NASA Dawn Spacecraft captures image of sunlit north pole of Ceres

Jet Propulsion Laboratory – The Dawn spacecraft, which is orbiting the dwarf planet, Ceres, has been able to capture some images of its sunlit north pole. On April 10, the spacecraft was able to move from the dark side of the dwarf planet towards the sunlit side and capture high resolution pictures of the pole, from a distance of 21,000 miles.

Dawn has been orbiting the icy body since March 6, when it established orbit and became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet. As Dawn moves closer towards the planet, additional better quality pictures will soon be released. Currently, the spacecraft is using its ion propulsion system to maneuver itself towards a series of lower orbits, with the next orbit due to be established on April 23.

It is expected that it will remain in this orbit, at just 8,400 miles, until May 9, after which it will proceed towards lower orbits.

NASA hopes to discover Alien Life before 2045

The possibility of Alien life has been the subject of a long running debate as scientist increase the intensity of their studies into the matter. Scientists at NASA are convinced more than ever that alien life is a big possibility and that conclusive evidence will become evident before 2045. Focus now shifts to when alien life will be discovered and not if, it will ever be discovered.

NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan made the sentiments last week during a forum on habitable places in space. Stofan added that they now know the specific areas to look at and how to go about the research, technology already in place.

NASA hopes that its next mission to Europa will yield more answers than questions after years of studies especially with regards to alien microbes.

Stofan is, however, quick to point out that their study and research is not focused on finding little green men on Mars but essentially finding more answers about microbes. Unique properties of molecule and astronomical techniques have in the recent past provided insight and reason that signs of life beyond the solar systems could be discovered two to three decades from now.

Methane-based Life Forms Can Survive On Titan

An artist's impression of the only spacecraft, Huygens to land on Titan. 

Researchers have stated that Titan, which is Saturn’s moon, can harbor life. They added that a large amount of methane present on Titan’s surface can easily form oxygen free cells.

This new study by the researchers from the Cornell University, challenges current theories which state that we should only look for alien life within the habitable zone of a remote star, rather than on icy space objects such as Titan.

According to the astronomers, the habitable zone of a star, also known as the Goldilocks zone, is an area within a solar system where planets can have liquid water on its surface, i.e. the zone is neither too hot nor too cold for water to evaporate, or, in the latter case, freeze.

However, the researchers who have an expertise in chemical engineering and astronomy speculate that primitive cells that are permeable to liquid methane and do not necessarily require oxygen to survive may dwell on Titan. They modeled a `different` type of life form – which is oxygen-free and methane-based – that can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on earth.

Would you take a one way trip to Mars?

No, this is not an episode of The Twilight Zone. Non-profit organization Mars One just announced the 100 finalists for its 2025 mission to colonize the Red Planet.

Mars One, an organization that plans to put the first humans on Mars has narrowed its applicant pool from 200,000 to 100. The goal of the Netherlands-based non-profit is to start a permanent colony on Mars – if the mission is launched, the colonists will never return to Earth.

The final group will consist of 24 individuals who will be split into six groups of four. One mission is scheduled to launch every two years starting in 2025.

The finalists will spend the next decade in training. The first phase of the process will focus on the candidates' ability to work together. The training process will be televised to raise money for the expensive mission. With a projected $6 billion price tag for each of the six planned launches, Mars One will need all of the funding it can muster. The non-profit plans to raise additional money through sponsorship and crowd-funding

“Being one of the best individual candidates does not automatically make you the greatest team player, so I look forward to seeing how the candidates progress and word together in the upcoming challenges,” Dr Norbert Kraft, chief medical officer of Mars One, said in a press release.

Once on Mars, the astronauts will have to be completely self-sufficient with limited supplies. Therefore, training will not only test their physical and emotional readiness, but teach them everything from medical care to basic plumbing.

Finalist Maggie Leiu is excited by the idea of humans starting a civilization on another planet.

“There’d be no legal system or parliament so it would be really fascinating to see how we work out our lives,” Lieu told The Independent.

NASA Can Smell other Distant Planets now!

So what if NASA can't reach out to distant planets, but they have found out a way to smell them. A recent interplanetary smell-o-scope experiment was conducted by NASA to smell Titan, the moon of the planet Saturn.

The experiment involved a series of spectroscopic tests to be performed on the data collected by the spacecraft Cassini. Eventually from this virtual test this data is able to show chemical composition of a target's atmosphere, which in this case was Saturn's moon Titan.

The research team was led by Joshua Sebree, Assistant Professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Also, he was a former postdoctoral fellow at NASA Goddard.

Astronomers are predicting the astronomical event of a lifetime next week. On 24 May 2014, Earth will pass through the debris tail of Comet 209P/LINEAR, which will unleash a myriad of cosmic explosions lighting up the night sky.

This will be the first time Earth has ever experienced this particular meteor shower. A meteor shower happens when the Earth passes through debris left in space by a comet; the chunks of rock, ice and other materials, burn up in the atmosphere to form ‘shooting’ or ‘falling stars’.

The meteor shower, known as Camelopardalids, has its genesis from Comet 209P/LINEAR, a dim, nearly imperceptible comet that orbits the sun every five years. The comet was discovered in 2004 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, a partnership of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, NASA and the U.S. Air Force. This will be the first time Earth has crossed through the debris field left by Comet 209P/LINEAR.

The Sun's Neighbor Is The Coldest Brown Dwarf Star Ever Found

Astronomers have discovered one of the sun's neighbors - a brown dwarf star which is as frosty as Earth's Arctic.

Penn State University astronomers believe the brown dwarf is the coldest of its kind, writes Science World Report.

The star, named WISE J085510.83-071442, was found 7.2 light years away making it the fourth closest neighbor to our Sun.

It was discovered using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes.

"It is very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," said Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a researcher in the Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds.

Astronomers discover most 'habitable,' Earth-like planet yet

April 17, 2014: This artist's rendering provided by NASA on shows an Earth-sized planet dubbed Kepler-186f orbiting a star 500 light-years from Earth. Astronomers say the planet may hold water on its surface and is the best candidate yet of a habitable planet in the ongoing search for an Earth twin.AP/NASA AMES/SETI INSTITUTE/JPL-CALTECH

LOS ANGELES – Astronomers have discovered what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet detected — a distant, rocky world that's similar in size to our own and exists in the Goldilocks zone where it's not too hot and not too cold for life.

The find, announced Thursday, excited planet hunters who have been scouring the Milky Way galaxy for years for potentially habitable places outside our solar system.

"This is the best case for a habitable planet yet found. The results are absolutely rock solid," University of California, Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy, who had no role in the discovery, said in an email.

The planet was detected by NASA's orbiting Kepler telescope, which examines the heavens for subtle changes in brightness that indicate an orbiting planet is crossing in front of a star. From those changes, scientists can calculate a planet's size and make certain inferences about its makeup.

NASA Discovers First Exomoon

In a paper that will be featured in the Astrophysical Journal, the first exomoon candidate has been discovered. Using telescopes based in New Zealand, in June of 2011 a brief brightening in the Sagittarius constellation occurred as a rare phenomenon called microlensing, when a celestial object passes between earth and a distant star. NASA-funded researchers, including the lead author from the University of Notre Dame David Bennett, have reported that while observing the gravitational magnification of the starlight, astronomers hypothesized that it was either a small star or brown dwarf and a Neptune-sized planet about 19 times the mass of earth, or a planet larger than Jupiter with an orbiting moon smaller than earth.

The possible exomoon was observed during a joint study by the Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork, or PLANET, and the Japan-New Zealand-American Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics, or MOA. The ratio of the large object to its small companion is 2,000 to one, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, but unfortunately the encounter was by chance and therefore cannot be viewed again to confirm their suspicions. If it is an exomoon, the chief scientist for NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program, Wes Traub, believes that the planet may have been ejected from another planetary system along with its companion moon.

