• No cellphone, no Wi-Fi: Living in America's quietest place

    The area surrounding the Green Bank Radio Telescope may be the quietest place in America, banning cell phones, Wi-Fi, and other transmitters. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports.

    By Kevin Monahan, Producer, NBC News

    GREEN BANK, W.Va. – Every week, Chuck Niday patrols Green Bank, W.Va., in a vehicle that looks a bit like something out of the movie “Mad Max,” aiming to protect the largest steerable radio telescope in the world.

    He searches for sources of interference, which can come from something as simple as a spark plug or an electric fence. And when Niday runs across illegal wireless signals or other electronics, he asks residents to desist.

    “We just go in and ask them to turn it off, and leave it off,” he said. “People are usually pretty cooperative.”

    If they don’t, he can send a report to the Federal Communications Commission. In 1958, the FCC created a 13,000-square-mile quiet zone to shield radio telescopes in Green Bank and Sugar Grove, W.Va., from harmful man-made interference, allowing scientists to study sounds emanating from galaxies all around the universe. 

    Cellphones, Wi-Fi, radio, even certain electronics are all regulated. And there’s not a single cellphone tower to be found for miles. The entire U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone straddles the border between Virginia and West Virginia.

    Bob Sheets has spent his entire life living in the shadow of the giant telescope -- literally. It’s visible from nearly every window of his home, and looms over his field of cows.

    Green Bank, W.Va., is in the National Radio Quiet Zone, an area that covers 13,000 square miles. Bob Sheets, a life-long resident, says most people that visit are happy to turn off their cell phones, but others have a harder time adjusting.

    A retired English teacher from the area, Sheets is quite aware that people might consider him “road kill on the technology highway,” as he puts it, but says the National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a great neighbor. He doesn’t think outsiders mind much either.

    “Most people that come to visit are happy to turn their cellphone off and get away from it all for a while. It seems to reduce their anxiety,” he said.

    The remote town of Green Bank sits smack in the middle of the Allegheny Mountain Range, situated in a valley in the mountains that is naturally protected from many of the radio signals flying around. 

    It’s the closest community to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which runs the Green Bank Telescope. One-and-a-half times taller than the Statue of Liberty, the radio telescope listens into space. 

    Telescope director Karen O’Neil explained: “We listen to galaxies, not just our own, and by doing so, try to understand how these galaxies were formed.”

    Michael Holstine, operations manager, says it takes on some of the biggest questions of our time -- and the quiet zone is the perfect place to do it.

    “We‘ve been able to peer back to just after the Big Bang, 13.9 billion to 14 billion years ago,” he said. “We need quiet to gather all the signals that are being supplied to us by the universe. Green Bank is just about the quietest place in the country.”

    Michael J. Holstine, business manager at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia tells NBC's Kevin Tibbles that the steerable radio telescope, which is the largest in the world, can "peer back to just after the big bang."

    But what about the seemingly draconian restrictions it puts on the local residents here?

    At Green Bank Elementary Middle School, which is in direct line-of-sight of the telescope, students actually talk to each other instead of texting.

    It doesn’t mean however, that some teenagers wouldn’t prefer to have a cellphone to help beef up their social lives.

    “If you have a cellphone with you all the time, everybody can get a hold of you,” said Kourtney Cohenour, 14, who recently moved to Green Bank with her family. “You don’t need to worry about people trying to find you.”

    They still have payphones here in Green Bank -- and people seem to use them. Some of the residents even get a kick out of those who still rely on cellphones.

    “I saw a lady one time at a local gas station here,” Sheets said with a smile. “She was holding it high above her head to try and get a signal and then she took it over and she waved it around the pay phone.”

    At the main general store in town, owner Bob Earvine and his son, Donnie, don’t seem to mind the restrictions.

    Donnie Earvine claims to miss using his cellphone when he leaves town and comes back. As for his father, not so much.

    “I don’t miss a cellphone one bit,” said Bob Earvine. “If the observatory wasn’t here, I’m not sure we would be. You can see how little other employment there is around here. It’s a small price to pay.”

    Brian Farkas / AP file

    The Robert C. Byrd Telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory rises above the rural Pocahontas County, W.Va., countryside on Oct. 26, 2008. The telescope is the world's largest steerable radio telescope.

     

     

    This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 6:20 PM EDT

  • Chris Hadfield's 'Space Oddity' is a hit: What's next for space superstar?

    The current commander of the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield, has recorded a David Bowie re-make in space during his five-month shift. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield finished out his five-month flurry of songs, snapshots and social media from outer space with a real doozy: a rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” that even Bowie is retweeting.

    The music video was months in the making: With Bowie's approval, the song's lyrics were tweaked to reflect Hadfield's return from the International Space Station on Monday aboard a Russian Soyuz craft. "Lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on," Hadfield sings in the video. After showing scenes of Hadfield strumming on his guitar and gazing soulfully out the station's windows, the video winds up with a Soyuz parachuting down to its landing.

    Since "Space Oddity" went up on Sunday, it's been viewed on YouTube more than 2.7 million times.

    The YouTube hit caps off an orbital tour of duty during which Hadfield sent down thousands of pictures via his Twitter account, performed the first original song recorded on the space station, mixed it up with "Star Trek" icon William Shatner and unveiled Canada's new $5 bill. For the past two months, he was doing all this while serving as the station's first Canadian commander.

    "He's brought space back, not just for Canadians but for the world," fellow Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told NBC News.

    Dreams of space
    Hadfield, 53, began his path to stardom during his childhood on a corn farm in southern Ontario. Watching Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon in 1969 inspired him to dream of becoming an astronaut when he was 9 years old. He started flying airplanes in his teens, and went on to become a fighter pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces. He's been an astronaut since 1992, and he flew on space shuttle missions in 1995 and 2001.

    Last December, he finally got his shot at a long-term stint in space — and he definitely made the most of the experience.

    Slideshow: The antics and artistry of astronaut Chris Hadfield

    Canadian spaceflier Chris Hadfield has posted incredible pictures of the world from space. He has also explained how to brush your teeth, shave and clip your nails while weightless.

    Launch slideshow

    Hadfield's 28-year-old son, Evan, told NBC News that his father put in several hours a day snapping pictures and sending tweets, in addition to his usual 10-hour work shift aboard the station. "When he wasn't working directly for space station maintenance, or on one of his science experiments, he was doing something with his time to benefit people down here," Evan Hadfield said.

    Evan worked long hours, too, without pay. Over the past five months, he has been managing his father's social-media accounts and taking the lead in getting videos like "Space Oddity" produced. "I work about 16 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "Last week I worked 19 hours a day. ... I read about 13,000 to 17,000 messages a day, and that's just in the morning."

    "Space Oddity" was a special case, in part due to a tangle of international copyright issues. The Hadfields started working with Bowie and his team, as well as NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, even before the astronaut's launch in December. "It was definitely something we wanted to do," Evan said.

    Why do it? Chris Hadfield hinted at the reasons in a different farewell-to-space video: "Who'd have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to people?" he asked. "Not closer because I miss them — just closer because seeing this [experience] this way and being able to share it through all the media that we've used has allowed me to get a direct reflection back immediately from so many people. ... It makes me feel like I'm actually with people more, that we're having a conversation. That this experience is not individual, but it's shared and it's worldwide."

    Hansen said all of Hadfield's pictures, videos and tweets could be boiled down to a simple message: "We do live on a spaceship, a spaceship called Earth, and we need to work together to protect it."

    The next chapter
    So what's next? After Hadfield and his two Soyuz crewmates touch down in Kazakhstan, they'll be whisked away in separate directions: Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will head toward Moscow, while Hadfield and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn will be flown directly back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for medical checks, debriefings, rest and recuperation.

    "We have a lot in store for these guys over a number of weeks," Hansen said. And that's not counting a single tweet.

    It's hard to believe that Hadfield will be out of the social-media spotlight for long. "We've still got a lot of stuff," Evan Hadfield said. There are still lots of photos and videos from his father's spaceflight that have yet to be shared. But not even the Hadfields know how all those visions from outer space will come out, and on what timetable.

    "I don't know, and I don't even want to speculate, because what if I'm wrong?" Evan said. "I hope, I really hope that people take Dad's message to heart and continue it past his return."

    Update for 12:25 p.m. ET May 14: The "Space Oddity" video viewership is up to nearly the 7 million mark, and Hadfield commented on the YouTube phenomenon shortly after his landing in Kazakhstan. "I'm very happy that ... 7 million are interested. It is very interesting and historic to be in space," Reuters quoted Hadfield as saying.

    "It's part of humanity to be in space," Hadfield said in Russian. "What we were feeling, what we were doing there, the music we played, this is a big part of our lives." 

    More about Chris Hadfield:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 7:49 PM EDT

  • Russian capsule touches down in Kazakhstan with space station trio

    After five months in space, International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield has returned to the planet. While manning the ISS he also created the first music video in space, using a rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity." NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Miriam Kramer, Space.com

    A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a crew of three space travelers successfully touched down on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan on Tuesday, wrapping up a five-month mission to the International Space Station.

    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko landed in their Soyuz capsule at about 8:31 a.m. Kazakh time (10:31 p.m. ET Monday).

    "It's beautiful," Romanenko radioed right before landing. "It's morning here." [Astronaut Chris Hadfield's 8 Most Amazing Space Moments]

    After the landing, all three had smiles on their faces. "That was quite a ride home," Hadfield said.

    The trio's return marks the end of the station's Expedition 35, which Hadfield commanded, and the start of Expedition 36. The landing comes just two days after Marshburn and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy performed an unprecedented emergency spacewalk to fix a serious ammonia coolant leak on the outside of the station.

    The three spacefliers orbited Earth 2,300 times and logged 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) during their 144 days on the station. Romanenko, Hadfield and Marshburn also witnessed the arrival and departure of a few unmanned cargo ships, including SpaceX's Dragon capsule in March.

    Hadfield was the first Canadian commander of the space station,  and he shared his unique perspective on the planet with everyone back on Earth during his time on the orbiting outpost. The astronaut beamed back a series of videos about life in space, including a music video cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," sung as a goodbye to his space-based home.

    Cosmic Log: Space station chief returns home a star

    After spending five months in space aboard the International Space Station, its three-man crew landed safely in Kazakhstan.

    Carla Cioffi / NASA

    After their landing, spacefliers Chris Hadfield, Roman Romanenko and Tom Marshburn are surrounded by recovery team members in a remote area near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan on Tuesday.

    Chris Hadfield via Twitter

    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sent this final picture from the International Space Station: "To some this may look like a sunset. But it's a new dawn," he wrote.

    Hadfield sent down his last photo from onboard the $100 billion laboratory on Monday. "Spaceflight finale: To some this may look like a sunset," Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) wrote on Twitter. "But it's a new dawn."

    The departing Soyuz left behind three other astronauts to watch over the space station, but they won't be alone for long. Cassidy, Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin will be joined by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, NASA's Karen Nyberg and Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin when they fly up to the station at the end of the month.

    NASA has relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to shuttle the space agency's astronauts to and from the space station since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. NASA officials eventually hope to use private spaceships to bring people to and from the orbiting laboratory.

    The International Space Station is the size of a five-bedroom house and was constructed by five different space agencies representing 15 different countries. Construction began in 1998, and since 2000 the station has been occupied continuously by crews of cosmonauts and astronauts.

    Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 7:35 PM EDT

  • Sun unleashes 2013's biggest flares

    The first X-class flare (X1.7) of year was soon followed by a second more powerful X2.8-class flare, separated by about 14 hours on May 13. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was watching the action.

    By Tariq Malik, Space.com

    A hyperactive sunspot on the surface of the sun has fired off two of the most powerful solar flares of the year in just 24 hours, and promises to unleash more solar storms over the next several days, space weather experts say.

    The active sunspot went into overdrive on Mother's Day when it erupted late Sunday night with an X-class solar flare, the strongest class of solar storm possible. That first eruption registered as an X1.7-class event on the space weather scale, and was followed midday Monday by an even more powerful X2.8 solar flare. That ranks as the third-strongest solar storm in recent years.

    You can see a video of the huge solar flares together here as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and other spacecraft. [See more photos of the sun's X-class solar flares]

    The Mother's Day solar flare sent a super-hot wave of solar plasma, called a coronal mass ejection, hurtling through space at about 2.6 million mph (4.3 million kilometers per hour). The second flare on Monday sent solar plasma streaking through space at a mind-boggling 4.3 million mph (6.9 million kilometers per hour). The solar eruptions were not aimed at Earth, so should pose no threat to satellites and astronauts in orbit, NASA officials said.

    The solar storm could deliver a glancing blow to NASA's infrared-sensitive Spitzer Space Telescope, the Messenger probe orbiting Mercury and the sun-watching Stereo-B spacecraft, according to a NASA update.

    "If warranted, operators can put spacecraft into safe mode to protect the instruments from solar material," NASA officials explained. "There is some particle radiation associated with this event, which is what can concern operators of interplanetary spacecraft since the particles can trip computer electronics on board."

    NASA/SDO/AIA

    The sun erupted with an X1.7-class solar flare on May 12, 2013. The flare appears as the bright point on the left of the sun in this full disk view NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. It is a blend of two images of the sun recorded at different wavelengths of light.

    The back-to-back solar storms erupted from an active sunspot region that is just out of sight over the left side of the sun. The region has been active in recent days, spouting off two medium-strength M-class solar flares, but the two X-class solar storms are its most powerful events yet.

    The region "will soon rotate into view" as seen from Earth, NASA officials said. When it does, any major solar flares and eruptions could be aimed squarely at Earth.

    "Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment because the sun's normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in 2013," NASA officials said in the update Monday.

    When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can pose a serious risk to astronauts and satellites in space, and interfere with GPS and communications signals. The strongest solar storms can even affect ground-based power system infrastructure. Moderately strong solar flares can supercharge Earth's northern lights to create spectacular auroral displays.

    The sun's current space weather cycle is called Solar Cycle 24 and began in 2008. A fleet of spacecraft, including NASA's powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory, keeps constant watch on the sun for signs of solar flare activity.

    Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 1:09 PM EDT

  • Spacewalkers are hopeful that new pump fixed station's coolant leak

    Astronaut helmet camera captures video of NASA engineers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn replacing a pump on International Space Station suspected of leaking ammonia.

    By Tariq Malik, Space.com

    Two spacewalking astronauts may have fixed an ammonia leak outside the International Space Station on Saturday, perhaps bringing the outpost's vital cooling system back up to full strength.

    Clad in bulky spacesuits, NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn replaced a pump control box thought to be responsible for the leak of ammonia, which cools down the orbiting lab's systems. It looks like this fix did the trick, as no ammonia flakes were seen streaming into space when Mission Control turned on the newly installed gear.

    "We're not seeing anything," Cassidy said at around 12:35 p.m. ET, several minutes after the pump was turned on. "No snow." [Emergency Spacewalk to Fix Space Station Leak in Photos]

    NASA officials stopped short of declaring total victory, however, saying that time will tell if the fix holds.

    "It will take some diagnostics, still, over the course of the next several days by the thermal systems specialists to fully determine that we have solved the problem of the ammonia leak," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during live mission commentary. "But so far, so good." 

    An emergency spacewalk 
    Cassidy and Marshburn floated outside the space station at 8:44 a.m. ET Saturday, beginning what officials described as a six-hour detective's investigation to find — and hopefully fix — the ammonia leak.

    Cassidy, who led the spacewalk, reported seeing "no smoking gun" as he and Marshburn began their inspection of the old ammonia pump control box, one of several on the space station's far left segment, known as the Port 6 truss. It is part of the cooling system for the two wing-like solar arrays extending from the Port 6 segment.

    Upon removing the box, the spacewalkers still saw no signs of ammonia flakes.

    "It looks really, really clean, surprisingly so," Cassidy said while peering deep inside the box using what looked like a dentist's mirror.

    NASA TV

    NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy (striped spacesuit) holds an ammonia pump control box during a spacewalk to hunt for an ammonia leak outside the International Space Station on May 13, 2013. The spacesuit of astronaut Tom Marshburn can be seen behind him.

    Flakes of ammonia were discovered leaking out of the cooling system on International Space Station, and two astronauts are taking a spacewalk to repair it. NBC's Tom Costello reports.

    The ammonia leak was first spotted by space station astronauts last Thursday, when the crew reported seeing flakes of frozen coolant floating outside. They recorded video of the ammonia leak and sent it down to Mission Control for analysis.

    While the leak posed no danger to the space station's crew, it could have impacted the amount of power available for daily operations on the orbiting laboratory if left unchecked, NASA officials said. So Cassidy and Marshburn were sent out on an emergency spacewalk to attempt a fix.

    The roughly 48-hour turnaround made this the fastest spacewalk plan of its kind ever devised for a space station crew, mission managers have said.

    By about 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), a little more than four hours into the spacewalk, Cassidy and Marshburn were getting ready to head back to a space station airlock, where they must clean their spacesuits to make sure they don't bring any toxic ammonia into the orbiting lab.

    A history of ammonia leaks
    This is not the first time astronauts have had to tackle ammonia leaks in the space station's cooling system during a spacewalk.

    Last year, astronauts Sunita Williams of NASA and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan performed a spacewalk to fix a leak that was also found on the Port 6 truss. That ammonia leak was in the same coolant loop as the current leak, but engineers do not yet know if the two leaks are related.

    The station's Port 6 truss is the oldest piece of the space station's scaffolding-like backbone and carries two of the outpost's eight wing-like solar arrays. It launched in November 2000 and was originally installed on the station's roof, towering over the orbiting lap. In 2007, visiting shuttle astronauts relocated the P6 truss to its final location on the station's far left side.

    This was the fourth spacewalk for both Marshburn and Cassidy, and the 168th total to support space station assembly and maintenance. Inside the International Space Station, commander Chris Hadfield of Canada and Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko, Alexander Misurkin and Pavel Vinogradov followed the spacewalkers' progress.

    Today's spacewalk comes just two days before Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko are due to return to Earth to end their five-month mission in space.

    The three men are due to leave the space station on Monday and land on the steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia. Those plans are still going forward, space station mission managers said.

    Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik  and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook  and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    This story was originally published on Sat May 11, 2013 3:00 PM EDT

  • Spacewalkers set to troubleshoot space station's ammonia coolant leak

    On Saturday NASA will try to fix the leak that released a stream of white frozen flakes into space. The crew on the International Space Station is not in danger and the space station is continuing to operate normally. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Miriam Kramer
    Space.com 

    Astronauts on the International Space Station are gearing up to perform an emergency spacewalk Saturday to hunt for an ammonia leak in the orbiting laboratory's cooling system.

    NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy are planning to spend more than six hours outside the station to find, and possibly repair, the ammonia coolant leak.

    The spacewalk comes just two days after the six-man crew of the space station noticed frozen flakes from an ammonia leak on one of the eight winglike solar arrays responsible for supplying power to the station. Planning a space station spacewalk repair in such a short time frame is unprecedented, NASA officials said. [Infographic: How the Space Station's Cooling System Works]

    It also comes just two days before Marshburn and two crewmates, station commander Chris Hadfield of Canada and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, are due to return home. Monday's departure will not be affected by the spacewalk, NASA officials said.

    The space station crew is in no danger, and the pump has been turned off in order to slow the rate of the leak, mission managers said. The leak is on the space station's P6 truss, at the leftmost side of the outpost's football field-length main truss.

    NASA's space station program manager, Mike Suffredini, said the spacewalk's "objective is to get a look at the leak."

    Spacewalk repair on tap
    A team of NASA officials gave the go-ahead late Friday for the spacewalk to begin at 8:15 a.m. ET Saturday. The plan calls for Cassidy and Marshburn to float outside of the station to inspect the leaking loop. Then they'll try to replace an ammonia coolant pump that station engineers suspect may be the source of the leak.

    Marshburn and Cassidy have both conducted three spacewalks — two of them together — during their 2009 mission on the space shuttle Endeavour. This spacewalk is expected to take a little more than six hours. "The crew is very familiar in this area," Norm Knight, NASA chief flight director, said during a briefing on Friday. This type of repair, however, is unprecedented in the space station's history, he added.

    Usually spacewalks are planned months in advance, but this is the first time a space station crew has been expected to do a spacewalk on such short notice, Knight said.

    If this spacewalk doesn't correct the leak, the space station can still function using seven of its eight solar arrays, Suffredini said. However, managing the space station's power requirements over the long term would prove to be more challenging.

    NASA says that a radiator leak on the power system of the International Space Station, 200 miles above Earth, is serious but not life-threatening. Engineers are working to re-route electronics to avoid the leak and as of now, there are no emergency plans to evacuate the crew of six, including two American astronauts.

    Cooling system history
    This wouldn't be the first spacewalk undertaken to repair a coolant leak.

    Last year, NASA's Sunita Williams and Japanese spaceflier Akihiko Hoshide went a spacewalk to troubleshoot a leak in a coolant loop. That leak was in the same loop as the current leak, but engineers don't yet know if the two leaks are related.

    Hadfield, Marshburn and Cassidy are part of the station's Expedition 35 crew, along with Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin and Romanenko. On May 28, three new crew members are expected to launch from Kazakhstan to join Vinogradov, Misurkin and Cassidy on the International Space Station. The spacewalk would not affect that schedule, NASA said.

    Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook  and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    This story was originally published on Fri May 10, 2013 8:05 PM EDT

  • Everything you know about dinosaurs is wrong: Tour guide sets you straight

    Courtesy of Brian Switek

    Dinosaur enthusiast Brian Switek surveys Utah's landscape during a road trip — and surveys the state of dinosaur lore in "My Beloved Brontosaurus."

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    When it comes to dinosaurs and other prehistoric monsters, even the experts can get things wrong — as dino-fanatic Brian Switek explains in his tour guide to the paleontological frontier.

    The righting of wrongness begins with the title of Switek's book: "My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road With Old Bones, New Science and Our Favorite Dinosaurs." As most 9-year-olds could probably tell you, there's officially no such thing as a Brontosaurus. That name for the quintessential long-tailed, long-necked sauropod went out of fashion when scientists figured out that the Jurassic giant had already been dubbed Apatosaurus.

    Nevertheless, the brontosaur serves as a totem for Switek, a prolific science writer whose work has appeared in Wired, Smithsonian, Slate, Scientific American and now most frequently on National Geographic's Phenomena blog network (as Laelaps). His earlier book, "Written in Stone," laid out the broad sweep of stories told by the fossil record — and in "My Beloved Brontosaurus," he focuses in on the what, where and when of the dinosaurs' heyday in the Mesozoic Era.

    As you page through the book, you'll learn that not all dinosaurs have gone extinct. (Birds are dinosaurs.) You'll find out that the dinosaurs didn't start out as the rulers of the reptiles. (Crocodilians came first.) You'll delve into the back-and-forth debates that have occupied paleontologists for decades. (Was T. rex a hunter or a scavenger? Almost certainly both.) And you'll also get some great tips for future road trips in the American West.

    Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook edition of "My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs" by author Brian Switek, read by the author.

    Misconceptions and marvels
    Switek talked about dinosaurs and tour directions during an interview last week. Here's an edited version of the Q&A that will whet your appetite for "My Beloved Brontosaurus":

    Q: So many myths about dinosaurs are exploded in your book, but is there one big misconception that you want to set people straight about?

    A: There’s one misconception that has a flip side to it, and that’s that dinosaurs are totally extinct. Birds are living dinosaurs. We figured that out about 20 years ago. So whenever we talk about the age of dinosaurs millions of years ago, and how all the dinosaurs are gone, that’s demonstrably not true. At least one lineage is still with us today.

    The flip side of that is that dinosaurs became dominant as soon as they appeared — that the dawn of the dinosaurs sparked an immediate rise to ascendancy. The fact is that dinosaurs started out relatively small. They were relatively marginal. They really weren’t all that important until the extinction at the end of the Triassic period, about 200 million years ago, wiped away all the weird crocodile relatives that were the dominant land animals at the time. So the dinosaurian reign was made possible by, and then winnowed back by, extinction. It’s these wonderful extinction bookends that explain not only their origin, but their ultimate destination, bringing us to the birds that live today.

    Q: Another issue is the appeal of dinosaurs: For some kids, dino-mania is almost a rite of passage. I love the idea that the book jacket for “My Beloved Brontosaurus” is also a fold-out dinosaur poster — what dinosaur fan wouldn’t love that? What is it about dinosaurs that makes them so appealing, particularly to kids?

    A: I think they’re appealing because they demand answers of us. People have been wondering about dinosaurs, pondering what they were and what they were like, even before there was a name for them. I don’t just mean European naturalists. I mean Native Americans, people in ancient Greece and Rome, people in ancient China and India. People in all those cultures found dinosaur bones. They knew that these were the remains of once-living animals, and they created stories of monsters and heroes, myths and legends about creatures from distant times. So we were wondering about the dinosaurs before we even knew what they were.

    That continues now, because there’s nothing quite like the dinosaurs. Yes, birds are living dinosaurs – but there’s so much more. There’s nothing like Apatosaurus, or Triceratops, or Tyrannosaurus rex around right now. When you look at their bones, questions immediately come to mind: What did they look like? What did they sound like? How quickly did they move? What did their environment look like? To me, it’s impossible to hear the dinosaur story without wondering about these questions.

    Answering these questions puts our own existence in context. You can say all this happened 66 million years ago – but wait a second: What was America like back then? How did it all change? That brings up some very powerful truths about extinction, evolution and survival.  It’s these clues from our own distant past and our planet’s distant past that act as milestones by which we can understand our own existence.

