Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
A $300 laser so powerful that astronauts could see it. Safety glasses included!
Archeologists have located the last “Great Escape” tunnel dug by Allied prisoners during World War II.
A baby star has been found only 27 light years away.
AP Columbae lies in the constellation Columba the Dove, south of the brilliant constellation Orion. “AP Columbae is still contracting under gravity towards the main sequence,” says astronomer Adric Riedel of Georgia State University in Atlanta, whose team measured the star’s parallax—an indication of its distance—and discovered that the star is abnormally luminous. Although the star is dim and red, it’s four times as bright as it should be, because it’s twice the diameter of a main-sequence star of the same color.
Oh my: A new poll shows the Republican is in the lead in the special election in New York to replace disgraced Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner.
If the Republican wins this election, in what has always been a Democratically-entrenched district in Brooklyn-Queens, it will send a clear signal to all that the 2012 election is going to be a very very very unusual election.
Repeal it! Despite many promises to the contrary, the uninsured have increased since Obamacare was passed.
The Kepler team pushes for a mission extension in order to find Earth-sized planets.
The Kepler spacecraft has hit an unexpected obstacle as it patiently watches the heavens for exoplanets: too many rowdy young stars. The orbiting probe detects small dips in the brightness of a star that occur when a planet crosses its face. But an analysis of some 2,500 of the tens of thousands of Sun-like stars detected in Kepler’s field of view has found that the stars themselves flicker more than predicted, with the largest number varying twice as much as the Sun. That makes it harder to detect Earth-sized bodies. As a result, the analysis suggests that Kepler will need more than double its planned mission life of three-and-a-half years to achieve its main goal of determining how common Earth-like planets are in the Milky Way.
While it is important to find those Earth-sized planets, to me the important discovery here is that Kepler is confirming what previous research has suggested: Stars like our Sun are generally far more active and variable than the Sun itself. Which means that either the Sun is unusual, or has been unusually inactive during recorded human history.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team have released new images of the Apollo 12, 14, and 17 landing sites on the Moon. Below is a cropped image of the Apollo 12 site, showing the trails left by astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean when they walked from their lunar module to Surveyor 3, an unmanned lunar lander that had soft landed there two years earlier. The full image shows some incredible detail.
Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied.
I especially like Harman’s suggestion that the Russians consider landing in the U.S. during the winter, thereby allowing them to extend one crew’s occupancy of ISS into December, January, or even February. Also, he proposes the Russians send an unmanned Soyuz to ISS during testing of the rocket, thereby providing the crews onboard a fresh lifeboat. This is something they have done in the past on their previous space station Mir.
Awakening the only British launched science satellite, dead for decades.
The launch of China’s first space station module has now been scheduled to late September.
Japan plans to test fire the engine of its failed Venus probe Akatsuki twice this month, in anticipation of another try at Venus orbit in 2015.
The riddle of ancient Roman concrete.
Bad news for commercial space: A test of Amazon chief’s Blue Origin spaceship ended in failure on Friday.
After The Wall Street Journal reported on the failure, Blue Origin Friday posted a brief note on its website stating the spacecraft, while going faster than the speed of sound, suffered a “flight instability” at an altitude of 45,000 feet and the company’s automated “range safety system” shut off all thrust and led to its destruction. The problem appeared to stem from thrusters that didn’t respond properly to the initial commands, according to one industry official.
And they think this is going to work? NASA to ask future lunar explorers to avoid Apollo landing sites in order to protect them from damage or looting.
China’s lunar probe, Chang’e 2, has reached the L2 point in space, almost a million miles from Earth.
China has delayed the launch of its first space station due to the failure of an earlier rocket launch.
British company tests engine of for commercial space plane.
Why no one should want to live in California: A new proposed law there would require workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for babysitters.
Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.
So it was for the children, eh? Wisconsin teachers retire in droves after new law is passed.
Following a tax hike in January 2011, Illinois has lost more jobs than any other state.
This isn’t rocket science, nor is the data hard to find. Whenever government spending and taxes grow, private business inevitably shrinks.
This is a victory for freedom: A new Florida state law will fine local governments and their officials should they try to enforce any local gun restrictions.
All those ordinances have been illegal for years because state law prevents cities and counties from regulating guns. But a new law, set to take effect Oct. 1, takes it a step further. It allows judgments of up to $100,000 against local governments that enforce such laws. And, in an unusual move, the law also says local officials could be fired and fined $5,000, with no representation from the city or county attorney.
Want a piece of space history? Over 800 space artifacts go up for auction beginning September 15. In addition to letters from Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard, there’s this:
The First Lunar Bible: A flight-flown intact microfilm King James Bible containing all 1,245 pages. The bible was produced by the Apollo Prayer League, a group of NASA engineers, scientists, administrators and astronauts, and headed by NASA chaplain Rev. John Stout, who worked closely with the astronauts and NASA personnel. This lunar bible was originally slated to fly to the moon on Apollo 12, but a mistake on the lunar landing checklist resulted in the bible orbiting the moon in the Command Module. It was, then, placed on board Apollo 13, but due to a near-catastrophic explosion, the crew did not reach the moon, and instead returned along with the bible to Earth. Bibles were then given to Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell who stowed them in his PPK bag and landed them safely on the moon February 5, 1971, on board lunar module Antares.
Pete Harding at NasaSpaceflight.com has written a very thorough review of the changes to the flight manifest to ISS expected due to the August 24 failure of the Soyuz-U rocket.
The space shuttle program officially ended on Wednesday. Note however:
Closeout of the shuttle program is an enormous effort expected to take two years. The program occupied 640 facilities and used more than 900,000 pieces of equipment with a value exceeding $12 billion, according to NASA. Much of the work will take place at Kennedy Space Center, where orbiters have been maintained and prepared for launch. NASA requested $89 million for shuttle transition and retirement work in the 2012 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, but Congress has not yet approved a budget.
Orbital Sciences has gotten its launch license from the FAA for the first test launch of the Taurus 2 rocket, scheduled for later this year.
This rocket is Orbital’s version of the Falcon 9. It is a new rocket, never before flown, yet after this test it is scheduled to fly the Cygnus capsule on its first flight only two months later. Talk about cutting things close!
Uh-oh! The Russians are considering reducing their participation in ISS. Their government might also take over entirely the private portion of their space industry.
We’re here to help you! The federal government, under the Endangered Species Act, is prosecuting a man for shooting a bear to protect his family.
The day of reckoning looms: Twenty-five signs that the financial world is about to hit the big red panic button.
Juno, on its way to Jupiter, took a look back and snapped this picture of the Earth/Moon double planet.
The image was taken by the spacecraft’s camera, JunoCam, on Aug. 26 when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away.
Gives us a glimpse at what our home planet will really look like to future spacefarers, either on they way out or on their way home.
