2015年3月31日 星期二

Corona from Svalbard



During a total solar eclipse, the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere, or corona, is an inspirational sight. Streamers and shimmering features that engage the eye span a brightness range of over 10,000 to 1, making them notoriously difficult to capture in a single photograph. But this composite of 29 telescopic images covers a wide range of exposure times to reveal the crown of the Sun in all its glory. The aligned and stacked digital frames were recorded in the cold, clear skies above the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway during the Sun's total eclipse on March 20 and also show solar prominences extending just beyond the edge of the solar disk. Remarkably, even small details on the dark night side of the New Moon can be made out, illuminated by sunlight reflected from a Full Earth. Of course, fortunes will be reversed on April 4 as a Full Moon plunges into the shadow of a New Earth, during a total lunar eclipse. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Fc1hba

Twins in Space: More Smoke and Mirrors on NASA's Road to Mars

Finding gene activity differences in identical twins, Ars Technica "They're called identical twins because their genomes are identical. But even though all of their DNA is the same, they clearly are not. The environment must play a role in how...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1FffaVW

via IFTTT

Curiosity Sniffs Out History of Martian Atmosphere

NASA's Curiosity rover is using a new experiment to better understand the history of the Martian atmosphere by analyzing xenon.



March 31, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1NFHrJh

via IFTTT

Watch Me Live Tuesday Night With Felicia Day Talking about Fortune’s Pawn

I’m pretty excited to let y’all know that I’ll be a guest on the Vaginal Fantasy Book Club!


Yes, you read that right.


It’s a video hangout/podcast hosted by Felicia Day, Bonnie Burton, Veronica Belmont, and Kiala Kazebee, where they drink wine, talk about a romance-fantasy novel they’ve read, and make dirty jokes. I haven’t met Kiala yet, but I have ridiculous crushes on Felicia, Bonnie, and Veronica (psssst: Don't tell them, because I don't think they know), so when Felicia asked me, the outcome was inevitable.


The book we’re discussing is called Fortune’s Pawn , by Rachel Bach. It’s actually a science-fiction novel, kinda sorta military in nature, about a mercenary named Devi Morris who shoots bad guys. It was a good read, brisk and fun. There is some sciencey stuff in it, which, I imagine, is why Felicia asked me in; I’m not usually much of a romance novel kinda guy, unless spaceships or aliens are involved.


The live hangout will be at 7 PT today, Tuesday, March 31 (02:00 UTC Wednesday morning). Assuming the software gods smile, the hangout will be embedded below so you can watch it live here. I expect there will be some amount of swearing and drinking (not necessarily in that order), and some sexy subjects discussed, so this'll be NSFW. Fairly warned be ye, says I.


If not, then try the Vaginal Fantasy playlist at YouTube, or on the Vaginal Fantasy site. They also have a group on Goodreads, and of course they’re on Twitter.


This’ll be fun. I don’t get to let loose very often, and I really have a lot of respect and love for these women. I hope you'll join in.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1bNR4YU

via IFTTT

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone

NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has passed a critical milestone in its path towards launch and is officially authorized to transition into its next phase.



March 31, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1GdhIFB

via IFTTT

Revitalized 0.81m telescope studying properties of NEOs

Thanks to a new focal reducer and re-aluminized mirror from a Shoemaker NEO grant, a 0.81-meter telescope in Italy is performing astrometric follow-up observations and physical studies of asteroids.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1OVnjEz

via IFTTT

2015年3月30日 星期一

A Flag Shaped Aurora over Sweden



It appeared, momentarily, like a 50-km tall banded flag. In mid-March, an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection directed toward a clear magnetic channel to Earth led to one of the more intense geomagnetic storms of recent years. A visual result was wide spread auroras being seen over many countries near Earth's magnetic poles. Captured over Kiruna, Sweden, the image features an unusually straight auroral curtain with the green color emitted low in the Earth's atmosphere, and red many kilometers higher up. It is unclear where the rare purple aurora originates, but it might involve an unusual blue aurora at an even lower altitude than the green, seen superposed with a much higher red. As the Sun continues near its top level of surface activity, colorful nights of auroras over Earth are likely to continue. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Db5Svb

Making Space Policy In Secret (Again)

Keith's note: It has been more than a month since the Pioneering Space National Summit was held in Washington, DC - an event whose attendees and discussions have remained more or less secret. Other than a paragraph with a...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1MqSetF

via IFTTT

NASA Announces New Partnerships with U.S. Industry for Key Deep-Space Capabilities

Building on the success of NASA’s partnerships with commercial industry to date, NASA has selected 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to advance concept studies and technology development projects in the areas of advanced propulsion, habitation and small satellites.



March 30, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1FaEHzA

via IFTTT

Finding Tatooine Just Got A Little Easier

Earth-like Tatooines From Star Wars May Be Common "Luke Skywalker's home in "Star Wars" is the desert planet Tatooine, with twin sunsets because it orbits two stars. So far, only uninhabitable gas-giant planets have been identified circling such binary stars,...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1Mp2cfg

via IFTTT

Your First Timeline of Events for LightSail's Test Flight

The team behind The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft is kicking off a series of simulations to ensure the spacecraft’s ground systems are ready for launch.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1Nz2opm

via IFTTT

NASA Administrator, President’s Science Advisor to Speak with Astronaut on Yearlong Space Station Mission

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will be joined by John Holdren, science advisor to President Obama and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and former astronaut Mark Kelly for the first public conversation with astronaut Scott Kelly from the International Space Station on Monday, March 30.



March 30, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1IJCcFM

via IFTTT

Hubble Views a Galaxy on Edge



This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows an edge-on view of the spiral galaxy NGC 5023. Due to its orientation we cannot appreciate its spiral arms, but we can admire the elegant profile of its disk. The galaxy lies over 30 million light-years away from us. NGC 5023 is part of the M51 group of galaxies. The brightest galaxy in this group is Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, which has been captured by Hubble many times. NGC 5023 is less fond of the limelight and seems rather unsociable in comparison — it is relatively isolated from the other galaxies in the group. Astronomers are particularly interested in the vertical structure of disks like these. By analyzing the structure above and below the central plane of the galaxy they can make progress in understanding galaxy evolution. Astronomers are able to analyze the distribution of different types of stars within the galaxy and their properties, in particular how well evolved they are on the Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram — a scatter graph of stars that shows their evolution. NGC 5023 is one of six edge-on spiral galaxies observed as part of a study using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. They study this vertical distribution and find a trend which suggests that heating of the disc plays an important role in producing the stars seen away from the plane of the galaxy. In fact, NGC 5023 is pretty popular when it comes to astronomers, despite its unsociable behavior. The galaxy is also one of 14 disk galaxies that are part of the GHOSTS survey — a survey which uses Hubble data to study galaxy halos, outer disks and star clusters. It is the largest study to date of star populations in the outskirts of disk galaxies. The incredible sharp sight of Hubble has allowed scientist to count more than 30,000 individual bright stars in this image. This is only a small fraction of the several billion stars that this galaxy contains, but the others are too faint to detect individually even with Hubble. European Space Agency Credit: ESA/NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1aaWXyO

The Top of the World Sinks Ever Lower

Ever year around the end of February, after a long winter, Arctic ice reaches its maximum extent. This year that happened around Feb. 25, when it encompassed 14.54 million square kilometers of ice around the North Pole.


Sound like a lot? It’s not. Really, really not. This year’s maximum extent was the lowest on record.


The plot above shows the situation. The solid line shows the average ice extent over the year (measured from 1981–2010) and the gray area represents a statistical measure of random fluctuations; anything inside the gray is more or less indistinguishable from the average (in other words, an excursion up or down inside the gray area could just be due to random chance).


The dashed line was the extent in 2012, when unusual conditions created the lowest minimum extent in recorded history. The solid blue line is 2015 so far. As you can see, it’s already reached maximum, and it’s well below average. It’s also outside the gray zone, meaning it’s statistically significant. It’s the earliest the peak has been reached as well. Both these facts point accusingly at global warming—more warmth, and shorter winters.


We have to be careful here, because individual records can be misleading. The trend is what’s important. However, the trend is very, very clear: Ice extent at the North Pole is decreasing rapidly over time. Note that this record low extent is about 1 percent lower than the previous record … which was last year.


Here’s a NASA video describing this year’s low maximum:


The implications of losing Arctic ice are profound. First, high latitudes are more affected by warming; the temperature trends in the extreme north are twice what they are at lower latitudes.


