Monthly Archives: May 2010

Space Adventures returns to suborbital spaceflight

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Eric Anderson (left) and John Carmack talk about their suborbital partnership at ISDC on Thursday.

As expected, Space Adventures announced Thursday at the International Space Development Conference, (ISDC) in Chicago its partnership with Armadillo Aerospace to provide suborbital space tourism flights. Armadillo will develop a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) suborbital vehicle carrying people to at least 100 kilometers altitude, with Space Adventures selling the seats, starting with its existing customer list of about 200 people, including several former astronauts.

The presentation, featuring Space Adventures president and CEO Eric Anderson and Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack, offered few technical or schedule details about their plans. There is no finalized vehicle design yet: a video shown in the presentation showed a number of differenent Armadillo concepts, from a cone sitting atop four propellant tanks with a central engine to the “fishbowl” concept Armadillo showed off in 2008 for the short-lived suborbital joint venture between Armadillo and the Rocket Racing League. Carmack also offered no timetable for the beginning of tourist flights, although he did note the company hoped to be flying unmanned scientific payloads to altitudes of approximately 100,000 feet (30 kilometers) in the next year, and to 100 kilometers altitude in the following year.

Instead, the presentation was examining in more general terms the companies’ plans, including why Space Adventures, who has made a name for itself for nearly a decade by arranging flights to the International Space Station, would get into the suborbital spaceflight business. Anderson noted that when Space Adventures was founded in the late 1990s, its focus was on suborbital spaceflight at a time when many vehicle developers were saying “we’re only two years away,” he recalled. “We didn’t have any idea at the time that we would be fortunate enough to be able to launch private citizens to orbit before suborbital flights,” he continued. Later, Space Adventures considered working with a Russian company to develop a suborbital vehicle called Explorer, which he said they abandoned because “frankly, it got too expensive.” As Armadillo made progress with their vehicles, “I was just so impressed” with their efforts he was convinced they were the company that could really reduce the cost of space access.

While neither Armadillo nor Carmack discussed the cost of the project, they did confirm that Space Adventures was providing Armadillo with funding to support it, at least in part. Alluding to past partnership announcements that failed to pan out, Carmack said, “One of my new rules on this is that I’m not going to get up and talk about something unless a check has cleared.” And since Carmack was getting up and talking about this, he confirmed, “Space Adventures has actually paid Armadillo Aerospace to begin developing a new suborbital vehicle.” Carmack said later that under their agreement, Space Adventures will pay Armadillo unspecified amounts upon achiveing certain milestones in the vehicle development effort. “The amount of money that has changed hands here is not trivial, but it’s not enough to fund the vehicles,” he said. “It isn’t enough money to pay for these vehicles, it’s enough money to make me think about not pursuing other contracts.” He added that he expected to kick in more of his own money into the venture, but also looked to getting funding from NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program for flying scientific payloads.

The timelines that they did reveal suggest that Space Adventures and Armadillo will not be the first to market for commercial suborbital space tourism, given the progress being made by companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. Carmack addressed this as well, in the process perhaps raising the hackles of some of his competitors in the audience at the ISDC. “It’s a fool who doesn’t think he has any competition,” Carmack said. On Virgin, he said, “I think they have explicitly not chosen the most cost effective solution on this. I don’t think they will be able to compete on price, eventually, but some people will prefer their experience.”

Carmack was critical of XCOR from a funding standpoint. “I believe that, if fully funded, they could build a vehicle that could fly, that could service passengers,” he said. “I do not believe they are fully funded.” He then issued something of a warning to other companies, after earlier noting that Armadillo planned to accelerate its development plans and hire more people. “I think one of the best things about having the other companies in the industry is that it’s developed some very skilled and talened people, and we’re probably going to steal some of them.”

Carmack also said he felt Armadillo’s VTVL vehicle was a superior approach to a winged vehicled like SpaceShipTwo or Lynx. A ballistic reentry, he said, is better than a winged reentry, noting one fatality from the X-15 program. Launching a winged vehicle, he added, is “a lot harder than making a ballistic vehicle fly right up.” Thus, for greatly reducing the cost of suborbital spaceflight, “the powered [vertical] landing has significant benefits.” After the presentation I talked briefly with XCOR COO Andrew Nelson, who said, “People will want a lot of different experiences. We believe that most people will want something involving wings.”

