Great Image: The Cape of Good Hope

Below is NASA’s Earth Observatory description of this ISS photo:

Nelson Mandela took the long view of South Africa. He saw the potential for prosperity and peace through equality during a time of repression, turmoil, and inequality. In tribute to Mandela, astronaut Chris Hadfield offered up his version of South Africa’s long view.

This photo was taken from the International Space Station on May 9, 2013, looking across the southwestern tip of the country. The image focuses on the mountainous Western Cape, dominated by the Great Escarpment, a 5,000-kilometer long mountain chain that marks the edge of the African plateau. The Cape of Good Hope hooks out from the mainland, with the city of Cape Town coloring the top in cement gray. To the east is Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of the African continent where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean.

The view from above helps us see the geographic connections that bind humanity together on a single planet. Writing in Wired, Hadfield said: “While I was on the space station, I used Twitter to ask hundreds of thousands of people what they would like me to take a picture of. Resoundingly, the answer was ‘home.’ After millennia of wandering and settling, we are still most curious about how we fit in and how our community looks in the context of the rest of the world.”

Connection is something that Nelson Mandela understood on many levels. Speaking at Mandela’s memorial service on December 10, 2013, President Barack Obama stated: “Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa—Ubuntu—that describes his greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.”

As the world pauses to lay Nelson Mandela to rest on December 15, we salute the power of connections.

Recreating the Famous Earthrise

NASA has issued an interesting video that recreates the famous Apollo 8 “Earthrise” photography that occurred this Christmas week 45 years ago.  Updated images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were critical to providing a precise capture of the same angles and shots.  This, plus the old audio clips of the banter between the three astronauts, provides us with a blow-by-blow retelling of the background to this forever-famous Earth image. Think of it as a remake of a great old film that never ceases to amaze.

The Drama is Over, For Now

Luckily, NASA is going into the new year with a functional International Space Station (ISS).  The recent space walks were a success (see the final installation above) and a new ammonia pump is being integrated in the station to ensure proper cooling.  This is not the first nor the last maintenance emergency for the ISS.  Given its aging components, we should expect to see more space walks and part replacement. 

Dueling Versions of Space Safety

With all the drama related to repairs to the International Space Station (ISS), one can see NASA finally trumping Hollywood.  While we do not see space debris tearing the station apart as in Gravity, in this case real lives are a stake on a multi-billion dollar platform miles above our heads.  While both stories fascinate the public, I hope to use this blog (again, after a little time away) to bring together various images and ideas to build a better understanding of space science and our potential future as we use it, hopefully, to improve our future.

Great Image: The Pyramids from Space

The image to the right is from NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).  It shows the Great Pyramids at Giza on July 25, 2012, as viewed from the International Space Station.  Here is NASA's description of the shot taken by a hand-held Nikon digital camera:

The southeast-facing sides of the pyramids of the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure are all brightly illuminated by the Sun, while the northwest facing sides are in shadow. This shadowing also highlights smaller, unfinished pyramids to the south of Menkaure’s pyramid and fields of rectangular, flat-roofed mastabas (tombs) to the east and west of Khufu’s pyramid. While not as grand as the pyramids, mastabas were the burial places of prominent people during the time of the ancient pharaohs. To the southeast of Khufu’s pyramid, the head and rear haunches of the Sphinx are also visible (albeit not clearly).

Life on Mars?

While Curiosity has had a few recent problems, it has already had great success with its intended mission.  Last month's rock sample from the Gale Crater indicates Mars could have supported life as far back as 3 billion years ago.  The sample included ingredients to life, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon.  According to a NASA press release,

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes." 

It seems we have answered the $2.5 billion answer (the price tag of Curiosity).  So, what's next?  We know Mars had water and could have supported life.  Unfortunately, Curiosity is not equipped to actually detect life itself, so we may need to wait for another mission to do that.  It would be fascinating to learn that life existed on both Earth and Mars at the same time, or even that there is some relationship between life on each planet with one somehow seeding the other (or being jointly seeded in the same way, via a comet for example).  You can learn more about this mission via a NASA broadcast of a March 12th press conference on the rock analysis.

One of the next questions that needs to be "Can Mars support life in the future?"  We hear of government and private sector plans to visit the Red Planet, but nothing solid.  While the science continues on the surface of Mars, let's hope the planning for a future manned visit continues on the surface of Earth.  We have much to learn and much to do, but we need to keep that question in front of ourselves daily as we move forward with our exploration of space.

Curious Problems on Mars

SpaceX was not the only space mission dealing with problems last week.  The Mars rover Curiosity was also dealing with problems that delayed the mission for more than a week.  It appears a computer glitch in late February caused the rover to switch into safe mode.  Luckily, built-in redundancies were established for this type of scenario. Curiosity switched from Computer A to Computer B while repairs are underway.  Some memory loss was anticipated as a result of the computer problems.

And now a solar storm is approaching Mars, causing NASA to shut down the rover one more time.  Solar radiation may have also been the cause of the earlier computer glitch, so it makes sense to be safe.

Only last month had Curiosity started to collect its first Martian samples by drilling into the planet's surface (see image below), with NASA noting:

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America." 

Hopefully, the mission will get back on track after these bumps.  

Another Asteroid Heading Our Way

As if last month's asteroid near miss and Russian meteorite was not enough to get the world's attention, we have more asteroids heading our way.  Tomorrow a 330-foot-wide asteroid called 2013 ET will make a near approach to the Earth, missing us by about 600,000 miles (or about 2.5 times the distance from the Earth to the moon).  According to news reports, this large asteroid was first detected on March 3rd, not giving us much time to worry had its trajectory been somewhat different. 

Remember, 2013 ET is twice the size of last month's 2012 DA14, of which NASA stated:

...if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation. 

Are we facing more risks as time goes by, or are we simply more aware of a scary situation that has always been out there?  I would like to think it is the latter. 

SpaceX: A Scary Mission Ends Successfully

The good new is that on Sunday the SpaceX Dragon successfully attached to the International Space Station (ISS) to resupply the crew.  According to NASA:

Space station Expedition 34 crew members Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn of NASA used the station's robotic arm to successfully capture Dragon at 5:31 a.m. The capture came one day, 19 hours and 22 minutes after the mission's launch. The station was 253 miles above northern Ukraine.

The bad news is that the Dragon seemed to have problems along the way that SpaceX will need to resolve for future missions.  To recap, about 10 minutes after Friday launch of the Dragon capsule, three of the four sets of rocket thrusters failed to engage.   Here is now SpaceX explained it:

After Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage approximately nine minutes after launch, a minor issue with some of Dragon’s oxidizer tanks was detected. Within a few hours, SpaceX engineers had identified and corrected the issue, normalizing the oxidizer pressure and returning operations to normal. Dragon recomputed its ascent profile as it was designed to and is now on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) with possible arrival on Sunday, just one day past the original timeline.

I am not surprised SpaceX will spin it as a "minor issue," but was it?  Hopefully, NASA and SpaceX will thoroughly investigate the problem.  You may recall that the first resupply mission to the ISS also had an "anomaly" in a rocket engine.  Given the complex nature of such missions, problems such as these are not unheard of.  The key is learning from the problems. And SpaceX's Mr. Musk does not want to do anything to jeopardize future missions with NASA.

In 22 days, the Dragon will return to Earth, bringing back various science experiments being tested on the ISS. Let's hope things are smooth for the rest of the mission.

Elon Musk: Car Trouble

Elon Musk seems to be having much better luck in space than down here on Earth.  While SpaceX has been a great success proving his abilities to service the International Space Station (ISS) with a homemade rocket, his Telsa Motors car enterprise has gotten off to a rocky start. 

Telsa Motors is still recovering from a bad review of its Model S in The New York Times.  On February 8th, John M. Broder wrote an article titled "Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway" where he listed all of the problems he encountered with the car and charging stations during a drive from Newark, Delaware, to Milford, Connecticut.  Mr. Musk did not take the review very well, noting on his company blog that Telsa Motors was "played for a fool":

When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology. There was no need to write a story about existing Superchargers on the East Coast, as that had already been done by Consumer Reports with no problems! We assumed that the reporter would be fair and impartial, as has been our experience with The New York Times, an organization that prides itself on journalistic integrity. As a result, we did not think to read his past articles and were unaware of his outright disdain for electric cars. We were played for a fool and as a result, let down the cause of electric vehicles. For that, I am deeply sorry.

If Mr. Musk wanted attention for his new car he got it. 

