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ESO Very Large Telescope observes duo of interwoven galaxies
By Space News, 03/16/09





The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises - interlopers both far and near. Sometimes objects in the sky that appear strange, or different from normal, have a story to tell and prove scientifically very rewarding. This was the idea behind Halton Arp's catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies that appeared in the 1960s. One of the oddballs listed there is Arp 261, which has now been imaged in more detail than ever before using the FORS2 instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope. The image proves to contain several surprises. (more)





This Hubble Space Telescope image shows three galaxies playing a game of gravitational tug-of-war that may result in the eventual demise of one of them. Located about 100 million light-years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish), the galaxy interaction may ultimately lead to the three reforming into two larger star cities. The three galaxies - NGC 7173 (middle left), NGC 7174 (middle right), and NGC 7176 (lower right) - are part of Hickson Compact Group 90, named after astronomer Paul Hickson, who first catalogued these small clusters of galaxies in the 1980s. NGC 7173 and NGC 7176 appear to be smooth, normal elliptical galaxies without much gas and dust. (more)


Related Article:
• Space News: Hubble: evidence that galaxies are embedded in halos of dark matter.

Space.gs

International Space Station: Mission 15A is underway.
By Space News, 03/17/09


• Photos from ISS


Discovery (STS-119 Mission) docked smoothly at the ISS PMA-2 (Pressurized Mating Adapter-2) port at 5:19pm EDT, six minutes behind timeline due to a brief comm dropout, in darkness (orbital sunset ~4:43pm/sunrise ~5:21pm), after successfully completing the RPM (R-Bar Pitch Maneuver) in daylight at 4:28pm and arriving at +V-Bar (310 ft straight in front of ISS) at few minutes later. The station now hosts ten occupants again as Mission 15A is underway. (more)

ISS Coverage - ISS Status Report Coverage

- March 18: In the grasp of the International Space Station's robotic Canadarm2, the S6 truss segment was photographed by a STS-119 crewmember while Space Shuttle Discovery is docked with the station. The S6 truss segment was moved from Discovery's cargo bay by the shuttle's remote manipulator system (RMS) and handed off to the station's Canadarm2, where it will remain in an overnight parked position. Also visible in the image are the Columbus laboratory, starboard truss and solar array panels. Credit: NASA

- March 18: The International Space Station's starboard truss is featured in this image photographed by a STS-119 crewmember while Space Shuttle Discovery is docked with the station. Credit: NASA

- March 19: Richard Arnold leaves the airlock at the start of the first STS-119 EVA space walk. Credit: NASA TV
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On te Net:

STS 119 Mission: www.space.gs/sts-119/
NASA Television: www.nasa.gov/ntv
Space News Archive: http://weatherspace.org/archives

Space.gs

GOES-O NASA/NOAA satellite arrives at KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility.
March 3rd, 2009





The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES, developed by NASA for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, called GOES-O, arrived Tuesday on a C-17 military cargo aircraft at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility from its manufacturing plant in El Segundo, Calif. The GOES-O satellite is targeted to launch April 28 onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV expendable launch vehicle.

Once in orbit, GOES-O will be designated GOES-14, and NASA will provide on-orbit checkout and then transfer operational responsibility to NOAA. GOES-O will be placed in on-orbit storage as a replacement for an older GOES satellite. After arriving, the satellite was transported to Astrotech in Titusville, Fla., where final testing of the imaging system, instrumentation, communications and power systems will be performed. These tests will take approximately six weeks to complete. Then the spacecraft will be fueled with propellant for the attitude control system, encapsulated in the nose fairing and prepared for transport to the launch pad.

