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An Orion exploration vehicle approaches a near-Earth asteroid in this artist's conception. Such a mission would be carried out in 2021 under the White House's new plan for NASA exploration beyond Earth orbit.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

NASA's accelerated vision for exploration calls for moving a near-Earth asteroid even nearer to Earth, sending out astronauts to bring back samples within a decade, and then shifting the focus to Mars, a senior Obama administration official told NBC News on Saturday.

The official said the mission would "accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to discuss the plan publicly.

The source said more than $100 million would be sought for the mission and other asteroid-related activities in its budget request for the coming fiscal year, which is due to be sent to Congress on Wednesday. That confirms comments made on Friday by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a one-time spaceflier who is now chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space. It also confirms a report about the mission that appeared last month in Aviation Week.

The asteroid retrieval mission is based on a scenario set out last year by a study group at the Keck Institute for Space Studies. NASA's revised scenario would launch a robotic probe toward a 500-ton, 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid in 2017 or so. The probe would capture the space rock in a bag in 2019, and then pull it to a stable orbit in the vicinity of the moon, using a next-generation solar electric propulsion system. That would reduce the travel time for asteroid-bound astronauts from a matter of months to just a few days.

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NASA to grab asteroid

NASA has picked two new low-cost missions for launch in 2017: a planet-hunting satellite and an International Space Station experiment designed to probe the nature of exotic, super-dense neutron stars.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) are the latest missions chosen under NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program, which caps costs at $200 million for satellites and $55 million for space station experiments, officials announced Friday (April 5).

The TESS spacecraft will use an array of wide-field cameras to scan nearby stars for exoplanets, with a focus on Earth-size worlds in their stars' habitable zones that just-right range of distances where liquid water could exist.

"TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission," principal investigator George Ricker of MIT said in a statement. "It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth."

As its full name suggests, TESS will detect alien planets by noting when they transit, or cross of the face of, their host stars from the instrument's perspective. NASA's Kepler spacecraft has used this strategy with great success, flagging more than 2,700 potential exoplanets since its March 2009 launch.

Unlike the free-flying TESS, NICER will be mounted to the space station. From this perch, it will measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, potentially allowing scientists to better understand neutron stars, which are the ultradense collapsed remnants of exploded stars.

NICER's principal investigator is Keith Gendreau of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Both missions should advance scientists' understanding of the universe, NASA officials said.

"With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars, and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington, said in a statement.

NASA's Explorer program aims to provide frequent, low-cost access to space for investigations relevant to the agency's astrophysics and heliophysics programs. More than 90 missions have launched under the Explorer program since the first one, Explorer 1, blasted off in 1958 and discovered Earth's radiation belts.

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NASA to Launch Planet-Hunting Probe, Neutron Star Experiment in 2017

NASA | Earth from Orbit 2012
A look back at the best views of our planet from space in the last year, including true color satellite images, Earth science data visualizations, time lapse...

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NASA | Sea Ice Max 2013: An Interesting Year for Arctic Sea Ice
After a record melt season, an Arctic cyclone, and a fascinating fracturing event, Arctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year. This video is ...

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NASA Space Robot
SOURCEFED SHIRTS!!! http://dft.ba/-4EpA NASA starts Robonaut challenge and needs you, or someone smarter. Our Sources: http://dft.ba/-5zu6 More stories at: h...

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NASA's most powerful spacecraft orbiting Mars has captured amazing new images of the huge parachute used by the agency's Curiosity rover when it safely landed on the Red Planet last August.

A video of the NASA images of Curiosity's parachute shows it billowing in the Martian wind. The views were recorded by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling the planet.

In all, the MRO spacecraft captured seven photos of Curiosity's huge parachute flapping on the surface of Mars. The images were taken between last Aug. 12 and Jan. 13 using the orbiter's powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, known as HiRISE.

"This sequence shows distinct changes in the parachute," NASA officials explained in an image description. "In the first four images, there are only subtle changes, perhaps explained by differences in viewing and illumination geometry." [See amazing Mars photos by Curiosity]

At some point between Sept. 8 and Nov. 5 (featured in MRO's fourth and fifth photos in the parachute sequence), the parachute underwent a major change in position, in which part of the parachute shifted inward. The move was accompanied by a change in the terrain around the parachute, possibly from dust being kicked up as the parachute moved.

