Jun 05

Something Hits Jupiter Again; Shades of 1994?

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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An enterprising amateur astronomer in Australia picked up something interesting Thursday: a big bright flash on the surface of Jupiter.
It turns out that an asteroid struck the gas giant and burned up in the planet’s atmosphere, an observation later confirmed by other astronomers, according to the Associated Press.
“When I saw the flash, I couldn’t believe it,” said amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley in the article. “The fireball lasted about 2 seconds and was very bright.”
This guy is pretty good, it turns out; last year, he was the first to spot a scar “the size of the Pacific Ocean” on Jupiter’s surface. That’s actually the one pictured above; we’re still waiting for photos of the current impact.
Back in 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy struck the surface of Jupiter, marking the first time the collision of two solar system bodies have ever been observed.
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Jun 04

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rockets Into Orbit

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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And we have liftoff: the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida Friday in its first launch test, CNN reports, after an earlier aborted attempt just seconds before ignition.
SpaceX, the brainchild of Paypal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, is a commercial venture that could eventually ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. Those trips could end up much less expensive than NASA’s 30-year-old shuttle program.
“It’s time for NASA to hand that over to commercial industry who can then optimize the technology and make it more reliable, make it much lower cost and make it much more routine,” Musk said in the report.
SpaceX’s $1.6 billion contract calls for 12 missions.
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Jun 01

Life-Size Webb Space Telescope Model Launches World Science Festival

Posted in: NASA, Space Tech, Today's Chili

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To kick off the World Science Festival (WSF), to be held at various venues throughout New York City this week, a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope, the size of a tennis court, was unveiled this morning in Battery Park in lower Manhattan.

The World Science Festival consists of 40 events (talks, performances, readings, and more) in diverse subjects, including some exploring the relationship between science and music, visual art, and faith. They include a gala in Lincoln Center tonight to honor Stephen Hawking, and events featuring luminaries such as neurologist Oliver Sacks, Mars rover project leader Stephen Squyres, SETI researchers Jill Tartar and Seth Shostak, artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, physicist Kip Thorne, and even some non-science notables such as cartoonist Jules Feiffer and actor Alan Alda. Also, science-oriented street festival will take place next Sunday in Washington Square Park. The first World Science Festival, in 2008, drew 120,000 people to its events.

More about the Webb telescope after the jump.

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May 28

Pentagon Warns of Space Junk Collisions

Posted in: gps, military, NASA, politics, satellite, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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The Department of Defense has issued a warning in its Interim Space Posture Review that the amount of space junk orbiting the earth has “reached a critical tipping point,” one that could result in a series of chain-reaction collisions that “brings everyday life on Earth to a grinding halt,” according to Popular Science.
That may be overstating the case slightly, but it’s still an important issue. Here’s the situation: there are about 1,100 satellites orbiting the earth right now. Contrast that to about 370,000 pieces of space junk orbiting the earth, ranging from lost nuts and bolts from spacewalks, to entire decommissioned satellites–all speeding around at about 4.8 miles per second, the report said.
The Pentagon warned that a collision–numerically probable at some point–could generate thousands of pieces of additional junk, which could then cause additional crashes, and so on. This has actually happened a few times in the past, notably with a defunct Russian satellite in 2009 and an errant Chinese missile back in 2007.
A collision could cripple communications, along with civilian and military GPS systems, and the resulting debris clouds could seriously inhibit future satellite deployments, according to the article. (Image credit: NASA)
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May 27

Scientist: Europas Ice-Covered Oceans Full of Oxygen

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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Europa’s icy waters may contain enough oxygen to support various kinds of lifeforms–including more than just the microbial kind.
We already know that Europa, arguably Jupiter’s most interesting moon, contains a global ocean that runs about 100 miles deep, with an icy crust on top, as Space.com reports. For years, scientists have theorized that the moon could support extraterrestrial life, at least in microbial form.
Richard Greenberg, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at Tucson, and the author of Unmasking Europa: The Search for Life on Jupiter’s Ocean Moon, explained in the article that an oxygen-rich layer of ice at the top could actually extend down much further than thought, and could reach the oceans underneath.
Greenberg found that as the ice on the base of the oxygenated crust melts, even with the most conservative assumptions, “after only a half-million years oxidant levels in the ocean would reach the minimum oxygen concentration seen in Earth’s oceans”–enough to support small crustaceans, according to the article.
“I was surprised at how much oxygen could get down there,” Greenberg said in the report. He added that we wouldn’t necessarily have to land a probe on the planet to detect the oxygen more directly, as telescope-based spectroscopy from Earth could help shed further light on the subject. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
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May 27

USAF Plane Breaks Hypersonic Flight Record

Posted in: military, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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The United States Air Force’s X-51A Waverider, an experimental aircraft, has set a new record for hypersonic flight: Mach 6.
The craft flew at six times the speed of sound for three minutes and 20 seconds, according to the Associated Press. A B-52 Stratofortress released the X-51A Waverider off the southern California coast on Wednesday, whereupon the craft’s scramjet engine accelerated it to Mach 6.
“We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission,” said Charlie Brink, an X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in the article. “We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines.”
The previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was just 12 seconds, according to the report. (Rendered image credit: USAF)
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May 25

Watch the Space Shuttle Atlantis Come Home—Online

Posted in: Space Tech, Today's Chili

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After wrapping up its work at the International Space Station (ISS), the Space Shuttle Atlantis has undocked from the ISS and is preparing to head home for a planned landing at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Wednesday morning to complete its final scheduled mission (STS-132). (The NASA image above shows Atlantis landing after mission STS-110 on April 19, 2002.)

The first opportunity for landing will be at 8:48 a.m. Eastern time, with a second shot at 10:22 a.m. if conditions prove unfavorable, as may well be the case. There’s a chance of rain showers at KSC on Wednesday, with NASA estimating only about a 50-50 probability of a Wednesday landing. On Thursday the times for possible landings at KSC are 9:13 a.m. and 10:48 a.m. The Florida weather improves on Friday, and the alternative landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California is available if need be.

Fortunately, there are many places you can tune in to watch Atlantis return home from this historic flight.

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May 18

Got Plans for Doomsday? Reserve Your Bunker Here

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, security, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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Del Mar, Calif.-based Vivos has a plan for anyone fearing doomsday: buy space in a bunker underneath the Mojave Desert. Just in case, of course.
The company promises that for $50,000, buyers can get a four-person room in a nuke-proof bunker that features an atrium, a gym, and a jail, plus an on-site restaurant, as the Associated Press reports.
So far, Vivos claims that it has collected deposits on fully half of the 132 spaces available in the 13,000 square-foot bunker–presumably from folks worried about the world ending in 2012, terrorism, asteroid collisions, and other omnipresent bugaboos common to life in the 21st century.
“I’m careful not to promote fear. But sooner or later, I believe you’re going to need to seek shelter,” said company owner Robert Vicino in the report.
The bunker resides in an undisclosed location to prevent freeloaders from finding it. Reservations cost $5,000 for each adult and $2,500 for each kid, and pets are free, according to the article. The line forms here.
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May 17

CERN Kicks LHC Network Into High Gear

Posted in: science, Space Tech, storage, Today's Chili
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Scientists at CERN have powered up the Large Hadron Collider‘s high-speed network and downstream data storage, in an effort to begin recording and analyzing streams of data from experiments averaging over a gigabyte per second, according to the UK’s Inquirer.
The LHC Computing Grid, a high-speed network of computer clusters at scientific institutions around the globe, consists of 100,000 processors across 130 organizations in 34 countries. The grid is organized into four tiers, and distributes data over private fiber-optic cable as well as portions of the Internet to researchers, the article said.
A separate BBC News article is reporting that the LHC could begin probing unexplored domains in particle physics by the end of the summer. The machine has already seen half a billion particle collisions since it first crossed the beams in November 2009, Egon. (Image credit: CERN/LHC Atlas)
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May 14

Spacecraft to Conduct Massive Experiment–With Lasers

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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NASA and ESA are planning to launch three spacecraft into orbit around the sun some three million miles apart, and then have them shoot lasers at each other, Popular Science reports.
You may want to stop for a moment and just bask in the coolness of that idea. Back yet? The purpose of this project will be to prove one last part of Einstein’s theory of relativity: the existence of gravitational waves, or “huge ripples in time and space that flow outwards from the collision of huge celestial bodies like black holes,” as the report said.
To do this, NASA and ESA will deploy LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna; it consists of three spacecraft that will fire lasers at each other and measure the relative positions of floating cubes of gold and platinum alloy–with a precision of 40 millionths of a millionth of a meter.
The project is set for launch in 2020.
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