The folks at Huawei are promising to show off their Ascend D1 Q and a brand new 10-inch MediaPad at Mobile World Congress 2012. Apple supplier Pegatron is wondering when their inspection will be announced while iPad import and export has been axed in China via call from Proview. NASA have announced the end of their favorite and very last IBM Z9 mainframe. We took a peek at QuickShot for iPhone 4S.

We’ve finally got Angry Birds on Facebook – finally, finally at long last. There is now such a thing as an OLED inkjet printhead thanks to Konica Minolta. The folks at ACER will be busting their A510 tablet out in March in Europe. HP’s open webOS browser has been released with big downloads in the wings: 40k Enyo downloads to-date.

NASA had two of the specially modified 747s in its fleet, and one of the jets is called NASA 911. NASA 911 took its final voyage this week on a short flight from NASA’s Dryden flight research Center to Dryden’s Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, California. The final flight lasted only 20 minutes. With the space shuttle retired and the program over, NASA only needs one of the special Boeing aircraft used to transport the space shuttle fleet.

The original shuttle carrying aircraft dubbed NASA 905 will continue to serve for short while longer because it will be used to fly the retired space shuttles to the museums where they will spend the remainder of their days. NASA 911 is going to be used as a source of spare parts to keep another Boeing 747 the space agency uses in operation. That aircraft is the NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which is an aerial platform for a 100-inch reflecting telescope.

[via MSNBC]

These old school mainframe computers roughly the size of a refrigerator have been replaced by smaller and cheaper Linux and UNIX systems that are also faster and easier to manage. These mainframe computers certainly served an important role in NASA’s early space exploration programs. NASA is calling the retirement of its last Z9 the end of an era.

NASA doesn’t mention what it will do with all the retired computer hardware. I would imagine the last Z9 would end up being sold off in some government auction. Apparently, the mainframe had been kept operating at NASA to support applications that NASA knew would eventually be retired. Once those applications were retired, there was no need to continue to maintain the Z9 mainframe.

The exact point in space that NASA is investigating is known as EML-2, which is near the lunar far side and being investigated as the leading option. NASA hopes that EML-2 could serve as a sort of gateway for exploring other destinations such as the moon, asteroids, and Mars. Some of the foundation elements according to NASA would be the planned heavy lift rocket called the Space Lunch System and the Orion crew capsule.

NASA plans for the station to be a international participation solution along the lines of the ISS. There’s no indication at this point of if NASA has the budget or the inclination to actually take on this project. NASA must have some sort of idea that the project would work at some point in the future to even be considering it. Interestingly, should the EML-2 station come to be it would be the longest distance from Earth humans have traveled.

[via Space.com]

The Tesla Motors group headed by Musk sold its first shares publicly in 2010, and another company whom Musk is the chairman of, SolarCity Corp, will be preparing their IPO this year as well – so say people familiar with the matter speaking with Bloomberg. SolarCity Corp is a group which develops rooftop solar-power systems for a much more efficient and inexpensive future. The SpaceX group, on the other hand, has contracts to launch several satellites and will be shipping cargo to the International Space Station starting in April.

SpaceX was initially started by Musk with money from the IPO of PayPal Inc., another company he co-founded, as well as his stake in the group when it was ultimately sold outright to eBay. SpaceX is currently doing very well on its own and will certainly benefit heavily from an IPO if they do indeed move toward such a situation. As Musk noted this week at the Model X reveal:

“SpaceX, in terms of launches awarded, is the world leader in space launch. We’re beating the Russians, the Chinese, the Europeans, everyone.” – Musk

Can’t wait for this real-life Tony Stark to start making iron suits!

The host star in this system is called GJ 667C and is an M-class dwarf star. Two more stars sit in the same system and are a pair of orange K dwarfs. This area was not expected to be the best place for a habitable planet to be out of all those being concentrated on in this larger Kepler mission, but turned out surprisingly to be just what those watching were looking for. Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC, noted:

“This was expected to be a rather unlikely star to host planets. Yet there they are, around a very nearby, metal-poor example of the most common type of star in our galaxy. The detection of this planet, this nearby and this soon, implies that our galaxy must be teeming with billions of potentially habitable rocky planets.”- Vogt

This new planet receives 90 percent of the light that our Earth receives, and because most of the incoming light is infrared, a higher percent of the incoming energy is absorbed by the planet – in other words, lets go move in now!

“This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it.” – Anglada-Escudé

Wouldn’t it be lovely to go live on a new planet? We won’t be getting there in our lifetimes, sadly enough – unless Zefram Cochrane hurries up and gets born so he can invite warp speed. Come on nerds, get to reproducin!

[via University of California Santa Cruz]

Further down, the clip approaches the lunar south pole, with the 93 mile wide Drygalski crater visible to the left, and identified by its star-shaped formation in the middle. According to NASA “the formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago by a comet or asteroid impact.”

Each of the GRAIL craft – named Ebb and Flow – is roughly the size of a washing machine, and entered into lunar orbit around the end of 2011. Unlike most NASA missions, GRAIL is being run for the large part by middle-school students; they’ll pick points on the surface of the moon that they want to see close up, and the satellites will beam back photos for use in schoolroom science classes.

However, there’s other information to be learned too, and scientists plan to use the data to explore how rocky planets including Earth originally formed. NASA promises more footage will be forthcoming soon.

Cernaianu also offered for sale software that he claimed would allow others to hack into these servers. He even demonstrated in videos how he carried out his attacks on the US government websites. However, the motivations behind his exploits were more to point out security flaws than for financial gain or anything truly malicious.

As TinKode, Cernaianu often published the security flaws of the websites he hacked into over the last few years, including high-profile websites of the US Army, NASA, the UK Royal Navy, the European Space Agency, MySQL, and Google. Regardless of his intentions, authorities claim that his actions have caused significant damage to the servers and hacking into websites is still a crime.

[via PCMag]

It was reported that Russia had asked the US to participate in the investigation to determine if a radar station in Alaska could have interfered with the navigation system of the probe causing its failure, which the US declined to participate in. Russia has now come back and offered the official explanation what caused Phobos-grunt to crash. Russia’s Federal Space Agency head Vladimir Popovkin has now announced that space radiation caused a glitch in onboard computer systems of the probe, which led to its crash.

The Russian government commission that was investigating the failure has ruled out any external or foreign influence on the failure of the probe. The failure of Phobos-grunt marks the 17th failure of a Russian attempt to send probes to Mars.

“Two components of the onboard computer system were spontaneously rebooted and it switched into a standby mode,” Vladimir Popovkin said.

“The most likely reason [for the glitch] is the impact of heavy charged space particles,” he said.

[via Ria.ru]

IBEX has observed four separate types of interstellar atoms—hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and helium—which fill the space between stars. They blow across the galaxy as interstellar wind of flowing charged and neutral particles. Researchers discovered that this interstellar wind has much less oxygen atoms relative to neon atoms. The ratio is 74 oxygen atoms to every 20 neon atoms, whereas that ratio is 111 oxygen atoms to 20 neon atoms inside our solar system.

This could mean that our solar system developed in a part of the galaxy that was much more oxygen-rich than where it currently resides or that a lot of oxygen is trapped in interstellar dust grains and unable to move freely through space. Understanding this composition will help scientists understand how our solar system evolved. It’s believed that the big bang initially created hydrogen and helium, while supernova explosions spread heavier elements such as oxygen and neon.

The IBEX orbits at about 200,000 miles above Earth to study the edge of the solar system and to understand the boundary region called the heliosphere. The heliosphere protects our solar system and prevents dangerous cosmic radiation from entering.

[via MMD]

Early Sunday morning specialists at the Russian mission control center that handles the ISS decided to raise the orbit of the space station. The orbit was changed to avoid chunk of debris left over from a Chinese anti-satellite missile test conducted in 2007. The mission controllers felt the chunk of space debris was going to pass too close to the space station for comfort.

The orbit of the ISS was raised by 1.7 km, putting the station at an orbit 391.6 km above the surface of the earth. The orbit change was made using the Zvezda service module’s engines. It took the ISS 64 seconds to change the orbit. The chunk of debris was from the Chinese Fengyun-1C weather satellite the Chinese military targeted with an anti-satellite weapon leaving a massive amount of space debris that spacefaring nations will have to deal with for many, many years to come.

[via SpaceDaily]

The specific date in 2014 has not been confirmed, but we do know a few tidbits about the maiden flight of the Orion capsule. The maiden flight will be an unmanned mission with the rocket carrying the Orion taking off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Orion will make two orbits of the Earth on its first flight. After those two orbits, the Orion capsule will reenter the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean where it will be retrieved.