GOES-O is the second spacecraft to be launched in the GOES N-P series of geostationary environmental weather satellites. The GOES satellites continuously provide observations of 60 percent of the Earth including the continental United States, providing weather monitoring and forecast operations as well as a continuous and reliable stream of environmental information and severe weather warnings. GOES-O carries an advanced attitude control system using star trackers with spacecraft optical bench Imager and Sounder mountings that provide enhanced instrument pointing performance for improved image navigation and registration to better locate severe storms and other events important to the NOAA National Weather Service. The Imager on GOES-O has improved resolution in the 13 micron channel from 8 km to 4 km. The finer spatial resolution allows improved estimates of horizontal distribution of cloud-top, height of atmospheric motion vectors, and volcanic ash detection. In addition, the GOES-O image navigation accuracy of about 2 km from an orbit altitude of about 22,300 miles, or 35,700 km, is superior compared to the previous series of GOES satellites.

The multi-mission GOES N-P Series of satellites are vital contributors to weather, solar, and space operations and future science improvements with weather prediction and remote sensing. These satellites aid in severe storm warnings, resource management, search and rescue, emergency managers, and likely lead to additional advances in environmental sciences and multifaceted data applications of remotely sensed phenomena. GOES-O data will add to the global climate change databases of knowledge, embracing many civil and government environmental forecasting organizations that work to benefit people everywhere and help save lives. A United Launch Alliance Delta IV expendable launch vehicle was erected Feb. 25 at Space Launch Complex 37-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. NOAA manages the operational environmental satellite program and establishes requirements, provides all funding and distributes operational environmental satellite data for the United States.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., procures and manages the development and launch of the satellites for NOAA on a cost reimbursable basis. United Launch Alliance will conduct the commercial launch with a Federal Aviation Administration launch license. They will also oversee launch service duties that include oversight of the launch vehicle processing activities, integration of the GOES-O spacecraft with the Delta IV rocket and the launch countdown activities.

Space.gs

NASA's White Sands launch complex ready for Orion abort flight tests.
03/04/09


• Project Constellation Coverage

- Launch Complex 32 at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico that will be the site of the Orion Abort Flight Tests is shown in this overall view. Credit: NASA


NASA has completed work on a 92-acre launch complex that will serve as the test site for abort flight tests of its newest spacecraft, the Orion crew exploration vehicle, which is intended to take astronauts back to the Moon.

Located at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, N.M., the launch complex will allow NASA to test the system that will pull the vehicle's crew to safety if there is an emergency on the launch pad or during the first minutes of flight. The test is important to NASA's Constellation Program, which is developing a fleet of vehicles that will return humans to live and work on the Moon. The LC-32 East Launch Complex at White Sands was designed and constructed to house the necessary integration and facility needs to effectively conduct the scheduled test missions. White Sands Missile Range will provide support services including logistics, infrastructure with critical emphasis on data collection, operations and management for each launch event. The White Sands Missile Range and the White Sands Test Facility have expedited their integrated efforts over the past two years to accommodate the Orion Abort Flight Test first flight schedule.

The new complex includes a launch pad, launch services pad, ground support equipment and a new building, the Flight Integration and Test Facility, where the Orion module and its launch abort system will be assembled. There is also office space for test operations. The facility is prepared to receive the first launch abort system solid rocket motors. The first of the flight test series will be the Orion pad abort flight test, also known as Pad Abort 1. For the pad abort test, the launch abort system abort motor will be fired, lifting the Orion crew module test article mounted beneath it to an altitude of about one mile. For the test, the demonstrator will have no crew nor seats, life support systems or other related equipment.


• NASA successfully tests parachute for Ares I.

- The Ares I, the first launch vehicle in NASA’s Constellation Program, will send explorers to the International Space Station, the moon and beyond in coming decades. The drogue parachute is a vital element of the rocket’s deceleration system; it is designed to slow the rapid descent of the spent first-stage motor that will be jettisoned by the Ares I during its climb to space. The parachute will permit recovery of the reusable first-stage motor for use on future Ares I flights. The first-stage solid rocket motor will power the Ares I rocket for the first two minutes of launch.


The Orion crew module demonstrator used for the Pad Abort 1 test is the same size, shape and weight of the spacecraft that will be used on missions to the International Space Station and the Moon. Five tests are presently planned for the Orion launch abort system, two pad abort tests and two or three ascent abort tests. The number of tests could change based on the results of the early tests. These tests, along with other ground tests, will help NASA engineers better understand how Orion's new launch abort system functions. Plus, the information collected will offer a clearer picture of the conditions a crew could expect should an abort be needed, allowing engineers to make any changes that might be needed.

For the later ascent abort flight tests, surplus Peacekeeper missile first stage solid-rocket motors will be used to launch the Orion test vehicle to high-stress flight conditions along planned launch trajectories at altitudes that will mimic abort conditions. Once again, there will be no crew aboard the Orion test capsule on the flight tests. During a typical launch, the abort system will jettison itself about 30 seconds after the second stage of the crew launch vehicle has ignited. NASA has developed additional methods to abort a launch using the Orion service module and the crew module during the remaining climb to orbit. The Orion Project Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston leads the government and contractor team that will test the spacecraft's launch abort system. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif., leads the abort flight test vehicle integration and operations effort. Continued...



• NASA's Orion launch abort system is en route to White Sands Missile Range

- The launch abort system pathfinder hit the road on Tuesday from NASA Langley in Hampton, Va., and is on its way to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The pathfinder will support the first flight test of the abort system, called Pad Abort 1. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Space News Coverage: www.space.gs

Space.gs

Endeavour Mission Photos




- March 10: Cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, Expedition 18 flight engineer, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) to perform maintenance on the International Space Station. During the 4-hour, 49-minute spacewalk, Lonchakov and astronaut Michael Fincke (out of frame), commander, reinstalled the Exposing Specimens of Organic and Biological Materials to Open Space (Expose-R) experiment on the universal science platform mounted to the exterior of the Zvezda Service Module. The spacewalkers also removed straps, or tape, from the area of the docking target on the Pirs airlock and docking compartment. The tape was removed to ensure it does not get in the way during the arrival of visiting Soyuz or Progress spacecraft. Credit: NASA

- Astronaut Michael Fincke, Expedition 18 commander, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) to perform maintenance on the International Space Station. During the 4-hour, 49-minute spacewalk, Fincke and cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov (out of frame) reinstalled the Exposing Specimens of Organic and Biological Materials to Open Space (Expose-R) experiment on the universal science platform mounted to the exterior of the Zvezda Service Module. The spacewalkers also removed straps, or tape, from the area of the docking target on the Pirs airlock and docking compartment. The tape was removed to ensure it does not get in the way during the arrival of visiting Soyuz or Progress spacecraft. Credit: NASA




- March 19: Astronaut Richard Arnold participates in the mission's first scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, seven-minute spacewalk, Arnold and astronaut Steve Swanson (out of frame), connected bolts to permanently attach the S6 truss segment to S5. The spacewalkers plugged in power and data connectors to the truss, prepared a radiator to cool it, opened boxes containing the new solar arrays and deployed the Beta Gimbal Assemblies containing masts that support the solar arrays. Credit: NASA TV (more)

- March 10: Cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, Expedition 18 flight engineer, photographs himself during a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as he and astronaut Michael Fincke (out of frame), commander, perform maintenance on the International Space Station. During the 4-hour, 49-minute spacewalk, Lonchakov and Fincke reinstalled the Exposing Specimens of Organic and Biological Materials to Open Space (Expose-R) experiment on the universal science platform mounted to the exterior of the Zvezda Service Module. The spacewalkers also removed straps, or tape, from the area of the docking target on the Pirs airlock and docking compartment. The tape was removed to ensure it does not get in the way during the arrival of visiting Soyuz or Progress spacecraft. Credit: NASA

- 03/10: The Russian segment of the International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 18 crewmember during a spacewalk. Credit: NASA


• More Photos

- March 19: Astronaut Steve Swanson, STS-119 mission specialist, participates in the mission's first scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, seven-minute spacewalk, Swanson and astronaut Richard Arnold (out of frame), mission specialist, connected bolts to permanently attach the S6 truss segment to S5. The spacewalkers plugged in power and data connectors to the truss, prepared a radiator to cool it, opened boxes containing the new solar arrays and deployed the Beta Gimbal Assemblies containing masts that support the solar arrays. Credit: NASA (more)




- March 19: Astronaut Richard Arnold, STS-119 mission specialist, participates in the mission's first scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Space.gs

NASA successfully reboots Mars Odyssey orbiter.
03/11/09




- Mars Odyssey launches aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 7, 2001. Credit: NASA


'For nearly two years, we have not known for certain whether the backup systems would be usable, so this successful reboot has allowed us to ascertain their health and availability for future use,' said Odyssey Project Manager Philip Varghese of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001 and has never switched from its primary set of components, the 'A side,' to the backup set, which includes an identical computer processor, navigation sensors, relay radio and other components. In March 2006, the B-side spare of a component for managing the distribution of power became inoperable. Analysis by engineers identified a possibility that rebooting Odyssey might restore that component, which proved to be a side benefit of today's procedure to refresh onboard memory.

The Odyssey team began a series of steps after the reboot to carefully return the spacecraft to full functioning over the next few days. Following that path, the science instruments will be back to studying Mars by next week. An unexpected rise in temperature of the star camera in Odyssey's navigation system on March 9 had prompted a postponement of the rebooting originally scheduled for the next day. Engineers identified the cause as a heater circuit that was temporarily stuck 'on.' The circuit was turned off before today's reboot. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages Mars Odyssey for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft




- Artist's impression of Mars Odyssey. Credit: NASA/JPL • Daily Space News: www2.spacedaily.com

Spacedaily

NASA Scientists Find Clues To A Secret Of Life
March 21,2009


• NASA: Scientists Find Clues To A Secret Of Life (more)

- This is an artist's concept of asteroids delivering amino acids to Earth. The jagged white line at the bottom of the image is the actual data from the analysis of the Murchison meteorite. The two largest peaks are the amounts of right-handed and left-handed versions of the amino acid isovaline. Note that the highest of these two peaks is the amount of left-handed isovaline, revealing an excess of the left-handed variety in the meteorite. Credit: NASA/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith


NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level. "We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is left-handed," said Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "By that I mean why all known life uses only left-handed versions of amino acids to build proteins." Glavin is lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 16.

Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements to build millions of different proteins. Amino acid molecules can be built in two ways that are mirror images of each other, like your hands. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, "you can't mix them," says Dr. Jason Dworkin of NASA Goddard, co-author of the study. "If you do, life turns to something resembling scrambled eggs - it's a mess. Since life doesn't work with a mixture of left-handed and right-handed amino acids, the mystery is: how did life decide - what made life choose left-handed amino acids over right-handed ones?"

Over the last four years, the team carefully analyzed samples of meteorites with an abundance of carbon, called carbonaceous chondrites. The researchers looked for the amino acid isovaline and discovered that three types of carbonaceous meteorites had more of the left-handed version than the right-handed variety a euros " as much as a record 18 percent more in the often-studied Murchison meteorite. "Finding more left-handed isovaline in a variety of meteorites supports the theory that amino acids brought to the early Earth by asteroids and comets contributed to the origin of only left-handed based protein life on Earth," said Glavin. All amino acids can switch from left-handed to right, or the reverse, by chemical reactions energized with radiation or temperature, according to the team. The scientists looked for isovaline because it has the ability to preserve its handedness for billions of years, and it is extremely rarely used by life, so its presence in meteorites is unlikely to be from contamination by terrestrial life."The meteorites we studied are from before Earth formed, over 4.5 billion years ago," said Glavin.

