A research plane has crashed in a remote area of Antarctica, stranding three.
Once the beacon had sounded, a U.S. LC-130 aircraft was sent to the crash site, but it was unable to establish radio contact with the Twin Otter, while a thick layer of low-lying clouds prevented those onboard from seeing the plane. Later, a DC-3 aircraft spent hours circling above the crash site, but it also came away empty-handed.
Happy 9th anniversary to the Opportunity rover on Mars!
Talk about getting your money’s worth: The rover was planned as a 90 day mission.
The check is in the mail: NASA has now agreed to contribute equipment and researchers to a European dark energy mission.
And why should Europe have any expectation that NASA will follow through? Europe’s ExoMars project was screwed badly when NASA pulled out last year. Nor was that the first time the U.S. government reneged on a deal with Europe.
Considering the fragile nature of the U.S. federal budget, I wouldn’t depend on anything from NASA or any U.S. government agency for the foreseeable future. And this includes the various private space companies such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences that are using NASA subsidies to build their spaceships. Get those things built, and quickly! The government money could disappear very soon.
A balloon sent above Antarctica to study cosmic rays has set a new record for the longest flight.
Archeologists have now found the earliest evidence of chocolate in Utah, suggesting that trade with the tropics was going on as early as 800 AD.
Since there still are some uncertainties about the evidence, there are still doubts about the trade.
Crash! Boom! A new infrared image of Betelgeuse suggests the star and its winds will smash into the interstellar medium in only a few thousand years.
If the bar [of gas] is a completely separate object, then taking into account the motion of Betelgeuse and its arcs and the separation between them and the bar, the [star’s] outermost arc will collide with the bar in just 5000 years, with the red supergiant star itself hitting the bar roughly 12 500 years later.
Even as the Kepler mission struggles to survive, the science team has released its entire database of exoplanet candidates to the public.
The judge who sentenced seven earthquake scientists/officials in Italy to prison has released a detailed explanation for his verdict.
The judge’s perspective is worth reading. It is not as foolish as some wish to make it appear. For one thing, he makes it very clear that
the trial was not against science but against seven individuals who failed to carry out their duty as laid down by the law. The scientists were not convicted for failing to predict an earthquake, something [Judge Marco] Billi says was impossible to do, but for their complete failure to properly analyse, and to explain, the threat posed by the swarm.
At the same time, I still think it very bad for the law and government to interfere in this kind of situation. For example, I think the actions of the climategate scientists were as improper (though they did not lead to anyone’s direct death). Yet, the last thing I want is for the government to prosecute them. Rather, I want the scientific community to condemn them instead, so that their careers as scientists suffer. Imprisonment is an over-reaction, and instead serves merely squelch open debate and honest scientific work, something I expect to happen now in Italy.
Data from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter now suggests that a lake in a Martian crater had filled from groundwater coming up from below.
This is an important discovery, as it demonstrates that an underground water table had existed on Mars, at least at this location. With such a water table, it is possible for all kinds of interesting biological things to have taken place, underground.
Uh-oh: Kepler has been shut down for ten days to save the mission.
The spacecraft was launched with four so-called reaction wheels that spin to help keep the telescope pointing at its target fields of stars. One of these, reaction wheel No 2, failed in July 2012, leaving three to do the maneuvers, including a quarterly roll to a new orientation. Now reaction wheel No 4 has shown early indications that it might fail, prompting its NASA controllers to attempt some long-distance maintenance. They hope that by resting the wheels, their lubricant will spread to ease increased friction.
If this wheel fails permanently, the Kepler mission would be over, as it would be impossible to orient the spacecraft with enough precision with only two wheels.
I reported on the discovery of Comet ISON back in September, noting then the possibilities that this could become one of the brightest comets in years, while giving its show in primetime for the northern hemisphere. As this article also notes, this show could also be a dud, as has happened before. Stay tuned.
New images of a dry river bed on Mars.
Reull Vallis, the river-like structure in these images, is believed to have formed when running water flowed in the distant martian past, cutting a steep-sided channel through the Promethei Terra Highlands before running on towards the floor of the vast Hellas basin. This sinuous structure, which stretches for almost [1000 miles] across the Martian landscape, is flanked by numerous tributaries, one of which can be clearly seen cutting in to the main valley towards the upper (north) side.
