Tag: space

This map shows areas of North America where a sounding rocket launch should be visible on Oct. 7, 2015. Credit: NASA

A NASA rocket launch on Wednesday (Oct. 7) should give skywatchers in the Eastern United States a real treat, weather permitting.

NASA plans to launch a sounding rocket at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on Wednesday from the agency’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. If all goes according to plan, the liftoff will produce several multicolored patches of light in the darkening sky that will be visible to many people in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast United States. You can watch the launch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

These conspicuous glows will be man-made features — clouds of barium vapor released by the two-stage modified Black Brant IX sounding rocket. [NASA’s Amazing Small Rocket Launches of 2015 (Photos)]

The rocket will be launched on an east-southeast trajectory, reaching a maximum altitude (apogee) of 161 miles (259 kilometers) about 4.5 minutes after it leaves the launch pad at Wallops. About 6 to 6.5 minutes after the launch, on the rocket’s downward leg, as many as four barium clouds will be released over the Atlantic Ocean, at altitudes of between 118 and 130 miles (190 to 209 km), over a point roughly 125 miles (200 km) downrange from Wallops.

The rocket was originally scheduled to launch this evening (Oct. 6), but bad weather forced a delay. The launch window runs through Oct. 12.

The evening of the launch depends on weather conditions at the launch site as well as the presence of clear skies for at least one of two NASA optical tracking stations. Mission updates will be noted on the Wallops launch status line at 757-824-2050. 

Tracer is used to study the ionosphere

Scientists have launched vapor tracers into the upper atmosphere since the 1950s. Such research has greatly aided understanding of the planet’s near-space environment, NASA officials said.

These materials — including barium — make visible the naturally occurring flows of ionized and neutral particles, either by luminescing at distinct wavelengths in the visible and infrared part of the spectrum or by scattering sunlight.

For example, a fraction of a barium cloud ionizes quickly when exposed to sunlight. As a result, the cloud can be used to track the motion of charged particles in the ionosphere, as well as the motion of neutral particles in the upper atmosphere.

A small quantity of strontium will be added to the barium mixture for Wednesday’s experiment, making it easier to track the cloud, NASA officials said. [Images: Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds]

Exotic colors

Vapor clouds seemingly explode into view when first released, sometimes blooming so rapidly they resemble fuzzy fireworks.

Depending on the state of the atmosphere, these clouds may appear to expand to several times the apparent size of the moon; on other occasions, they appear to elongate in a north-south fashion or stretch out into long plumes. Initially, they may appear to glow with prismatic colors, although the primary colors are expected to trend toward bluish-green and purple-red. Since observers must be in darkness while the barium cloud is in sunlight, the technique is limited to observations near sunset, local time. 

As a result, the Black Brant IX rocket has a 10-minute launch window beginning at 7 p.m. EDT, about 30 minutes past local sunset, when the sun’s rays will still be coming in from the west to light the clouds at high altitudes. 

Depending on atmospheric conditions, the barium clouds could persist for as little as 2 minutes. But they could linger for as long as 20 minutes before fading completely away.

UFO scares

Of course, the sudden and unexpected appearance of several multicolored clouds in the early evening sky might alarm unsuspecting people and lead to a rash of UFO reports. This has happened before.

In March 1967, for example, NASA launched sounding rockets from Wallops Island, producing an array of colored clouds in the evening sky. On March 31, 1967, The New York Times reported that the display “puzzled thousands of persons” in the New York area, and also resulted in people along the East Coast calling newspapers and police stations for an explanation of the strange sightings.

The Times also reported that one man “described the rocket residue as ‘twin beams of a giant searchlight playing colors on the sky.’”

On Jan. 16, 1975, Newsday, a newspaper that serves Long Island, New York, reported a “ghostly blue-green glow that floated slowly westward” and produced a flood of phone calls to police, airports and the news media. The newspaper received almost 500 phone calls, 200 of which were logged within 15 minutes after the mysterious cloud first appeared.

“Some thought it was a flying saucer,” reported Newsday, adding, “Others thought it might be a weather balloon or a Russian missile attack.

Where to look for the colored clouds

Remember that the clouds will begin to appear 6 minutes after the rocket leaves the launch pad at Wallops Island. If you live in the eastern United States, direct your attention toward the waters just offshore from Wallops.

For New Jersey, eastern New York and New England, face south or south-southwest. 

For central New York, central Pennsylvania, Delaware and much of Maryland, face southeast.

For the eastern third of Virginia, face east. For the eastern third of North Carolina, face northeast.

For places farther to the west and south, the twilight sky will probably be too bright to see the clouds, as it will be too close to sunset.

As to where in the sky to look, the closer you are to Wallops Island, the higher the clouds will appear. Keep in mind that your clenched fist held at arm’s length is roughly equal to 10 degrees. 

At a distance of 250 miles (400 km) from Wallops, the highest of the clouds will appear 30 degrees up from the horizon. 

At 500 miles (805 km), the altitude drops to 15 degrees, and at 800 miles (1,290 km), it’s just 10 degrees (“one fist”) up in the sky.

The launch of the Black Brant IX rocket itself might be glimpsed for up to several hundred miles from the Wallops Island launch site.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility has a handy launch viewing guide for skywatchers here: 
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/events/viewing_launches.html.

Editor’s note: If you capture an amazing image NASA’s rocket launch that you would like to share with Space.com and its news partners for a story or photo gallery, send photos and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at: spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer’s Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

The annual Draconid meteor shower will reach its peak overnight on Oct. 8 and 9, 2015. This image by skywatcher Richard Klofac of the Czech Republic shows a Draconid meteor streaking over Klofac’s garden during the October 2011 display. Credit: Richard Klofac

Skywatchers have a chance to see some “shooting stars” this week with the annual Draconid meteor shower. The meteor display, which peaks overnight on Thursday and Friday (Oct. 8 and 9) is caused by the remains of a comet raining down on Earth.

Weather permitting, skywatchers can see the Draconid meteor shower radiating out from the constellation Draco (the Dragon) near the triangle formed by the stars Deneb, Altair and Vega. NASA estimates that, on average, about 10 to 20 meteors per hour will be visible during the Draconids.

What’s more, according to EarthSky.org, the moon will be just a faint crescent, allowing for excellent views of the shower.

While the Draconids appear to be coming from the constellation Draco, in reality they are remnants of debris shed by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which orbits the sun once every 6.5 years. Around 1900, according to a NASA description, the comet ejected a stream of particles that intersects Earth’s orbit, spawning the annual meteor display.

To watch a meteor shower, no special equipment is needed. Simply take a lawn chair, bundle up against the cold if you are in chillier parts of the United States, Europe or Canada, and sit outside watching the sky.

This NASA sky map shows the location of the Draconid meteor shower radiant in the northwestern night sky at 2 a.m. your local time on Oct. 9, 2015 during the shower’s peak, which occurs overnight on Oct. 8 and 9.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

You do need to pick a viewing spot well away from city lights, which can reduce the number of meteors visible during the night. Binoculars or telescopes are not of much use because meteors travel unpredictably and typically only last a couple of seconds.

While a meteor looks spectacular in the sky, a shower like the Draconids does not have particles big enough to make it all the way down to Earth. These particles burn up high in the atmosphere and are generally slow moving, distinguishing them from other random meteors you may see throughout the evening.

Editor’s note: If you capture an amazing image of the night sky that you would like to share with Space.com and its news partners for a story or photo gallery, send photos and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at: spacephotos@space.com.

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

Chanda Gonzales, senior director, Google Lunar XPrize, contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

With “The Martian” in theaters now, and the world’s attention on Mars (and Matt Damon), let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of our sometimes-neglected but awesome neighbor, the moon. 

The moon is not only our nearest neighbor in space but also an essential stepping-stone to the rest of the universe, and the opportunity to learn from our closest neighbor  can provide the necessary experience to further humanity’s presence in the solar system and beyond. Formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago, the moon provides exciting opportunities for discovery in the fields of science, technology, resource detection and utilization, and human habitation. Through previous discoveries — such as the existence of lava tubes potentially big enough to support a lunar base, and the detection of ice at the lunar poles — the moon has already changed the way we think about future exploration. [Marooned On Mars Or Moon? Which Would XPRIZE’s Diamandis Choose? ]

<img src=”http://i.space.com/images/i/000/032/456/i01/space-expert-voices-contribute-ad.jpg?1378484681″ alt=”If you’re a topical expert — researcher, business leader, author or innovator — and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here.”/>

If you’re a topical expert — researcher, business leader, author or innovator — and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here.
Credit: SPACE.com

All of these discoveries were made from lunar orbit. Now think of all the exciting research opportunities for scientists if they can have access to the lunar surface! The moon is a treasure chest  of rare metals and other beneficial materials that can be used here on Earth. A successful Google Lunar XPrize would result in cost-effective and reliable access to the moon, allowing for the development of new methods of discovering and using space resources and, in the long term, helping to expand human civilization into space.  

