Janice Voss passed away earlier this week in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she was being treated for breast cancer. Voss, who was one of only six female astronauts to make five ventures into space, was 55-years-old.

Discovery reports that Voss flew on five space shuttle missions between 1993 and 2000. She spent 49 days in orbit and served as payload commander twice.

Chief astronaut Peggy Whitson said:

“As the payload commander of two space shuttle missions, Janice was responsible for paving the way for experiments that we now perform on a daily basis on the International Space Station… Even more than Janice’s professional contributions, we will miss her positive outlook on the world and her determination to make all things better.”

Here’s a video of Janice Voss talking from space.

After completing her engineering studies at Purdue and completing her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Voss was selected as an astronaut in 1990.

Voss’ last mission to space came in 2000 when she served as the payload manager aboard the shuttle Endeavour.

Janice Voss, Female Astronaut, Dies of Cancer at 55 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Perhaps one of the more defining and upsetting moments of the decade for 80′s kids was when we all basically saw a whole bunch of astronauts die in real-time on television during the ill-fated launch of the Challenger, but if Roger Boisjoly had his way, that tragedy could have been avoided.

Back then, there was no 24-hour news cycle, and the event left many Americans very upset- aside from the incident itself, my clearest recollection was a very special episode of Punky Brewster to help kids process lingering grief from witnessing the tragedy on so many wheeled in VCRs in school auditoriums. But as out of touch with the culture of today it may seem- exposing snowflakes to something as unpredictable and now, as we know, dangerous as a shuttle launch- it came as an utter shock to many that the incident played out as it did- but not Roger Boisjoly.

Boisjoly was a rocket booster engineer at a NASA subcontractor, and he passed away in Utah last month at the age of 73. 25 years ago, he tried to warn colleagues and higher ups about impending disaster if the Challenger launched on a cold day- NPR spoke to Boisjoly after the disaster but before he became known as a whistleblower- and paid dearly for that- during the investigation into the tragedy. The site explains:

Six months before the Challenger explosion, he predicted “a catastrophe of the highest order” involving “loss of human life” in a memo to managers at [contractor Morton] Thiokol… The problem, Boisjoly wrote, was the elastic seals at the joints of the multi-stage booster rockets. They tended to stiffen and unseal in cold weather and NASA’s ambitious shuttle launch schedule included winter lift-offs with risky temperatures, even in Florida.

The New York Times ran a profile of the engineer after his death, saying that few commended Boisjoly for his role in trying to prevent the tragic shuttle explosion:

He had headaches, double-vision and depression, he said. He yelled at his dog and his daughters and skipped church to avoid people. He filed two suits against Thiokol; both were dismissed…He later said he was sustained by a single gesture of support. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, hugged him after his appearance before the commission.

“She was the only one,” he said in a whisper to a Newsday reporter in 1988. “The only one.”

According to the Times, Boisjoly was eventually awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and did hundreds of events speaking about corporate ethics and responsibility.

Roger Boisjoly, Scientists Who Fought to Prevent Challenger Launch, Dies at 73 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Could some form of microbial life possibly exist on Mars? According to the findings of an international team of researchers, it is highly unlikely that life in any form currently exists on Mars, as conditions on the planet have been far too hostile for too long.

The team of researchers spent three years going over soil data collected from NASA’s Phoenix Lander mission. Based on the data, researchers believe that Mars has been arid for as much as 600 million years, which greatly limits the probability that life exists on the planet.

“We found that even though there is an abundance of ice, Mars has been experiencing a super-drought that may well have lasted hundreds of millions of years,” study leader author Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, said in a statement. “We think the Mars we know today contrasts sharply with its earlier history, which had warmer and wetter periods and which may have been more suited to life.”

That doesn’t mean that scientists are ready to rule out life on Mars entirely, however unlikely it may be.

“Future NASA and ESA missions that are planned for Mars will have to dig deeper to search for evidence of life, which may still be taking refuge underground,” Pike said.

via

Mars too dry to support life, researchers say is a post from: The Inquisitr

Last month NASA released the highest resolution “Blue Marble” image of Earth to date and now the US Space Agency has updated its image repository with the flip side photograph of our planet.

The first image (shown below) featured the western hemisphere while the new image (above) shows the flip side on the eastern hemisphere.

You’re actually staring at at composite image which was created by Nasa Goddard oceanographer Norman Kuring who required six different orbit images from the satellite that took the photos over an eight-hour period on Jan. 23, 2012. The photos were then combined to create the effect you see at the start of this post.

Here’s the Western Hemisphere ‘Blue Marble’ Photo in case you missed it the first time around:

If Blue Marble imagery looks familiar to you that might be because the photograph taken in 2002 is a default background on Apple’s iPhone.  The original Blue Marble photograph was taken on Dec. 7, 1972.

Do you think NASA is getting better at showing us clear representations of Earth through Blue Marble imagery which continues to inspire better renditions each time a new image is released?

NASA Releases Second Super High-Resolution ‘Blue Marble’ Photograph is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA has just released another image of the “Blue Marble.” This time, the Suomi NPP Earth-observing-satellite captured a composite image of the Eastern hemisphere. The original “Blue Marble” photo, which was released last month, has already been seen more than 3.1 million times making it one of the most viewed photo on Flickr.

Flickr writes:

“The western hemisphere Blue Marble 2012 image has rocketed up to over 3.1 milling views making it one of the all time most viewed images on the site after only one week.”

NASA’s Suomi NPP, named to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin, is NASA’s next generation of earth-observing-satellites. It carries five instruments on board, the most important of which is the Visible / Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

NASA explains that the new “blue marble” photo is a composite of six separate orbits around the earth. The images were created by the VIIRS and compiled by NASA Goddard scientist Norman Kuring.

NASA explains the technique, saying:

“NASA scientists created the two new ‘Blue Marble’ images from data acquired by a new instrument that’s aboard the Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The Suomi NPP satellite is in a polar orbit around Earth at an altitude of 512 miles (about 824 kilometers), but the perspective of the new Eastern hemisphere ‘Blue Marble’ is from 7,918 miles (about 12,743 kilometers). NASA scientist Norman Kuring managed to ‘step back’ from Earth to get the big picture by combining data from six different orbits of the Suomi NPP satellite. Or putting it a different way, the satellite flew above this area of Earth six times over an eight hour time period. Norman took those six sets of data and combined them into one image.”

The western hemisphere blue marble photo, which now has more than 3.4 million views, was created with the same technique.

NASA’s ‘Blue Marble’ Photos Set Flickr Record is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA has just posted a video of the dark side of the moon. The video was captured by the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) and shows the far-side of the moon as a grey, crater filled place.

Maria Zuber, Grail principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said:

“The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare to explore the moon.”

The video was captured by one of the twin GRAIL probes, Ebb and Flow, using a camera called MoonKAM. The GRAIL MoonKAM is being set up so that students around the world can take a closer look at the surface of the moon.

The MoonKam project, led by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, will allow students to request targets on the moon to be photographed. Ride said:

“We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to participate so far. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and engineering.

Here’s the video of the Dark Side of the Moon.

Fox reports that the GRAIL mission was launched in September, 2011. The two probes are currently lowering their orbits around the moon. When they reach an altitude of 34 miles above the surface, students will be able to start requesting targets.

And since we’re talking about the Dark Side of the Moon, here are the first three songs of The Dark Side of the Rainbow.

Dark Side of the Moon Filmed For First Time By NASA [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Alien particles have been found by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX). The discovery, particles that come from beyond our solar system, was made 200,000 miles away from earth.

The Huffington Post reports that the IBEX found three separate types of atoms including oxygen, hydrogen and neon. These elements are essential for forming new stars, but David McComas, leader of the IBEX team, said that the material didn’t come from our sun or from the planets in our solar system.

McComas told the Huffington Post:

“It’s exciting to be able to have these first observations of alien matter – stuff that didn’t come from our sun or the planets, but came from the outside of our solar system, from other parts of the galaxy. We think these are really important measurements, because these elements are the fundamental building blocks of stars, planets, and people.”

National Geographic reports that this is the first time that alien particles have been directly observed. The discovery gives scientists a glimpse at our galactic neighborhood.  Seth Redfield, an astronomer from Wesleyan University in Middletown, said:

“It’s so exciting to know where our sun is in relation to local clouds. It really puts our sun in context for the first time. Our location within our local interstellar cloud is important because the heliosphere structure changes depending on where it is inside a cloud or outside, and so it has consequences for how well it shields us from those deadly cosmic rays.”

