Microbes have been found flourishing beneath the surface of the Atacama Desert. (Parro et al./CAB/SINC)
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Researchers from the Center of Astrobiology (CAB) in Spain and the Catholic University of the North in Chile have found an “oasis” of microorganisms living two meters beneath the arid soil of the Atacama, proving that even on the driest place on Earth, life finds a way.
Chile’s Atacama Desert receives on average less than .01 cm (.004 inches) of rain per year. In some locations rain has not fallen for over 400 years. But even in this harsh environment there is moisture… just enough, at least, for rock salts and other compounds that can absorb any traces of water to support microbial life beneath the surface.
Using a device called SOLID (Signs Of LIfe Detection) developed by CAB, the researchers were able to identify the presence of microorganisms living on thin films of water within the salty subsurface soil.
Even the substrate itself is able to absorb moisture from the air, concentrating it into films only a few microns thick around the salt crystals. This gives the microorganisms everything they need to survive and flourish — two to three meters underground.
SOLID's array of life-detector modules. (CAB)
At that depth, there is no sunlight and no oxygen, but there is life.
And even when researchers dug to a depth of five meters (a little over 16 feet) and took samples back to a lab, they were able to not only locate microorganisms but also revive them with the addition of a little water.
Of course, the implications for finding life — or at least the remains of its past existence — on Mars is evident. Mars has been shown to have saline deposits in many regions, and the salt is what helps water remain liquid, longer.
“The high concentration of salt has a double effect: it absorbs water between the crystals and lowers the freezing point, so that they can have thin films of water (in brine) at temperatures several degrees below zero, up to minus 20 C,” said Victor Parro, researcher from the Center of Astrobiology (INTA-CSIC, Spain) and coordinator of the study. This is within the temperature range of many regions of Mars, and also anything located several meters below the surface would be well protected from UV radiation from the Sun.
“If there are similar microbes on Mars or remains in similar conditions to the ones we have found in Atacama, we could detect them with instruments like SOLID,” Parro said.
The development of a new version of the SOLID instrument is currently underway for ESA’s ExoMars program.
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata plays around wiith humanoid robot Robonaut 2 during Expedition 39 in March 2014. Credit: NASA
It may have been a giant leap for robot-kind yesterday as NASA’s Robonaut shook hands in space with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank on the International Space Station. “For the record, it was a firm handshake,” Burbank said. “Very nice. Nice job on the programming and all the engineering. Quite an impressive robot.”
Not only did the robot complete the historic first humanoid to human handshake in space, but Robonaut also sent its greetings to everyone on Earth by using sign language to say, “Hello World.”
Robonaut is designed to perform routine maintenance tasks aboard the space station to free up the astronauts for more important research tasks. You can see more capabilities of Robonaut in a video below where engineers put one of the Robonauts through its paces on a task board that mimics controls aboard the ISS. Continue reading “First Humanoid to Human Handshake in Space”
Just a reminder that we’ll be doing our regular live Weekly Space Hangout On Air on Thursday at the usual time of 18:00 UTC (1 pm EST, 12 Noon CST, 10 am PST) with our regular group of space journalists (Fraser Cain, Phil Plait, Ian O’Neil, Pamela Gay, Emily Lakdawalla, Alan Boyle, Nicole Gugliucci and Nancy Atkinson). But this week we will be joined by a very special guest, Dr. Alan Stern, the Principal Investigator for the New Horizon’s mission to Pluto and the LAMP instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You won’t want to miss this unique chance to hear directly from Dr. Stern.
To watch the Hangout on Air, circle Fraser on Google+ and watch his feed for the link to the Hangout. There you can join in on the conversation and post your questions for Dr. Stern by posting comments on the feed.
If you aren’t on Google+, you can also watch it live on the CosmoQuest Hangouts page, where there is also a place to post comments and questions. And we’ll also try to have a live feed on Universe Today. Just look for a video player in the upper right hand corner of the site and click the ‘play’ button. If you can’t watch live, we’ll post a recording of the Hangout later on UT.
