Nasa plans to lasso asteroid

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PRACTICE: A snagged asteroid may help astronauts understand how best to deflect any Earth-threatening rocks.

 

Nasa is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top US senator disclosed.

The robotic ship would capture the 50 tonne, 7.6 metre asteroid in 2019. Then using an Orion space capsule, now being developed, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press.

Senator Bill Nelson said the plan would speed up by four years the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth.

Nelson, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, said Friday that President Barack Obama is putting US$100 million (NZ$118 million) in planning money for the accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next week. The money would be used to find the right small asteroid.

“It really is a clever concept,” Nelson said in a news conference in Florida the state where Nasa launches take place. “Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it back.”

While there are thousands of asteroids that size out there, finding the right one that comes by Earth at just the right time to be captured will not be easy, said Donald Yeomans, who heads Nasa’s Near Earth Object programme that monitors close-by asteroids. He said once a suitable rock is found it would be captured with the space equivalent of “a baggie with a drawstring. You bag it. You attach the solar propulsion module to de-spin it and bring it back to where you want it.”

Yeomans said a 25-foot asteroid is no threat to Earth because it would burn up should it inadvertently enter Earth’s atmosphere. The mission as Nelson described is perfectly safe, he said.

Nelson said this would help Nasa develop the capability to nudge away a dangerous asteroid if one headed to Earth in the future. It also would be training for a future mission to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, he said.

The government document said the mission, with no price tag at the moment, would inspire because it “will send humans farther than they have ever been before.”

 

– AP

Mesmerizing NASA photographs capture the twinkling lights of cities around the world from 240 miles high

These are the breathtaking photographs captured by NASA showing cities around the world from 240 miles above ground. 

From Baltimore, Maryland to the shores of Tokyo, Japan, astronauts on the International Space Station have pictured the twinkling lights of urban sprawl.

The photographs, taken by Expedition 33 crew members as the space station orbits the Earth, show the mesmerizing light patterns of different metropolises.

Cities on the coast have the densest light by the water’s edge while cities with major new development like in Kuwait have a more grid-like pattern.

 

 

The biggest little city in the word: Reno, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, as seen from the International Space Station

 

 

By the sea: The city of Porto (left) and Vila Nova de Gaia (right) astride the Douro River on the northwestern coast of Portugal

 

 

Miles below: Crew on the space station took this picture of Cleveland, Ohio, flying at an altitude of approximately 240 miles

 

 

London calling: Astronaut Chris Hadfield took this photograph of the British capital

 

Sparkling: A nighttime view of Istanbul, Turkey with the Bosporus strait separating the two halves of the city

 

 

Intricate: The north west side of Tokyo Bay in Japan. The mammoth city has a population close to 13million

 

World web: Liege in Belgium sprawls out into the darkness of the surrounding countryside like a spider’s webb

 

 

Little Italy: The county’s boot-like shape and nearby Sicily as seen from 240 miles above ground

 

 

Eastern delight: A nighttime view of Kuwait City with its neat urban planning. The metropolitan area has a population of two and a half million

 

 

 

Pretty as a picture: A view of Baltimore, Maryland. The city is situated on the mid-Atlantic coastline along the terminus of the Patapsco River into Chesapeake Bay

On the grid: Shenyang on China at night with the smaller city of Sujiatun (pictured left)

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

NASA denies voyager left solar system

The Voyager science team reported in December 2012 the craft was in a new region called the ‘magnetic highway.’ Photo / AFP

 

The US space agency has denied a claim made in a scientific study that its Voyager 1 spacecraft had left the solar system, describing the report as “premature.”

Scientists are eagerly awaiting signs that the craft, which was launched in 1977 on a mission to study planets, has become the first man-made object to leave the boundaries of our solar system.

A scientific paper that purported to describe this departure appeared on the American Geophysical Union’s website.

It said Voyager 1 “appears to have traveled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere,” or the magnetic bubble of charged particles that surround the solar system.

Researcher Bill Webber, one of the article’s authors, acknowledged that the actual location of the spacecraft – whether in interstellar space or just an unknown region beyond the solar system – remained a matter of debate.

