Back-in-Action Cassini Doesn’t Disappoint – Here are a few raw images from the Cassini spacecraft‘s most recent flyby of Enceladus. The probe seems to be in good health following several weeks in safe mode, after a bit flipped in the command and data subsystem computer. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today
X-37B space plane returns to Earth in the next few days – The landing window for the U.S. military X-37B space plane opens Friday, but officials are mum about the timing of specific opportunities to return the craft to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. -Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
Special fueling test could be ordered for Discovery’s tank – NASA managers and engineers met Thursday to discuss the potential root cause of cracks in the shuttle Discovery’s external tank, what additional tests might be needed and what, if any, modifications might be required before another launch attempt can be made. -William Harwood / Spaceflight Now
Landing on Mars in 2016 – I remember going up to a leading French planetary scientist at a meeting in Paris last year and asking if he was interested in taking part in Europe’s mission to land a spacecraft on Mars in October 2016. “No,” was his response, “because there is no science on it.” -Jonathan Amos / BBC
Super Venus steampunk planet! – Last year, astronomers discovered a remarkable planet orbiting another star: it has a mass and radius that puts it in the “super-Earth” category — meaning it’s more like the Earth than a giant Jupiter-like planet. Today, it has been announced that astronomers have been able to analyze the atmosphere of the planet (the very first time this has ever been accomplished for a super-Earth), and what they found is astonishing: the air of the planet is either shrouded in thick haze, or it’s loaded with water vapor… in other words, steam! -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy
NASA science update - Astrobiology - The search for life
Photos
Alauda binary system
Comet 103p/Hartley and M46
Aurora Borealis from Greenland
Harrat Khaybar, Saudi Arabia
Gallery Pick of the Day
A Flame in Orion's Belt - This mosaic image taken by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, features three nebulae that are part of the giant Orion Molecular Cloud. The image covers an area of the sky about three times as high and wide as the full moon (1.5 by 1.8 degrees). Included in this view are the Flame nebula, the Horsehead nebula and NGC 2023. - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team
10 Years of SOHO - (Dec. 1995 - Dec 2005) - Courtesy of SOHO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
NASA's Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (or SOFIA) completed its first science flight on Dec. 1, demonstrating the airborne observatory's ability to make observations not possible from ground-based telescopes. Five more flights are planned over the coming months in the observatory's Short Science series.
Top Stories
Solar Observation Mission Celebrates 15 Years – On December 2, 1995, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO was launched into space from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas IIAS rocket. The joint ESA/NASA project began its work observing the sun at a time when the term “solar weather” was almost never used. -NASA
Another close asteroid flyby – Near Earth Asteroid 2010 XB, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey at Mt. Lemmon on Dec 1, flew by at the altitude of ~52,460 km on Nov 30 (1820 UT) -Minor Planet Center
NASA Aids in Characterizing Super-Earth Atmosphere – A team of astronomers, including two NASA Sagan Fellows, has made the first characterizations of a super-Earth’s atmosphere, by using a ground-based telescope. A super-Earth is a planet up to three times the size of Earth and weighing up to 10 times as much. The findings, reported in the Dec. 2 issue of the journal Nature, are a significant milestone toward eventually being able to probe the atmospheres of Earth-like planets for signs of life. -NASA / JPL
Red Dwarf Discovery Changes Everything! – Its often said that the number of grains of sand on Earth equals the number of stars in the Universe. Well it looks like a recent study by astronomers working at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii have found that its more like three times the number of grains of sand on Earth! Working with some of the most sophisticated equipment available, astronomers from Yale University have been counting the number of dim red dwarf stars in nearby galaxies which has led to a dramatic rethink of the number of stars in the Universe. -Mark Thompson / Universe Today
Secret Mini Space Shuttle Could Land on Friday – The US Air Force announced that the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, a miniature, unmanned space shuttle could return to Earth as soon as this Friday, December 3. It has been in Earth orbit for about nine months on a classified mission for the military. It will land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Los Angeles sometime between Friday and Monday, Air Force officials said in a statement. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today
What’s up in the solar system in December 2010 – The year is racing to a close — I can’t believe December is here already! This month will see Japan’s Akatsuki join Venus Express at Venus; that happens on December 6 at 23:49 UT (December 7, Japan time). Cassini will perform a second of a pair of 50-kilometer Enceladus flybys (the first happened early today). Opportunity should, if she keeps up her current pace, arrive within spitting distance of Santa Maria crater. And, closer to home, there’ll be a total lunar eclipse over the night of December 20-21. -Emily Lakdawalla / Planetary Society
NASA Offers Space Shuttle Tiles To Schools And Universities – As the Space Shuttle Program nears retirement, NASA is looking for ways to preserve the program’s history and inspire the next generation of space explorers, scientists and engineers. Beginning Wednesday, NASA is offering 7,000 shuttle heat shield tiles to schools and universities that want to share technology and a piece of space history with their students. -NASA
