Daniel Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic – Video

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Daniel Glavin of NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic
Daniel Glavin of NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic matter on Mars and other recent results from the MSL Curiosity rover. ...

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Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic - Video

2014s top space stories

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By Miriam Kramer

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen from the Rosetta orbiter on Nov. 20, 2014. The Philae lander soft-landed on the surface of the comet on Nov. 12.(ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM CC BY-SA IGO 3.0)

From accidents to soaring daredevils to space capsules, 2014 was a big year in spaceflight.

Humanity soft-landed a probe on the face of a comet for the first time, while Virgin Galactic experienced a tragedy making it a bittersweet 12 months for people involved with space.

Here are Space.com's most important spaceflight stories of 2014:

NASA's Orion capsule debut

NASA successfully launched an uncrewed test of its Orion spacecraft, built to take humans to deep-space destinations like Mars or an asteroid, for the first time. The space capsule designed to carry four astronauts is the first spacecraft built by NASA to take humans to the Red Planet eventually.

Orion made two orbits of Earth during its approximately 4.5-hour test in early December. The flight was designed to help engineers test key systems onboard the spacecraft that could be needed during eventual crewed missions. The capsule reached an altitude of about 3,600 miles, marking the first time a NASA spacecraft built for humans has been out of low-Earth orbit in more than 40 years. [Images of Orion Test Flight]

NASA's Space Launch System the agency's mega rocket built to take Orion into deep space also hit a big milestone in 2014. Completing a critical design review that will allow engineers building the rocket to go forward.

Private rocket explodes after liftoff in Virginia

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2014s top space stories

Red Devils lose pink basketball game at Green River

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by Jeff Richards Contributing Writer Moab Times Independent

A sea of pink jerseys surrounds a Green River player holding the pink-and-white game ball, during Grands junior varsity win over the Pirates on Dec. 19. Photo by Jeff Richards

The two teams would have normally been decked out in the appropriately festive Christmas colors of red and green, but just for that night, the players on both teams instead wore pink jerseys as part of the games Slam Dunk for a Cure promotion to raise money for the battle against cancer. Green River wore light pink uniforms, while the Red Devils donned shirts that were a darker fuchsia.

Grand won both the freshman and junior varsity games handily, after which the Red Devils varsity squad managed to take a slim 30-29 halftime lead over the Pirates.

However, two of Grands starting players, senior Ronnie Dolphin and junior Brayden Ward, had conked heads while going for a rebound late in the second quarter, putting both players out of the game.

Ward suffered a gash underneath his eyebrow that will likely require stitches. He was attended to by spectator Dr. Ken Williams of Moab, who came down from the stands and patched Wards cut using a squirt of super glue. Ward was able to briefly return to the game after that, but didnt remain in for long.

Dolphin, who also had sustained a small cut on his head, was believed to have suffered a concussion and did not return to action.

GCHS head coach Scott Horton said the unfortunate collision took away any momentum the Red Devils had going for them in the first half.

Right after they hit heads, we lost our spark, he said.

The Pirates went on a scoring tear during the third quarter, outpacing the Red Devils 30-4 over an eight-minute span. During the third period, the Red Devils suffered two more setbacks when Jasen Christensen fouled out of the game and fellow senior Brendan Bennett was sidelined with a knee injury.

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Red Devils lose pink basketball game at Green River

Fearne Cotton looks effortlessly chic as she heads to radio studio

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By Nola Ojomu for MailOnline

Published: 10:18 EST, 24 December 2014 | Updated: 10:51 EST, 24 December 2014

She has her own fashion collection for Very and is known for her love of all things stylish.

So it comes as no surprise that Fearne Cotton made an impressive sartorial display when she arrived for work at the BBC studios on Wednesday morning.

The 32-year-old Radio One presenter looked chic in a black and white contrast cape by Gina Bacconi.

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Monochrome magic: It comes as no surprise that Fearne Cotton made an impressive sartorial display when she arrived for work at the BBC studios on Wednesday morning

The Celebrity Juice co-host teamed her outerwear with skinny jeans and studded black boots.

She accessorised with a large white handbag and wore her blonde locks naturally straight.

Fearne drew attention to her pout with red lipstick while she highlighted her natural features with barely-there make-up.

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Fearne Cotton looks effortlessly chic as she heads to radio studio

NASA looks at some severe holiday weather from space

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VIDEO:This wide-field animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite data from Dec. 21 to 24 shows the movement of storm systems through the U.S., Central and South America. view more

Severe weather in the form of tornadoes is not something people expect on Christmas week but a storm system on Dec. 23 brought tornadoes to Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. As the storm moved, NASA's RapidScat captured data on winds while NOAA's GOES satellite tracked the movement of the system.

