Cryosat ice mission returns first science

19 December 2010

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco 

The Cryosat-2 spacecraft has produced its first major science result.

Radar data from the European satellite has been used to make a map of ocean circulation across the Arctic basin.

Cryosat's primary mission is to measure sea-ice thickness, which has been in sharp decline in recent decades.

But its ability also to map the shape of the sea surface will tell scientists if Arctic currents are changing as a result of winds being allowed to blow more easily on ice-free waters.

"Nobody really knows how the Arctic is going to behave as the ice retreats, but we do anticipate that significant changes will occur," said Dr Seymour Laxon, a Cryosat science team member from University College London, UK.

"This is just the first data, and it shows we now have the tool to monitor what is happening," he told BBC News.

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Space Pictures This Week: Cosmic Gem, Sun Burp, Vegas

Cosmic Gem

Image courtesy ESA/NASA

Is it a massive opal? A huge holiday ornament? A multicolored stargate? No, it's the leftover cloud of hot gas and dust created by a star that ended its life in a violent explosion.

The new picture of this cosmic bauble, released Tuesday, combines data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Known as SNR 0509-67.5, the supernova remnant sits about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. Chandra's x-ray vision shows the soft greens and blues from hot material, while Hubble's visual-light data reveals the visible, glowing pink shell of gas being superheated by an expanding shock wave.

Published December 15, 2010

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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.

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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. 

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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."

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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.

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