Posted on by Fraser Cain

Astronaut Gordon Cooper Dies

Gordon Cooper Jr., the astronaut who piloted the sixth and last flight of the Mercury program and later commanded Gemini 5, died earlier today at his home in Ventura, Calif. He was 77 years old.

“As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper was one of the faces of America’s fledgling space program. He truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration. My thoughts and prayers are with Gordon’s family during this difficult time,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe.

“Cooper’s efforts and those of his fellow Mercury astronauts, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton, serve as reminders of what drives us to explore. They also remind us that to succeed any vision for exploration needs the support of the American people.”

“Gordo was one of the most straightforward people I have ever known. What you saw was what you got,” said fellow Mercury astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn, in a statement released by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Another of the “Original Seven,” Wally Schirra added, “We seven were bonded like brothers, maybe even closer if that’s possible.”

“He never said ‘you can’t do it.’ He was gung ho on everything,” said Norris Gray, the NASA Fire Chief and Emergency Preparedness Officier during the Mercury days. Sam Beddingfield, then Mechanical Engineer for Project Mercury added, “He knew what he was doing and could always make things work.”

“Gordon Cooper’s legacy is permanently woven into the fabric of the Kennedy Space Center as a Mercury Seven astronaut,” said Kennedy Space Center director Jim Kennedy. “His achievements helped build the foundation of success for human space flight that NASA and KSC have benefited from for the past four decades.

“While the KSC family mourns the loss of this space pioneer, we honor his contributions and rest easy knowing his imprint on KSC will last forever. I consider it a privilege to have known Gordon Cooper. On behalf of the KSC family, I extend condolences to the Cooper family and our prayers are with them in their trying days ahead. ”

The youngest of the original seven astronauts, Cooper’s flight in his Faith 7 capsule stretched the capabilities of the Mercury spacecraft to the limits. The mission, May 15 and 16, 1963, lasted more than 34 hours and 22 orbits. That was more than three times the longest U.S. human space flight until that time, and far exceeded the initial design capability of the capsule. During his flight, Cooper also became the first astronaut to sleep in space.

“NASA’s astronauts extend their deepest sympathies to Gordon Cooper’s family,” said Kent Rominger, chief of the astronaut office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “He was among the first pioneers in space and his achievements inspired many of us to pursue our dreams of exploring our universe. We salute his many accomplishments as an astronaut and as a husband and father. He will be truly missed.”

Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. flew the troubled and suspenseful third flight of the Gemini program in August 1965. The goal of the mission was to prove astronauts could survive in space long enough to perform a lunar mission, which takes eight days.

During their eight-day mission, they experienced a number of problems with power systems, thruster fuel, venting gas that caused the spacecraft to roll, and more in a seemingly unending series. But they stayed in orbit for almost 191 hours, 122 orbits in nearly eight days, and got themselves and their spacecraft back intact. In orbit, they accomplished a “shadow rendezvous” with an imaginary spacecraft, an exercise demonstrating it could be done.

The Gemini 5 mission established a new space endurance record at the time, travelling 3,312,993 miles in 190 hours and 56 minutes. Cooper also became the first man to make a second orbital flight and thus won for the United States the lead in man-hours in space by accumulating a total of 225 hours and 15 minutes.

A Life of Service
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. was born on March 6, 1927, in Shawnee, Okla. He served in the Marine Corps in 1945 and 1946, then attended the University of Hawaii where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

In 1949 he was called to active duty and completed pilot training in the U.S. Air Force. From 1950 to 1954 he was a fighter pilot in Germany.

Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree at the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1956, then completed test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He served as a test pilot there until he was selected as a Mercury astronaut.

In addition to his two flights, Cooper was backup command pilot of Gemini 12, launched in November 1965. He also served as backup command pilot for Apollo 10, which flew in May 1969. He left NASA and retired from the Air Force as a colonel on July 31, 1970.

He founded Gordon Cooper and Associates that year and served as president of the consulting firm that specialized in activities ranging from aerospace to hotel and land development projects. Cooper was a director of a number of other organizations, most specializing in energy, advanced electronics systems, efficient homes, boats and marine systems and equipment.

In 1975, he became vice president for research and development for Walter E. Disney Enterprises Inc. of Glendale, Calif., the research and development subsidiary of Walt Disney Productions.

Throughout his life, Cooper pursued a wide range of activities, both professionally and as hobbies. A NASA biography lists his hobbies as treasure hunting, archaeology, racing, flying, skiing, boating, hunting and fishing. Among his numerous awards were the Air Force Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with cluster, NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal, the Collier Trophy and the Harmon Trophy.

He was the first active-duty military man to address joint sessions of Congress twice.

Cooper continued to design and test new aircraft in Southern California, never giving up his passion for pushing the envelope. Cooper told a reporter when he was 71, “I get cranky if I don’t fly at least three times a month.”

Original Source: NASA News Release

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Giant Infrared Space Observatory Considered by NASA

A NASA-led team is studying the construction of a railway in space for a pair of telescopes that will provide views of planet, star, and galaxy formation in unprecedented detail. The proposed Space Infrared Interferometric Telescope (SPIRIT) mission will also examine the atmospheric chemistry of giant planets around other stars.

SPIRIT will consist of two telescopes at opposite ends of a 120-foot (40-meter) beam. The telescopes will move along the beam like cars on a railway, combing their images using the techniques of interferometry to achieve the resolving power of a single giant telescope 120 feet across.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will lead a NASA/university/industry team to develop a preliminary design for SPIRIT. The team will evaluate various mission concepts, create a roadmap of the technology development required for the mission, and generate independent cost assessments.

The study was commissioned in July 2004 by NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., as one of nine proposals that will help strategic planning for NASA’s Origins Space Science research theme. NASA’s Origins program seeks to answer the fundamental questions about the universe, such as where we came from and whether or not we are alone. The team will report to the Origins Roadmap Committee in early January, 2005, and a final report is due three months later.

“I’m delighted that SPIRIT was chosen for study,” said Dr. David Leisawitz of NASA Goddard, Principal Investigator for the proposed mission. “We’re going to give NASA a chance to build a telescope that will dazzle the world with crisp, clear infrared pictures of the universe.”

“These images will help us to answer some very profound questions. How did we living critters wind up on a rocky planet bathed in light from the Sun, one of a hundred billion stellar denizens of the magnificently spiral-shaped Milky Way galaxy? Perhaps even more tantalizing, we should expect the unexpected, as that’s what we find whenever a big step is taken to improve the scientific community’s tools. SPIRIT will use techniques pioneered a century ago by Nobel Laureate Albert A. Michelson, so we know it can be done, and I think it’s an excellent match to the Origins mission class envisioned in NASA’s call for proposals,” said Leisawitz.

SPIRIT will examine the universe in the far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths of light. This light is invisible to the human eye, but some types of infrared light are perceived as heat.

The processes that build planets, stars, and galaxies are most readily visible in these kinds of light. For example, stars are born when massive interstellar clouds collapse under their own gravity. The collapse generates heat, causing the central star-forming region of the cloud to glow in infrared. Newborn stars are frequently surrounded by disks of dust and gas, which also collapse under their own gravity to form planets. While the planets are too small to be seen directly, their gravity disturbs the dust disk, forming ripples and lumps. Warmed by the central star, the dust glows in infrared light, revealing the dusty structures to SPIRIT and divulging the locations and sizes of previously unknown planets.

Looking farther into space is equivalent to seeing back in time, because the speed of light is finite, and it takes light a significant amount of time to traverse immense cosmic distances. We see the nearest large galaxy (Andromeda) as it appeared about two million years ago, because that’s how long it took for its light to reach us. We cast our gaze back billions of years by looking toward the limit of the observable universe, and thus can watch galaxies as they evolve. However, since the universe is expanding, light emitted by remote galaxies has been stretched by the expansion of space to infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths, so we need telescopes highly sensitive to these types of light to observe distant galaxy formation.

Many of these objects appear too small, or shine too faintly at their remote distances for existing telescopes to observe in great detail. To accomplish such ambitious observations, SPIRIT will have 100 times the angular resolution (ability to see fine detail) than existing infrared telescopes, complemented with a matching improvement in sensitivity.

Technical challenges to overcome include keeping the telescope mirrors extremely cold (about 4 degrees Kelvin or minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit) so their own heat does not obscure the faint infrared light they are trying to collect. The detectors also need to have greater sensitivity and more pixels. The Goddard/industry team is up to the challenge: “Our engineers love working on this project; there’s a lot of room for creative thought, and everyone understands that this is an opportunity to take a giant leap forward scientifically while inspiring the next generation of explorers.” says Leisawitz.

If approved, SPIRIT could be ready for launch in 2014, on board a large expendable rocket. SPIRIT would travel to the L2 libration point one million miles from Earth where it will automatically unfold its beam and deploy the telescopes. The Goddard-led team includes collaborators from Caltech, Cornell, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the University of Maryland, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Naval Research Laboratory, Princeton, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Wisconsin, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center. The industry team includes Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrop-Grumman.

Original Source: NASA News Release

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Study Predicts Quakes Nearly Perfectly

A NASA-funded earthquake forecast program has an amazing track record. Published in 2002, the Rundle-Tiampo Forecast has accurately forecast the locations of 15 of California’s 16 largest earthquakes this decade, including last week’s tremors.

The 10-year forecast was developed by researchers at the University of Colorado (now at the University of California, Davis) and from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy funded it.

“We’re elated our computer modeling technique has revealed a relationship between past and future earthquake locations,” said Dr. John Rundle, director of the Computational Science and Engineering initiative at the University of California, Davis. He leads the group that developed the forecast scorecard. “We’re nearly batting a thousand, and that’s a powerful validation of the promise this forecasting technique holds.”

Of 16 earthquakes of magnitude 5 and higher since Jan. 1, 2000, 15 fall on “hotspots” identified by the forecasting approach. Twelve of the 16 quakes occurred after the paper was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Feb. 2002. The scorecard uses records of earthquakes from 1932 onward to predict locations most likely to have quakes of magnitude 5 or greater between 2000 and 2010. According to Rundle, small earthquakes of magnitude 3 and above may indicate stress is building up along a fault. While activity continues on most faults, some of those faults will show increasing numbers of small quakes, building up to a big quake, while some faults will appear to shut down. Both effects may herald the possible occurrence of large events.

The scorecard is one component of NASA’s QuakeSim project. “QuakeSim seeks to develop tools for quake forecasting. It integrates high-precision, space-based measurements from global positioning system satellites and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) with numerical simulations and pattern recognition techniques,” said JPL’s Dr. Andrea Donnellan, QuakeSim principal investigator. “It includes historical data, geological information and satellite data to make updated forecasts of quakes, similar to a weather forecast.”

JPL software engineer Jay Parker said, “QuakeSim aims to accelerate the efforts of the international earthquake science community to better understand earthquake sources and develop innovative forecasting methods. We expect adding more types of data and analyses will lead to forecasts with substantially better precision than we have today.”

The scorecard forecast generated a map of California from the San Francisco Bay area to the Mexican border, divided into approximately 4,000 boxes, or “tiles.” For each tile, researchers calculated the seismic potential and assigned color-coding to show the areas most likely to experience quakes over a 10-year period.

“Essentially, we look at past data and perform math operations on it,” said James Holliday, a University of California, Davis graduate student working on the project. Instrumental earthquake records are available for Southern California since 1932 and for Northern California since 1967. The scorecard gives more precision than a simple look at where quakes have occurred in the past, Rundle said.

“In California, quake activity happens at some level almost everywhere. This method narrows the locations of the largest future events to about six percent of the state,” Rundle said. “This information will help engineers and government decision makers prioritize areas for further testing and seismic retrofits.”

So far, the technique has missed only one earthquake — a magnitude of 5.2 — on June 15, 2004, under the ocean near San Clemente Island. Rundle believes this “miss” may be due to larger uncertainties in locating earthquakes in this offshore region of the state. San Clemente Island is at the edge of the coverage area for Southern California’s seismograph network. Rundle and Holliday are working to refine the method and find new ways to visualize the data.

Other forecast collaborators include Kristy Tiampo, the University of Western Ontario, Canada; William Klein, Boston University, Boston; and Jorge S. Sa Martins, Universidad Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

For images and updated scorecard maps on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/0930_earthquake.html.

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

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Infrared View of Mount Saint Helens

NASA scientists took infrared (IR) digital images of Mount Saint Helens’ last week. The images revealed signs of heat below the surface one day before the volcano erupted last Friday in southern Washington. The images may provide valuable clues as to how the volcano erupted.

Scientists flew an IR imaging system aboard a small Cessna Caravan aircraft over the mountain to acquire the data. “Based on the IR signal, the team predicted an imminent eruption,” said Steve Hipskind, acting chief of the Earth Science Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Calif.

“We were seeing some thermal artifacts in the floor of the Mount Saint Helens’ crater in southern Washington,” said Bruce Coffland, a member of the Airborne Sensor Facility at ARC. ” We flew Thursday and used the 50-channel MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) digital imaging system. We are working to create images from the IR data that depict the thermal signatures on the dome,” Coffland added.

MASTER is an airborne simulator instrument similar to the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) high-resolution infrared imager carried on NASA’s Terra Earth observation satellite. Scientists plan to fly the MASTER instrument again over the volcano early this week.

The ARC airborne sensor team was in the area taking data for a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study examining some of the effects of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens’ eruption. “This had been planned for some time, and we were there totally by coincidence,” Coffland said. The science objectives for the USGS study were to outline the boundaries of the lava flows associated with Mt. St. Helens’ previous eruptions in 1980.

“We flew four flight lines over the mountain,” Coffland said. “It’s a continuous scan image, eight miles long (13 kilometers) and about 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) wide.” There were four adjoining flight lines flown for Joel Robinson, an investigator at USGS, Menlo Park, Calif.

After the plane landed, technicians downloaded data from a computer hard drive, and began to process the data to produce an image format for use by scientists. NASA will post the pre and post eruption infrared images on the Web.

Sky Research, based in Ashland, Ore. provided the Cessna Caravan, a propeller driven, single-engine airplane that carried the IR imager.

To access images on the Internet as they become available, visit:

Mt. St. Helens and http://masterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/

Original Source: NASA News Release

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Field of Fault Lines on Mars

This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA?s Mars Express spacecraft, shows the Claritas Fossae tectonic grabens and part of the Solis Planum plains.

The image was taken during orbit 508 in June 2004 with a ground resolution of approximately 40 metres per pixel. The displayed region is the eastern part of Claritas Fossae and the western part of Solis Planum at longitude 260? East and latitude of about 28? South.

The diffuse blue-white streaks in the northern parts of the scene are clouds or aerosols.

The Claritas Fossae (?fossa? is Latin for trough) region is characterised by systems of ?grabens? running mainly north-west to south-east. These can be traced several hundred kilometres up to the northern Tharsis shield volcanoes.

A graben forms when a block of the planet?s crust drops down between two faults, due to extension, or pulling, of the crust.

Grabens are often seen together with features called ?horsts?, which are upthrown blocks lying between two steep-angled fault blocks.

A ?horst and graben? system can occur where there are several parallel faults.

Geographically, the grabens separate the eastern volcanic plains of the Solis Planum region from the western Daedalia Planum lava plains.

The lava blankets of the Solis Planum area cover the eastern parts of the older Claritas Fossae ridge and surround some of the higher ground.

The geological history of this region can be reconstructed by analysing the layers of tectonic grabens, impact craters, volcanic features and even small valley networks.

The complexity of this superposition record suggests that some of the events took place at the same time.

The detailed view of the large southern impact crater shows patches of dark material which are located near the central and marginal parts of the impact crater floor. This material may be of volcanic origin.

The HRSC experiment on ESA?s Mars Express mission is led by the Principal Investigator Prof. Gerhard Neukum of the Freie Universit?t Berlin, who also designed the camera. The experiment?s science team consists of 45 Co-Investigators from 10 nations.

The camera was developed at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and built in co-operation with industrial partners EADS Astrium, Lewicke Microelectronic GmbH and Jena-Optronic GmbH). The HRSC is operated by DLR Institute of Planetary Research through ESA?s European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt.

The systematic processing of image data is carried out at DLR. The images shown here were processed by the FU Berlin group in co-operation with DLR, Berlin.

Original Source: ESA News Release

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Centre of the Milky Way Sterilized by Blasts

Life near the center of our galaxy never had a chance. Every 20 million years on average, gas pours into the galactic center and slams together, creating millions of new stars. The more massive stars soon go supernova, exploding violently and blasting the surrounding space with enough energy to sterilize it completely. This scenario is detailed by astronomer Antony Stark (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and colleagues in the October 10, 2004, issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team’s discovery was made possible using the unique capabilities of the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO). It is the only observatory in the world able to make large-scale maps of the sky at submillimeter wavelengths.

The gas for each starburst comes from a ring of material located about 500 light-years from the center of our galaxy. Gas collects there under the influence of the galactic bar-a stretched oval of stars 6,000 light-years long rotating in the middle of the Milky Way. Tidal forces and interactions with this bar cause the ring of gas to build up to higher and higher densities until it reaches a critical density or “tipping point.” At that point, the gas collapses down into the galactic center and smashes together, fueling a huge burst of star formation.

“A starburst is star formation gone wild,” says Stark.

Astronomers see starbursts in many galaxies, most often colliding galaxies where lots of gas crashes together. But starbursts can happen in isolated galaxies too, including our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

The next starburst in the Milky Way is coming relatively soon, predicts Stark. “It likely will happen within the next 10 million years.”

That assessment is based on the team’s measurements showing that the gas density in the ring is nearing the critical density. Once that threshold is crossed, the ring will collapse and a starburst will blaze forth on an unimaginably huge scale.

Some 30 million solar masses of matter will flood inward, overwhelming the 3 million solar mass black hole at the galactic center. The black hole, massive as it is, will be unable to consume most of the gas.

“It would be like trying to fill a dog dish with a firehose,” says Stark. Instead, most of the gas will form millions of new stars.

The more massive stars will burn their fuel quickly, exhausting it in only a few million years. Then, they will explode as supernovae and irradiate the surrounding space. With so many stars packed so close together as a result of the starburst, the entire galactic center will be impacted dramatically enough to kill any life on an Earth-like planet. Fortunately, the Earth itself lies about 25,000 light-years away, far enough that we are not in danger.

The facility used to make this discovery, AST/RO, is a 1.7-meter-diameter telescope that operates in one of the most challenging environments on the planet-the frigid desert of Antarctica. It is located at the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole. The air at the South Pole is very dry and cold, so radiation that would be absorbed by water vapor at other sites can reach the ground and be detected.

“These observations have helped advance our understanding of star formation in the Milky Way,” says Stark. “We hope to continue those advancements by collaborating with researchers who are working on the Spitzer Space Telescope’s Legacy Science Program. AST/RO’s complementary observations would uniquely contribute to that effort.”

Stark’s co-authors on the paper announcing this finding are Christopher L. Martin, Wilfred M. Walsh, Kecheng Xiao and Adair P. Lane (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and Christopher K. Walker (Steward Observatory).

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Original Source: CfA News Release

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SpaceShipOne Flies to Space and Wins the X-Prize

SpaceShipOne flew to space Monday morning, for the second time in less than a week. This time, though it came back down $10 million richer, taking the Ansari X-Prize. Pilot Brian Bennie guided the suborbital spacecraft to an altitude of more than 114 km (368,000 feet) after taking off from the Mojave Spaceport in California. Today’s flight was completely smooth, without the terrifying series of barrel rolls at the highest point. Monday’s flight was so high that it even beat records set by NASA’s X-15 aircraft 40 years ago.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Biggest Pinhole Camera Ever

A NASA institute has selected a new University of Colorado at Boulder proposal for further study that describes how existing technologies can be used to study planets around distant stars with the help of an orbiting “starshade.”

The concept by CU-Boulder Professor Webster Cash of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy was one of 12 proposals selected for funding Sept. 28 by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC. Cash’s proposal details the methods needed to design and build what essentially is a giant “pinhole camera” in space.

The football field-sized starshade would be made of thin, opaque material and contain an aperture, or hole, in the center roughly 30 feet in diameter to separate a distant planet’s light from the light of its adjacent parent star, Cash said. A detector spacecraft equipped with a telescope would trail tens of thousands of miles behind the orbiting starshade to collect the light and process it.

Such a system could be used to map planetary systems around other stars, detect planets as small as Earth’s moon and search for “biomarkers” such as methane, water, oxygen and ozone. Known as the New Worlds Imager, the system also could map planet rotation rates, detect the presence of weather and even confirm the existence of liquid oceans on distant planets, he said.

“In its most advanced form, the New Worlds Imager would be able to capture actual pictures of planets as far away as 100 light-years, showing oceans, continents, polar caps and cloud banks,” said Cash. If extra-terrestrial rainforests exist, he said, they might be distinguishable from deserts.

“To me, one of the most interesting challenges in space astronomy today is the detection of exo-solar planets,” said Cash. “We have created an affordable concept with very practical technology that would allow us to conduct planet imaging in visible and other wavelengths of light.”

The beauty of the pinhole as an optical device is that it functions as an almost perfect lens, said Cash, who is a professor in CU-Boulder’s astrophysical and planetary sciences department. ‘This device would remove the limiting problem of light scattered from the parent star due to optical imperfections.”

