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News of Astronomy, Space, Science, & Technology

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Image: The Tarantula Nebula and Surroundings

The Tarantula Zone

Astronomy Picture of the Day Apr 26 2008

The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter -- a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid lies at the upper left of this expansive mosiac covering a part of the LMC over 6,000 light-years across.

Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are other violent star-forming regions with young star clusters, filaments and bubble-shaped clouds.

The small but expanding remnant of supernova 1987a, the closest supernova in modern history, is located near the center of the view. The rich field is about as wide as four full moons on the sky, located in the southern constellation Dorado.

See Astronomy Picture of the Day for links to further info.

NASA Image of the Day

Image: A Mongolian Salt Lake From Space

Uvs Nuur Basin, Mongolia

NASA Image of the Day Download time: Apr 26 2008 7:36 AM ET

The Uvs Nuur Basin sits on the northern edge of the Central Asian steppes, bounded on all sides by mountains. Though largely arid, the basin is dotted with water. A large salt lake, the Uvs Nuur Lake, sits at the center of the basin, and several smaller lakes are scattered across the region. Rivers, the largest of which is the Tes-Khem, run from the surrounding mountains into the basin, but no rivers flow out of the basin. This image shows one of the smaller lakes near the western edge of the basin.

Since little rain falls in the basin, the most vibrant green in this image comes from the wetlands that surround rivers flowing into the small lake. A web of bright green lines the river that flows in from the west, culminating at a broad green delta. Other wetlands cluster around rivers on the northeast and southern sides of the lake. Possibly the most striking feature of this image, the wetlands are an important wildlife habitat. Streaks of white running across the desert are likely seasonal streams that flow when snow melts off the mountains in the spring.

Far from a moderating ocean, the Uvs Nuur Basin has an extreme climate with temperatures that swing from a low of -72 degrees Fahrenheit during the winter up to 104 degrees in the summer. Containing a number of ecosystems in its fresh and salt water lakes, deserts, mountains, grasslands, and forests, the basin provides an important habitat for a variety of animals ranging from the endangered snow leopard to the white-tailed sea eagle. Because of its diversity and the relatively low amount of human impact on the area, the basin is a United Nations World Heritage Site.

The International Space Station

Nasa's ISS site

The Wikipedia article on the Space Station

For the latest information see NASA human spaceflight page

What's Happening on the Space Station

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 25 April 2008

SpaceRef ISS Top Stories Download time: Apr 26 2008 7:37 AM ET

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below.

FE-2 Reisman continued his support of the experiment CSLM-2 (Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures 2) in the MSG (Microgravity Science Glovebox), today concluding the processing of SPU-8 (Sample Processing Unit 8), transferring the data from the ECU (Electronics Control Unit) to the MSG laptop, then removing SPU-8 from the WV (Work Volume) and installing SPU-7 for the next run. MSG was later powered down from its A31p laptop (~8:30am EDT). [CSLM-2 examines the kinetics (e.g., growth rate) of "competing" particles within a liquid matrix.…

Privatizing Spaceflight

The commercialization of space

Space tourism

Development of manned spacecraft financed by private business or individuals

The X-PRIZE for privately financed spaceflight

SpaceShipOne wins the X-Prize

The Virgin Galactic website

The Space Adventures website

The Rocketplane website

Starchaser Industries

The Blue Origin website

The XCOR website

The Armadillo Aerospace website

The private launch firm SpaceX

Bigelow Aerospace — the space hotel people

America's Space Prize for the development of a privately developed, reusable spacecraft capable of reaching earth orbit

Lockheed Tests Space Plane Model

Lockheed Test Flies Space Plane Prototype

SPACE.com Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

Lockheed Martin has tested a prototype reusable launch system by flying a sub-scale flight demonstrator from the site of New Mexico's proposed Spaceport America.

The successful test flight of the proprietary vehicle took place in December and was only recently disclosed. A company official said Lockheed Martin is planning more tests using ever-larger vehicles.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems teamed with launch provider UP Aerospace of Highlands Ranch, Colo., Dec. 19 to conduct a small demonstration launch at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico to evaluate proprietary technology the company currently has under development.…

See SPACE.com for links to further info.

A Spaceport North of the Arctic Circle

Swedish City Gears Up For Virgin Galactic Spaceport

Wired Top Stories Download time: Apr 26 2008 7:36 AM ET

Next time your travel plans take you to Northern Sweden, you should try swinging by Kiruna, the future European base for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic passenger space program. Officials there are busy whipping the town into shape for Virgin's arrival -- evaluating their infrastructure, researching weather issues, and working out potential regulatory hurdles with Sweden and the European Union. Kiruna will join Spaceport America in New Mexico as a Virgin Galactic operating base, and hopes to see flights begin in 2010 or 2011.

