Futurity.org » NASA

Glaciers shed billions of tons, satellites show

Jim Scott CU-Boulder — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:47:58 +0000

U. COLORADO-BOULDER (US) — Ice caps and glaciers outside the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually.

The finding by scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder is from the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise.

Tiny planet triplets orbit dwarf star

Deborah Williams-Hedges-Caltech — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:55:59 +0000

CALTECH (US) — Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system.

The trio of new planets that are smaller than Earth and appear rocky, orbit a single star too closely to be in its habitable zone—the ring-shaped region around a star where the temperature is mild enough for liquid water, and possibly life, to exist.

Hubble spies farthest galaxy cluster yet

Jim Scott CU-Boulder — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:45:38 +0000

U. COLORADO-BOULDER (US) — According to researchers, the most distant cluster of galaxies ever observed in the early universe has been discovered.

In a random sky survey made in near-infrared light, NASA’s Hubble telescope spied five small galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years away. They are among the brightest galaxies at that epoch and very young, living just 600 million years after the universe’s birth in the Big Bang. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles.

Robotic surgery for run-down satellites

Phil Sneiderman-JHU — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:13:33 +0000

JOHNS HOPKINS (US) — A technology developed for delicate abdominal surgeries someday may be used to repair satellites in space, say researchers.

Engineers, already expert in medical robotics, have turned their attention skyward to help NASA develop ways to fix valuable satellites that are breaking down or running out of fuel.

‘Slam-dunk’ proof of water on Mars

Anne Ju-Cornell — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:21:26 +0000

CORNELL (US) — The discovery of a bright vein of gypsum in ancient rock proves that water once flowed underground on Mars, researchers say.

The vein, examined by NASA’s Mars exploration rover Opportunity, is about 16 to 20 inches long and the width of a human thumb, and protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. The vein and others like it are within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater.

18 Jupiter-like planets orbit massive stars

Marcus Woo-Caltech — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:27:56 +0000

CALTECH (US) — A team of astronomers have found 18 Jupiter-like planets—the largest collection ever confirmed—in orbit around “retired” stars that are one and a half times more massive than the Sun.

Using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii—with follow-up observations using the McDonald and Fairborn Observatories in Texas and Arizona, respectively—researchers surveyed about 300 stars, focusing on A-type stars that are just past the main stage of their life—hence, “retired”—and are now puffing up into what’s called a subgiant star.

Will worms in space lead to life on Mars?

Lindsay Brooke-Nottingham — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:12:27 +0000

U. NOTTINGHAM (UK) — A microscopic worm may offer clues to how humans will cope with long-term space exploration.

New research shows that in space, C. elegans develop from egg to adulthood and produces progeny exactly how they do on earth, making the worms an ideal and cost-effective experimental system to investigate the effects of long-duration space travel.

Evidence of ‘great lake’ on Jupiter’s moon

Marc Airhart-Texas — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:14:39 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — In the search for life beyond Earth, scientists have made a potentially significant finding: A body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The water could represent a potential habitat for life, and many more such lakes might exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa’s shell, lead author Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, writes in the journal Nature.

Further increasing the potential for life, the newly discovered lake is covered by floating ice shelves that seem to be collapsing, providing a mechanism for transferring nutrients and energy between the surface and a vast ocean already inferred to exist below the thick ice shell.

Are alien probes hiding in vast space?

A'ndrea Elyse Messer-Penn State — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:12:11 +0000

PENN STATE (US) — Why have we never found evidence of extraterrestrial probes in our universe? A new study suggest that, from a mathematical point of view, we have not looked in enough places.

“The vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial origin would likely remain unnoticed,” write Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, two postdoctoral researchers at Penn State, in a paper posted online on ArXiv.

Mineral on Mars needs water to form

Judy Holmes-Syracuse — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:18:35 +0000

SYRACUSE U. (US) — A mineral common to both Mars and Earth may be an effective tool in determining when and under what conditions water was present on the red planet.

The mineral jarosite, that can only form in the presence of water, is evident in rocks analyzed by the Mars Rover Opportunity. Researchers have established “diffusion parameters” for argon in the mineral. In other words, they discovered a way to use the noble gas argon, which accumulates in jarosite over time, to determine the age of the mineral and the surface conditions under which it formed.