Wanderlust

Tag: NASA

  • What chance has Nasa of finding lifestyles on Mars?

    Different tales from the AGU meeting you could like:

    The world’s such a lot far off island Sun-skimming probe starts calling home Space laser makes height maps of Earth Symbol copyright NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/MSSS/BROWN UNIVERSITY Image caption Jezero Crater displays sturdy proof from orbit of past water process

    the brand new rover will be dropped into the close to equatorial Jezero Crater, which satellite tv for pc observations counsel once held a deep lake.

    Scientists wish that if microbes lived in or around this body of water, signatures of their presence will likely be retained in sediments that may be simply drilled today.

    A key aim might be the carbonate deposits that seem to line what could have been the palaeo-lake’s coastline.

    “Carbonates are a kind of mineral that precipitates out of water and what is in point of fact nice about that procedure is that after they precipitate out – they trap everything that’s within the water. So, the whole thing that is residing there can also be trapped throughout the mineral,” explained Briony Horgan from Purdue College in Indiana.

    Symbol copyright NASA Image caption the new rover follows the design template of the Interest robot which landed on Mars in 2012

    The car shall be a close replica of the only-tonne Interest robot that Nasa landed in Gale Crater in 2012.

    It Will use the similar “Skycrane” era that put the former system down with such nice precision – however with an important upload-on. Engineers have advanced an on-the-fly mapping gadget known as Terrain-Relative Navigation which ought to convey even larger accuracy to the landing process.

    the expectancy is that the program will position the rover right up in opposition to rocks that record the delta that fed the lake with water.

    Ken Farley, the mission’s leader scientist, advised the AGU meeting that the direction the rover will take after landing had already been deliberate.

    The robot can be equipped with an advanced navigation machine if you want to supply it the autonomy to work out the most productive, most direct course between waypoints.

    this should dramatically speed up the coming to different technological know-how targets. “In just right terrain we will be driving more than a 100m an afternoon,” Dr Farley instructed BBC News.

    Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and observe me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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  • Nasa’s Jupiter mission Juno finds massive polar storms

    People have downloaded the raw images of Jupiter and processed them, often revealing new details of its surface (c) NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran Symbol copyright NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran Image caption Other Folks have downloaded the uncooked photographs of Jupiter and processed them, ceaselessly revealing new details of its surface

    Nasa’s Juno venture to the gasoline massive Jupiter has reached its halfway mark and has revealed new perspectives of cyclones on the poles.

    as it orbits the planet each FIFTY THREE days – Juno performs a technology-gathering dive, speeding from pole to pole.

    Its sensors take measurements of the composition of the planet, in an attempt to decipher how the biggest world in our Sun Gadget shaped.

    Mapping the magnetic and gravity fields should also reveal Jupiter’s structure.

    JunoCam has revealed swirling cyclones at the poles (c) NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko Symbol copyright NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko Image caption JunoCam has noticed massive cyclones on the poles

    However photographs from JunoCam – a camera that was once intended to capture images that might be shared with the general public – has already given us some unexpected insights.

    Dr Candice Hansen, from the Planetary Technological Know-How Institute in Arizona, is major the JunoCam undertaking, which she defined as “our little outreach digital camera”. She offered some of the remarkable photographs from the digicam – uncooked pictures downloaded and processed by way of participants of the public – on the American Geophysical Union assembly here in Washington DC.

    Presentational grey line

    Other stories from the AGU assembly you could like:

    Bye bye snow: Why wintry weather is shrinking House laser makes top maps of Earth Voyager 2 probe ‘leaves Solar Machine’ Presentational grey line Jupiter detail reveals a storm shaped like a dolphin (c) MarSEC Image copyright MarSEC Image caption Precise images have found out how one hurricane takes the shape of a dolphin

    “once we made our first miss the poles, we knew we had been seeing a territory on Jupiter we had by no means observed prior to,” said Prof Hansen.

    “What we did not be expecting used to be that we’d see those orderly polygons of cyclones; large storms – twice the dimensions of Texas.

    “We idea, wow – that is impressive.”

    And SIXTEEN passes later, she delivered, the ones orderly preparations of huge storms are still there.

    The Juno mission has set out to uncover Jupiter's deep structure and the secrets of its formation (c) Alejandro Diaz D Image copyright Alejandro Diaz D Image caption The Juno challenge has set out to uncover Jupiter’s deep structure and the secrets and techniques of its formation

    These “lovely footage” are starting to teach scientists about how the largest planet in the Solar Gadget formed and advanced.

    “the target for the Juno project is to study the internal structure of Jupiter and how that structure expresses itself out on the cloud tops. that’s the kind of connection we are trying to make. However we’re not there but.”

