Endeavour Lifts Off in Space Shuttle's Final Night Launch

It's a sight captured by many a late-night stargazer: a shuttle streaking through the dark sky on its way to orbit. Last night, a gorgeous predawn launch of the space shuttle Endeavour marked the last scheduled night launch ever for the retiring NASA vehicle, even as NASA looks forward to a new age of commercial spaceflight.All four of the remaining shuttle flights are slated for the daytime, Space.com reports.

The 13-day mission's highlight involves bringing a huge new window to the International Space Station, so that residents of the orbital outpost can better direct the robotic arm and maybe even snap some prettier Twitpics . The window's addition in the new node would bring the space station to about 90 percent completion.
It's just one bittersweet part of the long goodbye for the shuttle. The vehicle's retirement will not only have riple effects on NASA employees and Florida's economy, but also marks the beginning of a transition toward relying more upon private vehicles to launch cargo and crew into low Earth orbit. The Ob

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ama administration's recent budget for NASA killed plans for the Ares rockets to replace the space shuttle, and instead refocused the U.S. space agency on more deep space exploration.

Readers curious about how the new space age might look can consult PopSci's January issue that covers the impending commercial space rush.

Source: www.popsci.gr

Spectacular Launch Begins a Complex Mission

"What a beautiful launch we had this morning... the orbiter performed extremely well," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations, during the STS-130 postlaunch news conference. "This is a great start to a very complicated mission."

Jean-Jacques Dordain, European Space Agency director general, thanked NASA, the crew and the ground teams for "a very beautiful launch." Dordain said, "It was an important event. Even more important for us because the shuttle was full of European hardware."

Mike Moses, shuttle launch integration manager, said the count went unbelievably smooth. He commented how the weather constraints influenced the launch of space shuttle Endeavour and how happy he was that it all came together today. Docking is set for flight day three with three spacewalks planned to install the Tranquility node and then cupola permanently to the International Space Station. "This will be a good example of international partnerships and cooperation between the station crew and shuttle crew," said Moses.

"This was one of the smoothest countdowns ever," said Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director. "The team was very, very energized going into the count."
Liftoff of Space Shuttle Endeavour
After a one day delay due to clouds, space shuttle Endeavour launched at 4:14 a.m. EST Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a new module and an attached cupola for the International Space Station that should increase human understanding of our home planet. It was the last scheduled night launch in shuttle program history.

Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kay Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken began their 13-day mission with an eight and a half minute dash to orbit to begin the pursuit of the orbital outpost, lighting up the central Florida coast as Endeavour arced to the northeast en route to space.

When Endeavour lifted off, the station was traveling at almost five miles a second about 212 miles over western Romania. Endeavour is scheduled to dock with the station at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday over the northern coast of Spain.

Source: www.nasa.gov

Say Hello to Robonaut2, NASA's Android Space Explorer of the Future

With the news that the White House has caneled the Constellation Program, NASA seems to be moving out of the human space flight business. However, the unveiling of a next-generation robot astronaut shows the android space program to be alive and well.

Designed through a partnership with General Motors, the Robonaut2 is the cutting edge of android technology. Equipped with a wide array of sensors and dexterous five fingered hands, NASA plans for the Robotnaut2 to work along side humans in space operations, or by itself in missions too dangerous for people.

The Robonaut2 began life as, surprise surprise, a DARPA project almost ten years ago. The original Robonaut debuted in 2004, and sported a very Bobba Fett-like head. For the new model, NASA appears to have turned to the Power Rangers for design inspiration, with future models presumably looking more and more like Ian Holm or Lance Hendrickson.

No word yet on when NASA plans on deploying the Robonaut on an actual mission, or if its first job will be programing binary load lifters and moisture vaporators.

Source: www.popsci.com

NASA Budget: Constellation Officially Canned, But The Deep-Space Future Is Bright

Rumors circulated last week, but now it’s official: NASA won’t be sending manned missions back to the moon any time soon. But in what may seem like a gutting of NASA moon- and Mars-based ambitions there is a silver lining: a $6 billion investment in helping private industry bring their space launch vehicles up to human-rated capacity and a smattering of modest robotic precursor missions to the moon, Mars, Martian moons or the Lagrange points that should set the stage for later manned missions far beyond low-earth orbit.

However, the Constellation program – and the $9 billion already spent developing its Orion crew vehicle and Ares rockets – is decidedly dead.

In a press conference Sunday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag told reporters the White House is recommending Constellation be scrapped, turning the run-of-the-mill duties of shuttling astronauts into low-earth orbit over to private companies and shifting NASA’s focus to “"advance robotics and other steps that will help to inspire Americans and not just return a man or a woman to the Moon but undertake the longer range research that could succeed in human spaceflight to Mars."

In a teleconference today, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden outlined the budget’s goals, emphasizing that while Constellation is getting the axe, NASA’s deep space exploration ambitions have not been curtailed, nor are they being fiscally undercut. Rather, NASA is reprioritizing, seeking more or less a five-year period of intense study on possible means toward future manned missions to deep space before embarking on a mission to the moon or beyond. Between now and fiscal 2015, the agency plans to fully utilize the R&D capabilities of the ISS, demonstrate better deep space flight technologies and fly some unmanned missions around the near solar system to scout out the most scientifically interesting targets for future manned exploration.

Those precursory missions to the moon, Mars and nearby asteroids might entail more tele-operated robots like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars, as well as a robotic lunar lander or asteroid mission that demonstrates an ability to utilize resources from remote outposts in space. These will be substantially cheaper than manned missions, generally less than $800 million each. But the thrilling prospect of a manned mission back to the lunar surface within the decade as envisioned in Constellation is more or less out of the question.

Highlights from the proposed NASA budget:

• $6 billion over five years to catalyze development of American commercial human spaceflight vehicles.
• $7.8 billion over five years for technology demonstration programs for future exploration activities. These might include technologies aimed at rendezvous and docking in orbit, refueling vessels in space, advanced life support systems for astronauts and other developments that will facilitate future missions beyond low-earth orbit.
• $3.1 billion over five years for aggressive research into heavy-lift rocket engines (but not the Ares-V), new propellants, and innovative ways of reaching deep space.
• $4.9 billion over five years for investment in early-stage and game-changing technologies incubating in the private sector. These could include innovations in sensor tech, robotics, launch vehicles, communications, etc., and will likely be funded through X-Prize-like performance-based grants that reward private sector space companies that can hit certain benchmarks quickly.
• $3 billion over five years to fund a string of cost-effective exploratory unmanned missions to the moon, near-earth asteroids and even Mars, scouting future manned exploratory targets.

Source: www.popsci.com

New Obama Budget Reported to Axe Constellation, Future Moon Missions

Bad news on the Constellation front this morning: the Orlando Sentinel reports this morning that sources inside the Obama administration say the budget proposal to be released Monday contains no money for the Constellation program or the Ares I rocket that was supposed to replace the space shuttle as America’s means to shuttle humans to space. Also axed: the Ares V cargo rocket intended to ferry fuel and supplies necessary for America’s return to the moon.

Lunar landers, moon bases and a shot at a future manned mission to Mars are all conspicuously absent from the budget’s long-term goals.

So what is in the budget? According to administration insiders, agency officials, industry wonks and sources on The Hill, the Obama White House wants NASA to pursue a “heavy-lift” rocket capable of taking humans and robots beyond low-earth orbit at some faraway, yet-to-be-determined date. The White House also wants NASA to focus more attention on climate change research and monitoring and developing programs enabling future exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system. A 2020 life extension for the ISS is also expected.

It’s important to note that all of these “insiders” spoke to reporters on a condition of anonymity; leaking budget details several days before their official release is now way to ensure job security. But the details that are leaking, if true, seem to spell an end to NASA’s aspirations to recreate its glory days of Apollo with modern, vastly superior technology. And those of us who were stoked about the idea can forget about a permanent moon base.

