Image: The Stars Around Mars
Wandering through the evening sky, on May 4th planet Mars stood in line with Castor and Pollux, the two bright stars of the constellation Gemini.
In this time exposure of the celestial alignment, Mars actually takes on a distinct yellowish hue, contrasting in color with Pollux; a giant star known to have a Jupiter-class planet, and Castor; itself a multiple star system. Though in mythology Pollux and Castor are twin brothers, the two stars are physically unrelated and are about 34 and 50 light-years distant respectively.
Included in the skyview are Procyon, alpha star of Canis Minor, and famous star cluster M44 also known as the Beehive Cluster. Dust in our own solar system reflecting sunlight creates the faint band of Zodiacal light emerging from the lower right corner of the frame.…
Of course, bright Mars can still be found in the western evening skies and tonight wanders near the crescent Moon.
A man stands in the
Langley Research Center's 16 foot transonic tunnel, as light reflects off the fan blades in this image from 1990
Grady McCoy stands in the Langley Research Center's 16 foot transonic tunnel, as light reflects off the fan blades in this image from 1990.
As part of a national initiative to optimize government-owned wind tunnels, NASA's Langley Research Center shut down the tunnel and transitioned work to other facilities. The tunnel was placed on mothball status beginning Sept. 30, 2004, meaning that the facility could be made operational within six to 12 months and that maintenance to the tunnel would be limited to facility preservation only.…
Nasa's space shuttle site - For the latest information see NASA human spaceflight page
For info on the Columbia investigation see the STS-107 Investigation Reference page.
The space shuttle in the Wikipedia
Astronauts Practice Countdown
Discovery astronauts returned to Houston on Friday after four days of practice in preparation for their May 31 launch.
It went great," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said.
Concluding the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, astronauts and launch managers practiced emergency procedures and a countdown dress rehearsal at 11 a.m. Friday. By 2:15 p.m., the astronauts were winging their way homeward in T-38 training jets, Beutel said.
SPACE.com Download time: May 10 2008 9:34 AM ET
The crew of the space shuttle Discovery successfully completed a dress rehearsal today for their upcoming launch. They capped off their practice run at Cape Canaveral with a simulated countdown to liftoff at 11:00 a.m. EDT.
The seven STS-124 astronauts are scheduled to launch May 31 at 5:02 p.m. EDT to deliver the International Space Station's largest room, the 32,500-pound Japanese Kibo Laboratory. Crewmembers are slated to perform three spacewalks during their planned 13-day mission.…
Spaceflight Now May 9 2008
The crew of the shuttle Discovery strapped in today for a dress-rehearsal countdown that sets the stage for launch May 31 on a long-awaited flight to deliver Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module to the international space station.
Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Kenneth Ham, flight engineer Ronald Garan, Karen Nyberg, Michael Fossum, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and space station flight engineer Gregory Chamitoff began boarding the shuttle at pad 39A shortly after 8:15 a.m. The practice countdown ended at 11 a.m. with the simulated ignition and shutdown of the ship's main engines.…
Nasa's ISS site
The Wikipedia article on the Space Station
For the latest information see NASA human spaceflight page
What should have been a routine return from the International Space Station (ISS) on 19 April 2008 quickly turned into a heart-stopping drama for ground controllers and the three astronauts aboard a Soyuz TMA-11. The craft had disappeared during the descent and was then found on a scorched steppe some 400 kilometers from where it was supposed to land. Now the incident is a technological puzzle to space engineers and a potential political challenge to the international partnership behind the ISS.
Although the technical investigation will take weeks to resolve, NASA and Russian engineers have come to several credible preliminary conclusions. And internal NASA documents, such as "15S Ballistic Entry Outbrief" by George Kafka, chief of the Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate for the ISS program, reveal a plausible idea of what probably happened.
During the landing, space officials at mission control in Moscow and at the recovery site seriously worried for at least half an hour—and some even believed, briefly, that the crew had been killed. The landing seemed to be a replay of a near disaster from almost 40 years ago, and it threatened to have the first Russian in-flight fatalities since 1971.…
ISS Status Report for May 9
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Off-duty holiday for the crew: Russia's Victory Day, one of the most sacred national holidays for the Russian people, commemorating the dozens of millions of their countrymen fallen in the Great Patriotic War (World War II).
FE-2 Reisman began the day with the periodic (monthly) CSA-CP (Compound Specific Analyzer-Combustion Products) maintenance/checkout, today changing out the battery on the prime unit.…
Science @ NASA Download time: May 10 2008 9:33 AM ET
Any Trekkies out there? Remember the tricorder? Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock both carried them, and they came in mighty handy exploring "strange new worlds...where no one has gone before."
On the International Space Station, astronauts are carrying an experimental device that looks strikingly similar: LOCAD-PTS, short for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System. This handheld biological lab is the first step along the path to developing something akin to Dr. McCoy's medical tricorder.
"LOCAD is like that tricorder in that it is portable, rapid, and detects a biochemical molecule," says Heather Morris, LOCAD scientist from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and an admitted Star Trek fan. But while tricorders could do almost anything from checking vital signs to finding alien life, LOCAD is a little more specialized: "LOCAD is specifically designed to detect and identify microbes on space station surfaces."
Universe Today Download time: May 10 2008 9:33 AM ET
The Colbert Report has gone galactic! ISS astronaut Garrett Reisman joked with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central last night. It's a very fun interview. Laser cannons and alien puppet masters are mentioned.
Source: Comedy Central
Nasa's space shuttle site - For the latest information see NASA human spaceflight page
For info on the Columbia investigation see the STS-107 Investigation Reference page.
