Europa breathes

Approximate natural color (left) and enhanced color (right) view of leading hemisphere taken by NASA/JPL's Galileo in 1997

Europa, second satellite of Jupiter, has intrigued planetary scientists since Galileo first spied it and its three siblings through his telescope in 1610. It was these four satellites that exposed the theology of the Catholic Church for the fairytale it was at the height of the Church’s political power. When two Pioneer and two Voyager spacecraft barreled through the Jovian system in the 1970s, that interest turned into one of the most exciting fields in planetary astronomy. Europa is now perhaps the best bet for ET life, it may be one of the most earth-like worlds in our solar system in some respects, and new research suggests Europa not only has a vast subsurface, salty ocean, but that that ocean “breathes”. [Read more…]

Simulation shows a crowded early solar system

Artist's impression of a planet ejected from the early solar system. CREDIT: Southwest Research Institute

Hot Jupiter’s, possible water worlds or gas dwarfs, even one planet that could have a mantle of diamond, exo-solar planets remind us that the universe can still harbor secrets. In the last decade or two, as the number of strange exo-planetary denizens grew, it became clear that some must have migrated. Moved closer, or shot away, from their primary star. The early history of our own solar system, how the planets formed and ended up in the relatively stable configuration we see today, can be studied with the same techniques developed and refined to model those alien systems. One of the simulations that best explains the familiar worlds we know huddling around the sun comes with an extra planet, or maybe two: [Read more…]

OMG, it’s full of stars

Dwarf Galaxies 9 billion light-years away in near infrared. Image courtesy NASA/ESA

The mighty eye of Hubble has been turned toward the genesis of galaxies and stars and found great big things start out in smaller, dynamic packages. Today the baryonic universe is dominated by elegant spirals like our own Milky Way and massive elliptical galaxies buzzing like a swarm of angry bees in ultra slow-motion. Each with supermassive black holes lurking in their center, some weighing over a billion times the mass of our sun. But Hubble has found it wasn’t always like that: [Read more…]

Russian mission to hurtling Martian moon already in big trouble

Enhanced-color view of Phobos obtained by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 23, 2008. Stickney crater, the largest, is on the right side.

The Russian mission to visit and sample the tiny Martian moon Phobos may have already run into a problem so big it threatens to sink the entire effort. After reaching low earth orbit, the kick stage of the rocket failed to fire on time, leaving the spacecraft unable to break orbit and head for Mars: [Read more…]

Asteroid gazing on the web

Path for 2005 YU55, times shown are Greenwich Mean Time. Subtract 6 hours to get Central Time in the US

When YU55 rolls past closest approach to earth this evening, a comfortable 200,000 miles away thank goodness, you won’t be able to see it with your unaided eye or even a small telescope. It would take a decent sized amateur scope just to see the little starlike point moving from west to east toward the constellation Pegasus in the hours before and after 6:28 PM EDT. But NASA has set up two websites that will have excellent viewing! [Read more…]

Wanna take a ride into space?

XCOR was founded in 1999 and has grown from those four original founders, working out of a tiny hangar, to a team of two dozen highly skilled and talented employees housed in a 10,000 square foot hangar in Mojave, California. The employees of XCOR don’t just dream of affordable spaceflight, they are rapidly making it a reality. I had a chance this week to visit with one of them, company CEO Jeff Greason. [Read more…]