• SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket sets another high mark with 820-foot hop

    This SpaceX video shows the Grasshopper rocket rising 820 feet to triple its March 7 leap.

    By Nancy Atkinson
    Universe Today

    SpaceX's Grasshopper flew 250 meters (820 feet) straight up, tripling the height flown on its previous leap. The video provides a great overhead view from SpaceX’s hexacopter.

    Via Twitter, SpaceX CEO said the Grasshopper was able to remain steady in its flight even on a windy day, hover and then land.

    Grasshopper is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle that SpaceX has designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. While most rockets are designed to burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry, SpaceX's rockets are being designed to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing.

    This is Grasshopper's fifth in a series of test flights, with each test demonstrating dramatic increases in altitude. Last September, Grasshopper flew to 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). In November, it flew to 5.4 meters (17.7 feet). In December, it flew to 40 meters (131 feet), and then 80.1 meters (262.8 feet) in March.

    Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage tank, a Merlin 1D engine, four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.

    Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

    This report was originally published on Universe Today as "SpaceX Grasshopper Flies High." Copyright 2013 Universe Today. Reprinted with permission.

     

  • Another asteroid similar to Russian meteor zooming past us harmlessly

    Virtual Telescope

    A newly found asteroid, 2013 EC, can be seen in the lower left corner of the red box in this image.

    By Nancy Atkinson
    Universe Today

    A newly found asteroid will pass by Earth at about the distance of the moon's orbit, with its closest approach coming at 2:35 a.m. ET (7:35 a.m. UTC) Monday.

    Named 2013 EC, the asteroid is roughly the size of the space rock that exploded over Russia two and a half weeks ago, measuring somewhere between 10 and 17 meters (33 to 55 feet) wide. The asteroid that sparked the Russian meteor is estimated to have been about 17 meters wide when it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

    2013 EC was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona on Saturday. There is no chance this asteroid will hit Earth.

    The asteroid is due to come within 246,000 miles (396,000 kilometers) from Earth. In comparison, the moon's distance from Earth varies between 225,622 and 252,088 miles (363,104 to 406,696 kilometers).

    Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project had a live view of the asteroid when it was about twice the distance of the moon, and a replay of that webcast is available below. (The event starts at about the 38-minute mark in the YouTube video.)

    "That we are finding all these asteroids recently does not mean that we are being visited by more asteroids," Masi said during the webcast, “just that our ability to detect them has gotten so much better. Our technology has improved a lot over the past decades."

    Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project discusses the asteroid 2013 EC during a Google+ Hangout. The commentary begins at about the 38-minute mark in this raw video.

    More about asteroids:

    More info about 2013 EC on the JPL Small Body Database.

    This report was originally published on Universe Today as "Newly Found Asteroid to Pass Within Moon’s Orbit on March 4, 2013." Copyright 2013 Universe Today. Reprinted with permission.

  • Comet just might hit Mars in 2014

    Chris Smith / NASA file

    An artist's conception shows a comet streaking through Martian skies.

    By Nancy Atkinson
    Universe Today

    There is an outside chance that a newly discovered comet might be on a collision course with Mars. Astronomers are still determining the trajectory of the comet, named C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), but at the very least, it is going to come fairly close to the Red Planet in October of 2014.

    "Even if it doesn’t impact, it will look pretty good from Earth, and spectacular from Mars, probably a magnitude -4 comet as seen from Mars' surface," Australian amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave wrote.

    The comet was discovered in the beginning of 2013 by comet-hunter Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. According to a discussion on the IceInSpace amateur astronomy forum, when the discovery was initially made, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona looked back over their observations to find "pre-recovery" images of the comet dating back to Dec. 8, 2012. These observations placed the orbital trajectory of comet C/2013 A1 right through Mars orbit on Oct. 19, 2014.

    However, after 74 days of observations, comet specialist Leonid Elenin notes that current calculations put the closest approach of the comet at a distance of 67,853 miles (109,200 kilometers), or 0.00073 AU from Mars in October 2014. That close pass has many wondering if any of the Mars orbiters might be able to acquire high-resolution images of the comet as it passes by.

    But as Ian O’Neill from Discovery Space points out, since the comet has only been observed for 74 days (so far), so it’s difficult for astronomers to forecast precisely where the comet will be 20 months from now. "Comet C/2013 A1 may fly past at a very safe distance of 0.008 AU (650,000 miles)," O'Neill wrote, "but to the other extreme, its orbital pass could put Mars directly in its path. At time of Mars close approach (or impact), the comet will be barreling along at a breakneck speed of 35 miles per second (126,000 miles per hour)."

    Elenin said that since C/2013 A1 is a hyperbolic comet and moves in a retrograde orbit, its velocity with respect to the planet will be very high, approximately 56 kilometers per second (126,000 mph). "With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter up to 50 kilometers [30 miles], the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10^10 megatons!"

    While the massive Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (9.3 miles or 15 kilometers in diameter) that crashed into Jupiter in 1994 was spectacular as seen from Earth orbit by the Hubble Space Telescope, the sight of C/2013 A1 slamming into Mars would be off the charts.

