Tag: space.com

Artist’s concept of the VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) spacecraft, a proposed mission for NASA’s Discovery Program that would launch by the end of 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA is zeroing in on Venus and asteroids as potential targets for its next low-cost robotic exploration mission or missions, which will launch by the end of 2021.

The space agency has chosen five finalists for the next launch opportunity in its Discovery Program, which funds highly focused missions to destinations throughout the solar system. Two of the selected concepts would visit Venus, while asteroids are the objects of interest for the other three.

“The selected investigations have the potential to reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes,” former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement Wednesday (Sept. 30). [Our Solar System: A Photo Tour of the Planets]

“Dynamic and exciting missions like these hold promise to unravel the mysteries of our solar system and inspire future generations of explorers,” Grunsfeld added. “It’s an incredible time for science, and NASA is leading the way.”

The teams behind the five proposals will receive $3 million each to perform design studies and analyses over the next year. NASA will then make its final selection in September 2016, choosing one or two of the concepts to proceed to launch in 2020 or 2021.

Any mission that is ultimately selected will cost about $500 million, not including launch costs or the costs of post-launch operations, NASA officials said.

The five finalists are:

VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy)

This orbiter would return high-resolution topographic data and photos of the entire surface of Venus, allowing mission team members to generate maps of the planet’s deformation and surface composition. The principal investigator (PI) is Suzanne Smrekar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California; JPL would manage the mission.

DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)

DAVINCI is an atmospheric probe that would study the composition of Venus’ thick air during an hourlong descent. DAVINCI would help scientists determine if Venus possesses active volcanoes and shed light on how the planet’s surface and atmosphere interact, NASA officials said. Lori Glaze of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is the PI; Goddard would manage the mission.

Artist’s concept of the Psyche spacecraft, a proposed mission for NASA’s Discovery Program that would launch by the end of 2021 to explore an object thought to be a stripped planetary core.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Psyche

This mission would send a spacecraft out to the asteroid belt to study the metallic asteroid Psyche, one of the strangest objects in the solar system. Scientists think the 155-mile-wide (250 km) Psyche is the core of a protoplanet that was exposed after a violent hit-and-run collision in the ancient past. Linda Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State is the PI of the mission, which would be managed by JPL.

NEOCam (Near Earth Object Camera)

Artist’s concept of the NEOCam spacecraft, a proposed mission for NASA’s Discovery Program that would launch by the end of 2021 to conduct an extensive survey for potentially hazardous asteroids.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NEOCam is an infrared space telescope that would launch to the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1 — a gravitationally stable spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth — to hunt for potentially hazardous asteroids.

The mission would discover about 10 times more near-Earth objects than have been found to date, NASA officials said. Amy Mainzer of JPL is the PI, and JPL would manage the mission.

Lucy

This mission would study Trojan asteroids, which circle the sun on the same path as Jupiter. These space rocks were likely captured into their current orbits long ago, during the planet-formation period, and could therefore hold clues about the solar system’s early days, NASA officials said. Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado is the PI; NASA Goddard would manage the mission.

The Discovery Program asked researchers to submit proposals in November 2014 for the next launch opportunity, and 27 teams threw their hats into the ring. The submissions that didn’t make it to the final round include a life-hunting mission to Saturn’s ocean-harboring moon Enceladus, a mission to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, and several projects that would have explored Mars’ two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos.

The Discovery Program, which was created in 1992, has developed a dozen missions to date, including the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) probe and Dawn, which is currently orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres.

Mars InSIGHT (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will be the next Discovery mission to reach space; the lander is scheduled to launch in September 2016, on a mission to probe the Red Planet’s interior.

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

A color-coded topographic map shows Occator crater on Ceres. Image released Sept. 30, 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

New maps of Ceres show the dwarf planet’s mysterious bright spots and huge, pyramid-shaped mountain in a new light.