Another movement occurred between Dec. 16 and Jan. 13, when the parachute shifted toward the southeast.

"This type of motion may kick off dust and keep parachutes on the surface bright, to help explain why the parachute from Viking 1 (landed in 1976) remains detectable," wrote planetary scientist Alfred McEwen, the principal investigator for MRO's HiRISE camera at the University of Arizona, in a statement.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed on the Red Planet on Aug. 5. During its descent, the MRO spacecraft used its HiRISE camera to spot the rover descending under its parachute, just before dropping free to begin the risky "sky crane maneuver" that ultimately lowered it down to its Gale Crater landing site.

"Researchers have used HiRISE to study many types of changes on Mars," NASA officials said in a statement. "Its first image of Curiosity's parachute, not included in this series, caught the spacecraft suspended from the chute during descent through the Martian atmosphere."

Curiosity's main parachute was the largest parachute ever used for a Mars landing. When it was fully deployed, the parachute measured 51 feet (15.5 meters) across.

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NASA Sees Curiosity Rover's Parachute Flapping in Martian Wind (Video)

NASA plans to lasso an asteroid and park it by the moon, and they say they can put astronauts on it by 2021.

An artist concept shows the Orion Capsule as it will appear in space for the Exploration Flight Test-1 attached to a Delta IV second stage. (Image credit: NASA)

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida announced Friday that Barack Obama and NASA have plans to send a robotic spaceship to capture a small asteroid and bring it closer to Earth. Astronauts would be able to explore the asteroid by 2021.

Nelson, chairman of the Senate Science and Space Subcommittee, said Friday that Obama is putting $100 million for the asteroid mission in the 2014 budget due out next week, reports Bay News.

This is part of what will be a much broader program, Nelson said in Orlando. The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars.

Their jointly produced Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study suggests that bringing a 500-ton asteroid closer to Earth would give astronauts a unique, meaningful and affordable research destination for the next decade.

Astronauts aboard Americas Orion capsule will be sent into space on a massive new rocket called SLS, capable of lifting enormous payloads far beyond low-Earth orbit. The U.S. hasn't had a rocket capable of this since 1972. Nelson and former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey secured approval for the SLS in 2010.

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Sen. Bill Nelson unveils NASA plan to capture asteroid

By Seth Borenstein

NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator said Friday.

The ship would capture the 500-ton, 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then using an Orion space capsule, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press.

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

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

"It really is a clever concept," Nelson said in a press conference in Orlando. "Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it back."

This would be the first time ever humanity has manipulated a space object in such a grand scale, like what it does on Earth, said Robert Braun, a Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace engineering professor who used to be NASA's chief technology officer.

"It's a great combination of our robotic and human capabilities to do the kind of thing that NASA should be doing in this century," Braun said.

Last year, the Keck Institute for Space Studies proposed a similar mission for NASA with a price tag of US$2.6 billion. There is no cost estimate for the space agency's version. NASA's plans were first reported by Aviation Week.

While there are thousands of asteroids around 25-feet, finding the right one that comes by Earth at just the right time to be captured will not be easy, said Donald Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near Earth Object programme that monitors close-by asteroids. He said once a suitable rock is found it would be captured with the space equivalent of "a baggie with a drawstring. You bag it. You attach the solar propulsion module to de-spin it and bring it back to where you want it."

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NASA to lasso asteroid, bring it closer

Rick Sternbach / Keck Institute for Space Studies

An artist's illustration of an asteroid retrieval spacecraft capturing a 500-ton asteroid that's 7 meters wide.

By Mike WallSpace.com

NASA will likely get $100 million next year to jump-start an audacious program to drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon for research and exploration purposes, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.,says.

The $100 million will probably be part of President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, which is expected to be released next week, Nelson said. The money is intended to get the ball rolling on the asteroid-retrieval project, which also aims to send astronauts out to the captured space rock in 2021.

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said Friday during a visit to Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

NASA's plan involves catching a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) with a robotic spacecraft, then towing the space rock to a stable lunar orbit, Nelson said. Astronauts would then be sent to the asteroid in 2021 using NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, both of which are in development.

The idea is similar to one proposed last year by researchers based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena.

"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, (the Mars moons) Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the Keck team wrote in a feasibility study of their plan.

NASA will need much more than this initial $100 million to make the asteroid-retrieval mission happen. The Keck study estimated that it would cost about $2.6 billion to drag a 500-ton space rock back near the moon.

