Windsor Star | Workshops to explore healthy aging and spirituality Windsor Star Assumption University, in partnership with Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, will host a day of workshops exploring the role of spirituality in the journey of healthy aging on June 14. Called Living Your Best Life, the workshops will be held at the Fogolar ... |
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Workshops to explore healthy aging and spirituality - Windsor Star
Photo courtesy of Tyson Amir
This is Day 11 of the 2017 #30Days30Writers Ramadan series June 6, 2017
By Tyson Amir
It is not my preference to speak on my faith. Im not one to speak on things that Im doing; I am more in favor of letting the process speak for itself. As we immerse ourselves in Ramadan, I am reflecting more on my process of faith and application of it.
Im a Black man in the United States. Im very proud of my peoples history and of the lineage from which I come. That pride and love never wavers, while at the same time Im finding myself more and more distant from the communities being created by my co-religionists in America.
My great-great-great grandfather was born in the early 1800s in the state of Georgia. He was, like millions of other black men and women, forcibly enslaved for the purposes of economic benefit of the white elite and the economy of the U.S. As family tradition states, Bartlett was a Muslim.
He practiced Islam throughout his life. I reflect upon him and what his experience mustve been like attempting to observe Ramadan and practice his faith while being held against his will.
For him, Islam, prayer, Ramadan, ayat (verses) from Quran and all artifacts of his faith became armor, inspiration and weapons to help him in his spiritual journey as well as to confront the oppression he and his fellow African brothers and sisters unjustly faced in the U.S. I proudly come from that tradition of Islam being mixed with a fight for the freedom and liberation of Black people and all oppressed peoples.
This fight began once the first men and women were stolen from their homeland and placed aboard Portuguese ships to be carried across the Atlantic Ocean. The reality is their fight didnt end with them; their fight has been passed down to every generation of their offspring.
My generation is attempting to practice Islam and fast Ramadan in the age of mass incarceration, school to prison pipeline, the war on drugs, the era of every 28 hours a Black person being killed by law enforcement or security personnel. And all of this was alive and well way before Donald Trump became the 45th president.
As I stated before, I am a Black man in America. My brothers and sisters in hue are the primary targets of all the above and more. My fast cannot be separated from this context. Meanwhile, numerous religious communities and institutions that populate the American landscape fast and attempt to practice Islam while ignoring these realities as if theyre attempting to fast from the awareness of them and responsibility to do something about it.
At best, they might pay these issues lip service. A few conversations have been held on #BlackLivesMatter or on the prison industrial complex. There are very few Muslim organizations that are actively working to address some of these issues, but the overwhelming majority have no interest in confronting any of them, while at the same time appropriating the Black experience and the history of Black Muslims in America to legitimate their place in American society.
This is highly offensive and serves as the catalyst to what begins to create that distance between us. You cannot stand on the shoulders of Black men and women who planted the seeds of this faith in this soil with their lives and bodies and ignore their legacy and the struggles that have been handed down to their offspring.
You cannot name drop Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali to validate Islam in the 21st century but ignore the conditions that produced them and not give energy to the struggles they pledged themselves to. By ignoring these struggles and refusing to forward them, these communities are actually working to perpetuate the racism and imperialistic capitalism that are hallmarks of western hegemonic domination the world over.
My fast, faith, and fight are all intertwined just like my ancestor Bartlett, because being Black in the United States doesnt spare you from that reality. It doesnt matter how you identify religiously, politically or economically; it is your fight.
As the days and nights of Ramadan pass, I fast with hopes of spiritual enlightenment and guidance to benefit me in my journey as a human being. I also fast with the painful awareness that Im standing on the battlefield of my people, hoping that this sacred time and spiritual state will enhance my contributions to my peoples struggle.
Sadly, from this vantage point, as the centuries old battle of my people continues, I see too many of my co-religionists on the wrong side of the fight.
Tyson Amir is an author, musician, educator, community organizer and freedom fighter born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the spirit of The Dragon, George Lester Jackson, he endeavors to utilize any and all resources at his disposal as weapons to bring about the eventual liberation of his people. Tysons activism has influenced his artistic work. Black Boy Poems, his debut release as an author is an example of that.
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On the Bodies of My People My Faith, Fast and Fight as a Black Man in the US - Patheos (blog)
Summer vacation brings the suggested reading list kids bring home from school. Here are our suggestions for the grown-ups fiction and nonfiction titles in which religion and spirituality play a role, but without proselytizing or offering self-help platitudes.
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
Post-apocalyptic novels are all the rage, but the reviews for this book promote it as an instant classic of speculative fiction (aka science fiction). The year is 2049 and the Earth is beset by global warming and a band of space marauders who siphon off its waning resources. Enter a potential savior, a young woman from the countryside who can unite the surviving creatures to fight back. Her story is told by Christine Pizan, who tattoos Joans saga on her own body as a form of protest.
Faith factor: Joan is a futuristic Joan of Arc on a spiritual quest, this time across the world, not just France. The character of Christine Pizan is drawn from the 16th-century Italian writer Christine de Pizan, a contemporary of Joan of Arcs who wrote a famous biographical poem about her.
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What the critics say: Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Jeff VanderMeer (whose own novel, Borne, is being hailed as one of the years best) called it a brilliant and incendiary new novel, which speaks to the reader in raw, boldly honest terms, full of maniacal invention and page-turning momentum.
All The Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan
Ah, the eternal enticement of the Romeo and Juliet story. This one is between Liat, an Israeli, and Hilmi, a Palestinian, who meet while visiting post 9/11 New York City. Can their love survive the conflict between their countries?
Faith factor: The book, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen, focuses more on the cultural and political conflict between the characters. The protagonists different religions are backdrop to their story. The author has said of the story, My real subject was Liats fear that her Jewishness would dissolve into her partner Hilmis Arab identity.
What the critics say: Author Amos Oz called the book astonishing and said, Even the (asymmetrical) tragedy of the two peoples does not overwhelm this precise and elegant love story, drawn with the finest of lines. Some Israeli readers were less ecstatic the book was banned in Israeli schools.
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Another pair of star-crossed lovers, Nadia and Saeed, populate this novel, which takes place among refugees in an unnamed city in the midst of unrest. Allegory alert: Magical doors open between people and places. Nadia and Saeed step through one together, entering new lives in new places that will threaten their relationship.
Faith factor: The main characters are both Muslims, but religion is something they take on and off, like a garment. Saeed thinks prayer is a ritual that connected him to adulthood and to the notion of being a particular sort of man, a gentle man, a man who stood for community and faith and kindness and decency, a man, in other words, like his father.
What the critics say: Michiko Kakutani, chief book critic for The New York Times, said, Hamid has created a fictional universe that captures the global perils percolating beneath todays headlines, while at the same time painting an unnervingly dystopian portrait of what might lie down the road.
The Yoga of Maxs Discontent by Karan Bajaj
Max, a young man with a tragic past, reaches Harvard and Wall Street. But when his mother dies, he questions the meaning of life and gives everything up to journey to India and find answers.
Faith factor: Yogic spiritual practices are key to Maxs enlightenment. The author is a Hatha Yoga instructor who lives in an Indian ashram.
What the critics say: Reviews are mixed. Bajaj is best at balancing the tensions of place and practice: Indias privilege and poverty, Maxs mind and body, yogas mix of the spiritual and the terrestrial, Publishers Weekly said. Kirkus concluded, Do not try this at home.
The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn
There are already enough Jonestown books to fill a library. But in this one, Guinn, a former reporter, draws on his investigative skills to literally retrace the Rev. Jim Jones footsteps from Indiana church pastor to jungle madman.
Faith factor: Jones was a Disciples of Christ pastor before he was a mass murderer. Many of his followers thought he was Jesus, while others thought his religious faith was a tool. But they all followed him into the jungle.
What the critics say: Jim Jones Jr., the surviving son of the Rev. Jim Jones, said, The level of research and detail in The Road to Jonestown is the best ever, and really lets readers understand not only what happened, but how and why.
The Islamic Jesus by Mustafa Akyol
Jesus is revered as a prophet by Muslims, and in this book, Akyol, a Turkish journalist and a Muslim, takes the non-Muslim reader through Jesus life and times as told in the Quran.
The faith factor: Did we mention its about Jesus and Islam?
What the critics say: The book has received glowing reviews, with a few quibbles. Most critics have focused on the last chapter, What Jesus Can Teach Muslims Today. In it, Akyol says of Jesus, The three great Abrahamic religions of our battered world, despite all the past and present tensions between them, come together. ... Whether we are Jews, Christians or Muslims, we share either a faith followed by him, or a faith built on him, or a faith that venerates him.
Pontius Pilate: Deciphering a Memory by Aldo Schiavone
Drawing on the historical accounts of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria as well as the New Testament, Schiavone re-examines what might have happened when Jesus and Pilate met.
Faith factor: Schiavone, a classicist, tries to suss out the real from the fictional in the Gospel story of Pilate.
What the critics say: Schiavones account nicely lures Pilate out of the shadows, albeit briefly, even providing a measure of rehabilitation, Randall Balmer said in The New York Times Book Review.
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
Growing up in a fundamentalist Mormon enclave, the author had 41 siblings and underwent beatings, neglect and sexual abuse. Happy ending alert: She and three of her sisters escaped and Wariner became a high school Spanish teacher.
Faith factor: Wariners father, the founder of a break-away Mormon sect, was considered a prophet and her mother felt she was anointed by their marriage.
What the critics say: Spare, precise prose lifts what could have been a mawkish misery memoir about a wretched childhood in a fundamentalist Mormon redoubt into an addictive chronicle of a polygamist community that bred helplessness, dependency and fear. Boris Kachka in New York magazine
My Utmost: A Devotional Memoir by Macy Halford
Halford grew up reading the Christian classic My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and found it a great comfort as an adult navigating New York City. Here, she explores Chambers life, the story behind his perennial book and its effect on her own life and work.
Faith factor: Halford grew up a Southern Baptist. Chambers became a minister.
What the critics say: Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Carlene Bauer said the book will be most enjoyed by those who share Halfords background as well as those who struggle, or struggled, as Halford did, to reconcile the person who wants to believe with the person who wants to think.
Organ Grinder: A Classical Education Gone Astray by Alan Fishbone
What if a biker got a masters degree in the classics and philosophy and wrote a memoir? Spoiler alert: He does.
Faith factor: Fishbone drives off into explorations of the nature of the soul, weighing faith against skepticism. Oh, and he hears voices, which may or may not be God talking to him.
What the critics say: Fishbones mental mazes, irrepressibly personal, sexed-up, funny philosophical, and unconventionally spiritual, make for thought-provoking, entertaining reading. Annie Bostrom in Booklist
EXTRA CREDIT
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald
Just lifting this 740-page book could qualify as exercise. FitzGerald, a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award winner, traces the influence evangelicals have had on American politics and culture, making this a book vital for anyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are now.
Faith factor: While the book focuses on a history of American evangelicalism, it also delves into its branches Pentecostalism and Christian fundamentalism.
What the critics say: The reviews of this book are not just glowing, theyre on fire. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Alan Wolfe called it a page turner and said, We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this vitally important religious sensibility, and FitzGerald has now provided it.
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Joan and Jonestown among our favorite new faith books - The Morning Sun
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Dazzling Photos Let You Orbit Earth Aboard the Space Station - WIRED
A refurbished SpaceX Dragon cargo ship loaded with 6,000 pounds of supplies and equipment was captured by astronauts operating the International Space Station's robot arm Monday to wrap up a two-day rendezvous.
The Dragon, making its second flight to the station -- a first for SpaceX -- pulled up to within about 30 feet of the station and then stood by while astronaut Jack Fischer, operating the robot arm from inside the multi-window cupola work station, locked onto a grapple fixture at 9:52 a.m. EDT (GMT-4).
"We want to thank the entire team on the ground that made this possible," Fischer said. "These people have supplied us with a vast amount of science and supplies."
Fischer noted that the Dragon's arrival came on the 15th anniversary of crewmate Peggy Whitson's first launch to the space station and said SpaceX had reached a new milestone by re-launching a previously flown cargo ship.
"The last time we had a return visitor to the ISS was STS-135 (the final shuttle flight) in July of 2011," he said. "We have a new generation of vehicles now, led by commercial partners like SpaceX, as they build the infrastructure that will carry us into the future of exploration."
With the Dragon secured, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston took over arm operations, remotely pulling the Dragon in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the station's forward Harmony module. Once precisely aligned, 16 motorized bolts in the common berthing mechanism drove home to lock the capsule in place.
Launched Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center, the Dragon is loaded with 3 tons of crew supplies, station hardware and science gear. The spacecraft's pressurized compartment, the section accessible to the station's crew, is packed with some 3,700 pounds of equipment and supplies, much of it devoted to medical and biological research.
The Dragon over the Red Sea.
NASA
Three payloads are mounted in the Dragon's unpressurized trunk section: an experimental roll-out solar array, a commercial platform that can support up to four Earth-observation instruments at a time and a suite of telescopes to study neutron stars. All three will be extracted later by the station's robot arm.
The station crew will unload the cargo ship in the days ahead and then repack it with 3,400 pounds of biological samples, no longer needed equipment and failed components being returned to Earth for engineering analysis.
Fischer and Whitson plan to unberth and release the Dragon July 2, setting up a fiery plunge to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles.
This is the 11th station resupply flight carried out by SpaceX under contract to NASA. The company plans two more cargo runs this year, one scheduled for launch Aug. 1 and the other on Nov. 1.