Melting ice does contribute to sea level rise, though not as much as melting glaciers on land. The bad news: Those glaciers are melting faster than ever. This has a second effect that may prove just as disastrous, too. All that fresh water dumped into the salty ocean changes the way the water circulates around the world. This circulation is one of the key ways warmth gets redistributed around the planet. Disrupting this cannot possibly be good news for us. You can read more about this at RealClimate, and climatologist Michael Mann discussed it in a recent interview.


At the other pole, Antarctic land ice is melting at a fantastic rate, and the slight increase in sea ice is not even coming close to making up for it. Deniers love to point at the sea ice, but that comes and goes every year and is roughly stable; the land ice is melting away at huge rates. Claiming global warming is wrong because Antarctic sea ice is increasing is like pointing toward a healing paper cut on your finger when your femoral artery has been punctured.


Arctic ice is like the fabled canary in a coal mine; it’s showing us very clearly what we’re in for. And what’s headed our way is a warmer planet, an even more disrupted climate, and a world of hurt if we do nothing about it.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1xODIFD

via IFTTT

2015年3月29日 星期日

Shadow of a Martian Robot



What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the Opportunity rover currently exploring Mars. Opportunity has been exploring the red planet since early 2004, finding evidence of ancient water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System. Pictured above in 2004, Opportunity looks opposite the Sun into Endurance Crater and sees its own shadow. Two wheels are visible on the lower left and right, while the floor and walls of the unusual crater are visible in the background. Opportunity is continuing on its long trek exploring unusual terrain in Meridiani Planum which continues to yield clues to the ancient history of Mars, our Solar System, and even humanity. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Mi7EAh

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tweets About Imaginary New Space Station

http://t.co/jOamlzabNf Roscosmos and NASA will create a new orbital station The Russian Govt will examine (cont) http://t.co/pZPLBw4pcG— Dmitry Rogozin (@DRogozin) March 28, 2015...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1ESGwPb

via IFTTT

More Confusing Twitter Math From @NASA

.@StationCDRKelly will see 10,944 sunrises & sunsets on #YearinSpace. Launch is at 3:42pm ET! http://t.co/bWiABIRo3S http://ift.tt/1GEjYq5 NASA (@NASA) March 27, 2015 Keith's note: Why is NASA saying that this is going to be a year-long mission? It is not....



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1ONogi5

via IFTTT

Crash Course Astronomy Outtakes

When you watch an episode of Crash Course Astronomy, you no doubt marvel at how clearly cut, professional, and perfect it is. The thing is, what you don’t see are the 18 bazillion times I stumble on a word, say things out of order, realize the grammar is wrong, and so on.


Happily, or embarrassingly, we get a lot of that stuff on camera. A Crash Course tradition is to gather those outtakes every 10 episodes and create a blooper reel. My editor, Nicole Sweeney, was maybe a little too gleeful to do this. But she did, so here you go: the Crash Course Astronomy outtakes from our first 10 episodes.


A lot of folks were asking what I’m doing with my left hand at the end of many of the takes. I’m scrolling through the teleprompter control, resetting it to start again with the line we’re recording. These lines are hard enough to say without a teleprompter!


And oh my word how much do I love Thought Café's title graphic for this episode? If you don't get it, this may help. Next week we’ll start up once again with our regular episodes. Until then, I will endeavor to continue to screw up my lines.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1D6bHdl

via IFTTT

2015年3月28日 星期六

Diamond Rings and Baily s Beads



Near the March 20 equinox the cold clear sky over Longyearbyen, Norway, planet Earth held an engaging sight, a total eclipse of the Sun. The New Moon's silhouette at stages just before and after the three minute long total phase seems to sprout glistening diamonds and bright beads in this time lapse composite of the geocentric celestial event. The last and first glimpses of the solar disk with the lunar limb surrounded by the glow of the Sun's inner corona give the impression of a diamond ring in the sky. At the boundaries of totality, sunlight streaming through valleys in the irregular terrain along the Moon's edge, produces an effect known as Baily's Beads, named after English astronomer Francis Baily who championed an explanation for the phenomenon in 1836. This sharp composition also shows off the array of pinkish solar prominences lofted above the edge of the eclipsed Sun. via NASA http://ift.tt/1CWwX5e

Field Report from Mars: Sol 3971 - March 26, 2015

Opportunity reaches a marathon milestone—in more ways than one. Larry Crumpler reports on the current status of the seemingly unstoppable Mars rover.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/19cyGHp

via IFTTT

2015年3月27日 星期五

In Pictures: One-Year ISS Mission Begins

The one-year ISS mission of Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko began with an early morning launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1EKPKg8

via IFTTT

NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis



Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis. Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000 light-years across, the spiral galaxy also seems to have more than its fair share of giant star forming HII regions, marked by the telltale reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas. The giant HII regions are energized by clusters of hot, massive stars that explode as bright supernovae at the end of their short and furious lives. A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 2403 closely resembles another galaxy with an abundance of star forming regions that lies within our own local galaxy group, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. Spiky in appearance, bright stars in this colorful galaxy portrait of NGC 2403 lie in the foreground, within our own Milky Way. via NASA http://ift.tt/1xjt5KD

Ceres Gets Real; Pluto Lurks

Although we are still along way from understanding this fascinating little body, Ceres is finally becoming a real planet with recognizable features! And that's kinda cool.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/19qpT4x

via IFTTT

Year in Space Starts for One American and One Russian

Three crew members representing the United States and Russia are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 p.m. EDT Friday (1:42 a.m., March 28 in Baikonur).



March 27, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/19qkI4D

via IFTTT

Boarding the Soyuz Spacecraft on Launch Day



Expedition 43 Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), top, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, center, and Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos wave farewell as they board the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft ahead of their launch to the International Space Station, Friday, March 27, 2015 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Kelly and Kornienko will spend a year in space and return to Earth on Soyuz TMA-18M in March 2016. Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. This knowledge is critical as NASA looks toward human journeys deeper into the solar system, including to and from Mars, which could last 500 days or longer. The Soyuz is set to lift off at 3:42 p.m. EDT, Friday, March 27 on a six-hour, four-orbit flight to the station. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls via NASA http://ift.tt/1CUFllA

2015年3月26日 星期四

Orion Spring



As spring comes to planet Earth's northern hemisphere, familiar winter constellation Orion sets in early evening skies and budding trees frame the Hunter's stars. The yellowish hue of cool red supergiant Alpha Orionis, the great star Betelgeuse, mingles with the branches at the top of this colorful skyscape. Orion's alpha star is joined on the far right by Alpha Tauri. Also known as Aldebaran and also a giant star cooler than the Sun, it shines with a yellow light at the head of Taurus, the Bull. Contrasting blue supergiant Rigel, Beta Orionis, is Orion's other dominant star though, and marks the Hunter's foot below center. Of course, the sword of Orion hangs from the Hunter's three blue belt stars near picture center, but the middle star in the sword is not a star at all. A slightly fuzzy pinkish glow hints at its true nature, a nearby stellar nursery visible to the unaided eye known as the Orion Nebula. via NASA http://ift.tt/1xAz1PR

Four Ideas to Bust the Floor on Outer Planet Mission Costs

The road to lower costs outer planet missions has been paved by NASA’s first two New Frontiers missions, the $700M New Horizons mission to Pluto and the $1.1B Juno mission to Jupiter. But can the cost of a mission to the outer solar system be cut to $450M, the limit for a Discovery mission?



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1EZxwKL

via IFTTT

NASA Asteroid Hunter Spacecraft Data Available to Public

Millions of images of celestial objects, including asteroids, observed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft now are available online to the public. The data was collected following the restart of the asteroid-seeking spacecraft in December 2013 after a lengthy hibernation.



March 26, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1IAAN45

via IFTTT

LPSC 2015: Aeolian Processes on Mars and Titan

Planetary scientist Nathan Bridges reports on results from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference about the action of wind on the surfaces of Mars and Titan.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1FNiE52

via IFTTT

NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Find Clues that May Help Identify Dark Matter

Using observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found that dark matter does not slow down when colliding with itself, meaning it interacts with itself less than previously thought. Researchers say this finding narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be.