    J. Brougham / AMNH file

    Experts say Tyrannosaurus rex may have had a downy layer of feathers, and probably had a coloration that was more varied than the stereotypical green.

    Q: Another way that the book could be read is as a travelogue. It’s almost structured as a series of road trips that you’ve taken to explore all these fantastic fossils. And in fact, that’s what you’re doing along with your book tour. If there’s one dream trip that dinosaur fanatics should take, where would you tell them to go?

    A: This is sort of a plug for my home state of Utah: There’s a byway system called the Dinosaur Diamond that runs through a good part of the state and includes the Dinosaur National Monument, where 150 million-year-old fossils are preserved in place; and the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, a place where over 46 individual allosaurs and other dinosaurs have been found. You can head up to Salt Lake City, where the Natural History Museum of Utah opened this last year. As you drive along those highways, there are various dinosaur trackways, lots of attractions, lots of dinosaur celebrities. So if anyone’s looking for a weeklong trip in the American West, that’s the best pre-planned tour there is for a dino fan.

    Q: in terms of the frontiers for dinosaur research, there’s been talk about Jack Horner’s "Chickenosaurus" project, and there are always new perspectives on how dinosaurs lived and died. What do you see as the next big thing for dinosaur research?

    A: Researchers are finding ways to draw out clues about how dinosaurs actually lived, through new technologies that can be applied to a variety of animals. So we’re looking at the development of better CT scanning technology. Improved CT technology is helping paleontologists get down to a degree of resolution they’ve never had before — and they’re finding clues about bone structure to a degree that was just not possible before.

    What’s really exciting to me is the study of dinosaur color. It’s a field that’s moving forward by comparing fossil feathers to modern ones. Paleontologists are starting to reconstruct what colors the dinosaurs actually were. They might be able to identify the evolutionary advantages of colors, degrees of coloration, and maybe some aspects of sexual dimorphism. Everything we’re learning about dinosaur biology is filling in the picture of how they lived in a much more meaningful way.

    Q: You mentioned that dinosaurs are appealing to us in part because they tell us how extinction works, and how our own distant past might have unfolded. That suggests that the study of dinosaurs can hold lessons for the 21st century. How can the dinosaur experience best be applied to our own human experience?

    A: Dinosaurs shaped our evolution. People often say that the rise of mammals was made possible by the disappearance of all those non-avian dinosaurs. That's true, but it's not just that. Mammals lived alongside the dinosaurs — things like Stegosaurus and Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus. By keeping our furry little ancestors in the shadows, the dinosaurs set the stage for the later evolution of primates.

    Yes, those dinosaurs disappeared. But beyond that, we know that we’re changing the global climate in drastic ways. We know we’re distributing invasive species around the world. By looking back at the fossil record, and seeing how dinosaurs reacted to drastic changes, we can begin to outline how organisms today and in the future are going to react to the same sorts of changes. Dinosaurs might hold clues about our future. The past isn't just a static monument to what once was. The fossil record also carries lessons about what will be. 

    For much, much more about dinosaur wrongness and rightness, check out the latest 'Virtually Speaking Science' podcast with Switek and University of Maryland paleontologist Tom Holtz. You can download a variety of VSS podcasts from BlogTalkRadio or iTunes.

    More 'Virtually Speaking Science' podcasts:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Wed May 1, 2013 4:50 PM EDT

  • SpaceShipTwo goes supersonic during first rocket-powered flight

    Watch the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane drop from its WhiteKnightTwo mothership and fire up its engine for the first time during a test flight.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane lit up its engine for the first time in flight on Monday, taking a giant supersonic leap toward outer space.

    The crucial 16-second blast took place at about 7:50 a.m. PT (10:50 a.m. ET), high above California's Mojave Air and Space Port. Virgin Group's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, was on hand to watch the proceedings.

    "Today was the most significant day in the program," Branson told NBC News afterward. "I think that for those people who have been good enough to stick with us for the last eight years, who signed up early on, their time to become astronauts is very soon now. ... We'll soon be able to make their dreams come true."

    Branson wasn't the only one watching: Rocket aficionados flocked to viewing areas near the airport to see the blastoff. Until Monday, Mojave-based Scaled Composites, which is building and testing the plane for Virgin Galactic's eventual use, had tested SpaceShipTwo only by dropping it from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane and having its pilots guide the plane back through unpowered glides back to the runway. The engine, powered by a rubber-based solid fuel and nitrous oxide, had been fired only on the ground.

    Monday's test was radically different: WhiteKnightTwo released SpaceShipTwo from its traditional drop zone, at an altitude of around 47,000 feet. But after the rocket plane glides clear from the mothership, its pilot lit up the engine and pointed SpaceShipTwo upward into the sky, reaching a maximum height of 56,200 feet. The plane coasted back to a landing back at the Mojave airport, about 13 minutes after blastoff.

    Test pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury were at SpaceShipTwo's controls for Monday's flight, Virgin Galactic said. Afterward, the company said in a tweet that the pilots confirmed "SpaceShipTwo exceeded the speed of sound on today's flight!" The reported maximum velocity was Mach 1.2.

    Virgin

    SpaceShipTwo fires up its rocket engine for the first time in flight on Monday.

    MarsScientific.com / Clay Center Observatory

    A 16-second rocket blast sends SpaceShipTwo toward the heavens.

    Virgin Galactic via W. Christine Choi

    A boom camera on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo plane shows the rocket engine firing.

    George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's president and CEO, said in a news release that the flight test "went as planned, with the expected burn duration, good engine performance and solid vehicle handling qualities throughout."

    Eventually, SpaceShipTwo could break the space barrier as well as the sound barrier — just as its predecessor, SpaceShipOne, did in 2004. When the single-piloted SpaceShipOne made repeated flights beyond an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles), which is the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, it won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. Ever since then, Virgin Galactic has been funding the multimillion-dollar development effort to create a fleet of passenger space planes.

    In the grand scheme of things, suborbital spaceflight isn't exactly new: The U.S. Air Force's X-15 rocket plane blazed that trail to manned spaceflight a half-century ago. The new twist is that it's being done by private companies rather than government programs. 

    Scaled and Virgin Galactic have mapped out a series of flight tests that would gradually push the envelope, potentially leading to suborbital spaceflights over California's Mojave Desert by the end of this year. Virgin Galactic's goal is to begin passenger service, for tourists as well as researchers, at New Mexico's Spaceport America as early as next year. More than 500 people — including celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher — have already put down money for a $200,000 ride.

