From Gizmodo:
You're probably wearing something cotton-y right now. Cotton is fairly annoying to harvest. Mechanization was a quantum leap for the cotton industry, moving it away from archaic methods used since the days of slavery. This machine is the next step forward.
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We've all gotten in over our heads on projects before and ended up blowing more money than we thought we would. But how do you spend close to a million dollars dressing up a 13-year-old motorcoach to look a little better than it did when it was new?
Where did the money go? Well, the seller
Lately, you've probably heard a lot about "fracking," which this CNN piece describes as "the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from shale rock." While fracking proponents promise huge new gas supplies, environmentalists and others worry about the potential impact on drinking water.
A group called Unplugging and Reconnecting™ (U&R) led by clinical psychologist Dr. Joseph Geliebter urged people to disconnect from their iPhones and social media this Independence Day and instead spend more time outside and having face-to-face conversations. He said: "We urge students to
From CNET News.com:
Blackfish is a remote-controlled Jet Ski from Qinetiq that uses sonar and radar to patrol harbors for terrorist threats.
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Just like building a house that can withstand storms, building a smart grid device requires a secure operating system as the foundation. Starting with a proven, secure operating system deployed in thousands of critical applications forms the groundwork on which security for an intelligent gr
NASA’s Commercial Crew Development, or CCDev, program has so far been using a relatively unusual contracting mechanism that has provided both the agency and participating companies with greater flexibility to make progress on those systems. However, NASA officials indicated Wednesday that in future CCDev rounds they may shift to a somewhat more traditional contract, a move that has alarmed industry.
The first and second rounds of CCDev, as well as the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) cargo program, have been run as Space Act Agreements (SAA), a form of contracting known in bureaucratic lingo as other transactional authority (OTA). SAAs do not have the same contracting overhead as a traditional contract, be it fixed-price or cost-plus. The COTS and CCDev SAAs have been milestone-based, meaning that NASA provides payments to participating companies based on the progress they make—which also means that NASA doesn’t pay up if companies don’t achieve their stated milestones, and can cancel those agreements if necessary, as happened with Rocketplane Kistler in the original COTS round.
At a commercial crew forum held by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday, CCDev program officials talked about their plans for the next phase of the program, which would come next year. The “Integrated Design” phase would last two years and bring participating companies up through the critical design review on their systems, the last step before starting actual construction. This two-year phase would be followed by a Development, Test, Evaluation, and Certification (DTEC) phase, which would also include the initial flights to the International Space Station.
NASA’s original intent, according to Brent Jett, a former astronaut serving as deputy program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, was to use an SAA again for the Integrated Design phase. “As the team dug a little bit further into the Space Act Agreement, we did find several key limitations,” he said. The biggest one, he said, is that NASA cannot mandate requirements under an SAA, including for crew safety, but only provide them as a reference for industry. “Even if industry chose to design to those requirements, NASA is not allowed to tie any of the milestones in an SAA to compliance with those requirements,” he said. “That means NASA cannot accept the verification of those requirements and certify the system the way we need to for commercial crew under a Space Act Agreement.”
Jett noted that, under COTS, NASA was able to exploit something of a loophole in those rules, which allow the agency to levy safety requirements when a NASA facility—the ISS—was involved. NASA could do the same for CCDev, but only for operations at the ISS. “We would not be able to levy any requirements concerning ascent, entry” or any other portions of the flight not directly dealing with approaching and docking with the ISS.
NASA’s proposed approach for the next CCDev round, according to commercial crew program manager Ed Mango, “combines the best elements of an SAA with the features of a contract that wil allow NASA to approve the tailoring of requirements and the certification of a vehicle.” This “non-traditional contract” would continue to use milestone-based payments and also exempt companies from the cost accounting standards of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). “We believe that we are much closer to an SAA in our approach than we are to a traditional contract,” he said.
Representatives of industry present at the forum strongly objected to this proposed approach, though, largely out of concerns that, even with the cost accounting exception, adhering to the FAR would be very expensive. “Instead of taking an American flag to the station, we should have taken the FAR to the station and left it up there,” said Mike Gold of Bigelow Aerospace, referring to an American flag flown on the first shuttle mission that was left behind by the last shuttle crew, to be retrieved by the first commercial crew vehicle to visit the station. “You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.”