The successful proposal was authored by Cash, Princeton University’s Jeremy Kasdin and Sara Seager of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Nine other proposal advisers from universities and industry contributed to the New Worlds Imager concept, said Cash.

NIAC was created in 1998 to solicit revolutionary concepts from people and organizations outside the space agency that could advance NASA’s missions. The winning concepts, chosen because they “push the limits of known science and technology,” are expected to take at least a decade to develop if they eventually are selected for a mission flight, according to NASA.

In 1999, Cash headed a winning NIAC proposal for a new, powerful x-ray telescope technology that will allow astronomers to peer into the mouths of black holes. That telescope package is now under development by NASA as the multi-million dollar MAXIM mission and is slated for launch next decade.

Other concepts funded in 2004 by NIAC include a proposal for a lunar space elevator, new super-conducting magnet technology for astronaut radiation protection and a magnetized beam plasma-propulsion system.

Teams that submitted winning proposals to NIAC this year were awarded $75,000 for a Phase 1, six-month viability study. Those proposals that go on to win approval for Phase 2 studies next year by the space agency will be funded with up to $400,000 for two additional years, according to NASA.

“We are thrilled to team up with imaginative people from industry and universities to discover innovative systems that meet the tremendous challenge of space exploration and development,” said NIAC Director Robert Cassanova. Cassanova also is a member of the Universities Space Research Association, which administers NIAC for NASA.

Original Source: UCB News Release

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Astronomers on Supernova High Alert

Image credit: NASA
Three powerful blasts from three wholly different regions in space have left scientists scrambling. The blasts, which lasted only a few seconds, might be early alert systems for star explosions called supernovae, which could start appearing any day now.

The first two blasts, called X-ray flashes, occurred on September 12 and 16. These were followed by a more powerful burst on September 24 that seems to be on the cusp between an X-ray flash and a full-fledged gamma-ray burst, a discovery interesting in its own right. If these signals lead to supernovae, as expected, scientists would have a tool to predict star explosions and then watch them go off from start to finish.

A team led by Dr. George Ricker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology detected the explosions with NASA’s High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2). Science teams around the world using space- and ground-based observatories have joined in, torn and conflicted over which burst region to track most closely.

“Each burst has been beautiful,” said Ricker. “Depending on how these evolve, they could support important theories about supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. These past two weeks have been like ‘cock, fire, reload.’ Nature keeps on delivering, and our HETE-2 satellite keeps on responding flawlessly.”

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known other than the Big Bang. Many appear to be caused by the death of a massive star collapsing into a black hole. Others might be from merging black holes or neutron stars. In either case, the event likely produces twin, narrow jets in opposite directions, which carry off tremendous amounts of energy. If one of jets points to Earth, we see this energy as a “gamma-ray” burst.

The lower-energy X-ray flashes might be gamma-ray bursts viewed slightly off angle from the jet direction, somewhat similar to how a flashlight is less blinding when viewed at an angle. The majority of light particles from X-ray flashes, called photons, are X rays — energetic, but not quite as powerful as gamma rays. Both types of bursts last only a few milliseconds to about a minute. HETE-2 detects the bursts, studies their properties, and provides a location so that other observatories can study the burst afterglow in detail.

The trio of bursts from the past few weeks has the potential of settling two long-standing debates. Some scientists say that X-ray flashes are different beasts all together, not related to gamma-ray bursts and massive star explosions. Detecting a supernova in the region where the X-ray flash appeared would refute that belief, instead confirming the connection between the two. Follow-up observations of the September 24 burst, named GRB040924 for the date it was observed, are already solidifying the theory of a cosmic explosion continuum from X-ray flashes up through gamma-ray bursts.

More interesting for supernova hunters is the fact that X-ray flashes are closer to Earth than gamma-ray bursts are. While the connection between gamma-ray bursts and supernovae has been made, these supernovae are too distant to study in detail. X-ray flashes might be signals for supernovae that scientists can actually sink their teeth into and observe in detail. Yet for now, it is just watch and wait.

“Last year the discovery of GRB030329 by HETE-2 sealed the connection between gamma-ray bursts and massive supernovae,” said Prof. Stanford Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who has championed several theories concerning the physics of star explosions. “These two September bursts may be the first time we see an X-ray flash lead to a supernova. We might know very soon.”

In addition to all of this, GRB040924 goes on record as generating the fastest response ever for a gamma-ray burst satellite. HETE-2 detected the burst and relayed information through the NASA-operated Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network in under 14 seconds, which led to an optical detection about 15 minutes later with the Palomar 60-inch telescope, just north of San Diego. Dr. Derek Fox of Caltech was the lead on this observation.

