Rocky Earthlike planet discovered

Researchers on 21.4.09 confirmed the existence of a rocky Earthlike planet with a mass of 1.9 Earth masses, orbiting in the Gliese 581 system.

Another planet in the four planet system was also found to be lying in the star's habitable zone, the region where liquid water oceans could exist. The findings are the result of over four years of observations using the world's leading low-mass exoplanet hunter, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6 metre telescope at La Silla in Chile.

The new planet is orbiting far too close to its host star for it to be habitable, however, the seven Earth mass planet lies towards the far edge of the star's habitable zone, orbiting with a period of nearly 67 days. Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be a rocky planet, it's probably an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star.

Gliese 581 is roughly one-third the mass of the Sun, and with a much lower luminosity. Therefore a planet would need to be situated much closer to this star than our own Sun in order to receive a comparable amount of energy as the Earth. The holy grail of planet hunting will be to find a true Earth twin.

Spitzer Space Telescope to embark on new, warmer life

Scientists are bracing for the loss of two key instruments aboard NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, which will considerably diminish the observatory's ability to image infant stars but unlock more time for more thorough studies of mysterious worlds outside the solar system.

Officials expect Spitzer will drain its supply of liquid helium some time next month, reducing the telescope's sensitivity to infant stars and distant galactic nuclei.

Engineers have calculated the helium will probably run out around May 12.

Spitzer, the last of NASA's Great Observatories designed to revolutionize astronomy, was launched in 2003 with about 95 gallons of frigid liquid helium chilled to about -457 degrees Fahrenheit. That number equates to 1.2 degrees Kelvin, nearly as cold as the point of absolute zero.
The spacecraft was launched at room temperature and the cryogenic helium began cooling the 33.5-inch-diameter telescope before operations began in late 2003.

Sensors for the observatory's three science instruments are mounted inside a structure called the cryostat, which is actively cooled by vapors vented from the adjacent liquid helium tank.
The instruments must be maintained at such cold temperatures to see through relatively cool dust clouds and observe star-forming regions hidden from optical telescopes.
When Spitzer empties the liquid helium tank, the spacecraft will automatically detect the slight warming of the cryostat.

The spacecraft will go into a planned anomalous condition, basically a standby mode.

It will take about a day to recover from the fault, and then the Spitzer ground team will begin monitoring the telescope as the cryostat warms to about 30 degrees Kelvin, still a bone-chilling -405 degrees Fahrenheit.

Assuming Spitzer runs out of helium in the middle of May, scientists hope to begin "warm" operations by the end of June.
Scientists will only be able to use part of the capacity of Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera, an instrument with four detector channels ranging from near-infrared to mid-infrared wavelengths.
Warm observations will be limited to two wavelengths in the near-infrared spectrum.

Will the Sun's decline affect climate change?

The lack of current solar activity came under the spotlight today at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire.

The Sun has a (roughly) eleven year cycle of activity, but the onset of the latest cycle, 24, has been a painfully prolonged affair, resulting in very few sunspots and flares. Between cycles, activity drops and the Sun's magnetic field reverses itself, producing new sunspots of opposite polarity to those that came before. The first sunspot of cycle 24 was spotted in January 2008 but the cycle has just never got going. What solar physicists describe as the 'onset' - when the new cycle blossoms eradicating all traces of the old cycle - just hasn't happened yet, with cycle 23's prolonged minimum still clinging on in the Sun's southern hemisphere. Comparing the Sun's magnetic flux ratio over several cycles indicates that deviations from the norm began to occur in the southern hemisphere five or six years ago, suggesting that the Sun's decline has a deep-rooted explanation.

On Hubble's 19th birthday, a fountain of youth

To commemorate the Hubble Space Telescope's 19 years of historic, trailblazing science, the orbiting telescope has photographed a peculiar system of galaxies known as Arp 194. This interacting group contains several galaxies, along with a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas, and dust that stretches over 100,000 light-years.

The northern (upper) component of Arp 194 appears as a haphazard collection of dusty spiral arms, bright blue star-forming regions, and at least two galaxy nuclei that appear to be connected and in the early stages of merging. A third, relatively normal, spiral galaxy appears off to the right. The southern (lower) component of the galaxy group contains a single large spiral galaxy with its own blue star-forming regions.

However, the most striking feature of this galaxy troupe is the impressive blue stream of material extending from the northern component. This "fountain" contains complexes of super star clusters, each one of which may contain dozens of individual young star clusters. The blue color is produced by the hot, massive stars which dominate the light in each cluster. Overall, the "fountain" contains many millions of stars.

NASA spacecraft show 3-D anatomy of a solar storm

WASHINGTON -- Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory, and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. This new capability will dramatically enhance scientists' ability to predict if and how these solar tsunamis could affect Earth.

When directed toward our planet, these ejections can be breathtakingly beautiful and yet potentially cause damaging effects worldwide. The brightly colored phenomena known as auroras -- more commonly called Northern or Southern Lights -- are examples of Earth's upper atmosphere harmlessly being disturbed by a CME. However, ejections can produce a form of solar cosmic rays that can be hazardous to spacecraft, astronauts and technology on Earth.

Sea Launch deploys military spacecraft for Italy

An Italian military communications satellite that will be shared with NATO and allied countries went into orbit on 20 th April, 2009 atop an international rocket launched from a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean.

The satellite will provide the strategic and tactical links for Italy's military, plus law enforcement and civil emergency agencies.

Indian rocket launches Israeli-built spy satellite

India launched a closely-guarded Israeli-built radar spy satellite Monday to begin gathering valuable intelligence data from a 342-mile-high perch above the planet, regardless of lighting and weather conditions.

The country's 15th Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle ignited at 0115 GMT and leapt from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's east coast. Liftoff of the 144-foot-tall rocket was at 6:45 a.m. local time.

The Indian Space Research Organization, which oversaw the launch, declared the flight a success on its Web site.

The PSLV was carrying a secretive satellite fitted with a dish-like radar antenna designed to see through darkness, clouds and camouflage, Spaceflight Now reported Saturday.

The satellite, named RISAT 2, weighs about 660 pounds at launch and was built by Israel Aerospace Industries. It is designed for an orbit with an altitude of about 342 miles and inclined 41 degrees to the equator.

The new satellite provides an important new capability for Indian intelligence services. Previous Indian satellites, including a high-resolution observer launched last April, carried optical imaging sensors that were hampered by darkness and bad weather conditions on the ground

Hubble witnesses flaring in jet from black hole

A flare-up in a jet of matter blasting from a monster black hole is giving astronomers an incredible light show.
The outburst is coming from a blob of matter, called HST-1, embedded in the jet, a powerful narrow beam of hot gas produced by a supermassive black hole residing in the core of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. HST-1 is so bright that it is outshining even M87's brilliant core, whose monster black hole is one of the most massive yet discovered.

The glowing gas clump has taken astronomers on a rollercoaster ride of suspense. Astronomers watched HST-1 brighten steadily for several years, then fade, and then brighten again. They say it's hard to predict what will happen next.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been following the surprising activity for seven years, providing the most detailed ultraviolet-light view of the event. Other telescopes have been monitoring HST-1 in other wavelengths, including radio and X-rays. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was the first to report the brightening in 2000. HST-1 was first discovered and named by Hubble astronomers in 1999. The gas knot is 214 light-years from the galaxy's core.
The flare-up may provide insights into the variability of black hole jets in distant galaxies, which are difficult to study because they are too far away. M87 is located 54 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, a region of the nearby universe with the highest density of galaxies.

Despite the many observations by Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers are not sure what is causing the brightening. One of the simplest explanations is that the jet is hitting a dust lane or gas cloud and then glows due to the collision. Another possibility is that the jet's magnetic field lines are squeezed together, unleashing a large amount of energy. This phenomenon is similar to how solar flares develop on the Sun and is even a mechanism for creating Earth's auroras.

NASA poised to stop work on shuttle extension option

Facing a tight budget, a 2010 deadline to end space shuttle operations and a lack of concrete political support to fund additional flights or stretch out the current manifest, NASA managers are meeting this week to discuss the impact of ending efforts that have been keeping open the option of extending the shuttle program past the current deadline.

Complicating the picture for NASA planners, there is a very real possibility that one or two of the final shuttle missions currently envisioned will slip into the October-December 2010 timeframe, i.e., the first quarter of fiscal 2011. There is no money in NASA's projected 2011 budget for any shuttle operations beyond $300 million or so intended for retirement activities.
As a result, NASA now plans to terminate work that kept open the option of a shuttle extension when the current legislation expires at the end of the month.

NASA chooses history over comedian in naming contest

The international space station module built to house life support equipment and a panoramic observation cupola has been given a name: Tranquility.
Constructed in Italy under the technical identifier Node 3, the multi-hatch connecting module received the official name following an online poll that had taken on a life of its own.
NASA's website invited the public to vote on various choices like Serenity and Earthrise or submit suggestions. Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's nightly "The Colbert Report," seized on the opportunity and urged viewers to write in his name.
And when the voting ended March 20, "Colbert" had received the most support in the non-binding poll that saw some 1,190,437 users vote or submit suggestions.
The space agency used his show to unveil the name Tuesday night.

Tranquility is scheduled for delivery to the Kennedy Space Center from Europe next month. Its launch to the space station is targeted for February aboard shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission.

The module will be mounted to the port side of the station's existing Unity connecting node to house eight refrigerator-sized racks of environmental control and life support systems.

Titan may have subsurface ocean of hydrocarbons

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have a subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and some topsy-turvy topography in which the summits of its mountains lie lower than its average surface elevation, according to new research.
Titan is also more squashed in its overall shape‹like a rubber ball pressed down by a foot‹than researchers had expected, said Howard Zebker, a Stanford geophysicist and electrical engineer involved in the work. The new findings may help explain the presence of large lakes of hydrocarbons at both of Titan's poles, which have been puzzling researchers since being discovered in 2007.

North Korean rocket flew further than earlier thought

New details emerging from the analysis of data from North Korea's April 5 Taepo-Dong-2 test indicate the vehicle flew successfully several hundred miles further than previously believed and used more advanced steering than has been demonstrated by the North Korean's before.
The rocket impacted as far as 2,390 miles from the launch site as opposed to about 1,900 miles as earlier announced by the U. S. and Japan.

It also temporarily flew in space before failing and dropping back into the atmosphere at relatively slow speed that enabled debris to survive till impact rather than burning up.
The updated analysis indicates the failure occurred when the solid propellant third stage of the vehicle failed to separate properly after the second stage fired normally. After burnout the second stage coasted upward into space where the third stage was supposed to separate and fire, but did not.
Earlier it was believed that the second stage had failed early in its burn.
The rocket also demonstrated more advanced steering and other advances that could enhance its deployment as a silo-based ballistic missile.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense and U.S. Defense Dept. now believe that the second stage of the rocket performed as planned rather than failing early in its flight phase.

Gravity wave mission to help study asteroids

LISA, NASA and ESA’s Laser interferometer Space Antenna, which will attempt to detect gravitational waves, will also turn its “noise” into useful information about near-Earth asteroids.
Gravity waves are associated with the warping of the space-time continuum, believed to be caused by supernovae events or colliding black holes sending ripples through the Universe. These ripples are what LISA is hoping to detect. The mission will comprise three satellites connected by laser beams, and if a gravitational wave passes them by, their separation should change by a distance less than the width of an atom.
Planetary scientists also realised that they too could exploit LISA, since asteroids would also make the spacecraft wobble, leaving a distinct signature in the data being collected. Pasquale Tricarico of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, developed this idea to predict the number of asteroid encounters LISA can expect and how those encounters can be used to determine the mass of passing asteroids.

Mass may seem like an obvious vital statistic to know about a planetary body, but Tricarico reveals that only the mass of asteroids that have been visited by spacecraft or the mass of a few binary asteroids observed from Earth are known.

Cool stars have different mix of life-forming chemicals

Life on Earth is thought to have arisen from a hot soup of chemicals. Does this same soup exist on planets around other stars? A new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope hints that planets around stars cooler than our sun might possess a different mix of potentially life-forming, or "prebiotic," chemicals.

Astronomers used Spitzer to look for a prebiotic chemical, called hydrogen cyanide, in the planet-forming material swirling around different types of stars. Hydrogen cyanide is a component of adenine, which is a basic element of DNA. DNA can be found in every living organism on Earth.

Young stars are born inside cocoons of dust and gas, which eventually flatten to disks. Dust and gas in the disks provide the raw material from which planets form. Scientists think the molecules making up the primordial ooze of life on Earth might have formed in such a disk. Prebiotic molecules, such as adenine, are thought to have rained down to our young planet via meteorites that crashed on the surface.

