NASA MOON BOMBING VIDEO and results

Trumped only by Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize, NASA's LCROSS MISSION of the MOON BOMBING IMPACT VIDEO is the top of the charts today. Understandable so, the world wants to see the NASA MOON IMPACT VIDEO FOOTAGE as the LCROSS Centaur Rocket fires a Kinetic bomb into the Cabeus crater of the moon.

LCROSS MISSION ROCKET IMPACT ON THE MOON

Your Ad Here

NASA LAUNCHES LCROSS MISSION ROCKET CARRYING MOON BOMB

NASA Scientists have reviewed the data obtained from the video footage of the debris resulting from the impact of the LCROSS Mission's Bombing of the moon. NASA Scientist are hoping the post moon bomb impact video footage they see of this debris resulting from the moon bombing will provide them evidence of water on the moon.

Your Ad Here

During a post moon bombing impact press conference NASA Scientist revealed what they discovered from the analysis of the data received from the LCROSS mission video of the NASA Bombing of the moon. Here is a NASA Video of the LCROSS MISSION VIDEO where they shot a bomb at the moon.

NASA MOON BOMBING IMPACT VIDEO

Your Ad Here

Here are some more pictures from the NASA BOMBING OF THE MOON on October 9th, 2009









File under

1. obama nobel peace prize 2. lcross impact 3. nasa moon bombing video 4. lcross video 5. moon impact 6. moon crash 7. slooh 8. lacrosse video 9. moon shot 10. lcross mission 11. nasa.gov 12. nasa lcross 13. nasa tv 14. lunar impact 15. lcross live feed 16. moon rocket 17. nasa channel 18. moon explosion 19. moon blast 20. lunar crash 21. nasa blowing up the moon 22. rocket crash into moon 23. live moon cam 24. nasa television 25. woodrow wilson 26. ames research center 27. moon collision 28. moon probe 29. mizzou vs nebraska 2009 30. nasa moon crash live 31. marge simpson playboy 32. www.nasa.gov 33. moon missile 34. quotes about friends 35. cole hamels baby 36. al gore nobel prize 37. moon landing 38. moon strike 39. lcross images 40. moon lcross

NASA MOON BOMBING

Once again exposing the US National plan of "If Ya don't understand it... bomb da shit out of it," NASA is getting ready to shoot a 2-ton Kinetic Bomb at the moon on October 9th, 2009.

For the results of the NASA Moon bombing as well as images and video of the impact

NASA MOON BOMBING CANTAUR ROCKET HEADS TOWARDS THE SURFACE OF THE MOON

The NASA MOON BOMBING mission is known as the LCROSS MISSION and is reportidly a water finding experiment. The missile used to BOMB THE MOON is a Centaur rocket which will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft. Once in space, NASA will aim the 2 ton bomb at a crater close to the Moon's south pole.

When the Bomb hits the moon, NASA Scientist believe a huge plume of debris will be released into the atmosphere. NASA Scientists then hope to analyse the debris released by the MOON BOMBING to see if there is any water vapour.

Your Ad Here

Although the Moon mostly a dry airless desert, NASA Scientists believe ice could be trapped in crater shadows near the south pole which never receive any sunlight. By BOMBING THE MOON, NASA hopes to create a lake which could provide vital water for a manned moonbase.

Sceptics, critics and conspiracy theorists alike are criticizing NASA's BOMBING OF THE MOON, calling it an act of Space Terrorism designed to secretly wipe out the alien population of the Moon. Some are going as far as saying NASA is declaring war on the moon.

Your Ad Here

Whatever your feeling on NASA BOMBING THE MOON,
NASA's MOON BOMBING will go ahead as planned on October 9th 2009 when NASA will a rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a 5 mile wide hole in the lunar surface. The world will most likely be glued to their TV's or telescopes to WATCH THE BOMBING OF THE MOON and search engines will be busy searching for LIVE VIDEO OF THE NASA MOON BOMBING.

NASA's BOMBING OF THE MOON will happen on Friday, October 9, at 7.31am Eastern/4.31am Pacific (10.31pm AEDST)

NASA prepares the CENTAUR ROCKET that will BOMB THE MOON

SCIENTISTS FIND DIAMOND ENCRUSTED ASTEROID

DIAMOND ENTRUSTED METEORITE

WASHINGTON - For the first time, scientists have matched a meteorite found on Earth with a specific asteroid that became a fireball plunging through the sky. It gives them a glimpse into the past when planets formed and an idea about how to avoid a future asteroid Armageddon.

