Tag Archives: NASA

Report from SETICon 2

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Alien life searchers conference SETICon 2 held in Santa Clara

June 25, 2012 by Bob Yirka report

Aliens don’t want to eat us, says former SETI director

SETI’s Alien Telescope Array (ATA) listens day and night for a signal from space. Credit: SETI

SETICon 2, a conference unlike any other, ran this past weekend in Santa Clara, California. In attendance were people from all walks of life whose area of interest intersects on the topic of the search for intelligent life somewhere other than here on planet Earth.

Thus, they were made up of scientists; from and other groups, artists, and even entertainers. The goal of the conference, which is set up and run by the Institute () is to share ideas on what has been discovered of late regarding the possibility of and what might lie ahead.

Fueling much of the discussion this time around (the first SETICon was held in 2010) are findings by NASA’s Kepler mission which is dedicated to looking for extraterrestrial life, regardless of form or degree of intelligence. Since 2009, the mission has uncovered the existence of over 2,300 exoplanets that researchers believe hold the possibility of harboring some forms of life. Most notably, due to the existence of that precious resources without which we here on this planet could not survive: water. Some scientists who actually work on the mission (Geoff Marcy, Jon Jenkins, Debra Fischer, etc.) spoke to those in attendance, as did astronauts Tom Jones and Mae Jemison.

This year’s conference, those in attendance noted, was much more upbeat than the last, as more information from Kepler becomes available, the numbers of planets that might have life on them keeps going up, making the possibility of detecting its presence more plausible than ever before. As noted by several speakers, the Kepler mission is helping to find planets farther away from their stars, rather than just those that are close enough to cause their star to appear to wobble to us due to planetary gravity effects. The new more sensitive telescopes are better able to discern planets that are not only farther (meaning cooler) from their star, but smaller, some of which may have water and are rocky, making them more Earthlike and thus potentially more likely to posses the conditions necessary for the kind of life we know and understand.

In addition to offerings talks, the conference also held panel discussions, interviews, and even screenings of movies, all aimed at opening the door to the possibility that extraterrestrial life might truly exist, and if it does, highlighting the fact that we are now in a better position than ever before to find evidence of its existence.

from:    http://phys.org/news/2012-06-alien-life-searchers-conference-seticon.html

Of Gamma Ray Bubbles and Dark Matter

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MILKY WAY’S GAMMA RAY BUBBLES SHAPED BY DARK MATTER?

Amy Shira Teitel
Analysis by Amy Shira Teitel
Tue May 8, 2012 11:37 AM ET

Gamma-ray-bubbles

Dark matter, the elusive stuff that makes up a substantial portion of all the mass in the universe, is largely a mystery to astronomers. They’ve tried finding it and creating it, but so far no conclusive proof as to what exactly it is though most theories state that we interact with it through gravity.

But Christoph Weniger, of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, has a different theory to explain new possible evidence for dark matter. By carrying out statistical analysis of three and a half years worth of publicly available data from NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope, he’s found a gamma ray line across the sky that he says is a clear signature of dark matter.

Astrophysicists generally think that supermassive black holes, like the one at the center of the Milky Way, release jets that interact with surrounding dark matter. This interaction is thought to be the source of high-energy gamma rays that satellites like Fermi can detect. What satellites can see are the photons produced when these jets interact with dark matter.

Weniger looked for signs of such an interaction in about three and a half years worth of gamma-ray observations carried out by the Fermi satellite’s Large Area Telescope (LAT).

To increase his chances of success he only considered data from those regions of the Milky Way that should generate the highest ratios of dark-matter photons to photons from background sources. He was looking specifically for a peak in energy, a sign that a photon was produced by the collision between and annihilation of two particles; the photon left over should have the same mass as one dark matter particle. This energy would theoretically appear as a very narrow peak, a line in gamma-ray spectra, distinct from the broad energy distribution seen across the visible universe.

That’s just what he found — a line in the gamma ray spectrum.

But he’s quick to admit it’s a provisional result. His data points come from about 50 photons and he’ll need a lot more to prove conclusively that his line is related to dark matter. It’s possible the line he observed is from a known, though no less mysterious, astronomical phenomenon: the pair of enormous gamma-ray-emitting bubbles extending outwards from the plane of the Milky Way.

