Fri, 05/11/2010 - 07:45 by harsheeb
Pasadena -- NASA says its engineers are working to determine what caused its Cassini spacecraft to put itself into "safe mode," a precautionary standby mode.
The spacecraft orbiting Saturn put itself in safe mode around 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday, a release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. said.
Since going into safe mode Cassini has suspended the flow of science data and has been sending back only data about engineering and spacecraft health.
Cassini is programmed to put itself into safe mode automatically if it detects a condition on the spacecraft that requires action from mission controllers on the ground, NASA said.
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Thu, 04/11/2010 - 08:15 by harsheeb
Washington -- When searching for Earth-like planets around distant stars, color should be considered when trying to identify their composition, U.S. researchers say.
Just like the planets in our solar system reveal facts about themselves by their colors -- Mars is red because its surface if largely iron oxide, Venus is brilliant white because of its world-wide cloud cover and Earth is blue because of how our atmosphere scatters sunlight -- astronomers can eventually harness color to learn more about exoplanets, a NASA release says.
Someday, one researcher says, when we have the technology to gather light from individual exoplanets, astronomers could use color information to identify Earth-like worlds.
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Thu, 04/11/2010 - 07:32 by harsheeb
Providence -- U.S. scientists say a new type of rock on the moon, the first new variety identified in decades, is probably ancient material born deep inside the moon.
Located on the far side of the moon and undetected until a space probe measured its odd mineralogy, the rocks are located in a few isolated deposits, ScienceNews.org reported Wednesday.
"These are very unusual areas," Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist at Brown University, told a meeting of the Geological Society of America Tuesday.
Pieters calls the new rock type OOS because it is rich in the minerals orthopyroxene, olivine and spinel.
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Thu, 04/11/2010 - 06:41 by harsheeb
Cape Canaveral -- A computer glitch and a forecast a bad weather are threatening Thursday's planned launch of space shuttle Discovery for its final mission, NASA said.
Scheduled to lift off Thursday afternoon from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the launch has already been postponed once for a problem with the shuttle's orbital maneuvering system, SPACE.com reported.
While engineers work non-stop to solve the electrical glitch, forecasters say the weather outlook is not promising.
An 80 percent chance of foul weather could cause yet another delay, NASA shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said.
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Wed, 03/11/2010 - 10:45 by harsheeb
CapeCanaveral -- Engineers are hoping to solve an engine controller glitch in a backup system on the shuttle Discovery in time for Wednesday's scheduled launch, NASA says.
In a statement, NASA said that during the shuttle's main engine checkouts the backup computer controller on Discovery's Main Engine No. 3 did not turn on as expected, SPACE.com reported.
If the problem is corrected, NASA will begin fueling Discovery's external tank early tomorrow morning for its afternoon launch into space.
"After addressing a couple issues last night, our countdown work is currently back on schedule," NASA test director Steve Payne said Tuesday morning.
Discovery's launch has already been delayed two days by technical issues that have been corrected.
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Tue, 02/11/2010 - 09:33 by harsheeb
Pasadena -- Minerals deposited on a martian volcano may provide evidence of a once habitable micro-environment on the planet, U.S. researchers say.
Researchers analyzing observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter identified the material as hydrated silica, a deposit laid down billions of years ago from a possible hydrothermal environment such as a steam fumarole or hot spring, habitat types that on Earth sheltered early life, a NASA release said Sunday.
"The heat and water required to create this deposit probably made this a habitable zone," J.R. Skok of Brown University said. "If life did exist there, this would be a promising type of deposit to entomb evidence of it -- a microbial mortuary."
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Sat, 30/10/2010 - 05:13 by harsheeb
London -- A British publisher of maintenance books is branching into sci-fi with an owner's manual for the USS Enterprise from "Star Trek."
"The U.S.S. Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual," a 160-page guide from the Haynes Publishing Group, contains technical specifications and in-depth drawings for any aspiring sci-fi engineer looking to strip down and reassemble their own starship, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
The book, written by Ben Robinson and Marcus Riley, includes input from NASA engineer Michael Okuda, who worked on "Star Trek" projects for more than 20 years.
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Sat, 30/10/2010 - 05:08 by harsheeb
Galveston -- Sixteen laboratory mice, part of a medical experiment, will join the crew of the space shuttle Discovery when it launches Monday, U.S. researchers say.
The experiment is part of a long-running effort by NASA to understand why spaceflight seems to make humans more vulnerable to infection by viruses and bacteria.
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Fri, 29/10/2010 - 10:18 by Priyanka
A new study on Thursday revealed that at least one in every sun-like star in the galaxy have Earth-size planets circling around them in their orbits. They added that they were able to find few Earth-like planets close to their stars only.
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Fri, 29/10/2010 - 09:34 by harsheeb
Pasadena -- U.S. researchers say a survey reveals small planets are more common than large ones and one in four sun-like stars may have Earth-like planets.
In a project funded by NASA and the University of California, the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, was used to survey 166 sun-like stars for planets of different sizes, a NASA release said Thursday.
The survey found more small planets than large ones, suggesting they are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy, NASA said.
"We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks," Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, said.
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Fri, 29/10/2010 - 09:31 by harsheeb
Pasadena -- NASA's Mars rover Spirit is stuck in one spot, but it's still making discoveries, including signs of water in the soil it's stuck in, U.S. researchers say.
The ground where Spirit has been pinned since last year holds evidence that water, perhaps as snowmelt, trickled into the subsurface fairly recently and on a continuing basis, a NASA release said Thursday.
Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity finished their three-month prime missions in April 2004 but have kept on exploring in bonus missions.
One of Spirit's six wheels quit working in 2006.
In April 2009 Spirit's left wheels broke through a crust at a site called "Troy" and churned into soft sand, immobilizing the rover.
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Fri, 29/10/2010 - 09:30 by harsheeb
Tucson -- Buckyballs, large stable molecules of carbon atoms, have been detected in space in great numbers, U.S. astronomers say.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has has found the carbon spheres -- named for the resemblance to the geodesic domes of architect Buckminster Fuller -- throughout our Milky Way galaxy, ScienceDaily.com reported Thursday.
The soccer-ball-shaped molecules consisting of 60 linked carbon atoms were first discovered in a lab on Earth 25 years ago.
At the time, scientists didn't know if they had been lucky to discover a rare supply or if perhaps the tiny spheres were all around.
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