EurekAlert! - Space and Planetary Science

New focus on the moon

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Arizona State University) NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has taken and received its first images of the Moon, kicking off the year-long mapping mission of Earth's nearest celestial neighbor. The LROC imaging system is under the watchful eyes of Arizona State University professor Mark Robison, the principal investigator.

AGU journal highlights - July 2, 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Ancient supervolcano's eruption caused decade of severe winters"; "Understanding fault movement during Wenchuan earthquake"; "First direct measurement of lunar backscatter from solar wind"; "Reducing uncertainty in estimates of global sea level rise"; "Boost in freshwater content of Arctic Ocean "; "Data gaps in records hinder detection of climate trends"; "Glaciers cause seismic activity in Iceland"; and more.

LRO's first moon images

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well, and have returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).

Many characteristics of Mars, including ice, are similar to Earth, paper says

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Texas A&M University) Mars gets as far as 250 million miles away, but many parts of it closely resemble places on Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather, says a Texas A&M University researcher in the current issue of Science magazine.

NASA's Fermi Telescope reveals a population of radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsars

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Santa Cruz) A new class of pulsars detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is solving the mystery of previously unidentified gamma-ray sources and helping scientists understand the mechanisms behind pulsar emissions.

Pinpointing origin of gamma rays from a supermassive black hole

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Washington University in St. Louis) An international collaboration of 390 scientists reports the discovery of an outburst of very-high-energy gamma radiation from the giant radio galaxy Messier 87, accompanied by a strong rise of the radio flux measured from the direct vicinity of its super-massive black hole. The combined results give first experimental evidence that particles are accelerated to extremely high energies of tera electron Volt in the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole and then emit the observed gamma rays.

Mars data published in Science this week

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Arizona) Four papers in the journal Science this week offer new details about the history of water on Mars, gleaned from the 2008 NASA Phoenix Mars Mission that was operated from the University of Arizona.

VLBA locates superenergetic bursts near giant black hole

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Radio Astronomy Observatory) Combining gamma-ray telescopes with the supersharp radio 'vision' of the Very Long Baseline Array showed astronomers the location from which very-high-energy gamma rays are emerging from the core ot the giant galaxy M87.

Astronomer's new guide to the galaxy: Largest map of cold dust revealed

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(ESO) Astronomers have unveiled an unprecedented new atlas of the inner regions of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, peppered with thousands of previously undiscovered dense knots of cold cosmic dust -- the potential birthplaces of new stars. Made using observations from the APEX telescope in Chile, this survey is the largest map of cold dust so far, and will prove an invaluable map for observations made with the forthcoming ALMA telescope, as well as the recently launched ESA Herschel space telescope.

New class of black holes discovered

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Leicester) A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.

University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers discover pair of solar systems in the making

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Hawaii at Manoa) Two University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system. Doctoral student Rita Mann and Dr. Jonathan Williams used the Submillimeter Array on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to make the observations.

Largest ever survey of very distant galaxy clusters completed

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Riverside) An international team of researchers led by Gillian Wilson, an astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, has completed the largest ever survey designed to find very distant clusters of galaxies. Named the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, "SpARCS" detects galaxy clusters using deep ground-based optical observations. SpARCS is designed to find clusters, snapped as they appeared long ago in time, when the universe was 6 billion years old or younger.

NASA and NOAA's GOES-O satellite successfully launched

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O, soared into space June 27 after a successful launch from Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA debuts the entire 2008 hurricane season in new online video

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Imagine watching all of the tropical depressions, storms and hurricanes of 2008 as they formed in the Atlantic Ocean Basin and either faded at sea or made landfall. Thanks to NASA technology and satellite data coupled with data from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operated satellite, you can see the tracks of storms from Arthur to Paloma from birth to death.

Intense heat killed the Universe's would-be galaxies, researchers say

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Durham University) Millions of would-be galaxies failed to develop after being exposed to intense heat from the first stars and black holes formed in the early Universe, according to new research.

Hand-held aerosol sensors help fill crucial data gap over oceans

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Since NASA researchers began assembling the Aerosol Robotic Network in the 1990s, the worldwide network of ground-based aerosol sensors has grown to 400 sites across seven continents. The trouble is that two-thirds of the planet is covered by ocean. And aerosols -- the tiny atmospheric particles that can have an outsized impact on the climate -- are just as likely to be found in the air above the oceans as they are over land.

World's largest aerosol sensing network has leafy origins

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) From his office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Brent Holben helps manage the world's largest network of ground-based sensors for aerosols -- tiny specks of solids and liquids that waft about in the atmosphere. These particles come from both human and natural sources, and can be observed everywhere in the world.

Does quantum mechanics show a connection between the human mind and the cosmos?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Prometheus Books) Does quantum mechanics show a connection between the human mind and the cosmos? Are our brains tuned into a "cosmic consciousness" that pervades the universe enabling us to make our own reality? Popular media makes such claims and argues that key developments in twentieth-century physics support the notion that God or a universal mind acts upon material reality. Physicist Victor J. Stenger examines these contentions in "Quantum gods: Creation, chaos and the search for cosmic consciousness."

Europe and China watching Earth together

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(European Space Agency) Nearly 200 scientists from Europe and China have gathered in Barcelona this week to report on the progress of ongoing Dragon 2 research projects using data from ESA and Chinese Earth observation satellites.

Climate phenomenon influences England's chances in the Australian leg of the Ashes

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Wiley-Blackwell) The El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon has been shown to have a significant effect on the results of the Ashes cricket series. When the series is held in Australia, the Australian Cricket team is more likely to succeed after El Nino years, while the England cricket team has a historically better record following La Nina years (the opposite phase), according to a study published today in Weather.

Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators caught in the act

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(ESO) Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way's particle accelerators. They show in a paper published today on Science Express that cosmic rays from our galaxy are very efficiently accelerated in the remnants of exploded stars.

New instrument has potential to detect water deep underground on Mars

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Southwest Research Institute) With the whoosh of compressed gas and the whir of unspooling wire, a team of Boulder scientists and engineers tested a new instrument prototype that might be used to detect groundwater deep inside Mars.

Space shuttle science shows how 1908 Tunguska explosion was caused by a comet

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Cornell University) The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere, says new Cornell University research. The conclusion is supported by an unlikely source: the exhaust plume from the NASA space shuttle launched a century later.

Galaxies coming of age in cosmic blobs

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Chandra X-ray Center) The "coming of age" of galaxies and black holes has been pinpointed, thanks to new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. This discovery helps resolve the true nature of gigantic blobs of gas observed around very young galaxies.

New detectors for nuclear, radiological material in cargo should not be acquired until testing deficiencies fixed, cost-benefit analysis completed

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Academy of Sciences) A thorough cost-benefit analysis that includes an assessment of meaningful alternatives is needed to reveal the potential security advantages of deploying new detector systems to screen cargo for nuclear and radiological materials at US ports and border crossings. It is likely that the costs will exceed the savings gained from improved efficiency of the screening systems, says a new report from the National Research Council.