The Space News Archive *Warning, massive resolution pictures inside*

[Link Reborn]

I COMPLETELY Misunderstood MY theory... I need to recalculate tommorow.. I'm too tired to do it right now. I'll edit this Post tommorow for my new theory, Unless you don't want it on here because well, it isn't really "news". Its been a debate going on for years. I want your permission first.

[LLR]

ehehe,  I think a new topic would be in order, folks clicking in to see the latest solar news and might have to scroll by 3 pages of debating over statues on Mars.      I'll try to get some things together about it tonight or in the morning.  I should have a thread worthy post by then.  But for tonight, I'm uploading my Super Metroid speed run, stopped short by that blasted Botwoon.  lol. 

Man, was hot today, wasn't it?  Heard it snowed over in Washington though!   ???   Was 100 here today..  ugg..  Also our closed circuit monitor kept messing up today!  Oh now that I think of it, the cell phone had trouble today too!  hmm blasted solar flares!

[Link Reborn]

Alright. I'm going to make the title now so I can reserve it for tommorow, im to tired to do my research tonight. But I hope you post in it ALOT when I post the main theory.

Look for a new topic in LoT made by me.k?


BY THE WAY, I made some Graphical Changes to Chozo Zone. Check it out!

[Minish Majora]

Just read the daily posts then, keep it up Lon Lon  (and Link Reborn)
I put a link to this thread on my signature to attempt to promote the thread too.

[LLR]

Just read the daily posts then, keep it up Lon Lon  (and Link Reborn)
I put a link to this thread on my signature to attempt to promote the thread too.

Thank you!  Your awesome, MM!   

Hmm so today...  THE NEWS!

DOUBLE FLYBY ALERT:  The spaceship pictured below is about to split in two. "It's the ISS with space shuttle Discovery docked as the pair sailed over Southern California on June 8th," says photographer Scott Mundy of Newbury Park. "I took the picture with a Canon 40D at the prime focus of my Meade 8-inch LX200."


On Wednesday morning, June 11th, Discovery will undock from the ISS, suddenly doubling the number of manned spaceships in Earth orbit. The upshot for sky watchers: Be alert for a rare double flyby. On Wednesday night, Discovery and the ISS will glide in tandem over many North American towns and cities and no telescope is required to see them. Discovery is about as bright as Jupiter while the ISS outshines Venus herself. Southeastern portions of the USA are favored with the best apparitions. When should you look? Check the Simple Satellite Tracker for timetables.




Hmm well, queue the Darth Vader music..  The Sun has some trouble..


A solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on or about June 16th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope



Sunspot 998 poses no threat for strong solar flares, but it is photogenic and very active. Credit: SOHO/MDI


EEK!  I always worry about these situations, theres a coronal hole near a sun spot.  Coronal holes are holes in the suns atmosphere where solar wind can escape, when a sunspot is under one of these (and has the potential to flare) we can get BAD radiation storms.  Stay tuned.

[LLR]

PHOENIX UPDATE: Phoenix's oven is full of martian soil. For days, the clumpy red dirt had been stuck on a screen at the oven's door while engineers tried a variety of tricks to coax it onward. On June 10th, with little warning, the soil sifted through. "There's something very unusual about this soil," says Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "We're interested in learning what sort of chemical and mineral activity has caused the particles to clump together." In the days ahead, Phoenix's mass spectrometer will "sniff" fumes from the oven and report the soil's composition.

SAUCER DOWN:  Put on your 3D glasses and see if you can identify the saucer-shaped object on Phoenix's southern horizon:



It is Phoenix's backshell, which held the parachute as Phoenix descended through the atmosphere. Just before jet-assisted touchdown, the backshell and 'chute were discarded and they landed some 300 meters downrange of Phoenix. "The parachute is not visible, probably because of the bumpy terrain," says graphic artist Patruck Vantuyne who created the anaglyph by combining right- and left-eye images from Phoenix's stereo camera. The complete panorama is a must-see; stare a while for full effect.



The Sun
Sunspot 998 poses no threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI
Still, small flares may happen, be advised..




Now this one is nuts...
PLUTOID:  In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced that Pluto is not a planet. So what is it? After two years of careful deliberation, the IAU has an answer: Pluto is a Plutoid. No, this is not a joke. The IAU offers "the Plutoid" as a serious new category of celestial body. Read all about it in the June 11th press release.
full story




Jezze! all this fuss over the simple fact of adding 4 additional planets to our list!  Is it because they would have to re write text books to include 13 planets?
 ???