This is just one of many battles being fought by Mr. Musk as he rolls out his cars nationwide.  Last October the Los Angeles Times discussed Telsa Motors struggle to bypass traditional franchise networks and sell directly to customers.  In the article titled "Shock to the System," the South African owner of Telsa Motors questioned the U.S. approach for selling cars:

"Existing franchise dealers have a fundamental conflict of interest between selling gasoline cars," Musk said. "It is impossible for them to explain the advantages of going electric without simultaneously undermining their traditional business."

State automobile dealer associations are now suing Telsa Motors to halt his direct sales.  Again, the feisty Mr. Musk is making a name for himself for himself and his cars. 

With all of this, SpaceX is still on schedule to send a Dragon capsule to the ISS on March 1 for its second resupply mission.  Let's hope no one from The New York Times is on capsule rating the ride. 

Meteorite Damage in Russia

While 2012 DA14 safely passed the earth on Friday, another unexpected rock plummeted to Earth and struck Russia (again) the very same day.  More than 100 years after the Tunguska, Siberia, meteor strike, a new meteor struck Russia in the Chelyabinsk region (see map below).  The two regions are about 3,000 miles apart.

The meteor was estimated to be about 55 feet and weighing approximately 10,000 tons. The incoming explosion released nearly 500 kilotons of energy and early estimates indicate 1,000 people where injured, primarily from broken glass as windows shattered.

According to the Associated Press, 

The explosions broke an estimated 100,000 square meters (more than 1 million square feet) of glass, city officials said.

Chelyabinsk health chief Marina Moskvicheva, said Friday that 985 people in her city had asked for medical assistance. The Interfax news agency quoted her as saying 43 were hospitalized. Athletes at a city sports arena were among those cut up by the flying glass.

NASA stated that such occurrences are to be expected every 30 years or so, and noted that this event and the 2012 DA14 asteroid were unrelated:

"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," said Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones."

The trajectory of the Russia meteor was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, which hours later made its flyby of Earth, making it a completely unrelated object. 
 
It is understandable that people will conflate the two events occurring on the same day.  I would like to know the odds of this event happening.  

In a February 14 editorial in The Wall Street Journal, the authors provided additional estimates on the likelihood of future meteor strikes,

The chance of another Tunguska-size impact somewhere on Earth this century is about 30%. That isn't the likelihood that you will be killed by an asteroid, but rather the odds that you will read a news headline about an asteroid impact of this size somewhere on Earth. Unfortunately, that headline could be about the destruction of a city, as opposed to an unpopulated region of Siberia.

The chance in your lifetime of an even bigger asteroid impact on Earth—with explosive energy of 100 megatons of TNT—is about 1%. Such an impact would deliver many times the explosive energy of all the munitions used in World War II, including the atomic bombs. This risk to humanity is similar to an individual's odds of dying in a car accident.

This was published one day before the meteor struck Russia.  I wonder if the authors would update their estimates today (or turn in their car keys).

How Do We Protect the Milky Way Galaxy from a Collision?

Just one idea from the comic site Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Asteroids: Post-Valentine's Day Massacre? Not Really

With the pending approach of a large asteroid the day after Valentine's Day, one which will come between us and the moon, it is reasonable to ask if we are prepared.  The asteroid in question is called 2012 DA14, and is about 150 feet across in size and traveling at a speed of 17,450 miles per hour.

NASA scientists have told us that there is nothing to be worried about (I remember a similar statement in the movie Melancholia, though that did not work out too well).  Even in the worst case scenario we are not looking at a 6-mile wide asteroid like the one that hit 66 million years ago (the effect of which is being questioned), but this is quite an event.  The closest the asteroid should get will be about 17,200 miles above the Earth's surface, or about one-tenth the distance between Earth and moon.  To date, the only Earth objects threatened by this large rock would be some of the weather and communications satellites circling the Earth.  The International Space Station orbits well below the expected path of 2012 DA14 at an altitude of 240 miles.  You can see some of the risk calculations in the box below from NASA (good luck). 

NASA noted that this asteroid was only discovered recently: 

2012 DA14 has not been in our catalogs for very long -- it was discovered in February 2012 by astronomers at the La Sagra Sky Survey program in southern Spain and reported to the Minor Planet Center. The asteroid had just made a fairly distant passage by the Earth, about 7 times farther than the distance to the Moon when it was first detected by the Spanish group. Since 2012 DA14's orbital period around the Sun has been about 368 days, which is very similar to the Earth's, the asteroid made a series of annual close approaches, this year's being the closest. But this encounter will shorten 2012 DA14's orbital period to about 317 days, changing its orbital class from Apollo to Aten, and its future close approaches will follow a different pattern. The close approach this year is the closest the asteroid will come for at least 3 decades. 

