Category: space.com

An intense solar flare took out low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean earlier today (Sept. 28), and the unstable sunspot is likely to erupt again.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured an amazing video of the solar flare from space.

At 10:53 a.m. EDT (1453 GMT), the medium-size M7-class solar flareburst from the sunspot called Active Region 2422 (AR2422). The explosion unleashed extreme ultraviolet radiation that rushed over the Earth, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said in a statement. The peak of the action, when there was a brief radio communications blackout on the sunlit side of Earth, was about 5 minutes later, at 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT). The flare ended 7 minutes after that. [Biggest Solar Flares and Sun Storms of 2015 in Photos]

Sunspots are caused by knots and complications in the sun’s magnetic field, and the particularly tangled field within AR2422 generated this recent solar flare when it released a buildup of magnetic energy suddenly — causing a burst of high-energy radiation that rushed to Earth and supercharged the atmosphere. Scientists do not expect an associated coronal mass ejection, where physical gas ejected from the sun hits Earth.

At 10:53 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT) on Sept. 28, a solar flare caused a blackout in low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean, with weaker effects farther out. The unruly sunspot may prompt more solar flares, according to NASA.
Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

That M7-class flare was strong enough that the extra atmospheric charge interfered with low-frequency radio communications over South America and the Atlantic Ocean, with weaker effects farther out. And there’s a chance that sunspot AR2422 may release more solar flares.

“AR2422 has an unstable ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field that could erupt again at any moment,” Spaceweather.com said in its forecast. At the time of this writing, there was a 40-percent chance of another, similarly sized solar flare and a 5 percent chance of a powerful X-class flare during the next 24 hours. X-class flares can cause planet-wide radio blackouts and radiation storms, and are 10 times more powerful than M-class flares.

An M7-class solar flare Monday (Sept. 28) burst from an active sunspot and caused radio blackouts over South America and the Atlantic Ocean. The sunspot responsible, Active Region R2422, is visible in the lower right of this image, taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.
Credit: sunspot, solar flare, nasa, noaa, solar dynamics observatory, m-class, x-class

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is an observational spacecraft that has been orbiting the sun since 2010, taking incredibly high-resolution images of the solar surface, gathering data about the sun’s magnetic activity and helping to predict solar storms’ impacts on Earth.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

In the science fiction film “The Martian,” a powerful dust storm puts astronauts in danger on Mars. In reality, dust storms on Mars don’t pack such a huge punch, NASA says. Credit: 20th Century Fox

Without giving away too many spoilers about “The Martian”, there’s an opening scene in the book (and upcoming movie) in which a dust storm causes major damage and literally blows away an astronaut. But could that actually happen on the Red Planet?

Despite the amazing space travel details in “The Martian,” a film based on the book by Andy Weir, that Mars dust storm scene, which ultimately sets up the entire film, is itself blown away by Red Planet realities.

It turns out the atmosphere on Mars is so thin that even a strong wind wouldn’t make that much of a difference, according to a NASA planetary scientist who studies planetary dust storms regularly (though he hasn’t read the book). “You would probably feel a breeze, but it wouldn’t be knocking you over,” Michael Smith, who works at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, told Space.com. [“The Martian”: An Epic Space Film in Photos]

A Martian dust storm might crackle with electricity, as in this artist’s concept.
Credit: NASA

Back in 1971, when the Mariner 9 spacecraft arrived at Mars, a gargantuan dust storm engulfed the entire planet. Not much was known about Mars at the time. Scientists saw a set of odd circular shapes poking through the dust, but couldn’t figure out what they were until storm settled. Then the scientists realized these circles were the tops of gigantic dormant volcanoes.

Global Red Planet dust storms are rare — there were others in 2001 and in 2007 — but local dust storms pop up frequently. The causes of global storms are still unclear, Smith said, although these tempests tend to happen during summer in the planet’s southern hemisphere. The 2007 storm hit while the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were on the Martian surface. The rovers hunkered down and took pictures of the darkening sky.

Smith said a person standing on the planet’s surface would have trouble seeing — how much trouble is unclear, but it would be darker. The grinding sand would also get into everything: spacesuits, habitats,  rovers and other equipment, Smith said.

“The dust is electrostatic, like foam peanuts,” Smith said, adding that the 1-micron size of sand particles “is so small that it coats everything.”

But the wind, even at 60 mph (97 km/hr), would seem more like a breeze, because the density of Martian air is only 1 percent that of Earth. With an understanding that wind force is a function of atmospheric density as well as velocity, calculations show the speed of a 60-mph storm on Mars would feel more like 6 mph (9.6 km/hr), Smith said.

“It’s not blowing people over, but these are dramatic events and they would have real-world consequences,” he said.

NASA’s entire fleet of Mars spacecraft monitors dust storms, particularly in visible wavelengths and thermal wavelengths (which shows the density). The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is used for most observations.

In the past decade, MRO’s Mars Climate Sounder has provided extensive information about the appearance of different layers of the atmosphere during dust storms, Smith said. Results indicate the density varies by altitude, making the storms even more complex than they look.

“The Martian,” directed by Ridley Scott and based on the book by Andy Weir, opens in theaters nationwide on Oct. 2.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

The movement of waves in Saturn’s rings offers clues to activity and conditions within the planet. This natural-color view of Saturn was taken from 764,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) away. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Unusual ripples in Saturn’s rings are revealing the mysterious inner workings of the great gas giant. Planetary scientists and modelers are slowly picking apart that mystery.