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Ronkonkoma What started as a hobby for St. Joseph Schools technical director and technology teacher Jennifer Medordi, ended up taking her whole school to space as more than 300 people packed St. Josephs gym on May 22 to see a dozen students from the school speak directly to astronaut Jack Fischer on the International Space Station. The direct contact with the space station was the culmination to a school year that celebrated mans exploration of space, and the fascination people have had throughout time with the exploration and conquest of space.
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An amateur (HAM) radio operator,Medordi mentioned a program called ARISS, which is an acronym for Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, to Principal Richard Kuntzler and asked if she could pursue placement in the program for St. Josephs students. Jennifer explained that the ARISS program was a comprehensive program with suggested readings, hands-on assignments and other related work that gave students a broad historical, scientific and cultural perspective on space exploration Kuntzker said. I was intrigued by the idea, but because only about a dozen schools get chosen nationally each year to participate, I wasnt planning around the program just yet. That all changed when St. Joseph School was notified that they were just one of 14 schools nationally, and the only Catholic school, selected to participate during the 2016 2017 school year.
In her proposal, Ms. Medordi outlined the current STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program already in place at St. Josephs and identified some cross-curricular opportunities they could take advantage of if selected. The initial meeting with the rest of the faculty at St. Josephs just blew me away, Medordi said. The teachers all enthusiastically embraced the concept and identified places where space exploration and radio communication could be embedded into all subjects, including Social Studies, English Language Arts, Music, Art and Religion.
Since the beginning of the school year students at St. Josephs have read books on space, listened to space inspired music, and have learned about radio waves and rocket trajectories. There have even been three teacher-designed Space Days with themes that have included Space History where they studied the Mercury, Apollo and Space Shuttle missions. Theyve learned about Living in Space where they did activities that simulated space living and exercises for living in microgravity. And they projected what the future might hold on Colonizing Mars day. On HAM Radio Day, Medordi and her father, Paul Janson set up radio operations in the school allowing students to make contacts across the tri-state area to better understand HAM radio.
The May 22 contact with the International Space Station was led by 12 students from the school who became Space Ambassadors by qualifying via an essay contest. The Ambassadors and the rest of their classmates put together a list of 20 questions that represented the things that they wanted to know, and that hopefully hadnt been asked before. Some of the questions included: - If you could go back in time and say something to your pre-astronaut self, what would it be? - Do you perceive time differently in space? - How does your view of Earth impact your perspective on humanity and how has the experience affected your faith?
Story continues after slideshow
Photos by Gregory A. Shemitz
Father Mike Reader, pastor of St. Josephs Parish, noted the profound changes weve seen in society in the 50 years since the Christmas Eve reading from the Book of Genesis during Americas Apollo 8 mission, and contrasted that with todays global cooperative international effort. He noted that the International Space Station is the largest non-war international collaboration in history with 16 countries collaborating, and he thanked Medordi for lighting the flame of space exploration in the school, and for all of the rest of the teachers in the school for fanning that flame.
The ARISS Program is a once-in-a-lifetime experience made possible by the Amateur Radio community and NASA. Space Ambassadors from St. Joseph School included:Shane Bellino, Dominic Marando,Alicia Soler , Manuel Kittel,Lauren Avilla, Ralph Silvestre,Cadence DePersio, Logan Danna,Aaron Tabigue, Rohan Douglas,Joseph Fardella Jr. and Alexandra Buttonow
As a result of the ARISS Program and St. Joseph staffs efforts the students now have a new appreciation of space science and many have expressed a desire to pursue careers in science and technology fields stated Medordi. That is the ultimate goal of the ARISS Program, to turn students on to the wonders of science and technology.
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St. Joseph's students make contact with Space Station astronaut - Long Island Catholic
WOODTV.com (blog) | Two Great Views of the Intl. Space Station WOODTV.com (blog) There are many views of the International Space Station here in early June. Here's the complete schedule here. Two views really stand out. The first is tonight at 10:49 pm. The station appears in the northwest sky and moves up close to overhead, then ... |
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Two Great Views of the Intl. Space Station - WOODTV.com (blog)
File photo of an X-37B spaceplane being encapsulated inside the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket before its first test flight in April 2010. Credit. U.S. Air Force
A month after an X-37B mini-space shuttle glided to a landing on Kennedy Space Centers runway in Florida, the U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that the spaceplanes next mission will launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time.
The previously-unannounced launch agreement will use a Falcon 9 rocket to loft one of the Air Forces two Boeing-built X-37B spaceplanes, reusable craft that have circled Earth for a combined 2,085 days on four previous flights.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, displaying a model of the unpiloted spaceplane, disclosed the services launch plans for the fifth X-37B mission during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday.
This is the model of the X-37, which will be going up again, Wilson said. Its a reusable vehicle and will be going up again on top of a SpaceX launcher in August.
Managed by the Air Forces Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37Bs are about one-quarter the size of a space shuttle orbiter. Built by Boeings Phantom Works division, each spaceship has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) and a length of more than 29 feet (8.9 meters).
The X-37B weighs about 11,000 pounds (5 metric tons) and has typically orbited Earth at altitudes between 200 and 250 miles (320 to 400 kilometers).
The X-37Bs, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, take off nestled inside the payload fairing of a conventional rocket, then open payload bay doors and deploy a power-generating solar panel in orbit. The spaceplanes glide back to Earth for a runway landing.
The crafts four previous missions lifted off on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral, each mission spending progressively longer periods in orbit.
The X-37Bs took off inside the short version of the Atlas 5 rockets 5-meter-class payload fairing without the aid of strap-on solid rocket boosters, a configuration ULA calls the Atlas 5-501. The Falcon 9s standard payload shroud is approximately the same diameter and length of the Atlas 5s short 5-meter fairing.
The most recent flight, named OTV-4, ended May 7 with the X-37Bs first touchdown on the former space shuttle landing strip at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 718 days in orbit. The previous three missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but the Air Force and Boeing have relocated X-37B launch, landing and processing operations to the Florida spaceport, taking over two former space shuttle hangars near the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building.
The X-37Bs missions in space are largely secret, and the robotic spaceships landing last month was the first time the Air Force did not announce the crafts scheduled return ahead of time. Breaking with disclosures ahead of earlier flights, the Air Force also did not reveal which of the two spaceplanes flew the OTV-4 mission.
Military officials did not identify Tuesday which spacecraft is slated for the fifth X-37B flight.
We are very excited for the next fifth X-37B mission, said Randy Walden,the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. We look forward tocontinued expansion of the vehicles performance and are excited to continuehosting experimental payloads for the space community.
The Air Force said in a statement Tuesday that the fifth X-37B flight will include several firsts.
This mission will be the programsfirst launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Upgrade launch vehicle, the Air Force said. The program alsocontinues to build upon its fourth mission collaboration with experimentpartners.
The Air Force Research Laboratory will test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes on the X-37Bs fifth long-duration spaceflight, military officials said.
Other objectives of the flight remain secret.
The ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms willensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers, Walden said in a statement. We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexibleand responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceXs ability toprovide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program.
SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket was certified by the Air Force to launch the militarys sensitive and costly national security payloads in 2015. Since that milestone, the Air Force has awarded contracts to SpaceX for launches of two Global Positioning System navigation satellites, and at least a dozen more launch contracts are up for grabs by SpaceX and ULA through 2019.
Before SpaceX was certified, the Air Force gave launch contracts ULA in sole-source block buy awards.
But the rocket contract for the fifth X-37B mission was not listed in a roster of planned competitive space launch procurements provided by Air Force officials in recent months.
SpaceX has up to a half-dozen launches on its schedule before the X-37B mission in August, primarily deployments of commercial communications satellites. The company aims to resume flights from Cape Canaverals Complex 40 launch pad by September after crews repair damage to the facility from a Falcon 9 rocket explosion in September.
Until then, all Falcon 9s launched from Florida will take off from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon missions and most space shuttle flights.
Officials have not specified which Florida launch pad will host the Falcon 9s liftoff with the fifth X-37B flight, and SpaceX said last week that they have not determined which mission will be the next to depart from pad 40.
Wilson, who has been the top civilian in the Air Force for three weeks, told lawmakers Tuesday the hotly-competitive U.S. launch market is driving launch prices down, giving the military two certified contractors to ensure a backup provider is available if one launch vehicle runs into trouble.
The Pentagon instituted the assured access to space policy after a string of launch failures in the 1990s, and ULAs Atlas and Delta rocket fleets offered the military launch redundancy until SpaceXs Falcon 9 arrived on the market.
We had a huge problem in the 1990s with access to space, and the country, at that time, made a significant investment in space capability, and the ability to launch, and it paid off and is showing results, Wilson said. The benefit now is that were seeing competition, and its bringing the price down for access to space.
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US Air Force taps SpaceX to launch next X-37B spaceplane mission - Spaceflight Now
Ocean McIntyre
June 7th, 2017
This artists concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. It is the hottest gas giant planet discovered so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Six hundred and fifty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, a bright, young, Type-A, blue, main-sequence star designated KELT-9 burns brightly. More than twice as massive as the Sun and nearly twice as hot, KELT-9 is a rare star one of a group of stars making up less than one percent of the total stars in the universe. According to a paper published this week in Nature,thisunusual starhosts an equally unusual exoplanet.
Using data from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) administered by Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennesee; Lehigh University of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), scientists determined there tobe a very strange, and very hot, exoplanet orbiting the bright KELT-9 star. The exoplanet was discovered after theynoted a repeated dimming of the star approximately every 36 hours.
KELT is made up of two robotic wide-field telescopes. KELT-North at the Winer Observatory about an hour outside of Tucson, Arizona, and KELT-South at the Sutherland astronomical observation station about 230 miles (370 kilometers) north of Cape Town, South Africa.
Photo Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
The exoplanet it found, KELT-9b, is a hot Jupiter gas giant. It was expected to be roughly the same size as Jupiter, but further study proved it to be 2.8 times more massive and half as dense.Its thought that the large size of KELT-9b is due to both its proximity to the star KELT-9and the radiation KELT-9gives off. This combination has caused the planet to become superheated and to puff up.
Scott Gaudi, an Ohio State University astronomy professor, workedon the study at the Jet Propulsion Lab, in Pasadena, California, while on sabbatical. Gaudi has spent the last two decades searching for exoplanets, and, according to him, KELT-9b is one of the strangest exoplanets Ive ever seen.
With this discovery, KELT-9 became the seventh Type A star located to host an exoplanet. In addition, it is also the brightest star to host an exoplanet thus far.
Up until this discovery, WASP-33b was believed to be the hottest exoplanet, but KELT-9b is nearly 20 percent hotter. In addition, it receives nearly 700 times as much radiation from its host star than WASP-33b does. The ultraviolet radiation within the orbit of KELT-9b is beyond extreme. Because it is so close to its host star, it is presumed to be tidally locked the same face of the planet is always facing the star.
The temperatures on KELT-9b on the side of the planetfacing away from the star are estimated to be 6,830 degrees Fahrenheit (3,777 Celsius), whereas the star-facing side reaches temperatures approximately 7,820 Fahrenheit (4,327 Celsius). At this temperature, combined with the extreme UV radiation and stellar proximity, the surface of the planet is quite likely a molecular pandemonium with its surface atmosphere literally being evaporated.
Molecules such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane cant form at all on the star-facing side of the planet. On the side facing away from the star, some molecules may be able to recombine, but probably only temporarily. The completely inhospitable environment of KELT-9b has made it a searing hot, puffy planet writhing in ions that it is possibly shedding its atmosphere much like a comets tail but on a more massive level.
As if the sheer heat of KELT-9b wasnt enough of an oddity, theres its orbit. Instead of orbiting its host star along its axial plane, KELT-9b is orbiting its star nearly perpendicular to it in a pole to pole orbit.
With the mass of a planet and the atmosphere of a star, all indications are that KELT-9b could very well be some type of hybrid planet-star or, at the very least, a new class of planet. Scientists are looking forward to studying KELT-9b in depth, with both the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes as well as with continued observations with the KELT North and South.
This discovery has raised many new questions about the evolution of stellar systems like this. Especially considering what might happen when KELT-9 reaches the end of its life. After a 500-million-year sequence lifetime, KELT-9 will exhaust its hydrogen and become a red giant star, swelling to three times its current size.Scientists are already hypothesizing about what might become of the exoplanet KELT-9b at that time. It might be swallowed by the red giant or, perhaps, just remain as a scorched remnant of a planet with its atmosphere and volatiles completely stripped away. There is a possibility that there exists a population of close-in super-Earth remnant core planets orbiting subgiant stars.
It is hoped that with the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in March and October 2018, respectively, some of these questions maybe answered.
CGI animation of planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Tagged: Exoplanet KELT KELT-9 KELT-9b The Range
A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, Ocean McIntyre's writing is focused primarily on science (STEM and STEAM) education and public outreach. McIntyre is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador as well as holding memberships with The Planetary Society, Los Angeles Astronomical Society, and is a founding member of SafePlaceForSpace.org. McIntyre is currently studying astrophysics and planetary science with additional interests in astrobiology, cosmology and directed energy propulsion technology. With SpaceFlight Insider seeking to expand the amount of science articles it produces, McIntyre was a welcomed addition to our growing team.
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Astronomers find exoplanet hotter than most stars - SpaceFlight Insider
Mike Howard
June 7th, 2017
Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly detailed what he had to do to become an astronaut with NASA during an event held on Monday, June 5. Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. More and more, NASA and its family of contractors are focusing their attention on the Red Planet, and an event held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Monday, June 5, showed off some sporty new wheels that any astronaut would love to use when cruising the flash-frozen plains of Mars.
