Satellite Animation Shows February Return of the Pineapple Express

An animation of satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, 2015 captured the movement of a stream of clouds associated with moisture called "The Pineapple Express." Image Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters

The "Pineapple Express" has set up again and is bringing wet weather to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. An animation of satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-West satellite from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, 2015 captured the movement of a stream of clouds associated with moisture that is expected to bring rain and snow to the region over the next several days.

The ‘‘Pineapple Express’’ occurs when warm air and lots of moisture are transported from the Central Pacific, near Hawaii, to the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

A wide-field movie by NOAA's GOES-West satellite shows the Pineapple Express' stream of clouds and moisture moving into the Pacific Northwest. The video was created by NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Good news for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest," said Bill Patzert, climatologist for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Beginning Wednesday, a series of storms pumped up by a moisture-laden ‘Pineapple Express’ system surging out of the warm tropical Pacific will deliver some small relief to rain and snow starved California. Though not a drought buster, we Californians are hoping this might be a preview of coming attractions for February and March. We are in the fourth quarter of our winter rain season and need a ‘hail mary’ to beat this drought down,” Patzert said.

On Feb.4 NOAA's National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center (NPC) in College Park, Maryland issued a short range forecast discussion about the Pineapple Express. NPC noted: A weather system that's tapping into abundant moisture in the Pacific will bring moderate to heavy rainfall to the Pacific Northwest beginning Wednesday. The rain will spread into northern California on Thursday and is expected to continue through the weekend. Some areas could see in excess of 10 inches of rain through early Saturday.

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The Pineapple Express is expected to affect areas from northwest California into coastal Oregon and Washington State. NPC noted that the "Express" is expected to produce mostly light to moderate rainfall totals for the coastal Pacific Northwest on Feb. 4, with much heavier totals expected the following two days.

GOES satellites provide the kind of continuous monitoring necessary for intensive data analysis. Geostationary describes an orbit in which a satellite is always in the same position with respect to the rotating Earth. This allows GOES to hover continuously over one position on Earth's surface, appearing stationary. As a result, GOES provide a constant vigil for the atmospheric "triggers" for severe weather conditions such as tornadoes, flash floods, hail storms and hurricanes.

Source: Nasa

Space Hubble's Little Sombrero

         European Space Agency Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Galaxies can take many shapes and be oriented any way relative to us in the sky. This can make it hard to figure out their actual morphology, as a galaxy can look very different from different viewpoints. A special case is when we are lucky enough to observe a spiral galaxy directly from its edge, providing us with a spectacular view like the one seen in this picture of the week.

This is NGC 7814, also known as the “Little Sombrero.” Its larger namesake, the Sombrero Galaxy, is another stunning example of an edge-on galaxy — in fact, the “Little Sombrero” is about the same size as its bright namesake at about 60,000 light-years across, but as it lies farther away, and so appears smaller in the sky.

NGC 7814 has a bright central bulge and a bright halo of glowing gas extending outwards into space. The dusty spiral arms appear as dark streaks. They consist of dusty material that absorbs and blocks light from the galactic center behind it. The field of view of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image would be very impressive even without NGC 7814 in front; nearly all the objects seen in this image are galaxies as well. 

Source: Nasa

Gully patterns document Martian climate cycles

Martian gullies, old and new Sharp-featured, relatively recent gullies (blue arrows) and degraded older gullies (gold) in the same location on the surface of Mars suggest multiple episodes of liquid water flow, consistent with cyclical climate change on the Red Planet. Image: NASA HiRISE

Gullies carved into impact craters on Mars provide a window into climate change on the Red Planet. A new analysis suggests Mars has undergone several ice ages in the last several million years. The driver of these climate swings is likely the Red Planet's wobbly axis tilt.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Geologists from Brown University have found new evidence that glacier-like ice deposits advanced and retreated multiple times in the midlatitude regions of Mars in the relatively recent past.

For the study, in press in the journal Icarus, the researchers looked at hundreds of gully-like features found on the walls of impact craters throughout the Martian midlatitudes. They conclude that many of those gullies were formed by meltwater from icy deposits, which are known to have covered the Martian midlatitudes within the last 2 million years. The study also turned up evidence of multiple gully-forming events, suggesting that these ice deposits waxed and waned several times over the last several million years — relatively recently in Mars’ 4.5-billion year history.

“These recent climate cycles have been predicted by computer models, but have not been documented with widespread geological evidence until now,” said Jay Dickson, a researcher at Brown and the study’s lead author. “This research shows that gullies have been episodic across the entire southern hemisphere, a distribution that is required for this to be a signal of global climate change.”

Wobbly axis

At present, most of the water ice on Mars is concentrated at its poles, but there’s a wealth of evidence that it wasn’t always that way. In 2003, research led by Brown geologists James Head and Jack Mustard showed that the midlatitude regions of Mars are draped to varying degrees by layers of ice-rich soil and dust. Landforms in and around the deposits, termed the “latitude-dependent mantle,” look remarkably similar to glacial terrains found here on Earth. The deposits suggest the presence of thin glacier-like ice deposits sometime between 400,000 and 2 million years ago.

The researchers concluded that this recent Martian ice age was likely linked to the planet’s wobbly rotation around its axis. Currently, the angle of Mars’ axis — its obliquity — is about 25 degrees, fairly close to that of Earth. But because Mars lacks a large moon to stabilize its rotation, its recent obliquity oscillates between around 15 degrees and as much as 35 degrees. (Earth’s obliquity, in contrast, varies only 2.4 degrees). Computer models predict that when the obliquity of Mars exceeds 30 degrees, increased sunlight at the poles causes water in the ice caps to be freed into the atmosphere. That water is transported and deposited closer to the equator in the form of glacial snow and ice.