Billions of particles race around Saturn’s 170,000-mile-wide (273,600 kilometers) set of rings, which are mostly water ice with a smattering of rock. The rings are full of activity, including waves that ricochet outward in spiral patterns, most caused by the gravitational pull of Saturn’s 62 moons. Waves caused by the moons, which orbit outside the rings’ sphere, always travel outward.

But then there’s a set of waves heading inward. That means there’s something moving inside, too. [Video: Fly Through Space ‘In Saturn’s Rings’]

Most scientists’ models of Saturn and other gas giants assume the planet is pretty uniform — just a large gas envelope surrounding a small, dense core that’s perhaps the size of Earth. But by studying the rings’ waves, researchers are finding the picture much more complicated.

“The one thing that might produce this [series of waves] is that some sort of disturbance inside Saturn itself is spinning around with a period that’s less than 7 hours,” Phillip Nicholson, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in New York, told Space.com. Researchers first noticed hints of that disturbance in the 1990s, and Nicholson’s team used more precise measurements to fully document the ring waves’ structures, which reflect the oscillations of the planet within — sort of like recurring Saturn quakes.

Right now, measuring those oscillations offers scientists the best possible chance to grasp what’s going on far inside the planet, like Saturn’s internal rotation or structure, which appears to be more complicated than previously thought, scientists say.

“Even dropping a probe into the atmosphere would not necessarily help a lot, because the probe will only get down to a pressure of five or 10 atmospheres before it gets cooked or squashed,” Nicholson said. “We need to go much deeper to understand this.”

Everything is ringing

Saturn isn’t the only astronomical body with a groove; for many years, researchers have been watching the vibrations of the sun and other stars. Even Earth has a hum, and scientists use whole-Earth oscillations, triggered by large earthquakes, to discern what’s going on inside.

“The basic idea is that we know of many stars, including our own sun, that oscillate at certain frequencies that are determined by the actual internal structure of the planet or the star,” Jim Fuller, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, told Space.com. Fuller studies and models those oscillations, including those in Saturn, building off of initial work by Nicholson and his collaborator Matthew Hedman, now at the University of Idaho.

Tools like NASA’s orbiting Kepler Space Telescope, which precisely measures the brightness of distant stars while searching for planets orbiting around them, can send back information about changes in brightness detailed enough to see the stars’ shifting— a field called astroseismology. Helioseismology, which measures sound waves below the sun’s surface, has given researchers a detailed understanding of the flow of materials deep within the sun. Seismographs can measure whole-Earth vibrations directly, using the same process as ordinary seismology, which has told researchers about conditions deep inside Earth. But it is much more challenging to detect movements within planets humans aren’t sitting on.

Enter kronoseismology, the study of oscillations within Saturn. Nicholson and Hedman chose the name because Kronos (or Cronus) is the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Saturn, a mighty Titan, whose namesake planet has correspondingly mighty rings. Those rings act as a rare window into the movements at the heart of the planet.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is currently exploring Saturn and its moons, has carefully measured how much light from individual stars shines through the rings with its Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, which allows scientists to calculate the changes in the rings’ density at different locations. Researchers can pull out the patterns of ring density, in the form of waves, caused by the oscillations of mass within Saturn itself, and use those patterns to learn about the planet, like using the sounds made by a violin or a drum to determine its shape. [Star Tunes: Composer Sets Twinkling Data to Music]

Something strange

When Nicholson put together the series of waves caused by Saturn’s movement for a 2013 paper, they didn’t quite add up. Instead of a regular pattern of vibrations all building on one another, he was seeing multiples of some waves and missing others.

Caption: Different oscillations of Saturn cause certain distinctive patterns in the planet’s rings. By analyzing them, researchers are determining what’s happening inside the gas giant. If the planet were very simple, it would have only one of each of these oscillation patterns, rotating at different speeds; instead, it has multiples of some and is missing others.
Credit: Matthew Hedman

“If Saturn were a nice big ball of liquid hydrogen and helium, liquid and gas, it really should only have one frequency associated with each of these overtones,” he said. Instead, the measurements were like a violin that plays multiple discordant tones when one string is strummed. There’s “something a bit wrong with your violin, if that’s the case,” he said.

Fuller has conducted follow-up research to try to find the possible causes of the discord. “Saturn must have a layer deep down inside of it that’s stably stratified,” he said. “For some reason, the fluid is very stable and doesn’t move around very much … And that part is new, because the conventional models of giant planets are just convective envelopes [where the materials move freely to exchange heat] all the way down to their core. But what I found is that those very simple models can’t explain what we’re seeing in the rings.”

Fuller suggested that the stable layers could have a number of causes. By modeling each potential scenario and measuring the waves it would create, he and others are hoping to narrow down the possibilities. One explanation, he said, is that the helium is separating from its mix with hydrogen lower down in the planet, because of higher pressure, and condensing into helium raindrops that fall even deeper. Then, the boundary between the high-helium area below and the mostly hydrogen area above would be a stable border, Fuller said.

Another explanation might be that the ice and rock of the core are dissolving upward into the hydrogen and helium that make up most of the planet. That, too, would create smooth layers of fluid beneath the turbulent gas above.

“In the past, people have thought of these ideas, but it’s been very hard to test them because we have no way of seeing what’s inside of Saturn,” Fuller said. “But with the seismology, for the first time, we’re starting to get a glimpse of that interior structure. It’s still pretty primitive, because we can only detect some of Saturn’s operations, but it’s enough to give us some interesting prospects, at the very least.

Lifting the veil

New models of a gas giant’s interior will help reveal which of these possibilities, or others, could match Saturn’s real oscillations. “We’re mainly waiting for theoretical developments,” Nicholson said. In the meantime, the Cassini orbiter is continuing to grab detailed data that will lend greater focus to the findings. When it spirals into even lower orbits, it might be able to reveal more about subtle changes in the planet’s gravity as well.