Others challenged the NASA conclusion that an SAA could not be used for commercial crew. Bobby Block of SpaceX noted that his company had an option on its COTS award—not exercised by NASA—to develop a crew capability as part of an SAA. Brett Alexander, former president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said NASA should provide more documentation to support its conclusion that an SAA would not work for CCDev, given that past analyses, by both NASA’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, have concluded that SAAs are suitable for this. “[NASA's Office of the] General Counsel has not divulged what its legal reasoning is,” he said, “and I think they need to do that—not a couple charts, not things that you brief, but a legal brief that says, ‘here’s why,’ so that we can have that discussion.”
Mango and Jett said they were open to suggestions and feedback from industry on their proposed strategy for the next CCDev round. At the same time, NASA released yesterday a “Sources Sought Synopsis”, required under the FAR as the first step in the next phase of the CCDev program if they proceed under their proposed contract strategy. “I don’t want people to think that we’re locked in to this idea of a contract,” he said, but “we need to work in parallel so that we can continue to move forward.”
Fifteen-hundred hours, 62 days, nine weeks, or two months -- any way you look at it, a group of Wisconsin middle school students spent a lot of time working on a winning project for NASA's 2011 Waste Limitation, Management and Recycling (WLMR) Design Challenge.
From October 2010 to May 2011, Katelyn, Brianna, Amy, Julia and Maeve, along with their mentor, Christopher Deleon, worked through lunch and after school to develop a highly advanced water recycling system.
They were all good students, but I think they went to a whole other level with this project," Deleon said of the five girls.
WLMR challenged fifth- through eighth-grade students nationwide to design and test a water recycling system that could be used in space. The reason: It's really expensive to transport critical supplies to destinations beyond Earth's atmosphere, so sustainability is the key to affordability for NASA's future expeditions.
Twenty-five teams submitted a final design, tested their systems on a simulated wastewater stream and reported results to a NASA panel comprised of three subject matter experts and three professional educators. Team QNA's Michael Roberts, a lead for Sustainable Systems Research at Kennedy, said the panel was looking for an innovative design that could function in space for long periods of time without the need for a lot of energy or re-supply.
Called "Aqua De Vida," which means "water of life" or "the fountain of youth," the winning team concocted a closed-loop water recycling system design that uses multi-stage filtration, biological treatment and distillation to mimic water recovery on Earth. Their design uses gravity to sieve wastewater through a sand and gravel filter, then through an activated charcoal filter. Filtered water then flows into a biofiltration pond containing bacteria to break down ammonia and Spirulina, a carbon-absorbing and protein-rich, edible cyanobacteria, formerly called blue-green algae. From there, the water trickles into a distillation chamber, where it vaporizes and condenses into drinkable water.
"We all had our own ideas and bringing those together was a challenge," Brianna said. "We really learned to work as a team."
Julia said this solution-seeking project has helped her realize that she would like to be a doctor someday. This solution involved more than just quantity, though; the teammates also had to test the quality of their finished product. To do so, they used a pH test kit, ammonia tester and conductivity meter to determine the number of impurities and nutrients in their filtered water.
"They spent a lot of time researching, building and testing,"Deleon said. "I think this was a great learning experience for them to acknowledge that if they put their minds to something, anything is possible."
Part of their kudos for a job well-done included a trip to Kennedy Space Center, where they toured the Space Station Processing Facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Orbiter Processing Facility-2, Launch Pad 39A, where space shuttle Atlantis awaits its STS-135 launch, and the Space Life Sciences Lab. They also toured the Indian River Lagoon on a boat and met with NASA scientists and engineers to discuss their design and learn about other sustainability challenges the agency is working to conquer.
"I think our design can help outside of the space industry, too," said Amy after meeting with Kennedy employees, "Maybe in disaster-stricken areas, like Japan where a tsunami just hit."
Even though Aqua De Vida's system seems complex and is quite bulky, taking up about 8 feet of real estate on the ground, the team says its design can be scaled down for easier transport.