March 26, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1ydWrFj

via IFTTT

NASA OIG: DSN Has Budget and Technical Challenges

NASA OIG: NASA's Management of the Deep Space Network, NASA OIG "Although DSN is meeting its current operational commitments, budget reductions have challenged the Network's ability to maintain these performance levels and threaten its future reliability. ... If budget reductions...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1Gt7O38

via IFTTT

NASA Family Pursues STEM Education Research in Nepal

Keith's note: Rory Kronmiller arrived at Everest Base Camp, Nepal this morning along with his specially designed UAS quadricopter. Rory is in Nepal with his brother, Michael who is in Kathmandu. Mike and Rory are in Nepal to test...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1ycoIMC

via IFTTT

2015年3月25日 星期三

Naked Eye Nova Sagittarii 2015 No 2



It quickly went from obscurity to one of the brighter stars in Sagittarius -- but it's fading. Named Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2, the stellar explosion is the brightest nova visible from Earth in over a year. The featured image was captured four days ago from Ranikhet in the Indian Himalayas. Several stars in western Sagittarius make an asterism known as the Teapot, and the nova, indicated by the arrow, now appears like a new emblem on the side of the pot. As of last night, Nova Sag has faded from brighter than visual magnitude 5 to the edge of unaided visibility. Even so, the nova should still be easily findable with binoculars in dark skies before sunrise over the next week. via NASA http://ift.tt/1ER0tIx

LPSC 2015: MESSENGER's low-altitude campaign at Mercury

At last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, the MESSENGER team held a press briefing to share results from the recent few months of incredibly low-altitude flight over Mercury's surface. The mission will last only about five weeks more.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1GWPGwJ

via IFTTT

USAF Agrees With SpaceX: Modify ULA Contract

U.S. to modify launch capability deal for Lockheed-Boeing Venture, Reuters "The U.S. Air Force must modify its annual "launch capability" contract with United Launch Alliance, to level the playing field for new competitors of the joint venture of Lockheed Martin...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1y9mE7V

via IFTTT

Meet NASA's Winning Asteroid Redirect Spacecraft, and the Asteroid It May Visit

NASA has decided to pluck a small boulder off a large asteroid, instead of bagging an entire asteroid outright, the agency announced Wednesday.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1CbAsCJ

via IFTTT

NASA's Evaporating Spine

NASA Chooses Plucky Option B for Asteroid Redirect Mission, Space Policy Online "Lightfoot was poised to reveal the Option A versus B choice in December, but when it came time for the press conference, said only that more time was...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1M06RUt

via IFTTT

NASA Announces Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative

NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. NASA also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth Asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago.



March 25, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/19Qss0W

via IFTTT

NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission Briefing Today

NASA to Discuss Progress Today on Asteroid Initiative "NASA will host a media teleconference at 2:30 p.m. EDT today to discuss the selection of an Asteroid Redirect Mission concept and other advances supporting the agency's journey to Mars. Audio of...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1HEYEyL

via IFTTT

NASA to Discuss Progress Today on Asteroid Initiative

NASA will host a media teleconference at 2:30 p.m. EDT today to discuss the selection of an Asteroid Redirect Mission concept and other advances supporting the agency’s journey to Mars.



March 25, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1HFAIia

via IFTTT

One-Year ISS Mission Preview: 28 Experiments, 4 Expeditions and 2 Crew Members

This Friday, astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will embark for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1ETqXsX

via IFTTT

Expedition 43 Soyuz Rolls Out for Launch



The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly, and Russian Cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko, and Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan March 28, Kazakh time (March 27 Eastern time.) As the one-year crew, Kelly and Kornienko will return to Earth on Soyuz TMA-18M in March 2016. More information on one year crew. Image Credit NASA/Bill Ingalls via NASA http://ift.tt/1LXiKL2

Did Jupiter Destroy the Solar System’s First Planets?

Our solar system is weird.


First of all, it doesn’t look much like other ones we’ve been finding. A lot of those have Jupiter-size giant planets orbiting very close in to their parents stars (“hot Jupiters”), closer even than Mercury orbits the Sun. By contrast, our Jupiter orbits the Sun much farther out, more than a dozen times Mercury’s distance from the Sun.


Worse, a lot of these other solar systems are compact. They have several planets orbiting close in to their star, and these planets tend to be “super-Earths,” bigger than our home world but smaller than Neptune. They probably have thick atmospheres, too. A good example of this is Kepler-11, which has six planets that orbit their star inside the size of Venus’ orbit.


So why are we so different than everyone else? The answer may be: Jupiter. A new paper has been released that points an accusatory finger at our solar system’s largest world. Ours may have looked a lot like all the others we’ve seen, but Jupiter came along and wiped it out, setting the stage for what see today: lower mass worlds like ours close in, and bigger ones farther out.


Here’s how this works. When the solar system was very young, just a few million years old, it was basically the Sun in the center surrounded by a huge disk of gas and dust. Jupiter formed probably not too far from where it currently is, a few hundred million kilometers out from the Sun … but it didn’t stay there.


Its gravity interacted with the material in the disk around it. The overall effect of this is to cause Jupiter to start moving inward, migrating toward the Sun. It continued to interact with the disk material, including with actively forming bodies that may have been many kilometers or even hundreds of kilometers in size. It would send them inward, crashing into the Sun. As much as 10–20 times the Earth’s mass worth of material could have been wiped out this way by the time Jupiter got to about 230 million kilometers from the Sun (very roughly where Mars is now).


Something stopped its inward movement at that point. The culprit here is Saturn; models have shown that Saturn and Jupiter would also interact gravitationally through a process called a resonance; Saturn repeatedly tugged on Jupiter, pulling it back out of the inner solar system, placing it where it is today.


When it was all done, there was far less material close in to the Sun than there was initially. The inner planets we see today, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, formed from whatever stuff was leftover, which wasn’t much.


The idea of Jupiter’s migration has been around a long time, but this new model of how it interacts with the disk explains a lot of the weirdness we see now—including why our planets are smaller than we tend to see in other systems (because of the paucity of material from which they formed). The inner planets are thought to have formed as late as 100–200 million years after the solar system got started, and this explains why, too. They formed after Jupiter bullied its way through the system.


It’s also consistent with the existence of hot Jupiters; in other solar systems where a massive planet like Jupiter forms, but no second, slightly less massive planet outside it like Saturn forms, there’s nothing to reverse the course of the bigger one. It keeps moving in until it destroys the inner disk; at that point it stops migrating and you’re left with a system with a big planet orbiting close in.


And here’s a very cool thing: We think super-Earths may form easily and quickly in solar system like ours, perhaps as rapidly as a million years. That may have even happened in our own solar system. But when Jupiter moved in it would have disrupted the orbits of those planets, dropping them into the Sun. If they once existed, they don’t now! Jupiter wiped the slate clean. Then our familiar planets formed later.


Imagine how different our solar system would look if Jupiter hadn’t formed, or Saturn hadn’t reined it in.


The beauty of this model, too, is that it doesn’t just explain what we see, it also makes predictions. For example, if we see an exoplanet system with lots of close-in super-Earths, we should not expect to see a Jupiter-size planet farther out. If it were there it should’ve wiped out the inner planets. If there is a Jupiter-size planet farther out, you should expect to find 1) a second massive planet outside the first, but slightly less massive than the first (if it’s more massive, then it becomes the one to control the situation), and 2) smaller planets like ours in the inner region, not super-Earths. Or maybe nothing at all, if all the material got wiped out.


We’re not quite at the stage yet where we can go through the exoplanets catalog and check that statistically, but we’re getting there. A new planet-finding orbiting observatory is in the works called TESS, which should yield huge numbers of such solar systems, allowing us to check the hypothesis. The Kepler mission, which discovered more than 1,000 planets, has been retooled and may also provide data to confirm or negate this study.


Oh, how I love this. This idea is still just a hypothesis, but it appears to be a good one, and better yet, it can be tested. And here’s the best part: By studying other solar systems, we learn more about ours. An example of one is a poor sample; you need many more to compare and contrast. The early discovery of hot Jupiters threw our ideas of planet formation for a loop, and then super-Earths messed with it more. But we use that data in planetary diversity to expand our models, refine them, and come to a better and greater understanding of ourselves.


Huh. Sounds like a pretty good lesson to me.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1y5zDaD

via IFTTT

2015年3月24日 星期二

NASA Just Spent $500,000 on Wooden Space Station Models

#NASA just spent $500,000 on wooden space station models NAICS Code:339930 - Doll, Toy, and Game Manufacturing http://ift.tt/1GhqrH8 NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 25, 2015...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1IsVrmP

via IFTTT

NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Finishes Marathon, Clocks in at Just Over 11 Years

There was no tape draped across a finish line, but NASA is celebrating a win. The agency’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first Red Planet marathon Tuesday -- 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) – with a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months.



March 24, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/19iH4oD

via IFTTT

GAO Reviews NASA Large Scale Projects

GAO Report: NASA: Assessments of Selected Large-Scale Projects "In 2015, five of NASA's largest, most complex projects, several of which are at critical points in their development, are expected to consume 78 percent of the funds for NASA's major projects....



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1FBAUOw

via IFTTT

Hearing on Webb Space Telescope

Statement by John Grunsfeld, NASA "The project has done an excellent job of managing its budget reserves, and this ability to efficiently address problems as they come up has enabled Webb to remain on schedule for its 2018 launch." Statement...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1NbyVQ0

via IFTTT

Sen: Ancient Radioactive Lunar Volcano

For my fortnightly column at Sen.com this go-round, I had a lot of fun writing about an ancient lunar volcano’s explosive eruption eons ago, the extent of which was mapped using gamma rays from radioactive thorium buried under billions of years of impact-produced lunar dust.


So yeah, I had a lot of fun. Sometimes just researching an article is pretty cool.


As I’ve said before, while the news and other sections at Sen are free, the blogs are subscription only. But if you look at the bloggers there, you’ll find that the price is totally worth it. You’d spend more than that on a book by just one person. And for that you’ll get to read lots of people covering lots of space. Literally.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1xvcML7

via IFTTT

NASA Awards Contract for NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System-2 Spacecraft

NASA has awarded a delivery order under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition III (Rapid III) contract to Orbital ATK (formerly Orbital Sciences Corporation) of Dulles, Virginia, for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-2 spacecraft.



March 23, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1FvPoPS

via IFTTT

NASA Needs To Determine If Rabbit Fur Felt Can Be Bought Domestically

NASA Proposed Rule: Federal Acquisition Regulation; List of Domestically Nonavailable Articles "SUMMARY: DoD, GSA, and NASA are considering amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to update the list of domestically nonavailable articles under the Buy American Act. DoD, GSA, and...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1DU88Z4

via IFTTT

Dream Chaser Cargo Flights from Houston? Intriguing

Sierra Nevada Corporation and Houston Airport System Announce New Agreement "Entering into this new agreement with HAS will lead to enabling all variants of the Dream Chaser spacecraft to land in Houston, offering the ability to return cargo and science...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1HxeDid

via IFTTT

Mars 'Marathon Valley' Overlook



This view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows part of "Marathon Valley," a destination on the western rim of Endeavour Crater, as seen from an overlook north of the valley. The scene spans from east, at left, to southeast. It combines four pointings of the rover's panoramic camera (Pancam) on March 13, 2015, during the 3,958th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars. The rover team selected Marathon Valley as a science destination because observations of this location using the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter yielded evidence of clay minerals, a clue to ancient wet environments. By the time Opportunity explores Marathon Valley, the rover will have exceeded a total driving distance equivalent to an Olympic marathon. Opportunity has been exploring the Meridiani Planum region of Mars since January 2004. This version of the image is presented in approximate true color by combining exposures taken through three of the Pancam's color filters at each of the four camera pointings, using filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Iqoes9

Flying High During a Solar Eclipse

I should know better by now: Whenever I post a bunch of pictures from some astronomical event and say they were the best I saw, someone comes along and proves me wrong.


The photo above was taken by frequent BA Blog contributor Geoff Sims, who was flying on a plane chartered to observe the March 20 solar eclipse (the flight was planned by my old friend and dedicated umbraphilic astronomer Glenn Schneider). They were over the north Atlantic at 35,000 feet when he took that shot of the eclipsed Sun, the moon’s shadow darkening the Earth below.


It’s almost supernatural looking. On the left, the lighter penumbra of the shadow can barely be seen—to anyone there, the eclipse would have been partial, with bright sunlight still illuminating the ground.


On the right the dark umbra blots out the clouds below. Anyone there would have seen a total eclipse, the entire face of the Sun blacked out by the Moon. I love how the horizon sky is orange; the distant sunlight filtered through particles in the air.


I’m intrigued by the gentle curve of the shadow. If the eclipse had occurred over the Equator, the Moon’s shadow would have fallen straight down onto the Earth, and looked very circular. But at this high latitude, so far north, the Moon’s shadow is lengthened, stretched out into an ellipse. I wonder if that’s what we’re seeing here?


The shot was taken as part of the documentary Sims and Nelson Quan are doing called Chasing Shadows, and it loos like it will be jaw-dropping. They have a KickStarter to support it, so go there and throw money at them.


Photographer Stephan Heinsius was also flying through the eclipse (I believe on the same flight, in fact), and took video of it:


It looks very much like what Sims saw. Glenn has asked me several times to go on one of these flights. I may have to say yes eventually.


Here’s a bonus video of three smaller chartered planes that flew through the eclipse path, led by Xavier Jubier:


Wow. And still, I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse. But I only have to wait another couple of years…






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1Fz8J2E

via IFTTT

2015年3月23日 星期一

Atlas V Launches MMS



Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured above, an Atlas V rocket lifts off carrying NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission into Earth orbit 10 days ago to study the workings of the magnetosphere that surrounds and protects the Earth. From a standing start, the 300,000 kilogram rocket ship left to circle the Earth where the outside air is too thin to breathe. Rockets bound for space are now launched from somewhere on Earth about once a week. via NASA http://ift.tt/18S1QeP

Prometheus, Pandora, and the braided F ring in motion

Cassini recently took a long, high-resolution movie of the F ring, catching a view of its ringlets, clumps, and streamers, and two potato-shaped moons, Prometheus and Pandora.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1xXi10M

via IFTTT

NASA Education Office Ignores White House Science Fair

Don James / #NASA education Office asleep one again. No mention here http://t.co/JcDXe3wQk4 of @WhiteHouse #WHScienceFair a few blocks away— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 23, 2015...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1ChVUr8

via IFTTT

NASA Announces Teams for 2015 Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Nearly 100 high school and college teams from around the world will race against each other during NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge April 17-18 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Participating teams are from 15 states and Puerto Rico, as well as international teams from Mexico, Germany, India and Russia.



March 23, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1HqVHBL

via IFTTT

Desert Moon, Narrated by Former Astronaut Mark Kelly, Now Available Online

Desert Moon, a 35-minute documentary that tells the story of Dr. Gerard Kuiper and the dawn of planetary science, is now available online.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1N6ukyH

via IFTTT

Presidential Candidate Cruz Has NASA On His Short List

CNN reports that one of @SenTedCruz presidential campaign themes is "NASA's main focus on space exploration"— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 23, 2015...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1Or2zo7

via IFTTT

More Rogue PR From The New Horizons Mission Team

Public Asked to Help Name Features on Pluto, SETI Institute Keith's note: Last week the SETI Institute unilaterally announced an effort whereby the public can suggest names for features discovered within the Pluto-Charon system. The IAU would have the final...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1Ik6TkL

via IFTTT

Pluto Naming Rights

In a few months, Pluto’s gonna get a lot less fuzzy.


Right now, the distant world is a scant three pixels across in the camera of the New Horizons space probe. But it’s fast approaching; New Horizons recently crossed the distance where it was closer to Pluto than the Earth is to the Sun. Given that Pluto is 40 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is, you can see that the probe is nearing the goal of its mission.


Closest approach will be in mid-July, 2015. A bit more than a month before then Pluto will be over a dozen pixels wide in images. Still not much, but enough to start seeing major features, coloration or brightness differences from spot to spot on the surface. Closing in at 14 kilometers every second, Pluto will grow rapidly, and details will clear.


The transformation of Pluto from a fuzzy blob to a sharp and clear world will be so rapid, in fact, that there won’t be time to name all the new surface features seen. Thinking ahead, the scientists involved have decided to create a list of potential names for features not yet seen. That’s pretty clever, but what names should go on that Plutonic list?


That, it turns out, is up to you. Seriously. The New Horizons team, in coordination with the International Astronomical Union (the official keeper of cosmic names), has a website called Our Pluto where you can suggest names and vote for the ones you like.


The names fall under several themes, including explorers (real and fictional), the underworld (Pluto was, after all, the god of Hades, and the moons are named after various related characters), scientists, engineers, starships and spaceships, and more. They make a special note: “We particularly welcome suggestions that come from the ancient past and from the world’s many diverse cultures.”