Space shuttle duties – rotating crew at the ISS, putting satellites into orbit, etc. – will likely fall to other nations or to private enterprise. But while it’s fair to say that perhaps we don’t need to go back to the moon, the greater fear is that America will lose its place at the head of the table. Just yesterday Reuters noted that Russia, the first nation to launch a satellite into orbit and a man into space, has lost its standing as a scientific powerhouse for lack of research and development. Nations like China and South Korea are racing to close the aeronautical gap, and India has green-lit its first manned mission to space in 2016, a year when it appears the U.S. Space Agency will be measuring glacial ice and ocean currents.

Source: www.popsci.com

Hidden asteroids are stalking the Earth

A TINY asteroid that buzzed Earth last week highlighted our planet's vulnerability to objects whose peculiar orbits put them in a game of hide-and-seek with us.

An Earth-based telescope spotted the 10-metre space rock hurtling our way just three days before a near miss on 13 January, when it flew by at just one-third of the distance to the moon. The asteroid is never expected to hit Earth and would burn up before hitting the ground in any case. But its unusual orbit seems ingeniously designed to evade our surveys. It is likely that a handful of objects large enough to cause harm are hiding under similar circumstances.

Large asteroids are relatively easy to spot because they reflect the most sunlight. But smaller asteroids - which can still damage Earth if they span at least 30 to 50 metres - are usually too dim for telescopes to detect except during brief close approaches to Earth. For a typical near-Earth asteroid, these occurrences are a few years or decades apart.

However, last week's unexpected visitor, called 2010 AL30, kept far enough from Earth to be invisible for more than a century. The prolonged avoidance occurred because the period of its solar orbit was 366 days - very close to Earth's year (though the close pass shifted the space rock into a 390-day orbit). Like a slightly slower race car that is periodically lapped by its competitor on a circular track, it stays far from Earth for long stretches.

"2010 AL30 may become a sort of 'poster child' for hiding asteroids," says Alan Harris of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Similar "synchronised" asteroids may be hiding with periods of very close to two, three, four years and so on, Harris says. Those with periods of about four years pose the greatest risk to Earth, because they would be in sync with both Earth and Jupiter, says Timothy Spahr of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Such asteroids would be particularly influenced by Jupiter's gravity, which could nudge them onto a collision course with Earth.

Asteroids with non-synchronous orbits can also hide. Those with orbits mostly interior to Earth's - called Aten asteroids - spend most of their time in the glare of the sun as seen from Earth, so telescopes have trouble spotting them.

But Atens would be easier to spot if a telescope were positioned closer to the sun - in an orbit near Venu's, say. Such a telescope would also make it harder for asteroids to hide in synchronised orbits, says Harris. He admits that the cost of such a mission would be high, given the small fraction of asteroids likely to be in synchronised orbits. "On the other hand, I suppose I'd rather spend money on that than on strip-search scanners at airports to detect crotch-bombers, which constitute a similar level of cost and risk to society," he says. A US National Research Cuncil report evaluating asteroid-hunting strategies, including the use of space telescopes, is due soon. But even if no observatories are placed near Venus, the newly launched Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) could spot any big Earth-synchronised asteroids - those larger than 1 kilometre across. Large asteroids in orbits like 2010 AL30's, at about Earth's distance from the sun or closer, would be warm and bright in the infrared, making them "a piece of cake" for WISE to spot, Spahr says. However, even WISE will only be able to spot a small fraction of any mid-sized asteroids in these orbits, he says.

Source: www.newscientist.com

Public invited to pick pixels on Mars

Scientists are taking suggestions on where to image the Red Planet using NASA satellite.

The most powerful camera aboard a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars will soon be taking photo suggestions from the public.

Since arriving at Mars in 2006, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has recorded nearly 13,000 observations of the Red Planet's terrain. Each image covers dozens of square miles and reveals details as small as a desk. Now, anyone can nominate sites for pictures.

"The HiRISE team is pleased to give the public this opportunity to propose imaging targets and share the excitement of seeing your favorite spot on Mars at people-scale resolution," said Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the camera and a researcher at the University of Arizona.

The idea to take suggestions from the public follows through on the original concept of the HiRISE instrument when its planners nicknamed it "the people's camera." The team anticipates that more people will become interested in exploring the Red Planet while their suggestions for imaging targets will increase the camera's already bountiful science return. Despite the thousands of pictures already taken, less than 1 percent of the martian surface has been imaged.

Students, researchers, and others can view Mars maps using a new online tool to see where images have been taken, check which targets already have been suggested, and make new suggestions.

"The process is fairly simple," said Guy McArthur, systems programmer on the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona. "With the tool, you can place your rectangle on Mars where you'd like."

McArthur developed the online tool, called "HiWish," with Ross Beyer, principal investigator and research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

In addition to identifying the location on a map, anyone nominating a target will be asked to give the observation a title, explain the potential scientific benefit of photographing the site, and put the suggestion into one of the camera team's 18 science themes. The themes include categories such as impact processes, seasonal processes, and volcanic processes.

The HiRISE science team will evaluate suggestions and put high-priority ones into a queue. Thousands of pending targets from scientists and the public will be imaged when the orbiter's track and other conditions are right.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Launched in August 2005, the orbiter reached Mars the following year to begin a two-year primary science mission. The spacecraft has found that Mars has had diverse wet environments at many locations for differing durations in the planet's history, and martian climate-change cycles persist into the present era. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in an extended science phase and will continue to take several thousand images a year. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft combined.

Source: www.astronomy.com

Cocaine Found In Space Shuttle Hangar

Apparently, outer space isn't high enough for some folks over at NASA. Earlier today, NASA confirmed that a small baggie of cocaine was found in the hangar housing the space shuttle Discovery. A shuttle maintenance worker found the dime bag outside the men's room, and reported it to security. So far, no one knows who brought the bag into the Kennedy Space Flight Center.

Chemical tests of the baggie contents confirmed that it was, in fact, a dab of nose candy. NASA claims that security officials are investigating both who's blow it was, and how it got into the hangar.

NASA has a zero tolerance drug policy, so at least one person is going to get fired behind this. However, getting to the bottom of the affair might prove difficult. As Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesman, told SPACE.com, "there are no obvious indications of anyone acting oddly or under the influence."

Mothership Connection, indeed.

Source: www.popsci.com

Space Station Toilet Clogged with Calcium Deposits; Could Astronauts' Bone Loss Be the Culprit?

It's a bit cliché to kick off a story about NASA with "Houston, we have a problem," but seriously, they've got a problem: the plumbing on the International Space Station is clogged, and NASA isn't exactly sure why, or how to fix it. To clarify, it's not the actual toilet component that's broken, but the $250 million system designed to recycle astronauts' urine, sweat, and exhaled vapor into clean, potable water.

Engineers working on the problem believe high concentrations of calcium in the astronauts' urine is causing deposits to build up, clogging the system that provides up to two-thirds of the water used on the station.

Before going into service in November 2008, the system was fully tested at NASA, but changes in the physiology of astronauts as well as the chemistry of astro-waste as it works through the processing system could be contributing to the problem. One theory holds that the higher calcium concentrations in the crew's urine may come from the bone loss that inevitably accompanies a zero-G lifestyle, but that idea has yet to be proved.

In the meantime, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville are scrambling to pull together a solution before Space Shuttle Endeavour takes off for the ISS on Feb. 7. If they can't solve the cosmic clog by then, we suppose the station could always go back to dumping waste the way the space shuttles do. Or the astronauts could resort to simply holding it; the next nearest toilet is only 220 miles away.

Source: www.popsci.com

Mirror Testing at NASA Breaks Superstitious Myths

In ancient mythological times reflective surfaces like shiny metals and mirrors were thought to be magical and credited with the ability to look into the future. NASA is using mirrors to do just the opposite -- look into the past.

Fast forward a couple of centuries from ancient time and myths to find NASA is developing a primary mirror, 21.3 feet in diameter, for use on the James Webb Space Telescope in a very different way -- to tell us about our beginning in the universe and how the first galaxies formed. The primary mirror will serve as the telescope's eye and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System.

Handling delicate space hardware holds no superstitious myths for NASA, but it's still a delicate task that requires careful preparation. Six of the 18 Webb telescope mirror segments are being moved into the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, or XRCF, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to eventually experience temperatures dipping to a chilling -414 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure they can withstand the extreme space environments.

When the primary mirror is assembled in space, it will include three different shapes of mirror segments: 6 are "A" segments, 6 are "B" segments and 6 are "C" segments. This upcoming test in the XRCF will collect data from all three sizes -- "A, B and C"-- a first for these in the cryogenic facility. This test will also include the engineering development unit, the first primary mirror segment of the Webb telescope that has met flight specifications at ambient temperatures.

"By the time testing in the XRCF concludes in 2011, all 18 flight segments will have been through multiple measurements while experiencing the extreme temperatures of space," said Helen J. Cole, James Webb Space Telescope Activities Project Manager at NASA Marshall. "This process has been six years in the making and we're excited that we can support the Webb telescope development with our world class cryogenic test facility."

Marshall's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility is the world's largest X-ray telescope test facility and a unique, cryogenic, clean room optical test location. The test chamber takes approximately five days to cool a mirror segment to cryogenic temperatures. As this cooling takes place, engineers will measure in extreme detail how the shapes of the mirrors change, simulating how they'll react to space temperatures.

"This is a tremendously important milestone to the Webb Telescope project that bodes well for both our future mirror manufacturing schedule and for the potential performance capabilities of the telescope," said Lee Feinberg, James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element Manager at NASA Goddard.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is leading the design and development effort for the space agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Mirror manufacturing began six years ago, led by Northrop Grumman's principal optical contractor Ball Aerospace. Brush Wellman in Elmore, Ohio made twenty-one 500-lb. hexagonal mirror blanks from beryllium, an extremely strong, lightweight metal. Axsys Technologies in Cullman, Ala. machined the backside of the beryllium blanks and chemically etched them into an isogrid pattern that reduced mirror mass by 92 percent, from 250 kg to 21 kg (equivalent to 553 pounds and 46 pounds). The front side of the mirror blank was machined to prep the optical surface for high precision grinding, polishing and testing, which is being done by Tinsley. The mirror segments have undergone a series of polishing and cryogenic testing cycles. Ball incorporates the mirrors into optical assemblies, which are mounted on the telescope structure.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit Has Uncertain Future as Sixth Anniversary Nears

NASA's Mars rover Spirit will mark six years of unprecedented science exploration and inspiration for the American public on Sunday. However, the upcoming Martian winter could end the roving career of the beloved, scrappy robot.

Spirit successfully landed on the Red Planet at 8:35 p.m. PST on Jan. 3, 2004, and its twin Opportunity arrived at 9:05 p.m. Jan. 24, 2004. The rovers began missions intended to last for three months but which have lasted six Earth years, or 3.2 Mars years. During this time, Spirit has found evidence of a steamy and violent environment on ancient Mars that was quite different from the wet and acidic past documented by Opportunity, which has been operating successfully as it explores halfway around the planet.

A sand trap and balky wheels are challenges to Spirit's mobility that could prevent NASA's rover team from using a key survival strategy for the rover. The team may not be able to position the robot's solar panels to tilt toward the sun to collect power for heat to survive the severe Martian winter.

Nine months ago, Spirit's wheels broke through a crusty surface layer into loose sand hidden underneath. Efforts to escape this sand trap barely have budged the rover. The rover's inability to use all six wheels for driving has worsened the predicament. Spirit's right-front wheel quit working in 2006, and its right-rear wheel stalled a month ago. Surprisingly, the right-front wheel resumed working, though intermittently. Drives with four or five operating wheels have produced little progress toward escaping the sand trap. The latest attempts resulted in the rover sinking deeper in the soil.

"The highest priority for this mission right now is to stay mobile, if that's possible," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He is principal investigator for the rovers.

If mobility is not possible, the next priority is to improve the rover's tilt, while Spirit is able to generate enough electricity to turn its wheels. Spirit is in the southern hemisphere of Mars, where it is autumn, and the amount of daily sunshine available for the solar-powered rover is declining. This could result in ceasing extraction activities as early as January, depending on the amount of remaining power. Spirit's tilt, nearly five degrees toward the south, is unfavorable because the winter sun crosses low in the northern sky.