For those wondering, there are 13 planets in our solar system
they are:
1.) Mercury
2.) Venus
3.) Earth
4.) Mars
5.) Ceres (it is in the asteroid belt and might be the moon of a larger planet that was destroyed some 70 million years ago.. thats where the asteroid belt came from, debris from planet V)
6.) Jupiter
7.) Saturn
8.) Uranus
9.) Neptune
10./11.) Pluto/Charon(counts as 2, Charon isn't a moon, its as half AS big as Pluto and orbits WITH it, think of holding a dumbell and spinning it, the to sides of the dumbell move the exact same way because they are connected by a rod holding them together, thats what Pluto and Charon do, then a moon orbits the both of them.
12.) Eris
13.) Xena

You get 13 nerd points if you already knew this. 

PS* EL61, 2005FY, Orcus and Quaoar isn't listed because they probably are flung out moons from other planets in the solar system.  They are a bit too random.. also, man EL61 is odd shaped, isn't it?  like an egg!

[NinJa]

Plutoid? You have got to be kidding me. I think Pluto is better off as a planet. If not I feel sorry for the ones who are going to be changing all the textbooks. ;]

[LLR]

Heres a neat one.

June 11, 2008 - Dextre Robot Working On
International Space Station (ISS).


Earth's blue atmosphere is at top of frame and the ISS Dextre robot
works on the space station, which is about 217 miles (350 kilometers) above Earth
traveling at 17,210 statute mph (27,700 kilometers/hour). Image credit:
STS-124 Crew, Expedition 17 Crew, NASA.

NASA:  “Last week, Dextre was imaged moving atop the Destiny Laboratory Module of the International Space Station (ISS), completing tasks prior to the deployment of Japan's Kibo pressurized science laboratory. Dextre, the Canadian-built Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, has arms three meters in length and can attach power tools as fingers. Behind Dextre is the blackness of space, while Earth looms over Dextre's head. The Kibo laboratory segment being deployed during space shuttle Discovery's trip to the ISS can be pressurized and contains racks of scientific experiments that will be used to explore how plants brace themselves against gravity, how water might be inhibited from freezing in cells under microgravity and much more.”

[LLR]

*Huston, we have a problem*

Things were not going so well for the Shuttle crew today..  However it ended ok after all!

NASA: Floating object near shuttle poses no threat

NASA quickly identified a potentially worrisome object that floated from the shuttle Discovery on Friday, the eve of its expected return to Earth, and assured seven astronauts aboard their ship was safe to land.

Discovery commander Mark Kelly and his crew will aim for a touchdown at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida today at 10:15 a.m. CDT, ending a two-week trip to the international space station with a $1 billion Japanese science module.

The weather outlook remains favorable through an 11:50 a.m. CDT backup landing opportunity at the Florida shuttleport.

Early Friday, as Kelly and his crew checked out Discovery's steering systems for the high speed descent to Earth, the fliers spotted a light-colored object they estimated was 12 to 18 inches long floating away from the back of the spacecraft.

A mystery solved
Astronaut Mike Fossum, who was watching through a window with a camera equipped with a telephoto lens, may have prevented some prolonged distress by snapping photos as the object floated off behind the right wing.

In Mission Control, NASA mobilized imagery experts to pore over his pictures as well as videotape of what appeared to be a fresh protrusion from the rudder on the shuttle's tail.

Within four hours, experts identified the floating object as one of several V-shaped metal clips — called spring tabs and just 2 1/2 inches long — that protect the rudder from the billowing fire ball generated by the shuttle at liftoff. The section is not threatened by high heat during the descent to Earth.

The protrusion was a thin piece of heat shielding called a split line thermal barrier. While not out of place, the flexible shielding that fits between the two halves of the rudder simply moved into the astronauts' field of view for the first time during Friday's steering system test.

"We have reviewed these items the crew saw and determined neither this protrusion nor the loss of the spring tab will be an issue for us," LeRoy Cain, chairman of NASA's mission management team, said at a news briefing. "We have determined the vehicle is completely safe, ready for de-orbit, entry and landing."

During a September 2006 mission, astronauts aboard the shuttle Atlantis spotted a mysterious object float away.

The Atlantis crew spent an extra day in orbit while experts looked for an explanation. Fossum's camera surveillance, and the video gathered by his colleagues, avoided a similar delay this time, according to Cain.

"We were very fortunate the crew was on its toes. They got some great imagery and gave us some great verbal reports," Cain said. "The team on the ground came together very quickly. We worked this very thoroughly in a relative short period of time."

Engineers believe the metal clip broke free of its welds during Discovery's thunderous climb to orbit.

When the rudder was moved and opened slightly during Friday's checkout, the clip dislodged and floated away.

"We were impressed at how quickly and with the quality of the work they were able to do in a short amount of time," Kelly said of Mission Control during a brief mid-day news interview.

The astronauts were concerned for only a brief time, Discovery's skipper said.

"Fortunately, Mike took some good pictures of it and sent them to the ground within a couple of minutes," he told CBS News. "It's really not a concern at all."




If all goes well the Discovery will be back before noon tomorrow!

In other news..

The Sun
Sunspot 998 is dissolving, leaving the sun once again blank. Credit: SOHO/MDI
YAY!


A solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on June 16th or 17th. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope
BOOOO!

In other news...

NOT THE ISS:  On June 11th in the Netherlands, amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh trained his backyard telescope on a speck of light moving across the night sky and snapped this picture:

It looks like a bad photo of the International Space Station (ISS)," he says, "but it isn't. This is a much much smaller object with an orbit twice as high as that of the ISS."

The little winged spacecraft is SeaSat 1. Launched in June 1978, SeaSat 1 was the first satellite to monitor Earth's oceans using synthetic aperture radar (SAR). A massive short-circuit disabled SeaSat 1 only four months later, but that was time enough to demonstrate the feasibility of SAR ocean studies and blaze a trail for radar-sats of the future.

"This old spacecraft is still in our night sky," says Vandebergh. "The pass on June 11th was amazing. It was [about as bright as a 3rd magnitude star] and visible for 9 minutes in total."



NLC ALERT:  Noctilucent cloud season is underway. In the past week, sky watchers have spotted glow-in-the-dark electric blue tendrils over England, Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Netherlands. Observing tips: Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the Sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you've probably spotted a noctilucent cloud. Although noctilucent clouds appear most often at arctic latitudes, they have been sighted in recent years as far south as Colorado, Utah and Virginia. NLCs are seasonal, appearing most often in late spring and summer. In the northern hemisphere, the best time to look would be between mid-May and the end of August. See also 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

[LLR]

NEWS!  This ones big..

PROMINENCE ALERT: A massive prominence has just popped up over the sun's southeastern limb. It's taller than a planet and moving very rapidly. This is a nice target for backyard solar telescopes; if you have one, take a look!








Sunspot 999 poses no threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI



Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SOHO Extreme UV Telescope



Current Auroral Oval





SUNGRAZING COMET:  Note to comets: Don't get too close to the sun. Yesterday, June 16th, one did and suffered the consequences, disintegrating as the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) looked on:


The comet goes in but nothing comes out. It's what usually happens when fierce sunlight beats down on the fragile, icy nucleus of a kamikaze comet. This one was probably a member of the Kreutz sungrazer family. Named after the 19th century German astronomer who studied them in detail, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet 2000+ years ago. Every day, one or two fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate. Most are too small to see, but occasionally a big one catches our attention--all the more reason to keep an eye on the sun.


Older story but just found it.
SPACESHIP CROSSING: With solar activity at low ebb, the sun is nearly blank--no sunspots. That makes it easy to pick out the spaceships. On June 13th, John Stetson and students (E. Signorelli and C. Ryder) photographed space shuttle Discovery and the ISS transiting the sun:





Phoenix Update
No water found in the easy bake oven!
June 16, 2008 - No Water in First Martian Test Scoops.
But Phoenix scoop arm is targeted now on white “Wonderland”
soil that might be water ice? A salt? Salty water ice?

“I am itching to get some of the white stuff we think
might be ice into the TEGA machine.”  - Ray Arvidson, Ph.D.,
Lead Scientist, Phoenix Robotic Arm


June 13, 2008, Phoenix Surface Stereo Imager of two test trenches,
“Dodo” (left) and “Goldilocks” (right), in colored elevation map and normal image.
Trenches at deepest are only 2.7 to 3 inches. White patches dubbed “Wonderland” will be
Phoenix robot's next target for analysis. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University
of Arizona/Texas A&M University/NASA Ames Research Center.

[LLR]

Update!

Three "Super-Earths" Found Orbiting Sun-Like Star
source

A trio of "super-Earths" have been found near a sun-like star, a team of European astronomers announced today.

The planets orbiting the star HD 40307—which is 42 light-years away—were found using an advanced "planet searcher" instrument at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, the French and Swiss astronomers said.


An artist's impression shows the trio of super-Earths discovered by a European team and announced on June 16, 2008.

The three planets are 4.2, 6.7, and 9.4 times more massive than Earth and orbit the star HD 40307 every 4.3, 9.6, and 20.4 days, respectively.

The part of the sky being studied contains 45 potential planets that are smaller than 30 times the mass of Earth, the astronomers said. Most of them orbit HD 40307 quickly—every 50 days or less.

"We are convinced that there are plenty of planets everywhere," said Didier Queloz, a member of the research team from the Observatoire de Genève in Switzerland.

The discovery is creating a buzz throughout the astronomy community.

David Charbonneau, an exoplanet expert from Harvard University who was not involved with the new find, said it heralds a new age: "We have entered the Epoch of the Super-Earths," he said.

The announcement of HD 40307's planets came out of an international workshop called Extra Solar Super-Earths in Nantes, France.

Rapid Discovery

The study of exoplanets really didn't get under way until 1995, Queloz said.

That's about the time Queloz and his colleague Michel Mayor, also from Observatoire de Genève, discovered a planet around the star 51 Pegasi. Since then more than 270 exoplanets have been found, most of them around sun-like stars.