Mars is known to have crossed the 30-degree threshold in obliquity several times during the last 20 million years. So if obliquity drives ice ages, there should be evidence for multiple glacial periods in the Martian midlatitudes, and that’s what the researchers were looking for in this latest study.

Gullies old and new

The researchers looked at detailed images taken by NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) of 479 gullies in the midlatitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere. The gully systems, which form on steep crater walls, consist of an alcove at the top from which sediment is excavated, a channel through which material is carried, and a delta-like fan at the bottom where material is deposited.

The survey showed gully systems in various states of erosion and degradation. In some places, older gully fans, eroded over many years by the elements, had been crosscut by new gully fan systems. That suggests at least two gully-carving events. In other examples, gully fans were clearly visible, but the alcoves and channels that supplied them had disappeared, covered by a new layer of ice-rich soil. That too suggests multiple periods of glacial deposition.

“We show solid evidence of at least two periods of emplacement of the latitude-dependent mantle,” said Head, an author on the new paper. “That’s consistent with the idea of cyclical ice ages on Mars related to its obliquity.”

The work also bolsters the idea the many of gullies were carved by flows of liquid water. In recent years researchers have shown that some of these gully systems are still active today, when the flow of liquid water is unlikely. The present-day activity is likely driven by CO2 frost, which evaporates from the soil causing rock and rubble to slide down slopes. But this latest study shows that gullies were active when obliquity was higher and CO2 frost would have been sparse. And the association of gullies with ice-rich deposits strongly suggests that water carved these older gullies.

“We see similar features in Antarctica,” Head said. “Despite cold air temperatures, the sun is able to heat ice just enough for melting and gully activity to occur.”

This and other research pointing to relatively recent ice ages on Mars suggest the midlatitudes of Mars could be a place to look for signs of past life, Head said.

“I think people have this idea of Mars as an inactive place, that it is now as it has been for billions of years,” he said. “But it seems likely that climate cycles and global climate change are still occurring.”

Source: Brown University

SOHO and Hinode Offer New Insight Into Solar Eruptions

Scientists are trying to understand the precise details of what creates giant explosions in the sun's atmosphere, such as this solar eruption from Oct. 14, 2012, as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory. Image Credit: NASA/SDO/Amari

The sun is home to the largest explosions in the solar system. For example, it regularly produces huge eruptions known as coronal mass ejections – when billions of tons of solar material erupt off the sun, spewing into space and racing toward the very edges of the solar system. Scientists know that these ejections, called CMEs, are caused by magnetic energy building up on the sun, which suddenly releases. But the details of what causes the build up and triggers the release are not precisely understood.

A journal paper in Nature magazine on Oct. 23, 2014, used data from NASA missions to present an example of how something called a magnetic flux rope builds up over time until it is so unstable that even the slightest perturbation will send it flying. Understanding what triggers CMEs is crucial not only for better understanding of our sun, but also to lay the groundwork for predicting when such giant explosions might happen.

"We looked at a well-studied CME from 2006," said Tahar Amari first author on the Nature paper at Ecole Polytechnique in France. "We knew that there had been a great deal of data available for this CME and much analysis already done, but no one had created a comprehensive picture of what happened."

Amari and his colleagues used a traditional meteorology technique to examine the event: Gather observations from the days before the CME to track how the event grew over time. They used observations from the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA's Hinode, as well as from the Paris-Meudon Observatory.

Scientists created this model to examine the magnetic field before a giant solar eruption – a coronal mass ejection – which occurred on Dec. 13, 2006. The orange lines show magnetic field lines. The grey line represents what's called a flux rope, which built up the day before the event. Image Credit: Amari/Ecole Poytechnique

The team wanted to see if they could distinguish between two broad theories about how the magnetic energy develops. The first model describes a situation in which a series of loops of magnetic fields on the sun – known as an arcade – is the start of every active region CME. 

This arcade has a weak point at the top, a place where the energy from below can burst through once it's great enough. During the eruption a flux rope forms, which can be seen inside the CME as it surges away from the sun.

The second model assumes that the flux rope is there before the CME erupts. In this theory, no weak point is required. Instead, the flux rope gains more and more energy, and becomes increasingly unstable until a disturbance on the sun causes it to release the energy out into space.

Amari and his team used magnetic data from the surface obtained by Hinode, but they also needed magnetic data for the sun's atmosphere, the corona, which is strongly affected by its magnetic field.

"The corona is so hot that most of the techniques to measure the magnetic field don't work," said Amari. "So we developed an efficient and accurate model to compute the magnetic field there, based on the data we had from the surface, and the equations governing the physics of the low corona above active regions."

With these two data sets in hand, the team examined what happened in the four days before the 2006 CME erupted. They could see the magnetic energy building; it was clear something was emerging. Only, however, on the last day did a flux rope develop and only then did it have enough energy built up to power a CME eruption. At this point, some small disruption was enough of a nudge to make the flux rope erupt.

A model of the eruption of a giant magnetic rope that led to a coronal mass ejection on the sun in December 2006.

A model of the eruption of a giant magnetic rope that led to a coronal mass ejection on the sun in December 2006. The model showed that magnetic fields built up for several days before the eruption.

"In this case no weak point up in the atmosphere was needed to allow the energy to be released," said Amari. "There is, instead, a kind of critical value of energy, a value we can compute based on seeing an active magnetic region on the sun. Beneath that value the magnetic field will stay quiet. Above that, it is likely to erupt. There is also a critical height for rising flux rope, beyond which the magnetic loops above can no longer keep it confined."

The team explored the initial conditions from this event and put the information into another dynamical model the team had developed. The simulation mirrored what was actually seen, with an eruption occurring only when the critical energy and height were reached on the last day.

Amari points out that just because this CME contained a flux rope prior to eruption, it doesn't mean that other CMEs can’t erupt based on other physical catalysts. But it clearly describes one mechanism that is at work on the sun.

By measuring and calculating the magnetic fields on the sun, coupled with determining how to measure the critical tipping point where a CME can erupt, the paper offers new ways to determine the possibility of eruption from any given active area on the sun.

Source: Nasa

The state of astronomy before Hubble and the difficulties of observing from the ground that drove the need for a space telescope' Videos

This video looks at the state of astronomy before Hubble and the difficulties of observing from the ground that drove the need for a space telescope. Image Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute

Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, first chief astronomer at NASA’s then Office of Space Science and the one who set up NASA’s astronomy program in the 1960s, speaks about the importance of building and launching a space telescope instead of building duplicates of the Earth-based Palomar 200-inch telescope.

"Astronomers have wanted for generations actually to get a telescope above the atmosphere,” Roman said. “I like to describe the atmosphere being something like looking through an old stained glass window… The glass has defects in it and that sort of keeps you from getting a sharp picture and the atmosphere also has defects." 

"The very sharp images it would produce would allow you to see things that were much fainter than would ever be possible from the ground," said C. Robert O'Dell, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. O'Dell leads a research team that used Hubble and several ground-based telescopes to obtain the best view yet of the iconic Ring Nebula.
The video addresses several challenges at the time of Hubble's creation, including digital imaging at a time when the industry was in its infancy. The video also speaks on how the telescope has far exceeded its initial life-span.

The 4 minute and 23 second video was produced by STScI. The "Hubble 25th Anniversary" video series is available in HQ, large and small Quicktime formats, HD, large and small WMV formats, and HD, large and small Xvid formats.

WATCH VIDEO HERE



Source: Nasa Hubble

Ballooning Offers a Multi-Disciplinary Platform for Performing Research in a Space-Like Environment

A view from the edge of space, the High Energy Replicated Optics to Explore the Sun (HEROES) telescope is a hard X-ray telescope, sensitive in the 20-75 keV range and designed to fly on a high-altitude balloon platform. The HEROES telescope is one example of a balloon payload designed to fly at this altitude. This payload launched from Fort Sumner, NM, in the Fall of 2013, and the flight lasted for 27 hours. At its maximum altitude of just over 39 km, the telescope pointed at the Sun, the black hole candidate GRS 1915+105, and the Crab Nebula, with the capability to carry out high resolution imaging and spectroscopy. The HEROES Project is a collaboration between NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Goddard Space Flight Center and was funded through the NASA Hands On Project Experience Training Opportunity. (Photo Credit: R. Salter, Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility)

New discoveries are being made on an annual basis by researchers flying their instruments on a high-altitude balloon platform. Ease of access to ballooning, relatively low cost and the potential for quick turn-around response times create a large appeal for using this platform to perform novel science and to train new scientists. This appeal is reinforced by the availability of a range of balloon sizes to accommodate various payload types, multiple launch sites (for shorter and longer duration flights), and more sophisticated gondolas.

Since the 1950s, and the invention of the 'natural' shaped polyethylene balloon, there has been a surge in the quality and amount of science being performed on this platform. The flexibility, reliability and relatively low-cost of the high-altitude balloon platform, over that of a satellite, makes for an attractive means of carrying out novel science in a space-like environment across multiple disciplines, which include: high-energy astrophysics (particle, x-ray and gamma-ray), IR/sub-mm (CMB to planetary), heliophysics, geospace and atmospheric research.

Existing balloons are capable of carrying large payloads to high altitudes for flight durations lasting tens of days. The longest flight to date was that of SuperTIGER in 2012-2013 on a vented zero-pressure balloon. This payload weighed 2,025 kg (not including flight straps) and flew to a maximum altitude of ~39.6 km. The entire flight lasted for just over 55 days. The development of the Super-Pressure Balloon holds promise for achieving even longer flights launching from Antarctica (> 100 days), and Long Duration Balloon flights from mid-latitude launch sites. This capability, combined with improved payload pointing, light-weight gondolas and more sophisticated instrumentation will enable scientists to make new discoveries and develop novel instrumentation suitable for orbital missions. This platform will also continue to provide a training ground for the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Additional co-authors include I. Steve Smith from the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute, and W. Vernon Jones from the Science Mission Directorate, Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. The corresponding author for this study is Jessica A. Gaskin, Jessica.Gaskin@nasa.gov.

Source: WS

Black holes follow the rules

Artist's impression of a black hole at the centre of a galaxy. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz.

Rather than having random sizes, massive black holes seem to follow a predictable rule in relation to the physical properties of the galaxy in which they are located.

Research at Swinburne University of Technology has shown that it is possible to predict the masses of black holes in galaxies for which it was previously thought not possible.

In large galaxies, the central black hole is related to the mass of the spheroid-shaped distribution of stars at the centre of the galaxy, known as the galaxy’s 'bulge'.

Some astronomers have claimed that the size of black holes at the centres of galaxies with small bulges was unrelated to the bulge.

Even the four million solar mass black hole in the bulge of our Milky Way galaxy was thought to be arbitrarily low relative to trends defined by their more massive, and therefore easier to detect, counterparts.

However, in previous work Swinburne Professor Alister Graham, lead-author of the current research, identified a new relationship involving black holes in galaxies with small bulges.  He demonstrated that the black hole in the bulge of the Milky Way was not set by chance but instead followed an astronomical rule.

“The formula is quadratic, in that the black hole mass quadruples every time the bulge mass doubles,” Professor Graham said. “Therefore, if the bulge mass increases 10 times, the black hole mass increases 100 times.”