The possibilities don't end there. The system eventually could help boost the immune systems of astronauts on long-duration missions. That's something that could benefit Maeve years from now if she decides to transition from her chosen career path of a member of the Marine Corps to the Astronaut Corps.
"Some of the algae that we used really helps with preventing radiation sickness, or treating it," said Katelyn, who now is considering a career in engineering.
"This NASA middle school opportunity meets science, technology, engineering and mathematics content standards while challenging students to participate in the real-world integrated, multidisciplinary environment critical to the next generation of scientists and engineers," said Cheryl Johnson Thornton, lead of Kennedy's Informal Education.
Other upcoming educational challenges, initiatives and opportunities include an art contest, Student Launch Initiative, One Stop Shopping Initiative, DIME Microgravity Challenge, HAM Radio for International Space Station and a MooonBuggy race.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/centers/kennedy/home/WLMR.html
Flooding along the Missouri River continues as shown in recent Landsat satellite images of the Nebraska and Iowa border. Heavy rains and snowmelt have caused the river to remain above flood stage for an extended period.
A Landsat 5 image of the area from May 5, 2011 shows normal flow. In contrast, a Landsat 7 image from July 17 depicts flood conditions in the same location.
A national overview map of streamflow provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) WaterWatch graphically portrays the immense geographic extent of flooding in the Missouri River basin.
Monitoring both floods and droughts, the USGS WaterWatch internet site displays maps, graphs, and tables that describe current and past streamflow conditions for the United States. The real-time streamflow data is generally updated on an hourly basis.
The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Landsat satellites have been consistently gathering data about our planet since 1972. They continue to improve and expand this unparalleled record of Earth’s changing landscapes, for the benefit of all. The next Landsat satellite is scheduled to launch in December 2012.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/landsat-missouri.html
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission reached a major milestone last week when it successfully completed its Mission Critical Design Review (CDR).
MAVEN, scheduled for launch in late 2013, will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The goal of MAVEN is to determine the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space through time, providing answers about Mars climate evolution. It will accomplish this by measuring the current rate of escape to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes to allow extrapolation backward in time.
Noting this milestone, Michael Meyer, Lead Scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters said. "It is a real pleasure to see the MAVEN team is doing an exemplary job on this important mission, which was identified as a top priority mission in the 2002 National Research Council Decadal Survey and addresses high-priority goals of two Divisions—Planetary Sciences and Heliophysics."
"Understanding how and why the atmosphere changed through time is an important scientific objective for Mars," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN Principal Investigator from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado (CU/LASP) at Boulder. "MAVEN will make the right measurements to allow us to answer this question. We’re in the middle of the hard work right now—building the instruments and spacecraft—and we’re incredibly excited about the science results we’re going to get from the mission."
From July 11 – 15, 2011, the MAVEN Critical Design Review was held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. An independent review board, comprised of reviewers from NASA and several external organizations, met to validate the system design. Critical Design Reviews are one-time programmatic events that bridge the design and manufacturing stages of a project. A successful review means that the design is validated and will meet its requirements, is backed up with solid analysis and documentation, and has been proven to be safe. MAVEN's CDR completion grants permission to the mission team to begin manufacturing hardware.
"This team continues to nail every major milestone like clockwork, as laid out three years ago when the mission was proposed," said Dave Mitchell, MAVEN Project Manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "CDR success is very important because it validates that the team is ready for fabrication, assembly, and test of all mission elements. It also enables us to stay on plan for launch in November 2013."
MAVEN will carry three instrument suites. The Particles and Fields Package, built by the University of California at Berkeley with support from CU/LASP and NASA Goddard, contains six instruments that will characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package, built by CU/LASP, will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, provided by NASA Goddard, will measure the composition and isotopes of neutral ions.
MAVEN's principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The university will provide science operations, build instruments, and lead Education/Public Outreach. Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will manage the MAVEN mission. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., will build the spacecraft and perform mission operations. The University of California-Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory will build instruments for the mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide Program management via the Mars Program Office, as well as navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/news/maven-cdr.html
New findings from NEOWISE, the asteroid- and comet-hunting portion of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission, show that comet Hartley 2 leaves a pebbly trail as it laps the sun, dotted with grains as big as golf balls.
Previously, NASA's EPOXI mission, which flew by the comet on Nov. 4, 2010, found golf ball- to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles streaming off comet Hartley 2. NEOWISE data show that the golf ball-sized chunks survive farther away from the comet than previously known, winding up in Hartley 2's trail of debris. The NEOWISE team determined the size of these particles by looking at how far they deviated from the trail. Larger particles are less likely to be pushed away from the trail by radiation pressure from the sun.
The observations also show that the comet is still actively ejecting carbon dioxide gas at a distance of 2.3 astronomical units from the sun, which is farther away from the sun than where EPOXI detected carbon dioxide jets streaming from the comet. An astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the sun.
"We were surprised that carbon dioxide plays a significant role in comet Hartley 2's activity when it's farther away from the sun," said James Bauer, the lead author of a new paper on the result in the Astrophysical Journal. An abstract of the scientific paper is online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.2637, with the option of downloading a full PDF.
JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110714.html
Chefs across the globe may not know it yet, but their baker's yeast just left the kitchen and blasted off into low Earth orbit. Hitching a ride on the space shuttle Atlantis on July 8, 2011, the samples will be grown on the International Space Station as part of the Genotypic and Phenotypic Changes in Yeast Related to Selective Growth Pressures Unique to Microgravity or Micro-4 investigation. Capable of raising more than just breads, this useful organism will help researchers better understand the impact of the space environment on live cells in humans.
This yeast -- S. cerevisiae -- has been of use since the ancient Egyptians first figured out how to harness it for wine and bread making. In modern times it is still used for baking and was the first organism to have its genome fully sequenced. Scientists hope that by studying the changes of yeast in microgravity, they will better understand the changes human cells may experience during long-duration spaceflight. Gaining better knowledge of genetic alterations by studying yeast growth during this microgravity research may also help in understanding how these changes could manifest in human disease here on Earth.
This investigation is a collaboration with BioServe Space Technologies, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the University of Toronto. According to Michael Costanzo, Ph.D. and one of the co-investigators for Micro-4 at the University of Toronto, the similarities between human cells and the yeast's genetic makeup makes it ideal for study in space. "We are examining which genes are important for cell growth and survival in a zero gravity environment. The results of our 'yeastnaut' experiments may provide insight into which set of human genes are important and how these genes work together to help organisms/humans deal with extreme environments associated with space travel -- such as zero-gravity and elevated radiation."
Two different sets of experiments will take place as part this study. The first will grow yeast cells in petri dishes using temperature-controlled chambers. On July 12, scientists on the ground remotely changed the temperature from 4° C to 30° C -- the optimal temperature for yeast cell growth -- to activate the on-orbit samples. The cells continue to grow for 48 hours before the temperature is cooled again and the samples are stowed for return to Earth for analysis. The second experiment includes the use of a liquid media to grow the yeast. During the mission, astronauts will transfer the samples to fresh liquid media twice before stowing them, as well.
Both studies will look at how cells adapt to the space environment using the yeast deletion series -- a collection of ? 5000 yeast strains, each of which has been deleted for a different gene. In other words, a collection of yeast cells that have been genetically engineered to help scientists to figure out what genes are important for specific responses to microgravity. The goal is to see which strain is best suited to spaceflight, showing researchers which genetic traits are capable of survival in microgravity.
The convenience of yeast as a test subject also provides an important avenue to understanding how living things adapt to space. Due to the small number of humans who have traveled in space, as well as the short duration of their exposure, little is known about the effects of long-term zero gravity on biological systems. "In contrast," said Corey Nislow, Ph.D. and co-investigator from the University of Toronto, "in both our experiments, we have huge sample sizes -- millions of cells -- and they will be monitored for 20 generations, the equivalent of 400 human years."
Control studies will take place on the ground at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The space shuttle will also carry an identical set of samples to those that will transfer to the space station. These duplicate samples, however, will remain on the shuttle to be "flown, not grown," explained Nislow. Returning to Earth with Atlantis, these duplicate samples will be activated on the ground to investigate growth in tandem timing to those aboard the station.
