duration optical communications mission.

, will be the first CubeSats to leave Earth's orbit for interplanetary space.

CubeSats are tiny satellites, some no bigger than four inches (10 cm) on each side, sent into orbit as secondary payloads on other launch vehicles

If the interplanetary test launch succeeds, CubeSats could someday blanket the solar system, conducting cheap, high-risk missions to comets, asteroids, moons and planets

Just where the pioneering CubeSats will go is still unclear, however, since it’s not known yet which model rocket will be used for launch

The first mission will be basically an escape trajectory

he rocket's going to send us in some unknown direction

Lacking much propulsion or scientific instrumentation, the INSPIRE craft are a test of whether tiny machines can survive the harsh environment of space.

The INSPIRE project has been approved by NASA to launch sometime between 2014 and 2016, but a specific launch vehicle hasn't been selected.

One of the challenges of the project is figuring how the tiny satellites will communicate with Earth.

CubeSats are far cheaper than a traditional space mission but they lack room for complex communications systems or large power sources.

As we head away from Earth, we're talking about using much larger antennas" to communicate with the low-powered craf

Furthermore, once a spacecraft leaves the protective magnetic field surrounding Earth, it's at risk of failure from solar radiation

Traditional satellites are built with more expensive "radiation-hardened" components

satellites are instead built to respond to a shut-down command from Earth if space weather systems detect an oncoming solar flare

The curves show the mass-radius-relation (average density) for different types of planets

The blue line indicates

planets made mostly (75%) of water, the black line that of planets like our Earth that consist almost exclusively of rock (

estimate of their mass places them in a region (blue areas) where it is highly probable for them to be earth-like planets, that is: planets with a solid (if possibly covered in water) surface

the empirical habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface of a planet if that planet has sufficient cloud cover. In the narrow habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface even without the presence of a cloud cover

while the sizes of Kepler 62e and 62f are known, their mass and densities are not.

every planet found in their size range so far has been rocky, like Earth

Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy