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Mars Base

Battered Asteroid Lutetia a Rare Relic of Earth's Birth | Asteroids & Comets | Earth Fo... - 0 views

www.space.com/eroid-lutetia-earth-birth.html

scibyte21 Lutetia

shared by Mars Base on 11 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The oddball asteroid Lutetia is a rocky remnant of the material that formed Earth, Venus and Mercury about 4.5 billion years ago, a new study suggests
  • Its composition suggests it likely formed close to the sun in the same cloud of material that eventually coalesced into the inner solar system's rocky planets.
  • then it was booted out to its current location in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, most likely after a run-in with a young planet
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Lutetia, which is about 62 miles (100 kilometers) across
  • Lutetia's spectrum matched that of one particular class of meteorite called enstatite chondrites, which are known to date from the early solar system
  • Enstatite chondrites are thought to have formed close to the sun and to have served as building blocks for the rocky planets, especially Earth, Venus and Mercury, researchers said.
  • The implication is that Lutetia also originated close to the sun, not out in the main asteroid belt where it currently sits
  • Lutetia's birthplace makes the space rock pretty special. Astronomers have estimated that just 2 percent of the bodies that formed where it likely did ended up in the main asteroid belt.
Mars Base

Outlook Grim for Stranded Russian Mars Moon Probe | Russia Phobos-Grunt Mars Moon Missi... - 0 views

www.space.com/n-mars-moon-probe-outlook.html

scibyte21 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 11 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Attempts to contact the beleaguered Phobos-Grunt spacecraft overnight Thursday (Nov. 10) have failed
  • the spacecraft could fall back to Earth around Dec. 3
  • translated from its original Russian, suggested that if Phobos-Grunt does fall back to Earth, it would likely not fall over Russia
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • spacecraft's orbit carries it between the latitudes of 51.4 degrees north and south of the equator, a region that includes the United States, China, Africa, Japan, Ukraine and parts of southwestern Europe
Mars Base

Swift Satellite Captures Asteroid 2005 YU55′s Tumbling Flyby - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...roid-2005-yu55s-tumbling-flyby

scibyte21 YU55

shared by Mars Base on 11 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The Swift Telescope – better known for its study of high-energy outbursts and cosmic explosions – was able to observe the flyby of 2005 YU55
  • Swift’s ultraviolet and X-ray capability gives scientists a unique perspective on comets and asteroids
  • This isn’t the first time Swift has made observations of passing comets and asteroids
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • the spacecraft has observed ten asteroids, including Vesta
  • The challenge with 2005 YU55 was its rapid motion across the sky, which was much too fast for Swift to track
  • the team trained the spacecraft’s optics at two locations along the asteroid’s predicted path and let it streak through the field
  • The 27-minute-long image was effectively sliced into short 10-second-long exposures, which then were combined into a movie
  • The result is a movie of 2005 YU55 at ultraviolet wavelengths unobtainable from ground-based telescopes
  • this movie is a treasure trove of data that will help them better understand how this asteroid is put together, information that may help make predictions of its motion more secure for centuries to come
Mars Base

Russia Races to Save Mars Moon Probe from Space Junk Fate | Russia Phobos-Grunt Mars Mo... - 0 views

www.space.com/ars-moon-probe-space-junk.html

Phobos-Grunt scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 11 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • "I think we have lost the Phobos-Grunt," Vladimir Uvarov, a former space official at the Russian Defense Ministry, told the Russian daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta today (Nov. 10), according to ABC News. "It looks like a serious flaw. The past experience shows that efforts to make the engines work will likely fail."
  • There have been conflicting news reports as to how long the Russians have before the spacecraft's batteries run out, ranging from two days to two weeks
  • The ambitious flight marks Russia's first attempt at an interplanetary mission since 1996.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Phobos-Grunt is in a safe, so-called parking orbit, and there is little danger of it colliding with other spacecraft or satellites
  • The space station is above that orbit, and the space station is one of the lowest spacecraft in orbit
  • The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is tracking without difficulty both the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft and its associated Zenit 2 second stage
  • This information is also available to Russian experts. NASA hopes that control of the spacecraft can still be achieved and that it can be sent on its proper path to Mars
  • a rough estimate, the lifetime is measured at several weeks to a few months at that altitude, but probably not much more than that
  • even though the spacecraft is still full of fuel. If the probe cannot be saved, Russian flight controllers have the option of venting out the onboard fuel into space.
  • even if it's full of fuel and it re-enters — it will break up in atmospheric re-entry, which does not really pose a hazard.
Mars Base

