A lot of excitement has been created by the study of a tiny zircon crystal that measures approximately two times the diameter of a human hair. While it isn't a particularly attractive or visually interesting piece of rock, this crystal that was removed back in 2001 from a rocky outcrop in Western Australia has been verified by two different measurement methods to be 4.4 billion years old, making it the oldest object on Earth. (Insert your own joke here, if you like). These findings were published in the recent edition of Nature Geoscience by a research team led by John Valley, a geoscience professor at the University of Wisconsin.Due to natural erosion and plate tectonics, it's rare to find any rock formations that can date back to anywhere near the formation of the earth's crust. Thus the initial finding of 4.4 billion years was met with some skepticism.The initial method of dating was a well-accepted method using the eventual radioactive decay of uranium into an isotope of lead. The decay proceeds at a predictable rate, so the age can be determined by measuring the amount of lead isotope and comparing it to the remaining amount of uranium. This only works in a closed system-with no uranium or lead isotopes entering or exiting the piece of zircon to be tested. The actual process of uranium decay involves release of a high-speed alpha particle, which could theoretically displace some atoms of the lead isotope.The research team was able to confirm the age using another, more sophisticated method known as atom-probe tomography. In this method, a laser literally evaporated ions from the sample while one set of detectors determined the original position in the beginning sample and another set determined its composition. In essence, this built a 3D atomic-level map of the sample, and allowed the team to count lead atoms and identify their position. They determined that lead was being moved around within the sample, but not enough to distort the age determined by the radioactive decay method.Since the Earth itself was formed as a mass of molten rock 4.5 billion years ago, this finding suggests that the earth's crust formed only about 100 million years after the planet's creation. The cooling required to form the Earth's crust means that it's possible that Earth could have sustained life even earlier than previously thought. The oldest known evidence of life is fossilized stromatolites, produced about 3.4 billion years ago from an ancient form of bacteria.Also, since it's been theorized that our moon was formed by a massive collision between the Earth and a celestial body approximately the size of Mars, this finding implies that the collision had to take place within a relatively narrow window in geological terms. For the moon to form from such a collision, the collision had to take place while the Earth was still in a molten state. So far, this fits in with the previous dating of Moon rocks as being 4.44 billion years old.While there is no evidence yet that life existed on Earth between 3.4 and 4.4 billion years ago, this work suggests that it may have been possible-and fossils that can prove this may exist somewhere, just waiting to be discovered.

Remember how exciting it was when Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon? Those footsteps changed the world. It’s been over forty years since anyone’s gone up there to follow in them, but that could change. For the Russians at least, the Moon isn’t some “has been” in the solar system, forgotten in the wake of Mars and Pluto. They are looking to go back, and they might just leave a little more there than footprints. Russian space agency Roscosmos debuted a model of the Luna 25 module, also knows as the Luna Glob Lander at the recent International Air Show in Moscow .The agency hopes to launch it in 2024, once it is complete and tested and along with that task will be building the instruments that will be on board. Much like the United States, during the early years when the Apollo program was leading the race to space, the former Soviet Union was also actively pursuing a manned landing on the moon. While Roscosmos did land mechanical rovers on the surface of the Moon, they were ultimately not successful in getting astronauts to the moon. The program was eventually halted, after difficulties with rockets and some catastrophic explosions made putting a human crew into space a far too dangerous mission to contemplate. Vladislav Tretyakov, a researcher in nuclear planetology at the Russian Space Research Institute, said in an interview with Sputniknews.com, "The main difference from Soviet missions, which brought back space material to Earth, is that research will be carried out directly on board the probe." Tretyakov also pointed out that previous Soviet missions to the moon had been at latitudes near the equator of the planet and this mission will aim to land on the south pole of the Moon in 2024. The new module will run on Plutonium 238, which is not weapons grade material and is less dangerous to humans than other forms of nuclear material. As it decays, it produces heat, which is then converted into electricity which will power the spacecraft. The equipment fitted onto the spacecraft will be focused on the composition of the soil and the atmosphere. In addition to eight video cameras, the module will have a complex digging tool to collect soil samples as well as an infrared spectrometer and neutron gamma and laser mass spectrometers. Tretyakov, in the same interview with Sputniknews.com, stressed the goal of reclaiming and relearning some of the technology of lunar survival saying, "This mission is a scientific-technological one. We want to carry out scientific experiments there, but this is a technological mission in the sense that we need to return to the Moon, learn how to land, and survive the lunar night, since a lot of what was achieved in the 1970's has been forgotten." The Luna 25 mission is the beginning of a long-range proposal to establish a Russian lunar base on the moon. Plans call for the base to have a landing and launch area, solar power generators and a long-distance research lunar rover for collecting soil samples and images of the Moon’s surface. Check out the video below to learn more about the futuristic lunar mission.

Last month, SpaceX announced their plans to take the SES-9 communications satellite into space with a reusable Falcon 9 rocket. After it would blast off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:35 P.M. Eastern time, the rocket would eject its cargo into the Earth’s orbit as its primary mission and then start hurdling back towards Earth, where the reusable rocket would then attempt to land itself. The blast-off was scheduled for February 24th, although several delays pushed the rocket launch all the way back until March 4th. The rocket officially attempted its landing this week, but wasn’t successful. Nevertheless, it’s not much of a surprise to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. He had said that the landing attempt would most likely fail just before the launch announcement on February 23rd, but it wasn’t until he Tweeted after the failed landing that we knew why it would fail – a very hot re-entry into the atmosphere. Rocket landed hard on the droneship. Didn't expect this one to work (v hot reentry), but next flight has a good chance. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2016 Fortunately, Musk seems confident that the next launch SpaceX has planned will stick a successful landing. Although SpaceX has only had one successful landing that was on solid ground, SpaceX has been trying its luck at landing on a drone ship out at sea for the last several landing attempts. This landing attempt was no different. Landing rockets at sea is significantly safer than trying to land them on solid ground since we have a little more safety control. Reusable rockets are an emerging technology that will one day revolutionize the cost efficiency of space travel. Blue Origin and SpaceX have both made their own forms of reusable rockets, although SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology is a little heavier duty and meant for deeper space penetration. Nevertheless, Blue Origin has landed both of its launch attempts without fail, while SpaceX continues to fail its landing attempts after only one successful one. The cost to build a reusable rocket for space missions is more cost effective, because instead of paying $16,000,000 per rocket every time a mission needs to be carried out, the same rocket can land on Earth and be re-fueled for the next mission, which only costs $200,000 in comparison. The cost efficiency will make space travel for astronauts and other missions much more economically feasible in the future, assuming we can get the landing process down. After all, if we ever do send astronauts to Mars, we’ll need to constantly send supply rockets since they’re going to be so far away from Earth and there’s almost no way to get a rocket there in under two years. Regardless of the failed landing attempt by SpaceX, it undoubtedly gave the company new information that will help with future research, so it wasn't a total loss. Source: Elon Musk

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which means it's not particularly difficult to observe. Even more convenient is that it’s not very far away; residing just between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. These key qualities are not only convenient for astronomers, but they’ve also made it possible for Ceres to be observed up close via NASA’s Dawn mission and with Earth-based observatories. During these observations, experts have noticed that Ceres sometimes exhibits an atmosphere-like layer near its North and South poles, but it seems to fade away after about a week worth of time. How Ceres gets its ‘temporary’ atmosphere has eluded scientists for a while, but one of the most commonly-accepted theories is that because Ceres orbits the Sun in an elliptical manner, it warms up as it gets closer to the Sun during its orbit. This, in turn, evaporates surface ice into vapor particulates that make up what we sometimes see, similarly to what happens on a comet. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI On the other hand, scientists are now proposing a new theory that places the blame for the temporary atmosphere on solar activity rather than the placement of Ceres in its elliptical orbit around the Sun. The theory is described in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "We think the occurrence of Ceres' transient atmosphere is the product of solar activity," said study lead author Michaela Villarreal from the University of California, Los Angeles. "Sublimation probably is present, but we don't think it's significant enough to produce the amount of exosphere that we're seeing." As accelerated particles from the Sun’s own solar winds strike the ice that's embedded in Ceres’ surface, the ice evaporates, forming the atmospheric clouds that are sometimes observed for temporary periods of time. Related: Ceres is a lot icer than originally thought Interestingly, because experts have observed the temporary atmospheric formations even when Ceres isn’t at its closest point to the Sun, solar activity would have to be one of the only logical explanations for why this occurs. Because the Sun is currently entering a lull period that’s expected to be of a scale similar to that of the Maunder minimum, experts are more interested than ever to study Ceres to find out if solar activity is truly the cause behind its temporary atmosphere. Theoretically, because solar activity is in the midst of slowing down as indicated by the absence of sunspot activity on our Sun, we should see less atmospheric changes occurring on Ceres over the next few years, which would tell us once and for all whether solar activity is responsible for much of the confusion. The Dawn mission is studying Ceres up close, and the study authors also recommend other observatories keep their eye on Ceres as well for the sake of accurate data and the possibility of uncovering important discoveries. Source: NASA

