NASA Robonaut R2 Tweets From Outer Space

NASA's first Robonaut in space is using Twitter to share its experience with the public.

"Look at me, I'm in space!" tweeted Robonaut 2 (R2) (@AstroRobonaut) on Wednesday from its mission on the International Space Station (ISS).

(click image for larger view)

Slideshow: NASA, Microsoft Reveal Mars In Pictures

The humanoid robot--created as a collaboration between NASA and General Motors--arrived at the ISS in February as part of the cargo of Space Shuttle Discovery. R2 was dormant on the ISS for about six months before astronauts aboard the station powered it up earlier this week.

R2 tweeted about its experience "waking up" on the ISS and is now actively sharing other comments about its life on the ISS on Twitter.

It's also answering questions from followers that provide information about how the robot operates and the tasks it will be performing while on board the space station.

From its tweets, people can learn that the robot is not manning the computer on his own ("The team that created me helps me tweet"); that it has no legs at the moment but that eventually will be getting some ("I will be getting some legs to help me move around in zero-g"); and that the robot has some autonomy ("I require ground control, but I can also respond to my environment within controlled specifications.").

R2's tweets also reveal that astronauts will begin testing the 3-foot, 4-inch, 330-pound robot's movements on Sept. 1, and that the robot is operating from the ISS's Destiny module.

NASA and GM spent $2.5 million building R2, currently the most advanced of the four robots in NASA's Robonaut program.

Once R2 is more fully functional on the ISS, the robot will perform mundane tasks for astronauts such as setting up their work sites so they can focus on other things. An experimental machine, the robot's mission is to mainly show NASA how highly dexterous anthropomorphic robots--the agency's term for the type of machine R2 is--perform in space.

Eventually, NASA hopes future versions of Robonauts will perform more advanced tasks, such as spacewalks and repairs to the space station. At this time the agency has no plans to remove R2 from the ISS.

http://informationweek.com/news/government/mobile/231600208

Black hole caught in act of swallowing a star

NASA

This still photograph from a NASA video animation depicts the supermassive black hole Swift J1644+57 eating a big star, a process that scientists witnessed for the first time using the Swift satellite.

For the first time, a black hole has been caught in the act of tearing apart and swallowing a star that got too close.

Scientists, who until now had witnessed only the aftermath of such events, say the observation is shedding light on "relativistic jets," bursts of matter that shoot out at nearly the speed of light.

At the centers of virtually all large galaxies are supermassive black holes. These monsters, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the sun, can rip apart passers-by, gravitationally pulling at stars in gigantic versions of how our moon tugs on Earth's oceans to generate tides.

Evidence for this destruction may come in the form of a bright flare of ultraviolet, gamma and X-rays, a flare that can theoretically last for years as the star is gradually consumed. Although scientists have observed the aftermath of such "tidal disruption" events several times, they had never seen the onset of one.

NASA / Swift / Stefan Immler

Images from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical (white, purple) and X-Ray telescopes (yellow and red) were combined to make this view of Swift J1644+57.

"Now we've seen the start of this event for the first time," study co-author David Burrows, an astrophysicist at Pennsylvania State University, told Space.com.

The Swift satellite observed a string of extremely bright bursts of gamma rays from outside our galaxy that began March 25 and lasted about two days. Scientists have detected gamma ray bursts in the past, but this pattern of light was completely different.

"It was nothing like we expected for a gamma-ray burst," said Ashley Zauderer, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who co-authored a different study on the event.

Additional observations by several radio telescopes suggested the flare occurred in the center of a galaxy, and that the source of this radiation was expanding at 99.5 percent the speed of light. This suggested the flare came from a relativistic jet released after a black hole ripped apart a star, which scientists named Swift J1644+57.

Based on the wavelengths of light emitted by the flare and the way it evolved over time, the scientists concluded that it originated from matter falling or accreting onto a black hole about 1 million times the mass of the sun, comparable to the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.