NASA's RapidScat instrument flies aboard the International Space Station and captured a look at some of the high winds from the storms that brought severe weather to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Dec. 23. In addition, an animation of images from NOAA's GOES-East satellite showed the movement of those storms and other weather systems from Canada to South America from Dec. 21 to 24.

RapidScat spotted high winds in the Gulf of Mexico while Mississippi was experiencing tornadoes late on Dec. 23. One image RapidScat captured was on Dec. 23 at 1800 UTC (12 p.m. CST) that showed winds as fast as 30 meters per second/67.1 mph/108 kph off the southeastern coast of Texas. As the storm system moved east, on Dec. 24 at 02:00 UTC (Dec. 23 at 8 p.m. CST) RapidScat clocked sustained surface winds of the same strength near south central Louisiana and east of Mobile Bay, Alabama.

In addition to RapidScat imagery, NASA created an animation of visible and infrared satellite data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite that showed the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting the Gulf Coast of the U.S. on Dec. 23 and early Dec. 24.

To create the images and the video, NASA/NOAA's GOES Project takes the cloud data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite and overlays it on a true-color image of land and ocean created by data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. Together, those data created the entire picture of the storm systems and show their movement.

Coupled with local weather observations, soundings, and computer models, data from satellites like NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite or GOES-East (also known as GOES-13) gives forecasters information about developing weather situations. In real-time, the NOAA's GOES-East satellite data in animated form showed forecasters how the area of severe weather was developing and moving.

According to NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS), holiday travel on Dec. 24 includes widespread rain for the eastern U.S., snow and wind for the Great Lakes and more snow for the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains.

In the Short Range Public Discussion on Dec. 24, NWS noted: Severe weather will continue to be possible across portions of the Southeast with damaging winds as the primary threat; however tornadoes cannot be ruled out. Strong winds will also be possible from the Tennessee Valley into the Northeast.

NWS forecasts cited "a broad area of steady rain is expected from Florida to New England, with the heaviest rainfall occurring south of the Virginia state line. The southeastern states can expect some strong to severe thunderstorms ahead of the cold front. On the western side of the developing surface low, rain is expected to change to snow from Illinois to northern Michigan, with several inches of snow accumulation a possibility. There will also be a fair amount of wind over this region as the low intensifies. Some higher-elevation snow showers are also possible for parts of the central and northern Appalachians after the cold front moves through.

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NASA looks at some severe holiday weather from space

Nano filter cleans environmentally hazardous industrial byproducts

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7 hours ago Aji Mathew assistant professor at Lule University of Technology with her graduate students Peng Liu and Zoheb Karim with prototypes of nano-filters.

Prototypes of nano-cellulose based filters with high purification capacity towards environmentally hazardous contaminants from industrial effluents eg. process industries, have been developed by researchers at Lule University of Technology. The research, conducted in collaboration with Imperial College in the UK has reached a breakthrough with the prototypes and they will now be tested on a few industries in Europe.

"The bio-based filter of nano-cellulose is to be used for the first time in real-life situations and tested within a process industry and in municipal wastewater treatment in Spain. Other industries have also shown interest in this technology and representatives of the mining industry have contacted me and I have even received requests from a large retail chain in the UK," says Aji Mathew Associate Professor, Division of Materials Science at Lule University.

Researchers have combined a cheap residue from the cellulose industry, with functional nano-cellulose to prepare adsorbent sheets with high filtration capacity. The sheets have since been constructed to different prototypes, called cartridges, to be tested. They have high capacity and can filter out heavy metal ions from industrial waters, dyes residues from the printing industry and nitrates from municipal water. Next year, larger sheets with a layer of nano-cellulose can be produced and formed into cartridges, with higher capacity.

"Each such membrane can be tailored to have different removal capability depending on the kind of pollutant, viz., copper, iron, silver, dyes, nitrates and the like," she says.

Behind the research, which is funded mainly by the EU, is a consortium of research institutes, universities, small businesses and process industries. It is coordinated by Lule University led by Aji Mathew. She thinks that the next step is to seek more money from the EU to scale up this technology to industrial level.

"Alfa Laval is very interested in this and in the beginning of 2015, I go in with a second application to the EU framework program Horizon 2020 with goals for full-scale demonstrations of this technology," she says.

Two of Aji Mathews graduate student Peng Liu and Zoheb Karim is also deeply involved in research on nano-filters.

"I focus on how these membranes can filter out heavy metals by measuring different materials such as nanocrystals and nano-fibers to determine their capacity to absorb and my colleague focuses on how to produce membranes," says Peng Liu PhD student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Lule University of Technology.

Explore further: Nano-paper filter removes viruses

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Nano filter cleans environmentally hazardous industrial byproducts