Watch: First Ever 360 Video of Earth From ISS

                                                           

In a new episode of RT’s ground-breaking 360° video documentary from the International Space Station, cosmonaut Andrey Borisenko demonstrates the first-ever panoramic view of Earth from the Cupola module which is attached on the Earth-facing side of the ISS.

The Cupola module was completed in 2010. From here the crew can best operate the robotic arm that is visible directly from it, together with the Russian segment of the station [often with a Soyuz craft attached] and the US and Japanese labs.

The view from the Cupola leaves the astronauts totally spellbound, as Borisenko said that once he is in the Cupola, he keeps staring back at Earth, marveling at the view.

He recently arrived at the station for his second six-month shift. “Though actually, there isn’t really that much free time here,” the astronaut added.

In the video, the astronaut shows the audience the inside of Cupola and the windows which show the magnificent view of Earth to the astronauts.

RT will be regularly uploading videos from the show with Andrey Borisenko as host and tour guide.

The special project Space 360 is available in six languages [Russian, English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic] as well as on a special RT360 mobile app.

With many thanks to Sputnik News

Scientists Have Detected A Crack In Earth's Magnetic Shield

                                                                          

Earth is such a habitable place, thanks in no small part to the vast magnetic field that surrounds our planet, shielding us from harsh solar winds and cosmic radiation.
But scientists have been investigating one of the most powerful geomagnetic storms in recent history, and they’ve discovered that our protective barrier isn’t as secure as we thought it was. Turns out, our magnetosphere has been cracked.

Researchers have been analysing data from the GRAPES-3 muon telescope in Ooty, India, which recorded a massive burst of galactic cosmic rays on 22 June 2015. 

For 2 hours, Earth’s magnetosphere was being bombarded by these particles, which emit immensely high-energy radiation, and travel through space at nearly the speed of light. 
These things are so powerful, they can easily penetrate the hull of a spacecraft, and Earth’s magnetic shield is our first line of defence against them. 

About 40 hours before the June 22 event, a giant cloud of plasma was ejected from the Sun's corona (or outer atmosphere), and eventually struck the magnetosphere at speeds of about 2.5 million kilometres per hour.

That’s not exactly news, because at the time, it triggered a severe geomagnetic storm that was responsible for radio signal blackouts in many high latitude countries in North and South America.

It also resulted in a supercharged aurora borealis - which is created when charged particles from outer space reach Earth’s atmosphere.

                                                               

But now researchers have finally realised the full extent of that relentless bombardment of cosmic rays. 

A team from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in India performed numerous simulations based on the GRAPES-3 data from that day, and the results indicate that the magnetosphere had been temporarily cracked, and that’s why things went so haywire in our radio systems.

In fact, the team says the bombardment was so relentless, it caused a severe compression of the magnetosphere, forcing it to shrink from 11 to 4 times the radius of Earth.
The researchers suspect that the geomagnetic storm was powerful enough to actually 'reconfigure' our magnetic shield, prising open weak spots to let radiation and cosmic rays slip through.

"This vulnerability can occur when magnetised plasma from the Sun deforms Earth’s magnetic field, stretching its shape at the poles and diminishing its ability to deflect charged particles," Katherine Wright explains on the American Physical Society website.
The fact that this happened at all is a concern, say the researchers, because it suggests that our magnetic field is changing - or rather, weakening - in certain parts.

"The occurrence of this burst also implies a 2-hour weakening of Earth’s protective magnetic shield during this event," the researchers report.

"[This] indicates a transient weakening of Earth’s magnetic shield, and may hold clues for a better understanding of future superstorms that could cripple modern technological infrastructure on Earth, and endanger the lives of the astronauts in space."

So the good news is our magnetosphere was only temporarily cracked, but the bad news is that it can be cracked at all.

There's not a whole lot we can do about that, but the researchers hope that by continuing to search for these cracks as they happen - and in past events - we'll be better prepared to deal with the next time those cosmic rays burst through and wreak havoc.

By Bec Crew

With many thanks to Science Alert

Angel Falls: The Tallest Water Fall In The World

                                                           

The tallest waterfall in the world is Venezuela's Angel Falls, which plunges 3,212 feet (979 meters), according to the National Geographic Society. 

 The falls descend over the edge of Auyán-Tepuí, which means Devil's Mountain, a flat-topped elevated area of land with sheer cliff sides located in Canaima National Park in the Bolivar State of Venezuela.

Angel Falls is named after an American explorer and bush pilot, Jimmy Angel, who crashed his plane on Auyán-Tepuí in 1937. 

The waterfall is fed by the Churún River, which spills over the edge of the mountain, barely touching the cliff face. The height of the fall is so great that the stream of water atomizes into a cloud of mist, then trickles back together at the bottom of the plunge and continues on through a cascading run of rapids.

Angel Falls' total height, which is more than a half-mile (almost 1 kilometer), includes both the free-falling plunge and a stretch of steep rapids at its base. But even discounting these rapids, the falls' long uninterrupted drop of 2,648 feet (807 m) is still a record breaker and is around 15 times the height of North America's Niagara Falls, according to the World Waterfall Database, a website maintained by waterfall enthusiasts. [See Stunning 360-Degree Views of Spectacular Victoria Falls.]

However, Angel Falls is only the tallest waterfall on land. Technically, the largest known waterfall lies underwater, between Greenland and Iceland. 

The Denmark Strait cataract is more than three times the height of Angel Falls, dropping water a whopping 11,500 feet (3,505 m).

The underwater waterfall is formed by the temperature difference between the water on each side of the Denmark Strait. When the colder, denser water from the east meets the warmer, lighter water from the west, the cold water flows down and underneath the warm water.

The Denmark Strait cataract is also the the top waterfall in terms of volume, carrying 175 million cubic feet (5.0 million cubic meters) of water. 

Back on land, pinpointing the largest waterfall is a little trickier because there is no universal standard for designating what counts as a waterfall, according to the World Waterfalls Database.

Some waterfalls consist of a single, sheer drop; others include a gentler cascade over rapids; and still others involve a combination of the two (like Angel Falls).

The World Waterfalls Database lists Inga Falls, an area of rapids on the Congo River, as the waterfall with the largest volume. More than 11 million gallons (46 million liters) of water flow through Inga Falls each second. However, without a significant vertical drop, Inga Falls may not count as a waterfall under other classifications.

Of waterfalls that do include a vertical drop, the waterfall with the greatest volume is the 45-foot-tall (14 meters) Khone Falls, on the border between Laos and Cambodia. Spilling 2.5 million gallons (9.5 million liters) of the Mekong River every second, Khone Falls' flow is nearly double the volume of Niagara Falls.

This article was first published on Aug. 10, 2010. Live Science writer Kacey Deamer contributed to an update of this article.

By Molika Ashford

With many thanks to Live Science

                                                                       

Rare Minerals Make The Earth Unique

                                                                    

                                        

                                                                      

The presence, however scant, of rare minerals such as cobaltominite, abelsonite, and edoylerite makes the third planet from the sun unique, even among its rocky siblings.

These minerals may form in far-flung caves protected from sunshine, rise from volcanic eruption and vanish in the first rainfall, or be secreted by microbes under duress, reported Jonathan Amos for the BBC. Researchers discuss their taxonomy in a soon-to-be published study in the journal American Mineralogist.

"It's the rare minerals that tell us so much about how Earth differs from the Moon, from Mars, from Mercury, where the same common minerals exist, but it's the rare minerals that make Earth special," Dr. Robert Hazen, above, from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, a co-author of the study, told the BBC.

The researchers classified roughly 2,500 of the rarest minerals on the planet in terms of both abundance and location. The new catalog could provide a resource to explore their potential contribution to both industry and science.

