July 2nd, 2012
June 12th, 2012
(via Nasa’s Curiosity rover targets smaller landing zone)
Nasa is now targetting a smaller landing ellipse that should put the rover closer to the base of Mount Sharp
The 900kg robot is heading for a touchdown on 6 August (GMT) in a near-equatorial depression on the Red Planet known as Gale Crater.
Controllers have drawn an ellipse on the surface that is just 7km by 20km.
They say they can hit this target because of their confidence in the high-precision landing system attached to the rover.
This system will use thrusters to guide the high-velocity phase of the robot’s entry into the Martian atmosphere - a technology not available on previous lander missions. A large parachute and a rocket-powered cradle will manage the final moments of the descent.
Nasa says that by tightening the extent of the ellipse, down from the previously envisaged 20km by 25km, it can cut the time taken by the rover to roll to its primary science location.
May 25th, 2012
Solar eclipse, ring of fire, cool stuff! :)
April 2nd, 2012
February 21st, 2012
![“The graben the scientists detected, which reach up to about 1,640 feet (500 meters) wide and 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) long, appear relatively pristine. This suggests they formed recently — otherwise, they would be marred more often by craters from meteor impacts over time.
“‘We think they’re less than 50 million years old, but they could be 10 million years old, could be 1 million years old, could have happened 40 years ago,’ [said study lead author Thomas Watters, a planetary scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.] ‘The intriguing picture that’s emerging of the moon is that there is recent geological activity going on.’”
“Moonquakes detected by seismic sensors installed during the Apollo missions support the notion of recent activity on the moon, researchers added. All in all, the moon’s interior may still be hot.”
(Read More: Seismic Activity May Mean Moon Is Not Dead Yet : The Two-Way : NPR)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzrjwwgSt41qdx34lo1_500.jpg)
“The graben the scientists detected, which reach up to about 1,640 feet (500 meters) wide and 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) long, appear relatively pristine. This suggests they formed recently — otherwise, they would be marred more often by craters from meteor impacts over time.
“‘We think they’re less than 50 million years old, but they could be 10 million years old, could be 1 million years old, could have happened 40 years ago,’ [said study lead author Thomas Watters, a planetary scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.] ‘The intriguing picture that’s emerging of the moon is that there is recent geological activity going on.’”
“Moonquakes detected by seismic sensors installed during the Apollo missions support the notion of recent activity on the moon, researchers added. All in all, the moon’s interior may still be hot.”
(Read More: Seismic Activity May Mean Moon Is Not Dead Yet : The Two-Way : NPR)
January 14th, 2012
ScienceCasts: Some Comets Like It Hot (by ScienceAtNASA)
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/12jan_cometlovejoy/ for more.
Astronomers are still scratching their heads over Comet Lovejoy, which plunged through the atmosphere of the sun in December and, against all odds, survived. The comet is now receding into the outer solar system leaving many mysteries behind.
December 30th, 2011
Interactive Solar System
this is fucking sweet!
(Source: fuckyeahtheuniverse)
December 8th, 2011
Hot on the trail of exoplanets that are right for life
At least four times in the last few years, astronomers have announced they have found planets orbiting other stars in the sweet spot known as the habitable zone — not too hot, not too cold — where water and thus perhaps life are possible. In short, a planet fit to be inhabited by the biochemical likes of us, a so-called Goldilocks planet.
via singularitarian
December 7th, 2011
Is a giant, cloaked spaceship orbiting around Mercury?
That’s been the speculation from some corners aftera camera onboard NASA’s STEREO spacecraft caught a wave of electronically charged material shooting out from the sun and hitting Mercury.
Theorists have seized on the images captured from the “coronal mass ejection” (CME) last week as suggestive of alien life hanging out in our own cosmic backyard. Specifically, the solar flare washing over Mercury appears to hit another object of comparable size. “It’s cylindrical on either side and has a shape in the middle. It definitely looks like a ship to me, and very obviously, it’s cloaked,” YouTube-user siniXster said in his video commentary on the footage, which has generated hundreds of thousands of views this week. Now, how this user was able to determine that the object was “obviously” a cloaked spaceship with no other natural explanation remains as much a mystery as the object itself.