Now, after studying more than 100 galaxies with black holes 4 to 40 times less massive than our Milky Way's black hole, they too have been found to follow this same rule.

"It turns out that there is yet more order in our Universe than previously appreciated,” Professor Graham said.

"This is exciting not just because it provides further insight into the mechanics of black hole formation, but because of the predictions it allows us to make."

The gravitational collapse of massive stars can produce black holes up to a few tens of times the mass of our Sun. And black holes that are one-tenth of a million to ten billion times the mass of our Sun have been identified at the centres of giant galaxies. However, there is a missing population of intermediate-mass black holes.

Astronomers don't know if this is because of observational difficulties in finding them, or if the massive black holes at the centres of galaxies start life as 100,000 solar mass seed black holes that formed in the early Universe.

This latest result, which extends the new rule to 40-times lower masses, gives astronomers some confidence that it may extend even further, so the smallest bulges might host these missing intermediate-mass black holes. 

"If confirmed, it would imply tremendous black hole appetites", co-author of the study, Dr Nicholas Scott, said. "There would need to be a dramatic growth of these small black holes relative to their host bulge, with the bulges growing via the creation of stars out of gas clouds while the black holes devour both gas and stars."

The researchers have identified a few dozen candidate galaxies in which they think intermediate-mass black holes may be hiding.  Future observations, with facilities such as the Square Kilometre Array and space-based X-ray telescopes, are expected to help resolve this black hole mystery.

Source: Swinburne

Supersonic laser-propelled rockets: Hybrid approach may help power rockets, launch satellites, push future aircraft past Mach 10

The effectiveness of current laser-propulsion techniques is limited by the instability of supersonic gas flow, caused by shock waves that “choke” the inlet of the nozzle, reducing thrust. Those effects can be reduced with the help of laser ablation, redirecting the plasma plume so that it flows close to the interior walls of a supersonic nozzle and significantly improving the overall thrust.
Credit: Y.Rezunkov/IOIE

Scientists and science fiction writers alike have dreamed of aircraft that are propelled by beams of light rather than conventional fuels. Now, a new method for improving the thrust generated by such laser-propulsion systems may bring them one step closer to practical use.

The method, developed by physicists Yuri Rezunkov of the Institute of Optoelectronic Instrument Engineering, Russia and Alexander Schmidt of the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia is described today in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Applied Optics.

Currently, the maximum speed of a spacecraft is limited by the amount of solid or liquid fuel that it can carry. Achieving higher speeds means that more fuel must be burned -- fuel that, inconveniently, has to be carried by the craft and hefted into space. These burdensome loads can be reduced, however, if a laser -- one located at a remote location, and not actually on the spacecraft -- were used to provide additional propulsive force.

A number of systems have been proposed that can produce such laser propulsion. One of the most promising involves a process called laser ablation, in which a pulsed laser beam strikes a surface, heats it up, and burns off material to create what is known as a plasma plume -- a column of charged particles that flow off the surface. The outflowing of that plasma plume -- essentially, exhaust -- generates additional thrust to propel the craft.

In their Applied Optics paper, Rezunkov and Schmidt describe a new system that integrates a laser-ablation propulsion system with the gas blasting nozzles of a spacecraft. Combining the two systems, the researchers found, can increase the speed of the gas flow out of the system to supersonic speeds while reducing the amount of burned fuel.

The researchers show that the effectiveness of current laser-propulsion techniques is limited by factors including the instability of supersonic gases as they flow through the gas nozzle, as well as the production of shock waves that "choke" the inlet of the nozzle, reducing thrust. But those effects can be reduced with the help of a laser-ablation plasma plume that is redirected so that it will flow close to the interior walls of the nozzle. Coupling the ablation jet with supersonic gas flow through the nozzle, they find, significantly improves the overall thrust generated by the nozzle.

"Summarizing the data obtained, we can forecast the application of the supersonic laser propulsion techniques not only for launching small satellites to Earth orbits but also for additional acceleration of supersonic aircraft to achieve Mach 10 and more," Rezunkov said.

Source: The Optical Society

Green light for European Extremely Large Telescope construction

This artist’s impression shows the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in its enclosure. The E-ELT will be a 39-metre aperture optical and infrared telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert, 20 kilometres from ESO’s Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal. It will be the world’s largest “eye on the sky”. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

At a recent meeting ESO's main governing body, the Council* gave the green light for the construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in two phases. Spending of around one billion euros has been authorised for the first phase, which will cover the construction costs of a fully working telescope with a suite of powerful instruments and first light targeted in ten years time. It will enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the fields of exoplanets, the stellar composition of nearby galaxies and the deep Universe. The largest ESO contract ever, for the telescope dome and main structure, will be placed within the next year.

The E-ELT will be a 39-metre aperture optical and infrared telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama Desert, 20 kilometres from ESO's Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal. It will be the world's largest "eye on the sky."

"The decision taken by Council means that the telescope can now be built, and that major industrial construction work for the E-ELT is now funded and can proceed according to plan. There is already a lot of progress in Chile on the summit of Armazones and the next few years will be very exciting," said Tim de Zeeuw, ESO's Director General.

The construction of the E-ELT was approved by ESO's Council in June 2012 under the condition that contracts with a value larger than 2 million euros could only be awarded once the total cost of the telescope (1083 million euros at 2012 prices) was funded to a 90% level. An exception was granted for the civil works at the site, which started with the groundbreaking ceremony in June 2014 and are making good progress.

For the time being, 10% of the overall project costs have been shifted to a second phase. With the accession of Poland to ESO, the current funding commitments to the E-ELT have now reached more than 90% of the total cost of the first phase that will bring a fully working E-ELT. Additional commitments from upcoming Member State Brazil are expected in the coming years.

To prevent the project from slipping, the ESO Council has decided that construction of the first phase of the 39-metre telescope can now proceed. This funded work includes the contract for the telescope's dome and main structure -- the largest in ESO's history -- which will be awarded in late 2015, and leads to the construction of a fully working E-ELT.

Telescope components that are not yet funded include parts of the adaptive optics system, some of the instrument work, the innermost five rings of segments of the telescope's main mirror (210 mirror segments) and a spare set of primary mirror segments needed for more efficient telescope operation in the future. The construction of these components, whose postponement does not reduce the extraordinary scientific achievements the telescope will already be able to accomplish at the end of phase one, will be approved as additional funding becomes available, including that expected from the upcoming Member State Brazil.

"The funds that are now committed will allow the construction of a fully working E-ELT that will be the most powerful of all the extremely large telescope projects currently planned, with superior light collecting area and instrumentation. It will allow the initial characterisation of Earth-mass exoplanets, the study of the resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies as well as ultra-sensitive observations of the deep Universe," concludes Tim de Zeeuw.

*The decision needed ten positive votes (out of fourteen). Eleven positive votes were obtained. Three out of the fourteen votes are ad referendum votes, which means that they are to be considered as provisionally positive and are subject to confirmation by the authorities in these three Member States, before the next Council meeting.

Source: European Southern Observatory - ESO

Ground-based detection of super-Earth transit paves way to remote sensing of exoplanets

This artist's conception shows the super-Earth 55 Cancri e (right) compared to the Earth (left). Astronomers using a ground-based telescope have measure the transit of 55 Cancri e for the first time. It is the shallowest transit ever detected from the ground. Credit: NASA/JPL

Astronomers have measured the passing of a super-Earth in front of a bright, nearby Sun-like star using a ground-based telescope for the first time. The transit of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is the shallowest detected from the ground yet. Since detecting a transit is the first step in analyzing a planet's atmosphere, this success bodes well for characterizing the many small planets that upcoming space missions are expected to discover in the next few years.

The international research team used the 2.5-meter Nordic Optical Telescope on the island of La Palma, Spain, a moderate-sized facility by today's standards but equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, to make the detection. Previous observations of this planet transit had to rely on space-borne telescopes.

The host star, 55 Cancri, is located just 40 light-years away from us and is visible to the naked eye. During its transit, the planet crosses 55 Cancri and blocks a tiny fraction of the starlight, dimming the star by 1/2000th (or 0.05%) for almost two hours. This shows that the planet is about twice the size of Earth, or 16,000 miles in diameter.

"Our observations show that we can detect the transits of small planets around Sun-like stars using ground-based telescopes," says Ernst de Mooij of Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom, lead author of the study.

He continues, "This is especially important because upcoming space missions such as TESS and PLATO should find many small planets around bright stars and we will want to follow up the discoveries with ground-based instruments."

TESS is a NASA mission scheduled for launch in 2017, while PLATO is to be launched in 2024 by the European Space Agency; both will search for transiting terrestrial planets around nearby bright stars.

"With this result we are also closing in on the detection of the atmospheres of small planets with ground-based telescopes," says co-author Mercedes Lopez-Morales of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "We are slowly paving the way toward the detection of bio-signatures in Earth-like planets around nearby stars."

"It's remarkable what we can do by pushing the limits of existing telescopes and instruments, despite the complications posed by the Earth's own turbulent atmosphere," says study co-author Ray Jayawardhana of York Univerity in Canada. "Remote sensing across tens of light-years isn't easy, but it can be done with the right technique and a bit of ingenuity."

The planet 55 Cancri e is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. With a period of 18 hours, it is the innermost of five planets in the system. Because of its proximity to the host star, the planet's dayside temperature reaches over 3100° Fahrenheit (1700° Celsius), hot enough to melt metal, with conditions far from hospitable to life. Initially identified a decade ago through radial velocity measurements, it was later confirmed through transit observations with the MOST and Spitzer space telescopes.

Until now, the transits of only one other super-Earth, GJ 1214b circling a red dwarf, had been observed with ground-based telescopes. The Earth's roiling air makes such observations extremely difficult. But the team's success with 55 Cancri e raises the prospects of characterizing dozens of super-Earths likely to be revealed by upcoming surveys.

"We expect these surveys to find so many nearby, terrestrial worlds that space telescopes simply won't be able to follow up on all of them. Future ground-based instrumentation will be key, and this study shows it can be done," adds Lopez-Morales.

The research team also includes Raine Karjalainen and Marie Hrudkova of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. Their findings appear in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

DNA survives critical entry into Earth's atmosphere

This image shows the launch of the rocket TEXUS-49 from the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, North Sweden. Credit: Adrian Mettauer

The genetic material DNA can survive a flight through space and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere -- and still pass on genetic information. A team of scientists from UZH obtained these astonishing results during an experiment on the TEXUS-49 research rocket mission.

Applied to the outer shell of the payload section of a rocket using pipettes, small, double-stranded DNA molecules flew into space from Earth and back again. After the launch, space flight, re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and landing, the so-called plasmid DNA molecules were still found on all the application points on the rocket from the TEXUS-49 mission. And this was not the only surprise: For the most part, the DNA salvaged was even still able to transfer genetic information to bacterial and connective tissue cells. "This study provides experimental evidence that the DNA's genetic information is essentially capable of surviving the extreme conditions of space and the re-entry into Earth's dense atmosphere," says study head Professor Oliver Ullrich from the University of Zurich's Institute of Anatomy.

