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NASA prepares its Jupiter probe for arrival
It's been a long time in coming, but NASA's Juno probe is finally close to reaching Jupiter. NASA reports that the spacecraft is "on track" to arrive on July 4th, 2016 (how American!), and that the ground crew is tweaking the flight plan to at once give Juno more time and complete tasks ahead of schedule. The ship's initial orbit is splitting into two in order to test instruments before the science gathering starts. Also, it'll take 14 days to complete an orbit rather than the originally planned 11. That will extend the mission from 15 months to 20, but it should both get basic mapping data sooner (8 orbits instead of 15) and offer more leeway in case the Jovian world's magnetism and radiation create havoc. Hopefully, all this extra work will ensure that scientists understand not just the beginnings of Jupiter and the Solar System, but also the behavior of gas giants around alien stars. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]
NASA's Europa mission takes another step toward reality
NASA's current plan for exploring Europa has just passed its first major review, proving that it's feasible, unlike any of the previous ideas the agency's scientists cooked up. America's space agency has been developing mission ideas for Jupiter's moon for years and even considered sending a lander to the satellite as recently as a year ago. Its scientists also once thought of sending a spacecraft to orbit Europa, but they ended up having to scrap that plan: the moon is bathed in Jupiter's radiation, which would quickly kill any vessel that's constantly exposed to it. So, instead of a lander or a Europa orbiter, NASA will send out a spacecraft in the 2020s designed to orbit Jupiter itself.
NASA picks the scientific tools it'll use to study Europa
NASA is convinced that Jupiter's moon Europa is worth visiting, and for good reason: its icy surface could be hiding a giant ocean friendly to life. The agency is going to need the right equipment if it's going to verify its theories, however, which is why it just chose nine instruments that will go aboard a Europa mission in 2020. The tools will use a mix of imaging, magnetometry, radar and spectrometry to study the frozen world's chemical composition and learn more about what's lurking out of view. While these gadgets won't completely eliminate the need for underwater probes and other landers, they could save scientists a lot of trouble (and expense) as they search for signs of organic material.
Jupiter's moon Europa might be coated in irradiated sea salt
Astronomers have spent more than a decade trying to identify the dark substance erupting from geological features on the surface of Europa. Now, a team of researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab believe they've identified the mystery material as sea salt. You know, from the ocean that NASA suspects is hiding under Europa's icy surface. The team, led by planetary scientist Kevin Hand, began its investigation by building a testing device that recreates the extreme conditions found on the gas giant's moon. "We call it our 'Europa in a can,'" Hand said in a statement. "The spectra of these materials can then be compared to those collected by spacecraft and telescopes."
Daily Roundup: Mars One criticism, paying bills with Gmail and more!
What's happening in the world of technology today? We interview Bas Lansdorp, the CEO of Mars One, and ask about recent criticism of his organization's project. In other news, you may soon be able to pay bills from inside Gmail and the White House snags another Silicon Valley veteran to help rub the administration's Office of Digital Strategy. Read about these stories and more in today's daily roundup.
Study says early version of our solar system was ruined by Jupiter
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hypothesizes that when Jupiter rocked up to our then-infant solar system, it obliterated the incumbent planes, and gave us a lot of apparent quirks of our solar system. Konstantin Batygin and Gregory Laughlin's study highlights some curious parts to our galactic home that aren't typically found in other solar systems - particular the lack of planets between Mercury and the Sun itself. Normal solar systems usually pack in a few planets a few times the size of Earth in this gap. Apparently, our solar system's big hitter may have blitzed these planets as they were still forming, while settling into orbit itself. Thanks Jupiter.
Lockheed is getting into the reusable spacecraft business
Far and away, the most expensive part of manned spaceflight involves just getting the payload off the ground. But as humanity expands its extraterrestrial influence beyond the International Space Station to the moon, Mars and beyond, space-faring nations are increasingly turning to reusable shuttle vehicles to do much of the heavy lifting. Currently, Orbital ATK's Cygnus space vehicle and SpaceX's Dragon capsule are the only two systems cleared to dock at the ISS. On Thursday, however, Lockheed Martin unveiled its proposal for a third such system: the proprietary cargo pod, Exoliner, and autonomous space tug, Jupiter.
NASA proves that Jupiter's biggest moon is hiding an ocean
NASA has long suspected that Jupiter's biggest moon, Ganymede, has a subsurface ocean, but that's hard to prove when it's in the outer solar system. Now, a team of scientists has found a way to provide evidence that an ocean does exist underneath its ice crust using the Hubble telescope. How? Well, Ganymede is the only moon in our solar system that has its own magnetic field. That, in turn, is connected to Jupiter's field since the moon's so close to the planet. This connection causes aurorae (like the northern lights here on Earth) that circle the moon's northern and southern poles, which turned out to be just what the scientists needed.
The Big Picture: three Galilean moons make their way across Jupiter
It's easy for Hubble to take pictures of Jupiter or its moons, but it only gets the chance to capture the planet on cam with three visible Galilean satellites once or twice a decade. That's what makes the photo above special: it's a picture of the gas giant with three of its largest moons (and their shadows) making their way across the surface. Hubble used its Wide Field Camera 3 to take several photos of the event on January 23rd, 2015 -- the still you see above shows how the moons were positioned by the end of the 40-minute period.
NASA wants to send an orbiter to Jupiter's moon Europa in a decade
NASA's scientists have been conjuring up mission concepts to Europa for more than a decade, but now they're absolutely sure that the Clipper concept is the one. So, they're asking $30 million from the government for a year of preliminary studies starting on October 1st, on top of the $100 million the Congress already gave the agency to construct a viable Europa mission last year. "We believe we have now found the one that is just right," JPL senior research scientist Robert Pappalardo told Discovery News, where he also discussed more details about the agency's Goldilocks Europa project. We say "Goldilocks," because Pappalardo describes earlier concepts as too big, too small or too plain expensive.
The Big Picture: our clearest view yet of Europa, Jupiter's icy moon
It's going to be a long, long time before anyone gets to see Jupiter's moon Europa first-hand, but NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory just provided the next best thing. It has released a "remastered" image of the icy celestial body that shows what it would look like to the naked eye. NASA's Galileo probe snapped the original photo mosaic (using near-infrared, green and violet filters) back in the 1990s, but they've been put through modern image processing techniques that simulate visible light wavelengths.
Stick it to the Man, Picross e4 penciled in for eShop next week
Stick it to the Man and Picross e4 are coming to the Wii U and 3DS respectively as part of next week's eShop update. Both games arrive in North America on May 1, which means Picross e4 misses its target April window by a day. Don't worry, we've already alerted the authorities. Meanwhile, Europe gets Stick it to the Man on the same day, but the continent has to wait until May 22 for Picross e4. Written by Adventure Time comic author Ryan North, Stick it to the Man stars a dude who reads minds using a pink spaghetti arm that pops out of his head. So, a bit like Professor X but with less Patrick Stewart and more pink spaghetti arm. If you fancy Stick it to the Man on Wii U, it'll set you back $10 in North America and £7/8 euros across the pond. If you're a PS4 owner and a Plus subscriber, you can pick up Zoink's 2D adventure as a Plus freebie when it hits Europe on April 30 and North America on May 6. Alternatively, it's already available on PC. Moving onto Picross e4, the latest batch of gridded criss-cross features more than 150 puzzles, including new 20x15 whoppers. As for the hard numbers, it'll set you back $6 in North America, and £4.50/5 euros in Europe. [Image: Ripstone]
Up-close with a Bitcoin mining powerhouse (video)
Alex Lawn is in New York on a pitstop, arriving in from Sweden on his way to next week's Inside Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. He hasn't slept much. The way he describes it, no one at KnCMiner does much sleeping these days, as the company races to become the driving force in the rapidly expanding world of Bitcoin mining. He elicits some stares as he hauls around a giant metal box full of computer components, an accessory that's no doubt been the source of some major headaches passing through customs on his world travels. Inside is Jupiter, which the company claims is capable of mining the currency 100-times faster than the competition. "Everything about our project is totally over-engineered," Lawn says with a smile. "Normally the post-fabrication refinement process is around 12 to 18 months, and we did it within 24 hours." It's precisely the company's drive to beat the competition to market that has lead to so many sleepless nights. He pulls out his iPhone and shows a video of CTO Marcus Erlandsson celebrating as KnC fires up the Jupiter for the first time, the result of millions of dollars of crowdfunded investment. "He literally hadn't slept in four months." The computer is a massive beast with four giant cooling fans designed to reduce the heat given off by the 28-nanometer chip-powered modular boards. The system is broken up into four modules, designed so you can continue the 24 / 7 mining process, should one fail.
NASA details mission to discover whether Europa moon is habitable
With potential oceans flowing below its icy surface, NASA thinks Jupiter's Europa moon is promising candidate to harbor organic life. As such, the space agency and its JPL laboratory are looking to send a lander there within a decade, and have detailed what it wants it to explore in a new paper. Key goals include measuring the organic content of surface and near-surface chemistry, exploring mineralogy, measuring the thickness and salinity of the oceans and ice, imaging surface formations and looking at microscopic ice and non-ice grains. Researchers also looked at potential landing sites, and were torn between a more interesting, active site like "Thera Macula" and a more stable location with ancient geology. NASA's Juno mission, launched in August 2011, is expected to help settle such issues when it probes Europa from orbit starting in 2016. Though it'd be hard to top Curiosity's setdown, a Europa landing could be even more dramatic, considering the moon is over 10 times farther away than Mars and never gets above minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit.
PSA: Slooh's Space Camera broadcasting Moon / Jupiter conjunction right now
Right now, the Moon and Jupiter are close enough that they look more like next door neighbors of differing size than two planetary bodies vast distances away from each other. Look out of any window (assuming it's dark where you are) and you should be able to see the duo less than a pen length apart -- which is the last time we'll be able to see this conjunction until 2026. If you aren't in a position to watch the celestial event from the comfort of your hemisphere, the Slooh Space Camera is broadcasting the galactic happenings right now. If you'd like to watch, hit the source link to catch the live feed. [Image Credit: Timothy Boocock / Earthsky]
Hughes updates its HughesNet satellite broadband with Gen4 service
On the same day that Dish's new satellite broadband service kicks off, partner Hughes is upgrading its own offering with even faster speeds. HughesNet Gen4 offers downloads of up to 15 Mbps to the 19 million (or so) Americans who can't get high-speed fixed-line broadband services. $50 a month will get customers 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload with a 20GB data cap, while $80 a month offers a 30GB limit and 2 Mbps upload -- but for high-rolling hermits, $100 a month gets you the full 15 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up and a 40GB allowance. Current users wanting in on the action aren't excluded from the program, and can register their interest at our More Coverage link.
NASA looks to send landers to Europa in 2020, wants to break the ice
There's still a lot of mystery surrounding Jupiter's moon Europa, but researchers at NASA seem fairly certain that there's a watery ocean lurking beneath its icy exterior. Their theories may finally be put to the test later this decade, thanks to a concept mission crafted by astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According to Space.com, JPL researchers have come up with a plan that would send a pair of landers to Europa by 2026, in the hopes of finding out whether the rock has ever supported life forms. The endeavor certainly wouldn't be easy, since Jupiter blankets its moon in heavy radiation, but researchers think they can mitigate these risks by sending in an extra lander as backup, and by keeping the mission short and sweet. Under the plan, each 700-pound robot would use a mass spectrometer, seismometers and a slew of cameras to search for any organic chemicals that may be lodged within the moon's ice. Neither craft will sport a protective shield, so they'll only stay around the planet for about seven days, so as to avoid any radiation damage. At this point, the mission is still in the concept phase, though the JPL is hoping to launch both landers by 2020. JPL researcher Kevin Hand was quick to point out, however, that this would be a "habitability mission," and that NASA doesn't expect to find any signs of current life on Europa. Lars von Trier was unavailable for comment.
Scientists capture birth of new planet on camera, mother and child doing just fine
After all the pushing, squeezing and screaming, the universe has finally given birth to a new planet, in an eruption that two scientists managed to capture on film. The newborn pile of planetary pudge, named LkCa 15 b, was discovered by Drs. Michael Ireland and Adam Kraus, who, over the course of 12 months, successfully documented the event using Keck telescopes and a technique called aperture mask interferometry. Their findings, published in Astrophysical Journal describe a Jupiter-like gaseous planet that likely began forming some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Located about 450 light years from Earth, it's also the youngest planet ever observed, having dethroned the previous record-holder, which was about five times older. According to Ireland and Kraus, the LkCa 15 b is still being formed out of a circle of dust and gas (pictured above) surrounding a 2-million-year-old star. By observing a "young gas giant in the process of formation," the researchers hope to find answers to fundamental questions that have long eluded them. "These very basic questions of when and where are best answered when you can actually see the planet forming, as the process is happening right now," Kraus explained to the AP. Head past the break to see an artist's rendering of the newborn, and if you get the chance, be sure to send flowers.
NASA's solar-powered Juno mission heads to Jupiter today, Orbiter finds water on Mars? (video)
NASA's Juno mission has been beset by delays for a while now, but the solar-powered excursion is finally scheduled to take off for Jupiter today, in the hopes of making history. Throughout the course of its five-year journey, the "armored tank" spacecraft will be powered exclusively by a trio of solar panels, each measuring nine feet wide and 30 feet long. Close to Earth, these panels will be able to generate 14 kilowatts of electricity, but as Juno ventures deeper into space, they'll crank out only 400 watts. Power, however, shouldn't be an issue, as NASA has outfitted the craft with energy efficient onboard computers, and has drawn out a route that will maximize its exposure to the sun. Juno should arrive at Jupiter by 2016 and, if all goes to plan, will ultimately travel farther than any solar-powered craft ever has. The agency expects their creation to set the record in April 2017, when it should be about 507 million miles away from the sun, eclipsing the 492 million mile mark likely to be set by Russia's sun-juiced Rosetta craft, in 2012. Meanwhile, closer to home, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has just delivered new imagery of the Red Planet's mountains, providing perhaps the strongest evidence that water still flows there. The images reveal long, finger-like tendrils that extend down steep slopes, including the rims of craters. They appear during the summer and fade away once winter arrives, suggesting the presence of a volatile material. Researchers failed to identify water above ground, but speculate that briny water may be flowing underground. Launch past the break to see the images, in all their eight seconds of glory.
Mars Express captures Phobos in orbit, has bad video to prove it
Alright stargazers, listen up! You know that video you just watched above? Yeah, well that's not terrible 1995-era CGI, it's actually mind-blowing footage of the Martian moon, Phobos, passing by Jupiter in the distance. Credit goes to the insanely brainy folks over at the European Space Agency who captured 104 images of this special alignment on June 1st over a measly 68 seconds using their Mars Express probe. True, it does take a little bit of imagination to get the full sense of just how awe-inspiring this is, but consider this -- the distance between Mars Express and Jupiter at the time of alignment comes in at 529 million kilometers. That's about 329 million miles for those of you still not sufficiently impressed. Try doing that with your high-end DSLR.
