Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

10 Satellites Launched in Record Setting Mission for India (Video)

India’s space agency sent a record 10 satellites into Earth orbit with a single launch early Monday. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket ejected all the satellites within minutes of each other after liftoff from the Sriharikota space station in southern India. Initial signals indicated all the satellites were working normally. India is seeking to compete with other space-faring nations for commercial launch services, and this mission’s success demonstrates India’s ability to launch multiple payloads into precise orbit. The flight breaks the previous record of eight satellites launched at once by a Russian rocket, according to Indian news reports.


It was the 13th flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which has “repeatedly proved itself as a reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle,” said Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO.) Later this year India will launch its own a lunar mission, Chandrayaan which will orbit the moon to create chemical and topographical maps.

The satellites included a 690-kilogram (1,518-pound) remote-sensing satellite, Cartosat-2A, an 83-kilogram mini-satellite and a cluster of eight so-called nano-satellites, each weighing between three kilograms and 16 kilograms. The two larger satellites were built by the ISRO, but the nano-satellites were built by research institutions from Europe, Canada and Japan.

“[India] wants to market its launch systems and also its capability in earth imagery,” said Ajay Lele, a space expert at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. “The mission is very significant from a commercial point of view.”

“The mission was perfect,” said ISRO chairman G. Madhavan after the launch was telecast live.

“It is a historic moment for us because it is the first time that we have launched 10 satellites in a single mission,” he added.

Cartosat-2A, the main satellite launched Monday to an altitude of 630 kilometres (391 miles) above earth, also has a domestic economic dimension and can be used for intelligence gathering as well, officials say.

Here’s a YouTube Video from an Indian television station (in English) with more information about the launch.

Last year, India launched an Italian spacecraft into orbit, and in January 2008, it launched an Israeli spy satellite.

For more information about India’s space agency: ISRO.

Original News Source: AFP

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

New Hubble Images Reveal Plethora of Interacting Galaxies

59 new images from the Hubble Space Telescope show some very unusual but incredibly spectacular colliding galaxies. Colliding or interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, and sometimes these collisions trigger bursts of star formation, or the mergers form new galaxies. The image above shows the aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in a ring-shaped galaxy and a long-tailed companion. Officially called Arp 148, it also has the nickname ‘Mayall’s object.’ It is located in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, approximately 500 million light-years away. These images are the largest collection from Hubble ever published simultaneously, and they celebrate the 18th anniversary of Hubble’s launch. And there’s more….


This is a stunning snapshot of a celestial dance performed by a pair of similar sized galaxies. ESO 77-14 is in the constellation of Indus, the Indian, some 550 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy on the right has a long, bluish arm while its companion has a shorter, redder arm.

The Hubble Site has a video about colliding galaxies.

For the entire collection of these images see the Hubble site.

Original News Source: ESA press release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Opportunity’s Robotic Arm Stalls

NASA engineers say Opportunity’s robotic arm, which has been intermittently problematic since 2005, has worsened recently. A small motor in the shoulder joint of the Mars Exploration Rover’s arm stalled on April 14, and engineers are diagnosing the problem and assessing whether the motor can possibly be used again. They are also trying to determine the impact on Opportunity’s work if the motor were no longer usable.

The motor is one of five in the robotic arm and it controls sideways motion of the shoulder joint. The stall last week occurred after being used briefly, and after much less motion than earlier stalls. Engineers believe the problem is electrical rather than mechanical, and additional tests are being performed to determine whether the is trouble is intermittent or a permanent failure.

The arm is used to place a microscopic imager and spectrometer in contact with rocks and soils to study their composition and texture.

“Even under the worst-case scenario for this motor, Opportunity still has the capability to do some contact science with the arm,” said JPL’s John Callas, project manager for the twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit. “The vehicle has quite a bit of versatility to continue the high-priority investigations in Victoria Crater and back out on the Meridiani plains after exiting the crater.”

The two Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, have been studying the Red Planet since January 2004, and each have shown some signs of aging.

