Website For Astronomers To Report Unexplained Aerospace Phenomena

A website has been launched giving amateur and professional astronomers a formal mechanism for reporting any unexplained phenomena they observe when studying the night sky.
Initiated within the framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), the Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) Observations Reporting Scheme aims to provide a global focus for sightings by astronomers and contribute toward a better understanding of transient phenomena occurring in the atmosphere.
The reporting scheme has been set up by amateur astronomer Philippe Ailleris, who proposes to use the IYA2009's network of professional and amateur astronomers to collect additional and more rigorous information on UAPs, more popularly referred to as UFOs.
"These phenomena are mainly seen in the night sky, a domain that astronomers have long considered their own, and it is important to collect testimonies from members of the population that are trained observers.
We aim to approach this controversial field of UAP sightings from a professional, rational point of view and without any preconceived ideas. Certainly whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists could learn something new by further study," said Ailleris.
Ailleris has developed a questionnaire that requests precise details of the sightings, including the location, time, elevation, velocity, apparent size and distance of the UAP, as well as a description of the terrain and weather conditions at the observation point and any sketches, photos, audio or video footage.
The website provides detailed information on common nocturnal and daytime misidentifications, such as sightings of satellites, weather balloons, rockets and natural phenomena such as meteors, planets, ball lightning, sprites and mirages. There are also links to relevant websites where people can further check charts and details.
"As well as allowing people to double check their sighting against explainable causes, we hope that the website will be a useful tool for the astronomy community to redirect enquiries from the general public and to help engage with the public in discussions about the science behind what is seen in the sky.
Many professional and amateur astronomers are scanning the skies with all kinds of technical equipment - telescopes, binoculars, video-cameras, cameras with spectrographs - which creates an excellent opportunity to obtain supplementary data related to UAP sightings.
This is also a great opportunity to engage with the general public and discuss some of the challenges astronomers face in determining various parameters such as coordinates, altitude, distance, speed and size.
I hope we can use this opportunity to enthuse young (and not so young) people and prompt them to start looking upwards and outwards to make sense of their place in the Universe," said Ailleris.

Avatar Moon Pandora Could Be Real

In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact.
If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger shows that the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) will be able to study their atmospheres and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor.
"If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade," said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
So far, planet searches have spotted hundreds of Jupiter-sized objects in a range of orbits. Gas giants, while easier to detect, could not serve as homes for life as we know it. However, scientists have speculated whether a rocky moon orbiting a gas giant could be life-friendly, if that planet orbited within the star's habitable zone (the region warm enough for liquid water to exist).
"All of the gas giant planets in our solar system have rocky and icy moons," said Kaltenegger. "That raises the possibility that alien Jupiters will also have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold onto an atmosphere."
Kepler looks for planets that cross in front of their host stars, which creates a mini-eclipse and dims the star by a small but detectable amount. Such a transit lasts only hours and requires exact alignment of star and planet along our line of sight. Kepler will examine thousands of stars to find a few with transiting worlds.
Once they have found an alien Jupiter, astronomers can look for orbiting moons, or exomoons. A moon's gravity would tug on the planet and either speed or slow its transit, depending on whether the moon leads or trails the planet. The resulting transit duration variations would indicate the moon's existence.
Once a moon is found, the next obvious question would be: Does it have an atmosphere? If it does, those gases will absorb a fraction of the star's light during the transit, leaving a tiny, telltale fingerprint to the atmosphere's composition.
The signal is strongest for large worlds with hot, puffy atmospheres, but an Earth-sized moon could be studied if conditions are just right. For example, the separation of moon and planet needs to be large enough that we could catch just the moon in transit, while its planet is off to one side of the star.
Kaltenegger calculated what conditions are best for examining the atmospheres of alien moons. She found that Alpha Centauri A, the system featured in Avatar, would be an excellent target.
"Alpha Centauri A is a bright, nearby star very similar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong signal" Kaltenegger explained. "You would only need a handful of transits to find water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and methane on an Earth-like moon such as Pandora."
"If the Avatar movie is right in its vision, we could characterize that moon with JWST in the near future," she added.
While Alpha Centauri A offers tantalizing possibilities, small, dim, red dwarf stars are better targets in the hunt for habitable planets or moons. The habitable zone for a red dwarf is closer to the star, which increases the probability of a transit.
Astronomers have debated whether tidal locking could be a problem for red dwarfs. A planet close enough to be in the habitable zone would also be close enough for the star's gravity to slow it until one side always faces the star. (The same process keeps one side of the Moon always facing Earth.) One side of the planet then would be baked in constant sunlight, while the other side would freeze in constant darkness.
An exomoon in the habitable zone wouldn't face this dilemma. The moon would be tidally locked to its planet, not to the star, and therefore would have regular day-night cycles just like Earth. Its atmosphere would moderate temperatures, and plant life would have a source of energy moon-wide.
"Alien moons orbiting gas giant planets may be more likely to be habitable than tidally locked Earth-sized planets or super-Earths," said Kaltenegger. "We should certainly keep them in mind as we work toward the ultimate goal of finding alien life."

A Blue Moon For New Year's Eve

When you hear someone say "Once in a Blue Moon" you know what they mean. They're usually talking about something rare, silly, and even absurd. After all, when was the last time you saw the moon turn blue? Well, rare or not, we're having one this month, and according to astronomer David Reneke from Australasian Science magazine, it's going to happen on New Year's Eve!
It's not at all clear where the term 'Blue Moon' comes from. It dates back at least 400 years. According to modern folklore, a Blue Moon is the second full Moon in a calendar month.
"Usually months have only one full moon, but occasionally a second one sneaks in, David said. "Earlier cultures around the world considered the second full moon to be spiritually significant."
Full moons are separated by 29 days, while most months are 30 or 31 days long; so it is possible to fit two full moons in a single month. This happens every two and a half years, on average. By the way, February is the only month that can never have a Blue Moon by this definition. This month features full moons on December 2 and December 31.
Does the blue Moon actually turn blue? No. Blue moons are rare, and that's where the phrase comes from, "once in a Blue Moon".
There are occasions though when pollution in the Earth's atmosphere can make the moon look particularly bluish. The extra dust scatters blue light.
For example, the Moon appeared blue across the entire Earth for about 2 years after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.There were also reports of blue moons caused by Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
"A New Year's Eve like this year's one really does come around once in a blue moon," David said. "Look up at the sky on December 31 and see for yourself." For the first time since 1990, revellers will be able to ring in the New Year under the light of a Blue Moon. The next blue moon to occur on New Year's Eve will not happen until 2028.
"Blue Moons don't have any real significance scientifically but they're fun to look at,' David said." Anytime you can get people out to look at the real sky to me is a great plus, enjoy it while you can this New Year's Eve."

