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Coalition for Space Exploration Blog
15 Apr 2014, 23:37 UTC
Vegetables for a Red Planet? That is the prognosis of a study by plant ecologist Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen UR – a university and research center in The Netherlands that focuses specifically on the theme “healthy food and living environment.” The soil on Mars may be suitable for cultivating food crops, Wamelink reports, and he [...] Credit: NASA/JPL Vegetables for a Red Planet? That is the prognosis of a study by plant ecologist Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen UR – a university and research center in The Netherlands that focuses specifically on the theme “healthy food and living environment.” The soil on Mars may be suitable for cultivating food crops, Wamelink reports, and he is convinced that a complete food cultivation system for Mars is achievable within a decade. In a unique pilot experiment, the plant ecologist tested the growth of 14 plant varieties on artificial Mars soil over 50 days. Making use of NASA-composed soil based on the volcanic soil of Hawaii, to his surprise, the plants grew well. Some even blossomed. “I had expected the germination process to work, but I thought the plants would die due to a lack of nutrients,” Wamelink explains. The soil analysis showed that ...
Food Crops for a Red Planet?
15 Apr 2014, 23:37 UTC
Vegetables for a Red Planet? That is the prognosis of a study by plant ecologist Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen UR – a university and research center in The Netherlands that focuses specifically on the theme “healthy food and living environment.” The soil on Mars may be suitable for cultivating food crops, Wamelink reports, and he [...] Credit: NASA/JPL Vegetables for a Red Planet? That is the prognosis of a study by plant ecologist Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen UR – a university and research center in The Netherlands that focuses specifically on the theme “healthy food and living environment.” The soil on Mars may be suitable for cultivating food crops, Wamelink reports, and he is convinced that a complete food cultivation system for Mars is achievable within a decade. In a unique pilot experiment, the plant ecologist tested the growth of 14 plant varieties on artificial Mars soil over 50 days. Making use of NASA-composed soil based on the volcanic soil of Hawaii, to his surprise, the plants grew well. Some even blossomed. “I had expected the germination process to work, but I thought the plants would die due to a lack of nutrients,” Wamelink explains. The soil analysis showed that ...
Sky and Telescope
15 Apr 2014, 23:04 UTC
The post Red Things in the Sky – Moon and Mars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Red Things in the Sky – Moon and Mars
15 Apr 2014, 23:04 UTC
The post Red Things in the Sky – Moon and Mars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
SPACE.com
15 Apr 2014, 20:36 UTC
Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly asked his nation's air force to hasten its integration of air and space capabilities. Some of the Chinese media framed Xi's request as a response to actions by the United States and other world powers.
China's President Xi Wants More Military Use of Space: Report
15 Apr 2014, 20:36 UTC
Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly asked his nation's air force to hasten its integration of air and space capabilities. Some of the Chinese media framed Xi's request as a response to actions by the United States and other world powers.
AmericaSpace
15 Apr 2014, 18:45 UTC
Atop its Soyuz-U booster, EgyptSat-2 is transferred to Site 31/6 at Baikonur on Monday, 14 April. Photo Credit: Roscosmos Egypt will launch its second remote-sensing satellite into orbit tomorrow (Wednesday, 16 April) atop Russia’s Soyuz-U booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The EgyptSat-2 mission is currently scheduled to get underway from Site 31/6 [...]
EgyptSat-2 Ready to Launch Wednesday Atop Soyuz-U Booster
15 Apr 2014, 18:45 UTC
Atop its Soyuz-U booster, EgyptSat-2 is transferred to Site 31/6 at Baikonur on Monday, 14 April. Photo Credit: Roscosmos Egypt will launch its second remote-sensing satellite into orbit tomorrow (Wednesday, 16 April) atop Russia’s Soyuz-U booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The EgyptSat-2 mission is currently scheduled to get underway from Site 31/6 [...]
The Daily Galaxy
15 Apr 2014, 18:07 UTC
NASA will host a news teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, April 17, to announce a new discovery made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope. The journal Science has embargoed the findings until the time of the news conference. For a detailed background briefing, see our post "Getting Closer and Closer" --Kepler Mission Findings Reveal Alien Star Systems in a Milky Way Teeming with Planets. The briefing participants are: -- Douglas Hudgins, exoplanet exploration program scientist, NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington -- Elisa Quintana, research scientist, SETI Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. -- Tom Barclay, research scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at Ames -- Victoria Meadows, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle, and principal investigator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory, a team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Launched in March 2009, Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone -- the range of distance from a star in which the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might sustain liquid water. The telescope has since detected planets and planet candidates spanning a wide range of sizes ...
NASA to Livestream New Kepler-Mission Discovery Thursday --Will They Announce a Twin Earth?
15 Apr 2014, 18:07 UTC
NASA will host a news teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, April 17, to announce a new discovery made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope. The journal Science has embargoed the findings until the time of the news conference. For a detailed background briefing, see our post "Getting Closer and Closer" --Kepler Mission Findings Reveal Alien Star Systems in a Milky Way Teeming with Planets. The briefing participants are: -- Douglas Hudgins, exoplanet exploration program scientist, NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington -- Elisa Quintana, research scientist, SETI Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. -- Tom Barclay, research scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at Ames -- Victoria Meadows, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle, and principal investigator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory, a team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Launched in March 2009, Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone -- the range of distance from a star in which the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might sustain liquid water. The telescope has since detected planets and planet candidates spanning a wide range of sizes ...
Sky and Telescope
15 Apr 2014, 17:13 UTC
Sky & Telescope editors and staff made our annual pilgrimage to the astronomy expo to meet with our readers and get the scoop on the bevy of new products unleashed this year.Crowds of amateurs young and old attended NEAF this year.S&T: Sean WalkerThe editors and staff of Sky & Telescope traveled to Suffern, NY, this past weekend to attend the Northeast Astronomy Forum, a show where amateur astronomers come to drool over (and buy) new equipment, attend science talks, and meet up with fellow enthusiasts. There’s something for everyone here: telescopes, lenses, gadgets, astrophotos, finely carved lens boxes, and kid’s crafts and activities.This year’s show hosted more than 120 vendors with more exciting new products than any year before. The forum included a series of lectures by renowned speakers such as Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizon's mission to Pluto, Neil de Grasse Tyson, who among many other things hosts the reborn series of Cosmos, as well as S&T’s own Monica Young. The crowds were large enough to pack every lecture, with some so popular that attendees were turned away at the door.The Sun even cooperated with the NEAF solar star party taking place in the courtyard, ...
Large Crowds and Hot Products at Northeast Astronomy Forum
15 Apr 2014, 17:13 UTC
Sky & Telescope editors and staff made our annual pilgrimage to the astronomy expo to meet with our readers and get the scoop on the bevy of new products unleashed this year.Crowds of amateurs young and old attended NEAF this year.S&T: Sean WalkerThe editors and staff of Sky & Telescope traveled to Suffern, NY, this past weekend to attend the Northeast Astronomy Forum, a show where amateur astronomers come to drool over (and buy) new equipment, attend science talks, and meet up with fellow enthusiasts. There’s something for everyone here: telescopes, lenses, gadgets, astrophotos, finely carved lens boxes, and kid’s crafts and activities.This year’s show hosted more than 120 vendors with more exciting new products than any year before. The forum included a series of lectures by renowned speakers such as Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizon's mission to Pluto, Neil de Grasse Tyson, who among many other things hosts the reborn series of Cosmos, as well as S&T’s own Monica Young. The crowds were large enough to pack every lecture, with some so popular that attendees were turned away at the door.The Sun even cooperated with the NEAF solar star party taking place in the courtyard, ...
Discovery News - Space News
15 Apr 2014, 17:00 UTC
Trying to understand the ancient climate of our own planet is hard enough, but to understand Mars' climatic history, planetary scientists have had to turn to a rather inventive method of climate forensics. Continue reading →
Fluid Mystery: How Did Mars Ever Have Liquid Water?
15 Apr 2014, 17:00 UTC
Trying to understand the ancient climate of our own planet is hard enough, but to understand Mars' climatic history, planetary scientists have had to turn to a rather inventive method of climate forensics. Continue reading →
ESO Announcements
15 Apr 2014, 16:00 UTC
ESO’s Paranal–Armazones site in Chile has been shortlisted as one of two potential sites in the southern hemisphere for the international Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) — a large array for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy. This is an important step towards the realisation of the project and if the site is selected, this will open up a new frontier for ESO. On 10 April 2014 Government representatives from the 12 of the countries [1] involved in the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project met in Munich and decided to start negotiations with the two sites — Aar in Namibia and ESO's Paranal–Armazones site in Chile — keeping Leoncito in Argentina as a third option. The CTA project is an initiative to build the next generation of ground-based, very high energy gamma-ray instruments. The CTA project aims to use detection of high-energy gamma-rays to provide a deeper insight into the high-energy Universe. The representatives received consultation from an international Site Selection Committee as well as the CTA consortium’s extensive input on the merits of the proposed sites. The Consortium expects to close the site selection by the end of 2014. The spokesperson of the CTA Consortium, Professor Werner Hofmann said: “The site choice is ...