    Jupiter detail (c) NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran Symbol copyright NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran Image caption The dynamics of the surface may screen Jupiter’s deeper construction

    Jack Connerney, Juno deputy major investigator from the gap Research Agency in Annapolis, Maryland, said that the second half of the project would offer an excellent more specified view of “what makes the entire of Jupiter tick”.

    You can find extra of those wonderful photographs of Jupiter at the JunoCam site.

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  • Pizza night aboard the International House Station

    Video Pizza evening in house

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  • Nasa names astronauts for first business flights

    Astronauts Symbol copyright NASA Image caption The nine will now teach intensively at the programs they will function in area

    Nasa has named the astronauts who will fly the primary missions into area on commercially supplied rockets and drugs, beginning subsequent 12 months.

    The nine people will pass up on systems evolved by means of – and shriveled from – the Boeing and SpaceX firms.

    Most have previous enjoy in orbit. Among them are the commander and pilot of the overall travel venture in 2011.

    For the earlier seven years, Russian rockets were the only method for Nasa to get folks into orbit.

    US house agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine presented the astronauts all through a ceremony on the Johnson Area Center in Houston, Texas.

    Image copyright SPACEX/BOEING Image caption Paintings: SpaceX’s Dragon (L) is currently set to fly sooner than Boeing’s Starliner (R)

    The commander at the historic closing commute challenge, Chris Ferguson, is now a Boeing employee and has been heavily focused on growing the company’s CST-ONE HUNDRED Starliner capsule.

    When this send makes its maiden crewed flight within the middle of next yr, launching atop an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Ferguson might be joined by means of Eric Boe and Nicole Aunapu Mann.

    Boe is a former travel pilot; Mann shall be making her first trip into house.

    The SpaceX Dragon pill, on current timelines, is about to make its maiden crewed flight in April. it will ride atop a Falcon-NINE rocket from the Kennedy Area Center. it’s going to if truth be told use one in all the vintage shuttle pads, even supposing this has now been modified for the smaller Falcon.

    At the helm shall be Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. Hurley used to be the pilot at the ultimate commute mission. Behnken has been in space on two previous occasions.

    Image copyright BOEING Symbol caption the corporations have designed their own spacesuits for the tablets

    The preliminary crewed flights through Boeing and SpaceX will spend a brief length in orbit – measured perhaps in days or a couple of weeks, and hooked up to the World House Station (ISS) – sooner than coming again to Earth.

    It is on later missions that the workforce pills will go to the station and dock for extra prolonged remains, and Nasa additionally named the astronauts for the ones first flights as well.

    For Boeing, this introductory lengthy-length mission contains Josh Cassada, who has never been in house earlier than, and Suni Williams, who is certainly one of essentially the most skilled American astronauts in historical past, having spent a cumulative 321 days in orbit through her career.

    For SpaceX, such an ISS undertaking may involve Victor Glover, every other novice, and Mike Hopkins, who has already spent 166 days at the sky-top lab throughout two tours of duty.

    Nasa took the verdict after the commute retired to show transportation to low-Earth obit locations right into a provider that it could buy. It has given seed cash to SpaceX and Boeing to incentivise them, however the firms themselves have also needed to invest their very own cash.

    Nasa’s motivation was once to avoid wasting cash it would then spend on a rocket and tablet machine to take people back to the Moon and on to Mars.

    That machine will most probably fly some time early subsequent decade.

    Media playback is unsupported on your software

    Media captionSpace commute Atlantis makes its final touchdown

    Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and observe me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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  • Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft launches effectively

    Video Sun probe launches effectively

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  • Parker Sun Probe: Nasa delays venture to unencumber Sun’s mysteries

    Image copyright AFP/Getty Photographs Symbol caption Nasa’s Delta-IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard

    The Delta will hurl the probe into the inner Sun Gadget, permitting the Nasa project to zip previous Venus in six weeks and make a first rendezvous with the Sun an extra six weeks after that.

    Over the course of seven years, Parker will make 24 loops around our famous person to study the physics of the corona, the place the place a lot of the important activity that affects the Earth seems to originate.

    The probe will dip inside this tenuous atmosphere, sampling conditions, and getting to simply 6.16 million km (3.83 million miles) from the Sun’s broiling “floor”.

    “I appreciate that may now not sound that shut, however consider the Solar and the Earth have been a metre apart. Parker Solar Probe could be just 4cm away from the Sun,” explained Dr Nicky Fox, the British-born venture scientist who’s affiliated to the Johns Hopkins Carried Out Physics Laboratory.

