Saturn’s Satan – A monster hurricane with an eye of over 2,000km ..#NASA #Saturn

Nasa spacecraft captures stunning image of a cyclone at Saturn’s North Pole

In an undated in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and provided by NASA/JPL shows stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn’s North Pole. The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles across. That’s 20 times larger than the typical eye of a hurricane here on Earth. The hurricane is believed to have been there for years.This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini’s imaging cameras. (AP)

Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft has captured stunning views of a monster hurricane at Saturn’s North Pole.

The eye of the cyclone is an enormous 1,250 miles (2,010 kilometers) across. That’s 20 times larger than the typical eye of a hurricane here on Earth. And it’s spinning super-fast. Clouds at the outer edge of the storm are whipping around at 330 mph (531 kph).

The hurricane is parked at Saturn’s North Pole and relies on water vapor to keep it churning. It’s believed to have been there for years. Cassini only recently had a chance to observe the vortex in visible light.

Scientists hope to learn more about Earth’s hurricanes by studying this whopper at Saturn.

Cassini was launched from Cape Canaveral in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004.

#Asteroid2012DA14 brushes past Earth

Asteroid 2012 DA14 brushed past Earth early Saturday morning (IST) causing no damage to any satellite. It passed inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites. ”The asteroid safely passed our planet 17,500 miles above Indonesia,” NASA said.

The newly discovered asteroid, about half the size of a football field, was tracked by NASA and various space centres, giving scientists a rare opportunity for close-up observations without launching a probe.

At its closest approach, which occurred at 1924 GMT or 0055 IST, the asteroid passed about 17,200 miles (27,520 km) above the planet traveling at 13 km per second, bringing it nearer than the networks of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

Although Asteroid 2012 DA14 is the largest known object of its size to pass this close, scientists had predicted that there would be no chance of an impact.

Currently, DA14 matches Earth’s year-long orbit around the sun, but after today’s encounter its flight path will change, said astronomer Donald Yeomans, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“The close approach will perturb its orbit so that actually instead of having an orbital period of one year, it’ll lose a couple of months,” Yeomans said. “The Earth is going to put this one in an orbit that is considerably safer,” he said.

For scientists, DA14 presented a rare, albeit short, opportunity to study an asteroid close-up. In addition to trying to determine what minerals it contains, which is of potential commercial interest as well as scientific, astronomers want to learn more about the asteroid’s spin rate. The information not only will be useful to plotting DA14′s future visits but could help engineers develop techniques to thwart more threatening asteroids.

Ozone hole second smallest in 20 years

Bringing great reprive to scientists monitoring ozone hole over the Antarctic, the the average area covered by the hole this year is smallest in the last 20 years. 

 

The ozone hole reached its maximum size Sep 22, covering 8.2 million square miles (21.2 million sq km), or the area of the US, Canada and Mexico combined, according to data from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites.

 

The average size of the 2012 ozone hole was 6.9 million sq miles (17.9 million square km). The Sep 6, 2000 ozone hole was the largest on record at 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million sq km). 

 

Ozone layer acts as Earth’s natural shield against ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer. The ozone hole phenomenon began making a yearly appearance in the early 1980s. 

 

“The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are still sizable in the Antarctic stratosphere,” said atmospheric scientist Paul Newman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, according to a NASA statement. 

 

“Natural fluctuations in weather patterns resulted in warmer stratospheric temperatures this year. These temperatures led to a smaller ozone hole,” added Newman. 

 

The Antarctic ozone layer likely will not return to its early 1980s state until about 2065, Newman said. The lengthy recovery is because of the long lifetimes of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere. 

 

Overall atmospheric ozone no longer is declining as concentrations of ozone-depleting substances decrease. The decrease is the result of an international agreement regulating the production of certain chemicals.

Phew! Asteroid to miss Earth in 2040, NASA says

On a day when global doomsday predictions failed to pan out, NASA had more good news for the Earth: An asteroid feared to be on a collision course with our planet no longer poses a threat.

Uncertainties about the orbit of the asteroid, known as 2011 AG5, previously allowed for a less than a 1% chance it would hit the Earth in February 2040, NASA said.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The asteroid previously had a 0.2% chance of hitting the Earth

• More observation by astronomers in Hawaii shows no risk of collision

• A collision would have released about 100 megatons of energy

• Observing the asteroid wasn’t easy

To narrow down the asteroid’s future course, NASA put out a call for more observation. Astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa took up the task and managed to observe the asteroid over several days in October.

