Space and Astronomy News: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

NASA's Orion Space Capsule to Get European Boost

LONDON - The deep-space flights of NASA's next manned spaceship will be powered by a European propulsion system that uses space shuttle rocket engines, officials say.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will provide the service module for NASA's crew-carrying Orion space capsule, which is currently under development. The service module will provide propulsion, avionics, heat control and energy from solar arrays, and it will also store water, oxygen and nitrogen for life support.

Orion's service module, which ESA expects to cost several hundred million dollars, is being delivered as an in-kind contribution for International Space Station operations for the period 2017 to 2020, officials said.

NASA's new crewed spaceship

NASA wants Orion to carry humans deeper into the solar system than they've ever been before, with exploration missions to such deep-space destinations as asteroids and Mars. The first crewed flight of the capsule, which will blast off atop NASA's huge Space Launch System rocket, is slated for 2021.

Orion is NASA's first new spacecraft since the now-retired space shuttle, which was designed 40 years ago. For now, the ESA-NASA agreement is for one service module for Orion's planned unmanned test flight in 2017. [Photos: NASA's Orion Space Capsule]

'The preliminary design review is in July next year,' Nico Dettmann, an ESA Orion team member, told SPACE.com. 'Our next meeting is in January for the design analysis cycle meeting two.'

A preliminary design review, or PDR, is a major milestone for spaceflight projects, allowing managers to check a spacecraft's design progress. After the PDR comes the critical design review (CDR), which can deem the design complete and pave the way for construction to begin. Orion's CDR is planned for early 2015.

New goal for ESA

The Orion service module will need to be safe enough to fly astronauts - a new goal for ESA, which has never developed a rocket engine for human spaceflight.

ESA operates an unmanned cargo vessel called the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), which has made three supply runs to the space station since 2008. European aerospace firm EADS Astrium builds the ATV, and it will be ESA's prime contractor for the Orion service module as well, said Dettmann, who is also ESA's ATV program manager.

ESA will use ATV rocket engines and other technology for the Orion service module's main propulsion system, Dettmann said. But the module will incorporate a space shuttle orbital maneuvering system rocket engine, too, he added. [Photos: NASA's Space Shuttle Fleet]

The Europeans will follow NASA human spaceflight standards, and they will also use NASA facilities for testing when the appropriate facilities are not available in Europe.

ESA started developing its Orion service module concept in March 2011 and began discussing its ideas with NASA a few months later. ESA achieved its system design review, which checks that the design will in principle enable the spacecraft to achieve its goals, this past September, Dettmann said.

Challenges of international collaboration

NASA welcomes international cooperation on many spaceflight projects, but such collaboration can pose some challenges.

One issue for foreign organizations working with the United States in the space arena is the U.S. government's technology export laws, known by the acronym ITAR (for International Traffic in Arms Regulations).

Dettmann does not expect ITAR to be a problem, however.

'The ITAR constraints are more affecting if we tried to build something with U.S. components and we used them in a project that was not American,' Dettmann said. 'ITAR regulations are what they are, and we have to respect them.'

NASA's original Orion service module concept was designed with the help of the agency's prime contractor for the capsule, Lockheed Martin Space Systems. ESA has evolved its design with the aid of NASA and Lockheed, but ESA will only work with the U.S. prime contractor through the U.S. space agency.

One outcome of going with the European concept is that the Lockheed-designed unfolding fan-like solar arrays have been dropped. European solar arrays will be used on the 2017 test flight.

Orion was originally called the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle under NASA's defunct Constellation program. After Constellation was cancelled by President Barack Obama, Orion became known as the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

The member space agencies of ESA decided at their budget meeting - held Nov. 20-21 in Naples, Italy - to fund the Orion service module proposal. The United Kingdom Space Agency announced that week that it will give a one-off contribution of £16 million ($25.6 million) to ESA's International Space Station participation.

The UK has not previously been involved in the ISS program or European human spaceflight. The UK's funding will go toward communications and propulsion technology for the Orion service module.

'The British contribution is relatively small, and, like all ESA projects, the industrial setup is where each country may deliver certain equipment to be integrated at a system and subsystem level,' Dettmann said. 'It won't be difficult to find a UK company to contribute to this program.'

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North Star Closer to Earth Than Thought

The famed North Star has been a beacon in the night sky throughout human history, but a new study reveals the star is actually closer to our solar system than previously thought.

Scientists studying the North Star Polaris found that it is about 323 light-years from the sun and Earth, substantially closer than a previous estimate of 434 light-years by a European satellite in the late 1990s. The new distance measurement may help astronomers in the pursuit of several cosmic mysteries, such as the hunt for elusive dark energy, researchers said.

Polaris is what astronomers call a Cepheid variable star, a pulsating star used by scientists to measure distances in space. Astronomers can measure the distance to a Cepheid variable by studying how it changes in brightness over time.

Since Polaris is the nearest Cepheid variable star to our solar system, an accurate distance to the star could serve as a benchmark for measurements of other Cepheids used to determine the scale of the universe.

In the 1990s, the European Space Agency's star-mapping Hipparcos satellite determined the 434 light-year distance to Polaris, while other studies suggested the star could be closer to the sun. One light-year is the distance light travels in a single year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

The new study by astronomers in Canada, Ukraine and Belgium confirmed the closer distance using new high-resolution observations of the star's light spectrum. [Top 10 Star Mysteries]

'Polaris presents certain anomalies that have so far defied a straightforward interpretation,' said study leader David Turner of Canada's Saint Mary's University in Halifax in a statement. 'Our high-resolution spectroscopic observations of Polaris may signal the beginning of a new era in understanding the star.'

The research is detailed in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Polaris gained its reputation as the North Star due to its location in the night sky, which is aligned with the direction of Earth's axis.

Unlike other stars, which appear to rise and set over the course of a night as the Earth rotates, Polaris remains in a fixed position in the northern sky, making it a valuable navigation beacon. In long-exposure photos, stars in the sky appear to circle Polaris.