But if you were to be stranded on one or the other, which would you pick? Just for fun, we asked our CEO, Peter Diamandis, whether he would rather be stranded on the moon or on Mars. In the video above, hear what he had to say.

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.

Neutrinos in the sun mapped by the Super-Kamiokande experiment. Credit: © The T2K Collaboration

Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald will share this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for helping to reveal that subatomic particles called neutrinos can change from one type to another — a finding that meant these exotic particles have a teensy bit of mass.

Neutrinos are the second-most abundant particles in the cosmos, constantly bombarding Earth. (Photons, or particles of light, are the most numerous.) The tiny particles come in three flavors: electron, muon and tau. In their separate experiments, Kajita and McDonald each showed that neutrinos change between certain flavors — a process called neutrino oscillation.

“The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe,” representatives of the Nobel Foundation said in a statement about this year’s Nobel Prize in physics.

In 1998, Kajita presented research that showed that muon-neutrinos created by reactions between the atmosphere and cosmic rays changed their identities as they traveled to the Super-Kamiokande detector, buried in a zinc mine, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of Tokyo. [5 Mysterious Particles Lurking Underground]

In 2001, McDonald and his team announced that they had discovered that electron-neutrinos from the sun changed flavors into muon- or tau-neutrinos on their way to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada.

Neutrinos very rarely interact with matter; they can zip through a block of lead a light-year across. Large underground detectors, like the ones in Japan and Canada, are needed to observe such rare interactions with matter.

The Nobel Prize-winning discoveries have far-reaching implications, scientists with the Nobel Foundation say. For instance, they could help physicists figure out the matter-antimatter puzzle: Scientists think that during the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and its weird cousin antimatter were produced; smash-ups with matter destroyed most of this antimatter, leaving a slight excess of matter in the universe.

Physicists are still unsure why matter won this cosmic clash. One way to solve the puzzle would be to find matter behaving differently from antimatter; flavor-changing neutrinos could be one way to see this difference.

In addition, neutrinos would not be able to oscillate, or change their identities, if they had zero mass, physicists say. Therefore, the experiments by Kajita and McDonald also uncovered neutrinos’ slight mass.

Kajita, like most Nobel Prize winners, was surprised to get the call this morning letting him know of his achievement. When Adam Smith of the official Nobel Prize website asked Kajita if he’d ever dreamed of this moment, he responded, “Well, of course, well, as really a dream, maybe years, but not serious dreaming so far.”

Kajita, of the University of Tokyo in Kashiwa, Japan; and McDonald, of Queen’s University, in Kingston, Canada, will share the Nobel Prize amount of 8 million Swedish krona (about $960,000).

Yesterday, the Nobel Foundation announced the Prize in physiology or medicine to a trio of scientists for discovering novel treatments for parasitic infections. Tomorrow (Oct. 7), the Nobel Prize in chemistry will be announced.

Follow Jeanna Bryner on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Credit: XPRIZE

Credit: German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Astronaut Sally Ride seen in a NASA T-38 training jet wearing her flight helmet. The same helmet is now a part of the Smithsonian’s collection, along with other items and papers that belonged to the first American woman in space. Credit: NASA/Smithsonian

In life, Sally Ride privately organized her personal items, NASA artifacts, awards and papers, which now will represent her career and legacy as America’s first woman in space as part of the Smithsonian’s collection.

The late astronaut and science educator, who died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer, set aside the objects that seemed to mean the most to her personally.

“In a way, Sally Ride curated her own life, in that she put her astronaut gear and things that were most sentimental to her into a special trunk,” said Valerie Neal, a curator and the chair of the space history division at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. “We sort of took our cue from her as to what was important to have in the museum’s collection.” [Sally Ride: The First American Woman in Space (Photos)]

Neal, together with fellow curator Margaret Weitekamp and archivist Patti Williams, will join with Tam O’Shaughnessy, Ride’s partner in life and the author of the new book “Sally Ride: A Photobiography of America’s Pioneering Woman in Space,” on Tuesday (Oct. 6) for a public program at the museum celebrating the acquisition of Ride’s possessions by the Smithsonian.

