First Directly Imaged Planet Confirmed Around Sun-Like Star

New images of 1RXS J160929.1-210524 at 3.05 and 3.8 microns left and right respectively. Images obtained using the Gemini Near Infrared Imager (NIRI) with the Altair adaptive optics system. These data were used to determine a better estimate the planet's mass. More images and captions.

by Staff Writers
Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jun 30, 2010
A planet only about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been confirmed orbiting a Sun-like star at over 300 times farther from the star than the Earth is from our Sun. The newly confirmed planet is the least massive planet known to orbit at such a great distance from its host star. The discovery utilized high-resolution adaptive optics technology at the Gemini Observatory to take direct images and spectra of the planet.

First reported in September 2008 by a team led by David Lafreniere (then at the University of Toronto, now at the University of Montreal and Center for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec), the suspected planetary system required further observations over time to confirm that the planet and star were indeed moving through space together.

"Back in 2008 what we knew for sure was that there was this young planetary mass object sitting right next to a young Sun-like star on the sky," says Lafreniere. The extremely close proximity of the two objects strongly suggested that they were associated with each other but it was still possible (but unlikely) that they were unrelated and only aligned by chance in the sky.

According to Lafreniere, "Our new observations rule out this chance alignment possibility, and thus confirms that the planet and the star are related to each other."

With this confirmation by Lafreniere and colleagues, the system, known as 1RXS J160929.1-210524 (or 1RXS 1609 for short), provides scientists with a unique specimen that challenges planetary formation theories due to its extreme separation from the star.

"The unlikely locale of this alien world could be telling us that nature has more than one way of making planets," says co-author Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto. "Or, it could be hinting at a violent youth when close encounters between newborn planets hurl some siblings out to the hinterlands," he adds.

With its initial detection by the team using the Gemini Observatory in April of 2008 this object became the first likely planet known to orbit a sun-like star that was revealed by direct imaging. At the time of its discovery the team also obtained a spectrum of the planet and was able to determine many of its characteristics, which are confirmed in this new work.

"In retrospect, this makes our initial data the first spectrum of a confirmed exoplanet ever!" says Lafreniere. The spectrum shows absorption features due to water vapor, carbon monoxide, and molecular hydrogen in the planet's atmosphere.

Since the initial observations several other worlds have been discovered using direct imaging, including a system of three planets around the star HR 8799 also discovered with Gemini. However, the planets around HR 8799 orbit much closer to their host star.

The team's recent work on 1RXS 1609 also verified that no additional large planets (between 1-8 Jupiter masses) are present in the system closer to the star. Future observations may shed light on the origin of this mysterious far-out planet. In particular, in a few years, it should be to possible to detect a slight difference in motion between the planet and its star due to their mutual orbit.

Co-author Marten van Kerkwijk (University of Toronto) notes that the difference will be "very small," since the fastest possible orbital period is more than one thousand years. But he adds that by using Gemini it should be possible to measure a very precise velocity of the planet relative to its host.

This will show whether the planet is likely on a roughly circular orbit, as would be expected if it really formed far from its host star, or whether it is in a very non-circular or even unbound orbit, as could be the case if it formed closer to its star, but was kicked out in a close encounter with another planet.

The host star is located about 500 light-years away in a group of young stars called the Upper Scorpius association that formed about five million years ago. The original survey studied more than 85 stars in this association. The planet has an estimated temperature of about 1800 Kelvin (about 1500 degrees Celsius) and is much hotter than Jupiter, which has a atmospheric cloud-top temperature of about 160 Kelvin (-110 degrees Celsius).

The host star has an estimated mass of about 85% that of our Sun. The young age of the system explains the high temperature of the planet. The contraction of the planet under its own gravity during its formation quickly raised its temperature to thousands of degrees. Once this contraction phase is over, the planet slowly cools down by radiating infrared light. In billions of years, the planet will eventually reach a temperature similar to that of Jupiter.

The observations used the Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) and the Altair adaptive optics system on the Gemini North telescope. Adaptive optics allows scientists to remove much of the distortions caused by our atmosphere and dramatically sharpen views of space. "Without adaptive optics, we would simply have been unable to see this planet," says Lafreniere.

"The atmosphere blurs the image of a star so much that it extends over and is much brighter than the image of a faint planet around it, rendering the planet undetectable. Adaptive optics removes this blurring and provides a better view of faint objects very close to stars."

www.spacedaily.com

Ariane 5's Second Launch Of 2010

Ariane 5 flight V195 lifts off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, carrying the Arabsat-5A telecommunications satellite and the multi-mission COMS satellite, into geostationary transfer orbits. Liftoff of V195, the 51st Ariane 5 flight, came at 23:41 CEST (21:41 GMT; 18:41 French Guiana). The target orbit had a perigee of 250 km and an apogee of 35 786 km, inclined at 2 degrees to the equator. The satellites were accurately injected into their transfer orbits about 26 minutes and 32 minutes after liftoff, respectively.

by Staff Writers
Paris, France (SPX) Jun 28, 2010
Yesterday evening, an Ariane 5 launcher lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on its mission to place the Arabsat-5A telecommunications satellite and the multi-mission COMS satellite into their planned transfer orbits.

Liftoff of V195, the 51st Ariane 5 flight, came at 23:41 CEST (21:41 GMT; 18:41 French Guiana). The target orbit had a perigee altitude of 250 km and an apogee altitude of 35 958 km, inclined at 2 degrees to the equator. The satellites were accurately injected into their transfer orbits about 26 minutes and 32 minutes after liftoff, respectively.

Arabsat-5A will be positioned in geostationary orbit above the equator at 30.5 degrees E to provide telecommunications and TV broadcasting services in the Middle East and North Africa in the Ku- and C bands. South Korea's COMS, to be positioned in geostationary orbit over 128.3 degrees E, carries three payloads dedicated to meteorology, ocean observation and telecommunications.

Satellites in a circular orbit with an altitude of 35 800 km keep pace with Earth's rotation and appears stationary when observed from the Earth, hence 'geostationary'.

The payload mass for this launch was 8393 kg: the satellite's totalled 7315 kg, with payload adapters and dispensers making up the additional 1078 kg.

Arianespace and Europe's Spaceport are planning four more Ariane launches in 2010, maintaining the heavy-lift vehicle's flight rate. The ability to sustain high launch rates has already been demonstrated: during the 12-month period from August 2007 to August 2008 there were nine launches (V177 - V185).

V195 flight timeline
Ariane 5's cryogenic, liquid-propellant main engine ignited first. Seven seconds later, the solid-propellant boosters also fired, and the vehicle lifted off a fraction of a second later.

The solid-propellant boosters were jettisoned 2 min 20 sec after main engine ignition, and the fairing protecting the payload during the climb through Earth's atmosphere was discarded at 3 min 9 sec. The launcher's main engine shut down at 8 min 55 sec; six seconds later, the main cryogenic stage separated from the upper stage and its payload.

Four seconds after main stage separation, the engine of the cryogenic upper stage was ignited to continue the journey. This engine shut down 24 min 40 sec into the flight, at which point the vehicle was travelling at 9416 m/s (33 898 km/h) at an altitude of 581.8 km - and geostationary transfer orbit had been achieved.

At 26 min 39 sec, Arabsat-5A separated from the upper stage, followed by COMS at 32 min 38 sec. Ariane 5's flight was formally completed 49 min 52 sec after main engine ignition.

The Earth From The Moon

The Earth as seen from the Moon! LROC NAC mosaic of images snapped on 12 June 2010 during a calibration sequence (Images E130954785L and E130954785R). Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University. Browse the full-sized image.

by Staff Writers
Tempe AZ (SPX) Jun 25, 2010
All cameras are susceptible to scattered light. You may have seen scattered light in pictures you have taken looking towards the Sun. Sunlight reflects off the optics and sometimes off the structure of the lens, and often appears as a gradient of brightness across the image. Attaching a baffle to your camera, like we did with the LROC Wide and Narrow Angle Cameras, can minimize this effect.

More subtle effects are often present but usually you simply just don't notice artifacts because of strong color contrasts in the scene. Since the Moon has only very small color contrasts, the LROC team must characterize even subtle scattered light effects within the 7-color Wide Angle Camera (WAC) images.

Changes in composition (rock types) result in subtle differences of color, typically about 10% or less. For scientists to make accurate interpretations of WAC color maps, the amount of scattered light must be quantified (and preferably corrected). One way of measuring scattered light is imaging a bright object against a dark background. From the Moon, the Earth serves that function well.

While a series of WAC calibration images of the Earth were being acquired, the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) was shuttered to capture this spectacular Earth view. The bottom of the Earth was clipped because the prediction of the exact time when the cameras' fields of view would cross the Earth was off by a few seconds.

Since the NAC acquires only one line of a picture at a time, the spacecraft had to be nodded across the Earth to build up the scene. The NAC Earth view is actually a mosaic of NAC-Left and NAC-Right images put together after calibration.

The distance between the Moon and the Earth was 372,335 km when the picture was taken, with a pixel scale of about 3.7 km, and the center of this view of Earth is 25 degrees N latitude, 114 degrees E longitude (a few hundred kilometers north of Hong Kong).

It was a beautiful clear summer day over the North Pole. You can see ice covering most of the Arctic Ocean with a few leads of open water (dark) starting to open up. If you look very close you can follow the Lena River upstream from the Arctic Ocean all the way to Lake Baikal.

Much of the Middle East was clear and you can trace spectacular swirl patterns of folded rock layers through Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. These mountains formed as the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates collided.

www.space-travel.com

Hubble Captures Bubbles And Baby Stars

This broad vista of young stars and gas clouds in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This region is named LHA 120-N 11, informally known as N11, and is one of the most active star formation regions in the nearby Universe. This picture is a mosaic of ACS data from five different positions and covers a region about six arcminutes across. Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesus Maiz Apellaniz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Spain). More images and captions

by Staff Writers
Garching, Germany (SPX) Jun 23, 2010
A spectacular new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image - one of the largest ever released of a star-forming region - highlights N11, part of a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This region of energetic star formation is one of the most active in the nearby Universe.

The Large Magellanic Cloud contains many bright bubbles of glowing gas. One of the largest and most spectacular has the name LHA 120-N 11, from its listing in a catalogue compiled by the American astronomer and astronaut Karl Henize in 1956, and is informally known as N11. Close up, the billowing pink clouds of glowing gas make N11 resemble a puffy swirl of fairground candy floss.

From further away, its distinctive overall shape led some observers to nickname it the Bean Nebula. The dramatic and colourful features visible in the nebula are the telltale signs of star formation. N11 is a well-studied region that extends over 1000 light-years. It is the second largest star-forming region within the Large Magellanic Cloud and has produced some of the most massive stars known.

It is the process of star formation that gives N11 its distinctive look. Three successive generations of stars, each of which formed further away from the centre of the nebula than the last, have created shells of gas and dust. These shells were blown away from the newborn stars in the turmoil of their energetic birth and early life, creating the ring shapes so prominent in this image.

Beans are not the only terrestrial shapes to be found in this spectacular high resolution image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In the upper left is the red bloom of nebula LHA 120-N 11A.

Its rose-like petals of gas and dust are illuminated from within, thanks to the radiation from the massive hot stars at its centre. N11A is relatively compact and dense and is the site of the most recent burst of star development in the region.

Other star clusters abound in N11, including NGC 1761 at the bottom of the image, which is a group of massive hot young stars busily pouring intense ultraviolet radiation out into space.

Although it is much smaller than our own galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud is a very vigorous region of star formation. Studying these stellar nurseries helps astronomers understand a lot more about how stars are born and their ultimate development and lifespan.

Both the Large Magellanic Cloud and its small companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are easily seen with the unaided eye and have always been familiar to people living in the southern hemisphere.

The credit for bringing these galaxies to the attention of Europeans is usually given to Portuguese explorer Fernando de Magellan and his crew, who viewed it on their 1519 sea voyage. However, the Persian astronomer Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi and the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci recorded the Large Magellanic Cloud in 964 and 1503 respectively.

www.spacedaily.com

Intelligent 3D Simulation Robots To Compete In Robocup 2010

The University of Miami AI and Games Group has developed a 3-D simulation robotic soccer team, meaning they have a complete resemblance to a physical robot. The robots are autonomous and have the ability to acquire strategic knowledge and real-time reasoning and can communicate and cooperate with each other during a game. Credit: University of Miami

by Staff Writers
Coral Gables FL (SPX) Jun 22, 2010
A University of Miami (UM) researcher will be presenting his work on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the 14th annual RoboCup

World Championship and Symposium, an international robotic event whose goal is to advance AI and intelligent robotics research.

