Phobos Flyby SuccessMars Express encountered Phobos last night, smoothly skimming past at just 67 km, the closest any manmade object has ever approached Mars’ enigmatic moon. The data collected could help unlock the origin of not just Phobos but other ‘second generation’ moons. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Photo Credit: ESA
Historic Deep Space Network Antenna Starts Major SurgeryLike a hard-driving athlete whose joints need help, the giant "Mars antenna" at NASA's Deep Space Network site in Goldstone, Calif. has begun major, delicate surgery. The operation on the historic 70-meter-wide (230-foot) antenna, which has received data and sent commands to deep space missions for over 40 years, will replace a portion of the hydrostatic bearing assembly. This assembly enables the antenna to rotate horizontally. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Credit: JPL
Herschel Finds Possible Life-Enabling Molecules in SpaceThe Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potentially life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel is led by the European Space Agency with important participation from NASA. The new data, obtained with the telescope's heterodyne instrument for the far infrared -- one of Herschel's three innovative instruments -- demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel will provide on how organic molecules form in space. The Orion nebula is known to be one of the most prolific chemical factories in space, although the full extent of its chemistry and the pathways for molecule formation are not well understood. By sifting through the pattern of spikes in the new data, called a spectrum, astronomers have identified a few common molecules that are precursors to life-enabling molecules, including water, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, methanol, dimethyl ether, hydrogen cyanide, sulfur oxide and sulfur dioxide. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Source: ESA/NASA
Rare Photos Show Cosmonauts Practicing ISS AssemblyThis rare photo shows Russian cosmonauts working at Star City in their equivalant of NASA's Nutral Boyency Lab - a giant pool used to practice spacewalks. The cosmonauts are practicing for an upcoming ISS assembly mission. Star City turns 50 this year and as part of the festivities the facility was opened to reporters for a rare tour. MORE PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND IN THE ISS SECTION OF THIS SITE. CLICK READ MORE BELOW AND THEN SELECT THE ISS SLIDE SHOW Photo Credit: Xinhua/Lu Jinbo
Rhea's Ice CanyonsOn March 2, 2010 Cassini swooped down to within about 100 kilometers of Saturn's ice moon Rhea.Rhea [pronounced REE-uh; adjective: Rhean] is the second largest moon of Saturn, but with a diameter of 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) it is less than a third the size of the largest moon, Titan. Rhea is a small, cold, airless body that is very similar to sister moons Dione and Tethys. As with the other two moons, Rhea is tidally locked in phase with its parent -- one side always faces toward Saturn. Rhea's surface temperatures are also similar to Dione and Tethys, being roughly as warm as -174 degrees Celsius (-281 degrees Fahrenheit) in sunlit areas and ranging down to -220 degrees Celsius (-364 degrees Fahrenheit) in shaded areas. Also like them, it has a high reflectivity (or geometric albedo) suggesting a composition largely of water ice, which behaves like rock in Rhea's temperature range. At 527,040 kilometers (327,490 miles), Rhea is farther away from Saturn than these other two moons, so there is much less tidal attraction from parent Saturn to cause internal heating on Rhea. This has an important effect. The other two moons have more areas of smooth plains than Rhea. Such plains are probably areas where liquid water reached the surface and ponded in depressions such as craters, forming flat surfaces before refreezing and thus erasing existing craters. The lesser internal warmth at Rhea could have resulted in fewer erasures, or there could have been more bombardment on Rhea. Whatever the reason, Rhea is more heavily cratered than Dione and Tethes. Rhea is most famos for it's mysterious linear "wispy" lines with lengths of tens to hundreds of kilometers, often cutting through plains and craters. In 2006, Cassini spacecraft images showed that the wispy areas are subsidence fractures that make canyons (some of them several hundred meters high). The walls of those canyons are bright because darker material falls off them, exposing fresh bright water ice. These fracture cliffs show Rhea may have been tectonically active in its past, and again this type of surface feature also occurs on Dione and Tethys. This image shows one of these "ice canyons". Rhea's density of 1.233 times that of liquid water suggests that Rhea is three quarters ice and one quarter rock. MORE PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Photo Credit: NASA
Cassini Flys Past HeleneFollowing a day after a targeted flyby of the moon Rhea, the Cassini spacecraft made its closest approach of the mission to Saturn's moon Helene at about 1,800 kilometers (1,131 miles)on March 2. The small moon is referred to as a trojan moon because it is gravitationally tied to the much larger moon Dione. Photo Credit: NASA