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NASA to get $100 million for asteroid mission, senator says

NASA halts communication with Curiosity to avoid any interference during a period when the sun is blocking Earth-to-Mars transmission signals.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover -- Curiosity -- explores the surface of the red planet in this artist's concept.

For the first time since its descent onto the red planet, the Mars rover Curiosity is getting a little alone time.

The rover and NASA scientists are having a communication breakdown, of sorts. But, not to worry, no hurt feelings are involved. The issue is that the sun has got in the way.

Once every 26 months, as the Earth and Mars rotate around the sun, the two planets end up on opposite sides of the star in an event called the Mars solar conjunction. Because of the sun's massive size, any communication sent between the two planets can be easily disrupted.

"We have plenty of useful experience dealing with them, though each conjunction is a little different," Chris Potts, NASA's mission manager for the Mars Odyssey rover, said in a statement. "The biggest difference for this 2013 conjunction is having Curiosity on Mars."

To prepare for the month off, NASA scientists give the rovers directions of what to do beforehand, which keeps the rovers busy working during those weeks. According to NASA, Curiosity may have up to 12 GB of data accumulated by the time it can make contact with NASA again.

Communication with Curiosity was suspended today and is expected to be back up again around May 1.

Here's a video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab explaining the signal breakdown between NASA and the rovers during a Mars solar conjunction:

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NASA puts Mars rover on a month-long hiatus

April 5, 2013

Image Caption: An artist's impression of a Pioneer spacecraft on its way to interstellar space. Image credit: NASA Ames

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

NASA is celebrating the 40th birthday of the Pioneer 11 spacecraft. For the past four decades, Pioneer has been hurtling through space, capturing satellite images of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. As its predecessor, Pioneer 10 had launched just over a year before and was the first spacecraft to not only leave the inner Solar System, but make the trip to Jupiter as well.

Pioneer 11, launched on April 5, 1973, surpassed its predecessors achievements before it was ultimately lost in 1995.

According to a NASA tribute, the Pioneer 11 was originally intended only as a backup spacecraft for the Pioneer 10. The only difference between the two crafts was the addition of a Flux-Gate Magnetometer.

Following a successful fly-by of Jupiter by Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 was rerouted mid-flight to expand on its predecessors mission. Using Jupiters gravitational pull as a sling shot, the astronomers at NASAs Ames Research Center in California directed Pioneer 11 towards Saturn.

The NASA tribute also remembers the discussion carried on internally about the path of Pioneer 11. The Ames team wanted to send it much closer to Jupiter than the 10 had gotten. Though this decision was opposed by several team members on the Pioneer 11 team, it ultimately did pass just 26,097 miles above Jupiters atmosphere, nearly 5 times closer than its predecessor, Pioneer 10, which passed by at about 124,000 miles.

As Pioneer 11 passed by Jupiter, it was able to photograph the poles and capture some very detailed shots of the famous Red Spot.

Still reeling from the debate about which path Pioneer 11 would take past Jupiter, the Ames astronomers again began to discuss which path the spacecraft would take on its voyage to Saturn. NASAs Voyager 1 and 2 missions were launched two years prior to Pioneer 11s arrival at Saturn and were already heading towards the asteroid belt. As the Voyager duo cost much more than the Pioneers relatively simple makeup, some members of the team wanted to use 11 as a sort of a crash test dummy to ensure Voyager 1 wouldnt be destroyed on its way to Saturn.

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NASA Celebrates 40th Anniversary Of Pioneer 11

WASHINGTON (AP) NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator said Friday.

The ship would capture the 500-ton, 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then using an Orion space capsule, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press.

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

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

"It really is a clever concept," Nelson said in a press conference in Orlando. "Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it back."

This would be the first time ever humanity has manipulated a space object in such a grand scale, like what it does on Earth, said Robert Braun, a Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace engineering professor who used to be NASA's chief technology officer.

"It's a great combination of our robotic and human capabilities to do the kind of thing that NASA should be doing in this century," Braun said.

Last year, the Keck Institute for Space Studies proposed a similar mission for NASA with a price tag of $2.6 billion. There is no cost estimate for the space agency's version. NASA's plans were first reported by Aviation Week.

While there are thousands of asteroids around 25-feet, finding the right one that comes by Earth at just the right time to be captured will not be easy, said Donald Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near Earth Object program that monitors close-by asteroids. He said once a suitable rock is found it would be captured with the space equivalent of "a baggie with a drawstring. You bag it. You attach the solar propulsion module to de-spin it and bring it back to where you want it."

