Soyuz Spacecraft Returning to Earth with US-Russian Crew

A Soyuz spacecraft has undocked from the International Space Station and is preparing to descend into Earth's atmosphere to return an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts back home after nearly five months living in orbit.
The undocking tonight (March 15) occurred smoothly, but one day later than planned, due to freezing rain and fog at the Soyuz's landing site on the steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia, which delayed the departure. Returning home on the Soyuz are NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts

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New update on comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)

Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), discovered by Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, on the night of 2011, June 5-6, will reach perihelion in March 2013 when it will be located only 0.30 AU from the Sun and might become a bright naked eye object ( with a peak magnitude of anywhere from +1 to -1). At its brightest C/2011 L4 will appear only 15° from the Sun.

The comet is now at 3.2 AU from the Sun (m2 ~ 14.0). While visually C/2011 L4 is at m1 ~ 11.

We performed some follow-up measurements of comet C/2011 L4 remotely from the Siding Spring-Faulkes Telescope South on 2012, September 10.4 through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD. Below you can see our follow-up image (click on it for a bigger version):

Below you can see the lightcurve of comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) collected by Seiichi Yoshida on his comet webpage: 

                                  (Credit: Seiichi Yoshida)

As a comparison, below you can see our image of the comet taken on June 7.4, 2011 just one day after his discovery by Pan-STARRS Survey. The comet was then at 8.2 AU from the Sun (m2 ~ 19.5).

While below there is our image taken on May 18.6, 2012 with the comet at 4.6 AU from the Sun (m2 ~ 15.6).

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Mars Science Laboratory

Different Tools for Different Purposes on Mars

This set of images from Mars shows the handiwork of different tools on three missions to the surface of Mars. The action of each of the tools has sometimes been referred to as drilling, but the functions of the tools have been different for each mission.

On the left is a rock on which NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used the rock abrasion tool on the rover's robotic arm. Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, were each equipped with one of these tools to grind away the surface layer of rocks and expose interior rock material to examination, in place, by instruments on the rover. The diameter of the abraded circle is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) in diameter. The image was cropped from PIA06355, taken in June 2004 by Opportunity's Panoramic Camera at a target called "London" inside Endurance Crater.

The middle image shows a grid of shallow holes cut into icy soil by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander using the motorized rasp on the back of the scoop on the lander's robotic arm. Phoenix used the rasp to penetrate frozen soil too hard for just scraping with the front-edge blade of the scoop. Soil shavings generated by the rasp were picked up by the scoop for delivery into the lander's analytical instruments. The grid of rasped holes visible in this image, four holes across, is about 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide. The image was cropped from PIA10981, taken in July 2008 by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager of a trench called "Snow White."

On the right is the hole produced by the drill on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the first drilling into a rock on Mars to collect a sample from inside the rock. Flutes on the bit of the drill on Curiosity's robotic arm transport powdered material generated by drilling up into the drill, for later processing and delivery into analytical instruments inside the rover. The diameter of the hole is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters). The image was cropped from PIA16726, taken Feb. 8, 2013, by the Mars Hand Lens Imager on Curiosity's arm after that day's drilling at a target rock called "John Klein."

Views of Curiosity's Drill

These schematic drawings show a top view and a cutaway view of a section of the drill on NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. The section view on the right also indicates the flow of material within the drill bit.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Preparation on Earth for Drilling on Mars

The development of the Mars rover Curiosity's capabilities for drilling into a rock on Mars required years of development work. This is a group photo of some of the rocks used in bit development testing and lifespan testing in 2007, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Most of the holes are the same diameter as holes Curiosity drills: 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters).

Development and testing models of drills for Curiosity have been used on many types of terrestrial rocks over a span of more than five years.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Tracks from Eastbound Drive on Curiosity's Sol 22

On Aug. 28, 2012, during the 22nd Martian day, or sol, after landing on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover drove about 52 feet (16 meters) eastward, the longest drive of the mission so far. The drive imprinted the wheel tracks visible in this image. The rover's rear Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam) took the image after the drive. Curiosity's front and rear Hazcams have fisheye lenses for enabling the rover to see a wide swath of terrain. This image has been processed to straighten the horizon.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Most Earth-like planet

 

Classed as a “super-Earth,” candidate planet KOI (Kepler Object of Interest) 172.02 orbits within the habitable zone of a sun-like star. This means the planet, which has yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations, could have liquid water on its surface, thought to be essential for life.
KOI 172.02 is about 1.5 times the diameter of Earth. The planet orbits its star at a distance of 0.75 astronomical units, or about three-fourths of the distance from the Earth to the sun. The exoplanet takes about 242 Earth days to orbit its star.
Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope orbits the sun every 371 days. As it travels, Kepler keeps itself pointed at a single patch of sky. Sensors monitor the brightness of 150,000 stars simultaneously, looking for telltale drops in intensity that could indicate orbiting planets.
At the heart of the telescope is an array of 42 camera sensors specifically designed to detect planets passing in front of their stars
Kepler’s planet search is conducted in a narrow wedge-shaped volume of space that stretches out ahead of us as we orbit the galaxy. Stars in the search volume are therefore at about the same distance from the center of the galaxy as the Earth.