Roughly 100 abundant minerals such as quartz, feldspar, cobalt, and mica make up most of Earth's supply, but mineralogists have found 5,000 different minerals on the planet's surface, writes Deborah Netburn for the LA Times. The study classifies 2,500 by their rare characteristics: forming only under extreme conditions, dissolving or disappearing quickly, appearing in difficult-to-reach places, or being composed of rare elements.

The mineral fingerite meets all of these conditions. It forms from the gases of the active Izalco Volcano in El Salvador, occurs only when vanadium and copper come together in the correct proportions, and dissolves after the first rainstorm. The researchers who discovered it could gather only a few milligrams – the "perfect storm of rarity," Hazen told the BBC.

In deciding to classify the rare minerals, the researchers acknowledged that discovering new minerals is no longer the primary aim of mineralogy. The paper on fingerite, for example, was published back in 1985.

                                                                        

"Rock-forming minerals understandably attract the greatest attention in the mineralogical literature, whereas the discovery of new minerals, which are usually extremely rare, no longer represents the central pursuit of many mineralogists," Hazen, along with co-author Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University, wrote in a pre-print of the study.

The researchers wrote that as conservation has fueled intense study into rare species previously on the fringes of biology, scientists have discovered they often play a key role in their ecosystems, even in small numbers. These findings prompted them to explore the "rare species" of their own field – mineralogy.

"And you ask: why study them; they seem so insignificant? But they are the key to the diversity of the Earth's near-surface environments," Dr. Hazen told the BBC.

Their findings brought them back to biology, as many rare minerals rely on biological phenomena to form. This is the case for hazenite, a mineral discovered by one of Hazen's students. It forms when California's Mona Lake dries out and microbes, stressed by rising phosphorus levels, secrete the mineral.

"They're basically microbial poop," Hazen told the LA Times. "People tell me, 'Hazenite happens.'"
By Lucy Schouten
With many thanks to CSM

Two Jurassic Mini Mammal Species Discovered in China

                                                                      

                                                                    

Dinosaurs may have dominated the planet during the Jurassic Period, but they shared the landscape with little rodent-like creatures. Two new species of these pocket-size early mammals have been discovered in China — one was a horny-clawed tree-dweller, and the other was a tunnel-digger with shovel-like paws.

Researchers say these new specimens show that early mammals, though small, were surprisingly diverse.

Dinosaurs may have dominated the planet during the Jurassic Period, but they shared the landscape with little rodent-like creatures.

Two new species of these pocket-size early mammals have been discovered in China — one was a horny-clawed    tree-dweller,    and the other was a tunnel-digger with shovel-like paws.

Researchers say these new specimens show that early mammals, though small, were surprisingly diverse.

Agile tree climber and its burrow-dwelling cousin
 

One of the newly discovered creatures, now known as Agilodocodon scansorius, is the earliest tree-dwelling mammal ever found. It had several features that made it fit for climbing: long claws, spadelike front teeth to chew into bark, and flexible elbows and ankles. At most, it might have weighed about 40 grams (1.4 ounces). [See Images of the Newfound Mammal Ancestors]

It lived in a temperate climate zone on the supercontinent Laurasia, surrounded by lush plants and lots of insects on the hilly shores of a lake, where it probably met an unlucky end. One day, it perhaps fell from a treetop and into the lake, where it drowned and, over time, became entombed in the sediment settling on the bottom.

Fast-forward 165 million years, and that lake bed has long dried up. It now lies within the borders of Inner Mongolia, where a fossil-hunting farmer found the creature's remarkably well-preserved skeleton in 2011.

This fossil-rich lake deposit, known as the Daohugou Formation, has already yielded dozens of extinct creatures from the Jurassic Period: a beaverlike swimming mammal, feathered dinosaurs known as Anchiornis, pterosaurs and prehistoric salamanders. When Zhe-Xi Luo, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, saw Agilodocodon, he was amazed by its state of preservation.

"When we got into the study of Agilodocodon, we realized that the outline for the horny sheath of the claws is preserved," Luo told Live Science. "Those soft tissues are not preserved in the vast majority of mammals. It has a very long, curved narrow claw — one feature to show that it is a good climber."

The second creature, Docofossor brachydactylus, was also found by a fossil hunter — this time, in the 160-million-year-old lake deposits of the Ganggou Fossil Site in China's Hebei province, in 2012. Docofossor was even smaller than Agilodocodon — it probably stood just 3.5 inches (9 centimeters) tall and weighed up to 17 grams (0.6 ounces), the researchers said. The earliest underground-dwelling mammal ever found, Docofossor might have been similar to an African golden mole, with short, wide digits good for digging.

Earliest history of mammals

Both of these fossils came to the Beijing Museum of Natural History still encased in slabs of stone. Luo and his fellow researchers at the museum and the University of Chicago authenticated the provenance of the fossils, and they've been studying the specimens for almost two years. Today (Feb. 12) they published two reports describing the fossils in the journal Science.

The two fossils belong to an order of extinct mammals known as Docodonta, which share a common ancestor with modern mammals. Before the latest discovery, scientists mostly knew about docodonts from fossils of teeth, jaws and other bits of skulls. Previously, Luo said, scientists only had skeletons from the bodies of two docodonts: Castorocauda, the beaverlike swimming mammal found at Daohugou, and Haldanodon, another extinct small mammal found in a coal mine in Portugal in the 1970s. [See Images of Mammals Through Time]

"What's new with this discovery of two additional docodonts is that one of them turns out to be a subterranean mammal with highly specialized digit patterns; the other is a bona fide excellent tree climber," Luo said. "From their locomotory functions, we can safely infer that docodonts' ecological diversity had a tremendous range — far more so than we previously anticipated."

Luo thinks the fossils suggest that early groups of mammal, like docodonts, were able to fill a variety of ecological niches even with dinosaurs around. And these creatures adapted to their environment in the same ways as modern mammals.

Other scientists who weren't involved in the studies agreed.

"The two papers contribute substantially to the new picture of Mesozoic mammals as highly diversified," said Thomas Martin, a paleontologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. "The old picture of generalized, 'primitive' creatures is no longer valid. They lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs, but they apparently flourished in that niche."

But one thing about the picture of mammals from the Mesozoic Era (which includes the Jurassic Period) still hasn't changed: These animals were small. Martin noted that the largest known mammal from this time is still the aforementioned Castorocauda, which had an estimated body mass of about 1.75 lbs. (0.79 kilograms). Mammals grew large only after the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

David Krause, a professor of anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University in New York, said the discovery of such diversity among early mammals suggests one of two possibilities: that early mammals originated even earlier than scientists thought, or that they diversified very quickly. The only way to find out which option is right is to find more fossils — not only in China but in other parts of the world, Krause said in an email.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Some other related posts:

Walking With Dinosaurs: Feathered, Furry and Fierce

Earliest Big Cat Fossil Found in Tibet

"Chicken From Hell’ Dinosaur Gets A Proper Name

Chinese Jurassic Park Yields Incredible Feathered Dino Find

Dinosaur Bones Found Near Red Sea
The Pelagornis Sandersi: Fossil Find Reveals Largest Flying Bird
Ancient Flying Reptile Named After 'Avatar' Creature
Closest Living Relative of The Ancient Elephant Bird Is Tiny
Velociraptor: Facts About The 'Speedy Thief'
 Hyperactive mini monkey 'Archicebus achilles' our oldest cousin
Researchers Say They've Found The Biggest Dinosaur Ever
The Brontosaurus Is Officially Back
 Kronosaurus Dinosaur Jaw Found In Outback Queensland

Tiny Bat Wing Dinosaur Discovered
Kunbarrasaurus Ieversi: Australia's Newest Dinosaur 
What Killed The Dinosaurs?

Titanosaurs: The Largest Animals Ever To Walk The Earth 
Timurlengia Euotica: The Missing Link to Tyrannosaurus Rex  
Archaeopteryx: The Transitional Fossil 
When Did The Dinosaurs Become Extinct?
Ancient Sea Monster The ­First Vegetarian Marine Reptile 
Spiclypeus Shipporum: New Dinosaur Species Sported Uniquely Spiked Shield

T-Rex Cooed With Mouth Wide Shut
Prehistoric Marsupial Lion Was The Size Of A Squirrel

Jurassic ‘Sea Monster’ From Scottish Loch
Psittacosaurus: Chinese Parrot Lizard Dinosaur First Found To Use Camouflage  
Scientists Discover A Mysterious Prehistoric Shark
'Beardog' Discovery Offers Clues As To How Canines Evolved 
Austroposeidon Magnificus: Brazil’s Biggest Dinosaur Has Been Rediscovered 
Savannasaurus Elliottorum: Wide-Hipped Dinosaur the Size of a Bus Once Trod Across Australia
Ancient 400-Pound Salmon Fought With Dagger-Like Teeth
Dinosaur Tail Found Encased In Amber


 


 

 

 

Aurora Borealis: Brilliant Time-Lapse of Alaska’s Northern Lights

                                                                   

The colorful, dancing lights of Alaska's aurora borealis shine in this stunning video by filmmaker Alexis Coram.

https://www.facebook.com/AlexisCoram

See Alexis' portfolio on Smugmug.
http://alexiscoram.smugmug.com/

Follow her blog.
http://alexiscoram.tumblr.com/

Music: "Out Of The Darkness" by James Everingham.
http://www.jameseveringham.com/

The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors. We look for work that affirms National Geographic's mission of inspiring people to care about the planet. The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of the National Geographic Society.
 
With thanks to You Tube NatGeo.          


                                                       

Troy Casswell: Merged Beauty Of Sea, Land And Sky

                                                                            

TROY Casswell is a Gold Coast structural engineer who taught himself to merge photographs while playing around with some landscapes he took during a trip to Great Keppel Island 10 years ago. 

“I found that I could increase the resolution of an image by stitching photos together and ­increase the field of view,” he says.

“You just get more detail and a different perspective.”

Casswell’s first camera was a ­four-megapixel point-and-shoot by Olympus. He loved it, but soon moved on to SLRs, and now has an impressive array of gadgets that help create remarkable images on sea, land and sky.

His latest is an Astro-tracker, which follows the movement of the stars for night-sky panoramas.

It only works if aligned correctly to the south celestial pole. If you want to annoy Casswell, bump the Astro-tracker.

                                                                    

“I’ve done it myself a few times; you have to start again with the calibrating, it’s frustrating.”

He says patience is required for this hobby, but it is nice to be out in nature with a few beers and his gadgets.

“I’ve always been analytical and a bit arty as well.”


Casswell used to indulge his arty side by doing pottery, though he admits the best bits were not creating the vases and other gifts, but rather making glazes with chemicals and firing up the kiln.

                                                          

                                                                         

“I used to love watching the flames coming out of the top — it was pretty cool.”

By Paige Taylor

With thanks to The Australian

                                                              

                                                                           

                

Laniakea: Our Home Supercluster

                                                                     

From You Tube:

Superclusters – regions of space that are densely packed with galaxies – are the biggest structures in the Universe. But scientists have struggled to define exactly where one supercluster ends and another begins.

 Now, a team based in Hawaii has come up with a new technique that maps the Universe according to the flow of galaxies across space. Redrawing the boundaries of the cosmic map, they redefine our home supercluster and name it Laniakea, which means ‘immeasurable heaven’ in Hawaiian.

Read the research paper here. 

                                                                     

Te Waihou, A River Out Of A Fairy Tale In New Zealand

                                                                        

                                                                     

With a tropical look thanks to the exuberant vegetation, a dazzling display of colours, and a crystal clear water purified after over 100 years travelling underground, Te Waihou river is another hidden gem that most tourists pass by without exploring.

Te Waihou Walkway & the Blue Spring are located near Putaruru, going northwest from the rotten valley of Roturua, famous for being a stinky geothermal wonderland.

The water flows from the Blue Spring, considered one of the country's best swimming holes. It stays at a chilling 11 degrees temperature all year.

                                                                   

The walk to the springs follows a track alongside the river, through a picturesque and rural land.The walk takes 90 minutes (one way) upstream from the car park.In the upper stream, the water is extremely clear and pure, with an intense blue hue.

This source supplies around 70% of New Zealand’s bottled water.According to the local tourism office of Hamilton & Waikato, water from the Blue Spring flows at a rate of 42 cubic metres per minute and could fill a 6 lane (25 metre) swimming pool in around 12 minutes.

The water comes from the Mamaku Ranges, a long trip of over 100 years.During this long stay in aquifers, particles and light-absorbing matter are removed from the water, leaving it with a very high clarity and characteristic blue-green colour.

By Ra Moon

                                                                           

With thanks to Atlas of Wonders.

More pictures and info there.

In Orbit Around A Comet, The Rosetta Spacecraft Must Now Land On It - Updated - It Has Landed And Found Organic Molecules!

                                                                          

AFTER more than a decade in pursuit, clocking up 6.5 billion kilometres and five loops around the Sun, the Rosetta spacecraft has closed in on its target, becoming the first in history to go into orbit about a comet. 

With a thrust of its engines, the European spacecraft was kicked into the first leg of its triangular orbit about the duck-shaped comet, although scientists had to wait a further 25 minutes — the time taken for the probe’s faint signal to reach Earth — to learn that the manoeuvre had been a success.

The comet, called 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, or “Chury”, lies 405 million km from Earth, between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, and is rushing towards the inner solar system at nearly 55,000km/h.

The craft will now spiral inward towards Chury until it is less than a mile away and close enough to release a robotic lander that will float down on to the surface.
Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA), said: “We are delighted to announce finally ‘we are here’. Europe’s Rosetta is now the first spacecraft in history to rendezvous with a comet, a major highlight in exploring our origins. The discoveries can begin.”

The mission will ultimately examine the chemical make-up of the comet in unprecedented detail and could reveal whether so-called dirty snowballs could have originally brought water and the basic building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago.

The latest phase of the mission began in January, when the probe successfully “woke up” from a three-year period of hibernation, during which it was so far from the Sun that the little solar energy available was required to warm its internal computers. The coming months will hold further nailbiting moments for the scientists involved.

Much of the equipment aboard the lander has been in a dormant state during the 10-year journey and scientists say that it is impossible to be completely confident that each component will switch on again smoothly. These components include small harpoons that will tether the lander to the surface of the comet, to prevent it from bouncing off, and drills in its legs that will secure it firmly.

Richard Holdaway, director of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space, said: “It’s like an old car on a winter’s day. Most of the time it works, but occasionally it doesn’t. That’s the sort of uncertainty we’re dealing with.”

The latest close-up images hint at other challenges that will be faced, when Philae, the fridge-sized lander, is dropped on to the surface in November. The images reveal the comet is composed of two distinct segments joined by a “neck”, giving it a duck-like appearance, and it has a rugged surface littered with boulders and troughs. The next two months will be spent assessing the comet for potential landing sites.

Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist, said: “Our first clear views of the comet have given us plenty to think about. Is this double-lobed structure built from two comets that came together in the solar system’s history, or is it one comet that has eroded dramatically and asymmetrically over time?”

It will not be until Philae touches down that scientists learn whether the surface is ice-hard or dusty.

“The landing is going to be pretty hairy,” Professor Holdaway said. “And the chance of missing it is finite, albeit very small.”

As the comet travels closer to the Sun, it is likely to become more active, warming up and releasing more dust and other compounds accumulated on its surface. Sensors on board Rosetta and Philae will analyse these, looking in particular for organic compounds that indicate that comets could have initially seeded Earth with the building blocks for life.

Ian Wright, professor of planetary sciences at The Open University in the UK, said: “We will be looking for evidence recorded in remnants of debris that survived the processes of planet formation. This is not merely a period of prehistory, but one that predates the origin of life itself. Our quest is to gain insights into this transitional era, which took place more than 4.5 billion years ago.”

By Hannah Devlin

With thanks to The Australian

From The Australian December 21st
 AN Australian rock art study has been named one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year by the influential journal Science. 
 
The study, published in October, revealed that hand stencils and animal paintings in a cave in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi were up to four times as old as previously thought.

“The discoveries suggest that humans in Asia were producing symbolic art as early as the first European cave painters,” said the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of one of the world’s two most recognised journals.

It rated the achievement alongside pivotal studies in genetics, robotics, palaeontology and Alzheimer’s and diabetes research.

But the journal awarded top marks to the European Space Agency for landing a spacecraft on a comet.

The spacecraft Rosetta and its lander module Philae made major headlines in November when Philae touched down on the surface of the speeding comet. While the landing was rougher than expected, the data from the two space probes is already shedding new light on the formation and evolution of such comets.

“Philae’s landing was an amazing feat and got the world’s attention,” said Science news editor Tim Appenzeller. “But the whole Rosetta mission is the breakthrough. It’s giving scientists a ringside seat as a comet warms up, breathes and evolves.”


 

From You Tube:
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft was launched in 2004, on a mission to meet up with a comet. It was partially powered down to save energy during the long voyage. Now, scientists can finally check in with Rosetta. Photo: ESA-C. Carreau/ATG medialab

Picture from The Australian below.

Rosetta Mission’s Probe Makes Historic Comet Landing
                                                      

FANTASTIC Close-Up of a Comet From Rosetta ... and Evidence of a Landslide

 Landing site chosen. 

Canadian firm playing big role in historic comet visit. 

                                                                  

November 5th 2014:

ROBOT probe Philae bounced twice after its historic comet landing, probably ending up with one leg dangling in space, in the shadow of a cliff that could prevent it fully charging its battery, ground control says. 

In the 24 hours since its pioneering deep-space contact, the lab has sent home a slew of data and photographs from the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — though from a mystery location thought to be hundreds of metres off target.

Harpoons were meant to anchor Philae to the low-gravity comet 510 million kilometres from Earth and zipping towards the Sun at 18 kilometres per second.

The harpoons failed to deploy, but this has not prevented Philae sending information to Earth via its orbiting mothership, Rosetta.

“We have a better understanding of how we got there, but we still do not really know where,” lander manager Stephan Ulamec said in a press conference webcast live from European Space Agency (ESA) ground control in Darmstadt, Germany.

“We could be somewhere in the rim of this crater,” he added, pointing to a surface shot on which deep crevices lie in permanent, pitch-black shadows.

“We are not standing parallel to the surface,” said Ulamec — an evaluation gleaned from the angle of photographs Philae has sent to Rosetta to be relayed to Earth.

Eight of Philae’s 10 on-board science instruments and cameras have kicked into action as planned — a highlight achievement in the ESA’s flagship $1.95 billion project. The data from some of these washing machine-sized instruments revealed that the first bounce, “a huge leap” according to Ulamec, lasted about two hours and moved the probe a kilometre from its target site, followed by a second, smaller rebound.

There are fears that Philae may not be able to use the drill with which it was equipped to take sub-surface comet samples for chemical testing.

Mission scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring says Philae is almost vertical, with one foot probably in open space and two on the comet surface, while Philippe Gaudon of France’s CNES space agency earlier said the probe was “likely on a steep slope”.

Trying to activate the drill, or even the harpoons, without knowing the lander’s location and orientation could be dangerous. “We may just tip over our lander,” said Ulamec, adding Philae may not have enough power for a dedicated jump out of the hole in which it may sit.
The probe’s battery will only last about 60 hours, and given its awkward position, Philae is not getting enough sunlight for a full recharge, receiving only 1.5 hours per day instead of the six or seven required.

Wednesday’s elation at the landing signal from Philae after a seven-hour descent, soon turned to worry as fluctuations in the radio signal indicated the 100-kilogram lander may have lifted off again.

This was followed by a long silence until Thursday’s briefing, where ESA experts underlined the mission’s successes, including the first-ever pictures taken from the surface of a comet.

The Rosetta mission aims to unlock the secrets that comets, primordial clusters of ice and dust, are thought to hold about how the Solar System was formed about 4.6 billion years ago.

With thanks to The Australian

Rosetta Probe Philae Discovers Organic Molecules On Comet

THE probe that landed on the surface of a comet has discovered organic molecules, the most rudimentary building blocks of life, according to the German agency involved in the mission. 

An instrument aboard the Philae lander detected the molecules after “sniffing” the comet’s atmosphere. An organic compound is one whose molecules contain the carbon atom, the basis of life on earth.

Scientists are analysing the data to see whether the organic compounds detected by Philae are simple ones — such as methane and methanol — or a more complex species such as amino acids, the building blocks for proteins.

A drill on Philae also obtained some material from the comet’s hard surface, but data about organic molecules from that experiment have yet to be fully analysed.

Comets contain some of the most pristine materials in the solar system, dating to about 4.5 billion years ago. Previous studies have suggested that comets forge organic material in their dusty atmospheres.

A study of the comet’s organic materials “will help us to understand whether organic molecules were brought by comets to the early earth,” which could have kickstarted life here, said Stephan Ulamec, the Philae lander manager and scientist at the German Aerospace Centre. The agency runs the lander control centre and oversaw the comet landing last Thursday.

Researchers had expected to find organic molecules on the comet, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But thanks to the probe, they are for the first time able to conduct a direct search for organic molecules in both the comet’s gases and its surface material.

The data sent back by Philae, part of a European Space Agency mission. now will be checked against similar information already obtained by the orbiting Rosetta. In early August, when Rosetta was within 200km of the comet, one of its sensors was able to study the coma, or envelope of gases surrounding the comet’s nucleus.

Those early measurements detected water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which were likely to have been released from below the comet’s surface layer. It also found traces of ammonia, methane and methanol. In October, Rosetta scientists studying the coma said they had picked up traces of the organic compound formaldehyde as well as other molecules, including sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs.

An even bigger find would be the discovery of an amino acid on comet 67P. In 2009, a US spacecraft discovered the amino acid glycine on a comet. A similar find on 67P would bolster a view that life on earth was seeded by comets that brought organic compounds with them.
Although Philae’s primary battery ran out of power on Saturday (AEDT), scientists completed a manoeuvre that has positioned one of the probe’s larger solar panels more fully toward sunlight. It means that the probe may yet come to life next year or a bit earlier, as the comet heads closer to the sun.

“We are very confident that in coming months we’ll get more sun and power and Philae can be reactivated,” Dr Ulamec said.

From The Australian – November 18th

AN Australian rock art study has been named one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year by the influential journal Science. 
 
The study, published in October, revealed that hand stencils and animal paintings in a cave in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi were up to four times as old as previously thought.
“The discoveries suggest that humans in Asia were producing symbolic art as early as the first European cave painters,” said the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of one of the world’s two most recognised journals.

It rated the achievement alongside pivotal studies in genetics, robotics, palaeontology and Alzheimer’s and diabetes research.

But the journal awarded top marks to the European Space Agency for landing a spacecraft on a comet.

The spacecraft Rosetta and its lander module Philae made major headlines in November when Philae touched down on the surface of the speeding comet. While the landing was rougher than expected, the data from the two space probes is already shedding new light on the formation and evolution of such comets.

“Philae’s landing was an amazing feat and got the world’s attention,” said Science news editor Tim Appenzeller. “But the whole Rosetta mission is the breakthrough. It’s giving scientists a ringside seat as a comet warms up, breathes and evolves.”

From the Australian December 21st.

See also:

World’s Oldest Rock Art Found In Indonesia - Updated


Update June 15th, 2015

Philae space probe, thought lost, comes to life on comet reviving Rosetta mission