Aerial view of Nördlinger Ries crater in Germany, a formation so subtle it was not even known as an impact crater until the 1960s. Credit: Credit: Jesse Allen/NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS/ASTER
Could life thrive in the devastated rock left behind after a meteorite impact? A new study hints that possibly, that could be the case. Researchers discovered what they think are geological records of biological activity inside of Nördlinger Ries, a crater in Germany that is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) wide.
What the researchers say could be microbial trace fossils — specifically, tiny “tubular features” — were spotted inside the impact glass created after the meteorite impact melted the surrounding rock. These features are tiny — one-millionth to three-millionths of a meter in diameter — and were examined with spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy to confirm the findings, the team stated.
“The simplest and most consistent explanation of the data is that biological activity played a role in the formation of the tubular textures in the Ries glasses, likely during post-impact hydrothermal activity,” stated post-doctoral fellow Haley Sapers, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Western Ontario who led the research.
The researchers suggest that on other planets, looking in impact glass might be a good spot to search for tubular features such as the ones they found. The findings are peer-reviewed, but we’ll be interested to see what independent research teams make of the data collected.
The Zambezi River in Namibia floods the Caprivi plain in this picture captured from Sentinel-1A. The satellite was not only noted for its high resolution of the flood, but its ability to send the image quickly -- it was downloaded only two hours after it was acquired. Credit: European Space Agency
After dodging space debris and living to tell the tale, Sentinel-1A is now being put through its paces for its primary mission: to beam back pictures of the Earth as quickly as possible, to provide officials with the information they need during natural disasters or weather events.
The picture above gives a taste of what the European satellite will do when it’s fully commissioned. The picture of flooding in Namibia was downloaded only two hours after acquisition and then made available generally less than an hour after that, the European Space Agency said. Not only that, believe it or not — the view was socked in by cloud when the image was taken.
“Sentinel-1A’s ability to ‘see’ through cloud and rain and in pitch darkness make it particularly useful for monitoring floods and for offering images for emergency response,” the European Space Agency stated. “In fact, this area of the Caprivi plain was shrouded in thick cloud when the satellite acquired the image on 13 April.”
The satellite can also monitor long-term but serious weather events such as climate change, as the picture below of Pine Island Glacier shows.
The northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula as seen from Sentinel-1 on April 13, 2014. Credit: ESA
“As well as monitoring glaciers, Sentinel-1A is poised to generate timely maps of sea-ice conditions, particularly for the increasingly busy Arctic waters,” ESA stated. “Images from its advanced radar can be used to distinguish clearly between the thinner more navigable first-year ice and the hazardous, much thicker multiyear ice to help assure safe year-round navigation in polar waters.”
"Back on ISS, life is good," wrote NASA astronaut Steve Swanson on April 7, 2014 in the first Instagram from space. Swanson is wearing a T-shirt from the TV space show 'Firefly' that says "Shipping & Logistics: Everything's Shiny" around a smaller circle reading "Serenity: Est. 2459." Credit: NASA/Instagram
And now, time for some thrilling heroics. NASA astronaut Steve Swanson sent out the first Instagram from space last week wearing none other than a Firefly T-shirt. There’s something to be said about a space-faring guy evoking images of Captain Mal doing the impossible in the plucky Serenity spaceship, isn’t there?
We’re happy the epicness did not break NASA’s Instagram feed, as Swanson has been sending out pictures regularly since then showing the view from orbit (he joked about wanting a vacation at one point) as well as another selfie. You can check out the magic below, and follow the rest on NASA’s Instagram feed. We’ve copied and pasted Swanson’s captions below each image.
During Swanson’s first mission to space in 2007, STS-117, he brought with him the DVD set of Firefly and its movie spinoff, Serenity, and left it on the International Space Station library, according to collectSPACE.
Oh, and social media from space is also being covered on Twitter, via Expedition 39 NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
“The Turks and Caicos islands – I think I need to go there after this mission.” – Swanny #exp39 #earth #iss #international #space #station #nasa #vacation #earthrightnow
“Blood, sweat, but hopefully no tears.” – Swanny #nasa #iss #exp39 #international #space #station #blood #sweat #tears #medical
“Cape Canaveral – looking forward to when the US launches out of here again.” – Swanny #iss #exp39 #earth #florida #capecanaveral #international #space #station #launch #atlantic #coast #nasa
Rosetta's solar panels as seen by Philae's CIVA imaging system on April 14, 2014. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Philae is awake… and taking pictures! This image, acquired last night with the lander’s CIVA (Comet nucleus Infrared and Visible Analyzer) instrument, shows the left and right solar panels of ESA’s well-traveled Rosetta spacecraft, upon which the 100-kilogram Philae is mounted.