Spontaneous second mission

The experiment called DARE (DNA atmospheric re-entry experiment) resulted from a spontaneous idea: UZH scientists Dr. Cora Thiel and Professor Ullrich were conducting experiments on the TEXUS-49 mission to study the role of gravity in the regulation of gene expression in human cells using remote-controlled hardware inside the rocket's payload. 

During the mission preparations, they began to wonder whether the outer structure of the rocket might also be suitable for stability tests on so-called biosignatures. "Biosignatures are molecules that can prove the existence of past or present extraterrestrial life," explains Dr. Thiel. And so the two UZH researchers launched a small second mission at the European rocket station Esrange in Kiruna, north of the Arctic Circle.

DNA survives the most extreme conditions

The quickly conceived additional experiment was originally supposed to be a pretest to check the stability of biomarkers during spaceflight and re-entry into the atmosphere. Dr. Thiel did not expect the results it produced: "We were completely surprised to find so much intact and functionally active DNA." The study reveals that genetic information from the DNA can essentially withstand the most extreme conditions.

Various scientists believe that DNA could certainly reach us from outer space as Earth is not insulated: in extraterrestrial material made of dust and meteorites, for instance, around 100 tons of which hits our planet every day.

This extraordinary stability of DNA under space conditions also needs to be factored into the interpretion of results in the search for extraterrestrial life: "The results show that it is by no means unlikely that, despite all the safety precautions, space ships could also carry terrestrial DNA to their landing site. We need to have this under control in the search for extraterrestrial life," points out Ullrich.

Source: University of Zurich

Synthetic biology for space exploration

Microbial-based biomanufacturing could be transformative once explorers arrive at an extraterrestrial site. Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Academy Interface

Does synthetic biology hold the key to manned space exploration of the Moon and Mars? Berkeley Lab researchers have used synthetic biology to produce an inexpensive and reliable microbial-based alternative to the world's most effective anti-malaria drug, and to develop clean, green and sustainable alternatives to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. In the future, synthetic biology could also be used to make manned space missions more practical.

"Not only does synthetic biology promise to make the travel to extraterrestrial locations more practical and bearable, it could also be transformative once explorers arrive at their destination," says Adam Arkin, director of Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division (PBD) and a leading authority on synthetic and systems biology.

"During flight, the ability to augment fuel and other energy needs, to provide small amounts of needed materials, plus renewable, nutritional and taste-engineered food, and drugs-on-demand can save costs and increase astronaut health and welfare," Arkin says. "At an extraterrestrial base, synthetic biology could make even more effective use of the catalytic activities of diverse organisms."

Arkin is the senior author of a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface that reports on a techno-economic analysis demonstrating "the significant utility of deploying non-traditional biological techniques to harness available volatiles and waste resources on manned long-duration space missions." The paper is titled "Towards Synthetic Biological Approaches to Resource Utilization on Space Missions." The lead and corresponding author is Amor Menezes, a postdoctoral scholar in Arkin's research group at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. Other co-authors are John Cumbers and John Hogan with the NASA Ames Research Center.

One of the biggest challenges to manned space missions is the expense. The NASA rule-of-thumb is that every unit mass of payload launched requires the support of an additional 99 units of mass, with "support" encompassing everything from fuel to oxygen to food and medicine for the astronauts, etc. Most of the current technologies now deployed or under development for providing this support are abiotic, meaning non-biological. Arkin, Menezes and their collaborators have shown that providing this support with technologies based on existing biological processes is a more than viable alternative.

"Because synthetic biology allows us to engineer biological processes to our advantage, we found in our analysis that technologies, when using common space metrics such as mass, power and volume, have the potential to provide substantial cost savings, especially in mass," Menezes says.

In their study, the authors looked at four target areas: fuel generation, food production, biopolymer synthesis, and pharmaceutical manufacture. They showed that for a 916 day manned mission to Mars, the use of microbial biomanufacturing capabilities could reduce the mass of fuel manufacturing by 56-percent, the mass of food-shipments by 38-percent, and the shipped mass to 3D-print a habitat for six by a whopping 85-percent. In addition, microbes could also completely replenish expired or irradiated stocks of pharmaceuticals, which would provide independence from unmanned re-supply spacecraft that take up to 210 days to arrive.

"Space has always provided a wonderful test of whether technology can meet strict engineering standards for both effect and safety," Arkin says. "NASA has worked decades to ensure that the specifications that new technologies must meet are rigorous and realistic, which allowed us to perform up-front techno-economic analysis."

The big advantage biological manufacturing holds over abiotic manufacturing is the remarkable ability of natural and engineered microbes to transform very simple starting substrates, such as carbon dioxide, water biomass or minerals, into materials that astronauts on long-term missions will need. This capability should prove especially useful for future extraterrestrial settlements.

"The mineral and carbon composition of other celestial bodies is different from the bulk of Earth, but the earth is diverse with many extreme environments that have some relationship to those that might be found at possible bases on the Moon or Mars," Arkin says. "Microbes could be used to greatly augment the materials available at a landing site, enable the biomanufacturing of food and pharmaceuticals, and possibly even modify and enrich local soils for agriculture in controlled environments."

The authors acknowledge that much of their analysis is speculative and that their calculations show a number of significant challenges to making biomanufacturing a feasible augmentation and replacement for abiotic technologies. However, they argue that the investment to overcome these barriers offers dramatic potential payoff for future space programs.

"We've got a long way to go since experimental proof-of-concept work in synthetic biology for space applications is just beginning, but long-duration manned missions are also a ways off," says Menezes. "Abiotic technologies were developed for many, many decades before they were successfully utilized in space, so of course biological technologies have some catching-up to do. However, this catching-up may not be that much, and in some cases, the biological technologies may already be superior to their abiotic counterparts."

