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Mars Base

Curiosity Rover Finds No Methane On Mars. What's Happening? - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ethane-on-mars-whats-happening

scibyte103 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover can’t find any sign of methane on the red planet, but the agency emphasized that methane would be only one indicator of possible life
  • reduces the probability of current methane-producing Martian microbes
  • this addresses only one type of microbial metabolism
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • here are many types of terrestrial microbes that don’t generate methane
  • Curiosity
  • sniffed the atmosphere six times for methane between October 2012 and June 2013
  • didn’t see any sign of the molecule
  • The instrument
  • would be able to detect minute concentrations
  • Scientists today estimate methane on Mars must be 1.3 parts per billion at the most, which is only one-sixth as much as earlier estimates
  • results are intriguing given that other teams have spotted methane on Mars as far back as 1999
  • Mars Global Surveyor, which was working for more than 10 years, charted the evolution of Martian methane over three years
  • NASA Earth-bound observations using spectroscopic measurements reported even greater amounts in the Martian atmosphere in 2009,
  • reports of the highest concentrations of Mars methane came from Earth-based observatories
  • imply that they think peering through Earth’s atmosphere may have distorted the measurements
  • Some Earthly measurements indicated local regions with methane as high as 45 parts per billion
  • s no known way for methane to disappear quickly from the atmosphere
Mars Base

Mars methane linked to meteorites - 0 views

phys.org/...methane-linked-meteorites.html

scibyte49 mars methane

shared by Mars Base on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • Until now no-one had thought to check whether exposing meteorites to sunlight would create methane.
  • work on ultraviolet radiation's role in releasing methane from vegetation on Earth led them naturally to question its source in Mars' atmosphere
  • Methane doesn't persist in the atmosphere, which means there must be some sort of process that continuously produces it
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • because the estimates for the amount of methane produced don't explain the level of methane in Mars' atmosphere
  • amount of methane we measured from the meteorite was much higher than we expected
  • can't say where this organic matter comes from, but our results show that it definitely has an extraterrestrial origin
  • a significant amount of weathering would be necessary to convert any meteoritic organic matter to methane
  • because ultraviolet rays cannot penetrate far into minerals.
  • while meteorites contribute to the production of methane in the Martian atmosphere, this doesn't mean they're the only source.
Mars Base

Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea - 0 views

phys.org/...an-saturn-moon-salty-dead.html

scibyte135 cassini titan

shared by Mars Base on 05 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as the Earth's Dead Sea.
  • The new results come from a study of gravity and topography data collected during Cassini's repeated flybys of Titan during the past 10 years
  • Using the Cassini data, researchers presented a model structure for Titan, resulting in an improved understanding of the structure of the moon's outer ice shell
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Additional findings support previous indications the moon's icy shell is rigid and in the process of freezing solid
  • Researchers found that a relatively high density was required for Titan's ocean in order to explain the gravity data
  • This indicates the ocean is probably an extremely salty brine of water mixed with dissolved salts likely composed of sulfur, sodium and potassium
  • The density indicated for this brine would give the ocean a salt content roughly equal to the saltiest bodies of water on Earth
  • Giuseppe Mitri of the University of Nantes in France
  • "Knowing this may change the way we view this ocean as a possible abode for present-day life, but conditions might have been very different there in the past."
  • Cassini data also indicate the thickness of Titan's ice crust varies slightly from place to place.
  • The researchers said this can best be explained if the moon's outer shell is stiff, as would be the case if the ocean were slowly crystalizing, and turning to ice.
  • A further consequence of a rigid ice shell, according to the study, is any outgassing of methane into Titan's atmosphere must happen at scattered "hot spots"—like the hot spot on Earth that gave rise to the Hawaiian Island chain
  • Titan's methane does not appear to result from convection or plate tectonics recycling its ice shell.
  • How methane gets into the moon's atmosphere has long been of great interest to researchers, as molecules of this gas are broken apart by sunlight on short geological timescales
  • Titan's present atmosphere contains about five percent methane. This means some process, thought to be geological in nature, must be replenishing the gas
  • "Our work suggests looking for signs of methane outgassing will be difficult with Cassini, and may require a future mission that can find localized methane sources," said Jonathan Lunine, a scientist on the Cassini mission at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Mars Base

Mars missions may learn from meteor Down Under - 0 views

phys.org/...2-05-mars-missions-meteor.html

scibyte49 mars meteorite methane

shared by Mars Base on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists have tried to find out how the planet's environment came to contain methane gas, which contains carbon – a substance found in all living things
  • meteorites, which continually bombard the surface of Mars, contain enough carbon compounds to generate methane when they are exposed to sunlight.
  • Scientists planning future missions to Mars could use the findings to fine-tune their experiments, potentially making their trips more valuable.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • researchers carried out experiments on samples from the Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia more than 40 years ago
  • team took particles from the rock – which has a similar composition to meteorites on Mars
  • exposed them to levels of ultraviolet radiation equivalent to sunlight on the red planet, which is cooler than Earth.
  • the amount of methane given off by the particles was significant, and could account for a large part of the methane in Mars' atmosphere.
Mars Base

Rare Rain on Titan; Once Every 1,000 Years - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...on-titan-once-every-1000-years

scibyte40 titan

shared by Mars Base on 27 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • According to data gathered by NASA’s Cassini mission, parts of Titan might not see rain for more than 1,000 years.
  • there are lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface
  • the rains that feed them may come few and far between
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • surface temperatures plunge to -179C
  • hydrological cycle runs with methane: methane lakes, methane rivers, and methane rain
  • In all of its observations of Titan, Cassini only spotted two instances of darkened regions that might have indicated rainfall.
Mars Base

Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars - 0 views

phys.org/...old-clues-life-earth-mars.html

scibyte94 AncientWater

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 13 - No Cached
  • A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life
  • This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life
  • the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet's surface
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Researchers
  • analysed water pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada
  • found that the water is rich in dissolved gases like hydrogen, methane and different forms – called isotopes – of noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon
  • there is as much hydrogen in the water as around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean, many of which teem with microscopic life
  • The hydrogen and methane come from the interaction between the rock and water, as well as natural radioactive elements in the rock reacting with the water
  • These gases could provide energy for microbes that may not have been exposed to the sun for billions of years.
  • The crystalline rocks surrounding the water are thought to be around 2.7 billion years old. But no-one thought the water could be the same age, until now
  • Using ground-breaking techniques
  • researchers show that the fluid is at least 1.5 billion years old, but could be significantly older.
  • interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life
  • Before this finding, the only water of this age was found trapped in tiny bubbles in rock and is incapable of supporting life
  • the water found in the Canadian mine pours from the rock at a rate of nearly two litres per minute
  • don't yet know if the underground system in Canada sustains life
Mars Base

2013 in science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...2013_in_science

scibyte114 2013YearInReview

shared by Mars Base on 23 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Morocco in 2011, and report that it is a new type of Mars rock with an unusually high water content.[8][9][10] American researchers state that a gene associated with active personality traits is also linked to
  • Astronomers affiliated with the Kepler space observatory announce the discovery of KOI-172.02, an Earth-like exoplanet candidate which orbits a star similar to the Sun in the habitable zone
  • 13 January – Massachusetts doctors invent a pill-sized medical scanner that can be safely swallowed by patients, allowing the esophagus to be more easily scanned for disease
  • ...101 more annotations...
  • 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
Mars Base

Distant planets' atmospheres revealed | Atom & Cosmos | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...t_planets_atmospheres_revealed