The new maps of Ceres come courtesy of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which has been orbiting the heavily cratered dwarf planet since March. The maps highlight the compositional and elevation differences across Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

For example, one new topographic map focuses on an odd mountain dubbed “the Pyramid,” which rises about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) into space from Ceres’ surface. And another map zeroes in on the 56-mile-wide (90 km) Occator crater, whose floor features the most luminescent of the dwarf planet’s enigmatic bright spots. [Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots Coming Into Focus (Video)]

The mission team also put together global Ceres composition and topographic maps, the latter of which includes names for some features on the dwarf planet that were recently approved by the International Astronomical Union.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained images for this map-projected view of Ceres during its high-altitude mapping orbit, in August and September 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

These names all have an agricultural theme. For instance, a 12-mile-wide (20 km) mountain near Ceres’ north pole now bears the appellation Ysolo Mons, after a festival in Albania marking the first day of the eggplant harvest, NASA officials said.

The new Ceres maps are being discussed at the European Planetary Science Conference (EPSC) in Nantes, France, which runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 2. At EPSC, Dawn team members are also talking about a puzzling observation made by the spacecraft — three bursts of energetic electrons from Ceres that may have been produced by interactions between the dwarf planet and solar radiation, NASA officials said.

“This is a very unexpected observation for which we are now testing hypotheses,” Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell, of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. “Ceres continues to amaze, yet puzzle us as we examine our multitude of images, spectra and now energetic particle bursts.”

A color-coded map from NASA’s Dawn mission reveals the surface topography of dwarf planet Ceres. Image released Sept. 30, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Dawn is currently studying Ceres from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 km). But next month, the probe will begin spiraling down to a closer orbit, which will bring it within just 230 miles (375 km) of the dwarf planet’s surface.

Dawn is expected to reach that orbit in December. (Dawn employs ion engines, which are superefficient but feature very low thrust levels, so it takes the spacecraft a while to maneuver to new positions.) The probe will remain in this mapping orbit through the end of its mission, in mid-2016.

The $466 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study Vesta and Ceres, the asteroid belt’s two biggest denizens. Ceres is about 590 miles (950 km) wide, while Vesta’s diameter is 330 miles (530 km).

Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012, when it departed for Ceres. The spacecraft is the first probe ever to orbit a dwarf planet, and the first to circle two objects beyond the Earth-moon system.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft provided image used to produce this view of Ceres featuring a tall conical mountain. Image released Sept. 30, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI

The mission has uncovered many differences between Vesta and Ceres, which are both planetary building blocks left over from the solar system’s early days.

“The irregular shapes of craters on Ceres are especially interesting, resembling craters we see on Saturn’s icy moon Rhea,” Dawn deputy principal investigator Carol Raymond, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in the same statement. “They are very different from the bowl-shaped craters on Vesta.”

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

Real NASA astronauts just dropped a little spaceflight knowledge on the stars of the upcoming sci-fi film “The Martian,” from 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain and other actors from “The Martian” — as well as director Ridley Scott — got a chance to ask a few questions of Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, the two NASA astronauts currently living aboard the International Space Station (ISS). You can watch the conversation in this new video, which NASA released today (Sept. 30).

The questions span a broad range of topics. For example, Damon — who plays Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut stranded and presumed dead on Mars — asked what Kelly and Lindgren did to prepare for their current mission aboard the ISS. [“The Martian” and NASA: Full Coverage]

Lindgren explained that, after being accepted as a NASA astronaut candidate, he trained for about 2.5 years to acquire basic space flying skills and knowledge. Then, he trained for another 2.5 years after being assigned to the current mission, learning, among other things, the Russian language, space-station systems and spacewalking procedures.

“So, in all, to get up here where I am today, there was about a five-year training flow,” Lindgren said.

Scott inquired if the cramped quarters aboard the ISS ever result in “punch-ups” between astronauts.

“I’ve never encountered that kind of thing,” Kelly responded. “NASA and their international partners do a pretty good job in vetting the people that they send up here, and we’re all pretty, I think, easy to get along with, especially in this environment.”

But, Kelly added, “those things do happen; I’ve heard stories of them happening, but I’ve never experienced it personally.”

Kelly arrived at the space station in March, and Lindgren got up there in July. Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are in the middle of an unprecedented yearlong mission that’s designed to see how long-duration missions to faraway destinations such as Mars would affect astronauts physiologically and psychologically. Lindgren, on the other hand, is aboard for the typical six-month stint.

