This is U Camelopardalis, a carbon star 1,500 light years away from Earth, in the constellation of the same name, near the North Celestial Pole. U Cam—as it is known—is at the end of its life, erupting layers of material from time to time: More »
NASA is planning the first test of the new Orion spacecraft for 2014. One of the preparations for the test flight is actually getting the Orion spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Monday of this week, the first of the next-generation Orion spacecraft arrived at Kennedy. Orion is NASA’s first manned spacecraft since it retired the shuttle fleet last year.
Orion is designed to ferry shuttle astronauts not only into low earth orbit, but to nearby asteroids and possibly even to Mars. NASA is using private companies, like SpaceX, that can ferry supplies and astronauts to the ISS. That frees up NASA’s manpower to focus on the goal of getting a human to an asteroid by 2025. NASA also has a goal of getting a human to Mars by the 2030s.
NASA plans for Orion’s first test flight will see the capsule fly 15 times higher than the ISS, to roughly 3600 miles above the Earth’s surface in 2014. That flight test is being called Exploration Flight Test-1 and will use NASA’s next-generation rocket booster dubbed Space Launch System rocket. The Orion capsule is the future of NASA’s manned space program.
[via PC Mag]
First Orion spacecraft arrives at Kennedy Space Center is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
NASA is showing off a slew of new photographs taken on the surface of Mars by the Opportunity rover. Of all the images, the one you see below is most interesting to me showing Opportunity taking the photograph and catching its own shadow in the pic with a giant Martian mountain in the distance. The photo looks like there should be an ocean between the rover and the distant peaks. This particular photo was taken using the panoramic camera looking eastward across Endeavor Crater on March 9, 2012.
The photograph is a result of multiple images taken through different filters and combined into a single mosaic view. It never ceases to amaze me that the Opportunity rover has been on the surface of Mars for eight years now and has continued to be operational well beyond what NASA expected. The second photo you see below is a color view from Opportunity showing the West rim of Endeavour crater.
The crater has a diameter of about 14 miles and is more than 25 times wider than any crater opportunity has approached before. NASA has 43 images with some released only this week that are all available on Space.com. If you’re a fan of space exploration, you’ll definitely want to check them out.
[via Space.com]
NASA shows off new Mars images is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Scientists have discovered strands of invisible dark matter that hold two galaxy clusters together. Abell 222 and Abell 223 are approximately 2.7 billion light years away, with the filament being discovered by detecting gravitational lensing effects. Jörg Dietrich of the University Observatory Munich believes it backs up the theory that this is a standard structure formation of the universe.
It was widely believed that the dark matter filaments would only be able to be detectied with much more advanced telescopes in the future, but Dietrich and his team of researchers took advantage of the rare spatial geometry of the cluster, ultimately detecting the filament thanks to weak gravitational lensing.
Abell 222 and Abell 223 appear close together as we look away from Earth, but are farther apart than we’re able to see. Any light that arrives at Earth from that section of the universe has to pass through the clusters, which boosts the gravitational lensing signal. The lensing wasn’t strong enough to see by eye, but the team compared it against 40,000 other galaxies to figure out that the mass between the clusters was warping space-time, leading to the conclusion that the unidentified substance was dark matter.
[via Christian Science Monitor]
Dark matter found connecting galaxy clusters is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Looks like playing games and watching sci-fi flicks didn’t do the University of Iowa’s Jack Scudder any harm. The NASA-funded researcher has been studying elusive magnetic portals connecting the Earth and Sun, and now he’s figured out how to find them. The portals, also known as X-points in Scudder-speak, are born from the mingling of Earth’s magnetic field with incoming solar winds. These astral connections create flux transfer events (we’ve got Doc Brown’s attention) — high-energy particle flows responsible for, among other things, the eerie twinkling of the polar auroras. Off the back of Scudder’s data wizardry, NASA‘s planning the 2014 Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), sending four craft into the void to observe the portals. Each spacebot is capable of locating them, and when one is found, inviting the others ’round for a study date. Taking a leaf from Scudder’s book, Engadget researchers have tracked down a NASA video detailing the mission, located beyond the fold for your convenience.