The event, part of the Visitor Complexs Summer of Mars celebration, unveiled a Mars rover concept vehicle and was hosted, in part, by former shuttle astronauts Scott Kelly and Jon McBride.
Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider
Kelly, who completed one year on the International Space Station in March of last year (2016), spoke for about an hour, noting that when one is working on large goals, the best way to achieve them is through a series of small, manageable steps.
Children need inspiration and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex worked with Parker Brothers Concepts, along with NASA scientists, to develop the Mars concept rover which is poised to tour the U.S. East Coast in July and August in an effort meant to help provide that inspiration. This summer, the Visitor Complex will also provide free admission to students who are entering the fifth grade this fall.
Besides his one-year stint on board the International Space Station, Kelly flew to orbit as the pilot on STS-103 and as the commander of STS-118. Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider
Mondaysevent was held at the Visitor Complexs Rocket Garden and includedLisa Hultquist the senior director of sales,marketing, content, and education for the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
For his part, Kelly noted that missions like his one-year stay on the ISS are critical on NASAs Journey to Mars.
Theres a lot more stuff, especially about human physiology, that we need to know if were going to go to Mars; its going to take over six months to get there. Youre going to have tospend over a year on the surface; its going to take over six months to get back thats a lot of time in space, Kelly said. [] so theres a lot more that westill needto learn before we make that journey.
Video courtesy of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Tagged: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Parker Brothers Concepts Scott Kelly Summer of Mars The Range
Mike Howard was born on Florida's Space Coast in 1961, growing up on the beaches near the Kennedy Space Center when rockets first started to fly into space. As a small boy, one of the first photographs he took was in July 1969 - of the Apollo 11 launch to the Moon with his father's Nikon. With over 20 years of professional photographic experience Howard has been published in various media including Florida Today, Air and Space Magazine and has worked with SpaceX and Space Florida as well as other news outlets. In 1998 his company started offering destination wedding photography services in the Cocoa Beach area and in 2005 Michael Howard Photography L.L.C. was formed.
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How many of our kids dream of going into space? How many dream of just getting through the next day?
As a kid of the 60s, Ive been inspired by NASA and the space program for as long as I can remember. It was the reason I went into engineering. I dreamed of endless possibilities.
But for many, the possibilities were far from endless. It was a daily struggle to survive. It still is.
I was born a couple weeks after Dr. King gave life to the Dream and only a couple days before the horrific bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church and vicious murders that ended the lives of four little girls and two young boys.
As a nation, how do we reconcile our ability to land a man on the moon within a decade and our inability to end the systematic, violent oppression committed over centuries?
How is it possible for otherwise loving people to ignore the dehumanizing effects that result from segregating and isolating others? People who say they harbor no ill-will against the oppressed, but perpetuate a culture of ill-will.
Dr. King spoke of the strange paradoxes of a nation founded on the principle that all men were created equal, fighting to maintain a culture of institutionalized segregation and discrimination.
This culture persists today.
On what is being called Discrimination Sunday, Texas legislators would have made their Jim Crow-era counterparts proud. One of the bills passed by the Texas House, SB2078, includes an amendment preventing transgender K-12 children from using bathrooms matching their gender identity.
Perhaps we should not be surprised.
Bathrooms and public spaces were used like a weapon during the Jim Crow era, as segregationists preyed on fears that African Americans would assault white women and children or pass on diseases. Many of the same scare tactics used to justify segregating African Americans are being used today against transgender people, including children.
These scare tactics were used to great effect in Houston and North Carolina and adopted as a model by other states trying to pass anti-transgender legislation.
How is it possible states can pass this type of legislation despite the overwhelming evidence debunking false claims about safety?
This is not just about bathrooms. And weve been here before.
In her enlightening book, Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly introduced us to the extraordinary contributions African American women made to NASA and our space program. It was also a stark reminder of the culture of normalcy around segregation and discrimination that endured into the Space Age.
African American women like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson made great contributions scientifically and in breaking down barriers of segregation and discrimination. They took a stand.
I ask that the people of Texas take a stand this time with transgender children and their families.
Segregation and separate but equal are a thinly veiled rejection of the truth that we are all created equal. Segregation dehumanizes. It isolates and denigrates physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston spoke passionately against the legislation:
Thankfully, the lessons of the past are not lost on all.
Businesses including IBM, Dell, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and many others recognize the value of diversity and signed a letter opposing this harmful legislation.
As a parent to a young transgender child and the CEO of an aerospace company, I appeal to the millions of companies and organizations in Texas and elsewhere to do the same.
To those who may have been silent about injustices in the past it is never too late to speak out.
To those who may have made the wrong choice in the past it is never too late for redemption.
And as we speak out against injustice, we know of a wondrous power:
So now, through this redemptive power of love, we can dream of endless possibilities.
Peter and Sarah Tchoryk live in Michigan and have three kids and three grandkids. They strive to create meaningful opportunities for all kids and fulfill the Dream.
Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.
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A Letter to Texas on Spaceflight, Dreams, and Transgender Kids - HuffPost
According to the Parson Red Heads singer/guitarist Evan Ways voluminous press notes about the bands new album, Blurred Harmony, its more a true part of us than any record we have made before. Ways statement should comfort longtime fansthey arent going to rock the boat this time around.
Blurred Harmony is exactly what you might expect from the roots-rock band: a cozy collection of tunes that pulls influences from psychedelia and Americana in for a snuggle. Plenty of other Portland outfits go for the same kind of embracethe Parson Red Heads just do it better than most.
Ways notes also emphasize that, for the first time, the band recorded all by themselves. It reflects the confidence that the quartet exhibits throughout this warm, hearty record. They know which strains of jangle and fuzz and shimmer will land the right emotional effect.
When Way sings of wrestling with the past and fears for the future on What Have I Become, it is to the sound of a fingerpicked acoustic underpinned by a misty swirl of electric guitar tones. Sunday Song ambles along like a peaceful weekend morning, and the slight mental distress found in the lyrics of Coming Down is soothed by the musics Big Star-like attack.
Way should consider taking some chances with his lyrics. Their plainspoken quality certainly helps to make his point as clearly as possible, but it also feels like hes holding back somehow, or worse, not trusting that his audience will be able to follow if he takes off on some poetic flights.
But thats not what the Parson Red Heads provide. Outside of the lovely sound collage that closes the album, the quartet is fine playing to their base and doing what they do well. Its gotten them this farwhy mess with a good thing?
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Research of coral deposits at a massive sinkhole/cave on the island of Kauai has revealed the origin of a tsunami that hit Sanriku, Japan in 1586.
The study determined that the Japan event was caused by a mega-earthquake measuring greater than a magnitue 9.5 from the Aleutian Islands that broadly impacted the north Pacific.