The IBEX was launched in 2008 and is currently orbiting about 200,000 miles above the earth in the heliosphere of the Milky Way.

Alien Particles Invading Our Galaxy is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Romanian hacker by the name of Razvan Manole Cernaianu, also known by his nickname TinKode, was arrested after he hacked into NASA and Pentagon. Governments take hacking very seriously as for one, confidential information is hidden on servers and two, if it’s known that they can be hacked, well, that opens them up to even more attacks.

The guy was known for hacking into US government and military websites and exposing security issues in their systems.

To go after computer systems such as NASA and the Pentagon, you’ve got to have some serious guts. Or be stupid, one of the two. Sooner or later, you will be caught. Just ask infamous hacker Kevin Mitnick or give his recent book, Ghost In The Wires, a read.

Via PCMag:

“The accused hacker, Razvan Manole Cernaianu, accessed high profile computer systems without authorization, including those belonging to the Pentagon and NASA, then posted evidence of his attacks online, the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, said in a statement Tuesday. Cernaianu, a 20 year-old IT student from Timisoara, Romania, broke into servers belonging to the U.S. Army and stole confidential information, which he published on his blog, authorities said.”

That’s likely where he went wrong which is posting the evidence online. Sooner or later, someone screws up and leaves clues that help authorities track them down even further or, expose them completely. On the plus side, at least white hat hacking helps improve the security of systems and makes them less prone to these kinds of attacks in the future.

How long of a sentence do you think the hacker should have to spend, or should he not serve any time at all?

Hacker Arrested After Stealing Confidential Information From NASA And Pentagon is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA, despite getting a cut in funding, is still buzzing about. They launched a Facebook game titled Space Race Blastoff which is a multiplayer game. The social network continues to be a hotbed of interaction and social gaming is a fast growing market.

Zynga who recently had an IPO, is a Multi-Billion dollar company that solely makes social games from the likes of Farmville, Mafia Wars, Words With Friends, and soon to be available for everyone, Bingo. Millions upon Millions of people play games on Facebook every single month so it’s a great place to develop something for.

You can play the game in both solo and multiplayer mode and how it works is very simple. When you’re in the game, you have to choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple choice questions. Get the answer correct and you earn 100 points. The play who answers first gets a 20 point bonus. The winner goes to a bonus round and answers an extra question for more points.

If you answer the bonus question correctly, you’ll earn a virtual badge. All the points you earn can be redeemed for more badges. As with any multiplayer game, there’s leaderboards to track your progress compared to others. All in all, a rather simple game.

Via ZDNet:

“Space Race Blastoff was developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA’s Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications. NASA says it chose to make the game available through Facebook “to take advantage of the social media site’s large audience and enable players to compete against others.”

“Space Race Blastoff opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications, said in a statement. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

What do you think about NASA venturing into Facebook games?

NASA Launches Facebook Game ‘Space Race Blastoff’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting mission has been discovering planet after planet since it was launched back in 2009, but the latest discovery from the team is the biggest batch of new planets yet.

NASA and its Kepler space telescope team announced on Thursday that Kepler has verified 26 new planets in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations, and 11 new star systems. The new planets vary in size, with some not much bigger than Earth, and quite a few significantly more massive than Jupiter.

There’s little hope that life exists on any of the newly-discovered planets, however. Like most of the exoplanets that Kepler has discovered, all of the new planets are closer to their sun than our own Venus is, which puts them far too close to be in what scientists consider to be the habitable zone.

Still, it’s an impressive discovery, and brings the total number of planets that NASA’s Kepler telescope has discovered since the planet-hunting program began to 61, which means that the latest batch just about doubles the amount of planets discovered so far.

“Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters, said in a news release. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.”

[Image credit: AP - ESO / L. Calcada]

Kepler hits jackpot, discovers 26 new planets and 11 new star systems is a post from: The Inquisitr

Utilizing the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers have discovered a cluster of developing galaxies an astonishing 13.1 billion light-years from Earth, making the galaxy clusters the oldest and most distant galaxy clusters ever observed.

