Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved

From Yahoo News:


Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved



























Email

Print



..







Play VideoSpace Video:NASA Chasing Storms From OffuttKETV Omaha.

Play VideoSpace Video:North Korea jail camps 'growing'Reuters.

Play VideoSpace Video:Mark Kelly on Endeavour LaunchFOX News.



Space.com– Fri May 6, 10:45 am ET





There has been a long-lived bit of Apollo moon landing folklore that now appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon.



The lunar mystery swirls around the Apollo 12 moon landing and the return to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was part of an early NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe.



On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a precision landing on the lunar surface in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown point was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3 lander -- and an easy stroll to the hardware that had soft-landed on the lunar terrain years before, on April 20, 1967. [Video: Apollo 12 Visits Surveyor 3 Probe]



The Surveyor 3 camera was easy pickings and brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew. When scientists analyzed the parts in a clean room, they found evidence of microorganisms inside the camera.



In short, a small colony of common bacteria -- Streptococcus Mitis -- had stowed away on the device.



The astrobiological upshot as deduced from the unplanned experiment was that 50 to 100 of the microbes appeared to have survived launch, the harsh vacuum of space, three years of exposure to the moon's radiation environment, the lunar deep-freeze at an average temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius, not to mention no access to nutrients, water or an energy source. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]



Now, fast forward to today.



NASA's dirty little secret?



A diligent team of researchers is now digging back into historical documents -- and even located and reviewed NASA's archived Apollo-era 16 millimeter film -- to come clean on the story.



As it turns out, there's a dirty little secret that has come to light about clean room etiquette at the time the Surveyor 3 camera was scrutinized.



"The claim that a microbe survived 2.5 years on the moon was flimsy, at best, even by the standards of the time," said John Rummel, chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection. "The claim never passed peer review, yet has persisted in the press -- and on the Internet -- ever since." [Coolest New Moon Discoveries]



The Surveyor 3 camera-team thought they had detected a microbe that had lived on the moon for all those years, "but they only detected their own contamination," Rummel told SPACE.com.



A former NASA planetary protection officer, Rummel is now with the Institute for Coastal Science & Policy at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.



Rummel, along with colleaguesJudith Allton of NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Don Morrison, a former space agency lunar receiving laboratory scientist, recently presented their co-authored paper: "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions."



Poor space probe hygiene



Their verdict was given at a meeting on "The Importance of Solar System Sample Return Missions to the Future of Planetary Science," in March at The Woodlands,Texas, sponsored by the NASA Planetary Science Division and Lunar and Planetary Institute.



"If 'American Idol' judged microbiology, those guys would have been out in an early round," the research team writes of the way the Surveyor 3 camera team studied the equipment here on Earth. Or put more delicately, "The general scene does not lend a lot of confidence in the proposition that contamination did not occur," co-author Morrison said.



For example, participants studying the camera were found to be wearing short-sleeve scrubs, thus arms were exposed. Also, the scrub shirt tails were higher than the flow bench level … and would act as a bellows for particulates from inside the shirt, reports co-author Allton.



Other contamination control issues were flagged by the researchers.



In simple microbiology 101 speak, "a close personal relationship with the subject ... is not necessarily a good thing," the research team explains.



All in all, the likelihood that contamination occurred during sampling of the Surveyor 3 camera was shown to be very real.



A cautionary tale



On one hand, Rummel emphasized that today’s methods for handling return samples are much more effective at detecting microbes.



However, the Surveyor 3 incident back then raises a cautionary flag for the future.



"We need to be orders of magnitude more careful about contamination control than was the Surveyor 3 camera-team. If we aren't, samples from Mars could be drowned in Earth life upon return, and in all of that 'noise' we might never have the ability to detect Mars life we may have brought back, too," Rummel said. "We can, and we must, do a better job with a Mars sample return mission."



Winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award, Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Asteroid Or Planet? NASA Aims To Settle Vesta Debate

From Space.com and Yahoo News:


Asteroid or Planet? NASA Aims to Settle Vesta Debate



SPACE.com Staff,

Space.com

– Tue Apr 26, 3:44 pm ET












Scientists still aren't sure what to make of Vesta, a small body that orbits the sun. Is it an asteroid or a planet?



NASA's Dawn spacecraft could settle the matter.



Vesta was spotted 200 years ago and is officially a "minor planet" — a body that orbits the sun but is not a proper planet or comet. Yet, many astronomers call Vesta an asteroid because it lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.