scibyte86 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 15 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Astronomers have gotten the most detailed look yet at the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system
  • The study is among the first to directly analyze the chemical makeup of an exoplanet
  • In the past, astronomers inferred the existence of exoplanets and their gases by looking for subtle changes in the light streaming from the planet’s star
  • ...42 more annotations...
  • Now, with improved instruments, a team
  • has detected light coming directly from a planet light-years away
  • The data have high enough resolution to reveal not only the presence but the abundance of carbon monoxide and water in the planet’s atmosphere
  • Such information could shed light on how the planet formed
  • studies could also reveal the presence of life on a distant planet, but the planet’s size and orbit have already ruled it out as a habitable world
  • In 2008
  • the first image of a multiplanet system outside the solar system, showing three gas giants orbiting the star HR 8799
  • HR 8799 is about 130 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus
  • The planets are scorching hot, making them bright enough for astronomers to detect directly
  • In 2010, the researchers imaged a fourth planet around HR 8799
  • In the new study
  • focused on one of these planets, HR 8799c.
  • Five to 10 times as massive as Jupiter, HR 8799c sits about eight times farther away from its star than Jupiter does from the sun
  • Because of that great distance, the astronomers could block the star’s light and record infrared light
  • Because different gases absorb and emit light in distinct ways, the team could identify carbon monoxide and water but found no methane, which scientists had thought might be present.
  • In another new study
  • researchers simultaneously collected infrared light from the atmospheres of all four planets
  • A team led by
  • an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, found hints of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and acetylene in the planets’ atmospheres
  • The chemistry of each planet varies
  • different from anything in our own solar system
  • Although the teams looked at different wavelengths of light, which pick up different types of molecules, the two studies appear consistent
  • by peering at just one planet, Konopacky’s team obtained more detailed data that allowed the researchers to get a sense of how much carbon and oxygen is in HR 8799c’s atmosphere
  • Knowing the ratio of carbon to oxygen in the atmosphere may reveal how the planet formed
  • Astronomers have two competing theories of how planets arise from the disk of gas and dust encircling a young star
  • In the gravitational instability model, some of the gas and dust suddenly clumps and collapses, simultaneously creating a planet’s core and atmosphere
  • In this scenario, the chemical composition of a planet should match that of its star
  • In the other model, known as core accretion, planet building is a two-step process
  • First, material from the disk accumulates into a core.
  • Later, the core captures gases swirling in the disk to form an atmosphere.
  • In this case, the carbon-to-oxygen ratio of the planet may differ from the star because the accretion of cores may deplete the disk of certain elements
  • Compared with its star, HR 8799c appears to have slightly more carbon relative to oxygen, suggesting the planet originated via core accretion
  • surmise that when the disk around HR 8799 formed, water froze into particles of ice.
  • The bits of ice collided to form the planet’s core, leaving behind little water vapor, and therefore less oxygen, when the planet accumulated its atmosphere later on
  • Other researchers are not convinced by this conclusion
  • “We don’t really understand planetary formation enough to make a strong case either way,”
  • the data from both new studies may help astronomers refine their simulations of planetary formation
  • astronomers have directly imaged planets around three distant stars
  • researchers are poised to capture light from many more planets
  • Project 1640,
  • is looking for Jupiter-sized planets around some 200 stars
  • “Ultimately, with better instruments, people will be able to use these methods on Earthlike planets.”
Mars Base

Triton: A subsurface ocean? - 0 views

phys.org/...9-triton-subsurface-ocean.html

sibyte62 Tritan

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal heating. New research suggests that this ocean could still exist today.
  • much about Neptune's largest moon still remains a mystery
  • Voyager 2 flyby in 1989 offered a quick peak at the satellite, and revealed a surface composition comprised mainly of water ice
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • also had nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide
  • density is quite high, it is suspected that it has a large core of silicate rock
  • possible that a liquid ocean could have formed between the rocky core and icy surface shell
  • Triton has a unique property among large solar system moons; it has a retrograde orbit
  • planets and their moons must also orbit in this same direction
  • Planets form from a circumstellar disc of dust and gas
  • These orbits are known as prograde
  • retrograde orbit of Triton means that it most likely did not form around Neptune.
  • Triton likely originated in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, and was sent hurtling inwards until it was captured by Neptune's gravity
  • Directly after capture, the moon would have been in a highly elliptical, eccentric orbit
  • This type of orbit would have raised large tides on the moon, and the friction of these tides would have caused energy to be lost
  • energy loss is converted into heat
  • melt some of the icy interior and form an ocean beneath the ice shell
  • energy loss from tides is also responsible for gradually changing Triton's orbit from an ellipse to a circle
  • there
  • also radiogenic heating. This is heat that is caused by the decay of radioactive isotopes within a moon or planet, and this process can create heat for billions of years
  • Radiogenic heating contributes several times more heat to Triton's interior than tidal heating
  • this heat alone is not sufficient to keep the subsurface ocean in a liquid state over 4.5 billion years
  • One model of Triton’s interior. 70 to 80 percent rock (1), with the remainder being water ice (2) and an outer layer of methane and nitrogen ice (3). This is also believed to be the general interior configuration for the ice dwarf Pluto. Credit: Wikipedia
  • The exact point in time when Triton was captured by Neptune, along with the length of the time it took the orbit to become circularized are unknown
  • orbit is currently almost exactly circular
  • the exact size of Triton's rocky core is unknown
Mars Base