“We all expect much more of this type of exciting science to come after the launch of Swift,” said Dr. Anne Kinney, director of NASA’s Universe Division. Swift, to launch in October, contains three telescopes (gamma ray, X ray and UV/optical) for quick burst detection, swift relay of information, and immediate follow-up observations of the afterglow.

HETE was built by MIT as a mission of opportunity under the NASA Explorer Program, collaboration among U.S. universities, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and scientists and organizations in Brazil, France, India, Italy and Japan.

Additional information about the physics of star explosions:
While many scientists say that X-ray flashes are gamma-ray bursts viewed slightly off angle, another theory is that the star explosion that causes the X-ray flash is rich in baryons (a family of particles that includes protons and neutrons), as opposed to leptons (particles that include electrons). A baryon-dominated blast would produce more X rays, and a lepton-dominated blast would produce more gamma rays. This is because the baryons move more slowly than leptons; and slower moving matter would make a softer (lower-energy) burst at all angles.

According to Dr. Stanford Woosley, the supernova / gamma-ray burst connection is this: When a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, its core will collapse, yet without the star’s outer part knowing. A black hole forms inside surrounded by a disk of accreting matter, and, within a few seconds, this launches a jet of matter away from the black hole that ultimately makes the gamma-ray burst. The jet pierces the outer shell of the star about nine seconds after its creation. The jet of matter, in conjunction with vigorous winds of newly forged radioactive nickel-56 blowing off the disk inside, shatters the star within seconds. This shattering represents the supernova event, and the amount of radioactive nickel-56 gives its brightness. However, from our vantage point, we will not see the supernova until about two weeks after the gamma-ray burst because the region is enshrouded by gas and dust, blocking light.

Original Source: NASA News Release

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Spaceflight Could Decrease Immunity

Image credit: NASA
A NASA-funded study has found the human body’s ability to fight off disease may be decreased by spaceflight. The effect may even linger after an astronaut’s return to Earth following long flights.

In addition to the conditions experienced by astronauts in flight, the stresses experienced before launch and after landing also may contribute to a decrease in immunity.

Results of the study were recently published in “Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.” The results may help researchers better understand the affects of spaceflight on the human immune response. They may also provide new insights to ensure the health, safety and performance of International Space Station crewmembers and future spacefarers on extended missions.

“Astronauts live and work in a relatively crowded and stressful environment,” said Duane Pierson, the study’s principal investigator and NASA Senior Microbiologist at Johnson Space Center, Houston. “Stresses integral to spaceflight can adversely affect astronaut health by impairing the human immune response. Our study suggests these effects may increase as mission duration and mission activity demands increase,” he added.

The white blood cell count provides a clue to the presence of illness. The five main types of white cells work together to protect the body by fighting infection and attacking foreign material. The most prevalent white blood cells are called neutrophils.

From 1999 to 2002, scientists from NASA, Enterprise Advisory Services, Inc., of Houston, and the Boston University School of Medicine compared neutrophil functions in 25 astronauts. They made comparisons after five-day Space Shuttle missions and after nine to 11 day missions.

Researchers found the number of neutrophils increased by 85 percent at landing compared to preflight levels. Healthy ground control subjects, who did not fly, exhibited no more than a two percent increase. Researchers also discovered functions performed by these cells, specifically ingestion and destruction of microorganisms, are affected by factors associated with spaceflight. The effect becomes more pronounced during longer missions.

The increase in astronaut neutrophil numbers resulted in a corresponding increase (more than 50 percent) in total white blood cell counts at landing. The increase is a consistent consequence of stress.

Pierson emphasized that “no astronauts in the study became ill; however, longer exploration missions may result in clinical manifestations of decreased immune response.”

Researchers concluded the general effect of spaceflight, pre- and post flight-related stress decreases the ability of crewmembers’ neutrophils to destroy microbial invaders. This finding suggests crewmembers returning from longer missions may be briefly more susceptible to infections than before launch, because these cells are not as efficient in ingesting and destroying infectious agents.

“Having a better understanding of the impact of stress on immunity will help us better understand the risks of infectious disease for Space Station crewmembers and future travelers on long-duration missions,” Pierson said.

For information about NASA’s space research on the Internet, visit:

http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/

Original Source: NASA News Release