When Opportunity’s shoulder motor began stalling occasionally in November 2005, engineers increased the voltage to the motor, and that allowed the motor to still be operational. Additionally, the engineering changed the standard procedure by unstowing the arm at the end of each day’s drive rather than leaving it stowed overnight. This keeps the arm available for use even if the motor then stops working.

This spring, Opportunity began crossing an inner slope of Victoria Crater to reach the base of a cliff portion of the crater rim, a promontory called “Cape Verde.” On April 14, Opportunity was backing out of a sandy patch encountered on the path toward Cape Verde from the area where the rover descended into the crater. As usual, the commands included unstowing the arm at the end of the day’s short drive. The shoulder motor barely got the arm unstowed before stalling.

“We’ll hold off backing out of the sand until after we’ve completed the diagnostic tests on the motor,” Callas said. “The rover is stable and safe in its current situation, and not under any urgency. So we will take the time to act cautiously.”

Original News Source: JPL Press Release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

This Week’s “Where In The World (and What World) Is This?”

Everyone seemed to enjoy the “Where In The World (and What World) Is This?” post last week, so here’s another one for you. This interesting feature was taken by an orbiting spacecraft on May 31, 2006. This striking circular landform could possibly be an impact crater, or a volcanic rim, or another physical feature that is so large, it can only be seen as a whole from the lofty vantage point that a spacecraft in orbit provides. Is this feature on Earth, or is it located on one of the other 176 worlds in our solar system (that’s 7 other planets and 169 known moons)? And what spacecraft is responsible for this image?

Since it’s so close to Earth Day, I had to choose an image from Earth. But what in the world is this a picture of? This is Nukuoro Atoll, a circular island of coral that completely encircles a lagoon. Nukuoro Atoll is part of the Caroline Islands, which stretch northeast of Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific. It is one of 607 islands that make up the Federated States of Micronesia. It is located just north of the equator (3.85° North, 154.9° East). This image reinforces that we live on a wonderfully diverse and endlessly fascinating planet.

Nukuoro Atoll is almost a little world by itself. About 900 people live on Nukuoro, but is very remote. It has no airstrip, and a passenger boat comes to visit irregularly only once a month. The tiny population speaks its own unique language.

The lagoon is 6 kilometers (about 3.7 miles) in diameter. Fishing, animal husbandry, and agriculture are the main occupations. The atoll is mostly sandy, but the dark areas are green vegetation.

In the close-up image, structures are visible. The white dots found in the lagoon are coral heads. The most prominent one is almost directly in the middle of the lagoon.

The picture was taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station as part of the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. They used a Kodak 760C digital camera with an 800 mm lens.

Original News Source: Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders Reflects on Earthrise Picture

Earthrise Apollo 8. Image Credit: Bill Anders, NASA

In December of 1968, the Apollo 8 capsule had successfully gone into orbit around the moon and the crew was busy taking pictures of the lunar surface. On the fourth orbit, as the Apollo spacecraft was coming around from behind the Moon, the crew saw a breathtaking sight: the Earth rising over the stark lunar horizon. Lunar module pilot Bill Anders looked up up and called out, “Wow! Look at that!”  Commander Frank Borman had a camera with black and white film, and he actually took the first picture of Earth rising over the moon. But Bill Anders managed to get some color film in his camera, and he took the color photo that’s become an icon, known simply as “Earthrise.”


On Earth Day, Bill Anders reflected on the famous picture that’s become one of the most frequently used images ever. Anders said even though it wasn’t in the original flight plan to take pictures of Earth, it didn’t take much time for him to realize how striking this view of the Earth was, and quickly snapped the celebrated image.

“I instantly thought it was ironic; we had come all this way to study the moon, and yet it was this view of the Earth that was one of the most important events for Apollo,” said Anders in an interview on NASA TV.

“There are basically two messages that came to me,” Anders said of the picture. “One of them is that the planet is quite fragile. It reminded me of a Christmas tree ornament. But the other message to me, and I don’t think this one has really sunk in yet, is that the Earth is really small. We’re not the center of the universe; we’re way out in left field on a tiny dust mote, but it is our home and we need to take care of it.”

