Enjoy this delightful video put together by Babek Tafreshi from The World At Night showing the winners of the third International Earth and Sky Photo Contest. With the theme of ‘Dark Skies Importance,’ these are lovely landscape astrophotos, “ in appreciation of the night sky beauty as an essential element of our nature, importance of preserving dark skies, and public awareness on the growing threat of light pollution,” Tafreshi said.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Astrophotos, Contests, The World At Night (TWAN)

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Opportunity's traverse map from Sol 2951 (May 13 on Earth) and shows the entirety of the rover's travels to that point. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/University of Arizona

After spending 19 weeks working in one place during the Martian winter in Meridian Planum, the Opportunity Mars rover is now roving once again. During the winter, available solar power was too low for driving, but on May 8th (here on Earth), Opportunity took its first drive since Dec. 26, 2011. She drove about 3.67 meters (12 feet) northwest and downhill.

“We’re off the Greeley Haven outcrop onto the sand just below it,” said rover driver Ashley Stroupe of JPL. “It feels good to be on the move again.”
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Mars, Mars Rovers, Opportunity Rover

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Artist impression of the Arkyd Interceptor, a low cost mission to explore asteroids. Credit: Planetary Resources.

With the recent announcement of the asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources, some of the most-asked questions about this enticing but complex endeavor include, what asteroids do we mine? Which are the easiest asteroids to get to? Could it really be profitable?

While Planetary Resources officials said they hope to identify a few promising targets within a decade, the initial answers to those questions are available now on a new website that estimates the costs and rewards of mining rocks in space. Called Asterank, the website uses available data from multiple scientific sources on asteroid mass and composition to try and compute which asteroids would be the best targets for mining operations.

So, which asteroids are most profitable, valuable, easily accessible and cost effective?
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: asteroid mining, Asteroids, Planetary Resources

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Image of Earth taken by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft in 2009

Researchers at the University of Maryland have discovered a way to identify and track sulfuric compounds in Earth’s marine environment, opening a path to either refute or support a decades-old hypothesis that our planet can be compared to a singular, self-regulating, living organism — a.k.a. the Gaia theory.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 34 comments |
Post tags: alive, biology, Climate Change, compounds, Earth, Farquhar, Gaia theory, Oduro, sulfur, University of Maryland

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"Hopper" rover/spacecraft concept by Stanford University's Marco Pavone

With all there’s yet to learn about our solar system from the many smaller worlds that reside within it — asteroids, protoplanets and small moons — one researcher from Stanford University is suggesting we unleash a swarm of rover/spacecraft hybrids that can explore en masse.

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Read the rest of Space Exploration By Robot Swarm (246 words)

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments |
Post tags: Exploration, JPL, Marco Pavone, NASA, NIAC, robot, Solar System, spacecraft, Stanford

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Sir Elton John sent a special message to the ‘rocket men’ on board the International Space Station by singing his classic song “Rocket Man.” The video was recorded on April 17, 40 years to the day after his single Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time) was released around the world.

Sir Elton also added this greeting:
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: Elton John, Space Flight, Space Station

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Faulkes Telescope, Hawaii. Credit: ESA

What’s the best way to look for potentially hazardous asteroids? Get as many eyes on the sky as you can. That’s the impetus behind a new partnership between the European Space Agency and the Faulkes Telescope Project, which will encourage amateur astronomers to look for asteroids, as well as providing educational opportunities that will allow students to discover potentially dangerous space rocks, too.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments |
Post tags: Asteroids, Faulkes, Observing

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Launch of the Soyuz TMA-04M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on May 15, 2012 (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

After a six-week delay, the crew of Expedition 31 successfully launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-04M rocket on Tuesday, May 15 at 0301 GMT (11:01 p.m. EDT May 14) from Russia’s historic Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in the steppes of Kazakhstan.

The rocket will deliver NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin to the International Space Station. After a two-day journey, their Soyuz capsule will dock with the ISS at 11:38 p.m. CDT on Wednesday.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments |
Post tags: Baikonur, Bill Ingalls, Expedition 31, ISS, Launch, NASA, photography, rocket, Russia, Soyuz, spaceflight, video

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Story Musgrave, 76, railed against the administration's current direction -- or lack thereof.

Former NASA astronaut Story Musgrave is neither happy nor excited about the current state of the space administration or about the commercial COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program. He’s not happy, and he’s not afraid to say so.

“The whole thing is chaos and a cop out. The whole thing is a Washington failure,” Musgrave bluntly stated to Examiner.com’s Charles Atkeison in an interview this past weekend.

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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 38 comments |
Post tags: astronaut, Atkeison, COTS, interview, Musgrave, NASA, shuttle

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A Lego Curiosity Rover on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia for their Space Day event to welcome the addition of the Discovery Space Shuttle. You can see the underside of the shuttle in the background. Credit: Stephen Pakbaz.

I know a lot of our readers are — like me — huge LEGO fans, and of course, we have lots of fans of the Mars Science Laboratory, a.k.a the Curiosity rover. One of our readers, Allen Eyler, just sent me an email on how disappointed he and many other rover fans are about the fact that LEGO has no plans to create a Curiosity toy model. However, LEGO has a website where users can submit prototype designs for LEGO projects and if 10,000 people vote for the design, then LEGO will consider mass-producing and marketing that design. Bring in Stephen Pakbaz, an engineer at JPL who was involved in some of the design and testing of the real Curiosity rover. He has now designed and built an amazing Curiosity rover in LEGO, at 1:20 scale. It features the same ‘rocker-bogie’ wheel action just like the real Curiosity rover, along with an articulating arm and a deployable mast.

It looks awesome and I’m already wanting to play with it! And just think of the great outreach for NASA and space exploration it would be to have a Lego Curiosity rover for sale in stores. We now just need our readers to help boost the votes for Curiosity as a LEGO toy model.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments |
Post tags: Curiosity Rover, Lego, MSL

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