A camera aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet. The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, [...]
Archive for the ‘Space Exploration’ Category
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New Technique for Studying Dark Energy
July 22nd, 2010 Pioneering observations with the National Science Foundation’s giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have given astronomers a new tool for mapping large cosmic structures. The new tool promises to provide valuable clues about the nature of the mysterious “dark energy” believed to constitute nearly three-fourths of the mass and energy of the Universe. [...]
Giant Antenna Propped Up, Ready for Joint Replacement
July 16th, 2010 Workers at NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Goldstone, Calif., have been making precise, laser-assisted measurements to ensure a flat surface for pouring new grout as part of a major renovation on the 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) “Mars antenna.” While officially dubbed Deep Space Station 14, the antenna picked up the Mars name from its first task: [...]
Unravelling the Mystery of Massive Star Birth: All Stars Are Born the Same Way
July 15th, 2010 “Our observations show a disc surrounding an embryonic young, massive star, which is now fully formed,” says Stefan Kraus, who led the study. “One can say that the baby is about to hatch!” The team of astronomers looked at an object known by the cryptic name of IRAS 13481-6124. About twenty times the mass of [...]
Watch While an Asteroid Eats a Star
July 6th, 2010 In a rare event on July 8, 2010, skywatchers will be able to see an asteroid briefly block out the light from a star as it passes in front. It may be the only asteroid ‘occultation’ this century observable with the naked eye. Everybody is familiar with a solar eclipse, when our Moon passes in [...]
Planck Unveils the Universe – Now and Then
July 3rd, 2010 ESA’s Planck mission has delivered its first all-sky image. It not only provides new insight into the way stars and galaxies form but also tells us how the Universe itself came to life after the Big Bang. “This is the moment that Planck was conceived for,” says ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David [...]
Coolest Stars Come out of the Dark: Spitzer Spies Frigid Brown Dwarfs
July 2nd, 2010 Astronomers have uncovered what appear to be 14 of the coldest stars known in our universe. These failed stars, called brown dwarfs, are so cold and faint that they’d be impossible to see with current visible-light telescopes. Spitzer’s infrared vision was able to pick out their feeble glow, much as a firefighter uses infrared goggles [...]
Man in the Moon Has ‘Graphite Whiskers’
June 25th, 2010 In a new analysis of a lunar sample collected by Apollo 17, researchers have detected and dated carbon on the moon in the form of graphite — the sooty stuff of pencil lead — which survived from around 3.8 billion years ago, when the moon was heavily bombarded by meteorites. Up to now, scientists thought [...]
Hubble Captures Bubbles and Baby Stars
June 20th, 2010 A spectacular new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image — one of the largest ever released of a star-forming region — highlights N11, part of a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This region of energetic star formation is one of the most active in the [...]
Low-Maintenance Strawberry May Be Good Crop to Grow in Space
May 21st, 2010 Astronauts could one day tend their own crops on long space missions, and Purdue University researchers have found a healthy candidate to help satisfy a sweet tooth — a strawberry that requires little maintenance and energy. Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, and Gioia Massa, a horticulture research scientist, tested several cultivars of strawberries and found [...]