Why did Virgin choose Kiruna, a town of 18,000 located 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle? For one thing, Kiruna has a well-oiled marketing machine. Spaceport Sweden, a consortium of organizations that includes the Esrange Space Center, the ICEHOTEL, and the local airport, is a sort of tourism board charged with making Kiruna the European hub for commercial spaceflight.…

See Wired Top Stories for links to further info.

The Global Environment

Global climate change, the ozone layer, and other world environmental issues

Global warming in the Wikipedia

A NASA reference article on global warming

Global Warming FAQs:

US National Climate Data Center
Natural Resources Defense Council
Union of Concerned Scientists
Skepticism About Global Warming from Brian Carnell's Skepticism.net
See Wikipedia for both sides of the debate

Information on abrupt climate change (Could something like the "Day After Tomorrow" scenario happen?)

Science @ NASA
The Weather Underground
Abrupt Climate Change FAQ from the Union of Concerned Scientists
The Wikipedia on abrupt climate change
Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises — free online book from the National Academies Press

Ozone Layer FAQs:

Ozone Hole FAQ from The Weather Underground
Ozone Depletion FAQs from faqs.org

New Zealand's Largest Glacier Melting Fast

Scientist: N. Zealand's biggest glacier shrinking fast

USATODAY.com Science and Space - Top Stories Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

New Zealand's biggest glacier is melting at its fastest pace in recent history, a scientist said Thursday.

The Tasman Glacier on South Island was 18 miles long in 1990, with virtually no lake at its front edge, Massey University glacier expert Martin Brook said.

New measurements last week showed the glacier was 14 miles long, he said.

Meanwhile, a lake that has formed next to the glacier is now 4.4 miles long, 1.2 miles wide and 800 feet deep, he said.…

Fixing Antarctic Ozone Hole May Hasten Warming

Ozone hole recovery may reshape southern hemisphere climate change

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

A full recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole could modify climate change in the Southern Hemisphere and even amplify Antarctic warming, according to scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

While Earth's average surface temperatures have been increasing, the interior of Antarctica has exhibited a unique cooling trend during the austral summer and fall caused by ozone depletion, said Judith Perlwitz of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NOAA. "If the successful control of ozone-depleting substances allows for a full recovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica, we may finally see the interior of Antarctica begin to warm with the rest of the world," Perlwitz said.

Perlwitz is lead author of a new study on the subject to be published April 26 in Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors include Steven Pawson and Eric Nielson of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Ryan Fogt and William Neff of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder. The study was supported by NASA's Modeling and Analysis Program.…

Asteroid Impacts

Impacts of large objects on the Earth

The impact that killed the dinosaurs

The Torino Impact Hazard Scale

NASA's Near Earth Object Program

Identifying When the Dinosaurs Died

Refining the date of the K/T boundary and the dinosaur extinction

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Geochronology Center have pinpointed the date of the dinosaurs' extinction more precisely than ever thanks to refinements to a common technique for dating rocks and fossils.

The argon-argon dating method has been widely used to determine the age of rocks, whether they're thousands or billions of years old. Nevertheless, the technique had systematic errors that produced dates with uncertainties of about 2.5 percent, according to Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center and an adjunct professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley.

Renne and his colleagues in Berkeley and in the Netherlands now have lowered this uncertainty to 0.25 percent and brought it into agreement with other isotopic methods of dating rocks, such as uranium/lead dating. As a result, argon-argon dating today can provide more precise absolute dates for many geologic events, ranging from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes to the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other creatures at the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Tertiary period. That boundary had previously been dated at 65.5 million years ago, give or take 300,000 years.

According to a paper by Renne's team in the April 25 issue of Science, the best date for the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K/T, boundary is now 65.95 million years, give or take 40,000 years.…

Planet Earth

Future Earthquake Danger in Illinois?

Earthquake In Illinois Could Portend An Emerging Threat

ScienceDaily: Latest Science News Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

To the surprise of many, the earthquake on April 18, 2008, about 120 miles east of St. Louis, originated in the Wabash Valley Fault and not the better-known and more-dreaded New Madrid Fault in Missouri's bootheel.

The concern of Douglas Wiens, Ph.D., and Michael Wysession, Ph.D., seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis, is that the New Madrid Fault may have seen its day and the Wabash Fault is the new kid on the block.

The earthquake registered 5.2 on the Richter scale and hit at 4:40 a.m. with a strong aftershock occurring at approximately 10:15 a.m. that morning, followed by lesser ones in subsequent days. The initial earthquake was felt in parts of 16 states.

"I think everyone's interested in the Wabash Valley Fault because a lot of the attention has been on the New Madrid Fault, but the Wabash Valley Fault could be the more dangerous one, at least for St. Louis and Illinois," said Wiens, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences.…

Mars

Mars and Its Moons

Background information about Mars

NASA's Mars Rover site at JPL

A gallery of Spirit's images and slideshow

A gallery of Opportunity's images and slideshow

Google Mars

Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Odyssey

Mars Express orbiter

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Mars Phoenix Lander

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Ancient Hot Springs on Mars?