Celestron’s Capture the Universe 2010 Astrophoto winners! – Last month, Discover Magazine and Celestron telescopes partnered for the second annual Capture the Universe astrophotography contest. Astronomers submitted about a hundred images made using Celestron optics for the contest, and I was chosen to pick my favorite two; a third was picked as Viewers’ Choice by the members of the Celestron website. All of the photos submitted are available at the CelestronImages site. -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy
This coronal mass ejection -- observed by SOHO's EIT 195 instrument on April 7, 1997 -- was the first visual image of such an ejection headed for Earth. It appeared as the lead story on the national news. Credit: SOHO/ESA/NASA
You can’t own the Sun. No. Not yours – Angeles Duran is a woman in Spain who claims to own the Sun. She says in no uncertain terms that she has laid claim to the Sun, the nearest star, the provider of light and heat to the solar system. -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy
Snowballing speculation over a NASA press conference – I don’t generally like to talk about NASA press conferences before they happen because I don’t want to promote baseless rumor-mongering. In this case, though, I feel I have to write something to prevent speculation! Here’s the scoop: NASA released the news that a press conference will be held on Thursday at 14:00 ET, saying that the conference will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy
Cassini Finds Warm Cracks on Enceladus – New images and data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft give scientists a unique Saturn-lit view of active fissures through the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. They reveal a more complicated web of warm fractures than previously thought. -NASA / JPL
Venus holds warning for Earth – A mysterious high-altitude layer of sulphur dioxide discovered by ESA’s Venus Express has been explained. As well as telling us more about Venus, it could be a warning against injecting our atmosphere with sulphur droplets to mitigate climate change. -ESA
M82 - The image is the result of fusIon of good resolutIon on galactic nucleous taken with the big Newton and deep image in h-alpha showing M82 red jet taken with very long exposure on TSA102 - Credit: Stefano Campani - Roberto Barcellona
NASA sets news conference on astrobiology finding related to extraterrestrial life – NASA will hold a news conference at 19 UT on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. -NASA
Russia Wants to Build “Sweeper” to Clean up Space Debris – Russia is looking to build a $2 billion orbital “pod” that would sweep up satellite debris from space around the Earth. According to a post on the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos’ Facebook site, (which seems to confirm an earlier article by the Interfax news agency) the cleaning satellite would work on nuclear power and be operational for about 15 years. The Russian rocket company, Energia proposes that they would complete the cleaning satellite assembly by 2020 and test the device no later than in 2023. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today
Observations of Jupiter reveal rare signatures of weather – One of Jupiter’s dark brown stripes that faded out last spring is regaining its color, providing an unprecedented opportunity for astronomers to observe a rare and mysterious phenomenon caused by the planet’s winds and cloud chemistry. -Keck Observatory
A safe return for the Expedition 25 crew, a status report on the STS-133 mission, enter the Dragon; a newly-licensed reusable spacecraft, space talks with the ISS crew, wind tunnel testing, and it's all Good when an astronaut goes home sweet home.
Photos
Sunrise
Red Sea
Lakes in northern Italy
M33 - Traingulum Galaxy
Gallery Pick of the Day
NGC 520 — also known as Arp 157 — looks like a galaxy in the midst of exploding. In reality, it’s the exact opposite. Two enormous spiral galaxies are crashing into each other, melding and forming a new conglomerate. This happens slowly, over millions of years — the whole process started some 300 million years ago - Credit: ESO
Soyuz and 3 ISS Crewmembers Return Home – The Expedition 25 crew landed safely in Kazakhstan at 11:46 p.m. EST Thursday (Friday 10:46 a.m. Kazakhstan time). The trio — Doug Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin — undocked in the Soyuz TMA-19 at 8:23 p.m. ending their 5-1/2 month stay at the International Space Station. Staying behind on the orbiting laboratory are Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today
J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets! – It seems oddly appropriate to be writing about astrophysical jets on Thanksgiving Day, when the New York football Jets will be featured on television. In the most recent issue of Science, Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez and collaborators write about how their observations of radio emissions from young stellar objects (YSOs) shed light one of the unsolved problems in astrophysics; what are the mechanisms that form the streams of plasma known as polar jets? Although we are still early in the game, Carrasco-Gonzalez et al have moved us closer to the goal line with their discovery. -Mike Simonsen / Universe Today
Nov 17/18 to 24/25 Meteors – We are now entering a transition period as we leave behind November’s showers (such as the Leonids and Taurids) and look forward to December’s offerings (Geminids and Sigma Hydrids). The nights tabulated below mark the 61st consecutive night with a video meteor detection. -Carl Hergenrother
Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 - The camera is running at 500 fps, making the total clip of over 8 minutes represent just 30 seconds of actual time.
Photos
Launch Pad 39-A
The Moon
The Moon from the ISS
Erupting Volcano
Gallery Pick of the Day
Fresh starbirth infuses the galaxy NGC 6503 with a vital pink glow in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy, a smaller version of the Milky Way, is perched near a great void in space where few other galaxies reside. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA
Oxygen found on Saturn’s moon Rhea – Nasa’s Cassini probe has scooped oxygen from the thin atmosphere of Rhea – the first time the gas has been detected directly on another world -Ian Sample / Guardian
Summary of International Year of Astronomy 2009 Released – The brochure, called the International Year of Astronomy 2009 Final Report Executive Summary, offers an overview of the many events that took place during the Year, as detailed in full in the 1450-page IYA2009 Final Report, which was released earlier this year. -European South Observatory