This is an interesting idea. It’s not a free-for-all, so that should prevent the usual irritating responses expected from the underbelly of the Internet, and in the end the names from the public are suggestions, not mandatory. But with the IAU involved, the ones chosen will eventually become official.


So here’s your chance to help name a feature on another world! Voting ends on April 7, so hurry. Orbital mechanics wait for no human.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1Ftprk6

via IFTTT

2015年3月22日 星期日

A Double Eclipse of the Sun



Can the Sun be eclipsed twice at the same time? Last Friday was noteworthy because part of the Earth was treated to a rare total eclipse of the Sun. But also on Friday, from a part of the Earth that only saw part of the Sun eclipsed, a second object appeared simultaneously in front of the Sun: the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. Although space station eclipses are very quick -- in this case only 0.6 seconds, they are not so rare. Capturing this composite image took a lot of planning and a little luck, as the photographer had to dodge a series of third objects that kept, annoyingly, also lining up in front of the Sun: clouds. The above superposed time-lapse sequence was taken from Fregenal de la Sierra in southern Spain. The dark disk of the Moon dominates the lower right, while the Sun's textured surface shows several filaments and, over an edge, a prominence. via NASA http://ift.tt/1blw2k8

Where Are the Pictures of Ceres?

I’ve been getting some emails and tweets asking why, if the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Ceres on Mar. 6, haven’t we seen any new close-up pictures for nearly three weeks?


The answer is not that NASA is covering up alien bases or Obama’s birth certificate or any other such nonsense. It’s actually due to gravity and chemistry.


Dawn doesn’t use conventional chemical rocket thrusters. While these can provide a lot of oomph, the fuel is heavy, which means you need to carry more fuel to carry that fuel, and so on. You can change directions quickly, but the cost is dedicating more of your precious payload mass to fuel instead of scientific equipment.


Instead, Dawn uses ion thrusters, which uses complex electric fields to fling ionized atoms out the back end at high speed. The thrust is a lot lower, but you use fuel so efficiently you can literally keep your engines on for months at a time. In the end, you get the same ability to change the direction and speed of your spacecraft; it’s just a lot more gentle and takes a lot longer.


So instead of blasting toward Ceres and blasting into orbit, it’s more like Dawn is sliding into orbit, catching up with the asteroid slowly and easing its way closer. To do that it flew past Ceres a bit, and is now on the side of Ceres away from the Sun. From its vantage point it’s looking down on the dark side of the asteroid. It’s also on a trajectory that took it farther away from Ceres, and is now falling down closer to it (like tossing a rock in the air, and having it fall back down into your hand).


In fact, a problem with Dawn’s reaction wheels (which are used to turn the spacecraft) caused engineers to put it on an orbital insertion path that’s even more fuel-efficient, to make sure they have extra fuel on hand if they need to compensate for the loss of the wheels. The diagram above shows this, and here's a nifty animation of the insertion as well:


So, though it’s been under the influence of the gravity of Ceres for a few weeks now, it’s not in a low orbit just yet. It will be soon though, and we’ll start getting lovely high-resolution images. I can’t wait. I’m dying to know just what those bright spots are; speculation is rampant among scientists, but really we won’t get definitive answers until Dawn gets close and can watch Ceres over time.


When will that finally start? April, so in just a couple of weeks. Patience, young Padawans. A new Ceres is coming.


Tip o' the electrostatic grid to Rachel WW for the link to the orbit video.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1OlLmw7

via IFTTT

2015年3月21日 星期六

Northern Equinox Eclipse



Snowy and cold is weather you might expect at the start of spring for Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. But that turned out to be good weather for watching the Moon's umbral shadow race across northern planet Earth. The region was plunged into darkness for 3 minutes during the March 20 total solar eclipse while insulated eclipse chasers witnessed the dark Sun in the cold clear sky. In this well-timed snapshot captured near the end of totality, the Moon's shadow sweeps away from the horizon and the solar corona fades as the lunar disk just begins to uncover the Sun. Streaming past the Moon's edge, direct rays of sunlight create the fleeting appearance of a glistening diamond ring. via NASA http://ift.tt/1LCFEHi

Mars Academy

A new project—"Mars Academy"—aims to expand the cosmic horizon and offer a broader sense of opportunity for at least one group of underprivileged children in an impoverished neighborhood in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1MZgNsG

via IFTTT

Snowy Hawaii

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: snow in Hawaii!


To be fair, that’s the Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island, and it tops out at 4,200 meters (13,800 feet). It’s commonly cold up there, of course, but snow is unusual.


The picture is part of a much larger shot taken by the Landsat 8 satellite. By coincidence, my friend and astronomer Mike Brown was at the observatory at the summit and took a lovely photo of it from a more terrestrial viewpoint.


It’s funny to think of Hawaii as getting cold, but when your island goes from sea level to more than a third of the way out of the atmosphere (as measured by pressure, at least), you get a bit of diversity in the weather.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1He7vHk

via IFTTT

2015年3月20日 星期五

Sunshine, Earthshine



Today's date marks an Equinox and a New Moon. Remarkably, while the exact timing of both geocentric events occur within a span of only 13 hours, the moon also reaches its new phase only 14 hours after perigee, the closest point in its orbit. That makes the Equinox New Moon the largest New Moon of 2015, though hard to see since that lunar phase presents the Moon's dark, night side to planet Earth. Still, in this well composed image of a young lunar phase from late January you can glimpse both night and day on the lunar surface, the night side faintly illuminated by Earthshine next to the day side's brightly sunlit crescent. But some will see today's Equinox New Moon in silhouette! The Equinox Solar Eclipse will be total across stretches of the Arctic Ocean, visible in partial phases from Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. via NASA http://ift.tt/1AMvSbk

Bernice Steadman

Bernice Steadman, part of NASA's 'Mercury 13' dies, AP "A woman who was among 13 selected for training as possible astronauts in the early 1960s has died at her northern Michigan home. She was 89. Bernice Steadman was a member...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1FOPdOO

via IFTTT

Seaton Norman

Seaton B. Norman "February 5, 1918 ~ March 19, 2015 (age 97)" Goddard Legend Retires at 92 (page 12) "How many colleagues do you know who retired at 92 with 70+ years at Government service? Seaton Norman, Telecommunications Manager for...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/19FumRP

via IFTTT

Dava Newman Nomination Exits Stealth Mode

Executive Session - Markup of five bills and three nominations, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation "7. Nomination of Dr. Dava J. Newman, of Massachusetts, to be Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration"...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1FMuxGY

via IFTTT

The Mapping of Pluto Begins Today

When New Horizons flies past Pluto in July, we will see a new, alien landscape in stark detail. At that point, we will have a lot to talk about. The only way we can talk about it is if those features, whatever they turn out to be, have names.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1x96Hn2

via IFTTT

Report: NASA May Be Hard-Pressed to Launch SLS by November 2018

A report released by NASA’s Office of Inspector General warns that the agency may be hard-pressed to have its Kennedy Space Center launch facilities ready by November 2018.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1xGpNvS

via IFTTT

Announcing: PlanetaryTV!

Planetary Society Media Producer Merc Boyan presents our new video resource.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1Oe9Mrx

via IFTTT

Solar Eclipse From the International Space Station



Expedition 43 Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti took a series of photographs of the March 20, 2015 solar eclipse from the International Space Station. Cristoforetti wrote, "Orbital sunrise and the #SolarEclipse... could it go any better?" A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, casting a shadow over Earth. The moon’s shadow masks the solar surface and blocks sunlight from reaching Earth directly – but the amount of sunlight blocked depends on location. Image Credit: ESA/NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1GyZE74

Crash Course Astronomy Episode 10: The Sun

Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love. –Hamlet, in a letter to Ophelia

Of all the stars in the Universe, the one we know best is our own Sun.


That’s not to say we understand it completely, of course. But we know it’s not a burning ember, or a god, or a great ball of fire (goodness gracious). It’s a fantastically huge fusion-generating plasma ball, the main source of light, heat, and gravity in the solar system.


Wanna know more? Of course you do. Let this guy in an orange shirt tell you more.


Researching this one was fun. I know a bit about our star, having written about it a bajillion times on the blog and in my books. The hard part, as usual, was struggling with what to leave out. I decided the chromosphere could be sacrificed, and details about the complex way the magnetic field is generated.


That wasn’t so bad, but the killer was the sunspot cycle. It’s a big topic, and too hard to synopsize for the video in the time allotted. In the end I figured I covered the spots, the solar storms, and the effects on Earth, so the fact that Sun waxes and wanes in magnetic activity would just take too long to go over. You can read more about it here if you’d like.