Additionally, as a heads up, I’ll be doing a live Hangout on Air interview of astronomer Mike Brown on Friday, Feb. 17 at 18:00 UTC — and you can watch live by the same means as above.
Who knew there were so many moving parts to operate a telescope? This is a great behind the scenes video of what really takes place up at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. About 125 people work full-time at the Keck Observatory to operate the two ten-meter telescopes. The intricate fine-tuning and elaborate attention to detail is amazing. “Keeping those telescopes on-sky every night is the summit crew of the Operations Department. This video is dedicated to the guys of the Keck daycrew who make it possible,” wrote Keck engineer Andrew Cooper, who compiled this unique and must-watch video. He details the techniques he used at his Vimeo page for this video.
This spectacular edge-on galaxy, called ESO 243-49, is home to an intermediate-mass black hole that may have been stripped off of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Farrell (Sydney Institute for Astronomy, University of Sydney)
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Score another first for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope! Along with observations taken with the Swift X-ray telescope, a team of astronomers have identified a young stellar cluster of stars pointing the way towards the first verified intermediate mass black hole. This grouping of stars provides significant indication that black holes of this type may have been at the center of a now shredded dwarf galaxy – a finding which increases our knowledge of galaxy evolution.
“For the first time, we have evidence on the environment, and thus the origin, of this middle-weight black hole,” said Mathieu Servillat, a member of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics research team.
Designated as ESO 243-49 HLX-1, this incredible intermediate mass black hole was discovered in 2009 by Sean Farrell, of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy in Australia, using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope. Hyper-Luminous X-ray Source 1 is a 20,000 solar mass beauty which resides at the edge of galaxy ESO 243-49 some 290 million light years away. However, the Newton’s findings weren’t the only contribution – HLX-1 was also verified with NASA’s Swift observatory in X-ray and Hubble in near-infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths. What stands out is the presence of a cluster of young stars encircling the black hole and stretching out across about 250 light years of space. While the stars themselves are too far away to be resolved, their magnitude and spectra match with other young clusters seen in similar galaxies.
Just what clued the team to the presence of a star cluster? In this case their instruments revealed the blue spectrum of hot gases being emitted from the accretion disk located at the periphery of the black hole… and there was more. They also noted the presence of red light spawned by cooler gases which may indicate the presences of stars. Time to match up the findings against computer modeling.
“What we can definitely say with our Hubble data is that we require both emission from an accretion disk and emission from a stellar population to explain the colors we see.” said Farrell.
Why is the presence of a young star cluster unusual? According to what we know so far, they just don’t occur outside a flattened disk such as HLX-1. This finding may indicate the intermediate mass black hole may have once been at the heart of a dwarf galaxy engaged in a merger event. The dwarf galaxy’s stars were stripped away, but not its capabilities to form new. During the interaction, the gas around the black hole was compressed and star formation began again… but how long ago?
“The age of the population cannot be uniquely constrained, with both very young and very old stellar populations allowed. However, the very old solution requires excessively high levels of disc reprocessing and an extremely small disc, leading us to favour the young solution with an age of ~13 Myr.” says the team. “In addition, the presence of dust lanes and the lack of any nuclear activity from X-ray observations of the host galaxy lead us to propose that a gas-rich minor merger may have taken place less than ~200 Myr ago. Such a merger event would explain the presence of the intermediate mass black hole and support a young stellar population.”
Discoveries such as HLX-1 will help astronomers further understand how supermassive black holes are formed. Current conjecture is that intermediate mass black holes may migrate together to form their larger counterparts. Studying the trajectory of this new find may provide valuable information… even if it is unknown at this point. HLX-1 may be drawn into a merger event and it may just end up orbiting ESO 243-49. Regardless of what happens, chances are it will fade away in X-ray as it exhausts its gas supply.
“This black hole is unique in that it’s the only intermediate-mass black hole we’ve found so far. Its rarity suggests that these black holes are only visible for a short time,” said Servillat.