Many are giants like Jupiter or Saturn, and current statistics show that about 1 out of 14 stars harbors that kind of planet.

Queloz said the largest extrasolar planets—gas giants as massive as Jupiter—were found first because they were easiest to detect.

"The biggest ones are certainly the most difficult to form, he added. Everyone is kind of expecting that there are many more small mass planets than big planets."

Better Eyes

The astronomers say better technology developed in recent years will enable researchers to see ever-smaller planets around other sun-like stars.

Now super-Earths—planets that are more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune—mark the threshold for detection.

The three newly discovered planets are 4.2, 6.7, and 9.4 times more massive then Earth and orbit the star in periods of 4.3, 9.6, and 20.4 days, respectively. Their orbits cause a disruption in the motion of their parent star, which allowed the researchers to infer their presence using a popular technique called the "wobble method."

"The perturbations induced by the planets are really tiny," said team member François Bouchy, from the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in France.

"The mass of the smallest planets is one hundred thousand times smaller than that of the star, and only the high sensitivity of HARPS made it possible to detect them," he said, referring to the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher instrument, which attaches to the observatory's telescope.

Study team member Queloz said its only a matter of time before astronomy's eyes get sharp enough to find planets no bigger than Earth.

Closer to Life

At the same conference, the team of astronomers announced the discovery of two other planetary systems, also found with the HARPS instrument.

One of these systems has seven times the mass of Earth and orbits the star HD 181433 in just under ten days. That star also hosts a Jupiter-like planet with an orbit that takes close to three years.

The other system contains a planet that is 22 times more massive than Earth, with an orbital period of four days, as well as a Saturn-like planet with a three-year orbit.

"Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg," study team member Mayor said.

Drake Deming, a scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, called the new study a major breakthrough in exoplanet research.

"It is among the super-Earths that many workers in this field hope to find the first evidence for biomarkers, and thus the first evidence for extrasolar life," he said.

To find biological indications of life, he said, astronomers will need to know something about the atmospheres of the potential planets. And that work requires planets that pass in front of their parent stars.

"Since only a relatively small fraction of planets will transit, finding large numbers of them will be of tremendous benefit," Deming said.






**Edit with update**
MOON ILLUSION: Sometimes you just can't believe your eyes. Tonight may be one of those times. Go outside around sunset, look east, and prepare to be deceived

June 16 , 2008: Sometimes you just can't believe your eyes. This week is one of those times.

On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant form rising in the east. At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and seas and the face of a man, but this "moon" is strangely inflated. It's huge!

You've just experienced the Moon Illusion.
picture

Above: The full moon rising over Manchester, Maryland. Credit: Edmund E. Kasaitis.

There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a "solstice moon", coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion.

Sky watchers have known for thousands of years that low-hanging moons look unnaturally big. At first, astronomers thought the atmosphere must be magnifying the Moon near the horizon, but cameras showed that is not the case. Moons on film are the same size regardless of elevation: example. Apparently, only human beings see giant moons.

Are we crazy?

After all these years, scientists still aren't sure. When you look at the Moon, rays of moonlight converge and form an image about 0.15 mm wide on the retina in the back of your eye. High moons and low moons make the same sized spot, yet the brain insists one is bigger than the other. Go figure.

A similar illusion was discovered in 1913 by Mario Ponzo, who drew two identical bars across a pair of converging lines, like the railroad tracks pictured right. The upper yellow bar looks wider because it spans a greater apparent distance between the rails. This is the "Ponzo Illusion."


more

Some researchers believe that the Moon Illusion is Ponzo's Illusion, with trees and houses playing the role of Ponzo's converging lines. Foreground objects trick your brain into thinking the Moon is bigger than it really is.

But there's a problem: Airline pilots flying at very high altitudes sometimes experience the Moon Illusion without any objects in the foreground. What tricks their eyes?

Maybe it's the shape of the sky. Humans perceive the sky as a flattened dome, with the zenith nearby and the horizon far away. It makes sense; birds flying overhead are closer than birds on the horizon. When the moon is near the horizon, your brain, trained by watching birds (and clouds and airplanes), miscalculates the Moon's true distance and size.

Below: The "flattened sky" model for the Moon Illusion. Source explaining moon illusion


There are some other explanations too. 

It doesn't matter which is correct, though, if all you want to do is see a big beautiful Moon. The best time to look is around moonrise, when the Moon is peeking through trees and houses or over mountain ridges. The table below (scroll down) lists rise times for selected US cities.

A fun activity: Look at the Moon directly and then through a narrow opening of some kind. For example, 'pinch' the moon between your thumb and forefinger or view it through a cardboard tube, which hides the foreground terrain. Can you make the optical illusion vanish?

Stop that! You won't want to miss the Moon Illusion.

list of cities

[LLR]

THIS IS AWESOME!