There are three other crewmembers currently aboard the orbiting lab, in addition to Kelly, Kornienko and Lindgren: Japan’s Kimiya Yui and cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko.

Chastain directed a playful question at Kelly, asking him about the “infamous task” pilots aboard NASA’s now-retired space shuttle orbiter had to complete. (Kelly is a former shuttle pilot.)

Kelly explained that the pilot was responsible for maintenance of the shuttle’s toilet.

“The reason they had the pilot do that is, it’s such a critical task — because without a toilet, you’re not going anywhere,” Kelly said, smiling. “So they will only entrust that to the most talented and capable person on a spacecraft.”

“The Martian,” which is based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, hits theaters across the United States this Friday (Oct. 2). NASA officials and researchers served as advisers for the film, and the space agency is promoting “The Martian” as a way to help spread the word about its own plans to put boots on the Red Planet in the 2030s.

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

Apollo 15 commander David Scott salutes the U.S. flag he helped plant on the moon in July 1971. On Scott’s left arm can be seen the only privately-owned watch to be worn on the lunar surface, which is now heading to auction. Credit: NASA/collectSPACE.com

Forty-four years ago, David Scott’s watch broke while he was out for a walk.

Somehow, the crystal that protected the wristwatch’s face popped off. Scott did not notice it had broken until after he had come back inside. Fortunately for him, he had another watch to wear.

Of course, none of that would be noteworthy had Scott not been on the moon at the time.

The commander of NASA’s Apollo 15 mission, Scott was the seventh person to walk on the moon and the first to drive a car there, the lunar rover, in July 1971. [NASA’s 17 Apollo Missions in Pictures]

He was also the first and only astronaut in history to wear a personal watch on the surface of the moon — a watch that is now heading to auction.

On Oct. 22, after a week of online bidding that will open at $50,000, Scott’s personal Apollo 15-used chronograph will be sold by RR Auction of Boston. The sale is expected to draw watch and space collectors alike, as it the only time a watch worn on the moon has ever been offered.

Omega versus Bulova

When David Scott launched from Earth, when he landed on the moon and when he and Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin went outside for their first two moonwalks, Scott wore a NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster chronograph.

Selected by the space agency after a series of extensive tests, the Swiss-made watch was worn by all of the Apollo astronauts, from Neil Armstrong to the last man to walk on the moon, Gene Cernan. Omega inscribed the back of the Speedmasters it sold with the proud claim, “first and only watch worn on the moon.”

Only the “only” wasn’t precisely true.

Unbeknownst to most at NASA, let alone on Earth, at the time, Scott agreed to carry a Bulova-made wristwatch and stopwatch on board Apollo 15 after a bid by the New York-based watchmaker to demonstrate that an American-made piece could function as well, if not better, than the Swiss Speedmaster. [9 Weird Things NASA Flew on Space Shuttles]

For Scott, it was all about ensuring that the mission was a success. For example, a situation could arise during their moonwalks that would require a precise knowledge of the oxygen and water remaining in the spacesuits’ life support backpacks.

“Under certain anticipated operational conditions, the only method of monitoring these vital systems was with a wrist chronograph,” Scott stated in an interview. “I only had the NASA-provided Omega Speedmaster, which was a single point failure under these conditions.”

“As a matter of prudence, I then decided that I would also carry the Bulova as a backup,” Scott recalled.

That decision ultimately paid off, as Scott discovered the crystal had gone missing from his Speedmaster following his second moonwalk. On Aug. 2, 1971, as he embarked on his third and final excursion out onto the lunar surface, Scott used the Velcro watch strap he wore on his first two moonwalks to don his Bulova-made backup.

Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott’s Bulova wristwatch worn on the moon.
Credit: RR Auction

Unknown, unauthorized and misidentified

Though you would not know it unless you were looking for it, the Bulova chronograph can be seen in the footage and photos taken of Scott as he saluted the U.S. flag, worked near the lunar rover and famously proved for all those on Earth that Galileo was right — a feather and a hammer fall at the same rate in the absence of an atmosphere.

