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 NASA's Curiosity Rover inside a high vacuum environmental testing chamber
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Engineers placed Curiosity inside the chamber to simulate the surface conditions on Mars that the rover will experience after landing in August 2012. The technician in the picture is using a wand to map the solar simulation intensities at different locations in the chamber just prior to the start of the testing. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
If NASA Budget cutters succeed, this may be the last of NASA's Mars rovers for a very long time ! NASA's next Mars rover, named Curiosity, is now undergoing crucial tests that are designed to simulate the harsh environmental conditions of the Martian surface that awaits the rover when she lands there in August 2012. Curiosity, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory or MSL, is the size of a mini-Cooper. It was placed inside a 7.6 meter (25 foot) diameter high vacuum chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Engineers are now conducting an extensive regimen of tests that will check out the performance and operational capabilities of the rover under Mars-like conditions.(...)
Read the rest of Curiosity Rover Testing in Harsh Mars-like Environment (492 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curiosity Rover, Mars, NASA
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The James Webb Space Telescope will have a sunshield that is about the size of a tennis court, and mission managers say it will offer the best "SPF" (Sun Protection Factor) in the Universe. “Each of the five layers of the shield is less than half the thickness of a piece of paper," said John Durning, Deputy Project Manager for JWST. "The five work together to create an effective SPF of 1,000,000.” This sunshield protects the observatory from unwanted light, keeping it cool and allowing it to detect heat from faraway objects in the universe. So, how do you get something that large into orbit?
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Read the rest of JWST Sunscreen Offers SPF 1,000,000 (251 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: James Webb Space Telescope, jwst
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 Two of the astronauts who flew the STS-123, Garrett Reisman (center) and Dom Gorie (right) have already left NASA. More appear to be following their lead. Image Credit: NASA.gov In the wake of the recent departure of astronaut Garrett Reisman from NASA to work for SpaceX, the necessity of the National Academies review, started this past December, to determine the of the number of astronauts that NASA needs should be called into question. Reisman is but one of many space fliers that have left NASA within the past year in what some might describe as a mass exodus from the nation's astronaut corps. (...)
Read the rest of Is National Academies Review of Astronaut Numbers Needed? (556 words)
© Jason Rhian for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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 Panoramic view from the upper reaches of the Shuttle Gantry -
Fixed Service Structure - at Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
View shows the top of the shuttle stack and Florida Space Coastline. Credit: Ken Kremer
Photo Album below Space Shuttle Endeavour now sits majestically at launch pad 39 A at the Kennedy Space Center, awaiting her historic final spaceflight on the STS-134 mission. Following her nighttime rollout to the pad, I was part of a lucky band of photographers and journalists permitted to travel along and participate in the ultimate photo op on a picture perfect day. NASA allowed us to get breathtakingly close and document Endeavour from multiple absolutely awesome vantage points all around the launch pad from top to bottom. We were given access to shoot from the upper reaches of the launch gantry with stunning panoramic vistas of the Florida coastline to the bottom of the launch platform and standing directly beneath the External Tank and adjacent to the Twin Solid Rocket Boosters. Here is part 1 of my photo album which focuses on the upper levels and includes our visit to the White Room – where the astronauts enter the crew hatch to board the shuttle orbiter to take their seats for the adventure of a lifetime.(...)
Read the rest of Shuttle Endeavour Photo Special: On Top of Pad 39A for Final Flight (432 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: NASA, Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-134
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 Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (Credit NASA) Click for a zoomable image We live on a planet which orbits a star, and along with a hundred billion other stars, our Sun orbits the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. It doesn’t just stop there; our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in our Universe that gravitationally clump together in groups or clusters. Throughout Spring in the northern hemisphere, astronomers and people interested in the night sky are going to be in for a galactic treat, as this is the time of year we can see the Coma/Virgo Super cluster or “Realm of Galaxies”. (...)
Read the rest of Coming to a Sky Near You: The Realm of Galaxies (427 words)
© Adrian West for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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 The full Moon on March 19, 2011, as seen in Ankara, Turkey. Credit: Rasid Tugral How super was your full Moon on March 19, 2011? I was completely clouded out, but thankfully quite a few people have been kind enough to share their images. Here are a pictures sent in by readers, as well as via Twitter and Facebook. We’ve got images from all around the world, and even though the Moon really wasn’t that much bigger than usual, (read here why not) it is great to see so many people getting out and looking up at the sky! Our lead image comes from Rasid Tugral in Ankara, Turkey. (...)
Read the rest of Your Pictures of the “Super” Full Moon (1,007 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 37 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos, Moon, Supermoon
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 The Large Hadron Collider - destined to deliver fabulous science data, but it remains uncertain if these will include an evidence basis for quantum gravity theories. Credit: CERN. General relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity, gives us a useful basis for mathematically modeling the large scale universe – while quantum theory gives us a useful basis for modeling sub-atomic particle physics and the likely small-scale, high-energy-density physics of the early universe – nanoseconds after the Big Bang – which general relativity just models as a singularity and has nothing else to say on the matter. Quantum gravity theories may have more to say. By extending general relativity into a quantized structure for space-time, maybe we can bridge the gap between small and large scale physics. For example, there’s doubly special relativity. (...)
Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Doubly Special Relativity (672 words)
© Steve Nerlich for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: quantum gravity
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 A composite image of how the Spirit rover probably looks, stuck in Gusev Crater. Credit: NASA, image editing by Stu Atkinson. Still no response from Spirit, the Mars Exploration Rover that became stuck in a sand trap on the Red Planet, and went into hibernation without sufficient solar power. March 10 was the point at which the rover should have received its maximum amount of sunshine – i.e. power — for this Martian year, and with the passage of that date, optimism is dimming for being able to revive Spirit. But, the rover teams have not yet given up all hope and have a few unique strategies up their sleeves to try and wake the sleeping rover.
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Read the rest of Hopes Dim for Contacting Spirit Rover (452 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Mars, Mars Exploration Rovers, Missions
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