Mars Features Resemble Hydrothermal Springs

SPACE.com Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

There's a growing buzz in the astrobiology community that ancient hydrothermal springs may have been spotted on Mars.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed work of Carlton Allen and Dorothy Oehler of NASA's Johnson Space Center, "spring-like" mounds have been found in Vernal Crater in Arabia Terra on the red planet.

The high-powered zoom lens of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has picked up the features - two possible ancient hydrothermal springs are viewed as light-toned, elliptical structures.

The martian features have a striking similarity to spring mounds here on Earth, such as those in Dalhousie, Australia.

The potential big news here is that, if true, hydrothermal spring deposits on Mars might preserve evidence of martian life.…

See SPACE.com for links to further info.

The Cosmos

Stars, galaxies, nebulae, and cosmology

Also fundamental physics with possible astronomical or cosmological implications

Tutorials:

Big Bang   Inflation   The Cosmic Microwave Background   The Cosmic Dark Ages   Dark Matter   Dark Energy - For a more technical discussion go here.   Ask the Experts: What are dark matter and dark energy, and how are they affecting the universe? Measuring Stellar & Galactic Distances (difficult!)   Supernovas   Supernovas & Pulsars   Black Holes   Pulsars   Cosmology: the Observable Universe (moderately technical)   Cosmology (very difficult!)   

The Timeline of Creation

Timeline of the universe

guardian.co.uk Science Download time: Apr 26 2008 7:36 AM ET

Using observatories on the earth and in space, astronomers have been able to study the nature of the cosmos in unprecedented detail. By analysing the motion of distant galaxies, they have discovered that the whole cosmos is expanding under the influence of forces unleashed at its birth in the big bang. Combined with studies of the radiation left over from that primordial explosion, they have found that the universe was born 13.7bn years ago, give or take 200m years.

Pinning down the date of creation with such precision is impressive, but scientists have gone much further. They have begun to piece together the whole history of the universe, from the big bang to the present day. The very earliest moments are still the focus of intense research, and the final word is not yet in. Even so, the timeline of events now emerging is every bit as astounding as the creation myths of the world's religions.

10^-43 seconds

Known as the Planck Era, this is the closest that current physics can get to the absolute beginning of time. At this moment, the universe is thought to be incredibly hot, dense and turbulent, with the very fabric of space and time turned into a roiling morass. All the fundamental forces currently at work in the universe - gravity, electromagnetism and the so-called strong and weak nuclear forces - are thought to have been unified during this stage into a single "superforce".…

Exoplanets

Planets outside the solar system

Formation of planetary systems - including our own Solar System

A list of the currently known exoplanets

See exoplanets.org for further information.

Also see the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. and Planet Quest at JPL

Space Missons seeking earthlike planets:

• The Kepler Mission
• The Darwin Mission
• The Space Interferometer Mission
• The Terrestrial Planet Finder observatories

Extrasolar planets in the Wikipedia

Finding Watery Earths

Plan to identify watery Earth-like planets develops

EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

Astronomers are looking to identify Earth-like watery worlds circling distant stars from a glint of light seen through an optical space telescope and a mathematical method developed by researchers at Penn State and the University of Hawaii.

"We are looking for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of their star, a band not too hot nor too cold for life to exist," says Darren M. Williams, associate professor of physics and astronomy, Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. "We also want to know if there is water on these planets."

For life to exist, planets must have habitable temperatures throughout a period long enough for life to evolve. For life as we know it, the planet must have a significant amount of water. Scientists already know how to determine the distance a planet orbits from its star, and analysis of light interacting with molecules in the atmosphere can indicate if water exists. However, Williams and Eric Gaidos, associate professor of geobiology, University of Hawaii, want to identify planets with water on their surfaces.…

Catching the Glint of Water

Astrobiology Magazine Apr 26 2008

Using an optical space telescope and a mathematical method, astronomers are hoping to find Earth-like watery worlds around distant stars. Their technique may one day help astrobiologists discover another planet suitable for life as we know it.

Biology: Earth & Astro-

The origin and development of life on earth

The search for extraterrestrial life

Interesting stories on biological science

Prehistoric Humans Came Close to Extinction

Humans flirted with extinction 70,000 years ago

USATODAY.com Science and Space - Top Stories Download time: Apr 25 2008 7:13 AM ET

Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.…

Technology

Computers That Fix Themselves

Self-Healing Computers for NASA Spacecraft

Slashdot: Science Download time: Apr 26 2008 7:36 AM ET

Roland Piquepaille writes

"As you can guess, hardwired computer systems are much faster than general-purpose ones because they are designed to do a single task. But when they fail, they need to be totally reconfigured. This can be just a costly problem in a lab on Earth, but it can be vital in space. This is why a University of Arizona (UA) team is working with NASA to design self-healing computer systems for spacecraft. The UA engineers are working on hybrid hardware/software systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to develop these reconfigurable processing systems. As said the lead researcher, 'Our objective is to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.'"

See Slashdot: Science for links to further info.