Discovered during a near-infrared light spectrum sky survey of distant galaxies, the cluster of five galaxies, shown in the image above, existed just 600 million years after the big bang. In cosmic terms, that makes each of the five galaxy clusters newborn babies, so to speak.

“These galaxies formed during the earliest stages of galaxy assembly, when galaxies had just started to cluster together,” Michele Trent, of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom said in a statement “The result confirms our theoretical understanding of the buildup of galaxy clusters. And, Hubble is just powerful enough to find the first examples of them at this distance.”

Astronomers say that the galaxies within these clusters are about a tenth of the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, but are actually just as bright as our own galaxy. This is the result of galaxies feeding on a large amount of materials and gas from the merging of galaxies within the clusters.

While the galaxies may appear to be relatively small as they’re observed today, scientists expect that the galaxies have likely gotten much larger 13.1 billion years later, and may even be the same size, if not bigger than, the Milky Way.

via Space.com

Hubble spots the most distant galaxy cluster ever observed is a post from: The Inquisitr

Back in November of last year, astronaut James Lovell auctioned off a 70-page “Lunar Module Activation Checklist” with his own hand-written calculations that, among other things, ultimately saved the Apollo 13 crew. Apparently, NASA has taken issue with the sale.

The checklist, which sold for $388,375, was auctioned off through Heritage Auctions out of Dallas, Texas. Nearly two months after its sale, NASA has moved to halt the sale, bringing into question whether or not Lovell actually had the “title to the checklist”.

“We haven’t filed a claim against [the checklist],” NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs told collectSPACE. “But what we have done is notify the auction house that we are seeking proof of ownership of the artifact. In conjunction with that, we’ve also notified the office of the Inspector General, which would be responsible for any investigation.”

NASA’s latest inquiry follows a bit of a legal scuffle with Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell just a few months before the Apollo 13 checklist went to auction. The agency sought to sue Mitchell unless he returned a 16 mm camera that he took with him to the moon, which he apparently intended to sell. The case was settled shortly after, with Mitchell handing over the camera to NASA, who then donated it to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

It may look as if NASA’s agenda as of late is to aggressively hunt down space items from their astronauts, but Jacobs denied any such agenda.

“It’s a challenge to continually monitor the growing auctions community, which is usually how these items come to light,” he said in an email to the Associated Press. “This latest issue demonstrates a need to reach out to former astronauts and other former agency personnel who may have these kind of items.”

Source: AP

NASA questions Apollo 13 astronaut James Lovell’s sale of checklist is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA is starting the new year by putting two spacecrafts into orbit around the moon. The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, Grail, spacecrafts are expected to start orbiting the moon today.

Space.com reports that the first Grail Spacecraft, Grail A, approached the moon last night, and the second probe will fire its rocket engine tonight in an attempt to enter lunar orbit.

Grail principal investigator Maria Zuber said that he made a new year’s resolution to discover more about the moon in 2012. Zuber said:

“My resolution for the new year is to unlock lunar mysteries and understand how the moon, Earth and other rocky planets evolved. Now, with Grail-A successfully placed in orbit around the moon, we are one step closer to achieving that goal.”

The $492 million mission will hopefully give scientists clues about how the moon’s interior structure, what it is made of, and how it was formed. Space.com reports that Grail-A is orbiting the moon within 56 miles at its closest point. Grail-, which will attempt to enter orbit tonight, is currently about 20,000 miles away from the moon and cruising at close to 900 mph.

Grail project manager David Lehman said:

“With Grail-A in lunar orbit we are halfway home. Tomorrow may be New Year’s everywhere else, but it’s another work day around the moon and here at JPL for the Grail team.”

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions this year? Are your resolutions as ambitious as NASA’s?

NASA Makes New Year’s Resolution: More Lunar Discoveries in 2012 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Russia’s doomed Mars Probe, Phobos-Grunt is going to come crashing back into the Earth’s atmosphere in late January, and it is entirely possible that dozens of pieces may survive the reentry according to scientists.

Russian scientists are supposedly hard at work trying to figure out what is going to happen when the 14 tons satellite  comes crashing back to Earth.

Phobos-Grunt was launched in November but failed to escape Earth’s gravitational pull. Phobos -Grunt was supposed to land on Phobos, one of Mars Moon and bring back rock samples.