He continued to wear the Bulova once he was back inside the lunar lander, all the way through to his splashdown on Earth with Irwin and Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden. A photo of the three astronauts floating in a life raft after the mission was completed provides perhaps the clearest view of the Bulova strapped to Scott’s wrist.

Not that anyone noticed at the time.

“After the mission, only my supervisor and my crew knew that the Bulova [watches] had been carried,” Scott stated. “Bulova was not informed.”

And that may have been it had a question not arose about some souvenir envelopes (“covers”) Scott had also flown for a German stamp dealer. An investigation, called for by Congress, revealed the “unauthorized timepieces.”

“Thinking [the chronographs] might be useful, particularly for the possible emergency timing of a manually controlled propulsion maneuver, Scott carried them on the mission but without prior authorization,” NASA officials reported in a 1972 press release.

The space agency withheld the name of the manufacturer to avoid commercialization.

The secret out, the make of the watches would still remain unknown for 25 years, and even then, the wrong company was identified.

“In 1996, 25 years after the mission, I was queried about a backup watch. At that time, I slightly recalled that it was a Waltham. However, in 2014, after further researching the issue for an article on watches, I concluded that frankly, back in 1996, I just made a mistake – it was a Bulova, not a Waltham,” Scott explained.

“Knowing what watch I wore was not a priority during [the] mission discussions, especially in light of the complexity of our flight to the moon. I hadn’t fully researched many of the ancillary parts of the mission,” he added. “More things [came] into focus in 2014 as more people were beginning to research Apollo in more depth.”

Continue reading at collectSPACE to learn what David Scott hopes the new owner will do with his worn-on-the-moon Bulova wristwatch.

For more information on the auction or to bid, see RR Auction’s website at rrauction.com.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2015 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Are you ready for Mars? NASA is working to get the agency ready for a human mission to the Red Planet in a few decades, and is showcasing its personnel and projects online.

Among NASA’s many spotlights is a fascinating new video that zooms in on a NASA power system engineer’s quest to create enough electricity to power a Mars base. You can see Space.com’s full coverage on “The Martian” here.

These are some of the stories of the people working on Mars mission planning, as described on www.nasa.gov/realmartians.

Camille Alleyne, International Space Station Associate Program Scientist

To Alleyne, the International Space Station showcases many different kinds of research, ranging from biology to physics to Earth and space science. One key aspect of it shows how the human body changes when it is in microgravity for months at a time. The space station is also a forum for international partnerships on science management, which will be needed for a mission to Mars.

Al Bowers, Chief Scientist
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

One of Bowers’ projects is a prototype Martian aircraft called Prandtl-m, or Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars. The prototype is designed to be released from a high-altitude balloon to test the airplane’s aerodynamic performance at a Martian-like altitude.

Ian Clark, Principal Investigator
Low Density Supersonic Decelerator

This spacecraft prototype features an inflatable decelerator on the capsule, as well as a big, traditional parachute, to slow a spacecraft entering the thin Martian atmosphere. If the system works as planned, it will allow access to elevations on Mars that were not available to spacecraft before. LDSD testing has happened at 200,000 feet above Earth to simulate Mars. Additionally, tests have been run on the ground with a rocket-powered sled — a new tech for NASA.

Brian Day, Project Manager, Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute
NASA Ames Research Center

Day is the creator of a Web-based portal called Mars Trek, which gives both mission planners and the general public a high-definition view of the Martian surface. Among other uses, the tool is being deployed to figure out the best site to land the Mars 2020 rover. It also will chart possible locations for future human landing sites.

Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Division Director

Science fiction is important to Green in helping to understand science, because it shows how people think and how to leverage current knowledge of Mars to support a story. And there have been changes since “The Martian” was written, he points out. There’s more humidity in the atmosphere than scientists knew about before the book was written, providing more opportunities to access water. And with the discovery of nitrogen products on Mars, it’s possible to produce fertilizer.

Dave Lavery, Program Executive for Solar System Exploration

One of Lavery’s projects is to figure out the best way to return a sample of the Martian soil back to Earth. This includes challenges such as how to pick the sample up, wrap it in a protective container and transport it to Earth — using a rocket that launches from another planet with no human involvement. The sample, once returned, could point to hazards for humans on the Martian surface.

Rafael Lugo, Aerospace Engineer
NASA Langley Research Center

Lugo is working on simulating the trajectory for NASA’s Space Launch System, a rocket that is supposed to bring astronauts across the solar system. Right now he is trying to figure out where the rocket would go during the first Earth-to-moon mission using SLS, from launch to the spacecraft landing by itself at the end of the mission.

Lee Mason, Power System Engineer
NASA Glenn Research Center

Mason works on power systems for space applications, such as a radioisotope thermoelectric generator that produces electricity through nuclear heat. This generator is in use on Mars for the Curiosity rover, and NASA is working on bigger systems that could generate 40,000 watts. This would be enough to power a Mars base intended for use by six to eight astronauts. [Amazing Mars Photos by NASA’s Curiosity Rover]

NASA Astronauts Scott Kelly, Kjell Lindgren and Tracy Caldwell Dyson

Kelly, who is doing a one-year mission on ISS, says his mission is simulating the journey to Mars involving, for example, the performance of the life support system. But there will be key differences, such as the fact that the spacecraft will be in sunlight the entire time. Lindgren says one lesson he learned on his first spaceflight is that the human brain can adapt to many circumstances. And Dyson, an advisor on “The Martian,” says the key to success on a long mission is faith, hope and flexibility when you need to go outside the mission plan.

Ryan Norman, Physicist
NASA Langley Research Center

Norman is part of the space radiation group, which looks at the effects of radiation on vehicles, habitats and most especially the human body. As part of this, the Curiosity rover’s Radiation Assessment Detector gives investigators information on the space radiation environment on the surface of Mars.

Jennifer Pruitt, Lead Sustaining Engineer
Marshall Space Flight Center

Pruitt is on the team in charge of the urine processor on the International Space Station, which converts sweat and urine into drinkable water for the astronauts. She also monitors the oxygen generator, which splits water into its hydrogen and oxygen molecules to keep the right amount of oxygen in the air they breathe. Her goal, she says, is to keep the astronauts happy and healthy for long-duration missions — just like a Mars mission would have to do.

Jennifer Stern, Planetary Geochemist
Sample Analysis of Mars

The SAM instrument aboard Curiosity has provided a wealth of information about the atmosphere that we didn’t know before. For example, SAM has found nitrates — a biologically and chemically available source of nitrogen that nature uses for life-friendly processes such as building amino acids and nucleobases.

Carly Watts, Technology Development Engineer
Next Generation of Spacesuit Portable Life Support Systems

International Space Station astronauts currently use a 35-year-old spacesuit that was developed for use on the shuttle. While it works well in microgravity, a Mars spacesuit will need to be more flexible, allowing the astronauts to bend over and pick up things. Watts is part of a team that is taking advantage of newer technology created in the past four decades to develop cutting-edge spacesuits and support systems that could protect humans visiting the Red Planet.

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

In “Apollo: The Panoramas,” Mike Constantine presents his work digitally assembling stunning panoramas from individual photos taken by the Apollo astronauts on the moon. Credit: Moonpans via collectSPACE.com

A new photo book about the Apollo moon landings provides a “wide look” at the lunar surface vistas that astronauts saw and captured on film more than 40 years ago.

“Apollo: The Panoramas,” now being crowdfunded through Kickstarter, binds together more than 50 sprawling scenes digitally assembled from the thousands of photos taken by the moonwalkers between July 1969 and December 1972.

“‘Apollo: The Panoramas,’ as the title implies, is dedicated to high resolution assembly of the panoramic sequences that the astronauts captured on the lunar surface,” Mike Constantine, the book’s author, told collectSPACE.com. “Other books have included a small number of the panoramas as part of a collection of general Apollo images, but this book features over fifty seamless panoramas, each one over a full width, double page spread.” [NASA’s Historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Pictures]

Constantine, as the proprietor of the UK-based Moonpans, has been assembling the panoramas as digital files, large prints, wall murals and other formats for the past 15 years. His work today hangs in museums and has appeared in other publications, but this is the first time they have been presented in one book.

