http://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us Phys.org Phys.Org provides the latest news on space, space exploration, space science and earth sciences. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), emissions of magnetized ionized gas from the Sun, can damage satellites and communication technology, so being able to predict where they are heading and how much energy they have is important in protecting this technology. http://phys.org/news288461982.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T18:20:02-07:00 (Phys.org) —Saturn's moon Titan might be in for some wild weather as it heads into its spring and summer, if two new models are correct. Scientists think that as the seasons change in Titan's northern hemisphere, waves could ripple across the moon's hydrocarbon seas, and hurricanes could begin to swirl over these areas, too. The model predicting waves tries to explain data from the moon obtained so far by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Both models help mission team members plan when and where to look for unusual atmospheric disturbances as Titan summer approaches. http://phys.org/news288462204.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T17:23:39-07:00 UPDATE 16:30 p.m. EDT: The M7-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space. While this CME was not Earth-directed, it has combined with an earlier CME, and the flank of the combined cloud may pass Earth. Particles from the CME cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. http://phys.org/news288460949.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T17:02:39-07:00 An Ecuadoran satellite launched last month could collide with the remains of a Russian rocket in the coming hours, the country's civilian space agency warned. http://phys.org/news288458669.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T16:24:34-07:00 Even though astronauts receive some general medical training in preparation for a stay aboard the ISS, most of them still aren't medical professionals by any means—and with the inherent difficulties of microgravity and the relatively noisy environment inside the Station, even a simple diagnostic task like listening to a heartbeat can be a challenge. http://phys.org/news288431416.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T09:30:01-07:00 (Phys.org) —The time draws near. NASA is getting ready to launch a new mission, a mission to observe a largely unexplored region of the solar atmosphere that powers its dynamic million-degree outer atmosphere and drives the solar wind. http://phys.org/news288427691.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-22T07:48:17-07:00 Sometime in the next quarter-century, NASA plans to send the first humans to Mars, a mission that will push the boundaries of teamwork for a handful of astronauts who will spend as long as three years together in a tiny capsule. http://phys.org/news288355872.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T11:51:19-07:00 In April, when the Hubble Space Telescope looked out towards Jupiter's orbit and observed what has been billed as the "Comet of the Century" – Comet C/2012 S1 ISON – the space telescope photographed a unique feature in the comet's coma. Now, a team of ground-based astronomers have performed follow-up observations, imaging Comet ISON as it heads towards the Sun and was just outside the orbit of Mars. They, too, have seen something in the coma and suspect it's a similar feature to what Hubble imaged. The object is thought to be a jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet's nucleus. http://phys.org/news288345064.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T08:51:11-07:00 NASA released a synopsis Friday announcing plans to issue an announcement for proposals for the commercial use of Launch Pad 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The announcement is expected next week. http://phys.org/news288342121.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T08:50:01-07:00 Two months ago, on March 17th, 2013, a small space rock weighing just 88 pounds (40kg), travelling at 56,000 miles per hour, smashed into the lunar surface creating a flash so bright that viewers looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion. http://phys.org/news288341966.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T08:10:01-07:00 A team of researchers from Germany, Italy, and the USA have shown that observations of stellar visibility by citizen scientists accurately measure the brightness of the night sky. The researchers published their results Thursday in Nature Publishing Group's open access journal, Scientific Reports. The researchers hope that such data can eventually be used to track changes in artificial night sky brightness, also known as skyglow, worldwide. http://phys.org/news288340520.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T07:36:11-07:00 (Phys.org) —Nanosatellites now have their own mass transit to catch rides to space and perform experiments in microgravity. A new NASA-designed and developed satellite deployer, dubbed the Nano Launch Adapter System (NLAS), is scheduled to demonstrate the capability to launch a flock of satellites into space later this year. http://phys.org/news288334997.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T06:30:01-07:00 (Phys.org) —Scientists will seek to gain answers to these questions with the launch of the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRIment (CIBER) on a Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket between 11 and 11:59 p.m. EDT, June 4 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. http://phys.org/news288334503.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-21T05:55:22-07:00 (Phys.org) —NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect a powdered sample from the interior of a rock called "Cumberland." http://phys.org/news288289520.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-20T17:25:48-07:00 (Phys.org) —Earth watcher Proba-V is in good health following its launch last week. The Vegetation imager has been switched on and the first image has been captured over western France. http://phys.org/news288261383.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-20T09:36:39-07:00 A former army helicopter pilot was on Monday named as the first "home-grown" British astronaut to head to the International Space Station. http://phys.org/news288249232.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-20T06:13:59-07:00 A number of mice and eight gerbils sent into space in a Russian capsule destined to find out how well organisms can withstand extended flights perished during their journey, scientists said Sunday as the month-long mission touched back down on Earth. http://phys.org/news288173011.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-19T09:03:47-07:00 (Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series of field tests aimed at investigating how humans will explore and work on Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and eventually the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. http://phys.org/news288076223.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-18T07:00:01-07:00 (Phys.org) —NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on "Cape York" with examination of a rock intensely altered by water. http://phys.org/news288075812.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-18T06:04:53-07:00 On 5:24 a.m. EDT on May 17, 2013, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later and affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 745 miles per second. The solar material in CMEs cannot pass through the atmosphere to affect humans on Earth. http://phys.org/news288028329.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-17T16:52:27-07:00 While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until yesterday. http://phys.org/news287997302.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-17T08:30:03-07:00 For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone expected, with hundreds of detectable impacts occurring every year. http://phys.org/news287995775.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-17T07:49:49-07:00 (Phys.org) —NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016. http://phys.org/news287939170.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T16:07:13-07:00 (Phys.org) —Scott Hubbard, a consulting professor of aeronautics and astronautics, helped guide the Kepler mission when he served as director of NASA Ames Research Center. He explains how NASA might bring the planet-hunting spacecraft back online. http://phys.org/news287938435.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T15:54:04-07:00 (Phys.org) —A team of scientists has won a berth on a tiny satellite to explore one of NASA's most important frontiers in climate studies: the imbalance in Earth's energy budget and the extent to which fast-changing phenomena, like clouds, contribute to that imbalance. http://phys.org/news287938274.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T15:51:31-07:00 A thud, dirt in the window of his capsule and the fresh smell of spring on the Kazakh steppe: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recalled Thursday his safe return from a five-month mission to space. http://phys.org/news287932185.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T14:30:01-07:00 An impromptu spacewalk over the weekend seems to have fixed a big ammonia leak at the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday. http://phys.org/news287929125.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T13:19:01-07:00 Navtronics, a Belgium ESA Business Incubation Centre start-up company, is tailoring intelligent guidance for agricultural machinery using advanced satnav. http://phys.org/news287911328.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T08:22:15-07:00 (Phys.org) —If your GPS navigation system goes on the fritz in the coming days, you might have the sun to blame. Early this week, the sun released four X-class solar flares, the strongest type of flare. Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict a 40-percent chance of more X-class flares in the coming days, some possibly pointed toward the Earth. http://phys.org/news287909968.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T07:59:36-07:00 Missions to Mars have only scratched its surface. To go deeper, scientists are proposing a spacecraft that can drill into the Red Planet to potentially find signs of life. http://phys.org/news287907372.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2013-05-16T07:16:56-07:00