Philae successfully emerged from hibernation on March 28 via a wake-up call from ESA.
After over a decade of traveling across the inner Solar System, Rosetta and Philae are now in the home stretch of their ultimate mission: to orbit and achieve a soft landing on comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will be the first time either feat has ever been attempted by a spacecraft. Read more here.
Did the Moon appear a little on crimson side to you last night? It’s not your imagination, but it was a fine textbook example of a total lunar eclipse. This was the first total lunar eclipse visible from the Earth since late 2011, and the first of four visible from the Americas over the next 18 months.
And although much of the U.S. and Canadian eastern seaboard was under cloud cover, those west of the Mississippi River were treated to a fine show. We were the lucky exception here at Astroguyz HQ just north of Tampa Bay in Florida, as the storm front held off juuusst long enough to witness the eclipse in its entirety.
We will admit, though, that there were some tense moments. A wave of thick clouds threatened to end our session altogether just moments before the onset of totality before finally abating. We shot stills, streamed video, made observations, and heck, just stepped back once in a while to stare at the ruby-tinged beauty that was totality.
And judging from the flurry of web traffic, the odd late Monday night/ early Tuesday morning timing for this eclipse did little to stem folks interest. We noted to Virtual Star Party co-host that the excitement was reminiscent to the early morning landing of Curiosity on the Red Planet.
Anyhow, here’s just a sampling of some of the great pics currently pouring in to Universe Today:
An eclipsed Moon+Spica. Credit: Henry Weiland of Honolulu, Hawaii
Visually, we’d place this morning’s eclipse between a Danjon value of 3 and 4, with a bright yellowish rim contrasting with a dark, coppery core near the center of the umbra. One astute viewer noted during the webcast that the eclipsed Moon took on a decidedly 3-D appearance, versus its usual flat look when nearing Full.
The eclipsed Moon, Mars and Spica. Credit: @Astrocolors
And speaking of Mars, we fielded lots of “what are those bright stars nearby?” questions as well. The bright blue-white star Spica and the planet Mars “photobombed” many eclipse images. Spica just missed being occulted by the Moon during the eclipse by less than two degrees, And Mars just passed opposition this week and was at its closest approach to the Earth for 2014 on the night of the eclipse.
Approaching totality as seen from Jacksonville, Florida. Credit: Richard Hay @WinObs.
As totality approached, shutter-speeds became longer as the red edge of the Moon became apparent. It always amazes me to think that the Earth casts that long red shadow back into the void of space every night, but its only during a lunar eclipse that you actually get to see it. We’re always told that the Earth is round, but during a lunar eclipse is one of the only times that you can really witness this curve, up close and personal.
A gathering of red objects, both celestial and terrestrial. Credit: AstroVal1, New York City.
This eclipse was placed reasonably high in the sky for Northern hemisphere viewers, though that also meant a lack of pics with foreground, except of course for creative shots like the one above. And with the explosion of digital imaging technology, its amazing what folks are doing to image eclipses, even using mobile phones:
We’ve come a long way since the days of film and doing back of the envelope calculations for afocal SLR photography of the Moon, that’s for sure. Unlike solar totality, lunar eclipses are a long at stately affair. In fact, totality during this eclipse lasted for one hour and 18 minutes, about 29 minutes short of the theoretical maximum. This morning’s eclipse won’t be topped in length until 2018.
A brick red Moon in eclipse. Credit: Rob Sparks.
This also marked our first attempts at adventures in live-streaming an eclipse both on UStream and G+, which was a blast. Thanks to co-hosts and saros chasers Scott Lewis, Fraser Cain, Thad Szabo and Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) for making the broadcast a success!
As of yet, there’s no images of the eclipse from space-based assets, though some may surface. Universe Today’s Elizabeth Howell noted that NASA engineers took precautions to protect the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter during the event: an extended lack of sunlight is a bad thing for solar-powered spacecraft. As of yet, there’s no word as to how the LADEE spacecraft also in orbit around the Moon fared, though its due to complete its mission and crash into the Moon this month.
The eclipsed Moon and Spica. Photo by Author.
And like the “Blue,” “Super” and “Mini” Moon, the Blood Moon meme is now — for better or worse — here to stay. We’ve already fielded multiple queries for media sources asking if the current tetrad of eclipses has any special significance, and the answer is no; I would still file your taxes on this April the 15th. Eclipses happen, as do wars, earthquakes and lost car keys… each and every year.
