Doris heading towards Britain with 70 mph winds and flooding

NASA has warned that storm Doris is heading towards Britain across the Atlantic carrying winds up to 70 mph and lots of flooding

The 800 mies wide storm may hit Britain by Friday.

The winds are likely to speed up on Thursday turning into gales up to 100 mph. A yellow warning has been sounded in Britain.

Read more about it at: Daily Mail
Photo: Pixabay
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NASA releases a mind-blowing 'The Largest Photo' ever taken

Andromeda galaxy as shot by NASA's Hubble telescope

How big can be a photo if one is left to imagine? Well NASA has come up with a photo that is much beyond our imagination and bounds. 

Scroll down for the video

The photo recently revealed is a 1.5 billion pixel image (as large as 69, 536 x 22, 230 - and requires about 4.3 GB disk space) of the Andromeda galaxy, which is our nearest galactic neighbor. This mind blowing photo contains over 100 million stars and spans more than 40,000 light years – and mind you that’s just a section of the galaxy.

This image, created from a mosaic of 411 Hubble pictures, was then used by YouTuber daveachuk to create this incredible fly-through video. Combined with gorgeous music from the band Koda, it’s an awe-inspiring – and humbling – experience.

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The scribblings by astronaut Jim Lovell that brought crippled Apollo 13 home goes on auction

The handwritten notes which saved the lives of the astronauts on the  Apollo 13 mission are set to fetch £60,000 at auction.

The notes, made famous by the hit 1995 film starring Tom Hanks, were used by Commander Jim Lovell to work out how to perform a vital 'burn' on the way back to Earth.

The sheet, which contains Commander Lovell's hand-written notes, is being sold by Mr Haise, who is now 79-years-old and living in Florida. The note is being sold by Bonhams in New York on March 25.

If Commander Lovell had got the sums wrong then it is likely that he and his fellow astronauts, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, would have perished in space.

The world was said to have held its breath after Apollo 13 suffered an explosion on its way to the Moon in April 1970.

The blast left the spacecraft crippled, prompting the famous line 'Houston, we've had a problem' from Commander Lovell. The crew had to abort the mission to land on the Moon because of the explosion. However, despite limited power, plummeting temperatures, shortage of water and rising carbon dioxide levels the crew returned safely to Earth four days later.

As the crippled spacecraft's navigation equipment was not working correctly the commander used the Earth as a reference point. 

If the craft had been pointing in the wrong direction at the time of the burn the crew would likely have been shot into space with no hope of correcting their course to return home.

View video of actual events of the grim Apollo 13 mission released by NASA:

Read more about it at: Mail Online
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'Why the World Didn't End Yesterday' - NASA releases video 10 days early

While the motion picture '2012' created quite a stir about the end of the world based on the Mayan apocalypse, many still believe that December 21 is 'the' Doomsday.

The video from NASA makes the point that if a rogue planet or asteroid was about to hit the Earth we would already be able to see it with our bare eyes

As per the Ancient Mayans, the 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count would come to a close on December 21 2012. Experts estimate the system, which is made up of 394-year periods called baktuns, started counting at 3114 BC, and will have run through 13 baktuns, or 5,125 years, around December 21.

Based on the above Mayan beliefs, many believe that Maya may have been privy to impending astronomical disasters that would coincide with 2012, ranging from explosive storms on the surface of the sun that could knock out power grids to a galactic alignment that could trigger a reversal in Earth's magnetic field.

Would that be so?

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NASA has been seriously working on these conspiracy theories and is of the view that if a rogue planet or asteroid was about to hit the Earth we would already be able to see it with our bare eyes by now.

Since no such celestial movement has been noticed over the years that is moving on collision course with earth, NASA has summed up its research in a short movie 'Why the World Didn't End Yesterday' ten days before the Mayan dead line of December 21.

Watch the video below:

However, despite NASA's confident video, recent disasters - including the earthquake in Japan - as well as anxiety over pandemics and economic concerns - are creating a global climate of fear, which for some are omens of impending doom.

Read more about it at: Daily Mail
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Curiosity stirs excitement about life on Mars

Man is always wanted to know whether there is life on other planets like our earth or not - and Mars have always been of the planets of human speculations.

And this time, the analysts reviewing the feedback provided by the NASA's Rover 'Curiosity' have been stirred by the adventures of the hi-tech robot.

Although, the scientists have not disclosed as yet, but they seem to find something that could be exciting. “This data is going to be one for the history books,” Grotzinger told a National Public Radio reporter. “It’s looking really good.”

Like a paleontologist looking for fossilized dinosaur bones, the robot is sifting through the red dirt of the planet’s Gale Crater hunting for a substance that may indicate life once existed on Mars – methane. Methane is an organic compound, which means it’s a building block for life.

The rover has made some concrete findings. Earlier this month, NASA announced the Rover had confirmed human astronauts would be able to survive the radiation levels in Mars’s atmosphere. 

Read more about Curiosity's Mission: news

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Watch Live the Undocking of Dragon - first-ever commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station

The private Dragon spacecraft is set to return to Earth Sunday (Oct. 28), wrapping up the first-ever commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station.

The unmanned Dragon capsule, built by the California-based firm SpaceX, is scheduled to undock from the orbiting lab at 7:55 a.m. EDT (11:55 GMT) Sunday, then be released by the station’s huge robotic arm about 90 minutes later.

If all goes according to plan, Dragon will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast at 3:20 p.m. EDT (19:20 GMT) Sunday, where SpaceX personnel will retrieve it with a crane-equipped boat.

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You can watch the Dragon’s undocking live on NASA TV here beginning at 7:00 a.m. EDT (11:00 GMT).

Read more about Dragon's journey at Mashable

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Mystery Over Shiny Particles On Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover had been on Mars 61 days when she gathered her first scoop of soil.

Before the one-ton robot could finish sifting through her first small bucket of dust, however, all the excitement shifted to a shiny object found in the sand near the rover.

They saw that a light-toned particle was embedded in a clump of Martian soil, leading researchers to believe that the material could be native to Mars. This find completely overturned their original argument: These mystery particles are not something from the rover.

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Following the discovery, a third scoop of soil was collected. This sample will now be run through Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument to figure out what it's made of, and hopefully find out what's making the sand so shiny.   

Read more: Business Insider

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Curiosity ready to dig into Martian sand

Mars' rover 'Curiosity' is already breaking ground on Mars, and now it's breaking ground in the social media universe.

The rover became "mayor" of Gale Crater on Friday by checking in through Foursquare, the location-based social network, just as it prepares to scoop up some Martian sand for testing. Curiosity had its own Twitter and Facebook accounts long before its momentous landing on the planet in August, and JPL plans to use Foursquare to keep track of the rover as it continues its two-year mission to search for signs of ancient microbial life.

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Foursquare names a user as mayor of a specific location for having more check-ins than anyone else. With its second check-in (the first was Wednesday), Curiosity has met the minimum requirement.

"We're all very excited," said Stephanie Smith, a social media manager for JPL "As the team names locations and the scientific team moves to new locations, the plan is for the rover to check in at each place."

Read more: sgv tribune

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Curiosity finds stream on Mars

NASA rover Curiosity has discovered gravel once carried by the waters of an ancient stream that 'ran vigorously' through the area, says the US space agency.

Evidence of water has been found before but this is the first time gravel from a stream bed has been discovered.

The rocky Hottah outcrop looks 'like someone jack-hammered up a slab of city sidewalk, but it's really a tilted block of an ancient stream bed,' project scientist John Grotzinger said in a statement. Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since early August, also investigated a second outcrop known as Link.

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Curiosity is on a two-year mission to investigate whether it is possible to live on Mars and to learn whether conditions there might have been able to support life in the past.

Read more: Sky News

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Last chance to see Space Shuttle Ride shuttle carrier Boeing 747

There are events in history and one's life that are the last to be recorded and seen. A similar event will take place when NASA's space shuttle Endeavour will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday around 7:15 a.m. EDT piggy-backing atop a modified Boeing 747, known as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA.  

Photo: NASA

Endeavour is headed for Los Angeles where it will be put on display at the California Science Center. 

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And this is going to be the 'final ferry flight of the Space Shuttle Program', after which the SCA will also be put out of service.  

Shuttle Discovery was brought to its new home at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in April; Shuttle prototype Enterprise was moved to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City in July; and Shuttle Atlantis will be showcased in an exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Read more: Business Insider

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Uncertainty lingers on NASA's Mars program

Photo NASA

This week’s arrival of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity set the stage for a potentially game-changing quest to learn whether the planet most like Earth ever had a shot at developing life, but follow-up missions exist only on drawing boards.

The United States had planned to team up with Europe on a trio of missions beginning in 2016 that would culminate in the return of Mars soil and rock samples to Earth, an endeavor the National Research Council considers its top priority in planetary science for the next decade.

Citing budget concerns, the Obama administration terminated NASA’s participation in Europe’s ExoMars program earlier this year, spurring the U.S. space agency to re-examine its options before another flight opportunity comes and goes. Earth and Mars favorably align for launches about every 26 months.

The situation is complicated by massive budget overruns in the $2.5-billion US Curiosity mission, intended to determine if Mars could now or ever have supported microbial life, and in the $8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, a successor to the Hubble observatory.

Read details: Toronto Sun

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NASA's latest Mars adventure provides spectacular glimpses of alien landscape

NASA's latest adventure to Mars has given the world more than just glimpses of a new alien landscape.

This photo provided by NASA shows a full-resolution version of one of the first images taken by a rear Hazard-Avoidance camera on NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the Sunday evening, Aug. 5, 2012. The image was originally taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens, but has been "linearized" so that the horizon looks flat rather than curved. A Hazard-avoidance camera on the rear-left side of Curiosity obtained this image. Part of the rim of Gale Crater, which is a feature the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, stretches from the top middle to the top right of the image. One of the rover's wheels can be seen at bottom right. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

It opened a window into the trip itself, from video footage of the landing to a photo of the rover hanging by a parachute to a shot of discarded spacecraft hardware strewn across the surface. And the best views — of Mars and the journey there — are yet to come.

"Spectacular," mission deputy project scientist Joy Crisp said of the footage. "We've not had that before."

Since parking itself inside an ancient crater Sunday night, the Curiosity rover has delighted scientists with views of its new surroundings, including the 3-mile(4.8-kilometer)-high mountain it will drive to. It beamed back the first color picture Tuesday revealing a tan-hued, pebbly landscape and the crater rim off in the distance.

Read details: Phil Star

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Sally Ride, the First American Woman In Space, dies at 61

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space has died from pancreatic cancer, her website confirms. She was 61. 

Sally Ride, aboard space shuttle Challenger in 1982 [Photo: Business Insider]

Ride is famous for becoming the first American woman to fly in space when the shuttle Challenger launched on June 18, 1982. Two years later, she flew again on the Challenger for the 13th shuttle flight.  

Ride left NASA in 1987 to teach physics at Stanford University and then at the University of California, San Diego. She founded Sally Ride Science in 2001, which creates classroom materials and training for teachers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Read more: Business Insider

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Private space venture aborted at last second

A new private supply ship for the International Space Station remained stuck on the ground Saturday after rocket engine trouble led to a last-second abort of the historic flight.

All nine engines for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared to life Saturday morning. But with a half-second remaining before liftoff, the onboard computers automatically shut everything down. So instead of blasting off on a delivery mission to the space station, the rocket stayed on its launchpad amid a plume of engine exhaust.

Even NASA's most seasoned launch commentator was taken off-guard. "Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced commentator George Diller, his voice trailing as the rocket failed to budge. "We've had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur."


Read more: Philadelphia Inquirer 

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NASA scientist jailed for 13 years for offering to sell state secrets to Israel

A former government space scientist has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after admitting he tried to sell space and defence secrets to Israel in what turned out to be an FBI sting operation.

Appearing in federal court in a prison jumpsuit yesterday, Stewart Nozette said he was 'paying for a fatal lack of judgment.'

Nozette had high-level security clearances during decades of government work on science and space projects at NASA, the Energy Department and the National Space Council in President George H.W. Bush's administration.

Read more: Mail Online

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Hackers controlled Nasa computers in 2011

Hackers gained "full functional control" of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency's inspector general has told US lawmakers.

Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and "compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users".

He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation.

Read details: BBC News Technology

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Strong Solar Storm Hitting Earth

A huge eruption on the Sun has caused the strongest radiation storm since 2005, which is due to hit Earth on Tuesday, Jan 24, possibly causing widespread communications interference. The eruption occurred late on January 22, 2012 sending a burst of energized solar particles towards Earth at about 5 million miles an hour (2,000 km per second), as reported by Mashable, quoting NASA.

SpaceWeather.com ranks this geomagnetic storm “strong” or S3, meaning it may expose passengers in high-flying aircraft to radiation risk, disrupt satellite operations and degrade HF radio communications.

There is no risk to people on Earth, but polar flights are expected to be re-routed as a precaution measure. Furthermore, NASA expects “no adverse effects” for the six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Read more: Mashable

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Russia hints at U.S. radar role in Mars probe’s crash

Russian space officials are speculating that American radar may have zapped the failed Mars moon probe that fell into the ocean Sunday, a prominent Russian newspaper said Tuesday.

In Washington, NASA rejected the theory.

On Tuesday, the authoritative Kommersant newspaper, quoting an unnamed individual, said a commission investigating the failurewas considering whether the spacecraft was damaged by flying through powerful radar signals from a U.S. installation in the Marshall Islands that was alleged to be tracking an asteroid.

Read more: Washington Post

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Astronomers Discover Three Alien Planets Smaller Than Earth

[ via Mashable ] 12 Jan

Using the data from NASA’s Kepler mission, astronomers have found three alien planets smaller than Earth, orbiting a star much smaller than our Sun.

The planets, which are orbiting a red dwarf star known as KOI-961, are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the diameter of Earth, making them the smallest alien planets discovered so far.

The KOI-961 is located 120 light-years away, in the Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). It’s approximately one-sixth the size of our sun, which made it possible for scientists to watch for dips in the star’s brightness and thus discover the orbiting planets.

Read more: Mashable

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NASA HD TV

NASA TV airs a variety of regularly scheduled, pre-recorded educational and public relations programming 24 hours a day on its various channels. Programs include "NASA Gallery", which features photographs and video from NASA's history; "Video File", which broadcasts b-roll footage for news and media outlets; "Education File", which provides special programming for schools; "NASA Edge" and "NASA 360", hosted programs that focus on different aspects of NASA; and "This Week @ NASA", which shows news from NASA centers around the country. Live ISS coverage and related commentary is aired daily at 11 a.m. EST and repeats throughout the day.[7]

The network also provides an array of live programming, such as 24-hour coverage of Space Shuttle missions, ISS events (spacewalks, media interviews, educational broadcasts), press conferences and rocket launches. These often include running commentary by members of the NASA Public Affairs Office who serve as the "voice of Mission Control," including Rob Navias, Josh Byerly, Nicole Cloutier and Brandi Dean.

[ via USTREAM ]
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