(via Mysterious planet-sized object spotted near mercury | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News)
“It definitely looks like a ship to me, and very obviously, it’s cloaked” LOL must be a conspiracy.
December 2nd, 2011
![90377 Sedna is a trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2003, which as of 2011 was about three times as far from the Sun as Neptune. For most of its orbit it is even further from the Sun, with its aphelion estimated at 960 astronomical units (32 times Neptune’s distance), making it one of the most distant known objects in the Solar System other than long-period comets.[b][f]
It is thought to be “nearly certainly” a dwarf planet,[11] though the IAU has not formally designated it as such. Though roughly two-thirds the size of Pluto, its distance from the Sun makes determining its shape, and thus demonstrating that it is in hydrostatic equilibrium, difficult. Spectroscopy has revealed that Sedna’s surface composition is similar to that of some other trans-Neptunian objects, being largely a mixture of water, methane and nitrogen ices with tholins. Its surface is one of the reddest in the Solar System.
Sedna’s exceptionally long and elongated orbit, taking approximately 11,400 years to complete, and distant point of closest approach to the Sun, at 76 AU, have led to much speculation as to its origin. The Minor Planet Center currently places Sedna in the scattered disc, a group of objects sent into highly elongated orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune. However, this classification has been contested, as Sedna never comes close enough to Neptune to have been scattered by it, leading some astronomers to conclude that it is in fact the first known member of the inner Oort cloud. Others speculate that it might have been tugged into its current orbit by a passing star, perhaps one within the Sun’s birth cluster, or even that it was captured from another star system. Another hypothesis suggests that its orbit may be evidence for a large planet beyond the orbit of Neptune. Astronomer Michael E. Brown, co-discoverer of Sedna and the dwarf planets Eris, Haumea, and Makemake, believes it to be the most scientifically important trans-Neptunian object found to date, as understanding its unusual orbit is likely to yield valuable information about the origin and early evolution of the Solar System.[12]
More on this fascinating object.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv6vq4y3ju1qdx34lo1_250.jpg)
90377 Sedna is a trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2003, which as of 2011 was about three times as far from the Sun as Neptune. For most of its orbit it is even further from the Sun, with its aphelion estimated at 960 astronomical units (32 times Neptune’s distance), making it one of the most distant known objects in the Solar System other than long-period comets.[b][f]
It is thought to be “nearly certainly” a dwarf planet,[11] though the IAU has not formally designated it as such. Though roughly two-thirds the size of Pluto, its distance from the Sun makes determining its shape, and thus demonstrating that it is in hydrostatic equilibrium, difficult. Spectroscopy has revealed that Sedna’s surface composition is similar to that of some other trans-Neptunian objects, being largely a mixture of water, methane and nitrogen ices with tholins. Its surface is one of the reddest in the Solar System.
Sedna’s exceptionally long and elongated orbit, taking approximately 11,400 years to complete, and distant point of closest approach to the Sun, at 76 AU, have led to much speculation as to its origin. The Minor Planet Center currently places Sedna in the scattered disc, a group of objects sent into highly elongated orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune. However, this classification has been contested, as Sedna never comes close enough to Neptune to have been scattered by it, leading some astronomers to conclude that it is in fact the first known member of the inner Oort cloud. Others speculate that it might have been tugged into its current orbit by a passing star, perhaps one within the Sun’s birth cluster, or even that it was captured from another star system. Another hypothesis suggests that its orbit may be evidence for a large planet beyond the orbit of Neptune. Astronomer Michael E. Brown, co-discoverer of Sedna and the dwarf planets Eris, Haumea, and Makemake, believes it to be the most scientifically important trans-Neptunian object found to date, as understanding its unusual orbit is likely to yield valuable information about the origin and early evolution of the Solar System.[12]