    “We Will even be the quickest human-made object ever, travelling across the Sun at speeds of up to 690,000km/h (430,000mph) – Big Apple to Tokyo in below a minute!” she informed BBC News.

    Image copyright S R Habbal and M Druckmüller Symbol caption The diffuse corona is only visible to us in the world right through a total sun eclipse

    Why move so close to the Sun?

    Parker desires to get where the motion is.

    The corona is a outstanding position. It’s strangely hotter than the Sun’s precise floor, or photosphere. Even As it will be 6,000 levels, the outer setting might succeed in temperatures of a couple of million levels.

    The mechanisms that produce this tremendous-heating are not absolutely understood.

    Symbol copyright NASA-JHU-APL Image caption Artwork: Parker should stay its heatshield pointed at the Solar

    Likewise, the corona is where the place the sun wind gets its big kick in speed, sweeping out around the Solar Device at greater than 500km/s (a million mph).

    Parker objectives to resolve those puzzles by way of directly sampling the corona’s particle, magnetic and electric fields.

    How will Parker live to tell the tale?

    A mission like Parker used to be first proposed 60 years in the past, but it is just now that engineers have the technology to be had to maintain a probe secure so close to the Sun.

    Nearly the whole lot on the spacecraft will have to sit down behind an 11.5cm-thick (4.5in) carbon-composite sunshield. this may take care of all portions at the back of the barrier at a tolerable 30C.

    The probe is sun-powered – obviously. But that during itself is a problem since the solar cells will have to be moved into sunlight to work and they hate prime temperatures.

    So, Parker’s arrays will likely be water-cooled, with the onboard computer machine constantly adjusting their place in order that handiest the minimum surface area completely essential to generate energy is uncovered past the shield.

    Autonomy may be a very powerful for this project. close to the Solar, the radio interference is excessive, and Parker will likely be out of touch. The probe should take care of any faults itself.

    chiefly, it has to keep the protect at all times pointing on the Sun to circumvent being destroyed.

    Image copyright NASA Image caption Parker has a high level of autonomy

    what’s Europe doing?

    The Eu Space Agency has its own model of Parker.

    Sun Orbiter, or SolO as it’s occasionally known, is present process final assembly and trying out in the UK. it is expected to launch in 2020, arriving at its closest position to the Sun towards the top of Parker’s planned seven years of operations.

    SolO will visit inside of FORTY TWO million km of the Solar’s floor. That’s further away than Parker but it surely will nonetheless want an outstanding shield.

    Being at a more far-off place, despite the fact that, means SolO can do issues Parker can not – like glance straight away on the Solar. this permits the pair to do complementary technological know-how.

    “Parker Solar Probe will get shut and take a seat in – and make measurements of – the fabric coming off of the Sun. In The Meantime, Sun Orbiter, from its place, will make the ones measurements, too, but it surely will even be in a position to take photos and it might be able to take a look at the place the emissions are coming from,” stated Prof Lucie Green, from the UCL Mullard House Technology Laboratory within the UK.

    Image copyright MaX ALEXANDER/UKSA Symbol caption Airbus within the UNITED KINGDOM is assembling Solar Orbiter for European scientists

    Jonathan.Amos-WEB@bbc.co.uk and apply me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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  • US citizen, NASA employee sentenced to 7.5 years in prison

    Gölge’nin tutuklu bulunduğu İskenderun T Tipi Kapalı Ceza İnfaz Kurumu’ndan SEGBİS aracılığıyla katıldığı duruşmada ABD Adana Konsolosluğu yetkilileri, sanık avukatı ve yakınları hazır bulundu. Son savunmasında hakkındaki iddiaları reddeden Gölge, “Bank Asya ile olan müşteri ilişkim, 2000 yılında Fatih Üniversitesi’ndeyken başlamış ve devam etmekteydi. Gülen’in yaptığı çağrıyı duymadım. Ne bankayı kurtarma gibi ne de bir örgüt üyesinden bir talimat alarak bir eylemde bulunmadım” dedi.

    Mahkeme heyeti sanığa 7 yıl 6 ay hapis cezası verdi.

    17 aydır tutuklu

    Ağustos 2016’da Amerika’dan Hatay’a yakınların yanına gelen Serkan Gölge, “FETÖ’nün kripto elemanı olduğu, Türkiye’de cemaatin okullarında okuduğu ve daha sonra Amerika’da cemaatle olduğu ve ABD’ye ajanlık yaptığı” şeklinde gelen ihbar üzerine gözaltına alınıp tutuklanmıştı. 2013’te NASA Johnson Uzay Merkezi’nde çalışmaya başlayan 37 yaşındaki Gölge iki çocuk babası.