SpaceX shows off new nav gear with latest Grasshopper rocket launch-and-landing (video) Video. NASA discovers portals (but don’t book your ticket yet) Madeleine L’Engle called them tesseracts. The Syfy channel calls them wormholes. Gamers call them portals. Whatever you call them, they are fictional doorways to faraway places: another planet in the solar system … another star in the galaxy … another restaurant where the service doesn’t suck quite so bad. But today they’re perhaps a little less fictional than yesterday. At least according to a Science@NASA post: Hidden Portals in Earth’s Magnetic Field, which says they are real, sort of. University of Iowa plasma physicist Jack Scudder is studying them. Above: A view of one of NASA’s X-points Image Credit: NASA “We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions,” he says. NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft and Europe’s Cluster probes have been observing the portals, and NASA is sending a new mission, “MMS” (Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission) in 2014 to study them in more detail.
However, there’s no doubt that this is a pretty cool announcement. Here’s the full video from NASA: Scientists discover most accurate clocks in the universe. Time in space has always been an elusive issue for scientists who have long struggled to find a constant standard. But a new discovery may help us understand time as never before. Space.com reports that scientists are now using pulsars — rapidly spinning stars that pulse over time — to tell the universe’s time. This is due to a recent revelation about how pulsars function and rotate. A pulsar is a rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation.
When this radiation is pointed towards the Earth, we can see it much as we see the light from a lighthouse. Discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, pulsars occur in space when a star collapses, smashing the protons and electrons together into neutrons. They are so dense that one teaspoon of neutron star on Earth would weigh 1 billion tons. It seems that these super heavy lighthouses of the universe are also predictable and steady in their actions. Why is constant time in the universe important? For further reading: New kind of planet discovered. The planets in our solar system get along with each other pretty well. But sometimes when multiple planets orbit the same star, there’s a confrontation – that is, the gravity of one planet interferes with another’s. In this way, smaller ones can get kicked out, left to float in the dark without a star to go around.
These “lonely planets” represent an entirely new category of planets, and are perhaps more numerous in our galaxy than stars, scientists report Wednesday in the journal Nature. "It gives us a good clue about how planet formation works. It suggests that there's a lot of violent encounters between planets near the end of the planet formation process," said David Bennett, astronomer at the University of Notre Dame. Bennett and colleagues discovered 10 such planets, each probably the size of Jupiter, in a survey called the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics, which used a 5.9-foot telescope in New Zealand to scan our galaxy, the Milky Way. Video. Want to Fly Around the Moon? Commercial Spaceship Gets Another Seat. Room for one more?
Virginia-based Space Adventures announced Thursday that it will add another seat to a Soyuz spacecraft that will take space tourists into low-Earth orbit by 2015. Working with Rocket Space Corporation Energia, Space Adventures will add a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex, which will take those with (a lot) of extra cash around the moon. "Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015," Richard Garriott, vice chairman of Space Adventures, said in a statement.
About that price. Space Adventures has flown seven spaceflight participants on eight missions to the ISS. Space Adventures estimates that by 2020, about 140 people will have been launched into orbital space. Another company exploring commercial space flight is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. How Hydrogen May Expand the Search for Alien Life – National Geographic News Watch.
When people talk about finding life among the stars, it’s often a fairy tale that comes to mind. That’s because we on Earth really hope to find a planet like ours in what’s called the Goldilocks zone—a region not too close and not too far from the star, but at just the right distance to support liquid water on a planet’s surface. On Earth, water is arguably the most important ingredient for life, so it makes sense that we tend to think of it as a necessary criterion for habitable planets.
Still [as is often the case in cutting-edge science] there’s always the chance that we’re wrong, and looking for life *exactly* as we know it may be limiting the search. In a new paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, planetary scientists Raymond Pierrehumbert and Eric Gaidos describe how life might evolve on a world outside the traditional habitable zone, thanks to a thick hydrogen atmosphere creating an unusual version of the planet-warming greenhouse effect.
Alien life existed, NASA scientist claims - Technology & Science. Multiple filaments and sheaths embedded in this meteorite could point to extraterrestrial life, says NASA scienist Richard Hoover. (Richard Hoover/The Journal of Cosmology) A NASA scientist says he has found fossilized evidence of alien life in the remains of a meteorite, which if confirmed would bolster the theory that life is not restricted to Earth.
The claim that several types of meteorites contain fossils of microscopic creatures similar to cyanobacteria — also known blue-green algae — that originated beyond Earth has predictably created a stir, and 100 experts have been invited to review the research. Astrobiologist Richard Hoover, who works at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., made the claim in a study published online late Friday in the peer-reviewed publication, The Journal of Cosmology . The journal's editor-in-chief, Rudy Schild, says Hoover is a highly respected scientist with a prestigious record of accomplishment at NASA. Announces Results of Epic Space-Time Experiment.
NASA Announces Results of Epic Space-Time Experiment May 4, 2011: Einstein was right again. There is a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity. Researchers confirmed these points at a press conference today at NASA headquarters where they announced the long-awaited results of Gravity Probe B (GP-B). "The space-time around Earth appears to be distorted just as general relativity predicts," says Stanford University physicist Francis Everitt, principal investigator of the Gravity Probe B mission.
"This is an epic result," adds Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis. An expert in Einstein's theories, Will chairs an independent panel of the National Research Council set up by NASA in 1998 to monitor and review the results of Gravity Probe B. Time and space, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called "space-time. " What's next? Author: Dr.
Ten things you don’t know about black holes. Well, they’re black, and they’re like bottomless holes. What would you call them? -Me, when a friend asked me why they’re named what they are Ah, black holes. The ultimate shiver-inducer of the cosmos, out-jawing sharks, out-ooking spiders, out-scaring… um, something scary. But we’re fascinated by ‘em, have no doubt — even if we don’t understand a whole lot about them. But then, that’s why I’m here. So below I present ten facts about black holes — the third in my series of Ten Things You Don’t Know (the first was on the Milky Way; the second about the Earth). 1) It’s not their mass, it’s their size that makes them so strong. OK, first, a really quick primer on black holes. The most common way for a black hole to form is in the core of a massive star. As the core collapses, its gravity increases. The region around the black hole itself where the escape velocity equals the speed of light is called the event horizon.
OK, so now you know what one is, and how they form. So there you go. Hmmm. Seriously jaw-dropping picture of the Sun. Need your slice of awesome today? Then check out this truly astonishing picture of a detached prominence off the limb of the Sun: Holy wow! Click to ensolarnate. And I mean it: you want to see the bigger version of this. This picture was taken by Alan Friedman, who is no stranger to this blog: his picture of the boiling Sun last year was hugely popular, and so amazing I featured it as one of my top pictures of 2010. And with this he’s done it again… and maybe even topped it. Alan used a filter that lets through only a very narrow wavelength of light emitted by hydrogen (called Hα for those of you keeping track at home), so this tracks the activity of gas on the solar surface. The scene-stealer is that detached prominence off to the left.
The beauty of this picture belies its violence and sheer magnitude: the mass of material in a prominence can easily top 10 billion tons! Yegads. You really need to go and see the rest of Alan’s photography at his site, Averted Imagination. Related posts: The Alien Moon - Why NASA Never Returned To The Moon. From: youtube.com Part 1 Part 2 See Part 3 on Flying Serpents here Videos From: youtube.com Pyramids on the Moon - NASA's Apollo lunar coverup Yes, they went to the Moon, and yes, they also lied about it. Moon Bases The stunning Apollo 10 coverup - The Music Behind The Moon Apollo 10's amazing encounter with a VERY bizarre anomaly while behind the far side of the Moon.
You will follow Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young as they become only the second crew in history to journey behind the lunar far side. NASA's Alien Anomalies caught on film - A compilation of stunning UFO footage from NASA's archives This compilation includes many of my favorite NASA UFO encounters/sightings that I have archived over the years. The second last example is the only one in the compilation that features footage that was not taken in space and is not official-source (NASA or Soviet/Russian Space Agency). Videos From: youtube.com/lunacognita Red Ice Radio Mike Bara - Dark Mission, The Occult NASA Moon Mission. Greatredspot.jpg (JPEG Image, 1825x1190 pixels) '100 percent' chance for life on newly found planet?
An artist rendering shows the four inner planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star. Gliese 581g may be the new Earth. A team of astronomers from the University of California and the Carnegie Institute of Washington say they've found a planet like ours, 20 light years (120 trillion miles) from Earth, where the basic conditions for life are good. "The chances for life on this planet are 100 percent," Steven Vogt, a UC professor of astronomy and astrophysics says.
"I have almost no doubt about it. " The planet is three times the size of Earth, but the gravity is similar. Dr. "It could have liquid water on the surface," she said. The Gliese 581 system's orbit compared to our own solar system. There are hundreds of known extrasolar planets that have been discovered in the Milky Way, but this is the first that could support life. Earthlings won't be traveling to Gliese 581g any time soon unfortunately.