Could the same life-generating steps take place around other stars? Pascucci and her colleagues addressed this question by examining the planet-forming disks around 17 cool and 44 sun-like stars using Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, an instrument that breaks light apart, revealing signatures of chemicals. The stars are all about one to three million years old, an age when planets are thought to be growing. The astronomers specifically looked for ratios of hydrogen cyanide to a baseline molecule, acetylene.
They found that the cool stars, both the M-dwarf stars and brown dwarfs, showed no hydrogen cyanide at all, while 30 percent of the sun-like stars did. "Perhaps ultraviolet light, which is much stronger around the sun-like stars, may drive a higher production of the hydrogen cyanide," said Pascucci.
The team did detect their baseline molecule, acetylene, around the cool stars, demonstrating that the experiment worked. This is the first time that any kind of molecule has been spotted in the disks around cool stars.

Twin spacecraft may reveal secret of moon's origin

Two places on opposite sides of Earth may hold the secret to how the moon was born. NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft are about to enter these zones, known as the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, each centered about 93 million miles away along Earth's orbit.
As rare as free parking in New York City, L4 and L5 are among the special points in our solar system around which spacecraft and other objects can loiter. They are where the gravitational pull of a nearby planet or the sun balances the forces from the object's orbital motion. Such points closer to Earth are sometimes used as spaceship "parking lots", like the L1 point a million miles away in the direction of the sun. They are officially called Libration points or Lagrangian points after Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an Italian-French mathematician who helped discover them.
L4 and L5 are where an object's motion can be balanced by the combined gravity of the sun and Earth. "These places may hold small asteroids, which could be leftovers from a Mars-sized planet that formed billions of years ago.about 4.5 billion years ago when the planets were still growing, this hypothetical world, called Theia, may have been nudged out of L4 or L5 by the increasing gravity of the other developing planets like Venus and sent on a collision course with Earth. The resulting impact blasted the outer layers of Theia and Earth into orbit, which eventually coalesced under their own gravity to form the moon."
The STEREO spacecraft are designed to give 3D views of space weather by observing the sun from two points of view and combining the images in the same way your eyes work together to give a 3D view of the world. STEREO "A" is moving slightly ahead of Earth and will pass through L4, and STEREO "B" is moving slightly behind Earth and will pass through L5. "Taking the time to observe L4 and L5 is kind of cool because it's free.

Space shuttle Endeavour travels from hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building

In preparation for its role as a standby rescue craft during the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and its scheduled June construction flight to the international space station, shuttle Endeavour rolled from the hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building at 7 a.m. on the morning of April 10

Most detailed map of nearby Universe completed

Researchers from Australia, the UK and the USA have just completed the most detailed survey of galaxies in the nearby Universe, which will reveal not only where the galaxies are but also where they are heading, how fast, and why.

Galaxies are tugged around by each other's gravity. By measuring the galaxies' movements, the researchers can map the gravitational forces at work in the local Universe, and so show how matter, seen and unseen, is distributed.

The survey shows strings and clusters of nearby galaxies on large scales in unprecedented detail, and has revealed more than 500 voids’ apparently empty areas of space with no galaxies.

Young pulsar shows its hand

small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand. In this image, the lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. Astronomers think that B1509 is about 1,700 years old and is located about 17,000 light years away.

Satellite information shows Arctic literally on thin ice

PASADENA, Calif. - The latest Arctic sea ice data from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that the decade-long trend of shrinking sea ice cover is continuing. New evidence from satellite observations also shows that the ice cap is thinning as well.

Arctic sea ice works like an air conditioner for the global climate system. Ice naturally cools air and water masses, plays a key role in ocean circulation, and reflects solar radiation back into space. In recent years, Arctic sea ice has been declining at a surprising rate.
Scientists who track Arctic sea ice cover from space announced today that this winter had the fifth lowest maximum ice extent on record. The six lowest maximum events since satellite monitoring began in 1979 have all occurred in the past six years (2004-2009).

Station crew and tourist aim for overnight landing

Outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and space tourist Charles Simonyi bid farewell to the Expedition 19 crew Tuesday and boarded a Soyuz ferry craft for re-entry and landing Wednesday in Kazakhstan.

