NASA – praag.org

NASA says Mars has liquid water

For the first time, NASA has confirmed the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, according to new research announced Monday. The finding stems from data and analysis by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has verified that the dark, seasonal streaks that have appeared on Mars’ surface come from briny water flows.

MRO found evidence of narrow channels containing water cut into cliff walls through Mars’ equatorial band, though the source and chemistry of the water is yet unknown. The streaks, or recurring slope lineae, appear during the warmer summer months on the Red Planet. They disappear when the temperature drops.

The findings advance the potentiality for life on Mars, researchers said. While it is likely that life exists in the crust of Mars, the new findings further the possibility of life closer to the surface of the planet, Alfred McEwen, a planetary scientist with Arizona State University, said during a NASA press conference.

Scientists had previously run into difficulties analyzing the streaks, which measure less than 16 feet, or 5 meters, wide. The MRO’s instruments were able to process trace measurements, and scientists successfully observed the findings thanks to a computer program that can focus in on individual pixels. MRO’s data was then compared with high-resolution images of the slopes. Scientists found a match between their locations and the presence of hydrated salts.

“We’re not claiming that we found … evidence of liquid water. We found hydrated salts,” said Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the report, published in the journal Nature Geosciences.

While NASA has rushed to announce the findings, Ojha expressed reserve.

“It’s a little bit over-the-top announcement by NASA,” Ojha said. “There’s so many mysteries to be solved about RSL (recurring slope line).”

The presence of water on Mars in the form of ice caps has been known for years. However, proof of liquid water on the Red Planet will have major ramifications for the study of Mars. It may mean that microbial life may still survive under the Martian surface, if there ever was any in the first place.

NASA’s announcement confirming that it found evidence of water flowing on the surface Mars was welcomed mostly by publicists at 20th Century Fox looking to promote “The Martian,” the upcoming Ridley Scott film starring Matt Damon.

Source: RT

Russia plans own space station

Russia announced plans Tuesday evening to continue operating the International Space Station until 2024 — but afterwards, it will take its modules away to form its own space station.

The ISS, which was assembled in orbit between 1998 and 2011, is made up mainly of modules owned by NASA and Roscosmos (the Russian space agency), along with some owned by Japan and Europe. Original plans called for it to be retired by 2020, but in January 2014, President Obama announced plans to extend its mission to 2024, and possibly to 2028.

That, however, depended on Russia’s cooperation, because under the station’s current configuration, modules from both countries are needed to operate it. Last May, due to tensions from economic sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine, Russia threatened to pull out of the project in 2020.

The new announcement ensures that ISS will live on until 2024 — but puts the future of US-Russia cooperation in space in doubt.

Since 1975, when the US Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecrafts linked up in orbit, the US and Russia have worked together in space. And recently, as political tensions between the two countries have grown, space has remained one of few areas of cooperation.

If Russia goes through with this plan, though, the era of space cooperation might be over. NASA currently relies on Russia to ferry its astronauts to the ISS, but by 2017, it’s hoping that private American companies (SpaceX and Boeing) will be able to carry out these missions instead. Russia, meanwhile, says it plans to use several of its ISS modules to assemble its own, new space station, possibly as a precursor for human missions to the moon. NASA’s longer-term plans for crewed exploration are uncertain, but no proposals involve collaboration with Russia.

The good news is that in the short term, the complex, expensive ISS will continue to be used for research (helping scientists figure out, for instance, how to keep humans healthy in space) instead of being thrown away prematurely for political reasons. But the bad news for space exploration as a whole is that the world’s two most capable space programs might soon be competing with each other, instead of working together.

Source: Vox

Even a small asteroid could destroy human race in near future – scientists

An international group of astronauts, scientists and others have called for a rapid expansion of efforts to detect asteroids capable of causing widespread destruction on earth, warning that this is one of the biggest threats to humanity in the coming centuries.

Led by Lord Rees, Britain’s royal astronomer, and Brian May, a PhD in astrophysics as well as guitarist with the rock band Queen, the group said a hundredfold increase in the number of objects detected each year was necessary over the next decade.