More developments from Masten

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The announcement of the Masten/XCOR partnership on Tuesday to pursue lander testbed opportunities with NASA might leave some to conclude that Masten was turning to XCOR entirely for all of its engine needs. That is not the case: Masten is continuing to develop and test its own engines, using LOX and isopropyl alcohol propellants, for its other suborbital vehicles. And one of those engines got an interesting test yesterday:

This was a free flight of Masten’s XA-0.1B “Xombie” vehicle in Mojave. What made this test unique was that they turned off the engine in flight, and a few seconds later restarted it, the first in-flight restart of an engine during their test program. “The ability to turn off our engine, re-ignite it in flight, successfully regain control and land was the next big milestone as we expand our flight envelope to include high altitude flights,” company CEO Dave Masten said in a statement. “Each milestone we hit makes the path to space much clearer.” Masten now plans to turn to efforts needed for faster and higher altitude flights, including supersonic aerodynamics.

ISDC has a strong NewSpace flavor this year

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I’m at the airport waiting to catch a flight to Chicago for this year’s International Space Development Conference, the annual conference of the National Space Society. (I was already supposed to be there, but Untied, er, United, canceled my flight last night.) This year’s conference has a particular emphasis on NewSpace, more so than conventional space companies. Some highlights:

On Thursday morning Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, will announce the company’s “New Venture”, according to the title of his talk. This is likely to be the exclusive marketing agreement with Armadillo Aerospace the company announced last month; at the time the company said they would announce additional details at ISDC. We’ll hopefully learn more about the deal and why Space Adventures, which had de-emphasized suborbital space tourism in recent years in favor of orbital spaceflight, is jumping back into this market.

Virgin Galactic will be represented by its new CEO, George Whitesides, who returned to the company earlier this month after roughly 18 months at NASA in several roles, including chief of staff to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. With Virgin and Scaled continuing their captive carry flights of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, hopefully we’ll get some updated details about their plans for upcoming tests and introduction of commercial service. Whitesides is scheduled to speak late Saturday afternoon.

On Friday morning there will be updates about the progress of XCOR Aerospace and Bigelow Aerospace by XCOR CEO Jeff Greason and Bigelow DC Operations Director Mike Gold, respectively. XCOR is working on its Lynx suborbital vehicle, so we may learn more details about the progress they’re making on their prototype. Bigelow, as Aviation Week reported earlier this month, is ramping up its marketing efforts for its inflatable orbital habitats. Bigelow will also benefit from the new interest in commercial crew transportation as part of the NASA fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. On Friday afternoon Masten Space Systems president and CEO Dave Masten will talk about winning $1.15 million in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge last year, and presumably their ongoing efforts as well.

There are also several other talks from representatives of the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, Spaceport America, and several other NewSpace companies, including a panel Saturday morning on “The ‘NewSpace’ Paradigm”. So the next few days should offer a good opportunity to see where much of the NewSpace industry stands as of 2010 and what companies think their prospects are.

AVIRIS

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AVIRIS flew over the Gulf oil spill in a NASA ER-2 aircraft from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

NASA Sensor Completes Initial Gulf Oil Spill Flights

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AVIRIS airborne measurement
AVIRIS airborne measurement acquired May 17, 2010, over the site of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig disaster. The oil appears orange to brown.
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NASA's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument collected an image over the site of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig disaster on May 17, 2010. Crude oil on the surface appears orange to brown. Scientists are using spectroscopic methods to analyze measurements for each point in images like this one to detail the characteristics of the oil on the surface.

AVIRIS extensively mapped the region affected by the spill during 11 flights conducted between May 6 and May 25, 2010, at the request of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In total, AVIRIS measured more than 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) in support of the national oil spill response. The instrument flew at altitudes of up to 19,800 meters (65,000 feet) aboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

AVIRIS is using imaging spectroscopy to map the occurrence and condition of oil on the surface of the Gulf, and to estimate the amount of oil on the surface to help scientists and responding agencies better understand the spill and how to address its effects. In addition, coastline maps created from the AVIRIS overflights will be used to provide a baseline of ecosystems and habitats that can be compared with data from future AVIRIS flights to assess the oil spill's impacts.

Figure 1 depicts AVIRIS imaging spectrometer measurements along the Gulf coast to measure the characteristics and condition of the ecosystem and habitat prior to possible oil contamination and impact. The location is near Johnson's Bayou and along the Gulf Beach Highway, between Port Arthur, La., to the west and Cameron, La., to the east. The west corner of the image includes part of the Texas Point National Wildlife Refuge. The 224 wavelengths of light measured by AVIRIS from visible to infrared are depicted in the top and left panels. The spectrum measured for each point in the image will be used to help assess the characteristics and conditions of the coastal ecosystems and habitats.

AVIRIS data provide scientists with many different types of information about the spill. Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey's Spectroscopy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., are working to determine the characteristics of the oil based upon the AVIRIS measured spectral signature. As shown in Figure 2, acquired May 17, 2010, the signature of the oil measured in the infrared portion of the spectrum allows scientists to measure the occurrence and condition of oil and estimate the thickness of oil on the water's surface, Figure 3 depicts AVIRIS oil spill flight line measurements acquired on May 17, 2010, superimposed on a background regional image.

For more information on AVIRIS, visit http://aviris.jpl.nasa.gov/.

To read more and see related images, visit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=pia13167

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Small Near-Earth Object Probably a Rocket Part

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Graphic depicting the trajectory of near-Earth object 2010 KQ
Graphic depicting the trajectory of near-Earth object 2010 KQ.
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Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have determined that a small object that safely passed Earth on May 21 is more than likely an upper-stage of a rocket that carried a spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory.

"The orbit of this object is very similar to that of the Earth, and one would not expect an object to remain in this type of orbit for very long," said Paul Chodas, a scientist at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Observations by astronomer S.J. Bus, using the NASA-sponsored Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, indicate that 2010 KQ's spectral characteristics do not match any of the known asteroid types, and the object's absolute magnitude (28.9) suggests it is only a few meters in size.

2010 KQ was discovered by astronomer Richard Kowalski at the NASA-sponsored Catalina Sky Survey in the mountains just north of Tucson, Ariz., on May 16. Five days later, it made its closest approach to Earth at a distance just beyond the moon's orbit. The object is departing Earth's neighborhood but will be returning in 2036.

"At present, there is a 6 percent probability that 2010 KQ will enter our atmosphere over a 30-year period starting in 2036," said Chodas. "More than likely, additional observations of the object will refine its orbit and impact possibilities. Even in the unlikely event that this object is headed for impact with Earth, whether it is an asteroid or rocket body, it is so small that it would disintegrate in the atmosphere and not cause harm on the ground."

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.

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NASA Takes to the Air With New ‘Earth Venture’ Research Projects

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JPL's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment
JPL's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment will bridge critical gaps in our knowledge and understanding of Arctic ecosystems, links between the Arctic water and terrestrial carbon cycles, and the effects of fires and thawing permafrost. › Larger view
Hurricanes, air quality and Arctic ecosystems are among the research areas to be investigated during the next five years by new NASA airborne science missions announced today.

The five competitively-selected proposals, including one from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are the first investigations in the new Venture-class series of low-to-moderate-cost projects established last year.

The Earth Venture missions are part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program. The small, targeted science investigations complement NASA's larger research missions. In 2007, the National Research Council recommended that NASA undertake these types of regularly solicited, quick-turnaround projects.

This year's selections are all airborne investigations. Future Venture proposals may include small, dedicated spacecraft and instruments flown on other spacecraft.

"I'm thrilled to be able to welcome these new principal investigators into NASA's Earth Venture series," said Edward Weiler, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "These missions are considered a 'tier 1' priority in the National Research Council's Earth Science decadal survey. With this selection, NASA moves ahead into this exciting type of scientific endeavor."

The missions will be funded during the next five years at a total cost of not more than $30 million each. The cost includes initial development and deployment through analysis of data. Approximately $10 million was provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act toward the maximum $150 million funding ceiling for the missions.

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Six NASA centers, 22 educational institutions, nine U.S. or international government agencies and three industrial partners are involved in these missions. The five missions were selected from 35 proposals.

The selected missions are:

1. Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment. Principal Investigator Charles Miller, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The release and absorption of carbon from Arctic ecosystems and its response to climate change are not well known because of a lack of detailed measurements. This investigation will collect an integrated set of data that will provide unprecedented experimental insights into Arctic carbon cycling, especially the release of important greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Instruments will be flown on a Twin Otter aircraft to produce the first simultaneous measurements of surface characteristics that control carbon emissions and key atmospheric gases.

2. Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface. Principal Investigator Mahta Moghaddam, University of Michigan

North American ecosystems are critical components of the global exchange of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and other gases within the atmosphere. To better understand the size of this exchange on a continental scale, this investigation addresses the uncertainties in existing estimates by measuring soil moisture in the root zone of representative regions of major North American ecosystems. Investigators will use NASA's Gulfstream-III aircraft to fly synthetic aperture radar that can penetrate vegetation and soil to depths of several feet.

3. Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment. Principal Investigator Eric Jensen, NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

Water vapor in the stratosphere has a large impact on Earth's climate, the ozone layer and how much solar energy Earth retains. To improve our understanding of the processes that control the flow of atmospheric gases into this region, investigators will launch four airborne campaigns with NASA's Global Hawk remotely piloted aerial systems. The flights will study chemical and physical processes at different times of year from bases in California, Guam, Hawaii and Australia.

4. Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality. Principal Investigator James Crawford, NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Satellites can measure air quality factors like aerosols and ozone-producing gases in an entire column of atmosphere below the spacecraft, but distinguishing the concentrations at the level where people live is a challenge. This investigation will provide integrated data of airborne, surface and satellite observations, taken at the same time, to study air quality as it evolves throughout the day. NASA's B-200 and P-3B research aircraft will fly together to sample a column of the atmosphere over instrumented ground stations.

5. Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel. Principal Investigator Scott Braun, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The prediction of the intensity of hurricanes is not as reliable as predictions of the location of hurricane landfall, in large part because of our poor understanding of the processes involved in intensity change. This investigation focuses on studying hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean basin using two NASA Global Hawks flying high above the storms for up to 30 hours. The Hawks will deploy from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the 2012 to 2014 Atlantic hurricane seasons.

"These new investigations, in concert with NASA's Earth-observing satellite capabilities, will provide unique new data sets that identify and characterize important phenomena, detect changes in the Earth system and lead to improvements in computer modeling of the Earth system," said Jack Kaye, associate director for research of NASA's Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate.

Langley manages the Earth System Pathfinder program for the Science Mission Directorate. The missions in this program provide an innovative approach to address Earth science research with periodic windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov .

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Spinoffs Reveal Earth Benefits of NASA Technologies

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Congressional staffers in the Rayburn House Office Building on May 20 were wondering why a robot was roaming the halls. Those who followed the robot were led to further surprises: an igloo-shaped life raft, long socks full of fine powder, an inflatable antenna shaped like an enormous beach ball -- all NASA technologies that, through commercial partnerships between NASA and industry, are improving life on Earth.

The second annual Spinoff Day on the Hill, hosted by Representative Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, featured seven companies who have partnered with NASA to bring innovations to market that are saving lives, protecting the environment, and enriching how we experience our planet.

The 1958 Space Act that created NASA mandated that the Agency transfer as much of its technology as possible for the benefit of the public. To date, NASA has documented more than 1662 of these technologies, called spinoffs, in its annual Spinoff publication (http://spinoff.nasa.gov), launched in 1976.

"We invest in technologies for what they will bring to NASA in terms of future missions of science and of exploration, but we can never forget that we also invest in these things because of what they do for us right here on Earth," said NASA chief technologist Bobby Braun, who presented remarks at the event.

The products on show at Spinoff Day on the Hill all trace their origins back to space. The igloo-shaped life raft? Engineers at Johnson Space Center originally developed the self-righting raft design to prevent life rafts holding astronauts from capsizing from the downdraft of helicopters after Apollo-era splashdown landings. Now manufactured by Givens Marine Survival Co. Inc. of Tiverton, Rhode Island, the raft is credited with saving the lives of over 450 sailors.

Unirem Inc., managed by Summit International/Rasstech Industries, of Houston, exhibited its Petroleum Remediation Product, or PRP, developed through the collaboration of industry scientists and NASA researchers. The powder technology, which absorbs and captures oil as it floats on the water's surface, may soon play a role in the cleanup of the catastrophic oil spill currently endangering the nation's Gulf coast.

GATR Technologies of Huntsville, Alabama, displayed one of its inflatable antennas, developed under NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program. Quickly deployable from two suitcase-size containers, GATR's antennas enabled communications during wild fires in southern California, after Hurricane Katrina, and following the earthquake in Haiti.

Airocide, a unique air purifier that helps preserve perishable foods and destroys airborne pathogens, was presented by KES Science and Technology Inc. of Kennesaw, Georgia, and Akida Holdings of Jacksonville, Florida. Originally developed by NASA-funded researchers to help preserve plants grown in space, the technology is improving food storage and distribution in remote regions of the world, as well as helping sanitize operating rooms and doctors' offices.

Also on display was Menlo Park, California-based Allocade Inc.'s OnCue scheduling software. The technology was invented by a former Ames Research Center computer scientist who helped design scheduling software for the Hubble Space Telescope. OnCue now helps hospitals operate more efficiently by optimizing constantly changing schedules for imaging procedures.

Gigapan photographic technology, derived from the panoramic camera mast assemblies on the Mars Exploration Rovers, awed attendees with its ultra-high resolution imagery, while the Webby Award-winning NASA@Home and City interactive Web site (http://www.nasa.gov/city) shared information about spinoff technologies that can be found in homes and hometowns across the Nation.

Braun noted the economic impact NASA’s technological advancements can create, leading to "more Earth-based spinoffs, more technology-oriented jobs, and more business and industries that can compete in the global marketplace." He also highlighted the inspiration such innovation provides to students exploring education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

"What we have here are just a few outstanding examples, but there are so many others to learn about," said Doug Comstock, director of NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program. "The fabric of our everyday lives benefits from these space technologies."

One such example zipped along the halls of the Rayburn building even as Spinoff Day on the Hill came to an end. The Multi-function Agile Remote Control Robot, or MARCbot, was enhanced by NASA engineers and is now manufactured by Applied Geo Technologies Inc. of Choctaw, Mississippi. More than 300 of the robots are now in service overseas, keeping soldiers safer by helping identify possible explosive devices.


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NASA Satellite Spots Oil at Mississippi Delta Mouth

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A new image from NASA's Terra spacecraft
Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill laps around the mouth of the Mississippi River delta in this May 24, 2010, image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The oil appears silver, while vegetation is red. › Full image and caption
On May 24, 2010, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft captured this false-color, high-resolution view of the very tip of the Mississippi River delta. Ribbons and patches of oil that have leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well offshore appear silver against the light blue color of the adjacent water. Vegetation is red.

In the sunglint region of a satellite image--where the mirror-like reflection of the sun gets blurred into a wide, bright strip--any differences in the texture of the water surface are enhanced. Oil smoothes the water, making it a better "mirror." Oil-covered waters are very bright in this image, but, depending on the viewing conditions (time of day, satellite viewing angle, slick location), oil-covered water may look darker rather than brighter.

The relative brightness of the oil from place to place is not necessarily an indication of the amount of oil present. Any oil located near the precise spot where the sun's reflection would appear, if the surface of the Gulf were perfectly smooth and calm, is going to look very bright in these images. The cause of the dark patch of water in the upper left quadrant of the image is unknown. It may indicate the use of chemical dispersants, skimmers or booms, or it may be the result of natural differences in turbidity, salinity or organic matter in the coastal waters.

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Astronomers Discover New Star-Forming Regions in Milky Way

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An artist's conception of our Milky Way galaxy
An artist's conception of our Milky Way galaxy.
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Astronomers studying the Milky Way have discovered a large number of previously unknown regions where massive stars are being formed. Their discovery, made with the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, provides important new information about the structure of our home galaxy and promises to yield new clues about its composition.

The star-forming regions the astronomers sought, called H II regions, are sites where hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons by intense radiation from massive, young stars. To find these regions, hidden from visible-light detection by the Milky Way's gas and dust, the researchers used infrared and radio telescopes.

"We found our targets by using the results of infrared surveys done with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and of surveys done with the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array radio telescope," said astronomer Loren Anderson of the Astrophysical Laboratory of Marseille in France, who worked on the project. "Objects that appear bright in both the Spitzer and Very Large Array images we studied are good candidates for H II regions."

Further analysis allowed the astronomers to determine the locations of the H II regions. They found concentrations of the regions at the end of the galaxy's central bar and in its spiral arms. Their analysis also showed that 25 of the regions are farther from the galaxy's center than the sun.

Read more at http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2010/gbthiiregions/ .