“An analysis of the new data conducted by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shows that the risk of collision in 2040 has been eliminated,” NASA declared Friday.

The new observations, made with the Gemini 8-meter telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, reduce the orbit uncertainties by more than a factor of 60. That means the Earth’s position in February 2040 is not in range of the asteroid’s possible future paths.

The asteroid, which is 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter, will get no closer to Earth than 890,000 kilometers (553,000 miles), or more than twice the distance to the moon, NASA said.

A collision with Earth would have released about 100 megatons of energy, several thousand times more powerful than the atomic bombs that ended World War II, according to the Gemini Observatory.

Observing the asteroid wasn’t easy, said David Tholen, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.

The asteroid’s position was very close to the sun, so astronomers had to observe it when the sky was dark. Tholen told CNN there was about a half-hour between when the asteroid got high enough in the sky for the telescope to point at it and before the sky became too light to observe it.

Because the astronomers were looking at the asteroid low in the sky, they were viewing it through a lot of atmosphere, which scattered some of the light and made the object fainter, he said.

“The second effect is the turbulence of the atmosphere makes things fainter,” Tholen said. “We had to keep trying over and over until we got one of those nights when the atmosphere was calm.”

Tholen and the team also discovered the asteroid is elongated, so that as it rotates, its brightness changes. That was another challenge for the astronomers: Because they didn’t know the asteroid’s rotation period, they didn’t know when it would wax and wane, and when it would grow too faint to see.

“This object was changing its brightness by a factor of three or four — it was just enormously variable,” Tholen said. “It was hit and miss depending on which night you observed it.”

Many predicted the end of the world would come Friday, the day on which a long phase in the ancient Mayan calendar came to an end. Some believe the day actually comes Sunday.

Modern-day Mayans say the end of the calendar phase doesn’t mean the end of the world — just the end of an era, and the start of a new one.

Milky Way to inevitably merge with Andromeda Nebula – NASA

According to NASA, the merger of two neighbouring Galaxies, namely the Milky Way, of which the Solar System is a part and the Andromeda Nebula, is inevitable, since the Galaxies are approaching each other at some 400,000 kilometres per hour.

But the Earth will not get destroyed, nor will humanity suffer in the process, if humans still inhabit the Earth by then. NASA officials said this during a news conference on Thursday.

The merger will begin in approximately four billion years from now and is due over in six billion years.

The new galaxy that will emerge as a result will have a different, most likely elliptical form, and will be populated by fewer cosmic bodies than today.

NASA’s “Black Marble” Photos of Earth At Night

NASA just published some lovely photos of planet Earth at night, showing the many ways night images can be used for science, including seeing where people live, monitoring black-outs, viewing natural events, and even watching the Aurora lights. The images are made possible by a new sensor, the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which can detect even the dim glow of a single ship in the middle of the ocean.

Scroll through to see these beautiful, interesting images and learn about the technology used to capture them.

“Nighttime light is the most interesting data that I’ve had a chance to work with. I’m always amazed at what city light images show us about human activity.” says Chris Elvidge, who leads the Earth Observation Group at NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, on NASA’s Flickr set titled “Black Marble”.

NASA states that Elvidge’s research group “has been approached by scientists seeking to model the distribution of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to monitor the activity of commercial fishing fleets. Biologists have examined how urban growth has fragmented animal habitat. Elvidge even learned once of a study of dictatorships in various parts of the world and how nighttime lights had a tendency to expand in the dictator’s hometown or province.”

This image of the area near Delhi, India shows how NASA’s satellite technology has progressed and just how excellent the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) really is. “For comparison,” writes NASA, “the lower image shows the same area one night earlier, as observed by the Operational Line Scan (OLS) system on a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) spacecraft.”

While the OLS has been a successful sensor, it uses older technology and, as is made clear by the image, has a much lower resolution than VIIRS. VIIRS is 10 to 15 times better than OLS.

It is incredible to see exactly where we live when the maps are illuminated by our homes and street lights. Here, the Nile River Valley and Delta is aglow. Approximately 97% of Egypt’s population lives along this section of the Nile, made obvious by the sparkling lights.