Academic projects to detect and track asteroids that might one day collide with earth have been under way for more than 50 years. The work was boosted in 1998 when Nasa was given a decade to identify near-earth objects with a diameter of more than 1km — a size that would turn a collision into a potentially extinction-level event.

However, astrophysicists warn that asteroids and meteors as small as 50m across could still cause devastation on earth, with a direct hit capable of wiping out a city and killing millions. An undetected meteor estimated to be 20m in diameter entered the atmosphere over Russia last year and exploded at a height of several miles, causing a shockwave that injured 1,500 people (pictured). Even the devastating 1908 impact at Tunguska in Siberia, the largest in human recorded history, was caused by an object of only around 50m, said Lord Rees.

Only around 1 per cent of the 1m asteroids, meteors and comets that could cause massive damage on earth have been detected so far, according to a declaration by the group issued on Wednesday.

“Nasa has done a very good job of finding the very largest objects, the ones that would destroy the human race,” said Ed Lu, an astronaut who flew three trips to the International Space Station. “It’s the ones that would destroy a city or hit the economy for a couple of hundred years that are the problem.”

“The more we learn about asteroid impacts, the clearer it becomes that the human race has been living on borrowed time” – Brian May, astrophysicist and Queen guitarist

“The more we learn about asteroid impacts, the clearer it becomes that the human race has been living on borrowed time,” said Mr May, who broke off his academic studies to become a musician but returned to complete his PhD at the University of London’s Imperial College in 2007. The campaign launched this week is intended to raise awareness and put pressure on governments to act, he added.

The group called for work in the near term to focus on detection rather than rushing to find ways to destroy or deflect dangerous objects. Dealing with an asteroid that is on a collision course with earth “is the easy part”, said Mr Lu. Since there would probably be decades to prepare for a future asteroid strike once it has been identified, “all you need to do when you have that much notice is run a spacecraft into them,” he said.

To complement Nasa’s ground-based telescopes, detecting the mass of small objects that could cause destruction on earth would require an infrared telescope mounted on a spacecraft orbiting between Earth and Venus, Lord Rees said.

The more than 100 signatories have joined the call for governments and private bodies to accelerate asteroid tracking greatly, including 34 US and Russian astronauts, and scientists such as the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. The call also has the support of technologists such as Google’s Alan Eustace, who in October made a record parachute jump from the edge of space, and Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technologist at Microsoft. – FT.COM

Mars expedition: Astronauts simulate life on planet for 8 months

For eight months, six astronauts will be essentially locked into a small dome in Hawaii as NASA attempts to study the consequences of living the quiet, lonely lifestyle that humans would experience on Mars.

Titled the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS), the experiment will be NASA’s longest Mars-related simulation ever. It also happens to be the first time that a woman, 34-year-old Martha Lenio, is leading a Mars simulation project.

The project is intended to explore various elements that astronauts would have to cope with on a future mission to the Red Planet – including isolation, delayed communication times, lack of sunlight, teamwork, efficiency, and more.

In fact, NASA’s priority is to conduct a “psychology study on team cohesiveness, our attitudes, and how we stick together,” Lenio told National Geographic.

Lenio added that the living space for the six astronauts is about 1,000 square feet. Inside are two washrooms, a dining area, a work area, a kitchen, and a bedroom for each individual that is essentially a “glorified closet.” There is one window in the entire dome, but looking outside won’t offer much comfort for astronauts: the dome is situated near the Mauna Loa volcano, and the barren landscape looks much like Mars’ own surface.

“The HI-SEAS site presents a remarkably high-fidelity environment for this type of long-duration space study,” University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Kim Binsted, who is also working on the study, said to local KHON2 News. “Looking out the single porthole window, all you can see are lava fields and Mauna Kea in the distance. Once the door is closed, and the faux airlock sealed, the silence and physical separation contribute to the ‘long way from home’ experience of our crew members.”

Astronauts will also be observed by researchers via body movement trackers, cameras, and electronic surveys, KHON2 reported.