Approaching totality. Credit: John O’Connor, Fort Pierce, Florida.
Want more? There’s no word yet as to if anyone caught any of the more bizarre challenges during this eclipse, such as completing a triple saros exeligmos, catching an ISS transit, spotting a selenelion or catching a stellar occultation during the eclipse. If you did any of the above, let us know!
And finally, the biggest post-eclipse question on everyone’s mind is always: when’s the next one? Well, Australians only have to wait two weeks until a partial solar eclipse graces their continent on April 29th… and the next total lunar eclipse once again favors North America and the Pacific region on October 8th, 2014.
T’was a great kickoff this morning of eclipse season 1 of 2 for 2014!
Two 3-D replicas of a glove worn by European Space Agency astronaut Hans Schlegel. The one on right is lifesize and the other at one-tenth scale. The models were created "using fused deposition modelling of thermoplastic", ESA stated, at a mechanical workshop at the Netherlands' European Space Research and Technology Centre. Credit: ESA-Anneke Le Floc'h
Star Trek replicators, here we come. The European Space Agency has released a list of how 3-D printing could change space exploration forever. And lest you think this type of printing is far in the future, images like those disembodied hands above show you it’s come a long way. Those are 3-D replicas of a glove worn by European Space Agency astronaut Hans Schlegal.
The applications range from the small — making lighter valves, for example — to ambitious projects such as constructing a moon base. Below are some ESA images showing uses for 3-D printing, and if they’ve missed some, be sure to let us know in the comments.
Two valves — which is the 3-D printed one? It’s the one on the right. The original (left) is a water on-off valve (Woov) flown on the European Space Agency’s Columbus module on the International Space Station. The replica is 40 percent less massive. Credit: ESAArtist’s conception of a lunar dome based on 3-D printing. Credit: ESA/Foster + PartnersA 3-D printed showerhead injector that apparently saves on time in the normal manufacturing process: usually it takes “more than 100 separate welds to produce”, according to the European Space Agency. The holes, however, are made by secondary processing. Credit: ESAA closeup of a titanium lattice ball made using a 3-D printer. According to the European Space Agency, the hollow spheres have a “complex external geometry” that cannot be made with the usual manufacturing processes. Credit: ESA
An illustration showing how a sailboat mission to Titan might land and become operational. Copyright: Estevan Guzman for Universe Today.
The large moons orbiting the gas giants in our solar system have been getting increasing attention in recent years. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only natural satellite known to house a thick atmosphere. It’s surface, revealed in part by the Cassini probe, is sculpted by lakes and rivers. There is interest in exploring Titan further, but this is tricky from orbit because seeing through the thick atmosphere is difficult. Flying on Titan has been discussed around the web (sometimes glibly), and this was even one of the subjects treated by the immensely popular comic, XKCD.
However, there remains the problem of powering propulsion. The power requirements for flight are quite minimal on Titan, so solar wings might work. But Titan also presents an alternative: sailing.
Images from the Cassini mission show river networks draining into lakes in Titans north polar region. Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS.
With all those lakes and rivers, exploring Titan with a surface ship might be a great way to see much of the moon. The vehicle wouldn’t be sailing on water, though. The lakes on Titan are composed of liquid methane. The challenge is therefore making the vessel buoyant: liquid methane is only 45% as dense as liquid water. This means we would need a lot of displacement. A deep, hollow hull could do this, however, and it turns out that the liquid methane has an advantage that helps make up for the low density: it is much less viscous than water.
Reynolds number is proportional to the ratio of density to viscosity, and it turns out that friction drag on a hull is inversely proportional to Re. While Titan’s seas and lakes have only 45% the density of water, they also have only 8% of the viscosity. This means that the Titan sailing vessel would only experience about 26% of the friction drag as its Earth equivalent. [Yacht designers have found that the friction drag is about equal to 0.075/(log(Re)-2)^2)]. That leaves us room to make the hull deeper (important to compensate for the density as above), and longer (if we want a longer waterline, which will make the bow waves longer and improve maximum speed).
The sail itself would get less wind, on average, on Titan than Earth. Average wind speeds on Titan seem to be about 3 meters/s, according to Cassini, though it might be higher over the lakes. Average wind speed over Earth oceans is closer to 6.6 meters/s. But, the Titan atmosphere is also about 4x denser than Earth’s, and both lift and drag are proportional to fluid density. All told, this means that the total fluid force on the sail will be about 83% of what you’d get on Earth, all else being equal, which could be sufficient. There would be a premium on sail efficiency and size, and so we might have to take advantage of the low-friction hull to examine shapes with more stability that can house a larger, taller (and presumably high aspect ratio) sail.