But Vesta is not a typical member of that orbiting rubble patch. The vast majority of objects in the main belt are relative lightweights, 62 miles(100 kilometers) wide or smaller, compared with Vesta, which is 329 miles(530 km) wide.



If Vesta is an asteroid, it would be the second-largest in the solar system. Some scientists, however, are skeptical about that designation. [5 Reasons to Care About Asteroids]



"I don't think Vesta should be called an asteroid," said Tom McCord, a Dawn team member at the Bear Fight Institute in Winthrop, Wash. "Not only is Vesta so much larger, but it's an evolved object, unlike most things we call asteroids."



The evolution of Vesta



The onion-like structure of Vesta (core, mantle and crust) is the key trait that makes Vesta more like planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars than the other asteroids, McCord said.



Like the planets, Vesta had sufficient radioactive material inside when it formed, releasing heat that melted rock and enabled lighter layers to float to the outside. Signatures of a type of volcanic rock called basalt were detected in 1972, which meant that the body had to have melted at one time.



Bu calling Vesta a 'minor planet' is not distinctive enough, since there are more than 540,000 minor planets in our solar system. Dwarf planets — which include Ceres, the second destination of NASA's Dawn mission — are another category, but Vesta doesn't qualify as one of those. For one thing, Vesta isn't quite large enough to be considered a dwarf planet.



Dawn scientists prefer to think of Vesta as a protoplanet because it is a dense, layered body that orbits the sun and formed in the same fashion as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, but somehow never fully developed.



Early planet formation



In the early history of the solar system, objects became planets by merging with other objects the size of Vesta. But Vesta never found a partner during the big dance, and the critical time passed. It may have had to do with the nearby presence of Jupiter, the gravitational superpower in the neighborhood, disturbing the orbits of nearby objects and hogging the dance partners.



Still, Vesta saw its fair share of action.



Other space rocks have collided with Vesta and knocked off bits of it. This debris in the asteroid belt became known as Vestoids, and hundreds of these types of meteorites have ended up on Earth.



Vesta never collided with an object of sufficient size to disrupt it, however, which is why it has remained intact. As a result, Vesta is like a time capsule from that earlier era.



"This gritty little protoplanet has survived bombardment in the asteroid belt for over 4.5 billion years, making its surface possibly the oldest planetary surface in the solar system," said Christopher Russell, a Dawn team member, based at UCLA. "Studying Vesta will enable us to write a much better history of the solar system's turbulent youth."



Dawn's game plan



Dawn's scientists and engineers have designed a master plan to investigate Vesta's special features.



When Dawn arrives at Vesta in July, the south pole will be in full sunlight, giving scientists a clear view of a huge crater there. The crater may reveal the layer cake of materials inside Vesta, which could help scientists understand how the body evolved after its formation.



The way scientists have designed Dawn's orbit will also allow the spacecraft to map new terrain as the seasons progress during its 12-month visit.



The spacecraft will take many measurements, including high-resolution data of Vesta's surface composition, topography and texture. Dawn will also measure the tug of Vesta's gravity to learn more about its internal structure.



"Dawn's ion thrusters are gently carrying us toward Vesta, and the spacecraft is getting ready for its big year of exploration," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have designed our mission to get the most out of this opportunity to reveal the exciting secrets of this uncharted, exotic world."



Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Spotting The Space Shuttle And The International Space Station (ISS)

From Space.com:



NASA's space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station are seen in this time-lapse image as they fly over Leiden, The Netherlands, just before the two spacecraft docked on March 17, 2009 during the STS-119 mission. The shuttle is the object slightly fainter and lower in the sky. Movement is from right to left


CREDIT: Marco Langbroek



View full size image

Skywatchers across parts of the United States and Canada have a chance tonight (Feb. 25) to spot NASA's space shuttle Discovery – on its last-ever mission – as it chases the International Space Station across the night sky.



The shuttle and space station will be visible to the unaided eye as separate entities, appearing as bright "stars" sailing across this evening's twilight sky. Skywatchers with clear skies in the northern U.S. and southern Canada have the best chances of seeing the two spacecraft. [Photos of Space Shuttles and Stations from Earth]



The International Space Station is can be easily seen on clear nights without a telescope because of its huge size and solar arrays. It is as long as a football field and has enough living space for astronauts as a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.





Ads by GoogleCurrent Moon PhaseSee the current moon phase based on your location. Add it iGoogle!

www.google.com/igInstalling a Car Battery?See Why PowerFrame® is the Technology You Should Be Asking For

www.Powerframe.com/BatteryDanica Patrick Honda FilmWatch now to discover the upside of failure through Danica Patrick.

www.honda.com

On good passes, the space station is so bright it can rival the planet Venus in the sky and appears more than 25 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.