What are all the steps and stages of Felix Baumgartner’s record-setting freefall attempt which will take place later this year? This infographic provides a look at what happen during the jump.
Baumgartner, left with Joe Kittinger. Credit: Red Bull Stratos
In 2010, we reported on Felix Baumgartner and his upcoming attempt to break the sound barrier with his body, in a freefall from the edge of space. Part science experiment, part publicity stunt, part life-long ambition, the Red Bull Stratos mission will have Baumgartner traveling inside a capsule with a stratospheric balloon to 36,500 meters (120,000 feet), where he will step out and attempt a record-setting highest freefall jump ever. The mission was delayed by two years by a lawsuit, but Baumgartner’s jump is now back on, and will be attempted later this year, perhaps late summer or early fall 2012.
If Baumgartner is successful, the mission will break four world records: the altitude record for freefall, the distance record for longest freefall, the speed record for fastest freefall by breaking the speed of sound with the human body, and the altitude record for the highest manned balloon flight.
“This is the biggest goal I can dream of,” Baumgartner said. “If we can prove that you can break the speed of sound and stay alive I think that is a benefit for future space exploration.”
Above is a video of some of the preparations to test Baumgarter’s pressure suit and his body’s reaction to what he will endure during the freefall. The pressurized “space” suit and helmet supplies 20 minutes of oxygen includes especially designed equipment developed to capture data throughout the mission for the medical and scientific advancement of human flight.
The speed of sound — historically called the ‘sound barrier’ – has been broken by rockets, various jet-powered aircraft and rocket-boosted land vehicles. No one has broken it yet with just their body.
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Back in 1960, a US Air Force captain named Joe Kittinger made aerospace history by making a jump from 31,000 meters (102,800 feet) in what was called project Excelsior. His jump contributed valuable data that provided ground work for spacesuit technology and knowledge about human physiology for the US space program. There have been several attempts to surpass Kittinger’s record, but none have succeeded, and people have given their lives for the quest.
Kittinger has been working with Baumgartner to help him prepare for the jump.
The Red Bull Stratos mission is named after the energy drink company that is sponsoring the jump by the renowned Austrian skydiver. Red Bull Stratos team members say the mission will explore the limits of the human body in one of the most hostile environments known to humankind, in the attempt to deliver valuable lessons in human endurance and high-altitude technology.
The lawsuit that halted the jump was made by Daniel Hogan, who claimed he pitched the idea of breaking the 50-year old freefall record to Red Bull in 2004, and that Red Bull said they weren’t interested, but later, the company went forward with the idea. Hogan filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the energy drink company, but the two parties settled out of court.
The delay may have been a good thing, however. Baumgartner revealed that in December 2010 during first pressure tests of the suit, he had a panic attack, an event which he called “the worst moment of his life.”
Baumgartner entering the pressure test capsule. Credit: Red Bull Stratos
“When it came to the crucial pressure test at -60°C, under real conditions with pressure and altitude simulated, and surrounded by cameras, air force personnel and scientists, I realized I just couldn’t do it,” Baumgarter said in an article in the Red Bulletin.
Baumgartner said he thought the suit should feel like ‘second skin’ but instead he felt like his movements and perceptions were restricted. “As soon as the visor closes there’s this nightmarish silence and loneliness – the suit signifies imprisonment. We hadn’t originally conceived of a test that confined me in the suit for five hours – that’s how long the entire mission should take – with the visor closed. After all my past exploits, all the extreme things I’ve done in my career, no one would have ever guessed that simply wearing a space suit would threaten the mission, me included. In the end, the symptoms developed into panic attacks.”
Baumgartner during a test flight. Credit: Red Bull Stratos
But Baumgarter has been able to overcome the panic attacks and now is moving forward with the preparations for the jump. The jump will be recorded for a documentary with 15 cameras onboard the capsule and three cameras on Baumgarter’s body. The documentary will be produced by the BBC together with the National Geographic channel, with a feature-length film airing on the two channels following the jump.