Hubble Site Gallery and Tour!
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/tours/



*News update will be edited in later*

[LLR]

Ice on Mars! Now you see it, now you don’t
Scientists say they know white stuff was frozen water because it vanished



The scientists behind NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander mission now know that they had their first close-up look at Martian ice — because it has vanished from the picture.

Days ago, streaks and bits of whitish material were spotted at the bottom of a trench dug by the lander's robotic scoop, leading scientists to speculate that the stuff was either ice or salt. An initial chemical analysis was inconclusive, but scientists said they could tell by seeing if the material disappeared after exposure to the thin Martian atmosphere.

Under such conditions, water ice would turn directly into vapor rather than melting into liquid, in a process known as sublimation. When scientists compared Sunday's pictures with imagery captured early Thursday, dice-sized crumbs of the white material were clearly missing.

"It must be ice," the University of Arizona's Peter Smith, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission, said Thursday in a NASA status report. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

A larger vein of white material is still visible in the trench, which scientists have dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks."

The Phoenix team reported that the lander's robotic scoop hit a hard surface while it was digging in a different trench early Thursday, and they speculated that the surface could represent a layer of ice. The new trench is nicknamed "Snow White 2," and lies right next to the Snow White 1 trench in an area that has been set aside for scientific study.

"We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench," Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, was quoted as saying in the status report.

After three attempts to dig further into the surface, the arm went into a holding position. Such an action is expected when the robotic arm comes upon a hard surface, NASA said.

One of the primary aims of Phoenix's mission is to determine whether the layers of soil and ice in Mars' north polar region contain the chemical building blocks of life. The lander can cook soil samples in its ovens and analyze the composition of the gases given off. The probe is not designed to detect life itself, however.

A fix for the glitch
Also on Thursday, NASA said that Phoenix team members at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver were working on a software patch to fix a glitch that cropped up this week.

The lander lost a day's worth of pictures on Tuesday when it generated a large amount of duplicative engineering data. As a precaution, the spacecraft was given instructions to transmit its data to Earth at the end of each day rather than storing it overnight in its flash memory. That procedure will be followed until the glitch is corrected, managers said.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," Barry Goldstein, project manager for the $420 million Phoenix mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in Thursday's update.

Mission managers expect to transmit the patch to Phoenix in a few days so that scientific data can once again be saved onboard overnight when needed.

Goldstein noted that the three-month schedule for Phoenix's primary mission has 30 days of extra time built in for dealing with unanticipated problems. Only one day has been used so far, he said.

"The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success," Goldstein said.






HAPPY SOLSTICE! Northern summer and southern winter begin today, June 20th, at precisely 23:59 UT (7:59 pm EDT) when the sun ascends to its highest latitude on the celestial sphere: 23.5o. In the Northern Hemisphere, it's the longest day and shortest night of the year, and the reverse in the Southern Hemisphere. The seasons are changing--Happy Solstice!





Earth is inside a solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: Hinode X-ray Telescope
Sunspot 999 poses no threat for strong solar flares. Credit: SOHO/MDI

[LLR]

Huge amount of things to post.  I been slacking..

Kinda realated to my black hole post a few months ago..

Earth 'not at risk' from black hole collider


Then.

Astronomers on Verge of Finding Earth's Twin


NOW A FANTASTIC STORY!

Minerals Needed for Life Found on Mars
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander found evidence of mineral nutrients essential to life in Martian dirt, mission scientists announced Thursday.

After performing the first wet chemistry experiment ever done on another planet, Phoenix discovered that a sample it dug of Martian dirt contained several soluble minerals, including potassium, magnesium and chloride. Though the data is preliminary, the results are very exciting, scientists said.

"We basically have found what appears to be the requirements for nutrients to support life," said Phoenix's wet chemistry lab lead, Sam Kounaves of Tufts University. "This is the type of soil you'd probably have in your backyard. You might be able to grow asparagus pretty well, but probably not strawberries."

Asparagus, which thrives in alkaline soil, would like the Martian dirt, which Phoenix measured to have a very alkaline pH of between eight to nine. Strawberries, meanwhile, like acidic soil, he said.

The finding comes a week after the lander discovered water ice in the same dirt.

On June 25, the probe placed a cubic centimeter sample of Martian dirt in its onboard wet chemistry laboratory for the first time. The lab, part of Phoenix's suite of instruments called the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA, was designed to test Mars' dirt for salts, acidity, minerals and conductivity.

After mixing the dirt with water Phoenix brought from Earth in one of MECA's teacup-sized beakers, the instrument measured various characteristics of the solution to learn about the properties of the dirt.

MECA includes four beakers, each of which can be used only once. The inside of each beaker contains 26 sensors designed to study red planet material, NASA officials have said.

"We're making mud, we're stirring it up, we're measuring it with sensors," said Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Michael Hecht, lead of the MECA instrument.