The other tidbit we do know about the mission as of now, is that the Orion will orbit at a distance much higher than the orbit of the ISS. At its zenith, the Orion capsule will be nearly 3700 miles from the Earth’s surface, which is the farthest from Earth that a NASA spacecraft has gone since the early 1970s. Presumably, that high orbit is to keep the Orion capsule out of the way any space debris or important satellites. The test will be conducted to see how heat shields on the spacecraft perform, and whether the craft can survive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere ahead of any manned missions. NASA is still aiming at 2021 for the first human flight aboard the Orion capsule.

“The beauty about flying in 2014 is that we can learn early if there are problems, so if we find something we really got to fix, we’ve got time before we fly people,” said Mark Geyer, head of the Orion program at NASA.

[via Philly.com]

At times massive solar storms can cause problems on Earth with TV reception, mobile phone signals, and GPS satellites among other things. The upside is that you can get quite the light show. According to a team of experts at the University of Michigan, these massive solar flares from the sun and the corresponding aurora borealis on Earth may continue for the next year or two on a monthly basis. Scientists expect the peak of the sun’s solar flare activity to occur next year, which is part of a normal 11-year cycle for our sun.

The last solar storm peaked on January 24 and was responsible for some disrupted high-frequency radio signals over a two-day period according to scientist Philip Chamberlain, who works on the Solar Observatory Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. We are so far from the sun that each time one of these massive eruptions occurs, we will have at least a day’s notice before the radiation hits the Earth’s atmosphere.

“The solar cycle is increasing, and so we are going to get more storms,” says University of Michigan space weather expert Tamas Gombosi. “Once an eruption happens on the sun, even the biggest ones, we’ll have at least a day’s warning.”

[via USA Today]

It is Leonard David from Space that lets us in on the commission being formed here, telling the world that it’s NEOs, or near-Earth objects that they’re studying. Not in regards to collecting and saving them for their rock collection, but how they might be destroyed if any too large to be ignored come towards the planet. Alan Harris, senior scientist and NEOShield project leader at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof, Germany, has the following to say on the subject:

“The scientific side of this will include the analysis of observational data on NEOs and laboratory experiments in which projectiles are fired at asteroid surface analog materials with different compositions, densities, porosities and structures. We need to understand how the momentum transfer from a kinetic impactor to an asteroid depends on the physical characteristics of the asteroid.” – Harris

One of their first big investigatory missions is to check out an asteroid-deflection kinetic impactor project drawn up several years ago and titled Don Quijote. This mission would have a spacecraft head to the path of the asteroid and, without physically contacting it, drag it to an alternate path that does not collide with the planet.

“We’ll be looking in detail at the tricky technical issues associated with autonomous control of a spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of a large, rotating, potato-shaped asteroid, and ion thrusters that may have to function continuously and reliably over a period of 10 years or more.” – Harris

Another approach is much more explosive than using a tractor beam, a “blast deflection” method falling more in the “final desperation” category where no other options are available. This method works like so, according to Harris once again:

“For an asteroid with a diameter of more than half a mile or a warning time of less than five years, the ‘blast-deflection’ method may be the only feasible approach. Our Russian colleagues will be looking in detail at the physics of how an asteroid would respond to a nuclear explosion near, or on, its surface. … [But even then] we’re left with chunks of asteroid — or even a whole one — entering the Earth’s atmosphere and causing damage on the surface. … We do not advocate testing nuclear explosives in space and will not be studying nuclear weapons technology.” – Harris

We’re feeling a bit more safe now that we’re being watch over by asteroid specialists – do you?

The most interesting of the planetary systems in the newly discovered group is called Kepler-33. This star is bigger and older than our sun. It has five planets and the cool part is that all five of the planets orbit the parent star at a distance closer to that of Mars to the Sun. The planets are all larger than Earth as well ranging from 1.5 times the Earth’s diameter to five times Earth diameter.

At this point, the scientists studying the planets don’t know if they are rocky planets like Earth and Mars or if they are gas giants like Saturn or Jupiter. There are 2,300 other planet candidates that the scientists still need to confirm. Nine of the other newly discovered planetary systems have two planets and one has three with all of those planets orbiting closer to the host planet than Venus to the sun.

[via Telegraph]

Russia has so far not accused the US outright of sabotaging Phobos-grunt, but the talk has been all around Russian media that the US could have caused the failure of the craft. Russia has officially asked the US to participate in an investigation to prove whether or not the US radar could have caused the failure.

Deputy head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Anatoly Shylov said Thursday that the US had refused to participate. Many still feel that the finger pointing at a US radar station is nothing but an attempt to hide the mistakes of other people on the mission program.

