Stellary Starry Universe

 

NASA spacecraft are measuring record-high levels of cosmic rays–a side-effect of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. This development could have implications for the amount of shielding astronauts need to take when they explore deep space.

September 29, 2009: Planning a trip to Mars? Take plenty of shielding. According to sensors on NASA’s ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high.

“In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we’ve seen in the past 50 years,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions.” [...]

 

 

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

Fresh meteorite impacts are exposing underground ice on Mars. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is beaming back must-see photos of the process at work.

 

September 24, 2009: Meteorites recently striking Mars have exposed deposits of frozen water not far below the Martian surface. Pictures of the impact sites taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that frozen water may be available to explorers of the Red Planet at lower latitudes than previously thought.

“This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps just several thousand years ago,” says Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

“We now know we can use new impact sites as places to look for ice in the shallow subsurface,” adds Megan Kennedy of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, a co-author of the paper and member of the team operating the orbiter’s Context Camera.

 

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

Using instruments on three separate spacecraft, scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the Moon.

 

September 24, 2009: NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the Moon. Instruments aboard three separate spacecraft revealed water molecules in amounts that are greater than predicted, but still relatively small. Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil. The findings were published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.

“When we say ‘water on the Moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles,” explained Carle Pieters, M3′s principal investigator from Brown University, Providence, R.I. “Water on the Moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimeters of the Moon’s surface.

 

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft is set to make its third and final flyby of the planet Mercury on Sept. 29th. The encounter is expected to produce hundreds of images of previously unseen terrain and confirm the strange elliptical shape of Mercury’s equator.

Sept. 23, 2009: NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft will fly by Mercury for the third and final time on Sept. 29. MESSENGER will pass less than 142 miles above the planet’s rocky surface for a final gravity assist required to enter Mercury’s orbit in 2011.

“This flyby is our final planetary gravity assist, so it is important for the entire encounter to be executed as planned,” said Sean Solomon, principal investigator at the Carnegie Institution in Washington. “As enticing as these flybys have been for discovering some of Mercury’s secrets, they are the hors d’oeuvres to the mission’s main course — observing Mercury from orbit for an entire year.”

 

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

NASA is set to launch a sensitive new infrared telescope to seek out sneaky things in the night sky — among them, dark asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.

September 15, 2009: Ninjas knew how to be stealthy: Be dark. Emit very little light. Move in the shadows between bright places.

In modern warfare, though, ninjas would be sitting ducks. Their black clothes may be hard to see at night with the naked eye, but their warm bodies would be clearly visible to a soldier wearing infrared goggles.

To hunt for the “ninjas” of the cosmos — dim objects that lurk in the vast dark spaces between planets and stars — scientists are building by far the most sensitive set of wide-angle infrared goggles ever, a space telescope called the Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

 

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article