In the past, scientists had missed the fact that relativistic jets could form as black holes ripped apart stars. This helps explain why the flare had X-rays 10,000 times brighter than predicted for a tidal disruption event: Basically, relativistic jets are focused bursts of energy.

"It's not surprising that such an event would cause jets, but it was just never discussed in past publications," Burrows said.

Future research could reveal more outbursts of this kind. Knowing how often these occur will help scientists figure out just how many galaxies harbor supermassive black holes, what the properties of these monsters are, the density of stars in galactic cores, and how these jets form.

"There are a lot more surprises in space for us to discover, especially as we continue to make huge strides in the technical capabilities of our instruments," Zauderer said.

The scientists detailed their findings in two papers in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44273287/ns/technology_and_science-space/

How the Russian shuttle crash affects the International Space Station

 
WELL-STOCKED: This photo is one of the first-ever views of a NASA space shuttle docked at the International Space Station as seen from the Soyuz spacecraft. Astronaut Paolo Nespoli snapped the photo on May 23, 2011, while the shuttle Endeavour was on its final mission. (Photo: NASA)

The crash of a Russian cargo ship may force NASA to rethink some of its plans for the International Space Station, but the mishap shouldn't leave the orbiting lab or its six-astronaut crew high and dry, agency officials said.

The unmanned Russian Progress 44 vehicle crashedAug. 24 after suffering an anomaly about five minutes into its flight. The cargo ship was carrying 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the space station.

 

However, these things weren't absolutely critical to the immediate day-to-day operation of the orbiting lab, NASA officials said.

 

"There were very few one-of-a-kind items — in fact, none that I'm aware of," Mike Suffredini, NASA's program manager for the International Space Station, told reporters. "Logistically, we're in very good shape."

 

 

Station should be OK for a while

The anomaly was apparently caused by a problem with the Progress' Soyuz-U rocket, NASA officials said. Russian engineers are working hard to figure out exactly what went wrong. Video of the Progress launch shows what appeared to be an on-time liftoff into a clear, blue sky.

 

Two more Progress resupply missions are scheduled for this year. It's too early to tell whether the problem will be identified and fixed in time to go ahead with those launches, Suffredini said. But, he added, it wouldn't be a disaster if Progress vehicles were grounded for a while.

 

A European cargo ship known as ATV-3 is slated to launch on March 5 of next year and dock with the station two weeks later. The orbiting lab easily has enough supplies to last until then, Suffredini said. [Vote Now! The Best Spaceships of All Time]

 

"If we had to wait all the way until ATV-3 was ready to go fly, I don't have any concern that we couldn't support the crew to that period," Suffredini said.

 

Skeleton crew possible

The Progress' Soyuz-U booster is similar to the Soyuz-FG rocket that launches astronauts toward the space station. Until American private companies get their own spaceships up and flying, NASA is relying on the Soyuz to provide this taxi service.

 

No astronauts are likely to launch on a Soyuz-FG until the causes of Wednesday's crash are pinpointed and fixed. And that could force some rejiggering of crew numbers on the space station, at least in the near term. [How Russia's Progress Spaceships Work (Infographic]

 

A Soyuz is set to launch on Sept. 21, for example, to deliver three new astronauts to the orbiting lab, replacing three current station astronauts who are scheduled to come home at about the same time.

 

If no Soyuz are ready to launch for a lengthy stretch, the station may have to make do with a skeleton crew for a while. The three crewmembers will have to come home relatively soon, after all; NASA generally doesn't want its astronauts to spend more than six or seven months aboard the station during any one stint because of concerns about radiation exposure and the long-term effects of microgravity.

 

The three spaceflyers scheduled to come home next month— American Ron Garan and Russians Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev — arrived at the orbiting lab on April 6.

 

And the astronauts' Soyuz return ships are only rated for about six months in space, so they'll have to come back soon, too. (Astronauts are not dependent on incoming Soyuz to come home; two Soyuz are docked to the station at the moment to take crewmembers back to Earth, and to serve as "lifeboats" in the event of an emergency.)