Unless the tilt can be improved or luck with winds affects the gradual buildup of dust on the solar panels, the amount of sunshine available will continue to decline until May 2010. During May, or perhaps earlier, Spirit may not have enough power to remain in operation.

"At the current rate of dust accumulation, solar arrays at zero tilt would provide barely enough energy to run the survival heaters through the Mars winter solstice," said Jennifer Herman, a rover power engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The team is evaluating strategies for improving the tilt even if Spirit cannot escape the sand trap, such as trying to dig in deeper with the wheels on the north side. In February, NASA will assess Mars missions, including Spirit, for their potential science versus costs to determine how to distribute limited resources. Meanwhile, the team is planning additional research about what a stationary Spirit could accomplish as power wanes.

"Spirit could continue significant research right where it is," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the rovers. "We can study the interior of Mars, monitor the weather and continue examining the interesting deposits uncovered by Spirit's wheels."

A study of the planet's interior would use radio transmissions to measure wobble of the planet's axis of rotation, which is not feasible with a mobile rover. That experiment and others might provide more and different findings from a mission that has already far exceeded expectations.

"Long-term change in the spin direction could tell us about the diameter and density of the planet's core," said William Folkner of JPL. He has been developing plans for conducting this experiment with a future, stationary Mars lander. "Short-period changes could tell us whether the core is liquid or solid," he said.

In 2004, Opportunity discovered the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had liquid water. The rover recently finished a two-year investigation of a half-mile wide crater called Victoria and now is headed toward Endeavor crater, which is approximately seven miles from Victoria and nearly 14 miles across. Since landing, Opportunity has driven more than 11 miles and returned more than 132,000 images.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

White Christmas: The Coldest Places in the Solar System

The shrinking ice cap around Earth’s North Pole may be hedging in on Santa’s territory, but there are plenty of other frigid territories in the solar system where he could set up shop. Here we tour of some of the most shiver-inducing spots in the solar system, where you might be assured a white Christmas.

Mars

If Santa is looking for another snowy spot for his workshop, the northern polar regions of Mars offers an out-of-this-world option. Last year, NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander observed snow falling in Mars’ northern Vastitas Borealis region, where it landed on May 25, 2008 to dig below the surface in search of water ice. Trenches dug by the lander’s robotic arm did indeed expose subsurface ice, shedding more light on the history of water on the red planet. In addition to the slight snowfalls, Phoenix observed frost forming on the Martian surface around it as winter began to set in in the northern hemisphere – the lander is thought to have been covered in ice and frost since NASA lost contact with it in November 2008.

Titan

Lakes of liquid methane and ethane are thought to dot the landscape of this Saturnian moon, in an environment more frigid than Antarctica. But despite its overall colder state, the wind, rains and tectonic processes on Titan make it one of the closest Earth analogs in the solar system, scientists say. While the satellite’s average surface temperature of minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 Celsius) keeps water frozen solid, liquid methane and ethane exist and could provide a haven for life.

Enceladus

Instead of precipitation raining down on its surface, Saturn’s chilly moon Enceladus has geysers of gaseous water that erupt on its surface – a process called cryovolcanism. There is strong debate over the exact composition of the planet and the plumes that spew from its surface. Some argue that the moon features any icy surface layer over a region of flowing water, while others argue that it is a frigid body of solid ice and rock.

Europa

Jupiter’s moon Europa is also an icy world, thought to feature a surface veneer of water ice (at a temperature of almost minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 184 Celsius) with a possible liquid water ocean underneath. The icy surface could be good for winter skating, as it is one of the smoothest in the solar system, marked by some cracks and streaks, but with relatively few craters. But despite the icy crust and frigid surface temperatures, some scientists think that heat from the moon’s inner dynamo and the tidal pull of Jupiter could keep the ocean warm enough to support life.

Comets

If the sleigh won’t cut it, Santa could always hitch a ride to a comet. These solar system bodies may not seem cold as they periodically blaze across the night sky, but they are actually collections of dust, water ice, and bits of rock. These “dirty snowballs,” as they are sometimes called, come from the outermost reaches of the solar system – the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. They develop their telltale tail when their orbit brings them close to the sun and the volatile materials in them are vaporized by solar radiation – but in the outer solar system, they remain frozen chunks of material left from the formation of the solar system.

