Space

Did another universe collapse give birth to the one we live in today? "My paper introduces a new mathematical model that we can use to derive new details about the properties of a quantum state as it travels through the Big Bounce, which replaces the classical idea of a Big Bang as the beginning of our universe," said Martin Bojowald, assistant professor of physics at Penn State. Bojowald's research also suggests that, although it is possible to learn about many properties of the earlier universe, we always will be uncertain about some of these properties because his calculations reveal a "…

Today ended more than a year of hard work for Europe's space-based scientists and their collaborators located all over the world. It was final submittal day to the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Program. The proposals responding to this call, encompassing approximately 1000-2000 proposal-writing-dazed scientists, will eventually lead to the selection of one medium-sized mission (Class M) to enter the implementation phase in 2012, with a launch foreseen in the mid-2017 time-frame. The Call also invites proposals for concepts of more ambitious missions of the flagship…

A NASA satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious iridescent polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth's surface. The first observations of these clouds by the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite occurred above 70 degrees north on May 25. Observers on the ground began seeing the clouds on June 6 over northern Europe. AIM is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds. These mystifying clouds are called Polar Mesospheric Clouds, or PMCs, when they are viewed from space and referred to as "night-shining" clouds, or…

Scientists have obtained the first-ever 3D pictures of magnetic reconnection events, the dances on the solar winds of near-Earth space. In magnetic reconnection, magnetic field lines from different magnetic domains collide and reconnect, mixing previously separated plasma. Plasma is a gas composed of ions and electrons but is electrically neutral, spread over large distances in space and guided by the action of magnetic and electric fields. Magnetic reconnection converts the energy of the magnetic field into particle energy, generating jets and heating the plasma. These events are related…

Massive Jupiter is undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes that have never been seen before with the keen "eye" of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Jupiter's turbulent clouds are always changing as they encounter atmospheric disturbances while sweeping around the planet at hundreds of miles per hour. But these Hubble images reveal a rapid transformation in the shape and color of Jupiter's clouds near the equator, marking an entire face of the globe. The semi-major axis of Jupiter's orbit about the sun is 483 million miles. The planet has a diameter of roughly 88,789 miles (142,984 km) at the…

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board Mars Express has provided snapshots of the Aeolis Mensae region. This area, well known for its wind-eroded features, lies on a tectonic transition zone, characterised by incised valleys and unexplained linear features. Illuminated by the Sun from the west (right side in the image), the pictures are of a ground resolution of approximately 13 metres per pixel. The region, imaged on 26 and 29 March 2007, during Mars Express orbits 4136 and 4247, is located at approximately 6° South and 145° East. The morphology of the terrain, which lies close…

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed an X-ray jet blasting away from a neutron star in a binary system. This discovery may help astronomers understand how neutron stars as well as black holes can generate powerful beams of relativistic particles. The jet was found in Circinus X-1, a system where a neutron star is in orbit around a star several times the mass of the Sun, about 20,000 light years from Earth. A neutron star is an extremely dense remnant of an exploded star consisting of tightly packed neutrons. Many jets have been found originating near black holes - both the…

An international team including researcher Ermanno Borra, from Université Laval’s Center for Optics, Photonics, and Laser, have found a combination of materials that allows the creation of a highly reflective liquid mirror capable of functioning even on the moon's harsh landscape. Science fiction? Not at all. Liquid mirror telescopes differ from conventional telescopes by their primary mirrors—the ones that gather and focus light—which are made from a reflective liquid instead of polished glass. Poured into a spinning container, the liquid spreads out and forms a thin, perfectly smooth, and…

A team led by Vasily Belokurov at the University of Cambridge in England has found the largest optical Einstein ring known. The astronomers say the object, which they dub the Cosmic Horseshoe, provides a unique laboratory for studying what the universe was like at one-fifth its present age. An Einstein ring is a kind of cosmic mirage. Gravity from a foreground galaxy distorts light from a background galaxy into an arc. If the alignment between the background galaxy and the foreground ’lensing’ galaxy is precise enough, the distant galaxy’s light becomes warped into a complete ring. “Most…

ESA is preparing for future human exploration missions to Mars. We are currently looking for volunteers to take part in a 520-day simulated Mars mission. To go to Mars is still a dream and one of the last gigantic challenges. But one day some of us will be on precisely that journey to the Red Planet. A journey with no way out once the spaceship is on a direct path to Mars. These men and women will have to take care of themselves for almost two years during the roundtrip. Their survival is in their own hands, relying on the work of thousands of engineers and scientists back on Earth, who…