Astro Blog

Source:  NASA RELEASE 14-337 Excerpt: NASA and an international team of planetary scientists have found evidence in meteorites on Earth that indicates Mars has a distinct and global reservoir of water or ice near its surface. Though controversy still surrounds the origin, abundance and history of water on Mars, this discovery helps resolve the question of where the “missing Martian water” may have gone. ...These findings can be viewed online in their entirety at: http://go.nasa.gov/1zwSjTa http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/december/nasa-planetary-scientists-find-meteoritic-evidence-of-mars-water-reservoir/

Source:   By Kenneth Chang, The New York Times Excerpt: One of the first scientific findings to emerge from close-up study of a comet has all but settled a question that planetary scientists have debated for decades. The new finding, from the European Space Agency’s mission to the little duck-shaped comet called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, appears to eliminate the possibility that the water in Earth’s oceans came from melted comets. Water vapor streaming off the comet contains a higher fraction of “heavy hydrogen” than the water on Earth does, scientists reported on Wednesday. “That now probably rules out” comets as the primary source of terrestrial water, said Kathrin Altwegg, a scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the principal investigator for the Rosetta instrument that made the measurements. With comets unlikely, most astronomers now think Earth’s water came from asteroids. ...The new findings, published in the journal Science, came after Rosetta arrived at Com

Source:  NASA RELEASE 14-326 Excerpt: Observations by NASA’s Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.mThis interpretation of Curiosity’s finds in Gale Crater suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations on the Red Planet. "If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “A more radical explanation is that Mars' ancient, thicker atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally, but so far we don't know how the atmosphere did that." ..."We are making headway in solving the mystery of Mount Sharp," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technolo

Source:   By Marc Kaufman, The New York Times. Excerpt: For lifeless chemical compounds to organize themselves into something alive, scientists generally agree, three sets of things must be present: ■ Standing water and an energy source. ■ Five basic elements: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus and nitrogen. ■ And time, lots of time. In its search for environments where life might have started on Mars, the Curiosity rover has found the standing water, the energy and the key elements with the right atomic charges. As a result, scientists have concluded that at least some of the planet must have been habitable long ago. But the period when all conditions were right was counted in hundreds to thousands of years, a very small opening by origin-of-life standards.... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/science/-stronger-signs-of-life-on-mars.html

Source:   The New York Times. Excerpt: NASA’s Curiosity rover has explored Gale Crater for 833 Martian days, or Sols. And it has found evidence, written in red rocks and sand, of lakes and streams on a warmer, wetter, habitable Mars.... http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/science/space/curiosity-rover-28-months-on-mars.html

Source:   By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN Excerpt: Fiery asteroids smash into Earth's atmosphere at such a stunning rate, .... A new NASA map [http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/bolide-events-1994-2013/#.VGjvfoeRl7o] from the ... Near-Earth Object Program [http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/] , reveals that more than 556 space rocks smashed into the atmosphere over a 20-year period between 1994 and 2013. ...The good news is most are small and harmless fireballs that disintegrate when they hit the atmosphere, .... An obvious exception occurred on February 15, 2013, when an asteroid as large as 55 feet in diameter with a mass of up to 10,000 tons crashed to earth in the Urals region in Russia, streaking through the morning sky in Chelyabinsk [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMT7rIhETJM] before landing in a fiery explosion that injured more than a thousand people and caused an estimated $33 million in damage . ...NASA said the Chelyabinsk asteroid was the largest to hit the Earth during the agen

Source:   Kenneth Chang, The New York Times Excerpt: In a technological feat that gives scientists their first opportunity to dig into a remnant of the early solar system, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission successfully placed a small spacecraft on the surface of ... Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a 2.5-mile-wide ball of rock, ice and dust moving faster than 40,000 miles an hour,....” The agency’s director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain said at a news conference... “Not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first to deliver a probe to a comet’s surface.” ...For scientists, one of the central mysteries that Rosetta will explore is whether Earth’s oceans are filled with melted comets ... slamming into the Earth early on.... See also interview with Joel W. Parker , planetary scientist.... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/science/space/european-space-agencys-spacecraft-lands-on-comets-surface.html

Source:   4.1, 7.2, 8.3 Excerpt: …scientists… revealed new data uncovered by NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. …evidence that the lunar soil within shadowy craters is rich in useful materials, and … has a water cycle. Scientists also confirmed the water was in the form of mostly pure ice crystals in some places. …"NASA has convincingly confirmed the presence of water ice and characterized its patchy distribution in permanently shadowed regions of the moon," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist…. The twin impacts of LCROSS and a companion rocket stage in the moon's Cabeus crater on Oct. 9, 2009, lifted a plume of material that might not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years. As the plume traveled nearly 10 miles above the rim of Cabeus, instruments …made observations of the crater and debris and vapor clouds. After the impacts, grains of mostly pure water ice were lofted into

Source:   NASA RELEASE 14-236    Using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), mission scientists have solved a lunar mystery almost as old as the moon itself. Early theories suggested the craggy outline of a region of the moon’s surface known as Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Storms, was caused by an asteroid impact. ... However, mission scientists studying GRAIL data believe they have found evidence the craggy outline of this rectangular region -- roughly 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) across -- is actually the result of the formation of ancient rift valleys.  ...rifts are buried beneath dark volcanic plains on the nearside of the moon and have been detected only in the gravity data provided by GRAIL. ...The findings are published online in the journal Nature. Another theory arising from recent data analysis suggests this region formed as a result of churning deep in the interior of the moon that led to a high concentration of

Try out this interactive simulation for Crater Impacts. Keywords: asteroid, crater, impact, meteoroid http://simulator.down2earth.eu/ 

NASA RELEASE 14-241 Excerpt: Scientists have found evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter’s moon Europa. This indicates the first sign of this type of surface-shifting geological activity on a world other than Earth. ...While examining Europa images taken by NASA’s Galileo orbiter in the early 2000s, planetary geologists Simon Kattenhorn, of the University of Idaho, Moscow, and Louise Prockter, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, discovered some unusual geological boundaries. ...When Kattenhorn and Prockter rearranged the icy terrain in the images, they discovered about 7,700 square miles (about 20,000 square kilometers) of the surface were missing in the moon’s high northern latitudes. Further evidence suggested the missing terrain moved under a second surface plate -- a scenario commonly seen on Earth at plate-tectonic boundaries. Kattenhorn and Prockter saw ice volcanoes on the overriding plate, possibly formed throug

A new blog named "Planetary Blog" has replaced the old AstroBlog as of 2014 Sept 1. All AstroBlog posts before that date may still be found at the old blog site: We are working on transferring the old blog entries to the new one. Thanks for your patience. http://www.fossweb.com/astroblog

Source:  GeologyPage, based on Reuters story by Irene Klotz Excerpt: The chance of a city-killing asteroid striking Earth is higher than scientists previously believed, a non-profit group building an asteroid-hunting telescope said on Tuesday. A global network that listens for nuclear weapons detonations detected 26 asteroids that exploded in Earth's atmosphere from 2000 to 2013, data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization shows. The explosions include the February 15, 2013, impact over Chelyabinsk, Russia, which left more than 1,000 people injured by flying glass and debris. "There is a popular misconception that asteroid impacts are extraordinarily rare ... that's incorrect," said former astronaut Ed Lu, who now heads the California-based B612 Foundation. The foundation on Tuesday released a video visualization of the asteroid strikes in an attempt to raise public awareness of the threat. http://www.geologypage.com/2014/04/risk-o

Source:  NASA RELEASE 14-709 Excerpt: ...Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have created the largest high resolution mosaic of our moon’s north polar region. The six-and-a-half feet (two-meters)-per-pixel images cover an area equal to more than one-quarter of the United States. ...The entire image measures 931,070 pixels square – nearly 867 billion pixels total. ...LRO entered lunar orbit in June 2009 equipped with seven instrument suites to map the surface, probe the radiation environment, investigate water and key mineral resources, and gather geological clues about the moon's evolution.... http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/march/nasa-releases-first-interactive-mosaic-of-lunar-north-pole/#.UzYIUl5GLHQ  

Source:   NASA RELEASE 14-079 Excerpt: ...Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have created the largest high resolution mosaic of our moon’s north polar region. The six-and-a-half feet (two-meters)-per-pixel images cover an area equal to more than one-quarter of the United States. ...The entire image measures 931,070 pixels square – nearly 867 billion pixels total. ...LRO entered lunar orbit in June 2009 equipped with seven instrument suites to map the surface, probe the radiation environment, investigate water and key mineral resources, and gather geological clues about the moon's evolution.... http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/march/nasa-releases-first-interactive-mosaic-of-lunar-north-pole/#.UzYIUl5GLHQ

Source:  Jose Maria Madiedo and José Luis Ortiz,   University of Huelva and Andalusian Astrophysics Institute (respectively)    2014 Feb. Video on Youtube produced  on the occasion of the publication of a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=perqv4qByaI&feature=youtu.be

Source:  NASA RELEASE 14-056               Excerpt: ...NASA’s Asteroid Initiative includes two separate, but related activities: the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the Asteroid Grand Challenge.  NASA is currently developing concepts for the mission, which will employ a robotic spacecraft to capture a small near-Earth asteroid, or remove a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid, and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Astronauts will travel aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, launched on the Space Launch System rocket, to rendezvous in lunar orbit with the captured asteroid material. Once there, they will collect samples to return to Earth for study. The grand challenge is seeking the best ideas to find all asteroid threats to human populations, and to accelerate the work that NASA is already doing for planetary defense. ...NASA's asteroid initiative:  http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative  .... http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/february/nasa-to-hold-astero

Source:  NASA RELEASE 14-056                Excerpt: ...NASA’s Asteroid Initiative includes two separate, but related activities: the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the Asteroid Grand Challenge.  NASA is currently developing concepts for the mission, which will employ a robotic spacecraft to capture a small near-Earth asteroid, or remove a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid, and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Astronauts will travel aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, launched on the Space Launch System rocket, to rendezvous in lunar orbit with the captured asteroid material. Once there, they will collect samples to return to Earth for study. The grand challenge is seeking the best ideas to find all asteroid threats to human populations, and to accelerate the work that NASA is already doing for planetary defense. ...NASA's asteroid initiative:  http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative  .... http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/february/nasa-to-hold-aster

Source:  NASA  Press Release 14-021 Excerpt: Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres.... http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/herschel-telescope-detects-water-on-dwarf-planet/#.Uuc84PbTl9I