Prehistoric Horses Came In Leopard Print - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...c_horses_came_in_leopard_print

scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A new analysis of DNA from the remains of 31 horses found in Europe and Siberia suggests that prehistoric horses came in bay, black and leopard-spotted at least 16,000 years ago
  • Previous genetic studies had suggested that horses were either bay or black before domestication, and more elaborate patterns emerged as a result of breeding selection imposed by humans
  • In new study published
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • show that some prehistoric horses really did sport spots
  • 31 horses studied, 18 were bay, seven were black and six carried genetic variants that produce a leopard spotting pattern
Mars Base

Trouble for the Phobos-Grunt Mission - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...e-for-the-phobos-grunt-mission

scibyte21 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • encountered problems with either computer software or the propulsion system
  • could not detect long spacecraft, now found his position. It was found that the propulsion system failed. There was neither the first nor the second inclusion
  • What should have happened is that two and a half hours after launch, the first burn should have put the spacecraft into an higher orbit around Earth, and a second burn should have occurred 126 minutes later, which would have sent it the spacecraft to Mars. Neither occurred
Mars Base

Was the real discovery of the expanding universe lost in translation? - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...stronomy-hubble-whodunnit.html

scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The greatest astronomical discovery of the 20th century may have been credited to the wrong person. But it turns out to have been nobody's fault except for that of the actual original discoverer himself.
  • Hubble reported that the universe is uniformly expanding in all directions.
  • Hubble never got a Nobel Prize for this discovery
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Hubble did get the most celebrated telescope of modern history named after him
  • Hubble published his landmark paper in which he determined the rate of expansion of the universe in 1929
  • based on the apparent recessional velocities (deduced from redshifts) of galaxies, as previously measured
  • discovered that Lemaître omitted the passages himself when he translated the paper into English!
  • two years earlier, a Belgian priest and cosmologist, Georges Lemaître, published very similar conclusions, and he calculated a rate of expansion similar to what Hubble would publish two years later
  • But Lemaître's discovery went unnoticed because it was published in French, in a rather obscure Belgian science journal
  • Lemaître's work was later translated and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. When published in 1931, some of Lemaître's own calculations from 1927, of what would be later called the Hubble Constant, were omitted!
  • The fact that paragraphs were missing from the translated paper has been known (although not widely) since 1984
  • Hubble's analysis showed that the farther the galaxy was, the faster it appeared to be receding
  • did not find advisable to reprint the provisional discussion of radial velocities which is clearly of no actual interest, and also the geometrical note, which could be replaced by a small bibliography of ancient and new papers on the subject
  • was not at all obsessed with establishing priority for his original discovery. Given that Hubble's results had already been published in 1929, he saw no point in repeating his more tentative earlier findings again in 1931
Mars Base

New 'super-black' material absorbs light across multiple wavelength bands - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...sorbs-multiple-wavelength.html

light scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it
  • The team has since reconfirmed the material's absorption capabilities in additional testing
  • Though other researchers are reporting near-perfect absorption levels mainly in the ultraviolet and visible, our material is darn near perfect across multiple wavelength bands, from the ultraviolet to the far infrared
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • "No one else has achieved this milestone yet."
  • The nanotech-based coating is a thin layer of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, tiny hollow tubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair
  • They are positioned vertically on various substrate materials much like a shag rug
  • team has grown the nanotubes on silicon, silicon nitride, titanium, and stainless steel, materials commonly used in space-based scientific instruments
  • application is stray-light suppression
  • the team found that the material absorbs 99.5 percent of the light in the ultraviolet and visible
  • 98 percent in the longer or far-infrared bands
  • We knew it was absorbent. We just didn't think it would be this absorbent from the ultraviolet to the far infrared
  • If used in detectors and other instrument components, the technology would allow scientists to gather hard-to-obtain measurements of objects so distant in the universe that astronomers no longer can see them in visible light or those in high-contrast areas, including planets in orbit around other stars
  • More than 90 percent of the light Earth-monitoring instruments gather comes from the atmosphere, overwhelming the faint signal they are trying to retrieve
Mars Base

Russians desperately try to save Mars moon probe (Update) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...cientists-mars-moon-probe.html

mars scibyte21 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A Russian space probe aiming to land on a Mars moon was stuck circling the Earth after equipment failure Wednesday, and scientists raced to fire up its engines before the whole thing came crashing down.
  • successfully launched by a Zenit-2 booster rocket just after midnight Moscow time Wednesday
  • separated from the booster about 11 minutes later and was to fire its engines twice to set out on its path to the Red Planet, but never did
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • probably due to the failure of the craft's orientation system
  • Phobos-Ground was Russia's first interplanetary mission since a botched 1996 robotic mission to Mars, which failed when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure
  • Depending on the actual root of the failure, this is not an impossible challenge
  • the effort to restore control over the probe is hampered by a limited earth-to-space communications network that already forced Russian flight controllers to ask the general public in South America to help find the craft
  • Amateur astronomers were the first to spot the trouble when they detected that the spacecraft was stuck in an Earth orbit
  • About seven tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine, which could freeze before ultimately entering, will make it the most toxic falling satellite ever
  • billed as the heaviest interplanetary probe ever may become one of the heaviest space derelicts to ever fall back to Earth out of control
  • The spacecraft is 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons), with fuel accounting for a large share of its weight
  • Scientists had hoped that studies of Phobos' surface could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some
Mars Base