Discovery Rolls To The PadThe skies over Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are still dark as space shuttle Discovery rolls into place on top of the pad. Discovery's first motion on its 3.4-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building was at 11:58 p.m. EST March 2. The shuttle was secured on the pad at 6:48 a.m. March 3. Rollout is a significant milestone in launch processing activities. The seven-member STS-131 crew will deliver the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo, filled with resupply stowage platforms and racks, to the International Space Station aboard Discovery. Targeted for launch on April 5, STS-131 will be the 33rd shuttle mission to the station and the 131st shuttle mission overall. GET TYHE FULL STORY AND MORE PHOTOS IN THE MANNED SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW AND THEN SELECT THE SPACE SHUTTLE SLIDE SHOW Photo credit: NASA/Amanda Diller
Radar Map of Buried Martian Ice Adds to Climate RecordThe Shallow Radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected widespread deposits of glacial ice in the mid-latitudes of Mars. This map of a region known as Deuteronilus Mensae, in the northern hemisphere, shows locations of the detected ice deposits in blue. The yellow lines indicate ground tracks of the radar observations from multiple orbits of the spacecraft. The ice, up to 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) thick, is found adjacent to steep cliffs and hillsides, where rocky debris from slopes covers and protects the ice from sublimation into the atmosphere. The base map of this image is shaded relief topography obtained by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. The image is centered at 42.2 degrees north latitude and 24.7 degrees east longitude. It covers an area 1050 kilometers by 775 kilometers (650 miles by 481 miles). The Shallow Radar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was provided by the Italian Space Agency. Its operations are led by the University of Rome and its data are analyzed by a joint U.S.-Italian science team. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the spacecraft development and integration contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION. CLICK READ MORE BELOW Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/University of Rome/Southwest Research Institute
Falcon 9 Prepares For First FlightFlight hardware for the inaugural launch of Falcon 9 rocket undergoing final integration in the hangar at SpaceX's Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida. Components include: Dragon spacecraft qualification unit (left), second stage with Merlin Vacuum engine (center), first stage with nine Merlin 1C engines (right). More Photos Are In The Commercial Spaceflight Section Click Read More Below Credit: SpaceX
Russia launches three navigation satellites Russia launched a carrier rocket early Tuesday to send three Glonass navigation satellites into orbit.The Proton-M rocket lifted off at 00:20 Moscow time (2120 GMT Monday) from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a live TV broadcast showed. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT SECTION CLICK READ MORE BELOW
NASA Radar Aboard Indian Spacecraft Finds Ice Deposits at Moon's North PoleMini-SAR map of the Circular Polarization Ratio (CPR) of the north pole of the Moon. Fresh, “normal” craters (red circles) show high values of CPR inside and outside their rims. This is consistent with the distribution of rocks and ejected blocks around fresh impact features, indicating that the high CPR here is surface scattering. The “anomalous” craters (green circles) have high CPR within, but not outside their rims. Their interiors are also in permanent sun shadow. These relations are consistent with the high CPR in this case being caused by water ice, which is only stable in the polar dark cold traps. We estimate over 600 million cubic meters (1 cubic meter = 1 metric ton) of water in these features. GET THE WHOLE STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION OF THIS SITE. CLICK READ MORE BELOW
Orion in a New Light: VISTA exposes high-speed antics of young starsVISTA — the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy — is the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory (eso0949). It is the largest survey telescope in the world and is dedicated to mapping the sky at infrared wavelengths. The large (4.1-metre) mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors make VISTA a unique instrument. This dramatic new image of the Orion Nebula illustrates VISTA’s remarkable powers. The Orion Nebula [1] is a vast stellar nursery lying about 1350 light-years from Earth. Although the nebula is spectacular when seen through an ordinary telescope, what can be seen using visible light is only a small part of a cloud of gas in which stars are forming. Most of the action is deeply embedded in dust clouds and to see what is really happening astronomers need to use telescopes with detectors sensitive to the longer wavelength radiation that can penetrate the dust. VISTA has imaged the Orion Nebula at wavelengths about twice as long as can be detected by the human eye. As in the many visible