Fierce 2012 magnetic storm barely missed Earth

Earth dodged a huge magnetic bullet from the sun on July 23, 2012. According to University of California, Berkeley, and Chinese researchers, a rapid succession of coronal mass ejections - the most intense eruptions on the sun - sent a pulse of magnetized plasma barreling into space and through Earth's orbit.

Had the eruption come nine days earlier, it would have hit Earth, potentially wreaking havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and GPS, and disrupting our increasingly electronic lives.

The solar bursts would have enveloped Earth in magnetic fireworks matching the largest magnetic storm ever reported on Earth, the so-called Carrington event of 1859. The dominant mode of communication at that time, the telegraph system, was knocked out across the United States, literally shocking telegraph operators. Meanwhile, the Northern Lights lit up the night sky as far south as Hawaii.

In a paper appearing today (Tuesday, March 18) in the journal Nature Communications, former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow and research physicist Ying D. Liu, now a professor at China's State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, UC Berkeley research physicist Janet G. Luhmann and their colleagues report their analysis of the magnetic storm, which was detected by NASA's STEREO A spacecraft.

"Had it hit Earth, it probably would have been like the big one in 1859, but the effect today, with our modern technologies, would have been tremendous," said Luhmann, who is part of the STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Observatory) team and based at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.

A study last year estimated that the cost of a solar storm like the Carrington Event could reach $2.6 trillion worldwide. A considerably smaller event on March 13, 1989, led to the collapse of Canada's Hydro-Quebec power grid and a resulting loss of electricity to six million people for up to nine hours.

Nasa Plots Daring Robotic Mission to Jupiter's Watery Moon

Nasa is plotting a daring robotic mission to Jupiter's watery moon Europa, a place where astronomers speculate there might be some form of life.

The space agency set aside $15 million in its 2015 budget proposal to start planning some kind of mission to Europa. No details have been decided yet, but Nasa chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said on Tuesday that it would be launched in the mid-2020s.

Robinson said the high radiation environment around Jupiter and distance from Earth would be a challenge. When Nasa sent Galileo to Jupiter in 1989, it took the spacecraft six years to get to the fifth planet from the sun.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute astronomer Laurie Leshin said it could be "a daring mission to an extremely compelling object in our solar system."

Past Nasa probes have flown by Europa, especially Galileo, but none have concentrated on the moon, one of dozens orbiting Jupiter. Astronomers have long lobbied for a mission to Europa, but proposals would have cost billions of dollars.

Researchers Develop Termites-Inspired Robots To Build Shelter On Mars

In a new research it is said termite-inspired robots may help doing several important tasks on Mars or Moon for human beings. It may even build shelters there for us.

Similar to the termites, the robots will be capable of building structures several times bigger and larger than themselves. Moreover, these robots don’t need instructions as to how to do the job. They will be self sufficient once the handlers orders the terms along with some simple rules as well as master plan such as when to build the stairs or when to seek shelter when there is bad weather.

Computer scientist Justin Werfel at the Harvard University said the inspiration of robots from the termites is really great. He added the phenomenon in which the termites operate is called stigmergy, which means they don’t observe each other and still completes their task. All the robots operate in the same principal.

Each of the robots are small, but are simple and contains four simply types of sensors apart from three actuators. Engineers simply program the robots with blueprints and leave them alone to perform the desired task of their own. Also, the robots can be scaled up or scaled down according to the needs.

The project paper has been published in the Science magazine on February 14 titles as Designing Collective Behavior in a Termite-Inspired Robot Construction Team.

Source: http://www.thealmagest.com/

Stephen Hawking’s new research: ‘There are no black holes’

Exactly 40 years after famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking brought event horizons and black holes into the public eye, he is now claiming that black holes don’t actually exist. Instead of all-consuming event horizons and black holes which nothing can escape from, Hawking now proposes that there are “apparent horizons” which suck in matter and energy — but only temporarily, before eventually releasing them again.