The mission will take place in Roswell New Mexico because of the favorable conditions. The area is sparsely populated, plus it has some of the world’s best facilities for balloon launches such as this, and the weather allows several good windows for a successful launch.
What an asteroid hitting the Earth might look like. Image credit: NASA/Don Davis.
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Scientists aren’t entirely sure when the last major asteroid hit the Earth, but it’s certain to happen again. Alan Harris, asteroid researcher at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), is hoping to head the next one off. Last month, Harris established an international collaboration of 13 researchers to investigate methods of shielding the Earth from near Earth objects (NEOs). The project is, appropriately, called NEOShield.
Asteroids approaching the planet typically travel between 5 and 30 kilometres (about 5 to 19 miles) per second. As that speed, a moderate sized body can have major consequences. The Barringer Crater in Arizona, often referred to as Meteor Crater, is a 1,200 metre crater (about 3,950 feet or 0.7 miles) that scientists hypothesize was caused by a 50 metre (164 feet) meteor.
The bad news is that there are thousands of known NEOs just like the one that made Meteor Crater, leading experts to posit that a dangerous collision could occur as often as every two hundred years.
Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. Image credit: NASA.
The good news is that it’s possible to stop an asteroid hitting the Earth. You just have to be in the right place at the right time to give the object the right push in another direction.
Scientists are focusing on possible methods of redirecting threatening asteroids so they miss the Earth. “In order to modify their orbit and prevent a collision with Earth, a force must be exerted on them,” explains Alan Harris. “And at the precise time, as well.” One way to do this is to have a spacecraft impact a threatening asteroid, imparting enough force to change its orbit. “In my opinion, this is a very practical method,” said Harris. But there are still questions to answer, like how to guide the spacecraft to a moving target at the right angle for the right impact and how to minimize the effects of fuel movement on the spacecraft’s path.
Another way is to use the spacecraft’s gravitational pull to nudge the asteroid into a different orbit. If the object is far enough away, a tiny tug could have a big effect. But so far, “this method only exists on paper,” said Harris, “but it could work.”
An asteroid, docile in space but deadly to Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL
Another third, less appealing prospect, is to use explosive power to break up an Earth-bound asteroid. But this could be disastrous, creating a shower of debris instead of one solid piece. As such, Harris considers this method a last resort. “If a very large, dangerous object with a diameter of one kilometre [0.6 miles] or more is discovered,” explains Harris, changing its orbit won’t be a option. “The greatest force we would be able to use to divert the asteroid from its path would be a nuclear explosion. This technique is regarded as a very controversial.”
Over the next three years, during which the European Union will support the project with four million Euros and international partners will contribute an additional 1.8 million Euros, the NEOShield project will research these defence methods. The scientists will focus on data from asteroid observations and lab experiments to generate computer simulations, ultimately determining how best to protect the Earth from future devastating impacts.
This image from the APEX telescope, of part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. Could life exist in molecular clouds like this one? Credit: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/A. Hacar et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin.
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This stunning new image shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. The makeup of filamentary cloud structures like this used to be a mystery, and in the early 20th century, Edward Emerson Barnard compiled a photographic atlas of these features, calling them “dark markings of the sky,” as these regions appeared as dark lanes, with no stars visible. Barnard correctly argued that this appearance was due to “obscuring matter in space.” Today we call segments in this particular cloud Barnard 211 and Barnard 213, or the Taurus Molecular Cloud. And we now know that these are clouds of interstellar gas and dust grains. But also, within these clouds, newborn stars are hidden, and dense clouds of gas are on the verge of collapsing to form yet more stars.
The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the closest regions of star formation to us. It is located in the constellation of Taurus about 450 light-years from Earth. The cosmic dust grains are so cold that observations at wavelengths of around one millimeter, such as these made with the LABOCA camera on APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) telescope in Chile, are needed to detect their faint glow.
This image shows two parts of a long filament. The dust grains — tiny particles similar to very fine soot and sand — absorb visible light, blocking our view of the rich star field behind the clouds. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is particularly dark at visible wavelengths, as it lacks the massive stars that illuminate the nebulae in other star-formation regions such as Orion.
