Alien Ship Allegedly Found by Apollo 16 Astronauts

Moon explorations have been carried out not only by the U.S. and Russia but also countries from Asia including Japan, China and India. Even the European Space Agency has also sent robotic spacecraft to the moon.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of NASA is most likely the most productive among all moon explorations as it already gathered almost a million pictures on the surface of the moon that are so vivid, even a coffee table can be seen in the midst of boulders.

Citizen science program has been encouraged by physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies to examine closely these public-accessible photos of LRO to locate any artifacts that are extraterrestrial in origin.

However, parapsychology followers believe that NASA has been hiding evidence of aliens discovered on the surface of the moon. They say mind-travelers, who use a psychic technique known as remote viewing to travel other planets, have seen alien-looking things on the lunar surface.

The popularity of remote viewing started when U.S. government supported different parapsychology studies in 1970s and lasted until 1990s. After the funding was ended, an executive summary concluded that the psychic technique test results were “vague and ambiguous.”

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope discovers Black Hole surrounded by Star Cluster

Astronomers know how massive stars collapse to form black holes but it is not clear how supermassive black holes, which can weigh billions of times the mass of our sun, form in the cores of galaxies. One idea is that supermassive black holes may build up through the merger of smaller black holes.

Sean Farrell of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy in Australia discovered a middleweight black hole in 2009 using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope. Known as HLX-1 (Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1), the black hole has an estimated weight of about 20,000 solar masses. It lies towards the edge of the galaxy ESO 243-49, 290 million light-years from Earth.

Farrell then observed HLX-1 simultaneously with NASA’s Swift observatory in X-ray and Hubble in near infrared, optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. The intensity and the color of the light may indicate the presence of a young, massive cluster of blue stars, perhaps 250-light-years across, encircling the black hole. Hubble can’t resolve the stars individually because the suspected cluster is too far away. The brightness and color is consistent with other clusters of stars seen in other galaxies, but some of the light may be coming from the gaseous disk around the black hole.

“Before this latest discovery, we suspected that intermediate-mass black holes could exist, but now we understand where they may have come from,” Farrell said. “The fact that there seems to be a very young cluster of stars indicates that the intermediate-mass black hole may have originated as the central black hole in a very-low-mass dwarf galaxy. The dwarf galaxy might then have been swallowed by the more massive galaxy, just as happens in our Milky Way.”

From the signature of the X-rays, Farrell’s team knew there would be some blue light emitted from the high temperature of the hot gas in the disk swirling around the black hole. They couldn’t account for the red light coming from the disk. It would have to be produced by a much cooler gas, and they concluded this would most likely come from stars.

Infrared Sounder on NASA's Suomi NPP Starts its Mission

A powerful new infrared instrument, flying on NASA's newest polar-orbiting satellite, designed to give scientists more refined information about Earth's atmosphere and improve weather forecasts and our understanding of climate, has started sending its data back to Earth.

The Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) joins four other new instruments aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, which NASA launched on Oct. 28, 2011 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Suomi NPP mission is the bridge between NOAA's Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) and NASA's Earth Observing System satellites and the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

Since it reached orbit, Suomi NPP and its suite of five instruments are undergoing extensive checkouts before starting regular science observations. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense.

CrIS, an advanced spectrometer with 1,305 infrared spectral channels, is designed to provide high vertical resolution information on the atmosphere's three-dimensional structure of temperature and water vapor. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the EOS Aqua mission, launched in 2002, demonstrated how useful this type of data could be for understanding the atmosphere. CrIS will continue this data record and provide data for use in NOAA's numerical weather prediction models to forecast severe weather days in advance.

"Significant overlap between AIRS and CrIS will provide the Earth science research community the ability to maintain the unprecedented accuracy and stability of the temperature and moisture data record initiated by AIRS," said Diane Wickland, Suomi NPP program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

"Having data from CrIS will only improve the quality, timeliness and accuracy of NOAA's weather and climate predictions, which directly affect everyone in America," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS).

"Over longer periods, data from CrIS will help NOAA to better understand climate phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña that impact global weather patterns," said Mitch Goldberg, NOAA's JPSS program scientist.

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), which measures temperature and humidity in both clear and cloudy conditions, was the first Suomi NPP instrument activated. ATMS and CrIS data together will be used operationally in weather forecasts beginning in the Spring of 2012.

NASA Enhances Solar squall Forecasting

Space agency uses technology to generate up to 100 computerized forecasts to enhanced predict the path and effect of solar storms.

NASA is applying existing technology called "ensemble forecasting" that's been used to predict hurricanes in its observations of solar weather to better predict the trail and effect of solar storms.

The use of the computational predictive technique couldn't come as a better time, as the sun is entering its solar maximum, or period of maximum activity, which will spur an increase in space weather, according to the agency.

Researchers at the Space Weather Laboratory of Goddard Space Flight Research Center have begun to implement ensemble forecasting--which allows them to produce as many as 100 computerized forecasts at once--with full accomplishment in three years' time, according to NASA.

Support from NASA's Space Technology Program Game Changing Program is allowing for the use of the technology, which meteorologists already use to track the potential trail or impact of hurricanes and other forms of severe weather.

Indeed, solar flare and storm activity has increased in latest months as the sun begins to wake up from years of relative inactivity, according to NASA. To organize for it, the agency has been working for some time to improve its forecasting of solar weather.

The sun emitted two considerable corona mass ejections (CMEs)--or billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by sun explosions--in the last six months, one on Aug 4 and one in mid January, the latter of which caused some airlines to divert flights. And earlier this week, the most powerful solar flare so far this year erupted from the similar region that caused last week's CME.

As the sun enters its peak of activity, CMEs become more frequent and can affect planets or spacecrafts in their path, as well as disrupt satellite-based communications or power grids on earth.

3 smallest planets outside solar system found

Washington: A team of astronomers has discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system.

The three planets, discovered by scientists led by Philip Muirhead from the University of California, all orbit a single star, are smaller than Earth and appear to be rocky with a solid surface.

Until now, astronomers have found at most only four other rocky planets, also called terrestrial planets, around other stars.

The trio of new planets is too close to the central star to be in its habitable zone, the ring-shaped region around a star where the temperature is mild enough for liquid water, and possibly life, to exist.

However, the planets are the first rocky ones to be found orbiting a type of dim, small star called a red dwarf, the most common kind in the Milky Way. Their existence suggests that the galaxy could be teeming with similarly rocky planets and that there’s a good chance that many are in the habitable zone.

The red dwarf, called KOI-961, was first flagged as a potential planetary system by the Kepler mission, a space telescope that looks for planets around sunlike stars by scanning the sky for stars that periodically dip in brightness—the result of one or more planets passing in front of them.

Although Kepler reported 900 potential planetary systems in February, only about 85 of those were red-dwarf systems. The fact that a relatively small sample of red dwarfs produced three terrestrial planets means that either the Caltech-led team was really lucky or, more likely, that these planets are commonly found around red dwarfs.

This report comes just a few weeks after the Kepler team announced it had detected two rocky planets around a sunlike star—Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f—the first Earth-sized planets ever found and the smallest known at the time.

In January 2011, the Kepler team reported the discovery of the first unequivocally rocky planet around another star, Kepler-10b. Another planet—Corot-7b, which was found in 2009—could also be a rocky planet.

With the exception of Kepler-20e, which is about the size of Venus, the other previously discovered planets are all bigger than Earth. All three of the ones found by the Caltech-led team are smaller—the outermost one is about half the size of Earth and the other two are three-fourths the size of Earth.

In fact, the entire KOI-961 planetary system is remarkably tiny. KOI-961 has a diameter one-sixth that of the sun’s, making it just 70 percent bigger than Jupiter.

Each of the three planets needs less than two days to zip around their star, and all three are about one hundred times closer to that star than Earth is to the sun.

Since they’re so close to their star, they’re hot—the outermost planet is estimated to be about 200 degrees Celsius while the innermost planet is a scorching 500 degrees Celsius.

“The really amazing thing about this system is that the closest size comparison is to Jupiter and its moons,” John Johnson, one of the paper’s co-authors, said.

“This is causing me to have to fully recalibrate my notion of planetary and stellar systems,” he said.

Kepler’s initial measurements, which are automated to help it sift through roughly 150,000 stars, underestimated the size of KOI-961 and any planets it might have had.

No one realized this until amateur astronomer and paper coauthor Kevin Apps alerted Muirhead and his team to the idea that KOI-961 bore a remarkable resemblance to another red dwarf called Barnard''s Star, a nearby star that’s one of the most well-studied.