To be clear, Hawking isn’t proposing that black holes don’t exist — just that black holes, as we’ve understood them for the last 40 years or so (thanks to work done by Hawking and others), don’t exist. The current understanding is that black holes are surrounded by an event horizon — a boundary in spacetime which only allow matter and energy to pass through one way, towards the black hole. It is, in other words, the point of no return. This is why black holes appear black — energy can’t escape, and so they produce no light and no heat. In thermodynamics terms, a black hole is a perfect black body — an object that absorbs all energy and radiation.

The problem with this theory, though, is that it’s based on general relativity. In recent years, as our understanding of quantum theory has improved, numerous conflicts have arisen, especially in places where both theories apply — such as black holes and event horizons. Basically, quantum mechanics has a big issue with the idea that event horizons completely and utterly destroy information — a big no-no in the world of quantum. Hawking’s new proposal tries to ameliorate this conflict between the two theories.

Water detected on dwarf planet Ceres

Image: Dwarf planet Ceres is located in the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, as illustrated in this artist's conception. Observations by the Herschel space observatory between 2011 and 2013 find that the dwarf planet has a thin water vapor atmosphere. This is the first unambiguous detection of water vapor around an object in the asteroid belt. Artist's concept image by ESA/ATG medialab.

Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, dwarf planet Ceres.

“This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an icy surface and an atmosphere,” said Michael Küppers of ESA in Spain, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature.

Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with important NASA contributions. Data from the infrared observatory suggest that plumes of water vapor shoot up from Ceres when portions of its icy surface warm slightly.

The results come at the right time for NASA's Dawn mission, which is on its way to Ceres now after spending more than a year orbiting the large asteroid Vesta.

Dawn is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in the spring of 2015, where it will take the closest look ever at its surface.

“We've got a spacecraft on the way to Ceres, so we don't have to wait long before getting more context on this intriguing result, right from the source itself,” said Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator for Dawn at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Dawn will map the geology and chemistry of the surface in high resolution, revealing the processes that drive the outgassing activity.”

For the last century, Ceres was known as the largest asteroid in our solar system.

Super-Earths Have Land Continents and Oceans, Making Them Much Similar to Earth Than Previously Thought

"Super-Earths" were just recently found to be more common in the universe than previously known, but now the exoplanets are believed to be more Earth-like than ever.

Super-Earths get their name for having a similar makeup to our own planet and for being slightly larger as well. Recent studies have found them to exist more commonly in the universe and our own Milky Way Galaxy.

According to Space.com, a new study finds the tectonically active super-Earths have exposed continents of land surrounded by oceans. Like Earth, these exoplanets most likely store their water in the mantle, creating a stable environment similar to our planet.

"Super-Earths are expected to have deep oceans that will overflow their basins and inundate the entire surface, but we show this logic to be flawed," study researcher Nicholas Cowan said in a press release. "Terrestrial planets have significant amounts of water in their interior. Super-Earths are likely to have shallow oceans to go along with their shallow ocean basins."

Rarest Weather Forecast Revealed! Hubble Sees Atmosphere Of Distant Super-Earth [Video]

Astronomers used the Hubble Telescope to reveal accurate details of weather conditions on an alien world, and the forecast is for clouds, clouds and more clouds. Hubble telescope provides first accurate details of climate on exoplanet 40 light years from Earth. (Photo : NASA)

Hubble telescope provides first accurate details of climate on exoplanet 40 light years from Earth.

Astronomers used the Hubble Telescope to reveal accurate details of weather conditions on an alien world, and the forecast is for clouds, clouds and more clouds.

The planet, dubbed GJ 1214b, is considered a super-Earth because its mass is somewhere in between that of Earth's and Neptune's. Super-Earths are believed to be the most plentiful type of planet in the Milky Way, although none exists in our own solar system. 

A team of scientists led by experts at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago used the Hubble telescope to determine the weather forecast of GJ 1214b, an exoplanet discovered in 2009.

Past observations of GJ 1214b have suggested the planet's atmosphere consisted of water vapor or another heavy molecule, or high-altitude clouds that prevented observation of the planet's surface.

Published in the journal Nature, recently research leaders, Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean, were able to confirm the existence of clouds with data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months, the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet, a University of Chicago release said Friday.

