HAPPY YULE!!!!!!!!!

 I wish you a blessed Solstice. May your holidays be full of light, laughter, and love.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

Via NASA:

In addition to this cosmic wreath, a new version of the “Christmas tree cluster” is also now available. Like NGC 602, NGC 2264 is a cluster of young stars between one and five million years old. (For comparison, the Sun is a middle-aged star about 5 billion years old — about 1,000 times older.) In this image of NGC 2264, which is much closer than NGC 602 at a distance of about 2,500 light-years from Earth, Chandra data (red, purple, blue, and white) has been combined with optical data (green and violet) captured from by astrophotographer Michael Clow from his telescope in Arizona in November 2024. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Yay!

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

:( But at least no one was hurt

Orbital Sciences' unmanned rocket explodes on liftoff in Virginia

Quite a loss,  but at least no one died.

Science fiction becoming reality

Sleeper spaceship could carry first humans to Mars in hibernation state

Six astronauts lie motionless in a row of compartments with medical monitoring cables connected to their bodies, as their space ship cuts through the silent blackness that separates Earth from Mars.

They're sound asleep and will be for the extent of their six-month trip, having been placed in an artificially induced state of hibernation called torpor.

This is the way a NASA-funded study sees space explorers traveling to Mars -- unconscious, with their metabolism switched into slow motion.

Sending astronauts that far into space would be too challenging, costly and grueling without it, says space engineer John Bradford, whose Atlanta-based company SpaceWorks wrote the study for NASA.

"Ultimately, it's what we'll have to do," he says.

Can I just say, wow, cool?

Nearly 28 years later, and these photos take me back to the same emotions of that day

Never Before Seen Photos of the Challenger Disaster

I was 18 and a sophomore in college when the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred. My boyfriend was obsessed with the space shuttle programme and was studying computers in the hope of joining NASA. I watched that dream die that day, and the horror of it all make an indelible impression on me second only to the 9/11 tragedy. It's one of those things where you remember exactly where you were when you found out, what was said, how the day was spent. In my case it was glued to the TVs in the student centre watching it happen over and over, questioning how this could happen.

Even now, each year I think about the tragedy as the anniversary nears. So I was interested when I saw the link to this story. Each step of the climb, and its terrible conclusion, were captured in the series of photographs that make my throat catch and my eyes tear for those lost, and for that dream that was lost as well.

But before I go

There's this bit of techie humour from Gary Corby, an Australian writer whose mysteries The Pericles Commission and The Ionia Sanction are set in Ancient Greece and are really quite good (the daring detective has an annoying younger brother you might have heard of by the name of Socrates):

Illegal combination of beef with black bean sauce

Nice to see they named it after her

NASA's Grail probes crash on moon; impact site named after Sally Ride

One year after their arrival at the moon, NASA's twin Grail spacecraft got a grand sendoff into oblivion, climaxing with a well-orchestrated crash onto a crater's rim. The place where they crashed will be named after Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, who passed away this summer.

Ride was in charge of the Grail mission's MoonKam project, which let students from around the world select targets for the probes' cameras. MIT's Maria Zuber, the mission's principal investigator, announced just after today's double whammy that her team received clearance from NASA to name the crash site after Ride.

"Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the Grail mission the resounding success it is today," Zuber said in a NASA news release. "As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride's contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her."

:)

"If my mohawk gets a few more people excited about science & this mission, that's awesome."

Good luck, guys!

5 Questions (and Answers) About Tonight's Mars Rover Landing

I know my friend Tracy (who's on the Juno project to Jupiter), her husband Ted (who helped create the navigation system for the rover mission, according to the description on YouTube of the video below) and the other folks at NASA are going to hold their collective breath tonight. Here's wishing Curiosity great success.

Here's a look back 9 months ago...

Clouds keep passing in front of the sun here

and it's heading towards sunset, so I'm watching the transit of Venus online thanks to NASA. Here is a beautiful picture as it nears transit taken by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (you can see more sizes of it on their Flickr page).

One thing the folks in Starfleet never had to worry about when exploring the final frontier: budget cuts

[Although they did have their share of bureaucrats.]