But if we did - we'd find some other things familiar. Astronomers have discovered a habitable planet 20 light years away. File:Laser Towards Milky Ways Centre.jpg. Here Is What You Missed During Last Night's Eclipse. Physicists discover "violation of a fundamental symmetry of the universe" @El Kabong: Not bunk, outdated.
Think of each additional particle/force discovered as being a refinement. It happens all the time, in all aspects of science. The thing is, we just can't jump all the way to the last chapter and say "All that needs discovering has been discovered" — Like the a pile of rocks, science happens one pebble at a time. Sure, one can theorize as to what the end result *may* look like, but the details only reveal themselves step by step. TL;DR version: Science is a process, not a fixed step. @El Kabong: Physicists suspect this too. @El Kabong: Yeah, look at it this way: hundreds of years ago when geology was first getting started, geologists were going around the earth collecting rock after rock from mines, thinking each new stone was a completely different stone than the last, simply because each one was different.
Right now, particle physics is so focused on going smaller and more fundamental, that they're basically in the same situation. @El Kabong: The solar system is two million years older than we thought...and that changes everything. Massive Jupiter-Sized Dark Object May Lurk at Edge of Solar System. Comet data that has been collected for over a century suggests that a dark Jupiter sized object is lurking at the edge of the solar system, and may be hurling ice and dust chunks towards Earth. Planetary scientist John Matese of the University of Louisiana explained that 10 years worth of data were added to the initial research to test the hypothesis. “Only now should we be able to falsify or verify that you could have a Jupiter-mass object out there.” Matese, along with his colleague, Daniel Whitmire, think there is a hidden companion to the Sun in the Oort Cloud that is booting icy bodies into the inner solar system where they can be seen. New analysis of observations that have been made for the last hundred-plus years, tell Matese and Whitmire that their original idea can be confirmed.
By analyzing patterns that comets make in space the researchers were able to concur that 20 percent of comets in the Oort Cloud would "need a nudge from a distant object about the size of Jupiter. " Distant Star Enveloped By Ingredients for Fake Diamonds. A faraway star sparkles with the largest amount of zirconium ? The stuff fake diamonds are made from ?
Ever seen, according to a new study. The star has about 10,000 times more zirconium than our sun, in a form never recorded by astronomers before, researchers said. The strange star also has far more than the usual amounts of other elements like strontium, germanium and yttrium, they added. [Illustration of zirconium-rich star] "The huge excess of zirconium was a complete surprise," the study's lead author, Naslim Neelamkodan, from Northern Ireland's Armagh Observatory, said in a statement. "We had no reason to think this star was more peculiar than any other faint blue star discovered so far. " The researchers estimate that the zirconium cloud layer on the star weighs about 4 billion tons, or 4,000 times the world's annual production of zirconium. A dying subdwarf They found evidence of various common elements, as expected. And there was a lot of it.
Stellar zirconium clouds. Future explorers could reach the Earthlike planet Zarmina in just 6.1 years. Spaceman: Landing on Mars in 2016. NASA contemplates manned mission to Mars - one-way. The project for human colonization of the Red Planet is called the Hundred Year Starship, and the space agency has already received $1.6 million in seed funding to begin research into it, Britain's Daily Mail reports. The source of the $1.6 million has not been revealed. NASA itself is chipping in $100,000 to fund the Ames Research Center team's initial work, which is being co-sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden publicly disclosed the project's existence in a talk that was part of an event called "Long Conversation," a six-hour roundtable idea exchange that took place Oct. 16 at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum. "The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds.
Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired," Worden said. He also added that NASA hopes to "inveigle some billionaires into setting up a Hundred Year Starship fund. " "Page One" Story of the Century? NASA May Announce Thursday to Have Found Life on Saturn's Moon Titan. Alien Speech Found In NASA's Saturn Radio Signal. Saturn Moon Has Oxygen Atmosphere. Incredible Pics from ISS by NASA astronaut Wheelock. Would you go to Mars and never come back? First humanoid robot in space about to blast off | Space, Military and Medicine. Hubble finds a star eating a planet. World Action Plan Emerging to Combat Asteroid Threat. The 123,000 MPH Plasma Engine That Could Finally Take Astronauts To Mars. Superearth Family Planets, Water-World Gliese 581c, Carbon Planets etc. PT1/2 Journey to the Edge of the Universe | Documentary Heaven | Watch Free Documentaries Online.