In December 2010, scientists working with the Fermi Space Telescope found two giant lobes extending from the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Twenty-five thousand light years high, each bubble spans more than half of the visible sky reaching from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus and may be relatively young at just a million or so years old.

The bubbles are a recent find, normally masked by the fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky that is a result of particles moving near the speed of light interacting with light and interstellar gas in the Milky Way. Scientists only found the bubbles by manipulating the data from the LAT to draw out the striking feature.

The manipulated images show the bubbles have well defined edges, suggesting they were formed as a result of a large and relatively rapid energy release — the source of which is still unknown. Interestingly, the energy cutoff of the bubbles corresponds to the gamma ray line Weniger found, the one he’s associating with a dark matter signature.

It’s possible the bubbles and the line have the same origin. Or, dark matter might be the cause of the bubbles’ defined endpoint.

Whether or not the two observations turn out to be linked — which of course hinges on conclusive proof of Weniger’s gamma ray line — both are very cool and part of the fascinating and mystery nature of our corner of the universe.

Image credit: NASA-Goddard

from:   http://news.discovery.com/space/dark-matter-and-gamma-ray-lobes-light-up-the-visible-universe-120508.html

If This is A ‘Quiet Sun”, Then What is An Active One?

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If you can get it, check out this video of solar activity: for April 24 to 26:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/browse/

(If that link does not work, go to this one from dutchsinse.com:

: Linked below is the SDO (solar dynamics observatory):

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/

Select the date of April 24, 2012 — through April 26 2012 ..  search the AIA 131 “teal” images.

oh, and scroll down there for some amazing sun shots.)

Here is one still from the video:

hmm, doe not look like a “Quiet Sun” to me

Dark Sun — April 2011

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12/1/2011 — “Dark sun” from April 2011 — hypothesis = sun was outshined (plasma over-powered) by another object

Posted on December 1, 2011

When this happened, NASA claimed it was EARTH passing in front of the Sun .. obscuring the sun from our view…

Well.. now in review… the SDO (solar dynamics observatory) from April 1st and 2nd 2011http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

The camera views through the HMI, 1700, and 1600 (and several others) clearly show .. that the Earth DID NOT PASS in front of the sun.. because we can STILL SEE through the “darkness” in several of these shots !!!  ONLY VISIBLE SPECTRUM appeared to “turn dark”.

I’d like to explain my hypothesis of what actually caused the sun to “appear to turn dark”…

IT DID NOT GO DARK — rather.. an object BRIGHTER passed by — an object that is emitting a field of plasma which is interacting with the sun in such a way as to negate the SDO sensors…

This BRIGHTER, or more powerful object de-luminated or possibly even ILLUMINATED the surface of the sun… thus revealing the true  surface of the star.. which is indeed dark black !

So we still received the light on earth from the sun.. it never physically “went dark”.. rather we must have gotten a double dose of light on that day.. because whatever the SDO picked up was shining  BRIGHTER than our sun.. or was VERY CLOSE TO IT !!!

The shots below tell  the tale.. we would NOT be able to see through the Earth obviously.. yet the HMI and other shots from the SDO do not lie !  Unless earth has become transparent!

In an ironic twist of fate.. if you go check the Magnetogram or Dopplergram from the same time.. the FEED WAS CUT for that hour !!  lol.. they update every few minutes.. then we have that whole hour “missing”… EPIC ! …. NASA = n.ever a. s.traight a.nswer

 

Apply Now to Become an Astronaut

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Nasa opens online recruitment for next wave of astronauts

16 November 11
Want to work in sunny Houston, Texas; earn upwards of $142,000 (£90,000) a year; and take the odd trip into outer space? Nasa is now seeking candidates for astronaut positions for flights to the International Space Station, trips to asteroids and journeys into deep space.

Sadly, you need to be a US citizen, and you’ll also need a bachelor’s degree in engineering, science or math and three years of professional experience. Plus, you’ll need 20/20 vision, be in tip-top medical shape, and be anywhere between 62 and 75 inches tall — to fit inside a Russian Soyuz rocket, that is.