SpaceX Signs Pact To Start Rocket Testing At NASA Stennis - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...rocket-testing-at-nasa-stennis

scibyte108 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX
  • has signed a contract to research, develop and test Raptor methane rocket engines at the NASA Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi
  • plans to use the E-2 test stand at Stennis, which is able to support both vertical and horizontal rocket engine tests
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • A press release from his office said the presence of the private space company would boost jobs in the region
  • There’s little information on SpaceX’s website about what the Raptor engine is or specific development plans
  • Space News reports that it would be used for deep-space missions
  • SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mentioned the engine previously when talking about Mars missions, according to multiple media reports
  • test the whole engine at Stennis
  • the first phase starts with the components
  • E-2 stand at Stennis is big enough for components, but we would need a bigger stand for the whole Raptor
  • reportedly hashing out a Space Act agreement to establish user fees and other parameters
  • Once that’s finished, the testing will begin, perhaps as early as next year
  • SpaceX currently does most of its rocket testing in Texas
Mars Base

Lake on Saturn's Largest Moon May Have Waves - Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...-s-largest-moon-may-have-waves

scibyte134 titan

shared by Mars Base on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • meras on NASA's spacecraft Cassini recently saw what appear to be waves on one of Titan's largest methane lakes
  • a signal scientists have long searched for but never found
  • If confirmed, the discovery would mark the first time waves have been seen outside Earth.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • team found patterns in the sunlight reflecting off a northern lake called Punga Mare that they interpret as two-centimeter-high waves
  • There
  • may be a mudflat instead of a deep lake, and a shallow film of liquid on top may be the cause of the unique light signature
  • If life on Titan exists,
  • the best place to look
  • is in large bodies of liquid—the kind that form waves
  • Waves on Titan
  • would confirm that the lakes actually are deep reservoirs of methane and ethane,
  • True liquid bodies would also make a robotic spacecraft mission to explore Titan's habitability more feasible
  • By 2017 scientists should know for certain whether what they are seeing is indeed caused by waves
  • Cassini has been observing the moon during its northern winter, when weak winds are at work
  • As spring
  • over the next few years, bringing stronger winds to kick up seas, the probe should capture more definitive evidence of waves if they exist
Mars Base

Curiosity rover: No big surprise in first soil test - 0 views

phys.org/...-curiosity-rover-big-soil.html

scibyte73 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 04 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • identified the oxygen and chlorine compound perchlorate
  • chemical previously found in arctic Martian soil by NASA's Phoenix Lander
  • other chemicals heated in SAM formed chlorinated methane compounds
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • one-carbon organics that were detected by the instrument
  • chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is possible the carbon may be of Earth origin
Mars Base

Titan's Tides Suggest a Subsurface Sea - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tides-suggest-a-subsurface-sea

scibyte53 titan

shared by Mars Base on 28 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • s tidal flexing
  • mostly composed of rock, the flexing would be in the neighborhood of around 3 feet (1 meter.)
  • measurements taken by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, Titan exhibits much more intense flexing — ten times more, in fact, as much as 30 feet (10 meters
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the presence of such an ocean — possibly containing trace amounts of ammonia – would help explain how methane gets replenished into the moon’s thick atmosphere.
Mars Base

Strange Vortex On Saturn Moon Titan | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/n-moon-titan-polar-vortex.html

GrabBag TitanVortex

shared by Mars Base on 11 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Cassini scientists will keep a close eye on Titan's south pole for further developments, which could shed light on the moon's complex, methane-based weather system
Mars Base

NASA's Morpheus lander in fiery crash at Cape Canaveral | Reuters - 0 views

in.reuters.com/...accident-idINBRE8781A220120810

scibyte58 Morpheus

shared by Mars Base on 10 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The insect-like vehicle, designed and built by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, had made several flights attached to a crane before Thursday's attempted free-flight
  • Morpheus' engines, which burn liquid oxygen and methane, appeared to ignite as planned, lifting the 1,750-pound (794 kg) vehicle into the air. But a few seconds later, Morpheus rolled over on its side and plummeted to the ground.
  • An investigation is under way
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  • an example of what the former project manager called "“Home Depot engineering" - low-budget projects that use existing resources and partner with non-traditional aerospace companies.
  • Instead of building some elaborate test structure, you go to Home Depot and build something very quickly that gets you 80 percent of the answer and allows you to keep moving forward
  • designed to deliver about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) of cargo to the moon
Mars Base