China To Launch Second Lunar Probe In 2010

China will launch its second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, in October 2010, a top Chinese space scientist told China Daily on Thursday. The newspaper quoted Ye Peijian, chief designer of the nation's first moon probe, as saying that the second lunar orbiter will carry different payloads and orbit the moon in a different way.
"It will orbit 100 km closer to the Moon
and be equipped with better facilities. We expect to acquire more scientific data about the moon with increased accuracy," he was quoted as saying.
Though Chang'e-2 was at one time the backup to Chang'e-1, it has gone through technical upgrades for its new mission. Payloads on board have been improved, and the vehicle now boasts a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera on board, which has a much higher resolution than the camera on China's first lunar probe.
Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist with China's lunar exploration team, said on Wednesday during an interview with People's Daily Online that systems on Chang'e-2 are undergoing "match-up and drills" and everything has gone well.
Tests will also be carried out during Chang'e-2's mission to prepare for the lunar-lander and rover, Ye was quoted as saying.
He also told the third International Conference on Space Information Technology in Beijing Thursday that the country's lunar-lander and rover, Chang'e-3, is also well on the way toward liftoff - the project is in the prototype stage and its launch is set for before 2013.
Chang'e-3, China's first lunar-lander and rover, is scheduled to be launched from a Long March 3B launch vehicle from the Xichang satellite launch center before 2013, Ye was quoted as saying.
At present, work on Chang'e-3 has gone beyond the planning stage and the machinery is now in the prototype stage.
The landing site on the moon for Chang'e-3 has also been chosen. Ye said it will be in the Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows).
The scientific objectives of the project include investigating the lunar landscape and exploring the geological structure of the moon. The mission will also help China study the material composition of the moon and search for usable resources.
Chang'e-2 and Chang'e-3 are part of the second phase of China's lunar exploration program.
China launched its lunar mission in 2007 when it successfully put an unmanned probe, Chang'e-1, into lunar orbit. The spacecraft transmitted pictures of the moon's surface in January 2008.

Is There Life On The Moon ?

Scientists are looking for life in space. So far, they haven't found any life beyond Earth itself. We seem to be getting closer to discovering life somewhere else in our own solar system, with Mars, and some moons of Jupiter and Saturn being considered likely hiding spots for microbes..
Could there be life closer to our home planet? Probably not, but it's worth considering what could be lurking on the Moon. We've discovered evidence that the polar regions of the Moon are the coldest natural places in the solar system. It's not the sort of environment that's friendly to life. Anything that tried to survive there would certainly freeze. But what could these conditions preserve? Could the Moon be a storehouse of chemicals and structures that have disappeared from other regions of the solar system?
Part of the reason why we explore space is not only to discover life, but to find the precursors to life. Outer space holds the records of what conditions were like when the Earth was young, and life could have been getting started on our planet.
If certain regions on the Moon have been frozen for eons, the Moon could be one of our most promising areas for biotic chemistry research.
This material could have been deposited by comets impacting the Moon, or it could have developed locally through chemical processes. Exactly what we will find, and how it got there, are mysteries waiting to be solved.
Substances awaiting discovery could include organic molecules, amino acids or even crude lipid membranes that resemble the walls of living cells. Even something as simple as checking the chirality, or "left or right-handedness", of the arrangement of atoms in a molecule, could be significant.
Some lifeforms will use one form of a molecule, but cannot absorb the "mirror image" of the same molecule, even though it's really the same chemical.
Getting to this material won't be easy. It will take more than a simple rock scoop or drill to retrieve it, and preserve the material inside. We will need sensors that can perform in-situ analyses of the soil and the volatiles it contains (such as water). Similar instruments have already operated on the surface of Mars.
Some material may even need to be transported in a refrigerated state all the way back to Earth, a challenging task for any mission planner. Keeping the material free from contamination will also be important.
At the moment, most attention on the polar regions is focused on the search for water. The quest for astrobiology shouldn't be forgotten in future missions.

Kansas Scientists Probe Mysterious Possible Comet Strikes On Earth

It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside. But this isn't a disaster movie plotline.
"Comet impacts might be much more frequent than we expect," said Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas.
"There's a lot of interest in the rate of impact events upon the Earth. We really don't know the rate very well because most craters end up being destroyed by erosion or the comets go into the ocean and we don't know that they're there. We really don't have a good handle on the rate of impacts on the Earth."
An investigation by Melott and colleagues reveals a promising new method of detecting past comet strikes upon Earth and gauging their frequency.
The research shows a potential signature of nitrate and ammonia that can be found in ice cores corresponding to suspected impacts. Although high nitrate levels previously have been tied to space impacts, scientists have never before seen atmospheric ammonia spikes as indicators of space impacts with our planet.
"Now we have a possible new marker for extraterrestrial events in ice," Melott said. "You don't just look for nitrates, you also look for ammonia."
Melott studied two possible cometary airbursts with Brian Thomas, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Washburn University, Gisela Dreschhoff, KU adjunct associate professor of physics and astronomy, and Carey Johnson, KU professor of chemistry.
In June 1908, a puzzling explosion rocked central Siberia in Russia; it came to be known as the "Tunguska event." A later expedition found that 20 miles of trees had been knocked down and set alight by the blast. Today, scientists have coalesced around the idea that Tunguska's devastation was caused by a 100-foot comet that had entered Earth's atmosphere, causing an airburst.
Some 13,000 years earlier, an occurrence thought by some researchers to be an extraterrestrial impact set off cooler weather and large-scale extinctions in North America. The "Younger Dryas event," as it is known, coincided with the end of the prehistoric Clovis culture.
Melott and fellow researchers examined data from ice cores extracted in Greenland to compare atmospheric chemistry during the Tunguska and Younger Dryas events. In both instances, Melott's group found evidence that the Haber process - whereby a nitrogen fixation reaction produces ammonia - may have occurred on a large scale.
"A comet entering the atmosphere makes a big shock wave with high pressure - 6,000 times the pressure of air," said Melott.
"It can be shown that under those conditions you can make ammonia। Plus the Tunguska comet, or some fragments of it, landed in a swamp। And any Younger Dryas comet presumably hit an ice sheet, or at least part of it did. So there should have been lots of water around for this Haber process to work. We think the simplest way to explain the signal in both objects is the Haber process. Comets hit the atmosphere in the presence of a lot of water and you get both nitrate and ammonia, which is what both ice cores show."
Melott cautions that the results are inconclusive because the ice cores are sampled at five-year intervals only, not sufficient resolution to pinpoint peaks of atmospheric nitrates and ammonia, which rapidly would have been dissipated by rains following a comet strike.
But the KU researcher contends that ammonia enhancement resulting from the Haber process could serve as a useful marker for detecting possible comet impacts. He encourages more sampling and analysis of ice cores to see where the nitrate-ammonia signal might line up with suspected cometary collisions with the Earth.
Such information could help humankind more accurately gauge the danger of a comet hitting the Earth in the future.
"There's a whole program to watch for near-Earth asteroids as they go around the sun repeatedly, and some of them have close brushes with the Earth," said Melott.
"But comets are a whole different ball game. They don't do that circular thing. They come straight in from far, far out - and you don't see them coming until they push out a tail only a few years before they would enter the inner solar system. So we could be hit by a comet and only have a few years' warning - possibly not enough time to do anything about it."

