A Stray Planet (Source:
Space.com)
Some time ago, scientists discovered that there are planets that do not
rotate around any star, like the Earth rotates around the Sun, but
"travel" in the universe all alone. Till now, scientists have
discovered only less than 10 such planets, but recently, astronomers in
Hawaii noticed a hardly visible blue point which they believe to be
another such planet. Later, the object was more thoroughly examined
with the help of a more powerful telescope in Chili.
Scientists suppose that this is probably the closest free-floating
celestial body to us a euros " the distance between it and the Earth is
only 100 light years, which is not far from the point of view of cosmic
distances. If this planet was formed in a star system, why has it left
it? The recently discovered object looks like a small blue point on
photographs. The blue color speaks of the fact that the object has an
atmosphere rich with methane, scientists say. (1/1)
Michael Huerta is Confirmed as FAA
Chief (Source: Politico)
The Senate has confirmed Michael Huerta, the acting administrator of
the Federal Aviation Administration, as the chief of the agency. Huerta
began his tenure as acting administrator in 2011 after Randy Babbitt's
departure. Huerta, whose nomination had been blocked for several months
by then-Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., will serve a five-year term. (1/1)
Curiosity Rover to Begin Trek to Mount
Sharp in February (Source: AP)
The Mars Curiosity rover will conquer new terrain in 2013, with NASA
planning for the rover to head toward Mount Sharp in February. The
journey is expected to last at least nine months. "I expect public
interest will rise as the rover gets closer to its destination," said
Howard McCurdy, a space-policy expert at American University. (12/29)
NASA to Launch Communications
'Nanosats' (Source: EE Times)
An Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket will launch three PhoneSat
spacecraft into low Earth orbit in 2013 from NASA's Wallops Flight
Facility at Wallops Island, Va. The 4-inch "nanosatellites" weigh three
pounds each and are dubbed Alexander, Graham, and Bell. Two PhoneSat
1.0 spacecraft use of Nexus One smartphone technology from HTC Corp.
and Google's Android operating system. The third spacecraft is a beta
version of PhoneSat 2.0 built around an updated Samsung Nexus S
smartphone running Android OS.
PhoneSat 2.0 includes solar panels to enable long-duration missions and
a GPS receiver. It also has magnetorquer coils, electromagnets that
interact with Earth's magnetic field, along with reaction wheels used
to control satellite orientation in space. The three satellites will be
"inserted into a spring-loaded dispenser attached to the launch
vehicle. They're stacked in there like a toaster," said Jim Cockrell,
NASA's PhoneSat 1.0 project manager. (1/2)
Solar Eruption On New Year's Eve Seen
By Sun-Gazing NASA Satellite (Source: Huffington Post)
As people around the world rang in the New Year to celebrate
Earth's latest trip around the sun Monday night, our closest star
marked the occasion with some fireworks of its own — a dazzling solar
eruption. The space fireworks occurred on New Year's Eve (Dec. 31)
during a four-hour eruption on the sun. NASA's Solar Dynamics
Observatory captured a video of the solar event. The video shows a
bright plume of super-magnetic plasma erupting from the sun's surface.
(1/2)
NASA to White House: May I Bring My
Asteroid Home? (Source: Space Safety)
Not long after the US Presidential administration flatly denied
approving a mission to establish a space station in the second
Earth-Moon Lagrange point that NASA sources had been talking up, rumor
has it that the White House is considering an even more
outlandish-sounding mission: bagging an asteroid and dragging it into
lunar orbit.
The weeks since the US presidential election have been somewhat
bruising for NASA. Instead of a calm continuance of the known following
reelection of President Barack Obama as could’ve been reasonably
expected with the election of an incumbent, the agency has faced sharp
criticism and appeared to have a public misunderstanding with the
administration over its next steps.
In a move that would appear to bolster the administration’s goal of
asteroid travel over the abandoned lunar travel of Constellation, the
White House is said to be considering a plan worked out in the spring
of 2012 to visit an asteroid, encase it in a drawstring bag, and drag
it to lunar orbit for leisurely study. (1/2)
U.S. Space Programs Get Reprieve From
Budget Cuts (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
NASA and U.S. military space programs, along with all other government
agencies, were granted a two-month reprieve from massive budget cuts
when Congress passed a bill Tuesday to put off the across-the-board
spending reductions and extend current tax rates for most Americans.
The automatic budget cuts were due to take effect Jan. 2, slashing 8.2
percent from non-defense government agencies and 9.4 percent from
military programs.
Congress voted Tuesday to extend the deadline until March 1, giving
lawmakers and the White House another two months to come up with an
alternative plan to identify $1 trillion in savings from the overall
federal budget. The bill, which was passed by the Senate in the wee
hours of Tuesday morning and approved by the House on Tuesday night,
extended current tax rates for most Americans and averted the so-called
fiscal cliff. (1/2)
The Luna 1 Hoax Hoax (Source:
Air & Space)
On this day in 1959, the Soviet Union launched a 4-foot-diameter metal
ball — a close copy of the Sputnik satellite that had kicked off the
space age two years earlier — in the direction of the moon. On January
4 Luna 1, also known as “Mechta” or Dream, passed within 6,000
kilometers of the lunar surface. The Soviets had meant for it to hit
the moon, and had loaded commemorative “pennants” on board that were
meant to scatter in every direction at the moment of impact.
But a faulty rocket burn caused the probe to miss its target.
Fifty-three years later, Luna 1, the first object to escape Earth’s
gravity, is still in orbit around the sun. In 1959, such a
demonstration of Soviet rocket power didn’t sit well with American
notions of technological superiority, and there was much fretting in
the Western press. LIFE magazine editorialized about “The Warning of
Mechta,” and pointed fingers at the politicians and bureaucrats. One
writer claimed in an article titled “The Big Red Lie” that the Soviets
had made up the whole story about Luna 1.
Alarmed by the article's claims, a Congressional fact-finding committee
heard different from people who actually knew what they were talking
about. JPL chief William Pickering told the committee that the
Goldstone tracking antenna had detected signals from a spacecraft
moving away from the moon on Jan. 4. (1/2)
Europe Tackling Big Space Projects in
2013 (Source: Space.com)
The European Space Agency has some ambitious resolutions for the New
Year. The year 2013 will include the agency’s first spaceflight for its
newest class of astronauts, the launch of its latest robot cargo ship
Albert Einstein, and the development of new rockets and spacecraft,
including a reusable space plane and work on NASA’s new Orion capsule.
January and February should see agreements and contracts signed for the
new rockets, Ariane 5 Mid-Life Evolution (ME) and Ariane 6, and for
ESA’s participation in NASA’sOrion space capsule. ESA is providing the
service module for the Orion capsule, which NASA plans to use to fly
astronauts on future deep-space missions. Click here.
(1/1)
Billion-Ton Comet Buzzed Earth in 1883
(Source: Space Safety)
On Aug. 12 1883 at 8:00 a.m., Mexico’s Zacatecas Observatory’s boss
Jose A. Bonilla was preparing to study the Sun’s corona when he
observed an amazing phenomenon. He saw several distant objects that
were close together and crossing the solar disc. In the space of two
hours, while the sky was clear and he was able to observe, he counted
up to 283 bodies that crossed in the angular field of view of the
projection lens.
Between 8:00 a.m. on August 12 and 8:40 a.m. on Aug. 13, 1883, Bonilla
counted a total of 447 objects in the course of 3 hours 25 minutes of
clear sky observation windows. That is an average of 131 objects per
hour, meaning a total of 3275 objects must have passed the solar disk
within 25 hours.
