Frozentophat
TNPer
Published Weekly by FrozenTopHat
In a new video, NASA employees and affiliates virtually toss a football from space to various centers across the United States to celebrate the Super Bowl, as well as NASA's journey to Mars. The Super Bowl will play Sunday (Feb. 5) at NRG Stadium in Houston, also home to NASA's Johnson Space Center, where astronauts train for space.
The video begins with Shane Kimbrough, Expedition 50 commander, holding a football. "To all of you back on Earth in the Super Bowl city of Houston, welcome," he says. "We hope you enjoy our great city and have a fabulous Super Bowl week." Kimbrough then tosses the football off camera, and the next scene shows a football landing in the hands of NASA astronaut Victor Glover, on a treadmill in NASA's countermeasure training laboratory in Houston. From there, the football passes to people all over the United States. Brilliant Fireball Streaks Over Milwaukee, Wows Skywatchers --> Read the full article here
A brilliant, bright-green meteor blazed through the sky just north of Milwaukee early this morning (Feb. 6), and likely sprinkled space rocks into Lake Michigan.
The falling space rock likely burned up in the sky about 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, or about 100 miles (160 km) north of Chicago, according to the American Meteorological Society (AMS). More than 220 people have filed reports with the AMS claiming to have seen the fireball at about 1:25 a.m. CST (2:25 a.m. EST/0725 GMT), according to the NASA Meteor Watch Facebook page. Mars Mystery: How Was Ancient Red Planet Warm Enough for Liquid Water? --> Read the full article here
The mystery of how Mars could have once had water flowing on its surface is now deepening, as a new study reveals that the Red Planet's early atmosphere likely possessed up to hundreds of times less carbon dioxide than needed to keep it warm enough for liquid water to last.
Although Mars is now cold and dry, there are decades of evidence suggesting that the Red Planet's surface was once covered with rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and perhaps seas and oceans. Dark, narrow lines seen on Mars even hint that water could run down some of its slopes every spring. There is life virtually wherever there is water on Earth, so these findings raise the possibility that Mars was once a home to life, and might host it still. Alpha Centauri: Why Our Neighboring Star System Holds So Much Potential --> Read the full article here
Alpha Centauri is having a moment: Our mysterious neighboring star system has been seeing a surge of scientific interest lately, and for good reason. Although space researchers have often focused on our own star system, Alpha Centauri has become a more viable option to closely study, and even potentially travel to one day. Our nearest stellar neighbor has received a lot of buzz recently due to the announcement of Breakthrough Starshot, a mission backed by famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Russian investor Yuri Milner and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with the goal of sending probes to Alpha Centauri someday.
Although it's the closest star system to our sun, Alpha Centauri is still 4.37 light-years (25 trillion miles, or 40 trillion kilometers) away from Earth. Because it's so far away, reaching and studying Alpha Centauri poses significant challenges. But the three-star system - comprising Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B and a faint red dwarf star Proxima Centauri - also presents enormous opportunities for furthering space research, which is why it is the focus of our mission at Project Blue. Tornado Destroys First NASA Space Shuttle External Tank to Stand on Launch Pad --> Read the full article here
NASA's first space shuttle external tank to stand on a launch pad was destroyed on Tuesday (Feb. 7) when a tornado impacted the New Orleans facility where it was built 40 years ago. The external tank-ground vibration test article (ET-GVTA) was in outdoor storage at the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana when the storm hit the site at Tuesday morning. Reports of the tank being "sent flying and destroyed" were shared by people at the facility.
Five people, out of the facility's 3,500 employees, suffered minor injuries as a result of the tornado, which left several structures and about 200 cars with damage. The facility's main manufacturing building sustained damage to its roof, but the hardware for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket and Orion spacecraft were unaffected, per an early assessment by the space agency. Weird Chemistry: Helium May Form Stable Compounds Inside Giant Planets --> Read the full article here
Deep within giant planets, helium may form stable compounds with other elements, a new study finds - something that was long thought never to happen in nature. Helium is second only to hydrogen as the most common element in the universe; it exists in abundance in stars and gas giants. However, whereas hydrogen easily reacts with other elements to form compounds such as water, helium is a member of a group of elements - known as the noble gases - that do not bond readily with other elements.
Although helium is the most chemically inert element known, scientists have found a few instances in which it can form compounds with other elements. Still, until now, all known helium compounds either were highly unstable or were ones where the helium and the other elements barely interacted with one another. Tweet me, I'm about to die in space --> Read the full article here
Note: This article was a lot harder to quote. If you're interested, it'd be better to just read it yourself ^^
Here is a tweet from Fengyun, a piece of space junk currently orbiting Earth at around 28,000 kilometres per hour: @JustinJMcaulay Your people predict I will burn up in Earths atmosphere early 2017. You'll get messages until then. i don't want to die.
Fengyun has been up there since 2007, but now it and two other pieces of debris have a new purpose in life. They are part of Project Adrift, Cath Le Couteur and Nick Ryan's artistic exploration of the secret world of space junk ' and what a serious problem it is.
Fengyun used to be part of Chinese weather satellite FY-1C, until it was blown to smithereens by an experimental anti-satellite missile. It might burn up soon, but millions of other pieces, including Fengyun's estimated 2840 high-velocity siblings, will continue to circulate. Any one of them could hit a working satellite any second now, and blow that to smithereens too. Through three Twitter streams, a short film and a soundscape called Machine 9, Project Adrift captures the weirdness of this enormous junkyard floating 1000 or so kilometres above the planet. Trump advisers' space plan: To moon, Mars and beyond --> Read the full article here
The Trump administration is considering a bold and controversial vision for the U.S. space program that calls for a "rapid and affordable" return to the moon by 2020, the construction of privately operated space stations and the redirection of NASA's mission to "the large-scale economic development of space," according to internal documents obtained by POLITICO.
The proposed strategy, whose potential for igniting a new industry appeals to Trump's business background and job-creation pledges, is influencing the White House's search for leaders to run the space agency. And it is setting off a struggle for supremacy between traditional aerospace contractors and the tech billionaires who have put big money into private space ventures. SpaceX Targets Feb. 18 for 1st Launch from Historic NASA Pad --> Read the full article here
SpaceX is preparing to launch its 10th cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA, which is now set for Feb. 18. The mission will bring crucial supplies for the space station crew and materials to support more than a dozen experiments on the orbiting lab, including a new muscle cell experiment designed by high school students. It will also be the first to launch from the newly renovated, historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch pad was built in the 1960s, and hosted a number of famous mission launches, including Apollo 11, which put the first humans on the moon, and the first and last space shuttle flights. SpaceX leased the pad from NASA starting in 2014. SpaceX has modified the pad to suit its Falcon 9 and future Falcon Heavy rockets. For the Feb. 18 launch, a Falcon 9 will loft into orbit a robotic Dragon spacecraft filled with more than 5,500 lbs. (2,500 kg) of cargo, NASA officials said during a news briefing today. After its stay on the space station, the Dragon will return nearly 5,000 lbs. (2,300 kg) of cargo to Earth.
[c]
Jim Dexter of the Lisle Police Department in Lisle, Illinois saw a meteor moving through the sky, and quickly turned on the dashboard camera in his car to capture the event.
A simulated image of a lake filling Mars' Gale Crater in the ancient past.
An artist's rendition of an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A and B.
Seen behind a damaged car are the tornado-destroyed remains of a 40-year-old space shuttle external tank test article at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Inert helium may form stable compounds inside giant planets such as Jupiter, seen here by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Aug. 27, 2016.
SpaceX will launch a mission from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for the first time in mid-Februrary.
Afterword
I was quite a bit busier this week and certainly missed some of the articles over this week. Regardless, here is your ANU - and as usual, be sure to post any questions, comments, or critique below. FTH out. Edit: So close, had one extra /center on the bottom. I'll figure it out someday