This research was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Plants return to Earth after growing in space

Astronaut Reid Wiseman injected a fixative solution onto the seedlings. Credit: NASA

Researchers at Simon Gilroy's lab in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this afternoon greeted a truck carrying small containers holding more than 1,000 frozen plants that germinated and grew aboard the International Space Station.

On Tuesday, when Gilroy's team inspected the plants at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, they saw exactly what they wanted: Petri dishes holding seedlings that sprouted and grew in weightlessness.

After their arrival in Madison, the plants went directly into a deep freeze. After being thawed in a few months, they will donate their RNA to an instrument that will measure the activity of all of their approximately 30,000 genes.

Half of the plants will become subjects in Gilroy's longstanding exploration of the genetic control of the proteins that enable plants to grow in zero gravity. "Gravity is a fantastically pervasive force that affects all biology," says Gilroy. "One astronaut observed that plants get lazy in a weightless environment; they grow long and thin, and don't lay down strong material, just like people lose bone mass in space because it isn't needed for supporting weight."

The other half of the experiment represents a departure for Gilroy, and for NASA, the agency supporting this area of space research. After these plants undergo a similar genetic analysis at UW-Madison's Biotech Center, the data will get an initial check-over from Gilroy's group. And then a treasure trove of digital data on plant genetic activity in microgravity will be made available to any researcher interested in mining it.

"Access to space is very rare," Gilroy says. "Traditionally, a research group will put an experiment in space, get the results and publish. But NASA is trying a new mode, called geneLAB, where the research group will put organisms in space, then, as soon as possible, release the raw data to anyone who wants to analyze it. They hope it will speed up major advances on these tiny samples that we can afford to place in space. I see this as open-source science."

Through the process called transcription, genes produce RNA that becomes the template for proteins, and in both sets of experiments, the RNA data will show which genes become more or less active in microgravity, when compared to an identical set of plants grown on Earth.

While Gilroy plans to focus on structural proteins, the geneLAB experiment compares four variants of Arabidopsis called ecotypes. "This data should provide a broad field of investigation -- far more than one lab can handle," Gilroy says. "We are going to end up with an enormous amount of transcription data. We will do some initial work to check the major genes which go up or down, but there's tremendous potential for further analysis by other labs around the world."

But while the geneLab approach sounds promising, Gilroy concedes that it carries no guarantees. "This may be a path forward in crowd-sourcing science. At the least, as a single lab we could never analyze this data as fully as many labs around the world all working with it."

The "Biological Research in Canister" containers that held these experiments on board the space station were designed, tested and operated according to NASA's rigorous approach, Gilroy says. "Each project represents an enormous investment, and you really want everything to go perfectly. You become one of the most careful scientists in the world. You test everything, make duplicates, and are always considering what may go wrong so you can do another test."

NASA is an unfamiliar world to most botanists, but Gilroy seems to be enjoying every step of the way, and has even learned the organization's peculiar parlance. "At first, talking in acronyms is very strange," he says, "and you can't understand anything when NASA people start going into NASA-speak. But once you get into it, you catch yourself doing the exact same thing."

In the microgravity experiments, Gilroy is exploring the genetic basis of a phenomenon known to gardeners and horticulturalists for many years. Plants that grow up without mechanical stresses -- due to wind, rain or other disturbances -- "are much more susceptible to pests, are not as robust," Gilroy says, "but if you go into a greenhouse and shake the plants, they grow up more compact, strong, and resistant to stress. They are even more resistant to plant diseases."

It turns out that the same signaling system used to detect mechanical stresses like gravity is also used to defend against pathogens. That may explain why plants in space appear more susceptible to disease.

That overlap raises the stakes for understanding the impact of gravity on plants beyond the notion of building stronger crops that can stand up in the field. Understanding the signals could help in the never ending battle against plant disease.

Likewise, NASA has its own practical interest in the research: Plants will supply food and oxygen for long-distance space travel, and keeping them healthy will be a matter of life and death. "If you are growing plants as part of a human life support system," Gilroy says, "you'd rather not have them suddenly die."

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

NASA's newest Mars mission spacecraft enters orbit around Red Planet

This image shows an artist concept of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars' orbit at 7:24 p.m. PDT (10:24 p.m. EDT) Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

"As the first orbiter dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere, MAVEN will greatly improve our understanding of the history of the Martian atmosphere, how the climate has changed over time, and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability of the planet," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "It also will better inform a future mission to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s."

After a 10-month journey, confirmation of successful orbit insertion was received from MAVEN data observed at the Lockheed Martin operations center in Littleton, Colorado, as well as from tracking data monitored at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory navigation facility in Pasadena, California. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna station in Canberra, Australia.

"NASA has a long history of scientific discovery at Mars and the safe arrival of MAVEN opens another chapter," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "Maven will complement NASA's other Martian robotic explorers-and those of our partners around the globe-to answer some fundamental questions about Mars and life beyond Earth."

Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering into its final science orbit and testing the instruments and

science-mapping commands. MAVEN then will begin its one Earth-year primary mission, taking measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars' upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.

"It's taken 11 years from the original concept for MAVEN to now having a spacecraft in orbit at Mars," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU/LASP). "I'm delighted to be here safely and successfully, and looking forward to starting our science mission."

The primary mission includes five "deep-dip" campaigns, in which MAVEN's periapsis, or lowest orbit altitude, will be lowered from 93 miles (150 kilometers) to about 77 miles (125 kilometers). These measurements will provide information down to where the upper and lower atmospheres meet, giving scientists a full profile of the upper tier.

"This was a very big day for MAVEN," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. "We're very excited to join the constellation of spacecraft in orbit at Mars and on the surface of the Red Planet. The commissioning phase will keep the operations team busy for the next six weeks, and then we'll begin, at last, the science phase of the mission. Congratulations to the team for a job well done today."

MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying three instrument packages. The Particles and Fields Package, built by the University of California at Berkeley with support from CU/LASP and Goddard, contains six instruments that will characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of the planet. The Remote Sensing Package, built by CU/LASP, will identify characteristics present throughout the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, provided by Goddard, will measure the composition and isotopes of atomic particles.

The spacecraft's principal investigator is based at CU/LASP. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center manages the project and also provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley provided four science instruments for MAVEN. JPL provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Program for NASA.

Source: Nasa

Breezy science, plant studies and more head to space station on SpaceX-4

This Artist's rendering of the ISS-RapidScat instrument (inset), will measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help improve weather forecasts. It will be installed on the end of the station's Columbus laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Johnson Space Center

Imagine a dragon flying through the heavens on mighty, outstretched wings. The majestic beast knows the currents of winds and how to harness their power as it soars above the clouds. SpaceX's real Dragon -- the company's spacecraft that transports supplies and science to the International Space Station (ISS) -- will deliver, and later return, new technology, biology and biotechnology and Earth and space science research to the orbiting outpost.

One of the new Earth science investigations heading into orbit is the ISS-Rapid Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat). ISS-RapidScat monitors ocean winds from the vantage point of the space station. This space-based scatterometer is a remote sensing instrument that uses radar pulses reflected from the ocean's surface at different angles to calculate surface wind speed and direction. This information will be useful for weather forecasting and hurricane monitoring.

"We'll be able to see how wind speed changes with the time of day," said Ernesto Rodríguez, principal investigator for ISS-RapidScat at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "ISS-RapidScat will link together all previous and current scatterometer missions, providing us with a more complete picture of how ocean winds change. Combined with data from the European ASCAT scatterometer mission, we'll be able to observe 90 percent of Earth's surface at least once a day, and in many places, several times a day."

In addition to improving weather models, RapidScat enhances measurements from other international scatterometers by cross-checking their data. Due to its unique orbit, RapidScat will observe different parts of the planet at different times of day. This allows the instrument to track the effects of the sun on ocean winds as the day progresses. Because the instrument reuses leftover hardware originally built to test parts of the now inoperable NASA QuikScat scatterometer, this investigation demonstrates a unique way to replace an instrument aboard an aging satellite.

New biomedical hardware launching on SpaceX's fourth commercial resupply mission to the space station will facilitate prolonged biological studies in microgravity. The Rodent Research Hardware and Operations Validation (Rodent Research-1) investigation provides a platform for long-duration rodent experiments in space. These experiments examine how microgravity affects animals, providing information relevant to human spaceflight, discoveries in basic biology and knowledge that may have direct impact toward human health on Earth. Rodent Research-1 tests the operational capabilities of the new hardware system, including the transporter, rodent habitat and access unit.

Because rodents experience developmental stages and aging processes more quickly than humans, they make ideal research model organisms to infer information about disease development and progression in humans. Model organisms are non-human species with characteristics that allow them easily to be maintained, reproduced and studied in a laboratory.

"In the coming years, rodent studies conducted aboard the space station will gather foundational data that will help advance human space exploration and provide new opportunities to improve quality of life on Earth," said Ruth Globus, Ph.D., Rodent Research Project scientist and researcher in the Space Biosciences Division at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Another biological research investigation aboard Dragon includes a new plant study. The Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC) hardware has supported a variety of plant growth experiments aboard the space station. The BRIC-19 investigation, the first to collect data for the geneLAB research platform, will focus on the growth and development of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings in microgravity. A. thaliana is a small flowering plant related to cabbage, and its genetic makeup is simple and well-understood by the plant biology community. This knowledge offers easy recognition of any changes that occur as a result of microgravity adaptation.

Plant development on Earth is impacted by mechanical forces such as wind or a plant's own weight. Researchers hope to get a better understanding of how the growth responses of plants are altered by the absence of these forces when grown in microgravity.

The BRIC hardware helps to maximize research and minimize space and crew time since it does not use power to operate and the canister is the size of a bread box. This study may add to the collective body of knowledge about basic plant growth phenomena and could help improve farming practices on Earth.

In addition to Earth and biological science studies, several new technology demonstrations are making their way to the space station. One of those, known as the Special Purpose Inexpensive Satellite, or SpinSat, will test how a small satellite moves and positions itself in space using new thruster technology. It will launch into orbit from the space station through the new Cyclops small satellite deployer, also known as the Space Station Integrated Kinetic Launcher for Orbital Payload Systems (SSIKLOPS).

SpinSat is a spherical satellite measuring 22 inches in diameter. It will test advanced thruster technology that uses a new class of non-pyrotechnic materials known as Electrically-Controlled Solid Propellants (ESP). ESPs are ignited only by electric current.

Researchers can use high-resolution atmospheric data captured by SpinSat to determine the density of the thermosphere, one of the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. With better knowledge of the thermosphere, engineers and scientists can refine satellite and telecommunications technology.

Another new technology demonstration catching a ride on the Dragon is the 3-D Printing In Zero-G Technology Demonstration (3-D Printing In Zero-G), which will be the first ever 3-D printer in space. Additive manufacturing could enable parts to be manufactured quickly and cheaply in space, instead of waiting for the next cargo resupply vehicle delivery. The research team also can gain valuable insight into improving 3-D printing technology on Earth by demonstrating it in microgravity.

With so many new investigations that directly impact human life, this Dragon's delivery is helping the space station make discoveries off the Earth, for the Earth.

Source: Nasa