Hasta La Gadget!

In a new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, high-energy X-rays emanating from the nebula
around a known pulsar, when colored blue, unveil a structure that resembles a “hand reaching for some eternal red cosmic light,” according to Space.com.

Sometime in the distant past, pulsar PSR B1509-58 was a star that ran out of energy and collapsed into a sphere just 12 miles in diameter. Today, the star now spins at the high rate of seven times per second. In the process, it spits out energy into space that sometimes falls into a pattern, such as the one shown above.

The report said that the pulsar in question is about 150 light years across and 17,000 light years away. That means we’re now seeing it as it actually looked 17,000 years ago, because that’s how long it took the light to reach us Earthlings.

Notice anything different about Jupiter in your telescope lately? Astronomers have observed that one of Jupiter’s most recognizable features, the Great Red Spot, has been shrinking since the mid 1990s, according to CNN. The Great Red Spot is actually a giant, persistent, seemingly eternal storm that’s about the same size across as three complete Earths. But astronomers have noted that since 1996, the spot has lost about 15 percent of its size.

Xylar Asay-Davis, a postdoctoral researcher who was part of the study, said in the article that it measures up to a shrinkage of about one kilometer (about 0.6 miles) per day during that time period. While the shrinking size of the GRS isn’t news, the report said that
this research focused on the motion of the storm–which produced much
more reliable measurements.

We’re probably still a bit short of packing our bags and heading to Mars. But it appears NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander may have helped scientists figure out which parts of the planet are more habitable for humans than others. Recent (and controversial) evidence that certain portions of the Mars landscape could host liquid water has lent credence to the theory that the planet contains the ingredients necessary to support life as we know it, Space.com reports.

According to the article, four papers are
under review for scientific publication on four major discoveries from the
mission, said Peter Smith, the Phoenix mission’s principal investigator at the
University of Arizona in Tucson. Under discussion are the following factors for supporting life: “the presence of liquid water; the
presence of a biologically available energy source; and the presence of the
chemical building blocks of life in a biologically available for.” The report also named temperature and water activity as additional key requirements.

Interestingly, the (stationary) Phoenix Mars Lander may have plopped down a spot that’s perfect for life. “What you
see is that Phoenix comes down as a clear winner — a much, much higher
habitability index than any of the other sites,” Stoker told conference
attendees, according to the report. “The Phoenix landing site is the most habitable zone of any location
we have ever visited on Mars.”

In a story worthy of Hollywood treatment, shocked astronomers in Sudan watched as an asteroid exploded above earth into a meteor shower, and then went into the desert to retrieve the pieces, according to an AFP report. A study in the British journal Nature concluded that this is the first time ever that scientists were able to recover pieces from a specific asteroid observed in space.

“Any number of meteorites have been observed as fireballs and smoking meteor trails as they come through the atmosphere,” said co-author Douglas Rumble, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution, in the article. “But to actually see this object before it gets to the Earth’s atmosphere and then follow it in—that’s the unique thing.”

The International Space Station will soon surpass Venus to become the second brightest object in the sky after the Moon, once astronauts install the fourth and final set of solar array wings as part of Space Shuttle Discovery mission STD-125 TS-119/15A, according to Slashdot.

The final section of the ISS’s structure will bring the station to a total length of 102 meters, and increase the amount of electricity available for science experiments by half, the report said. The mission will also help prep the station for a full crew size of six (instead of the current three). The shuttle mission launches tomorrow, assuming good weather, and will be the shuttle program’s 125th since its inception in April 1981.

Currently, Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Moon, with an apparent magnitude that reaches -4.6 on occasion. Track the ISS and other space missions across the sky using NASA’s sighting calculator.