Uranus

The seventh planet from the sun and one of the solar system’s four gas giants, Uranus is sometimes put into a category called the “ice giants,” along with neighboring Neptune. Uranus’ atmosphere – made up of hydrogen, helium, and water, ammonia and methane ices – is the coldest of any planet in the solar system, with a lowest temperature of minus 371 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 224 degrees Celsius).

Pluto

Earlier this year, scientists determined that Pluto’s atmosphere is warmer than previously thought, warm being a relative term. The air over the dwarf planet’s surface is still a frigid -292 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius), while its face is -364 degrees Fahrenheit (-220 degrees Celsius). Since its demotion from planet status in 2006, Pluto has been grouped in with a class of bodies known as Kuiper Belt objects that extend out to a distance of 100 times that from the sun to the Earth.

Space itself

While all the worlds above are much chillier than any place on Earth, one of the coldest spots in space is space itself. The cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates the universe (and is the remnant energy of the theoretical Big Bang) has a temperature of 2.725 degrees Kelvin – that’s minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 270 degrees Celsius. Might want to install a heater on that sleigh…

Planck spacecraft

The chilliest known spot in space isn’t an icy comet, or even space itself, but is something man-made: the European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft. On its way to its final orbiting point – where it will observe the remnant radiation of the theoretical Big Bang – the telescope cooled down to its operating temperature of minus 459.49 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.05 Celsius). This temperature is just 0.1 Celsius above absolute zero, the coldest temperature theoretically possible in our universe.

Moon’s polar craters

Paradoxically, the coldest (natural) place known in the solar system isn’t some distant object orbiting in the icy Kuiper belt, but instead lies much closer to the sun. In September, NASA’s new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took the temperature of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s south pole (where its companion LCROSS probe found water ice deposits after impacting one crater in October). LRO’s instruments found that the craters plunged the mercury to less than minus 397 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 238 Celsius) – colder even than the surface of far away Pluto. Better pack some extra sweaters, Santa!

Source: www.space.com

FYI: Would a Helium-Filled Balloon Float on the Moon?

A helium balloon on the moon might as well be made of lead. For any balloon to stay aloft in any atmosphere, the gas inside it must be lighter than the surrounding air.

Ultralight helium has no trouble climbing in Earth’s atmosphere, which consists mostly of heavy molecular nitrogen and oxygen. “But on the moon, there is no air, so there’s nothing for the helium to rise above,” says Marc Rayman, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Unable to escape even lunar gravity, which is one sixth that of Earth’s, the balloon would plunge to the ground.

Try throwing a birthday party on the International Space Station, and you’ll run into the opposite conditions. Because atmospheric pressure in the station is kept the same as at sea level on Earth, a helium balloon would have the support it needs to float, but with almost no gravity on the station, there is no force to push up or down on the balloon. “It would just hang there, the same as if you let a hammer go,” Rayman says.

If you’re looking to throw an extraterrestrial fiesta for an astronaut, book a spot on Mars. The thin air on the Red Planet is still heavier than at the highest altitudes on Earth where balloons have floated. That, combined with gravity that’s about a third of Earth’s, would send a helium balloon on Mars up and away.

Source: www.popsci.com

Astronauts Celebrate Thanksgiving in Space on Two Spaceships

A dozen astronauts in orbit took a break from their orbital work Thursday to celebrate a weightless Thanksgiving, despite the fact that they're flying on two different spaceships.


The shuttle Atlantis, with seven crewmembers onboard, left the International Space Station early Wednesday, capping off a week-long visit to stock the outpost with spare equipment. The orbiter is slated to land Friday morning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

In honor of the American Thanksgiving holiday, NASA replaced the shuttle's icon with a traditional turkey image on its Mission Control map tracking the spacecraft around Earth. The shuttle astronauts can choose from their normal space menus, or select from NASA's traditional meal of irradiated turkey with cornbread dressing, green beans and candied yams. The five people on the station also took the day off for the U.S. holiday.


Source: http://www.space.com/