Researchers are also looking at Uranus’ rings to see if they can discern anything about the inside of that planet — and there are many other rings to consider out in the solar system. But for now, Saturn offers the best glimpse into the depths of a gas giant, which can be compared and contrasted with the distant planets seen around other stars. Exoplanet researchers like Jonathan Fortney at University of California, Santa Cruz, are eager for anything that will pierce the veil of the gas giants. In fact, he said, one of his graduate students is waiting until Cassini plunges into Saturn, in 2017, to combine the new gravitational data with kronoseismology to get an even more detailed picture.

“There’s a paradigm of giant planets being pretty simple objects, where they have a core of ice and rock, and this tremendous envelope of hydrogen/helium on top of that,” Fortney told Space.com. “That’s how people have mostly modeled giant planets for 50 years. But what the kronoseismology tells us is, there’s some region that is strange, there’s some part of the bottom of the envelope that’s not simple, that’s not convective. It tells us that Saturn is not a simple object; there’s something more going on there.”

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Dark streaks painting the side of Martian hills were likely formed by saltwater, scientists announced today (Sept. 28). What does the presence of liquid water imply for life on the Red Planet? Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The discovery of liquid (albeit very salty) water on Mars may suggest that the Red Planet is more habitable than previously thought, according to scientists.

Strange, dark streaks that run down the sides of hills on the surface of Mars are formed partly by the presence of liquid water, scientists announced today (Sept. 28). Using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the researchers say they now have strong evidence that salty water soaks the planet’s surface soil, perhaps even flows down the slopes, and creates the dark streaks.

“Water, as I’m sure many of you have heard us say on multiple occasions, is an essential ingredient for life,” said Mary Beth Wilhelm, a planetary science researcher at the NASA Ames Research Center, in a NASA briefing earlier today (Sept. 28). “Our results may point to more habitable conditions on the near surface of Mars than previously thought.” [Flowing Water on Mars: The Discovery in Pictures]

The surface of Mars is, for the most part, extremely inhospitable to life. But life on Earth has proven again and again to be incredibly tenacious. There are life-forms that can survive incredibly hot and cold temperatures, extreme doses of radiation, and highly salty pools of water. But the authors of the new study, which was published online today (Sept. 28) in the journal Nature Geoscience, said they can’t yet make any direct comparisons between the saltwater found on Mars and environments on Earth.

“The potential habitability by Earth-like microbes is unclear,” said Wilhelm, who is one of the authors on the paper announcing the new finding. “To assess habitability, we would first need to determine how cold and how concentrated the brine is.”

The dark streaks of saltwater found on Mars are technically referred to as “recurring slope linea,” or RSLs. Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars exploration program at NASA, noted during the briefing that similar-looking streaks have been observed in Antarctica.

“The difficulty is that something that looks the same doesn’t mean it is the same, so we don’t know if it’s the same mechanism [causing the streaks],” Meyer said. “But at least we have something that looks similar, so that’s being studied.”

The question of whether life can survive in the Martian brines is further complicated because most of the brines are seasonal. They appear in the early Martian spring but then disappear in the Martian autumn and winter months, said Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard MRO, who also spoke during the NASA briefing.

RSLs at the equator of Mars can be observed year-round, McEwen said, but they move with the sun throughout the year (so they appear on the slopes that get the most sunlight). Because the RSLs don’t constitute a permanent feature, any life-forms they might support would have to find a way to survive when the water disappears (there are life forms on Earth that can go into hibernation during periods of drought).

Do you think life exists on Mars today?

Another relevant question in the search for life in these RSLs is the source of the water. The authors of the new research said their leading hypothesis is that the water is absorbed from the Martian atmosphere. MRO detected a type of salt called a perchlorate, which can suck water out of the air — a process called deliquescence. But, the scientists noted that it’s possible that the water is coming from subsurface supplies.

“If I were a microbe on Mars, I would probably not live near one of these RSLs,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “I would want to live further north or south, at higher latitudes, quite far under the surface, where there’s a freshwater glacier. We only suspect those places exist, and we have some scientific evidence that they do. And that’s a subject of future exploration, when we can find subsurface ice that’s a few meters or deeper below the surface and that’s fresh water. And I think that’s going to be a very exciting area of exploration in the future.”

Grunsfeld noted that these RSLs would likely receive attention in future Mars rover missions and other studies of the Red Planet.

“I can’t imagine that it won’t be a high priority for the scientific community to send something … to go to these areas, and may have a life-detection capability to see if there’s life there that’s similar to [life on] Earth,” he said.

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Matt Damon appears as a stranded astronaut on Mars in ‘The Martian’ motion picture, coming to theaters in November 2015. Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Paul Sutter is a research fellow at the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste and visiting scholar at the Ohio State University’s Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP). Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series Space In Your Face. He contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Ah, Mars. The place that dreams are made of. As long as those dreams involve a poisonous, tenuous atmosphere, inhospitable cold and lots and lots of red. Still, people seem to want to go there. But will we ever make it?

“Yes,” if you ask Elon Musk. I agree, but it probably won’t be as easy as you might think, even if you think it’s going to be really really hard.

Gravity doesn’t know when to give up

What’s the problem? Pick up the nearest object and throw it. I don’t care if there are people around you. Do it. This is an experiment. This is science. Note how far the object goes before it hits the ground. Now pick it up and throw it harder. It went further, didn’t it? 

