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While asteroids residing in the inner solar system will pass quickly through such small fields, trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) orbit the Sun much more slowly. For example, Pluto, at an approximate distance of 40 A.U. from the Sun, along with the object Eris, presently the largest of the TNOs, has an apparent motion of about 27 arc seconds per day – although for a half year, the Earth’s orbital motion slows and retrogrades Pluto’s apparent motion. The 27 arc seconds is approximately 1/60th the width of a full Moon. So, from one night to the next, TNOs can travel as much...

Such an inflatable heat shield could help a spacecraft reach the high-altitude southern plains of Mars and other areas that would otherwise be inaccessible with existing technology. The experts note that rockets alone can't be used to land a large craft on Mars as can be done on the moon.... Parachutes also won't work for a large spacecraft needed to send humans to Mars, they add. Hence the inflatable rings, known as the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, which would be filled with nitrogen and covered with a thermal blanket. Once deployed for landing, the rings would sit atop the spacecraft,...

Usually, all telemetry data is stored in the flash memory, so that when the rover powers down during the Martian night or reboots, the data remains stored — like when you turn off your digital camera, the photos remain saved to the camera’s flash card. Any data stored in the rover’s RAM, however, is lost as it shuts down. Flash memory may be great for storing data when the rover’s electronics are powered down, “but flash memory has a limitation on how many times you can read and write to it,” Callas told Discovery News. “It ‘wears out’ with use.”

If you have it installed on your computer, fire up Google Earth and click on the icon along the top edge of your screen that looks like Saturn. A menu will drop down. Click on Mars. After Google Mars loads, enter these coordinates into the search bar: -84.2952811,-56.5576401 . Here's what you'll see: At first, I thought someone had photoshopped it. But you can see that isn't true. So what do you think it is? I don't know if the picture is presented in true color, but if it is it sure looks like moss to me!... Moss that can...

The premise of a ballistic capture: Instead of shooting for the location Mars will be in its orbit where the spacecraft will meet it, as is conventionally done with Hohmann transfers, a spacecraft is casually lobbed into a Mars-like orbit so that it flies ahead of the planet. Although launch and cruise costs remain the same, the big burn to slow down and hit the Martian bull's-eye—as in the Hohmann scenario—is done away with. For ballistic capture, the spacecraft cruises a bit slower than Mars itself as the planet runs its orbital lap around the sun. Mars eventually creeps up...

Explanation: What's creating methane on Mars? Recent measurements from the robotic Curiosity rover currently rolling across Mars indicate a surprising 10-fold increase in atmospheric methane between measurements only months apart. Life is a major producer of methane on Earth, and so speculation is rampant that some sort of life -- possibly microbial life -- is creating methane beneath the surface of Mars. Other possibilities do exist, though, with a leading model being the sudden release of methane produced by the mixing of specific soil chemicals with underground water. Proposed origins of Martian methane are depicted in the featured illustration. The...

Basically, there is a gap between what is thought to have existed in the past, and what is observed today in the form of water ice. The findings made by Tomohiro and the international research team help to account for this. “The total inventory of “observable” current surface water (that mostly occurs as polar ice, ~10E6 km3) is more than one order magnitude smaller than the estimated volume of ancient surface water (~10E7 to 10E8 km3) that is thought to have covered the northern lowlands,” said Tomohiro. “The lack of water at the surface today was problematic for advocates of...

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill. "This temporary increase in methane -- sharply up and then back down -- tells us there must be some relatively localized source," said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a member of the Curiosity rover science team. "There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock."

Unexplained methane spikes suggest bacteria is living on the red planet Nasa scientists in California have revealed evidence for life on Mars They say methane spikes on the planet could be produced by bacteria And, at the moment, there is no better explanation for the spikes The signs were spotted briefly occurring by one of Curiosity's instruments Life is the chief producer of methane on Earth, although there are many non-biological processes that can also generate the gas But no such process could be ruled out during tests - suggesting there may be bacteria living on or under the surface...

NASA's picture-perfect Orion launch to Mars was all the rage last week. Praise was heaped upon key NASA contractors Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT ) -- and deservedly so. Between Orion's success, and the companies' announcement that their United Launch Alliance joint venture will develope a "next-generation liquid oxygen/hydrocarbon first stage" rocket to power launches to near-Earth orbit, Boeing and Lockheed are on a hot streak. But amid all the hullaballoo at ULA, you might have forgotten there's another space launch company that is building even more innovative products. Its name is SpaceX. It goes up,...