HTBWMedia

Last October, astronomers tracked a small non-threatening asteroid heading toward Earth before it became a "shooting star" - something they had not done before. It blew up in the sky and scientists thought there would be no space rocks left to examine. But a painstaking search by dozens of students through the remote Sudan desert came up with four kilograms of black jagged rocks - leftovers from the asteroid 2008 TC3. The study is being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

It says the dark rocks found in the desert were full of surprises, including minuscule diamonds. "This was a meteorite that was not in our collection, a completely new material," said study lead author Peter Jenniskens of NASA's Ames Research Center in California. For years, astronomers have been lobbying to send a robot probe to an asteroid, grab a chunk of it and return it to Earth for labs to analyze the material. Instead, a piece of an asteroid dropped in their laps and the researchers were able to track where it came from and where it landed.

The asteroid, which mostly burned in the atmosphere 37 kilometres above the ground, is likely a leftover from when chunks of rock tried and failed to become a planet, about 4.5 billion years ago, scientists said. "This is a look back in time and it came to us," said University of Maryland astronomer Lucy McFadden. She wasn't part of the study, but like four other outside experts praised the findings as important to the understanding of the solar system. "It's a beautiful example of looking at an earlier stage of planet development that was arrested, halted," said NASA cosmic mineralogist Michael Zolensky, a co-author of the study. But it also serves as a lesson for the future if this asteroid's big brother comes hurtling toward Earth.


Blowing it up like in the Bruce Willis movie "Armageddon" wouldn't be smart because this type of asteroid turns out to be very much like a "travelling sandpile," Zolensky said. "If you blow it up, all the pieces are heading toward Earth." Instead, a spaceship-aided nudge would be more effective, said NASA Ames Research Center director Simon (Pete) Worden, another study co-author. He is a longtime advocate of a worldwide program to plan for the threat of asteroids and comets hitting Earth. "The real important issue is to understand the physics of these objects," Worden said.

Your Ad Here

There are many different types of asteroids, all classified from afar based on colour and light wavelengths. This type is called class F and turns out to be mostly porous and fragile. University of Maryland's McFadden said it's unlikely that a class F asteroid could be any danger to Earth, even if it's bigger, because of its porous makeup which would cause it to break up before hitting. It was full of metals, such as iron and nickel, and organics such as graphites, Zolensky said. And most interesting is that it has "nanodiamonds." These diamonds are formed by collisions in space and high pressure and they are all over the rocks, making them glitter like geodes, he said. But they aren't big.

"If bacteria had engagement rings, these would be the right size for them," Zolensky said.

Your Ad Here

SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY PREPARES TO LAUNCH

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The space shuttle Discovery is poised to launch into orbit under a full moon Wednesday night on a delivery mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Discovery and her seven crewmembers are scheduled to blast off from a seaside launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center here at 9:20:10 p.m. EDT (0120:10 March 12 GMT) to begin their two-week construction flight.

Packed aboard the spacecraft is a new set of solar panels to be installed on the station, as well as the final stretch of the ISS's massive backbone-like girder.

Discovery is also due to deliver even more precious cargo: Koichi Wakata, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut, who is to become his nation's first long-duration spaceflyer when he joins the station's Expedition 18 crew as a flight engineer for a six-month stay.

"I feel just lucky to be able to serve as a crew member to complete the assembly of the International Space Station," Wakata said in a NASA interview.



The shuttle Discovery's countdown continues to tick smoothly toward launch Wednesday on a space station assembly mission, NASA officials said today. Liquid hydrogen and oxygen were loaded aboard the orbiter Monday evening to power the ship's electricity-producing fuel cells and engineers are on schedule prepping the shuttle for fueling and blastoff Wednesday at 9:20:10 p.m. EDT.

HTBWMedia

Aboard the space station, meanwhile, commander Mike Fincke and flight engineer Yury Lonchakov conducted a spacewalk this afternoon to mount a European experiment packaged on the hull of the Zvezda command module and to complete a variety of other tasks. Fincke and Lonchakov were unable to complete the experiment installation during their most recent previous spacewalk late last year.

Today's excursion began at 12:22 p.m. EDT when the spacewalkers, wearing Russian suits, opened the hatch of the Pirs docking and airlock module. Crewmate Sandra Magnus will monitor the spacewalk from inside the station.

For identification, Fincke, making his sixth spacewalk, was wearing a suit with red stripes and use the call sign EV-2. Lonchakov, making his second EVA, was wearing a suit with blue markings and use the call sign EV-1. No NASA helmet cameras were used during today's work.


Tasks successfully completed in today's spacewalk included:

Shortening six tie-down straps near the docking interface at the base of the Pirs module.


Installing and activating the European materials exposure experiment package.


Repositioning another space exposure package that was bumped out of position during an earlier spacewalk.


Closing an insulation flap on a connector patch panel.


Carrying out a detailed photo survey of the Zvezda command module. The more than two dozen targets include handrails, antennas, docking targets, cooling vents, thrusters and radiator panels.
The four-hour, 49-minute EVA ends at 5:11 p.m. EDT, nearly an hour ahead of schedule.

This was the 120th spacewalk devoted to station construction and maintenance since assembly began in 1998 and the first so far this year. Going into today's outing, more than 80 spacewalkers representing the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and Sweden had logged 751 hours and seven minutes of EVA time.

Your Ad Here

To avoid conflict with an upcoming Russian mission to ferry a new crew to the station and return Fincke and Lonchakov to Earth, the docked phase of Discovery's mission must be finished by around March 26, the day the next crew is set for launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

To carry out a full-duration four-spacewalk mission, the shuttle must get off the ground by March 13 at the latest. A launch as late as March 16 or 17 is possible, but mission managers would have to eliminate one or two planned spacewalks, along with crew off-duty time.

Complicating the picture, the Air Force plans to launch a sophisticated military communications satellite aboard an Atlas 5 rocket on March 14, with March 15 as a backup. While that flight presumably could slip a few days if NASA needed more time for Discovery, shuttle managers are hopeful it won't come to that.

NASA Test DIrector Steve Payne said launch preparations are on track with no technical problems of any significance at launch pad 39A.

"At this point, we have no real concerns," Payne said. "Our systems are in good shape, the countdown is proceeding on schedule like it should be and we are ready for the exciting mission that lies ahead of us Wednesday night."

Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters said the forecast continues to call for a 90 percent chance of acceptable conditions Wednesday and Thursday, decreasing slightly to 80 percent "go" on Friday the 13th.

"The weather is looking very good for launch," Winters said. "And of course, there's going to be a full moon out so that's going to be a really nice view. Right now, it is looking like very favorable weather conditions for launch."

HTBWMedia

Three minutes later an explanation came through on the satellite's launch blog: "According to Nasa commentator George Diller, the payload fairing [a clamshell cover protecting the satellite as it is blasted through the atmosphere] failed to separate from the vehicle during ascent."

The rocket and satellite failed to reach orbit and subsequently plummeted into the ocean.

Your Ad Here

"Certainly for the science community it's a huge disappointment," said John Brunschwyler, Taurus project manager for Orbital Sciences Corp, which built the rocket and satellite. "It's taken so long to get here."

The project took nine years to reach the launch pad.

"The loss of this instrument is a serious setback," added Professor John Burrows, a co-investigator for the satellite. "OCO planned to build on the first measurements by the European Sciamachy instrument on Envisat and is complementary to the recently launched Japanese mission, Gosat."

Nasa's director of Earth sciences, Michael Freilich, said: "Over the next several days, weeks and months, we're going to carefully evaluate how to move forward and advance the science, given our evaluation of the assets that are in orbit now, the assets of our international partners and the existence of flight spares in order to put together a program, as rapidly as possible, to pick up where OCO left off."

Your Ad Here

Orion and Constellation
The Orion spacecraft is part of a larger program called Constellation, an initiative intended to lead both to renewed exploration of the moon and eventually a human Mars mission. As planned, Constellation also will include two new rockets, both partly based on existing Space Shuttle technology: the Ares 1, a slender, two-stage vehicle designed to carry Orion into orbit; and the Ares V, a mammoth “heavy lifter” roughly the size of the old Saturn V, which will carry a lunar lander.

The Orion vehicle will bear a strong resemblance to the Apollo command and service modules. Like Apollo, Orion will have a launch abort system able to carry the craft clear of any emergency during takeoff, making it potentially safer than the shuttle.

According to NASA, Orion will be much roomier than Apollo, providing its crews of four to six astronauts with two-and-a-half times as much room as the earlier vehicle.

Perhaps the biggest difference, though, will be its electronics. While Apollo went to the moon with less computing power than today’s cheapest cell phone, Orion will have a full array of the latest data technology and avionics systems.

Bay Area Benefits
Orion will bring significant benefits to Houston’s Bay Area, says Bob Mitchell, aerospace marketing director for the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. Lockheed Martin Corp., a major contractor for the Orion program, plans to create about 900 new jobs in the area and to make $68 million in new capital investments.

Lockheed Martin’s stake in the area increased considerably due to aggressive courting by state and local officials. The company initially proposed to create 350 to 400 jobs in the region.

Your Ad Here

“Originally, the company was just going to do limited design and development work in Texas,” Mitchell says. “But the work that Lockheed Martin is going to be doing here now is developing all of the software and avionics for the entire program. This is a much bigger piece of the pie than we ever had on the shuttle when it was originally developed.”

“Houston’s base of skilled aerospace workers, experienced technicians and strong community support are unique and hard to beat,” says John Karas, vice president for Human Space Flight at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. “Combine that with the strong support and willingness of the state and local communities and business organizations to partner with Lockheed Martin through economic incentives, and it made perfect sense for us to establish our Orion program office in Houston.”

