Friday, May 6, 2011

ULTRAVIOLET SPOTLIGHT ON PLUMP STARS IN TINY GALAXIESGalaxies, Stars, Ultraviolet

Astronomers using NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer may be closer to knowing why some of the most massive stellar explosions ever observed occur in the tiniest of galaxies


"It's like finding a sumo wrestler in a little 'Smart Car,'" said Don Neill, a member of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal."The most powerful explosions of massive stars are happening in extremely low-mass galaxies. New data are revealing that the stars that start out massive in these little galaxies stay massive until they explode, while in larger galaxies they are whittled away as they age, and are less massive when they explode," said Neill.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

NASA'S GRAVITY PROBE B CONFIRMS TWO EINSTEIN SPACE-TIME THEORIES


NASA's Gravity Probe B (GP-B) mission has confirmed two key predictions derived from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which the spacecraft was designed to test.The experiment, launched in 2004, used four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure the hypothesized geodetic effect, the warping of space and time around a gravitational body, and frame-dragging, the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates. 


GP-B determined both effects with unprecedented precision by pointing at a single star, IM Pegasi, while in a polar orbit around Earth. If gravity did not affect space and time, GP-B's gyroscopes would point in the same direction forever while in orbit. But in confirmation of Einstein's theories, the gyroscopes experienced measurable, minute changes in the direction of their spin, while Earth's gravity pulled at them.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

LAUNCH PAD 39B BOASTS COMPREHENSIVE WEATHER SYSTEM

Launch pads on Florida's Atlantic Coast face some of the most extreme weather conditions of any launch complex. Everything from lightning and hail to hurricanes and occasional frost make it important to meteorologists to get accurate data to back up their decisions. If they don't, acceptable launch windows could be missed, or worse, unnecessary risks could be taken.


A new comprehensive weather instrumentation system on Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center is providing up-to-the-second and extremely accurate measurements at different locations and altitudes. The improvements are expected to produce increasingly detailed launch criteria that could lead to more on-time liftoffs for a variety of rockets in the future.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

SPACECRAFT EARTH TO PERFORM ASTEROID 'FLYBY' THIS FALL

Since the dawn of the space age, humanity has sent 16 robotic emissaries to fly by some of the solar system's most intriguing and nomadic occupants comets and asteroids. The data and imagery collected on these deep-space missions of exploration have helped redefine our understanding of how Earth and our part of the galaxy came to be. But this fall, Mother Nature is giving scientists around the world a close-up view of one of her good-sized space rocks  no rocket required.


"On November 8, asteroid 2005 YU55 will fly past Earth and at its closest approach point will be about 325,000 kilometers [201,700 miles] away," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This asteroid is about 400 meters [1,300 feet] wide – the largest space rock we have identified that will come this close until 2028."

Monday, May 2, 2011

NASA SATELLITE SEES TORNADO TRACKS IN TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA

Deadly tornadoes raked across Alabama on April 27, 2011, killing as many as 210 people as of April 29. The hardest-hit community was Tuscaloosa. In an image acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on April 28, three tornado tracks are visible through and around the city.



The tracks are pale brown trails where green trees and plants have been uprooted, leaving disturbed ground. Though faint, the center track runs from southwest of Tuscaloosa, through the gray city, and extends northeast towards Birmingham. Two other tracks run parallel to the center track. The northernmost track is in an area where the National Weather Service reported a tornado, but no tornado was reported in the vicinity of the more visible southern track. In the southern region, strong winds were reported.