News

Saturn’s visible storm

After-effects of Saturn’s super storm shine on

 

25 October 2012
The heat-seeking capabilities of the international Cassini spacecraft and two ground-based telescopes have provided the first look at the aftermath of Saturn’s ‘Great Springtime Storm’. Concealed from the naked eye, a giant oval vortex is persisting long after the visible effects of the storm subsided.
 
The ground-based observations were made by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

The vivid cloud structures that wreaked havoc across wide swathes of the mid-northern latitudes of Saturn’s atmosphere captured the imaginations of amateur and professional astronomers alike, from its first appearance in December 2010 through much of 2011.

But in new reports that focus on the temperatures, winds and composition of Saturn’s atmosphere, scientists find that the spectacular cloud displays were only part of the story.

Much of the associated activity took place beyond the reach of visible-light cameras, and the after-effects are still continuing today.  

Evolution of infrared hotspots in Saturn’s springtime storm 
 
 
“It’s the first time we’ve seen anything like it on any planet in the Solar System,” says Leigh Fletcher from the University of Oxford, UK, lead author of the Icarus paper.

“It’s extremely unusual, as we can only see the vortex at infrared wavelengths – we can’t tell that it is there simply by looking at the cloud cover.”

As the visible storm erupted in the roiling cloud deck of Saturn’s troposphere, waves of energy rippled hundreds of kilometres upwards, depositing their energy as two vast ‘beacons’ of hot air in the stratosphere.

The beacons were expected to cool down and dissipate, but by late April 2011 – by which time bright cloud material had encircled the entire planet – the hot spots had merged to create an enormous vortex that for a brief period exceeded even the size of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot.

Furthermore, the temperature of the vortex was far higher than expected, some 80ºC warmer than the surrounding atmosphere. At the same time, huge spikes in the amount of gases like ethylene and acetylene were detected.
 

Looking down on Saturn’s storm 
 
 
Much like the Great Red Spot, Saturn’s vortex also cuts off the atmosphere in its core from the surrounding environment, constraining its unique chemistry and high temperatures within the walls of the powerful winds whipping around the edge.

“But Jupiter’s vortex is embedded deep down in the turbulent ‘weather zone’, whereas the vast vortex on Saturn is higher up in the atmosphere where, normally, you wouldn’t expect anything like it to have formed,” says Dr Fletcher.

“Although there are parallels to be drawn between the two, the mechanisms by which they were formed and the length of time they are going to exist seem to be very different.”

Jupiter’s famous vortex has raged for at least 300 years, but after traversing the planet once every 120 days since May 2011, Saturn’s large beacon is cooling and shrinking. Scientists expect it to fade away completely by the end of 2013.

The question now remains as to whether Saturn’s storm-generating energy has been sapped or if there will be a repeat performance.

The outburst already caught observers by surprise by arriving during the planet’s northern hemisphere spring, years ahead of the predictably stormy summer season.

“The beauty is that Cassini will be operating until the Saturn system reaches its summer solstice in 2017, so if there is another global event like this, we’ll be there to see it,” says ESA’s Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli.
 

News Saturn’s visible storm After-effects of Saturn’s super storm shine on   25 October 2012 The heat-seeking capabilities of the international Cassini spacecraft and two ground-based telescopes have provided the first look at the aftermath of Saturn’s ‘Great Springtime Storm’. Concealed from the naked eye, a giant oval vortex is persisting long after the visible effects of the storm subsided. The ground-based observations were made by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.The vivid cloud structures that wreaked havoc across wide swathes of the mid-northern latitudes of Saturn’s atmosphere captured the imaginations of amateur and professional astronomers alike, from its first appearance in December 2010 through much of 2011. But in new reports that focus on the temperatures, winds and composition of Saturn’s atmosphere, scientists find that the spectacular cloud displays were only part of the story. Much of the associated activity took place beyond the reach of visible-light cameras, and the after-effects are still continuing today.   Evolution of infrared hotspots in Saturn’s springtime storm   “It’s the first time we’ve seen anything like it on any planet in the Solar System,” says Leigh Fletcher from the University of Oxford, UK, lead author of the Icarus paper.“It’s extremely unusual, as we can only see the vortex at infrared wavelengths – we can’t tell that it is there simply by looking at the cloud cover.” As the visible storm erupted in the roiling cloud deck of Saturn’s troposphere, waves of energy rippled hundreds of kilometres upwards, depositing their energy as two vast ‘beacons’ of hot air in the stratosphere. The beacons were expected to cool down and dissipate, but by late April 2011 – by which time bright cloud material had encircled the entire planet – the hot spots had merged to create an enormous vortex that for a brief period exceeded even the size of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot. Furthermore, the temperature of the vortex was far higher than expected, some 80ºC warmer than the surrounding atmosphere. At the same time, huge spikes in the amount of gases like ethylene and acetylene were detected.   Looking down on Saturn’s storm   Much like the Great Red Spot, Saturn’s vortex also cuts off the atmosphere in its core from the surrounding environment, constraining its unique chemistry and high temperatures within the walls of the powerful winds whipping around the edge.“But Jupiter’s vortex is embedded deep down in the turbulent ‘weather zone’, whereas the vast vortex on Saturn is higher up in the atmosphere where, normally, you wouldn’t expect anything like it to have formed,” says Dr Fletcher. “Although there are parallels to be drawn between the two, the mechanisms by which they were formed and the length of time they are going to exist seem to be very different.” Jupiter’s famous vortex has raged for at least 300 years, but after traversing the planet once every 120 days since May 2011, Saturn’s large beacon is cooling and shrinking. Scientists expect it to fade away completely by the end of 2013. The question now remains as to whether Saturn’s storm-generating energy has been sapped or if there will be a repeat performance. The outburst already caught observers by surprise by arriving during the planet’s northern hemisphere spring, years ahead of the predictably stormy summer season. “The beauty is that Cassini will be operating until the Saturn system reaches its summer solstice in 2017, so if there is another global event like this, we’ll be there to see it,” says ESA’s Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli.

Saturn’s visible storm After-effects of Saturn’s super storm shine on   25 October 2012 The heat-seeking capabilities of the international Cassini spacecraft and two ground-based telescopes have provided the first look at the aftermath of Saturn’s ‘Great Springtime Storm’. Concealed from the naked eye, a giant oval vortex is persisting long after the visible effects of the storm subsided. The ground-based observations were made by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.The vivid cloud structures that wreaked havoc across wide swathes of the mid-northern latitudes of Saturn’s atmosphere captured the imaginations of amateur and professional astronomers alike, from its first appearance in December 2010 through much of 2011. But in new reports that focus on the temperatures, winds and composition of Saturn’s atmosphere, scientists find that the spectacular cloud displays were only part of the story. Much of the associated activity took place beyond the reach of visible-light cameras, and the after-effects are still continuing today.   Evolution of infrared hotspots in Saturn’s springtime storm   “It’s the first time we’ve seen anything like it on any planet in the Solar System,” says Leigh Fletcher from the University of Oxford, UK, lead author of the Icarus paper.“It’s extremely unusual, as we can only see the vortex at infrared wavelengths – we can’t tell that it is there simply by looking at the cloud cover.” As the visible storm erupted in the roiling cloud deck of Saturn’s troposphere, waves of energy rippled hundreds of kilometres upwards, depositing their energy as two vast ‘beacons’ of hot air in the stratosphere. The beacons were expected to cool down and dissipate, but by late April 2011 – by which time bright cloud material had encircled the entire planet – the hot spots had merged to create an enormous vortex that for a brief period exceeded even the size of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot. Furthermore, the temperature of the vortex was far higher than expected, some 80ºC warmer than the surrounding atmosphere. At the same time, huge spikes in the amount of gases like ethylene and acetylene were detected.   Looking down on Saturn’s storm   Much like the Great Red Spot, Saturn’s vortex also cuts off the atmosphere in its core from the surrounding environment, constraining its unique chemistry and high temperatures within the walls of the powerful winds whipping around the edge.“But Jupiter’s vortex is embedded deep down in the turbulent ‘weather zone’, whereas the vast vortex on Saturn is higher up in the atmosphere where, normally, you wouldn’t expect anything like it to have formed,” says Dr Fletcher. “Although there are parallels to be drawn between the two, the mechanisms by which they were formed and the length of time they are going to exist seem to be very different.” Jupiter’s famous vortex has raged for at least 300 years, but after traversing the planet once every 120 days since May 2011, Saturn’s large beacon is cooling and shrinking. Scientists expect it to fade away completely by the end of 2013. The question now remains as to whether Saturn’s storm-generating energy has been sapped or if there will be a repeat performance. The outburst already caught observers by surprise by arriving during the planet’s northern hemisphere spring, years ahead of the predictably stormy summer season. “The beauty is that Cassini will be operating until the Saturn system reaches its summer solstice in 2017, so if there is another global event like this, we’ll be there to see it,” says ESA’s Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli.

NASA | Atomic Interferometry

Einstein predicted gravity waves in his general theory of relativity, but to date these ripples in the fabric of space-time have never been observed. Now a scientific research technique called Atomic Interferometry is trying to re-write the canon. In conjunction with researchers at Stanford University, scientists at NASA Goddard are developing a system to measure the faint gravitational vibrations generated by movement of massive objects in the universe. The scientific payoff could be important, helping better clarify key issues in our understanding of cosmology. But application payoff could be substantial, too, with the potential to develop profound advances in fields like geolocation and timekeeping. In this video we examine how the system would work, and the scientific underpinnings of the research effort.

Solar wind entry at low latitudes

Earth’s magnetosphere behaves like a sieve

 

24 October 2012
ESA’s quartet of satellites studying Earth’s magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed.
 
Earth’s magnetic field is our planet’s first line of defence against the bombardment of the solar wind. This stream of plasma is launched by the Sun and travels across the Solar System, carrying its own magnetic field with it.

Depending on how the solar wind’s interplanetary magnetic field – IMF – is aligned with Earth’s magnetic field, different phenomena can arise in Earth’s immediate environment.

One well-known process is magnetic reconnection, where magnetic field lines pointing in opposite directions spontaneously break and reconnect with other nearby field lines. This redirects their plasma load into the magnetosphere, opening the door to the solar wind and allowing it to reach Earth.

Under certain circumstances this can drive ‘space weather’, generating spectacular aurorae, interrupting GPS signals and affecting terrestrial power systems.  

	Solar wind entry at high latitudes

In 2006, Cluster made the surprising discovery that huge, 40 000 km swirls of plasma along the boundary of the magnetosphere – the magnetopause – could allow the solar wind to enter, even when Earth’s magnetic field and the IMF are aligned.

These swirls were found at low, equatorial latitudes, where the magnetic fields were most closely aligned.

These giant vortices are driven by a process known as the Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) effect, which can occur anywhere in nature when two adjacent flows slip past each other at different speeds.

Examples include waves whipped up by wind sliding across the surface of the ocean, or in atmospheric clouds.

Analysis of Cluster data has now found that KH waves can also occur at a wider range of magnetopause locations and when the IMF is arranged in a number of other configurations, providing a mechanism for the continuous transport of the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere.

“We found that when the interplanetary magnetic field is westward or eastward, magnetopause boundary layers at higher latitude become most subject to KH instabilities, regions quite distant from previous observations of these waves,” says Kyoung-Joo Hwang of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

“In fact, it’s very hard to imagine a situation where solar wind plasma could not leak into the magnetosphere, since it is not a perfect magnetic bubble.”

The findings confirm theoretical predictions and are reproduced by simulations presented by the authors of the new study.

“The solar wind can enter the magnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn’t known about before,” says co-author Melvyn Goldstein, also from Goddard Space Flight Center.

“That suggests there is a ‘sieve-like’ property of the magnetopause in allowing the solar wind to continuously flow into the magnetosphere.”

The KH effect is also seen in the magnetospheres of Mercury and Saturn, and the new results suggest that it may provide a possible continuous entry mechanism of solar wind into those planetary magnetospheres, too.

“Cluster’s observations of these boundary waves have provided a great advance on our understanding of solar wind – magnetosphere interactions, which are at the heart of space weather research,” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Cluster project scientist.

“In this case, the relatively small separation of the four Cluster satellites as they passed through the high-latitude dayside magnetopause provided a microscopic look at the processes ripping open the magnetopause and allowing particles from the Sun direct entry into the atmosphere.”

ESA Science Programme’s new small satellite will study super-Earths 19 October 2012 PR 35 2012 - Studying planets around other stars will be the focus of the new small Science Programme mission, Cheops, ESA announced today. Its launch is expected in 2017. Cheops – for CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite – will target nearby, bright stars already known to have planets orbiting around them.Through high-precision monitoring of the star’s brightness, scientists will search for the telltale signs of a ‘transit’ as a planet passes briefly across its face. In turn, this will allow an accurate measurement of the radius of the planet. For those planets with a known mass, the density will be revealed, providing an indication of the internal structure. These key parameters will help scientists to understand the formation of planets from a few times the mass of the Earth – ‘super-Earths’ – up to Neptune-sized worlds. It will also identify planets with significant atmospheres and constrain the migration of planets during the formation and evolution of their parent systems. Planet transit in front of a star Cheops is the first of a possible new class of small missions to be developed as part of ESA’s Science Programme. “By concentrating on specific known exoplanet host stars, Cheops will enable scientists to conduct comparative studies of planets down to the mass of Earth with a precision that simply cannot be achieved from the ground,” said Professor Alvaro Giménez-Cañete, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration. “The mission was selected from 26 proposals submitted in response to the Call for Small Missions in March, highlighting the strong interest of the scientific community in dedicated, quick-turnaround missions focusing on key open issues in space science.” Possible future small missions in the Science Programme should be low cost and rapidly developed, in order to offer greater flexibility in response to new ideas from the scientific community. With a dedicated science focus, they would provide a natural complement to the broader Medium- and Large-class missions of ESA’s Science Programme. Cheops will be implemented as a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, with a number of other ESA Member States delivering substantial contributions. “This continues the 40-year success story of Swiss scientists and industry at the forefront of space science,” said Professor Willy Benz, Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern. The mission will also provide unique targets for more detailed studies of exoplanet atmospheres by the next generation of telescopes now being built, such as the ground-based European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Cheops will operate in a Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 800 km. It has a planned mission lifetime of 3.5 years and part of the observing time will be open to the wider scientific community. For further information, please contact: ESA Media Relations Office Communication Department Tel: + 33 1 53 69 72 99 Fax: + 33 1 53 69 76 90 Email: media@esa.int

Higgs Boson Update From CERN

For a report on ABC's Catalyst program (http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/), I visited the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to find out what is being done now that the Higgs Boson has been discovered.

Although its mass has been measured around 125-126 GeV most of the other properties of the particle remain unknown. Its spin appears to be 0 or 2 but more results are required to nail this down. If it is the standard model Higgs, the spin should be 0, resulting in a fairly symmetric distribution of decay products in the detectors.

We may know this year if it's not the standard model Higgs - this would be the case if it doesn't decay into specific particles with the expected frequency. However if it is the standard model Higgs, it may take many more years to be certain. The large hadron collider will be shut down in 2013 for upgrades so that higher energies up to 14 TeV can be tested. Right now the LHC is operating at 8 TeV. The next announcement is expected in December.A

Integral: a decade revealing the high-energy sky

 

17 October 2012
ESA’s Integral, the most sensitive gamma-ray observatory ever launched, today celebrates ten years of observations. From rare breeds of stars to the feeding habits of black holes, the mission has been uncovering the secrets of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe.
 

