Tag Archives: NASA

Russia Meteor Not Linked to Asteroid Flyby

By Guest PostFebruary 16, 2013Sciencealaska, asteroid flyby, atmosphere, canada, chelyabinsk, earth, infrasound data, jet propulsion laboratory, kilotons, NASA, network of sensors, object, pasadena, paul chodas, peter brown, russia, russia meteor, size, trajectory, university, western ontario

New information provided by a worldwide network of sensors has allowed scientists to refine their estimates for the size of the object that entered that atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15).

The estimated size of the object, prior to entering Earth’s atmosphere, has been revised upward from 49 feet (15 meters) to 55 feet (17 meters), and its estimated mass has increased from 7,000 to 10,000 tons. Also, the estimate for energy released during the event has increased by 30 kilotons to nearly 500 kilotons of energy released. These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world – the first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk. The infrasound data indicates that the event, from atmospheric entry to the meteor’s airborne disintegration took 32.5 seconds. The calculations using the infrasound data were performed by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. (more…)

Mars Rock Takes Unusual Form

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2013Sciencecuriosity mars rover, earth, erosion, mars, mars rock, martian rock, mast camera, mastcam, metallic object, NASA, natural elements, ronald sletten, seattle, shiny appearance, shiny looking rock, similar phenomena, types of rocks, university of washington, unusual appearance, unusual form

On Mars, as on Earth, sometimes things can take on an unusual appearance. A case in point is a shiny-looking rock seen in a recent image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.

Some casual observers might see a resemblance to a car door handle, hood ornament or some other type of metallic object. To Ronald Sletten of the University of Washington, Seattle, a collaborator on Curiosity’s science team, the object is an interesting study in how wind and the natural elements cause erosion and other effects on various types of rocks. (more…)

NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceamerica, analytical laboratory, avi okon, bedrock, chemin, chemistry and mineralogy, chimra, curiosity rover, drill area, drill systems engineer, first martian bedrock, gale crater, in situ, jet propulsion laboratory, john grunsfeld, john klein, jpl, louise jandura, mars, martian rock analysis, NASA, pasadena, rocks on mars, sam, sample, sample analysis, sample on mars, scott mccloskey, sky crane

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars.

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill. (more…)

Jurassic Park molecules?

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Science3d architectures, alpha helices, amino acids, animal bodies, autoimmune disorders, beta strands, biochemist, biofuels, bundles of protein, burckhard seelig, chains, copies of genes, diversity, dna sequences, early life, earth, enzyme shapes, enzymes, fa an chao, fossil enzymes, gianluigi veglia, helixes, human dna, jurassic park, molecules, NASA, pcr, pieces of rna, sea anemones, sequencing rna, sponges, starfish, symmetric, university of minnesota, useful function, years of evolution

Enzymes evolved in the lab hold commercial and scientific promise

Whether big, small, slimy, or tall, most animal bodies are symmetric.

Except for sea anemones, starfish, sponges, and the like, animals have bilateral, or right-left, symmetry. Us included.

The bilateral body plan became the norm over eons of evolution. But what about molecules? Have any evolved common structures like a body plan? (more…)

Ridges on Mars Suggest Ancient Flowing Water

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Scienceactive hydrology, ancient martian subsurface, applied physics lab, biosphere, brown university, craters on mars, curiosity rover, flowing water, fluid flow, fossils of cracks, fracture conduits, gale crater, habitable environment, hydrothermal fluid, hypothesis, jack mustard, johns hopkins university, landing site, lee saper, mars reconnaissance orbiter, martian surface, mineral hardened material, minerals, NASA, nili fossae, nilosyrtis, orientation data, planetary exploration, regional scale volcanism, ridges, subsurface hydrology, surrounding rocks

Ridges in impact craters on Mars appear to be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water. Water flowing beneath the surface suggests life may once have been possible on Mars.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Networks of narrow ridges found in impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.

