Lunar Mission to Demonstrate Laser Communication | NASA GSFC Space Science HD – Video

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Lunar Mission to Demonstrate Laser Communication | NASA GSFC Space Science HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com -the goal of LLCD (Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration) is in demonstrating fundamental concepts of laser c...

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Lunar Mission to Demonstrate Laser Communication | NASA GSFC Space Science HD - Video

Sutter’s Mill Meteorite: a Californian Treasure Discovered by SETI/NASA Researchers (SETI Chats) – Video

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Sutter #39;s Mill Meteorite: a Californian Treasure Discovered by SETI/NASA Researchers (SETI Chats)
Hangout On Air. Alex Witze from Science News will interview Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute), Derek Sears (NASA), and Franck Marchis (SETI Institute) Sound ...

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Sutter's Mill Meteorite: a Californian Treasure Discovered by SETI/NASA Researchers (SETI Chats) - Video

NASA spacecraft to study Moon's atmosphere

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by Kelly Sheridan, Agence France-Presse Posted on 09/06/2013 10:08 AM |Updated 09/06/2013 11:41 AM

NASA'S LADEE. NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer hopes to bring us more information on the moon. Screen shot from YouTube video

WASHINGTON, USA (UPDATED) - NASA hopes to unravel more of the Moon's mysteries Friday by launching an unmanned mission to study its atmosphere, the US space agency's third such probe in five years.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is to launch Friday at 11:27 pm (Saturday 3:27 am GMT) aboard a Minotaur V rocket - a converted peacekeeping missile - from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Since US astronauts last walked on the moon four decades ago, rocket scientists have learned that there is more to the Moon than just a dusty, desolate terrain.

Recent NASA robotic missions such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have returned troves of images detailing the Moon's cratered surface, while NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) revealed how being pummelled by asteroids resulted in the Moon's uneven patches of gravity.

A previous NASA satellite, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite(LCROSS) discovered water ice when it impacted in 2009, the space agency said.

"When we left the Moon we thought of it as an atmosphere-less ancient surface," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate.

"We have discovered that the Moon scientifically is very much alive, it is still evolving and in fact has a kind of atmosphere."

The Moon's atmosphere is so thin that its molecules do not collide, in what is known as an exosphere.

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NASA spacecraft to study Moon's atmosphere

NASA picks four possible Mars landing sites, none of them interesting

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NASA has whittled to four the number of potential landing sites for its 2016 mission to Mars to four featureless plots, to ensure a safe touchdown for its InSight lander, which will probe the Red Planet's interior.

NASA has whittled to four the number of potential landing sites for its 2016 mission to Mars. All of the semifinalists, as the agency puts it, are un-interesting, featureless plots.

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NASAs next mission to Mars is scheduled to land on the planet in August 2016, six months after its launch from Earth. Called the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport lander or, more succinctly, InSight the stationary lander will tuck into Marss underground to investigate the Red Planets interior and its formation some 4.6 billion years ago. Scientists hope that plumbing beneath Marss surface will help in explaining the processes that formed Earth, as well as the exoplanets popping up in new portraits of the universe.

Choosing a landing ground for InSight is much simpler than choosing one for a Mars rover, said Matthew Golombek, a geologist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Rovers must be put down near the features theyve been outfitted to research, which means that the crafts have been deposited next to interesting plains or mountains. But InSight is designed to research Marss interior, which, conveniently, is accessible all over the planet, as long as the surface is soft enough to penetrate.

When you land a rover, its designed to measure certain things, so you have to make sure those things are available, says Dr. Golombek. Here, there are no real scientific requirements. That makes the job dramatically easier.

Still, there are some conditions that a plausible landing spot must meet. The four landing-site candidates, selected from an initial roster of 22 potential plots of real estate, are all in Marss Elysium Planitia, an equatorial plain named for the ancient Greeks heroic afterlife.

That region, about 500 miles southward from Curiositys touchdown spot, is near enough to the equator to protect landers from the cold closer to the poles, as well as primed to power the InSights solar array throughout the year. The region is also low enough in elevation to have the requisite atmosphere to decelerate the craft and, NASA hopes, land it without incident.

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NASA picks four possible Mars landing sites, none of them interesting

Gov. Cuomo Announces International Nanotechnology Partnership Between New York and Israel – Video

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Gov. Cuomo Announces International Nanotechnology Partnership Between New York and Israel
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish an international partnership between New York State and th...

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Gov. Cuomo Announces International Nanotechnology Partnership Between New York and Israel - Video