The universe is a gigantic place, and while there’s still much we don’t know about it, that hasn’t stopped NASA from making strides in exploring its depths in the name of science. The American space agency’s latest plan is to move forward with a new mission called the called Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), an initiative that would push our understanding the universe even farther. Image Credit: Caltech “I’m really excited about this new mission,” explained NASA’s acting Administrator Jim Bridenstine in regards to the announcement. “Not only does it expand the United States’ powerful fleet of space-based missions dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the universe, it is a critical part of a balanced science program that includes missions of various sizes.” Related: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is now back up and running after some technical difficulties According to one of NASA’s public statements on the matter, SPHEREx would survey the entire sky in both optical and near-infrared light to try and grasp a better idea of what’s out there. Furthermore, the SPHEREx mission would combine tried and true technologies from both Earth-orbiting satellites and Mars-centric spacecraft to map out the universe in 96 color bands. This data would augment our ever-expanding database of known stars and galaxies, among other things. "This amazing mission will be a treasure trove of unique data for astronomers,” added Thomas Zurbuchen of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “It will deliver an unprecedented galactic map containing ‘fingerprints’ from the first moments in the universe’s history. And we’ll have new clues to one of the greatest mysteries in science: What made the universe expand so quickly less than a nanosecond after the big bang?” Related: NASA fixes the Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscope issues, officially brings it back online NASA says the SPHEREx mission is slated to launch by 2023, after which it will spend two years congregating information about the universe in unprecedented detail. This information would comprise of data about stellar systems right here in the Milky Way in addition to that of galaxies residing far away from our own. SPHEREx’s near-infrared capabilities make it ideal for sniffing out the building blocks of life, such as water and other organic molecules. It’s worth noting that the SPHEREx mission won’t directly analyze points of interest, but instead draw astronomers’ attention to them. It will be up to much larger observatories, such as NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, to conduct detailed analytics concerning said points of interest, a task that the observatory’s state-of-the-air infrared optics should see no challenge in doing. While it remains to be seen what SPHEREx might discover when it finally launches, it should indeed be interesting to learn what it will contribute to science. After all, humans have been searching for potentially-habitable words outside of our solar system for eons. Source: NASA

While astronomers studied the asteroid belt in between Mars and Jupiter with the Hubble Space Telescope over the course of several years, they came across a rather peculiar finding in a binary asteroid system dubbed 288P; it exhibits unique characteristics unlike other binary asteroids found before it. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada Binary asteroids are somewhat common, but 288P stood out from the rest for a couple of unique reasons. Both asteroids making up 288P are large, measuring just over a half of a mile across; on the other hand, they also orbit one another at more than 60 miles away, which is far for most binary asteroid systems. Binary asteroids typically include larger and smaller asteroids tightly- packed together, but these unique circumstances led a team of astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research to study the binary asteroid more carefully over the years, and that’s when they made another intriguing finding. While 288P was making its closest approach to the Sun in September of 2016, a part of the body’s natural orbit around our star known as perihelion, the astronomers witnessed comet-like activity coming from each of the orbiting bodies, an unusual discovery for an asteroid (let alone a binary asteroid). Related: In terms of asteroid collision, size really does matter They took note of distinct features including a bright coma, which is the nebulous surround that typically exists around a comet, and a long tail facing in the direction of the Sun. These qualities meant 288P would become the first binary asteroid ever categorized simultaneously as a main-belt comet. The findings are now published in the journal Nature. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Agarwal (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research) The following artist's impression video of the 288P system illustrates how the comet-like features are more noticeable at a distance than when it's closer: "We detected strong indications of the sublimation of water ice due to the increased solar heating—similar to how the tail of a comet is created," said study lead author Jessica Agarwal, an astronomer with the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. "Surface ice cannot survive in the asteroid belt for the age of the Solar System but can be protected for billions of years by a refractory dust mantle, only a few meters thick." The researchers note that 288P’s comet-like activities are not just unusual, but probably also fresh. The result must have occurred within the last 5,000 years or so, perhaps from a larger, unstable comet breaking up into two pieces because it was rotating quickly. The theory would also explain how the two pieces gained enough momentum to drift over 60 miles away from one another. Related: Here's why comet 67P has such a weird shape Astronomers have never seen anything quite like this before, so many questions about 288P’s existence remain unanswered. Future observations could help us learn whether these systems are as rare as they make themselves out to be or if they’re more common than we think. Fortunately, with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope just over the horizon, improvements to our knowledge of the solar system and beyond are within grasp. It's only a matter of time. Source: Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research

Researchers have been teasing the concept of sending a life-sniffing drone to Saturn’s moon Titan for what seems like forever, and now, it appears that this is finally going to happen. Citing a public statement released just this past week by NASA, the American space agency announced its plans to move forward with project ‘Dragonfly,’ a mission that would ultimately fly an autonomous miniature helicopter around at various sites on Titan in an effort to study the world’s habitability and search for traces of alien life. Image Credit: NASA/JHU-APL Titan has long captivated the minds of astronomers and planetary scientists alike because, like Earth, it harbors a particularly dense nitrogen-based atmosphere with heavy traces of methane gas; moreover, Titan is believed to harbor surface oceans. The thick atmosphere there would make flying something like Dragonfly possible, and upon making its many stops, it could grab surface samples and snap all sorts of pictures. Related: Does Titan have the right chemistry to support alien life? No one knows what project Dragonfly might find on Titan when it arrives, and for what it’s worth, it will still be a while before we find out. According to NASA, the mission won’t launch until 2026, and based on the time it takes to get a spacecraft to the Saturnine system from Earth, the mission wouldn’t arrive at Titan until 2034 – a solid 15 years from now. “With the Dragonfly mission, NASA will once again do what no one else can do,” NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said in the statement. “Visiting this mysterious ocean world could revolutionize what we know about life in the universe. This cutting-edge mission would have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, but we’re now ready for Dragonfly’s amazing flight.” It's worth noting that Dragonfly is poised to become the first multi-rotor vehicle to visit another world in our solar system, and NASA expects that the mission will last at least 2.7 years, if not longer. The drone would use its onboard instruments to analyze various elements of the distant world, including crater floors, vast sand dunes, and much more. Related: Titan experiences dust storms much like Earth and Mars do “Titan is unlike any other place in the solar system, and Dragonfly is like no other mission,” added Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for Science. “It’s remarkable to think of this rotorcraft flying miles and miles across the organic sand dunes of Saturn’s largest moon, exploring the processes that shape this extraordinary environment. Dragonfly will visit a world filled with a wide variety of organic compounds, which are the building blocks of life and could teach us about the origin of life itself.” Without a shadow of a doubt, the Dragonfly mission holds significant potential to tell us about Titan’s habitability and whether life can exist elsewhere in the solar system. Assuming planetary scientists are right, then Titan just might have what it takes to pull this off. It should be interesting to see what it finds. Source: NASA