When the astronomers used telescopes at the Palomar and Keck Observatories to take a closer look at both stars, they found that the two are practically twins.

The characteristics of Barnard’s Star allowed the team to infer the properties of KOI-961, which is needed to deduce the nature of the planetary system from the star’s light curve, a plot of how the star dims over time due to transiting planets. In particular, the depth of the light curve, that is, how much the curve dips reveals the planets’ sizes.

Because the planets are so small, the only way they could have enough gravity to hold themselves together is if they are balls of rock, like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

“Just three years ago, just talking about a rocky planet would have been pure speculation,” Johnson said.

“But these are unambiguously rocky,” he said.

Still, before they could make any conclusions, the researchers had to confirm that the dips in light detected by Kepler really were due to planets—and not something else, such as a pair of background stars in orbit around each other.

Cassini Testing Part of Its Radio System

PASADENA, Calif. -- Engineers with NASA's Cassini mission are conducting diagnostic testing on a part of the spacecraft's radio system after its signal was not detected on Earth during a tracking pass in late December. The spacecraft has been communicating with Earth using a backup part.

The issue occurred with the ultra-stable oscillator, which is used for one type of radio science experiment and also as a means of sending data back to Earth. The spacecraft is currently using an auxiliary oscillator, whose frequency stability is adequate for transmitting data from the spacecraft to Earth. Tests later this month will help mission managers decide whether it will be possible to bring the ultra-stable oscillator back into service.

Some of the data collected for the radio science experiment using the auxiliary oscillator will be of lesser quality than that from the ultra-stable oscillator. Signals used for occultation experiments – where scientists analyze how radio signals are affected as they travel through Saturn's rings or the atmospheres of Saturn and its moons back to Earth – will be of lesser quality. A second kind of radio science investigation using gravity measurements to probe the internal structure of Saturn or its moons will not be affected. Cassini carries 12 science experiments.

The cause is still under investigation, but age may be a factor. The spacecraft launched in 1997 and has orbited Saturn since 2004. Cassini completed its prime mission in 2008 and has had two additional mission extensions. This is the first time its ultra-stable oscillator has had an issue.

Will NASA’s Kepler find another Earth? Possibly in 2012 say scientists

It’s the question the entire scientific community is asking: Will NASA’s Kepler find another Earth, and how soon?

2011 was full of reports that astronomers are one step closer to discovering another habitable Earth-like planet outside of our own solar system. NASA earlier this year confirmed the discovery of the first-ever planet in a habitable zone outside our solar system. That planet is roughly twice the size of Earth. French astronomers earlier this year confirmed the first exoplanet to meet key requirements for sustaining life, and just last week NASA announced the discovery of the first two Earth-sized planets orbiting a sun-like star.

In September, Kepler scientists turned science fiction into reality when they announced the first observation of a planet with two suns — such as Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in the “Star Wars” film series. Such planets are called “circumbinary” planets because they orbit a “binary pair” of stars. Until a few months ago, people only suspected two-star planets might exist.

The latest batch of discovery has left NASA clamoring for more. Speaking earlier this year, Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, said he expects NASA’s Kepler Telescope to discover a habitable planet within the coming year.

“Sooner or later, Kepler will find a lukewarm planet with a size making it probably Earthlike,” said Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley. “We’re no more than a year away” from such a discovery, he said.

“We are finally there,” said David Charbonneau, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is part of the team leading the Kepler mission, led by colleague Francois Fressin. “This demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars and that we can detect them,” Fressin said.

NASA officials announced earlier this year that the Kepler telescope, which has reportedly already discovered more than 2,000 new planet candidates, is nearly doubling its previously known count. Still, scientists said the space agency should focus on identifying which planets are most likely to maintain the environment necessary for water to exist, and, possibly, life.

Meanwhile, a number of scientists said the latest news is exciting in that Kepler’s batch of discoveries show a number of Earth-like planets exist outside of the Solar System. Astronomers says the number of discoveries in 2011 prove that Kepler can indeed find planets as small as our own, an encouraging sign that planet hunters would someday succeed in the goal of finding Earth-like abodes in the heavens. Since the first Jupiter-size exoplanets, as they are known, were discovered nearly 15 years ago, astronomers have been chipping away at the sky, finding smaller and smaller planets.

“The primary goal of the Kepler mission is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone,” said Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature. “This discovery demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we are able to detect them.”

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.

Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The blob-shaped galaxy, called GN-108036, is the brightest galaxy found to date at such great distances.

The galaxy, which was discovered and confirmed using ground-based telescopes, is 12.9 billion light-years away. Data from Spitzer and Hubble were used to measure the galaxy’s high star production rate, equivalent to about 100 Suns per year. For reference, our Milky Way Galaxy is about five times larger and 100 times more massive than GN-108036, but makes roughly 30 times fewer stars per year.

“The discovery is surprising because previous surveys had not found galaxies this bright so early in the history of the universe,” said Mark Dickinson from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. “Perhaps those surveys were just too small to find galaxies like GN-108036. It may be a special, rare object that we just happened to catch during an extreme burst of star formation.”

The international team of astronomers, led by Masami Ouchi from the University of Tokyo, Japan, first identified the remote galaxy after scanning a large patch of sky with the Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Its great distance was then carefully confirmed with the W.M. Keck Observatory, also on Mauna Kea.

“We checked our results on three different occasions over two years, and each time confirmed the previous measurement,” said Yoshiaki Ono from the University of Tokyo.

GN-108036 lies near the beginning of time itself, a mere 750 million years after our universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in the “Big Bang.” Its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us, so we are seeing it as it existed in the distant past.

Astronomers refer to the object’s distance by a number called its “redshift,” which relates to how much of its light has stretched to longer, redder wavelengths due to the expansion of the universe.

NASA shuts doors, pulls plug on shuttle Discovery

NASA powered down the space shuttle Discovery for a final time Friday , more than 28 years after the agency's retired fleet leader first came alive. The vehicle was "unplugged" inside Orbiter Processing Facility-1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The electrical shutdown, which came soon after technicians closed the shuttle's twin 60-foot long payload bay doors, was a milestone in Discovery's transition from a space-worthy orbiter to a museum exhibit. The shuttle, the oldest of NASA's remaining orbiters, is destined for display next spring at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

Discovery's cargo hold — which carried to orbit the Hubble Space Telescope and Ulysses solar probe along with modules for the International Space Station and more than a dozen satellites — was closed for what may be its last time. The Smithsonian plans to display the shuttle with its bay doors shut, at least initially.

The power down was much more permanent. Though Discovery's three electricity-generating fuel cells were reinstalled last week, they were first drained of all their reactants, and their feed lines were purged. Other than serving as an engineering example for researchers, they will never work again.

Since landing back on Earth after its 39th and final mission in March, Discovery has been carefully taken apart to preserve some of its components for future use while making the vehicle safe for public display. Its engines have been removed and replaced with replicas and its thrusters cleaned of their hazardous materials.

Inside its crew cabin, Discovery's waste collection system — otherwise known as its toilet — was removed, cleaned, and replaced, and its flight deck configured to appear ready for another mission, one that will never come. As with the fuel cells, the Smithsonian requested NASA keep Discovery as complete as possible so as to serve as a resource for future study.

Discovery is targeted to make one last flight in April 2012, though not under its own power and well within the atmosphere.

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday - Crew off day. Ahead: Week 3 of Increment 30 (three-person crew).

* Today 13 years ago (1998), the US-built Node-1 "Unity", 2nd component of ISS, was launched on STS-88/Endeavour, crewed by CDR Bob Cabana (today Director of NASA/KSC), PLT Fred Sturckow, and Mission Specialists Jerry Ross, Nancy Currie, Jim Newman & Sergey Krikalev (today Director of GCTC/Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City, Russia). "Unity" was mated to the Russian-built FGB "Zarya" by Currie on 12/6, and Bob & Sergey entered the rudimentary space station jointly.

After wakeup, FE-1 Shkaplerov performed the routine inspection of the SM (Service Module) PSS Caution & Warning panel as part of regular Daily Morning Inspection.

Anton also conducted the routine daily servicing of the SOZh system (Environment Control & Life Support System, ECLSS) in the SM. This included the weekly collection of the toilet flush (SP) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP-Moscow, as well as the weekly checkup on the Russian POTOK-150MK (150 micron) air filter unit of the SM's & FGB's SOGS air revitalization subsystem, gathering weekly data on total operating time & "On" durations for calldown. [SOZh servicing includes checking the ASU toilet facilities, replacement of the KTO & KBO solid waste containers and replacement of EDV-SV waste water and EDV-U urine containers].

CDR Burbank took the (approx.) monthly O-OHA (On-Orbit Hearing Assessment) test, his first, a 30-min NASA environmental health systems examination to assess the efficacy of acoustic countermeasures, using a special software application on the MEC (Medical Equipment Computer) laptop. [The O-OHA audiography test involves minimum audibility measurements for each ear over a wide range of frequencies (0.25-10 kHz) and sound pressure levels, with the crewmembers using individual-specific Prophonics earphones, new Bose ANC headsets (delivered on 30P) and the SLM (sound level meter). To conduct the testing, the experimenter is supported by special EarQ software on the MEC, featuring an up/down-arrow-operated slider for each test frequency that the crewmember moves to the lowest sound pressure level at which the tone can still be heard. The baseline test is required not later than about Flight Day 14 for each new Expedition and is then generally performed once per month. Note: There has been temporary hearing deficits documented on some U.S. and Russian crewmembers, all of which recovered to pre-mission levels.]

Later, Dan performed the VolSci (Voluntary Weekend Science) activity selected for today, an EPO (Educational Payload Operations) demo of 3 student-designed games,- Save the World, Alligator Clip Capture, and Independence Day. The demos were filmed with the G1 camcorder for subsequent downlink via HD MPC (Multi-Protocol Converter) on Ku-band. [EPO Demos are educational videos conducted by crewmembers on-board the ISS. Today's video is intended to be edited on the ground and will be seen by grade 5-8 students and educators. Demo 1: Using a dartboard, Dan demonstrated "sports in space", showing how Newton's Laws of Motion are applied to games in microgravity space. This video will be used on the Space Out Sports Website at http://education.ssc.nasa.gov/spacedoutsports.asp . Demo 2: Crewmember was to release 5 alligator clips in the cabin, allowing them to float, then floated up to capture each alligator clip, from underneath and above the clip (created by students at Kinser Elementary {Department of Defense} School in Okinawa, Japan. Demo 3: Earning points by successfully tossing a baton-like object through a floating ring, cut from a sheet of paper and pasted appropriately. Crewmember then was to repeatedly toss unsharpened pencil (or like object) through the floating paper rings (created by students at Manhattan Beach Middle, Manhattan Beach, CA.]

Anton & Anatoly finished up their lengthy IFM (Inflight Maintenance) on the TVIS treadmill, performing the long-term periodic chassis Inspection which they had been unable to finish on 12/2. Afterwards, Anatoly was to perform the speed characterization test while recording acoustic survey data, which of course was also not done on 12/2. [The inspection included the belt slats, weld nuts, treadbelt, drum set screws, 50 truss blue roller assemblies, side black rollers, and bottom black rollers. The crew also replaced 3 misaligned belt slat screws.]

At ~4:45am EST, Anton Shkaplerov & Anatoly Ivanishin participated in an event set up for them in Moscow to cast their ballot in the Elections to the 6th State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal Assembly and Moscow Regional Duma Elections, formally authorizing their proxy agent Dmitry Alexandrovich Zhukov to fill out the ballot for them, with the required confidentiality being observed. [Alexander Ivanovich Popkov, chairman of the local election committee of Korolev City, Moscow Region, explained the ballot procedure and read out the ballot bulletin, then asked "Dear Anton Nikolayevich and Anatoly Alexeyevich, do you authorize Dmitry Alexandrovich Zhukov to fill out ballot bulletins thus giving effect to your will?" After filling out the forms in secrecy, D. A. Zhukov invited the participants to the voting room and dropped the ballots in a portable box while providing voice commentary of his actions to Anton & Anatoly, who thanked them thusly: "Participation in Russia's political life is a crucial right of every citizen of the country! By casting our vote we shape the direction our nation will take in the future. Our future depends on our vote!" Besides a group of political and communal VIPs, assembled media included "Novosti Cosmonavtiki" magazine; "Russia Today" TV company; ZVEZDA TV Channel; ITAR-TASS news agency; Branch of "Podmoskovye" TV Channel (City of Losino-Petrovsky); NTV TV company; Channel 1 TV company; and RIA Novosti.]

The crew worked out with their regular 2-hr physical exercise protocol on the CEVIS cycle ergometer with vibration isolation (CDR), ARED advanced resistive exercise device (CDR, FE-1, FE-2) and T2/COLBERT advanced treadmill (FE-1, FE-2).