This is all quite speculative, of course, but it provides a fun exercise and perhaps provides inspiration as we imagine tall-sailed robotic vessels silently cruising the lakes of Titan.
But with all the recent discoveries on Titan by the Cassini spacecraft — things like lakes, seas, rivers and weather and climate patterns that create both fog and rain — a mission like this will be given more consideration in the future.
While people across North America marvelled at the blood-red moon early this morning, some NASA engineers had a different topic on their minds: making sure the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter would survive the period of extended shadow during the eclipse.
LRO uses solar panels to get energy for its batteries, so for two passes through the Earth’s shadow it would not be able to get any sunlight at all. Tweets on the official account show all as well in the first few hours after the eclipse.
“The spacecraft will be going straight from the moon’s shadow to the Earth’s shadow while it orbits during the eclipse,” stated Noah Petro, LRO’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a release before the eclipse occurred.
“We’re taking precautions to make sure everything is fine,” Petro added. “We’re turning off the instruments and will monitor the spacecraft every few hours when it’s visible from Earth.”
LRO’s Twitter account asked “Who turned off the heat and lights?” during the eclipse, then reported a happy acquisition of signal after the shadow passed by. “AOS, and sunlight, sweet sunlight! My batteries are charging again before I make another trip to the lunar far side.”
Hear more about LRO’s eclipse journey in the video below. For more information, check out NASA’s LRO website. UPDATE, 10:28 a.m. EDT: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft also is fine after the eclipse, according to its Twitter account.
A 750-mile (1,200-km) -long feature spotted on Saturn's A ring by Cassini on April 15, 2013
Congratulations! It’s a baby… moon? A bright clump spotted orbiting Saturn at the outermost edge of its A ring may be a brand new moon in the process of being born, according to research recently published in the journal Icarus.
“We have not seen anything like this before,” said Carl Murray of Queen Mary University in London, lead author of the paper. “We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right.”
In images acquired with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera in 2013, a 1,200-kilometer-long, 10-kilometer-wide arc of icy material was observed traveling along the edge of the A ring. The arc is thought to be the result of gravitational perturbations caused by an as-yet unseen embedded object about a kilometer wide — possibly a miniature moon in the process of formation.
Cassini image of 179-km-wide Janus from April 2010. Janus’ gravity may have helped spur the formation of Peggy. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
The half-mile-wide object has been unofficially named “Peggy,” after lead author Murray’s mother-in-law (whose 80th birthday it was on the day he was studying the Cassini NAC images.) Murray first announced the findings on Dec. 10, 2013 at the AGU 13 meeting in San Francisco.
According to the team’s paper, Peggy’s effects on the A ring has been visible to Cassini since May 2012.
Eventually Peggy may coalesce into a slightly larger moon and move outward, establishing its own orbital path around Saturn. This is how many of Saturn’s other moons are thought to have formed much further back in the planet’s history. Now, its rings having been depleted of moon-stuff, can only create tiny objects like Peggy.
“Witnessing the possible birth of a tiny moon is an exciting, unexpected event.”
– Linda Spilker, Cassini Project Scientist at JPL
While it is possible that the bright perturbation is the result of an object’s breakup rather than formation, researchers are still looking forward to finding out more about its evolution.
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Hanford installation - each arm extends for four kilometres. Credit: Caltech.
What happens when stars or black holes collide? Scientists have theorized that the energy released would disturb the very fabric of the space-time continuum, much like ripples in a pond. These ripples are called gravitational waves, and while proving the existence of these waves has been difficult, their detection would open a brand new window on our understanding of the Universe.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (LIGO) have been searching for these elusive waves. A new documentary about LIGO will be available soon here on Universe Today, and it documents the science and people behind the unprecedented astronomical tool designed to catch sight of violent cosmic events trillions of miles from our planet.
The new documentary titled, “LIGO, A Passion for Understanding,” follows scientists working with LIGO. It is produced by filmmaker Kai Staats, and this will actually be the first installment to a multi-video series, in fact. Watch the trailer, above.
“A Passion for Understanding” brings to life one of the most important astronomical tools of our time while telling the human story of creativity, passion, and drive to understand the very fabric of the Universe in which we live.
Operated by teams from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, LIGO’s observatories use 4 km laser beams to hunt for gravitational waves. The LIGO scientific collaboration consists of hundreds of scientists from around the world.
LIGO’s enhanced run ended in 2010, but the Advanced LIGO project featuring newly upgraded instruments is set to begin its run in late 2015. Advanced LIGO will probe deeper into the universe in search of gravitational waves.