For years animal researchers have struggled with the problem of observing species in the wild. The very act of trying to observe animals in their natural habitat can influence behavior and skew research results. Animal cams can only capture so much if they are fixed in one location. If a team of scientists moves into an animal's natural habitat, no matter how careful, there will be external factors that the animals can pick up on such as the smell of humans, the scent of food and the noise from equipment and vehicles. These factors can greatly affect how the animals behave and ruin any chance of getting good data.Penguins have proven especially difficult to study. Their habitat is usually distinctly their own, with no humans for hundreds of miles. While many penguins are tagged with RFID chips to track them, the chips must be read by hand held digital scanners. The range of the scanners is only about two feet. As it turns out, when researchers would get within two feet of a tagged penguin, the stress levels of the birds would go sky high. Penguins don't like to be approached by scary humans with digital equipment and their heart rate and other indicators made this clear. Yvon Le Maho, of the University of Strasbourg, has studied penguins for over 40 years and came up with a solution. A wheeled rover, not unlike the NASA equipment on Mars. It could be remotely controlled from a much further distance away than the RFID scanners. Initially, Le Maho and his team built a large fiberglass penguin and sent it rolling into a colony of King penguins. No dice. The penguins ignored the interloper and would scatter when it came near. Le Maho told NPR, "If you want to confuse the birds with fake penguins, it should be very, very well-designed." Le Maho and his team then got a lucky break. At the same time they were researching the colony, a UK based film crew was shooting a documentary entitled "Penguins: Spy In The Huddle" Philip Dalton, the producer, agreed to work with Le Maho's team and together they built a model that would hopefully be able to infiltrate the group and perhaps even be accepted. "It was like a marriage in heaven." said Dalton of his collaboration with Le Maho's team. Engineers and movie model makers worked together to get the "chick cam" just right. Built to look like a small, fuzzy baby Emperor penguin, the rover was ready to go. The result? Dalton reported, "I think in the year that we were there, with over 1,000 hours of footage that we gathered with our penguin cams, that was an equivalent of about, I believe, five years of research." The cam was accepted almost immediately into the group. Adult penguins even sang to it and tried to take the chick under their collective "wing." Le Maho's research team was able to equip some of the adult penguins with heart monitors and their readings confirmed that when the chick cam approached, the heart rate of the penguins was about the same as when an actual penguin would approach. Le Maho hopes that more penguin cams can be built to track and record the behavior of these adorable birds without causing them too much stress. His team's findings are detailed in a paper published in the December 2014 issue of the journal Nature Methods.Check out the video below for some bloopers from the footage

Utilizing what NASA calls the Cygnus spacecraft, the United States-based space agency wanted to learn a little more about how ignition and fire will behave in the micro-gravitational conditions of outer space. Image Credit: NASA Cygnus housed a special device called Saffire, which is basically a box with the dimensions of approximately 2 x 3 x 4 feet that will house the fire. The box housed not only the combustion process, but also sensors and equipment that have been designed to carefully take readings that will be beamed back to scientists on Earth. Because we have astronauts in space right now, living in micro-gravitational conditions as we speak, it’s important to understand fire safety in outer space. It isn't the first time that fire has been studied in space, but this will certainly be one of the most in-depth space fire research projects ever. “A spacecraft fire is one of the greatest crew safety concerns for NASA and the international space exploration community,” says Gary Ruff, Saffire project manager. Saffire will reportedly test the combustion process of various materials so scientists can study the burning process of not just one, but all kinds of materials that are likely to be found in space and offer the most risk of burning. “Saffire seeks to answer two questions,” says David Urban, principal investigator. “Will an upward spreading flame continue to grow or will microgravity limit the size? Secondly, what fabrics and materials will catch fire and how will they burn?” Studying the burning process can help NASA learn the best methods to deal with fires in space and to keep the precious lives on the International Space Station safe in the unlikely event of a fire. Moreover, when we finally partake in deep space travel missions, such as those to other planets like Mars, experiments like this one can help ensure astronauts will be better-prepared to handle emergencies like fires in space. This is a big deal since help won't be anywhere close when humans go on deep space missions. Cygnus was originally attached to the International Space Station while the astronauts on board used it to load and unload materials, but after everything they needed was unloaded, they were able to send the Cygnus spacecraft back into space with the fire experiment neatly tucked away inside of it. “Within the first day after Cygnus pulls away from the space station, we will begin the experiment, which will run autonomously once the RUN command is sent,” says Steven Sinacore, deputy project manager. “It will only take a few hours to run the experiments, but Cygnus will remain in space for seven days to ensure complete data transmission back to the Saffire operations team on the ground.” The project has already taken place, and NASA shared the following videos on Twitter showing the burning process: Video from the #Saffire experiment! #NASAglenn pic.twitter.com/jWo7ay7Vwr — NASA Glenn Research (@NASAglenn) June 16, 2016 The #Saffire-I sample ignites! Preliminary data indicates the sample burned for about 8 minutes. #NASAglenn pic.twitter.com/m4vL0Lid05 — NASA Glenn Research (@NASAglenn) June 16, 2016 After the experimentation and data collection is complete, Cygnus will begin to fall to Earth, where the remainder of the spacecraft and its contents will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Source: NASA

Part I of this article described a new kind of cube-shaped probe that NASA’s JPL and Stanford University are designing specifically for exploring in microgravity conditions called the Hedgehog. It also explained that a standard probe design would be almost useless in this sort environment. So instead of using external wheels, like the Mars rovers, Hedgehog uses internal flywheels to move, typically taking large hops toward an area of interest, and then smaller tumbles as it gets closer to its target. There’s a third kind of maneuver Hedgehog can perform if it gets itself into a tricky situation. Its designers refer to as a "tornado" maneuver. In it, the cube aggressively spins and launches itself off the ground. The “tornado” maneuver could be particularly useful in the event that Hedgehog found itself in a sandy sinkhole it needed to escape from or some other situation in which the robot would otherwise be stuck. If the Hedgehog, for example, found itself in the kind of situation the Philae Lander found itself stuck in, Hedgehog could have simply performed a “tornado” maneuver, and carried on with its mission. NASA’s JPL and Stanford each have their own design for the Hedgehog. The current JPL Hedgehog prototype has eight external spikes and three flywheels inside it. The basic probe weighs about 11 pounds (5 kilograms) by itself, but its designers say that, outfitted with instruments such as cameras and spectrometers, it could weigh more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms). Though this may seem like a lot of weight to move around just with internal flywheels, keep in mind that Hedgehog will be operating in microgravity, where a human being would weigh about as much a s paperclip weighs here on Earth. The Stanford prototype is slightly smaller and lighter, and it has shorter spikes. Both prototypes maneuver by spinning and stopping three internal flywheels, but the braking mechanisms differ between the two prototypes. While JPL's version uses disc brakes, Stanford's prototype uses friction belts to stop the flywheels abruptly. Marco Pavone, leader of the Stanford team explains, ”By controlling how you brake the flywheels, you can adjust Hedgehog's hopping angle. The idea was to test the two braking systems and understand their advantages and disadvantages.” “The geometry of the Hedgehog spikes has a great influence on its hopping trajectory,” says Benjamin Hockman, lead engineer on the Stanford team. “We have experimented with several spike configurations and found that a cube shape provides the best hopping performance. The cube structure is also easier to manufacture and package within a spacecraft.” Because Hedgehog will be operating in deep space, where sending each instruction and then waiting for telemetry to make it back to Earth could take significant periods of time, researchers are working on giving Hedgehog some autonomy, trying to increase the number of tasks the robots can do by themselves, without instructions from Earth. The idea is that Hedgehog would work in concert with an orbiting mothership, which would relay signals to and from the robot. The mothership would also help the Hedgehogs determine their positions and navigate. Along with enabling it to operate in microgravity, the new design architecture would make the construction cost of a Hedgehog relatively low, especially compared to a traditional rover. Also, with lower cost and smaller payloads, several Hedgehogs could be packaged together for flight. So instead of sinking all of the resources for a mission into one rover, the mothership could release many robots at once or in stages, letting them spread out to cover much more area than a single, much more expensive rover could alone. Source: Phys.org

When Scott J. Kelly goes up to the International Space Station - he and two Russian astronauts are scheduled to launch on Friday - he will not come back down again for a year.That year is to be the longest space mission a NASA astronaut has ever undertaken. This trip - Mr. Kelly's fourth to space - will also push him to the top in cumulative time in space among NASA's astronauts. When he lands in March 2016, he will have spent more than 500 days of his life floating in orbit, including a 159-day trip to the space station that ended in 2011.With his trip this time twice as long, "my expectation is that it'll be more challenging and, as a result, more rewarding," Mr. Kelly, 51, said in a recent interview.Like all travelers to the space station since the retirement of NASA's space shuttles in 2011, Mr. Kelly and the two Russians, Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka, will be launching on a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff is scheduled for 3:42 p.m. Friday Eastern time, which is 1:42 a.m. Saturday in Baikonur. The Soyuz capsule will dock at the space station about six hours later.Until now, stays at the International Space Station have lasted about six months. In the 1980s and 1990s, Russian astronauts made longer trips to the Mir space station.NASA scientists hope to learn more about the physical and psychological toll of long space missions, including the effects of factors like weightlessness and radiation on bones, the circulatory system and muscles."All of those things really affect the bodies of astronauts," Julie A. Robinson, NASA's chief scientist for the space station, said during a news conference in January. "They push them to something not at all unlike aging on Earth, where their balance is disrupted, their hearts are weaker, their immune system isn't functioning as well, their muscles are weaker and their bones are being lost."That is part of the groundwork NASA wants to complete before it would be ready, in a couple of decades, to send astronauts to Mars."We're doing this so that we can mitigate those effects, so we can eventually go beyond low-Earth orbit one day and explore further than we've gone before," Mr. Kelly said.NASA scientists will see whether Mr. Kelly's experience differs from his earlier trip, especially during the second six months. They will also conduct experiments comparing his health to that of his twin brother, Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, on Earth."Mark will participate as a sort of a ground control to really help us understand this nature-versus-nurture question," Dr. Robinson said.Mr. Kornienko will also remain in the space station for a year, but he will not set any Russian space records by doing so. In 1995, Valery Polyakov set the world's record for longest single stay in space at nearly 438 days when he returned from Mir.However, Mr. Padalka, who will be spending the typical six months at the space station, will set a record, for the most total time by any astronaut in space, about 878 days. A retired Russian astronaut, Sergei Krikalev, is the current record-holder, with 803 days.Mr. Kelly said that during his year off the planet he thought he would miss the same things he missed last time. "The human connection with your friends and family," Mr. Kelly said. "Getting away from work. Going outside."He described the space station as a "magical place," but added, "You never get to leave."(Source: New York Times)

NASA recently announced it would be expediting its mission to visit Psyche, a metallic asteroid floating around in the Solar System. The goal is to learn more about the unique qualities of metallic asteroids and how they form. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin The new launch date in 2022, which is now being scheduled for one year earlier because of favorable orbital conditions, means that the spacecraft will arrive at Psyche in 2026, which is four years earlier than the original estimated time of arrival. Related: This $5.4 trillion-dollar space rock is made almost entirely of platinum, and it's floating away from Earth in space The benefits of expediting the mission, of course, are to get scientific data sooner than previously possible and reduce costs associated with expensive space travel by taking advantage of the pleasant trajectory, which reduces our dependence on Earth’s gravity for help. “We challenged the mission design team to explore if an earlier launch date could provide a more efficient trajectory to the asteroid Psyche, and they came through in a big way,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This will enable us to fulfill our science objectives sooner and at a reduced cost.” The new timing also means NASA doesn’t have to spend as much on heat shield protection, as the spacecraft will spend more time further away from the Sun than it would have in the original ETA. This also means the spacecraft will receive higher-quality solar panels, which can power it while further away from the Sun’s light for longer. Although we won’t be using Earth’s gravitational pull to assist the spacecraft’s journey to its destination, we will still be using Mars’ gravitational influence to help it get where it needs to go. This means we can use less fuel and conserve energy on the way to Psyche. Related: When it comes to asteroid collisions, size does matter Psyche is so interesting because its high metal composition has scientists thinking that it may be the case due to being a chunk of a failed planet’s core. In other words, things didn’t quite stick together like they were supposed to, so the planet never had a chance to form as it had intended. While it’s just a theory at this point in time, getting up close and personal with Psyche could reveal some answers about the asteroid, and metallic asteroids in general, all in one fell swoop. For now, you can see the following illustration of what Psyche might look like as the spacecraft meets its destination: It should be interesting to see what might become of researching Psyche, as there is certainly a lot of interest in eventually mining space rocks for their valuable resources, which can be put to good use right here on Earth. Source: NASA

Can planets form under extreme conditions, such as high levels of ultraviolet radiation? This is something a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to find out as a team of international researchers used data obtained from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the eXtreme Ultraviolet Environments (XUE) JWST program to study the formation and evolution of young planetary systems. This particular study, known as XUE 1, focuses on the star cluster Pismis 24, with the team identifying some key ingredients for life as we know it. Artist rendition of a protoplanetary disk where planets are forming around a young star. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada) “We find that the inner disk around XUE 1 is remarkably similar to those in nearby star-forming regions,” said Dr. Rens Waters, who is a professor of astrophysics at Radboud University in the Netherlands and a co-author on the study. “We’ve detected water and other molecules like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, and acetylene. However, the emission found was weaker than some models predicted. This might imply a small outer disk radius.” The goal of XUE is to analyze 15 protoplanetary disks within NGC 6357, also known as the Lobster Nebula, and is located approximately 5,500 light-years from Earth. For the study, the team used JWST’s Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) attached to the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and combined this with sophisticated computer software to not only discover the existence of water and other molecules within the disk but also that the material in the inner regions of the disk match those of other protoplanetary systems, specifically pertaining to the formation of rocky planets. Despite this particular system being bombarded with ultraviolet radiation, the team is hopeful this allows rocky planets to form under a myriad of conditions outside of what we’ve seen in our own solar system. Data from NASA’s JWST identified water and other molecules necessary for life as we know it within the protoplanetary disk. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Ramírez-Tannus (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), J. Olmsted (STScI)) “XUE 1 shows us that the conditions to form rocky planets are there, so the next step is to check how common that is,” said Dr. María Claudia Ramírez-Tannus, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and lead author of the study. “We will observe other disks in the same region to determine the frequency with which these conditions can be observed.” What new discoveries will astronomers make about protoplanetary disks in extreme environments in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, EurekAlert!, NASA, NASA (1), Wikipedia, Space Telescope Science Institute

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Kibble balance. Credit: J.L.Lee/NIST Together with six other units – meter, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela – the kilogram, a unit of mass, is part of the International System of Units (SI) that is used as a basis to express every measurable object or phenomenon in nature in numbers. How did scientists come up with these SI units? What exactly does a single SI unit mean? Well, the kilogram (nicknamed Le Grand K) is the platinum and iridium cylinder in a high-security vault outside Paris. And an imaginary experiment involving the force between two infinite wires defines the ampere, the unit of electrical current. The mole is the amount of substance in a system with as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon-12, the most prevalent isotope of carbon. The kelvin relates to the temperature and pressure at which water, ice, and water vapor coexist in equilibrium, known as the triple point of water. For decades, scientists have strived to retire “Le Grand K”. After all, using the 19th-century artifact-defined concept in the 21st-century is like trying to get to Mars on a rocket powered by a steam engine. It just isn't going to work. On top of that, the current standard kilogram is losing weight. About 50 micrograms, at the latest check. Enough to be different from its once identical copies stored in laboratories around the world. To solve this weight(y) problem, scientists have been looking for a new definition of the kilogram. Scientists have been experimenting and collecting data needed to replace the cylinder with a definition based on mathematical constants. One method, led by an international team known as the Avogadro Project, entails counting the atoms in a silicon-28 sphere that weighs the same as the reference kilogram. The second method involves a sort of scale known as a Kibble balance, named after the renowned physicist and metrologist Bryan Kibble. Instead of balancing the scale with weights, scientists used electromagnetism. An electrical current is sent through a coiled wire, generating a magnetic field that creates the upward force needed to balance the scale. Scientists can figure out the strength of that field by pulling on the coil. If you know the voltage, the current and the velocity at which the coil was pulled, you can calculate the Planck constant with extreme precision. In 2014, at the quadrennial General Conference on Weights and Measures, the scientific community resolved to redefine the kilogram based on Planck's constant, a value from quantum mechanics that describes the packets energy comes in. If physicists could get a good enough measure of Planck's constant, the committee would base a kilogram on that value. On June 30, the day before the deadline to submit a value to the weights and measures committee, the team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was finally ready to release its result. Based on 16 months' worth of measurements, it calculated Planck's constant to be 6.626069934 x 10−34 kg m2/s. Don't be alarmed by this small, strange number. The most important thing about the NIST measurement isn't so much the number (though that's also a big deal) as the uncertainty: just 13 parts per billion. This means that the NIST scientists think their measurement of Planck's constant is within 0.0000013 percent of the correct number. In the end, the scientific community rejoiced, because the quest to redefine the iconic SI unit has reached its goal. How We're Redefining the kg. Credit: Veritasium Source: CERN

