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  • Martian mystery solved?

    Ron Miller / ASU
    Sand-laden jets shoot into the south polar sky in this artist's conception.

    Newly published findings suggest a solution to the mystery of the Martian trees – those dark, bristly spots on aerial photography of the Red Planet that some have compared to fans or forests. Even Arthur C. Clarke, the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and other science-fiction classics, has wondered whether Mars' seemingly branching "banyan trees" represent signs of biological activity.

    But now researchers propose that the spots are of geological origin: They say the marks are left behind every spring when gas and dark sand blast through rumbling fissures in the ice. "If I was ever going to go to Mars, I'd want to observe this," said Arizona State University's Phil Christensen, one of the authors of the research, which appears in Thursday's issue of Nature.

    The key observations behind the latest claims were made with the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, an infrared camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

    Previous imagery, gathered by another orbiter called Mars Global Surveyor, provided ample documentation of the mystery spots, particularly in Mars' south polar region. That imagery led scientists to suggest the spots were the result of a defrosting process that exposed the darker ground beneath the carbon dioxide ice.

    However, thermal readings from THEMIS indicated that the dark spots were about the same temperature as the ice. That led Christensen and his colleagues - Hugh Kieffer and Timothy Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey - to conclude that the dark material was actually sitting on top of the ice layer, rather than exposed below the ice.

    NASA / JPL / MSSS
    Dark spots (left image) and fans (right image) cover
    the icy landscape near Mars' south pole in two
    images taken by Mars Global Surveyor during spring.
    Each image is about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) wide.
    Click on the image to see a larger version.

    So how did the stuff get up there? Here's the scenario sketched out in this week's research paper, based on about 200 days' worth of THEMIS surveillance:

    The process starts during the Martian winter with the buildup of carbon dioxide ice over a layer of dark sand and dust. That dark material is thus sandwiched between a couple of feet of CO2 ice on top, and the permanent polar cap of water ice below.

    As spring approaches, sunlight shines through the CO2 ice and warms the dirt enough to make the ice just above it sublimate - that is, turn directly from a solid into a gas. Pressure builds up beneath the remaining CO2 ice, eroding the dirt layer in the process. Eventually, that pressure becomes so great that a blast of gas, sand and dust breaks through fissures in the ice - spewing out at speeds of 100 mph (160 kilometers per hour) or more.

    The activity leaves behind a dark burst of dirt, surrounding the vent on the ice sheet. Wind may blow the dust into a fanlike pattern. But as the CO2 ice fades to nothingness, so does the burst pattern. All that's left is a spidery pattern of erosion carved into the underlying water ice. Those "spiders" provide a template for the process to begin all over again during the following winter.

    NASA / JPL / MSSS
    Spiders trace a pattern on top of the residual polar
    cap after the seasonal CO2 ice slab has disappeared.
    This image is about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) wide.
    Click on the image to see a larger version.

    "Once a spider becomes established, it affects the surface so that a vent will form in the same place the following year," Christensen said in today's ASU news release.

    Christensen told me that "it was that day-to-day-to-day imaging that really allowed us to unravel what's going on." A companion paper, yet to be published, will go into the detailed physics behind the phenomenon, he said.

    "There isn't anything like it on Earth," Christensen said. "On Earth, this doesn't happen."

    However, some researchers have suggested that a similar process may be at work on Triton, a moon of Neptune that also is speckled with mysterious dark spots.

    As for those Martian banyan trees, Christensen said the phenomenon probably has its roots in a process similar to the one he and his colleagues have sketched out.

    "It's a geologically sound explanation," he said.

    Do you agree? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

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  • Lunar lander challengers

    X Prize Foundation
    An artist's conception shows a vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft's
    flight path during a Lunar Lander Challenge scenario.

    Four teams say they'll be competing for $2 million in the NASA-backed Lunar Lander Challenge at the X Prize Cup rocket festival in October. Two of those teams are already well-known, while the other two are dark horses in this race.

    Details about the contest, the competitors and the X Prize Cup itself emerged this week from an environmental assessment distributed by the Federal Aviation Administration. The assessment will be available for public comment over the next month, and then the FAA is expected to follow up with a go-ahead for the X Prize Cup's premier event.

    The Lunar Lander Challenge is aimed at promoting technologies that NASA could use for a next-generation moonship - a craft that could be cheaper and/or more capable than the Apollo era's lunar module.

    There are actually two contests: The $500,000 "Vertical Lander" competition calls for teams to face off with spaceships capable of blasting off under remote control from one launch pad, rising to a height of at least 50 meters (164 feet) for 90 seconds, then landing on a level launch pad about 100 meters (330 feet) away. The $1.5 million "Lunar Lander" level calls for 180 seconds of flight time, with a landing on a sloped, rugged pad.

    Since last October, when NASA's plans for the challenge first started coalescing, Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace and California-based Masten Space Systems have been considered the favorites for both levels of the competition. Both companies say they're on track to have their landers ready for October, though not without hiccups.

    For example, Dave Masten reported on his Web log today that his team's latest engine test ended with a rather unpleasant boom (or should that be bust?). And in his latest news update, Armadillo Aerospace's John Carmack recounts the tilts and turns of his own testing - while also passing along the happy news that graphics-card maker NVidia will be sponsoring Armadillo's X Prize appearance.

    The FAA document reveals that about 40 other teams voiced an interest in taking part, but only two of those teams have followed through. California-based Acuity Technology and Colorado-based Micro-Space both say they intend to field vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft during October's competition.

    "We are putting together a vehicle for it," Acuity's president, Bob Clark, told me today. "Right now it's pretty intensive."

    He said tests are proceeding on the craft's rocket engine, which uses peroxide and isopropinol as propellants.

    Acuity has been in business since 1992, Clark said, but the rocket trade "is a new area for us."

    "We primarily have done UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] development, sensor systems, navigation systems," he said. "We've had an interest in space system development for a while."

    Clark said he didn't yet know whether Acuity would compete in both levels, or just in the less arduous Vertical Lander contest. In contrast, Micro-Space's president, Richard Speck, said his team was focusing entirely on the Vertical Lander level.

    "Our effort has always been on the low end," he said. His team's spindly-legged rocket - which has a dry weight of less than 150 pounds, including its 55-pound payload -wouldn't meet the higher thrust requirements for the $1 million contest, he said.

    Micro-Space was a competitor in the $10 million X Prize race that SpaceShipOne won back in 2004, and in the past Speck has talked about creating an "ultralight" spacecraft for human spaceflight. But Speck told me that his team's design for the Lunar Lander Challenge takes a simpler approach, drawing upon his years of experience with sounding rockets.

    "This vehicle is an adaptation of that technology," he said.

    Even if Micro-Space takes second prize in the $500,000 contest, that would bring Speck and his teammates $150,000 - a payoff he said would be "significant to us."

    Speck said the money would fund the development of a more ambitious lander for the big prize next year. That is, assuming that Armadillo, Masten or Acuity doesn't make off with it this October.

    Delve through the FAA's PDF document for more details about the October event - including plans for the Space Elevator Games, demonstrations of Orion Propulsion's asphalt-fueled rocket truck, hundreds of model-rocket launches ... and the likely need for earplugs. 

  • Sighting Orion

    One of the best-known constellations in the sky is Orion the Hunter, which starts showing off its glittering belt just about this time of year in predawn skies.

    The Orion Nebula is also one of the best-known targets for astronomers, serving as a popular pin-up for the Hubble Space Telescope.

    Now another orbiting observatory, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, has provided new infrared views of the Orion Nebula.

    NASA / JPL-Caltech / U. of Toledo
    Tendrils of interstellar dust show up as
    shades of pink in the Spitzer Space
    Telescope's view of the Orion Nebula.

    Infrared observations are particularly good for peering into clouds of dust that optical wavelengths can't penetrate - the very places where stars and planets are born. The Orion Nebula is one of the closest star-forming regions in our cosmic neighborhood, about 1,450 light-years away, and that's why it's such a popular target for scientists studying cosmic origins.

    "When I first got a look at the image, I was immediately struck by the intricate structure in the nebulosity, and in particular, the billowing clouds of the gigantic ring extending from the Orion Nebula," the University of Toledo's Tom Megeath said in a news release issued Monday by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

    Spitzer spotted nearly 2,300 planet-forming disks within the nebula's wisps of warm dust, which are colored pink in a color-coded image.

    "The Orion image shows that many stars also appear to form in isolation, or in groups of just a few stars," John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology said in a NASA/Caltech news release. "These new data may help us to determine the type of environment in which our sun formed."

    Megeath and a colleague, Lori Allen of the Center for Astrophysics, are working on a long-term, multiwavelength study of Orion.

    "Most stars form in crowded environments like Orion, so if we want to understand how stars form, we need to understand the Orion nebula star cluster," Allen explained.