The space shuttle in the Wikipedia
SPACE.com Download time: May 9 2008 7:59 AM ET
NASA's shuttle Discovery is on track to ferry seven astronauts and a large Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS) later this month.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly told reporters Thursday that Discovery's preparations are going extremely smoothly for its planned May 31 launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
"From what I was told yesterday, the condition of the orbiter and the number of problems we've had with it have been at a historic low," Kelly said from Discovery's seaside Pad 39A launch site. "So that makes us feel really good."…
Shuttle Discovery is cooperating with efforts to launch May 31.
n fact, commander Mark Kelly said Thursday morning that the orbiter is in excellent shape, with few of the nagging technical problems that often show up just before launch.…
The commercialization of space
Space tourism
Development of manned spacecraft financed by private business or individuals
The X-PRIZE for privately financed spaceflight
SpaceShipOne wins the X-Prize
The Virgin Galactic website
The Space Adventures website
The Rocketplane website
Starchaser Industries
The Blue Origin website
The XCOR website
The Armadillo Aerospace website
The private launch firm SpaceX
Bigelow Aerospace — the space hotel people
America's Space Prize for the development of a privately developed, reusable spacecraft capable of reaching earth orbit
New Record for Space Hotel Prototype
SPACE.com Download time: May 9 2008 7:59 AM ET
A prototype module for a private space station has passed an orbital milestone after completing its 10,000th trip around the Earth.
Genesis 1, an inflatable module built by the Las Vegas, Nev.-based firm Bigelow Aerospace, passed the 10,000-orbit mark as it nears the beginning of its third year of unmanned operations, its builders announced late Thursday.…
Sky events visible to the casual observer or amateur astronomer
Buying and Using a Telescope
SPACE.com Download time: May 9 2008 7:59 AM ET
As soon as darkness falls these evenings, step outside and look skyward. What is the most prominent and easiest star pattern to recognize? If you live in the Northern Hemisphere you only need to look overhead and toward the north where you will find the seven bright stars that comprise the famous Big Dipper.
For most sky gazers, the Big Dipper is probably the most important group of stars in the sky. For anyone in the latitude of New York (41 degrees north) or points northward, it never goes below the horizon. It is one of the most recognizable patterns in the sky and thus one of the easiest for the novice to find.
In other parts of the world, these seven stars are known not as a Dipper, but as some sort of a wagon. In Ireland, for instance, it was recognized as "King David's Chariot," from one of that island's early kings; in France, it was the "Great Chariot." Another popular name was Charles's Wain (a wain being a large open farm wagon). And in the British Isles, these seven stars are known widely as "The Plough."…
Targets for Your Telescope This Weekend
Lunar surface features
Universe Today Download time: May 10 2008 9:33 AM ET
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a very incredible weekend? The action begins on Friday as we take you on a guided tour of the lunar surface. On Saturday, celebrate Astronomy Day with a very special unaided eye sky event and a return to the Moon. No rest for the wicked on Sunday… Because you'll be seeing double! Time to get out your binoculars and telescopes and turn an eye to the sky, because…. Here's what's up!…
Mars and Its Moons
Background information about Mars
NASA's Mars Rover site at JPL
A gallery of Spirit's images and slideshow
A gallery of Opportunity's images and slideshow
Google Mars
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Odyssey
Mars Express orbiter
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Mars Phoenix Lander
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
SPACE.com Download time: May 9 2008 7:59 AM ET
International planning is under way to reinvigorate plans for a Mars sample return mission, with researchers assessing science priorities and strategies to maximize the scientific output from such an undertaking.
Over the last several years, an armada of orbital and surface missions has revealed Mars to be surprisingly more complex than once thought, imbued with a variety of distinct environments — each of value in terms of possible scientific payback given a sample return effort.
Mars samples returned to state-of-the-art Earth laboratories are considered by many to be the only way to unravel a host of unresolved questions about the red planet. A sample return mission also is viewed by many as a key tool to help space agencies prepare for future human expeditions to Mars.…
Testing Prepared the Way to Mars
When
NASA's
Phoenix Mars Lander descends to the surface of the Red Planet on May 25, few will be watching as closely as those who have spent years planning, analyzing and conducting tests to prepare for the dramatic and nerve-wracking event
When NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander descends to the surface of the Red Planet on May 25, few will be watching as closely as the men and women who have spent years planning, analyzing and conducting tests to prepare for the dramatic and nerve-wracking event known as EDL - Entry, Descent and Landing. For after all their hard work, they know that landing on Mars is not a walk in the park. Less than 50 percent of all previous lander missions have made it safely to the surface.…
Planets outside the solar system
Formation of planetary systems - including our own Solar System
A list of the currently known exoplanets
See exoplanets.org for further information.
Also see the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. and Planet Quest at JPL
Space Missons seeking earthlike planets:
Extrasolar planets in the Wikipedia
Science @ NASA Download time: May 9 2008 7:58 AM ET
…This fall, astronomers will start a massive search for new planets by observing about 11,000 nearby stars over 6 years. This number dwarfs the roughly 3,000 stars that astronomers have searched to date for the presence of planets. Scientists estimate that the NASA-funded project, called MARVELS (Multi-object Apache Point Observatory Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey), will find at least 150 new planets—perhaps many more.
"We're looking in particular for giant planets like Jupiter," says Jian Ge, principal investigator for MARVELS and an astronomer at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Ge likens big planets to "beacons of a lighthouse" signaling the presence of entire solar systems. "Once we find a big planet around a star, we know that smaller planets could be there, too."…