Possessing the ability to refuel spacecraft in outer space isn’t just something you’ve seen in your favorite science fiction movies, it’s a real eventual goal of NASA’s. Fortunately, the American space agency is already hard at work in transforming this concept into reality. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Gunn Refueling a spacecraft in outer space is no easy task. Doing so necessitates much care and precision, not only because of the meticulous tangoing between two spacecraft but also because of the volatile qualities of cryogenic fuel. In an effort to learn the intricate art behind spacecraft refueling, NASA employed the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), an initiative intended to prepare spacecraft engineers for the precise maneuvers necessary for conducting this procedure in outer space. The first two phases of the Robotic Refueling Mission – named RRM and RRM2 respectively – involved perfecting the process of remotely removing a spacecraft’s fuel caps and interacting with its valves. But the third phase of the Robotic Refueling Mission, perhaps unsurprisingly entitled RRM3, will involve the storage and transfer of cryogenic fuel in space for the first time. Humankind would benefit significantly from having space-centric gas stations present in the near and distant stellar neighborhood because it would enable scientific missions to endure long beyond the contents of a spacecraft’s limited fuel reserve. NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, for example, recently ran out of fuel and scientific operations were ceased permanently. "Any time we get to extend our stay in space is valuable for discovery," explained Beth Adams Fogle, NASA’s RRM3 mission manager. "RRM3's ability to transfer and store cryogenic fluid could alter our current fuel constraints for human exploration." Related: NASA reveals plans for sending astronauts to Mars When launched, RRM3 will attach to the International Space Station where it will conduct its business. The module will purportedly store 42 liters’ worth of cryogenic fuel onboard for six months, and it’s being challenged to do so with without even the slightest amount of fluid loss. NASA engineers integrated valuable lessons learned from the first two phases of the Robotic Refueling Mission to prevent any of RRM3’s cryogenic fuel stores from boiling away. If the storage technique works, then it could help pioneer future space mining projects, as many planetary bodies are thought to harbor compounds that could be exploited for space fuel. "Any time you try something for the first time, there is an element of risk," added Jill McGuire, the project manager for RRM3. "We hope our technology demonstration helps drive down the risk of refueling in space for future exploration and science missions." Related: Lockheed Martin shows off new deep-space habitation module concept Without a doubt, it will be interesting to see this piece of equipment in action. With a little luck, perhaps the techniques we learn from it will drive humankind farther out into the solar system than ever before. Source: NASA via Phys.org

Oil-consuming microbes have been discovered in the deepest part of the oceans of Earth - the Mariana Trench. A comprehensive assessment of the microbial life there, which is around 11,000 meters deep, revealed bacteria that can break down hydrocarbons, molecules that are part of natural fuels like crude oil. The findings have been reported in Microbiome and are outlined in the video. "We know more about Mars than the deepest part of the ocean," said the study leader Professor Xiao-Hua Zhang of the Ocean University in China. Located in the Western Pacific, a journey to the trench presents massive logistical challenges. National Geographic notes that while thousands of people had scaled Mt Everest successfully, only two people had gone to the Trench. The pressure down there is one thousand times more than standard atmospheric pressure at sea level, it is always dark, and it’s just a few degrees more than freezing. "Our research team went down to collect samples of the microbial population at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench - some 11,000 meters down. We studied the samples that were brought back and identified a new group of hydrocarbon degrading bacteria,” said Dr. Jonathan Todd of the University of East Anglia’s (UAE) School of Biological Sciences. "Hydrocarbons are organic compounds that are made of only hydrogen and carbon atoms, and they are found in many places, including crude oil and natural gas. So these types of microorganisms essentially eat compounds similar to those in oil and then use it for fuel. Similar microorganisms play a role in degrading oil spills in natural disasters such as BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We also found that this bacteria is really abundant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench," he added. The Trench was found to contain the biggest proportion of bacteria that break down hydrocarbons on the planet. The scientists raised some of these bacteria in the laboratory, simulating the Trench’s environment, and found that the microbes could degrade hydrocarbons; they consume them to get energy. Because these hydrocarbon-eating microbes exist there, hydrocarbons must also be present. The scientists assessed a column of water from the surface, from the bottom of the Trench to the surface. "We found that hydrocarbons exist as deep as 6,000 meters below the surface of the ocean and probably even deeper. A significant proportion of them probably derived from ocean surface pollution," revealed Dr. Nikolai Pedentchouk of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences. "To our surprise, we also identified biologically produced hydrocarbons in the ocean sediment at the bottom of the trench. This suggests that a unique microbial population is producing hydrocarbons in this environment," he added. "These hydrocarbons may help microbes survive the crushing pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, which is equal to 1,091 kilograms pressed against a fingernail,” explained Dr. David Lea-Smith of UEA's School of Biological Sciences. "They may also be acting as a food source for other microbes, which may also consume any pollutant hydrocarbons that happen to sink to the ocean floor. But more research is needed to fully understand this unique environment." "Identifying the microbes that produce these hydrocarbons is one of our top priorities, as is understanding the quantity of hydrocarbons released by human activity into this isolated environment," added Professor Xiao-Hua Zhang. Source: AAAS/Eurekalert! via University of East Anglia, Microbiome

Many people who think of the Sun quickly imagine a ball of fire in space, but the Sun isn’t fire at all. It’s a glowing ball of nuclear fusion, and it has its own physical properties that we’re still only beginning to understand. One of those properties has to do with strands of plasma material that appear to eject and loop across the Sun’s surface, known as coronal loops. These look a lot like jump ropes that slither out of the Sun’s surface and move in peculiarly suave motions along the star’s magnetic fields. Now, for the first time, scientists from Caltech have reportedly recreated scale models of these kinds of coronal loops in the lab in which they are bound to a surface made to simulate the Sun. These scale models give scientists a way to study their physical and chemical effects in ways we’ve never been able to before and may spark additional discoveries. Image Credit: P. Bellan/Caltech Understanding how these coronal loops work is a big mystery that scientists can’t wait to crack. When they erupt from the Sun’s surface, they can sometimes dematerialize and eject charged particles from the Sun’s surface at speeds of more than 2,000 miles per second. These particles, which then travel through space, can often bombard the Earth, where our magnetic field is known to protect us from it. On the other hand, we know our magnetic field was recently weakened from a very intense solar storm, and so it’s important to better understand how we can protect ourselves in the future such that our planet never becomes like Mars; a barren wasteland with a weak magnetic field. Fortunately, these lab-made coronal loops do offer some insight as to what exactly happens when the loops break apart and particles erupt. The findings are published in the Geophysical Research Letters and can help us better understand the energy behind them. "Studying coronal mass ejections is challenging, since humans do not know how and when the sun will erupt. But laboratory experiments permit the control of eruption parameters and enable the systematic explorations of eruption dynamics," says Bao Ha, the lead author of the paper. "While experiments with the same eruption parameters are easily reproducible, the loop dynamics vary depending on the configuration of the strapping magnetic field." What makes this coronal loop model different from other lab-created models in the past is that the researchers have been able to reproduce the Sun’s unique strapping effect inside of a vacuum chamber. Special electromagnetic coils reportedly made this possible. Although the coronal loops are only about 5 feet long and never travel more than a few centimeters away from the simulated solar surface, the model does allow the researchers to study the critical point in time where the corona breaks apart and unleashes its energy. The next order of business, according to the Caltech blog, is to take careful measurements of the simulated corona to learn more about it. They’ll be measuring things like the magnetic field and the waves of particles that get released whenever the corona breaks apart, just like it does on the Sun in our solar system. Source: Caltech

Space travel has always been about going higher, further, faster. That isn’t just a quote from superhero Captain Marvel, it is a way of life for those who choose to ride a rocket to the stars. Much like Captain Marvel, Italy’s own Samantha Cristoforetti is another woman who has taken those words to heart during her career. Born in Milan in 1977, her interest in space travel started early. At the age of 18 she was a foreign exchange student and attended Space Camp, in Huntsville Alabama. She was inducted in the Space Camp Hall of Fame in 2014 after being chosen for a mission to the ISS. She began that mission in November of 2014, with two crewmates, American Terry Virts and Russian Anton Shkaplerov aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On June 11, 2015 she returned from the ISS, having set the record for the longest time spent in space by a woman during a single mission. In addition it was the longest space mission for any European Space Agency astronaut, surpassing the previous record set by Dutch astronaut André Kuipers. How long was this historic mission? Well, in space travel the numbers matter, and astronauts are a very specific and exact bunch. Her total time in space was 199 days, 16 hours and 42 minutes, putting her just ahead of American astronaut Sunita Williams who stayed onboard the ISS for 195 days. It was that mission that put her into the international record books, but it wasnt the first time she made space history. She was the first Italian woman in space, and how did she celebrate? With a cup of authentic Italian Espresso of course. Cristoforetti sipped the first cup of freshly brewed coffee ever made in space. While space technology has taken men to the moon, a Rover to Mars and a probe to Pluto, up until May 2015, there had been no brewed coffee available, only freeze dried instant coffee crystals. In April of 2015, a cargo shipment of crucial science gear also included a cappuccino machine specifically engineered for space. In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Cristoforetti was asked how it felt to have set such a historic record. Laughing, she replied, “Well, I think records are more something for media to write about because it’s potentially a piece of news. But of course for me, it really doesn’t make a huge difference having been in space 200 days as opposed to 190, which would not have been the record. The opportunity to stay longer… depended on an accident that we had with a cargo vehicle.” While setting the record was not the original goal of the mission, like Captain Marvel, Cristoforetti went higher, further and faster, not only breaking a record, but inspiring other girls and women to reach for the stars. Check out the video to learn more.

While it’s typical of illegal hunters to find their victims in the wild, four-year-old white Rhino named Vince from Toiry Zoo in France was reportedly shot and killed Monday night by an act of poaching. The creature was found by zoo staff the next day with its largest horn chopped off. Image Credit: FraukeFeind/Pixabay The perpetrator(s) reportedly broke into the zoo during night hours by breaking and entering through one of the park’s gates and then breaking into the animal enclosure, which was locked at the time. “Vince was found this morning by [his] caretaker, who is very attached to the animals she cares for, and is deeply affected,” Toiry Zoo said in a statement. “This odious act was perpetrated despite the presence of five members of the zoological staff living on the spot and surveillance cameras.” After shooting the creature point blank in the head three times, they used what appeared to be a chainsaw to remove the large horn from the creature’s head. Staff noted that the smaller horn remained on the creature’s body, but it appeared to be marred from the cutting equipment, most likely because the poacher(s) didn’t have time to get to it. Many reports suggest that either the perpetrator(s) was disturbed during the act and had to cut the mission short, or that perhaps the cutting equipment failed mid-trip. In either case, the person behind this horrendous act was forced to make a run for it with what they had. While animal conservationists are already upset with the continued onslaught of creatures in the wild, one really has to ask themselves what kind of mentally-ill individual would break into an enclosed zoo and kill one of the main attractions that park-goers love. The motivator was clearly money, as horns from these kinds of creatures are considered highly valuable on the black market, especially in parts of Asia where they’re believed to have medicinal properties. White rhinos are listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, but Vince reportedly belonged to a very rare subspecies of Southern white rhino that are currently face a real danger of extinction. White rhino shot dead in French zoo, horn sawn off The event has been traumatizing for the zoo staff, as the creature played a significant role in entertaining park visitors and also because the staff has become so accustomed to caring for the animal over the years. Being one of the most entertaining attractions at Toiry Zoo, Vince will undoubtedly be missed by visitors, as well as by the staff. As for the park itself, Toiry Zoo still has two other white rhinos in its captivity that are just a little older than Vince. Those two, named Bruno and Gracie, seemed to be unscathed from the incident. For what it’s worth, this is said to be the first time something even remotely like this has ever happened in Europe. Perhaps it’s time to call on higher levels of security to ensure this doens't happen again. Source: Parc Zoologique de Thoiry (Facebook)

When it comes to spacesuits, NASA only has so many. In fact, NASA just might be running out of them. The high cost that comes with manufacturing them, as well as the difficulty of repairing them when they break, has backed NASA into a corner of relying on the current inventory. On the other hand, that may have been a mistake. Out of a grand total of 18 spacesuits that were originally made for space exploration in 1981, just 11 of those remain today, despite their supposed 15-year shelf life. The other seven were destroyed or lost in some way; five of them were lost in first stage explosions from rocket and shuttle launches and were never replaced. Image Credit: rahfaldt/Pixabay For the 11 spacesuits that remain, there are problems in a couple pertaining to their internal systems and they still need to be repaired. These problems have caused water to leak into the helmets of various astronauts over the years while performing spacewalks. Unfortunately, the spacesuit’s complexity means repairs are not only costly, but they’re difficult to diagnose and to repair. Additionally, because an astronaut’s life depends on the repair, this isn’t exactly something you want to just slap a ‘bandaid’ on and then hope it works; it needs to be done right. Related: Here's how a spacesuit works Four of the spacesuits are on the International Space Station right now, while the rest are back on Earth either being repaired or preserved. Unfortunately, with at least 17 spacewalk missions planned before 2020, the few remaining spacesuits have quite a few missions to complete, and NASA is worried that they might not last. Developing new spacesuits is very expensive, unfortunately that’s where NASA really needs to invest their time and money. The current spacesuits aren’t optimal for deep space exploration, as their incredible weight and inflexibility makes them ideal for external International Space Station exploration on spacewalks, but not for other planets where there’s going to be gravity. NASA’s International Space Station program is expected to last through to 2024, but if that’s going to be the case, then the existing spacesuits really have to last the extent of the mission. If they don’t, then NASA may have to retire the International Space Station sooner than expected due to budget and time restraints that are keeping them from producing new spacesuits. Another problem is that NASA has at least three different designs for spacesuits: one for lunar travel, one for extravehicular travel, and one for Martian travel. Splitting their funding into three separate departments certainly isn’t helping the situation any, and as Mars becomes the main focus for future missions, NASA might have to nix lunar suit development going forward. More than $200 million has been invested in the development of new spacesuits over the last decade thus far, but there’s still far more work to be done to make it possible. Until then, NASA will have to ‘limp’ forward on the remaining spacesuits. Source: OIG, NASA via Science Alert

NASA acknowledged just under three weeks ago that it was having trouble meeting the stringent development deadlines for its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – the space vehicle that will eventually ferry astronauts to the Moon and beyond – but the American space agency continues to push on with the platform’s development despite these complications. Image Credit: NASA/SSC Citing an official statement from NASA, agency engineers conducted a static test-fire of the SLS rocket’s RS-25 flight engine No. 2062 at the A1 test stand at NASA’s Mississippi-based Stennis Space Center on Thursday. But perhaps more importantly, this particular test-fire realized an essential milestone in the SLS rocket’s development. As it would seem, NASA has now tested every one of its 16 available engines without a hitch. This is terrific news in terms of the SLS rocket’s development because it means NASA won’t need to waste any time improvising in the engine department. “Engines are now a ‘go’ for missions to send astronauts forward to the Moon to learn and prepare for missions to Mars,” exclaimed Johnny Heflin, the deputy manager of NASA’s SLS Liquid Engines Office. “We’re ready to provide the power to explore the Moon and beyond.” Related: The first SLS rocket launch will be uncrewed for safety assessment purposes Notably, these engines aren’t new to NASA – in fact, the space agency has a long history with them. They were formerly built to be the Space Shuttle’s main engines, and now that the Space Shuttle program is retired, NASA is repurposing them because they can generate the immense thrust that NASA’s massive SLS rocket will require. As NASA explains, the engines were designed to sustain an operating threshold of ‘100 percent’ during the Space Shuttle era, and engineers tweaked them to operate at 104.5 percent back in the day. But even that won’t be enough for the SLS rocket; NASA intends to push the tried-and-true engines to an operating threshold of 111 percent with additional power to spare using just engine controller upgrades and other minor modifications. Given the satisfactory results of some of NASA’s most recent static test-fire assessments, it seems that the RS-25 rocket engine is more than capable for the job. That said, NASA is contracting with manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne to build more engines such that the space agency will always have a cache of them on hand when a mission necessitates them. All the delays in recent memory have made it tough to discern when exactly NASA’s SLS rocket will carry astronauts into space, but the most recent approximation on the space agency’s behalf implies that astronauts could fly around the Moon in an Orion spacecraft launched via SLS by 2022. As always, only time will tell if NASA can meet this deadline, but the developments made along the way should be exciting nonetheless. Source: NASA

In the ongoing search for water ice on the Moon, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission hopes to advance lunar exploration as the agency’s Artemis missions ramp up in the next few years to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. As Lunar Trailblazer gears up for its projected launch date sometime in early 2024, the spacecraft recently added the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), which will complement the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), the latter of which was added in December 2022. The combined powers of these instruments will assist in locating and estimating the size of the water ice regions on the lunar surface. Image of the Lunar Trailblazer’s High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) science instrument (top) and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) (lower right). Combined, these instruments will help locate regions of water ice on the lunar surface while also unveiling the thermal properties and surface composition of those regions, as well. (Credit: Lockheed Martin Space) “Lunar exploration is an international endeavor, and Lunar Trailblazer embodies that spirit with the University of Oxford’s and UK Space Agency’s contribution to the mission,” said Dr. Bethany Ehlmann, who is the mission’s principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology. “With the combined power of both of these sophisticated instruments, we can better understand where and why water is on the Moon and support the next era of Moon exploration.” The water ice data that Lunar trailblazer will collect will be used to create maps for future robotic explorers and astronauts on the Moon. There is a myriad of applications for lunar water ice, from drinking to fuel to using electrolysis for producing breathable oxygen. The practice for using water ice for these purposes is known as in-situ resource utilization, which involves using resources from the source to be used as substitutes for Earth-based resources. Such an undertaking would undoubtedly reduce both the cost and time for resupply missions from the Earth and could help test new technologies for future lunar human missions, and even to Mars, as well. “The Lunar Trailblazer mission will improve our understanding of our natural satellite and how we could harness its resources to support exploration in the future,” said Libby Jackson, who is the Head of Space Exploration at the UK Space Agency. “Backing missions and capabilities that will drive opportunities for humanity to venture deeper into space is one of our priorities, so it’s exciting to see the LTM instrument ready for launch.” As stated, Lunar Trailblazer is currently slated to launch sometime in 2024 and will serve as a secondary payload for IM-2, which is the second Intuitive Machines robotic lunar lander mission, and the launch will also carry a subsurface ice drill from NASA, the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 mission. How much water ice will Lunar Trailblazer locate on the Moon, and how will this water ice assist in future lunar robotic and human missions in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA JPL, NASA, NASA (1), NASA JPL (1), NASA JPL (2), NASA (2), NASA (3)

NASA’s upcoming Space Launch System (SLS) rocket received a ton of hype in recent memory, and for a good reason; it’s set to surpass the legendary Saturn V rocket in sheer thrust, making it the most powerful rocket ever built for space travel. Image Credit: NASA The SLS rocket’s powerful engine array will be capable of generating up to 8.4 million pounds of pure thrust, which should help in our quest to send humankind and other life-supporting necessities to other worlds in our solar system, such as Mars and Earth’s very own Moon. As you can probably imagine, a rocket that manufactures this kind of raw horsepower will generate ungodly amounts of heat and noise. To combat these unwanted byproducts, NASA cleverly devised the Ignition Overpressure Protection and Sound Suppression (IOP/SS) deluge system, which spews vast amounts of water into the air in a short period. Image Credit: NASA/YouTube NASA’s IOP/SS system resides at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B, and like all new contraptions, it needed to be tested for validation purposes. Just last week, NASA pressed the big red button, sending more than 450,000 gallons of water into the air. The water plumes then landed on the space agency’s mobile launcher and Flame Deflector. Camera footage depicting the IOP/SS system test has been published on NASA’s official YouTube channel; anyone interested in watching the test can watch the video embedded below: Pretty awesome, eh? According to NASA, all that water was hurled approximately 100 feet in the air before falling back down. So why all the water? Water is well-known for its thermal cooling properties, and this means it can remove excess heat energy from the surrounding air and the surfaces it touches when the SLS rocket officially ignites its engines and lifts off from the ground. Related: Watch SpaceX's powerful new Falcon Heavy rocket lift a Tesla Roadster into space But cooling isn’t the only reason for all the water. As you might recall, the name IOP/SS contains the words “Sound Suppression,” and that’s because the SLS rocket will be one heck of a noisy rocket. Think of all the high-pressure water spewing from those large geysers as a type of noise cancellation system that doubles as a cooling system after the water escapes. But don’t worry, the IOP/SS system won’t cause any flooding to nearby areas. NASA engineers built some of the largest water drains you’ve ever seen into the Flame Deflector, which carries all that water away safely. As it would seem from the tests, the IOP/SS system worked precisely as NASA had intended it. It should be interesting, however, to see how well it performs when NASA officially launches the SLS rocket for the first time within the next couple of years. Source: Popular Science, NASA/YouTube

NASA is no stranger to autonomous rovers. To date, the American space agency has sent four rovers to the Martian surface in the name of science, and it will soon send the Perseverance rover on its way to the red planet, raising that count to five. But as it would seem, NASA has no interest in stopping with a fifth rover, let alone limiting its exploration to Mars. Image Credit: NASA Ames/Daniel Rutter In an announcement shared just this past week, NASA said that it would be awarding the Pittsburgh-based aerospace and robotics company Astrobotic with $199.5 million contract in exchange for delivering a science-focused lunar rover called the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon’s South pole. This price is said to encompass both the cost of a rocket to launch the VIPER rover, as well as the cost of a lander to put it on the Moon’s surface. The VIPER rover would be responsible for helping NASA learn as much about the Moon as possible before it kicks off its Artemis program. It could be a key player in developing sustainability technologies for astronauts who will settle on the lunar surface for long periods of time, and NASA plans for the rover to touch down on the lunar surface by 2023, just one year before sending humans back to the Moon. “The VIPER rover and the commercial partnership that will deliver it to the Moon are a prime example of how the scientific community and U.S. industry are making NASA’s lunar exploration vision a reality,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a comment. “Commercial partners are changing the landscape of space exploration, and VIPER is going to be a big boost to our efforts to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 through the Artemis program.” Related: These contractors will develop lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis program VIPER will be smaller and less advanced than the Martian rovers, but it will come equipped with four scientific instruments designed to drill into the lunar surface and sample lunar soil in search of water and to better understand the Moon’s soil chemistry in different areas. The data VIPER records will create some of the first global resource maps that could help NASA discern where they should land some of the first Artemis missions to make harvesting resources as easy as possible. As for NASA’s choice to contract through Astrobotic instead of sending VIPER to the Moon itself, this is mainly because turning to the private aerospace industry for launches and technologies has proven to be more economical. This is one reason why NASA chooses to contract with private companies like Boeing and SpaceX to send astronauts into space, as it’s substantially cheaper than renting seats on the Russian Soyuz platform. Not only will it be interesting to see what VIPER finds in its search for vital resources, but it will be interesting to see if Astrobotic can make everything happen with their set budget. Only time will tell, however… Source: NASA

Nanobacteria were proposed to be, as the name suggests, nano-sized bacteria. Researchers tend to agree that cells must be larger than 200 nm in diameter to house all the components required for life. Nanobacteria, however, measure in at around 50 nm in diameter. Were proposed being the key words. These little guys were first described in the 1980s and seem to have gained fame throughout the 90s. In 1989, Robert L. Folk suspected that bacteria helped form travertine deposits in hot springs. He reported finding “nanoparticles” associated with the geological specimens. A little later, in 1998, researchers predicted that nanobacteria were the causative agents of certain “pathological calcifications”, like kidney stones. Interestingly, these investigators reported that the nanoparticles replicated like bacteria. Thus, they were dubbed Nanobacterium sanguineum. By 2000, however, things started going downhill - the nanobacteria hypothesis started to die. NIH researchers reported that these particles weren’t “replicating” at all; what appeared to be bacterial replication was actually crystalline growth. Between 2004 and 2007, groups from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Szeged had isolated similar particles from kidney stones and atherosclerotic human arteries. Problem is, no genetic material could be isolated from these nanobacteria. Then came a piece published by Michael Hopkin in Nature in 2008. Hopkin recounts how Jan Martel from Chang Gung University and John Young from Rockefeller University “created” nanobacteria by combining human serum with calcium carbonate. When they compared their creations to nanobacteria isolated from human blood, they were identical. According to Young, “nanobacteria have been heralded as the smallest cellular forms on Earth and as candidates to explain how cellular life began on Earth and other extraterrestial bodies, like meteorites and Mars … Our results clearly disprove that nanobacteria are living organisms. We have shown that all the previous vast body of literature on nanobacteria can actually be explained by a chemical and abiotic mechanism involving the simple deposition of limestone or calcium carbonate. I am pretty confident this will put an end to the biotic mechanism for nanobacteria.” Dry your eyes, my friends. That wasn’t the end of the nanobacteria. Even though nanobacteria aren’t actually bacteria, there’s reason to believe they are involved in different disease processes. As Young puts it, these particles “aggregate like crazy”. This means they may be responsible for forming kidney stones or causing extra-skeletal calcification - a painful condition that causes “bone” to form in tendons and other parts of the body. While I wish nanobacteria were actually bacteria, they’re still a pretty nifty phenomenon that may significantly impact human health. Not to mention, they’re proof to always be wary of data that sound too good to be true. Sources: Nature, PNAS, Wikipedia, Phys.org, SERC

After spending almost 186 days in space, and 184 of those days onboard the International Space Station (ISS), the SpaceX Crew-6 mission consisting of four astronauts safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on September 4, marking a successful end to the sixth commercial crew mission to the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The international crew consisted of NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, along with Roscosmos astronaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi, who all flew to NASA’s Johnson Space Center after their SpaceX Dragon capsule was safely ashore. SpaceX Crew-7 Dragon capsule seen spalshing down just after 12am EDT on September 4, 2023 after their six-month stay on the INternational Space Station. (Credit; NASA) “After spending six months aboard the International Space Station, logging nearly 79 million miles during their mission, and completing hundreds of scientific experiments for the benefit of all humanity, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 has returned home to planet Earth,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an official statement. “This international crew represented three nations, but together they demonstrated humanity’s shared ambition to reach new cosmic shores. The contributions of Crew-6 will help prepare NASA to return to the Moon under Artemis, continue onward to Mars, and improve life here on Earth.” Along with the multitude of scientific and technological experiments they carried out during their six-month residence on the ISS, three of the four astronauts conducted several spacewalks to prepare the ISS for installing two new International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (IROSAs), which will contribute to improved power production on the orbiting laboratory. In total, Bowen conducted three spacewalks, Hoburg conducted two, and Al Neyadi conducted one. This mission also marked Bowen’s fourth time to space, as he previously flew on STS-126, STS-132, and STS-133, along with being the first spaceflight for each of the other three crew members. While onboard the ISS, the astronauts examined how plant genetics adapt to space, assisted in a student robotic challenge, and released the first satellite from Saskatchewan, whose goal will be to test a new radiation identification and shielding system procured from melanin, which exists in humans and a myriad of other organisms. The return of Crew-6 occurs mere days after the arrival of SpaceX Crew-7 at the ISS, which occurred on August 27. This arrival/return sequence runs in tandem with previous SpaceX Crew Dragon missions to the ISS in that the previous mission embarks the ISS once the next crew arrives. As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: NASA, Wikipedia, NASA (1), NASA (2), NASA (3), NASA (4), Wikipedia (1), Wikipedia (2), NASA (5), NASA (6), NASA (7), NASA (8), NASA (9), NASA (10), NASA (11), Labroots

It may have been stripped of its status as a full-fledged planet, but that doesn't mean scientists have lost interest in Pluto. NASA's New Horizons space probe is hurtling towards what they now call a "dwarf planet system" and hopefully nothing will stand in its way. As with any space mission, planning is the name of the game. From now until July 14, 2014 there will be weekly surveys of the approach area with the probe's onboard camera, looking for anything that could be dangerous but also anything not yet seen, like moons or rings. New Horizons moves at a pretty fast pace, even in terms of rocket speed. Its currently bopping along at 32,570 mph so it's crucial that the team know about any possible obstacles it could encounter along the way.If they should come upon an obstacle the scientists overseeing the mission from the ground have two possible solutions. They could use the craft's antenna and point it forward, to deflect any debris and shield the probe. John Spencer, the scientist who is leading the search for hazards said in a statement, "That change would hurt our science significantly, because we wouldn't have the freedom to point in all the directions we'd like." The other solution is to change course. The team has already figured out three alternate routes, two of which are very similar to the current path the probe is on. If they must use the third approach the mission could be impacted significantly since that route would take the probe much closer to Pluto. Pictures would not be as sharp and the New Horizons handlers would have to perform an engine burn about two weeks before the fly-by. Taken all together, the series of events and plans that have to be meticulously orchestrated between now and July 14 when the probe will pass close to Pluto's surface and capture images never before seen are a daunting task for the team. New Horizons principal investigator, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Colorado said in an interview with Space.com, "You know how Curiosity had its 'seven minutes of terror?'" said referring to the NASA Mars rover's nail-biting landing in August 2012 via a "sky crane." "Well, we call this 'seven weeks of suspense.'"While not yet approved or funded by NASA, the New Horizons team has some ideas for more exploration after the probe passes Pluto. The Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is located could have other objects of interest to the team. Their analysis of data from the Hubble Space Telescope indicates that it might be possible to detect and observe other moons or dwarf planets. The objects in this area are quite small and so far the only ones that have been spotted are well past the reach of New Horizons because of the fuel it would take for the probe to get there. In the meantime, the New Horizons team is staying busy preparing for a historic view of what was once a planet and is now the solar system's star of the show.Sources: Wikipedia, Space.com, YouTube, NASACheck out the video below for details on the historic New Horizons mission to Pluto:

Earth is the oddball in our Solar System because it supports life. There has, to date, not been any evidence of intelligent life forms anywhere else in our Solar System, or even in the rest of our galaxy for that batter. The question of whether or not there exists any other form of life in the universe is a question that remains unanswered, although it almost seems to make perfect sense that more of it must exist somewhere out there in the middle of this infinitely-growing universe. Nevertheless, the best places to look are the places right around us; the places we can consider to be our own back yard in our Solar System, so to speak. We have rovers rolling around on Mars and satellite probing other planets to learn more about them, but what about Venus? Image Credit: NASA/JPL The yellowish planet has been deemed Earth’s sister-planet for ages. Despite having an atmosphere 90 times thicker than ours and temperatures above 890º Fahrenheit, the planet may have a very hostile environment today, but a study published in the Geophysical Research Letters suggests that Venus wasn’t always like that. In fact, during the time when the first forms of life were developing here on Earth, Venus may have had a very life-friendly atmosphere that could have welcomed life forms like those on Earth today. In fact, it’s possible that life once did exist on it, but there’s no way it still does today. “Both planets probably enjoyed warm liquid water oceans in contact with rock and with organic molecules undergoing chemical evolution in those oceans,” said David Grinspoon of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. “As far as we understand at present, those are the requirements for the origin of life.” The team used 3D computer models to study the characteristics of Venus in our solar system under varying conditions. The models showed that around 3 billion years ago Venus may have had warm flowing oceans just like we do here on Earth, and an environment that would have been suitable for Earth-like life forms. Of course, one of the things that makes a big difference in Venus’ habitability is its rotation speed. The study took this into consideration, noting that if Venus had rotated any faster than it does today, then the planet wouldn’t have been able to harbor any kind of life-friendly conditions. "It’s one of the big mysteries about Venus. How did it get so different from Earth when it seems likely to have started so similarly?” Grinspoon continued. "The question becomes richer when you consider astrobiology, the possibility that Venus and Earth were very similar during the time of the origin of life on Earth." Source: New Scientist