FREAKISH' SPACE OBJECT sighted by Hubble telescope: Boffins BAFFLED

'Weird' astro-thing squirting mysterious jets of stuff

A bizarre object far beyond the orbit of Mars, described by NASA as "weird and freakish", has been spotted by the Hubble space telescope spewing jets of gas which cause it to move.

The mysterious rock, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was seen spewing matter from its surface by the telescope on September 10. Then in a second image taken on September 23 the asteroid, dubbed P/2013 P5, appeared to have swung around significantly.

Spaffing all over space ... What happens when the Sun gets pushy

Professor David Jewitt – of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles – told The Register that the appearance of the asteroid is unique, and the team has some ideas of how it came to exhibit such unusual characteristics.

"One idea was that we were seeing ice on the asteroid outgassing, but the object is too hot, around 170 Kelvin, for ice," he explained. "An impact with the asteroid was discussed but that would leave one large plume, not six."

Alien planet is just like EARTH - except for ONE tiny detail

Four hundred light-years away in the constellation Cygnus there lies a G-type star very much like our own Sun. Orbiting it is a world scientists believe is very similar to Earth in both size and composition.

This faraway planet, discovered by the Kepler space telescope and so dubbed Kepler-78b, is not a potential second home for humanity (or alien life along the same general lines as that of Earth). That's because it orbits its sun at a distance of just a million miles, rather than the 93 million that lie between us and Sol. And it's this which has top astro-boffins around the world baffled.

Everything you could want in a planet ... except location, location, location

"This planet is a complete mystery," says David Latham, a top brainbox at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "We don't know how it formed or how it got to where it is today. What we do know is that it's not going to last forever."

Button Up: Here’s the Coldest Place in the Universe

Image: The Boomerang Nebula, called the “coldest place in the Universe,” reveals its true shape with ALMA. The background blue structure, as seen in visible light with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a classic double-lobe shape with a very narrow central region. ALMA’s resolution and ability to see the cold molecular gas reveals the nebula’s more elongated shape, as seen in red.

It’s easy to guess where the hottest place in the universe might be—the core of a giant star, maybe, or a disk of gas heated to millions of degrees as it tries to cram its way into a super-massive black hole, or even, for a fraction of a second, a fusion reactor in New Jersey. It’s harder to imagine the coldest place, though.

You might think that the thermometer drops as far as it can go in the vast empty darkness between stars. But you’d be wrong. How about between galaxies? Wrong again. The coldest place, according to astronomers using the world’s newest giant telescope, is the Boomerang Nebula, a cloud of gas puffed out by a dying star some 5,000 light-years away. Intergalactic space is admittedly pretty cold, at -455°F (-270°C). But parts of the Boomerang have it beat, clocking in at -457.7°F (-272°C). That’s about 2°F (1.1°C) above absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible according to the laws of physics.

What's the weather like on Titan? 'Salt flats' provide new clues

This false-color mosaic, made from infrared data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a Sept. 12 flyby, reveals the differences in the composition of surface materials around hydrocarbon lakes at Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Fresh images of the hydrocarbon lakes on Titan reveal what appears to be the extraterrestrial equivalent of salt flats — a discovery that adds yet another layer of mystery to Saturn's largest moon.

Titan is permanently shrouded in a methane-rich haze, making it the only moon in the solar system to have a dense atmosphere. Instruments on NASA's Cassini orbiter, however, can cut through the haze and see what lies beneath.

During previous flybys, Cassini's cameras have mapped chilly lakes of methane and ethane in Titan's northern hemisphere. The readings have led scientists to believe that there's a "hydrologic cycle" at work, with hydrocarbons raining down onto the surface, collecting in the lakes, and evaporating back into the atmosphere.

In the past, the spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer has been able to capture only distant or oblique views of the lakes and surrounding terrain. But during flybys in July and September, the VIMS instrument got a much better view — thanks to seasonal changes on Titan, rain-free weather and an improved viewing geometry.

The new images appear to shed light on a key stage of Titan's weather cycle — the stage that puts the liquid hydrocarbons back into the atmosphere.