“While most of the photos taken [on the moon] were single shots, a large number were part of panoramic sequences, where we would stand in one spot, then turn through a 360 degree circle, taking 20 or so photos as we did so,” said Apollo 16 lunar module pilot Charlie Duke. “And it is these panoramas that have been expertly assembled.”

Duke, together with his fellow moonwalkers Alan Bean, Ed Mitchell and Harrison Schmitt, offered commentary for the book, which accompanies Constantine’s own descriptions of each of the landscapes that detail the terrain, hardware and activity in each spread.

A traverse map for each mission is also included, showing the path the astronauts took around their landing sites and where each of the panoramas were captured.

“In this book, you get a good impression of how the terrain changes, from the almost flat Sea of Tranquility on Apollo 11 through to the [mountainous] Valley of Taurus Littrow on Apollo 17,” Duke wrote.

Launched as a Kickstarter project on Sept. 9, “Apollo: The Panoramas” was promptly funded. The campaign has now surpassed $35,000, almost five times the initial goal, with 10 days to go before it closes on Oct. 9.

In addition to offering the book for £44 ($67), backers can also receive author-signed copies, panoramic photo prints, astronaut autographs and flown to the moon memorabilia including a segment of a cue card used on Apollo 12 and a medallion minted in part from metal flown on Apollo 17.

Add-ons aside, Constantine says the greatest benefit may be the chance to immerse oneself in the astronauts’ view.

“The panoramas were captured in order for the geologists to get the complete story of each location and to provide context for the [lunar] samples returned,” he said. “[But] we humans see the world in a ‘wide-screen’ format.”

“So when you look at a panorama of the moon’s surface, you get a much better sense of ‘being there’ compared to the square, cropped shots. This was something the Apollo astronauts told me also, that seeing the panoramas in this book brought back vivid memories of their [moonwalks],” Constantine said.

Duke, in his foreword, applauded Constantine’s efforts.

“Mike has done a great job in turning what started out as dozens of separate photos into beautiful panoramas that, when compiled together in this book, will help carry on the legacy of Apollo for many generations to come,” he wrote.

See sample pages from “Apollo: The Panoramas” by Mike Constantine at collectSPACE.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2015 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

The giant asteroid Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the sky, will be very visible for the next two weeks. This image of Vesta was captured by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in 2012. Credit: NASA

The next two weeks provide an excellent opportunity to spot the brightest asteroid visible from EarthVesta — one of the best-known objects in the solar system.

In the first six years of the 19th century, astronomers discovered four new members of the solar system. All four were small objects between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Initially, they were called planets, but by the mid-1800s, enough new objects had been found in this area that they were given a category of their own, much as Pluto was reclassified from a planet to a dwarf planet. They were called “asteroids” because they were so small that they looked just like stars in the telescopes of the day. Now, there are tens of thousands of known asteroids.

Vesta is the brightest of all the asteroids, ranging between magnitudes 5 and 8 — lower is brighter — and one of the largest, measuring 318 miles (512 kilometers) across. It reached 6th magnitude at opposition on Sept. 29, meaning it could just barely be seen by someone with perfect eyesight at a perfectly dark site. [Take a Video Tour of Vesta, the Giant Asteroid]

The rest of us have to make do with binoculars. Here’s how to find it.

A wide-angle view of the autumn constellations, showing the position of the asteroid Vesta in the constellation Cetus.
Credit: Starry Night Software

The first chart, above, shows Vesta’s overall position among the constellations of autumn. The two left-hand stars of the Square of Pegasus, Alpheratz and Algenib, point southward across the circlet of Pisces to the constellation Cetus, the Whale. Look for a large triangle formed by Eta, Iota Ceti and Deneb Kaitos. The latter is easy to spot because, although it’s only second magnitude, it is by far the brightest star in this rather dim part of the sky. Eta and Iota are both magnitude 3.5, so they’re quite a lot dimmer than Deneb Kaitos.