“It’s outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that,” said Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, according to the AGU’s website.

 

“We’re in a new region. And everything we’re measuring is different and exciting.”

Shortly after the study appeared, Nasa spokesman Dwayne Brown told AFP the report was “premature and incorrect.”

The Voyager science team reported in December 2012 the craft was in a new region called the “magnetic highway,” but changes in the magnetic field to show a departure from the solar system have not yet been observed, Nasa said.

“The Voyager team is aware of reports today that Nasa’s Voyager 1 has left the solar system,” said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

“It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space,” he said.

“A change in the direction of the magnetic field is the last critical indicator of reaching interstellar space and that change of direction has not yet been observed.”

Voyager 1 and its companion Voyager 2 set off in 1977 on a mission to study planets. They have both kept going, and both are on track to leave the solar system, Nasa has said.

For months, experts have been closely watching for hints that Voyager 1 has left the solar system and most have estimated that this will happen in the next year or two.

Nasa has described Voyager 1 – now 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) away from the Sun – and its companion Voyager 2 as “the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.”

The Voyager craft are both carrying gold-plated phonograph records and cartridges on which to play them.

They contain 115 images of Earth life, sounds made by whales, thunder and surf, spoken greetings in various languages and printed messages from former US president Jimmy Carter and former UN chief Kurt Waldheim.

– AFP

Mars could have supported life – NASA

Drilling into a rock near its landing site, the Curiosity rover has answered a key question about Mars: The red planet long ago harboured some of the ingredients needed for primitive life to thrive.

Topping the list is evidence of water and basic elements that teeny organisms could feed on, scientists said Tuesday.

“We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it,” said chief scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology.

The discovery comes seven months after Curiosity touched down in an ancient crater. Last month, it flexed its robotic arm to drill into a fine-grained, veiny rock and then tested the powder in its onboard labs.

Curiosity is the first spacecraft sent to Mars that could collect a sample from deep inside a rock, and scientist said they hit pay dirt with that first rock.

Mars today is a frigid desert, constantly bombarded by radiation. Previous missions have found that the planet was more tropical billions of years ago. And now scientists have their first evidence of a habitable spot outside of Earth.

 

This was an environment where microbes “could have lived in and maybe even prospered in,” Grotzinger said.

The car-size rover made a dramatic “seven-minutes-of-terror” landing last August near the planet’s equator. As high-tech as Curiosity is, it lacks the tools to detect actual microbes, living or extinct. It can only use its chemistry lab to examine Martian rocks to determine the kind of environment they might have lived in.

The analysis revealed the rock that Curiosity bore into contained a chemical soup of sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and simple carbon – essential chemical ingredients for life. Also present were clay and sulfate minerals, signs that the rock formed in a watery environment.

NASA rovers Opportunity and Spirit – before it fell silent – also uncovered evidence of a wet Martian past elsewhere on the planet, but scientists think the water would have been too acidic for microbes.

The ancient water at Curiosity’s pit stop appears to be neutral and not too salty. It previously found a hint of the site’s watery past – an old streambed that the six-wheel rover crossed to get to the flat bedrock.

Curiosity has yet to turn up evidence of complex carbon compounds, fundamental to all living things. Scientists said a priority is to search for a place where organics might be preserved.

The drilled rock isn’t far from Curiosity’s landing spot in Gale Crater; the rover is ultimately headed to a mountain in the crater’s middle. Images from space spied signs of clay layers at the base of the mountain – a good spot to hunt for the elusive organics.

It has been slow going as engineers learn to handle the rover, which is far more tech-savvy than anything that has landed before on Earth’s planetary neighbor.

Over the years, Mars spacecraft in orbit and on the surface have beamed back a wealth of information about the planet’s geology. Scientists have also been able to study rocks from Mars that have occasionally landed on Earth.

The latest news comes during a lull in the two-year mission. Curiosity has been prevented from doing science experiments as engineers troubleshoot a computer problem.

Scientists still plan to drive toward the mountain but not until Curiosity drills into another rock at its current location. Since flight controllers on Earth will be out of touch with Mars spacecraft for most of next month due to a planetary alignment, the second drilling won’t get under way until May.

– AP