Fincke and Lonchakov, launched to the International Space Station last Oct. 12, are wrapping up a 178-day stay off planet as the core members of the lab's 18th full-time crew. Simonyi, a wealthy software developer making his second paid trip to the station, took off March 26 with Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt.

After a busy day of packing and readying the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft for re-entry, Fincke, Lonchakov and Simonyi shared hugs and handshakes with Padalka, Barratt and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata before floating into the ferry craft around 8:45 p.m. EDT. Hatches were closed a few moments later to set the stage for undocking just before midnight. Landing is expected around 3:16 a.m. Wednesday.

Undocking from the downward-facing port of the Russian Zarya module is targeted for around 11:55 p.m. EDT this evening. After moving a safe distance away and reaching the proper point in their orbit, Lonchakov will oversee a planned four-minute 21-second rocket firing at 2:24 a.m. that will slow the craft by about 258 mph and put it on the proper re-entry trajectory.

After falling to an altitude of about 87 miles, the three modules making up the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft will separate and the central descent module will enter the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of about 62 miles at 2:52 a.m. If all goes well, the module's main parachute will deploy shortly after 3 a.m. for a rocket-assisted touchdown at 3:16:29 a.m.

Weather causes one-day delay in Soyuz landing

Snow and soggy conditions at the primary landing site in Kazakhstan have prompted Russian flight planners to order a 24-hour delay, from April 7 to 8, for the return of a Soyuz capsule carrying outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

The mission had been scheduled to conclude with a touchdown on April 7 northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, but the landing zone has been moved to a backup site about 180 miles to the southeast where conditions may be more favorable. Touchdown now is targeted for 3:15 a.m. EDT on April 8.

Fincke and Lonchakov were launched to the international space station aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft Oct. 12.

North Korean launch fails to put anything into orbit

Sunday's failure of an improved version of the North Korean Taepo-Dong-2 has deprived U.S. intelligence agencies from assessing performance of the vehicle's third stage. This is deemed critical to determining the precise threat the vehicle poses as an ICBM that could attack Alaska, Hawaii or deeply into the continental U.S.
Almost immaterial in the post-flight analysis is the failure of the vehicle to place a small communications satellite in low earth orbit, North Korea's stated intention.
Unlike on the previous launches of earlier versions of the long-range vehicle, the North Koreans announced the planned impact zones for the first and second stages of the vehicle to warn ships and commercial aircraft out of the area.
North Korea says the satellite launch mission succeeded, but the U.S. says the vehicle failed about half way through an about 13-minute ascent. This plunged the second and third stages, along with the satellite into the mid-Pacific Ocean.

Multi-tasking satellite deployed by 50th ILS Proton

A Proton rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan 3 April ,2009 and deposited a versatile European communications satellite into orbit, beginning a 15-year mission that will introduce a state-of-the-art service to beam live television to cell phones, iPods and cars across Europe.

The 191-foot-tall rocket left the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1624 GMT (12:24 p.m. EDT), turning northeast from the launch pad and tearing through the night sky on the power of six first stage RD-276 engines.

Eutelsat's 13,000-pound W2A spacecraft was bolted atop the rocket for the nine-hour mission.

The Proton's three core stages thrust W2A on a high-speed suborbital trajectory 10 minutes after liftoff.

The Breeze M upper stage, fueled by an explosive mix of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, took over the flight and ignited for its first burn to place the payload into a low-altitude parking orbit.

The W2A satellite was deployed at about 0134 GMT Saturday (9:34 p.m. EDT Friday).

ILS markets the Proton rocket to international customers and manages commercial launches of the venerable booster.

After Friday's launch, the ILS backlog now stands at 22 missions. The next commercial Proton will launch the ProtoStar 2 direct-to-home broadcasting satellite that will cover India and Southeast Asia. That flight is scheduled for the middle of May, according to an ILS spokesperson

Atlas 5 rocket successfully launches military satellite

It was a perfect Friday night , April 3,2009 flight for the Atlas 5 rocket, completing a military mission that put an advanced communications spacecraft into the sky to serve U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Technical challenges had held up the launch for several months, but the main engine and twin solid boosters finally lit at 8:31 p.m. EDT to begin a spectacular nighttime ascent.

The satellite will be parked over the equator around 60 degrees East longitude for use by U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of Southwest Asia, according to Col. William Harding, vice commander of the Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing at the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles.