Happy Veteran's Day from the Space Station

Space station commander sends Veteran's Day greeting

 The commander of the International Space Station sent a video greeting to honor American veterans on 11/11/11, Veteran's Day in the United States. The commander, American astronaut Mike Fossum, leads a three-man crew on the Space Station. The Expedition 29 crew includes Fossom, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut. A new crew takes over for them later this month.

Fossum compared the crew of the space station to military personnel, stating that the two groups have many things in common. Both are away from home, working in a hostile environment for the good of their fellow human beings.

Startling New Discovery on Mars' Surface

Opportunity rover discovers strange linear stones embedded in the Martian soil.

NASA’s Opportunity rover has been cruising the surface of Mars for almost eight years now, capturing images of a stark and often startling surface and logging new information about the Red Planet, which has never seen a human footprint. Eight years after first landing, the rover is still relevant, and to illustrate that fact it has recently found something completely new. The NASA astronomers are calling it “Homestake” or “The Vein”, and say it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen.

Asteroid 2005 YU55 and Implications

With all the attention on Asteroid 2005 YU55, I wanted to talk more about the likelihood of an impact event taking out human beings and other forms of life on Planet Earth. The last asteroid to hit Earth was the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 60 million years ago called the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. This is pretty bad news because it means that another asteroid is due soon. What needs to be pointed about Asteroid 2005 YU55 is that it travels on an elliptical path and regularly passes the terrestrial planets. This is concerning because we have just started identifying it and it could be getting closer and closer to the Earth every time it travels on its orbit. But astronomers say that it is not a collision threat for the next 100 years even though they have placed it on the potentially hazardous list.

Enormous Iceberg Forming In the Antarctica Will Have Sea Level Consequences

NASA doesn't just study outer space. It also uses its high tech aircraft to monitor large scale events here on Earth as well. Recently, there was a good example of this in the news.

 

Using their DC-8 research plane, NASA officials were able to report an enormous iceberg the size of New York City forming in the Antarctica region. The iceberg is expected to be approximately 300 square miles in size! It is breaking off the Pine Island Glacier and will contribute significantly to rising sea water.

 

The polar regions are much more sensitive to global warming than are the temperate and tropical regions of the Earth and the rise in average global temperature has caused an accelerated melting of the Pine Island Glacier. Even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow, there is enough built up in the system to affect the melting rate of the Antarctica Ice for more than 2000 years.

 

This is alarming to think about but also difficult for a human who only has an average lifespan of 70-100 years to really fully understand or fully appreciate. Worrying about what is going to happen several generations from now is just too difficult for the average human being to deal with.

 

The detection of this iceberg forming is part of a NASA mission called Operation IceBridge. They will continue to monitor the situation and will make periodic reports to the public. NASA is also conducting similar missions over Greenland with the DC-8 research plane. Both polar regions have been greatly affected by global warming.

The chances of extraterrestrial life in the Solar System and possible locations

There have been lots of places in the Solar System that have been proposed as being habitable for organic life. There are 8 places that are frequently suggested and five of these are moons. Large bodies of underground liquid oceans are widely thought as conceivable. Any forms of life there may have developed in the same way as species found around deep sea vents here on Earth.

Looking closer to home at the other terrestrial planets has revealed that there may be chances of smaller forms of life. Venus, for instance, may have microbes in the unwavering cloud layers 50 kilometers beyond the surface according to scientists. This speculation is backed by the observation of hospitable climates and chemical disequilibrium.  Life on Mars has been a subject of discussion for a long time. Liquid water is believed to have been present on the Red Planet earlier in its history. A breakthrough happened when methane was found in the Martian atmosphere and NASA scientists are attempting to determine its biological or abiotic cause. Another important discovery occurred in July 2008 when laboratory tests on a soil sample by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander had found water. The Mars Global Surveyor’s images display an indication of liquid flows on the cold surface of Mars that could have even been in the last decade.

UFO Visits Arizona High School Football Game

Strange lights in the sky appear over a Scottsdale, Arizona high school football game

Friday Night Lights took on an entirely new meaning on Friday, Oct. 28. Apparently, humans are not the only ones interested in football. It seems the aliens are too.

During a conference football game between Scottsdale high school rivals the Horizon Huskies and the Notre Dame Prep Saints, at least four bright lights appeared in the sky southeast of Horizon High School's football field.

China Accused of Cyberattacks on U.S. Enviro Satellites

With new cybersecurity initiative, U.S. may consider cyber attacks as "opening salvo" in a theater of war.

The U.S. government’s new Cybersecurity Initiative, which has included a sea change in the military’s scope, includes cyberspace as a military theater, just like air, land, and sea. What this means is that any cyber attack by another nation is equivalent to an “opening salvo” on a battlefield. A recent development then, in which the U.S. accused China of attempting to hack American environmental monitoring satellites, has potentially serious implications for U.S. – China relations.

The Aurora Borealis Was Seen In 20 States Last Week

"The Aurora Borealis is one of the best shows put on by Mother Nature."

Usually you have to travel to far north places like Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland to experience the razzle-dazzle spectacle of the Aurora Borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights. However, last week an unusually strong electromagnetic storm produced these amazing lights in the skies over 20 southern states. Brilliant swirls of greens, reds, and oranges were seen as far south as northern Alabama. This is a once in a lifetime viewing opportunity for many people who never venture to the far north. It is even rare to find see these lights in the northern states but to see them in Alabama is almost unheard of.

 

The Aurora Borealis is created by a stream of charged particles carried in a stream of solar wind from the sun. As this nears the magnetic field of the Earth, these charged particles are drawn in and interact with the thermosphere in our atmosphere to produce the dazzling dancing lights we see in the sky. Some cultures put special significance in the Northern Lights. For example, the Japanese believe that if conception takes place under the Northern Lights, good luck will follow that child.

The Fermi Paradox

There are interesting theories as to why there has been no evidence or contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

The Fermi paradox is the seeming inconsistency between the high chances of intelligent life that have been suggested and the lack of evidence for, or communication with, these extraterrestrial beings.

China Takes Up Scepter Of Manned Space Flight

China's space program is blossoming just as Russia's wilts and the Unites States abandons their own.

With today's launch of China's Tiangong 1 ("Heavenly Palace") unmanned spacecraft, China places another arrow in its quiver of global competition. The Chinese government has been aggressively pursuing a number of high-profile national initiatives, including a network of high-speed rail, greatly increased global presence in the solar energy market, and a plan to build their own space station. The Tiangong 1 is the first in a several stage process that will ultimately leave China with a fully functioning, and solely supported space station to rival the now nearly a decade old international space station run jointly by the U.S., Russia, and several other countries. This move comes at a time when the U.S. has closed its publicly funded manned-space travel program with NASA, moving more towards a privatized model. Russia's program, likewise, has seen a number of recent setbacks with equipment failures and glitches. As this second decade progresses, we may see further emergence of China as a leader in space science and technology.

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