The Sky Tonight

May 17, 2013

NASA's Asteroid Sample Return Mission Moves into Development
Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 17, 2013
NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016. The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C. NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and authorized the spacecraft's continuation into the development phase. OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 201 ... read more

Previous Issues

May 16

May 15

May 14

May 13

May 10

New Method of Finding Planets Scores its First Discovery Detecting alien worlds presents a significant challenge since they are small, faint, and close to their stars. The two most prolific techniques for finding exoplanets are radial velocity (looking fo ... more		Hubble Tells a Tale of Galactic Collisions When we look into the distant cosmos, the great majority of the objects we see are galaxies: immense gatherings of stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter, showing up in all kind of shapes. ... more		A space-time magnifying glass Bright arcs are smeared around the heart of galaxy cluster Abell S1077 in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble space telescope. The arcs are stretched images of distant galaxies distorted by the ... more
				NASA Develops Key To Cosmic Carbon's Molecular Evolution Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center now have the capability to systematically investigate the molecular evolution of cosmic carbon. For the first time, these scientists are able to automatical ... more		Asteroid 1998 QE2 To Sail Past Earth Nine Times Larger Than Cruise Ship On May 31, 2013, asteroid 1998 QE2 will sail serenely past Earth, getting no closer than about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers), or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon. ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Critical Kepler Reaction Wheel Fails: Mission End In Sight The Kepler mission team reported Wednesdau that Kepler spacecraft is once again in safe mode. As was the case earlier this month, this was a Thruster-Controlled Safe Mode. The root cause is no ... more		Sun unleashes four potent solar flares The Sun has unleashed four potent solar flares this week, marking the most intense activity yet this year and causing limited interruptions to high-frequency radio communications. ... more		Maintaining US space dominance requires rapid and reliable delivery of new systems Shield or Spark? The U.S. Golden Dome and the New Missile Arms Race Starcloud partners with Mission Space to protect orbital datacenters with real time space weather intelligence		New principle may help explain why nature is quantum Like small children, scientists are always asking the question 'why?'. One question they've yet to answer is why nature picked quantum physics, in all its weird glory, as a sensible way to behave. R ... more
				Quantum Physics: Look But Don't Touch Improving our understanding of the human brain, gathering insights into the origin of our universe through the detection of gravitational waves, or optimizing the precision of GPS systems- all are d ... more		Physicists light 'magnetic fire' to reveal energy's path New York University physicists have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process akin to the spread of forest fires, a finding that has the potential to deepen o ... more

Solar systems for home and business installations

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Sifting Through the Atmosphere's of Far-Off Worlds Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets - planets that orbit stars beyond our Sun - and more than ... more		"Kepler's Dozen" - 13 Stories About Distant Worlds That Really Exist For centuries, humans have pondered what life on other planets beyond our solar system might be like. With the launch of the Kepler spacecraft in 2009 we now have evidence for the widespread existen ... more		Vast reserves, but little to drink: Tajikistan's water struggles Year after northern Nigeria floods, survivors left high and dry Africa's path to low-carbon food security		Team Takes Part in Discovering New Planet For the past two years, Professor Tsevi Mazeh and his PhD student, Simchon Faigler, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at TAU, have been searching for planets around other stars using a novel ... more
				Impacts of Strong Solar Flares Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather - great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun - some people wo ... more		Australian sky-gazers witness 'ring of fire' eclipse Sky-gazers were treated to an annular solar eclipse in remote areas of Australia on Friday, with the Moon crossing in front of the Sun to leave a "ring of fire" around its silhouette. ... more

'Vulcan' wins Pluto moon name vote

Public to vote on names for Pluto moons

The PI's Perspective: The Seven-Year Itch

How the Density of Exoplanets' Atmospheres Weighs on the Odds for Alien Life

Flexible partnership allows lichens to occur in different habitats

Has Kepler Found Ideal SETI-Target Planets

Critical Kepler Reaction Wheel Fails: Mission End In Sight

New Method of Finding Planets Scores its First Discovery

Sifting Through the Atmosphere's of Far-Off Worlds

Nine-Year-Old Mars Rover Passes 40-Year-Old Record

Mars Icebreaker Life Mission

NASA Probe Counts Space Rock Impacts on Mars

	Scientists demonstrate pear shaped atomic nuclei Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that some atomic nuclei can assume the shape of a pear which contributes to our understanding of nuclear structure and the underlying fundamental ... more		Water on moon, Earth have a common source Water inside the Moon's mantle came from primitive meteorites, new research finds, the same source thought to have supplied most of the water on Earth. The findings raise new questions about the pro ... more		NASA: Solar flare was first of most intense class observed this year NASA says a solar flare emitted by the sun late Sunday was an "X-class" event - the most intense flares - and the first such "X" flare of the year. ... more		Where on Earth did the moon's water come from Water is perhaps the most important molecule in our solar system. Figuring out where it came from and how it was distributed within and among the planets can help scientists understand how planets f ... more

China sends 11th group of internet satellites into orbit for global constellation

NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space

NRL coronagraph on NOAA SWFO L1 will enhance space weather forecasts

Ground-Breaking Science And Spectacular Cosmic Images from PAPER		Space Warps Project Needs Your Help		Planets Aligning in the Sunset Sky		Water on moon, Earth came from same primitive meteorites		Astronomers discover surprising clutch of hydrogen clouds lurking among our galactic neighbors
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Finds Dead Stars Polluted with Planet Debris		Chaos proves superior to order		Cloud computing is silver lining for Russian firms		Herschel finds hot gas on the menu for Milky Way's black hole		Exotic atoms hold clues to unsolved physics puzzle at the dawn of the universe

Northrop Grumman Completes Lunar Lander Study for Golden Spike Company

First biological evidence of a supernova

NASA's Fermi, Swift See 'Shockingly Bright' Burst

UF launches HiPerGator, Florida's most powerful supercomputer

Birth of a Black Hole

The Great Exoplanet Debate

First Tunguska Meteorite Fragments Discovered

Dell buys cloud software firm Enstratius

NASA's Spitzer Puts Planets in a Petri Dish

Quest for Dark Matter Begins With a Few Tiny Bubbles

Black holes may 'announce' their birth with a flash of cosmic light

Satellite instrument package to assess space weather ready for delivery by CU-Boulder

An Anarchic Region of Star Formation

A Better View into the Heart of a Globular Cluster

Dawn On Route From Vesta to Ceres

'Tis the Season -- for Plasma Changes at Saturn

Scientists say stones are linked to 1908 cosmic blast over Siberia

New dark matter detector begins search for invisible particles

Nine-Year-Old Names Target of UA-led NASA Mission

Studying meteorites may reveal Mars' secrets of life

Free Newsletters - Space - Defense - Environment - Energy

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2013 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy statement