Universe Today - 10 new stories for 2015/10/20

10 new stories for 2015/10/20 SpaceX Sets Ambitious Falcon 9 'Return to Flight' Agenda with Dual December Blastoffs SpaceX ‘Return to Flight’ launch upcoming in December 2015 features 11 ORBCOMM satellites. SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, FL, prior to launch on July 14, 2014 on prior ORBCOMM OG2 mission with six OG2 satellites. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com SpaceX plans an ambitious 'Return to Flight' agenda with their Falcon 9 rocket comprising dual launches this coming December, nearly six months after their failed launch in June 2015 that culminated in the total mid-air loss of the rocket and NASA cargo bound for the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The double barreled salvo of Falcon 9 blastoffs both involve launches of commercial communications satellites – first for Orbcomm followed by SES – and are specifically devised to allow a gradually ramp up in complexity, as SpaceX introduces fixes for the launch failure and multiple improvements to the boosters overall design.(...) Read the rest of SpaceX Sets Ambitious Falcon 9 'Return to Flight' Agenda with Dual December Blastoffs (1,113 words) © Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: cape canaveral, Commercial Space, Dragon capsule, Elon Musk, falcon 9 recovery, Falcon 9 rocket, OG2, ORBCOMM, ORBCOMM OG2, Orbital ATK, Return to Flight, SES, SES-8, SES-9, sierra nevada corporation, SLC-40, SpaceX, SpaceX Rocket explosion Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   Astronomy Cast Ep. 388: Megastructures   This week astronomers announced an unusual transit signal from another star. Although it's most likely a natural phenomenon, one remote possibility is that this is some kind of alien megastructure. Freeman Dyson and others have considered this idea for decades. Today we'll talk about the kinds of structures that aliens might want to build. (...) Read the rest of Astronomy Cast Ep. 388: Megastructures (46 words) © Fraser for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | 4 comments | Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   See EPIC Views of Rotating Earth Daily from NASA's New DSCOVR Observatory Website Earth rotates through an entire day as captured in this animation of 22 still images taken on Sept. 17, 2015 by NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft. Credits: NASA At long last, beautiful new high resolution views of the rotating Earth can be seen daily by everyone at a new NASA website – all courtesy of images taken by NASA's EPIC camera on board the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft. And as seen in the time-lapse animation above, they provide a wonderful new asset for students everywhere to learn geography that's just a finger tip away! The EPIC camera, which stands for Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), is located a million miles away on the DSCOVR real time space weather monitoring satellite and is designed to take full disk color images of the sunlit side of our home planet multiple times per day. The EPIC NASA images are literally just a(...) Read the rest of See EPIC Views of Rotating Earth Daily from NASA’s New DSCOVR Observatory Website (889 words) © Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: daily view of Earth, DSCOVR satellite, Earth, Earth Observation, Earth science, EPIC, EPIC camera, EPIC website, Falcon 9 rocket, L1, L1 Lagrange Point, NASA, NASA Earth science, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NOAA, SpaceX, USAF Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   The 2015 Orionids: Watch the Meteors Fly from the Club of Orion A 2014 Orionid slices down towards the horizon. Image credit and copyright: Mark Ezell (Note: we'll be posting this article as a running blog with updates over the next few mornings, as the Orionids are already moderately active for this week. Watch this space for info as it is added after our first meteor vigil tomorrow morning and Wednesday, weather and clear skies willing…) The month of October is about midway through meteor shower season for the northern hemisphere, and one of the annual sure-fire best bets is the Orionid meteor shower. (...) Read the rest of The 2015 Orionids: Watch the Meteors Fly from the Club of Orion (507 words) © David Dickinson for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: halley's comet orionids, october meteors, Orionid meteors, orionids, orionids 2015, taurid fireball Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   Cygnus Cargo Craft Comes Together for Space Station 'Return to Flight' Blastoff in December Cygnus service module built by Orbital ATK in their Dulles, Virginia cleanroom is shown here with unfurled UltraFlex solar panels that will fly for the first time with mated pressurized module on the OA-4 ISS resupply mission on ULA Atlas V rocket on Dec. 3, 2015 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Orbital ATK See OA-4 mission patch and hardware photos below The biggest and heaviest Cygnus commercial cargo craft ever built by Orbital ATK is coming together at the Kennedy Space Center as the launch pace picks up steam for its critical 'Return to Flight' resupply mission to the space station for NASA. Cygnus is on target for an early December blastoff from Florida and the Orbital ATK team is "anxious to get flying again." "We are very excited about the upcoming [OA-4] cargo mission and returning to flight," said Frank DeMauro, Orbital ATK Vice President for Human Spaceflight Systems Programs, in an exclusive interview with Universe