Shylov said, “Roscosmos filed an official request to the U.S. side to participate in the investigation, but they refused.”

[via Ria.ru]

According to Gingrich, the lunar base will be ideal for “science, tourism and manufacturing” – the Republican has gone on record on several occasions, suggesting the moon would be an ideal opportunity for mining - with a “robust industry” that would be modeled on 20th century airline development.

The ambitious plans may be at odds with NASA’s own budget for space exploration, never mind colonization. However, Gingrich has a few ideas for what, exactly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration should spend its money on: 10-percent in prize money for private companies willing to undertake interplanetary exploration.

“Americans are instinctively grandiose” Gingrich said of his proposals, apparently believing that would be sufficient explanation. No word on what the lunar base might be called, nor whether it might be built in the shape of the candidate’s own face.

[via Guardian]

The time for Discovery to head to the museum collection is coming very soon. Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough has announced that the Discovery will be flown on the back of a Boeing 747 in April to Dulles International Airport. According to Clough, the 747 with the piggybacking space shuttle will make a flyover of Washington on its way to the Smithsonian hanger in north Virginia.

The flyover is set for April 17 according to Clough, but another spokesperson for the museum said that detail has not been fully worked out at this time. The formal welcoming ceremony for the Discovery at the hanger is set for April 19. In the second half of 2012, the Endeavour will make its final voyage to the California Science Center in LA.

[via Washington Post]

The first video you’re going to see is a lovely black and cyan/teal view of the Sun as viewed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on the 22nd of this month. SDO’s view of what’s called the M8.7 Solar Flare is shown in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength commonly used to view nothing less than solar flares on the regular. The flare itself, they note, began on the 22nd of January at 10:38 PM ET, peaked at 10:59 PM that same day, and ended at 11:34 PM.

The next video you may have seen still images of before as they’ve often accompanied stories surrounding the storm this week, it showing the recognizable orange Sun in all its glory. This video was also captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, this time in 304 angstrom. It was with this discovery that the world found that an Earth-directed CME, or Coronal Mass Ejection, was accompanying the flare.

Then from photographers appearing to mostly be in Norway we’ve got the Northern Lights flaring up like wacky waves of colorful fabulousness. Auroras galore from magnussveinsson, Runólfur Hauksson, Harpa Hrund, Sigurjón J. Sigurðsson, and Per Ivar Somby.

NASA also confirmed that there was and is no danger for the astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station as we speak. The CME arrived on Earth at 1500 UT (10 am EST) according to Space Weather, and they’re letting us all know that this could be “a happy day” for aurora watchers everywhere. The chart you’re looking at below is registered at Lofoton, Norway, and shows the CME’s arrival in ground currents outside the laboratory of scientist Rob Stammes.

With this and other Sun-related events, we’d like to assure you that though we’re in no clear and present danger of any kind of destruction of the Earth, it will come someday. For the Sun is not a Mass of Incandescent Gas, it is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma, and we invite you to take part in a learning exercise on the subject. To help us out, here’s They Might Be Giants with their smash hit: Why Does the Sun Really Shine? [This is an update to the original Why Does The Sun Shine? you might be familiar with if you were a fourth grader when their first Science album was released.]

The image at the head of this post comes from our same source, Space Weather, but was submitted by photographer Andy Keen and was taken at the very start of this storm on January 22nd, 2012, up in Northern Lapland, Finland.

[via Space Weather]

According to the scientist, the object is a giant scorpion-like organism that appears to change locations from one photo to the next. Ksanfomaliti describes the alleged bug as a scorpion shaped body, a disc, and a back flap that moves. However, others are disagreeing with Ksanfomaliti. It would seem that the stifling 464C heat on the surface of Venus and the gravity nine times that of the Earth would prohibit life.

Jonathon Hill is a mission planner and research tech working at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. Hill is responsible for processing the images that are taken on Mars missions. He says that the object the Russian scientist thinks is a scorpion like creature is a mechanical component. Hill bases his assessment off higher-resolution images from Venera 13. He also notes that the same object is shown in photos taken by a different but identical probe that landed nearby called Venera 14.

[via Telegraph]

What will be hitting the earth is a collection of charged particles that’ll be smashing in at right about 9AM EST, this according to the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA notes that this event will have polar flights here on Earth re-routed in plenty of time to avoid any mishaps. The worst that could happen and has happened in the past is satellite disruption (in orbit) and widespread communications interference. As officials at SpaceWeather.com noted in an alert:

There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth. A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet.” – Space Weather

NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries also spoke directly to Space.com on the astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station:

“The flight surgeons have reviewed the space weather forecasts for the flare and determined that there are no expected adverse effects or actions required to protect the on-orbit crew.” – Humphries

Folks anywhere near a place they’ll be able to see the Northern Lights are asked to take some awesome photos and let the whole world see how cool the sun can be when it has the intergalactic equivalent of a bad bellyache.

[via Space.com]

NASA had originally blocked the short 8-minute film, which Garriott planned to air in independent theaters, on the vague grounds that it was beyond the scope of the agreement Garriott had with the space agency. Garriott was aboard the ISS as a paid civilian back in 2008. The short film had a screenplay written by Tracy Hickman, apparently Hickman co-created the Dragonlance shared universe.

Garriott had wanted to release Apogee of Fear along with a documentary he made about following in his father’s footsteps called Man on a Mission. His father was astronaut Owen Garriott. NASA is now working with Garriott on the film’s release. I wonder if all this blocking of films and auctions by NASA is just it looking to make money off the films and items sold? Could NASAs budget woes mean it needs all the loot it can get? What do you think?

NASA is working with Richard Garriott to facilitate the video’s release. While the project was not part of his original Space Act agreement with NASA, everyone involved had the best of intentions. We hope to resolve the remaining issues expeditiously, and we appreciate Richard’s cooperation and his ongoing efforts to get people excited about the future of space exploration.

[via Wired]

The footage in question appears to have a triangular-shaped craft moving towards us. Also in the footage are Venus and Earth with the triangular shape on the opposite side of the video. The conspiracy theories started to float around wildly when the website for the images and video from the spacecraft was updated with new shots leading to cries of a cover-up.

Generally, NASA scientists leave the conspiracy theorists alone, but this time they decided to debunk the rumors. According to the scientists, the triangular-shaped object is a phenomenon seen frequently. The triangle shape has to do with light reflecting back and forth off the lenses, and mirrors inside the telescope the probes use. Generally, the reflections manifest as triangles or circles of different shapes and sizes. In short, it’s not a UFO. The official explanation is below.

“The answer lies on the exact opposite side of the image,” the scientists wrote. “At the same time as this strange-looking feature starts being visible, the very bright planet Venus enters the [telescopic camera's] field-of-view from the lower left.

“[Venus and the triangle stay in step as they move] This is not a coincidence. The strange-looking geometrical ‘object’ is actually an internal reflection of the planet Venus within the telescope optics. This effect has been seen many times before.”

[via Cristian Science Monitor]

SpaceX says that the delay will allow it to run more engineering tests on the capsule. A new launch date has not yet been set. NASA, and SpaceX are working together to set a new date. SpaceX spokeswoman Kristin Grantham noted that the company thinks the Dragon will benefit from more tests on a “few areas.” The areas needing attention aren’t specified.

I would say this is a good thing. If the very first mission of the Dragon capsule fails, SpaceX would not be in a good position. When the Dragon does launch, it will be atop one of SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rockets. The first mission for the Dragon capsule will be unmanned, but the craft is designed to carry people as well.

[via Fox News]

The Mars Images app is available, and it trolls the NASA Opportunity images feed and will share those images with you, as soon as they are sent back to Earth from the red planet. The app was developed by Mark Powell from the NASA JPL. You can also access old photos that the rover sent home in the past. The app will be updated too.

The updates will bring archive photos form the now dead Spirit rover. NASA is also going to add a similar app for the Mars Science Laboratory once hit hits the surface of Mars. I wish it would access video that would be cool.

[via Wired]

The failed launch left the craft in a degrading orbit that will have Phobos-Grunt falling back into the atmosphere and breaking up. The craft is being tracked by Russia and NASA with parts of the craft expected to survive re-entry and fall anywhere along a massive swath of Earth that includes major cities of London, New York, and Tokyo.

Originally Russian space agency director Vladimir Popovkin has speculated that an issue with the craft’s navigation computer could have been the source of the failure. However, he is now hinting that the failure of the probe could have been due to some sort of anti-satellite weapon. Popovkin didn’t come out and accuse anyone or any country of attacking the probe. The New York Times reports that a retired commander of a Russian missile warning system had previously speculated that strong radar signals from installations in Alaska could have damaged the spacecraft.