    The six-passenger, two-pilot plane is designed to give riders a commanding view of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space, a few minutes of free-floating weightlessness, and a roller coaster ride back down to Virgin Galactic's spaceport. Other companies — including XCOR Aerospace and Blue Origin — are planning to get into the suborbital space passenger business as well, but if SpaceShipTwo's flight tests go well, Virgin Galactic is likely to become the market leader.

    Branson has said he and his family would be among the first to fill SpaceShipTwo's passenger seats.

    "Like our hundreds of customers from around the world, my children and I cannot wait to get on board this fantastic vehicle for our own trip to space and am delighted that today's milestone brings that day much closer," he wrote in a blog post.

    Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo

    Click through scenes from the construction of Virgin Galactic's suborbital passenger spaceship.

    Launch slideshow

    More about SpaceShipTwo:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log and the rest of NBCNews.com's science and space coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:29 AM EDT

  • New private rocket launches into orbit on maiden voyage

     

    NASA / Bill Ingalls

    The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Sunday.

    By Tariq Malik, Space.com

    A new commercial U.S. rocket soared into the Virginia sky Sunday on a debut flight that paves the way for eventual cargo flights to the International Space Station for NASA.

    The third try was the charm for the private Antares rocket, which launched into space from a new pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, its twin engines roaring to life at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) to carry a mock cargo ship out over the Atlantic Ocean and into orbit. The successful liftoff came after two delays caused by a minor mechanical glitch and bad weather. 

    Built by the Dulles, Va.- based spaceflight company Orbital Sciences, the Antares rocket is a two-stage booster designed to launch tons of supplies to the International Space Station aboard a new unmanned cargo ship called Cygnus. Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to provide at least eight resupply flights to the station using Antares and Cygnus. [See photos of Antares rocket's 1st launch] 

    "Antares has delivered the A-ONE test mission payload into orbit," an Orbital Sciences commentator said. There were cheers out of Orbital's launch control room at ever successful stage of the launch, with the team breaking out in handshakes and hugs as the rocket reached orbit. 

    Orbital had much riding on today's successful liftoff, which marked a critical test flight of a new commercial launch system.

    The company has invested about $300 million developing the Cygnus spacecraft alone, slightly more in the rocket itself, Orbital executive vice president Frank Culbertson told reporters after the successful launch. The result, he added, was an amazing show with apparently no significant glitches aside from a brush fire ignited near the launch pad.

    "This was a majestic liftoff during ascent," said Culbertson, who is a former NASA astronaut and Orbital's general manager for advanced programs. The Antares rocket as a low thrust to weight ratio, which means it has a slow start rising off the launch pad, he added. "It was a beautiful liftoff."

    NASA chief Charles Bolden attended the launch and lauded the Orbital launch team on the successful flight.

    "This is an incredibly historic day," Bolden told Orbital's team. "You couldn't have gone any farther without today. This was a first, huge step." [Launch Video: Antares Soars Into Orbit on 1st Flight] 

    NASA TV

    The first private Antares rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. launches toward space from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., on April 21, 2013. It marks the first flight test for the rocket.

    Virginia's biggest rocket launch 
    Antares is the largest rocket ever to launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. It lifted off from the new Pad 0A, which is at Wallops but managed by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) and overseen by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. Altogether, the Commonwealth of Virginia and MARS officials spent about $140 million to build the new launch pad complex.

    Today's launch was expected to be visible from locations all along the East Coast, from Maine to South Carolina, weather permitting. Orbital even released several photos advising what the rocket would look like from famous landmarks around the Capitol. 

    Orbital initially tried to launch the Antares rocket on Wednesday but called off the attempt when a vital data cable separated from the rocket earlier than planned, about 12 minutes before liftoff. The company spent Thursday analyzing the glitch and opted not to try for a Friday launch due to foul weather. Strong winds forced a delay on Saturday, but Mother Nature cooperated for Sunday's launch.

    In a Twitter post before launch, officials at NASA's Wallops facility reported that the site's visitor center was completely packed for today's launch, despite the delays. MARS officials hope the Orbital launches will help serve as a new source of tourism for the region.

    "It's definitely something we're all excited about," Basia Shields, manager of the Lighthouse Inn on nearby Chincoteague Island, told SPACE.com before Sunday's liftoff. "I mean, this is the off season for us and almost every room is booked just for this thing."

    Private space cargo ships 
    Orbital Sciences is one of two companies with NASA contracts for commercial cargo deliveries to the space station. The other firm is Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., which has a $1.6 billion deal for 12 space station cargo missions.

    With the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011, the agency is relying on commercial companies like Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to provide the vital resupply services — and, eventually, crew launches — required to keep the space station fully stocked and staffed. Before the commercial program, NASA was dependent on Russian, Japanese and European cargo ships for supplies, and it still temporarily relies on Russian Soyuz vehicles for crewed missions.

    "This is a new way of doing business, and with any new investment, there is a risk," Alan Lindenmoyer, head of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told reporters after the successful launch. "But it sure is nice to see a return on that investment and things go your way. I think this is a great day for everyone."

    NASA picked Orbital Sciences as a commercial cargo partner in 2008, awarding the firm $288 million to begin developing the Cygnus spacecraft under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. SpaceX won its first COTS award in 2006.

    "This is the culmination of a plan that we've been on for several years," NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver told reporters before the Wednesday launch try. "I am thrilled to have two competitors."

    Garver said that at least two companies providing cargo services for NASA is vital since it assures access to space and does not allow one company to have a monopoly on station cargo deliveries.

    Orbital and SpaceX also offer slightly different services. Unlike SpaceX's Dragon space capsules, which can return cargo to Earth from the station, Orbital's Cygnus vehicles are disposable and are intentionally burned up in the atmosphere at mission's end. 

    NASA TV

    The Earth drops away from Orbital Sciences first Antares rocket in this amazing view captured by the rocket's ATK-built second stage during a test launch on April 21, 2013.

    Antares test flight success 
    During the test launch, the Antares rocket launched on a southeast trajectory over the Atlantic and took 10 minutes to reach its target orbit 155 miles (250 kilometers) above Earth. The rocket carried an 8,377-pound (3,800 kilograms) dummy payload to mimic the weight of an actual Cygnus spacecraft. The mockup was packed with 70 sensors to record how the Antares rocket launch would affect a Cygnus vehicle.

    "It looks like all the expectations we had for today's flight were beautifully met," Lindenmoyer said. 

    The dummy module is expected to spend at least two weeks in orbit before burning up in Earth's atmosphere, Orbital officials said.