Polaris is actually one of at least three stars in a single system. The star is about 4,000 times as bright as the sun.

While Polaris is the North Star today, it won't always remain so. The Earth's axis actually wobbles over centuries in a pattern that astronomers call precession. In the year 14,000, this precession will aim the Earth's axis closer to the bright star Vega than Polaris.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mercury's Water Ice Bodes Well for Alien Life Search

The discovery of huge amounts of water ice and possible organic compounds on the heat-blasted planet Mercury suggests that the raw materials necessary for life as we know it may be common throughout the solar system, researchers say.

Mercury likely harbors between 100 billion and 1 trillion metric tons of water ice in permanently shadowed areas near its poles, scientists analyzing data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft announced Thursday (Nov. 29).

Life on sun-scorched Mercury remains an extreme longshot, the researchers stressed, but the new results should still put a spring in the step of astrobiologists around the world.

'The more we examine the solar system, the more we realize it's a soggy place,' Jim Green, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said during a press conference today.

'And that's really quite exciting, because that means the amount of water that we have here on Earth - that was not only inherent when it was originally formed but probably brought here - that water and other volatiles were brought to many other places in the solar system,' Green added. 'So it really bodes well for us to continue on the exploration, following the water and its signs throughout the solar system.' [Latest Mercury Photos from Messenger]

Organics, too?

The observations by Messenger, which has been orbiting Mercury since March 2011, provide compelling evidence that reflective patches first spotted near the planet's poles by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico two decades ago are indeed water ice, researchers said.

In the coldest parts of Mercury - permanently shadowed regions where temperatures drop to perhaps minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 223 degress Celsius) - this ice can lie bare and exposed. But Messenger's data also show that much more frozen water is found in slightly warmer areas, buried beneath a strange dark material that acts as an insulator.

This dark stuff is likely a mixture of complex organic compounds, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it, researchers said during Thursday's news conference.

'This organic material may be the same type of organic material that ultimately gave rise to life on Earth,' said Messenger participating scientist David Paige of UCLA.

Helping scientists read the book of life

Mercury probably acquired much of its water and organic material the same way Earth did, researchers said - via comet impacts and asteroid strikes. Ice and organics are common on the frigid bodies in the solar system's outer reaches.

'There's a lot of water out there, as there is a lot of water around other stars, but at substantial distance,' said Messenger principal investigator Sean Solomon, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

With its ultra-thin atmosphere and proximity to the sun, Mercury is probably not a good bet to host life as we know it. But finding ice and organics there should still inform the hunt for organisms beyond Earth and aid scientists' quest to learn more about how life took root on our planet.

'The history of life begins with the delivery to some home object of water and of the building blocks, the organic building blocks, that must undergo some kind of chemistry, which we still don't understand on our own planet,' Solomon said.

'And so Mercury is becoming an object of astrobiological interest, where it wasn't much of one before,' Solomon added. 'That's not say to say that we expect to find any lifeforms - I don't think anybody on this table does - but in terms of the book of life, there are some early chapters, and Mercury may indeed inform us about what's in those chapters.'

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Lunar Eclipse Photos Show Earth's Shadow on Moon

When the moon toe-dipped through part of Earth's shadow this week, the minor lunar eclipse was captured on camera by die-hard stargazers.

The lunar eclipse Wednesday (Nov. 28) occurred when the moon passed through the outer region, or penumbra, of Earth's shadow. The so-called penumbral lunar eclipse was not as dazzling as a total lunar eclipse, which can turn the moon a deep blood-red hue, but even the slight dimming effect of Earth's shadow on the moon was a sight to behold for some skywatchers.

Photographer David Matthews watched the lunar eclipse from Cagraray Island in the Philippines, where he used a Canon PowerShot SX10s digital camera and an 8-inch reflector telescope to capture the stain-like shadow on the bright moon. [The Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 2012 (Photos)]

'Wish you could have seen it!' Matthews told SPACE.com in an email.

Wednesday's penumbral lunar eclipse coincided with the full moon of November. The entire event was visible primarily from East Asia, Australia, Alaska and Hawaii, though portions were visible from western U.S. and Canada. Stargazer Kalani Pokipala watched the eclipse from Hawaii, where it was a welcome sight on a chilly night of 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12.7 Celsius).

'Yes that's pretty cold for us down here in paradise. We're behind the rest of the world, but never without beautiful weather,' Pokipala said, adding that the weather only added to the lunar spectacle. 'Hope others enjoyed the winter's evening as much as we did

Lunar eclipses occur when the moon passes on the opposite side of Earth from the sun and crosses through the shadow of Earth. Because the moon's orbit is slightly tilted, the alignments do not occur every month.

The next lunar eclipse will be on April 25, 2013, when the moon will pass through a more substantial part of Earth's shadow in a partial eclipse. Two more penumbral lunar eclipses will occur in 2013, first on May 25 and then again on Oct. 18. There will not be a total lunar eclipse until April 15, 2014.

There will also be two solar eclipses - when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, blocking the sun's disk - in 2013. An annular, or 'ring of fire,' solar eclipse will occur on May 10, with a so-called hybrid solar eclipse occurring Nov. 3.

Editor's note: If you snapped photos of this week's penumbral lunar eclipse or any other night sky event and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a story or gallery, send images, comments and viewing location information to managing editor Tariq Malik at: tmalik@space.com.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Birth of Baby Planets Spotted Around Distant Star

Astronomers have detected dust grains glomming together around a faraway star, capturing a snapshot of what appear to be newly forming alien planets caught in the act of being born.

Scientists used the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to image the disk of dust and gas surrounding UX Tauri A, a young star found about 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus (The Bull). Analysis of the image revealed large and non-spherical dust particles - a telltale sign that grains are adhering to each other in a process that will eventually lead to planet formation, researchers said.

UX Tauri A is a sun-like star about 1 million years old, and it's part of a binary star system. Back in 2007, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered a gap in the protoplanetary disk surrounding UX Tauri A, suggesting that one or more planets may be taking shape there.

This gap is huge, extending from 0.2 to 56 astronomical units from UX Tauri A (1 astronomical unit is the distance from Earth to the sun, or about 93 million miles). If this gap were transported to our solar system, it would range from Mercury to Pluto, researchers have said.

The new results suggest that planets are indeed forming around UX Tauri A, despite the star's youth.

The team looked closely at UX Tauri A in near-infrared wavelengths, measuring how the disk's dust particles scatter and reflect light. They determined that the particles are about 30 microns wide - 300 times bigger than the motes floating through interstellar space that seed protoplanetary disks to begin with.

'Only particles with a non-spherical shape and a size of 30 microns, which is much larger than the near-infrared wavelength that was used for the observation, can explain the features of our observation,' study co-author Yoichi Itoh, of the University of Hyogo in Japan, said in a statement.

The study will be published in the Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Japan in December.

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See Mercury at Dawn and Jupiter All Night Long

This is a great week for planetary observers. Mercury is in its best position as a 'morning star' for observers in the Northern Hemisphere while Jupiter is at its biggest and brightest for nighttime observers all over the world.

First let's take a look at Mercury's dawn sky performance. Because Mercury never strays far from the sun, it is usually a challenging object to observe.

Only rarely does Mercury reach maximum elongation when the ecliptic is at a steep angle to the horizon, so that it can be spotted against a fairly dark sky. Each year this happens once in the evening and once in the morning, and this is the week to look for Mercury in the morning sky for northern observers. As a bonus, the brighter planets Saturn and Venus point the way to find Mercury's tiny disk against the glow of dawn.

Even when well placed, Mercury can be a challenge unless you have a clear sky on your eastern horizon. Sweeping with binoculars will often help to first locate Mercury. Once located in binoculars, it is usually quite easy to see with the unaided eye. A telescope will show it as a tiny 'half-moon.' [Amazing Night Sky Photos by Stargazers]

Jupiter in the night sky

Jupiter, on the other hand, dominates the sky all night. It reaches opposition, a point exactly opposite the sun in our sky, on Dec. 2, and moves from the morning sky to the night sky.

On the nights around opposition, it is in the sky all night long, rising in the east as the sun sets in the west, and setting in the west as the sun rises in the east. When opposition happens this close to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, Jupiter is above the horizon for a full 15 hours.

If you have a telescope good enough to show you the details of Jupiter's cloud belts, you can watch a full rotation of the planet, which takes a little under 10 hours. You should be able to see the Great Red Spot at some point during any night, and might even see it twice in one night.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is the longest-lived atmospheric feature in the entire solar system. Its position has been tracked by astronomers since 1894, and there are observations of it going back more than a century earlier than that. At times the Great Red Spot has been a large brick-red object, three times lager than the entire planet Earth. Currently it is a pale remnant of its former self, so that observing it can be a challenge.

Jupiter's big (red) spot explained

What do you need to spot Jupiter's Great Red Spot?

First of all, a good quality telescope with at least 6 inches (150 mm) aperture. Secondly, a night with very stable atmospheric conditions on Earth. Finally, your timing needs to be right, because the planet Jupiter rotates faster than any other planet.

Half the time, the Red Spot is on the side of the planet you can't see. Even when it's on the side facing Earth, it's often lost in the haze on Jupiter's limb. It is really only at its best within an hour on either side of its time of central meridian transit.

As already mentioned, the Red Spot's position has been tracked for over a century. The problem is that it is not an object fixed to the planet itself, but is a huge storm system, mostly confined to a constant latitude, but drifting over time in longitude.

If you have a computer program which shows the position of Jupiter's Red Spot, it is probably wrong. That's because, unlike most things depicted in planetarium software, the Red Spot does not move in a uniform predictable manner. You have to tell your software the current position of the Great Red Spot.

Consult the manual for your software to find out how to set the longitude of the Red Spot. Its current longitude, as of late November, is 188° in Jupiter's System 2 longitude system. To get the Red Spot's most up-to-date position, visit: http://jupos.privat.t-online.de/rGrs.htm

The red dots mark the actual raw measured positions of the Great Red Spot in longitude (across the chart) against the date (down the chart).

There is also this simple calculator via Sky & Telescope magazine, which will give you the approximate times the Red Spot transits Jupiter's central meridian for any date.

Choose a time within an hour of one of these transit times.

Jupiter's Great Pink Spot?

The last thing you need to know when looking for the Red Spot is that it is no longer red. Its current color is best described as a very pale salmon pink. Most of the time the Red Spot is not visible by where it is, but rather where it isn't. Because it is lighter in tone than the South Equatorial Belt in which it resides, it is most often seen as a hollow in the south side of that belt, sometimes called the Red Spot Hollow.

Be forewarned that most photos of Jupiter have been processed to exaggerate the contrast and colors of Jupiter's atmospheric features. The real planet has much fainter markings than you see in pictures.

Also be prepared to use averted vision to detect the faint markings: Look slightly off to one side of the planet. Finally, be patient. Planetary features only pop into view now and then when we get a steadier moment in our atmosphere.

This article was provided to SPACE.com by Starry Night Education, the leader in space science curriculum solutions. Follow Starry Night on Twitter @StarryNightEdu.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

No Earth-Shattering Mars Discovery by Curiosity Rover Yet: NASA

Contrary to rampant speculation, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has not made an earth-shaking find just a few months into its Red Planet mission, agency officials said today (Nov. 29).

Rumors of a big discovery began swirling earlier this month, after an NPR story quoted Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger as saying that the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument had recently gathered data 'for the history books.'

SAM is capable of identifying organic compounds, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. So many people assumed that Curiosity had detected organic compounds in the Martian soil.

But that's not the case, officials said.

'Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect,' officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., which manages Curiosity's mission, wrote in a mission update today. 'At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics.'

Grotzinger, who is a geologist at Caltech in Pasadena, and several other members of the Curiosity team will hold a press conference Monday (Dec. 3) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Don't expect a bombshell announcement.

'The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover's full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil,' JPL officials wrote.

The $2.5 billion Mars rover Curiosity landed inside Mars' huge Gale Crater on Aug. 5, kicking off a planned two-year mission to determine if the Red Planet could ever have supported microbial life. SAM is just one of 10 science instruments Curiosity carries to help it in its quest, along with an array of 17 cameras.

Curiosity scientists are currently scouting out potential targets for the first use of its drill, which can bore 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) into solid rock. The rover has already analyzed scooped-up soil samples with SAM and another instrument on its body known as CheMin.

While no huge news is apparently in the offing on Monday, NASA has high hopes for Curiosity and its mission.

'The mission already has found an ancient riverbed on the Red Planet, and there is every expectation for remarkable discoveries still to come,' JPL officials wrote.

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NASA: Closest planet to sun, Mercury, harbors ice

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Just in time for Christmas, scientists have confirmed a vast amount of ice at the north pole - on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.

The findings are from NASA's Mercury-orbiting probe, Messenger, and the subject of three scientific papers released Thursday by the journal Science.

The frozen water is located in regions of Mercury's north pole that always are in shadows, essentially impact craters. It's believed the south pole harbors ice as well, though there are no hard data to support it. Messenger orbits much closer to the north pole than the south.

'If you add it all up, you have on the order of 100 billion to 1 trillion metric tons of ice,' said David Lawrence of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. 'The uncertainty on that number is just how deep it goes.'

The ice is thought to be at least 1½ feet deep - and possibly as much as 65 feet deep.

There's enough polar ice at Mercury, in fact, to bury an area the size of Washington, D.C., by two to 2½ miles deep, said Lawrence, the lead author of one of the papers.

'These are very exciting results,' he added at a news conference.

For two decades, radar measurements taken from Earth have suggested the presence of ice at Mercury's poles. Now scientists know for sure, thanks to Messenger, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

The water almost certainly came from impacting comets, or possibly asteroids. Ice is found at the surface, as well as buried beneath a dark material, likely organic.

Messenger was launched in 2004 and went into orbit around the planet 1½ years ago. NASA hopes to continue observations well into next year.

Columbia University's Sean Solomon, principal scientist for Messenger, stressed that no one is suggesting that Mercury might hold evidence of life, given the presence of water. But the latest findings may help explain some of the early chapters of the book of life elsewhere in the solar system, he said.

'Mercury is becoming an object of astrobiological interest, where it wasn't much of one before,' Solomon said.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/recent

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NASA probe reveals organics, ice on Mercury

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Despite searing daytime temperatures, Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, has ice and frozen organic materials inside permanently shadowed craters in its north pole, NASA scientists said on Thursday.

Earth-based telescopes have been compiling evidence for ice on Mercury for 20 years, but the finding of organics was a surprise, say researchers with NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, the first probe to orbit Mercury.

Both ice and organic materials, which are similar to tar or coal, were believed to have been delivered millions of years ago by comets and asteroids crashing into the planet.

'It's not something we expected to see, but then of course you realize it kind of makes sense because we see this in other places,' such as icy bodies in the outer solar system and in the nuclei of comets, planetary scientist David Paige, with the University of California, Los Angeles, told Reuters.

Unlike NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which will be sampling rocks and soils to look for organic materials directly, the MESSENGER probe bounces laser beams, counts particles, measures gamma rays and collects other data remotely from orbit.

The discoveries of ice and organics, painstakingly pieced together for more than a year, are based on computer models, laboratory experiments and deduction, not direct analysis.

'The explanation that seems to fit all the data is that it's organic material,' said lead MESSENGER scientist Sean Solomon, with Columbia University in New York.

Added Paige, 'It's not just a crazy hypothesis. No one has got anything else that seems to fit all the observations better.'

Scientists believe the organic material, which is about twice as dark as most of Mercury's surface, was mixed in with comet- or asteroid-delivered ice eons ago.

The ice vaporized, then re-solidified where it was colder, leaving dark deposits on the surface. Radar imagery shows the dark patches subside at the coldest parts of the crater, where ice can exist on the surface.

The areas where the dark patches are seen are not cold enough for surface ice without the overlying layer of what is believed to be organics.

So remote was the idea of organics on Mercury that MESSENGER got a relatively easy pass by NASA's planetary protection protocols that were established to minimize the chance of contaminating any indigenous life-potential material with hitchhiking microbes from Earth.

Scientists don't believe Mercury is or was suitable for ancient life, but the discovery of organics on an inner planet of the solar system may shed light on how life got started on Earth and how life may evolve on planets beyond the solar system.

'Finding a place in the inner solar system where some of these same ingredients that may have led to life on Earth are preserved for us is really exciting,' Paige said.

MESSENGER, which stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, is due to complete its two-year mission at Mercury in March.

Scientists are seeking NASA funding to continue operations for at least part of a third year. The probe will remain in Mercury's orbit until the planet's gravity eventually causes it to crash onto the surface.

Whether the discovery of organics now prompts NASA to select a crash zone rather than leave it up to chance remains to be seen. Microbes that may have hitched a ride on MESSENGER likely have been killed off by the harsh radiation environment at Mercury.

The research is published in this week's edition of the journal Science.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Vicki Allen)

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NASA grant funds UNO air traffic control work

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A $1.5 million grant from NASA will fund work at the University of New Orleans to develop improvements to the nation's air traffic control system.

A UNO news release says the research deals with the federal government project called 'NextGen.' It's a comprehensive overhaul of the air traffic system to increase capacity and safety.

UNO researchers will be joined on the project by colleagues from LSU and Southern University.

A goal of 'NextGen' is to provide more information to pilots on the trajectory of their planes and other nearby planes so that they don't have to rely solely on air traffic controllers.

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'Born-Again' Nebula Foreshadows Death of Our Sun

New images of a 'born-again' planetary nebula give a glimpse of what our sun might look like in 5 billion years when it transforms into stellar giant near the end of its life cycle.