Maintaining their health (and sanity) will be a top priority for the astronauts, who will have to make do with food that can stay for two or three years. In terms of water, the astronauts will receive rations of eight liters per day, which they will use for everything from cooking and drinking to showering and cleaning their clothes. An exercise bike and a treadmill are also available in the tiny living quarters.

Although there are clearly limitations that astronauts will have to cope with, Lenio is confident they will be successful. When asked if humans were able travel to Mars right now, she answered simply that they could.

A recent MIT study found the ambitious, privately-funded Mars One mission would encounter serious problems were it to try and establish a permanent human presence on the Red Planet by 2025. Researchers said that humans would begin dying in just a couple of months, since current technology is not where it needs to be for a sustainable presence.

However, Lenio noted that NASA is not looking to establish a permanent base on Mars, at least not with its first mission.

“NASA and other space agencies around the world are looking at a three-year trip to Mars. So the trip does not have to be completely sustainable yet,” she told National Geographic. “Also, resupplies, or sending supplies ahead separately, are both possible.”

“The study’s findings don’t faze me. One of my interests is sustainability, and the more sustainable we can make these missions, the better they will be. The better we get at recycling, or turning our waste into soil to grow more food, those are all lessons we can bring back to Earth.”

HI-SEAS is one of several experiments conducted to test humanity’s ability to travel to Mars. Last year, a Russian team of astronauts ventured into the US to simulate life on the Red Planet via the international Mars Desert Research Station. Before that, the Mars-500 experiment packed astronauts away for 17 months to simulate a manned flight to the planet.

Elsewhere in the present day, NASA is also moving forward with experiments on deep sleep technology. If successful, the agency could potentially induce hibernation in astronauts for large portions of a six-month trip to Mars. As a result, less food, water, and other supplies would be needed, potentially reducing the mass of a flight by up to 400 tons.

Still, aerospace engineer Mark Schaffer at Spaceworks, which is working with NASA, cautioned that the technology is far from developed.

“We haven’t had the need to keep someone in [hibernation] for longer than seven days,” he said earlier this month. “For human Mars missions, we need to push that to 90 days, 180 days. Those are the types of mission flight times we’re talking about.” – RT.COM

A storm is brewing: Sun’s magnetic field about to flip

The sun’s magnetic field is expected to flip in the next three to four months and it could lead to changes in our climate, storms and disruption to satellites.

This solar event only happens once every 11 years and signals what physicists call the Solar Maximum – a time when the Sun’s solar activity is at its highest.

During this peak in activity the outbursts of solar energy can increase the amount of cosmic and UV rays coming towards Earth and this can interfere with radio communications, cause solar bursts of light – known as flares – and can affect the planet’s temperature.

The sun’s magnetic field reverses around every 11 years at the peak of each solar cycle.

The last peak, or Solar Maximum, was in 2000 and Nasa initially predicted the next flip would take place between 2011 and 2012.

Physicists also warned at the time that the next Solar Maximum could be the strongest yet.

Scientists at Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory have been studying the sun’s magnetic field since 1976, during which time they have witnessed three reversals.

In 1859 a solar storm known as the 1859 Solar Superstorm, or Carrington Event after Richard C Carrington who recorded the event, saw numerous solar flares appear all over Earth.

It was so strong that the Northern Lights – a natural light display that appears predominantly in that Arctic and Antarctic regions and is caused by the collision of energetic charged particles in the magnetosphere and solar wind – were said to be have been visible as far south as Rome.

Climate war reaches boiling point

The war between former Vice President Al Gore and his critics over global warming is about to hit the boiling point with a new claim that Sun-influenced climate change is shifting into reverse, with the Earth poised to head into a period of cooling that will end the rise of the oceans.

A global warming critic on Monday announced plans to release new data showing that the threat of rising global sea levels has peaked and that the Sun is entering a “hibernation” period that could bring colder weather.

“Like most major climate events, the past sea level rise was caused by the Sun and had little or nothing to do with mankind’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions,” said John Casey, a former White House and NASA advisor and climate author. “Now that the Sun has entered a state of ‘solar hibernation’ and is cutting back on the energy by which it warms the Earth, a new and potentially dangerous decades-long drop in global temperatures has begun,” he warned.

Casey is the president of the Space and Science Research Corporation and author “Cold Sun,” which predicts the coming cooling period. Because his predictions go against the mainstream, he has been ridiculed by supporters of global warming. Media Matters called him a “scam artist.”

Middle East headed for water crisis

The Middle East is headed towards a water shortage crisis, as NASA satellites show that reserves the size of the Dead Sea have been depleted in just seven years, largely due to well-drilling.

Newly-obtained results show that 144 cubic kilometres of freshwater – a volume nearly equivalent to that of the Dead Sea or Lake Tahoe – had been removed from the ground in the area that encompasses Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria between 2003 and 2009.

“That’s enough water to meet the needs of tens of millions to more than a hundred million people in the region each year, depending on regional water use standards and availability,” said Jay Famiglietti, the UC Irvine professor who led the team who made the findings, which are due to be published on Friday in Water Resources Reasearch magazine.

While 40 percent of the decline is in the soil and surface water, the decrease in groundwater, caused by human actions, is responsible for 90 cubic kilometers of the shortfall.

“Satellite data shows an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which currently have the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India,” said Famiglietti.

The study was made possible by the US space agency’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. The two identical vessels measure miniscule changes in the planet’s gravity through the variations in distance between them as they circle the Earth, their positions influenced by the varying mass of the water reserves.

The research team said the depletion was caused by poor water management, combined with unfavorable climate conditions.

Iraqi women carry non-potable water back home through a sand storm in the outskirts of Basra. (Reuters / Yannis Behrakis)

A devastating 2007 drought in the area not only caused depletions of surface water, which have still not been compensated, but also forced Iraqi authorities to order the drilling of more than 1,000 water wells. The actual number of wells drilled is likely to be much higher, as official statistics in the region are often patchy.

“That decline in stream flow put a lot of pressure on northern Iraq,” said Kate Voss, another study author. “Both the UN and anecdotal reports from area residents note that once stream flow declined, this northern region of Iraq had to switch to groundwater.”

At the time, the country was at the height of a deadly sectarian conflict.

“In an already fragile social, economic and political environment, this did not help the situation,” said Voss.

Iraqi children scramble for water at a collection point, overseen by British troops from the Black Watch and the Desert Rats, in Basra in southern Iraq. (Reuters / STR)

Last year’s authoritative Global Water Security report, produced by US intelligence agencies, marked the Middle East, naturally the driest region in the world alongside North Africa, as the area most vulnerable to water shortages, saying the situation was exacerbated by a lack of legal agreements and political instability.

“They just do not have that much water to begin with, and they’re in a part of the world that will be experiencing less rainfall with climate change,” Famiglietti said. “Those dry areas are getting dryer. Demand for freshwater continues to rise, and the region does not coordinate its water management because of different interpretations of international laws.”

Turkey, whose territory houses the headwaters of the region’s two major rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, enjoys a strained relationship with Syria and Iraq, the countries further downstream, and has systematically diverted water for its irrigation, which is frequently inefficient (throughout the Middle East).

Meanwhile, the World Bank predicts that water demand in the region will rise by 60 percent by 2045.

Groundwater has made up the shortage so far but it is being extracted at much faster rates than it is replaced.

“Groundwater is like your savings account,” said Matt Rodell, another study author. “It’s okay to draw it down when you need it, but if it’s not replenished, eventually it will be gone.”

Curiosity lands successfully on Mars

The most high-tech Mars rover ever built has landed on the red planet.

NASA says it received a signal from the Curiosity rover Sunday night after a plunge through the Martian atmosphere described as “seven minutes of terror.”

The rover is the size of a small car, so engineers had to come up with a new way to set it down. For the first time, cables were used to lower the rover inside of a giant crater.

At $2.5 billion, it’s the most ambitious and priciest Mars mission yet. For the next two years, the rover will drill into rocks and scoop up soil. It will be exploring whether the planet’s environment could have supported life in the form of microscopic organisms.

The Curiosity rover survived a harrowing landing on Mars early Monday in a never-before-tried technique that saw it lowered to the surface of the Red Planet like a spider on a string, the US space agency said. – DPA