Ubbo Visser, research associate professor of computer science at UM College of Arts and Sciences and team leader for the UM robotics team RoboCanes, will describe the architecture of the multiagent system (MAS) and discuss motion capture techniques for graphical animation. Visser will share his findings in a paper titled: "TopLeague and Bundesliga Manager: New generation online soccer games" and participate in the 3D simulation soccer league with the RoboCanes, designed by the AI and Games group at UM. The event will take place in Singapore, June 19-25.

"The idea of using soccer as a test bed for robots is to learn about the needs of agents, or robots that act in real-time, dynamic, and adversarial environments," says Visser.

"To understand what it takes for a robot to integrate knowledge and put information into context so that it can make decisions in a split second: that is one of the hardest problems in AI and robotics to solve right now."

RoboCup (originally called The Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences) started in 1997, and over the years has become the prevalent robotics competition in the world. The primary focus of the event is soccer games; it involves more than 3,000 researchers, about 450 teams and participants from over 40 countries.

For the event, the contestants develop autonomous robots

and software agents and take part in games, simulations, conferences, and educational programs, but RoboCup is not just about playing games, explains Visser, who is one of the Trustees of the RoboCup Federation.

"There is a noble goal behind this work, namely to understand what's going on if we send robots in the field and let them do the work of humans," says Visser.

"Doing this work gives one a lot of respect for the human mind; people can have this huge amount of experience of what to do in unforeseen situations and that is exactly what we are trying to solve with robots: what techniques are successful in these sorts of situations is what we are touching on."

The University of Miami team the RoboCanes is one of only two US teams participating in the 3D simulation soccer league. Like the real World Cup in soccer, in RoboCup a team has to qualify to participate. One way to qualify is to win a regional open; another is fulfilling guidelines and qualification rules.

The games are divided into the following leagues: Simulation League- 2D and 3D; Small Size Robot League, Middle Size Robot League, Four-Legged Robot League, and the Humanoid League.

This is the first time UM participates in this event. To take part in this competition, the AI and Games Group had to develop a soccer team of six 3D robots, meaning they have a complete resemblance to a physical robot. The robots are autonomous and have the ability to acquire strategic knowledge and real-time reasoning and can communicate and cooperate with each other during a game.

Knowing how difficult it is to win this event, the team is setting their sights to making it through its first round. "The idea is to develop our team and to be successful; this means to pass the first round this year," Visser says. "If we manage that, it will be a great success, but we would like to evolve into the real robot league, next year."

The other US team participating in the 3D simulation soccer league is from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to the RoboCupSoccer, the event has three other areas: RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home and RoboCupJunior.

www.spacedaily.com

German Radar Satellite TanDEM-X Launched Successfully

by Staff Writers
Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany (SPX) Jun 22, 2010
Germany's second Earth observation satellite, TanDEM-X, was launched successfully on 21 June 2010 at 04:14 Central European Summer Time (CEST, at 08:14 local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Atop a Russian Dnepr rocket, the satellite, weighing more than 1.3 tons and five metres in length, started its journey into orbit.

At 4.45 CEST first signal was received via Troll ground station in the Antarctic.

The German Aerospace Center manages TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) via its ground segment, and is responsible for mission operations and for generating and utilising the scientific data.

"TanDEM-X is a key German project and will provide us with a homogeneous 3D elevation model of the Earth which will be an indispensable aid for a great many scientific and commercial avenues of enquiry," said DLR Chairman Prof. Dr Johann-Dietrich Worner at the launch event held in the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) at the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen.

"This mission demonstrates Germany's expertise in satellite-based radar technology and is, in particular, the outcome of a consistent focus in the national space programme. Also, TanDEM-X demonstrates a successful public-private partnership," stressed Prof. Worner.

www.spacedaily.com

Opportunity Breaks The 13 Mile Mark

File image.

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 21, 2010
Opportunity is driving again and has now covered 21 kilometers (13 miles) of odometry on Mars.

The pancam mast assembly (PMA) azimuth error from Sol 2257 (May 30, 2010), has been attributed to a problem within the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) instrument.

An investigation of the Mini-TES is ongoing. The PMA has been restored to operation for imaging (not Mini-TES use).

On Sol 2267 (June 10, 2010), a quick fine attitude (QFA) was performed to refine the rover's attitude knowledge and to correct for gyro drift. Additional drive direction imagery was also collected.

On Sol 2270 (June 13, 2010), Opportunity drove for the first time since the PMA anomaly, covering over 70 meters (230 feet). The rover drove again on Sol 2272 (June 15, 2010), achieving almost 72 meters (236 feet) of distance to the east.

As of Sol 2272 (June 15, 2010), solar array energy production

was 297 watt-hours, atmospheric opacity (Tau) was 0.280 and the solar array dust factor is 0.570.

Total odometry is 21,005.47 meters (21.00 kilometers, or 13.05 miles).

www.marsdaily.com

Astronomers Discover Star-Studded Galaxy Tail

by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jun 21, 2010
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has discovered a galaxy tail studded with bright knots of new stars. The tail, which was created as the galaxy IC 3418 plunged into the neighboring Virgo cluster of galaxies, offers new insight into how stars form.

"The gas in this galaxy is being blown back into a turbulent wake," said Janice Hester of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, lead author of a recent study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"The gas is like sand caught up by a stiff wind. However, the particular type of gas that is needed to make stars is heavier, like pebbles, and can't be blown out of the galaxy. The new Galaxy Evolution Explorer observations are teaching us that this heavier, star-forming gas can form in the wake, possibly in swirling eddies of gas."

Collisions between galaxies are a fairly common occurrence in the universe. Our Milky Way galaxy will crash into the Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years. Galaxies tangle together, kicking gas and dust all around. Often the battered galaxies are left with tails of material stripped off during the violence.

