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| December 19, 2013 |
 Europe launches billion-dollar Milky Way telescope Paris (AFP) Dec 19, 2013 - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday launched an advanced telescope designed to detect a billion stars and provide the most detailed map yet of the Milky Way. The Gaia telescope was successfully hoisted by a Soyuz-STB-Fregat rocket from ESA's space base in Kourou, French Guiana, the agency reported in a webcast. "All is fonctioning normally," an ESA commentator said. The satel ... more |  |
 NASA rigs up snorkel in spacesuit after risky water leak Washington (AFP) Dec 18, 2013 - Snorkels in space? NASA dreamed up the idea as a quick fix to a dangerous spacesuit problem so astronauts can step out to repair an equipment breakdown at the International Space Station. One of the two US astronauts preparing to embark on a series of spacewalks later this week and next will be wearing an American-made suit that had a helmet leak in July, nearly drowning the European astrona ... more |  |
 JPL to Test New Supersonic Decelerator Technology Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 19, 2013 - A giant crane will tower above NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., shooting out of a hilly mesa like an oversized erector set, ready to help test components of NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project. The goal of the challenging technology, led by JPL, is to enable a future mission to Mars or other planetary bodies that uses heavier spacecraft and lands t ... more |  |
NASA Engineers Crush Fuel Tank to Build Better Rockets Huntsville AL (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - NASA completed a series of high-tech can-crushing tests last week as an enormous fuel tank crumbled under the pressure of almost a million pounds of force, all in the name of building lighter, more affordable rockets. During the testing for the Shell Buckling Knockdown Factor Project, which began Dec. 9 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., force and pressure were inc ... more |  |
 What happens to ISON's remains? Washington DC (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - Apologies for going quiet on this site - it takes a while to recover from events like this! I have actually started several blog posts and then never gotten chance to finish them. That will happen eventually, and I'll post new content on here from time to time, but right now I just want to address this one issue that I'm still getting an email bombardment about: what happens now to comet ISON's ... more |  |
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 Satan Rocket Could Step in to Launch More Russian Satellites Moscow (RIA Novosti) Dec 19, 2013 - Russia could convert more of its RS-20 ballistic missiles to launch domestic satellites in place of other less reliable rockets, the commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Force said on Tuesday. Nineteen RS-20 missiles, known in the West as the SS-18 Satan, have been converted for use by ISC Kosmotras to launch mostly foreign satellite payloads since 1999. The converted missile is known a ... more |  |
NASA plans 3 urgent spacewalks to fix ISS coolant system, suspends cargo delivery Moscow (Voice of Russia) Dec 19, 2013 - American astronauts will undertake a series of urgent spacewalks to repair a broken cooling line on the International Space Station. NASA has announced that two American astronauts will move soon to replace a busted valve within an external pump module on one of the station's two coolant loops that shut down last week when it reached pre-set temperature limits. The replacement will be unde ... more |  |
 Gaia Mission Could Help Map Exoplanets Paris (ESA) Dec 19, 2013 - The Kepler mission from NASA has discovered more than 3,600 possible worlds, a haul greater than any mission before it. Now researchers suggest the Gaia spacecraft, scheduled for launch on December 19, could also be a bonanza for discovering exoplanets, perhaps finding more than 2,500 new planets. Gaia, a mission from the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to chart a 3-D map of the Milky Wa ... more |  |
 CSP MEMS Oscillator Paired with Mini GPS Receiver Raleigh NC (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - Telit Wireless Solutions and SiTime Corporation have announced that together - Telit's Jupiter SE880 and SiTime's SiT15xx oscillators - have enabled the world's smallest and lowest power GPS receiver with extended hibernation periods at 15uA while maintaining Snap Start to less than one second. SiTime's SiT15xx family of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) silicon oscillators overcomes the limi ... more |  |
 Fungal pathogen shows profound effects from spaceflight Tempe AZ (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - At Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, Cheryl Nickerson and her team have been investigating the intriguing effects of spaceflight on microbial pathogens. In a new paper appearing in the current issue of the journal PLOS ONE, the team reports their recent work examining spaceflight-induced responses in and infectious disease potential of the fungal pathogen, Candida albicans. L ... more |  |
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First detection of a predicted unseen exoplanet Lisbon, Portugal (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - A team of European astronomers, including EXOEarths member Alexandre Santerne (Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto - CAUP), used the SOPHIE spectrograph at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (France), to confirm the presence of Kepler-88 c, an unseen planet that was previously predicted thanks to the gravitational perturbation it caused on its transiting brother planet, Kepler-88 b. ... more |  |
 Oil and metal munching microbes dominate deep sandstone formations Champaign IL (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - Halomonas are a hardy breed of bacteria. They can withstand heat, high salinity, low oxygen, utter darkness and pressures that would kill most other organisms. These traits enable these microbes to eke out a living in deep sandstone formations that also happen to be useful for hydrocarbon extraction and carbon sequestration, researchers report in a new study. The analysis, the first unobst ... more |  |
Raytheon receives $16 million contract award for miniaturized airborne GPS receivers El Segundo CA (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - Raytheon has received a $15.8 million contract order for its MAGR 2000-S24 miniaturized airborne GPS receiver. The order, which includes new production and sustainment of existing systems, is the first under an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract awarded to the company in September 2013 by the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Raytheon recently comp ... more |  |
 NASA's network for talking to space missions nears 50th anniversary Pasadena, Calif. (UPI) Dec 18, 2013 - NASA says its Deep Space Network, a powerful system for "talking to" spacecraft, is nearing a milestone - the 50th anniversary of its official creation. On Dec. 24, 1963, NASA inaugurated the system with a few small antennas called the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility, previously operated by the U.S. Army in the 1950s, and rechristened it the Deep Space Network. Over the past ... more |  |
 NASA creates 'rainbow' movie of the sun based on temperature Greenbelt, Md. (UPI) Dec 18, 2013 - NASA says a movie of the sun based on data from its Solar Dynamics Observatory shows its wide range of wavelengths invisible to the naked eye. The SDO converts the wavelengths into an image humans can see, and the light has been colorized into a rainbow of colors for the movie, the space agency reported Wednesday. Because each wavelength of light represents solar material at spec ... more |  |
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Supernovae hundreds of times brighter than normal observed Santa Barbara, Calif. (UPI) Dec 18, 2013 - U.S. astronomers say they've discovered two supernovas 10 billion light-years from Earth that are 100 times more luminous than a normal supernova. Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, say the newly observed objects are puzzling because the mechanism that powers most supernovae - the collapse of a giant star to a black hole or normal neutron star - cannot explain ... more |  |
 Arctic sea ice volume up from record low Paris (ESA) Dec 17, 2013 - Measurements from ESA's CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice has significantly increased this autumn. The volume of ice measured this autumn is about 50% higher compared to last year. In October 2013, CryoSat measured about 9000 cubic km of sea ice - a notable increase compared to 6000 cubic km in October 2012. Over the last few decades, satellites have shown a downward ... more |  |
 Surprise Picture for WISE's Fourth Anniversary Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 19, 2013 - In an unexpected juxtaposition of cosmic objects that are actually quite far from each other, a newly released image from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) shows a dying star, called the Helix nebula, surrounded by the tracks of asteroids. The nebula is far outside our solar system, while the asteroid tracks are inside our solar system. The portrait, discovered by chance in ... more |  |
SMA Reveals Giant Star Cluster in the Making Cambridge MA (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - W49A might be one of the best-kept secrets in our galaxy. This star-forming region shines 100 times brighter than the Orion nebula, but is so obscured by dust that very little visible or infrared light escapes. The Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) has peered through the dusty fog to provide the first clear view of this stellar nursery. The SMA revealed an active site of star formati ... more |  |
 The Fantastical Life of a GIS Analyst Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 19, 2013 - What do climate modeling, malaria and black rhinos have in common? It turns out that Geographic Information Systems can be adapted to study all three. Wherever GIS is being used for humanitarian purposes, senior programmer analyst Joe Nigro is never too far away. "The common factor is knowing how to use GIS. I've worked on a range of projects from plague modeling in the American southwest ... more |  |
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