Shuttle on its way home to KSC

Endeavour and six astronauts shoved off from the International Space Station at 7:54 p.m. Friday, beginning a two-day journey home to Kennedy Space Center.

MARS ROVER SPIRIT STILL RUNNING, BUT ONLY IN PLACE

After six years on the red planet and nine months stuck in a sand pit, the driving days are officially over for the Mars rover Spirit, NASA announced in a teleconference January 26.

ANCIENT DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT REFINES AGE OF UNIVERSE

Six papers posted online present new satellite snapshots of the earliest light in the universe. By analyzing these images, cosmologists have made the most accurate determination of the age of the cosmos, have directly detected primordial helium gas for the first time and have discovered a key signature of inflation, the leading model of how the cosmos came to be.

Kepler Spacecraft May Be Able to Spot Elusive Oort Cloud Objects

A reservoir of comets deep in the outer reaches of the solar system has so far escaped direct detection

World starting new era of space station research

Maybe the glowing plants will alert you that our space garden is not garden variety.

Endeavour Begins Final Heat Shield Inspection

Endeavour astronauts have begun a robotic survey of the orbiter’s critical heat shields to make sure they are ready for Sunday’s planned re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.

Weather Watched For Endeavour’s Return

As Endeavour’s crew works through what could be its last full day in orbit, NASA managers are monitoring less-than-perfect weather forecasts on the ground.

THIS IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

Let’s take five minutes to forget the politics. Forget the economics. Forget the arguments, broken promises and canceled rockets. This is a snapshot from the International Space Station by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi of NASA’s Stephen Robinson playing his guitar in the bay of the new cupola installed by Shuttle Endeavour.

Apollo 11 Moon Rock Returns To Space

A moon rock that was retrieved from the lunar surface by Apollo 11 crewmembers and later carried to the top of Everest by a mountaineering astronaut is back in outer space, thanks to the shuttle Endeavour.

Thar She Blows: Saturn Moon Looks Like Moby Dick

Is it Moby Dick? A potato? H. R. Giger’s Alien skull? Looking like a combination of all three of those things, Prometheus, Saturn’s moon, appears to float out toward the viewer in this 3-D rendering made by the Cassini spacecraft.

Space Telescope Sifts Earth Storms for Radiation Flashes

A NASA space telescope hunting for the most powerful explosions in the universe is turning its eye on Earth to hunt for tiny flashes of radiation to determine if they pose a rare, but deadly, threat to high-flying commercial airliners.

Spot the Space Station and Shuttle Together

When the space shuttle Endeavour leaves the International Space Station (ISS), skywatchers across much of the United States and southern Canada are in for a real treat early on Saturday and Sunday morning.

Say Hello to NASA’s New Tech Guru

NASA hopes to jumpstart its new direction in space exploration by refocusing on transformational technologies, and the agency has a new tech guru to help lead the way.

Astronauts Hold Winter Olympics in Space

They don’t have snow or ice, but an international team of astronauts held their own weightless Winter Olympics this week. Their venue: a $100 billion space station.

Shuttle’s extension in works

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas said a bipartisan plan is in the works in Congress that would call for extending the shuttle program another five years.

Moon dreams The Americans may still go to the moon before the Chinese

WHEN America’s space agency, NASA, announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite.

Leaders aim to save state’s space sector

Efforts are under way at the federal and state levels to extend the space shuttle program while capitalizing on the inevitable move toward more commercial space flights.

I, Robot: NASA and GM develop bots that interact with humans

Researchers at NASA and General Motors are collaborating on the development of the latest generation in humanoid robotics, Robonaut2, or R2, for use in the aerospace and automotive industries.

Apparent urine leak in station’s recycling system

Space station engineers, meanwhile, are troubleshooting an apparent urine leak in the lab’s water recycling system that has resulted in about two pints of waste water “that is not where we think it should be,” said shuttle Flight Director Kwatsi Alibaruho.

Continue funding for Orion project, lawmakers ask

Members of Colorado’s congressional delegation have asked President Barack Obama to continue fiscal year 2011 funding for NASA’s next-generation human- spaceflight projects, saying it would save aerospace jobs.

Alcohol masers reveal massive stars’ magnetic birth

Powerful magnetic fields play a much more dominant role in the creation of massive stars than they had been given credit, confirming that giant stars and smaller dwarf stars like our Sun form in very similar ways.

