New discovery from Opportunity (not to be confused with Curiosity) from Mars

NASA Discovers Mysterious Spheres On Mars

NASA claims that new mysterious spheres discovered by the Mars Opportunity rover are puzzling researchers to no end. According to Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, "this is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission."

Soon after Opportunity landed, it discovered similar spheres. The scientists nicknamed them blueberries and soon they discovered that they were rich on hematite. Those were evidence of a Mars' past full of water. But these spheres—which are 3 millimeters in diameter—are nothing like that.

Found in the Kirkwood outcrop, in the western rim of Endeavour Crater, these spherules' composition is completely different from the old Martian blueberries. Scientists still don't know how they got there and what they are supposed to be, says Squyres:

They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking.



In the image you can also see spheres that have been eroded, showing a concentric internal structure. Researchers are now conducting more tests, trying to come up with an explanation on what these may be and how they got there.

But perhaps they already got the answer in Squyres' own words: "they seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle." Obviously, Martians knew how to make chocolate Krispies cakes.

Source

NASA Starts Work on Real Life Star Trek Warp Drive

"Perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." These are the words of Dr. Harold "Sonny" White, the Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate. Dr. White and his colleagues don't just believe a real life warp drive is theoretically possible; they've already started the work to create one.

Yes. A real warp drive, Scotty.

When it comes to space exploration, we are still cavemen. We got to the Moon and sent some badass robot to Mars. We also have those automatic doors that swoosh wide open when you get near them, but that's about it. It's cool, but we are far from being the space civilization we'll need to become to survive for millennia.

With our current propulsion technologies, interstellar flight is impossible. Even with experimental technology, like ion thrusters or a spaceship's aft pooping freaking nuclear explosions, it would require staggering amounts of fuel and mass to get to any nearby star. And worse: it will require decades—centuries, even—to get there. The trip will be meaningless for those left behind. Only the ones going forward in search for a new star system would enjoy the result of the colossal effort. It's just not practical.

So we need an alternative. One that would allow us to travel extremely fast without breaking the laws of physics. Or as Dr. White puts it: "we want to go, really fast, while observing the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

Searching for warp bubbles

The answer lies precisely in those laws of physics. Dr. White and other physicists have found loopholes in some mathematical equations—loopholes that indicate that warping the space-time fabric is indeed possible.

Working at NASA Eagleworks—a skunkworks operation deep at NASA's Johnson Space Center—Dr. White's team is trying to find proof of those loopholes. They have "initiated an interferometer test bed that will try to generate and detect a microscopic instance of a little warp bubble" using an instrument called the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer.

It may sound like a small thing now, but the implications of the research huge. In his own words:

Although this is just a tiny instance of the phenomena, it will be existence proof for the idea of perturbing space time-a "Chicago pile" moment, as it were. Recall that December of 1942 saw the first demonstration of a controlled nuclear reaction that generated a whopping half watt. This existence proof was followed by the activation of a ~ four megawatt reactor in November of 1943. Existence proof for the practical application of a scientific idea can be a tipping point for technology development.

By creating one of these warp bubbles, the spaceship's engine will compress the space ahead and expand the space behind, moving it to another place without actually moving, and carrying none of the adverse effects of other travel methods. According to Dr. White, "by harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations may actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast—and without adverse effects."

He says that, if everything is confirmed in these practical experiments, we would be able to create an engine that will get us to Alpha Centauri "in two weeks as measured by clocks here on Earth." The time will be the same in the spaceship and on Earth, he claims, and there will not be "tidal forces inside the bubble, no undue issues, and the proper acceleration is zero. When you turn the field on, everybody doesn't go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip."

The energy problem, solved

There was only one problem with all this: where does the energy come from? While we knew that warp drives were theoretically possible, physicists have always argued that they would require a ball of exotic matter the size of Jupiter to power it. Clearly, that was not practical. But thankfully, Dr. White has found a solution that changes the game completely.

The Eagleworks team has discovered that the energy requirements are much lower than previously thought. If they optimize the warp bubble thickness and "oscillate its intensity to reduce the stiffness of space time," they would be able to reduce the amount of fuel to manageable amount: instead of a Jupiter-sized ball of exotic matter, you will only need 500 kilograms to "send a 10-meter bubble (32.8 feet) at an effective velocity of 10c."

Ten c! That's ten times the speed of light, people (remember, the ship itself would not go faster than the speed of light. But effectively it will seem like it does).

That means that we would be able to visit Gliese 581g—a planet similar to Earth 20 light years away from our planet—in two years. Two years is nothing. It took Magellan three years to circumnavigate around our home planet—from August 1519 to September 1522. A four year roundtrip to see a planet like Earth is completely doable. And there are even closer destinations where we can send robots or astronauts.

The important thing is that there is now a door open to a different kind of exploration. That, like Dr. White says, "perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." We may be witnessing the very beginning of a new age of space exploration, one that would finally take us from our pale blue dot back to where we belong.

I don't know about you, but I'm more excited than when Captain Kirk got his first unobtonanium underpants.

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This is all still in the pipeline and needs to get the final go ahead from NASA and the US government, but still REALLY exciting stuff!

Beyond-the-moon base stirs up buzz

A concept that calls for building a deep-space outpost beyond the moon's orbit has stirred up some positive buzz from space pioneers — including Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.

Over the weekend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that top NASA officials have chosen the construction of a space exploration platform at a gravitational balance point known as EML-2, or Earth-moon Lagrange point 2, as the agency's next major mission. The outpost would be held in an orbit 277,000 miles away from Earth, and 38,000 miles beyond the moon.

...Read more

Wow, that would be beyond cool! This makes me so happy *tear*

Awesome stuff indeed!

This makes me very sad

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/explore/galecrater/

Newfound Comet Could Look Spectacular in 2013

A newly discovered comet has the potential to put on a dazzling celestial display late next year, when it will be so bright you may be able to see it briefly in the daytime sky.

...Read full story

It is set to appear around Nov 28 2013

Ahh I read about this... Was so excited until they mentioned there's only a 30% chance it won't just get burnt up by the sun. I'm hopeful though!

OMG! Well I am sure that will still be something to see anyway

Corrosive said ...

This makes me very sad

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/explore/galecrater/

This makes me wonder... What exactly are they hiding from us that they have to cover it with copy and paste??

Exactly. If you check out the video responses on that vid there is one comparing these images to old Mars photos of the same area and they are definitely copy pastes. If the images were incomplete and they had to use blank space so long people would understand - NASA have done so in the past with images and it's been no big deal.

Makes me a little bit excited actually, to think that there may be something they don't want the public to see just yet. Hmmm...

Here is that response I was talking about. Go to 0:58




The area that they copy pasted on doesn't look too exciting at all
If they are covering something up then I guess there must be a reason, but what is it!

Looked up more on this in my lunch break and found this article where they break down the composite image from NASA

http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2015&category=Science

I need to reread it as I was only skimming it, but it seems that if you go on to Google Maps you can see that that area is completely different. There is a mountain structure and rippled and pocked land to the left the original copied land feature.

All intresting stuff...

Red Bull Stratos is a scientific mission to 120,000 ft. Jumping from a stratospheric balloon one man will attempt to break the speed of sound in freefall.

Live stream should be at about 19:00

They had to abort as the winds picked up at the launch time. They are going to try again tomorrow


Other news... SpaceX Falcon 9 with Dragon capsule launched yesterday. It is the first commercial resupply mission to the ISS. 1 minute and 19 seconds after launch one of its 9 engines failed, but the systems fail safes kicked in to shut that engine down and the remaining 8 engines compensated for the lose

Forgot to watch this live yesterday... oh well. Here is the best youtube vid I could find online at the moment.


and here is the official redbull vid
http://www.redbullstratos.com/gallery/?mediaId=media1900707044001


Remember he is free falling from the edge of our atmosphere. The falls duration was +- 4mins 20 seconds and he reaches a max velocity of 1173KM/hour - that is just insane!

Thoughts people???! >>>>

NASA predicts total blackout on 23-25 Dec 2012 during alignment of Universe.US scientists predict Universe change, total blackout of planet for 3 days from Dec 23 2012.It is not the end of the world, it is an alignment of the Universe, where the Sun and the earth will align for the first time. The earth will shift from
the current third dimension to zero dimension, then shift to the forth dimension. During this transition, the entire Universe will face a big
change, and we will see a entire brand new world.

The 3 days blackout is predicted to happen on Dec 23, 24, 25….during this time, staying calm is most important, hug each other, pray pray pray, sleep for 3 nights…and those who survive will face a brand new world….for those not prepared, many will die because of fear.
Be happy

>> someone told me this.... Zzzzzzz

OMG!!! We are all going to die

Cloudis:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/nasa-total-blackout-hoax.shtml