Obama's NASA budget: Mars takes a hit, but space science isn't dead

Two major Mars missions lost out to the James Web Space Telescope in Obama's proposed NASA budget, but there's still money for other ambitious space-science missions.

Reports of the demise of ambitious space-science missions at NASA may be somewhat exaggerated.

To be sure, in President Obama's fiscal 2013 budget proposal, two major Mars missions for 2016 and 2018 lost a budgetary wrestling match with the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Web Space Telescope.

But Mr. Obama's plan also includes money to begin preliminary studies on a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus, as well as an orbiter-probe mission to Uranus.

Interesting

What's that on Mars? It just might be liquid saltwater: Researchers make case to explain mysterious clusters of dark, narrow lines

Saltwater could be running down some slopes of Mars every spring, researchers suggest.

Such a finding would suggest new directions to search for any life that still existed on the Red Planet.

Clusters of dark, narrow lines that periodically emerge and lengthen on slopes in the warmer regions suggest briny water on Mars might still be flowing in a few rare places on the planet's surface.

I think primates are much smarter than people give them credit for

I don't think we're on the verge of Planet of the Apes, mind you, but still. The evidence of various monkeys and non-human apes using tools is one example. And of course there are the various language skills that have been taught in captivity, although those can sometimes be controversial.

I do have a problem with keeping apes and other primates in captivity, I have to admit. I'm not saying we should go liberating them from zoos. I do have particular issues with some medical experiments and the psychological and physical indignities that the animals endure. That can be said of any lab animal, of course, but given that we are close cousins to other primates, it seems worse.

Mandrill monkey makes 'pedicuring' tool

A crude "pedicure" carried out by a mandrill at Chester Zoo suggests the monkeys are capable of more advanced tool use than previously thought.

Scientists from Durham University, UK, filmed the mandrill stripping a twig and using the resulting tool to clean under its toenails.

They published the findings in the journal Behavioural Processes.

Mandrills are the fifth species of Old World monkey seen deliberately modifying tools.

Non-human apes, including chimpanzees and orangutans, can adapt basic tools for specific jobs.

On a lighter note, one person I know on Facebook posted the following to his status: "When the space shuttle gets back from its last mission, it would be hilarious if we were all dressed as apes."

It's a little sad to see the space shuttle programme wind down. I feel sorry for those who gave their all and are now getting pink slips, although of course they have known it was coming and at least were able to hopefully prepare. One of my friends works for NASA, but she is in the division that studies Mars.

The first time I saw a space shuttle, it was the prototype Enterprise, which was being moved back and forth at Edwards Air Force Base on Boeings when I was a kid there. A couple of years later, the first of the working shuttles launched after I'd already moved, so I didn't get to see it land firsthand. That would have been great.

Later, there were the setbacks of Challenger and Columbia. Challenger was especially a shock. Up to 9/11, I would say it was the the most intense tragic nation-wide event I'd experienced. At the time, my ex-husband, whom I was dating, had planned to go into NASA. He was devastated, and we sat and watched the news for hours.

But there was so much success as well. I hope NASA continues to get funding so that we can reach beyond Earth's orbit and take the necessary steps to get us out into space. It feels odd to not have a hand in getting people and supplies to the International Space Station, too, after being a frontrunner in space for so long.

I wish the astronauts and support crews well as they transition to other things. It was a great run. Hopefully private enterprise can take up the mantle, and NASA can concentrate on 'infinity and beyond'.

Great opportunity for science

NASA probe arrives at ancient asteroid
The probe is the Dawn probe, which is set to go into orbit around the asteroid Vesta, named after the Roman Goddess of the hearth (from where we got vestal virgins.) Apparently the asteroid, the size of Arizona, is the source of 5% of meteorites that are found on Earth.

The Hubble of the next generation may not become reality, at least yet

What We Could Lose if the James Webb Telescope Is Killed

NASA's James Webb telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on the chopping block. With the U.S. Congress arguing over fiscal matters, one of the things that may get cut is NASA's budget, with the expensive James Webb telescope potentially getting the ax. If that happens, a generation of scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe may need to be put on hold.