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NASA Orbiter Penetrates Mysteries of Martian Ice Cap

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Northern Ice Cap of Mars
This image, combining data from two instruments aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, depicts an orbital view of the north polar region of Mars. › Full image and caption

Data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have helped scientists solve a pair of mysteries dating back four decades and provided new information about climate change on the Red Planet.

The Shallow Radar, or SHARAD, instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed subsurface geology allowing scientists to reconstruct the formation of a large chasm and a series of spiral troughs on the northern ice cap of Mars. The findings appear in two papers in the May 27 issue of the journal Nature.

"SHARAD is giving us a beautifully detailed view of ice deposits, whether at the poles or buried in mid-latitudes, as they changed on Mars over the last few million years," said Rich Zurek, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

On Earth, large ice sheets are shaped mainly by ice flow. According to this latest research, other forces have shaped, and continue to shape, polar ice caps on Mars. The northern ice cap is a stack of ice and dust layers up to two miles deep, covering an area slightly larger than Texas. Analyzing radar data on a computer, scientists can peel back the layers like an onion to reveal how the ice cap evolved over time.

One of the most distinctive features of the northern ice cap is Chasma Boreale, a canyon about as long as Earth's Grand Canyon but deeper and wider. Some scientists believe Chasma Boreale was created when volcanic heat melted the bottom of the ice sheet and triggered a catastrophic flood. Others suggest strong polar winds carved the canyon out of a dome of ice.

Other enigmatic features of the ice cap are troughs that spiral outward from the center like a gigantic pinwheel. Since the troughs were discovered in 1972, scientists have proposed several hypotheses about how they formed. Perhaps as Mars spins, ice closer to the poles moves slower than ice farther away, causing the semi-fluid ice to crack. Perhaps, as one mathematical model suggests, increased solar heating in certain areas and lateral heat conduction could cause the troughs to assemble.

Data from Mars now points to both the canyon and spiral troughs being created and shaped primarily by wind. Rather than being cut into existing ice very recently, the features formed over millions of years as the ice sheet grew. By influencing wind patterns, the shape of underlying, older ice controlled where and how the features grew.

"Nobody realized that there would be such complex structures in the layers," said Jack Holt, of the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics. Holt is the lead author of the paper focusing on Chasma Boreale. "The layers record a history of ice accumulation, erosion and wind transport. From that, we can recover a history of climate that's much more detailed than anybody expected."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on Aug. 12, 2005. SHARAD and the spacecraft's five other instruments began science operations in November 2006.

"These anomalous features have gone unexplained for 40 years because we have not been able to see what lies beneath the surface," said Roberto Seu, Shallow Radar team leader at the University of Rome. "It is gratifying to me that with this new instrument we can finally explain them."

The MRO mission is managed by JPL for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Headquarters in Washington. The Shallow Radar instrument was provided by the Italian Space Agency, and its operations are led by the InfoCom Department, University of Rome. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

To view images and learn more about MRO, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

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NASAs Swift Survey Finds ‘Smoking Gun’ Of Black Hole Activation

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The optical counterparts of many active galactic nuclei (circled) detected by the Swift BAT Hard X-ray Survey clearly show galaxies in the process of mergingData from an ongoing survey by NASA's Swift satellite have helped astronomers solve a decades-long mystery about why a small percentage of black holes emit vast amounts of energy.

Only about one percent of supermassive black holes exhibit this behavior. The new findings confirm that black holes "light up" when galaxies collide, and the data may offer insight into the future behavior of the black hole in our own Milky Way galaxy. The study will appear in the June 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The intense emission from galaxy centers, or nuclei, arises near a supermassive black hole containing between a million and a billion times the sun's mass. Giving off as much as 10 billion times the sun's energy, some of these active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the most luminous objects in the universe. They include quasars and blazars.

"Theorists have shown that the violence in galaxy mergers can feed a galaxy's central black hole," said Michael Koss, the study's lead author and a graduate student at the University of Maryland in College Park. "The study elegantly explains how the black holes switched on."

Until Swift's hard X-ray survey, astronomers never could be sure they had counted the majority of the AGN. Thick clouds of dust and gas surround the black hole in an active galaxy, which can block ultraviolet, optical and low-energy, or soft X-ray, light. Infrared radiation from warm dust near the black hole can pass through the material, but it can be confused with emissions from the galaxy's star-forming regions. Hard X-rays can help scientists directly detect the energetic black hole.

Since 2004, the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) aboard Swift has been mapping the sky using hard X-rays.