Discovery launched into space Thursday and is scheduled to dock at the space station on tomorrow (Feb. 26) at 2:16 p.m. EST (1919 GMT). So by Saturday evening, both will appear as a singular bright moving object.



The International Space Station makes one full orbit around Earth about once every 91.5 minutes. Initially, after Thursday's launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Discovery trailed the space station across the sky by about 37 minutes.



By tonight, that gap will have diminished to about 15 minutes. That means it will not be possible to see both space vehicles in the sky at the same time; rather Discovery would appear first, followed less than a half hour later by the space station traveling along basically the same path.



Discovery is flying an 11-day mission to deliver a new storage room and humanoid robot to the International Space Station. This is the final flight of shuttle Discovery since NASA plans to retire the orbiter along with the rest of the shuttle fleet later this year.



Discovery is NASA's most-flown shuttle and is making its 39th trip into space.



Region of visibility



So far as visibility is concerned, it appears that skywatchers living in the southern and central United States may be out of luck for seeing Discovery or the space station. This is because the trajectories of the spacecraft will send them on paths that are either too low or overhead during daylight hours, rendering them invisible.



In the northern United States, there is a chance of spotting Discovery and the station on paths that will begin in the western sky then skim on a low arc in a direction toward the north and east.



In most cases, the highest that either the shuttle or space station will get above the northern horizon, will be about 15 degrees. Your clenched fist held at arm's length measures approximately 10 degrees. So a 15 degree pass would be equal to about one and a half fists up from the horizon.



From southern Canada, the two space vehicles will make an even higher arc across the sky. From Montreal and Calgary, for example, there are predicted passes that are more than 40 degrees above the horizon – nearly halfway from the horizon to the overhead point (called the zenith).



How bright will they be?



Most satellites become visible only when they are in sunlight and the observer is in deep twilight or darkness. This usually means shortly after dusk or before dawn.



Because of the International Space Station's massive size and configuration of highly reflective solar panels, it is the brightest man-made object currently in orbit around the Earth.



Some have even caught a glimpse of the space station just prior to sunset or shortly after sunrise. And as a bonus, sunlight glinting directly off the solar panels can sometimes make the ISS appear to briefly flare to super-brilliance.



The space shuttle also appears as a very bright (magnitude 0 to -1) object; almost matching Sirius, though nowhere near as dazzling as the ISS.



When and where to look



So what are the chances of spotting Discovery and the space station from your particular hometown?



You can easily find out by searching for one of these four popular Web sites: Chris Peat's Heavens Above, Science@NASA's J-Pass, NASA's SkyWatch and Spaceweather.com.



Each will ask for your zip code or city, and respond with a list of suggested spotting times. Predictions computed a few days ahead of time are usually accurate within a few minutes. However, they can change due to the slow decay of the space station's orbit and periodic reboosts to higher altitudes.



Another great site is this one, which provides real-time satellite tracking and shows you at any given moment during the day or night over what part of the Earth the ISS or shuttle happens to be.



Check the websites frequently for updates as viewing conditions can sometimes change due to mission developments.



Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Click here for shuttle mission updates and a link to NASA TV.

Sun Whips Out Massive Flare

From Space.com:

http://www.space.com/10960-sun-whips-massive-flare.html

On February 24, 2011, the Sun blasted a titanic M class flare; but not aimed at Earth. This time-lapse video displays about 90 minutes of activity; one frame taken every 24 seconds by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Credit: NASA

Space Shuttle Discovery Launches On Final Voyage

From the AP and Yahoo News:

Space shuttle Discovery launches on final voyage


 



 

 

 





 

 

 











Reuters – Space shuttle Discovery lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, February …

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Ap Aerospace Writer – 35 mins ago

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Discovery, the world's most traveled spaceship, thundered into orbit for the final time Thursday, heading toward the International Space Station on a journey that marks the beginning of the end of the shuttle era.



The six astronauts on board, all experienced space fliers, were thrilled to be on their way after a delay of nearly four months for fuel tank repairs. But it puts Discovery on the cusp of retirement when it returns in 11 days and eventually heads to a museum.



Discovery is the oldest of NASA's three surviving space shuttles and the first to be decommissioned this year. Two missions remain, first by Atlantis and then Endeavour, to end the 30-year program.



Launch director Mike Leinbach anticipated it would be "tough" to see Discovery take off for the 39th and final time, and even harder when it returns March 7.



"It's a very, very personal thing that we love to do," Leinbach explained. "It's a lot more than just our livelihood. It gets in our soul."



Emotions ran high as Discovery rocketed off its seaside pad into a late afternoon clear blue sky, and arced out over the Atlantic on its farewell flight. There were a tense few minutes before liftoff when an Air Force computer problem popped up. The issue was resolved and Discovery took off about three minutes late, with just a few seconds left.



"The venerable veteran of America's human spaceflight fleet," as the launch commentator called it earlier in the day, will reach the space station Saturday, delivering a small chamber full of supplies and an experimental humanoid robot. The orbiting lab was soaring over the South Pacific when Discovery blasted off under the command of retired Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey.



NASA is under presidential direction to retire the shuttle fleet this summer, let private companies take over trips to orbit and focus on getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars.



An estimated 40,000 guests gathered at Kennedy Space Center to witness history in the making, including a small delegation from Congress and Florida's new Gov. Rick Scott. Discovery frenzy took over not only the launch site, but neighboring towns.



Roads leading to the launching site were jammed with cars parked two and three deep; recreational vehicles snagged prime viewing spots along the Banana River well before dawn. Businesses and governments joined in, their signs offering words of encouragement. "The heavens await Discovery," a Cocoa Beach church proclaimed. Groceries stocked up on extra red, white and blue cakes with shuttle pictures. Stores ran out of camera batteries.



Click image to see photos of Discovery launch, NASA





Reuters/Joe Skipper

The launch team also got into the act. A competition was held to craft the departing salutation from Launch Control; Kennedy's public affairs office normally comes up with the parting line. Souvenir photos of Discovery were set aside for controllers in the firing room. Many posed for group shots.



Lindsey and his crew paused to take in the significance of it all, before boarding Discovery. They embraced in a group hug at the base of the launch pad.



Unlike the first try back in November, no hydrogen gas leaked during Thursday's fueling.



NASA also was confident no cracks would develop in the external fuel tank; nothing serious was spotted during the final checks at the pad. Both problems cropped up during the initial countdown in early November, and the repairs took almost four months. The cracks in the midsection of the tank, which holds instruments but no fuel, could have been dangerous.



The lengthy postponement kept one of the original crew from flying.



Astronaut Timothy Kopra, the lead spacewalker, was hurt when he wrecked his bicycle last month. Experienced spacewalker Stephen Bowen stepped in and became the first astronaut to fly back-to-back shuttle missions.



Packed aboard Discovery is Robonaut 2, or R2, set to become the first humanoid robot in space. The experimental machine — looking human from the waist up — will remain boxed until after Discovery departs. Its twin was at the launch site, perched atop a rover, waving goodbye.



Discovery already has 143 million miles to its credit, beginning with its first flight in 1984. By the time this mission ends, the shuttle will have tacked on another 4.5 million miles. And it will have spent 363 days in space and circled Earth 5,800 times.



No other spacecraft has been launched so many times.



Discovery's list of achievements include delivering the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit, carrying the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a U.S. spaceship, performing the first rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir with the first female shuttle pilot in the cockpit, returning Mercury astronaut John Glenn to orbit, and bringing shuttle flights back to life after the Challenger and Columbia accidents.



Discovery is expected to be eventually put on display by the Smithsonian Institution.



___



Online:



NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

Six Solar System Planets Shine In One New Photo

From Space.com:

Article:

Wow! 6 Solar System Planets Shine in One New Photo

SPACE.com Staff

Date: 18 February 2011 Time: 03:20 PM ET

The MESSENGER spacecraft, which is headed for orbit around Mercury, collected this series of images to complete a "family portrait" of our Solar System as seen from the inside looking out. The majority of this mosaic was obtained on 3 November 2010. Uranus and Neptune remained too faint to detect with even the longest camera exposure time, but their positions are indicated.


CREDIT: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington



View full size image

A NASA spacecraft heading for Mercury has beamed to Earth an amazing space photo: A family portrait of six major planets in our solar system.



To make the planet photo mosaic, NASA's Messenger spacecraft snapped 34 individual images over a two-week period last November. Messenger mission scientists took those images and stitched them together into a single mosaic to build a view of our solar system as it appears from the center. [See the solar system planets portrait]



"This snapshot of our neighborhood also reminds us that Earth is a member of a planetary family that was formed by common processes four and a half billion years ago," said Messenger mission principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in a statement. "Our spacecraft is soon to orbit the innermost member of the family, one that holds many new answers to how Earth-like planets are assembled and evolve."





Ads by GoogleCurrent Moon PhaseSee the current moon phase based on your location. Add it iGoogle!

www.google.com/igSharp Solar CellsLeading the world with an energy conversion efficiency of 35.8%

sharp-solar.com

The Messenger spacecraft has flown by Mercury three times since its launch in 2004 and will arrive in orbit around the planet on March 18. Messenger's name is short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging.



In the new photo, Messenger's cameras were able to spot all the major planets except Uranus and Neptune, which were too faint to detect, mission scientists said. Earth's moon and several of Jupiter's big moons – the Galilean satellites Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io – were also visible, and are highlighted in insets.



Bright Venus starts the portrait off at the far left, followed by Earth and its moon, and Jupiter. Messenger scientists then indicate where Uranus and Neptune were in their orbits at the time, and move on to show Mars, Mercury and Saturn.



The planets appear in a narrow S-shaped belt due to the tilted orbit of the Messenger spacecraft with respect to the ecliptic – or general plane – of the solar system.



That made it a challenge to point Messenger's cameras in the right place to capture as many planets as it did. Scientists used a narrow-angle camera and a wide-angle camera on the spacecraft to make the planet portrait.



"It’s not easy to find a moment when many of the planets are within a single field of view from that perspective, and we have strong sun-pointing constraints on our ability to image in some directions," Solomon said.



The scientists used software to simulate the Messenger spacecraft's location to see which planets might be visible to its cameras. They also had to tweak some of Messenger's photos in order to bring out their planet targets. [Our Solar System from the Inside Out]



"The images are stretched to make it easier to detect the planets, though this stretch also highlights light scattered off of the planet limbs, and in some cases creates artifacts such as the non-spherical shape of some planets," explained Messenger imaging team member Brett Denevi of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.



Messenger mission scientists said the new planet portrait offers a reverse view of the solar system. In 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft snapped a photo of the solar system as seen from the region of Neptune looking in.



"Seeing our solar system as just these little specks of light, it reminds you of how lucky we are that we've had the chance, through so many missions, to get up close and explore the incredible diversity and geology that each planet and moon displays," Denevi said. "Mercury has been just a dot on the horizon for most of history, and we get to fill in the details and know it as a real world. What an amazing opportunity!"



Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom for the latest news from space.

Largest Planet In The Solar System Could Be About To Be Discovered--And It's Up To Four Times The Size Of Jupiter

From The Daily Mail (U.K.): 

Largest planet in the solar system could be about to be discovered - and it's up to four times the size of Jupiter


By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 9:52 AM on 14th February 2011

Comments (148) Add to My Stories

Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter.

Its orbit would be thousands of times further from the Sun than the Earth's - which could explain why it has so far remained undiscovered.

Data which could prove the existence of Tyche, a gas giant in the outer Oort Cloud, is set to be released later this year - although some believe proof has already been garnered by Nasa with its pace telescope, Wise, and is waiting to be pored over.

A new world? Astronomers believe a huge gas giant may be within the remote Oort Cloud region

Prof Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believes the data may prove Tyche's existence within two years.

He told the Independent: 'If it does, [fellow astrophysicist Prof John Matese] and I will be doing cartwheels. And that's not easy at our age.'



More...Radiation particles will sterilize any baby girl being conceived in deep space, say scientists



He added he believes it will mainly be made of hydrogen and helium, with an atmosphere like Jupiter's, with spots and rings and clouds, adding: 'You'd also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them.'

He believes the planet is so huge, it will ahve a raised temperature left from its formation that will make it far higher than others, such as Pluto, at -73C, as 'it takes an object this size a long time to cool off'.



Isolated: The Oort Cloud, where Tyche is believed to be, is a sphere with a radius of one light year

He and Prof Matese first suggested Tyche existed because of the angle comets were arriving, with a fifth of the expected number since 1898 entering higher than expected.

However, Tyche - if it exists - should also dislodge comets closer to home, from the inner Oort Cloud, but they have not been seen.

If confirmed, the status and name of the new planet - which would become the ninth and potentially the largest - would then have to be agreed by the International Astronomical Union.



Currently named Tyche, from the Greek goddess that governed the destiny of a city, its name may have to change, as it originated from a theory which has now been largely abandoned.







Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1356748/Search-Tyche-believed-largest-planet-solar-system.html#ixzz1EG5jcnBR