NASA News
Courtesy of Science Daily

Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth In M83, The Southern Pinwheel The spectacular new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. Publ.Date : Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST Professor To Predict Weather On Mars Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms. A professor of atmospheric sciences now hopes to analyze and forecast Martian weather. Publ.Date : Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST NASA's Fermi Telescope Detects Gamma Rays From 'Star Factories' In Other Galaxies Nearby galaxies undergoing a furious pace of star formation also emit lots of gamma rays, say astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Two so-called "starburst" galaxies, plus a satellite of our own Milky Way galaxy, represent a new category of gamma-ray-emitting objects detected both by Fermi and ground-based observatories. Publ.Date : Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST Amnesia-Like Behavior Returns On Mars Rover Spirit Until Oct. 24, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover had gone more than six months without an episode of amnesia-like symptoms like those that appeared on four occasions earlier this year. In these amnesia events, Spirit fails to record data from the day's activities onto the type of computer memory -- non-volatile "flash" memory -- that can retain the data when the rover powers down for its energy-conserving periods of "sleep." Publ.Date : Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Sees Channels From Hale Crater A new image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows channels to the southeast of Hale crater on southern Mars. Taken by the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, this view covers an area about 3 kilometers (2 miles) wide. Publ.Date : Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST Opening Up A Colorful Cosmic Jewel Box The combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes, the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal, the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at ESO's La Silla observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light. Publ.Date : Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:00:00 EDT Exploring The Final Frontier: Disease Proposed As Major Barrier To Mars And Beyond Scientists argue that human missions to Mars, as well as all other long-term space flights might be compromised by microbial hitchhikers, such as bacteria. That's because long-term space travel packs a one-two punch to astronauts: first it appears to weaken their immune systems; and second, it increases the virulence and growth of microbes. Publ.Date : Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT New Celestial Map Gives Directions For GPS Many of us have been rescued from unfamiliar territory by directions from a Global Positioning System navigator. GPS satellites send signals to a receiver in your GPS navigator, which calculates your position based on the location of the satellites and your distance from them. The distance is determined by how long it took the signals from various satellites to reach your receiver. Publ.Date : Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EDT Key Process For Space Outpost Proved On 'Vomit Comet' Ride During flights simulating the moon's low gravity, researchers find that sifters can separate soil particles and produce the best feedstock for an oxygen generator. Scientists are designing and testing components of the generator, which would provide oxygen needed for a lunar or Martian outpost. Publ.Date : Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EDT Gamma-ray Photon Race Ends In Dead Heat; Einstein Wins This Round A pair of gamma-ray photons -- one possessed of a million times the energy of the other -- arrived at virtually the same instant at NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, after a 7.3-billion-year race across the universe. Some proponents of alternatives to Einstein's theory of gravity would have predicted that the more energetic would have been much farther behind the less energetic one. They were wrong -- Einstein wins this round. Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:00:00 EDT NASA's Ares I-X Rocket Completes Successful Flight Test NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The test flight lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly-modified Launch Complex 39B until splash down of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles down range. The 327-foot tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g's and Mach 4.76, just shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a sub-orbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster. Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EDT Robot Armada Might Scale New Worlds An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes. Publ.Date : Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT World's Fastest Supercomputer Models Origins Of The Unseen Universe A new "Roadrunner Universe" model requires a petascale computer because, like the universe, it's mind-bendingly large. The model's basic unit is a particle with a mass of approximately one billion suns (in order to sample galaxies with masses of about a trillion suns), and it includes 64 billion and more of those particles. The model is one of the largest simulations of the distribution of matter in the universe, and aims to look at galaxy-scale mass concentrations above and beyond quantities seen in state-of-the-art sky surveys. Publ.Date : Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT Long Night Falls Over Saturn's Rings As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, once approximately every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days. Publ.Date : Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:00:00 EDT Galaxy Cluster Smashes Distance Record The most distant galaxy cluster yet has been discovered by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical and infrared telescopes. The cluster is located about 10.2 billion light years away, and is observed as it was when the universe was only about a quarter of its present age. Publ.Date : Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT High-Speed Test To Improve Pathogen Decontamination Developed A NASA chemist has developed a technology intended to rapidly assess any presence of microbial life on spacecraft. This new method may also help the military test for disease-causing bacteria, such as a causative agent for anthrax, and may also be useful in the medical, pharmaceutical and other fields. Publ.Date : Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EDT Astronomers Find Organic Molecules Around Gas Planet Peering far beyond our solar system, NASA researchers have detected the basic chemistry for life in a second hot gas planet, advancing astronomers toward the goal of being able to characterize planets where life could exist. The planet is not habitable but it has the same chemistry that, if found around a rocky planet in the future, could indicate the presence of life. Publ.Date : Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EDT How The Moon Produces Its Own Water The Moon is a big sponge that absorbs electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. These particles interact with the oxygen present in some dust grains on the lunar surface, producing water. This discovery, made by the ESA-ISRO instrument SARA onboard the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, confirms how water is likely being created on the lunar surface. Publ.Date : Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:00:00 EDT New View Of The Heliosphere: Cassini Helps Redraw Shape Of Solar System The solar system, as defined by the heliosphere, the region of the sun's influence, may have a quite different shape than scientists had thought. Publ.Date : Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:00:00 EDT Galactic Magnetic Fields May Control Boundaries Of Our Solar System Galactic magnetic fields had a far greater impact on Earth's history than previously conceived, and the future of our planet and others may depend, in part, on how the galactic magnetic fields change with time. Publ.Date : Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:00:00 EDT New Concept May Enhance Earth-Mars Communication Direct communication between Earth and Mars can be strongly disturbed and even blocked by the Sun for weeks at a time, cutting off any future human mission to the Red Planet. An European Space Agency engineer working with engineers in the UK may have found a solution using a new type of orbit combined with continuous-thrust ion propulsion. Publ.Date : Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:00:00 EDT Catching The Interstellar Wind: Spacecraft Finds Ribbon-like Structure At Edge Of Heliosphere NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft has made it possible for scientists to construct the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system and its location in the Milky Way galaxy. The new view will change the way researchers view and study the interaction between our galaxy and sun. Results include the discovery of a narrow ribbon of bright details or emissions not resembling any of the current theoretical models of the interstellar boundary region. Publ.Date : Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT Satellite Reveals Surprising Cosmic 'Weather' At Edge Of Solar System The first solar system energetic particle maps show an unexpected landmark occurring at the outer edge of the solar wind bubble surrounding the solar system. Scientists have now published these maps, based mostly on data collected from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite. Publ.Date : Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT First IBEX Maps Reveal Fascinating Interactions Occurring At The Edge Of The Solar System The first all-sky maps developed by NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, the first mission to examine the global interactions occurring at the edge of the solar system, reveal surprising and intense interactions between our home in the galaxy and interstellar space. Publ.Date : Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT