Largest solar radiation storm since October 2003

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that around January 24 underestimated the power of the solar storm hitting the earth. The agency said on Monday that the storm was the biggest since May 2005 when a similar event reached 3,000 PFU (abbreviation for proton flow units, used to measure the radiation energy of this type of event) . However, on Tuesday, the NOAA instruments recorded as 6,300 PFU ,the largest solar radiation storm since October 2003.

The intense solar radiation can cause problems for earth satellites, in addition to being an inconvenience to the astronauts. This is the season of more intense storms since September 2005. The eruption, which began on Sunday, must send particles up to Wednesday.

"Due to this phenomenon, it is almost certain that there will be a geomagnetic storm (disturbances in the earth's geomagnetic field caused by solar flare)," NOAA said in a statement Monday. "The associated solar flare reached its maximum height on January 23," he added. A computer model made ​​by the Forecast Center shows that this wave of the storm will have the greatest effect on the earth's magnetic field on Tuesday.

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NASA discovers two planets similar to Earth in the same star system

The Kepler spacecraft NASA just found 2 planets similar to earth (twice).

The space agency announced that they had found two planets, each about the same size as earth, orbiting a star about 1,000 light years away. 20e and 20f Kepler, 0.87 and 1.03 times the size of earth, respectively, are the smallest exoplanet ever found.

Unfortunately, size is not the only factor to find habitable planets. The two planets Kepler, who are part of a five-star system on the planet, are very close to its sun to support life as we know it. Our best bet to find ET's planet is still Christmas, a larger body in which astronomers call the "Goldilocks zone", because the planet is at a distance from its star where no too cold or too hot for life to exist.

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Very likely to occur a catastrophic solar storm

According to a report by the European Commission, each time further increases the risk of an event of catastrophic proportions technology, caused by a solar storm. This would affect terrestrial infrastructure such as power grids, telecommunications, satellite navigation, managing bank accounts, the media and air and sea transport.

The report notes that, given that the next solar maximum is expected in 2013, in the coming months, the European body's duty is to show the potential impact of space weather could have on certain infrastructures. It has therefore launched the 'Space-Weather Awareness Dialogue', which aims to identify the challenges practices and policies related to disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation, and formulate recommendations for action.

Risk experts have noted that there is too much uncertainty about the subject, especially with regard to the actual probabilities of occurrence of these events. In this regard, he indicated that the risk of a power failure occurs as a result of a solar storm in a relatively short time is high and pointed out that society is not prepared to deal with it.

The European Commission proposes to define the responsibilities and lines of communication before a catastrophe technology intended to let everyone know how to react in case of an emergency. She also requests that the protocols for crisis response should be prepared ahead of time and tested through exercises or drills to help learn how to act in a similar circumstance.

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Rover finds evidence of water on Mars

"Opportunity" from NASA, has found evidence that liquid water and potentially habitable conditions, once existed on the surface of Mars, scientists say.

The finding is a vein of gypsum, a mineral that forms in the presence of liquid water that has been dubbed Homestake. The vein of ore is "almost as wide as a thumb and a few tens of centimeters long," said geologist Steve Squyres of Cornell University at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Opportunity has found an association with water and minerals that Mars had before, but these findings were in sandstones. Before consolidating the rock, the grains of the stones could have flown many miles from their sources, hiding history minerales. By contrast, the Homestake vein is found in the rocks, which means that "these things are formed here, "said Squyres, principal investigator for the mission Rover.

"In the ancient past of Mars, there was a fracture in the rock. The water flowed through it. Gypsum precipitate. There is no ambiguity about this, "he said.

"This is the most powerful piece of evidence for liquid water on Mars has been found by Opportunity," Squyres said.

The vein of gypsum was found in one place, informally known as Cape York, on the edge of the 14-kilometer wide crater (23 km wide) Endeavour.

Gypsum bands like Homestake are not the only signs of water along strike.

Orbiting instruments have chemical signatures of smectite, a clay form, which is another mineral associated with water, said rover team member Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.

Moreover, water-related minerals previously found by the rover had suggested a high acid content of the environment.

However, gypsum is formed under much more neutral than could have been friends for life, Squyres of Cornell said.

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Voyager 1 left the Solar System

The Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered uncharted territory on the edge of our solar system. Scientists from the U.S. space agency said the ship came to a region on the edge of our solar system which he describes as a "cosmic purgatory."

Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in the city of Pasadena, said that the Voyager is in a region of stagnation in the last layer of the bubble that surrounds our solar system and will not have to wait long to know what it is really the space between the stars.

Voyager 1 is in the process of being the first manmade object to leave the solar system, NASA hopes even take some months or even years to fully enter into interstellar space. The Voyager 2, which is currently at 14.500 million miles from the sun will follow later.

Voyager 1 is traveling at only 17 km per second and sends data back to Earth from a distance of 17.500 million miles.

The information obtained by the Voyager last year in this area reveals that the edge of the Solar System the wind charged particles from the sun is calm, while the higher energy particles seem to seep into interstellar space.

The primary mission of the Voyagers was the exploration of outer parts of our solar system, particularly the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. The ships have been sent pictures of the rings of Saturn, Saturn rolo point and sulfur volcanoes in Europe.

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NASA discovered planet that may has water

The Kepler spacecraft discovered the planetary system-22, 600 light-years away, the first planet located in 'habitable zone', in a region where it is believed there may be water net, NASA announced Monday at a news conference.

Scientists at the Ames Research Center NASA announced, moreover, that Kepler has identified 1,000 new planet candidates, ten of which have similar size and orbit the earth in the habitable zone of its star's solar system.

The Kepler planet-22b is the smallest found by spacecraft orbiting a star similar to earth in the 'habitable zone', where temperatures that allow the development of life.

Despite not knowing if the planet, which is larger than Earth, is rocky, gaseous or liquid, the deputy director of the team of scientists from Ames, Natalie Batalha, said: 'we are getting closer to finding a planet like the Earth '.

The Kepler observatory had previously hinted the existence of planets of similar size with our orbiting 'habitable zones', but this is the first time the fact is recorded.

Scientists, in addition to the discovery, also updated the number of planet candidates in the list that began to be drawn up in 2009. Planets are now 2,326, 207 have a similar size to Earth, 680 are larger and are called 'super Earths'.

Among the remaining 1,181 are about the size of Neptune, 203 are equivalent to the size of Jupiter and 55 are even bigger than Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

Launched in March 2009, the Kepler spacecraft's mission is to collect data and evidence of planets orbiting around stars 'habitable zones', where liquid water could exist and therefore life.

The Kepler spacecraft detects planets and planet candidates by measuring the drop in brightness of more than 150,000 stars, which are observed to see whether these possible planets pass in front of these stars, a movement known as transit.

However, this technique is not sufficient to check the sign of a planet. Only three transits are recorded when the observatory launches the process to determine whether or not a possible planet.

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Scientists create map of the Moon

A team of U.S. scientists announced yesterday that created a topographical map of the moon almost all images of the highest resolution made ​​so far.

The photographs were taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and helped create the large-scale map of about 100 meters per pixel. This allows to determine more accurately the way in which the lunar crust has changed, experts from Arizona State University. It will also help better understand the mechanics of impact craters, analyze the nature of volcanic features, as well as planning future lunar space missions, said Mark Robinson, principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC).

Despite being close to Earth, the knowledge we have of the moon morphology is still incomplete. Technological limitations of previous missions to study the satellite had failed to create a global map of the lunar topography at high resolution. In addition to the images captured by the LRO was used Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter.

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Image capture nebula where stars are born hundreds of

The Great Telescope Canary Islands, the world's largest infrared telescope has captured an image of the nebula Sharpless 2-106 call, a great cloud of dust and gas located about 2,000 light years away and that may be forming more than a hundred stars.

The Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said in a statement that this photograph was chosen as the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" by NASA on November 7.

The image was taken with the Very Large Telescope Osiris device is located at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos in La Palma, one of the islands in the archipelago of the Canaries, by photographer Daniel Lopez.

The nebula Sharpless 2-106, shaped like an hourglass, could easily be mistaken for a bipolar planetary nebula, which represents the final phase of a small star like the Sun

But the opposite is true, adds the Institute in this picture what is contemplated is a great cloud of dust and gas where they could be forming over a hundred stars.

At a distance of 2,000 light years and with a size of about two light years long, this region of star formation is mainly illuminated by a very young star of about 100.000 years old, with a mass equivalent to 15 suns.

In the picture is not well appreciated the star, to be hidden by a relatively dense disk of material, detailing the science center.

This disc appears to be responsible for the unique shape of the nebula, as the starlight would be absorbed by the disk in the equatorial direction but could escape by ionizing the gas poles above and below the disc and leading to the two regions that are illuminated.

The flash of six vertices that can be seen in the brightest stars of the picture is one of the hallmarks that prints the special structure of the Great Canary Telescope with hexagonal mirrors.

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Are the particles travel faster than light? Not so fast

After a study in September, suggested that neutrinos can travel faster than light - a discovery that would shake Einstein's theory of relativity, a more recent study shows that the test results should have been a mistake.

The scientists included in the OPERA experiment, carried out in the Gran Sasso laboratory, near Rome, said some of the neutrinos from the CERN research center in Switzerland, traveled faster than the speed of light.

Now, a study called ICARUS in the Gran Sasso indicates that the energy levels of the neutrinos that reach very high. If neutrinos actually traveled faster than light, had lost most of its energy, says the ICARUS team.

"The difference between the speed of neutrinos and the speed of light can not be as great as that observed by OPERA, and is certainly smaller than three orders of magnitude, and is compatible with zero," said CERN physicist Tommaso Dorigo, ICARUS commenting on the results.

Another recent experiment at CERN confirmed the original findings of the experiment in September, but could have been prone to the same errors - if any - as the original experiment.

Independent experiments are being prepared in Italy, USA and Japan to try to replicate the results of operations.

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Discovered dinosaur nests

A group of U.S. researchers have discovered a nest in Mongolia with the fossil remains of 15 offspring of dinosaurs Protoceratops andrewsi, revealing new information on the postnatal development and care of their parents, according to a study published today in the Journal of Paleontology .

This is the first nest of this kind have been found, revealing that Protoceratops children remained in the nest for an extended period, according to professor of geosciences at the University of Rhode Island, lead author David Fastovsky.

"Finding dinosaur young in a nest is a relatively rare occurrence and not remember any other dinosaur species that retains 15 offspring in their nest in this way," he said.

Training Found Djadochta Tugrikinshire area, Mongolia, the nest is bowl-shaped with a diameter of 2.3 meters and researchers estimate that is 70 million years.

It houses 15 dinosaurs, ten of which are complete specimens, with a status similar growth and development and about the same size, suggesting that all came from the same mother.

The finding also indicates that young dinosaurs remained in the nest in the early stages of postnatal development and were treated by their parents.

The Protoceratops measuring 1.83 meters high and it took ten years to reach full size, so the researchers calculated that the babies were a year old when he died.

Fastovsky believes "preserved animals were buried quickly by the accumulation of sand in motion, which must have formed the bulk of sedimentation."

"The death probably occurred during a desert sandstorm," said the professor who attributed the preservation of the fossils to the arid land that has contributed "significantly" to "excellent preservation," Protoceratops not only, but all the fossils with which they work.

The researchers point out that Mongolia lived in a wide variety of theropod dinosaurs, some of whom, including the famous Velociraptor, Protoceratops probably ate baby.

"The mortality of young Protoceratops may have been quite high, not only by predation but by a potentially stressful, and large nests may have been a way of ensuring the survival of animals in the environment," he said.

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Discovered galaxies to collide

In the past 50 years, ground and space telescopes have detected hundreds of gamma ray bursts very powerful, which are now found a new use astronomical. One of these explosions, called GRB 090323, was discovered by Fermi gamma-ray telescope for NASA. Once its position was observed in detail by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) that the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has in Chile.

The astronomers, led by Sandra Savaglio, Max Planck Institute in Germany, concluded that the light from the explosion had crossed the galaxy where it occurred and also another nearby galaxy. "When we study the explosion was a surprise to see how the cold gas of these two galaxies, which are in the early universe and had elements much heavier than we knew at that moment in cosmic history," said Savaglio.

the gamma ray burst served to know that nearly 12.000 billion years the universe was already highly developed chemistry: gas acted as a filter for gamma rays, absorbing part of light. Without such a blast, both galaxies would have been invisible from Earth.

It was thought that heavy elements in galaxies were younger, like the Milky Way. These elements are produced from the life and death of several generations of stars, a cycle that is enriched gas from galaxies. This enrichment is used to study the history of galaxies.

However, the VLT has revealed that they also have a similar composition galaxies with 2.000 million years after the Big Bang.

"We've been lucky enough to observe the GRB 090323 as it remains bright enough, so it is possible to obtain detailed observations with the VLT dramatically. The only gamma-ray bursts remain bright for a short period of time and get transcendent data becomes a challenging task.

We expect to see these galaxies again in the future when we have much more sensitive instruments, "Savaglio said.

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Pluto has a twin brother

European astronomers announced that the distant planet called Eris is a virtual twin to Pluto, which was removed from the category of planets when Eris was discovered in 2005.

Eris passed in front of a distant star in November 2010, in an event called occultation, which allowed the observatories on Earth do the necessary calculations to determine the size of dwarf planet.

Further analysis of the observations show that Eris is about the size of Pluto.

The discovery of Eris was one of the reasons for the creation of a new class of objects called dwarf planets and the reclassification of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet in 2006.

The astronomer, Bruno Sicardy, said is amazing what you can learn to observe a planet passing in front of a star with a common telescope.

Eris is three times farther from the sun than Pluto.

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New Planet may be the most Earth-like

A new planet found around 36 light years away could be one of the worlds most Earth-like clouds If you have enough says the study.

The call was discovered orbiting HD85512b an orange dwarf star in the constellation Vela. Astronomers found the planet using the High Accuracy Radial European Southern Observatory Velocity Planet Searcher or HARPS, an instrument in Chile.

The radial velocity is a planet-hunting technique that looks for certain flashes shaky in the light of a star, which may indicate the gravitational tug of orbiting worlds.

HARPS data show that the planet is 3.6 times the mass of Earth, and the new world revolves around its parent star in just the right distance for water to be liquid on the surface of this planet for scientists is crucial for life as we know it.

"The distance is exactly the limit that must be for liquid water," said study leader, Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

"If scales within our system, is a bit farther away than Venus is our sun" At that distance, the planet probably received a little more solar energy to its star than the Earth from the Sun
However, Kaltenegger and colleagues estimate that a cloud cover of at least 50 percent reflect enough energy back to space to avoid overheating.

On average, the Earth is 60 percent cloud cover, the skies are partly cloudy in HD85512b.

Of course, the clouds of water vapor depends on the presence of an atmosphere similar to Earth, something that can not be detected on distant planets as current instruments.

Planet formation models predict that planets with more than ten times the mass of the Earth must have an atmosphere dominated by hydrogen and helium, said Kaltenegger. Including HD85512b are more likely to have Earth-like atmosphere, composed mainly of nitrogen and oxygen.


New World, "a strong candidate" for habitability

So far, the newly detected planet is only the second rocky planet outside our solar system was confirmed in the area, the region around a star that is not too hot nor too cold for liquid water.

The other contender, the planet Gliese 581d, discovered before using the HARPS instrument. This world is cold right at the edge of the habitable zone of its star.
Another promising planet, Gliese 581g, was discovered in 2010 and known as the planet most like Earth yet. But the controversy over the claim, and some experts claim that the whole planet is actually a data failure.

Manfred Cuntz, director of astronomy at the University of Texas, Arlington, said that more information is needed before anyone can speculate whether aliens are walking around the newly discovered planet.