The study, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The research was conducted by Lee Saper, a recent Brown graduate, with Jack Mustard, professor of geological sciences. (more…)

Synchrotron Infrared Unveils a Mysterious Microbial Community

By Guest PostJanuary 31, 2013Science16s rrna gene, acid mine runoff, advanced light source, alexander probst, als, ancient things, another amazing lifestyle, archaea, bacteria, barbs, berkeley lab, biochemistry, biofilm, black smokers, boiling hot springs, bsisb, carbon, christine moissl eichinger, common hydrocarbon, deep sea, deepwater horizon, dna microarray, extremophiles, fatty acids, fourier transform, functional groups, giovanni birarda, gulf of mexico, hami, hami protein, hoi-ying Holman, hooks, hydrogen atoms, infrared spectromicroscopy, inhospitable environments, jet propulsion laboratory, kasthuri venkateswaran, latin, long alkylic chains, lovers, membrane lipids, microbe samples, muehlbacher schwefelquelle, mysterious microbial community, NASA, oil plume, oil spill research, phylochip, protein strands, second genome, sippenauer moor, sm1 euryarchaeon, sm1 research team, southern germany, sr ftir, strings of pearls, sulfur springs, synchrotron ftir, synchrotron infrared, synchrotron radiation, syntrophic, todd desantis, university of regensburg

Berkeley Lab scientists join an international collaboration to understand how archaea and bacteria work together deep in a cold sulfur spring

In the fall of 2010, Hoi-Ying Holman of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) was approached by an international team researching a mysterious microbial community discovered deep in cold sulfur springs in southern Germany.

“They told me what they were doing and said, ‘We know what you contributed to the oil-spill research,’” recalls Holman, who heads the Chemical Ecology group in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division. “They wondered if I could help them determine the biochemistry of their microbe samples.” (more…)

Thawing ‘Dry Ice’ Drives Groovy Action on Mars

By Guest PostJanuary 27, 2013Sciencearizona, candice hansen, carbon dioxide sublimation, crism, dark fans, driving factor, dry ice, dynamic process, dynamic world, earth, frozen carbon dioxide, ganna portyankina, groovy action, hirise camera, ice cap, mars, mars reconnaissance orbiter, mars south pole, mars today, martian sand dunes, martian years, NASA, north polar, planetary science institute, seasonal changes, switzerland, thawing, transient grooves, tucson, university, university of bern

PASADENA, Calif. — Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter see seasonal changes on far-northern Martian sand dunes caused by warming of a winter blanket of frozen carbon dioxide.

Earth has no naturally frozen carbon dioxide, though pieces of manufactured carbon-dioxide ice, called “dry ice,” sublime directly from solid to gas on Earth, just as the vast blankets of dry ice do on Mars. A driving factor in the springtime changes where seasonal coverings of dry ice form on Mars is that thawing occurs at the underside of the ice sheet, where it is in contact with dark ground being warmed by early-spring sunshine through translucent ice. The trapped gas builds up pressure and breaks out in various ways. (more…)

Study Finds Severe Climate Jeopardizing Amazon Forest

By Guest PostJanuary 20, 2013Environment, Natureamazon basin, Amazon rainforest, amazonia, amazonian droughts, amazonian trees, atmospheric condition, california, carbon cycle, carbon dioxide, climate change, climate phenomenon, cloud, decaying wood, degradation, double whammy, drought, earth, ecosystem, effect, forest, forest canopy, forest recovery, global data, katrina, large scale, megadrought, NASA, quikscat spacecraft, radar data, rainfall measuring mission, rainforest, rainforest ecosystem, rita, sassan saatchi, satellite, satellite microwave, scatterometer radar, sea surface temperature, seawinds scatterometer, size of california, southern, steady decline, tropical, tropical atlantic, united kingdom, university of oxford, vegetation, water availability, western amazonia, wildfire, yadvinder malhi

PASADENA, Calif. – An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study. These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts every few years and associated damage to the forests in southern and western Amazonia in the past decade, suggest these rainforests may be showing the first signs of potential large-scale degradation due to climate change.

An international research team led by Sassan Saatchi of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., analyzed more than a decade of satellite microwave radar data collected between 2000 and 2009 over Amazonia. The observations included measurements of rainfall from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and measurements of the moisture content and structure of the forest canopy (top layer) from the Seawinds scatterometer on NASA’s QuikScat spacecraft. (more…)