A close-up of the westernmost stars of Cetus, showing the position of the asteroid Vesta over the next two weeks.
Credit: Starry Night Software

The second chart shows these three stars in detail, as well as the path of Vesta over the next two weeks. The leftmost end of Vesta’s path (marked with the label on the chart) is its position on Wednesday, Sept. 30, and the points on the trail to the right show its position each night after that in October.

Vesta should be quite easy to spot, since it is about two magnitudes brighter than any of the stars along its track. Just to be sure, make a simple plot of the stars in its vicinity, and then check again a night or two later. The “star” that has moved is certain to be Vesta.

Vesta is now one of the best-known objects in the solar system because NASA’s Dawn spacecraft orbited the asteroid for more than a year (from July 2011 to September 2012). This is a great chance for you to see it with your own eyes.

This article was provided to Space.com by Simulation Curriculum, the leader in space science curriculum solutions and the makers of Starry Night and SkySafari. Follow Starry Night on Twitter @StarryNightEdu. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Scale models of the Ariane 5 rocket (right) and next-generation Ariane 6 rocket, near Times Square. Ariane 6 is set to make its first flight in 2020. Credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com

NEW YORK — This past weekend (Sept. 26 and 27), New York City hosted the annual “Best of France” event, which aims to promote the country to foreign audiences. The festival showcases many things that most people already associate with France: cheese, wine, the music of Edith Piaf, pop-culture art and extremely relaxed people in nice clothes.

But this year’s Best of France also highlighted one of the country’s main contributions to the spaceflight industry: Arianespace, operators of the Ariane rocket program.

At a booth near Times Square, surrounded by other French exhibitors, the company displayed a model of the Ariane 5 rocket, which has made more than 250 launches since 1996. It is scheduled to carry the James Webb Telescope into orbit in 2018. The company also displayed a model of the next-generation Ariane 6, which the company says will make its first flight in 2020.

The Ariane 5 rocket featured the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, which oversee the manufacturing of the rockets.

As the landscape of private spaceflight companies continues to grow, it may be necessary for companies and nations to promote their contributions more directly.

A model of the city of Paris, carved out of butter, on display at the Best of France event near Times Square. Credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com.
Credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com

The Best of France festival also featured a miniature model of Paris carved out of butter. We’d like to suggest that next year, the rocket models also be carved out of a dairy product.   

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

The dusty-red sphere now called Mars has fascinated stargazers since the dawn of humanity, but Earthlings’ view of the planet has changed drastically over the years. Once thought of as a lush alien world teeming with life, it was later dismissed as an arid, desolate orb. But now, scientists have announced the Red Planet has long, fingerlike strips of seeping, salty, liquid water that just might aid in the search for extraterrestrial life.

The finding, revealed Monday (Sept. 28) by NASA scientists, once again changes the way people view the bright-red planet, Mars experts told Live Science.

The ancient Greeks and Romans named Mars — a planet barely more than half Earth’s size — after the god of war. But they likely didn’t realize it was another world, with two moons to boot, said Bruce Jakosky, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. [In Photos: Is Water Flowing on Mars?]

In the 1600s and 1700s, astronomers tinkered with nascent telescopes and discovered that Mars, like Earth, was a planet and had a roughly 24-hour day-and-night cycle. At this time, people assumed intelligent beings were scampering over the Martian surface, Jakosky said.

Early astronomers had other fanciful, and often mistaken, views of Mars. In 1784, the British astronomer Sir William Herschel wrote that the dark areas on Mars were oceans, and the light areas land. He also speculated the planet was home to aliens, who “probably enjoy a situation similar to our own,” according to NASA. (He also apparently thought intelligent life was living under the sun’s surface in a cool spot, NASA reported.)

In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing grooves or channels on Mars with his telescope. Schiaparelli called these features “canali,” which can mean “natural channels” in Italian. The word was mistakenly translated into “canals” in English, a phrasing that suggested handiwork by living beings. American businessman and astronomer Percival Lowell popularized the idea, and wrote three books about aliens that likely created the canals to survive on a drying planet.