"It's not their fault there is no additional information at this time," Cuntz said the research team. "It seems that this is a strong candidate, in principle."

Besides the size and location, HD85512b has two other points in its favor to potentially harbor life, Cuntz said.

The planet's orbit is nearly circular, which provides a stable, and its star, HD85512, is older-and therefore less active than our Sun, which would reduce the likelihood of harmful electromagnetic storms on the planet's atmosphere.
Not only that, but, in principle, the age of the system, 5.6 million years, "gives an opportunity to create life and develop," he said. By contrast, our own solar system is thought to be about 4.6 million years.
The new planet a great place for Yoga?

Given the current limits of space travel, it is unlikely for the moment that human beings have the opportunity to visit HD85512b.

But if we could get there, the newly discovered planet may seem a rather strange world: wet, hot, and with a density of 1.4 times that of Earth, said study leader Kaltenegger.

On the positive side, "Hot yoga can be one of the things you do not have to pay to be here," he joked.

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The youngest planet: A giant gas seen in the process of creation

By National Geographic

A new image of a world wrapped in Jupiter-like gas and dust is a direct image of what could be the youngest planet ever seen, astronomers report.

The gas giant infant named LkCa 15 b, orbiting a solar-like star 450 light-years away in the north of the constellation Taurus.

The planet orbits inside a disk of material around the star that has over two million years. Instead, astronomers estimate that our solar system is 4.6 billion years.

The big baby planet may be up to six times the mass of Jupiter, according to the theory based on the calculations, and it seems that orbits 11 times farther from its star than Earth is from our Sun

The new image was made in the near infrared, but "the world could see a dark red to our eyes, as it still shines with the warmth of being formadose" said Adam Kraus, author of the study and an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.

The light is separated from the light

Kraus and his colleagues focused on the young star on the basis of previous observations that showed a significant difference in the disk of the star around the rubble.

These lakes are believed to be telltale signs that large planets newly formed circles within the disk-to the severity of the protoplanet that clears a wide swath of gas and dust that accumulates on the subject.

"I just had to find a way to distinguish the planet from its star very weak very bright."

For this, the team returned to the Keck II 10 meter telescope at the top delMauna Kea in Hawaii.

First, a deformable mirror of the telescope was able to correct the distortions in the reflected starlight caused by Earth's atmosphere.

The team used a small mask with several holes that are placed on the light-collecting mirror, a method called interferometry aperture mask. This technique allowed the team to block light from the parent star during capture faint light of the disk and its embedded planet.

Observation of Planet Birth in Action

Kraus and his team plan to continue observing LkCa 15 b, so they can realize their temperature and orbital characteristics, such as shape and orientation of its path around the star.

The team also hopes to expand the search to other stars that are around the disks with gaps and perhaps begin to answer some basic questions about early planet formation.

"We've been looking for this kind of planet for several years, in particular, because we know that the observation of planet formation in action, tell us much about how it really works," said Kraus.

"My first reaction was finally going to tell us how planets form in reality!"

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Mars mission simulation "returns" to Earth after 520 days

Oh, Mars. As a possible step that goes into human space exploration, the red planet is bound to be visited by us bipeds someday. So what is the best way to ensure that something does not go bad? Make a simulated 520-day mission with real astronauts and see how things turn out.

Mars 500, the mission of the European Space Agency was held in a Moscow institute, started 520 days before the June 3, 2010, with six astronauts to withstand the difficulties likely to be found in a real flight to Mars: The flight there, orbit insertion, landing, exploration of the planet, and finally the long flight back and landing on Earth.

The mission will cost $ 15 million dollars, but could not repeat all the aspects of a real flight to Mars (as low gravity constant), the crew conducted more than 100 experiments with limited consumption and communications with Earth artificially delayed and sometimes were interrupted.

According to ESA, the team of six international male astronauts have performed "exceptionally well" during the simulated flight. They will go through a series of tests, final reports and evaluations to early December, when the mission officially ends.

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