Scientists created the new stunning new view of the planetary nebula Abell 30 by combining visible-light images from the Hubble Space Telescope and X-ray observations from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra space telescopes. The Abell 30 nebula is located 5,500 light-years from Earth.

The term 'planetary nebula' is somewhat of a misnomer that dates back to the 18th century when astronomers thought these glowing blobs looked like distant gas giants. A planetary nebula is actually made up of the shells of stellar material ejected from dying stars that have passed through the red giant phase after starting to run out of fuel.

About 12,500 years ago, a slow and dense stellar wind began stripping off the outer layers of the dying star at the heart of Abell 30, giving rise to the large, expanding sphere of gas seen in this image, with hydrogen represented in blue and oxygen in red.

But the new images show that the star experienced a brief rebirth 850 years ago, violently spewing knots of helium and carbon-rich material and accelerating the stellar wind to its present speed of over 8.7 million miles per hour (14 million kph), according to the researchers. This fast wind caught up with the slower wind and clumps of previously ejected material, forming complex structures like the delicate comet-like tails and flower-like patterns seen near the central star in this image.

Our sun may die out in similar fashion in a few billion years, swelling to a red giant that will engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth, before becoming a planetary nebula. The act will unleash a strong stellar wind and harsh radiation that will destroy any planets in our solar system that have managed to survive.

The research is detailed in a recent edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Huge Saturn Vortex Swirls in Stunning NASA Photos

Amazing new photos from NASA's Cassini probe orbiting Saturn reveal a dizzying glimpse into a monster storm raging on the ringed planet's north pole.

Cassini took the spectacular Saturn storm photos yesterday (Nov. 27) and relayed it back to Earth the same day, mission scientists said in a statement. The pictures reveal a swirling storm reminiscent of the recent Hurricane Sandy that recently plagued our own planet.

The tempest is located in a strange hexagonal cloud vortex at Saturn's north pole that was first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s, and sighted more closely by Cassini since then. The strange six-sided feature is thought to be formed by the path of a jet stream flowing through the planet's atmosphere.

'Cassini's recent excursion into inclined orbits has given mission scientists a vertigo-inducing view of Saturn's polar regions, and what to our wondering eyes has just appeared: roiling storm clouds and a swirling vortex at the center of Saturn's famed northern polar hexagon,' Cassini scientists wrote in an online update.

Storms like this are common on many of the solar system's planets, including Saturn.

'These phenomena mimic what Cassini found at Saturn's south pole a number of years ago,' the scientists wrote.

Cassini, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, was launched in 1997 and arrived at the gas giant in July 2004. The probe has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers), and made some major discoveries about the Saturn system, including revealing the presence of hydrocarbon lakes on the moon Titan and spewing water geysers on the moon Enceladus.

'Eight and a half years into our history-making expedition around the ringed planet and we are still astounded by the seemingly endless parade of new planetary phenomena,' the mission scientists wrote.

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Saturn Moon Titan's Atmosphere Shows Surprising Rise

Saturn's cloudy moon Titan has a middle atmosphere containing organic compounds that could hold the potential for life. Now, a new look at that atmospheric layer by a NASA spacecraft shows that it may be on the move, scientists say.

New measurements from NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn show that the seasonal movement of the trace atmospheric gases on Titan rises to higher altitudes than expected, researchers said.

Because of Titan's seasonal orientation, the winter poles always point away from Earth, hiding on the moon's dark side. Studying the complex trace gases in the visible summer hemisphere doesn't solve the problem; water vapor in Earth's atmosphere obscures the measurements of the trace gases.

'Spacecraft observations were essential,' Nicholas Teanby, of England's University of Bristol, told SPACE.com in an email. [Cassini's Amazing Photos of Titan]

'We had to wait for Cassini to arrive, and then for it to take a long enough series of data to see the changes happen.'

Titan seasons are a-changin'

Most planets are tilted in respect to the plane of the solar system, with one pole pointed toward the sun at a time. As the planet - or in this case, moon - circles the star, the poles gradually trade places, giving rise to the seasons. Saturn distance from the sun is nearly 10 times as far from the sun as the Earth, so 29.5 Earth-years pass each time Titan completes an orbit. Seasons on the distant moon last seven years.

Titan celebrated its northern spring equinox on Aug. 11, 2009. Working with an international team, Teanby examined Cassini's observations of the southern hemisphere of the moon for two years before and after, as fall turned into winter. As the seasons shifted, the circulation in the atmosphere changed as well, which wasn't unexpected.

What surprised the scientists was just how far some of the components traveled. Cassini revealed an increase in trace gases such as hydrogen cyanide, a rich hydrocarbon from the upper atmosphere. Heat from the summer sun in the northern atmosphere, combined with winter cooling in the southern, caused shifts in temperature and pressure that moved the trace gases down through the atmosphere.

By using Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer, the scientists were able to track the circulation of the gases. They found that, rather than reaching to a height of 310 miles (500 kilometers), the middle atmosphere extended an additional 60 miles (100 km).

According to Teanby, the research demonstrates that heat from the sun is sufficient to drive circulation to altitudes higher than previously suspected.

The findings of the new study were published online today (Nov. 28) in the journal Nature. Cassini has launched toward Saturn in 1997 and has orbited the ringed planet since 2004. It is expected to continue its observations until 2017.

A nutrient-rich environment

The only moon with more than a trace of an atmosphere, and the only body other than Earth with a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Titan is considered by many scientists to be one of the best sources to host potential life in the solar system. The hydrocarbon haze in its middle atmosphere plays a huge role in this potential as it rains the building blocks of life onto the surface, a process that could be enhanced by improved atmospheric circulation.

'Enriched organic condensates rained out at the south pole would provide more raw materials for further complex molecules to form on the surface,' Teanby said.

The haze also influences the moon's atmosphere, absorbing heat from the sun and causing a temperature structure similar to Earth, though much colder. Sunlight illuminates the haze, which lies at what was considered the top of the middle atmosphere, giving it what Teanby calls 'a faint eerie glow' at the otherwise dark south pole.