Your odds are quite low, too. Since picking its first seven astronauts from the US military in 1959, only 330 astronauts have been picked for the intensive Astronaut Candidate training program from the thousands of applications received.

What’s in the job description of a 21st century astronaut? Successful applicants will generally work aboard the ISS in three to six month-long missions, and help Nasa’s efforts to partner up with commercial companies like SpaceX to ensure future transportation to the space station.

They’ll also help build and, eventually, fly the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), which is designed for human deep space exploration — potentially to Mars. An unmanned orbital test flight has been penciled in for an early 2014 launch.

If you fancy the job, you can apply online here. But before you do so, you might want to listen to our interview with Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, in episode 50 of the Wired.co.uk Podcast.

Nasa is also in the process of picking a near-Earth asteroid to explore, with plans to set foot on a chunk of space rock in 2025. The administration plans to send a robotic precursor mission to the asteroid approximately five years before humans arrive.

Nasa’s more ambitious plans have been hampered by economic woes, and acompromise spending plan — approved by a House and Senate conference committee this week — will cut the agency’s spending money even further. Nasa will receive $17.8 billion this fiscal year — $924 million less than the White House requested and $684 million less than it received this year.

Thankfully, a House bid to cancel Nasa’s over-budget James Webb Space Telescope — a super powerful telescope that will succeed the ageing Hubble in 2018 — has been denied, but the compromise bill has capped the program’s spending at $8 billion.

$3.8 billion will go towards the human space exploration programs that these budding astronauts are being hired for, while $406 million has been earmarked to fund commercial spaceship development at Boeing, Space X, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin.

from:    http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/16/nasa-seeks-astronaut

Was Life on Mars Driven Underground?

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Life on Mars Driven Underground?

by Richard A. Kerr on 2 November 2011, 3:12 PM

Today’s cold, dry, and likely lifeless martian surface extends back in martian history past the time when life was taking hold on Earth, according to a new study. But researchers have also found that liquid and likely warm water persisted kilometers below the surface at the same critical time for life. Not exactly Darwin’s “warm little pond” for the beginnings of biology, but it might well have served.

The key to Mars’s water history is clay. The familiar mineral forms only when liquid water has plenty of time to change the chemical structure of rock into that of clay. And the particular sort of clay that forms depends on the type of rock as well as the prevailing temperature and chemical conditions. So planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann, now at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and her colleagues considered the martian clays identified by their spectral colors as observed by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express.

In their paper published online today in Nature, Ehlmann and her colleagues report finding two sorts of clay formations going on at different times on early Mars. Clays indicative of warm, even hot, water persisting over millions of years show up where deep martian crust is exposed today, especially where large impacts have blasted into the crust. These clays formed about 3.7 billion years ago and earlier, when the earliest hints of life on Earth first appear in the geologic record. Other clays, as well as salts such as sulfates that suggest formation on or near the surface under intermittently wet conditions, are found in sediments washed into ancient lake basins, especially around 3.7 billion years and later.

The new findings probably deliver the final blow to the possibility that the surface of early Mars was a “warm and wet” incubator for any martian life. They are consistent with a history in which Mars has been almost always rather cold and dry, Ehlmann says. The later weathering of rock into salts seems to have occurred during geologically brief intervals when water flowed on the surface, she says. “The most stable, [habitable] environments may have been underground.”

The new interpretation of the spectroscopic observations tends to confirm what planetary geologists have been suggesting, says planetary geochemist Scott McLennan of Stony Brook University in New York. They have been arguing for intermittent water flows around 3.7 billion years ago because the river channels, deltas, and sedimentary fans typical of that period look as if they formed within millennia, not over millions of years.

The inference that martian clays are pointing to persistent liquid water deep beneath the ancient surface is more tentative, McLennan says. “A clay cycle on Earth is really complex,” he says. The new study, by contrast, “is a very simple view. You can’t get too elaborate when the data is so immature.” The clays that the group sees in crustal rock, for example, may have formed elsewhere and later been deposited in the crust.

