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Hubble Discovers Water Plumes Over Europa

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found plumes of water vapor shooting off the southern pole of Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is believed to have an underground ocean.

If confirmed -- so far the plumes have only been spotted once -- the finding could have implications for the moon’s suitability for life and help explain why its surface appears relatively young and crater-free.

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“The plumes are incredibly exciting, if they are there. They’re bringing up material from in the ocean, perhaps there’s organic material that will be laying on the surface of the south pole. Those are the things that we want to know about,” James Green, head of NASA’s planetary science programs, told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Scientists do not yet have enough information to know if the plumes are indeed stemming from Europa’s underground ocean, or if they are the result of plates of ice rubbing together and generating heat from friction, which allows some ice to vaporize.

The plumes were found when Europa was farthest away from Jupiter, a time when gravitational stresses are strongest, added Lorenz Roth, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

I don't comment enough on this thread but guys keep it up I love all this. always have always will. Oh and Donna keep up the dirty space talk it's such a turn on

In Memoriam: The Spacecraft We Loved and Lost in 2013

This year, space agencies around the world launched exciting new robotic missions that are shining light on the far reaches of the universe. But what about the spacecraft that we lost?

In 2013, some probes never made it into orbit, while others completed their full missions before quietly turning off. Still more had their time working in space cut short. No matter the cause of death, we at SPACE.com wish to honor the spacecraft that met their end this year.

From NASA-funded missions to a China-Brazil collaboration, here is our list of some of the spacecraft we loved and lost in 2013.

Kepler spacecraft

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft suffered a major failure this year when the second of its four reaction wheels — devices that keep the craft properly positioned in space — malfunctioned. With two reaction wheels down, it's not possible to point the $600 million observatory with the precision necessary to conduct its original mission.

All hope is not lost for Kepler, however. Engineers with the mission and Ball Aerospace have come up with a scheme to allow Kepler to hunt for planets once again by minimizing the spacecraft's drift in its orbit around the sun. NASA is currently vetting this proposed new mission, which is called K2, and a decision is expected in the middle of next year.

The spacecraft launched in 2009 on a 3.5-year primary mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are across the galaxy. Since that time, Kepler has spotted more than 3,500 planet candidates, the vast majority of which will eventually be confirmed by follow-up observations.

More:
http://www.space.com/24000-spacecraft-l ... -2013.html

ESA's Gaia star surveying satellite launches
Star data will tell astronomers about our galaxy's origin and evolution

The European Space Agency launched its star-surveying satellite Gaia into space Thursday, hoping to produce the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way and to better understand the evolution of our galaxy.

The satellite was lifted into space from French Guiana at 6:12 a.m. (4:12 a.m. ET) aboard a Russian-made Soyuz rocket, the agency said.

Soon after the launch, Gaia unfurled its 10-metre circular sun shield — a crucial moment in the mission. The shield protects the spacecraft's sensitive instruments from the rays of the sun while simultaneously collecting solar energy to power the spacecraft.

"Everything was super smooth," said Paolo Ferri, head of mission operations at the Paris-based European Space Agency.

Gaia is now heading for a stable orbit around a point known as Lagrange 2 — some 1.5 million kilometres away on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun. Once it gets there next month, the satellite's instruments will be switched on and it will follow what Ferri described as "a very peculiar pattern" designed to keep its back always turned to the sun.

A Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Kourou space base, French Guiana, Thursday, and successfully launched the Gaia satellite. (The Associated Press)

Timo Prusti, ESA's project scientist, likened the mission's goal to the switch from two-dimensional movies to 3D. At the moment, he said scientists are working with a largely "flat" map of the galaxy.

"We want to have depth," he said.

Using its twin telescopes, Gaia will study the position, distance, movement, chemical composition and brightness of a billion stars in the galaxy, or roughly one per cent of the Milky Way's 100 billion stars.