Habitable world

The new findings help fulfill Phoenix's main purpose: to search for signs that the red planet's northern polar regions could have been habitable to life. The probe landed in the arctic plains of Mars May 25 to begin what is now a planned four-month mission. It is not equipped to find life itself.

The soluble mineral nutrients it found, and the dirt's hospitable pH level, are both promising signs. However the MECA instrument is not able to test for organic compounds, such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, which are also necessary for life as we know it.

"We did find basically that there's nothing about [the dirt] that would preclude life," Kounaves said. "In fact it seems very friendly."

Though the dirt itself seems to be hospitable, Kounaves pointed out that the very top layer at the surface is exposed to high levels of harsh UV light that is damaging to organic compounds, so may not be able to support life.

"There could be microbes living meters and meters underground," he said. "They would be very happy."

Water ice

Phoenix also recently found another promising sign that this Mars environment could be habitable to life. In a major success last week, the probe photographed what scientists say must be water ice: a few bright crumbs that evaporated over four days from a trench in the ground. The scientists think it's water, and not some other material such as carbon dioxide, because of the time frame over which it vaporized. The local temperatures are too warm for carbon dioxide to remain frozen for even one day, scientists said.

Launched in August 2007, Phoenix includes cameras, a scoop-tipped robotic arm, weather station and ovens in addition to its wet chemistry lab.

The probe's oven instrument, the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA), also recently completed an experiment in which it heated up a sample of Martian dirt to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). When the sample was heated, the instrument measured signs of water, which researchers think was probably emitted when minerals melted that contained chemically-bound water. This water would have been bonded to other molecules in the minerals, rather than existing on its own in the dirt.

"This is the first time anybody's ever heated up part of a planet to such high temperatures," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for TEGA. "When we heated up the sample we got some modest amounts of water vapor. This is what we were hoping to see."

Though further analysis is needed to determine the source of the water vapor for sure, "what we can say now is that the soil clearly has interacted with water in the past," he said.

The results of both the TEGA and MECA tests are showing scientists that it's possible Mars may indeed have hosted, or be hosting, some form of life.

"Over time I've come to the conclusion that the amazing thing about Mars is not that it's an alien world but that it's actually very Earth-like," Kounaves said.



This is an amazing story, I give it 5 months then they will tell us that either life DID exist on Mars or is STILL living on Mars.  Think about it, our dirt now is the product of billions of years worth of living creatures decaying in our dirt.  Thats how it got to the condition that it is today.  Rich with minerals and nutrients.    The soil on Mars is the SAME seems like a "no duh" that life has existed there before for the dirt to be in that condition. 


Sun news
No sunspots!


Other news,  preparing a news article about PLANET V the gas giant planet that was destroyed 65 million years ago that existed where the Astroid belt is today.  Mars and a few other objects were actually moons of this huge planet.   Keep checking here to see the evidence that supports this theory.

-LLR

[Minish Majora]

I read in the paper about Mars' soil, which could have the potential to grow asparagus, and wanted to see what you thought on the matter. It's really interesting stuff and hopefully new discoveries emerge soon!

Your really into the Ceres theory
I instantly think of Metroid Fusion's Serris when I read about Planet V 

Keep it up Lon Lon 

[LLR]

Voyager Spacecraft Reveals Solar System Edge
Source


Artist's rendering depicts the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it studies the outer limits of the heliosphere - a magnetic 'bubble' around the Solar System that is created by the solar wind. Scientists observed the magnetic bubble is not spherical, but pressed inward in the southern hemisphere. Credit: NASA/JPL

Voyager 2's journey toward interstellar space has revealed surprising insights into the energy and magnetic forces at the solar system's outer edge, and confirmed the solar system's squashed shape.

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to send data to Earth more than 30 years after they first launched. During the 1990s, Voyager 1 became the farthest manmade object in space.

Each spacecraft has now crossed the edge of the solar system, known as termination shock, where the outbound solar wind collides with inbound energetic particles from interstellar space. The termination shock surrounds the solar system and encloses a bubble called the heliosphere.

"The solar wind is blowing outward trying to inflate this bubble, and the pressure from interstellar wind is coming in," said Edward Stone, physicist and Voyager project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif. He and other researchers published a series of studies in the journal Nature this week that detail the Voyager findings.

This way and that

Voyager 2 reached the southern edge of the solar system 7 billion miles (76 AU) from the sun, closer than Voyager 1 which had reached the northern edge 7.8 billion miles (84 AU) from the sun. That confirms earlier suspicions about the heliosphere bubble being squashed at its southern region.

The reason for that asymmetrical shape rests with an interstellar magnetic field that puts more pressure on the southern region of the solar system — something that may change over 100,000 years as that magnetic field experiences turbulence, Stone said.

Comparing the Voyager 1 crossing in December 2004 with the Voyager 2 crossing in August 2007 allowed scientists to confirm that the second sibling actually crossed the termination shock and passed into the heliosheath, an outer layer of the heliosphere. But Voyager 2 also carries more working instruments that show the termination shock in full detail.

"We're actually seeing the shock for the first time," said John Richardson, principal scientist for Voyager's Plasma Physics instrument at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.

Voyager 1's plasma detector failed after it passed Saturn, so Voyager 2 provided the first glimpse of what happens to the solar wind's energy as it slams into interstellar space. The solar wind travels outwards from the sun at supersonic speeds, and at temperatures near 17,540 degrees Fahrenheit (10,000 degrees Kelvin).

Scientists had predicted that the solar wind would simultaneously slow down and heat up to a temperature near 1.8 million degrees F (1 million degrees Kelvin), but instead found that it reached just 180,000 degrees F (100,000 degrees Kelvin) at the solar system boundary.

Hitching a ride

The solar wind's missing energy ended up hitching a ride with interstellar intruders, Richardson said.

Neutral atoms that flowed in from outside the solar system became energized upon entering the heliosheath layer, and then ended up stealing 80 percent of the energy from the solar wind. Researchers have yet to puzzle out the significance of this.

An added mystery remains as to why the solar wind slows down early, as though anticipating running headlong into the termination shock. Researchers have begun looking into whether the solar wind somehow sheds energy ahead of time.

"Somehow the solar wind knows the shock is coming before it gets there, and theory says that shouldn't be," Richardson noted, adding that the solar wind speed drops from its supersonic speed of about 248 miles per second (400 km/s) to 186 miles per second (300 km/s) even before hitting the edge of the solar system. That speed falls more noticeably to about 93 miles per second (150 km/s) after the termination shock.

Even as researchers continue parsing the Voyager findings, both spacecraft plow onward toward deep space — and beyond all expectations of their original mission.

"My guess is five to seven years to reach interstellar space," Stone said. "There's a very good chance that Voyager I will send the first data back from there."



This one can be a bit.... SCARY...

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space
Source

Listen here but wait till after the commercial..

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.

The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.

Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.

The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do not reach Earth. That's good, because the out-of-this-world radio waves are 10,000 times stronger than even the strongest military signal, the researchers said, and they would overwhelm all radio stations on the planet.

Theorists had long figured the radio waves, which were not well studied, oozed into space in an ever-widening cone, like light from a torch.

But new data from the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a group of four high-flying satellites, reveals the bursts of radio waves head off to the cosmos in beam-like fashion, instead.

This means they're more detectable to anyone who might be listening.

The Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR), as it is called, is beamed out in a narrow plane, as if someone had put a mask over a torch and left a slit for the radiation to escape.

This flat beam could be detected by aliens who've figured this process out, the researchers say. The knowledge could also be used by Earth's astronomers to detect planets around other stars, if they can build a new radio telescope big enough for the search. They could also learn more about Jupiter and Saturn by studying AKR, which should emit from the auroral activity on those worlds, too.

"Whenever you have aurora, you get AKR," said Robert Mutel, a University of Iowa researcher involved in the work.

The AKR bursts -- Mutel and colleagues studied 12,000 of them -- originate in spots the size of a large city a few thousand miles above Earth and above the region where the Northern Lights form.

"We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," Mutel said.

Our planet is also known to hum, a mysterious low-frequency sound thought to be caused by the churning ocean or the roiling atmosphere.
Earth Hum Sound



 Planets Align for the 4th of July

The show gets going on Friday, July 4th. Red Mars and ringed Saturn converge just to the left of the bright star Regulus. The three lights make a pretty 1st-magnitude line in the heavens:


But that is just the beginning. On Saturday, July 5th, with weekend fireworks at fever pitch, a lovely crescent Moon joins the show. Saturn, Mars, and the Moon trace an even brighter line than the night before:


Scan a small telescope along the line. You'll see Saturn's rings, the little red disk of Mars, a grand sweep of lunar mountains and craters, and just maybe—flash!—a manmade incendiary. How often do you see fireworks through a telescope?

This is, however, more than just a flashy gathering of planets—it is also a gathering of spaceships and robots.

Each of the three worlds is orbited or inhabited by probes from Earth. Saturn has the Cassini spacecraft, studying the gas giant's storms, moons and rings. The Moon has two probes in orbit: Kaguya from Japan and Chang'e-1 from China. The pair, operating independently, are mapping the Moon and scanning for resources in advance of future human landings. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will join them later this year.



An artist's concept of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter slated to launch later this year.

Mars has more probes than the others combined. Three active satellites orbit the red planet: Europe's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The three not only study Mars with their own instruments, but also form a satellite network in support of NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and Mars lander Phoenix.

None of these mechanical specks are visible in a backyard telescope, but they are there, heralds of a growing human presence in the solar system. Tell that to your buddy at the fireworks show!