Speed-bump device converts traffic energy to electricity - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...raffic-energy-electricity.html

scibyte21 traffic electricity

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A Maryland company
  • has devised that kind of speed-bump device
  • has devised that kind of speed-bump device
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • A Maryland company
  • that harvests kinetic energy from vehicles and converts the energy into electricity
  • for installation where vehicles are traveling faster than 15 mph and are slowing-down before stopping, including parking lots, border crossings, exit ramps, neighborhoods with traffic calming zones, rest areas, toll booths, and travel plazas
  • devices become a part of the toll booths, rest areas, parking lots, airport arrival and departure areas, city lighting systems, zones in other places where traffic should be slowing down—scenarios that can benefit from a greener approach to energy and electricity cost savings.
  • devices become a part of the toll booths, rest areas, parking lots, airport arrival and departure areas, city lighting systems, zones in other places where traffic should be slowing down—scenarios that can benefit from a greener approach to energy and electricity cost savings
  • recently got a boost in publicity by partnering with the city of Roanoke in Virginia to put its MotionPower Express system to the test
  • recently got a boost in publicity by partnering with the city of Roanoke in Virginia to put its MotionPower Express system to the test
  • that harvests kinetic energy from vehicles and converts the energy into electricity
  • for installation where vehicles are traveling faster than 15 mph and are slowing-down before stopping, including parking lots, border crossings, exit ramps, neighborhoods with traffic calming zones, rest areas, toll booths, and travel plazas.
  • during a busy time when the center was hosting a gun show and circus. A total of 580 cars passed over the rumble strip in six hours.
  • was during a busy time when the center was hosting a gun show and circus. A total of 580 cars passed over the rumble strip in six hours.
  • Reports claim this traffic over this amount of time generated enough electricity to power an average U.S. home for a day
  • Reports claim this traffic over this amount of time generated enough electricity to power an average U.S. home for a day.
  • traffic over a six hour period was claimed to produce enough electricity for a 150 square-foot electronic billboard or marquee for a day.
  • traffic over a six hour period was claimed to produce enough electricity for a 150 square-foot electronic billboard or marquee for a day
  • estimated that each MotionPower speed bump would cost $1,500 to $2,000 and earn back its cost in two to three years
  • estimated that each MotionPower speed bump would cost $1,500 to $2,000 and earn back its cost in two to three years.
Mars Base

Discovery of two types of neutron stars points to two different classes of supernovae - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-stars-classes-supernovae.html

neutron stars scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Neutron stars are the last stage in the evolution of many massive stars
  • the mass of a single neutron star exceeds that of the entire sun, but squeezed into a ball whose diameter is smaller than that of London
  • to reveal how they have discovered two distinct populations of neutron stars that appear to have formed via two different supernova channels
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • speculated before about the possible existence of different types of neutron stars, but there has never been any clear observational evidence that there is really more than one type
  • astronomers analysed data on a large sample of high-mass X-ray binaries
  • double star systems in which a fast-spinning neutron star orbits a massive young companion
  • neutron star in these systems also periodically siphons off material from its partner
  • neutron star becomes an X-ray pulsar
  • because by timing their pulses, astronomers can accurately measure the neutron star spin periods
  • detected two distinct groupings in a large set of spin periods measured in this way
  • one group of neutron stars typically spinning once every 10 seconds
  • the other once every 5 minutes
  • led them to conclude that the two distinct neutron star populations formed via two different supernova channels
Mars Base

Weird world of water gets a little weirder with a new anomaly - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ird-world-weirder-anomaly.html

water scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • water is one weird substance, exhibiting more than 80 unusual properties, by one count
  • water can exist in all three states of matter (solid, liquid,gas) at the same time
  • the forces at its surface enable insects to walk on water and water to rise up from the roots into the leaves of trees and other plants
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • scientists have proposed that water can go from being one type of liquid into another in a so-called "liquid-liquid" phase transition
  • it is impossible to test this with today's laboratory equipment because these things happen so fast.
  • used computer simulations to check it out.
  • when they lowered the temperature to about 54 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the liquid water started to conduct heat even better in the simulation
  • studies suggest that below this temperature, liquid water undergoes sharp but continuous structural changes whereas the local structure of liquid becomes extremely ordered -- very much like ice
  • researchers say that this surprising result supports the idea that water has a liquid-liquid phase transition
Mars Base

