Hasta La Gadget!

The Mt. Wilson Observatory, a century-old astronomical compound located on a 5,700-foot-high peak in southern California, has contributed much to our knowledge of stellar evolution and cosmology, providing the first observational evidence backing the Big Bang theory. The aging observatory has survived much adversity, but now faces a new challenge–it is menaced by a wildfire dubbed the “Station Fire,” which has scorched over 85,000 acres in the mountains north of Los Angeles and claimed the lives of two firefighters. Despite the fire’s rapid approach to the mountain, there is hope that this historic observatory may weather this latest threat.

The fire has burned perilously close to Mt. Wilson, which also hosts
more than 2 dozen television and radio broadcast antennas serving the
LA area. The mountaintop has been evacuated, but officials are
optimistic that the work that firefighters put into clearing brush and
dropping fire retardants in the area will pay off. Although the fire is
approaching the mountain from two directions and is expected to reach
it within the next day, the Los Angeles County Fire Department is
hopeful that the observatory and communications towers may pull through
relatively unscathed.

Back in 2004, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft passed right by Comet Wild 2’s nucleus and collected samples of the dense gas and dust material surrounding the icy center; two years later, a capsule containing those samples separated from the craft and returned to Earth.

Now scientists have discovered a fundamental building block for life–glycine–in those samples, according to NASA. “The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which co-funded the research.

It’s taken this long because researchers spent two years developing the tools necessary to analyze the tiny sample, and to rule out (via isotopic analysis) that the glycine was from Earth and somehow contaminated the samples. (Image credit: NASA/Stardust rendering)

It’s been a long time coming: NASA has completed the first new test rocket in over a quarter century, in an effort to replace the aging Space Shuttle fleet, according to Space.com.

The new Ares I rockets will eventually take humans back to the moon; this first one will launch on October 31st in a maiden test flight designed to show that the rocket is capable of carrying astronauts inside an Orion spacecraft into orbit. Ares I is a two-stage rocket that consists of a solid-fueled first stage and a larger, liquid-fueled upper stage, the report said.

The rocket stands at 327 feet high, which is about 14 stories taller than a launch-ready shuttle with all rockets attached, according to the article.

NASA plans to retire the shuttle fleet by 2011, replace them with a system of Ares rockets and Orion craft by 2015, and return astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Aerospace and defense manufacturer Raytheon wants everyone to know it has developed the world’s first 16 megapixel infrared sensor, which is set for a life of orbiting the Earth and generally being a lot more useful than lesser models. With its higher resolution, the unit is able to cover an entire half of the planet without “blinking” to relocate its focus, and should be warmly received by meteorologists, astronomists and military types, all craving for a bit more real-time reconnaissance. We advise wide-brimmed tin foil hats to shield your body heat from these Sauron-like satellites while working on those plans for a global uprising of the proletariat.

[Via TG Daily]

Filed under: Science

Infrared sensors hit 16 megapixels, can now spy on an entire hemisphere originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA’s Kepler telescope launched in March and is still undergoing preliminary tests, but that hasn’t stopped it from making an early discovery.

The new telescope is sensitive to light changes enough that scientists were already able to determine that a planet orbiting a distant star has an atmosphere, only shows one side to the sun, and is so hot it glows, according to CNN. That sensitivity “proves we can find Earth-size planets,” said William Borucki, Kepler’s principal science investigator, in the report.

Over the next three and a half years, Kepler will survey thousands of stars in our galaxy in an attempt to find more Earth-sized planets, and get a better sense of how common they are. (Image credit: ESO)