New Jobs, New Workers
The Orion program’s impact will extend well beyond the Lockheed Martin work force.

“It’s all in the jobs that will support those 900 new jobs,” says Mitchell. “Local businesses benefit the most – the local builder, drugstores and supermarkets all add new employees. It snowballs.” Bay Area Houston estimates that the Orion project will generate an additional 2,600 jobs in the area and more than $535 million in annual spending.


Lockheed Martin also plans to make significant commitments to Texas educational institutions to begin preparing a new generation of aerospace workers.

Your Ad Here

“The need to develop and train engineers, scientists and mathematicians is a compelling requirement for NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration,” says Cleon Lacefield, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for Project Orion. “At the University of Houston at Clear Lake and the surrounding Clear Creek Independent School District, we will take advantage of their growing expertise in software and power systems. The students will develop and deliver power system test beds and math models for the Orion program.

“We’re also establishing similar programs at the University of Texas at El Paso,” Lacefield continues. “And since today’s elementary school students will form the nucleus of tomorrow’s high-tech work force, we plan to develop cooperative programs with school districts in the greater Houston area.”

The ultimate earthbound benefits of the new space initiative, though, may come from technologies not yet imagined.

“There are going to be new industries that will be developed because of the Constellation program,” Mitchell says. “To get back to the moon and stay on it for long periods of time is going to require a lot of new technology.

“It’s going to require new types of fuel cells,” he says. “There’s going to have to be a habitat built, which is another new industry we’ve never had before. The technology that’s going to be developed through those activities is going to create a lot of new industry in this community.”

Back to the Future
In the space community, excitement about Orion is growing.

“We’re very proud to be partnered with NASA and with the state of Texas on the Orion program as we embark upon the most exciting space adventure yet to unfold,” says Lockheed’s Karas. “Since the days of Apollo and before, Texas has played a central role in our nation’s space program. Today, we’re ready to take the next leap forward.”

“What it means is the reality of going back to the moon, to Mars and beyond,” says Mitchell. “We are a technology-driven economy in a global market. That’s who we are, and we’ve got to stay in front of everybody else. And space exploration is a driver in that technology.”

NASA 50th Anniversary

	On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed National Air and Space Act, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a civilian agency in response to the challenge of the Soviet launch of Sputnik nearly a year before. Before the establishment of NASA, American space efforts, such as they were, were divided among the branches of the armed services.
The establishment of NASA gathered into one civilian agency, along with the aeronautics research efforts of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) that had been founded in 1915. Even so, President Eisenhower was somewhat skeptical of funding a large space program and barely approved of the first American man in space program, Project Mercury. It would take another Soviet space feat, the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin, and a new President for NASA to really come into its own. The first space age, for NASA, was the Apollo program to land a man on the Moon. Born of Cold War necessity, Apollo was one of the greatest and, ultimately, most bitter sweet technological feats in human history. Even decades later, people who were alive when man first landed on the Moon remember it with a kind of heady nostalgia. With success came a perverse and almost inevitable punishment by the political powers that be. For a time it seemed that publically funded space flight might end in the United States in the early 1970s. Fortunately Richard Nixon, who care less about space exploration than he did about votes and campaign contributions, tasked NASA to a more practical job than lunar voyages of exploration.
	NASA was ordered to build a reusable space shuttle that handle all of the nation's space flight needs, commercial, military, and NASA. The idea was that a reusable space vehicle would decrease the cost of space travel, making possible space stations, a return to the Moon, and maybe voyages beyond. NASA would also have roughly half the budget it thought it needed to do it. Thus the second space age was born.
One Small Step for Man, on Giant leap for mankind.

NASA Finds ice on Mars

NASA is expected to give details on the discovery during a news conference on Friday.

The small science probe landed safely last month on a frozen desert at the Martian north pole to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life.

Small chunks of bright material described as the size of dice have disappeared from inside a trench where they were photographed by the craft earlier this week, NASA said in a statement late on Thursday.

This has convinced scientists the chunks were ice -- frozen water -- that vaporized after digging exposed it, NASA said.

"It must be ice," said mission principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days. That is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The presence of water on Mars is a hot topic for scientists. They have presented strong evidence in recent years of huge deposits of frozen water at the Martian poles and point to geological features that indicate that large bodies of water have flowed on the planet's surface in the distant past.

Water is a key to the question of whether life, even in the form of mere microbes, has ever existed on Mars. On Earth, water is a necessary ingredient for life.

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's robotic arm enlarged that trench on June 15. Several chunks were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench again on Thursday, NASA said.