Popovkin said in an interview with a paper called Izvestia, “We don’t want to accuse anybody, but there are very powerful devices that can influence spacecraft now. The possibility they were used cannot be ruled out.” He also said, “the frequent failure of our space launches, which occur at a time when they are flying over the part of Earth not visible from Russia, where we do not see the spacecraft and do not receive telemetric information, are not clear to us.”

[via NYTimes]

Kepler-16b was discovered last fall and a recent study by doctoral student Billy Quarles at the University of Texas at Arlington and colleagues have been working on simulated possibilities that would put an Earth-mass world in the Kepler-16 system. The team is assuming that the brighter of the two stars in the system would provide most of the light and heat for orbiting planets. That would put the main habitable zone for the system at 55 to 106 million kilometers from the stars.

Kepler-16b itself is a gas giant similar to Saturn and would be uninhabitable, but a moon in the gas giant’s orbit could possibly sustain life. The gas giant is on the outer edge of the system’s habitable zone. The researchers note that a habitable planet orbiting closer to the stars, still in the habitable zone could have been ejected by the gravitational forces of the two stars and arrived at the gas giant as a ready formed moon. If the moon exists and were habitable, could you imagine the sunset with twin stars and orbiting a gas giant. Whether such a moon exists is a big “if” for sure, but I move we call the habitable moon Endor.

[via National Geographic]

NASA has chosen a place unofficially called Greeley Haven after the late scientist Ronald Greeley that passed away in October 2011. This winter Opportunity will sit near the rim of the massive Endeavour crater. It has taken the rover three years to make its way to the rim of the crater. The reason Greeley Haven was chosen is that the 15-degree slope will allow the solar panels on the rover to absorb more light.

This is the first winter that Opportunity has spent on a slope angling its panels for more collection of sunlight. The reason the angled location was chosen is that the solar panels on the rover have an extra-heavy coating of dust. While parked, Opportunity will take the winter to study the rocks near Greeley Haven. The rover will continue studying the crater rim taking off again in June or July. This is the fifth Martian winter Opportunity has been on mars. The rover was originally expected to last only 90 days on Mars.

[via MSNBC]

The Spaceflight story presents no direct evidence of spying by the US. There is no clear explanation at this time for what exactly the X-37B is doing in orbit on its missions. The reason for the spying speculation is that the Chinese and US spacecraft are apparently on the same orbit.

Expert Brian Weeden told the BBC that a normal spy satellite orbit would be polar to get access to the entire Earth. The X-37B is apparently in an orbit that gives it access only to the Middle East and Afghanistan. What do you think?

[via NYDailyNews]

At the time we learned that the checklist had sold, I wondered if NASA would be coming back and laying claim to the property. NASA has laid claim to all moon rocks and has arrested people for selling the rocks. It made sense to me that the checklist would be considered NASA property as well. NASA is now blocking the sale of the checklist and asserting that Lovell had no right to sell the document.

Lovell signed an affidavit with Heritage claiming he had title to the document. However, NASA is claiming that there is no indication the document title was ever transferred to Lovell. NASA said in a statement to the AP, “Only NASA has the authority to clear NASA property for sale.” NASA is also questioning the sale of other space items that Heritage has auctioned off including a lunar module identification plate and a hand controller. Heritage has delayed the final sell of the checklist and is awaiting the outcome of the.

[via ABC News]

The photo you see here is of the ISS alongside the moon and was taken in the Houston area in the early evening of January 4. I happened to be outside when the ISS passed over and that night with the naked eye, it looked like a bright star and quickly moved across the horizon.

NASA says that the best time to lay eyes on the ISS tonight will start at 6:11pm CST. The ISS will be visible for about 6-minutes as the station travels form 10-degrees above west-northwest to 10 degrees above south-southeast. The maximum elevation will be 44 degrees.

Yeomans exact position was (and is) manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He knows his stuff, and his NASA badge is nothing to scoff at. The reason he gave the talk that Space.com reported was a simple one: after searching the web for “2012 disasters,” he said he got 35 million hits, noting “a lot of people are concerned about December 21, 2012.” Thusly he spoke in turn about the major theories (if you can call them major, that is,) that have been plaguing many over the past several years.

Planet X

There is a wild woman out there who claims to be in contact with aliens from outer space that have told her that a planet by the name of Nibiru or “Planet X” will crash into the Earth on December 21st, 2012. She also predicted this would happen in May of 2003, but changed her prediction to this new date when, lo and behold, life in this planet did not end in the third year of the 2000s. Nancy Leider, the woman in question here, spoke with aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system, gaining this insight more than once, saying that this mystery planet is simply hiding behind the sun until it comes a’ crashing.