Asteroid Flyby: How Students Helped World See Giant Space Rock 2005 YU55 | Near-Earth O... - 0 views

www.space.com/yu55-earth-flyby-students.html

students giant space rock scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • asteroid 2005 YU55
  • The Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Mass., tracked 2005 YU55 with its 25-inch
  • webcast the resulting images live around the world
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • three high school kids from Brookline's Dexter School were in charge of making it happen
  • There are some advisers who are helping us if we run into any problems. But overall, it is student-based and student-run
Mars Base

Mystery of Moon's Lost Magnetism Solved? | Magnetic Moon Rocks Caused by Lunar Dynamo |... - 0 views

www.space.com/gnetic-field-lunar-dynamo.html

moon magnetism scibyte21

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • One of the abiding mysteries of our moon is why it apparently once had a magnetic field
  • When Apollo astronauts brought back samples of moon rocks from their lunar landing missions
  • some of them shocked scientists by being magnetic.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • This can happen to rocks with the right minerals inside them, if they cool in the presence of a magnetic field
  • A magnetic field is generated by what's called a dynamo, which is caused by the fluid motion of a conducting material, such as liquid iron
  • the moon isn't large enough for convection to take place
  • In one new proposal
  • The strength of this stirring is determined by the angle between the core and the mantle
  • researchers think this happens because the moon's core and its mantle rotate around slightly different axes
  • suggest that the moon's solid-rock middle layer, called its mantle, stirs up its liquid iron core
  • because the tidal gravitational tug from the Earth causes the moon's mantle to rotate differently than the core
  • This model would explain why the moon used to have a magnetic field, but no longer does
  • researchers estimate the lunar magnetic field might have lasted for about a billion years
  • isn't the only possible solution to the moon's mystery
  • another explanation for the ancient lunar magnetic field.
  • suggests that the moon's mantle might have stirred up the liquid in its core
  • Instead of tidal interactions between the Earth and the moon, the researchers posit that impacts by large space rocks slamming into the moon have changed its rotation rate
  • would induce brief periods of especially strong stirring of the core, creating spikes of a magnetic field on the moon
  • either option may be correct, it's also possible that both mechanisms played a role in causing an ancient magnetic field on the moon
Mars Base

MESSENGER Solves Solar Flare Mystery - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ger-solves-solar-flare-mystery

scibyte21 messenger sun

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the MESSENGER spacecraft was able to capture a average-sized solar flare
  • allowing astronomers to study high-energy solar neutrons at less than 1 astronomical unit (AU) from the sun for the first time
  • Previously, only the neutron bursts from the most powerful solar flares have been recorded on neutron spectrometers on Earth or in near-Earth orbit
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • results help solve a mystery of why some coronal mass ejections produce almost no energetic protons that reach the Earth, while others produce huge amounts
  • inferred the continuous production of protons in the 30-to-100-MeV (million electron volt) range due to the flare
  • MESSENGER’s Neutron Spectrometer was able to record neutrons from this flare over a period of six to ten hours
  • at least some moderate-sized flares continuously produce high-energy neutrons in the solar corona
  • Solar flares spew high-energy neutrons into interplanetary space. Typically, these bursts last about 50 to 60 seconds at the sun.
  • forms an extended seed population in interplanetary space that can be further accelerated by the massive shock waves produced by the flares
  • another population results from the decay of the neutrons near the sun
  • About 90 percent of all ions produced by a solar flare remain locked to the sun on closed magnetic lines
  • It appears that these seed populations of energetic protons near the sun could provide the answer
  • Sometimes they’re in the right place for the shock waves to send them toward Earth
  • seed populations are not evenly distributed
  • at other times they’re in locations where the protons are accelerated in directions that don’t take them near Earth
  • Energetic protons from solar flares can damage Earth-orbiting satellites and endanger astronauts on the International Space Station or on missions to the Moon and Mars.
  • scientists need to know a lot more about the mechanisms that produce flares and which flare events are likely to be dangerous
  • At some point they hope to be able to predict space weather — where precipitation is in the form of radiation — with the same accuracy that forecasters predict rain or snow on Earth.
  • The beauty of MESSENGER is that it’s going to be active from the minimum to the maximum solar activity during Solar Cycle 24
  • observe the rise of a solar cycle much closer to the sun than ever before
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