The upward extension of the middle atmosphere also implies that the potentially life-giving haze may have another source than scientists have suspected, he said.

The team studied the changes in the south pole only, but expect to see similar behavior in the north pole following the southern spring equinox.

'We need to wait another 15 years to confirm this,' Teanby said.

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Mars Rover Curiosity Celebrates 1st Birthday Off Earth

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity marked one year away from Earth Monday (Nov. 26), but the car-size robot's work on the Red Planet is just getting started.

Curiosity launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 26, 2011, then endured an eight-month cruise through deep space to the Red Planet. The $2.5 billion rover touched down on Aug. 5, executing an unprecedented series of maneuvers that saw it lowered to the Martian surface on cables by a rocket-powered sky crane.

Since that dramatic landing, Curiosity has driven 1,696 feet (517 meters) and returned more than 23,000 raw images to its handlers here on Earth, NASA officials said. But there's much more to come.

Curiosity is just 16 weeks into a two-year prime mission that aims to determine if its Gale Crater landing site can, or ever could, support microbial life. The rover carries 10 different science instruments to help it in this quest, including one called Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, which can identify organic compounds - the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

SAM may already have detected something exciting. Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, a geologist at Caltech in Pasadena, told NPR earlier this month that SAM's first tastes of Martian soil are providing data 'for the history books.'

Grotzinger and others on the Curiosity team will reveal what Curiosity has found on Monday (Dec. 3), during a presentation at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

At the moment, Curiosity is at a site that mission scientists have dubbed 'Point Lake,' which overlooks lower ground to the east. The rover team is scanning the landscape for targets for the first use of the rover's drill, which can bore 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) into solid rock.

Curiosity's ultimate destination is the base of Mount Sharp, a mysterious mountain that rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) from Gale Crater's center. These foothills show signs of long-ago contact with liquid water.

The rover could be ready to head toward Mount Sharp's interesting deposits - which lie about 6 miles (10 km) away - by the end of the year or so, Curiosity scientists have said.

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How Should NASA Use Former Spy Satellite Telescopes?

NASA is asking scientists for ideas about how best to use two huge space telescopes it received from the United States' spy satellite agency earlier this year.

On Monday (Nov. 26), NASA officially invited researchers to propose uses for the telescopes, which are comparable to the agency's famous Hubble Space Telescope in size and appearance. The best ideas will be presented at a workshop this coming February in Huntsville, Ala., officials said.

'Because there are two telescopes, there is room for projects that span the gamut of the imagination,' Michael Moore, a senior program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. 'They range from simple balloon flights to complex missions in science using new technologies under development and the capabilities available with the International Space Station and our commercial spaceflight partners.'

The former spy satellite telescopes were originally built to carry out surveillance missions for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), under a multibillion-dollar program called Future Imagery Architecture. But cost overruns and delays killed the program in 2005, and NASA announced this past June that the NRO had bequeathed the instruments to the space agency.

While the telescopes' apertures are equivalent to that of Hubble, they are designed to have a much wider field of view, NASA officials said.

NASA is already considering using the telescopes as a base for the proposed Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which would hunt for the mysterious dark energy that appears to be driving the universe's accelerating expansion. WFIRST was identified as a top priority in the National Research Council's 2010 Astrophysics Decadal Survey, which delineated the main science goals the country should pursue for the next 10 years.

However, NASA is not locked into this application for the former NRO telescopes, as its call for new ideas shows.

'We will give all ideas equal consideration and choose the most promising for further study,' said Marc Allen, acting deputy associate administrator for research in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 'We want to tap into innovative ideas wherever we can find them in order to optimize use of these telescope assets.'

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Biggest Black Hole Blast Ever Could Solve Cosmological Mystery

Astronomers have seen a distant galaxy that blasts away material with two trillion times the energy the sun emits - the biggest such eruption ever seen. That ejection of matter could answer an important question about the universe: why are the black holes in the centers of galaxies so light?

Computer models of the early universe usually produce a virtual cosmos that looks like ours except for one thing. The ratio of the mass of black holes in galaxy centers to the rest of the matter in galaxies is larger in the simulations than in the real universe.

Scientists think somehow galaxies are ridding themselves of much of the mass that would have ended up falling into their central black holes. However, until now researchers have been at a lack for an explanation of how this might happen.

To expel matter from galaxies takes energy. 'We needed some input of energy from supermassive black holes,' Nahum Arav, an astrophysicist at Virginia Tech told SPACE.com.

Supermassive black holes are obvious candidates, because they are the most energetic objects known. Some galaxies containing active black holes, called quasars, shine more brightly than anything else in the universe. 'Our simulations showed that if we allowed the quasar to release a lot of mechanical energy, then the masses of galaxies would match observations,' Arav said.

Arav led a team that observed a quasar, called SDSS J1106+1939, which dates back to when the universe was only 3 billion years old (it is now about 13.7 billion years of age). Most quasars are millions or even billions of light-years distant, which means we see them as they were long ago. As such, they offer a unique window back in time, to when galaxies were young.

The researchers used an instrument called a spectrometer, which spreads light out into its constituent wavelengths, attached to the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. This instrument revealed a giant cloud of hot, ionized gas that was blasted away from the galaxy at nearly 5,000 miles per second (8,000 kilometers per second), or about 2.6 percent the speed of light. The gas is mostly hydrogen with some helium and traces of other elements such as carbon. [Most Powerful Black Hole Quasar Discovered (Video)]

The energy needed to fire that blast is five times greater than any other quasar has displayed to date.

The sheer size of this ejection demonstrates a way for young galaxies to off-load mass: The energy in a quasar we usually see as radiation can be turned into kinetic energy, or energy of motion. This eruption is throwing up some 400 times the mass of the sun every year, and such events last for anywhere from 10 million to 100 million years.

That, Arav said, could be the key to why galaxies are generally less massive than they should be, and why the black holes at their centers are the sizes that they are. 'It gives the theorists something to work with,' he said.