Yeomans said a 25-foot asteroid is no threat to Earth because it would burn up should it inadvertently enter Earth's atmosphere. These types of asteroids are closer to Earth not in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. They're less than 10 million miles away, Braun said.

Continued here:

Senator: NASA to lasso asteroid, bring it closer

NASA will likely get $100 million next year to jump-start an audacious program to drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon for research and exploration purposes, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson says.

The $100 million will probably be part of President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, which is expected to be released next week, Nelson (D-FL) said. The money is intended to get the ball rolling on the asteroid-retrieval project, which also aims to send astronauts out to the captured space rock in 2021.

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said Friday (April 5), during a visit to Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars."

NASA's plan involves catching a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) with a robotic spacecraft, then towing the space rock to a stable lunar orbit, Nelson said. Astronauts would then be sent to the asteroid in 2021 using NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, both of which are in development.

The idea is similar to one proposed last year by researchers based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena.

"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, [the Mars moons] Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the Keck team wrote in a feasibility study of their plan.

NASA will need much more than this initial $100 million to make the asteroid-retrieval mission happen. The Keck study estimated that it would cost about $2.6 billion to drag a 500-ton space rock back near the moon.

Nelson said he thinks the Obama Administration is in favor of the asteroid-retrieval plan. In 2010, the president directed NASA to work to get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

News of the potential $100 million allocation is not a complete surprise, as Aviation Week reported late last month that NASA was seeking that amount in 2014 for an asteroid-retrieval program.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwall.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookorGoogle+. Originally published onSPACE.com.

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NASA to Get $100 Million for Asteroid-Capture Mission, Senator Says

Super Guppy Swallows Two Jets Whole | NASA Aviation Science Video
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - two of NASA #39;s T-38 aircraft disappear into the cargo bay of NASA #39;s giant Super Guppy at Dryden Flight Researc...

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Lime Rock NASA track day 3/30/13
The fastest of my recorded laps with laptimer overlay. 01:11.86 71.8 seconds.

By: Ed Hansen

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Lime Rock NASA track day 3/30/13 - Video

Lime Rock NASA NE hpde 3/30/13
Another good lap. 01:12.6 72.5 seconds.

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Space Shuttle Launch NASA Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center

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Space Shuttle Launch NASA Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center - Video

Apr. 3, 2013 A laboratory experiment at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., simulating the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan suggests complex organic chemistry that could eventually lead to the building blocks of life extends lower in the atmosphere than previously thought. The results now point out another region on the moon that could brew up prebiotic materials.

The paper was published in Nature Communications this week.

"Scientists previously thought that as we got closer to the surface of Titan, the moon's atmospheric chemistry was basically inert and dull," said Murthy Gudipati, the paper's lead author at JPL. "Our experiment shows that's not true. The same kind of light that drives biological chemistry on Earth's surface could also drive chemistry on Titan, even though Titan receives far less light from the sun and is much colder. Titan is not a sleeping giant in the lower atmosphere, but at least half awake in its chemical activity."

Scientists have known since NASA's Voyager mission flew by the Saturn system in the early 1980s that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a thick, hazy atmosphere with hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane. These simple organic molecules can develop into smog-like, airborne molecules with carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen bonds, which astronomer Carl Sagan called "tholins."

"We've known that Titan's upper atmosphere is hospitable to the formation of complex organic molecules," said co-author Mark Allen, principal investigator of the JPL Titan team that is a part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, headquartered at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Now we know that sunlight in the Titan lower atmosphere can kick-start more complex organic chemistry in liquids and solids rather than just in gases."

The team examined an ice form of dicyanoacetylene -- a molecule detected on Titan that is related to a compound that turned brown after being exposed to ambient light in Allen's lab 40 years ago.

In this latest experiment, dicyanoacetylene was exposed to laser light at wavelengths as long as 355 nanometers. Light of that wavelength can filter down to Titan's lower atmosphere at a modest intensity, somewhat like the amount of light that comes through protective glasses when Earthlings view a solar eclipse, Gudipati said. The result was the formation of a brownish haze between the two panes of glass containing the experiment, confirming that organic-ice photochemistry at conditions like Titan's lower atmosphere could produce tholins.

