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An Incredible Meteor Shower by Comet Siding Spring

November 8, 2014 By Brian Galloway Leave a Comment

Comet that passed by Mars formed a new layer of primordial dust in the thin atmosphere.

The Comet’s dust caused a great threat to three spacecrafts that orbits around Mars. These orbiters directly came in contact with the dust and ice particles of the Siding Spring Comet. These particles compel the orbiters to stay at a distance from the Red Planet.

Fortunately, it turned out as a really wise decision of experts since the distance allowed orbiters to gather samples and several information related to that event.

Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA expressed that after some time scientists realized the benefits hiding these orbits behind Mars. It saved the orbiters from the damage of several tons of ice and dust elements.

The Siding comet flyby around 140,000 kilometers away from the Red planet on the 19^th of October. The gap of this measure is equivalent to the one third of the distance between the Moon and the Earth. Shortly after this once in a history incident Martian skies turned into yellowish shades. The yellow color emerged due to the sodium in vaporized dust dumped by the Comet Siding Spring.

Nick Schneider, planetary scientist informed that it gave birth to numerous shooting stars that created an incredible view.

The scientists named this comet after the Australian Astronomical Observatory. It was first recognized last year in the month of January. However, Anglo-Australian Observatory is its official name.

Planet Birth Around a Young Star: First Ever Images Captured By ALMA

November 7, 2014 By Germaine Hicks Leave a Comment

Our best ever glance of planets being born around a distant star has been caught by the world’s largest telescope array. The researchers analyzed the image that reveals; young stars can form planets much earlier than formerly believed, which could have implications for how our own solar system developed.

Way back in September, astronomers reconfigured the 66 radio antennas of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile. The antennas can be moved across the desert to change how closely the array focuses in on a target. This reconfiguration involved moving them so that they were up to 15 kilometers apart, the furthest they have been that allows them to make the crispest images yet in these wavelengths.

The ALMA team pointed the dishes at HL Tauri, a star 450 light years away, in order to test it out.

Catherine Vlahakis, ALMA scientist said, “With this new competence of ALMA we are able to see at much higher resolution than before.”

Pop-up planets

The researchers said, “We were surprised by the sightings: though it is only a million year old, HL Tauri is already growing a family of planets. The planets develop when the dust and gas surrounding a star is spun into a disc, and gravity forces it into clumps.These clumps grow as they gather up larger and larger particles to create planets, leaving behind the gaps in the discs.

The imitations envisaged that a star at HL Tauri’s comparatively young age should host an unbroken disc, but ALMA has now seen a clear structure of concentric rings and gaps around the star – the first such observation until now.

Vlahakis said, “It was almost too good to be true. With previous observations our best images looked like unresolved blobs.”

The recent ALMA’s image proposes that the planets can spring up more swiftly than earlier believed. These findings can now be used to update the imitations, giving us a clearer picture of our own past.

“By studying such systems, we can find out how our own solar system formed,” Vlahakis say.

Comet To Pass From Near The Red Planet: ISRO Warned Mangalyaan!

October 17, 2014 By Jason Leathers Leave a Comment

It seems like the Universe has organized a special event for scientists this weekend.

Recently, NASA informed that a fast moving mountain like comet is ready to fly by Mars. This kind of encounter occurs once in a decade.

The comet generally known as Siding Spring was discovered in the first month of 2013. It is nearly one mile wide and is set to pass by the Red Hot Planet on Sunday. The comet will move towards the planet with a speed of 126,000 mph, that is equal to the one third of the distance between the Earth and the moon.

It would certainly be the first visit of the internal side of the solar system. Five robotic explorers of NASA ,along with two rovers are all set to witness this incredible incident. The two rovers of NASA Curiosity and Opportunity have turned on their camera to capture the images and send it back to NASA.

Initially, the craft would examine the incoming ice ball and later on it will move behind the planet Mars in order to protect itself from hazardous fragments.

The small comet has a high risk of collision with the Red Planet. However, scientists are even ready to face this risk in order to examine every minor detail related to the flight of the comet.

Jim Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division informed that the chances of destruction of the comet are considerably low. NASA has designed its Mars orbiters in a manner that high speed fragment cannot easily destroy them.

Jack O’ Lantern Image of the Sun

October 13, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee

Would not it be surprising if sun also celebrates Halloween with the world?. Recently, NASA has unveiled few combined pictures of the sun from 8 Oct in order to show sun like a Jack O Lantern. Jack O Lantern is carved pumpkin that people generally associate with Halloween.

In these images scientists merged two different wavelengths that usually emerge in gold and yellow color. One wavelength is about 171 and the other is nearly of 193 angstroms. These two wavelengths gave a monstrous look through the first coating of the pumpkin and hollow internal side.

Moreover, NASA informed that they utilized some special instruments to examine the light of the sun since it is difficult to view this light with naked eyes. These three instruments the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and the Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment played a vital role in the formation of these images.

The 193 angstrom displays relatively hotter area of the corona. This aura of plasma wraps the entire sun and is merely visible at the time of solar eclipse.

On the other hand, the 171 angstrom demonstrates the atmosphere of the sun and the massive arcs of the corona.

The website of NASA stated that the active areas seem brighter due to the amount of energy and light it releases. These active regions indicate the powerful and complicated field of the corona which is present in the atmosphere of the sun.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is particularly designed to analyze the impact of the sun on Earth and its surroundings. SDO took all these pictures that show 171 in gold and 193 angstrom in yellow color.

NASA’s Images: Revelation of Aral Sea Disaster

October 1, 2014 By Germaine Hicks Leave a Comment

According to the recent images revealed by NASA, there seems to be a shocking decline of water in the Aral Sea. This immense environmental is disaster named as ‘the quiet Chernobyl’.

The NASA officials stated that, the NASA Terra has started capturing the images back in 2000. It was the time when the huge Aral Sea (Central Asian Lake) previously a fraction of its 1960s size as shown in the image, the black line).

A NASA’s official told FoxNews.com, “Actually, it portrays the command of long-standing satellite from space.” Terra Satellite will have been in space from the past 15 years.

The Aral Sea, which is believed to be the victim of water-diversion projects in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, was the 4^th largest lake of the world and now just 10% left of its actual volume.

Certainly, the Aral Sea’s water was previously divided into Northern and Southern Aral Seas way back in 2000 naming small and large seas. The satellite image taken in 2000 shows the Southern Sea was divided into distantly joined eastern and western ‘lobes,’ or basins.

In just 12 months, the southern portion of the sea had been lost and on the other hand, eastern basin started to rapidly retreat over the following years. The recent conditions caused the basin to completely dry up for the first time in contemporary times, NASA revealed.

NASA further told that, as the lake dried up, the fisheries, and other terrestrial communities lived there collapsed too with the increase in salty water, which is polluted with fertilizer and pesticides.

Moreover, the blowing dust from the exposed lake-bed which is contaminated with agriculture chemicals seems to be another big health hazard for the public.

The last ditched attempt to save lake was a dam building by Kazakhstan’s in 2005, though was in fact “a death sentence” for the Southern Aral Sea, NASA told.

First Images of Mars Sent by NASA’s MAVEN (Video)

September 25, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

In the previous week, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spaceship effectively goes into the orbit around Mars. Currently, the agency is revealing the first ever photographs of the planet’s upper atmosphere taken by the spaceship.

According to the official reports, MAVEN took the photos from about 22,000 miles above the planet’s surface with the help of installed ultraviolet spectrograph instrument, later than the first 8 hours in Mars orbit. The false-color photos displayed the Mars atmosphere in 3 ultra-violet wavelength bands.

NASA told that, the blue color in the images shows ultraviolet light, sprinkled from atomic hydrogen gas in the form of cloud which goes thousands of kilometers over the planet’s surface. On the other hand, the Green color depicts another ultraviolet light wavelength which is mainly sunlight mirrored off of atomic oxygen, screening the less significant oxygen cloud. Red color depicts ultraviolet sunlight imitated from the planet’s surface; the vivid spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

Certainly, these images depicts that the Mars grasp oxygen nearer to the planet, whereas hydrogen, which is of lesser weight, is afar in the atmosphere. In fact, these gases are produced from the breakdown of the H2O and CO2.

The first spacecraft in Mars is MAVEN, which goes up with the mission of examining the upper environment. From the data gathered by MAVEN scientists become able to analyze, that once there exist large amount of water, it provides us clearer picture of the atmosphere other than Mars only.

MAVEN will test all its scientific instruments in next six weeks, in a mean time, controllers on Earth will position for its main mission. From this the one year mission of MAVEN begins, which includes a small leap for getting measurements of layers that make planets environment.

Bruce Jakosky who was the principal investigator for MAVEN at the University of Colorado in Boulder says that, among other Mars missions the orbit of MAVEN was totally unique which was present at the top of the atmosphere. MAVEN is not the only aircraft in the space who was working on Mars. It joined a group of other spacecrafts of different companies which includes, NASA’s Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, and the India’s Mars Orbiter Mission also recently joined the group, after a successful entry into the planet’s orbit this week.

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