But active star formation is taking place. This is why observations at longer wavelengths, such as the millimeter range, are essential for understanding the early stages of star formation.
Read more about this particular region at the ESO website.
The International Space Station Credit: @VirtualAstro
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Most readers of Universe Today are familiar with the International Space Station or “ISS” as it’s often referred to. But just in case you are visiting our site for the first time, the ISS is a huge space station orbiting Earth that serves as an orbital laboratory, factory, testing ground and home; crew members conduct experiments from biology to astronomy, including experiments for prolonged exposure to life in space for future missions to the Moon and beyond.
The ISS is major accomplishment for NASA (US), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan) CSA (Canada) and all the countries involved (16 in all). The space station is just over 72 m long by 108 m wide and 20 m high; it is maintained at an orbital altitude of between 330 km (205 mi) and 410 km (255 mi) and travels at an average speed of 27,724 kilometres (17,227 mi) per hour, completing 15.7 orbits per day.
One of the best things about the ISS is that you can see it with your own eyes from Earth! It’s very easy to watch the International Space Station pass over your own backyard!
All you need to do is understand when the ISS is going to be passing over your location and where to look for it in the sky. You can check this by using an ISS pass predictor app or website such as Heavens-Above.
Once you have found out when the ISS will pass over your location, all you need to do a few minutes before the pass is go outside and start looking in the right direction of the sky.
The International Space Station always passes over starting from a westerly part of the sky, but not always from the same point. It can be low on the horizon for some passes and very high others. Most of the apps or websites will tell you what direction in the sky the pass will start and end and how many degrees above the horizon the starting and ending points are. Also included are the highest altitude the ISS will be. For example, if the maximum elevation is listed as somewhere between 74-90 degrees above the horizon, the ISS will be passing almost straight overhead (Just like you learned in geometry, 90 degrees would be straight up). If you aren’t sure about where to look, a good rule of thumb is that your fist outstretched at arm’s length is 10 degrees. If the ISS will be first be seen 40 degrees above the horizon, look four fist-lengths above the horizon. Check apps and websites for where and what track the ISS will take on each individual pass.
When the station passes over it will travel from a westerly direction, heading in an easterly direction. An average good pass can last about 5 minutes.
The ISS looks like an incredibly bright, fast-moving star and can be mistaken for an aircraft. However, the ISS has no flashing lights and it can be much brighter. It seemingly just glides across the sky.
Short passes can last a few seconds to a few minutes and you can see the international space station slowly move into the Earth’s shadow, good bright passes will show the ISS moving across the sky from horizon to horizon.
ISS long exposure photograph over Donnington Castle UK Credit: www.Perfexion.com
The International Space Station usually takes around 90 minutes to orbit our planet, so if you’re really lucky you can get two, or maybe even three or four passes in an evening or morning.
Not only can you see the ISS in the evening but you can also see it in the mornings as both the ISS and Sun are in the ideal position to illuminate the spacecraft at this time. The light we see from the ISS is reflected sunlight.
You can’t watch the ISS pass over during the middle of the day because in the daytime the sky is too bright (although some people with specialized equipment have seen it) and you cannot see the space station in the middle of the night, as it is in the Earth’s shadow and no light is being reflected from it.
The position that the ISS will be in the sky changes every night. The space station does not take the same track or orbital path for each orbit and this change provides good visible passes roughly every 6 weeks in each location on Earth.
Occasionally if a spacecraft such as a Soyuz crew capsule or a Progress resupply vehicle has been sent to the ISS, you will see objects preceding or trailing the station as it moves across the sky. These can either be very close to the station or the distance between the objects can be measured in minutes. To check if there are any other spacecraft with the international space station during a pass, use the pass prediction app, or the Heaven’s Above Site.
Seeing the ISS is an incredible sight! Just remember there are people on board that fast moving point of light!
Good luck! ISS long exposure photograph Credit: Mark Humpage