While the STS-135 mission is the final shuttle flight for NASA, scientists for this study will not have to wait for the certification of new flight vehicles to continue their research. The hardware designed and used for Micro-4 is not limited to the harsh environment of space, but may also find use in Earth-based extremes for future yeast experiments. "It is important to remember that it's fun to fantasize about life in other parts of the solar system, yet we sometimes overlook the fact that life thrives at incredible extremes here on Earth," commented Nislow. "Such as in boiling water around ocean vents, in the polar ice caps, and even in environments so acidic that they would melt metal!"
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Micro_4.html
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope crossed another milestone in its space odyssey of exploration and discovery. On Monday, July 4, the Earth-orbiting observatory logged its one millionth science observation during a search for water in an exoplanet's atmosphere 1,000 light-years away.
"For 21 years Hubble has been the premier space science observatory, astounding us with deeply beautiful imagery and enabling ground-breaking science across a wide spectrum of astronomical disciplines," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. He piloted the space shuttle mission that carried Hubble to orbit. "The fact that Hubble met this milestone while studying a faraway planet is a remarkable reminder of its strength and legacy."
Although Hubble is best known for its stunning imagery of the cosmos, the millionth observation is a spectroscopic measurement, where light is divided into its component colors. These color patterns can reveal the chemical composition of cosmic sources.
Hubble's millionth exposure is of the planet HAT-P-7b, a gas giant planet larger than Jupiter orbiting a star hotter than our sun. HAT-P-7b, also known as Kepler 2b, has been studied by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler observatory after it was discovered by ground-based observations. Hubble now is being used to analyze the chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere.
This is an artist's concept of that planet, HAT-P-7b. It is a "hot Jupiter" class planet orbiting a star that is much hotter than our sun. Hubble Space Telescope's millionth science observation was trained on this planet to look for the presence of water vapor and to study the planet's atmospheric structure via spectroscopy. (Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Bacon, STScI)
"We are looking for the spectral signature of water vapor. This is an extremely precise observation and it will take months of analysis before we have an answer," said Drake Deming of the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Hubble demonstrated it is ideally suited for characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets, and we are excited to see what this latest targeted world will reveal."
Hubble was launched April 24, 1990, aboard space shuttle's Discovery's STS-31 mission. Its discoveries revolutionized nearly all areas of astronomical research from planetary science to cosmology. The observatory has collected more than 50 terabytes of data to-date. The archive of that data is available to scientists and the public at:
Hubble's odometer reading includes every observation of astronomical targets since its launch and observations used to calibrate its suite of instruments. Hubble made the millionth observation using its Wide Field Camera 3, a visible and infrared light imager with an on-board spectrometer. It was installed by astronauts during the Hubble Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009.
"The Hubble keeps amazing us with groundbreaking science," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, the chairwoman of the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA. "I championed the mission to repair and renew Hubble not just to get one million science observations, but also to inspire millions of children across the planet to become our next generation of stargazers, scientists, astronauts and engineers."
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/millionth.html
Scientists, photographers and amateur cloud watchers have been looking up with wonderment and puzzlement at "hole punch" clouds for decades. Giant, open spaces appear in otherwise continuous cloud cover, presenting beautiful shapes but also an opportunity for scientific investigation. A new paper published last week in Science inquires into how the holes get punched – airplanes are the culprit – and into the potential for the phenomenon's link to increased precipitation around major airports.
"It appears to be a rather widespread effect for aircraft to inadvertently cause some measureable amount of rain or snow as they fly through certain clouds," said lead author Andrew Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Co. "This is not necessarily enough precipitation to affect global climate, but it is likely to be noticeable around major airports in the midlatitudes."
NASA Langley Research Center cloud specialist Patrick Minnis was one of the co-authors on the paper. NASA satellites Aqua, Terra, CALIPSO and CloudSat were used in the analysis. The research was also partly funded by NASA grants.
Picture a layer of supercooled liquid water clouds stretching across the sky, like a sheet, in subfreezing temperatures. An airliner gaining altitude punches through the cloud layer, and leaves behind a void as if by a circular cookie-cutter. In some cases, the shape left behind is more ragged, or even more rectangular or canal-like. But the nearly perfect circle often makes for the most compelling sight in the sky. The ice particles grow at the expense of the supercooled water droplets and fall out of the cloud as snow. If the cloud layer is thin or if the water is not replenished the snow leaves a hole in the cloud.
"In other conditions, it may produce a somewhat continuous snow line," Minnis said, as has been observed around the Denver airport.
Web sites on the Internet are now devoted to collecting pictures of hole punch clouds from around the world. Scientists first reported observing hole punch clouds in the 1940s, according to the Science paper. They often lead to false reports of UFOs or rocket launches. But aside from being a notch in the belt for cloud-watchers, the "mechanisms of formation and the physics of the development, duration, and thus the extent of their effect have largely been ignored." Heymsfield and the other authors studied satellite images of hole punch clouds and then used computer models to simulate how the holes evolved after formation. Whether a plane is climbing or flying level through the cloud layer determines whether a "hole" is "punched" or a "canal" is "dug" through the clouds.
In addition to describing the physics of how planes form the holes in specific cloud types, the Science paper also looks at this "inadvertent" cloud seeding. The authors suggest that the effect is not large enough to have an impact on global climate, but that "regionally near major airports in midlatitudes during cool weather months it may lead to enhanced precipitation at the ground."
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/hole-punch.html
On June 7, 2011, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a flash of X-rays coming from the western edge of the solar disk. Registering only "M" (for medium) on the Richter scale of solar flares, the blast at first appeared to be a run-of-the-mill eruption--that is, until researchers looked at the movies.
"We'd never seen anything like it," says Alex Young, a solar physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Half of the sun appeared to be blowing itself to bits."
"In terms of raw power, this really was just a medium-sized eruption," says Young, "but it had a uniquely dramatic appearance caused by all the inky-dark material. We don't usually see that."
Solar physicist Angelos Vourlidas of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC calls it a case of "dark fireworks."
"The blast was triggered by an unstable magnetic filament near the sun's surface," he explains. "That filament was loaded down with cool plasma, which exploded in a spray of dark blobs and streamers. "Cool" has a special meaning on the sun: The plasma blobs registered a temperature of 20,000 Kelvin or less. That is relatively cool. Most of the surrounding gas had temperatures between 40,000 K and 1,000,000 K.
The plasma blobs were as big as planets, many larger than Earth. They rose and fell ballistically, moving under the influence of the sun's gravity like balls tossed in the air, exploding "like bombs" when they hit the stellar surface.
Some blobs, however, were more like guided missiles. "In the movies we can see material 'grabbed' by magnetic fields and funneled toward sunspot groups hundreds of thousands of kilometers away," notes Young.
SDO also detected a shadowy shock wave issuing from the blast site. The 'solar tsunami' propagated more than halfway across the sun, visibly shaking filaments and loops of magnetism en route. [91 MB Quicktime] Long-range action has become a key theme of solar physics since SDO was launched in 2010. The observatory frequently sees explosions in one part of the sun affecting other parts. Sometimes one explosion will trigger another ... and another ... with a domino sequence of flares going off all around the star.
"The June 7th blast didn't seem to trigger any big secondary explosions, but it was certainly felt far and wide," says Young.
It's tempting to look at the movies and conclude that most of the exploded material fell back--but that wouldn't be true, according to Vourlidas. "The blast also propelled a significant coronal mass ejection (CME) out of the sun's atmosphere."
He estimates that the cloud massed about 4.5 x1015 grams, placing it in the top 5% of all CMEs recorded in the Space Age. For comparison, the most massive CME ever recorded was 1016 grams, only a factor of ~2 greater than the June 7th cloud. The amount of material that fell back to the sun on June 7 was approximately equal to the amount that flew away, Vourlidas says.
As remarkable as the June 7th eruption seems to be, Young says it might not be so rare. "In fact," he says, "it might be downright common."
Before SDO, space-based observatories observed the sun with relatively slow cadences and/or limited fields of view. They could have easily missed the majesty of such an explosion, catching only a single off-center snapshot at the beginning or end of the blast to hint at what actually happened.
If Young is right, more dark fireworks could be in the offing. Stay tuned.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/dark-fireworks.html
It's what Bill Patzert, a climatologist and oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., likes to call a "La Nada" – that puzzling period between cycles of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean when sea surface heights in the equatorial Pacific are near average.
The comings and goings of El Niño and La Niña are part of a long-term, evolving state of global climate, for which measurements of sea surface height are a key indicator. For the past three months, since last year's strong La Niña event dissipated, data collected by the U.S.-French Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 oceanography satellite have shown that the equatorial Pacific sea surface heights have been stable and near average. Elsewhere, however, the northeastern Pacific Ocean remains quite cool, with sea levels much lower than normal. The presence of cool ocean waters off the U.S. West Coast has also been a factor in this year's cool and foggy spring there.
The current state of the Pacific is shown in this OSTM/Jason-2 image, based on the average of 10 days of data centered on June 18, 2011. The image depicts places where Pacific sea surface height is higher (warmer) than normal as yellow and red, while places where the sea surface is lower (cooler) than normal are shown in blue and purple. Green indicates near-normal conditions. Sea surface height is an indicator of how much of the sun's heat is stored in the upper ocean.
For oceanographers and climate scientists like Patzert, "La Nada" conditions can bring with them a high degree of uncertainty. While some forecasters (targeting the next couple of seasons) have suggested La Nada will bring about "normal" weather conditions, Patzert cautions previous protracted La Nadas have often delivered unruly jet stream patterns and wild weather swings.
In addition, some climatologists are pondering whether a warm El Niño pattern (which often follows La Niña) may be lurking over the horizon. Patzert says that would be perfectly fine for the United States.
"For the United States, there would be some positives to the appearance of El Niño this summer," Patzert said. "The parched and fire-ravaged southern tier of the country would certainly benefit from a good El Niño soaking. Looking ahead to late August and September, El Niño would also tend to dampen the 2011 hurricane season in the United States. We've had enough wild and punishing weather this year. Relief from the drought across the southern United States and a mild hurricane season would be very welcome."
Jason-2 scientists will continue to monitor Pacific Ocean sea surface heights for signs of El Niño, La Niña or prolonged neutral conditions.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/lanada20110629.html
There is at least one first involved with space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-135 mission, a flight notable for its lasts: the crew is taking the first iPhone into space to help with experiments aboard the International Space Station.
A Houston company called Odyssey Space Research developed an application for the Apple smartphone that is meant to help the astronauts track their scientific results and perhaps one day aid navigation. The device will be housed inside a small research platform built by NanoRacks. The platform will be placed inside the station.
The app, called SpaceLab for iOS, is even available to Earthbound smartphone users to perform the same experiments with the software simulating microgravity.
According to the company, the software was designed with the iPhone's unique attributes in mind, such as the gyro, accelerometer, cameras and chip.
Atlantis is to launch July 8 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to deliver supplies and experiments to the space station.
Along with the first iPhone, the crew of Atlantis is bringing along numerous items commemorating what will be the final mission of Space Shuttle Program. For instance, a flag from the first shuttle flight in 1981 will be carried to the station and left there until the first commercial spaceflight to the station, when NASA astronauts will retrieve it. The astronauts, Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim, have allocated a number of unique items that will become commemoratives for numerous organizations after they return to Earth.
For example, American flags from the Delaware Valley Historic Aircraft Association, Key Peninsula Middle School in Lake Bay, Washington, and a fire station in Houston are to orbit the Earth for 12 days before being handed over to their sponsors as symbols of inspiration.
The U.S. Honor Flag also will fly aboard Atlantis. Begun as a tribute following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists' attacks, the American flag serves as a traveling memorial to heroes who lost their lives while serving their communities and country.
Among the unusual things headed into space is a recipe card from one of the dishes served at Astronaut Crew Quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASCAR is well-represented on the mission with a cap from Joe Gibbs Racing and black flags from Texas Motor Speedway and the NASCAR organization on the roster of items.
More than 500 STS-135 mission patches are tucked inside Atlantis for the flight, a common take-along for all shuttle missions, along with 800 small American flags that typically are handed out after a mission as awards and recognitions.
When the crew returns, the items will be unpacked from lockers inside the shuttle and returned to the astronauts who often make personal visits to hand them back to their owners.
The custom of carrying mementoes into space began in the days of the Mercury missions, when an astronaut would take a roll of coins or some other small tokens into space. The Apollo astronauts carried items to the moon and back during their missions.
The tradition is not expected to end with the end of the shuttle program. When SpaceX launched its Dragon capsule last year, for instance, it carried commemorative items inside, most notably a wedge of cheese.
The items taken and returned from space rest in schools, museums and facilities all over the world and are often prominently displayed to inspire people to think of the adventures they might one day take themselves.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/whatsgoingup135.html
Mission managers for NASA's Cassini spacecraft suspended operation of the Cassini plasma spectrometer instrument on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, after a series of voltage shifts on the spacecraft. They will determine when the instrument can resume collecting data.
The Cassini spacecraft is designed to operate with a "balanced" voltage source to create a tolerance to short circuits. On May 1, a voltage shift occurred, most likely explained by a short circuit happening somewhere in the system. On June 11, a voltage shift in the opposite direction occurred, indicating an additional short circuit. In both cases, all instruments and engineering subsystems continued to operate properly.
Analysis of telemetry data from the spacecraft by the engineering team pointed to the Cassini plasma spectrometer instrument as the cause of the voltage shifts. The instrument has additional capacitors in the power lines for noise reduction. The concern was that one or more of these capacitors may have short-circuited, which would cause the voltage to shift and explain the observed changes. Although the instrument was operating properly, engineers decided to turn it off as a precaution until the events could be better understood.
The suspension of the plasma spectrometer operations is not expected to affect other science data gathering or navigation. The plan is to resume normal plasma spectrometer operations after further analysis is completed to understand the cause of the issue better.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20110615.html
Wow, animal uplift just got a little bit more real: a recent report from the Academy of Medical Science suggests that action is needed now to prevent nightmarish "Planet Of The Apes" science ever turning from fiction to fact. The report calls for a new rules to supervise sensitive research that involves humanising animals:
One area of concern is "Category Three" experiments which may raise "very strong ethical concerns" and should be banned. An example given is the creation of primates with distinctly human characteristics, such as speech. Exactly the same scenario is portrayed in the new movie Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which scientists searching for an Alzheimer's cure create a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence. The report also acknowledges the "Frankenstein fear" that humanising animals might lead to the creation of "monsters".
Currently research involving great apes, such as chimpanzees, is outlawed in the UK. But it continues in many other countries including the US, and British scientists are permitted to experiment on monkeys. Professor Thomas Baldwin, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences working group that produced the report, said the possibility of humanised apes should be taken seriously.
"The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human.. speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us," he told a news briefing in London.
"These possibilities that are at the moment largely explored in fiction we need to start thinking about now."
Prof Baldwin, professor of philosophy at the University of York, recommended applying the "Great Ape Test". If modified monkeys began to acquire abilities similar to those of chimpanzees, it was time to "hold off".
"If it's heading in that direction, red lights start flashing," said Prof Baldwin. "You really do not want to go down that road."
Okay, I'm just as concerned as anyone about the potential for abuse, particularly when animals are used in scientific experiments. But setting that aside, and assuming that cognitive enhancement could be done safely on non-human primates, there's no reason why we should fear this. In fact, I take virtually the opposite stance to this report. I feel that humanity is obligated to uplift non-human animals as we simultaneously work to uplift ourselves (i.e. transhumanism).
Reading this report, I can't help but feel that human egocentricity is driving the discussion. I sincerely believe that animal welfare is not the real issue here, but rather, ensuring human dominance on the planet.
Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves, why wouldn't we wish to endow our primate cousins with the same cognitive gifts that we have? Human intelligence and complex language skills are our most prized attributes. The time is coming when we'll be ale to share these capacities with other animals.