Continue reading Now NASA’s thinking with portals (video)
Now NASA’s thinking with portals (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 00:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
According to NASA, Jack Scudder—a researcher at the University of Iowa—has found “hidden portals on Earth’s magnetic field [that] open and close dozens of times each day.” Some of them are open for long periods of time. More »
NASA unveiled its first Orion crew model today, designed to take astronauts into space and the eventual goal to take them to Mars as well. Arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last Friday, the passenger module is still set to undergo quite a bit of development before an initial flight scheduled for 2014.
Although being able to carry four crew members into space, the first two flights by Orion will be unmanned. Once development has been completed, it will be the most advanced piece of spacecraft we’ve ever seen. The first flight scheduled for spring 2014 will be a test for the module’s heat shield, parachutes and other components.
During the unmanned test flight, Orion will reach orbit at a height of over 3,600 miles and circle the Earth twice. To put that into perspective, that’s more than 15 times higher than the International Space Station. Once completed, the Orion will return back to Earth traveling at over 20,000 mph before eventually dropping into the Pacific ocean off the U.S. coast.
NASA has set a target for a manned Orion mission in 2021.
[via Verge]
NASA reveals Orion space capsule with first flight set for 2014 is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
I love this image of a Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft just one second from landing on the very hard soil of the tundra near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. A perfect peaceful still moment—the calm before the rocking rumpus. More »
Got $150m, a taste for space travel and sufficient trust in a 1970s Soviet capsule to ride it to the moon? British space holiday start-up Excalibur Almaz thinks it has the round-trip for you, then, having invested in four three-crew Almaz program capsules and two Salyut-class space station pressure vessels to begin – after some outfitting, naturally – flights in 2015.
Those refurbs will take 24 to 30 months, company founder and CEO Art Dula reckons, though Excalibur Almaz is already looking to take bookings now. “At $100 million to 150 million [per passenger, we can sell] up to 29 seats in the next ten years, and that is a conservative estimate” Dula said at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s space tourism conference last month.
According to the company’s plans, the reusable return vehicles (RRVs) would be launched by a Soyuz-FG rocket, then dock with the Salyut-class space station launched using a Proton rocket. Together, the two would make a lunar flight using a group of electric hall-effect thrusters.
Tourism isn’t Excalibur Almaz’s only goal. The company is also looking at offering unnamed research missions, including deep space flights for $150m apiece, as well as delivering payloads to the surface of the mood for $350m. It’s also hoping to bid in a future round of NASA International Space Station service missions, such as will be undertaken by SpaceX.
[via Christian Science Monitor]
Excalibur Almaz to offer $150m Moon trips in 2015 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Happy Saturday, everyone. It’s the final day of June, which means the first full month of summer is just around the corner. For now, though, let’s end the month with a bang of all the biggest tech news of the week. Of course, the big news over the past six days came from Google I/O. Yes, it was chock full of announcements, including hardware from Asus – Asus CEO: Building Nexus 7 is like torure. Here’s another nugget from the show – Google Offline Maps update now live, YouTube adds preloading. And yes, Project Glass also made an appearance – Are $1500 Google Glasses a bargain? Keep reading for more I/O news…
Featured: Here are some of this week’s featured articles:
Google Nexus 7 hands-on
Google Nexus Q hands-on
Google I/O 2012: Nexus 7 and Nexus Q hardware wrap-up
Google I/O 2012: Project Glass wrap-up
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean review
Chrome for iOS review
Facebook Find Friends Nearby is a symptom of a larger social disease
Apple, Microsoft, now Google: I/O 2012 closes the mobility triptych
The Amazing Spider-Man movie: our first look
Other Stuff: So believe it or not, there were other stories that made headlines this week. Here’s some news that is nice to hear but shouldn’t surprise anyone – iPhone 4S remains Verizon’s top-selling handset. And speaking of Apple stuff, we also have this – Apple Podcasts app cuts out the iTunes middleman. And finally something that everyone in the world should think is awesome – Mars One project wants to put a reality show on Mars. No, seriously.
SlashGear Weekly Wrap-Up: June 30, 2012 is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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