August 2006 - Posts
NASA / ESA / UW-Madison |
No, it's not some astronomer's idea of a rude joke: Rather, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured a rare view of one of Uranus' satellites, Ariel, floating over the planet and casting a shadow on the cloud tops.
Just how rare is it? Such an event is only possible only every 42 years, due to Uranus' bizarre sideways rotation.
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In the wake of Pluto's demotion from the roll of solar system planets, astronomers are pointing out that a lot of the nitty-gritty details still need to be worked out - and that the plucky erstwhile planet shouldn't be counted out quite yet. Just wait till 2009!
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• The Guardian: Second law of robotics? Give them faces
• Defense Tech: Air Force wants software spies
• Carnegie Mellon: GM joins urban robo-car challenge
• RIA Novosti: Russia plans round-the-moon mission by 2012
The Federal Aviation Administration has given the environmental all-clear to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' plans for a suborbital launch operation in West Texas - setting the stage for final approval of the world's first private-sector spaceport.
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• Discovery.com: Were Homeric epics written by a woman?
• Nat'l Geographic: Is U.S. seizing a South American reservoir?
• ABC (Australia): Are horror movies scientifically nonsensical?
• Popular Mechanics: Can life survive on alien worlds?
NASA / JPL / Cornell |
When NASA launched a pair of rovers to Mars more than three years ago, no one ever thought the darn things would still be working by now, says Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the top scientist for the Red Planet rover missions. The proof of that lies in the fix that the Mars program finds itself in today, with two separate missions transmitting on exactly the same frequency.
The data traffic jam isn't insurmountable, Squyres says, but it just goes to show that even a smashing success can carry complications.
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• MosNews.com: Russia plans new space station
• HubbleSite: Colorful aftermath of a stellar death
• The Independent: Evidence of Round Table found
• New Scientist: Tongue-o-vision and other inventions
• Wired: Science projects that scare us
• Discover: The next Katrina
"Never send a human to do a machine's job": It's one of my favorite quotes from Agent Smith in "The Matrix," and it also turns out to be a pretty close paraphrase of a space exploration dictum from engineer Gentry Lee, a veteran of NASA's Mars missions.
University of Maryland physicist Robert Park would agree with that dictum as well. He's a longtime critic of human space exploration, contending that robots can do the job more cheaply, more safely and more capably. That's why he's no fan of the international space station, as seen in this in-depth look at space station science.
So what would he spend the money on instead? He didn't hesitate to give three examples of robotic missions that could yield big payoffs but have been sidelined by NASA due to the agency's cost crunch:
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• Science News: Digging for dinos
• PhysOrg: Spotlight on light-emitting clothing (via Slashdot)
• BBC: Eruption linked to Atlantis was bigger than we thought
• Slate: When the Internet and geography collide
So, you want to become an astronomer? Maybe you had your appetite for stargazing built up by all these rumors about a monstrous Mars being visible this weekend, only to find out it's just an Internet hoax. Don't fret: It turns out there are plenty of opportunities to put your skywatching talents to good use - especially if you're a kid (or a kid at heart).
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Mars Dead or Alive'
• The Economist: Fatherhood changes the brain
• Defense Tech: 'Star Wars: The Next Generation'
• How to become a cryptozoologist (via Daily Grail)
Pluto's not a planet? That may be the verdict for now - but scientists, teachers and the general public will be digesting the International Astronomical Union's definition of planethood for years. Astronomers were quick to raise objections, and the debate over the worlds on the solar system's edge is sure to be revisited. So for now, think of plucky little Pluto's predicament as a classic "teachable moment."
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• New Scientist: Military robo-surgeon prepares for battle
• NASA: Mariner meteor mystery solved?
• Discovery.com: Some ancient caves were built for comfort
• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Evolution major vanishes from federal list
NASA / ESA / STScI |
The Large Magellanic Cloud serves as the cosmic canvas for a Turneresque view of starbirth in today's image from the Hubble Heritage Team.
The wisps of orangish dust seen in this image may seem insubstantial, but they serve as the cradle where stars and planets like our own are born.
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Wired.com: Perpetual motion claim probed •
Galex/Caltech: Huge black holes squash star formation •
The New Yorker: Manifold destiny •
Scientific American: The nuclear option
For weeks, the name of NASA's next spaceship has been one of the space agency's worst-kept secrets. Today, "Orion" finally became official, after a space station astronaut spilled the beans yet again.
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There's a new federation in the space business - and although it's not a United Federation of Planets, the membership is as diverse as a "Star Trek" crew, with high-profile rivals in the commercial space race sitting down at the same table.
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Nature: Plutons, planets and dwarves •
Science News: Holy smoke! Incense may be harmful to your health •
Aero-News Network: Pink Floyd film may unlock NASA secrets •
Celestia: Virtual universe on your desktop (via
Daily Grail)
If it’s August, it must be time for the Great Mars Hoax. You know, that e-mail message that says Mars is going to loom as big as the moon? It’s actually a garbled version of the real science that surrounded our historic encounter with Mars in 2003. As it turns out, now is the worst time to look for Mars in the night sky. But just wait until December 2007...
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Archaeology: The next 50 years •
Sympatico/MSN Tech: Computers learn to play poker (via
Slashdot)
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Seattle Times: 40 years since 'the picture of the century' •
The Space Review: The Great Mars Blitz
Jerry Pournelle has seen both sides of the divide between science fiction and science fact: On one side, he's a novelist who, along with his frequent collaborator Larry Niven, is getting a lifetime achievement award at tonight's Writers and Illustrators of the Future Awards ceremony. On the other side, he's been an aerospace researcher, an adviser to President Reagan's transition team on space policy and an outspoken advocate for private-sector spaceflight.
To hear Pournelle talk, the business of science fiction makes a lot more sense nowadays than the politics of science fact.
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'Nova' on PBS: 'Who Killed the Red Baron?' •
The Economist: Keeping it real •
Slate: Who cares about the Poincare conjecture? •
Wired.com: Wireless binds Tibetan exiles
T. Hutchinson / SpaceCam1 |
An innovative space transmission system built by volunteers has started sending down pictures from the international space station to the whole wide world via amateur radio. Thanks to SpaceCam1, anyone with a police scanner or a suitable radio rig, plus a computer and the appropriate software, should be able to receive pictures from orbit, the project's organizers say.
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PlanetSpace |
An artist's conception shows a rocket taking off from PlanetSpace's proposed
Nova Scotia launch facility. The schedule calls for orbital launches to begin by 2010.
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Following up on last week's Log item about PlanetSpace, Canadian news outlets are reporting that Nova Scotia is setting aside 300 acres of coastal land on Cape Breton for the Canadian-American spaceship venture to use as a launch facility. The Globe and Mail calls it "Canada's Cape Canaveral."
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STScI: Hubble sees faintest stars in a globular cluster•
Univ. of Mich.: Scientists find 'pinwheels' in star cluster•
NASA Earth Observatory: Mount Etna erupts•
Aurora alert from SpaceWeather.com |
Aurora gallery
Ron Miller / ASU |
Sand-laden jets shoot into the south polar sky in this artist's conception.
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Newly published findings suggest a solution to the mystery of the Martian trees – those dark, bristly spots on aerial photography of the Red Planet that some have compared to fans or forests. Even Arthur C. Clarke, the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and other science-fiction classics, has wondered whether Mars' seemingly branching "banyan trees" represent signs of biological activity.
But now researchers propose that the spots are of geological origin: They say the marks are left behind every spring when gas and dark sand blast through rumbling fissures in the ice. "If I was ever going to go to Mars, I'd want to observe this," said Arizona State University's Phil Christensen, one of the authors of the research, which appears in Thursday's issue of Nature.
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• Nature: Birds prove wisdom of 'opposites attract'
• Scientific American: The expert mind
• Technology Review: The missiles of August
• Discover: 20 things you didn't know about meteors
X Prize Foundation |
Four teams say they'll be competing for $2 million in the NASA-backed Lunar Lander Challenge at the X Prize Cup rocket festival in October. Two of those teams are already well-known, while the other two are dark horses in this race.
Details about the contest, the competitors and the X Prize Cup itself emerged this week from an environmental assessment distributed by the Federal Aviation Administration. The assessment will be available for public comment over the next month, and then the FAA is expected to follow up with a go-ahead for the X Prize Cup's premier event.
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NASA/Caltech/U. Toledo |
One of the best-known constellations in the sky is Orion the Hunter, which starts showing off its glittering belt just about this time of year in predawn skies.
The Orion Nebula is also one of the best-known targets for astronomers, serving as a popular pin-up for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Now another orbiting observatory, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, has provided new infrared views of the Orion Nebula.
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Is sex in space too hot to handle? Apparently so in Uzbekistan, where a recent article about the subject was cited as one of the reasons for a government crackdown on the weekly tabloid Tasvir. (Or was it the speculation that Tchaikovsky may have been gay?)
Writer/actress Vanna Bonta, who has researched the topic (purely for her fiction, of course) and designed a garment made for intimacy in orbit (known as the 2Suit), told me the report was a rare exception to the overwhelmingly positive response.
"I honestly had no idea it would be so popular," she wrote in an e-mail. "People are sending me more than usual links in many languages and e-mail from around the planet quoting your article and sporting the 2Suit picture."
Just don't wear it in Tashkent.
• National Geographic: Martial artists' moves revealed in the lab
• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Elusive proof, elusive prover
• Improbable Research: Lab rat terriers
• The Onion: Pluto not a planet?
It's down to the home stretch for NASA's $500 million version of "American Idol" for private-sector spaceships - otherwise known as the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. The space agency says it will announce the winners of the competition at 4 p.m. ET Friday. So far, no one in the know has signaled who will be getting the money, but there are clear front-runners and dark horses.
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NASA / ESA / MPIA |
The Hubble Space Telescope focuses on the star-forming association LH 95
in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our Milky Way's satellite galaxies.
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The smaller children can find it difficult to stand out in any family, and that goes for galaxies as well as earthly clans. This picture from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, finally gives the little kids their due.
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Steve MacLean will take the spotlight during the shuttle Atlantis' flight to the international space station, as the first Canadian astronaut to operate the Canadian-built robotic arms on the shuttle as well as the station. But north-of-the-border media outlets are already taking note of yet another Canadian astronaut, Bob Thirsk. The Canadian Press reports that Thirsk will participate in a long-term expedition in December 2007.
When NBC News space analyst James Oberg asked NASA about Thirsk's prospects, the answer was somewhat noncommittal: "Several astronauts (from NASA, as well as partner countries) are in training for potential long-duration missions on the international space station," NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said. "But no official crew assignments have been made."
"Official" appears to be the operative word here: Thirsk has been preparing for an expedition flight for some time, and his name could well turn up by the time the space station partnership announces the crews for Expeditions 16, 17 and 18. (Right now Expedition 14 is just getting ready to take over.)
• Dynamite new images from Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 1
• Science News: Crouching scientist, hidden dragonfly
• ZDNet: Geneticists find more keys to human individuality
• Wired: MIT's energy 'Manhattan Project'
• Defense Tech: Mining for terrorists
NASA |
TV chef Emeril Lagasse's freeze-dried Cajun cuisine won rave reviews this week from the international space station's crew members. How could it not? As we discussed last week, variety is the spice of gustatory life in orbit, and the spicier the better. In fact, one food-loving astronaut says his favorite space dish is so hot he can't stand it back on Earth.
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In a provocative announcement, Bigelow Aerospace says that the success of its Genesis 1 inflatable orbital module - coupled with anticipated changes in the American launch industry - has led it to make some "bold decisions" and accelerate the timetable for its future launches:
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Life and Death in the War Zone'
• BBC: Volcanic eruptions score melodies
• Slate: Explaining America's protein glut
• 'Star Trek' inspirational posters (via GeekPress)
Over the past 24 hours, the new threat of liquid explosives wielded by terrorists has transformed the way we think of air travel. Strangely enough, I was caught up in today's "flightmare" while making my way from Seattle to Houston for Friday's briefings on the next shuttle mission (which you can watch on NASA TV online).
But rather than regale you with tales of my 16-hour odyssey - which surely can be topped many times over by other travelers - I'll just point you in the direction of other resources that shed additional light on this new front in the terror techno-war:
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• NPR: Panel favors planethood for Pluto ... and other mini-worlds
• Scientific American: The neutrino frontier
• Archaeology: What's in a Native American name?
• Edmonton Journal: The 'best cases' for Canadian UFOs
PlanetSpace |
Once upon a time, the Canadian-American consortium known as PlanetSpace planned to start sending paying passengers on suborbital spaceflights by mid-2007. In recent months, the venture has faded somewhat from the radar screen - but PlanetSpace's millionaire chairman says he's involved in several under-the-radar initiatives that will soon break out into the open.
Chirinjeev Kathuria, the Indian-American physician/entrepreneur who once helped prolong the Mir space station's life and last year joined forces with Canadian rocketeer Geoff Sheerin, told me today that the initiatives are "allowing us to move forward with an orbital crew and cargo vehicle" suitable for resupplying the international space station as well as taking on space tourists.
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What is dark energy? It's one of the key questions facing physicists today, because observations indicate that two-thirds of the universe's mass-energy content consists of that mysterious repulsive force. It's now come to light (heh, heh) that NASA is providing support for three potential space missions designed to delve into the nature of dark energy: SNAP, DESTINY and ADEPT.
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The burning issues of evolution education, science and religion are addressed head-on in "The Evolution Dialogues," a new book published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the auspices of its Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion. The book, written by Catherine Baker and edited by James Miller, aims to address the "deep misunderstandings about what biological evolution is, what science itself is, and what views people of faith, especially Christians, have applied to their interpretations of the science."
Check out the full news release, including information on how to order the book - and take a look at our own little "evolution dialogue," which began last week and is still going strong. Further perspectives on science and spirituality will be forthcoming with the release of "The Varieties of Scientific Experience," the posthumously published observations of astronomer Carl Sagan. And if you're on the other side of the cultural debate, there are plenty of books that cater to your views.
• Daily Grail: 'Bosnian pyramid' sparks doubts
• New Scientist: Escaped golf-course grass frees gene genie
• Nature: Ethicists and biologists ponder the price of eggs
• Discovery.com: Monet's colors show polluted London
NASA / JPL / Cornell |
NASA's Opportunity rover took this snapshot of the rim of Beagle Crater on July 30.
The colors have been "stretched" to emphasize subtle differences in composition.
At the time, the rover was about 82 feet (25 meters) from the crater's rim.
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Today marks the darkest day of the year for Mars' southern hemisphere – the winter solstice – and thus the first full winter-to-winter cycle for those hardy rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Although they're experiencing aches and pains, prospects look good that both of NASA's Red Planet robots will see another Martian spring, three Earth years after setting down for what was expected to be only a 90-day mission.
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Two months ago, the organizers of the Space Elevator Games - offering $400,000 in NASA-backed prizes for stronger tethers and more capable beamed-power systems - signaled that they would move the event from NASA's Ames Research Center in California (where the first games were held last October) to the X Prize Cup in New Mexico this October. Today the move was made official with the release of an announcement by the Spaceward Foundation and the X Prize Foundation. The competitions are aimed at promoting technologies that eventually might be applied to future space elevators - hence the name.
Bigelow Aerospace says it has decided to delay the launch of the Genesis 2 inflatable space module, the follow-up to its successful Genesis 1 mission, so that its employees can have a happier holiday season.
In advance of the launch, Bigelow staff members would have to travel to a military base in Russia, the locale for the Genesis 2's Dnepr rocket - and would presumably have to ship all the "stuff" that Bigelow will be flying for a fee.
"Initially scheduled for late 2006, we and our launch provider have decided not to obligate our staffs to be away from home over the December and early January holidays," Robert Bigelow, the company's billionaire backer, said in a statement released Monday. "So we now have a new approximate launch time frame of the last week of January."
• ScienCentral: Music for pain
• PhysOrg: Elephants show capacity for compassion
• The Guardian: 'Harry Potter and the Academic Obsession'
• Onion Radio News: Roomba gathers evidence against human captor
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia hasn't yet found radio signals from alien life, but it has picked up other kinds of unexpected signals from space: the chemical signatures of biologically significant molecules, swirling around in the clouds from which stars and planets are made. The discovery of more and more organic compounds in interstellar space has led researchers to suspect that if life were to develop somewhere else in the universe, it wouldn't have to start from scratch.
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• Sydney Morning Herald: One giant blunder for mankind
• The Space Review: Of NASA and NewSpace
• KurzweilAI.net: Creating a technological immune system (via Slashdot)
• Sky & Telescope: Don't get snookered by Mars malarkey
• Science News: Science books for summer reading
NASA |
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams checks out a food pouch in the international
space station's galley. Williams and his crewmates, Russia's Pavel
Vinogradov and Germany's Thomas Reiter, plan a gourmet taste test.
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Gourmet cuisine and space food may sound like mutually exclusive terms, but when NASA whipped up some jambalaya based on TV chef Emeril Lagasse’s recipe and freeze-dried it for a space station tasting, even Emeril’s team had to admit that the result was ... surprisingly good.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Battle Plan Under Fire'
• The Economist: The mismeasure of woman
• Neatorama: The 25 most important questions... (via GeekPress)
• New Statesman: Generation X-Files (via Daily Grail)
© ARTP |
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Egypt's Valley of the Kings, another ancient puzzle has popped up on the radar screen - literally.
The Amarna Royal Tombs Project says radar readings show what could be another 3,500-year-old chamber from the days of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, not far from the recently explored KV63 chamber.
Is it "a find of the greatest possible significance," as the project hopes?
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• ABC (Australia): Japan plans manned moon base by 2030
• Discovery.com: Robot simulates birthing process
• Wired.com: Crop circles gain perspective
• The Guardian: Stephen Hawking says ... er, I don't know
In the beginning, there was the report about the Creation Museum going up in Kentucky, where diorama dinosaurs will walk the earth alongside Adam and Eve. Then came Tuesday's primary election in Kansas, where Darwin's defenders gained the upper hand over intelligent-design backers on the state's Board of Education.
Those stories revived the discussion over the interplay of science and religion in modern society. It's not really a scientific debate in the classical sense, but rather a cultural dialogue that we repeatedly revisit. Read on for a selection of the latest e-mail I've received on both sides of the debate, and feel free to add your own comments:
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• Technology Review: Abundant power from 'heat mining'
• PhysicsWeb: A cool solution to nuclear waste disposal (via Slashdot)
• New Scientist: Virtual bots teach each other using wordplay
• Foods from hell and other tidbits from July's Mini-AIR
• The Onion: Area man calls for immediate release of endorphins
NASA |
Static buildup may explain a three-decade-old mystery in the search for life on the Red Planet. Researchers say the static electricity generated by Martian dust storms could provide an alternate explanation for chemical reactions that hinted at organic activity – reactions that were detected during the 1976 Viking mission. Their findings also imply that the Martian surface would be continually sterilized by hydrogen peroxide.
All that is bad news for astrobiologists looking for signs of Martian life, but there's a flip side as well: The researchers acknowledge that organisms could still lurk far below the surface. And one of them says the new findings raise deeper questions about the recent detection of methane in Mars' atmosphere, which may (or may not) be an indicator of microbial life.
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The latest view from the Genesis 1 inflatable module in orbit•
JHU via AScribe: Dark-energy space mission proposed •
New York Times (reg. req.): Life after Earth •
Defense Tech: Satellite system aces laser test •
Popular Mechanics podcast on gas mileage, Genesis 1 and more
