The Mars Science Laboratory



Space is always eventful and to satisfy their impertinent minds, the scientists are always busy exploring the outer world with new probes and discoveries. Here are some latest findings surprising and keeping the astronomers busy.



#1: Japan launches rocket, deploys satellite

Deploying a land-observation satellite, the Japanese space agency successfully launched a domestically made H-2A rocket Tuesday. The rocket kicked off the sand on Earth at 10:33 a.m. local time at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyodo news service reported. At an altitude of 435 miles (700 kilometers), about 17 minutes the satellite was deployed successfully, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.



#2: Spacecraft skin ‘heals’ itself

All credit to Ian Bond and Richard Trask from the University of Bristol, UK. He developed the self-healing spacecraft skin; a material that could enable spacecraft to automatically “heal” punctures and leaks is being tested in simulated space conditions on Earth. It is a part of a European Space Agency (ESA) project. The researchers have taken inspiration from human skin, which heals a cut by exposing blood to air, which congeals to forms a protective scab.



#3: Predicting the weather on Titan?

Thanks to the recent Cassini, Huygens and Earth-based observations. With these, scientists have been able to create a computer model to explain the formation of several types of ethane and methane clouds on Titan. But recently, a European team has developed a general circulation model that couples dynamics, haze and cloud physics to study Titan climate. It enables us to understand how the major cloud features observed, are produced.



#4: Mars Science Laboratory to explore Martian landscape in 2010

It’s a huge step in how the Red planet is further poked, probed, and more fully plumbed for new information. Following the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the next wheels on Mars will belong to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The huge chunk of machinery is scheduled to liftoff in September 2009. Ever dispatched to the Martian surface, it will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for on-the-spot science duties. To assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life, the nuclear-powered rover is being designed.



#5: Comet sample collection bedazzles scientists

The samples returned from aboriginal comets by the Stardust spacecraft after a 2.9-billion-mile (4.7-billion-km) journey strongly proved a silver lining for the optimistic scientists, project managers informed. Pronounced as “Vilt,’ a canister containing particles trapped after the Stardust space probe’s 2004 encounter with Comet Wild-2, landed on Earth on Sunday. The samples were taken to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for inspections.





#6: Two new dusty planetary disks may be astrophysical mirrors of our Kuiper Belt

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope surveyed 2 nearby stars to discover two with bright debris disks that appear to be the equivalent of our own solar system’s Kuiper Belt. Kuiper Belt is a ring of icy rocks outside the orbit of Neptune and the source of short-period comet. The debris disks encircling these stars fall into two categories - wide and narrow belts. They appear to describe all nine stars, including the sun, which are known to have debris disks linked to planet formation.