    Orion is becoming more famous in another context as well, relating to NASA's space exploration plans. Last month, the CollectSpace Web site reported that Orion would be the name given to NASA's future spaceship (the so-called "Apollo on steroids"), and last week, CollectSpace followed up by publishing what may well be NASA's logo for Project Orion. None of this is official yet, but Orion's status in NASA's new vision seems to be all but assured.

    Update for 3:40 a.m. Aug. 16: An eagle-eyed reader corrected my misimpression that the Hubble Space Telescope's Pillars of Creation came from the Orion Nebula. It was actually the Eagle Nebula. Oh, well, at least it gave me a chance to link to that way-cool picture. I've fixed the erroneous reference - thanks, AstroMonkey!

  • No sex please, we're Uzbeki

    Is sex in space too hot to handle? Apparently so in Uzbekistan, where a recent article about the subject was cited as one of the reasons for a government crackdown on the weekly tabloid Tasvir. (Or was it the speculation that Tchaikovsky may have been gay?)

    Writer/actress Vanna Bonta, who has researched the topic (purely for her fiction, of course) and designed a garment made for intimacy in orbit (known as the 2Suit), told me the report was a rare exception to the overwhelmingly positive response.

    "I honestly had no idea it would be so popular," she wrote in an e-mail. "People are sending me more than usual links in many languages and e-mail from around the planet quoting your article and sporting the 2Suit picture."

    Just don't wear it in Tashkent.

  • Space-race countdown

    It's down to the home stretch for NASA's $500 million version of "American Idol" for private-sector spaceships - otherwise known as the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. The space agency says it will announce the winners of the competition at 4 p.m. ET Friday. So far, no one in the know has signaled who will be getting the money, but there are clear front-runners and dark horses.

    NASA's announcement will set the clock ticking for the development of new spaceships capable of transferring cargo and crew members between Earth and the international space station, starting in the 2010 time frame.

    In the past, NASA has paid the full cost of creating space transportation systems, and it will still work that way for the Constellation program that is supposed to bring Americans back to the moon. But the COTS program works differently: The agency would dole out comparative dribbles of money for companies to demonstrate flight systems created primarily with private backing.

    If the systems work, NASA would buy services from the spaceship companies - kind of like paying cab fare rather than having a car custom-built for your use.

    Six finalists were named in May, and since then, NASA has been getting more detailed information about how those six intend to come up with the goods.

    About the only way to handicap the field at this point is by assessing the public statements and coalition-building being done by those six finalists - and the most frequently mentioned teams are led by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX; and Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler.

    Why those two? Money has a lot to do with it. Both teams have signaled they're ready to put tens upon tens of millions of dollars into their respective systems: the Falcon rocket and the Dragon capsule for SpaceX, and the Kistler K-1 launch vehicle for Rocketplane Kistler. Both teams say their systems would provide an end-to-end solution for bringing cargo as well as crew to the space station.

    Both teams also have brought in partners that have dealt with NASA in the past and can ramp up quickly to get their projects off the ground: SpaceX's partners include Spacehab, which is also a COTS finalist in its own right, while Rocketplane Kistler has Orbital Sciences and Lockheed Martin in its corner.

    To be sure, there are cons as well as pros for both teams: SpaceX's first attempt to launch a rocket failed, apparently due to a corroded nut. Rocketplane hasn't really launched anything yet, and it could face a challenge in taking advantage of the assets from Kistler Aerospace (which it acquired just this year) and Orbital Sciences (which it teamed up with just last month).

    So don't count out the other finalists: Andrews Space, SpaceDev, Spacehab and t/Space. Who knows? The players in the SpaceX/Spacehab team could even be shuffled around to cover different positions.

    And no matter what happens, other competitors in the private space race - such as Constellation Services International and PlanetSpace - will press on in hopes that the leaders will falter and leave the field open for a dramatic comeback. Seen in that light, Friday's announcement may well be more like the starting bell than the final gong.

  • Diamonds in the sky

    NASA / ESA / MPIA
    The Hubble Space Telescope focuses on the star-forming association LH 95
    in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

    The smaller children can find it difficult to stand out in any family, and that goes for galaxies as well as earthly clans. This picture from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, finally gives the little kids their due.

    Pictures taken by ground-based telescopes could turn up only the giant stars seen in this picture of the star-forming association LH 95, which is 180,000 light-years away in our Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy. The giant stars are at least three times the mass of our own sun, but there are also hundreds of less massive infant stars that went undetected until Hubble spotted them.