It was more than a hundred years later that scientists figured out what
probably happened. A recent reanalysis of the observations by Hector
Javier Durand-Manterola and two others at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico in Mexico City show the event was a
low-probability/high-risk event. They think the objects Bonilla
recorded were fragments of a billion-ton comet that had recently been
broken up in an approach almost flush with the Earth’s surface. (1/2)
100 Billion Alien Planets Fill Our
Milky Way Galaxy (Source: Space.com)
Our Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets, and
possibly many more, a new study suggests. It's a staggering number, if
you think about it," lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in
Pasadena, said in a statement. "Basically there's one of these planets
per star." Swift and his colleagues arrived at their estimate after
studying a five-planet system called Kepler-32, which lies about 915
light-years from Earth. (1/2)
Florida Pursues Studies for New Launch
Complex, NASA Considers Transfer (Source: Florida Today)
The state is pressing forward with studies related to the commercial
launch complex it has proposed establishing at the north end of Kennedy
Space Center, while awaiting word on whether NASA will make the
property available. Space Florida recently asked interested companies
to describe launch and recovery operations they might pursue at the
proposed “Shiloh” complex, named for the citrus community located there
before NASA seized the land to support Apollo program moon missions.
That information will inform environmental studies of impacts to
roughly 150 acres that fall within the Merritt Island Wildlife National
Refuge near the the Brevard-Volusia county line. “We’ll initiate our
environmental assessments around the kind of operating launch profiles,
the concepts of operations that we receive back from industry,” Space
Florida President Frank DiBello said. The state requested title to the
land from NASA last September, citing demand for a launch complex that
operated near but independently from existing Cape facilities
controlled by NASA and the Air Force’s Eastern Range.
NASA has said it is reviewing the proposal. The state’s request for
information, released Dec. 14, adds some detail to what has previously
been outlined about the Shiloh site. It is expected to house launch and
processing facilities “for one, and potentially two, commercial launch
providers operating dedicated pad areas independently.” The complex
would serve “existing and emerging” rockets with only liquid-fueled
primary boosters, in the class of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy;
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V, Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy; and
Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares. Click here.
(1/2)
India Appoints New Space Center
Directors (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Three centers of ISRO, viz., Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC),
Thiruvananthapuram, Liquid Propulsion Systems Center (LPSC), with
campuses in Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore and Mahendragiri and Satish
Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, have new Directors (Mr.
S. Ramakrishnan, Mr. M. Chandradathan and Dr. M.Y.S. Prasad
respectively) from January 1, 2013. (1/2)
Earth Is Closest to the Sun for 2013
(Source: Space.com)
If the sun looked a little larger than usual on Jan. 2, you weren't
seeing things. Jan. 2 marked the time when the Earth is at perihelion,
the point in its orbit at which it is closest to the sun. During
perihelion, the Earth is exactly 91,402,560 miles from the sun. In
actuality, you most likely can't see any difference between the
apparent size of the sun and its appearance at aphelion (when the Earth
will be farthest from the star). The difference is only 3.4 percent,
too small to be detected with the naked eye. (1/2)
2013: New year in Space Exploration
History (Source: Collect Space)
"Spaceship" Earth has completed another revolution around the sun, and
has set off on another 365 day, 583 million mile (940 million
kilometer) journey across time and space. Over the past year,
humankind's efforts to push further out into the solar system have
resulted in launching the first commercial spacecraft to resupply the
International Space Station, landing a car-size rover on Mars, docking
the first Chinese manned spacecraft and sending 18 people to live and
work off the planet. Click here.
(1/2)
Aerospace 2013: Launch Vehicles (Source:
Aviation Week)
A new era in commercial space transportation is open. Watch the video
to see what projects are under development for the next space launches.
Click here.
(12/31)
North Carolina Man Accused of Stealing
Meteorites (Source: AP)
Authorities in southern North Carolina have made one arrest following
the theft of 100 meteorites from a science education center and are
searching for a second suspect. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports
that 29-year-old Brian Koontz of Balsam Grove is charged with breaking
and entering, larceny and injury to personal property. He's being held
at the Transylvania County jail. Video surveillance shows two thieves
breaking into the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute near Rosman
around 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve. The thieves took meteorites that were
on loan to the institute. (12/31)
NASA Seeking to Lease or Sell
Space-Shuttle Facilities (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Does anyone need a 15,000-foot landing strip? How about a place to
assemble rocket ships? Or a parachute-packing plant? An array of
aerospace tracking antennas? A launchpad? Make us an offer, says NASA,
which is quietly holding a going-out-of-business sale for the
facilities used by its space-shuttle program.