“It is a very nice representation of her kind of ordinary life as a child, her typical life as a student, her professional life as an astronaut and an educator, and then her life as an honored celebrity,” Neal told collectSPACE.com. “We tried to choose objects that were indicative of all of the phases of her life.”

The collection, which includes 182 objects and 24 cubic feet of documents, covers the full trajectory of Ride’s life, Neal said.

Among the artifacts now in the museum are a microscope and telescope that Ride’s parents gifted her as a child, as well as the baseball bat that her grandfather customized for her, responding to Ride’s early interest in sports.

There is also a wooden tennis racket that she used to play as a teenager, on her way to becoming a nationally-ranked player — an item that the acquisition review board initially questioned as perhaps being a better fit for another type of museum.

“No,” Neal and Weitekamp defended, “because this was a key part of her identity.”

“One of the characteristics she had as a result of a having been an athlete was that she was competitive, disciplined and a good team player. So who knows, playing tennis as a young child may have shaped her character in ways that made her a better astronaut,” she said.

The National Air and Space Museum already displays the two-piece flight suit and clothing Ride wore to become the first American woman in spacein June 1983. The newly-acquired collection now adds the coveralls, boots, gloves and helmet that Ride wore when flying on board NASA’s T-38 supersonic training jets.

“I love the helmet,” Neal admitted. “It’s pale blue – I guess you could call it sky blue or powder blue — and it has in gold leaf on the back her name in this beautiful script of the kind you usually see on wedding invitations. I just love that because it is like a concession to the fact that she is female, instead of just having block print.” [Watch Sally Ride Recount Her Historic Shuttle Flight]

“That is just my interpretation,” Neal clarified. “That in the midst of all of this engineering and physics, there was just this one little glimmer of sort of a more feminine side.”

Among the documents added to the museum’s archive are letters from female senators congratulating Ride on being selected to fly and notes from celebrities, including tennis champion Billie Jean King, as well as cartoons addressing the stereotypes associated with the challenges she would face as a woman in space.

“We have all of her training manuals and notes from when she was selected to be an astronaut to through her NASA career,” Williams described. “All of her manuals, which are annotated, highlighted, dealing with the Canadarm [robotic arm], which she used.”

“[Ride] was on the only person on both the Challenger and Columbia accident commissions. We have her notebooks from both of those,” Williams added.

Astronaut Sally Ride used this Dunlop Maxply racquet to play tennis as she advanced to become a nationally-ranked athlete. The racket is now part of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection in Washington, D.C.
Credit: Smithsonian

Other objects in the Smithsonian’s Sally K. Ride collection include a collection of t-shirts that she wore and kept from the time around her STS-7 first spaceflight, including one that reads “Ride, Sally Ride” and another confirming “Yes, I am Sally Ride’s Father.”

“These are not mint condition shirts that have never been worn, they are t-shirts that have been worn and well-worn,” Neal described. “One of them says, ‘A Woman’s Place is Now in Space.’ It was clear these were things she enjoyed wearing.”

The museum also acquired a number of awards that were presented to Ride, including the keys to the cities of New York, Los Angeles and Cocoa Beach, as well as service medals bestowed to her by NASA. In life, Ride kept these stored away though, choosing only to display in her home a much more subtle and, to her, significant honor — the Shapiro Award, a Baccarat crystal bowl awarded to her for public service in San Diego.

“The one award that we noticed was visible in her house was this discreet glass bowl that until you looked closely at, you would not even know was Baccarat crystal,” Neal said. “Tam said that it meant the most to [Sally] because it acknowledged her for who she fundamentally thought she was, which was a person who was trying to make an impact in education and to be of value to the community around her.”

The National Air and Space Museum will place on exhibit 32 of Ride’s artifacts in a new temporary display as part of its renovated Milestones of Flight Hall, which is set to re-open in July 2016. The objects will be representative of all of Ride’s life, from her childhood to astronaut career to her celebrated role in history.

“The fact that they belonged to the first American woman in space, of course they belong in the Smithsonian,” said Neal. “Where better to have these objects to commemorate that achievement.”

See more photographs from the Smithsonian’s Sally K. Ride Collection at collectSPACE.

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

Testing of components of the BE-4 engine is in progress at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas. Credit: Blue Origin

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin said Sept. 30 that it has completed more than 100 developmental tests of its BE-4 engine, which the company is building both for United Launch Alliance and its own vehicle.

The company said in a statement that the staged-combustion tests, performed at the company’s test site in West Texas, provided “measurable performance data” about the engine for its upcoming critical design review. That data covered various elements of the engine’s design and its manufacturing techniques, including the use of 3-D printing.

“We tested a number of injector element designs and chamber lengths at a variety of operational conditions,” said Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, in the statement. “Rigorous component testing ahead of full-engine testing significantly increases confidence in the development schedule and projected performance.” [Blue Origin’s Rocket Tests in Photos]

The BE-4 engine, under development by Blue Origin since 2011, uses liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen propellants, and is designed to produce up to 550,000 pounds-force of thrust. The BE-4 will be the first large engine to use that propellant combination, although SpaceX has said it is working on a large engine called Raptor that uses the same propellants.

The company did not disclose a schedule for future development of the engine in its statement, and spokeswoman Julie Arnold declined to provide an estimated date for the engine’s critical design review. In an April press briefing, Meyerson said full engine tests would take place in 2016, with the engine ready for service in 2017.

Blue Origin is developing BE-4 for the first stage of an orbital launch vehicle it announced during a Sept. 15 event at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Blue Origin plans to manufacture and launch that vehicle there, building facilities that include a test stand to carry out acceptance tests of the BE-4.

The BE-4 engine is also the leading candidate to be used in the first stage of ULA’s Vulcan vehicle. Speaking to reporters after the Sept. 15 Florida event, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said that while he was aware of competing engines for the Vulcan, like the AR-1 under development by Aerojet Rocketdyne, he was focused on completing the BE-4. “We’re going to build the best 21st century engine that we can for ULA,” he said. “Ultimately they will make the decision about what they want to do.”

Bezos also noted that, unlike the AR-1 or other concepts, Blue Origin was not seeking funding from the U.S. Air Force to help pay for development of the BE-4. “The most unique feature of the BE-4 engine is that it’s fully funded,” he said. “It’s not something you see in rocket engine programs very often.”

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic announced Sept. 28 that it has made “significant progress” on the engines that it will use on its LauncherOne small satellite launch vehicle, two weeks after the company said it was increasing the vehicle’s performance.

In a statement, Virgin Galactic said it had successfully carried out a 20-second test firing of one engine that will be used in the first stage of the air-launched rocket and tested a key component of the vehicle’s second stage engine. Those tests took place at the company’s test site in Mojave, California.

In a Sept. 25 test, Virgin Galactic fired the NewtonThree engine for approximately 20 seconds on a test stand. The pump-fed engine, which uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, is designed to produce up to 73,500 pounds-force of thrust in LauncherOne’s first stage. The test, according to the company, produced “high quality data about the engine during start-up, operation, and safe shutdown.” [Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne Rocket in Photos] 

The company has also tested the gas generator for the smaller NewtonFour engine that will go on LauncherOne’s upper stage. The gas generator, which burns a small amount of propellant to power the engine’s pumps, fired for more than six minutes in each of the “full-duration” engine tests.

“There is much work yet to be done, but the NewtonThree and NewtonFour test results are strongly encouraging,” George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said in the statement. “Thanks to our team, our test stands, and our manufacturing facilities, we are making steady progress on all of the key components of LauncherOne.”

Virgin Galactic conducts a test of the NewtonThree engine it plans to use on the first stage of its LauncherOne smallsat launch vehicle.
Credit: Virgin Galactic

The engine tests come after Virgin Galactic announced Sept. 14 that it was increasing the payload capability of LauncherOne. When first introduced in 2012, the company said the vehicle could launch payloads of up to 225 kilograms into orbit. With the upgrade, the vehicle will be able to place more than 400 kilograms into a generic low Earth orbit, and 200 kilograms into the sun-synchronous orbit commonly used by remote sensing satellites.

