NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the outside edge of the solar system.

A NASA space probe dispatched 33 years ago for the first close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn has entered the tail of the solar system, a place where the constant stream of charged particles flowing from the sun ebbs.

This final phase of solar system exploration should last another four years, computer models show, though scientists overseeing the two Voyager spacecraft really don't know what to expect.

Voyager 1 is now about 10.8 billion miles from the sun, traveling in a region of space known as the heliosheath, a turbulent area between the sphere of space influenced by the sun and magnetic forces from interstellar space that lies beyond.

Read more ...

Magnetic Eruption on 14 December 2010

 

 

Click to play a 3MB animation

MAGNETIC ERUPTION : On Dec. 14th around 1530 UT, a filament of magnetism lifted up from the surface of the sun and--snap!--erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action.

 

The blast produced an hours-long C2-class solar flare and hurled a magnificent CME into space: SOHO movie. The expanding cloud is not heading directly toward Earth, but it might deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field two or three days hence. High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

Source: Visit  spaceweather.com

Coleman, Crew Members Fly to ISS

89 Instruments used for tank test on Discovery

IMAGE: Technicians prepare space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank for a tanking test on launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Teams have installed environmental enclosures on the tank, removed foam and prepared the tank's skin for approximately 89 strain gauges and thermocouples. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Shuttle Discovery's tanking test will occur no earlier than Friday as cold weather and strong wind have slowed preparations.

Workers at launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center continue to instrument the tank with temperature sensors, after work through the weekend finished attaching strain gauges.

In total, nearly 90 instruments are being placed on the tank's mid-section. Fresh insulating foam will be applied over those areas.

The sensors won't bond properly to the tank's metal skin in cold weather. Specially constructed environmental enclosures and thermal blankets are being used to control temperatures. 

Read more ...

Reuters Best Photos of 2010

Out of the half-million photos that Reuters photographers produce each here, Reuters has selected 55 as the Best Photos of 2010.  These photographs capture the human spirit at play and in turmoil within the natural world around us.  The Pakistani floods, the Gulf oil spill, the Shanghai World Expo, the Haitian earthquakes and more are all represented here with stunning symbolism.  These photographs are a visual record of the world in 2010, where human culture made its movement into yet another decade.  

• See all 55 at the Reuters Blog.

NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical

NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

• Read more ...

Jupiter gets its stripe back

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 24 November 2010 

BERKELEY — 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.

Earlier this year, amateur astronomers noticed that the long-standing stripe, known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), just south of Jupiter's equator, had turned white. In early November, amateur astronomer Christopher Go of Cebu City in the Philippines observed a prominent bright spot in the unusually whitened belt, piquing the interest of professional and amateur astronomers around the world.

• Read more

More Space Pictures

• More Space Pictures

Best Space Pictures of 2010

• Visit and enjoy!

Secret military mini-shuttle lands in California

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.

Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.
Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout

(Reuters) - A miniature robotic space shuttle wrapped up a 224-day classified military mission and made an unannounced landing in darkness on a California runway on Friday, Air Force officials said.
The Orbital Test Vehicle, or X-37B, touched down at 1:16 a.m. PST at Vandenberg Air Force Base, becoming the first U.S. spaceship to land itself on a runaway.
The former Soviet Union's Buran space shuttle accomplished a similar feat in 1988.
"We are very pleased that the program completed all the on-orbit objectives for the first mission," program manager Lt. Col. Troy Giese said in a statement.
The project, which was started by NASA in the late 1990s and later adopted by the military, is intended to test technologies for a next-generational space shuttle.
Rather than carry people, however, the military is looking at the spaceplane as a way to test new equipment, sensors and material in space, with the intention of incorporating successful technologies into satellites and other operational systems.
Another key point of the project is to see if the costs and turnaround time between flights can be reduced from months to days.
The Air Force imposed a news blackout on the X-37B's activities while in orbit, though it was tracked by amateur satellite-watchers throughout its nine-month mission.
The X-37B looks like a space shuttle orbiter, but is smaller, with a similar shape and payload bay for cargo and experiments. But it measures 29 feet, 3 inches in length and has a 15-foot (4.5-metres) wing span, compared to the 122-foot (37-metres) orbiters with wing spans of 78 feet.
Unlike NASA's space shuttles which can stay in orbit about two weeks, X-37B is designed to spend as long as nine months in space, then land itself on a runway.
The Air Force plans to fly its second X-37B vehicle this spring. The spaceplanes were built by Boeing's advanced research lab, Phantom Works.
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Philip Barbara)

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle in the encapsulation cell at the Astrotech facility in April 2010, in Titusville, Florida.

Credit: Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Handout