Hester and her team studied the tail of IC 3418, which formed in a very different way. IC 3418 is mingling not with one galaxy, but with the entire Virgo cluster of galaxies 54 million light-years away from Earth.

This massive cluster, which contains about 1,500 galaxies and is permeated by hot gas, is pulling in IC 3418, causing it to plunge through the cluster's gas at a rate of 1,000 kilometers per second, or more than 2 million miles per hour. At this incredible speed, the little galaxy's gas is being shoved back into a choppy tail.

The astronomers were able to find this tail with the help of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer. Clusters of massive, young stars speckle the tail, and these stars glow with ultraviolet light that the space telescope can see.

The young stars tell scientists that a crucial ingredient for star formation - dense clouds of gas called molecular hydrogen - formed in the wake of this galaxy's plunge. This is the first time astronomers have found solid evidence that clouds of molecular hydrogen can form under the violent conditions present in a turbulent wake.

"IC 3418's tail of star-formation demonstrates that strong turbulence promotes cloud formation," said Mark Seibert, a co-author of the paper and a member of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer science team at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Pasadena.

Hester added that galaxy tails provide the perfect environment for isolating the factors controlling star formation.

"These tails are unique, exotic locations where we can probe the precise mechanisms behind star formation," said Hester.

"Understanding star formation is pivotal to understanding the lifecycles of galaxies and the dramatic transformations that some galaxies undergo. We can also study how the process affects the development of planets like our own."

Other authors of the paper are James D. Neill, Ted K. Wyder and Christopher Martin of Caltech; Armando Gil de Paz of the Universidad de Computense de Madrid, Spain; Barry F. Madore of the Carnegie Institute of Washington; David Schiminovich of Columbia University, N.Y., N.Y; and Michael Rich of UCLA.

Caltech leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the mission and built the science instrument.

The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission.

www.spacedaily.com

UK Space Agency Funds International Mars Rover

UK Space Agency Funds International Mars Rover

The ExoMars rover is a robotic scientist which will search for evidence of past and present life and study the local Martian environment to understand when and where conditions that could have supported the development of life may have prevailed.

by Staff Writers
London, UK (SPX) Jun 16, 2010
The UK Space Agency is announcing Pounds 10.5M for the development of instruments to search for signs of past or present life on Mars. The instruments are part of the scientific payload on the ExoMars rover to be launched in 2018 as part of a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and US space agency NASA. ExoMars is a flagship project in the UK Space Agency's science and exploration programme.

A two-step programme, the adventure begins in 2016 when NASA will launch an ESA-led orbiter to try to understand the origin and distribution of trace gases in the atmosphere of the Red Planet. In particular, it aims to explain why methane - a gas which scientists know should be destroyed in the atmosphere within a few hundred years - seems to be continuously forming at certain places on the planet.

The orbiter will also release an experimental probe which will make a fiery descent into the thin Martian atmosphere and use its on-board rockets to demonstrate Europe's ability to make a controlled landing on another planet.

Then in 2018, NASA will land ESA's ExoMars rover alongside a NASA rover. Thanks to funding from the UK Space Agency, the rover vehicle for ExoMars is being designed and tested by leading UK space company EADS Astrium at its facility in Stevenage, Hertfordshire under a multi-million pound contract.

The ExoMars rover is a robotic scientist which will search for evidence of past and present life and study the local Martian environment to understand when and where conditions that could have supported the development of life may have prevailed.

Unlike previous US rovers, ExoMars will carry a radar able to search beneath it for scientifically promising locations under the surface and a drill to extract samples from 2 m down that will be fed to its on-board laboratory.

The UK is leading on developing two of the nine instruments (the Life Marker Chip and the Panoramic Camera) on the rover and has a major involvement in two other instruments (the Raman Laser Spectrometer and the X-Ray diffactometer).

David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister, said, "The UK's world-leading technology will play a major role in this international ExoMars project. Our scientists will expand our knowledge of the red planet and help generate applications for these technologies here at home to benefit society and the economy. It's exciting to see UK engineers working on the most ambitious Mars mission ever attempted."

The Life Marker Chip is a highly innovative instrument using techniques from the world of medical diagnostics and is designed to detect the presence of organic compounds that might suggest the rover has found past or present life. UK involvement comes from the University of Leicester, Cranfield University and Imperial College London. The leader of the project (the so-called Principal Investigator) is Prof Mark Sims from the University of Leicester.

The Panoramic Camera will be the eyes of the rover. It will help guide the rover and be used by geologists to understand the history and structure of Mars. This will help choose the best locations to use the drill to acquire samples. Led by planetary scientist Professor Andrew Coates from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College London, it also involves robotics expert Professor Dave Barnes at the University of Aberystwyth.

The Raman Laser Spectrometer uses a very sensitive technique called Raman spectroscopy to diagnose the internal structure of molecules so that scientists can understand what sort of minerals and organic compounds the rover is studying. The UK team is led by Dr Ian Hutchinson from Leicester University, while Professor Howell Edwards of Bradford University is the Science Team Coordinator. The Science and Technology Facilities Council's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Harwell, Oxfordshire is also a major contributor to this programme, which is led by Spain.

The X-Ray Diffractometer will study the structure of minerals already known to exist on Mars such as clays, carbonates and sulphates and also determine whether these have been subjected to alteration processes by water and have the potential to harbour life. Dr Ian Hutchinson and Dr Richard Ambrosi of Leicester University have an important role in the development of the detector array for this instrument and Dr Hutchinson is the Deputy Principal Investigator for the instrument, which is led by Italy.

Breakdown of funding: Life Marker Chip - Pounds 4.8M Panoramic Camera- Pounds 2.7M X-Ray Diffractometer - Pounds 1.1M Raman Laser Spectrometer - Pounds 1.9M

Spin-offs:

Listed below are just a few examples of the programme's spin-outs in fields ranging from human mobility to environmental resources.