But, the hope is that you get a taste of the Sun—figuratively, because otherwise ow—and want to find out more. The thing about astronomy, about science itself, is that there’s always more to learn.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1I4ube3

via IFTTT

2015年3月19日 星期四

Aurora in the Backyard



On the night of March 17/18 this umbrella of northern lights unfolded over backyards in Vallentuna, Sweden about 30 kilometers north of Stockholm. A result of the strongest geomagnetic storm of this solar cycle, auroral displays were captured on that night from back and front yards at even lower latitudes, including sightings in the midwestern United States. A boon for aurora hunting skywatchers, the space storm began building when a coronal mass ejection, launched by solar activity some two days earlier, struck planet Earth's magnetosphere. So what's the name of the backyard observatory on the right of the wide field view? That's Carpe Noctem Observatory, of course. via NASA http://ift.tt/1x2KfMg

NASA Online/Transparency Ratings? Pretty Good

Grading Government Transparency: Scientists' Freedom to Speak (and Tweet) at Federal Agencies (2015), Union of Concerned Scientists "In 2013, more than two years after the Obama administration had issued a directive ordering reform of federal scientific integrity policies - including...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1H6twrx

via IFTTT

LPSC 2015: First results from Dawn at Ceres: provisional place names and possible plumes

Three talks on Tuesday at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference concerned the first results from Dawn at Ceres. Chris Russell showed a map of "quads" with provisional names on Ceres, Andreas Nathues showed that Ceres' bright spot might be an area of plume-like activity, and Francesca Zambon showed color and temperature variations across the dwarf planet.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/197IUbQ

via IFTTT

LPSC 2015: "Bloggers, please do not blog about this talk."

One presenter at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference asked the audience not to blog about his talk because of the embargo policy of Science and Nature. I show how this results from an incorrect interpretation of those policies. TL;DR: media reports on conference presentations do not violate Science and Nature embargo policies. Let people Tweet!



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/197IT7F

via IFTTT

Launch Pad Animals, Ranked

A semi-authoritative ranking of creatures that co-inhabit rocket launch sites around the world.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1CBaxrA

via IFTTT

NASA’s SOFIA Finds Missing Link Between Supernovae and Planet Formation

Using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), an international scientific team discovered that supernovae are capable of producing a substantial amount of the material from which planets like Earth can form.



March 19, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1CxP6pR

via IFTTT

Slides from the LPSC 2015 Session on the Community Response to NASA's Budget Request

The Planetary Society helped organize a community response to the latest NASA budget at the 2015 meeting of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1F9t5zl

via IFTTT

You Are Gopher Launch

After this morning’s post, we all need a Unicorn Chaser.


I don’t usually post cute animal videos, but this one is pretty dang cute and is at least marginally apropos of the blog: At the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome rocket launch site, a prairie dog made its home in the ground. Not just anywhere, though: Right in the middle of the rail tracks over which a monster transporter moves.


Someone put a pretty nice webcam on the side of the hole, facing the launch site, where a Proton rocket waits for launch!


(I suggest setting the playback to 2x the normal rate.)


I love how the rodent watches the people moving … until its observations are so rudely interrupted. Also, if you’re going to install a camera in an animal’s hidey hole, make sure it’s secured well!


By the way, a lot of sites are calling the animal a gopher, but it looks more like a prairie dog to me. If there are any varmint experts reading, I’m listening.


Tip o' the nose cone to Jason Davis via Emily Lakdawalla.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1O9Dbmq

via IFTTT

Fear Mongering in the NYT: Does Wearable Tech Cause Cancer?

tl;dr: There is zero direct evidence that wearable tech causes cancer. The indirect evidence ain’t too good, either.


I suppose it’s a natural human reaction to worry a bit when some new technology is announced. Will it hurt privacy rights? How will it affect the way people interact?


Will it give people cancer?


Of course, that last one will give you a frisson of fear, an unconscious and reflexive chill that bites the back of your brain before a more rational reaction can kick in.


The last time this happened was with cell phones, which we’ll get to in a moment. But with Apple’s announcement of their new watch, it’s not surprising at all that people might be concerned over any possible health impacts.


What does surprise me is that the New York Times would publish an article that is basically little more than fear-mongering about it. The article, written by Nick Bilton, uses classic pseudoscience techniques: Speculation based on insignificant evidence, wordplay to make things sound worse than they are, and relying on an “expert” who is anything but.


Let’s be clear: There is no direct evidence wearable tech will cause health problems like cancer. None. Bilton admits that pretty much up front, but then goes on to speculate based on health concerns over cell phones, and that’s where the article goes off the rails.


Bilton plays up a study released in 2011 by the World Health Organization, which looked into any possible connection between cell phone used and brain tumors. The first and foremost thing you need to keep in mind is that no definitive connection was found. There was some, very slight, evidence that there might be a connection, but statistically speaking it was indistinguishable from there being no connection at all.


Despite this, the WHO put cell phones on their list of potentially harmful products, specifically Group 2B: possible carcinogens. Why? Because while they couldn’t prove a connection between cell phone use and brain tumors, they couldn’t rule it out either. Hence “possible” carcinogen.


Note: Other Group 2B substances include pickled vegetables and coffee. So there you go.


Bilton cites this study, but says


After dissecting dozens of peer-reviewed studies on cellphone safety, the panel concluded in 2011 that cellphones were “possibly carcinogenic” and that the devices could be as harmful as certain dry-cleaning chemicals and pesticides. (Note that the group hedged its findings with the word “possibly.”)

Note he uses the word “hedged”, thus placing doubt into the reader’s mind. But he doesn’t include the necessary detail that no link was actually found. He also mentions a Swedish research study that seemed to show a connection, but as noted medical skeptic Orac points out, that’s the only study out of a great number that has seemed to see a connection. A lot of other studies don’t show a connection at all (here’s a great synopsis at the Mayo Clinic site). I’m not saying the Swedish study is wrong, but that it seems odd that no one else has ever found a statistically significant connection.


Bilton talked to the leader of that study, which is fine. He didn’t talk to any researchers who found no connection, though.


As another expert, Bilton talked to Joe Mercola. My jaw dropped when I read that. Let me be very clear here: Mercola is a quack. You can read about his background at Quackwatch, but a good thing to note is that in 2005 the FDA ordered him to stop making illegal claims about the “alternative medicine” Mercola sells through his website. They sent a second order in 2006. And another in 2011.


Mercola is anti-vax. He’s been a bully about it, too. He promoted and sponsored an anti-vax ad in Times Square a few years ago. But he has very basic misunderstandings about how vaccines work. He promotes the nonsense that is homeopathy.


More to the point, Mercola has also written a great many articles playing up the dangers of cell phones, and—shocker—sells products to minimize your exposure to cell phone radiation.


Bilton going to him as an expert on health is like going to Ken Ham as an expert on evolutionary biology.


I was rather surprised to see that Mercola didn’t immediately latch onto the idea that wearable tech is dangerous (though I’m sure, given time, he’ll be selling products to counteract its effects), but he does say,


But if you’re buying a watch with a cellular chip built in, then you’ve got a cellphone attached to your wrist.” And that, he said, is a bad idea [due to radiation from 3G connections].

Except, as I’ve pointed out, no real connection has ever been found. Sanity check: If the connection were as strong as Mercola and others claim, it should scream out in real world studies; hundreds of millions of people use cell phones. That’s a big sample size. Yet the incidence of brain cancers hasn’t risen.


The obvious conclusion from all this is that cell phones are not a risk here, and so extrapolating to wearable tech is completely groundless.


One more note: The very first paragraph of Bilton’s article recalls when doctors promoted cigarettes in the past. That is a classic pseudoscience technique: poisoning the well against science right away, trying to foment distrust of doctors and medicine. That’s not just bad writing; it’s downright irresponsible.


I expect this kind of thing from rags like the Daily Mail or other fact-free tabloids, but from the New York Times? Wow.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1H5dscW

via IFTTT

2015年3月18日 星期三

Earth During a Total Eclipse of the Sun



What does the Earth look like during a total solar eclipse? It appears dark in the region where people see the eclipse, because that's where the shadow of the Moon falls. The shadow spot actually shoots across the Earth at nearly 2,000 kilometers per hour, darkening locations in its path for only a few minutes before moving on. The featured image shows the Earth during the total solar eclipse of 2006 March, as seen from the International Space Station. On Friday the Moon will move in front of the Sun once again, casting another distorted circular shadow that, this time, will zip over part of the north Atlantic Ocean. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Ls9Bty

LPSC 2015: Philae at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko

In my first post from the 2015 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, I discuss the latest work on Philae images, and some cometary polymers.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1ML0zVQ

via IFTTT

One-Year Crew Set for Launch to Space Station; NASA TV to Air Live Coverage

The first one-year crew for the International Space Station is set to launch Friday, March 27. NASA Television will provide extensive coverage of the launch and the crew’s arrival to the orbital laboratory.