light pictures of this object, the new wide field VISTA image shows the familiar bat-like form of the nebula in the centre of the picture as well as the fascinating surrounding area. At the very heart of this region lie the four bright stars forming the Trapezium, a group of very hot young stars pumping out fierce ultraviolet radiation that is clearing the surrounding region and making the gas glow. However, observing in the infrared allows VISTA to reveal many other young stars in this central region that cannot be seen in visible light. Looking to the region above the centre of the picture, curious red features appear that are completely invisible except in the infrared. Many of these are very young stars that are still growing and are seen through the dusty clouds from which they form. These youthful stars eject streams of gas with typical speeds of 700 000 km/hour and many of the red features highlight the places where these gas streams collide with the surrounding gas, causing emission from excited molecules and atoms in the gas. There are also a few faint, red features below the Orion Nebula in the image, showing that stars form there too, but with much less vigour. These strange features are of great interest to astronomers studying the birth and youth of stars. This new image shows the power of the VISTA telescope to image wide areas of sky quickly and deeply in the near-infrared part of the spectrum. The telescope is just starting to survey the sky and astronomers are anticipating a rich harvest of science from this unique ESO facility. Notes [1] The Orion Nebula lies in the sword of the famous celestial hunter and is a favourite target both for casual sky watchers and astrophysicists alike. It is faintly visible to the unaided eye and appeared to early telescopic observers as a small cluster of blue-white stars surrounded by a mysterious grey-green mist. The object was first described in the early seventeenth century although the identity of the discoverer is uncertain. The French comet-hunter Messier made an accurate sketch of its main features in the mid-eighteenth century and gave it the number 42 in his famous catalogue. He also allocated the number 43 to the smaller detached region just above the main part of the nebula. Later William Herschel speculated that the nebula might be “the chaotic material of future suns” and astronomers have since discovered that the mist is indeed gas glowing under the fierce ultraviolet light from young hot stars that have recently formed there. Photo Credit: ESO
Hidden JanusThe small moon Janus is almost hidden between the planet's rings and the larger moon Rhea. The northern part of Janus can be seen peeking above the rings in this image of a "mutual event" in which Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) moved past Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across). Mutual event observations such as this one, in which one moon passes close to or in front of another, help scientists refine their understanding of the orbits of Saturn's moons. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Janus and about 3.1 million kilometers (1.9 million miles) from Rhea. Rhea is a slightly overexposed in this image. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 11, 2009. Scale on Janus is about 16 kilometers (10 miles) per pixel. Scale on Rhea is about 19 kilometers (12 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
NASA's Space Shuttle Program Successfully Conducts Final Motor Test in UtahNASA's Space Shuttle Program conducted the final test firing of a reusable solid rocket motor Feb. 25 in Promontory, Utah. The flight support motor, or FSM-17, burned for approximately 123 seconds -- the same time each reusable solid rocket motor burns during an actual space shuttle launch. Preliminary indications show all test objectives were met. After final test data are analyzed, results for each objective will be published in a NASA report. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE MANNED SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW
Soichi Makes SushiDuring a recient news confrence with Japanese reporters, JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi was asked if he did much cooking on ISS. He replied "yes but you have to order first". The reporter ordered some sushi. Soichi then ducked down and emerged wearing a chefs hat. He then produced seaweed rice and salmon and proceeded to roll sushi right there in Japan's Kibo laboratory module. The preformance was well recieved by the reporters. Photo Credit:NASA
Mountainous Waves In Saturn's RingsRing material, pulled to spectacular heights above the ringplane by the gravity of the moon Daphnis, casts long shadows on Saturn's A ring in this Cassini image taken about a month before the planet's August 2009 equinox. The shadows in this image have lengths as long as 500 kilometers (310 miles), meaning the structures casting the shadows reach heights of almost 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the ringplane. These heights are much greater than those previously observed for the Daphnis edge waves , and are very likely caused by the distance between Daphnis and the inner edge of its gap getting unusually small at certain times. Photo Credit: NASA