"Building up its exposure year after year, the Swift BAT Hard X-ray Survey is the largest, most sensitive and complete census of the sky at these energies," said Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The survey, which is sensitive to AGN as far as 650 million light-years away, uncovered dozens of previously unrecognized systems.

"The Swift BAT survey is giving us a very different picture of AGN," Koss said. The team finds that about a quarter of the BAT galaxies are in mergers or close pairs. "Perhaps 60 percent of these galaxies will completely merge in the next billion years. We think we have the 'smoking gun' for merger-triggered AGN that theorists have predicted."

Other members of the study team include Richard Mushotzky and Sylvain Veilleux at the University of Maryland and Lisa Winter at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

"We've never seen the onset of AGN activity so clearly," said Joel Bregman, an astronomer at the University Michigan, Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the study. "The Swift team must be identifying an early stage of the process with the Hard X-ray Survey."

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by Goddard. It was built and is being operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics in Falls Church, Va.; the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom; Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy; plus additional partners in Germany and Japan.

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BP Revenge: Everyone Should Move to Cities and Conserve

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Americans use way too much oil.  The following chart is part of the information from the CIA factbook. The data is from late 2008.

OIL CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY

America uses, by far, more oil than anyone on earth.

During the current phase of the British Petroleum oil leak catastrophe, I keep thinking about people who lived in the past.  How did they survive without oil and gasoline?  Certainly they did, and they did it well.  Entire advanced civilizations were built before the days when humans used oil and gas — civilizations such as the Mayans and the Romans and Greeks and Egyptians.  You could even argue that in many ways, they accomplished more of value and substance than we are accomplishing now. In 2010, average Americans don’t accomplish a lot. We run around buying and selling things and pretending our lives are so advanced because we can hop in a car and go anywhere we want.  Americans don’t make much, we don’t invent much, we don’t influence much.   Much of the world has left us in the dust in many ways.   Worst of all, some Americans don’t believe in science at all,  and it’s hard to argue that people who are highly influenced by talk radio hosts, or Twitter streams, are very advanced either. (See: Idiocracy. )

Ancient people really made a lot of their shorter life spans, despite their lack of gasoline.  Look what they did without oil.  They are responsible for the beginnings of physics and astronomy, artwork, music, literature, exploration all over the world, philosophy, math, agriculture –  and they built huge, complex cities.  They somehow managed to live incredible lives without cars, or electricity, processed foods, or TVs.   People used to live in communities, and they traveled together and even lived together.  Everything they needed was in one city, not spread all over hundreds of miles. They ate local food, they didn’t take vacations hundreds of miles away every year.  A very long trip was a once in a lifetime event, if done at all.  Yet many of them they managed to be educated people, with good lives.

Now, contrast this with us.  We are modern human beings, the most advanced in history, (we tell ourselves)  completely and utterly and absolutely dependent on ancient fossil fuels, buried in the ground, that have to be extracted and burned.  Traveling anywhere, at any time, burning as much gas as we can afford is our right,  we think.  It just so happens that in 2010, we need lots of dirty, filthy oil in order to be free to travel as fast and far as we feel we should.  Unfortunately, in between digging, drilling, extracting and burning oil, sometimes the stuff leaks.

For some reason, Americans accept all of this as a necessary evil, the cost of living in the times that we do.  “Accidents happen,” people have been saying.  But they don’t have to.  Our energy and fuel system is all created by people.  It’s not the way things [...]

Heavy Tree Island

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Heavy Tree islandPrivate Islands Online currently listed a rare property in Ontario Canada. Located on Lake Superior Heavy Tree Island is located inside a National Marine Conservation Area. It’s advantageous location means heavy tree island is a spectacular secluded treasure with stunning views of the Sleeping Giant’s peninsula. Nicely forested and well elevated, this pristine gem is ready for construction of your island cottage retreat

For more information on this property visit Private Islands Online

Technoarchaeology In Action

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From Obsolete Technology, New Science, NOVA, PBS

"Today, an engineer named Dennis Wingo is working to resurrect that data. He co-leads the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project--which, as the name implies, is working to pry all that old data off of the tapes. So far, he's been successful, thanks to a combination of skill and pure luck. Wingo's team located one of the only NASA computer tape drives left in existence, and carefully restored it to its former glory in order to digitize the old tapes onto modern hard drives."