Night sky of Mount Everest

Very few sights could make mighty Mount Everest seem insignificant, but this could be one of them - an awe-inspiring image of the stars in the night sky casting their glow from inconceivable distances onto the world's highest peak. The photograph shows the constellation Auriga looming above Everest, seen to the left of its smaller Himalayan neighbour Lhotse, while in the foreground stands a stupa - a Buddhist monument. The celestial scene was pictured late last month near Namche Bazar, Nepal, above the gateway to the mountain range.Almost directly over Everest is the dazzling star Capella. While in astronomical terms it is relatively close to our own solar system, its distance is still a mind-boggling 42.2 light years - that's 248 trillion miles - making Everest's five-mile height seem minuscule. Though to our eyes it appears as a single star - the third brightest in the Northern sky - Capella is actually a complicated system of four stars revolving in two binary pairs. Auriga means 'charioteer' and to the ancient Greeks it represented either the lame god Hephaestus or his son, the inventor of the four horse chariot which earned him a place of honour in the sky.
Also visible in the photograph is Aldebaran, the 'bull's eye' of the constellation Taurus, and above it the famous 'seven sisters' of the Pleiades. What might appear to be a fallen star nestling in the folds of the mountains is in fact the brightly lit monastery of Tengboche.

Beams Are Back

After more than one year of repairs, the LHC is now back on track to create high-energy particle collisions that may yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe.
"The LHC is a machine unprecedented in size, in complexity, and in the scope of the international collaboration that has built it over the last 15 years," said Dennis Kovar, U.S. Department of Energy Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. "I congratulate the scientists and engineers that have worked to get the LHC back up and running, and look forward to the discoveries to come."
American scientists have played an important role in the construction of the LHC. About 150 scientists, engineers and technicians from three DOE national laboratories -- Brookhaven Lab, Fermilab and Berkeley Lab -- built critical accelerator components. They are joined by colleagues from DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin in ongoing LHC accelerator R&D. The work has been supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Circulating beams are a major milestone on the way to the ultimate goal: data from high-energy particle collisions in each of the LHC's four major particle detectors. Over the next few months, scientists will create collisions between two beams of protons. These very first LHC collisions will take place at the relatively low energy of 900 GeV. They will then raise the beam energy, aiming for collisions at the world-record energy of 7 TeV in early 2010. With these high-energy collisions, the hunt for discoveries at the LHC will begin.
"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."
In all, an estimated 10,000 people from 60 countries have helped design and build the LHC accelerator and its four massive particle detectors, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 97 U.S. universities and laboratories in 32 states and Puerto Rico supported by the DOE Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

Space flight of Amelia

As a new major motion picture about famed female pilot Amelia Earhart prepares to launch onto movie theater screens this weekend, a scarf she wore is being readied for its own liftoff, flying on the space shuttle with the astronaut grandson of her personal photographer.
Randy Bresnik, whose grandfather Albert was recruited by Earhart in 1932 to be her only authorized photographer, is set to take the scarf on shuttle Atlantis when it departs with supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station (ISS) in November.
"We are flying Amelia Earhart's favorite scarf that she unfortunately did not take with her on her final mission," revealed the STS-129 astronaut during an interview . "Fortunately, she also decided not to take her photographer with her otherwise I might not be here today."
As the film "Amelia" starring Hilary Swank in the title role recounts, Earhart, who made the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman in 1933, and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt in 1937 to become the first female to fly around the world.