Anders said it didn’t take long after the crew had returned home for this photograph to become iconic for the environmental movement.

“Back in the 60’s, it gave us a sense that the world was a place we all shared together,” Anders said. “We couldn’t see any boundaries from space.”

In addition to the important pictures of Earth, the Apollo 8 crew also photographed many smaller lunar features, that were previously undiscovered. Those features are located principally on the farside of the Moon in areas that had been photographed only at much greater distances by early robotic spacecraft. The Apollo 8 mission yielded more than 150 photographs of the Earth and more than 700 photographs of the Moon.

Original News Source: NASA TV

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

It’s That Time of the Month for the Moon

Moon in Earths Magnetic tail. Image Credit: Science @ NASA

It happens every month and specifically every time the moon is full. According to scientists, for about three days on both sides of a full moon, the lunar surface could transform from a tranquil, inert landscape to an electrically charged, potentially dangerous environment. During this time, the moon ploughs through Earth’s magnetic “tail” — an extension of Earth’s magnetic field. Out in space, the solar wind stretches out the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet, creating a long “magnetotail” in the downwind direction. When the moon comes in contact with this field, it could cause lunar dust storms and discharges of static electricity. Future lunar explorers might possibly have to take extra precautions during that time of the month.

“Earth’s magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it,” said scientist Tim Stubbs from the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This can have consequences ranging from lunar ‘dust storms’ to electrostatic discharges.”

When the moon crosses this magnetotail, it comes in contact with a gigantic “plasma sheet” of hot charged particles trapped in the tail. The lightest and most mobile of these particles, electrons, pepper the Moon’s surface and give the Moon a negative charge.

Scientists say that on the Moon’s dayside this effect is neutralized somewhat by sunlight. The ultraviolet photons knock electrons back off the surface, keeping the build-up of charge at relatively low levels. But on the nightside of the Moon, where it’s cold and dark, electrons accumulate and voltages can climb to hundreds or thousands of volts.

Stubbs said that astronauts walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain may find themselves crackling with electricity like “a sock pulled out of a hot dryer.” Touching another astronaut, a doorknob, a piece of sensitive electronics—any of these simple actions could produce an unwelcome zap. “Proper grounding is strongly recommended,” Stubbs said.

Moon dust could become charged enough to actually lift from the surface. There’s evidence from the Surveyor 7 lunar lander that when sufficiently charged-up, lunar dust particles could actually float above the lunar surface. This dust could cause problems as it clings to spacesuits, clogs machinery, scratches helmet faceplates (moondust is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts.

Much of this is pure speculation, however, Stubbs said, as no one has been on the moon during this time. “Apollo astronauts never landed on a full Moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.”

The best direct evidence of this event comes from NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which orbited the Moon in 1998-99 and monitored many magnetotail crossings. During some crossings, the spacecraft sensed big changes in the lunar nightside voltage, jumping from -200 V to -1000 V, according to Jasper Halekas of UC Berkeley who has been studying the data.

Scientists also say this phenomenon would be worse during a solar storm.

More research will have to be done regarding this monthly cycle and how it might affect those living on the moon in the future.

Original News Source: Science @ NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

The Debate Continues: Water or Land Landings for Orion

The development of Constellation is continuing, the U.S. program that will replace the shuttle and send astronauts back to the moon. Two unresolved issues have stood out specifically for the Orion crew vehicle: Orion is currently too heavy for the Ares vehicle to launch it from Earth, and the decision on whether Orion will land in water or on land has yet to be determined. Originally, land landings were the preferred choice, but last December, it appeared program managers were leaning towards returning to the water landings seen during the Apollo era. But recently NASASpaceflight.com reported on a possible solution for the weight problem that could potentially provide an improved capacity for landing on land as well.

Needing to save mass on Orion to make it lighter prompted engineers to re-design the airbags that would be part of the vehicle to as a “contingency Land Landing requirement,” according to the article on NASASpaceflight.com. The new airbag system uses a smaller number of airbags than the original concept. As a result, the new airbag system is lighter. Engineers believe the new “back-up” system could possibly work well enough to be the primary system and allow land landings to be what NASA calls “nominal,” or the primary, preferred means of landing.

The upside of landing on land is that there’s a better chance of being able to reuse the command module, as opposed to landing in the ocean. Additionally, there’s some who believe returning to water landings is a step backwards for human spaceflight.

The airbags in the proposed new design are deployed out of the lower conical backshell on the Orion vehicle. Just before landing , the airbags would inflate and wrap around the low hanging corner of the heat shield. Upon landing, the airbags are vented at a specific pressure so that they collapse at a controlled rate to ease off the energy load of the spacecraft.

Although this new system has yet to undergo detailed analysis, initial results are viewed as promising on the ability to reduce crew loads to an acceptable level.

NASASpaceflight.com reported that another notable challenge for the Orion vehicle relates to maintaining the spacecraft’s orientation to minimize chance of tumbling during descent. A Reaction Control System (RCS) is being developed, which supposedly is preferred by engineers over retro rockets.

NASA did report last week the successful first full-scale rocket motor test for Orion’s launch abort system. This system would separate the crew module from Ares if an emergency occurred during launch.

Original News Source: NASASpaceflight.com

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

The Odds of Intelligent Life in the Universe

Tropical Saturn. Image credit: Columbia University

When it comes to contemplating the state of our universe, the question likely most prevalent on people’s minds is, “Is anyone else like us out there?” The famous Drake Equation, even when worked out with fairly moderate numbers, seemingly suggests the probable amount of intelligent, communicating civilizations could be quite numerous. But a new paper published by a scientist from the University of East Anglia suggests the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve combined with the remaining life span of Earth.

Professor Andrew Watson says that structurally complex and intelligent life evolved relatively late on Earth, and in looking at the probability of the difficult and critical evolutionary steps that occurred in relation to the life span of Earth, provides an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life.

According to Watson, a limit to evolution is the habitability of Earth, and any other Earth-like planets, which will end as the sun brightens. Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be “only” about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.

“The Earth’s biosphere is now in its old age and this has implications for our understanding of the likelihood of complex life and intelligence arising on any given planet,” said Watson.

Some scientists believe the extreme age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggests that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common. Watson, however, believes the age of the universe is working against the odds.

“At present, Earth is the only example we have of a planet with life,” he said. “If we learned the planet would be habitable for a set period and that we had evolved early in this period, then even with a sample of one, we’d suspect that evolution from simple to complex and intelligent life was quite likely to occur. By contrast, we now believe that we evolved late in the habitable period, and this suggests that our evolution is rather unlikely. In fact, the timing of events is consistent with it being very rare indeed.”

Watson, it seems, takes the Fermi Paradox to heart in his considerations. The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

Watson suggests the number of evolutionary steps needed to create intelligent life, in the case of humans, is four. These include the emergence of single-celled bacteria, complex cells, specialized cells allowing complex life forms, and intelligent life with an established language.

“Complex life is separated from the simplest life forms by several very unlikely steps and therefore will be much less common. Intelligence is one step further, so it is much less common still,” said Prof Watson.

Watson’s model suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low — less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.

Each step is independent of the other and can only take place after the previous steps in the sequence have occurred. They tend to be evenly spaced through Earth’s history and this is consistent with some of the major transitions identified in the evolution of life on Earth.

Here is more about the Drake Equation.

Here is more information about the Fermi Paradox.

Original News Source: University of East Anglia Press Release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Stellar Birth in the Galactic Wilderness

This just in from the pretty pictures department at NASA. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) shows young stars sprouting up in a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy’s bustling center. This striking image is a composite of ultraviolet data from GALEX and radio data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico, and shows the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, also known simply as M83. “It is absolutely stunning that we find such an enormous number of young stars up to 140,000 light-years away from the center of M83,” said Frank Bigiel, lead investigator of the new Galaxy Evolution Explorer observations. For comparison, the diameter of M83 is only 40,000 light-years across.

M83 is located 15 million light-years away in the southern constellation Hydra. The ultraviolet image was taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer between March 15 and May 20, 2007.

In this view, the main spiral, or stellar, disk of M83 looks like a pink and blue pinwheel, while its outer arms appear to flap away from the galaxy like giant red streamers. It is within these so-called extended galaxy arms that, to the surprise of astronomers, new stars are forming.

This side-by-side comparison shows the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, or M83, as seen in ultraviolet light (right) and at both ultraviolet and radio wavelengths (left). While the radio data highlight the galaxy’s long, octopus-like arms stretching far beyond its main spiral disk (red), the ultraviolet data reveal clusters of baby stars (blue) within the extended arms.

Astronomers speculate that the young stars seen far out in M83 could have formed under conditions resembling those of the early universe, a time when space was not yet enriched with dust and heavier elements.

“Even with today’s most powerful telescopes, it is extremely difficult to study the first generation of star formation. These new observations provide a unique opportunity to study how early generation stars might have formed,” said co-investigator Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena.

Original News Source: NASA GALEX press release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Mars Express: Looking Beneath Mars’ Surface

MARSIS
MARSIS fully deployed orbiting Mars. Image credit: ESA

To truly know and understand another world, planetary scientists need to look beneath the surface of that planet. This has been done on a small scale by looking inside impact craters, a la Opportunity and Spirit on Mars. But that only provides information for one area on a big planet. To get the global picture of the subsurface, a radar sounder instrument was developed for ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) experiment has now been successfully used for the first time to look beneath Mars’ south polar ice cap, opening up the third dimension for planetary exploration. “We have demonstrated that the polar caps at Mars are mostly water ice, and produced an inventory so now we know exactly how much water there is,” says Roberto Orosei, MARSIS Deputy Principal Investigator.

The data from MARSIS’ probe of the ice cap is still being analyzed, but scientists say they expect some surprising results to be revealed.

MARSIS is built to map the distribution of liquid and solid water in the upper portions of the Martian crust, and can investigate Mars’ subsurface up to a depth of 5 km. If reservoirs of water are detected, it will help us understand the hydrological, geological, climatic and possibly biological evolution of Mars. “At the south pole of Mars, we are seeing through ice 3.7 km thick. A small calculation shows that we could see through ice down to 20 km or more thick at Mars,” says Ali Safaeinili, MARSIS co-investigator.

No one had ever used a radar sounder from orbit on another planet before. So the team was uncertain it would work as planned. The subsurface of the planet might have been too opaque to the radar waves or the upper levels of Mars’ atmosphere (ionosphere) might have distorted the signal too much to be useful.

But, the instrument worked perfectly.

Every time a radar wave crosses a boundary between different substances, it generates an echo that the orbiter detects.

See ESA’s 3-D simulation of the radar instrument.

While MARSIS is still collecting data, a follow-up instrument is already operating at Mars. The Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARAD) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter works at higher frequencies than MARSIS and can see more details in the signals it receives from the underground layers, but it can’t penetrate the surface quite as far.

The technique’s success is prompting scientists to think of all the other places in the Solar System where they would like to use radar sounders. One obvious target is Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. There, a radar sounder could probe the moon’s icy crust to help understand the puzzling features we see on the surface. It may even see the interface at the bottom of the ice where an ocean is expected to begin.

Asteroids and comets could be thoroughly scanned by a radar sounder, producing three-dimensional maps of their interior– perhaps exactly the data we will need if, one day, we have to nudge one out of Earth’s way. Also, this type of radar instrument could be used on our own planet to look inside Earth’s polar caps and ice sheets to determine their stability.

Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet since December 2003. It carries seven scientific experiments, including MARSIS, which was built by the Italian Space Agency with cooperation from JPL and the University of Iowa.

Original News Source: ESA press release