Part of the reason you didn’t throw it as far as your ego thought you would was air resistance. Plowing through the atmosphere like a bull in a molecular china shop, the object quickly loses speed. But the actual “hitting the ground” part is due to gravity. If you took away all the air, your thrown object would still eventually hit the ground.

In an airless world, no matter how hard you throw the object, it will reach the ground in the same amount of time. That’s because gravity only works in the “down” direction, not the “over” direction, so for all gravity cares, you might as well have just lazily dropped it. But the harder you throw it, the more speed it will have, and the farther it will go before inevitably hitting the ground.

Or maybe not so inevitably. Imagine throwing something so hard that in the few seconds before it hits the ground, it reached the other side of a house. Or maybe a street. Throw it harder and you could get it across town. Across the country. Even faster: across an ocean. 

Imagine throwing it so fast that by the time gravity gets around to doing its thing, the Earth has curved away from it. Gravity keeps on tugging at the object, but it frustratingly keeps missing the ground.

Ta-da: orbit!

How fast is orbital fast? Around 18,000 miles per hour (or 11 kilometers per second), give or take. There is, after all, an actual atmosphere to deal with.

You can certainly go slower and still visit space. Just make sure you packed a heat shield, because you’re coming back down. You can also go even faster than orbital speed and escape the jealous clutches of Earth’s gravity altogether, which is what it takes to get to Mars.

Getting away from it all

And that’s the fundamental challenge. There just aren’t many ways of pushing stuff that fast. Our best method so far involves blowing up stuff in a tube, and making sure to leave a hole in one side. Newton’s laws do the rest. It seems primitive, but the engineers tell me these “rockets” are actually quite complicated.

We can easily send robots to Mars, because their feelings don’t get hurt if you forget to pack the oxygen and food. But people are a different … well, animal, altogether. Humans are heavy. Humans need to carry little bubbles of the Earth ecosystem with them everywhere they go. Humans need room to stretch. Humans want to bring human-centric niceties, like hammers and toothpaste and lima beans.

Oh, yeah, and we need to bring them back home, I suppose. So pack the spare rockets and extra fuel.

Let this sink in: at the time of this writing, we don’t have the capacity to send humans beyond Low Earth Orbit, the very edge of space, let alone Mars. Getting to Mars is hard, folks, and it requires a lot of new technology.

And that’s just enough stuff for a handful of hominids to poke around the place for a bit. A colony? Look around the city you’re in, and marvel at all the junk it takes to get you through the day. Think of all the layers of civilization and organization (spontaneous or otherwise) it takes to get you dinner. Made of food. Cooked. On a plate. That you will clean up with water … eventually. In a house. On a street. And on and on.

A city is a massively complicated thing. Sure, we’ve built them from the ground up before, but colonies on Earth have a few advantages, namely, a) breathable air, b) liquid water, c) dirt and d) proximity to other Earth-based cities. Even the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station — the closest to a Mars colony you can get while keeping two feet on the Earth — enjoys most of these advantages, and is still a nightmare to keep alive.

Don’t get zapped

And did I mention the cosmic rays? No? Well, now’s a good time — cosmic rays are high-energy protons (and some heavier nuclei) zipping through the universe, generated in…well, we’re not exactly sure, but probably supernovae and other cataclysmic events. The universe is swimming in them, and they cut through DNA like a hot knife through butter. The butter is you in this metaphor, just to be clear. On Earth the atmosphere makes for nice insulation, catching most of the deadliest cosmic rays, but some still make it through, possibly giving everyone — especially airline crews — a slightly elevated risk of cancer. [Radiation Fears Shouldn’t Hold Back Mars Colonization (Op-Ed )]

But a two-year journey to Mars? Exposure on the surface? Better make sure your transports and habitats are well-shielded or buried underground — or at least make sure you have some talented oncologists on staff.

Despite these challenges and more, it’s not impossible to get people to Mars and start a viable colony. It’s not like there’s any physics-based reason preventing the escapades. It’s just a question of engineering. And money.

Lots and lots of money.

The high cost of Martian real estate

SpaceX has an ambitious plan to get a colony on Mars through private investment in ever-larger, cheap, reusable rockets that could deliver a steady stream of people and supplies to slowly build up a colony over decades. It just takes lots of money.

NASA has an ambitious plan to build the Space Launch System, the biggest, most hard-core rocket ever made. With that kind of fire, you could send all sorts of stuff into space, including a crew to Mars. It just takes lots of money.

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Credit: SPACE.com

There are other ideas, such as Mars One (“I know, just leave everybody there, then we don’t have to pay for a return ticket!”) and Mars Direct, but in the end it takes time. And lots of money.

So eventually, we’ll do it. Humans will go to Mars . Babies will be born there. Civilization will flourish — or flounder — on the Red Planet. It’s just a matter of when, and of how much money we’re willing to spend. Did I mention the money part?

Sure, if one day everyone decided that we don’t need socks anymore, we could use the leftover savings to fast-track a Martian colony. Full of chaffed feet, but a colony nonetheless. We’re certainly at the civilizational stage where sending humans to Mars is feasible, which is a huge first step. A hundred years ago, not only did we lack the technology, but also the economic wherewithal to entertain such a wacky notion.

That’s the trick to getting to Mars: either we need to be so wealthy as a society that a trip is so economically insignificant that nobody cares, or there needs to be a large political (if led by NASA) or economic (if led by a company) incentive to do it. One or both of those scenarios is bound to happen, sooner or later.

Hopefully sooner.

Learn more by listening to the episode “Will we colonize Mars?” on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to Ann Fisher for the question that led to this episode! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.

The blood red 2015 “supermoon” eclipse was stunning in the night sky on September 27. Credit: Bob Wick, U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Robert Wick, photographer for the BLM, contributed these images to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The 2015 “supermoon” eclipse was stunning from the dark skies of the Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument on the early evening of September 27.

The monument, created in 2015 and managed by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service, hosts some of the most scenic and biologically diverse landscapes in northern California. They range from rolling, oak-studded hillsides to steep creek canyons and a 7,000-foot (2,100-meter) peak with expansive views. The national monument is within easy driving distance for residents of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento Metropolitan region. 

The 2015 “supermoon” eclipse captured at the Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Credit: Bob Wick, U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Visitors can explore monument lands by hiking on trails or rafting in the Cache Creek Wilderness. These photos were taken along the Cache Creek Ridge Trail. The trees in the foreground of several of the images are blue oaks, which dot the ridges in this part of the national monument.

The 2015 “supermoon” eclipse appears between blue oaks in the new Berryessa-Snow Mountain National Monument, managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Credit: Bob Wick, U.S. Bureau of Land Management

A closer look at these public lands will reveal an intricate world of plants, animals and insects that have adapted to thrive in harsh and rocky serpentine soils. These greenish-gray soils lack essential nutrients needed by most plants. To survive these soils, plants must tolerate drought, exposure to heavy metals and full sun. For years, scientists have studied conditions within the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument to improve their understanding of these habitats and the specially adapted plants.

For more beautiful images from Bob Wick, see:

Watch the Milky Way Shine Over California’s King Range in This Awesome Video

Stunning Night-Sky Images from the American Desert (Photos )

Perseid Meteor Shower Still Stunning This Weekend

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.

Credit: NASA/SDO

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Red Planet vehicle used by NASA astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) in the upcoming film “The Martian.” Credit: 20th Century FOX

Leroy Chiao, AstroCritic, is a former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station. During his 15-year flying career, he performed six spacewalks and spent nearly 230 days in space. Chiao is the special adviser for human spaceflight to the Space Foundation and the Houston Association for Space and Science Education. He also holds appointments at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University. Chiao contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Some time ago, I participated in a remote panel discussion via streaming video that included Andy Weir, author of “The Martian” (Crown, 2014). The topic of course, was Mars and what it might be like to be an astronaut there. I must admit that I was unaware of Weir’s book at the time. But I came to hear that it was a well-written, good story and that he didn’t take too many technical liberties. So, it was with some anticipation that I watched the Houston preview of “The Martian,” the movie version of the book, out in theaters next month.

The film begins on the surface of Mars , where an international crew of astronauts is partway through its mission. A large storm approaches, and the crew retreats to its Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) to ride out the bad weather, and abort to orbit if conditions get beyond limits. 

After the storm hits, mission commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) leads an extra-vehicular activity (EVA) sortie back outside (for somewhat unclear reasons). During the EVA, a piece of flying debris strikes astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon ) and he disappears from view. Telemetry from his suit, being monitored inside the spacecraft, indicates that his suit pressure integrity has been breached. However, no biomedical data are received, leaving doubt as to his condition. Lewis orders the rest of the EVA crew back to the vehicle, while she searches for Watney. 

The storm worsens, and the crew must abort before the winds topple the MAV. Lewis reluctantly returns and gives the order to abort, leaving Watney, presumed dead, behind.

Lost in space

Matt Damon appears as a stranded astronaut on Mars in ‘The Martian’ motion picture, coming to theaters in November 2015.
Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

After the storm passes, the audience sees Watney lying face down. His suit is beeping, with a voice alarm warning him of low remaining oxygen. His suit is leaking, but not too badly. He wakes up, realizes his situation and stumbles into the habitation module of the Mars base. After collecting himself and taking stock of the situation, he comes to understand that while he is safe for the moment, he has only enough food for a little more than 30 days. The life-support systems are working, but he has no communication with the crew or mission control back on Earth. 

It would appear that he has survived his injuries and near suffocation, only to face starvation. 

The movie portrays the operational side of things pretty well. Astronauts and NASA think through every scenario as thoroughly as possible, and plan for every reasonable contingency. Still, we sometimes get surprised. In those cases, it is up to individual and collective creativity to solve the problem and try for a good outcome. The movie holds up on this account.

At this point in the film, Watney must figure out how to let NASA know that he is alive, and how to extend his resources, so he can survive until a rescue mission can be mounted. This seems true to life. 

Astronauts have a deep sense of mission, and a strong will to survive. It is in our nature to want to achieve or exceed mission objectives. This is how we are evaluated, but more importantly, this is how we evaluate ourselves. 

During the assembly phase of the International Space Station (ISS), each assembly mission had to succeed in order for the following mission to work. When I was the EVA leader of the second major ISS-assembly Space Shuttle mission, it became almost my obsession to make sure we had thought through and practiced for every little thing that could go wrong during our EVAs. 

During survival training, new astronaut candidates are drilled in never giving up. A big part of ISS training involves drills in isolating leaks and toxic-chemical release, as well as fighting and retreating from fire. You have to believe that you are going to survive, and practice how you are going to do it.

Space that’s believable

Matt Damon appears as a stranded astronaut on Mars in ‘The Martian’ motion picture, coming to theaters in November 2015.
Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Not just the mission, but also several aspects of the physical reality of the movie are convincing. From a technical perspective, the hardware depicted in the film looks pretty good. Of course, the spacesuits look much cooler than the real ones I used. And having been an EVA specialist myself, I drooled over the film’s expansive airlock that astronauts walk into, with ample room to spare! The movie glosses over certain things, like the “oxygenator,” which presumably converts something into oxygen (maybe water). Surprisingly, there really weren’t any “cool” sci-fi gadgets, which actually made the film ring true. 