Makauwahi sinkhole. Credits: R. Butler (L), Gerard Fryer (R), GoogleMaps.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Rhett Butler, geophysicist at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa, re-examined historical evidence around the Pacific including coral fragments deposited into the Makauwahi Cave on Kauai.
The Makauwahi geological feature is situated in a hardened sand dune about 100 meters from the ocean in the Mhulep area, and is the only well-documented paleotsunami deposit in Hawaii from the 16th century.
An earlier study estimated the probability of a 9+ Magnitude earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, and its power to create a mega-tsunami in Hawaii.
Butler said the latest study study identified a very precise age of the tsunami event that caused the coral deposits on Kauai.
The coral deposits were previously dated to approximately the sixteenth century using carbon-14, which had an uncertainty of120 years. Using more specific isotopes of naturallyoccurring thorium and uranium in the coral fragments, researchers came up with a more precise, 157221 date.
This increased precision allowed for better comparison with dated, known tsunamis and earthquakes throughout the Pacific.
Coral fragments analyzed in this study (35 cm in longest dimension). Credit: Butler, et al.
Until now, researchers considered the event an orphan tsunami, a historical tsunami without an obvious local earthquake source, likely originating far away.
Although we were aware of the 1586 Sanriku tsunami, the age of the Kauai deposit was too uncertain to establish a link, said Butler. Also, the 1586 Sanriku event had been ascribed to an earthquake in Lima, Peru. After dating the corals, their more precise date matched with that of the Sanriku tsunami.
Even though there was no seismic instrumentation in the 16th century, we offer a preponderance of evidence for the occurrence of a magnitude 9 earthquake in the Aleutian Islands. Our knowledge of past events helps us to forecast tsunami effects and thereby enable us to assess this risk for Hawaii.
Further, re-analysis of the Peruvian evidence showed that the 1586 Peruvian earthquake was not large enough to create a measurable tsunami hitting Japan. They found additional corroborative evidence around the Pacific thatstrengthened the case. Earthquakes from Cascadia, the Alaskan Kodiak regionand Kamchatka were incompatible with the Sanriku data in several ways. However, a mega-earthquake (magnitude greater than 9.25) in the Aleutians was consistent with evidence from Kauai and the northeast coast of Japan.
Tsunami amplitudes for (a) Mw 9.25 earthquake in E Aleutians, (b) Mw 8.05 earthquake in Lima, Peru.
Butler and scientists from the National Tropical Botanical Garden, UHM School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technologyand NOAAs Pacific Tsunami Warning Center participated in the latest research.
Hawaii is surrounded by the ring of fire where mega-earthquakes generate great tsunamis impacting our island shoresthe 2011 Tohoku Japan is the most recent example, said Butler.
Forecast models of a great Aleutian event inform the development of new maps of extreme tsunami inundation zones for the State of Hawaii. By linking evidence on Kauai to other sites around the Pacific, researchers say they can better understand the Aleutian earthquake that generated the tsunami.
Butler and colleagues at UH Mnoaare now working to determine how frequently great earthquakes along the Cascadia margin of the Pacific Northwest might occur. These events have the potential to devastate the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and send a dangerous tsunami to Hawaiis shores.
The coral dating was funded by Directors funds from the UHM Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. Tsunami forecast methods were provided by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of NOAA. Historical and scientific literature research used the resources of the University of Hawaii library.
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Massive Kaua'i Sinkhole Reveals Source of 1586 Tsunami - Maui Now
NASA announced 12 new astronauts for its 2017 class on Wednesday, June 7. NASA
The 2017 NASA Astronaut Class: (from left) Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Jonny Kim, Frank Rubio, Matthew Dominick, Warren Hoburg, Robb Kulin, Kayla Barron, Bob Hines, Raji Chari, Loral O'Hara and Jessica Watkins.(Photo: NASA/Robert Markowitz)
Talk about the right stuff.
NASA on Wednesday named a dozen new astronauts seven men and five women selected from a record pool of more than 18,000applicants, more than double the previous high of 8,000.
You are the 12 who made it through, you have joined the elites, you are the best of us, Vice President Mike Pence said during a ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston."You carry on your shoulders the hopes and dreams of the American people."
The diverse Class of 2017, ranging in age from 29 to 42, includes six military officers, two of them doctors. It includesa biologist involved in Antarctic expeditions, a geologist who has worked with NASAs Mars Curiosity rover, and a SpaceX engineer who might ride a capsule he helped design.
We do things because they are hard, and then we crush it, said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Raja Chari, a 39-year-old test pilot from Iowa, when asked how he felt about the chance to fly a spaceship.
[SpaceX bets the house to become satellite internet provider]
[SpaceX to launch Air Force's X-37B mini-shuttle]
Families and VIP guests cheered as the astronaut candidates, as they will be called until completing a two-year training program, walked onto a stage wearing NASA-issued blue flight suits.
Chari was joined by Kayla Barron, 29; Zena Cardman, 29;Matthew Dominick, 35; Bob Hines, 42; Warren "Woody" Hoburg, 31;Dr. Jonny Kim, 33; Robb Kulin, 33; Jasmin Moghbeli, 33; Loral OHara, 34; Dr. Frank Rubio, 41; and Jessica Watkins, 29.
The future astronauts might perform science research aboard the International Space Station, flying to the orbiting laboratory in Boeing Starliner or SpaceX Dragon capsules launching from Cape Canaveral, or possibly in Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
They could be assigned to the first exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit since the last Apollo moon shot in 1972.
NASA in the early 2020s hopes to start launching crews from Kennedy Space Center in Orion capsules lifted by the Saturn V-class Space Launch System rocket. Astronauts will work in the area around the moon as a proving ground for eventual Mars missions.
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That would be a dream come true for Moghbeli, who in sixth grade wrote a book report about the first woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963.
Moghbeli, from Baldwin, New York,said her experience as a Marine Corps major and helicopter test pilot had taught her to work outside her comfort zone, "pushed me to the point of failure, and taught me to get back up and to keep trying and to keep pressing."
Houston native O'Hara's second grade class grew tomatoesfrom seeds that flew on the space shuttle.
"Those early experiences really hooked me and are a big part of what ignited the dream to be an astronaut," she said. "Alot of our class shares that curiosity and excitement for exploring the world and going farther than anyone has gone before."
The 2017 astronaut class is NASAs 22nd, nearly 60 years after the 1959 introduction of the Mercury Seven amid a space race with the Soviet Union.
To apply, applicants had to be a U.S. citizen, have a degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathfield and at least three years of related experience, or at least 1,000 hours piloting jet aircraft.
Starting last year, selection teams winnowed the field of18,353 applicants to 120 and then 50 finalists.
Last month Dominick, aNaval aviator sailing in the western Pacific Ocean aboard the USS Ronald Reagan struggled to get a call through to NASA, but finally learned he'd been offered the job.
"It was awesome," he said. "I couldnt even get yes out. I had goosebumps."
The new crop of astronauts are joining NASA as it continues a bumpy transition following the shuttle programs retirement in 2011.
Six years later, the United States still needs Russia to get people to and from orbit. That reliance is expected to end next year when commercial crew systems being designed by Boeing and SpaceX start flying.
The first test flight of the SLS and Orion, without a crew, has slipped from 2017 to 2019.
The Trump administration had hoped for an exciting exploration mission during the current four-yearterm, but has not yet signaled any major shiftsin strategy or nominated a new leader for NASA.
Pence on Wednesday confirmed he would lead a revived National Space Council, which will attempt to better coordinate NASA, military and commercial space programs.
The U.S. will usher in a new era of space exploration that will benefit every facet of our national life, said Pence.
The new astronauts-in-training will report to Houston to begin studying space station systems, learning Russian and flying T-38 jets.
Kulin, a former commercial fisherman in Alaska who now leads SpaceX's Launch Chief Engineering Group in California,could one day earn a flight assignment to the ISS on the company's Dragon spacecraft.
"Hopefully one day Ill actually fly on a vehicle that has components I designed," he said. "Its been an incredible ride all around."
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.
SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket on a mission to the International Space Station and landed the first stage at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station shortly after on Saturday, June 3, 2017.
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SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch included a 13,500-pound satellite that's close to the size of a double-decker bus. USA TODAY
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SpaceX launched a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload from Kennedy Space Center Monday morning and successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket.
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An Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 with a Cygnus spacecraft for the International Space Station.
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In a historic first for the company and the industry, SpaceX launched and landed a "flight proven," or refurbished, Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center.
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A Delta IV rocket carrying the military's WGS-9 satellite blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Saturday, March 18, 2017.
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SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center with the EchoStar 23 communications satellite on Thursday, March 16, 2017.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully blasted off from Kennedy Space Center's historic pad 39A on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. The first stage returned for a successful landing in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
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An Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with the SBIRS missile detection satellite on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017.
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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 from KSC, lands at Cape
SpaceX launches satellite size of a double-decker bus
SpaceX launches Falcon 9 from KSC, nails landing
Atlas V rocket blasts off on mission with Cygnus spacecraft
SpaceX launches, lands 'flight proven' Falcon 9
Delta IV rocket launches from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Kennedy Space Center
Falcon 9 blasts off from KSC, lands at Cape
Atlas V rocket blasts off with missile detection satellite
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Today, NASA is announcing to the world its newest class of astronauts at the space agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This is the new group of people who could potentially fly on brand-new vehicles into lower Earth orbit or into deep space one day. Around a dozen lucky and incredibly talented humans will join the ranks of the astronaut corps this afternoon, which currently boasts 44 people who are eligible for flight assignments.
The newest class was handpicked from more than 18,300 hopefuls who applied between December 2015 and February 2016 the highest amount of submissions NASA has ever received during an open call. Before this, around 8,000 was the record for most submissions in 1978. To be picked, people have to meet a certain set of criteria such as having a bachelors degree in a STEM field or experience flying jet aircraft and then go through rounds of interviews. So todays new astronauts have gone through a lot to get to this point.
More than 18,300 hopefuls applied between December 2015 and February 2016
And this latest class may have the chance to ride on some entirely novel spacecraft that are currently in development. As of now, the only ride astronauts have is the Russian Soyuz rocket, which ferries people to and from the International Space Station. But both SpaceX and Boeing are working on vehicles the Dragon and CST-100 Starliner, respectively that will be able to take astronauts to the ISS; those are slated to start flying as early as 2018. Plus, NASA is also developing the Orion crew capsule, designed to carry people into deep space when launched on top of a new rocket called the Space Launch System; that vehicle is slated to start carrying people in the 2020s. After two years of training, the new astronaut class could be assigned to any of these new spacecraft.
Todays announcement gets underway at 2PM ET, and its shaping up to be a dynamic show. Vice President Mike Pence will even be in attendance in Houston. So check back here this afternoon to see who made the cut.
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Watch NASA announce its newest class of astronauts this afternoon - The Verge
PASADENA, CAIn the latest troubling update from the multi-year survey mission, scientists at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory received another set of depressing photos from the martian surface taken by the Morbid Curiosity Rover, sources at the agency confirmed Wednesday.
The Morbid Curiosity Rover, an all-black, semi-autonomous robot launched from Cape Canaveral in 2013, was intended to provide a range of geological and environmental data about the red planet. However, after years of pretentiously dreary and self-pitying uplinks from the vehicle, scientists say they now dread even having to look at each new message it transmits the 33.9 million miles back to Earth.
The latest images from Morbid Curiosity are more of what weve come to expect at this pointphotos of the night sky framed to block out any stars, sullen self-portraits taken against a backdrop of carbon dioxide ice, and lots and lots of dust, said senior engineer Eshan Shah, adding that, despite having a full-color onboard camera, every image the rover has sent back so far has been in stark black and white. When we designed the mission, we thought Morbid Curiosity might help uncover some of the planets mysteries. Of course, that was before we began receiving 6-terabyte data dumps of just the word bleak repeated hundreds of billions of times.
Frankly, its testing the patience of everyone on this project, Shah added.
A series of dreary images that NASA recently received from the Morbid Curiosity Rover.
NASA sources said they noticed early on that there seemed to be something wrong with Morbid Curiosity when the rover showed little interest in engaging in any of its programmed research activities, preferring instead to maneuver aimlessly around the surface with its primary camera fixed toward the ground.
The research team had initially hoped that the rover, which reportedly wears studded leather cuffs on each of its axles, was simply going through a phase. However, scientists said that during its years on Mars, Morbid Curiosity has only sunk deeper into a petulant, exasperating rut, sticking to its own lonely corner of the northern hemisphere as far away from other rovers as possible.
Most days, it takes several hours of back-and-forth just to coax it out of the crater its rolled into before we can get a basic barometric reading, said engineer Miranda Pollack, adding that the rover typically abandons its assigned tasks at the first sign of adversity, often breaking off to trace pictures of coffins in the martian soil with its excavator tool. Weve tried motivating it to take more of an interest in its surroundings, but it always comes back with some excuse about how its out of energy, even though we can clearly see its radioisotope power source is working just fine.
I think in its entire three years on the planet its only moved about 600 meters, Pollack added.
On several occasions, Morbid Curiositys depressive behavior has caused NASA to worry about its well-being and safety. In one instance, the rover reportedly cut off all contact with mission control and refused to respond to commands for weeks despite telemetric data indicating that it was still receiving researchers transmissions. When the rover finally reestablished contact, it did so by sending back disturbing photos of crosshatch scars it had made on its robotic arm using its own laser cutting module.
Although NASA staff theorize the incident was likely a plea for attention, researchers say Morbid Curiositys repeated vague threats to harm itself have made them even warier of working with the rover.
A couple months ago it sent us a massive file titled despair, and honestly, Ive just been avoiding opening it, said assistant director Alicia Herritz, adding that researchers have also taken to ignoring Morbid Curiositys hourly temperature readings, which regularly report the rover to be at absolute zero, even though the surrounding martian atmosphere is 220 degrees Celsius warmer. I actually felt kind of relieved when it looked like it had suffered a terminal malfunction last fall, but it turned out it had just gotten the purple lace choker on its mast camera stuck on a rock outcrop. I mean, is it really going to keep acting like this for the rest of its 15-year operational lifespan?
At press time, the Morbid Curiosity rover was reportedly ignoring operators frantic pleas to back away from the 16,000-foot cliff of the Valles Marineris canyon.
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NASA is right to pay homage to the living for the first time - New Scientist
NASA showed off a prototype of a new Mars rover, reminiscent of a vehicle from Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy.
Posting the announcement on Facebook, NASA's Kennedy Space Center described it as a "fierce new Mars rover concept vehicle," adding that the rover could be used to help explore Mars.
The rover, which was designed by SeaDek and Parker Brothers Concepts, is similar in size and features to the Tumbler that Batman, played by Christian Bale, uses in the movies.
NASA TAKES AIM AT ASTEROID VALUABLE ENOUGH TO CRASH WORLD ECONOMY
Below is a video of the rover:
In an interview with CBS News, Shanon Parker said parts of the concept were "just for design," adding it was "for it to look cool." Shanon, who designed it with his brother Marc, added, "Other things that I thought, you know, this is kind of important to have.
The concept vehicle is 28 feet long, 14 feet wide and 11 feet tall and is made of aluminum ad carbon-fiber. Weighing in at 5,000 pounds, the vehicle could split itself in two pieces, with one dedicated for a laboratory and the other for scouting purposes.
Though the design is not slated to go into production to traverse the red planet, it will be on display at the Space Center until July 4 in an effort to educate visitors about the planet.
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NASA's new Mars rover looks like a Batman vehicle - Fox News
NASA's Parker Solar Probe, set to launch in 2018, will be humanity's first effort to "touch the Sun," revolutionizing our understanding of the Sun's corona, the solar wind, and the greater heliosphere.
An artist's conception of the Parker Solar Probe taking leave of Earth. JHU / APL
NASA has announced that they are retitling the Solar Probe Plus, humanity's first mission to the outer layers of the Sun, the Parker Solar Probe. The new name honors astrophysicist Eugene Parker, whose years' of work in the field known as "space weather" have helped us understand the interactions between stars and their orbiting bodies.
In the latter half of the 1950s, a young professor teaching astronomy and physics at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi Institute, Eugene Parker, published an article in the Astrophysical Journal entitled "Dynamics of the interplanetary gas and magnetic fields." The paper introduced the idea of a wind emanating from the Sun, a concept so controversial that two reviewers rejected the paper. In the end, it was only published because Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the journal's science editor at the time (and no stranger himself to rejection for revolutionary thinking), overruled the reviewers' decisions.
Much of Parker's work at the time focused on the Sun's radiation and its potential effects on the planets. In his 1958 paper, Parker hypothesized that there was a constant stream of high-energy particles and radiation escaping from the surface of the Sun, an idea that ran contrary to the accepted view of the time that this space contained only a vacuum. But it was controversial only for a little while in 1962 Mariner 2 confirmed the existence of the solar wind.
This illustration shows the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the Sun. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
While observations proved the solar wind existed, they weren't able to fully answer how or why the Sun's tenuous outer atmosphere, or corona, should sear at a temperature of millions of degrees. The Sun's visible surface, after all, is only several thousand degrees, so something must be heating the matter farther from the Sun, but scientists have long debated what that process could be. The Parker Solar Probe will address that fundamental question, completing seven flybys of Venus between 2018 and 2024 to slowly spiral into orbits that take it within 3.9 million miles (9 solar radii) of the Sun.
At its closest approach, the spacecraft will hurtle around the Sun at 430,000 mph (200 kilometers per second) at a distance nearly ten times closer to the Sun than Mercury (on average), and seven times closer than any spacecraft has ever come before. The probe will perform its scientific investigations in a region of intense heat and radiation, and its instruments must thereby be protected by a 4.5-inch thick carbon-composite heat shield, able to withstand temperatures of up to 2,500F.
The mission's main goal is to trace heat and energy flow through the corona and explore what causes charged particles to accelerate away from the surface of the Sun. To that end, the instrument aboard the Parker Solar probe will study every aspect of the Sun from its magnetic and electric fields to the solar wind.
Together, these instruments will help unlock the answers to the Sun's most puzzling questions all the while helping to protect a society that is becoming increasingly dependent on satellites and other technology vulnerable to the threats of space weather.
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NASA's Parker Solar Probe to Touch the Sun - SkyandTelescope.com
After more than 20 years of basic nanoscience research andmore than fifteen years of focused R&D under the NNI, applications of nanotechnology are delivering in both expected and unexpected ways on nanotechnologys promise to benefit society.
Nanotechnology is helping to considerably improve, even revolutionize, many technology and industry sectors: information technology, homeland security, medicine, transportation, energy, food safety, and environmental science, and among many others. Described below is a sampling of the rapidly growing list of benefits and applications of nanotechnology.
Many benefits of nanotechnology depend on the fact that it is possible to tailor the structures of materials at extremely small scales to achieve specific properties, thus greatly extending the materials science toolkit. Using nanotechnology, materials can effectively be made stronger, lighter, more durable, more reactive, more sieve-like, or better electrical conductors, among many other traits. Many everyday commercial products are currently on the market and in daily use that rely on nanoscale materials and processes:
Nanotechnology has greatly contributed to major advances in computing and electronics, leading to faster, smaller, and more portable systems that can manage and store larger and larger amounts of information. These continuously evolving applications include:
Nanotechnology is already broadening the medical tools, knowledge, and therapies currently available to clinicians. Nanomedicine, the application of nanotechnology in medicine, draws on the natural scale of biological phenomena to produce precise solutions for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Below are some examples of recent advances in this area:
Nanotechnology is finding application in traditional energy sources and is greatly enhancing alternative energy approaches to help meet the worlds increasing energy demands. Many scientists are looking into ways to develop clean, affordable, and renewable energy sources, along with means to reduce energy consumption and lessen toxicity burdens on the environment:
In addition to the ways that nanotechnology can help improve energy efficiency (see the section above), there are also many ways that it can help detect and clean up environmental contaminants:
Nanotechnology offers the promise of developing multifunctional materials that will contribute to building and maintaining lighter, safer, smarter, and more efficient vehicles, aircraft, spacecraft, and ships. In addition, nanotechnology offers various means to improve the transportation infrastructure:
Please visit the Environmental, Health, and Safety Issues and the Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues pages on nano.gov to learn more about how the National Nanotechnology Initiative is committed to responsibly addressing these issues.
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