Right now the future of the Webb telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, is uncertain. Congress is looking to cut costs, and NASA's budget could be cut by as much as $1.6 billion (or about nine percent of its overall budget). Such a big cut would certainly be the death knell for the Webb telescope, which has so far cost $3 billion but whose final price is expected to hit the $6.8-billion mark.

Decision made on the post-Shuttle method of space travel to asteroid, Mars

NASA Unveils New Spaceship for Deep Space Exploration

NASA on Tuesday announced a plan to develop a new deep space vehicle, one based on an earlier capsule concept, in order to send astronauts on expeditions to an asteroid, and then on to Mars.

The spaceship, known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), will be based on designs originally planned for the Orion spacecraft, NASA officials announced today (May 24). Orion was part of NASA's now-canceled Constellation program, which aimed to return astronauts to the moon by the 2020s.

[Image credit: NASA]

Cool

NASA probe reaches Mercury

"Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored," said Sean Solomon, Messenger principal investigator.

"For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system's innermost planet," he said. "Mercury's secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed."

Kudos for the folks on the Messenger mission for achieving orbit. Hopefully we can find out more about the elusive inner planet.

Up briefly

I got up in the middle of the night to do my monthly libation to Hekate (I just felt too tired to even open a bottle of wine earlier, isn't that sad?)

I came across this tonight:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It's exciting news, although those who fancily thought we might have an announcement of extraterrestrial life were no doubt disappointed. Be patient, it will happen, although it may be awhile before we find intelligent life. As my professor Dr Moshe Elitzur once told us, though, statistically speaking, the fact that at least one intelligent life evolved in the universe gives us a one in one chance of extraterrestrial life evolving in all the billions of star systems. It's just a matter of whether we can find it in some sort of proximity to ourselves. The universe is a big place. But a bacterium that uses arsenic rather than phosphorus is still nifty. I thought the clips of those at the news conference seemed a little melodramatic, but how often do astrobiologists get to have news conferences, really? I also like 'Another reason to come to California. We have aliens, you don't.' :)

Dr Elitzur taught a class at UK on extraterrestrial life which combined astronomy and biology. I loved it. He had such a good sense of humour. I remember one session whee we were discussing that all life on earth evolved with left-handed amino acids in our protein molecules. Right-handed amino acids exist naturally on the planet, but were never incorporated into life. In order to process other protein (i.e., digest food), we have to find other left-handed amino acid proteins. That's no trouble here on Earth. Someone asked what would happen if we found people on another planet with right-handed amino acids. Dr Elitzur's reply was that we could not eat them. I loved that class. I learned a lot, it brought me back to my science roots (I was going to be an oecologist before I went into history and sociology), and it was terrible fun. And even though it was taught sometime in the early 90s, I still remember good bits of it because of the way it was taught. :)

Okay, someone has been roasting what smells life beef in the apartment building. It's making even the pseudo-vegetarian hungry, but it's really too late at night to eat anything (I should say early in the morning, really, it's 5 am.) It was even making it through the CPAP filtration. I will not get back into my pizza, but wait until my normal time to eat.

Have a good day. I'm going back to bed for awhile.

In space news...

Obama revives capsule from canceled program: Modified Orion vehicle and heavy-lift rocket on the way, officials say

President Barack Obama is reviving the NASA crew capsule concept that he had canceled with the rest of the moon program earlier this year, in a move that will mean more jobs and less reliance on the Russians, officials said Tuesday.

The space capsule, called Orion, still won't go to the moon. It will go unmanned to the International Space Station to stand by as an emergency vehicle to return astronauts home, officials told The Associated Press.

How very...odd

NASA: Chile quake shortened earth's days, bumped planet off axis

No, it's not crackpot science--it's from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. Give a bunch of engineers a 'what-if' scenario and they calculate things. In this case, we're talking microseconds and milliarcseconds, but it should be measurable over time. Anyway, I did learn what the Earth's figure axis was in all that. :)