The complex organics could coat the "rocks" of water ice at Titan's surface and they could possibly seep through the crust, to a liquid water layer under Titan's surface. In previous laboratory experiments, tholins like these were exposed to liquid water over time and developed into biologically significant molecules, such as amino acids and the nucleotide bases that form RNA.

"These results suggest that the volume of Titan's atmosphere involved in the production of more complex organic chemicals is much larger than previously believed," said Edward Goolish, acting director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. "This new information makes Titan an even more interesting environment for astrobiological study."

The team included Isabelle Couturier of the University of Provence, Marseille, France; Ronen Jacovi, a NASA postdoctoral fellow from Israel; and Antti Lignell, a Finnish Academy of Science postdoctoral fellow from Helsinki at JPL.

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NASA team investigates complex chemistry at Saturn's moon Titan

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity just might be the latest in a long line of Mars-exploring robots to discover the building blocks for primitive life on the Red Planet.

The Curiosity rover may have gathered evidence for the presence of perchlorates in Rocknest a sand patch inside the rover's Gale Crater landing site on the Red Planet, scientists say. If so, it shores up the case that the material may well be globally distributed on Mars.

Not only can perchlorates, which are a class of salts, serve as an energy source for potential Martian microorganisms, they are also a sensitive marker of past climate and can lead to the formation of liquid brines under current conditions on the planet.

The possibility that perchlorates are widespread on Mars was detailed in a March 19 presentation at the 44th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

Curiosity's possible detection

The possible detection of perchlorates at Curiositys Gale crater site was spotlighted by Doug Archer, a scientist with the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. He is focused on the habitability of various Martian environments over time. [The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)]

Archer pointed to the rovers Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite that recently ran four samples from Rocknest. That area was selected as the source of the first samples analyzed because it is representative of both windblown material in the Gale Crater and the planet's globally distributed dust, he said.

"When we heated this up, we saw a large oxygen release at the same time we saw the release of these chlorinated hydrocarbons," Archer said, thus making a strong case for the presence of perchlorate salts in Rocknest's soil.

Phoenix finding

Perchlorates were first identified on Mars in the polar region by the Wet Chemistry Laboratory on NASAs Phoenix lander in 2008.

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Has NASA 's Curiosity Rover Found Clues to Life's Building Blocks on Mars?

NASA's Suomi NPP polar-orbiting weather satellite captured dramatic footage of an 'extensive fracturing event' in the Arctic ice sheet this winter, and the scale of this event is causing some concern.

The time-lapse video compresses down over two months worth of observations into just over a minute, to show the full magnitude of the event.

[ Related: Arctic sea ice hits yearly max, but still dwindling ]

Suomi NPP view on February 23, 2013The fracturing started in late January, as a warm-weather system over Alaska fed an ocean current known as the Beaufort Gyre. This strengthened current picked away at the southwest corner of the ice sheet until a massive crack opened up north of central Alaska (at about 3 secs into the video), and then another crack, apparently around 1,000 kms long, opens up in late February (at around 30 sec in the video), leading to the collapse of the rest of the ice sheet, all the way east to Bank Island.

It took just seven days for the fractures to progress across the entire area from west to east, Trudy Wohlleben, senior ice forecaster at the Canadian Ice Service, told the National Post.

According to Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), it's not unusual for this area to experience fracturing events. However, what is unusual is the extent of the fracturing and the scale (both length and width) of the cracks being seen, and it's the age of the ice that's being blamed.

The region is covered almost completely by seasonal or first-year ice ice that has formed since last September, said Meier, according to the NASA Earth Observatory article. This ice is thinner and weaker than the older, multi-year ice, so it responds more readily to winds and is more easily broken up.

Last September saw the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice since records began in 1979. The sea ice rebounded by record levels over the winter (only because it dropped to such a record low, though), reaching its maximum extent on March 15th. However, even that was still the sixth-lowest sea ice extent on record, and this year's melt has started nearly two weeks before last year's.

[ More Geekquinox: Ham press turns out to be a $5-million iron meteorite ]

With this much of the Arctic ice sheet fracturing this soon into the seasonal melt, it can't bode well for what minimum extent we'll see in the fall. The ice didn't disappear, of course, but with more dark ocean water being exposed this early, that will lead to higher Arctic ocean temperatures and more melting. So, we could set an even lower record minimum this year.

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NASA satellite witnesses Arctic ice sheet being torn to shreds