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April 08, 2015

Life Needs An Atmosphere, But How Much Is Too Much
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Apr 08, 2015
How much atmosphere is too much for life? As scientists discover more super-Earths and mini-Neptunes, the question becomes more relevant. Often, the rocky cores of these planets are believed to be about the same size, while the distinguishing difference is the size of the atmosphere. Mini-Neptunes look more like gas giants, with a thicker atmosphere that would create too much pressure at the surface, and super-Earths have a much thinner layer. A recent research study considered what would happen i ... read more

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Planned Maneuver Further Extends MESSENGER Orbital Operations MESSENGER mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., conducted a maneuver yesterday to raise the spacecraft's minimum altitude sufficiently ... more		First ASU-built space instrument ready for final lab tests The first space instrument to be built at Arizona State University has just received the electronics it will use in flight. This starts the final laboratory tests leading to its launch next year on ... more		Researchers build brain-machine interface to control prosthetic hand A research team from the University of Houston has created an algorithm that allowed a man to grasp a bottle and other objects with a prosthetic hand, powered only by his thoughts. The technique, de ... more
				Dawn orbiting high over the night side of Ceres Now orbiting high over the night side of a dwarf planet far from Earth, Dawn arrived at its new permanent residence on March 6. Ceres welcomed the newcomer from Earth with a gentle but firm gravitat ... more		More evidence for groundwater on Mars Monica Pondrelli and colleagues investigated the Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) of Arabia Terra in Firsoff crater area, Mars, to understand their formation and potential habitability. On t ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life A meteorite may have been responsible for a water plume briefly spotted above Europa two years ago, implying it takes a very rare event to breach the ice on the Jovian moon. Astrobiologists wo ... more		NASA Releases Tool Enabling Citizen Scientists to Examine Asteroid Vesta NASA has announced the release of Vesta Trek, a free, web-based application that provides detailed visualizations of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in our solar system. NASA's Dawn spacec ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Scars on Mars from 2012 Rover Landing Fade - Usually A series of observations from Mars orbit show how dark blast zones that were created during the August 2012 landing of NASA's Curiosity rover have faded inconsistently. The High Resolution Ima ... more
				Bill Nye and others discussing taking humans to Mars by 2033 Bill Nye and a group of space experts are discussing plans to get a group of humans to orbit Mars by the year 2033. ... more		Will the moon's first inhabitants live in giant lava tubes? The moon's first long-term inhabitants will require especially protective shelter. Cosmic radiation, extreme temperatures and the occasional meteorite impacts make the lunar surface a rather hostile place. ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

New explanation for Mercury's dark surface Peering into space, the surface of Mercury appears dark and unreflective, an observation that has long puzzled planetary scientists due to the planet's very low surface abundance of iron (less than ... more		Soft Landing on the Moon an Extraordinary Challenge Chinese Chang'e 3 spacecraft on Dec. 14, 2013 became the first probe to soft land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. Other missions could follow its footsteps soon as the commerci ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Expl ... more
Modular brains help organisms learn new skills without forgetting old skills New research suggests that when brains are organized into modules they are better at learning new information without forgetting old knowledge. The findings - published this week in PLOS Computation ... more		Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday The Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket has been successfully installed at the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled for launch on October 29, the press service of the Russian ... more		Soft, energy-efficient robotic wings Dielectric elastomers are novel materials for making actuators or motors with soft and lightweight properties that can undergo large active deformations with high-energy conversion efficiencies. Thi ... more		Computer sharing of personality in sight: inventor The world has only touched the surface of technological progress and computers may soon be able to transmit the complexities of human personalities, a prominent inventor says. ... more

	Curiosity Sniffs Out History of Martian Atmosphere NASA's Curiosity rover is using a new experiment to better understand the history of the Martian atmosphere by analyzing xenon. While NASA's Curiosity rover concluded its detailed examination of the ... more		Warm or cold? Mars' history takes a watery new twist A new, six-year analysis of water on Mars suggests that the Red Planet has lost the equivalent of an ocean's worth of water over the past four billion years. However, the question of whether Mars wa ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Curiosity Eyes Prominent Mineral Veins on Mars		Media Spun Up on NASA Cutting-edge Mars Landing Technology		Saturn Spacecraft Returns to the Realm of Icy Moons		Artificial hand able to respond sensitively using smart metal wires		Flash Reformatted and Marathon Completed
Comet dust: Planet Mercury's 'invisible paint'		Stop blaming the moon		Goddard releases open source core flight software suite to public		Earthlike 'Star Wars' Tatooines may be common		Rover Amnesia Event Follows Latest Memory Reformatting

MESSENGER Completes 4,000th Orbit of Mercury

New Horizons Sampling 'Space Weather' on Approach to Pluto

Chinese scientists mull power station in space

Tiny bio-robot is a germ suited-up with graphene quantum dots

Cluster satellite catches up

Scuttling satellites to save space

A new spin on Saturn's peculiar rotation

Help Name New Features on Pluto

NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit

Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars

Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative

NASA Reformats Memory of Longest-Running Mars Rover

NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance

Ancient Martian lake system records 2 water-related events

Snake robots learn to turn by following the lead of real sidewinders

Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life

Surviving in hostile territory

NASA rover completes 11-year Mars marathon

Want to snag a satellite? Try a net

Mars has nitrogen, key to life: NASA

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