 

A crew of three could operate the station just fine, Suffredini said, though they wouldn't be able to do nearly as much science work. And a short-staffed station would require even fewer supplies, meaning it could probably last even beyond the March 5 ATV-3 resupply mission if need be.

This article was reprinted with permission from SPACE.com.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/how-the-russian-shuttle-crash-affects-the-international-space-station
 

Diamond planet: A huge girl's best friend discovered in space

An illustration of the diamond planet orbiting the neutron star.

Read more: Diamond planet | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/sydney/life/diamond-planet-huge-girls-best-friend-discovered-space-656809#ixzz1W6pzrUHM
A team of astronomers using an Austalian telescope has discovered a gigantic diamond planet.

Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and his team used a telescope located in western New South Wales to gaze deep into space: 4,000 light years away from Earth, an eighth of the way to the center of the galaxy, their eyes lit on what has turned out to be a diamond planet.

The planet, five times the size of planet Earth, is 60,000 kilometers in diameter. Enough to keep many girls happy indeed.

“Essentially it’s all diamond,” said Dr. Michael Keith, of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in Astronomy and Space Science. “It’s the remnants of a star. It's leftover carbon and diamond is a crystalline form of carbon.”

The diamond planet, officially named PSR J1719-1438, used to weigh as much as the sun. But as space diamond-refinement cosmically took place, the white dwarf diamond is now less than 1 percent of its former weight –- now the same weight as Jupiter.

That’s a lot of diamond.

In only two hours and 10 minutes it orbits a neutron star that is 20 kilometers in diameter, but so compact it weighs more than our sun.

“It’s a crazy, bonkers environment,” Dr. Keith said.

So could the galaxy unearth gems, opals and silver? “No, you could find some iron in space, but this is as fancy as it gets,” Dr. Keith said.

Nevertheless, maybe bachelors will now contemplate space travel for the first time, in a quest for the diamond planet.

“I’m sure it’s very beautiful, but it wouldn’t be very pleasant,” Dr. Keith said. “The neutron star omits cosmic rays and radiation through X-rays and gamma rays.”

“There’s no protective atmosphere and it would be very hot. You’d be blasted away.”

But the team of researchers from Australia, Germany, Italy, Britain and the United States are pretty excited, as they’ve shown that humans have long been looking for diamonds in the wrong place.

“But it’s more practical to use the ones we find on Earth –- you can wear them,” Dr. Keith said. “To wear this one you’d need more gold than the size of Earth to make bands.”

“It’s an engagement ring for a giant alien.”

http://www.cnngo.com/sydney/life/diamond-planet-huge-girls-best-friend-discovered-space-656809

Steve Jobs legacy reaches far beyond Apple

SAN FRANCISCO: While saving Apple, Steve Jobs changed the world. Jobs guided Apple from the brink of financial ruin to a lofty place among the world's most valuable companies before stepping down as chief executive this week, apparently due to health woes. 

But thinking of Jobs merely as the man behind Apple's resurrection would be on par with thinking of The Beatles as just a band that made cool music. 

As did the Fab Four, Jobs altered the rhythm of modern life. 

"His legacy goes way beyond Apple," Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said of Jobs, who ceded his chief executive role on Wednesday to chief operating officer Tim Cook. 

Forrester analyst Charles Golvin's "laundry list of the tendrils" Jobs has extended into our lives dates back to the 1970s, when Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple and introduced home computers. 

"The whole idea that a computer is something that a consumer might want comes from him," Golvin said. 

"The way we compute today wouldn't be what it is without Steve Jobs." 

While personal computers powered by Microsoft software ruled work places, Jobs envisioned people-friendly machines with mouse controllers and icons to click on to activate programs or open files. 

Jobs is even credited with raising the standard for animated films by bringing his vision to Pixar, a movie studio he founded while exiled for a time from Apple due to an internal conflict. 

"At Pixar he redefined what a movie could be like with computers," Gartenberg said of the studio, which has since churned out a series of blockbusters such as "Cars" and "Toy Story." 

Jobs also transformed the music industry with iPod MP3 players and the iTunes online shop, where people could buy digitized music. 

Prior to iPods and iTunes, the music industry grappled with how to make money selling digital music and struggled to stave off piracy made possible by easy file sharing on the Internet. 

With the iPod, Apple gave music lovers a hip new way to listen on the go and provided recording labels and artists a controlled distribution channel for songs. 

"Jobs reinvented the music business model," Gartenberg said. "Not only did he have a consumer electronics hit with iPod, but iTunes became the most successful music retailer on the planet." 

With the launch of the iPhone, Jobs set in motion a shift to mobile computing on handheld gadgets that Internet giants such as Google and Facebook have embraced as the future. 

"Apple really created the modern smartphone era, not just for business but for the consumer," Gartenberg said. "Prior to the iPhone, smartphones were about keyboards, not touchscreens; it was a business device." 

And with the iPhone came an "app economy" of smartphone software programs to play games, monitor health, track exercise, navigate and more.

Neil Armstrong urges return to the moon to train for Mars

Astronaut Neil Armstrong walks on the moon in 1969. Source: The Australian

NEIL Armstrong has urged a return to the moon to train for missions to Mars as the UN contemplates the future of its space program following the end of the shuttle era.

The first man to walk on the moon is due to address the US Congress on new directions for NASA in coming weeks.

He has previously criticized US President Barack Obama for being "poorly advised" on space matters and said it was "well known to all that the American space program is in some chaos at the present time, some disarray".

"There are multiple opinions on which goals should be the most important and the most pressing," he told a function in Sydney late Wednesday.

The US shuttle program came to an end last month with the Atlantis cruising home for a final time, 42 years after Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission.

Critics have assailed NASA for lacking focus, with no next-generation human space flight mission to replace the shuttle program.

Now 81, Armstrong said the agency had become a "shuttlecock" for the "war of words" between the executive, legislative and congressional arms of US government.

"It's my belief given time and careful thought and reasoning we will eventually reach the right goal, I just hope we do it fairly quickly," he said.

The normally private and reserved space veteran said Mars should be the next frontier for exploration but urged more missions to the moon as the vital next step.

"I do favour going to Mars but I believe it is both too difficult and too expensive with the technology we have available at the current time," he said.

"I favour returning to the moon. We made six landings there and explored areas as small as a city lot and perhaps as large as a small town. That leaves us some 14 million square miles [36 million square kilometres] that we have not explored."

Armstrong said working on the moon would allow scientists to practice "a lot of the things that you need to do when you are going further out in the solar system" while maintaining relatively close contact with Mission Control.

Communication is the major problem for trips to Mars, he added, with the relay of a message between Earth and the red planet delayed by about 20 minutes, compared with 1.5 seconds between here and the moon.

"Before you get an answer to your question almost an hour's gone by, so it's hard for Mission Control to be involved in a meaningful way helping you with that situation," he said.

"That's going to make a very difficult challenge for the early Mars missions to solve these kinds of delay problems.

"I do believe that we will solve them in time, we'll contrive a way to do that safely but we can't do it right now."

Travel time is also a major concern, with the quickest journey of two months only possible when Mars is closest to Earth, when it also happens to be spinning most rapidly, meaning massive amounts of fuel are required to land.

"The best time to go to Mars is when it's on the opposite side of the sun to you, as far away as it can get, and that takes the least fuel, but it also takes about seven months one way, which is packing a lot of sandwiches," he said.

"And by the time you get there Earth has moved and it's no longer in a proper position to come back, so you have to wait around for a couple of years until Earth gets in the right position."

Armstrong said Mars was a "worthy challenge" but it was expensive, time-consuming and carried substantial risks not faced in the lunar program, predominantly to do with radiation.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/neil-armstrong-urges-return-to-the-moon-to-train-for-mars/story-e6frg6n6-1226122094045