    By analyzing the light from those lesser stars, astronomers can produce a more accruate calculation of stellar ages and masses, according to today's image advisory from the Hubble European Space Agency Information Center. Because the Large Magellanic Cloud is a galaxy with small amounts of elements other than hydrogen, studying regions such as LH 95 provides insights into how stars are formed in environments different from the Milky Way.

    "Hubble's sharp vision has over the years dramatically changed the picture that we had for stellar associations in the Magellanic Clouds," said Dimitrios Gouliermis of the Max-Planck Institut for Astronomy, who leads the international team studying the Hubble observations.

    The dark blue haze in the picture is part of a nebula of glowing hydrogen pushing its way through LH 95's molecular cloud. Parts of the cloud have contracted to give birth to the low-mass stars, which have a strong tendency to cluster. Two of those clusters can be seen in the picture - one to the right, above the center of the picture, and one to the far left.

    If you follow the links from this Web page to larger versions of the picture, you can also make out a variety of spiral and elliptical galaxies in the background. Think of it as a cosmic version of the "Where's Waldo" game.

    Today's photo was released to coincide with a presentation at the International Astronomical Union's General Assembly in Prague this week.

  • Canadians in space

    Steve MacLean will take the spotlight during the shuttle Atlantis' flight to the international space station, as the first Canadian astronaut to operate the Canadian-built robotic arms on the shuttle as well as the station. But north-of-the-border media outlets are already taking note of yet another Canadian astronaut, Bob Thirsk. The Canadian Press reports that Thirsk will participate in a long-term expedition in December 2007.

    When NBC News space analyst James Oberg asked NASA about Thirsk's prospects, the answer was somewhat noncommittal: "Several astronauts (from NASA, as well as partner countries) are in training for potential long-duration missions on the international space station," NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews said. "But no official crew assignments have been made."

    "Official" appears to be the operative word here: Thirsk has been preparing for an expedition flight for some time, and his name could well turn up by the time the space station partnership announces the crews for Expeditions 16, 17 and 18. (Right now Expedition 14 is just getting ready to take over.)

  • Five stars for space spice

    TV chef Emeril Lagasse's freeze-dried Cajun cuisine won rave reviews this week from the international space station's crew members. How could it not? As we discussed last week, variety is the spice of gustatory life in orbit, and the spicier the better. In fact, one food-loving astronaut says his favorite space dish is so hot he can't stand it back on Earth.

    For the past few days, the space station astronauts have served as the highest-flying food critics, judging the results of an experiment arranged by NASA and the Food Network's "Emeril Live" team. The space agency's food experts selected five of Emeril's dishes for an orbital taste test, based on how well they could be converted to freeze-dried form. (Last week's item provided all the recipes.)

    On Thursday, Emeril finally got the verdict from all three crew members. First the chef paid his respects to the critics: "We're just thrilled and honored - very proud of you guys and what you're doing. And I have to say, since I was a little boy, I've been a huge fan of the space program, so thank you."

    After the complimentary appetizers came the main course:

    Emeril: "Did you get a chance to sample the foods, and what did you guys think?"

    NASA's Jeff Williams: "We did, actually. Yesterday, for lunch, we sampled the foods, and we especially enjoyed the jambalaya - we have one portion left of that - and the 'kicked-up' mashed potatoes ... particularly because of the spiciness and just the extra flavor that they had."

    Williams explained that menu variety was very important for astronauts, particularly when they're cooped up in a "tin can in orbit" for six months at a time.

    Williams: "If we have anything, no matter how good it is, if we have it too much we get tired of it, and we want something else. So it's very important for the morale of the crew. It's going to be important for future expeditions, when we leave Earth orbit and go back to the moon and on to Mars."

    Emeril asked about the conventional wisdom that food tasted blander in orbit and thus had to be "kicked up a notch" with extra seasoning. German astronaut Thomas Reiter said it was a known physiological effect, probably linked to the fluid shift that accompanies a flight into zero-G.

    NASA

    Space station crew members Thomas Reiter,
    Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams provide
    feedback on the freeze-dried packets of gourmet
    food based on chef Emeril Lagasse's recipes.

    Astronauts generally need that extra shot of spice to break up the menu monotony, and Reiter said "the food actually you provided was perfect for this purpose."

    "It was so tasty, we absolutely loved it," Russian commander Pavel Vinogradov added.

    According to KHOU, Emeril's kind of cooking just might find a permanent place on the space station menu. You can catch the full review by clicking onto this Windows Media video.

    That'd probably suit Atlantis spacewalker Dan Burbank just fine. He's already coming in for some ribbing from his crewmates for his appetite ("I just hope he doesn't eat all the food," astronaut Chris Ferguson said today). Burbank goes along with the joke.

    "The food we have on the shuttle now is dynamite - it's good stuff," he told me.

    He said his favorite orbital dish was the the spicy shrimp cocktail, kicked up several notches with horseradish. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't have two or three of those, sometimes for breakfast," he said.

    "It's almost too much to bear when you're down here on Earth, so you don't quite mix up all that horseradish when you have it," he added. "But on orbit, it's just great. That kick is somehow appropriate."

    Burbank may love his space food, but it doesn't seem to have an impact on his waistline. In fact, he said he shed about 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) during his first space mission in 2000, bringing his weight down to 175 pounds (80 kilograms).

    "All our menus are pretty full," he said, "and if anything, the limiting factor is the available time to eat. There's a lot of days that are awfully busy, and we're just going to grab a snack on the go because there's too much work to be done."

    Now there's a surefire idea for NASA commercialization: the spacewalker's weight-loss plan.

  • Bigelow's bigger ambitions

    In a provocative announcement, Bigelow Aerospace says that the success of its Genesis 1 inflatable orbital module - coupled with anticipated changes in the American launch industry - has led it to make some "bold decisions" and accelerate the timetable for its future launches:

    "Due to a number of factors related to the outstanding performance of Genesis I, the hoped-for adequate performance of Genesis II and various additional factors — including, but not limited to, domestic and international issues forecast over the next four to five years bearing upon America's transportation and launch deficits — we have made several bold decisions. An important announcement early in 2007 subsequent to the launch of Genesis II shall expose some of our plans."

    The announcement goes on to say that Genesis 2, a module that will be the same size as Genesis 1 but more technologically advanced, will provide the only opportunity for Bigelow's "Fly Your Stuff" program, which will put mementos into orbit for a price, then arrange for pictures of those floating mementos to be beamed back down to Earth.

    Last month, the company's owner, billionaire Robert Bigelow, said his efforts to put a private-sector space station in orbit might be speeded up because Genesis 1 exceeded expectations so thoroughly.

    Does this latest announcement signal a breakthrough for Bigelow's budding space program? A speculative leap of faith? A "limited offer" marketing technique? All of the above, or none of the above? Stay tuned - and in the meantime, check out NASA Watch's notice about Bigelow's space patent (which was picked up and expanded upon by New Scientist).

  • Science of a flightmare

    Over the past 24 hours, the new threat of liquid explosives wielded by terrorists has transformed the way we think of air travel. Strangely enough, I was caught up in today's "flightmare" while making my way from Seattle to Houston for Friday's briefings on the next shuttle mission (which you can watch on NASA TV online).

    But rather than regale you with tales of my 16-hour odyssey - which surely can be topped many times over by other travelers - I'll just point you in the direction of other resources that shed additional light on this new front in the terror techno-war:

    • Our own Web site has plenty to offer, ranging from the nuts and bolts of the liquid-explosive threat to the potential countermeasures that still haven't really been tried, and even a tech-oriented message board on the new travel restrictions.
    • The "How Stuff Works" Web site presents a tutorial on how liquid explosives work.
    • Scientific American's blog speculates on exactly which type of liquid explosive is at issue (TATP, anyone?), and provides links to further speculation.
    • Popular Science presents a special report on technology vs. terrorism.
    • The Akron Beacon Journal contributes a prescient little piece on how polymer sniffers could counter potential terror threats. Here's an archived article from New Scientist about polymer sensors.
    • The Counterterrorism Blog provides an exhaustive roundup of what's being said about the liquid-explosives plot - including the frequent allusions to the similar "Bojinka" liquid-explosives plot that was hatched by World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, but never put into effect. The blog also refers to the lesser-known Philippine plot involving toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles back in 2004 - a sign that counterterrorism agencies should have known this was coming.

    MSNBC is providing plenty of avenues for feedback on this developing story - but if you want to send along links to other online resources on terror tech (and even better, counterterror tech), feel free to leave them in your comments.

  • PlanetSpace's grand plan

    Once upon a time, the Canadian-American consortium known as PlanetSpace planned to start sending paying passengers on suborbital spaceflights by mid-2007. In recent months, the venture has faded somewhat from the radar screen - but PlanetSpace's millionaire chairman says he's involved in several under-the-radar initiatives that will soon break out into the open.

    Chirinjeev Kathuria, the Indian-American physician/entrepreneur who once helped prolong the Mir space station's life and last year joined forces with Canadian rocketeer Geoff Sheerin, told me today that the initiatives are "allowing us to move forward with an orbital crew and cargo vehicle" suitable for resupplying the international space station as well as taking on space tourists.

    PlanetSpace
    An artist's conception shows the
    Silver Dart spaceship atop a
    launch vehicle that would use
    clusters of Canadian Arrow
    engines modeled after the V-2.

    The vehicle would rely on the propulsive power of Sheerin's Canadian Arrow engines, which are based on tried-and-true V-2 technology. Thirty-two engines would be clustered on boosters, in an arrangement similar to that used on Russia's Soyuz rocket, Kathuria said.

    PlanetSpace's proposed Silver Dart spacecraft, which is based on a golden-oldie FDL-7 design, would sit atop the beefed-up Arrow.

    The launch system was proposed for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition, but when a list of six COTS finalists came to light in May, PlanetSpace wasn't mentioned. Kathuria didn't want to discuss the COTS outcome, but in response to questions, he indicated that he was still having discussions with NASA.

    "PlanetSpace is moving forward to sign a Space Act Agreement with one of the space centers," he told me.

    He also said "we are meeting with the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian government" over an arrangement that would allocate 300 acres for an orbital launch facility. Meanwhile, a suborbital spaceport could take shape in the United States, with the Canadian Arrow serving as the initial spaceship, he said. Kathuria also is seeking to get in on the European Space Agency's recently announced commercial spaceflight initiative.

    Kathuria admitted that many of the details behind his plans still have to stay under the radar at least a little while longer. "That's how you're able to get the best agreements in place," he said.

    Sometimes the plans don't pan out the way they were intended to. That was the case with MirCorp, the venture that was aimed at commercializing Mir in its latter days. Kathuria and the venture's other major financial backer, Walt Anderson, had hoped to turn Mir into a venue for space tourism, reality-TV shows and more - but in the end, the Russians decided to ditch the outpost and place all their bets on the international space station.

    Now Mir is gone, and Anderson is in jail on tax-evasion charges (although his friends and colleagues are working for his freedom).

    In contrast, Kathuria has been involved with successful business ventures in telecommunications and the health-care industry - and he's even gotten involved in politics as well. But succeeding in the commercial space race is still clearly part of his personal grand plan.

    "MirCorp was actually the first company to get involved in this," he said, "and I don't want to fall behind."

  • Triple-teaming dark energy

    What is dark energy? It's one of the key questions facing physicists today, because observations indicate that two-thirds of the universe's mass-energy content consists of that mysterious repulsive force. It's now come to light (heh, heh) that NASA is providing support for three potential space missions designed to delve into the nature of dark energy: SNAP, DESTINY and ADEPT.

    The three proposals are all candidates for the Joint Dark Energy Mission, sponsored by NASA as well as the Department of Energy. Plans call for one of the proposals to be selected for launch in the 2011-2013 time frame. Here's a brief rundown on the three missions:

    • ADEPT: The Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope would survey 100 million galaxies, creating a three-dimensional map showing the effect of dark energy on the universe's expansion rate during different epochs. Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Charles L. Bennett, a veteran of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe's mission to measure the afterglow of the Big Bang, is the principal investigator.
    • DESTINY: The 65-inch (1.65-meter) Dark Energy Space Telescope would observe more than 3,000 supernovae over its two-year primary mission to measure the expansion rate, followed by a sky survey at near-infrared wavelengths to measure how the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe has evolved since the Big Bang. Tod Lauer, an astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, is the principal investigator.
    • SNAP: The SuperNova/Acceleration Probe would measure thousands of distant supernovae and map hundreds to thousands of square degrees of the sky for weak gravitational lensing - providing two methods to check for dark energy's effect. Berkeley Lab's Saul Perlmutter, who was among the first to detect dark energy as the head of the Supernova Cosmology Project, is SNAP's principal investigator. 

     

     

  • The evolution dialogues

    The burning issues of evolution education, science and religion are addressed head-on in "The Evolution Dialogues," a new book published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the auspices of its Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion. The book, written by Catherine Baker and edited by James Miller, aims to address the "deep misunderstandings about what biological evolution is, what science itself is, and what views people of faith, especially Christians, have applied to their interpretations of the science."

    Check out the full news release, including information on how to order the book - and take a look at our own little "evolution dialogue," which began last week and is still going strong. Further perspectives on science and spirituality will be forthcoming with the release of "The Varieties of Scientific Experience," the posthumously published observations of astronomer Carl Sagan. And if you're on the other side of the cultural debate, there are plenty of books that cater to your views.

  • A milestone on Mars

    NASA / JPL / Cornell
    NASA's Opportunity rover took this snapshot of the rim of Beagle Crater on July 30.
    The colors have been "stretched" to emphasize subtle differences in surface
    composition. At the time, the rover was about 82 feet (25 meters) from the rim.

    Today marks the darkest day of the year for Mars' southern hemisphere – the winter solstice – and thus the first full winter-to-winter cycle for those hardy rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Although they're experiencing aches and pains, prospects look good that both of NASA's Red Planet robots will see another Martian spring, three Earth years after setting down for what was expected to be only a 90-day mission.

    You don't hear so much about the rovers nowadays, but at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., project manager John Callas says, "We've been very busy."

    Spirit is finishing up a huge picture-taking project even as it hunkers down for the winter on an outcrop known as "Low Ridge Haven." Meanwhile, Opportunity is closing in on Victoria Crater, the gaping hole where it may well spend the rest of its operating life.

    The winter is tougher on Spirit because it's in a more southerly locale, meaning that less sunlight falls on its solar panels. Thus, the rover has to stay put for another month or so, until the days get longer and Spirit's power supply has the extra juice for locomotion.

    That doesn't mean Spirit has been hibernating. Over the past few weeks, the industrious rover has been snapping and sending back more than 1,500 pictures, and the imaging team is knitting all that imagery together into a 360-degree, stereo-image panorama.

    "It's effectively complete," Callas said, with just a few edges yet to be filled in.

    Spirit has also been surveying the scene with its miniature thermal emission spectrometer, and spotting intriguing features such as a pair of possible meteorites nearby. Once the Spirit is moving again, those rocks could be among the first targets for closer examination, Callas said.

    The science team also wants to check out some "very curious, almost fanlike features" that Spirit spotted on the way to its haven, Callas said. And the rover may well return to a rocky area known as Home Plate for further investigation. Scientists want to check out some areas they weren't able to see the first time around due to time constraints.

    "There's a whole side of Home Plate that we didn't explore. ... I don't believe there's a clear hypothesis as to what Home Plate is," Callas told me today.

    One of Spirit's six wheels has stopped working - and Callas said that might well slow the rover's pace even when spring arrives next February. (Mars' seasons are roughly twice as long as Earth's.)

    "Clearly driving will be different," he said. "We're going to have to be a lot more careful about where we drive this vehicle."

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Opportunity is trucking through the expanse of Meridiani Planum. Right now it's on the lip of a 115-foot-wide (35-meter-wide) pothole called Beagle Crater, but that's just a warmup for the main event.

    Opportunity is expected to take a week or so to check out Beagle Crater, as well as some brightly banded ripples of Martian sand that have piqued scientists' interest, Callas said. Then it will move a third of a mile (500 meters) onward, to the half-mile-wide (750-meter-wide) Victoria Crater. That crater is five to eight times the size of the biggest crater Opportunity has explored to date, Endurance Crater, and should prove to be a geological gold mine (metaphorically speaking, of course).

    It took six months to survey Endurance, and if NASA decides to study Victoria in the same depth, Opportunity could be occupied for years, Callas noted.

    "She could spend the entirety of her remaining life inside Victoria Crater," he said.

    Since Opportunity is just south of the Martian equator, winter hasn't been as much of a limiting factor as it has been for Spirit. But Oppy has its (her?) own little problems. For most of its operating life, the rover has had to contend with a heater switch that's been stuck in the "on" position. NASA works around the glitch by powering down Opportunity and putting it into a "deep sleep" during the night when necessary.

    As long as the rovers can still do science, NASA doesn't intend to pull their plugs. In fact, the space agency just gave the go-ahead for a mission extension of up to a year.

    To be sure, the science operations have changed quite a bit, compared with the bustling days that followed the rovers' landings in January 2004. "The science team is almost completely remote, and that's been working effectively," Callas said. For example, principal investigator Steve Squyres is usually able to monitor the mission from his home base at Cornell University in New York.

    Those long-distance science relationships – in addition to other economies of scale – have brought the current operating costs down to roughly a third of what they were at the mission's peak, Callas said. Thus, a twin-rover mission that started out with a price tag of $800 million is becoming a better bargain every day.

    Check out NASA's latest rover overview and our own "Return to the Red Planet" section for a recap of the past two and a half Earth years – and stay tuned for brighter days on Mars.

  • Elevator Games: It's official

    Two months ago, the organizers of the Space Elevator Games - offering $400,000 in NASA-backed prizes for stronger tethers and more capable beamed-power systems - signaled that they would move the event from NASA's Ames Research Center in California (where the first games were held last October) to the X Prize Cup in New Mexico this October. Today the move was made official with the release of an announcement by the Spaceward Foundation and the X Prize Foundation. The competitions are aimed at promoting technologies that eventually might be applied to future space elevators - hence the name.

  • Genesis 2: Wait till after Christmas

    Bigelow Aerospace says it has decided to delay the launch of the Genesis 2 inflatable space module, the follow-up to its successful Genesis 1 mission, so that its employees can have a happier holiday season.

    In advance of the launch, Bigelow staff members would have to travel to a military base in Russia, the locale for the Genesis 2's Dnepr rocket - and would presumably have to ship all the "stuff" that Bigelow will be flying for a fee.

    "Initially scheduled for late 2006, we and our launch provider have decided not to obligate our staffs to be away from home over the December and early January holidays," Robert Bigelow, the company's billionaire backer, said in a statement released Monday. "So we now have a new approximate launch time frame of the last week of January."

  • Life's ingredients in space

    The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia hasn't yet found radio signals from alien life, but it has picked up other kinds of unexpected signals from space: the chemical signatures of biologically significant molecules, swirling around in the clouds from which stars and planets are made. The discovery of more and more organic compounds in interstellar space has led researchers to suspect that if life were to develop somewhere else in the universe, it wouldn't have to start from scratch.

    The growing list of naturally occurring ingredients for biology "suggests that a universal prebiotic chemistry is at work," the leader for the Green Bank research team, Jan M. Hollis of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in today's news release from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

    The NRAO says that the recipe book for interstellar chemistry is known to have 141 different molecular species - with 90 percent of those molecular types containing carbon, and therefore considered part of organic chemistry's repertoire.

    Green Bank's 328-foot (100-meter) radio telescope is sensitive enough to detect the molecules by watching how they absorb and emit radiation at specific frequencies as they tumble through space. The latest discoveries are detailed in separate studies appearing in the Astrophysical Journal.

    Among those discoveries are acetamide, cyclopropenone, propenal, propanol and ketenimine - all found in a cloud called Sagittarius B2 (N), which is 26,000 light-years away in the galactic center. Acetamide is of particular interest because it contains a chemical bond that can link amino acids together to form proteins.

    Another three ingredients - methyl-cyano-diacetylene, methyl-triacetylene and cyanoallene - were detected just 450 light-years away from us in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, or TMC-1. Current observations indicate that the temperature there is on the order of 10 degrees above absolute zero, but the cloud could well condense and heat up to become a star-forming region.

    The newly detected molecules contain six to 11 atoms each - certainly not as complex as the long chains that make up DNA molecules, but more complex than scientists would have expected in cold clouds of gas and dust.

    "The discovery of these large organic molecules in the coldest regions of the interstellar medium has certainly changed the belief that large organic molecules would only have their origins in hot molecular cores," the NRAO's Anthony Remijan said. "It has forced us to rethink the paradigms of interstellar chemistry."

    Scientists have come around to the view that larger molecules can build themselves up from smaller ones in the interstellar clouds. Gravitational attraction can cause the clouds to congeal, potentially cooking up even more complex molecules. This "chemical cycle" may well have been at work in our own solar system.

    NRAO
    This graphic shows the "chemical cycle" for molecular clouds: At
    upper left, a diffuse cloud of gas and dust becomes denser, and
    eventually develops into a protoplanetary dust disk. The disk gives
    birth to a star and its planets. At the end of its life, the star sheds
    mass - by puffing away layers of material or blowing up in a
    supernova - and the cycle begins again with a diffuse cloud.

    "The first of the many chemical processes that ultimately led to life on Earth probably took place even before our planet was formed," the NRAO's Phil Jewell said. "The GBT has taken the leading role in exploring the origin of biomolecules in interstellar clouds."

    If that's so, it fits right in with Green Bank's history: Forty-five years ago, the Green Bank Conference was something of a coming-out party for astronomers interested in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - following up on SETI pioneer Frank Drake's Project Ozma experiments at Green Bank. The NRAO site in the hills of West Virginia was the home of SETI research as recently as 1998, when the SETI Institute switched over to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

    So even if E.T. never ended up placing a phone call to Green Bank, the telescope and the scientists who use it nevertheless have made a big contribution to the study of life's origins, here on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the universe. For more on the subject, check out NASA's Origins Web site, this archived Web exhibit on astrochemistry, and Astrobiology magazine's report on "Building Life From Star-Stuff."

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