Asteroid sourced hydrogen and oxygen will literally and figuratively fuel expansion of the space economy by providing a locally sourced fuel resource that will change how industry operates in space. While existing satellites cannot be refueled directly today, space tugs fueled by asteroids that are currently being developed, will maneuver Geostationary satellites into their assigned orbit. Thus, keeping them operating and generating revenue far beyond their current life expectancy. Water from asteroids can also be used for a plethora of other applications beyond fuels in space. It can be consumed, used as a radiation shield for humans during deep space...

The textured area, located in the Athabasca region of Mars, measures in at around 1.2 miles wide, and is plopped right in the middle of a landscape of smooth lava flows. Considering the lava flow landscape, NASA scientists theorize that volcanoes played a part in the creation of the wart, offering up the possibility that lava flowed beneath a mound of ice and pushed it up — the unique texture being created when the ice melted.

If the new space race was like the movies, this week would be The Empires Strikes Back. On Friday, after a weather delay, Nasa launched a very cool space capsule, in what at first blush looked like another Apollo mission. It rose on a massive rocket spewing superheated exhaust like some creature from a Peter Jackson movie. All went well just now – and given the expertise of engineers performing what was essentially an update of a 1970s Apollo mission, that much was expected: a four-seat capsule called Orion will detach any minute now, and soar around the Earth twice,...

[I love the idea of going to Mars. We humans are explorers and pioneers. But if government does this, it will be just too costly, like the Apollo Moon program. Elon Musk of the private SpaceX company already has put rockets into space and he wants to send settlers to Mars, including himself. So since governments have screwed up this planet, how about reserving Mars for free people?!] Breaking: NASA is sending humans to Mars NASA has announced that a test launch of their Orion space capsule will take place on Thursday, in the first step of a mission that...

A meteorite from Mars that landed on Earth in 2011 contains a carbon compound that is biological in origin. (snip) "We cannot and do not want to entirely exclude the possibility that organic carbon within Tissint may be of abiotic origin," Lin wrote, meaning the carbon maybe physical in origin rather than organic -- devoid of life.7 "It could be possible that the organic carbon originated from impacts of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. However, it is not easy to conceive bywhich processes chondritic carbon could have been selectively extracted from the impacting carbonaceous chondrites, selectively removed from the soil and later...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 October 1 Earth Nears Asteroid Toutatis Illustration Credit: E. De Jong and S. Suzuki, JPL, NASA Explanation: On Wednesday, September 29, the Earth came within one million miles of the asteroid Toutatis -- the closest predicted aproach of our fair planet to a sizable asteroid or comet in this century. Coming within one million miles or about 4 times the Earth-Moon distance, Earth would appear to be...

If you're planning to go to the 2014 Annual Fall Meeting of the American Physical Society in Illinois this Saturday, you might be in for a bit of a surprise with the final talk of the day. Because that's when plasma physicist Dr John Brandenburg will present his theory that an ancient civilisation on Mars was wiped out by a nuclear attack from another alien race. In his bizarre theory, Dr Brandenburg says ancient Martians known as Cydonians and Utopians were massacred in the attack - and evidence of the genocide can still be seen today. Back in 2011 the...

For many space-faring nations, ambitions for Mars run broad and deep. Now, add China to the list of countries with Mars in their sights. News reports from China disclosed that country is considering a future Mars rover mission, with a potential 2020 launch date. Additionally came other hints that China may be looking to develop a next-generation heavy-lift launch system. This new project, while early in development, reveals how Chinese aspirations are growing rapidly. Human space flight successes have been followed by recent lunar mission successes of the Yutu lunar rover and the Chang’e-5 T1 test of a sample return...

CHENNAI/BANGALORE: India created history on Wednesday, becoming the first country to successfully get a spacecraft into the Martian orbit on its maiden attempt. Indian Space Research Organisation's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft started orbiting the red planet at 7.47am, but it was only 12 minutes later —because of a time delay in radio signals travelling the 680 million km -- that scientists at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore, could erupt in joy as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood a happy witness.