The U.S. space agency also said that the lander, digging in a different trench, used its robotic arm to connect with a hard surface that has scientists believing they have found an icy layer on the Martian surface.

The $420 million lander spent 10 months journeying from Earth to Mars.

NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft Reports Good Health After Mars Landing and sends back PICTURES OF MARS

A NASA spacecraft today sent pictures showing itself in good condition after making the first successful landing in a polar region of Mars.

The images from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander also provided a glimpse of the flat valley floor expected to have water-rich permafrost within reach of the lander's robotic arm. The landing ends a 422-million-mile journey from Earth and begins a three-month mission that will use instruments to taste and sniff the northern polar site's soil and ice.

"We see the lack of rocks that we expected, we see the polygons that we saw from space, we don't see ice on the surface, but we think we will see it beneath the surface. It looks great to me," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission.

Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed that the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. In the intervening time, those signals crossed the distance from Mars to Earth at the speed of light. The confirmation ignited cheers by mission team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and the University of Arizona.

As planned, Phoenix stopped transmitting one minute after landing and focused its limited battery power on opening its solar arrays, and other critical activities. About two hours after touchdown, it sent more good news. The first pictures confirmed that the solar arrays needed for the mission's energy supply had unfolded properly, and masts for the stereo camera and weather station had swung into vertical position.
"Seeing these images after a successful landing reaffirmed the thorough work over the past five years by a great team," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of JPL. A key milestone still ahead is the first use of the lander's 7.7-foot-long robotic arm, not planned before Tuesday.


"Only five of our planet's 11 previous attempts to land on the Red Planet have succeeded. In exploring the universe, we accept some risk in exchange for the potential of great scientific rewards," said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Phoenix carries science instruments to assess whether ice just below the surface ever thaws and whether some chemical ingredients of life are preserved in the icy soil. These are key questions in evaluating whether the environment has ever been favorable for microbial life. Phoenix will also study other aspects of the soil and atmosphere with instrument capabilities never before used on Mars. Canada supplied the lander's weather station.

Transmissions from Phoenix have reported results after a check of several components and systems on the spacecraft. "Phoenix is an amazing machine, and it was built and flown by an amazing team. Through the entire entry, descent and landing phase, it performed flawlessly," said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "The spacecraft stayed in contact with Earth during that critical period, and we received a lot of data about its health and performance. I'm happy to report it's in great shape."

Phoenix uses hardware from a spacecraft built for a 2001 launch that was canceled in response to the loss of a similar Mars spacecraft during a 1999 landing attempt. Researchers who proposed the Phoenix mission in 2002 saw the unused spacecraft as a resource for pursuing a new science opportunity. A few months earlier, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter discovered that plentiful water ice lies just beneath the surface throughout much of high-latitude Mars. NASA chose the Phoenix proposal over 24 other proposals to become the first endeavor in the Mars Scout program of competitively selected missions.

The signal confirming that Phoenix had survived touchdown and the transmission of the first pictures were relayed via Mars Odyssey and received on Earth at the Goldstone, Calif., antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

NASA PHOENIX MARS LANDER - Exploring MARS

Mission Overview

Overview

 

Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. The Phoenix lander targets this circumpolar region using a robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis.





Image right: This map centered on the north pole of Mars is based on gamma rays from the element hydrogen -- mainly in the form of water ice. Regions of high ice content are shown in violet and blue and those low in ice content are shown in red. The very ice-rich region at the north pole is due to a permanent polar cap of water ice on the surface. Elsewhere in this region, the ice is buried under several to a few tens of centimeters of dry soil. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UA

The complement of the Phoenix spacecraft and its scientific instruments are ideally suited to uncover clues to the geologic history and biological potential of the Martian arctic. Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science strategy "Follow the Water" and will be instrumental in achieving the four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program.



--Determine whether Life ever arose on Mars



--Characterize the Climate of Mars



--Characterize the Geology of Mars



--Prepare for Human Exploration



The Phoenix Mission has two bold objectives to support these goals, which are to (1) study the history of water in the Martian arctic and (2) search for evidence of a habitable zone and assess the biological potential of the ice-soil boundary.

Objectives

 

Objective 1: Study the History of Water in All its Phases


Currently, water on Mars' surface and atmosphere exists in two states: gas and solid. At the poles, the interaction between the solid water ice at and just below the surface and the gaseous water vapor in the atmosphere is believed to be critical to the weather and climate of Mars. Phoenix will be the first mission to collect meteorological data in the Martian arctic needed by scientists to accurately model Mars' past climate and predict future weather processes.



Liquid water does not currently exist on the surface of Mars, but evidence from Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey and Exploration Rover missions suggest that water once flowed in canyons and persisted in shallow lakes billions of years ago. However, Phoenix will probe the history of liquid water that may have existed in the arctic as recently as 100,000 years ago. Scientists will better understand the history of the Martian arctic after analyzing the chemistry and mineralogy of the soil and ice using robust instruments.