This passage of 2012 DA14 by the Earth is a record close approach for a known object of this size. A few other known asteroids have flown by the Earth even closer, but those asteroids were smaller. On average, we expect an object of this size to get this close to the Earth about once every 40 years. An actual Earth collision by an object of this size would be expected much less frequently, about once every 1200 years on average. 

This all sounds very reassuring, until you also read:
 
Scientists believe there are approximately 500,000 near-Earth asteroids the size of 2012 DA14. Of those, less than one percent have been discovered...

Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not impact Earth, but if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation.

A comparison to the impact potential of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 could be made to the impact of a near-Earth object that occurred in 1908 in Tuguska, Siberia. Known in the asteroid community as the "Tunguska Event," this impact of an asteroid just slightly smaller than 2012 DA14 (approximately 100 – 130 feet/30-40 meters across) is believed to have flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. 

Good grief! Do you feel better now?

Update:  All is well.  2012 DA14 safely passed by Earth with no damage to those below. NASA provided the image below from the telescope known as the iTelescope.net Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

Great Image: The Storm on Saturn That Ate Itself

This Cassini image captures a massive storm on the surface of Saturn that lasted about 267 days before petering out last summer.  Here is a little more on the storm from NASA:

In a new paper that provides the most detail yet about the life and death of a monstrous thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn, scientists from NASA's Cassini mission describe how the massive storm churned around the planet until it encountered its own tail and sputtered out. It is the first time scientists have observed a storm consume itself in this way anywhere in the solar system.

"This Saturn storm behaved like a terrestrial hurricane - but with a twist unique to Saturn," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who is a co-author on the new paper in the journal Icarus. "Even the giant storms at Jupiter don't consume themselves like this, which goes to show that nature can play many awe-inspiring variations on a theme and surprise us again and again." 

By Aug. 28, after 267 days, the Saturn storm stopped thundering for good. While Cassini's infrared detectors continue to track some lingering effects in higher layers of Saturn's atmosphere, the troposphere -- which is the weather-producing layer, lower in the atmosphere - has been quiet at that latitude. 

"This thunder-and-lightning storm on Saturn was a beast," said Kunio Sayanagi, the paper's lead author and a Cassini imaging team associate at Hampton University in Virginia. "The storm maintained its intensity for an unusually long time. The storm head itself thrashed for 201 days, and its updraft erupted with an intensity that would have sucked out the entire volume of Earth's atmosphere in 150 days. And it also created the largest vortex ever observed in the troposphere of Saturn, expanding up to 7,500 miles [12,000 kilometers] across."

Notes on Cassini:  The mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.  At the time of launch, Cassini-Huygens had two parts - the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. In 2004, Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn and its moons. At that point, the Cassini spacecraft began orbiting the system in July 2004, while Huygens entered the murky atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, and descended via parachute onto its surface.

Space Launches: Monkeys in Space

These past few weeks have seen a number of space launches, including:

--  Japan:  On January 27, Japan launched a two satellites into space, including one that will keep tabs on the North Koreans (who launched their own rocket back in December). 

-- South Korea:  On January 30, South Korea successfully launched a weather satellite.  The Nara rocket used in the launch was built with the assistance of the Russian space agency.  This was the country's first successful attempt to put a satellite into orbit with one of its own rockets. 

-- United States:  On January 30, NASA successfully launched the first of three Tracking and Data Relay Stations to improve communications with the International Space Stations, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other space missions.

-- Russia: On February 1, the Russian-owned, Pacific-based Sea Launch AG rocket (Ukrainian-built) failed to put an Intelsat 27 satellite into orbit.  In a press release, Sea Launch reported:

"We are very disappointed with the outcome of the launch and offer our sincere regrets to our customer, Intelsat, and their spacecraft provider, Boeing,” said Kjell Karlsen, president of Sea Launch AG. “The cause of the failure is unknown, but we are evaluating it and working closely with Intelsat, Boeing, Energia Logistics Ltd. and our Zenit-3SL suppliers. We will do everything reasonably possible to recover from this unexpected and unfortunate event.”

However, the real news story of the past week or so was Iran's launch of a monkey into space.  On January 28, Iran announced the successful rocket launch.  However, no one could independently confirm the launch, which is pretty strange given the number of nations currently monitoring (aka "spying on") the country.  And now there are more stories about two different pictures of the space monkey, something the Iranians attribute to confusion by the Iranian press.  Of course, the Iranians have lost credibility over the years with false statements, such as 2008 doctored images of a Revolutionary Guards missile launch. 