A big problem with the reentry is that a good portion of the Phobos-Grunt probe’s weight is highly toxic rocket fuel.  As of this point it is impossible to estimate what pieces of the probe will survive or where they will land.

According to NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, most of the probe will not survive the heat of the reentry.  Due to the fact that most of the earth is covered by water or uninhabited land the likelyhood of damage is very remote. To date there have been no incidences of anyone being hurt by space junk.

The Phobos-Grunt probe is one of the costlier mistakes made by the Russian Space agency in recent times.  The cost of the mission was expected to exceed $250 million dollars.  By comparison, the United States’ Mars program is estimated ot cost around $8.5 billion.

The US had to shoot down a satellite before it reentered the atmosphere a few years ago due to the fact that is was carrying the same type of fuel that the Phobos-Grunt is carrying.  Like the Phobos-Grunt it was encased in a titanium tank which has the ability to survive reentry.

What do you think Russia and the US should do about the Phobos-Grunt?

Phobos-Grunt, Toxic Russian Mars Probe To Crash to Earth in January is a post from: The Inquisitr

Most astronomers estimate the universe at being around 13.7 billion years old.  So it is truly exciting when, with a little help from Earth and Space bound telescopes NASA can get a picture of a blob shaped galaxy believed to be about 12.9 billion light years away.  The galaxy, known as GN-108036, existed only 750 million years after the creation of the universe.

While the distance of the galaxy is certainly impressive to be caught on tape, it also seems as if the galaxy is creating stars at an amazingly fast pace making it a rarity at any age.

Fox News is reporting a statement made by Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona “The discovery is surprising because previous surveys had not found galaxies this bright so early in the history of the universe. Perhaps those surveys were just too small to find galaxies like GN-108036. It may be a special, rare object that we just happened to catch during an extreme burst of star formation.”

Astronomers measure the distance to objects in space by measuring how much their light is stretched toward the red end of the light spectrum, a factor known as “redshift.” The greater an object’s redshift, the older and farther away it is, NASA officials explained to Fox.

The galaxy sheds light as to how it and others like it played a role in the formation of the greater universe from a generally dense hydrogen fog that probably enveloped everything before trillions of stars began forming.

“This was therefore a likely ancestor of massive and evolved galaxies seen today,” said Bahram Mobasher, a team member from the University of California, Riverside.

The continuing photographing of these heavenly bodies continues to allow scientists a glimpse into how everything we understand about the Big Bang and modern physics comes came into being.

This has been an exciting year for astronomers, capturing on film many new occurrences such as black holes, new galaxies, planetary features and earth like planets orbiting other stars.

How excited are you by these discoveries?

Rare Galaxy From The “Dawn of Time” Photographed is a post from: The Inquisitr

Last week Comet Lovejoy flew into, then out of, the sun, and NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank had the best seat in the house. Burbank, who is currently the commander of the International Space Station, took over 100 photographs of Comet Lovejoy as it shot through space on Wednesday night.

Burbank said:

“It was (the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in space. And that’s saying an awful lot because every day is filled with amazing things.”

Space.com reports that at the time of the photographs, Comet Lovejoy was traveling about 240 miles above Tasmania. But at the time, Burbank wasn’t exactly sure what he was photographing.

Burbank said:

“I had no idea what it was; it was a long green glowing arc. It turns out that it ended up being a comet.”

Here’s the video of Comet Lovejoy from the International Space Station.

Last week Comet Lovejoy flew within 87,000 miles from the sun’s surface. Many astronomers predicted that the comet would be destroyed by the sun, but surprisingly, the comet emerged on the other side of the sun.

Watch Comet Lovejoy From the International Space Station [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

NASA’s Kepler mission has found two Earth-sized plaents that are orbiting a “sun-like” star outside our solar system. NASA officials have named the planets Kepler-20e and Kepler-2of and note that they are too close to their star to be called “habitable zones” because of a likely lack of liquid water due to extremely hot temperatures.

According to NASA the planets are thought to be rocky with Kepler-2oe slightly smaller than Venus and .87 times the radius of earth. Kepler-20f on the other hand is 1.03 times the radius of earth.