Today. (...) Read the rest of Cygnus Cargo Craft Comes Together for Space Station ‘Return to Flight’ Blastoff in December (1,645 words) © Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: AJ26 engine, Antares, Antares rocket, Atlas V rocket, cape canaveral, cargo resupply, commercial resupply services (CRS), CRS, Cygnus capsule, International Space Station (ISS), ISS, kennedy space center, NASA, NASA Wallops, NK-33, OA-4, Orb-3, Orbital ATK, SLC-41, soviet NK-33 engines, SpaceX, SpaceX CRS-7, ULA, United Launch Alliance Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   Thousands of Pits Punctuate Pluto's Forbidding Plains in Latest Photos Rows of small pits pockmark the ice in Sputnik Planum on Pluto in this latest photo returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shortly before closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015. Could these divots be caused by sublimating nitrogen ice? It resolves details as small as 270 yards (250 meters) and the scene is about 130 miles (210 km) across. Click on this and all the images for high resolution views. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI A brand new batch of Pluto and Charon photos showed up today on the New Horizons LORRI (LOng-Range Reconnaissance Imager) site. The photos were taken during the close flyby of the system on July 14, 2015 and show rich detail including craters and parallel cracks on Charon and thousands of small pits punctuating Pluto’s nitrogen ice landscape. Have at ’em!(...) Read the rest of Thousands of Pits Punctuate Pluto’s Forbidding Plains in Latest Photos (416 words) © Bob King for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | 7 comments | Post tags: Charon, lorri, New Horizons, Pluto Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   Weekly Space Hangout – Oct. 16, 2015: Dr. Carolyn Porco and Cassini Update; Sexual Harassment in Astronomy and Academia   Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Special Guest: Dr. Carolyn Porco is the leader of the Cassini Imaging Science team and the Director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Guests: Pamela Gay (cosmoquest.org / @cosmoquestx / @starstryder) Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg ) Kimberly Cartier (@AstroKimCartier ) Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com) Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer) Alessondra Springmann (@sondy) Rhys Taylor (G+: Rhys Taylor) (...) Read the rest of Weekly Space Hangout – Oct. 16, 2015: Dr. Carolyn Porco and Cassini Update; Sexual Harassment in Astronomy and Academia (137 words) © Fraser for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | 7 comments | Post tags: Cassini, Elon Musk, Enceladus, Falcon 9, Hubble Space Telescope, Jupiter, Jupiter's great red spot, Marcy, Mars, New Horizons, Pluto, sexual harassment, Sierra Nevada, SLS program, SpaceX, Stratos II, styx, Venus, Very Large Array Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   Carnival of Space #427 Carnival of Space. Image by Jason Major. This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Allen Versfeld at his Urban Astronomer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #427. (...) Read the rest of Carnival of Space #427 (91 words) © susie for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Carnival of Space Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   What's Orbiting KIC 8462852 – Shattered Comet or Alien Megastructure? Something other than a transiting planet makes KIC 8462852 fluctuate wildly and unpredictably in brightness. Astronomers suspect a crumbled comet, but the cause remains a mystery. Credit: NASA “Bizarre.” “Interesting.” “Giant transit”.  That were the reactions of Planet Hunters project volunteers when they got their first look at the light curve of the otherwise normal sun-like star KIC 8462852 nearly. Of the more than 150,000 stars under constant observation during the four years of NASA’s primary Kepler Mission (2009-2013), this one stands alone for the inexplicable dips in its light. While almost certainly naturally-caused, some have suggested we consider other possibilities.(...) Read the rest of What’s Orbiting KIC 8462852 – Shattered Comet or Alien Megastructure? (1,325 words) © Bob King for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | 44 comments | Post tags: exocomet, exoplanet, Green Bank, Kepler mission, KIC 8462852, Planet Hunters, transit Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •   ExoMars Heads to the Red Planet in 2016 An artist’s concept of the Schiaparelli EDM Lander separating from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter en route to the Red Planet. Image Credit: ESA The 2016 launch window for Mars missions is fast approaching along with opposition, and ESA is refining its target window for ExoMars. Mars launch season offers the optimal time to make the trip from Earth to Mars, as missions prepare to break the surly bonds and head towards the Red Planet next spring. NASA's InSight lander will also make the trip.(...) Read the rest of ExoMars Heads to the Red Planet in 2016 (738 words) © David Dickinson for Universe Today, 2015. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: EDL Lander, ESA mars, ExoMars 2016, ExoMars 2018, mars exploration, Mars science, Roscosmos Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh        • Email to a friend • View comments • Track comments •         You Might Like Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Universe Today." Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe • Privacy Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.