During the short night of July 5th, the Moon glides past Mars and Saturn so that nightfall on Sunday, July 6th, brings a different arrangement—a scalene triangle. The triad is easy to find in the hours after sunset. Look west and let the Moon be your guide



n the nights that follow, the Moon exits stage left, leaving the others behind. Don't stop watching, though. Saturn and Mars are converging for their closest encounter of the next 14 years. After nightfall on Thursday, July 10th, the two planets will be just ¾ of a degree apart, snug enough to fit behind the tip of your pinky finger held at arm's length:


Now that's spectacular—no fireworks required.

[LLR]

COLLIDING STORMS ON JUPITER:  For the past few months, astronomers have been monitoring not one but three red spots on Jupiter: the familiar Great Red Spot plus two younger, smaller upstarts known as Oval BA and the Little Red Spot (LRS). Last week the three storms collided. Amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley of Australia photographed their convergence:

The 3 Red Spots   must see






On July 1st, with clouds blocking Wesley's view from Australia, the Little Red Spot (1) got squeezed like toothpaste between the Great Red Spot (2) and Oval BA (3). Did the little spot survive? Maybe, maybe not. A July 5th photo by Wesley seems to show only two storms emerging from the clash. But a July 7th photo taken by Christopher Go of the Philippines suggests "the LRS survived the gauntlet" and may be reforming.

Survival wouldn't be a surprise. Even a "little" storm on Jupiter is huge. The LRS is about the size of Mars and may be able to withstand considerable abuse from its larger siblings. The monitoring continues; stay tuned for updates.

[LLR]

BINARY ASTEROID: Asteroid 2008 BT18 is gliding past Earth this weekend and astronomers have just discovered that it is a binary system. "The sizes of the two components are 600 m for the primary and >200 m for the secondary," says Lance Benner of JPL. "The primary looks spheroidal, but we don't yet know about the shape of the secondary." Benner and others using a giant radar in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, obtained this "delay-doppler" image of the pair on July 7th:



"We're also getting images from NASA's Goldstone radar in the Mojave desert of California," he adds. That radar is smaller than Arecibo but it is still registering a strong echo that should reveal much about the target, including the binary orbit, masses and bulk density of the components.

About 16% of all near-Earth asteroids are binaries, but only a handful have come this close. "2008 BT18 is giving us a good look at a double asteroid," says Benner. Studying the make-up and dynamics of these systems may help researchers figure out how to deflect binaries on a collision course with Earth. 2008 BT18 poses no threat, but some undiscovered binary asteroid, one day, might. "The Arecibo observatory, where 53% of all near-Earth binaries have been discovered, is crucial to these studies."

Southern hemisphere readers, you may be able to observe this double-rock using your own backyard telescope and CCD camera. At closest approach (1.4 million miles) on July 14th, 2008 BT18 will flit through Canis Major heading south and glowing like a 13th magnitude star: ephemeris, 3D orbit.

Orbit


LITTLE RED SPOT DESTROYED: Last month, Jupiter had three red spots. Today there are only two. "The 'Little Red Spot' is gone," reports Christopher Go who took this picture on July 10th from his backyard observatory in the Philippines:



His photo shows two and only two storms: the Great Red Spot (center) and Oval BA just above it. Missing is the Little Red Spot (LRS), a young upstart of a storm that had the temerity to crash into its older siblings on July 1st-3rd. Bad weather at key observing sites hid the crash from many astronomers, leaving the fate of the LRS uncertain until now. "The LRS has dissipated," says Go. "Its remnant can be seen just east of the Great Red Spot."



Go uses an 11-inch Celestron telescope to monitor events on Jupiter. Much is visible these days because Jupiter is at its closest to Earth for all of 2008. If you have a backyard telescope, point it southeast after sunset. Jupiter is there blazing brighter than any star

[LLR]

ERUPTION:

Solar activity may be low, but it's not zero. This morning the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded a spectacular eruption on the sun's eastern limb: image. An unstable magnetic filament flung itself into space, traveling as fast as a million mph, something that can happen without the aid of a sunspot. Even during solar minimum, it pays to keep an eye on the sun.







OVER THE MOON:  No, it's not a cow. The solar arrays rule that out:



"It's the International Space Station (ISS)," says Leonardo Julio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. "We photographed it last night, July 13th, gliding past lunar crater Tycho. Julio's team, which included friends Enzo De Bernardini and Adriana Fernández, used an 8-inch Meade LX90 equipped with a Canon 20D digital camera to capture the flyby.

The ISS has grown so large in recent years that a backyard telescope is all you need to see its details. The solar arrays span 80 meters, about the same as 30 cows lined up single file. The station's habitable volume, 425 m3, equals the combined volume of about 100 dairy cows, while the mass of the station, 280,000 kg, equals 400 cows.

So, no it's not a cow. It's more like a whole herd.

STAMPEDE! This week the space station begins a series of bright evening flybys over North America. If you live in that part of the world, check the Simple Satellite Tracker to find out when to look.

[Korenshei]

This thread is interesting... I'm surprised it took me so long to stumble upon it.