Galactic Centre through Integral’s eyes  
 
The central region of our Milky Way, the Galactic Bulge, is a rich host of variable high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray sources. Thanks to regular observations by Integral over the last ten years, this dynamic environment has been charted in extensive detail, as revealed in this special anniversary video.

A number of these sources, which include X-ray binary systems with a black hole or a neutron star, pulsars and remnants of supernova explosions, only shine brightly for a limited period of time. In some cases, they appear as a sudden bright flash and disappear shortly afterwards, whereas others are more persistent.

The effect of this constantly changing environment gives the Galactic Bulge the appearance of a dramatic cosmic light show.
 

Integral highlights

Integral has uncovered a wealth of new data in its ten years of operations. It has for the first time mapped the entire sky at the specific energy produced by the annihilation of electrons with their positron anti-particles.

According to the gamma-ray emission seen by Integral, some 15 million trillion trillion trillion pairs of electrons and positrons – that’s 15 followed by 42 zeros – are being annihilated every second near the Galactic Centre.

The power released corresponds to over six thousand times the luminosity of our Sun.

While electrons are ubiquitous, it is unknown what produces this huge number of their antimatter counterparts.

Likely candidates are supernovas, accreting binary stars, massive stars and pulsars, but exotic sources such as our Galaxy’s supermassive black hole, gamma-ray bursts or dark matter particles could also be contributing.
 

Integral science highlights
 
 
One nearby black-hole binary, Cygnus X-1, is currently in the process of ripping a companion star to pieces and gorging on its gas.

Studying this extremely hot matter just a millisecond before it plunges into the jaws of the black hole, Integral has found that some of it might be making a high-speed getaway thanks to structured magnetic field lines acting as an escape tunnel.

High-speed escapes have also been seen at the Crab Nebula, the remains of a supernova explosion seen from Earth in 1054, and which hosts a pulsar at its heart.

Until Integral began studying these rapidly spinning neutron stars it was uncertain exactly how they accelerate particles to enormous energies exceeding those from even the most powerful man-made particle accelerators on Earth, like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

By studying the polarisation – alignment – of the waves of high-energy radiation originating from the Crab Nebula, Integral found that the radiation is strongly aligned with the rotation axis of the pulsar.

This implies that a significant fraction of the particles generating the intense radiation must originate from an extremely organised structure very close to the pulsar, perhaps even directly from the powerful jets beaming out from the spinning stellar core.

Christoph Winkler, ESA’s Integral Project Scientist says: “Integral is still playing a major role in modern gamma-ray astronomy even after ten years of operations.

“Future science with Integral might include the characterisation of high-energy radiation from a supernova explosion within our Milky Way, an event that is long overdue.” 

Discovery! Earth-Size Alien Planet at Alpha Centauri Is Closest Ever Seen

The star system closest to our own sun hosts a planet with roughly Earth's mass and may harbor other alien worlds as well, a new study reports.

Astronomers detected thealien planet around the sunlike star Alpha Centauri B, which is part of a three-star system just 4.3 light-years away from us. The newfound world is about as massive as Earth, but it's no Earth twin; its heat-blasted surface may be covered with molten rock, researchers said.

The mere existence of the planet, known as Alpha Centauri Bb, suggests that undiscovered worlds may lurk farther away from its star — perhaps in the habitable zone, that just-right range of distances where liquid water can exist."Most of the low-mass planets are in systems of two, three to six or seven planets, out to the habitable zone," study co-author Stephane Udry, of the Geneva Observatory, told reporters today (Oct. 16).

So the discovery "opens really good prospects for detecting planets in the habitable zone in a system that is very close to us," Udry added. "In that sense, this system is a landmark."

Alpha Centauri Bb zips around its star every 3.2 days, orbiting at a distance of just 3.6 million miles (6 million kilometers). For comparison, Earth orbits about 93 million miles, or 150 million km, from the sun. [Gallery: Nearby Alien Planet Alpha Centauri Bb]

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This wide-field view of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The star appears so big just because of the scattering of light by the telescope's optics as well as in the photographic emulsion. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Solar System. Image released Oct. 17, 2012.
CREDIT: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

View full size image

A difficult detection

The research team, led by Xavier Dumusque of Geneva Observatory and the University of Porto in Portugal, spotted Alpha Centauri Bb using an instrument called the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS.

HARPS is part of the European Southern Observatory's 11.8-foot (3.6 meters) telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The instrument allows astronomers to pick up the tiny gravitational wobbles an orbiting planet induces in its parent star.

In the case of Alpha Centauri Bb, these wobbles are very tiny indeed; the planet causes its star to move back and forth at no more than 1.1 mph (1.8 kph). It took more than 450 HARPS measurements spread out over four years of observing to detect the planet's signal, Dumusque said.

"It’s an extraordinary discovery, and it has pushed our technique to the limit," he said in a statement.

The detection, to be published tomorrow (Oct. 17) in the journal Nature, was so difficult that some astronomers aren't yet convinced that Alpha Centauri Bb exists.

For example, Artie Hatzes of the Thuringian State Observatory in Germany lauded the discoverers' technical achievement but said he believes the jury is still out.

"As the American astronomer Carl Sagan once said, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,'" Hatzes wrote in a commentary piece in the same issue of Nature. "Although a planetlike signal is present in the data, the discov­ery does not quite provide the 'extraordinary evidence.' It is a weak signal in the presence of a larger, more complicated signal. In my opin­ion, the matter is still open to debate."

Udry, however, said that the team's statistical analyses show a "false alarm probability" of just one in 1,000 — meaning there's a 99.9 percent chance that the planet exists.

And some experts don't agree with Hatzes that Alpha Centauri Bb requires extraordinary supporting evidence.

"The reason why this seems to be an extraordinary claim is because everyone has heard of Alpha Centauri B; it's a household name," said Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not part of the discovery team. "It's extraordinary not so much in terms of the robustness of the result, but rather just in terms of the fact that it's a well-known nearby star."

Dumusque and his colleagues determined that Alpha Centauri Bb is about 13 percent more massive than Earth, suggesting it's a rocky world. In addition to being the closest known exoplanet, it's also the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a sunlike star, researchers said. [Gallery: The Smallest Alien Planets]

Alpha Centauri Bb's extreme closeness to its parent star probably gives the planet a surface temperature around 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit (1,227 degrees Celsius), making it unsuitable for life, researchers said.

"At this temperature, there is a lot of chance that the surface — if it's made of rock, for example — it's not solid, but it's more like lava," Dumusque told reporters today.

Even though it resides in a three-star system — consisting of close-orbiting Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, along with the more distant Proxima Centauri — the newfound world's orbit is stable over the long haul, Laughlin said. So are orbits in Alpha Centauri B's habitable zone, he added.

It's possible that Alpha Centauri A and Proxima Centauri may host planets as well, Udry said. The system will likely be the subject of newly intense scientific scrutiny, as astronomers seek to confirm the existence of Alpha Centauri Bb, learn more about it (such as whether or not it has an atmosphere) and hunt for additional nearby alien worlds.

"If you want to envision exploring this system, then it's almost twice as easy to get there as anywhere else," Laughlin said. "This is our backyard, and to find out that planet formation did occur there is just extraordinarily exciting."

Astronomers have now discovered more than 800 exoplanets, but thousands more — including 2,300 detected by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope to date — await confirmation by follow-up investigations. Work so far suggests that small, rocky planets such as Earth are quite common throughout our Milky Way galaxy.

Private Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope to Launch in 2017

     
A private space telescope mission that aims to discover 500,000 near-Earth asteroids is technically sound and on track for a 2017 launch, a review panel says.

The mission design and implementation plans for the Sentinel Space Telescope — which is being put together by the nonprofit B612 Foundation and its partner Ball Aerospace — are solid, according to the panel, which is called the Sentinel Special Review Team.  "This is a major milestone in the development of Sentinel, and has validated the enormous amount of design and planning work that has already been carried out by Ball Aerospace," SSRT chair Tom Gavin, former director for solar system exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.The SSRT is composed of 11 experts in the aerospace community, who met in Boulder, Co., from Sept. 11-13 to pore over Sentinel's mission design. One of the team's members is Orlando Figueroa, who leads the Mars Program Planning Group, which is helping NASA reformulate its Red Planet exploration plans in the wake of recent budget cuts. [Photos: The Sentinel Space Telescope]The review represents the first big milestone in the Sentinel project, said B612 Foundation chairman and CEO Ed Lu, a former NASA astronaut.The SSRT looked at "how we plan to go about building the telescope, how we plan to manage this project, what the basic requirements are for the mission and how they'll flow down into requirements on the spacecraft, and the initial technical briefings on the spacecraft by subsystem," Lu told reporters today (Oct. 11).The review team found the Sentinel mission to be feasible, with a high chance of success, Lu added."Essentially, we're on the right track," he said.

The B612 Foundation plans to launch Sentinel in 2017, placing the instrument near the orbit of Venus. Sentinel will look outward from there, scanning Earth's neighborhood without having to fight the sun's overwhelming glare — a serious impediment to asteroid-hunting instruments on or near our planet.

The telescope's infrared eyes should spot about 500,000 near-Earth asteroids in less than six years of operation, B612 officials say. That would be quite a feat, considering that researchers have discovered just 10,000 or so such space rocks to date.

Sentinel's observations will help researchers develop the first-ever detailed, dynamic map of the inner solar system, B612 officials have said.

This map should allow scientists to identify potentially hazardous asteroids years or decades before they may strike Earth, giving humanity enough time to mount a deflection mission. The map will also spot space rocks that could make inviting targets for human exploration or mining activities down the road, officials have said.

B612 officials have not given a firm cost estimate for Sentinel, which is being funded privately. But the mission's price tag will likely be around several hundred million dollars, Lu has said.

• the Private Sentinel Space Telescope Will Hunt Asteroids (Infographic)
• When Space Attacks: The 6 Craziest Meteor Impacts
• Asteroid Mining Gallery: Planetary Resources to Mine Space Rocks

Venus: Runaway Greenhouse On The Second Planet From The Sun | Video

Although Venus and Earth are nearly twins in size and mass, a pressure cooker atmosphere makes Venus extremely inhospitable. Sulfuric acid clouds swirl about a volcanic surface more than 900° F.

Super-Earth Planet Likely Made of Diamond

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Illustration of the interior of 55 Cancri e — an extremely hot planet with a surface of mostly graphite surrounding a thick layer of diamond, below which is a layer of silicon-based minerals and a molten iron core at the center. CREDIT: Haven Giguere  View full size image

Move over, Hope Diamond. The most famous gems on Earth have new competition in the form of a planet made largely of diamond, astronomers say.

The alien planet, a so-called "super-Earth," is called 55 Cancri e and was discovered in 2004 around a nearby star in our Milky Way galaxy. After estimating the planet's mass and radius, and studying its host star's composition, scientists now say the rocky world is composed mainly of carbon (in the form of diamond and graphite), as well as iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.

At least a third of the planet's mass is likely pure diamond."This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth," lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan of Yale University said in a statement. "The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite."

55 Cancri e is the first likely "diamond planet" to be identified around a sun-like star, though such worlds have been theorized before. Planets like this are vastly different from our Earth, which has relatively little carbon.

"By contrast, Earth’s interior is rich in oxygen, but extremely poor in carbon — less than a part in thousand by mass," said study co-author and Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee.

55 Cancri e is what's known as a super-Earth, with a radius twice as wide as that of our own planet, and a mass eight times greater. It speeds around its host star, making a full orbit in just 18 hours (Earth takes 365 days). It is so close in to the star that its surface temperature reaches a scorching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,100 degrees Celsius), making it probably way too hot for life. [Oozing Super-Earth: Images of Alien Planet 55 Cancri e]

Previous studies of this planet suggested it might actually be covered with oozing "supercritical fluids" — high-pressure liquid-like gases — seeping out from its rocks. But this idea was based on the assumption that 55 Cancri e had a similar chemical makeup as Earth, Madhusudhan said. The new findings suggest the planet has no water at all.