Technology developed for ExoMars will help to clean and extract oil deposits in less time - and using less water - than current methods. Two-thirds of the Earth's petroleum lies in deposits such as oil sands which are difficult to retrieve. They are usually mined and extracted using a hot water and flotation step but the process leaves substantial amounts of water, contaminated by organic compounds, sitting in settling pools for years. ExoMars scientists at Imperial College London (Prof. Mark Sephton) in conjunction with University of Leicester and Cranfield University as part of the LMC project came up with an innovative solution. State-of-the-art components for detecting organic matter on Mars require water-based solvents to extract 'molecular fossils' from rocks. The extraction uses an advanced surfactant technology that is readily transferable to terrestrial applications and can reduce the time needed for the water recycling process to days or weeks. These surfactants also scavenge organic compounds from water and are so environmentally benign they are actually edible. The Life Marker Chip (LMC) instrument has been developed from advanced medical diagnostics technology that can detect the presence of disease agents and antibodies. It is designed to detect trace levels of multiple organic molecular targets - biomarkers of life - in samples of Martian rock and soil while at the same time operating in extreme environments and has been developed for ExoMars by scientists at the University of Leicester, Cranfield University (Prof. David Cullen) and Imperial College London, The LMC can also detect molecular pollutants, leading to a number of possible uses within the environmental sector, as well as security applications through detecting illicit drugs and chemical or biological agents. Magna Parva Ltd, based in Leicester, is applying engineering know-how gained from ExoMars to a number of different challenges. These include modifying the design of beverage cans so that less material is used during manufacture. The company's work with a global beverage can maker could allow raw material costs to be reduced by 12% - a huge potential impact since the global consumption of canned beverages alone is around 270 billion units each year. Apart from possible annual savings of around Pounds 100 million in ten years time, the innovation also benefits the environment. Magna Parva was shortlisted for the Lord Stafford Award for Innovation in Development in 2009. Robotic technology intended for Mars could soon be helping to transport passengers and goods at airport terminals on Earth. A consortium of academics and industry, led by Wiltshire-based technology company company SciSys, successfully demonstrated an autonomous Mars rover prototype and adapted the system for use in airports. It will allow people with reduced mobility to use smart devices to remotely request transportation. The underlying control software was the result of STFC-funded work and a prototype has been developed, courtesy of the EU sponsored FP6 programme. This was demonstrated in a live trial in December 2009 at Portugal's Faro airport.

www.marsdaily.com

Robot Submarine Patrols Lake Michigan For Climate-Change Study

The Purdue team is studying the larva of yellow perch and alewives in Lake Michigan, near Michigan City, Ind., where both fish are abundant in the lake's near-shore waters.

by Staff Writers
West Lafayette INw (SPX) Jun 17, 2010
Researchers at Purdue University are using a robotic submarine and other specialized tools in Lake Michigan to gather biological and environmental data showing how young fish vital to the ecosystem may cope with future climate change.

The researchers are correlating larval fish growth with various factors, including water temperatures near the lakeshore, where wind patterns might be altered by climate change and threaten fish populations, said Tomas Hook, an assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.

"These larval fish are very vulnerable because they are not fully developed and cannot swim well, so they are really at the mercy of their environment," Hook said.

"Growth rates during the larval stage in part determine how well young fish survive to become adults. Rapid growth allows young fish to swim faster and, thereby, avoid predators, consume more food, and actively select warmer, more favorable waters. Otherwise, they can quickly starve to death."

Research has suggested that climate change might alter wind patterns on the Great Lakes. The lake winds are important because they play a key role in the survival of young fish and cause "upwelling events" that ferry cold water and nutrients from lower depths up to the near-shore zone.

"As a result of these upwellings, the fish in that zone see a temperature change of about 5 degrees to 10 degrees Celsius, which has a huge impact on metabolic rates," Hook said.

The Purdue team is studying the larva of yellow perch and alewives in Lake Michigan, near Michigan City, Ind., where both fish are abundant in the lake's near-shore waters.

Yellow perch are valued for fishing, while alewives are ecologically critical because they are primary prey for the lake's salmon and trout.

"We need to learn how physical properties change in the near shore and how that influences fish survival," said Cary Troy, an assistant professor in the School of Civil Engineering who is working with Hook.

The researchers are using an autonomous underwater vehicle to measure slices of water quality. The slender, battery-powered vehicle is about 3 feet long and is programmed to trace specific routes in collecting data such as oxygen and chlorophyll concentrations, pH, and turbidity. Strings of sensors extending to the lake bottom from buoys also are recording temperature readings every 15 minutes.

The near-shore region is defined by waters up to a depth of 15 meters, which extends several miles in Lake Michigan because of the lake's gradually downsloping seabed.

"It's an incredibly dynamic part of the lake," Troy said. "You have rapid influxes of cold water, which can negatively impact the larval fish. Any time the wind direction changes, that affects where you get cold-water masses. Almost all of the motion in the Great Lakes is governed by the speed and the direction of the wind."

Other researchers have shown that the strength and direction of lake winds have shifted in recent decades.

"The idea is that if we can correlate larval fish growth and survival with wind patterns right now, and these correlations hold in the future, then we can use climate models to tell us how the wind will likely change and then speculate how fish might be affected in the future," Troy said. "It's too early to say whether we'll see more or fewer upwelling events, but the frequency of them is likely to change, and that will have an important effect on larval fish."

The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater resource in the world, providing drinking water to millions of U.S. and Canadian citizens, harboring habitats for birds and fish, and generating millions of dollars in regional commerce from recreation, shipping, commercial fisheries and water-dependent industries. 0 The researchers analyze structures called otoliths, or "ear stones," tiny calcium carbonate structures that grow in the larva. Because the structures grow in layers as the fish age, they possess rings similar to those in trees that can be analyzed under a microscope to gauge the age and growth characteristics of the larvae.

"For example, the distance between growth rings reveals how well they grew in certain periods," Hook said. "We're also looking at the larval diets - what and how much they are eating. There is some consensus that the survival of larval fish has a large impact on the survival of the entire populations of fish species."

The scientists also study larval growth and health by analyzing the ratio of genetic material RNA to DNA.

"In a cell, you have a fixed quantity of DNA, but the amount of RNA changes over time, depending on how much protein the organism is making," Hook said. "If there is a lot of protein synthesis going on, there is a lot of RNA and the larvae are growing well."

Research findings will detail the distribution, growth and survival of young fish. Two graduate students are working with Troy and Hook on the project, which is funded by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

www.terradaily.com

SpaceX Achieves Orbital Bullseye With Inaugural Flight Of Falcon 9 Rocket

Nearing the end of the Falcon 9's second stage burn, the engine nozzle glows orange-hot as expected. Second stage shutdown occurred about eight and a half minutes after liftoff, placing the vehicle in a 250 kilometer (155 mile) circular orbit above the Earth. Photo Credit: SpaceX.

by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jun 08, 2010
SpaceX announced that the inaugural flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle successfully launched and achieved Earth orbit right on target, marking a key milestone for SpaceX and the commercial space flight industry.

Preliminary data indicates that Falcon 9 achieved all of its primary mission objectives, culminating in a nearly perfect insertion of the second stage and Dragon spacecraft qualification unit into the targeted 250 km (155 mi) circular orbit.

SpaceX also gathered important aerodynamic data during ascent and vehicle performance, which will be used in final preparations for the upcoming NASA demonstration and missions to the International Space Station (ISS).

"This is a major milestone not only for SpaceX, but the increasingly bright future of space flight," said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO, SpaceX.

"It was an incredible day for the employees of SpaceX, but it is important to note that we did not do this alone. I,d like to thank from the bottom of my heart all of our supporters in NASA-particularly the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) office-the US Air Force, the FAA and our customers. Their support has been critical to this success."

SpaceX currently has an extensive and diverse manifest of over 30 contracted missions, including 18 missions to deliver commercial satellites to orbit. In addition, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft have been contracted by NASA to carry cargo, which includes live plants and animals, to and from the ISS.

Both Falcon 9 and Dragon have already been designed to meet NASA's published human rating standards for astronaut transport, allowing for a rapid transition to astronauts within three years of receiving a contract to do so. The critical path item is development and testing of the launch escape system, which would be a significant improvement in safety over the Space Shuttle, which does not possess an escape system.

The NASA COTS program has demonstrated the power of what can be accomplished when you combine private sector responsiveness and ingenuity with the guidance, support and insight of the US government. For less than the cost of the Ares I mobile service tower, SpaceX has developed all the flight hardware for the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, Dragon spacecraft, as well as three launch sites.

SpaceX has been profitable for three consecutive years (2007 through 2009) and expects to remain modestly profitable for the foreseeable future. The company has over 1000 employees in California, Texas and Florida, and has been approximately doubling in size every two years. A majority of the future growth is expected to occur in Texas and Florida.

Falcon 9 lifted off at 2:45 p.m. (EDT) / 18:45 (UTC) from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, approximately 5.5 km (3.5 mi) southeast of NASA's space shuttle launch site. The Falcon 9 launch vehicle is powered by a cluster of nine SpaceX-designed and developed Merlin engines.

Using ultra pure jet fuel and liquid oxygen, the engines generated nearly a million pounds of thrust for the vehicle upon liftoff.

The Merlin engine is one of only two orbit class rocket engines developed in the United States in the last decade (SpaceX's Kestrel is the other), and is the highest efficiency American hydrocarbon engine ever built. The Falcon 9 first stage, with a fully fueled to dry weight ratio of over 20, has the world's best structural efficiency, despite being designed to higher human rated factors of safety.

www.space-travel.com

NASA Expanding Tests Of Star Wars-Inspired "Droids"

This close-up view shows three bowling-ball-sized free-flying satellites called Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 10, 2010
You won't find any light sabers on the International Space Station, but you will find a trio of "droids" that look a lot like what any self-respecting science fiction fan remembers as a Star Wars "remote."

That's the tricky little device that Luke Skywalker used to hone his light-saber skills before he went up against Darth Vader and the rest of the evil empire.

But instead of being used for light-saber practice, the droids on the space station are being used to test automated rendezvous and formation flying in zero-gravity. And soon, there may be a host of other things the droids will be used to test as their capabilities and uses are expanded and made available for National Laboratory and other uses.

Known officially as Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, the droids have been on the station since 2006. Astronauts have conducted more than 20 experiment sessions with them, and are on tap to conduct many more. Each SPHERES droid is self-contained with power, propulsion, computing and navigation equipment.

Together, they are testing techniques that could lead to advancements in automated dockings, satellite servicing, spacecraft assembly and emergency repairs.

Those techniques can be tested in computer simulations on Earth, but the space station is the only place they can be tested under sustained microgravity conditions. So far, the tests have all occurred in the safety of the station's interior, but in the future upgraded SPHERES satellites may venture outside the station as well.

In 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor David Miller showed the movie Star Wars to his students on their first day of class. After the scene where Skywalker spars with a floating droid "remote," Miller stood up and pointed: "I want you to build me some of those."

So they did. With support from the Department of Defense and NASA, Miller's undergraduates built five working droids. Three of them are on the station now.

"What is happening," explained Miller, SPHERES' principal investigator, "is that DARPA, who owns the facility on orbit, is transferring it to NASA."

NASA, in turn, plans to make the capability available to other U.S. government agencies, schools, commercial concerns and students to expand the pool of ideas for how to test and use these bowling ball-sized droids.

Someone who has first-hand microgravity experience with the droids is Greg Chamitoff, who spent six months on the station as a member of the Expedition 17 and 18 crews, and was a co-investigator for the original SPHERES experiment.

"It was really incredible to be able to watch the SPHERES fly around in real-time following the logic of my algorithms right in front of me," Chamitoff said. "As free-flying robots, these SPHERES are pretty amazing. There's no other test bed where you can do this kind of research and development in 3-D. You can simulate it in a computer, but to do it in zero-G, and 3-D, that's a unique capability."

"The algorithm I was testing was for real-time path-planning optimization while avoiding moving obstacles. One SPHERE was trying to visit a series of way-points as efficiently as possible, while another SPHERE was the moving obstacle and was actively trying to get in the way. This type of trajectory planning will be necessary for future robots to be able to navigate in their environment while trying to accomplish useful tasks," Chamitoff explained.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden recently was at MIT to help kickoff the Summer of Innovation, which is designed to engage more students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Part of that program will be SPHERES-Zero-Robotics activities this August that will give middle school students a chance to program the droids for action on the space station.

NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently issued a call for ideas on how to use SPHERES. These ideas are being integrated into a new educational program called International Space Station Spheres Integrated Research Experiments, or InSPIRE.

The new program is designed to use SPHERES to test advanced space technologies and facilitate student and public participation in the development process through the power of crowd-sourcing - a concept in which many people in a community can contribute ideas or concepts. Proposals were due June 2.

"The continued expansion of capabilities will lead to an increased knowledge of navigation systems and stimulate a large number of next generation spacecraft developers," said Jason Crusan, chief technologist for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Miller says that, when his team designed the SPHERES droids, all of their uses couldn't be imagined up front. So, they built an "expansion port:" into each droid where additional sensors and appendages can be added, such as cameras and wireless power transfer systems.

"Look at wind tunnels and the role they played in aviation," Miller said. "SPHERES is analogous to that in microgravity. We're testing inside the station now because it is more tolerant to failure. The next plan is to go outside, sending SPHERES out through the Kibo airlock to fly away from station and be retrievable."

/www.spacedaily.com

The Earth And Moon Formed Later Than Previously Thought

The result of the research means that the Earth and the Moon must have been formed much later than previously thought - that is to say not 30 million years after the formation of the solar system 4,567 million years ago but perhaps up to 150 million years after the formation of the solar system.

by Staff Writers
Copenhagen, Denmark (SPX) Jun 08, 2010
The Earth and Moon were created as the result of a giant collision between two planets the size of Mars and Venus. Until now it was thought to have happened when the solar system was 30 million years old or approx. 4,537 million years ago.

But new research from the Niels Bohr Institute shows that the Earth and Moon must have formed much later - perhaps up to 150 million years after the formation of the solar system. The research results have been published in the scientific journal, Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

"We have determined the ages of the Earth and the Moon using tungsten isotopes, which can reveal whether the iron cores and their stone surfaces have been mixed together during the collision", explains Tais W. Dahl, who did the research as his thesis project in geophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with professor David J. Stevenson from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Turbulent collisions

The planets in the solar system were created by collisions between small dwarf planets orbiting the newborn sun. In the collisions the small planets melted together and formed larger and larger planets. The Earth and Moon are the result of a gigantic collision between two planets the size of Mars and Venus.

The two planets collided at a time when both had a core of metal (iron) and a surrounding mantle of silicates (rock). But when did it happen and how did it happen? The collision took place in less than 24 hours and the temperature of the Earth was so high (7000 degrees C), that both rock and metal must have melted in the turbulent collision. But were the stone mass and iron mass also mixed together?

Until recently it was believed that the rock and iron mixed completely during the planet formation and so the conclusion was that the Moon was formed when the solar system was 30 million years old or approximately 4,537 million years ago. But new research shows something completely different.

Dating with radioactive elements

The age of the Earth and Moon can be dated by examining the presence of certain elements in the Earth's mantle. Hafnium-182 is a radioactive substance, which decays and is converted into the isotope tungsten-182. The two elements have markedly different chemical properties and while the tungsten isotopes prefer to bond with metal, hafnium prefers to bond to silicates, i.e. rock.

It takes 50-60 million years for all hafnium to decay and be converted into tungsten, and during the Moon forming collision nearly all the metal sank into the Earth's core. But did all the tungsten go into the core?

"We have studied to what degree metal and rock mix together during the planet forming collisions. Using dynamic model calculations of the turbulent mixing of the liquid rock and iron masses we have found that tungsten isotopes from the Earth's early formation remain in the rocky mantle", explains Tais W. Dahl, Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

The new studies imply that the moon forming collision occurred after all of the hafnium had decayed completely into tungsten.

"Our results show that metal core and rock are unable to emulsify in these collisions between planets that are greater than 10 kilometres in diameter and therefore that most of the Earth's iron core (80-99 %) did not remove tungsten from the rocky material in the mantle during formation", explains Tais W. Dahl.

The result of the research means that the Earth and the Moon must have been formed much later than previously thought - that is to say not 30 million years after the formation of the solar system 4,567 million years ago but perhaps up to 150 million years after the formation of the solar system.

www.space-travel.com

Experts Say Life Could Survive On Mars

Axel Heiberg Island, part of Nunavut Territory, Canada, is uninhabited except for the McGIll Arctic Research Station. Coordinates: 79 degrees 26' 0" N, 90 degrees 46' 0" W. Area: 16,671 square miles. Highest point: Outlook Peak (7,300 feet). Landmarks: Fossil Forest, Thompson Glacier, White Glacier, McGill Arctic Research Station, perennial springs. Credit: Map by Jason Smith. 2009 Endeavors magazine.

by Staff Writers
Montreal, Canada (SPX) Jun 07, 2010
Researchers at McGill's department of natural resources, the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto and the SETI Institute have discovered that methane-eating bacteria survive in a highly unique spring located on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's extreme North.

Dr. Lyle Whyte, McGill University microbiologist explains that the Lost Hammer spring supports microbial life, that the spring is similar to possible past or present springs on Mars, and that therefore they too could support life.

The subzero water is so salty that it doesn't freeze despite the cold, and it has no consumable oxygen in it. There are, however, big bubbles of methane that come to the surface, which had provoked the researchers' curiosity as to whether the gas was being produced geologically or biologically and whether anything could survive in this extreme hypersaline subzero environment.

"We were surprised that we did not find methanogenic bacteria that produce methane at Lost Hammer," Whyte said, "but we did find other very unique anaerobic organisms - organisms that survive by essentially eating methane and probably breathing sulfate instead of oxygen."

It has been very recently discovered that there is methane and frozen water on Mars. Photos taken by the Mars Orbiter show the formation of new gullies, but no one knows what is forming them. One answer is that there could be that there are springs like Lost Hammer on Mars. "The point of the research is that it doesn't matter where the methane is coming from," Whyte explained.

"If you have a situation where you have very cold salty water, it could potentially support a microbial community, even in that extreme harsh environment." While Axel Heiberg is already an inhospitable place, the Lost Hammer spring is even more so.

"There are places on Mars where the temperature reaches relatively warm -10 to 0 degrees and perhaps even above 0 degrees C," Whyte said, "and on Axel Heiberg it gets down to -50, easy. The Lost Hammer spring is the most extreme subzero and salty environment we've found. This site also provides a model of how a methane seep could form in a frozen world like Mars, providing a potential mechanism for the recently discovered Martian methane plumes."

www.marsdaily.com

NASA Satellites' View of Gulf Oil Spill Over Time

Two NASA satellites are capturing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which began April 20, 2010, with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This series of images reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and the ensuing oil spill, through May 24. The imagery comes from the MODIS instruments aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. The oil slick appears grayish-beige in these images. The shape of the spill changes due to weather conditions, currents and the use of oil-dispersing chemicals.

The images in this video were selected to show the spill most clearly. The full image archive is available at http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov. For more information and imagery about the oil spill, visit NASA's Oil Spill website. Imagery and information about the oil spill is also available on NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Hazards website.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oil-spill-video.html

www.nasa.gov

First High-Res Image From LOFAR Radio Telescope Array

Radio images of the quasar 3C 196 at 4 - 10 m wavelength (30 - 80 MHz frequency). Left: Data from LOFAR stations in the Netherlands only. The resolution is not sufficient to identify any substructure. Right: Blow-up produced with data from the German stations included. The resolution of this image is about ten times better and allows for the first time to distinguish fine details in this wavelength range. The colours are chosen to resemble what the human eye would see if it were sensitive to radiation at a wavelength ten million times larger than visible light. Image: Olaf Wucknitz, Bonn University. For a larger version of this image please go here.

by Staff Writers
Bonn, Germany (SPX) Jun 02, 2010
The Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie (Bonn) and the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik (Garching), both run stations of the International LOFAR telescope (ILT), coordinated by ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.

By connecting the German LOFAR stations with the central stations in the Netherlands, an international group of scientists led by Olaf Wucknitz from the Argelander Institute of Astronomy (AIfA) at Bonn University has now produced the first high-resolution image of a distant quasar at meter radio wavelengths.

This wavelength range has not been accessible to such detailed observations before, as the telescopes have to be spaced far apart. The first image showing fine details of the quasar 3C 196 observed at wavelengths between 4 and 10 m was achieved by using just a small fraction of the final LOFAR array that will cover large parts of Europe.

After first tests of the individual antennas, the observations now bring together eight stations of the "LOw Frequency ARray" (LOFAR).

Five stations in the Netherlands were connected with three stations in Germany: Effelsberg near Bonn, Tautenburg near Jena and Unterweilenbach near Munich. All antennas were targeted at the quasar 3C 196, a strong radio source at a distance of several billions of light-years.

"We chose this object for the first tests, because we know its structure very well from observations at shorter wavelengths", explains Olaf Wucknitz (AIfA).

"The goal was not to find something new but to see the same or similar structures also at very long wavelengths to confirm that the new instrument really works. Without the German stations, we only saw a fuzzy blob, no sub-structure. Once we included the long baselines, all the details showed up."

Observations at wavelengths covered by LOFAR are not new. In fact, the pioneers of radio astronomy started their work in the same range. However, they were only able to produce very rough maps of the sky and to measure just the positions and intensities of objects. "We are now returning to this long neglected wavelength range", says Michael Garrett, general director of ASTRON (The Netherlands), the research institute in charge of the international LOFAR project.

"But this time we are able to see much fainter objects and, even more important, to image very fine details. This offers entirely new opportunities for astrophysical research."

"The high resolution and sensitivity of LOFAR mean that we are really entering uncharted territory, and the analysis of the data was correspondingly intricate", adds Olaf Wucknitz. "We had to develop completely new techniques. Nevertheless, producing the images went surprisingly smoothly in the end. The quality of the data is stunning."

The next step for Wucknitz is to use LOFAR to study so-called gravitational lenses, where the light from distant objects is distorted by large mass concentrations. High resolution is required to see the interesting structures of these objects. This research would be impossible without the international stations.

The resolution of an array of radio telescopes, i.e. the size of the smallest structures that it can resolve and distinguish, depends directly on the separation between the telescopes. The larger these baselines are relative to the observed wavelength, the better the achieved resolution. Currently the German stations provide the first long baselines of the array and improve the resolution by a factor of ten over just using the Dutch stations.

"We want to use LOFAR to search for signals from very early epochs of the Universe", says Benedetta Ciardi from the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik (MPA) in Garching. "Having a completely theoretical background myself, I never had thought that I would get excited over a radio image, but this result is really fascinating."

Further improvement should come very soon with observations at slightly shorter wavelengths, which will increase the resolution by another factor of four. In addition, the imaging quality will improve significantly with more stations coming online soon. The image of quasar 3C 196 therefore is just the first but very important step.

"The image quality of the final array depends crucially on the uniformity with which large areas are covered with stations", says Anton Zensus, director at Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie (MPIfR) and in charge of the VLBI research group at the institute. "The German stations are already an indispensable contribution to the international array. What we are still lacking, however, is a station in northern Germany to close the gap between our stations and the ones of our Dutch friends. This would increase the image quality a lot."

www.spacedaily.com

Phytoplankton Bloom In The North Atlantic

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Holli Riebeek and Michon Scott.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 01, 2010
Late May 2010 brought peacock-hued swirls of blue and green to the North Atlantic. The iridescent waters formed a giant arc hundreds of kilometers across, extending from west of Ireland to the Bay of Biscay.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on May 22, 2010. The vibrant colors are from tiny organisms, phytoplankton, that grow explosively in the North Atlantic-from Iceland to the shores of France-in the spring and summer.

Phytoplankton require nutrients to reproduce, and phytoplankton blooms are often tied to events that bring nutrients to the ocean surface, such as dust plumes. Volcanic ash can also contribute nutrients for phytoplankton blooms.

Researchers from the University of Hamburg's Institute of Geophysics found that a 2008 eruption of the Kasotochi Volcano in the Aleutian Islands generated a massive phytoplankton bloom in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. They concluded that iron-rich ash falling on waters that are otherwise poor in iron can create conditions in which phytoplankton thrive.

MODIS acquired this image after weeks of eruptive activity at Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull Volcano. Considering that ash plumes from that volcano closed airspace over much of Europe, one might wonder whether ash provided fertilizer for this bloom.

In this case, the answer is probably no. The North Atlantic Ocean already contains plenty of iron, and these waters experience massive phytoplankton blooms every spring and summer.

www.spacedaily.com