The last shuttle flight ended in July 2011, when Atlantis made its
final touchdown. That orbiter, like its sisters Discovery and
Endeavour, is now a museum piece. As soon as some remaining cleanup and
wind-down are finished at Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle program
will be history. That has prompted NASA to advertise a long list of KSC
facilities and equipment as available for use, lease or, in some cases,
outright purchase by the right business.
Among them: Launch Pad 39A, where shuttles were launched; space in the
Vehicle Assembly Building, the iconic 526-foot-tall structure first
used to assemble Saturn V-Apollo rockets; the Orbiter Processing
Facilities, essentially huge garages where the shuttles were
maintained; Hangar N and its high-tech test equipment; the
launch-control center; and various other buildings and chunks of
undeveloped property. Click here.
(1/1)
2013 to See Several Launches From
Space Coast (Source: CFLnews13)
Space will be a big destination once again in 2013. Both NASA and
commercial companies are preparing for several launches in the new
year, many originating from the Cape. There will be no manned missions
launching from U.S. soil in 2013, but work will continue to make that a
reality once again. Click here.
(1/2)
Thorium Could Help Alien Life Emerge
(Source: Physics World)
Rocky exoplanets orbiting some Sun-like stars in the Milky Way galaxy
could be hotter and more geologically active than Earth and its
solar-system companions, according to researchers in the US. The team
looked at the abundance of radioactive elements such as thorium, which
heat the interior of planets as they decay and thereby play an
important role in how planets evolve. The team concluded that planets
that are richer in thorium than Earth could be good candidates for the
development of life – making them targets for study by astrobiologists
and exoplanet hunters. (1/2)
SpaceX, Orbcomm Renegotiate Launch
Contract (Source: SpacceFlightNow.com)
SpaceX and Orbcomm Inc. have agreed to new contract terms for the
launch of 18 data communications satellites beginning in mid-2013,
according to a filing with a U.S. regulatory agency. The $42.6 million
contract covers the launch of 18 second-generation Orbcomm satellites
on two Falcon 9 rockets between the second quarter of 2013 and the
second quarter of 2014, Orbcomm wrote in a Dec. 27 filing with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Orbcomm's second-generation, or OG2, satellites will improve the
company's messaging service with faster transmission speeds and
increased throughput. Sierra Nevada Corp. is building the satellites.
Eight OG2 satellites will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket in mid-2013.
Another Falcon 9 launch in 2014 will launch the other 10 satellites.
Orbcomm's previous launch contract with SpaceX, signed in August 2009,
provided for satellite launches on an enhanced version of the company's
smaller Falcon 1 booster. SpaceX has since discontinued production of
the Falcon 1 launcher.
With the future of the Falcon 1 in doubt, officials with both companies
planned to move the Orbcomm OG2 satellites to a Falcon 9 booster. The
firms reached a deal Dec. 21, according to the SEC filing. The value of
the Falcon 1 contract was $46.6 million, according to Orbcomm. The new
contract affirms Orbcomm's commitment to SpaceX after a Falcon 9 rocket
put one of its prototype second-generation satellite in the wrong orbit
in October. (1/1)
Is 2013 the Year Private Spacecflight
Lifts Off? (Source: Daily Mail)
For fans of all things astronomical, 2013 could mark the year when
their dreams of traveling to space become a reality. Pioneering
companies championing 'space tourism' are planning to send their
spaceships into the skies and fine tune their equipment over the next
12 months. Companies, including Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic,
are seeking to send ordinary members of the public into space for the
very first time.
Suborbital flights could see passengers taken to beyond the earth's
atmosphere, providing views only ever experienced in person by trained
astronauts. Virgin Galactic - billed as the world's first commercial
'spaceline' - has carried out successful test flights on its ship
SpaceShipTwo, but it is yet to fly any tourists into space. Hundreds of
keen adventures have already paid a refundable deposit to secure their
place on the $200,000 flight. (1/1)
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