The two planets reside in a five-planet system named Kepler-20 which is located 1,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

NASA also revealed that Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days while Kepler-20f takes a longer 19.6 days. The short orbital periods would mean the planets are very hot with Kepler-20f likely reaching temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit and Kepler-20e reaching even higher temperatures of 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

The other three planets (Kepler-20b, Kepler-20c and Kepler-20d) are larger than earth but smaller then Neptune and orbit around their star every 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days.

According to NASA official Michele Johnson:

The system has an unexpected arrangement. In our solar system, small, rocky worlds orbit close to the sun and large, gaseous worlds orbit farther out. In comparison, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: large, small, large, small and large.

NASA officials announced the discovery of Kepler-22b on Dec. 5, a planet located in what they believe is the habitable zone of its parent star, that planet is believed to be too large to have a rocky surface.

NASA Space Telescope Discovers Earth Sized Planets is a post from: The Inquisitr

The object would probably be close to three times the mass of our Sun, which is close to the lightest a Black Hole could be and still remain stable.

NASA scientists, utilizing the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), which detects X-rays coming from cosmic sources, a team of astronomers identified a “heartbeat”, that indicates that a black hole is present with an ordinary star. The “heartbeat” pattern is pulse detected as matter is consumed from the neighboring star.  “Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant’s, the heartbeat signals from these black holes scales according to their masses,” said Diego Altamirano, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, who worked on the NASA project.

The black hole is in a system which is is located in the direction of the constellation Scorpius, unfortunately its distance cannot be determined.  It could be anywhere between 16,000 light-years  and 65,000 light-years away.

NASA Detects Tiny Black Hole, and It Has a Heartbeat is a post from: The Inquisitr

It was only two weeks ago that amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered Comet Lovejoy, and today it was looking like the comet was going to be short-lived; it was on a path that put it extremely close to the sun. Clearly, the odds of it surviving the close encounter weren’t high.

Much to the surprise of many who followed Comet Lovejoy’s seemingly suicidal dive into the sun, Lovejoy actually survived the close encounter with the sun, coming within 87,000 miles of the sun’s surface as it did a quick orbit and shot back off into space.

“Breaking News! Lovejoy lives! The comet Lovejoy has survived its journey around the sun to reemerge on the other side,” exclaimed NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in a tweet today.

Temperatures would have been between one to two million degrees Fahrenheit when Comet Lovejoy reached the sun’s corona, so many researchers didn’t expect to Lovejoy come out from behind the sun’s other side.

Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, expected that observers would get the opportunity to see the “complete vaporzation” of a comet. He wrote in a post on the Sungrazer website:

“We have here an exceptionally rare opportunity to observe the complete vaporization of a relatively large comet, and we have approximately 18 instruments on five different satellites that are trying to do just that.”

You can check out a video of Comet Lovejoy’s approach of the sun followed by a video of the comet emerging from the other side directly below.

Comet Lovejoy Grazes the Sun, Survives is a post from: The Inquisitr

Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, has recently been in the spotlight after scientists found that the icy moon may have not only a world-spanning ocean beneath the ice-covered surface, but also lakes as well.

The moon is back in the spotlight again today as NASA announced they’re cooking up a possible mission to send two landers to Europa by around 2020, with both arriving to the icy moon some six years later, Space.com reports.

Europa has long been considered one of the prime candidates for harboring alien lifeforms in our solar system, and the proposed mission sets out to determine whether or not life actually can exist on the moon.

“Europa, I think, is the premier place to go for extant life,” said JPL’s Kevin Hand. “Europa really does give us this opportunity to look for living life in the ocean that is there today, and has been there for much of the history of the solar system.”

The mission, if given the green light, won’t be an easy task for NASA. Jupiter is constantly bombarding its surrounding moons with massive amounts of radiation, which would be harmful to the landers. To compensate, NASA will have to keep the lander’s time on the moon brief; about seven days, Hand says.

The goal of this mission, Hand explains, isn’t to find alien life but to determine whether the essential building blocks for life exist on the surface. During the landers’ brief stay, each 700-pound robot would use mass spectrometer to detect various organic chemicals, and seismometers and cameras would be used to shed light on Europa’s geology.

Hand stresses that the mission is still in its conceptual stages. “This was an engineering proof of concept,” Hand said of the study. “We were just trying to see, ‘Could this be done?’”

Source: Space.com

NASA Looking Into Mission to Send Landers to Europa is a post from: The Inquisitr