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that Nibiru exists. It can’t hide behind the sun forever, and we would’ve seen it years ago. [An in regards to any conspiracy,] there’s no way on Earth to keep astronomers quiet about anything,” Yeomans joked.

Mayan Calendar

Again, the Mayan Calendar supposedly ends on what we know as the 21st of December, 2012. Yeomans simply notes that this is as silly as saying that at the end of the day, the world ends as well.

“The short-count was 52 of our years, and the long-count was 5,125 years long. This long-count calendar is coming to an end on Dec. 21. Of course, a new calendar would start on Dec. 22. It would be like saying that our calendar ends Dec. 31, and that’s the end of time, the end of days, that’s it, no regard for how a new cycle would begin. The Maya never predicted the end of the world occurred at that time.” – Yeomans

Planets Align

Fears that the planets in our solar system will all line up in a row and crash because the gravity from each will cause a one gigantic attraction festival were slapped in the face by Yeomans. First of all, there is no planetary alignment on December 21st, 2012, he noted. That’s important. Then Yeomans reminded the audience that the only planetary bodies that have any kind of gravitational effect on the Earth are the Sun and our moon, these creating tides in our watery bodies. Nothing more.

Pole Flip

Another completely absurd claim is that the geographical and magnetic poles will flip on the 21st of December, 2012. First of all, the geographical poles cannot flip as the moon keeps our planet spinning stably – that’s quite simple. Then there’s the magnetic poles, which do indeed flip, but only once every 500,000 years, each time doing so over thousands of years.

“And there’s no evidence of a flip on Dec. 21, 2012. Even if it did flip, it would not cause any real problems, other than us having to change our compasses from north to south.” – Yeomans

Solar Storms

This is the only, and I repeat the only thing we should have any worries about, and it has nothing to do with the year 2012 specifically. What a solar storm entails is a torrent of energetic particles from the sun flying off and slamming into the Earth. These generally create auroras and can mess up power lines and satellites in space, but “nothing that causes lasting damage,” as Yeomans notes.

“There is no evidence that one will happen on Dec. 21 next year,” Yeomans said. It’s impossible to predict solar activity that far out, and even an extremely strong solar storm wouldn’t likely bring the apocalypse that some fear.” – Yeomans

Just such an “extremely strong” storm or “super storm” did occur, or at least there are some records of something very similar, here on Earth in the year 1859. Though records show that it did little damage back then, our whole world revolves around electronics these days – we’re talking Escape from LA business here, folks, fun!

In Summary

The world isn’t going to end inside 2012 barring an event completely unprecedented in science and physics in basically every way. It’s absurd to believe that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world because the Mayans never said nor indicated such a thing. Yeomans had a final note to ring out on, it sounding clear for all the citizens out there whose science isn’t exactly their strong suit:

Scientists really have their work cut out for them. We really have to do a better job educating people about science.” – Yeomans

[via Space.com]

The Grail spacecraft went into orbit around the moon over last weekend, and the arrival of the dual Grail crafts was timed for 24 hours apart. Grail-A inserted over the South Pole and entered orbit with Grail-B doing the same the next day. The new moon mission is to help learn more about the moon. According to scientists on the project, we know more about Mars than we know about the moon.

One of the big mysteries is why the moon is lopsided with one side that is hillier than the side that faces earth. The Grail crafts will help figure out how the moon formed by measuring the gravity field. The longer time to reach the moon was due to the small rocket used for money-saving measures.

[via AP]

Astronomers studying the newly discovered planets think that they were once gas giants along the lines of Saturn or Jupiter. They became the small rocky planets that were discovered after the parent star became a red giant and burned off the outer gas layers. Any planets that orbited closer to the parent star would have been vaporized when the star expanded.

The two planets are orbiting a subdwarf parent star called KIC 02697388. The star is about 4,000 light-years away in the direction of the Cygnus constellation. A Subdwarf B star is a very hot blue star that is between a red giant and white dwarf star that is in the final stages of its life cycle.

[via National Geographic]

Dawn has been inching closer to Vesta since July when it showed up at the asteroid and the spacecraft is now at a distance of only 130 miles from the giant asteroid. NASA calls that position the low-altitude mapping orbit. That orbit was reached on December 12 and images started showing up at mission control on December 13.