    Astronomers are certainly keeping an eye on this comet, and they will refine their measurements as more data comes in. You can see the orbital parameters available so far at JPL’s Solar System Dynamics website.

    More about comets:

    This report originally appeared on the Universe Today website as "Is a Comet on a Collision Course With Mars?" Copyright 2013 Universe Today. Reprinted with permission.

  • NASA scientist David McKay, famous for Martian 'nanofossils,' dies at 77

    Travis Heying / AFP file

    NASA planetary scientist David McKay, at right, unveils the Martian meteorite ALH84001 as NASA Associate Administrator Wesley Huntress looks on during an August 1996 news conference.

    By Nancy Atkinson
    Universe Today

    NASA scientist David S. McKay has passed away at the age of 77.

    McKay may be best-known for research focusing on a meteorite from Mars, ALH84001, and his view that it contained evidence for life on Mars in the form of "nanofossils."

    McKay, who had been battling serious cardiac health problems for some time, died peacefully in his sleep early on Wednesday, NASA's Johnson Space Center said.

    McKay had been the chief scientist for astrobiology at NASA and searched for evidence of past life on Mars using Martian meteorites and terrestrial analogs. He performed original research on lunar soils, lunar pyroclastics and space weathering.

    McKay joined NASA in June of 1965 and participated extensively in astronaut training until the Apollo 11 mission. He was named a principal investigator to study the first samples brought back from the moon, and continued as a lunar sample principal investigator for the next 20 years. He started many of the laboratories for the Lunar Sample Facility at Johnson Space Center and managed the NASA space resources program out of the center during much of the 1980s.

    McKay published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers on lunar samples, space resource utilization, cosmic dust, meteorites, astrobiology and Mars topics, and NASA said his “body of work includes many contributions to our understanding of the development and evolution of the lunar regolith and space weathering processes.”

    Most notably, he was the lead author on the 1996 paper in Science on the ALH84001 Martian meteorite that was found in Antarctica. McKay and his colleagues argued that the rock contained evidence for life on Mars.

    "Although that claim was highly controversial, there can be no question that the appearance of that paper sparked significant changes in Martian and planetary science, shaped the direction of the Mars Exploration Program to the present day, and prompted the establishment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute," NASA said. “Whether one accepts their arguments or not, it has led, directly or indirectly, to investigations seeking and finding signs of life in the most extreme environments. History will judge the value of that rather serendipitous outcome, but it seems clear that its significance is, and will remain, great."

    More about McKay and ALH 84001:

    This report was originally published on Universe Today as "Scientist Who Studied Famous Martian Meteorite Passes Away." Copyright 2013 Universe Today. Reprinted with permission.

     

  • Greenish rock may be from Mercury

    © Stefan Ralew / SR Meteorites

    This is the largest fragment of meteorite NWA 7325, recovered in Morocco in 2012 and purchased by German meteorite dealer Stefan Ralew. Scientists say it's possible that the rock was struck off from the planet Mercury.

    By Jason Major, Universe Today

    Pieces of the Moon and Mars have been found on Earth before, as well as chunks of Vesta and other asteroids — but what about the innermost planet, Mercury? That’s where some researchers think this greenish meteorite may have originated, based on its curious composition and the most recent data from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft. 

    NWA 7325 is the name for a meteorite fall that was spotted in southern Morocco in 2012, comprising 35 fragments totaling about 345 grams. The dark green stones were purchased by meteorite dealer Stefan Ralew, who operates the retail site SR Meteorites. Ralew immediately made note of the rocks' deep colors and lustrous, glassy exteriors.

    Ralew sent samples of NWA 7325 to researcher Anthony Irving of the University of Washington, a specialist in meteorites of planetary origin. Irving found that the fragments contained surprisingly little iron but considerable amounts of magnesium, aluminum and calcium silicates — in line with what’s been observed by Messenger in the surface crust of Mercury.

    Even though the ratio of calcium silicates is higher than what’s found on Mercury today, Irving speculates that the fragments of NWA 7325 could have come from a deeper part of Mercury’s crust, excavated by a powerful impact event and launched into space, eventually finding their way to Earth.

    In addition, exposure to solar radiation for an unknown period of time and shock from its formation could have altered the meteorite’s composition somewhat, making it not exactly match up with measurements from Messenger. If this is indeed a piece of our solar system’s innermost planet, it will be the first Mercury meteorite ever confirmed.

    But the only way to know for sure, according to a research paper written by Irving and his colleagues, is to conduct further studies on the fragments and, ultimately, samples that are returned from Mercury.

    Irving’s team’s findings on NWA 7325 will be presented at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, to be held in Houston from March 18 to 22. Read more in this Sky & Telescope article by Kelly Beatty.

    More about meteorites:

    Jason Major is a graphic designer living in Providence, R.I. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blog Lights in the Dark, for Discovery News and for Universe Today. This report originally appeared on the Universe Today website on Feb. 4, with the headline "Is This Meteorite a Piece of Mercury?"

    Copyright © 2013 Universe Today. Republished with permission.