Iran is credited for earlier launches including a rat, two turtles and a worm (it also tried a monkey with no luck in 2011), as well as two Earth-observing satellites back in 2011 and 2012, so they are not new to this. Iranian space officials see the early tests as part of plans to send a human into space by 2020, and maybe even place an astronaut on the moon by 2025.  The moon may be very crowded in the 2020s if all of the countries aiming for it meet their goals. 

Launch Image Above:  March 19, 2008 Zenit-3SL rocket launch by the Sea Launch Co.

PBS: Columbia Shuttle 10th Anniversary

Tonight on PBS you can see Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope, marking the 10th anniversary of the shuttle disaster.  The PBS special will primarily highlight the life of  Colonel Ilan Ramon, a fighter pilot and son of Holocaust survivors who became the first astronaut from Israel.  Here is PBS's description of tonight's program: 

Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope goes behind the scenes to explore the “mission within the mission” for Ramon, who carried into space a miniature Torah scroll that had survived the horrors of the Holocaust, given to a boy in a secret bar mitzvah observed in the pre-dawn hours in the notorious Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. The bar mitzvah boy grew up to become Israel’s lead scientist for the mission, Joachim “Yoya” Joseph.

The film follows the scroll’s path into Ramon’s hands, and the dramatic moment when he tells its story live to the world from the flight deck of Columbia. From the depths of hell to the heights of space, his simple gesture would serve to honor the hope of a nation and to fulfill a promise made to generations past and future. 

Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope includes drawings from the concentration camp made in secret by a camp inmate, and archival NASA footage of the astronauts as they prepared for their mission. Interviewees include Ilan Ramon’s widow, Rona Ramon, and other Columbia crew family members; astronaut Garrett Reisman and other members of NASA’s space program; Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean; former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and many others. The film was shot on location throughout the world, from Jerusalem to the Kennedy Space Center to Washington, D.C. 

Space Art: The Visions of Children

If we want to have a future in space, we need to educate and motivate the children of today. One way to motivate children is to let them share their vision of the future.  The accompanying image was created by Zoya Baakza from The City School, P.A.F. Chapter, in Karachi, Pakistan.  He won third place among the 6th-8th grade entries in the 2012 Space Foundation Student Art Contest.  Go here for all of the 2012 winners. And go here for a video showing the winning entries narrated by astronauts.

The 2013 winners will be selected from the 4,735 entries as part of the International Student Art Contest at the April 8-11, 2013, Space Foundation's 29th National Space Symposium, to be held in Colorado Springs, CO, this year.

Below I provide more art, this time from the 2011 contest winners.

Emilee Ullom, Peyton Elementary, Peyton, Colo.: Second Place, Grades 6-8 Multimedia

 Joann Wong, Sand Creek High School, Colorado Springs, Colo: Second Place, Grades 9-12 Multimedia

Great Image: Spirit on Mars

With all of the attention on Curiosity, we sometimes forget about the earlier Mars rover Spirit that was rolling around on the Red Planet's surface from 2004 to 2010 (when we lost communication).  Above is an 360-degree panoramic image from Spirit while nestled in its "Winter Haven."  Below is the rest of the story from NASA:

This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit stayed on a small hill known as "Low Ridge." There, the rover's solar panels were tilted toward the sun to maintain enough solar power for Spirit to keep making scientific observations throughout the winter on southern Mars. This view of the surroundings from Spirit's "Winter Haven" is presented in approximately true color.

The Pancam began shooting component images of this panorama during the 814th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's work on Mars (April 18, 2006) and completed the part shown here on Sol 980 (Oct. 5, 2006).

This beautiful scene reveals a tremendous amount of detail in Spirit's surroundings. Many dark, porous-textured volcanic rocks can be seen around the rover, including many on Low Ridge. Two rocks to the right of center, brighter and smoother-looking in this image and more reflective in infrared observations by Spirit's miniature thermal emission spectrometer, are thought to be meteorites. On the right, "Husband Hill" on the horizon, the rippled "El Dorado" sand dune field near the base of that hill, and lighter-toned "Home Plate" below the dunes provide context for Spirit's travels from mid-2005 to early 2006.

Left of center, tracks and a trench dug by Spirit's right-front wheel, which could no longer rotate, exposed bright underlying material. This bright material is evidence of sulfur-rich salty minerals in the subsurface, providing clues about the watery past of this part of Gusev Crater.
A version of the McMurdo panorama without the rover deck, but including a supplemental figure with landscape features labeled, is at PIA01907.

Silly Questions Keep NASA Hopping

Do you remember the calls to NASA back in 2011 related to the non-existent Apollo 18 mission following the movie by the same name? NASA responded as follows:

There never was a DoD-dedicated Apollo mission and no astronauts named Anderson, Walker or Grey were ever selected for NASA's astronaut corps, as the movie depicts, or failed to return from the moon...And for the record, [the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter] LRO found no evidence of an Apollo 18 mission. 

Then last year NASA spent time explaining to the public that the world would not end on December 21, 2012, as part of a Mayan calendar prediction.   Luckily, we are still here to discuss the matter, which further supports NASA's comments that such predictions were silly. 

So now 2013 rolls around and new questions arise concerning the possible construction of a Death Star by the United States government.  Yes, some are petitioning for such a contraption.  Specifically, about 34,000 individuals signed a petition at the We the People site, which stated:

Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016.

By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

The White House, with NASA's assistance, responded in part by stating:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

Okay, I believe in this case at least that the authors of this position, and hopefully most of those signing it, were having a little bit of fun.  And the Administration was smart to use this opportunity to educate the public about the International Space Station, Mars rovers, Voyager spacecraft and more.  In noting the lack of a Death Star, the White House stated:

However, look carefully (here's how) and you'll notice something already floating in the sky -- that's no Moon, it's a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. 

So, should we expect more such questions?  Maybe, but getting them through the system may be more difficult now that the We the People website has upped the number of required signatures from 25,000 to 100,000.  Here is another petition idea that was still floating around as of today: Publicly admit and disclose all information about extra-terrestrial beings, our true history, and peaceful technologies.  This one may require a combined response from NASA and the Department of Defense, though the petition has only 1,833 signatures and a week to go under the 30-day deadline.  However, in response to a similar petition concerning the existence of extraterrestrial life, the White House responded:

The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.

By the way, our solar system already has a Death Star, according to NASA.  The image below of Saturn's moon Mimas seems to be a pretty close replica and therefore earned the nick name in the accompanying press release. 

NASA for Sale - Everything Must Go

The story in the Orlando Sentinel starts this way:
 

Does anyone need a 15,000-foot landing strip? How about a place to assemble rocket ships? Or a parachute-packing plant? An array of aerospace tracking antennas? A launchpad?

Make us an offer, says NASA, which is quietly holding a going-out-of-business sale for the facilities used by its space-shuttle program.

If you thought the budget cuts in Washington would be avoided, you have yet to speak with NASA. The space agency needs every penny it can find and it has no time (or money) for nostalgia, such as holding onto the roots of the U.S. space program at the Kennedy Space Center

According to Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida, the marketplace will determine the fate of the Space Center:

"The facilities are not the end game; the market is," DiBello said. "If the infrastructure helps you reach market, then it has value. If it doesn't, then it's just a building, it's just a launchpad, and nobody wants it."

Not the most inspiring thought as we plan for more missions to the moon and Mars.

Kepler: The Planet Finder

I really should have put the Kepler Space Telescope on my list of Great Accomplishments in 2012 since the little spacecraft was very busy in 2012 identifying more possible Earth-like planets in our galaxy. Launched in March 2009, Kepler has already investigated the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, identified more than 2,400 planet candidates, and confirmed more than 100 planets.  Many of these planets are Earth-sized and many are within the "habitable zone."  As part of its next mission, Kepler will begin to focus on Earth-like candidates in 1-year orbits around stars similar to our sun. 

At a January 7, 2013, press conference during the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Long Beach, CA, we learned that we are far from alone:

A new analysis of Kepler data shows that about 17 percent of stars have an Earth-sized planet in an orbit closer than Mercury. Since the Milky Way has about 100 billion stars, there are at least 17 billion Earth-sized worlds out there.

This is a pretty amazing discovery from this little spacecraft.  We went from guessing about our lonely status only a few years back to confirming that we are only one of billions of planets in a similar scenario - talk about a "Kepler moment."  Carl Sagan's book Cosmos provides this quote from the first Kepler that sums it up:

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

You can get more information on this latest announcement by viewing the accompanying paper on Kepler.

Scary Images: Mars Storm on Earth?

While I already mentioned some of the devastating dust storms of the past, I was surprised to see red dust storms happening here on Earth right now.  The recent fires in Australia have created some massive dust storms off the coast of Western Australia that have to be seen to be believed.  Below is an image of a "red wave" provided by The Newcastle Herald. The paper noted that "The Bureau of Meteorology said the incredible sight of a 'red wave' at sea was created  as wind and rain caused the storm to dump the sand and dust it had taken from the land." 

You can find more images here, such as the two below.

Special Delivery: Martian Meteorite

While we are spending significant resources putting rovers on the surface of Mars, we are finding that the very treasure we are seeking is literally in our own back yard.  A Martian meteorite that found in the Sahara desert back in 2011, called "black beauty" due to its coal-like coloring, is estimated to be about 2 billion years old and provides evidence of a wetter Mars.  The News International noted:

The abundance of water molecules in the meteorite -- about 6,000 parts per million, 10 times more than other known rocks -- suggests water activity persisted on the Martian surface when it was formed.

The baseball size meteorite is officially known as NWA 7034 because of where it was found - Northwest Africa.  The basalt rock is from a volcanic past, the same period being studied by the Opportunity and Spirit rovers. 

In terms of such space rocks, The Guardian story on the meteorite stated:

About 65 Martian rocks have been recovered on Earth, mostly in Antarctica or the Sahara. The oldest dates back 4.5bn years to a time when Mars was warmer and wetter. About half a dozen Martian meteorites are 1.3bn years old and the rest are 600m years or younger.

Here is the more scientific statement on the meteorite from the authors of a paper titled Unique Meteorite from Early Amazonian Mars: Water-Rich Basaltic Breccia Northwest Africa 7034:

We report data on the martian meteorite, Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, which shares some petrologic and geochemical characteristics with known martian (SNC, i.e., Shergottite, Nakhlite, and Chassignite) meteorites, but also possesses some unique characteristics that would exclude it from the current SNC grouping. NWA 7034 is a geochemically enriched crustal rock compositionally similar to basalts and average martian crust measured by recent rover and orbiter missions. It formed 2.089 ± 0.081 Ga, during the early Amazonian epoch in Mars' geologic history. NWA 7034 has an order of magnitude more indigenous water than most SNC meteorites, with up to 6000 ppm extraterrestrial H₂O released during stepped heating. It also has bulk oxygen isotope values of Δ¹⁷O = 0.58 ± 0.05‰ and a heat-released water oxygen isotope average value of Δ¹⁷O = 0.330 ± 0.011‰, suggesting the existence of multiple oxygen reservoirs on Mars. 

I think my summary was easier to digest.

Great Accomplishments in 2012

Before we get too far into 2012, I wanted to highlight some of the great space-related achievements from last year.  While there were many noteworthy events, a few come to mind as setting the stage for years to come.  Here are four that I have selected.

-- SpaceX:  The company's successful resupply mission to the International Space Station has created a new relationship between the U.S. space program and the private sector.  Today private companies are in a position to replace NASA for routine missions.  The question now is whether they someday supplant NASA.

-- Higgs Bosom:  The discovery of this mysterious particle explaining most of the universe will keep scientists busy for years.  Brian Cox, the English professor and particle physicist, stated in The Guardian:

The hubristic nature of daring to imagine it, of daring to say: "This is how I think the universe works", is truly brilliant. It's difficult for anyone to get their head around – it's only a century ago that Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus. We didn't even know that atoms existed 150 years ago. This will speed up our understanding of the universe rapidly.

-- Voyager Exiting the Solar System:  The two Voyager spacecraft are crossing the border between home and the unknown as they exited our solar system and began a new journey.  They are still part of the protecting heliosphere of our system, but not for much longer. What is amazing beyond this feat is that we can still communicate with both spacecraft 35 years after their launch. According to NASA, the signal from Voyager 1 takes approximately 17 hours to travel to Earth. The durability of these craft and ingenuity of our space program is pretty amazing. 

-- Curiosity on Mars:  The successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars was a solid accomplishment for NASA and mankind.  With its cluster of sophisticated instruments, we have a chance to learn much more about the Red Planet and its origins.  With the success of Curiosity, NASA is planning a second rover.  Nothing breeds optimism (and duplication) like success. 

Update:  Scientific American released its own list of Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.  We certainly agree on many topics.