"We believe the same process that created extra left-handed isovaline would have created more left-handed versions of the other amino acids found in these meteorites, but the bias toward left-handed versions has been mostly erased after all this time." The team's discovery validates and extends the research first reported a decade ago by Drs. John Cronin and Sandra Pizzarello of Arizona State University, who were first to discover excess isovaline in the Murchison meteorite, believed to be a piece of an asteroid. "We used a different technique to find the excess, and discovered it for the first time in the Orgueil meteorite, which belongs to another meteorite group believed to be from an extinct comet," said Glavin.

The team also found a pattern to the excess. Different types of meteorites had different amounts of water, as determined by the clays and water-bearing minerals found in the meteorites. The team discovered meteorites with more water also had greater amounts of left-handed isovaline. "This gives us a hint that the creation of extra left-handed amino acids had something to do with alteration by water," said Dworkin. "Since there are many ways to make extra left-handed amino acids, this discovery considerably narrows down the search." If the bias toward left-handedness originated in space, it makes the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system more difficult, while also making its origin a bit more likely, according to the team. "If we find life anywhere else in our solar system, it will probably be microscopic, since microbes can survive in extreme environments," said Dworkin.

"One of the biggest problems in determining if microscopic life is truly extra-terrestrial is making sure the sample wasn't contaminated by microbes brought from Earth."If we find the life is based on right-handed amino acids, then we know for sure it isn't from Earth. However, if the bias toward left-handed amino acids began in space, it likely extends across the solar system, so any life we may find on Mars, for example, will also be left-handed. On the other hand, if there is a mechanism to choose handedness before life emerges, it is one less problem prebiotic chemistry has to solve before making life."If it was solved for Earth, it probably has been solved for the other places in our solar system where the recipe for life might exist, such as beneath the surface of Mars, or in potential oceans under the icy crust of Europa and Enceladus, or on Titan."The research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the NASA Cosmochemistry program, and the NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology, and Evolutionary Biology program.

Space Daily

Astronomy Question Of The Week: How Fast Is The Earth Moving
by Staff Writers, Mar 18, 2009


http://www.alien-earth.org

- An illustration of the Milky Way based on photographs taken by the Spitzer space telescope.


Bonn, Germany (SPX) --In order to answer this question, we must first make sure we are aware of what is know as the frame of reference. A surfer hardly moves at all, relative to the wave he is on, but seen from the shore he is rushing towards the observer.
Cosmic background radiation provides an absolute reference system for speed in space.

It is measured coming almost completely uniformly from every direction of space with a temperature of approximately minus 270 degrees Celsius. A movement in a certain direction can be proven and measured by means of a very slight change in this temperature. In addition, we must bear in mind that the Earth is simultaneously moving in different ways. It rotates around its polar axis, it orbits the Sun, it moves within the Milky Way as a part of the Solar System and it moves through the Universe as part of the Milky Way.

The larger the linear scales observed, the greater the Earth's speed.The turning of the Earth around its axis, the Earth's rotation, means that a point on the equator is travelling at a speed of around 1,670 kilometres per hour, or 464 metres per second. The Earth already has a speed of almost 30 kilometres per second on its path around the Sun. It becomes even faster when we observe our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Sun is located around 25,000 light years (one light year = about 9.5 trillion kilometres) from the centre of the Milky Way and needs approximately 240 million years for one orbit.

The Sun and the Earth, which move with it as part of the Solar System, have a speed of 220 kilometres per second. On the basis of measurements, scientists have deduced that the various speed components of our Solar System, which have different directions and therefore partly cancel each other out, add up to about 370 kilometres per second. The Milky Way and its neighbouring galaxies form the so-called Local Group. A speed of around 630 kilometres per second has been calculated for this galaxy cluster. The speeds listed here cannot simply be added up to arrive at an overall speed, however, due to the fact that they refer to movements in different directions.