An Unexpected Ending for Deep Impact - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...xpected-ending-for-deep-impact

scibyte103 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • After almost 9 years in space
  • July 4th impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects
  • NASA’s Deep Impact/EPOXI mission has officially been brought to a close.
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  • team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has reluctantly pronounced the mission at an end after being unable to communicate with the spacecraft for over a month
  • The last communication with the probe was Aug. 8
  • journeyed a total of about 4.7 billion miles (7.58 billion kilometers).
  • Launched in January 2005
  • the spacecraft first traveled about 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) to the vicinity of comet Tempel 1.
  • On July 3, 2005, the spacecraft deployed an impactor into the path of comet to essentially be run over by its nucleus on July 4
  • caused material from below the comet’s surface to be blasted out into space
  • examined by the telescopes and instrumentation of the flyby spacecraft
  • in late December 2007 to put it on course to encounter another comet, Hartley 2 in November 2010
  • Sixteen days after that comet encounter, the Deep Impact team placed the spacecraft on a trajectory to fly back past Eart
  • The spacecraft’s extended mission
  • the successful flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010
  • Along the way, it also observed six different stars to confirm the motion of planets orbiting them
  • took images and data of the Earth, the Moon and Mars
  • data helped to confirm the existence of water on the Moon, and attempted to confirm the methane signature in the atmosphere of Mars
  • It took images of comet ISON this year and collected early images of comet ISON in June
  • After losing contact with the spacecraft last month, mission controllers spent several weeks trying to uplink commands to reactivate its onboard systems
  • Although the exact cause of the loss is not known
  • analysis has uncovered a potential problem with computer time tagging that could have led to loss of control for Deep Impact’s orientation.
  • That would then affect the positioning of its radio antennas, making communication difficult
  • its solar arrays, which would in turn prevent the spacecraft from getting power
  • allow cold temperatures to ruin onboard equipment, essentially freezing its battery and propulsion systems.
Mars Base

Direct Image of an Exoplanet 155 Light Years Away - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...exoplanet-155-light-years-away

scibyte131 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 15 May 14 - No Cached
  • This week, an international team of researchers
  • announced the discovery of an exoplanet
  • 155 light years
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • world is estimated to be 11 times the mass of Jupiter — placing it just under the lower mass limit for brown dwarf status
  • orbits its host star 2,000x farther than the distance from Earth to the Sun once every 80,000 (!) years
  • The primary star, GU Psc A, is an M3 red dwarf weighing in at 35% the mass of our Sun and is just 100 million years old
  • researchers targeted GU Psc after it was determined to be a member of the AB Doradus moving group of relatively young stars, which are prime candidates for exoplanet detection
  • The fact that GU Psc B was captured by direct imaging at 155 light years distant is amazing
  • The team was able to discern this curious planet by utilizing observations from the W.M. Keck observatory, the joint Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the Gemini Observatory and the Observatoire Mont-Mégantic in Québec.
  • there are not a lot of exoplanets that were detected ‘directly’ so far
  • The few planets for which we have an actual image are interesting because we can analyze their light directly, and thus learn much more about them
  • researcher Marie-Ève Naud and her co-advisor Étienne Artigau
  • also one of the “coolest” planets that have been directly imaged, showing methane absorption
  • it is certainly the most distant exoplanet to a main-sequence star that has been found so far
  • This distance makes GU Psc b very interesting from a theoretical point of view, because it’s hard to imagine how it could have formed in the protoplanetary disk of its star
  • current working definition of an exoplanet is based solely on mass (<13 Jupiter masses), so GU Psc b probably formed in a way that is more similar to how stars formed
  • how are astronomers certain that PU Psc b is related to its host and not a foreground or background object?
  • As the host star, GU Psc is relatively nearby; it displays a significant apparent proper motion
  • relative to distant background stars and galaxies.
  • On images taken one year apart with WIRCam on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, we observed that the companion displays the same big proper motion, i.e. they move together in the plane of the sky, while the rest of the stars in the field don’t
  • most planet hunting techniques using direct imaging involve state-of-the-art adaptive optics systems, but we used ‘standard’ imaging without any exotic techniques
  • To find this planet, we used very sensitive ‘standard’ imaging,
  • we chose carefully the wavelengths where planets display colors that are unlike most other astrophysical objects such as stars and galaxies
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