    Antares also carried three coffee cup-size Phonesat satellites — called Alexander, Graham and Bell — into orbit as part of a space technology experiment for NASA's Ames Research Center in California. The tiny 4-inch-wide satellites use commercial smartphones as their main computers. Another small satellite the size of a bread box, called Dove-1, also rode into orbit as part of a commercial agreement for the California-based company Cosmogia. Dove-1 is reportedly an Earth-observation and remote sensing satellite, according to a NOAA remote sensing license document.

    Orbital's Antares rocket is a two-stage booster that stands 131 feet (40 meters) tall and weighs 639,341 pounds (290,000 kilograms) at liftoff. 

    The first stage is powered by two Aerojet AJ26 liquid-fueled rocket engines originally developed to launch Russia's giant N-1 moon rocket in the 1960s. Today's launch marked their first flight ever from U.S. soil.  The Antares second stage is a solid-fueled motor built by Allliant Techsystems (ATK), the same company that built the twin solid rocket boosters for NASA's space shuttle launches.

    NASA / Bill Ingalls

    The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on April 16, 2013 on Wallops Island, Va.

    With the test flight now complete, Orbital is now looking forward to up to two more launches this year, both of them headed to theInternational Space Station. That first cargo flight, a demonstration mission, could launch in late June or early July, Orbital officials said.

    "This is not a one-shot deal," Lindenmoyer said. "They're going to be here awhile."

    Culbertson said that Orbital hopes to launch Antares rockets from Wallops every three to six months for the cargo delivery flights.

    Editor's note: If you snap a great photo of Orbital's Antares rocket launch that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

     UPDATE: This story was updated at 7:52 p.m. EDT to include new comments and details of today's Antares rocket launch.

    Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on  SPACE.com.

    Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    This story was originally published on Sat Apr 20, 2013 5:17 PM EDT

  • Secret weapon? How thermal imaging helped catch bomb suspect

    The Massachusetts State Police has released this video showing aerial footage of the boat where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lay hidden during Friday's standoff with police, including thermal imagery.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Thermal-imaging devices have been used to seek out pot-growing operations, map Martian geology — and now, to watch the second suspect in this week's Boston Marathon bombings as he was holed up in his last hiding place.

    Authorities said a helicopter equipped with a thermal imager spotted the heat signature of a person inside a tarp-covered boat, sitting in a backyard in Watertown, Mass. Police used the sensor after an area resident reported seeing a trail of blood leading to the boat — and catching a glimpse of a blood-covered body inside. The thermal readings confirmed that there was indeed someone under the tarp, and that the person was still alive.

    "Our helicopter had actually detected the subject in the boat," Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts State Police told reporters. "We have what's called a FLIR — a forward-looking infrared device — on that helicopter. It picked up the heat signature of the individual, even though he was underneath what appeared to be the 'shrink wrap' or cover on the boat itself. There was movement from that point on. The helicopter was able to direct the tactical teams over to that area."

    There was an exchange of gunfire when a SWAT team approached the boat, so police had to back off. The helicopter continued to track the body's movements inside the boat. Eventually, the tactical team moved in and took the wounded bombing suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, into custody.

    How thermal imaging works
    Thermal imagers can spot the signature of a heat source inside a house, a vehicle, or in this case, a vessel. Walls may stop visible-light wavelengths, but the heat can still pass through. Variations in heat emissions can be picked up by camera chips designed to be sensitive to the infrared part of the spectrum. The signature would be particularly noticeable when there's a significant difference between the background temperature and the temperature of the heat source.

    Police have long used such devices to find out whether marijuana was being grown inside a house using heat lamps. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of thermal scans to monitor heat sources inside a person's home should be considered a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, and thus would require a warrant. The court said such scans could reveal private details about the homeowner, including the time of night when "the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath."

    Massachusetts state police officer Timothy Alben discusses the tactics that were used to apprehend Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

    Thermal imagers have been taken to other worlds — for instance, aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, which analyzes variations in the composition of the Red Planet's surface using the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS.

    Immigration authorities have used thermal scanners to look for the signs of fever among arriving passengers, and researchers have been experimenting with them as a lie-detector technique.

    In 2009, FBI investigators used thermal imagers to search for graves in the neighborhood where Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell lived. That may well have been the most notorious case where the technology was brought to bear. Until now.

    Update for 5:43 p.m. ET April 20: The comments on this story might suggest I've shed more heat than light on the role played by thermal imaging. There's no question about it: The crucial break in the case came when the boat owner, David Henneberry, saw the blood-covered body in the boat, called police and then got out of the way. Police used thermal imagery to track the suspect's movements inside the boat, and help guide the SWAT team's response.

    In most cases, thermal imagers can detect only the heat signature emanating from a wall or a vehicle. For example, you could tell whether there were heat lamps (or a lady taking a bath) in a particular room by noticing the high level of heat emitted by the room's walls. But you generally wouldn't see the outline of the heat lamps themselves (or the lady, for that matter). In the Cleveland serial-killer case, thermal imaging was used to look for the signs of freshly turned soil rather than for the cold, dead bodies themselves.

    The Watertown case is special: The tarp was so thin that police could indeed see Tsarnaev's outline, as graphically illustrated by these pictures.

    More about thermal imaging:

    Slideshow: Search for suspects in Boston Marathon bombings

    Jared Wickerham / Getty Images

    Cheers filled the streets after a Boston Marathon bombing suspect was captured alive but wounded Friday night — following a daylong manhunt that shut down the city.

    Launch slideshow

     

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Fri Apr 19, 2013 9:14 PM EDT

  • During space station fix-up, Russian becomes world's oldest spacewalker

    NASA TV

    Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko (bottom) and Pavel Vinogradov float outside the International Space Station on Friday during a spacewalk.

    By Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —A 59-year-old Russian cosmonaut became the world's oldest spacewalker Friday, joining a much younger cosmonaut's son for a little maintenance work outside the International Space Station.

    Pavel Vinogradov, a cosmonaut for two decades, claimed the honor as he emerged from the hatch with Roman Romanenko. But he inadvertently added to the booming population of space junk when he lost his grip on an experiment tray that he was retrieving toward the end of the 6½-hour spacewalk.

    The lost aluminum panel — 18 inches by 12 inches (45 by 30 centimeters) and about 6½ pounds (3 kilograms) — contained metal samples. Scientists wanted to see how the samples had fared after a year out in the vacuum of space. 

    Otherwise, the spacewalk went well, with the spacewalkers installing new science equipment and replacing a navigation device needed for the June arrival of a European cargo ship.

    Collecting the experiment tray was Vinogradov's last task outside.

    The tray drifted toward the solar panels of the main Russian space station compartment, called Zvezda, Russian for Star. Flight controllers did not believe it struck anything, and the object was not thought to pose a safety hazard in the hours and days ahead. 

    "That's unfortunate," someone radioed in Russian.

    Another panel of similar experiments will be collected on a future spacewalk.

    This was the first of eight spacewalks to be conducted this year, most of them by Russians. Two will be led by NASA this summer. 

    Until Friday, the oldest spacewalker was retired NASA astronaut Story Musgrave, who was 58 when he helped fix the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993.

    Romanenko, 41, is a second-generation spaceflier who's following in his father's bootsteps. Retired cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko performed spacewalks back in the 1970s and 1980s. This was the son's first experience out in the vacuum of space.

    Vinogradov made his seventh spacewalk; he ventured into a dark, ruptured chamber at Russia's old Mir space station in 1997 following a cargo ship collision. He arrived late last month for a six-month stay at the space station and will turn 60 aboard the orbiting complex in August.

    The spacewalkers joked as they toiled 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the planet.

    "I'm afraid of the darkness," one of them said in Russian as the space station passed over the night side of Earth.

    Among the newly installed equipment was a Russian experiment called Obstanovka, which will study plasma waves and the effect of space weather on Earth's ionosphere. Vinogradov and Romanenko also replaced a faulty retro-reflector device, a navigational aid that will help guide in the European Space Agency's Albert Einstein cargo ship during an automated docking that is scheduled in June.

    Russian flight controllers outside Moscow oversaw Friday's action. The four other space station residents monitored the activity from inside; Canadian commander Chris Hadfield drew the short straw and had to work on a balky toilet. 

    This report includes additional information from NASA. Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 

    This story was originally published on Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:28 AM EDT

  • Big-time players are getting serious about asteroid perils and profits

    Planetary Resources

    An artist's conception shows how solar energy could be used to process material on a near-Earth asteroid.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Experts on near-Earth objects wondered whether February's meteor blast over Russia would serve as a wakeup call about asteroids — and two months later, there's ample evidence that it has. But there are two sides to that wakeup call, having to do with potential opportunities as well as potential threats.

    Nothing illustrates that better than this week's developments: In Flagstaff, Ariz., researchers are discussing ways to detect, track and head off space rocks that could wreak destruction on Earth. In Pasadena, Calif., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that an infrared sensor for tracking asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. And in Bellevue, Wash., the Planetary Resources space mining venture says it's partnering with the Bechtel construction company on future efforts to mine asteroids for raw materials.

    "Bechtel has a history of consistently tackling the most challenging projects, beginning with the construction of the Hoover Dam more than 75 years ago," Peter Diamandis, the co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources, said in a news release announcing the deal. Today, California-based Bechtel is one of the world's leaders in the engineering, procurement and construction industry. It will join Planetary Resources' billionaire-heavy list of investors — and assist the company in its long-term mission to mine near-Earth asteroids for precious metals and outer-space water.

    Diamandis and his fellow co-founder, Eric Anderson, have said asteroid mining could turn into a multitrillion-dollar industry if their vision becomes reality.

    "Planetary Resources' mission is ambitious, but they've assembled a world-class team to succeed," Riley Bechtel, the chairman and CEO of Bechtel, said in the news release. "Our companies share a common vision to continually innovate and push boundaries, all aimed at contributing a better quality of life."

    Speaking of life, Planetary Resources' president, Chris Lewicki, is among the scores of experts attending this week's Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff. "It's always an extremely fun and informative conference, as it focuses entirely on asteroids ... how often do you get to consider defending the Earth from space rocks?" he wrote in a blog posting on Tuesday.

    NASA's proposed mission to grab an asteroid and park it near the moon by 2021 has been one of the meeting's major topics, but the gathering also provided the latest information on the threats posed by near-Earth objects, and what to do about them:

    • Experts estimate that there are 9 million near-Earth asteroids as large as the 17-meter-wide (55-foot-wide) space rock that broke apart over Russia on Feb. 15, and virtually all of them are too small to track using current observational tools. So far, detection systems have found less than 1 percent of the asteroids smaller than 100 meters (which is big enough to wipe out a city).
    • Lewicki passed along word of a scientific study suggesting that even "rubble-pile" asteroids can become more cohesive over time, thanks to the forces that bind together the smallest grains in their size distrbutions.
    • Several schemes for fending off dangerous asteroids were presented — including plans to deflect them with impact vehicles, divert them or blast them to smithereens with nuclear bombs, or guide them gently into non-threatening orbits using gravity tractors.

    JPL's Shyam Bhaskaran described an "AutoNav" system that could guide an impactor autonomously to hit an asteroid target at speeds of up to 30,000 mph. "It's not that easy," Bhaskaran said in a news release. "Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."

    The conference began on Monday and runs through Friday. Check out the program, feast your eyes on the video coverage (with live streaming as well as archived clips for each session), and follow the action via Twitter with the hashtag #PDC2013.

    NASA / JPL-Caltech / B612 Foundation

    The artist's concepts for the NEOCam infrared telescope (left) and the Sentinel Space Telescope (right) look similar. Both are designed to scan the skies for near-Earth asteroids.

    Infrared eyes
    The first step in planetary defense is to find all those potentially threatening asteroids — and during the Flagstaff conference, the spotlight focused on two proposed space telescopes designed to look for space rocks. The B612 Foundation's Sentinel Space Telescope, currently scheduled for launch in 2017 or 2018, would use an infrared sensor to look for Earth-threatening asteroids from a Venus-type orbit. Ball Aerospace reportedly has 25 people working on the Sentinel project, and so far, B612 has raised $2 million of the mission's estimated $450 million cost.

    Meanwhile, JPL is working on the components for a future space mission known as NEOCam. Like Sentinel, NEOCam would scan the skies from an outer-space vantage point, looking for the infrared glow of asteroids. The mission is getting technology development funds from NASA's Discovery Program — and on Monday, JPL said NEOCam's infrared sensor passed a design test that assessed its performance under simulated deep-space conditions. A research paper detailing the sensor's design and capabilities is to be published by the Journal of Optical Engineering.

    "Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population," JPL researcher Amy Mainzer, a co-author of the paper, said in a news release. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition."

    Correction for 1:50 p.m. ET April 17: Good news, everyone! The Planetary Defense Conference runs through Friday. The bad news is that I originally wrote Wednesday instead, and that I wrote "#PDC2012" rather than #PDC2013 for the Twitter hashtag. Sorry about that!

    More about asteroids:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:54 PM EDT

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