Part of that increased performance comes from the additional thrust that the NewtonThree and NewtonFour engines produce over engines that the company originally developed for LauncherOne, NewtonOne and NewtonTwo, which the company now considers “demonstrator engines.” The earlier engines used a simpler pressure-fed design, while the new ones use turbopumps that Virgin Galactic designed in cooperation with Barber Nichols Inc., a company that has built turbopumps for government and commercial customers.

LauncherOne will also use a different aircraft as a launch platform. Original plans called for the rocket to be deployed from WhiteKnightTwo, the aircraft Virgin Galactic developed for its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle. Virgin Galactic said Sept. 14 that it is in “the final stages of acquiring a commercial aircraft” that will help enable that increased capacity. The company has not disclosed the specific make of aircraft it plans to use.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

This May 2015 image from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows part of a region on Mars called Acidalia Planitia, the landing site for the Ares 3 mission in the novel and movie “The Martian.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Newly released photos taken by a NASA spacecraft provide a real-world look at the Red Planet locales where much of the action takes place in the sci-fi epic “The Martian.”

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has photographed a plain called Acidalia Planitia and the southwest corner of the 285-mile-wide (460 kilometers) Schiaparelli Crater, the landing sites of the Ares 3 and Ares 4 missions, respectively, in the “The Martian.”

“The Martian,” which hit theaters across the United States on Friday (Oct. 2), stars Matt Damon as NASA astronaut Mark Watney, who gets stranded on the Red Planet after a powerful dust storm. Watney must use his engineering know-how to stay alive by himself on Mars and get in touch with mission control, which thinks he is dead.

This July 2015 image from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows part of the southwest corner of Mars’ huge Schiaparelli Crater, the landing site for the Ares 4 mission in the novel and movie “The Martian.”
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

The Ares 3 crew consists of Watney and five other astronauts. They touch down in Acidalia Planitia, a vast expanse in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars.

“For the story’s central character [Watney], Acidalia Planitia is within driving distance from where NASA’s Mars Pathfinder, with its Sojourner rover, landed in 1997,” NASA officials wrote Monday (Oct. 5) in a description of the newly released image of the area.

Semi-spoiler alert: The proximity to Pathfinder is a key plot point in the movie, and in the novel by Andy Weir on which the film is based.

The image of Schiaparelli Crater, which lies near the Martian equator, reveals a landscape covered by a layer of dust that’s probably at least 3.3 feet (1 meter) deep, NASA officials said. While the future Ares 4 mission in “The Martian” is set to land there, NASA tends to avoid such dusty areas in real life because they exhibit significant temperature swings, and their geological potential is tough to discern (the bedrock is hidden), agency officials added.

The newly released Acidalia Planitia and Schiaparelli Crater images were captured by MRO’s HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on May 17, 2015 and July 14, 2015, respectively. You can see more HiRISE photos of “The Martian” locales here: http://www.uahirise.org/martian/

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

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Grace Potter, currently on tour in support of her first solo record, “Midnight,” manages to find time to post her thoughts about space and science via Instagram. 

Space.com sat down with Potter prior to her performance at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Saturday (Oct. 3) to discuss her cosmic influences, which shined through not only in our interview but on stage as well.

For example, during the show, she hailed the recent announcement that liquid water flows on present-day Mars, asking the crowd if they’d heard about it. “That’s what it’s all about!” Potter told the audience.

Singer-songwriter Grace Potter discusses her cosmic influences in a video interview with Space.com.
Credit: Space.com/@SteveSpaleta

Her “Space_Potter” Instagram account is decorated with space and science images; a few posts relate her philosophical reflections. Potter digs deep into the NASA press conference on the Mars water discovery, writing, “Recurring Slope Lineae (referred to in the press conference as RSLs) are simply a fascinating body of evidence that has been documented & analyzed for years, and, on the merit of the empirical evidence alone, we now find Mars BACK WHERE IT BELONGS … at the center of public attention!”

Other Potter posts reference the recent 25th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Large Hadron Collider and more. She is also designing a “cosmic-themed” wardrobe, to complement her latest album cover, and stage visuals sporting night sky imagery.

During our interview, Potter spoke of the stunning cosmic pictures available to the public today, stating that they are “constant and beautiful reminders of just how lucky we are to live on this planet, where it’s not just livable, it’s ideal, in this moment in time.”

To find out more about Grace and her latest tour, visit Gracepotter.com.

Follow Steve Spaleta on Twitter @SteveSpaleta. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.