Scientists solve a decades-old mystery in the Earth's upper atmosphere
Posted December 19, 2013 - 04:15 by TG Daily Staff

New research published in the journal Nature resolves decades of scientific controversy over the origin of the extremely energetic particles known as ultra-relativistic electrons in the Earth's near-space environment and is likely to influence our understanding of planetary magnetospheres throughout the universe.

Discovering the processes that control the formation and ultimate loss of these electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts — the rings of highly charged particles that encircle the Earth at a range of about 1,000 to 50,000 kilometers above the planet's surface — is a primary science objective of the recently launched NASA Van Allen Probes mission.

Understanding these mechanisms has important practical applications, because the enormous amounts of radiation trapped within the belts can pose a significant hazard to satellites and spacecraft, as well astronauts performing activities outside a craft.

Ultra-relativistic electrons in the Earth's outer radiation belt can exhibit pronounced variability in response to activity on the sun and changes in the solar wind, but the dominant physical mechanism responsible for radiation-belt electron acceleration has remained unresolved for decades. Two primary candidates for this acceleration have been "inward radial diffusive transport" and "local stochastic acceleration" by very low-frequency plasma waves.

In research published Dec. 19 in Nature, lead author Richard Thorne, a distinguished professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences in the UCLA College of Letters and Science, and his colleagues report on high-resolution satellite measurements of high-energy electrons during a geomagnetic storm on Oct. 9, 2012, which they have numerically modeled using a newly developed data-driven global wave model.

Total Volume of Saturn Moon Titan's Otherworldly Seas Calculated

The lakes and seas on Saturn's largest moon Titan hold massive amounts of liquid hydrocarbons — 40 times more than are found in Earth's proven oil reserves, new observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest.

Titan, which is about 1.5 times bigger than Earth's moon, harbors about 2,000 cubic miles (9,000 cubic kilometers) of liquid methane and ethane on its frigid surface, researchers announced last week. The hydrocarbons are almost all contained in an area near Titan's north pole that's just 660,000 square miles (1.62 million kilometers) in size, a region slightly larger than Alaska.

The find indicates there is something favorable in the geology that restricts most liquid to Titan's northern hemisphere, researchers said. The prime suspect is regional extension of the moon's crust, a process that on Earth created fault lines with depressions and mountain ranges parallel to each other.

Night-shining clouds arrive early over Antarctica

Noctilucent clouds are typically associated with the Earth's poles, but they have been spotted in Colorado and Utah.

Night-shining clouds started glowing high above Antarctica earlier than usual this year, observations from a NASA satellite show.

These rare types of wispy blue-white clouds are called noctilucent clouds, or NLCs. They form when water molecules freeze around "meteor smoke" close to the edge of space, typically about 50 to 53 miles (80 and 85 kilometers) above Earth's surface — so high that they can reflect light after the sun sets.

The phenomenon looks spectacular from the ground, but scientists also have watched these night-shining clouds from above with NASA's AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) satellite since 2007. Data from AIM indicate that noctilucent clouds started forming around the South Pole on Nov. 20 this year as a tiny spot of electric blue that quickly expanded to cover the entire frozen continent, as this NASA video shows.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilder ... antarctica

NASA’s AIM spacecraft examines Electric Blue Clouds forming over Antarctica

Washington, D.C. – Data from NASA’s AIM spacecraft show that noctilucent clouds are like a great “geophysical light bulb.” They turn on every year in late spring, reaching almost full intensity over a period of no more than 5 to 10 days.

News flash: The bulb is glowing.

As December unfolds, a vast bank of noctilucent clouds is blanketing Antarctica. It started on November 20th as a tiny puff of electric-blue and quickly expanded to overlie nearly the entire continent. AIM is monitoring the progress of the clouds as they swirl and ripple around the south pole.

http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2013/1 ... ntarctica/

Night-shining clouds started glowing high above Antarctica earlier than usual this year, observations from a NASA satellite show.