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The Magnetosphere Is Real

Alexis Madrigal
The Atlantic
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:05 UTC
Magnetosphere
© Doug Wheelock
Magnetosphere
It's easy to forget that invisible things are actually real. Take air or subatomic particles: out of sight, out of mind, out of reality.

That's why this picture of the Earth's magnetic field interacting with the solar wind last week is so amazing. It makes the magnetosphere real. Far above the tops of the clouds, in seeming emptiness, a fierce collision is taking place, throwing off that eerie green light. And we can see it!

Astronaut Doug Wheelock was hanging out in the International Space Station watching this with his own two eyes, so he snapped a photo and tweeted it.
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Sun

Coronal Hole Facing Towards Earth


Spaceweather.com
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:39 UTC
A coronal hole on the sun is turning to face Earth. Coronal holes are places in the sun's atmosphere where the magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape.

Here is a magnetic map of the hole from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

Image
© Karel Schrijver, Lockheed Martin SAL
In the image, magnetic field lines are color-coded. White field lines are closed; they hold the solar wind in. Golden field lines are open; they allow the solar wind out.
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Satellite

China's Lunar Twins

Morris Jones
Moon Daily / SPX
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:52 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Let's dissect the plans. Chang'e 2 is, strictly speaking, an orbiter, but the inclusion of a lunar impactor will certainly count as a lunar landing, albeit a hard one. The Chinese have previously stated that this mission was intended to provide support data for future landers, and the deorbit and descent phase, coupled with tracking the fall, will certainly help. We could then say that Chang'e 3 and 4 are true landers, each carrying a rover. Similarly, Chang'e 5 and 6 are probably both sample return missions.
Before the end of 2010, China will have launched its second lunar probe. Chang'e 2 is an orbiting spacecraft that was originally built as a back-up for China's first lunar probe, Chang'e 1, which flew to the moon in 2007. The launch is widely tipped for some time in October.

Sending the back-up spacecraft on its own mission makes sense. The spacecraft was already built, and the integrity of its design was confirmed by Chang'e 1's successful mission.

By changing a few instruments, the mission can perform tasks that weren't carried out by the first orbiter. China has added a high-resolution camera to Chang'e 2, and has also added a small surface impactor. The mission will also fly to the Moon with a faster trajectory.

The existence of the back-up Chang'e spacecraft was publically disclosed shortly before Chang'e 1 was launched, and the likelihood of its launch as a follow-up mission was also apparent. But this is not the end of China's plans for robot lunar exploration.
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Telescope

Mud Volcanoes On Mars

Anuradha K. Herath
Mars Daily / Astrobiology Magazine
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:48 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
The mounds shown here, located in the Southern Acidalia Planitia, range in size between 20 and 500 meters in diameter.
If life does - or did - exist on Mars, signs of such life might well be found in a region in the northern plains called Acidalia Planitia, according to a new study.

The region appears to be dotted with what scientists believe are geological structures known as mud volcanoes, spewing out muddy sediments from underground. These sediments might contain organic materials that could be biosignatures of possible past and present life.

"If there was life on Mars, it probably developed in a fluid-rich environment," said lead author Dorothy Oehler, a research scientist at the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

"Mud volcanoes themselves are an indicator of a fluid-rich subsurface, and they bring up material from relatively deep parts of the subsurface that we might not have a chance to see otherwise."

In a study published in the August issue of Icarus, Oehler and her co-author Carlton Allen mapped, for the first time, more than 18,000 of these circular mounds. Their estimate is that more than 40,000 mud volcanoes could be found in that region if the mapping continued.
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Blackbox

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Reveals More of the Incredible Shrinking Moon


Space Daily / SPX
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:37 UTC
Image
© NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University/Smithsonian
The mare basalts that fill the Taurus-Littrow valley were thrust up by contractional forces to form the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp, just west of the Apollo 17 landing site (arrow). It is the only extraterrestrial fault scarp to be explored by humans (astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt). The digital terrain model derived from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) stereo images shows the fault extending upslope into North Massif were highlands material are also thrust up. The fault cuts upslope and abruptly changes orientation and cuts along slope, forming a narrow bench. LROC images show boulders shed from North Massif that have rolled downhill and collected on the bench.
Newly discovered cliffs in the lunar crust indicate the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today, according to a team analyzing new images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The results provide important clues to the moon's recent geologic and tectonic evolution.

The moon formed in a chaotic environment of intense bombardment by asteroids and meteors. These collisions, along with the decay of radioactive elements, made the moon hot.

The moon cooled off as it aged, and scientists have long thought the moon shrank over time as it cooled, especially in its early history. The new research reveals relatively recent tectonic activity connected to the long-lived cooling and associated contraction of the lunar interior.

"We estimate these cliffs, called lobate scarps, formed less than a billion years ago, and they could be as young as a hundred million years," said Dr. Thomas Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Washington. While ancient in human terms, it is less than 25 percent of the moon's current age of more than four billion years.
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Telescope

Cosmic Accelerators Discovered In Our Galaxy

Stuart Wolpert
Space Daily / SPX
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:32 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Physicists from UCLA and Japan have discovered evidence of "natural nuclear accelerators" at work in our Milky Way galaxy, based on an analysis of data from the world's largest cosmic ray detector.

Cosmic rays of the highest energies were believed by physicists to come from remote galaxies containing enormous black holes capable of consuming stars and accelerating protons at energies comparable to that of a bullet shot from a rifle. These protons - referred to individually as "cosmic rays" - travel through space and eventually enter our galaxy.

But earlier this year, physicists using the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the world's largest cosmic ray observatory, published a surprising discovery: Many of the energetic cosmic rays found in the Milky Way are not actually protons but nuclei - and the higher the energy, the greater the nuclei-to-proton ratio.

"This finding was totally unexpected because the nuclei, more fragile than protons, tend to disintegrate into protons on their long journey through space," said Alexander Kusenko, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-author of the Physical Review Letters research.

"Moreover, it is very unlikely that a cosmic accelerator of any kind would accelerate nuclei better than protons at these high energies."
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Telescope

Magnetic mega-star discovery challenges black hole theory


Telegraph
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:16 UTC
This artist's impression of a magnetar contains hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost one million suns
© ESO
This artist's impression of a magnetar contains hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost one million suns
The "magnetar" lies in a cluster of stars known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the constellation of Ara, the Altar.

Westerlund 1, discovered in 1961 by a Swedish astronomer, is a favoured observation site in stellar physics. It is one of the biggest cluster of superstars in the Milky Way, comprising hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost a million Suns and some two thousand times the Sun's diameter.
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Satellite

Leading US Physicist Labels Satellitegate Scandal a 'Catastrophe'

John O'Sullivan
Co2insanity.com
Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:53 UTC
missile launch Satelligate
© Unknown
Launching wasted tax dollars into space?
Leading US Physicist Labels Satellitegate Scandal a 'Catastrophe'

Respected American physicist, Dr Charles R. Anderson has waded into the escalating Satellitegate controversy publishing a damning analysis on his blog.

In a fresh week of revelations when NOAA calls in their lawyers to handle the fallout, Anderson adds further fuel to the fire and fumes against NOAA, one of the four agencies charged with responsibility for collating global climate temperatures. NOAA is now fighting a rearguard legal defense to hold onto some semblance of credibility with growing evidence of systemic global warming data flaws by government climatologists.
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Satellite

Astronauts "Become as Weak as 80-Year-Olds"


The Telegraph
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:10 UTC
Image
© NASA/Reuters
Astronauts who spend months in space become as physically weak as 80-year-olds, a study has found.

Researchers in the US made the discovery after testing muscle tissue taken from crew members on the International Space Station (ISS).

The calf biopsy samples revealed that after six months in orbit the physical work capacity of astronauts fell by 40 per cent.

This was equivalent to the muscles of an astronaut aged 30 to 50 wasting away to the level of an average 80-year-old.

The deterioration occurred despite crew members taking regular exercise on the space station.

The ISS is equipped with two treadmills and an exercise cycle.
      Read More...
Telescope

Surface Cracks Show the Moon is Shrinking

Matthew Moore
The Telegraph
Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:01 UTC
Image
© Press Association
The discovery was made after a probe captured images of unusual fault lines
Cracks discovered in the surface of the Moon suggest that our nearest neighbor is shrinking.

Like a deflating balloon, the satellite is contracting as its interior cools, scientists believe.

The cooling has reduced the radius of the Moon by around 100m in the relatively recent lunar past, evidence indicates.

The discovery was made after a probe captured images of unusual fault lines called "lobate scarps" in the lunar highlands.

Similar cracks were first seen in photos taken near the Moon's equator by astronauts on Apollo missions in the early 1970s.

Fourteen new lobate scarps have now been identified by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, researchers reported in the journal Science. They were found mainly in the highlands, showing that the lines are globally distributed.
      Read More...
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