The new orbit has returned photos taken with the framing camera that have three times the resolution of the previous position Dawn orbited in. NASA says that the best resolution of the camera is about 75-feet. That will provide images that can resolve grooves, small craters, and surface textures. After Dawn wraps up the Vesta mission it, will head to Ceres and start again.

[via Spaceflightnow]

The Hubble has found that some of the substances on the surface of Pluto are absorbing more UV light than was expected. The discovery hints that the compounds discovered on the surface of Pluto could be complex hydrocarbons or molecules containing nitrogen according to researchers. Fox News reports that Pluto is known to harbor different ices made of methane, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen on the surface.

According to the researchers, the UV absorbing chemicals could have been produced when sunlight or cosmic rays interacted with the different ices. It’s worth noting that the researchers say that Pluto’s UV spectrum has changed since it was measured with the Hubble in the 90′s compared to today.

[via Fox News]

For those of you interested in how intense this ballista would be able to be here on Earth, first note that they’re firing the harpoons downward in their tests, but if they fired it upwards, it’d skewer more than its fair share of low-flying birds, up to a mile straight up. This bow has an electric winch that pulls its bow string back with a force of up to 1,000 pounds, able to fire projectiles to velocities up to 100 feet per second. Have a peek at the demonstration and explanation video courtesy of NASA below, and mind the 3D:

Studying samples of comets will allow us to discover information about the origins of our solar system. Donald Wegel of NASA Goddard, lead engineer on the project at hand, notes the following about the testing process:

“We had to bolt it to the floor, because the recoil made the whole testbed jump after every shot. We’re not sure what we’ll encounter on the comet – the surface could be soft and fluffy, mostly made up of dust, or it could be ice mixed with pebbles, or even solid rock. Most likely, there will be areas with different compositions, so we need to design a harpoon that’s capable of penetrating a reasonable range of materials. The immediate goal though, is to correlate how much energy is required to penetrate different depths in different materials. What harpoon tip geometries penetrate specific materials best? How does the harpoon mass and cross section affect penetration? The ballista allows us to safely collect this data and use it to size the cannon that will be used on the actual mission.” – Wegel

Isn’t it all just so very exciting? Next we’ll be launching probes into the Ultimate Evil just like they do on The Fifth Element, finding out that all of our readings are way off, and that we need to collect the five elements to stop the end of Humanity! Or we’ll just find out some awesome information about rocks – either way, we win!

Credit: NASA/Rob Andreoli for the ballista testbed photo and the photo of the prototype harpoon tip and collection chamber.

[via NASA]

Lovejoy was not expected to survive the brush with the sun and was being observed by scientists and was expected to be completely destroyed. The NASA solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft followed Lovejoy on its path through the corona, expecting to see the comet’s demise, and surprisingly saw Lovejoy streak back out into space. Scientists were so convinced that the comet was going to be vaporized that some were shocked and elated when the comet survived.

Lovejoy has a core that is about 660 feet wide and is in a class of comet dubbed Kreutz sungrazers because of the orbit that brings it very close to the sun. The comet was discovered by an Australian amateur astronomer named Terry Lovejoy, which is where the comet name comes from. Comet Lovejoy was discovered on November 27.

[via Space.com]

If H211′s scheme goes ahead, the outer panels of Hangar One – which have been partially removed, after it was discovered they contained lead paint, asbestos and PCB – would be replaced and some of the internal structure refurbished. NASA would remain the owner of the building, and be at liberty to rent out the areas not used by the H211 scheme. As for Google’s execs, they’d be allowed to use a up to two-thirds of the hangar floor space to park up to eight private jets currently shared by the trio.

NASA’s reluctance to approve the deal – which became necessary after the House of Representatives axed $32m from the organization’s budget that had been earmarked to re-skin the structure – has led to frustrations among H211 as well as the US government subcommittee looking into the possibilities of restoration. The remaining concern for the committee had been the possibility of Google branding being installed, something H211 has said is not intended.

H211 insists that Hangar One would still be left with huge amounts of unused space, both refurbished as part of the donation, and left in a relatively raw state for future development. NASA says the proposal “has not yet been completely vetted” and that it is “giving all options thoughtful consideration as we prepare our funding proposal for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.” However in the meantime, the hangar remains partially open to the elements, and faces higher reconstruction costs as existing work would have to be re-performed.

Hangar One was built in the 1930s, and remains one of the largest free-standing structures in the world today. With a footprint covering eight acres and a height of 198 feet, the building – intended to house military airships – is in fact so tall that cloud-like fog has been known to form in its upper levels. More details here.