The Mars Science Laboratory, a souped-up Mars rover scheduled to launch next year might be delayed, scaled down or canceled due to technical problems and cost overruns. The nuclear powered rover designed to search for microbial life on the Red Planet, has already cost $1.5 billion and if it reaches a 30-percent cost overrun, it could be cancelled by Congress. Aviation Week reports that officials from the agency's Mars Exploration Program (MEP) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will brief NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Science Associate Administrator Ed Weiler this Friday and attempt to work out a potential solution. Delaying the rover's mission until 2011 would be costly, but Weiler has said that JPL is so stretched trying to make the 2009 launch window that the result could be "a nuclear crater on Mars." () Read the rest of Will the Mars Science Laboratory Be Cut? (252 words) © nancy for Universe Today , 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh More... Less...

Galactic Collisions. Credit: Tomer Tal and Jeffrey Kenney/Yale University and NOAO/AURA/NSF It's a violent universe out there! Yesterday we ran an article about galaxies colliding and forming fireballs. Today, there's more evidence for galactic collisions, and it's not good news for potential stars. While this image is stunning, such collisions could spell doom for future star formation. A deep new image of the Virgo cluster has revealed huge tendrils of ionized hydrogen gas 400,000 light-years long connecting the elliptical galaxy M86 and the disturbed spiral galaxy NGC 4438. This image, taken by the 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, provides striking evidence of a previously unsuspected high-speed collision between the two galaxies. “Our data show that this system represents the nearest recent collision between a large elliptical galaxy and a large spiral,” said Jeffrey Kenney of Yale University, “This discovery provides some of the clearest evidence yet for high-speed collisions between large galaxies, and it suggests that the consequences of such collisions are a plausible alternative to black holes in trying to explain the mystery of what process turns off star formation in the biggest galaxies.” () Read the rest of Watch Out! Galactic Collisions Could Snuff Out Star Formation (457 words) © nancy for Universe Today , 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh More... Less...

Ozone hole during 7 October 2008 as measured by the Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) atmospheric sensor onboard ESA’s Envisat. Credits: KNMI/ESA Is the ozone hole was recovering? Maybe not. The protective atmospheric layer of ozone around our planet has been thinning over Antarctica for many years. New satellite data indicates the 2008 ozone hole is larger both in size and ozone loss than 2007 but is not as large as the record year of 2006. This year the area of the thinned ozone layer over the South Pole reached about 27 million square kilometers, compared to 25 million square kilometers in 2007 and a record ozone hole extension of 29 million square kilometers in 2006, which is about the size of the North American continent. Ozone is a protective atmospheric layer found about 25 kilometers in altitude that acts as a sunlight filter, shielding life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. A thinner ozone layer can increase the risk of skin cancer and cataracts and harm marine life. What causes the ozone layer to change from year to year, and if CFC's have been banned, why isn't the ozone recovering? () Read the rest of Ozone Hole Bigger Again (255 words) © nancy for Universe Today , 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh More... Less...

Here's the first image from MESSENGER's flyby of Mercury on Monday. The bright crater just south of the center of the image is Kuiper, which has been seen before on images from the Mariner 10 mission in the 1970s. But most of this image, to the east, or right of Kuiper, toward the limb of Mercury is new territory for human eyes – at least in optical views. The image was taken by the Wide Angle Camera as MESSENGER was departing from the planet, and are among the first spacecraft views of that portion of Mercury’s surface. Most striking are the large pattern of rays that extend from north to south, almost along the entire face of Mercury. Amazing! This extensive ray system appears to emanate from a relatively young crater newly imaged by MESSENGER, providing a view of the planet distinctly unique from that obtained during MESSENGER’s first flyby. 2nd Update: (9:40 am CDT) More images! Update: (8:50 am CDT) See 2nd image released below: () Read the rest of A Different Side of Mercury (337 words) © nancy for Universe Today , 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh More... Less...

Given all the fervor over the definition of Pluto (planet? dwarf planet ? snowball?), let's hope the debate over the discovery of a planet that lies in an equally hazy area of classification is a little calmer. The COROT satellite recently discovered an extrasolar planet named Corot-exo-3b. It's quite a curiosity as far as exoplanets are concerned, and its characteristics – such as a density twice that of lead – may force astronomers to rethink the distinction between massive planets and low-mass brown dwarfs.() Read the rest of Dense Exoplanet Creates Classification Calamity (454 words) © nick for Universe Today , 2008. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh More... Less...