“The city lights resemble a giant calla lily, just one with a kink in its stem near the city of Luxor. Some of the brightest lights occur around Cairo, but lights are abundant along the length of the river. Bright city lights also occur along the Suez Canal and around Tel Aviv. Away from the lights, however, land and water appear uniformly black. This image was acquired near the time of the new Moon, and little moonlight was available to brighten land and water surfaces,” writes NASA.

NASA notes that while city lights at night help to track where people live, it’s not the be-all-end-all method, as evidenced by this image showing the contrast between a glowing South Korea and a dark North Korea. Even though North Korea has about half the number of people that South Korea has, it has just a tiny fraction of lights.

“Worldwide, South Korea ranks 12th in electricity production, and 10th in electricity consumption, per 2011 estimates. North Korea ranks 71st in electricity production, and 73rd in electricity consumption, per 2009 estimates,” states NASA.

Not only are the satellites useful for tracking the lighted activity of humans, but it can also track the lights of natural phenomena like the aurora australis, or southern lights. Here is a night view of the aurora over Antartica’s Queen Maud Land and the Princess Ragnhild Coast.

The satellites help scientists researching the Arctic as well, taking images during the polar darkness of the autumn of 2012 so scientists could see the behavior of sea ice after summer melts.

To do this, NASA states, “Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite can see in the dark. The VIIRS “day-night band” detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. The day-night band takes advantage of moonlight, airglow (the atmosphere’s self-illumination through chemical reactions), zodiacal light (sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust), and starlight from the Milky Way. By using these dim light sources, the day-night band can detect changes in clouds, snow cover, and sea ice. The VIIRS day-night band offers a unique perspective because once polar night has descended, satellite sensors relying on visible light can no longer produce photo-like images. And although passive microwave sensors can monitor sea ice through the winter, they offer much lower resolution.”

The satellites can also track occurrences like wild fires, such as these burning in Siberia, helping to track the progress of the blazes even through the night.

 

Big asteroid flying by, no threat to Earth

A large asteroid that flies in nearly the same orbit as Earth will make a close pass by the planet, but there’s no chance of an impact – at least for hundreds of years, astronomers said on Wednesday.

The asteroid Toutatis is captured by NASA’s Goldstone radar as it passes by Earth on December 11, 2012. REUTERS/NASA/JPL/Caltech/Handout

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The asteroid, named Toutatis, flies by Earth every four years. During its closest approach on Wednesday, the celestial rock will pass about 4.3 million miles (7 million km) from Earth, which is about 18 times farther away than the moon.

“There is no danger of a collision with Earth,” NASA astronomer Lance Benner said in a statement.

The 0.6-mile (4.3-km) long asteroid circles the sun in an orbit that is very closely aligned with Earth’s, making it a potentially hazardous object for the future.

The asteroid was first spotted in 1934 and its orbit was confirmed in 1989. In 2004, Toutatis passed by Earth just four times farther away than the moon, much closer than this week’s encounter.

Astronomers are using radar and optical telescopes to get a better fix on the asteroid’s location, its unusual spin and the flight path in hopes of refining estimates on where it will travel in the future.

“We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of years,” Benner said. “These new observations will allow us to predict the asteroid’s trajectory even farther into the future.”

(Reporting by Irene Klotz in Phoenix; Editing by Jane Sutton and Eric Beech

Sounds of Alien Birds in Space Recorded by NASA Spacecraft

A NASA spacecraft has made the clearest record yet of choruses of noise in the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The chirps and whoops were captured by one of NASA’s two recently launched Radiation Belt Storm Probes spacecraft, whose mission is to understand more about space weather.

“My wife calls it ‘alien birds,’” joked experiment principal investigator Craig Kletzing, an astronomer at the University of Iowa.

The twin RBSP spacecraft are exploring the magnetosphere, an area where solar particles add energy to the Earth’s magnetic environment, leading to a release of energy in the Van Allen radiation belt.

 

 

 

This Asteroid Could Hit Earth — Let’s Name it Before it Does

NASA is calling on students around the world to help name a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid that the agency is hoping to visit with an unmanned probe that will collect samples of the space rock and return them home.

The asteroid, currently known as (101955) 1999 RQ36 could pose a threat to Earth when it swings close to our planet 170 years from now. Measuring 1,837 feet wide, asteroid 1999 RQ36 has a 1-in-1,000 chance of slamming into Earth in the year 2182, researchers have said.

NASA is planning an ambitious mission to return samples from the surface of 1999 RQ36. The expedition, called Osiris-Rex (short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer), is scheduled to launch in 2016. The Osiris-Rex mission is expected to cost $800 million, a figure that does not include the cost of a launch vehicle, agency officials have said.

Samples brought back by the Osiris-Rex mission could help scientists unlock some of the mysteries of the solar system’s origin some 4.5 billion years ago, and the organic molecules that may have led to life on Earth. NASA is also planning to launch astronauts to an asteroid by the year 2025.

By soliciting suggestions from students, NASA is hoping to engage the next generation of scientists in astronomy and spaceflight.

“Because the samples returned by the mission will be available for study for future generations, it is possible the person who names the asteroid will grow up to study the regolith we return to Earth,” Jason Dworkin, Osiris-Rex project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.

The agency’s competition is open to students worldwide, under the age of 18. Each participant may submit one name, which can be up to 16 characters in length. Students are required to also include a short explanation for their suggested name.

“Asteroids are just cool and 1999 RQ36 deserves a cool name!” Bill Nye, chief executive officer for The Planetary Society, said in a statement. “Engaging kids around the world in a naming contest will get them tuned in to asteroids and asteroid science.”

The deadline for entering the contest is Dec. 2, 2012, and submissions should be made by an adult on behalf of the student, NASA officials said.

A panel of judges will then review the submissions, and a winner will be announced when the chosen name is approved by the International Astronomical Union Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature.

“Our mission will be focused on this asteroid for more than a decade,” Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the Osiris-Rex mission at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in a statement. “We look forward to having a name that is easier to say than (101955) 1999 RQ36.”

Asteroid 1999 RQ36 was discovered in 1999 by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research survey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington. This space rock census is part of NASA’s Near Earth Observation Program in Washington, D.C., which aims to catalog near-Earth asteroids and comets.

The clunky name (101955) 1999 RQ36 was designated by the Minor Planet Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. Once a newly discovered asteroid is characterized, and certain criteria are met to establish its orbit, the Minor Planet Center gives it an initial alphanumeric name.

NASA is hosting the asteroid naming contest in partnership with The Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and the University of Arizona.

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Cudworth’s Magic Space Mission using a £30 Camera and a Helium Balloon.

It seems that taking amazing pictures of Earth from space is no longer a task solely for NASA and astronauts on board the International Space Station.

A 19-year old teenager in the UK has managed to take incredible photos of the Earth from space by floating a £30 camera into the atmosphere using a large helium balloon.

In a story that’s a cross between Pixar’s Up and Star Trek, 19-year old Adam Cudworth managed to capture these incredible views on a mere budget of £200.

With just an A-level in Physics to qualify him, Adam was able to construct a home-made device consisting of a box containing a GPS, radio and microprocessor. After 40 hours of working on his gadget (and detailing it all on his blog), Adam attached it to a balloon and it soared to an incredible height of 110,210 ft (33,592m). The device took two and a half hours to get 20 miles up into the atmosphere, before it took impressive views of Earth from space. Adam used a GPS tracker to track the device’s ascension and also an attached radio transmitter to find it when it fell back to earth.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Adam from Ombersley in Worcsestershire  said: “It’s just a bit of hobby really, I just wanted to set myself a challenge – but I’m amazed at the results. I saw a guy who did a similar thing a couple of years back and I just wanted to recreate them – but better.

“I have no background in astrophysics or anything like that, I’m just an engineering student. People think its something that costs millions of pounds but I’ve proved you can do it on just a £200 budget.”

For the photography buffs among you, the camera Adam used was a standard Canon A570 camera which he placed it in an insulated box along with a small video camera, two temperature sensors, two high-performance solar panels, a tracking device, microprocessor and radio. He then attached it to a high-altitude two meter latex balloon with a parachute – and named his contraption HABE 5.

“When I retrieved the camera I was stunned – it had captured some incredible photos and footage,” said Adam. “The exposure settings were different to my previous two attempts and I used materials which would be more robust in extreme temperatures and this led to clearer photos at altitude.

“The on-board video camera recorded great footage close to the ground after launch, however the lens fogged up at about 3km in altitude because moisture got in the lens – but it still looked rather impressive.

“I’m now working on project, which will allow me to control where the box lands when it falls back to earth. But that’s work in progress at the minute and I’ll have to be content with this for now.”

You can Follow him at @adamcudworth

More photograph of Cudworth’s space mission can be found on his Flickr

Video footages of his achievement can be watched from here and here