• Go further for more info and NEWS at - www.facebook.com/Koi17202. 
• Discovered in January 7 2013 

  How Jupiter Moon Europa's Underground Ocean Was Discovered

  

   This is Part 4 of a six-part series telling the story of humankind’s efforts to understand the origins of life, by looking for it in extreme environments where life thrives without relying on the sun as an energy source.

  It follows an oceanographic expedition to the Mid-Cayman Rise led by Chris German of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and NASA’s efforts to plan a future mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. By understanding how life can live without the sun, we may discover how life began on our planet, and whether or not Earth is the only place in the universe capable of supporting a biosphere.  
  
  

  

  
  

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ImpaCt Risk

Recently Observed Objects
(within past 60 days)

 

Object Designation	Year Range	Potential Impacts	Impact Prob. (cum.)	Vinfinity (km/s)	H (mag)	Est. Diam. (km)	Palermo Scale (cum.)	Palermo Scale (max.)	Torino Scale (max.)
2013 BP73	2078-2107	9	1.7e-05	20.69	20.2	0.310	-2.42	-2.70	0
2013 BL18	2070-2092	5	9.4e-06	14.19	26.0	0.022	-5.58	-5.80	0
2012 UE34	2095-2105	7	4.5e-07	5.50	23.1	0.081	-5.88	-6.37	0
2013 BR27	2073-2110	51	3.7e-05	10.93	27.7	0.010	-5.93	-6.27	0
2011 TO	2064-2076	3	5.3e-06	8.55	26.3	0.019	-6.00	-6.00	0
2013 CL22	2064-2064	3	6.6e-07	9.55	24.7	0.039	-6.12	-6.18	0
2013 AB65	2087-2113	12	4.8e-06	24.42	27.6	0.010	-6.50	-6.66	0
2012 XE133	2083-2091	3	1.9e-08	9.89	23.4	0.072	-7.18	-7.48	0
2013 CY	2069-2098	7	4.1e-06	2.43	28.2	0.008	-7.31	-7.98	0
2012 YR1	2077-2077	1	3.7e-07	7.84	26.7	0.016	-7.48	-7.48	0
2013 BR15	2095-2110	5	4.6e-08	14.09	25.1	0.032	-7.57	-7.77	0

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SpaceGallary

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The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA)

Credit: SDO(NASA)/AIA consortium

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is designed to provide an unprecedented view of the solar corona, taking images that span at least 1.3 solar diameters in multiple wavelengths nearly simultaneously.

he AIA 193 channel takes images of the Sun at 193 angstroms (extreme ultraviolet) which highlights the outer atmosphere of the Sun – called the corona – as well as hot flare plasma. Hot active regions, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections will appear bright here. The dark areas ‒ called coronal holes ‒ are large regions in the corona that are less dense and cooler than surrounding areas. Coronal holes are where the Sun's magnetic field does not loop back down to the surface; it is open into interplanetary space. They are places where very little radiation is emitted, yet are the main source of solar wind particles. The open structure of their magnetic field allows a constant flow of high-density plasma to stream out of the holes.

This is an image of the Sun observed by Solar Dynamics Observatory in the extreme ultraviolet region (193 Å) on 2013-03-04 at 23:45:07 UT. At this time, some of the coronal holes are directed towards the Earth. Since coronal holes are often the source of strong solar wind gusts that carry solar particles into interplanetary space, an increase in solar wind activity over the next days is expected. Solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole should reach Earth on March 07-08.

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Earth Impact in 2036 for Asteroid Apophis

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA scientists at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., effectively have ruled out the possibility the asteroid Apophis will impact Earth during a close flyby in 2036. The scientists used updated information obtained by NASA-supported telescopes in 2011 and 2012, as well as new data from the time leading up to Apophis' distant Earth flyby yesterday (Jan. 9).

Discovered in 2004, the asteroid, which is the size of three-and-a-half football fields, gathered the immediate attention of space scientists and the media when initial calculations of its orbit indicated a 2.7 percent possibility of an Earth impact during a close flyby in 2029. Data discovered during a search of old astronomical images provided the additional information required to rule out the 2029 impact scenario, but a remote possibility of one in 2036 remained - until yesterday.

"With the new data provided by the Magdalena Ridge [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology] and the Pan-STARRS [Univ. of Hawaii] optical observatories, along with very recent data provided by the Goldstone Solar System Radar, we have effectively ruled out the possibility of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. "The impact odds as they stand now are less than one in a million, which makes us comfortable saying we can effectively rule out an Earth impact in 2036. Our interest in asteroid Apophis will essentially be for its scientific interest for the foreseeable future."

The April 13, 2029, flyby of asteroid Apophis will be one for the record books. On that date, Apophis will become the closest flyby of an asteroid of its size when it comes no closer than 19, 400 miles (31,300 kilometers) above Earth's surface.

"But much sooner, a closer approach by a lesser-known asteroid is going to occur in the middle of next month when a 40-meter-sized asteroid, 2012 DA14, flies safely past Earth's surface at about 17,200 miles," said Yeomans. "With new telescopes coming online, the upgrade of existing telescopes and the continued refinement of our orbital determination process, there's never a dull moment working on near-Earth objects."

NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

The Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL manages the technical and scientific activities for NASA's Near-Earth Object Program of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch Updates about near-Earth objects are also available by following AsteroidWatch on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch .

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