A few minor errors caused me some irritation, like depicting zero-G EVA without the use of safety tethers, and the pronunciation of the name of the mother ship, “Hermes.” Everyone in the movie calls it “her-meez.” Geez, wasn’t there anyone involved in the making of this film willing to correct them (should be pronounced “air-mez”)?

The movie takes a few major technical/operational liberties, but only two really bothered me. In my view, they were unnecessary. Yes, they increased the drama of the moment, but they were not believable and I think the film would have been just as exciting without them. I won’t describe these liberties in detail here — so as not to give the film away — but, you will know them when you see them: During the attempt to rescue Watney, more thrust is needed (shades of Star Trek’s “More power, Scotty!”); the two solutions attempted were not credible.

Also, the depictions of NASA and international relations, especially with China, are somewhat simplified. But the message is one that resonates. When NASA started working with the Russians in the early 1990s, I was a skeptic (I grew up during the Cold War). I quickly came to see the bigger picture, that working together was a positive. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when resources in Russia were scarce, it was the Space Shuttle saved the Russian Mir station program. After the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, the Russians stepped up and kept Americans aboard ISS. 

The fact is, international cooperation in civil space programs has improved relations between partner nations. Although relations today between the United States and Russia could be better, I argue that they would be worse if we didn’t have this highly visible ISS program together. We can and should go down the same path with other countries, like China.

The heart of space

One scene struck home for me emotionally. At that point in the film, things are not looking good for Watney, and he records a message for his parents (he has no other family), which he hopes will be found if he doesn’t make it. 

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In preparing for spaceflight, most astronauts think through the contingency of dying. Before each of my missions, I updated my will, put all of my affairs in order and assembled a package, to be opened only if I was killed. 

Included in the package were very personal letters to each of my loved ones. Fortunately for me, my packages were never needed. I burned each one by myself, after my mission.

As one might expect, the film takes the viewer through ups and downs, highs and lows, hope and despair. But, it works. It is a good story and worth a viewing.

AstroCritic rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.

Planetary scientists have determined that recurring slope lineae flowing downhill on Mars formed by the action of contemporary liquid water. See the discovery…Read More » in this gallery. HERE:These dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks (called recurring slope lineae) are flowing downhill on Mars, and are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water. Recently, planetary scientists detected hydrated salts on these slopes at Hale crater, corroborating their original hypothesis that the streaks are indeed formed by liquid water. The blue color seen upslope of the dark streaks are thought not to be related to their formation, but instead are from the presence of the mineral pyroxene. [See full story.]   Less «

Dark narrow streaks called recurring slope lineae (RSL) emanate from the walls of Mars’ Garni crater in this image by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These RSL are up to a few hundred meters in length. They are thought to be formed by the flow of salty liquid water. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Liquid water flows on Mars today, boosting the odds that life could exist on the Red Planet, a new study suggests.

The enigmatic dark streaks on Mars — called recurring slope lineae (RSL) — that appear seasonally on steep, relatively warm Martian slopes are caused by salty liquid water, researchers said. 

“Liquid water is a key requirement for life on Earth,” study lead author Lujendra Ojha, of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told Space.com via email. “The presence of liquid water on Mars’ present-day surface therefore points to environment[s] that are more habitable than previously thought.” [Flowing Water on Mars: The Discovery in Pictures ]

Ojha was part of the team that first discovered RSL in 2011, by studying images captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

These dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks (called recurring slope lineae) are flowing downhill on Mars, and are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water. Recently, planetary scientists detected hydrated salts on these slopes at Hale crater, corroborating their original hypothesis that the streaks are indeed formed by liquid water. The blue color seen upslope of the dark streaks are thought not to be related to their formation, but instead are from the presence of the mineral pyroxene.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

RSL occur in many different locations on Mars, from equatorial regions up to the planet’s middle latitudes. These streaks are just 1.6 feet to 16 feet (0.5 to 5 meters) wide, but they can extend for hundreds of meters downslope.

RSL appear during warm weather but fade away when temperatures drop, leading many researchers to speculate that liquid water is involved in their formation. The new study, which was published online today (Sept. 28) in the journal Nature Geoscience, strongly supports that hypothesis, team members said.

Ojha and his colleagues scrutinized data gathered about four different RSL locations by another MRO instrument, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).

“Using this instrument, we can deduce the mineralogical makeup of surface materials on Mars,” Ojha said. “What we found was that at times and places when we see biggest RSL on the surface of Mars, we also found spectral evidence for hydrated salts on the slopes where RSL form.”

Hydrated salts precipitate from liquid water, so detecting them is a big deal — especially since circumstances make it unlikely that CRISM could spot RSL water directly. (CRISM observes the Red Planet at the driest time of the Martian day, about 3 p.m., when any liquid surface water would likely have evaporated, Ojha said.)

Mars Myths & Misconceptions: Quiz

No planet is more steeped in myth and misconception than Mars. This quiz will reveal how much you really know about some of the goofiest claims about the red planet.

0 of 10 questions complete

Mars Myths & Misconceptions: Quiz

No planet is more steeped in myth and misconception than Mars. This quiz will reveal how much you really know about some of the goofiest claims about the red planet.

0 of questions complete

“Due to that, I do not think we will ever find the RSL still in their liquid form at 3:00 p.m., so I think this hydrated signature of the salts is definitely a ‘smoking gun,’” he said.

A previous study of RSL in Mars’ huge Valles Marineris canyon system suggests that the features aren’t exactly burbling streams, said study co-author Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona.

“What we’re dealing with is wet soil, thin layers of wet soil, not standing water,” McEwen said today during a NASA press conference about the new discovery.

The RSL-associated salts appear to be perchlorates, a class of chlorine-containing substances that are widespread on Mars. These salts lower the freezing point of water from 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) to minus 94 F (minus 70 C), Ojha said.

“This property vastly increases the stability of brine [salty water] on Mars,” he said.

Perchlorates can absorb atmospheric water, Ojha said. But it’s unclear if Mars’ air is the source of the water in the brine flows. Other possibilities include melting of surface or near-surface ice or discharges of local aquifers.

“It is conceivable that RSL are forming in different parts of Mars through different formation mechanisms,” the study team writes in the new paper.

Observations by NASA’s Curiosity rover and other spacecraft have shown that, billions of years ago, the Red Planet was a relatively warm and wet world that could have supported microbial life, at least in some regions.

Mars is extremely cold and dry today, which is why the discovery of RSL sites has generated so much excitement over the past four years: The features point to the possibility that simple life-forms could exist on the planet’s surface now.

But the new results don’t imply that life thrives on Mars today, or even that this is a likely proposition, Ojha stressed. Perchlorate brines have a very low “water activity,” he said, meaning that the water within them is not easily available for potential use by organisms.

“If RSL are perchlorate-saturated brines, then life as we know [it] on Earth could not survive in such low water activity,” Ojha said.

The RSL discovery also has implications for the future human exploration of Mars, researchers said. NASA plans to put boots on the Red Planet by the end of the 2030s, and the presence of liquid water — even very salty water — on the surface could aid that ambitious effort.

Indigenous water “may decrease the cost and increase the resilience of human activity on the Red Planet,” study co-author Mary Beth Wilhelm, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said during today’s press conference. “Looking forward, it is imperative for us to further understand the source of the water for these features, as well as the amount.”

This story was updated at 1 p.m. EDT.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

NASA photographer Aubrey Gemignani captured this amazing view of the perigee moon total lunar eclipse over Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27, 2015. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

The first “supermoon” total lunar eclipse in more than three decades did not disappoint, with the moon thrilling skywatchers around the world as it passed through Earth’s shadow.

On Sunday evening (Sept. 27), the slightly-larger-than-normal full moon shined brightly in Earth’s skies and then dove into the planet’s shadow, turning a gorgeous reddish-gold color as observers with clear skies enjoyed the view. The event marked the first supermoon total lunar eclipse since 1982, and the last until 2033 — and it was visible to potentially billions of people across the Western Hemisphere and parts of Europe, Africa and Asia.

Space.com received images from lunar-eclipse observers from across the United States and Canada, as well as Mexico, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. [See More Amazing Photos of the 2015 Supermoon Total Lunar Eclipse]

Despite lots of clouds and rain on the way, Victor Rogus grabbed this picture of the Sept. 27 ‘supermoon’ lunar eclipse in Manatee County, Florida. — “Before clouds doomed my efforts,” he told Space.com.
Credit: Victor Rogus

An amazing lunar eclipse

“Total lunar eclipse! Got It!” photographer Victor Rogus wrote Space.com excitedly after capturing a spectacular close-up view of the blood-red moon. “Lots of clouds here in Manatee County, Florida, and rain on the way, but I managed this image through thin clouds, almost total coverage before clouds doomed my efforts!”

In Escondido, California, observer John Melson captured the lunar eclipse as the moon was rising over nearby hills. In his photo, the moon is partially obscured by Earth’s shadow, and appears enormous on the horizon.

“Looks like the Death Star (almost),” Melson wrote Space.com in an email.

Skywatcher John Melson of Escondido, California captured this jaw-dropping view of the eclipsed moon rising over nearby hills during the total lunar eclipse of Sept. 27, 2015. He compared the moon to the Death Star from Star Wars.
Credit: John Melson

NASA photographers in three different cities snapped amazing views of the total lunar eclipse. In Washington, D.C., NASA’s Aubrey Gemignani snapped views of the blood-red moon over the Washington Monument while photographer Bill Ingalls captured stunning images of the moon over the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver.

NASA photographer Aubrey Gemignani captured this stunning view of the perigee moon lunar eclipse over the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27, 2015.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

In New York City, NASA photographer Joel Kowsky captured a series of awesome images of the lunar eclipse over the Empire State Building. Elsewhere in the city, Space.com producer Tom Chao joined skywatchers at Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side, where several hundred people gathered to witness the eclipse.

“People are lining up to use telescopes, but I brought my own binoculars,” the prepared Chao said.

South of New York City, in West Orange, New Jersey, a thick and stubborn layer of clouds blocked any view of the hours-long lunar eclipse. Would-be lunar observers in that city, including Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik, had to make do with live webcasts provided by the Slooh Community Observatory, NASA, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and other institutions.

Bill Ingalls captured this shot of the ‘supermoon’ lunar eclipse Sept. 27 over the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The science of supermoon eclipses

Veteran night sky photographers Imelda Joson and Edwin Aquirre used a spotting scope and smartphone to capture this view of the total lunar eclipse of Sept. 27, 2015 as seen from the Burlington area of Massachusetts.
Credit: Imelda B. Joson and Edwin L. Aguirre

There’s nothing supernatural about supermoons. They’re the natural result of the moon’s elliptical path around Earth, which dictates that the satellite is 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) nearer to Earth at its closest point (known as perigee) than at its most distant (called apogee).  

Supermoons are full moons that occur at or near perigee. Such full moons appear about 14 percent larger and 30 brighter in the sky than apogee full moons (which are also called “minimoons”).