“The canals were an attempt, [Lowell] thought, by intelligent beings to carry water from the poles, where there was water, to the rest of the planet,” said Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

A photo of “Hinners Point” taken by NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity in 2015.
Credit: NASA | JPL-Caltech | Cornell University | Arizona State University

It wasn’t until NASA’s Mariner space missions in the 1960s and 1970s that researchers could confidently prove there were no alien-made canals, Zurek said.

“We almost went to the other extreme, because we saw a hilly, cratered landscape on the first flybys of the planet,” Zurek told Live Science, referring to the Mariner 4 mission. “That suggested it was more like the moon than it was like the Earth.”

Until then, scientists had speculated that Mars had a thick atmosphere that could trap heat and help the planet support life at its distant location from the sun. Mars orbits at about 142 million miles (229 million kilometers) from the sun, compared with Earth’s 93-million-mile (150 million km) leap from the sun. But this wasn’t the case; Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than the gas layer surrounding Earth, partially explaining why the Red Planet is such a cold, barren place, Jakosky said.

“All the way up through [NASA’s] Mariner 6 and 7 in 1969, you could think of the potential for life on Mars as declining,” Jakosky said. “In 1971, we orbited the Mariner 9 spacecraft, and that changed things. It took global pictures of Mars, and we saw things that looked very Earth-like, including streambeds, river channels and volcanoes. People thought, ‘Well, maybe there’s the potential for liquid water and potential for life after all.’”

In the 1970s, the NASA Viking missions landed on Mars and took samples of the soil to look for signs of microbial life. But they recorded none, Jakosky said. In fact, the Viking mission scientists called Mars “self-sterilizing,” describing how the combination of the sun’s UV rays and the chemical properties of the soil prevented life from forming in those soils, according to NASA. [Seeing Things on Mars: A History of Martian Illusions]

A photo taken by the Mars Global Surveyor’s Mars Orbiter Camera found evidence of gullies on the planet, likely made by ancient water flows.
Credit: NASA | JPL | Malin Space Science Systems

Spacecraft in the 1990s renewed the search for water. The Mars Global Surveyor orbited the planet and took high-resolution images of the surface, finding evidence of ancient gullies. Additional watery evidence came from Martian meteorites that have smashed into Earth, carrying telltale signs of liquid flowing through them, Jakosky said.

Since then, robotic missions have scoured the Red Planet for signs of liquid water. Frozen water is locked up in Mars’ roughly mile-thick (1.6 kilometers) ice caps, and enough water vapor resides in the atmosphere to form clouds. Even so, liquid water is more elusive, Zurek said.

Perhaps Mars had water millions or billions of years ago, but that water has since frozen on the surface or been lost to space, Zurek said. (The NASA spacecraft Maven is already examining the Martian atmosphere and helping scientists decipher how Mars lost its water, if that did happen, he said.)

The new finding gives researchers a good spot to look for life on Mars, Zurek said. But the newfound salty streaks aren’t like rivers that flow on Earth, he cautioned. [5 Mars Myths and Misconceptions]

“If I pour pure liquid water out on the [Martian] surface today, it’s either going to boil way into the atmosphere or it’s going to freeze there on the surface,” he said.

Any water on Mars is likely laden with salts called perchlorates, which lower water’s freezing point to about minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit), Zurek said.

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.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Moreover, the liquid water — if indeed it is that — only appears during the warm seasons, he said.

“These features grow in a slow, seasonal kind of way, not in a rapid outburst of a flow or a stream,” Zurek said. “But nevertheless, here’s a source of water that could be staying liquid for a time on the planet.”

Extremely salty water isn’t necessarily good for life, but perhaps extremophiles can live in those environments, he said.

“We don’t know what the evolution of life might have been on the planet, if it ever originated,” Zurek said. “But at least this tells us some places where we could go look for evidence of this. It is briny, and there may not be much of it, but it is a place that we could go look.”

In a way, the discovery isn’t so different from what astronomers were looking for years ago, he said.

“It’s not that ancient canal network delivering massive amounts of water out to the desert, but it’s curious the way that those early themes over 100 years ago are still playing today,” Zurek said.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.