March 18, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1B11xov

via IFTTT

OIG Report on SLS/Orion Ground Systems

NASA's Launch Support and Infrastructure Modernization: Assessment of the Ground Systems Needed to Launch SLS and Orion "In order to decrease the risk that the GSDO Program will experience cost increases or schedule delays, we recommended the Associate Administrator for...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/19zQ0ac

via IFTTT

NASA Spacecraft Detects Aurora and Mysterious Dust Cloud around Mars

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has observed two unexpected phenomena in the Martian atmosphere: an unexplained high-altitude dust cloud and aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere.



March 18, 2015

from NASA http://ift.tt/1xeIBaW

via IFTTT

Orion: Going Deep

One of the most globally recognizable constellations in the sky is, undoubtedly, Orion. Straddling the equator of the sky, it can be seen from literally every point on Earth, and its resemblance to a human standing upright spans cultures. It’s a landmark (skymark?) in the early months of the year, up high at sunset, and a favorite among astronomers.


I’ve looked at it hundreds of times. Thousands. I've used my eyes, I’ve used binoculars, I’ve used a series of telescopes for decades to probe the wonders inside Orion’s boundaries.


And in all that time, with all that experience, I’ve never, ever seen it like this.


That ridiculously beautiful photograph is by Rogelio Bernal Andreo, a master’s master of astrophotography. It’s so complex, so detailed, so deep and crowded that it took me a moment to find the actual stars of Orion in it!


For the record, Orion is on its side here, with orange supergiant Betelgeuse to the lower left, mighty blue supergiant Rigel to the upper right, and the iconic belt in the center, pointing upper left to lower right.


I’m not even sure where to start. I mean, the Orion Nebula, one of the showpieces of the galaxy, is nearly hidden to the right of the belt, lost among the other treasures visible.


Perhaps the most obvious is the sweeping arc of red gas covering most of the picture. This is Barnard’s Loop, a tremendous shell of gas that may have been expelled by a supernova, an exploding star long ago (I’ve also read it could be gas blown out by young stars being born). The arc is at least a hundred light years across, possibly much larger, and excited into glowing by the hot, young, massive stars in the Orion nebula.


The large red flower-like cloud to the left is the Lambda Orionis nebula, a star-forming cloud centered on the supergiant star Lamba Orionis. The red glow (and in the loop as well) is from hydrogen gas. It’s probably about 130 light years in size.


There’s also the Flame Nebula just to the left of the lowest star in the belt, the Horsehead to the right, the Witch Head nebula stretching out almost horizontally above Rigel, and seriously dozens of more objects scattered hither and yon. The detail is stunning, Shocking.


Andreo made a similar mosaic that was so spectacular I chose it as my Number 1 astrophoto for 2010. This image is better. It's even deeper (a total of 220 hours of exposures!) and more detailed. It’s a masterpiece.


Perusing Andreo’s site, DeepSkyColors.com, will melt your brain. Every image there is jaw-dropping. You can also follow him on Facebook, where he discusses his astonishing photos. Looking for a gift? The Orion photo is available for printing, too. I bet a lot of folks would be very happy getting something like this as a present. I’ve never seen the like.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1BTzNqS

via IFTTT

2015年3月17日 星期二

The Big Dipper Enhanced



Do you see it? This common question frequently precedes the rediscovery of one of the most commonly recognized configurations of stars on the northern sky: the Big Dipper. This grouping of stars is one of the few things that has likely been seen, and will be seen, by every human generation. In this featured image, however, the stars of the Big Dipper have been digitally enhanced -- they do not really appear this much brighter than nearby stars. The image was taken earlier this month from France. The Big Dipper is not by itself a constellation. Although part of the constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major), the Big Dipper is an asterism that has been known by different names to different societies. Five of the Big Dipper stars are actually near each other in space and were likely formed at nearly the same time. Relative stellar motions will cause the Big Dipper to slowly change its apparent configuration over the next 100,000 years. via NASA http://ift.tt/1Cob4LJ

JSC Center Director Ochoa Elected to Deathcare Product Company Board

Service Corporation International Nominates Dr. Ellen Ochoa For Election To The Board Of Directors "Service Corporation International (NYSE: SCI), the largest provider of deathcare products and services in North America, today announced that it will nominate Dr. Ellen Ochoa to...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/18Yllly

via IFTTT

Good News Everyone: Another Closed Door Humans to Mars Thing

Top Space Science, Industry & Policy Leaders Address Strategy to Send Humans to Mars, Planetary Society "The Planetary Society's "Humans Orbiting Mars" workshop is an invitation-only gathering of top science, engineering, and policy professionals. The goal of the workshop is...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/18DewGl

via IFTTT

Vanguard Satellite, 1958



One of the Vanguard satellites is checked out at Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958. Vanguard 1, the world’s first solar-powered satellite, launched on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) 1958. It was designed to test the launch capabilities of a three-stage launch vehicle and the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit. Vanguard 1 was the second U.S. satellite in orbit, following Explorer 1, and remains the oldest artificial object orbiting Earth to this day. Vanguard began as a program at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington and transferred over to NASA (along with many of its personnel) after the agency was founded by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1GjmbEQ

Space Invaders Invade Space!

I’m not trying to give away my age or anything here, but I remember seeing my first Space Invader console. At the time, the best you could do at home was playing Pong or some variant of it that involved a couple of dots and a line moving around on your screen, and believe me, it was the coolest thing we’d ever seen.


One day I was at a scifi convention (Disclave? Balticon? One of those) and saw a crowd of people in the dealer room. I walked over, and saw them clustered around a standup console, and it was thumping ominously. I couldn’t see the screen, but the thumping got faster, and the people were cheering and clapping. What the heck…?


Once I saw the game I knew right then everything was about to change. It was amazing. Of course, that seems like ancient history these days, but history has a way of coming back up on you… way, way up.


That is a picture of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti holding a mosaic tile on board the International Space Station. She’s in the cupola, which has windows facing in different directions, providing the exact kind of view a space invader would have shortly before landing on our fair blue world.


The tile is part of a series done by French artist known as Invader, and they appear all over the world. And now, I suppose, above it. Cristoforetti will use it as a way to inspire young children to create art by mixing geometry and colors, which I think is a fine thing to do.


And while it was fun for me and also a way to dump a couple of hundred kilos of quarters over the years, to kids these days that experience for me is history. Maybe this is a way to teach them that, too.


Related post: Hubble Spies a Space Invader






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1CpCHnJ

via IFTTT

Bad Space Weather Forecast Today

Space Weather Alert: Geomagnetic K-index of 8 (G4) "Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 45 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents - Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems may mistakenly trip out key assets from the...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1ATp9vp

via IFTTT

Rematch Between Falcons and the Dinosaurs

Fight between SpaceX and industry heavyweights heads to Capitol Hill, Washington Post "The last time these two companies faced off before Congress, their top executives, sitting side by side, exchanged tense, if restrained, barbs. In the year since, the fight...



from NASA Watch http://ift.tt/1BQireg

via IFTTT

An Astronomical Conversation

On Feb. 26, 2015, I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Florida Institute of Technology, to speak on stage with my friend and astronomer Hakeem Oluseyi. Hakeem is a professor there, and the idea was to have a public discussion about current topics in astronomy—not so much a talk by one person, but more of a guided conversation between two friends. It was moderated by FIT astronomer Dan Batcheldor.


We talked about the weird plumes or clouds seen in the upper atmosphere of Mars, a recent spate of fireballs seen across the country, and also the retraction of the BICEP2 observatory claim of seeing direct evidence of cosmic inflation. That was the idea, at least; of course given two garrulous astronomers who love astronomy and science, the talk was pretty free-range. We wandered a bit.


