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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.

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

tiny drones the size of bees

flying robots designed to be small enough to pollinate a flower (they weigh just 80 milligrams

are also designed to hover, giving them plenty of time to transfer pollen

wings mimic those of a fly,

special ceramic that contracts when stimulated by electricity

The robo-bees aren't ready

time yet

they're so tiny, they can't fit a battery pack for power

will also need some sort of computer so they can guide themselves in flight

called “Autonomous navigation

Humans are still

going to tell her where to go.  Curiosity is going to decide how to get there

Curiosity takes pictures from the navigation cameras, with the hazard cameras, and it’s able to combine that information, put it all together to define a safe way to get to where we ask her to go

The drive lasted about 10 meters

she turned her camera this way and that to look at what’s ahead of her.

She actually curved a little bit to the right to avoid some of the small rocks that were directly in front of her.

the actual speed that Curiosity

only about 2 inches per second

Another part of the autonomous navigation capability is using visual odometry

Visual odometry uses images from the mast cameras to look at the terrain before and after a small drive step.

Curosity will see a few hundred features and see how they move across the step

by tracking those features she can know exactly how far she moved, whether she slipped or twisted a little bit during the drive

which fuels the growth of blood vessels

Researchers hope the protein will one day work as a treatment for retinopathy in people.

showed a small but significant decrease in fear

If it can be extended to pre-existing fear, the bigger picture is that, perhaps, the treatment of phobias can be enhanced during sleep."

Previous projects have shown that spatial learning and motor sequence learning can be enhanced during sleep

wasn't previously known that emotions could be manipulated during sleep

15 healthy human subjects received mild electric shocks while seeing two different faces

also smelled a specific odorant while viewing each face and being shocked

the face and the odorant both were associated with fear

Subjects received different odorants to smell with each face such as woody, clove, new sneaker, lemon or mint

when a subject was asleep, one of the two odorants was re-presented, but in the absence of the associated faces and shocks.

occurred during slow wave sleep when memory consolidation is thought to occur

Sleep is very important for strengthening new memories

particular odorant was being presented during sleep, it was reactivating the memory of that face over and over again

similar to the process of fear extinction during exposure therapy

When the subjects woke up, they were exposed to both faces

When they saw the face linked to the smell they had been exposed to during sleep, their fear reactions were lower than their fear reactions to the other face

Fear was measured in two ways

through small amounts of sweat in the skin, similar to a lie detector test

through neuroimaging with fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging).

fMRI results showed changes in regions associated with memory

and changes in patterns of brain activity in regions associated with emotion

These brain changes reflected a decrease in reactivity that was specific to the targeted face image associated with the odorant presented during sleep

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

Prolonged hypoglycemia risks neurological injury.

Low blood glucose shows up in 5 to 15 percent of otherwise healthy newborns as measured by blood tests

Doctors typically don’t run the analysis on every newborn

If they spot low blood sugar symptoms such as poor color, seizures, irritability, lethargy, jittery behavior and a lack of interest in feeding, doctors are more likely to call for the blood test

many infants with low blood glucose don’t have such symptoms

report designates at-risk infants as those who are born preterm, have diabetic mothers, or are either large or small for their gestational age

new study, the researchers identified 237 apparently healthy newborns who had one of those risk factors or who were feeding poorly

Half of the babies were randomly assigned to get a gel made of dextrose, a form of glucose, rubbed on the inner cheeks up to six times over 48 hours; the rest received a placebo gel

During the following week, 30 babies getting the placebo gel were placed in intensive care for hypoglycemia while only 16 of those getting the dextrose gel needed such care for the condition

Dextrose had been tried in the 1990s as an oral rub for infants but wasn’t fully tested or put into widespread use

New Horizons Message Initiative

asking NASA officials to upload a yet-to-be-determined crowdsourced message from humanity onto the New Horizons craft after its encounter with the Pluto system

This website is an opportunity for anyone who is interested to sign a petition that asks NASA to approve the future use of the spacecraft

need formal permission from the agency and sub-support to make this happen

using some of the spacecraft's memory to store messages from earthlings beamed up to the probe

it might be possible to just reprogram about 100 megabytes of its memory and upload a new sights and sounds of Earth

When New Horizons gets past Pluto, [and] has done all its data

Before New Horizons launched, NASA officials discussed including an onboard message, but decided against it

small team on a tight budget

didn't want to see us being distracted from the project

NASA funds will not be used for the project, but initiative officials are asking for support from private individuals.

very first solid sample ingested by Curiosity is the high percentage of water in the soil

About 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water

The sample also released significant carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sulfur compounds when heated

organics are not likely preserved in surface soils, which are exposed to harsh radiation and oxidants

layer of surface soil that has been mixed and distributed by frequent dust storms. So a scoop of this stuff is basically a microscopic Mars rock collection

The discovery at Darwin is significant because it significantly broadens the area here that was altered by flowing liquid water

The robot pulled into ‘Waypoint 1’ on Sept. 12 (Sol 392).

Did the water flow that deposited the pebbly sandstone at Waypoint 1 occur at about the same time as the water flow at Yellowknife Bay?

If the same fluid flow produced the veins here and the veins at Yellowknife Bay, you would expect the veins to have the same composition.’

the veins are different, so we know the history is complicated. We use these observations to piece together the long-term history

Darwin comes from a list of 100 names the team put together to designate rocks in the Mawson Quadrangle

on Sept. 22, the rover departed Darwin and Waypoint 1 on a westward heading to resume the many months long journey to Mount Sharp