Space Scan

According to a team of experts at NASA, Jupiter is changing its stripes, a process which can be due to the change of seasons on this giant planet. These dramatic changes are being captured by the aging Hubble Space Telescope. The changes are due to the change in the color of the planet’s cloud bands which are turning brown from white. Scientists at the space center have also stated that this is not the first time that the planet is changing its rings. According to these researchers Jupiter does not stay in the same color all the time and they are lucky to witness the belts and the bands change color at the same time. Since Jupiter’s year is twelve times that as on Earth the climatic changes are also slow. The difference in the heat of the Sun as received by the planet is the main cause of this change on the surface of Jupiter and along its rings. Since planets orbit in an elliptical orbit their distance from the sun keeps on changing which further changes the amount of heat and light received by the planets. Via: CNN

NASA has already stated that the space agency will be retiring the Shuttle program sometime in 2010 and will be working on a next-gen spacecraft, which they call Orion. This spacecraft will be able to taxi crew from and too the Moon. Some months ago this decision of NASA developed some fear among the Russians as they thought that their highly honored space craft, Soyuz will be playing the role of a space cabbie till the time NASA makes their new spacecraft and after Orion is complete, no one will want to launch in a Soyuz as everyone will prefer the latest technology to take them to the ISS or even beyond. Now some industrial groups in Europe are thinking of some new ideas to develop a launch system that can compete with NASA’s Orion and make them a strong contender in space travel. Some meetings have also been held by the ESA under a development study that also involves brains from Russia and Japan. The discussions at the industrial level will commence this month. Continue reading “After NASA, ESA too eyeing a next-gen spacecraft” »

Ceres, initially an asteroid and recently a dwarf planet is all set to be explored by Dawn. Ceres a newly made dwarf planet some 590 miles is big enough that it has a gravitational field which has made it round. However, it also has failed to pass the planet definition passed by the IAU. Ceres was discovered in 1801 and at that time was declared a planet since it occupied a place in the solar system where astronomers were confident of finding a planet. But after this discovery more and more so called planets were found in the same region which later took the planet status away from Ceres. Later when Pluto was demoted then astronomers developed a new class of planets known as “Dwarf Planets” and Pluto, Eris and Ceres were all classed under this category. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will explore these dwarf planets. The spacecraft is set to be launched atop a Delta II rocket. Initially the spacecraft will visit Vesta, in October 2011 and then depart in April 2012 to Ceres where it will reach in February 2015. Continue reading “NASA’s Dawn all set to be launched, will explore Vesta and Ceres” »

We told you a couple of days ago that a major dust storm has hit Mars. This dust storm is blocking the rays of the sun the only power source for the twin rovers on the planet. This dust storm has http://www.spacescan.org/images/rover-mars_69.jpgmainly affected Opportunity and NASA has decided to move the rover in the massive Victoria Crater so that it can be prevented from further damage. However, the storm is now much worse than it previously was. To add to the troubles of NASA, this storm is not allowing the space agency to move their aging rover down the Victoria Crater. This dust is partly blocking sunlight, which the rovers need to replenish their batteries. NASA has already scaled the operations of Opportunity in an effort to conserve its energy. For now NASA has delayed Opportunity from entering the Victoria Crater and the mission cannot commence before July 13. NASA hopes that the worst has already passed and the situation should soon improve making things better for both the rovers. NASA has stated that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has shown that the storm is regional and only some parts of the planet are suffering from high dust activity which is blocking the sun’s rays from entering the planet. The twin rovers are designed to measure the levels atmospheric dust. At this time Opportunity revealed a new record with the air’s “opacity levels” rising from 1.0 to a staggering 3.3. This opacity has further reduced the energy on the rover from 765 watts-hour to 402 watts-hour. Spirit however is in a better location and the rover is not much affected by this storm. NASA will try to move the rover in the giant Victoria Crater once the things improve and allow NASA to do the same. Via: MSNBC

NASA’s envoy to the Asteroid belt named Dawn has been postponed by 24 hours. NASA has stated that weather is not permitting the space agency to fuel the spacecraft. The scheduled launch now stands on July 8 in a window running from 4:04 p.m. to 4:33 p.m. The weather forecast for July 8 also holds a 60% chance of violating the launch conditions. Technicians are working hard to cool the spacecraft down to standard temperatures for this they are pumping cool air into its aerodynamic cover. The air inside the cover is at 68 degrees and the technicians want to cool it down by around 10 degrees. The air inside the cover should be cool else the fueling of the oxidizer tank in the second stage of the Delta II rocket cannot be carried out. Via: NASA

Scientists have till now been looking for life forms that are similar to the forms of life that we find on Earth. Now scientists want to expand the search and try and look for life forms that are absolutely different from those found on Earth. This way the region in which scientists are continuously looking for life will be broadened. They are now urging researchers to look for life forms which lack DNA or other molecules of life as we know it. Life is present is many forms and the existence of life in a form that completely contradicts that found on Earth cannot be ruled out completely. This research can be used to look for some kind of extraterrestrial life on the red planet. Till now all the life forms that scientists have looked for are dependent on water and all carry DNA for their genetic information. Till now NASA and everybody associated with the search for extraterrestrial life have studies the life forms on Earth. But life can also occur in circumstances that are completely different from the normal conditions on Earth. Continue reading “Search for non-carbon based ‘weird life forms’: Scientists” »

Engineers at NASA had to move its Terra Environmental spacecraft in order to protect it from possible damage resulting from the orbiting debris of the Chinese anti-satellite ASAT weapon test that was conducted early this year. In January this year China tested their ASAT by destroying a defunct Chinese weather satellite called Fengyun 1-C, which was orbiting at roughly 850 kilometers. This created a cloud of debris that is tracked by the U.S. military’s space Surveillance Network. The debris held a 7% chance of being hit by Fengyun 1-C debris. To bring down the chances to 0%, NASA had to fire the thrusters of Terra, this maneuver boosted Terra by 1.3 kilometers and reduced the chances of collision to Zero. All space agencies have to take this matter a bit more seriously, since accumulating such space debris could also pose a serious hazard to the future space exploration missions. Image Via: usatoday

It seems that NASA is really not having good days when it comes to storms. The space agency is already facing some problems with its twin rovers deployed on Mars and now storm at the launch pad has delayed the space agency’s mission to the asteroid belt. Dawn which had already been delayed until July 15 was finally delayed till September when NASA confronted many problems. The launch was cancelled because of storms at the launch pad. This prevented NASA from loading fuel in the spacecraft. Also a plane which was to track the spacecraft after liftoff was having mechanical problems and the tracking ship was not positioned at the correct location. The spacecraft is scheduled to visit Vesta and Ceres between Mars and Jupiter. It will reach the two bodies in four years from now and in 2015 it will meet up with Ceres. Ceres as you all know is a “Dwarf Planet” much like Pluto. NASA will have to launch Dawn before the end of October. After that the celestial bodies will start to drift apart and Dawn will never be able to reach Ceres from Vesta. Once this happens then NASA will have to delay Dawn by 15 years, a step that the space agency will never want. For now NASA will be working on space shuttle Endeavour and a Mars Lander mission. Image Via: usatoday

NASA has been trying all ways to find life or even traces of it on the red planet. NASA has tried to find clues of life on Mars with its twin rovers that are currently operating on Mars. But unfortunately none of them has been able to find any traces of present or past life on the planet. Now the space agency will try to find some life with its new envoy to the red planet. This Mars Lander is called Phoenix and is due to launch sometime between August 3 and August 24 from Florida. If all goes well then the Lander will reach the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008. The three-month long mission will mainly try and find any clues of a possible microbial life on the planet. NASA wants to land the Lander at a site which is devoid of boulders and should be at a latitude equivalent to Northern Alaska on Earth. Considering the altitude and conditions on the planet, the Lander will have to complete its missions at a temperature of about minus 148 Fahrenheit or minus 100 Celsius. This mission will now add to the latest mission of the space agency to seek a deeper understanding of Earth’s closest planet. This mission is expected to answer some questions that have been troubling astronomers for long. If all goes according to the plan of NASA then the Lander will reach Mars in 2008 and will then wield a robotic arm 7.7 feet long. This arm can dig up to 3 feet to get a sample of the buried soil and frozen water that is thought to be present under the surface of Mars. Continue reading “NASA all geared up to launch Phoenix, will dig the Martian surface for clues of life” »

Storms on Mars have created all sorts of troubles for the twin rovers on the planet. These dust storms have obscured sunlight and have kept the twin rovers hungry for some power. NASA wanted to move Opportunity into the giant Victoria Crater, a maneuver that was thought to be risky as the rover might not have made it back from the crater and would have died in the crated itself. However, the storm there was so wild that it prevented the space agency from moving the rover into the giant crater. In just two weeks, the dust storms have covered more than 10 million square miles of the Martian Southern Hemisphere. The storm was initially troubling Opportunity more than Spirit, but things are fast reversing and now Spirit is in danger. Storms are not the only climatic change on Mars, it also has seasons much like those on Earth because it also has an Earth-like tilt. The planet hosts clouds of ice and carbon dioxide, tornado-like dust devils, auroras and even complex jet streams. All this happens on the planet despite an atmosphere that is just 1 percent as dense as on Earth. Mars has the same progression of season as on Earth that is summer, fall, winter and then spring. Its summers are hotter just like the tropical regions on Earth where the temperature soars to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. But its summer nights are bone-chilling since the temperature is about minus 180 degrees Fahrenheit. The reason for this drastic change in temperature is that the atmosphere on Mars is not as thick as on Earth and once night falls on the planet all the heat from the surface of Mars escapes back into space making the planet colder. This extreme change in the temperature is a threat for all missions as it can easily weaken or even damage the solder joints in the rovers. Continue reading “‘Killer’ dust storms on Mars explained, presence of water could have made things better” »