Planetary scientist Ralph Milliken of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana agrees. “It’s certainly not the end of the story,” he says. “It puts forth a testable hypothesis.” And it could be seriously tested quite soon. NASA’s Curiosity rover (formerly Mars Science Laboratory) is scheduled to launch toward Mars as early as the 25th of this month, destination Gale crater.

from:  http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/life-on-mars-driven-underground.html?ref=hp

Tractor Beam Research

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NASA Studying Ways to Make ‘Tractor Beams’ a Reality

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — Tractor beams — the ability to trap and move objects using laser light — are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

Goddard laser experts (from left to right) Barry Coyle, Paul Stysley, and Demetrios Poulios have won NASA funding to study advanced technologies for collecting extraterrestrial particle samples. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Debora McCallum)  

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry Coyle at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000 to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and transporting them via laser light to an instrument — akin to a vacuum using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.

“Though a mainstay in science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, laser-based trapping isn’t fanciful or beyond current technological know-how,” Stysley said. The team has identified three different approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules, viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power of light.

“The original thought was that we could use tractor beams for cleaning up orbital debris,” Stysley said. “But to pull something that huge would be almost impossible — at least now. That’s when it bubbled up that perhaps we could use the same approach for sample collection.”

With the Phase-1 funding from OCT’s recently reestablished NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program designed to spur the development of “revolutionary” space technologies, the team will study the state of the technology to determine which of the three techniques would apply best to sample collection. OCT received hundreds of proposals, ultimately selecting only 30 for initial funding.

Replace Current Sample-Collection Methods

Currently, NASA uses a variety of techniques to collect extraterrestrial samples. With Stardust, a space probe launched in 1999, the Agency used aerogel to gather samples as it flew through the coma of comet Wild 2. A capsule returned the samples in 2006. NASA’s next rover to Mars, Curiosity, will drill and scoop samples from the Martian surface and then carry out detailed analyses of the materials with one of the rover’s many onboard instruments, including the Goddard-built Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite.

“These techniques have proven to be largely successful, but they are limited by high costs and limited range and sample rate,” Stysley said. “An optical-trapping system, on the other hand, could grab desired molecules from the upper atmosphere on an orbiting spacecraft or trap them from the ground or lower atmosphere from a lander. In other words, they could continuously and remotely capture particles over a longer period of time, which would enhance science goals and reduce mission risk.”

Team to Study Three Approaches

One experimental approach the team plans to study — the optical vortex or “optical tweezers” method — involves the use of two counter-propagating beams of light. The resulting ring-like geometry confines particles to the dark core of the overlapping beams. By alternately strengthening or weakening the intensity of one of the light beams — in effect heating the air around the trapped particle — researchers have shown in laboratory testing that they can move the particle along the ring’s center. This technique, however, requires the presence of an atmosphere.

Another technique employs optical solenoid beams — those whose intensity peaks spiral around the axis of propagation. Testing has shown that the approach can trap and exert a force that drives particles in the opposite direction of the light-beam source. In other words, the particulate matter is pulled back along the entire beam of light. Unlike the optical vortex method, this technique relies solely on electromagnetic effects and could operate in a space vacuum, making it ideal for studying the composition of materials on one of the airless planetary moons, for example.

The third technique exists only on paper and has never been demonstrated in the laboratory, Poulios said. It involves the use of a Bessel beam. Normal laser beams when shined against a wall appear as a small point. With Bessel beams, however, rings of light surround the central dot. In other words, when seen straight on, the Bessel beam looks like the ripples surrounding a pebble dropped in a pond. According to theory, the laser beam could induce electric and magnetic fields in the path of an object. The spray of light scattered forward by these fields could pull the object backward, against the movement of the beam itself.

to read more, go to:    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111103030817.htm

NASA Live Track YU55 Asteroid 11/08

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ASA in Final Preparations for Nov. 8 Asteroid Flyby
10.26.11

Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was generated from data taken in April 2010 by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico. Image credit: NASA/Cornell/Arecibo

Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55 – November 8-9, 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon’s orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on “spacecraft Earth” to scan it during the close pass.

Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time (PDT) on Nov. 4, using the massive 70-meter (230-foot) Deep Space Network antenna, and last for about two hours. The asteroid will continue to be tracked by Goldstone for at least four hours each day from Nov. 6 through Nov. 10. Radar observations from the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico will begin on Nov. 8, the same day the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 3:28 p.m. PST.

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on anything here on Earth, including our planet’s tides or tectonic plates. Although 2005 YU55 is in an orbit that regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth (and Venus and Mars), the 2011 encounter with Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at least the last 200 years.

During tracking, scientists will use the Goldstone and Arecibo antennas to bounce radio waves off the space rock. Radar echoes returned from 2005 YU55 will be collected and analyzed. NASA scientists hope to obtain images of the asteroid from Goldstone as fine as about 7 feet (2 meters) per pixel. This should reveal a wealth of detail about the asteroid’s surface features, shape, dimensions and other physical properties (see “Radar Love” –http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-00a).

Arecibo radar observations of asteroid 2005 YU55 made in 2010 show it to be approximately spherical in shape. It is slowly spinning, with a rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid’s surface is darker than charcoal at optical wavelengths. Amateur astronomers who want to get a glimpse at YU55 will need a telescope with an aperture of 6 inches (15 centimeters) or larger.

The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called “Spaceguard,” discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.

More information about asteroid radar research is at: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

More information about the Deep Space Network is at: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn .

from:    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/yu55-20111025.html

“Observe the Moon” Night 10/08

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‘Observe the Moon Night’ to Light Up Skywatchers on Saturday

by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 07 October 2011 Time: 02:54 PM ET
A setting, waning crescent moon amid the thin line of Earth's atmosphere.
A setting, waning crescent moon amid the thin line of Earth’s atmosphere.
CREDIT: NASA

This weekend, the nearly full moon will to take center stage Saturday night for skywatchers around the world.

Amateur astronomers and casual stargazers are gearing up for the second annual International Observe the Moon Night on Saturday (Oct. 8), in what promises to be a fun and stimulating public event, organizers say.

NASA and lunar enthusiasts the world over are set to celebrate Earth’s natural satellite tomorrow in a worldwide event designed to engage people in lunar science and education. Space enthusiasts and the general public are invited to gather together, look up, and learn more about the enchanting moon

nternational Observe the Moon Night got its start after two earlier NASA celebrations that aimed to spark interest and enthusiasm about Earth’s nearest neighbor in the sky.

The full moon is expected to peak on Oct. 12, but it will be the smallest and most distant full moon of the year. This year’s International Observe the Moon Night also coincides with the peak of the Draconid meteor shower, which is expected to deliver hundreds of “shooting stars” per hour. But, the meteor shower’s peak could be largely invisible to skywatchers, since it occurs during daylight hours in NorthAmerica, and elsewhere, the nearly full moon will likely outshine the pretty light show.

Several NASA centers, such as the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will host public events tomorrow night.

The event organizers include scientists, educators and moon buffs from government, non-profit organizations and businesses across the U.S. and the world.

“We believe in the inspirational power of the moon — a celestial body that has influenced human lives since the dawn of time,” the event’s website reads. “Through International Observe the Moon Night, we hope [to] instill in the public a sense of wonderment and curiosity about our moon.”

Last year, there were 278 moon-watching events in more than 40 countries, including China, Germany and Egypt.

NASA has one spacecraft circling the moon, a pair of small spacecraft that recently entered into the moon’s orbit, and a pair of twin probes that are expected to arrive at the moon by New Year’s Day.

The unmanned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the moon since June 2009. The car-size spacecraft recently snapped images of three Apollo landing sites that revealed new details about the regions on the moon that were visited by humans. The $504 million probe is currently on an extended mission through at least September 2012.

The two small Artemis probes, which stand for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun, began their lunar orbit journey over a year and a half ago. This summer, both probes entered into lunar orbit, where they will study the moon’s interior and surface composition.

Last month, NASA successfully launched two identical spacecraft on a mission to unlock mysteries of the moon that are hidden beneath its surface. The $496 million Grail mission (short for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) will closely study the interior of the moon, from crust to core, and will map the moon’s gravitational field in unprecedented detail.

for more, go to:    http://www.space.com/13224-international-observe-moon-night-2011.html