Giant Impact which form Shiva Crater in India, killed Dinosaurs

A huge, mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater ever found on Earth. And if a new study is right, this impact may supercede the one that created the Chicxulub crater off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula as what may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and a team of researchers have been studying a 500-kilometer-wide (300-mile-wide) depression on the Indian Ocean seafloor which was likely created by a bolide perhaps 40 kilometers (25 miles) in diameter. Such an event would have triggered worldwide climate changes, including intensified volcanism, that led to mass extinction.Since the 1990's the leading candidate for what killed the dinosaurs was a ten-kilometer-wide (six-mile-wide) asteroid thought to have carved out the Chicxulub crater. This impact may have done the job, but if not, 300,000 later the impact that created the Shiva basin surely would have finished off large life on Earth.
The massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mined for its oil and gas resources. Some complex craters are among the most productive hydrocarbon sites on the planet.
"If we are right, this is the largest crater known on our planet," Chatterjee said. "A bolide of this size, creates its own tectonics."
However, some geologists have disputed whether the Shiva depression was created by an impact, or if it is just a hole in Earth's crust, possibly created by volcanism. Christian Koeberl, a geochemist at the University of Vienna in Austria, has been adamant in the past that Shiva is not an impact crater. He said not only is there no evidence of impact in the case of Shiva, there is no crater structure. He calls Shiva, "a figment of imagination."
"There's not even ambiguous evidence, or inconclusive evidence," says Koeberl. "There are a couple of people that keep pushing for some crater in the Indian Ocean, but this is inconsistent not only with the regional geology and geophysics, but also with anything we know about impact cratering."
But Chatterjee feels sure that Shiva is an impact crater and said the geological evidence is dramatic. Shiva's outer rim forms a rough, faulted ring some 500 kilometers in diameter, encircling the central peak, known as the Bombay High, which would be 3 miles tall from the ocean floor (about the height of Mount McKinley). Most of the crater lies submerged on India's continental shelf, but where it does come ashore it is marked by tall cliffs, active faults and hot springs. The impact appears to have sheared or destroyed much of the 30-mile-thick granite layer in the western coast of India.
If the huge depression was created by an impact, Earth's crust at the point of collision would have been vaporized, leaving nothing but ultra-hot mantle material to well up in its place. It is likely that the impact enhanced the nearby Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions that covered much of western India. What's more, the impact broke the Seychelles islands off of the Indian tectonic plate, and sent them drifting toward Africa.
The team hopes to go India later this year to examine rocks drill from the center of the putative crater for clues that would prove the strange basin was formed by a gigantic impact.
"Rocks from the bottom of the crater will tell us the telltale sign of the impact event from shattered and melted target rocks. And we want to see if there are breccias, shocked quartz, and an iridium anomaly," Chatterjee said.Asteroids are rich in iridium, and such anomalies are thought of as the fingerprint of an impact.

32 NEW PLANETS DISCOVERED

Astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6-metre telescope. The number of known exoplanets is now at 406, and HARPS itself has discovered more than 75 exoplanets in 30 different planetary systems. Included in this most recent batch are several low-mass planets – so-called "Super Earths" about the size of Neptune. The image above is an artist's impression of a planet discovered that is 6 times the mass of Earth, which circles the low-mass host star, Gliese 667 C, at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. Two other planets were discovered previously around this star.
"HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," said ESO astronomer Stéphane Udry. "We have now completed our initial five-year program, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations."No Earth-like planets were discovered in this group that was announced at an exoplanet conference in Portugal.

Opportunity finds Meteorite at Mars

Opportunity must be driving down Meteorite Alley on Mars. The rover has come across still another meteorite, the third space rock it has found the past few months, and fourth overall since 2005. This one is called Mackinac, which continues the "island" theme by which the science team has dubbed the meteorites. Block Island was found in July 2009, and Opportunity came upon Shelter Island the end of September (around sol 2020 for the rover). Mackinac was found on sol 2034 (Oct 13), and it looks very similar in composition to the two earlier meteorites. Opportunity analyzed the Block Island and found it was made of iron and nickel.

Body Art of Mars

see the Bad Astronomer has beat me to the punch by posting this image before I could. But what an amazing and gorgeous image of dunes on Mars! However, my initial thought when I saw this on the HiRISE webpage was perhaps this was the first long-awaited look at Phil's tattoo. Seriously, doesn't this look like it could be body art? The dunes even have a Phil-like flesh color. But this wonderful image was taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. There is a great database of dune images gathered for the US Geological Survey on the HiRISE website,

Our INTEGRAL astronomer

Boy from Vadodara wins "Be an INTEGRAL astronomer" competition organised by the European Space AgencyAn 18 year-old secondary school student, Shyamal Patel of Baroda High School, Alkapuri, Vadodara has been declared the winner of the 'Be an INTEGRAL astronomer' competition। This competition was organised by the European Space Agency (ESA) in August this year as a part of the celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) 2009. The participants were categorised as secondary students and University undergraduates and hailed from many countries. Michelle Knights, from Rhodes University, South Africa, was chosen winner amongst University undergraduates. Vaidehi Sharan Paliya, Banaras Hindu University, was a runner up in this category.ESA's INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) is the most sensitive gamma-ray space observatory ever launched. It has been making groundbreaking observations of the most energetic objects in the Universe since its launch in October 2002. In the competition students were presented with data from INTEGRAL and asked to study the Galactic Bulge, one of the most active regions at the heart of our Galaxy. Entrants were required to perform research tasks using INTEGRAL data of variable X-ray sources. The tasks included interpreting the data, searching for evidence of variability and then writing a report on their research. The competition entries were judged by an expert panel comprising ESA scientists.Shyamal is a keen amateur astronomer who has participated in several activities to promote and increase awareness of astronomy, including a workshop for school students organised by AAAV during the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009. He was previously the winner of an ASI and ISRO sponsored student competition to attend the 2007 International Astronautical Congress."My interest in the field of astronomy always keeps me excited to explore our Universe," said Shyamal. "(The) 'Be an Integral Astronomer' competition gave me an opportunity and motivation to work, explore and understand the high energy Universe." Prof. Ranjeev Misra of IUCAA, Pune - said " I highly appreciate the hard work put in by Shaymal, Vaidehi and the others. I am very heartened to know that young Indian students are leading in international competitions in advanced subjects like Astronomy. I hope the winners will go on to be professionals by taking up Science and that they will set examples for others to try out this fascinating subject. "
illustrator -David opie
link-http://spacemandave.com/

A shocking Study !

ONE nation's thirst for groundwater is having an impact on global sea levels. Satellite measurements show that northern India is sucking some 54 trillion litres of water out of the ground every year. This is threatening a major water crisis and adding to global sea level rise.
Virendra Tiwari from the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India, and colleagues used gravity data from the GRACE satellite to monitor the loss of continental mass around the world since 2002. Regions where water is being removed from the ground have less mass and therefore exert a smaller gravitational pull on the satellite.
The data revealed that groundwater under northern India and its surroundings is being extracted exceptionally fast. Tiwari and colleagues calculate that between 2002 and 2008 an average of 54 cubic kilometres - enough to fill more than 21 million Olympic swimming pools - was lost every year. Boreholes in the region show the water table is dropping by around 10 centimetres a year (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI : 10. 1029/2009g1039401).
Agriculture is the primary culprit, says John Wahr of the University of Colorado at Boulder. If the trend isn't reversed soon, the 600 million people living in the region could face severe water shortages in the next few years.
The "lost" water doesn't just disappear, though. Most of it runs into the oceans. The team calculates that it could be pushing up global sea levels by as much as 0.16 millimetres each year. That's 5 per cent of total sea level rise.

Comets and the Origin of Life

STEP by step, the case for an extraterrestrial origin of life has got stronger. But though the case for planetary panspermia - the idea that micro-organisms transfer between planets - is now widely accepted, interstellar panspermia remains controversial.
A key element in the scheme, promoted by Chandra Wickramasinghe and the late Fred Hoyle, are comets, the bodies in which the desiccated bacteria of interstellar space are claimed to come to life before being ferried to planetary surfaces। The recent discovery of amino acids and clays in comets, which could have formed only if comets once had liquid-water interiors, bolsters the case for interstellar panspermia. Yet most scientists require more evidence. Here, the fascinating case that we are all ETs is spelled out in semi-technical rather than popular form.

A warmer world ahead

BY 2055, climate change is likely to have warmed the world by a dangerous 4 °C unless we stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere the way we do now. This is the startling conclusion of a study by the UK Met Office, unveiled at a conference in Oxford this week.
Why so soon? Because temperature rises caused by greenhouse gas emissions are expected to trigger dangerous feedback loops, which will release ever increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. The nature and scale of these feedback loops is a subject of vigorous debate among climate scientists, but warmer oceans, for instance, may liberate more dissolved CO2, and plants may decay faster in a warmer climate. The Met Office ran 17 different models with these feedbacks. All concluded a 4 °C world by 2055 was likely if emissions continue to rise. Even if we are lucky, we are still likely to hit 4 °C by 2070.
What will a 4 °C world look like? Brace yourself: the picture painted by the 130 climate researchers at the Oxford conference is not pretty. An average global increase of 4 °C translates to a rise of up to 15 °C at the North Pole. Summers in parts of the Arctic would be as balmy as California's Napa valley. Sea levels would rise by up to 1.4 metres, according to Stefan Rahmstorf at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. Even the less pessimistic estimate of a 0.65-metre rise by 2100 would put at least 190 million people a year at risk from floods, says Rahmstorf's colleague Jochen Hinkel.
The glimmer of hope? It doesn't have to be this way. If politicians at the UN climate change talks in December agree to cut emissions by 3 per cent every year, the world can limit temperature rise to a "safe" 2 °C, the Met Office says.
The Amazon - gone
In a 4 °C world, climate change, deforestation and fires spreading from degraded land into pristine forest will conspire to destroy over 83 per cent of the Amazon rainforest by 2100, according to climatologist Wolfgang Cramer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. His climate models show global warming alone converting 30 per cent of the Amazon into degraded shrub land and mixed woodland by 2100. Even this grim estimate is based on the hopeful assumption that extra CO2 in the atmosphere will "fertilise" the forest, buffering it from drought. But we can't be sure this will happen, says Cramer. "If we've overestimated the magnitude of CO2 fertilisation, we risk losing the entire Amazon."
Water lifeline cut
Millions of people in India and China depend on monsoon rains to water their crops and for drinking water. Climate change could sever this lifeline.Anders Levermann at Potsdam University in Germany has developed a model which reflects the physics that drives monsoons. His simulations suggest that in a 4 °C world there will be a mix of extremely wet monsoon seasons and extremely dry ones, making it hard for farmers to plan what to grow. Worse, the fine aerosol particles released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels could put a complete stop to the monsoon rains in central southern China and northern India. Monsoons are generated by sharp heat gradients in the atmosphere where warm land meets cool ocean. By blocking solar energy, aerosols cool the coastal atmosphere and sap monsoons' strength.
Trapped!
Lack of water, crop failure and rising sea levels could force up to 200 million people from their homes by 2050. Attention in rich western nations has focused on the prospect of millions of climate migrants clamouring at their borders. The reality is likely to be harsher, says Francois Gemenne, a migration expert at the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, France. From a study of the impact of 23 recent environmental disasters he concludes that the people most vulnerable to a 4 °C rise are also least able to escape it. "At 4 °C, the poor will struggle to survive, let alone escape," he says. Invariably, the poor can't afford to flee, and they lack the social networks which would otherwise facilitate migration, Gemenne says.
Climate change is already forcing people to migrate, says Gemenne. Sea level rise is driving an exodus from Tuvalu, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and the low-lying Carteret Islands, while water stress is forcing people in Mauritania, Sudan, Ghana and Kenya to migrate. Melting permafrost is pushing people out of parts of Alaska and floods are forcing others out of the delta regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Gemenne's research, conducted in conjunction with the EU Commission's EACH-FOR project, will be published in the Journal of international Migration next year.
Fire down under
Projections for Australia present a conundrum. It looks likely to escape extreme temperatures rises of 10 °C or more seen elsewhere (see map, top right), but rainfall projections paint a more troubling picture. There was very little consensus between the different models run by the UK Met Office. More alarmingly, a study of the probability of forest fires suggests that the number of "extreme fire danger days" per year - when uncontrollable fires are likely to break out as a result of low humidity, strong winds and high temperature - will treble by 2050. "Even under a low warming scenario, the frequency rises by 10 to 50 per cent," says David Karoly of the University of Melbourne, who reviewed a range of wildfire projections. "We are unleashing hell on Australia."

Mysterious Bright spot on Mercury

During its most recent flyby of Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft caught another glimpse of the innermost planet's mysterious bright spot.
The Messenger probe skimmed just 142 miles (228 km) above Mercury at its closest approach as it whipped around the planet during the flyby, the last of three designed to guide the spacecraft into orbit around the planet in 2011.
The $446 million probe snapped several new images of Mercury during the flyby, despite a minor data hiccup that delayed the downlink of some of the images.
One of the new images shows a bright spot on the planet's surface, a feature that scientists cannot yet explain.
The new view was the third of the spot, which was first seen in telescopic images of Mercury obtained from Earth by astronomer Ronald Dantowitz. The second view was obtained by the MESSENGER Narrow Angle Camera during the spacecraft's second Mercury flyby Oct. 6, 2008. At that time, the bright feature was just on the planet's limb (edge) as seen from MESSENGER.
Surprisingly, at the center of the bright halo is an irregular depression, which may have formed through volcanic processes. The object will be further investigated when MESSENGER arrives at its final orbit around Mercury.

Buzz Lightyear A new Space Hero

A well-traveled, 12-inch Buzz Lightyear action figure received a homecoming on Friday worthy of any full-size astronaut who returned after more than a year spent onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Disney Parks and NASA came together friday at Walt Disney World in Florida to celebrate Buzz Lightyear's landing with the launch of a contest for kids to design the "Toy Story" astronaut's mission patch and debut a new online game as part of the "Space Ranger Education Series" on the space agency's Web site.
NASA also used today to announce a competition for students to develop science experiments to be conducted onboard the station.
The celebration culminated this afternoon with a marching band-led ticker-tape parade down the Magic Kingdom's Main Street USA featuring the flown Buzz Lightyear, his namesake - moonwalker Buzz Aldrin - and astronaut Mike Fincke, who was on the space station for six of the 15 months that the toy Lightyear was there
"It was so amazing," Fincke told collectSPACE.com after the parade. "You could really see that the guests here at the Magic Kingdom were extremely excited and the kids were really excited. I thought it was good for NASA, good for Disney, and I was just proud to be part of it.""Sitting next to Buzz [Aldrin], that was amazing! Beautiful cars and everybody was really excited and I felt like an American hero," he added.

NASA hopes water mining on the Moon

NASA has long planned to mine water on the moon to supply human colonies and future space exploration. Now the discovery of small amounts of water across much of the lunar surface has shifted that vision into fast-forward, with the U.S. space agency pursuing several promising technologies.
A hydrogen reduction plant and lunar rover prospectors have already passed field tests on Hawaii's volcanic soil, and more radical microwave technology has shown that it may be used to extract Underground water ice. Water mined by these methods could not only keep astronauts supplied with a drink, but may also provide oxygen and fuel for lunar missions.
One probe, NASA's LCROSS spacecraft, is closing in on the moon's south pole and is expected to crash into a crater on Oct. 9 in another bid to find water ice hidden within the permanent shadows there.
Not just half-baked
NASA scientists have quietly worked on water mining technologies for years in small laboratories. But a full-blown program did not emerge until the latest vision for living off the land and using lunar resources emerged in 2004.
One promising technology takes advantage of the chemistry of the moon dirt - or regolith - by adding hydrogen, which then reacts with iron oxide in the moon dirt to produce water. Such hydrogen reduction reactors heat the regolith to about 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) so that the proper chemical reactions can occur.
A process known as electrolysis can then split the extracted water into pure hydrogen and oxygen, either for rocket fuel or astronaut air supplies.
NASA has already tested a hydrogen reduction reactor on Hawaii's Mauna Kea Volcano. During a year-long operation, it produced 1,455 pounds (660 kg) of oxygen from a rocky soil containing 5 percent iron oxide. Now engineers have a second-generation system in the works that can produce 2,205 pounds (1,000 kg).
Moon, Mars or bust
Whatever the method, water-mining technology may prove ready sooner than NASA can return to the moon. The agency hopes to send astronauts back to the moon by the 2020s, but uncertainty over the manned Constellation program and the agency's future weighs heavily on the funding for these efforts, and how soon they might deploy.
Much also hinges on the fast-approaching LCROSS mission that aims to crash into the moon with two impactors. That could tell scientists how much more water ice lies hidden within craters near the lunar poles, and help fill in some of the unknowns.

Get ready for amazing Moon Impact Experiment on 9th Oct.

The measurements come from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which launched in June.The satellite's temperature sensor, DIVINER, measures the amount of emitted and reflected radiation given off by the surface. LRO has a number of other instruments designed to map properties such as topography and neutron levels – another possible indicator of water.In July, the satellite sent back pictures of the Apollo landing sites to commemorate the 40th anniversary of humans on the moon. On Thursday, LRO's primary mission began to collect data that could be used to plan a possible return to the moon.The temperature finding raises hopes that NASA's other current lunar satellite mission, LCROSS, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will find evidence of water when it crashes into a crater near the moon's south pole on 9 October.

The Coldest Place in our Solar System - Moon

Poor Pluto. First it gets kicked out of the planet club, now it's not even the coldest place in the solar system. Dark craters near the moon's south pole have snatched that title – which is good news for the prospects of finding water ice on Earth's companion.The craters' towering rims block the sun from reaching their centres, like the long shadows cast by tall buildings at dusk. In this permanent darkness, they stay at a constant -240 °Celsius – more than 30 °C above absolute zero and 10 °C cooler than Pluto, which was measured at -230 °C in 2006."The lunar south pole is among the coldest parts of the solar system and may be in fact colder than what we expect from places like Pluto," NASA scientist Richard Vondrak said at a press conference on Thursday.The cold temperature bodes well for the prospect of finding water ice deposits in the moon's shadowy pockets. Previous calculations had shown that water and other volatile gases would dissipate into space at temperatures above about -220 °C.

Plank's first Snap

One of the newest telescopes in space, the Planck spacecraft, recently completed its "first light" survey which began on August 13. Astronomers say the initial data, gathered from Planck's vantage point at the L2 point in space, is excellent. Planck is studying the Cosmic Microwave Background, looking for variations in temperature that are about a million times smaller than one degree. This is comparable to measuring from Earth the body heat of a rabbit sitting on the Moon.
The initial survey yielded maps of a strip of the sky, one for each of Planck's nine frequencies. Each map is a ring, about 15° wide, stretching across the full sky. The the differences in color in the strips indicate the magnitude of the deviations of the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background from its average value, as measured by Planck at a frequency close to the peak of the CMB spectrum (red is hotter and blue is colder). The large red strips trace radio emission from the Milkey Way, whereas the small bright spots high above the galactic plane correspond to emission from the Cosmic Microwave Background itself. In order to do its work, Planck's detectors must be cooled to extremely low temperatures, some of them being very close to absolute zero (–273.15°C, or zero Kelvin, 0K). Routine operations are now underway, and surveying will continue for at least 15 months without a break. In approximately 6 months, the first all-sky map will be assembled. Within its projected operational life of 15 months, Planck will gather data for two complete sky maps. To fully exploit the high sensitivity of Planck, the data will require delicate adjustments and careful analysis. It promises to return a treasure trove that will keep both cosmologists and astrophysicists busy for decades to come.

Searching For 'Unknown Life'

When discussing the possibility of finding life on other worlds, we usually add the phrase "life – as we know it." But we've been surprised at exotic forms of life even on our own world and we need figure out how life might evolve elsewhere with foreign biochemistry in alien environments. Scientists at a new interdisciplinary research institute in Austria are working to understand exotic life and how we might find it.
Traditionally, planets that might sustain life are looked for in the ‘habitable zone’, the region around a star in which Earth-like planets with carbon dioxide, water vapor and nitrogen atmospheres could maintain liquid water on their surfaces. Consequently, scientists have been looking for biomarkers produced by extraterrestrial life with metabolisms resembling the terrestrial ones, where water is used as a solvent and the building blocks of life, amino acids, are based on carbon and oxygen. However, these may not be the only conditions under which life could evolve. The University of Vienna established a research group for Alternative Solvents as a Basis for Life Supporting Zones in (Exo-)Planetary Systems in May 2009, under the leadership of Maria Firneis. “It is time to make a radical change in our present geocentric mindset for life as we know it on Earth,” said Dr. Johannes Leitner, from the research group. “Even though this is the only kind of life we know, it cannot be ruled out that life forms have evolved somewhere that neither rely on water nor on a carbon and oxygen based metabolism.” One requirement for a life-supporting solvent is that it remains liquid over a large temperature range. Water is liquid between 0°C and 100°C, but other solvents exist which are liquid over more than 200 °C. Such a solvent would allow an ocean on a planet closer to the central star. The reverse scenario is also possible. A liquid ocean of ammonia could exist much further from a star. Furthermore, sulphuric acid can be found within the cloud layers of Venus and we now know that lakes of methane/ethane cover parts of the surface of the Saturnian satellite Titan. Consequently, the discussion on potential life and the best strategies for its detection is ongoing and not only limited to exoplanets and habitable zones. The newly established research group at the University of Vienna, together with international collaborators, will investigate the properties of a range of solvents other than water, including their abundance in space, thermal and biochemical characteristics as well as their ability to support the origin and evolution of life supporting metabolisms. “Even though most exoplanets we have discovered so far around stars are probably gas planets, it is a matter of time until smaller, Earth-size exoplanets are discovered,” said Leitner.The research group discussed their initial investigations at the European Planetary Science Conference in Potsdam, Germany.

Nasa has little fun with Buzz

Buzz Lightyear, that is. The action figure returned from Space on Sept. 11, aboard space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 mission after 15 months aboard the International Space Station. Word has it that Disney is quite excited about his return, and will give him a ticker-tape parade on October 2, along with some of his his space station crewmates and the original Buzz, Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, at Walt Disney World in Florida. So what was Buzz doing on the ISS? While in space Buzz supported NASA's education outreach program — STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)–by creating a series of fun educational online outreach programs. Following his return, Disney is partnering with NASA to create a new online educational game and an online mission patch competition for school kids across America. NASA will fly the winning patch in space. In addition, NASA plans to announce on Oct. 2, 2009, the details of a new exciting educational competition that will give students the opportunity to design an experiment for the astronauts on the space station.

Shuttle Carrier's piggyback ride

On 11 September 2009 "The weather was perfect--no wind or dust, and very few clouds," says Hasan. "I found myself in the middle of a very quiet, tree-lined street and took the picture using my digital camera. It was a bright and beautiful display.""The sonic boom rumbled across the Los Angeles Basin about a minute after this was taken," he says. Discovery's landing at Edwards ended a two week, 5.7 million mile mission to the International Space Station--but the journey is not over. The shuttle will now be hoisted atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft for a massive cross-country piggyback ride to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Daytime sky watchers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Florida will be able to see the flight if they know when to look. Stay tuned for information about sighting opportunities.

It's not a Comet, It is Urion !

Sky watchers across North America witnessed a strange event on the night of 9 Sept. 2009. As space shuttle Discovery glided silently overhead, the orbiter sprouted a flamboyant comet-like tail. Clair Perry sends this picture from Prince Edward Island, Canada: "The shuttle put on a major light show," says Perry.In Madison, Wisconsin, photographer Abe Megahed witnessed a similar display: "The shuttle was sporting a massive curved plume. What could it be? Something venting? Reaction Control System thrusters? A massive, record-breaking urine dump?"Stop laughing. Shuttle pilot Kevin Ford was indeed scheduled to carry out a number of "waste water" dumps over a several hour period around the time of these observations. Pristine water supplies and condensates were also dumped overboard in preparation for landing on Thursday, Sept. 10th.Thursday's landing opportunities at the Kennedy Space Center begin with a planned deorbit burn at 5:59 p.m. EDT and a daylight landing at 7:05 p.m. The next opportunity is one hour after sunset with the deorbit burn at 7:36 p.m. EDT and a landing at 8:42 p.m. EDT.

Send a Tweet to our Alien Friends on Gliese 581 D

If you've ever wanted to communicate with aliens, here's your chance. Cosmos Magazine is offering the chance to send a message to another planet, Gliese 581 d. This exoplanet is about 20.3 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Libra, and some have said if life is elsewhere in the Universe, this is the mostly likely place that we currently know about. It was first discovered in 2007, and astronomers say this planet is well within the habitable zone around its star, where liquid water oceans could exist. Cosmos is collecting short, 160 character messages to be transmitted out to the vicinity of Gliese 581 d with the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Tidbinbilla, Australia. Cosmos says it will take about 20 years for the message to reach its destination, and admits there is no guarantee of a response. If interested, check out Cosmos' "Hello From Earth" webpage. Hurry, as the deadline is 5pm Monday August 24, 2009 Sydney time (07:00 GMT Monday 24 August 2009).This is Cosmos' way of celebrating the IYA and National Science Week in Australia. However, we've had lively discussions here on before UT about if we are sending too much information out into the cosmos. What do you think?

2000 Sols on Mars

Another milestone for the Mars Exploration Rovers: Spirit has been operating on Mars for 2000 sols, or Martian days. Who would have ever thought the rovers would last this long? But here they are, still going, um, pretty strong. Even though she's got plenty of electrical power, Spirit is currently stuck in loose soil at her location, called Troy. But engineers are working hard to figure out how to set her free. Check out the latest on the efforts at the Free Spirit website. To celebrate Spirit's milestone, Unmanned Spaceflight's Astro0 has put together a Sol 2000 poster over at his website, Astro0 in Space. It's gorgeous, and includes a new poem by my pal Stuart Atkinson, so check it out!

Return of the Mars Hoax

For the sixth year in a row, a message about the Red Planet is popping up in email boxes around the world. It instructs readers to go outside after dark on August 27th and behold the sky. "Mars will look as large as the full moon," it says. "No one alive today will ever see this again."
Don't believe it.Here's what will really happen if you go outside after dark on August 27th. Nothing. Mars won't be there. On that date, the red planet will be nearly 250 million km away from Earth and completely absent from the evening sky.
The Mars Hoax got its start in 2003 when Earth and Mars really did have a close encounter. On Aug. 27th of that year, Mars was only 56 million km away, a 60,000-year record for martian close approaches to Earth. Someone sent an email alerting friends to the event. The message contained some misunderstandings and omissions—but what email doesn't? A piece of advanced technology called the "forward button" did the rest.Tolerant readers may say that the Mars Hoax is not really a hoax, because it is not an intentional trick. The composer probably believed everything he or she wrote in the message. If that's true, a better name might be the "Mars Misunderstanding" or maybe the "Confusing-Email-About-Mars-You-Should-Delete-and-Not-Forward-to-Anyone-Except-Your-In-Laws."Another aspect of the Mars Hoax: It says Mars will look as large as the full Moon if you magnify it 75x using a backyard telescope. The italicized text is usually omitted from verbal and written summaries of the Hoax. (For example, see the beginning of this story.) Does this fine print make the Mars Hoax true? After all, if you magnify the tiny disk of Mars 75x, it does subtend an angle about the same as the Moon.
A good reference is the Moon Illusion. Moons on the horizon look huge; Moons directly overhead look smaller. In both cases, it is the same Moon, but the human mind perceives the size of the Moon differently depending on its surroundings. Likewise, your perception of Mars is affected by the planet's surroundings. Locate the planet at the end of a little dark tunnel, and it is going to look tiny regardless of magnification.

Amino Acid Found in Stardust Comet Sample

NASA scientists studying the comet samples returned by the Stardust spacecraft have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life. Stardust captured the samples from comet Wild 2 in 2004 and returned them to Earth in 2006. "Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."Proteins are a major component of all living cells, and amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements to build millions of different proteins.As Stardust passed through dense gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2"), special collection grids filled with aerogel – a novel sponge-like material that's more than 99 percent empty space – gently captured samples of the comet's gas and dust. The grid was stowed in a capsule which detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth on January 15, 2006. Since then, scientists around the world have been busy analyzing the samples to learn the secrets of comet formation and our solar system's history.

Alien invasion on Phobos !

the Russian space agency and the US-based Planetary Society will soon be sending terrestrial life to the Martian moon Phobos. The mini-interplanetary travelers will consist of bacteria, spores, seeds, crustaceans, insects and fungi. Why? To see how biological life, in various forms, deals with space travel spanning three years. So if you thought that a human (or Monkey) would be the first of Earth's ambassadors to land on Mars or one of its moons, you'd be very mistaken. Here you can watch a video clip of very special experiment with the insects, especially with roaches in orbit.
According to results from a Russian biology experiment on the International Space Station (ISS), a mosquito has survived the rigors of space for 18 months. However, this little winged insect didn’t do it inside the comfort of the ISS, he did it outside, in a small can. The Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medical and Biological Problems are currently assessing the impact of cosmic radiation on living organisms as part of the Biorisk program. It would appear that this hardy mosquito coped just fine with no life support and no climate control. The mosquito experienced varying temperatures from a chilly -150°C in the shade to a rather toasty +60°C in direct sunlight. One would expect that after 18 months of this torture treatment there wouldn’t be much left of the freeze dried mozzie, but in fact, he was still “alive” after returning to Earth.

Blast and Smoke

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) blasted off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Feb. 24th around 1:55 in the morning Pacific Time. An all-sky camera in nearby Santa Barbara captured the early stages of what would prove to be a doomed flight. You can see in this video the launch and after few seconds a blast and smoke.
"We photographed the launch using an AllSky-340C mounted on our roof," says Matt Thomas of Santa Barbara Instrument Group.Unfortunately, OCO never made it to Earth orbit. After the satellite left the field of view, above, it failed to separate from its Taurus XL launch vehicle. The stuck-together pair splashed down in the icy waters near Antarctica. Climate scientists are calling the loss a "serious setback" in their efforts to identify our planet's carbon sinks and solve the mystery of missing carbon --the 30% of human-produced carbon dioxide that disappears into unknown places. A NASA panel has been convened to investigate the mishap.

A new UFO Discloser !

In legend, sprites are trolls, elves and other spirits that dance high above our ozone layer. But scientists at Tel Aviv University have discovered that some very real "sprites" are zipping across the atmosphere as well, providing a possible explanation for those other legendary denizens of the skies, UFOs.
Thunderstorms, says Prof. Colin Price, head of the Geophysics and Planetary Sciences Department at Tel Aviv University, are the catalyst for a newly discovered natural phenomenon he calls "sprites." He and his colleagues are one of the leading teams in the world studying the phenomenon, and Prof. Price leads the study of "winter sprites" - those that appear only in the northern hemisphere's winter months.
"Sprites appear above most thunderstorms," explains Prof. Price, "but we didn't see them until recently. They are high in the sky and last for only a fraction of a second." While there is much debate over the cause or function of these mysterious flashes in the sky, they may, Prof. Price says, explain some bizarre reports of UFO sightings.
Sprites are described as flashes high in the atmosphere, between 35 and 80 miles from the ground, much higher than the 7 to 10 miles where regular lightning bolts usually occur.
"Lightning from the thunderstorm excites the electric field above, producing a flash of light called a sprite," explains Prof. Price. "We now understand that only a specific type of lightning is the trigger that initiates sprites aloft."
Though sprites have existed for millions of years, they were first discovered and documented only by accident in 1989 when a researcher studying stars was calibrating a camera pointed at the distant atmosphere where sprites occur.