Every supermoon is therefore a worthy skywatching target. And a supermoon total lunar eclipse — that’s a really big deal.

Only five such eclipses occurred in the entire 20th century (in 1910, 1928, 1946, 1964 and 1982), NASA experts have said. (“Normal” total lunar eclipses, on the other hand, aren’t terribly rare; a skywatcher at any particular spot on the globe can expect to see such an event once every 2.5 years or so.)

Sunday’s lunar eclipse also marked the fourth total lunar eclipse since April 2014. It was the end of an eclipse series known as a lunar eclipse tetrad.

On Sunday evening, the supermoon began to dim slightly at 8:11 p.m. EDT (0011 GMT on Sept. 28). The total eclipse started at 10:11 p.m. EDT (0211 GMT) and lasted for 72 minutes, in a dramatic event visible to people throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, western Asia and the eastern Pacific Ocean region. The partial-eclipse phase — during which only a part of the lunar disk is in shadow — ended at 12:27 a.m. EDT (0427 GMT) on Sept. 28.

The moon does not go completely dark during a total eclipse; some sunlight is refracted around Earth, passes through the planet’s thick atmosphere and hits the lunar disk.

“Because of this, almost all colors except red are ‘filtered’ out, and the eclipsed moon appears reddish or dark brown,” NASA officials wrote in a statement. “This filtering is caused by particulates in our atmosphere; when there have been a lot of fires and/or volcanic eruptions, lunar eclipses will appear darker and redder. This eerie — but harmless — effect has earned the phenomenon the nickname ‘blood moon.’”

Lunar eclipses occur when the sun, Earth and moon all line up, with Earth in the middle. During a solar eclipse, on the other hand, the moon comes between Earth and the sun, blocking out some or all of the solar disk from skywatchers’ perspective.

Editor’s note: If you captured an amazing view of the supermoon lunar eclipse that you would like to share with Space.com for a possible story or gallery, send images and comments to managing editor Tariq Malik at: spacephotos@space.com.

Space.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik contributed to this story. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Super Moon In My Room by Uncle Milton is a wall-mounted moon lamp that can sync up with the real phases of the moon. It is 30-percent larger that Uncle Milton’s earlier Moon In My Room and plays Neil Armstrong’s historic words from the Apollo 11 moon landing. Credit: Uncle Milton

As a parent, I know that the dazzling sight of the moon in night sky can be a source of wonder for young kids, so it was no surprise when Uncle Milton’s new “Super Moon in My Room” enthralled my 6-year-old the minute she laid eyes on it.

“Super Moon in My Room,” which retails for $54.99, is the latest in a series of space-themed light-up wall lamps from Uncle Milton that pull double duty as a nightlight and educational tool for moon-minded kids. Uncle Milton launched the new moon light this month, which is impeccable timing given the supermoon total lunar eclipse on Sunday (Sept. 27).

Like its predecessor, “Moon in My Room,” it’s is a wall-mounted lamp shaped like the moon designed to mimic the 12 phases of Earth’s real moon at the touch of a remote control. But what sets it apart from the older model is its size. At just about 15 inches (38.1 cm) across, it’s about 30-percent larger than the original “Moon In My Room.” And its by far coolest function allows you to sync “Super Moon In My Room” up to the phase of real-life moon via a built-in lunar clock.

Uncle Milton’s Super Moon In My Room.
Credit: Uncle Milton

The fact that “Super Moon In My Room” is larger than its predecessor is a cool nod to nature, in which a full moon at perigee (the point in moon’s orbit when it is closest to Earth) can appear up to 14 percent larger than the smallest full moon. The new model also comes with an ethereal “solar eclipse” function that backlights the darkened moon with orange light to mimic a solar eclipse.

With four buttons on its remote control, “Super Moon In My Room” was simple for my daughter, a first-grader, to pick up in a few minutes. One of two smaller buttons toggles the lamp on and off, while the other activates the solar eclipse. Pressing and holding a larger main button (used to sync the lamp up with the real moon’s phase) activates a playback of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong’s historic words: “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” It also has Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Another button can play soothing nighttime sounds like crickets and such to lull a youngster to sleep. After a set time on, the lamp turns itself off to save battery.

For kids who are sticklers for accuracy, the back of “Super Moon in My Room” clearly labels the moon’s northern and southern hemispheres, so you’ll know which end is up when mounting it to the wall. As with the original “Moon In My Room,” the latest version also comes with an access code to download an audio tour of the moon for kids to learn more about Earth’s nearest neighbor.

An illustration of Uncle Milton’s Super Moon In My Room in solar-eclipse mode.
Credit: Uncle Milton

In terms of range, Super Moon can handle most kids’ bedrooms. I was able to control it with the remote from the far corner of my daughter’s room (a distance of 12 feet, 6 inches according to my measuring tape) without any issues. At times, I did have to mash the buttons down firmly, but the Super Moon still activated as designed. My daughter had no problem controlling it from her bed, either.

“Supermoon in My Room” does not come with its own batteries. You’ll need three C batteries for the moon lamp itself and two AAAs for the remote control. So that’s something to consider if you plan to give it as a gift,  and I think it does make an excellent gift.

All told, “Supermoon In My Room” is a great option for parents looking for a comforting nightlight that also might inspire youngsters to gaze up at the moon. And it adds to Uncle Milton’s family of planetary lamps, which includes “Mars In My Room” and “Earth In My Room,” as well as the ceiling mounted “Solar System In My Room.”

BUY “Super Moon In My Room by Uncle Milton >>

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.