Young-looking galaxies race to oblivion

Four galaxies on a crash course with each other have been imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, revealing that these dwarf spirals are curiously fresh-faced and seem to have been in stasis for ten billion years.

Cool Movie: SDO Destroys a Sundog

Last week, on Feb. 11th, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a five-year mission to study the sun. Researchers have called the advanced spacecraft the “crown jewel” of NASA’s heliophysics fleet. SDO will beam back IMAX-quality images of solar explosions and peer beneath the stellar surface to see the sun’s magnetic dynamo in action.

Joined Crews Bid Adieu Before Shuttle Departure

The joined crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station just bid a fond adieu before hatches between the craft swung shut in advance of the shuttle’s scheduled departure at 7:54 p.m.

WARP DRIVES: MAKING THE ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ POSSIBLE

It’s very easy to say that something is “impossible” when talking about technologies that appear to be more at home in science fiction storylines. And when it comes to warp drives — the staple of Star Trek propulsion systems — there’s no shortage of critics.

Huntsville leaders organize in battle to save Constellation Project

There are many engineers and thousands of others in north Alabama who are still waiting to see how Americans will get to space once the space shuttle is officially retired. Many community leaders are banding together to save the Constellation Program.

Obama’s Call to Endeavour Astronauts Gets Awkward

Astronauts flying in space are used to VIP phone calls that don’t always go as scripted, but Wednesday’s conversation was probably one of the most awkward.

NASA’s Stardust Burns for Comet, Less Than a Year Away

Just three days shy of one year before its planned flyby of comet Tempel 1, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft has successfully performed a maneuver to adjust the time of its encounter by eight hours and 20 minutes.

Bill Gordon, father of Arecibo Observatory, dies at 92

William E. Gordon, founder of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, died Feb. 16 at his home in Ithaca. He was 92.

Exploring the secrets of dark matter

Even the biggest Star Trek fan would probably have trouble understanding the technical details of the research done by Particle Astrophysics Professor Wolfgang Rau.

Jurassic Space: Ancient galaxies come together after billions of years

Imagine finding a living dinosaur in your backyard. Astronomers have found the astronomical equivalent of prehistoric life in our intergalactic backyard: a group of small, ancient galaxies that has waited 10 billion years to come together. These “late bloomers” are on their way to building a large elliptical galaxy.

STUDY RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT SUPERNOVA ORIGINS

New X-ray findings appear to have blown a hole in the leading model for the origin of stellar explosions called type 1a supernovas. Astronomers routinely use these bright supernovas to measure dark energy, a baffling entity thought to rev up the rate of expansion of the universe.

Live Long and Prosper: Enterprise takes “flight” 33 years ago today

NASA’s first step into the Space Shuttle program was an orbiter named Enterprise, which served as a model for future orbiters Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. (Though they are often referred to as “space shuttles,” an orbiter must be mated to a bright orange external tank and two skinny solid rocket boosters to merit the name.)

Mikulski slips Nelson a note on NASA

Two Senate Democrats who could play a key role in defining NASA’s future already have traded at least one note on how to respond to President Barack Obama’s vision for the space agency and his new plan to blast future NASA astronauts into space aboard commercial rockets.

Drake wants off-world listening post for alien messages

FRANK DRAKE, the founder of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), wants to take the search for aliens further: about 82 billion kilometres away, in fact.

Crist endorses KSC funding bills

Gov. Charlie Crist has endorsed legislation to assist new and expanding space businesses in Florida.

SOLAR SOUND WAVES MAY IMPROVE FLARE FORECASTS

Power grids, satellite systems and radio transmissions could all be disrupted by inclement solar weather.

A Drop in the Bucket

The search for water on other planetary bodies has taken a giant leap forward in recent months. In November, NASA announced that it had found substantial quantities of water on the Moon. Earlier this month, the Cassini spacecraft obtained data about one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, that may confirm the presence of sub-surface liquid water.

Moscow: in the footsteps of space explorers

When it comes to space, Russia has had many firsts – the first satellite, the first man in space, the first space station. And in the north of Moscow is a whole area celebrating Russia’s fascination with the stars.

U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette among House members trying to keep NASA’s moon program alive

U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette has joined 25 House colleagues trying to preserve Constellation, the back-to-the-moon mission that brought stability to the NASA Glenn Research Center.

Colony of humans on moon possible in future: Nair

<a href="http://www.ptinews.com/news/522953_Colony-of-humans-on-moon-possible-in-future–Nair”>With the discovery of water on the moon, there was a distinct possibility of humans setting up a colony in the nearest satellite from the Earth, former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said today.

Deciphering space intelligence ranks a military priority

With a space-based tracking and surveillance system set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force base this summer, turning the flood of information generated by the United States’ military space operations into actionable intelligence for commanders is a top priority, a top Air Force space commander said Feb. 17.

UA to slice metallic space ‘bologna’

University of Arizona researchers eagerly await the arrival of a small cylinder of aluminum silicon alloy that was melted and resolidified in the zero gravity of a metals lab on the International Space Station.

Pardon the Intrusion, But Your Data Show No Signs of Dark Matter

Physicists may not know what dark matter is, but they’re getting a better idea of what it’s not. Data from NASA’s orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope puts a crimp in particle theorists’ favored explanation of the mysterious stuff whose gravity holds the galaxies together, ruling out a hefty range of masses for the hypothesized particles, a team announced this week.

Astronomers find oldest stars outside Milky Way

European Southern Observatory astronomers have said they had uncovered the oldest stars in our galactic neighborhood thanks to a massive telescope installed in Chile.

New Commercial Rocket Ready to Do NASA’s Heavy Lifting

NASA’s space shuttles are flying their final missions this year, but one commercial spaceflight company in California has a new, privately-built rocket standing ready to replace the aging workhorse.

Unions planning Space Coast rally to save NASA

Angry, bitter and scared by the end of the shuttle program later this year and a proposed new national space policy shift that few understand and many dislike, aerospace workers are organizing a rally to “save” NASA’s human spaceflight program.

And now Gov. Charlie Crist blasts Obama’s NASA policy

On the eve of Florida’s ”Space Summit” in Orlando, the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate campaign on Wednesday released the following statement from the governor about President Barack Obama’s chat with astronauts aboard the International Space Station:

Atomic fountain reveals ‘gravitational red shift’

YOUR watch runs a tiny bit faster at the top of Everest, where Earth’s gravity is slightly weaker, than it does at sea level. This difference is dubbed the “gravitational red shift” (GRS) and is one of the trickiest predictions of general relativity to measure because the effect is so small. Now the accuracy of measurement has been improved by a factor of 10,000.

Clashing stellar couples trigger cosmic blasts

Ill-fated encounters between stellar couples may be responsible for the spectacular explosions used to measure the effects of dark energy, a new study suggests.

80 YEARS OF PLUTO

Astronomers had their doubts about Pluto from the very start. At first, even its discoverer wasn’t sure where the little world fit in the planetary parade. But 80 years after it was found, Pluto has demonstrated that it’s a survivor.

Olson vows to oppose Obama’s NASA budget

Economic boosters from Clear Lake mingled with space employees Wednesday at a Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership meeting, where concern ran high about the impact of President Barack Obama’s proposed NASA budget.

Shuttle Endeavour Hauls Station Into Higher Orbit

Docked shuttle Endeavour is in the midst of a 33-minute thruster firing that will raise the orbit of the International Space Station while astronauts inside the outpost continue to outfit its last American section — the U.S. Tranquility module.

FUSION-POWERED EXPRESS TO THE PLANETS

Science fiction fans will wistfully think of the Arthur C. Clarke novel “2010: Odyssey Two.” In this literary sequel to the 1968 seminal film classic “2001:A Space Odyssey,” astronauts return to Jupiter to track down the mysterious alien black monolith and salvage the abandoned Discovery 1, a nuclear fission powered exploration ship. (There is also a horribly anachronistic 1984 film adaptation starring “Jaws-killer” Roy Scheider).

Mikulski To Focus on Astronaut Safety, Spaceflight Destination in Drafting NASA Bill

U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee that oversees NASA spending, said astronaut safety, mission destination and work force transition would be among a half-dozen core principles she will use to draft the agency’s 2011 appropriations bill.

Viewing Vesta: Use Binoculars to Spot an Asteroid

Have you ever seen an asteroid? If not, this week is an excellent time to do so: Vesta, the brightest asteroid, will be well placed for observation with binoculars in the constellation Leo.

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