Arav said the exact mechanism for these mass ejections still isn't clear, and his own observations don't yet point to what it might be. Future work might enable astronomers and cosmologists to build hypotheses.

Saavik Ford, an associate professor of astronomy at Bronx Manhattan Community College and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, said that if this phenomenon proves to be common, then it could also help answer a lot of other questions. One is why there some clusters of galaxies are embedded in gas radiating X-rays, which would require some source of energy. The finding could also help astronomers understand why star formation in some massive elliptical galaxies seems to stop when it does.

But the discovery isn't a clear-cut smoking gun. Arav said he wants to do more observations and see if he and his colleagues can't find more quasars like this one. If not, or if such outflows are more rare, then there is some other phenomenon at work. 'I hope in two years to have a nice sample of about 10,' he said.

The new observations will appear in a paper led by Benoit Borguet of Virginia Tech, to be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

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Jupiter and Full Moon Dominate Wednesday Night Sky

Early Wednesday evening (Nov. 28), soon after the sun has set below the horizon, there will be two bright objects rising into the night sky. They are the nearly full moon and a brilliant silvery star-like object shining with a steady glow - the planet Jupiter.

Jupiter and the moon will rise in the east-northeast, opposite of the sunset, offering stargazers an celestial treat. Calendars and almanacs will tell you that the moon will be full on this night, but that's not necessarily true. The moon will actually officially turn full officially many hours earlier, at 9:46 a.m. EST (1446 GMT, or 6:46 a.m. PST) on Wednesday, less than an hour after the peak of a minor penumbral lunar eclipse.

By the time the moon appears to observers later in the evening, it will technically be a waning gibbous moon. But while the moon will be just a little less than 100-percent illuminated, it will probably still look to many observers as if it was a true full moon. For most places, Jupiter will appear to hover just above and to the upper left of the moon.

Jupiter is now the first bright object that comes out each evening in the night sky. It shines low in the east-northeast as twilight fades, far to the lower left of the Pleiades and more closely to the left of the V-shaped Hyades cluster and the bright orange star Aldebaran.

The planet will arrive at opposition on Sunday (Dec. 2), making it a brilliant target ideally situated for telescope observing. Jupiter currently lies due south at around midnight local time, 10:45 p.m. by mid-December and 9:40 p.m. by year's end.

In even a small telescope, Jupiter's belts, spots, rifts, and other markings invite night after night of study. Almost any common details of Jupiter's cloud features that are reasonably within range of your telescope could be visible at steady moments late on these nights.

And of course, also in view will be the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, which can be seen even in steadily held binoculars, changing their positions during the course of the night. On this particular night, depending on when you look, either Ganymede or Io will be crossing in front of Jupiter (in transit); a good telescope may also show you their shadows on Jupiter's disk appearing as tiny dark spots on the planet's surface.

Because the moon is over 1,500 times closer to the Earth compared to Jupiter, it will appear to shift its position relative to the planet rather noticeably through the night of Nov. 28 and 29. The moon will appear to move at its own width - roughly one-half of a degree - toward the left (east) of Jupiter.

When Jupiter and the moon first appear above the east-northeast horizon at around 5 p.m. local time, the planet will be positioned above and to the left of the moon. The two will be closest at around 7 p.m. Eastern Time (0000 GMT); 6 p.m. Central Time and 5 p.m. Mountain Time. Both moon and planet will be below the horizon when closest for the far West.

As the night wears on, watch as the moon slides first directly under Jupiter, then passes off to its left. During the predawn hours, the moon will be seen to be drifting away to the moon's upper left.

Editor's note: If you snap a photo of Jupiter and the moon, or the Nov. 28 lunar eclipse, and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a story or gallery, send images, comments and viewing location information to managing editor Tariq Malik at: tmalik@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Minor Lunar Eclipse Occurs Wednesday: Moon Photography Tips

For observers on the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, and Hawaii, photographing a lunar eclipse early Wednesday (Nov. 28) is pretty straightforward: You'll need to use basically the same camera gear and technique as when shooting an un-eclipsed full moon.

Wednesday's lunar eclipse will be a relatively minor event as eclipses go. The full moon will pass through the outer edge of Earth's shadow, called the penumbra, to create a so-called penumbral lunar eclipse. The entire eclipse will be visible from East Asia, Australia, Hawaii and Alaska, and begins at 7:15 a.m. EST (4:15 a.m. PST, 1200 GMT). From start to finish, it will last just under five hours.

You can watch the lunar eclipse live on SPACE.com here via the Slooh Space Camera.

First of all, you need a way of enlarging the image of the moon's disk in the frame of your camera. This means shooting through a telescope or telephoto lens with a focal length of 500 millimeters, or more, to capture details on the moon's surface such as its dark markings (called the 'maria') as well as the bright, rayed impact craters. [How to Photograph Lunar Eclipses (Photo Guide)]

At this magnification, any camera shake will be apparent so you cannot hold the telescope or telephoto lens by hand. The best way to get steady shots of the moon is to mount your photo gear on a tripod that is beefy enough to support the combined weight of your setup. If you're using a refracting telescope, you can attach the camera directly to the focuser using the appropriate T-ring and T adapter.

Check your local camera retailer if they have these accessories in stock.

To reduce camera shake, don't push the shutter button with your finger. Try to operate it using a long electronic cable release, or use the camera's delay timer. The mirror slap in digital SLR cameras can also blur images, especially at slow shutter speeds. If possible, lock the camera's viewfinder mirror up before each shot to keep vibrations to a minimum (consult your camera manual on how to do this).

Obtaining sharp images of the moon depends on how precisely you can bring your telescope/camera combination into focus. Many DSLR cameras now offer 'live view' mode, which allows you to see what the camera sensor sees, using its built-in LCD screen. You can zoom in on the image to up to 10X magnification to check its focus. If you want, you can prefocus your camera before the eclipse using the planet Jupiter or the bright star Aldebaran.