Image right: Three-dimensional image of the Martian arctic created using data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) aboard Global Surveyor. Image credit: NASA
Objective 2: Search for Evidence of Habitable Zone and Assess the Biological Potential of the Ice-Soil Boundary


Recent discoveries have shown that life can exist in the most extreme conditions. Indeed, it is possible that bacterial spores can lie dormant in bitterly cold, dry, and airless conditions for millions of years and become activated once conditions become favorable. Such dormant microbial colonies may exist in the Martian arctic, where due to the periodic wobbling of the planet, liquid water may exist for brief periods about every 100,000 years making the soil environment habitable.



Phoenix will assess the habitability of the Martian northern environment by using sophisticated chemical experiments to assess the soil's composition of life-giving elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and hydrogen. Identified by chemical analysis, Phoenix will also look at reduction-oxidation (redox) molecular pairs that may determine whether the potential chemical energy of the soil can sustain life, as well as other soil properties critical to determine habitability such as pH and saltiness.



Despite having the proper ingredients to sustain life, the Martian soil may also contain hazards that prevent biological growth, such as powerful oxidants that break apart organic molecules. Powerful oxidants that can break apart organic molecules are expected in dry environments bathed in UV light, such as the surface of Mars. But a few inches below the surface, the soil could protect organisms from the harmful solar radiation. Phoenix will dig deep enough into the soil to analyze the soil environment potentially protected from UV looking for organic signatures and potential habitability.

Citizens of the World gather to Watch the Total Lunar Eclipse of 2008

Last night, people from all religions and walks of life gathered together as one to look at the same thing. The total Lunar Eclipse of February 20th 2008. Awe enspiring to many, this phenomenon happens when a full moon passes through the shadow of the earth. The next scheduled Full Lunar Eclipse is estimated to be in 2008 (To coincide with the year of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver British Columbia.
Here are some photographs of the momentous event. These pictures of the Eclipse are taken from various locations around the world.




The full moon is seen early Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008, during a total lunar eclipse near Frankfurt, Germany.



An airplane passes Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in front of the moon as a lunar eclipse begins over Seattle.


The Moon glows as it is seen above the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, during a lunar eclipse early Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurred Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.


The lunar eclipse is framed Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in a church steeple cross west of Ottawa, Canada.


The moon is seen during a total eclipse Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, over St. Andrews Cathedral in Grand Rapids, Mich.


The Wrigley Building and the moon are seen during an initial phase of a lunar eclipse Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in Chicago.


A lunar eclipse nears its peak at 8:46 p.m. Central Standard Time on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in Appleton, Wis


Direct rays of sunlight fall on the right edge of the moon as the total phase of the lunar eclipse ends Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008, in Stedman, N.C


Essex, UK


Nikki Shariat, Nashville, USA: "I took a series of photos over the course of the eclipse and put them together in Photoshop. I had never even seen an eclipse before!"


Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK


New Mexico



Highway 285, New Mexico.



Grand Valley Ontario, Canada.



This was taken by Farshad Palideh over Poonak, Tehran.

USS Lake Erie - Direct hit on Spy satellite

Debris from an obliterated U.S. spy satellite is being tracked over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but appears to be too small to cause damage on Earth, a senior military officer said Thursday, just hours after a Navy missile scored a direct hit on the failing spacecraft.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on military space technologies, told a Pentagon news conference that officials have a "high degree of confidence" that the missile launched from a Navy cruiser Wednesday night hit exactly where intended.

It was an unprecedented mission for the Navy, so extraordinary that the final go-ahead to launch the missile Wednesday was reserved for Defense Secretary Robert Gates rather than a military commander.

Cartwright estimated there was an 80 percent to 90 percent chance that the missile struck the most important target on the satellite - its fuel tank, containing 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, which Pentagon officials say could have posed a health hazard to humans if it had landed in a populated area.

Alluding to a video clip of the missile smashing into the satellite, which he showed at the news conference, Cartwright said, "We have a fireball, and given that there's no fuel (on the tip of the missile), that would indicate that that's a hydrazine fire."

The video showed the three-stage SM-3 missile launching from the USS Lake Erie at 10:26 p.m. EST, northwest of Hawaii, and of the missile's small "kill vehicle" - a non-explosive device at the tip - maneuvering into the path of the satellite and colliding spectacularly.

He said the satellite and the kill vehicle collided at a combined speed of 22,000 mph about 130 miles above Earth's surface, and that the collision was confirmed at a space operations center at 10:50 p.m. EST.

Asked about the satisfaction felt among those in the military who had organized the shootdown on short notice by modifying missile software and other components, Cartwright smiled widely.