The entire talk (including the Q&A afterward) is available for your eyeballs:


Of all that, my favorite part is at the 1:26:30 mark, when two young girls (around 10 years old, maybe younger), asked a question I hear a lot: Why are we spending money on space when we have so many problems here on Earth? This is a very common question, and one that seems like a natural one, but it’s based on a false premise. Actually, two: One is that there isn’t enough money to do both, when in fact there is (we just choose to waste a lot of it on things that are not helping and which in fact are hurting us)


But the other false premise is that the money we spend on space doesn’t help us here on Earth. But the real case is that money we spend on space has a direct effect on everyone on Earth! It helps develop new technology with wide-ranging use, it stimulates the economy, and it helps us better understand our planet—the only one we have, and one on which we’re having a vast and profound impact.


I think it also does something intangible but also crucial: It inspires us. The beauty, the mystery, the sense of adventure … these are all things that tickle the backs of our brains, give us a sense of being alive, tell us of things greater than ourselves.


Humans could live our entire lives eating bland food, drudging through uncompelling work, plodding along one foot after another, our heads hung down and looking only as far forward as the next footstep.


Space exploration lifts our heads up. It shows us the sky, the stars, the Universe, an entire cosmos just begging us to learn more about it.


Humans are capable of greater things. Every once in a while, we just need to look up and be reminded of that.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1EYwjpj

via IFTTT

How Do We Know When We Have Collected a Sample of Bennu?

A huge amount of effort goes into deciding where to try to collect a sample on Bennu. There are roughly nine months to survey, map and model the asteroid to help make this decision.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1MI9Egj

via IFTTT

2015年3月16日 星期一

The Clouds of Orion the Hunter



Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of giant molecular clouds some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning about 30 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (left to right) and beyond. At 1,500 light years away, the Great Orion Nebula is the closest large star forming region, here visible just right and below center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Sliding your cursor over the picture will also find red giant Betelgeuse at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, the Witch Head Nebula above -- and illuminated by -- Rigel, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula on the left, near Orion's head. Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas like in the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop. via NASA http://ift.tt/19q5Eoz

LightSail Featured on CBS Evening News

The Planetary Society's LightSail spacecraft made an appearance on national television Monday night during a two-minute segment by CBS Evening News.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1AQSUNa

via IFTTT

At LPSC this year? Come to this special session on NASA's budget

For those of you who are here at LPSC 2015, we’ve organized a special session at noon on Tuesday, March 17th in the Montgomery Ballroom to bring together representatives from the three major professional organizations that represent planetary scientists to address your questions and concerns about NASA's 2016 budget request.



from Planetary Society Blog http://ift.tt/1BMtC7N

via IFTTT

Does Astrology Work? I'm Gonna Go with "No".

Of all the pseudoscience still pervading the human brain, astrology is probably the oldest. As I point out in an episode of Crash Course Astronomy, millennia ago it kinda made sense; there were cycles to the stars and the seasons, and with our lives so tied to agriculture and weather it was natural to suppose the stars affected us in other ways.


But now, after centuries of scientific investigation, we know better. Or we should. Apparently, we still don’t. Astrology still gets a lot of play in the media, despite having no good evidence for it and an overwhelming tsunami of evidence against it.


Still, here we are. For the lunar eclipse that occurred in October 2014, a reporter for Time magazine interviewed an astrologer on what the eclipse meant, and passed the vague, ineffective advice on to the public. As you might imagine, I have something to say about that. So here’s Episode 2 of my new video series, “Bad Astronomy” where I point out just why astrology doesn’t work, even more so in this specific case.


As a reminder, this will be a regular video series, going up every Monday. Next week will be back to actual science, happily. And don’t forget to take a look at the first episode, too: Surviving a Close Call with a Black Hole .






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1wQwuQI

via IFTTT

Politics Is Poisoning NASA's Ability to Do What It Needs to Do

Well, I told you so.


When Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was made head of Senate committee in charge of NASA’s funding, I (and many others) were appalled. Cruz is a science denier, flatly claiming global warming isn’t happening.


This is an issue, since many of NASA’s missions are directly focused on examining the amount, extent, and impact of that warming. And rightly so.


While Cruz may not be able to directly impact NASA’s budget, he can certainly make things difficult on the agency, and pressure others to change NASA’s emphasis. He made this very clear last week when he held a meeting with NASA’s Administrator Charles Bolden as a witness. Cruz opened the session asking Bolden about NASA’s core mission, a clear shot at the idea that they should be looking outwards, not down.


Throughout the session, Cruz downplayed Earth science, claiming that NASA has lost focus on exploring space. It’s clear everything he was saying came from his stance of global warming denial.


And that is utter nonsense, to be incredibly polite. Pure and simple.


Bolden shot back, saying, “We can't go anywhere if the Kennedy Space Center goes underwater and we don't know it — and that's understanding our environment.” In other words, we must study the Earth and its changing climate. Studying our planet is at least as important as studying others.


Second, as Bolden also points out, NASA has been gearing up for doing more human exploration for some time now*. While I am not a fan of the Space Launch System rocket, it will certainly be able to lift a lot of payload into orbit and beyond (though at huge expense). And SpaceX is working on the Falcon Heavy, which will launch well before SLS gets off the ground, and will also be capable of heavy lifting. Its first demo launch will be in just a few months.


Over the years, NASA has had to beg and scrape to get the relatively small amount of money it gets—less than half a percent of the national budget—and still manages to do great things with it. Cruz is worried NASA’s focus needs to be more on space exploration. Fine. Then give them enough money to do everything in their charter: Explore space, send humans there, and study our planet. Whether you think climate change is real or not—and it is— telling NASA they should turn a blind eye to the environment of our own planet is insanity.


Bear in mind, too, Cruz has his sights set on the White House. That’s where NASA’s budget starts. Under a Cruz administration, NASA’s Earth Sciences program would be screwed.


There’s more. A few days before Cruz held his session, the House Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (which has NASA in its jurisdiction) also held a meeting with Bolden as a witness. The Chairman, John Culberson (R-Texas), is a friend of NASA; he was the one who fought for more money in NASA’s budget for a mission to Europa.


But even he holds some mistaken ideas about the agency. Right now, we depend on the Russians for access to the International Space Station, and given Russia’s current volatility (to say the least), Culberson asked Bolden what contingency plans NASA has if Russia decides to pull out.


Bolden said the only contingency we have is commercial flight to get humans into space. Culberson took issue with that:


Bolden: Had we gotten the funding that was requested when I first became the NASA administrator, we would have been all joyously going down to the Kennedy Space Center later this year to watch the first launch of some commercial spacecraft with our crew members on it. That day passed. And I came to this committee and I said over and over, if we don’t fund commercial crew….

Culberson: Had NASA not canceled the Constellation program we’d be ready to fly within 12 months.

Bolden: Mr. Chairman that is not correct… whoever told you that, that is not correct.

Hearing Culberson say that makes me grind my teeth. The Constellation rocket system was way behind schedule and well over budget, and that’s why President Obama cancelled it, correctly in my opinion. If we had kept it going I’d bet we still wouldn’t be able to put people into space today. At least not without huge impact to NASA’s other capabilities, due to its fixed budget.


And Bolden is right. Over the years, the President’s NASA budget request for commercial flight has been slashed by Congress over and again (in FY 2012 it was cut by over 50 percent). If that money had instead gotten to NASA, we might very well already be celebrating the launch of Americans into space by an American rocket. Instead, here we are, dependent on the Russians.


Watching Congress grill NASA over what is Congress’s fault is frustrating to say the least.


I have issues with the President’s requests for NASA as well, and I’ve been vocal about them. But on the balance, it’s been Congress that has been slowly squeezing the life out of NASA’s ability to return to human spaceflight. And the shenanigans there still continue, since there has been a lot of political tomfoolery involving SLS, especially when it comes to SpaceX. I suggest Rep. Culberson talk to his colleagues about that before complaining to NASA that they can’t do what they’ve been mandated to do.


Look. NASA is the world’s premier space agency. Yes, I am an American, and yes, I say that with pride. Certainly, the European Space Agency is doing fantastic things, and will continue to do so, but NASA has done more, gone farther, and been more a source of inspiration than any other.


But the politics of funding a government agency is tying NASA in knots and critically endangering its ability to explore.


At one point in his meeting, Rep. Culberson said, “Everything NASA does is just pure good.” That’s a nice sentiment. It would even better if Congress and the White House would let them do it.


* Planetary missions are in trouble, though.


My thanks to NASA Press Secretary Lauren Worley for the budget numbers pertaining to commercial space flight.






from Bad Astronomy http://ift.tt/1AuLwrw

via IFTTT