Since the moon will graze only the penumbra (the faint outer fringe of the Earth's shadow), keep your exposure times short so you don't overexpose the lunar disk. This is especially true for observers in Alaska and Hawaii, where the eclipse occurs higher in the sky, giving a much darker sky background. Use an ISO "speed" setting of 400 or so, and take some test shots prior to the eclipse.

For skywatchers on the West Coast, it's going to be a challenge to determine beforehand the best exposure to use since the eclipsed moon will be setting just as the sun is rising. The contrast between the moon and the rapidly brightening sky might be rather low, so it's best to "bracket" your exposures. Switch your camera controls to M (manual) and shoot the eclipse using a variety of shutter speeds to see which ones would come out best and use that as a guide.

Don't forget: DSLR cameras are not the only ones that can capture the eclipse. In a pinch, your point-and-shoot pocket digital camera or smartphone can also take decent snapshots of the eclipse through a telescope. All you need to do is to hold the camera or phone close to the telescope's eyepiece without touching it.

Choose an eyepiece that offers a wide field of view and long eye relief so you can easily frame the shot in the LCD screen. Use the cameras' auto-focus and auto-exposure modes, and zoom in on the projected image to eliminate any vignetting. Smartphones have the added advantage of allowing you to email and share the images right away with other people.

After the eclipse, you can use image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop to perform basic adjustments in the images' brightness, contrast, sharpness, and color balance. Advanced users can also select Photoshop's Levels and Curves tools to enhance the lunar eclipse's subtle shading.

Good luck and clear skies!

Editor's note: If you snap a photo of the penumbral lunar eclipse of 2012 on Nov. 28 and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a story or gallery, send images, comments and viewing location information to managing editor Tariq Malik at: tmalik@space.com.

Veteran astrophotographers Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre have observed more than a dozen partial and total lunar eclipses, plus a few penumbral ones, during their three decades of skywatching.

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Balloon Test Shows Space Tourism on the Horizon

Not all space tourism is rocket science. A newly successful test of a balloon could allow paying human customers to enjoy stunning Earth views and the weightless astronaut experience by 2014.

The test balloon carried a humanoid robot up to an altitude of almost 20 miles (32 kilometers) on Nov. 12 - just a few miles shy of where skydiver Felix Baumgartner leaped from during his 'space dive' in October. Startup Zero 2 Infinity wants to eventually offer hours of flight time for space tourists to do whatever they want in a near-space environment.

'Some people will want to tweet,' said Jose Mariano Lopez-Urdiales, founder and CEO of Zero 2 Infinity. 'Some will want to put down a carpet and pray to mecca. Some people will want to eat their favorite buffalo wings while they're up there.'

The Spanish company already has waitlist customers who paid an early deposit of almost $13,000 (10,000 euros) as the first installment out of a total ticket price of $143,000 (110,000 euros). It has also attracted funding from the world's second-largest balloon manufacturer, Spain's third-largest bank, and several angel investors by proving its concept step-by-step and by relying on proven helium balloon technologies.

Flight testing took place at an Air Force base near Virgen del Camino in Spain. But Lopez-Urdiales envisions future flights launching from many other locations in the country.

The balloon experience

A typical predawn flight would take several hours to reach maximum altitude, so that passengers could enjoy seeing the sun rise against the blackness of space and see the curvature of the planet Earth. Luckily, the balloon would not need to get anywhere near the 62-mile (100 km) altitude that marks the official edge of space for its riders to enjoy stellar views.

'You would spend two hours at the floating altitude of 36 kilometers (22 miles),' Lopez-Urdiales told TechNewsDaily. 'We could do it higher, but it would not make any difference, because you already see the same visual cues at 39 kilometers or even 100 kilometers.' [Video: Near-Space Balloon Soars in Flight Test]

Getting back down would mean cutting the cord between the balloon and the enclosed passenger capsule. Passengers could experience about 40 to 60 seconds of weightlessness during free fall, before parachutes and a parafoil carried them safely down to Earth.

The recent test flight gave Zero 2 Infinity its first successful test of a balloon capsule large enough to carry humans, but only if the two people spent the entire trip lying down. An earlier flight test scheduled in May was canceled after wind gusts damaged the test balloon.

Robot test pilots

Future versions of the balloons, called 'bloons' by the company, would have donut- or bagel-shaped capsules with plenty of standing room for two pilots and four passengers. But the test capsule proved just right for the humanoid robot named Nao - made by Aldebaran Robotics - that stands at knee-height compared to adult humans.

The robot rode as a passive passenger, but could someday become an active pilot that tests the controls and life-support technologies meant for humans.

'Little by little, we're teaching it how to pilot, but that's at a very early stage,' Lopez-Urdiales explained. 'The idea in the future is to have humanoid robots testing future complex aerospace vehicles.'

The company has almost finished building a bigger test balloon that could comfortably carry two people standing up. That larger balloon could make an attempt at breaking the manned high-altitude balloon record set in the 1960s - a record that requires the pilot to take off and land in the balloon. (Space diver Baumgartner intentionally disqualified himself by leaping out of his high-flying balloon.)

The inner journey

But Zero 2 Infinity doesn't just want to make money. Lopez-Urdiales envisions his balloons carrying scientific experiments or scientists high into Earth's atmosphere. His inspiration for creating the startup company came from his dad, an astrophysicist who worked on an experiment that went with the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan.

'I was growing up around balloons, rockets and telescopes,' Lopez-Urdiales said. 'My dad tested a Huygens scientific instrument on a high-altitude balloon.'

The balloon space tourism's relatively more affordable price tag could also open the eyes of many more people through the 'overview effect,' Lopez-Urdiales said. Frank White, a communications director at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, coined the term to describe how astronauts gained a better appreciation of global and environmental issues after seeing the Earth surrounded by the darkness of space.

'That's probably the biggest benefit private spaceflight will offer to civilians and members of the public,' Lopez-Urdiales said. 'The overview effect is personal experience, but then you share it. I think it goes a much longer way than bragging rights.'

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, sister site to SPACE.com. You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.