"Yes, this was uncharted territory. The technical degree of difficulty was significant here," Cartwright said. "You can imagine that at the point of intercept there were a few cheers that went up."

He cautioned, however, that more technical analysis was required to determine for certain what debris was created and where it might go. The satellite was described as the size of a school bus and weighed about 5,000 pounds.

Unlike most spacecraft that fall out of orbit and re-enter the atmosphere, this satellite had an almost full fuel tank because it lost power and became uncontrollable shortly after it reached its initial orbit in December 2006. Cartwright said the hydrazine alone was justification for undertaking the unprecedented effort to use a Navy missile interceptor to attempt to destroy the satellite in orbit.

Cartwright said experts were still watching the debris fields and he could not yet rule out that hazardous material would fall to Earth. But he said that as of Thursday morning, debris had only been seen in the atmosphere - and none had been detected surviving re-entry. He indicated that debris appeared unlikely to pose a problem.

"Thus far we've seen nothing larger than a football," he said, referring to debris in the atmosphere spotted by radars and other sensors.

The military concluded that the missile had successfully shattered the satellite because trackers detected a fireball. Cartwright said it was unlikely that the fireball could have been caused by anything other than the hydrazine in the tank.

And Cartwright cited two other sources of information that indicate the fuel tank was hit: the appearance of a vapor cloud and the results of spectral analysis, or the study of light emissions, from devices aboard two aircraft that operate from the Pacific test range associated with the Pentagon's missile defense testing.

Debris from the satellite has started re-entry and will continue through Thursday and into Friday, Cartwright said.

The size of the debris is smaller than the Pentagon had forecast and most of the satellite's intelligence value was likely destroyed, Cartwright said. Analysts had said one of the reasons for the shootdown was that officials worried that without it, larger chunks of the satellite could fall and be recovered, opening the possibility of secret technology falling into the hands of the Chinese or others.

Gates arrived in Hawaii less than two hours before the missile was launched. His press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said Gates had a conference call during his flight with Cartwright and Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of Strategic Command. They told him that "the conditions were ripe for an attempt, and that is when the secretary gave the go-ahead to take the shot, and wished them good luck," Morrell said.

At 10:35 p.m. EST, Gates spoke to both generals again and "was informed that the mission was a success, that the missile had intercepted the decaying satellite, and the secretary was obviously very pleased to learn that," said Morrell.

The elaborate intercept may trigger worries from some international leaders, who could see it as a thinly disguised attempt to test an anti-satellite weapon - one that could take out other nations' orbiting communications and spy spacecraft.

Within hours of the reported success, China said it was on the alert for possible harmful fallout from the shootdown and urged Washington to promptly release data on the action.

"China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at news conference in Beijing. "China requests the U.S. to fulfill its international obligations in real earnest and provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way so that relevant countries can take precautions."

USS Lake Erie Missile satellite shoot down mission may be delayed over Weather concerns

A US attempt to shoot down a damaged spy satellite with USS Lake Erie will probably be delayed because of poor weather, Pentagon officials say. Weather forecasts in the Pacific, where a US warship USS Lake Erie is stationed for the mission, indicated that seas would not be calm enough for the ship to fire a missile at the satellite and destroy it, the officials said.

US military officials say the satellite is carrying highly toxic hydrazine rocket fuel that could be dangerous if it fell on a populated area. But the decision to shoot it down has been criticised by China and Russia who say the move is a cover for testing anti-satellite weaponry.

The Pentagon has to act before February 29, when the dead satellite is projected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. On Wednesday, the space shuttle Atlantis landed in Florida, clearing the way for the military operation to proceed.

The Pentagon had been waiting for the shuttle to land to avoid contact with flying debris as the satellite returned to Earth. Atlantis returned after completing a mission to deliver Europe's first permanent space laboratory to the International Space Station.

The USS Lake Erie is stationed in the western Pacific in waters off the US state of Hawaii and awaiting the order to shoot down the missile with a specially modified missile. Officials will know within minutes of the missile launch whether the
missile has hit the satellite, but it will take a day or two to know whether
the fuel tank has been destroyed, officials said.

The operation is most likely to take place during daylight hours and all ships and air traffic have been warned to stay away from the area ahead of the operation, officials say. "We'll make decisions each day as to whether we're going to proceed or not," a Pentagon official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

Left alone, about half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft was expected to
survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.

George Bush, the US president, gave the order last week for the satellite to be shot down, saying the move was based on protecting human health. The satellite is carrying about half a tonne of hydrazine, a toxic propellant that would have been used to reposition the satellite while in orbit.

The material can be fatal to humans in large doses. However both China and Russia criticised the move, saying it could harm security in space. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters: "Relevant departments of China are closely watching the situation and working out preventive measures." Last year, China was itself criticised by the US and several of its allies which accused Beijing of risking a space arms race after it used a ballistic missile to destroy one of its own obsolete weather satellites.

Russia's defence ministry has also said it fears the US plan is a veiled test of US anti-satellite capabilities and represents an "attempt to move the arms race into space". The ministry said: "The decision to destroy the American satellite does not look harmless as they try to claim, especially at a time when the US has been evading negotiations on the limitation of an arms race in outer space."

Critics have also said the justification of health fears may be a cover for preventing highly-classified spy satellite technology from falling into foreign hands. The missile carries a non-explosive "kinetic kill vehicle" – designed essentially to destroy the satellite by smashing into it. The technique is similar to the system employed in US anti-missile shields.

US Military to shoot down Toxic satellite from space - Sounds like a Bruce Willis Movie to me

HOUSTON - Less than a month ago, White House officials said a falling spy satellite would likely pose little threat to humans — but on Thursday, the Pentagon said President Bush himself approved an unorthodox plan to destroy the satellite with a missile strike.

What could warrant such a change of heart? It's the realization that the spacecraft could be bringing a toxic iceberg back down to Earth.

Aboard the 2.5-ton derelict satellite, designated "USA-193," is a fuel tank containing half a ton of hydrazine. Since the satellite went dead within hours after launch 14 months ago, the fuel has not been depleted by normal rocket maneuvers.

Hydrazine is a nasty chemical that could poison the area where it is released. Until recently, U.S. officials were saying that the tank would be crushed as the satellite fell through the atmosphere, sometime in early March. If that were the case, the toxic hydrazine would almost certainly be burned off and safely dispersed during the fiery fall.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin sketched out a different scenario, however, during Thursday's news conference with Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Griffin said NASA experts calculated that the hydrazine was frozen solid due to the satellite’s yearlong drift through the cold of space. The tank, with its half-ton ice core of hydrazine, would thus become one of the most perfect re-entry vehicles ever to fall back to Earth.

Griffin explained that the contents of the tank could turn to slush during the fall, but would very likely survive and leak toxic gas over the crash site. Another expert told msnbc.com privately that the solid ice would provide structural support against the 20 to 25 G’s of deceleration experienced by the satellite during re-entry.

Safety first?

Pentagon officials said it was that safety concern, rather than the intention to test a potential anti-satellite weapon, which led them to develop the plan for a missile intercept. They hope the impact of the warhead on a modified Standard Missile-3, or SM-3, will shatter the satellite — and particularly the spherical hydrazine tank. The first shot could occur as early as next week, after the space shuttle Atlantis' return from its mission to the international space station.

Would a direct hit be required? Experts on space debris told msnbc.com that even a glancing blow would likely be enough. The force of a missile hitting an orbiting object is much more violent than the force of a bullet striking a target, or even an anti-aircraft missile hitting an airplane. In the space case, the tremendous speed of the impact carries so much kinetic energy that both vehicles literally explode due to the hypersonic shock waves sweeping through their structures.

If the missile strike leads to such a disintegration, sharp observers should be able to spot the ice fragments from the fuel tank. As the fragments evaporate in direct sunlight, they could create mini-comets visible from Earth’s surface, lasting for hours before dispersing.



Pentagon officials said the intercept would occur within range of military optical and radar sensors. Their goal would be to confirm the existence of dispersed hydrazine in the debris. If the sensors don't show the fuel dispersing, missile operators would target the fragment judged most likely to be the still-surviving fuel tank. A second shot could occur within a day or two of the first.

Giving the missiles a boost

Last week's orbital readings indicated that the satellite was circling Earth at an altitude between 160 and 168 miles (255 and 268 kilometers) and descending at an increasing rate, currently about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) per day. Gen. Cartwright said the intercept would be attempted when the satellite descended to about 150 miles (240 kilometers).

The SM-3 has typically been used for testing the Pentagon's missile defense system, and reaches a nominal maximum altitude of just 100 miles (160 kilometers). For the satellite intercept, three missiles — one each on three different AEGIS-class Navy cruisers — will be modified to reach the higher altitude.

This isn't the first time hydrazine has posed a problem in space: The fuel freezes at temperatures below 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), and satellites without active heating will drop to temperatures below that — as a case involving the Soviet Salyut 7 space station demonstrated dramatically in 1985.

After Salyut 7's power system failed, the water in its supply tanks froze solid, along with the hydrazine in its propulsion system. A pair of cosmonauts reached the icy station and were able to activate its electrical system, and then carefully thawed the frozen tanks.

NBC News space analyst James Oberg spent 22 years at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Mission Control operator and an orbital designer. He is the author of several books on international space policy, including "Space Power Theory" and "Star-Crossed Orbits."