The revelation of the planet's diamond nature means that it could have very different thermal evolution and plate tectonics processes than Earth, which could create bizarre types of volcanism, seismic activity, and mountain formation.  

55 Cancri e is one of five planets encircling a sun-like star called 55 Cancri, which lies about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cancer. This star is so close it is visible to the naked eye in the night sky.

The researchers hope to make follow-up observations of this star system to better determine the star's composition and to analyze 55 Cancri e's atmosphere. This information could bolster the idea that the planet is a diamond world.

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Mars Rock Touched by NASA Curiosity has Surprises

10.11.12

 

This image shows where NASA's Curiosity rover aimed two different instruments to study a rock known as "Jake Matijevic."Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
› Full image and caption
› Image gallery

This image shows the wall of a scuffmark NASA's Curiosity made in a windblown ripple of Martian sand with its wheel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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PASADENA, Calif. -- The first Martian rock NASA's Curiosity rover has reached out to touch presents a more varied composition than expected from previous missions. The rock also resembles some unusual rocks from Earth's interior.

The rover team used two instruments on Curiosity to study the chemical makeup of the football-size rock called "Jake Matijevic" (matt-EE-oh-vick) The results support some surprising recent measurements and provide an example of why identifying rocks' composition is such a major emphasis of the mission. Rock compositions tell stories about unseen environments and planetary processes.

"This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth," said Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who is a Curiosity co-investigator. "With only one Martian rock of this type, it is difficult to know whether the same processes were involved, but it is a reasonable place to start thinking about its origin."

On Earth, rocks with composition like the Jake rock typically come from processes in the planet's mantle beneath the crust, from crystallization of relatively water-rich magma at elevated pressure.

Jake was the first rock analyzed by the rover's arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument and about the thirtieth rock examined by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. Two penny-size spots on Jake were analyzed Sept. 22 by the rover's improved and faster version of earlier APXS devices on all previous Mars rovers, which have examined hundreds of rocks. That information has provided scientists a library of comparisons for what Curiosity sees.

"Jake is kind of an odd Martian rock," said APXS Principal Investigator Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. "It's high in elements consistent with the mineral feldspar, and low in magnesium and iron."

ChemCam found unique compositions at each of 14 target points on the rock, hitting different mineral grains within it.

"ChemCam had been seeing compositions suggestive of feldspar since August, and we're getting closer to confirming that now with APXS data, although there are additional tests to be done," said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens (WEENS) of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Examination of Jake included the first comparison on Mars between APXS results and results from checking the same rock with ChemCam, which shoots laser pulses from the top of the rover's mast.

The wealth of information from the two instruments checking chemical elements in the same rock is just a preview. Curiosity also carries analytical laboratories inside the rover to provide other composition information about powder samples from rocks and soil. The mission is progressing toward getting the first soil sample into those analytical instruments during a "sol," or Martian day.

"Yestersol, we used Curiosity's first perfectly scooped sample for cleaning the interior surfaces of our 150-micron sample-processing chambers. It's our version of a Martian carwash," said Chris Roumeliotis (room-eel-ee-OH-tiss), lead turret rover planner at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Before proceeding, the team carefully studied the material for scooping at a sandy patch called "Rocknest," where Curiosity is spending about three weeks.

"That first sample was perfect, just the right particle-size distribution," said JPL's Luther Beegle, Curiosity sampling-system scientist. "We had a lot of steps to be sure it was safe to go through with the scooping and cleaning."

Following the work at Rocknest, the rover team plans to drive Curiosity about 100 yards eastward and select a rock in that area as the first target for using the drill.

During a two-year prime mission, researchers will use Curiosity's 10 instruments to assess whether the study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project and built Curiosity. For more about the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl andhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity andhttp://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .