European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA Online Videos

At the end of October a Soyuz will be launched from Europe's Space Port in French Guiana for the first time, carrying into orbit the first pair of so-called IOV satellites. IOV stand for In-Orbit Validation: it's the phase when the Galileo system will be assessed through tests using the operations of two experimental satellites (GIOVE A and B already on orbit) and a mini constellation of four operational satellites and their related ground infrastructure. These first 2 Galileo satellites will be sent to the first orbital plane on Medium earth Orbit, followed by another 2 in the second orbital plane next year.

Source: ESA

The LDC in action.
Credit: ESA.

Astronauts’ jobs sometimes weigh heavy on them: crews returning from space briefly endure ‘g-loading’ more than four times Earth normal. Scientists interested in hypergravity need to create it for minutes, days or even weeks at a time. Fortunately, ESA’s Large Diameter Centrifuge does just that. (read more)

Source: Messenger Press Release

Image credit: NASA/MESSENGER

After only six months in orbit around Mercury, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft is sending back information that has revolutionized the way scientists think about the innermost planet. Analyses of new data from the spacecraft show, among other things, new evidence that flood volcanism has been widespread on Mercury, the first close-up views of Mercury's "hollows," the first direct measurements of the chemical composition of Mercury's surface, and the first global inventory of plasma ions within Mercury’s space environment.

The results are reported in a set of seven papers published in a special section of Science magazine on September 30, 2011.(read more)

Source: UNAWE Press Release

In a one-week special, Space Scoop will release daily reports for children aged 8+ that highlight the exciting discoveries announced at the European Planetary Science Congress and Division for Planetary Science (EPSC-DPS) 2011 meeting, held in Nantes, France, from 2-8 October 2011. By sharing the latest research with children, Space Scoop aims to bring astronomy to life.

EU-Universe Awareness (EU-UNAWE), which brings you Space Scoop, is asking primary school teachers from around the world to use the releases as the basis for a week-long series of lessons about our Solar System. The final day of EPSC-DPS 2011 coincides with International Observe the Moon Night, which offers many additional educational resources.Since EU-UNAWE launched Space Scoop in February 2011, press releases produced by the European Southern Observatory and the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory have been translated into child-friendly language. EU-UNAWE is now pleased to welcome Europlanet – one of the organisers of EPSC-DPS 2011 – as its newest Space Scoop partner organisation.

With Space Scoop reporters at the conference, EU-UNAWE is welcoming educators and children to submit questions about planetary science via email, Twitter or Facebook. The Space Scoopers will track down the relevant astronomers to find the answers to as many of your questions as possible. Please email your questions to info@unawe.org. Questions via Twitter should be sent to @unawe and include the hashtag #SpaceScoop You can also use our Facebook page to ask questions: facebook.com/unawe

More information: http://www.unawe.org/updates/unawe-update-1134/

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1136

The rare yellow hypergiant star called IRAS 17163-3907.
Image credits: ESO/E. Lagadec.

Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to image a colossal star that belongs to one of the rarest classes of stars in the Universe, the yellow hypergiants. The new picture is the best ever taken of a star in this class and shows for the first time a huge dusty double shell surrounding the central hypergiant. The star and its shells resemble an egg white around a yolky centre, leading the astronomers to nickname the object the Fried Egg Nebula. (learn more)

Source: Planet Hunters

Thanks to all collaborators hard work at planethunters.org - a first paper was submitted to an astronomical journal, and it is now nearly through the referee process. The findings can be seen in detail in the paper titled "Planet Hunters: Two Planet Candidates Discovered by the Public using the Kepler Public Archive Data" which you can read at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4621

After careful analysis and follow-up observations with the Keck telescope in Hawaii, the Planet Hunters team sent the top 10 candidates found from your classifications of the Quarter 1 data to the Kepler team. With their help, it has been determined that two of the ten met their criteria for being classified as planet candidates.

If you're lucky enough to be one of the people who marked a transit, then your name is in the paper - the rest of you will find yourselves on the extended author list at http://planethunters.org/authors.

In other news, the Kepler team announced (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerm-Q3release.html) that the next public release of data has been moved up from June 2012 to right now. Quarter 3 is an extra 90 days of light curves, nearly doubling the time baseline we have available for all the Kepler stars - meaning you can find even longer period planets hidden in the data. We're already working on getting this data to you, but in the mean time, there’s still lots of Quarter 2 data left to search through.

Planet Hunters is already producing fantastic results, and there is no doubt that with each new round of data, there will be more discoveries to come. Come and help the hunt for planets today: http://www.planethunters.org

Source: ESA You Tube

Paolo Nespoli spent 6 months on-board the International Space Station from Dec 2010 through to May 2011. In this video he shot using ESA's Erasmus Recording Binocular (ERB-2) stereoscopic camera during various phases of his MagISStra mission, he caught some moments that depict the work astronauts carry out on the ISS: from educational activities, to scientific experiments and physical training, also demonstrating the way astronauts move in weightlessness through the various modules. ERB-2 is the first camera to transmit 3D images live from space. (read more)

Source: CERN

View of the OPERA detector.
Image credit: CERN.

The OPERA experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy’s INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, will present new results in a seminar at CERN today.

The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature’s cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. This is why the OPERA collaboration has decided to open the result to broader scrutiny. (read more)

Source: ESA

One of two vehicles used in Desert RATS.
Image credits: ESA - F. Didot.

Earlier this month, European scientists linked up with astronauts roaming over the surface of an asteroid. Desert RATS, NASA’s realistic simulation of a future mission, this year included a European dimension for the first time.(read more)

Source: NASA

A conceptual illustration shows a lunar robot rover.
Image credit: NASA.

NASA is accepting applications from teams of U.S. and international undergraduate and graduate students for the third annual Lunabotics Mining Competition. The event will be at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida May 21-26, 2012.

Participants in the competition will design and build a remote controlled or autonomous robot, which could be used for future exploration on the moon. During the competition, the teams' designs, known as lunabots, will go head-to-head to determine which one can excavate and deposit the most simulated lunar dirt within 10 minutes.

Students must submit applications, including a systems engineering paper and an educational outreach project, by Nov. 30. Registration is limited to one team for each university campus and 10 teams per country.

The competition is designed to engage and retain students in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, disciplines critical to NASA's missions.

For information about the competition and to apply online, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lunabotics

Source: ESA Videos

Images taken by the optical and radar instruments on board ESA's Envisat Satellite orbiting 800 km above the Earth are set to relaxing music. Originally produced for Lufthansa inflight entertainment (released December 2010). (view video source)

Source: NSBRI

A unique science project designed to sow the excitement of scientific discovery in students is sprouting this week aboard the International Space Station. The Plants in Space project will allow students and teachers to examine root growth in microgravity and compare the results with those from plants used in their own ground-based experiments.

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is funding the project. It began Tuesday, Sept. 20, when space station astronauts planted Brassica rapa seeds during the first of four scheduled five-day trials. The project's primary scientific goal is to investigate the influence of light on root orientation. (learn more)

Source: NASA

The International Space Station with ATV-2 and Endeavour.
Image credits: ESA/NASA.

NASA is releasing the initial version of a Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) developed by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group. This roadmap is the culmination of work by 12 space agencies, including NASA,  during the past year to advance coordinated space exploration.

The GER begins with the International Space Station and expands human presence throughout the solar system,  leading ultimately to crewed missions to explore the surface of Mars.

The roadmap identifies two potential pathways: "Asteroid Next" and "Moon Next." Each pathway represents a mission scenario that covers a 25-year period with a logical sequence of robotic and human missions. Both pathways were deemed practical approaches to address common high-level exploration goals developed by the participating agencies, recognizing that individual preferences among them may vary. (read source)

Source: NASA Sounds

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.
Image credits: NASA.

Historic and interesting sounds and sound sites from NASA space missions are available for download as ringtones or on your computer for events, errors, alarms and notifications.

The public now can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong's, "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," every time they get a phone call. A new NASA web page now has a collection of more than 35 different sounds, each approximately 20 seconds. Examples include:

- Apollo 13's John "Jack" Swigert commenting "Houston, we have a problem"
- Crackle of the historic last launch of the space shuttle, STS-135
- Segments from President John F. Kennedy's historic moon speech
- Sound wave conversions of the light curve waves created by stars discovered by NASA's Kepler mission and other sounds of planets and stars

"NASA has been making historic sounds for over 50 years," said Jerry Colen, NASA App project manager at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Now we're making some of these memorable sounds easy to find and use."(visit the site)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1135

Running Chicken Nebula, a cloud of gas and newborn stars.
Image credit: ESO

A new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope reveals the Lambda Centauri Nebula, a cloud of glowing hydrogen and newborn stars in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). The nebula, also known as IC 2944, is sometimes nicknamed the Running Chicken Nebula, from a bird-like shape some people see in its brightest region.(read more)

Source: NASA News

NASA is announcing the International Space Apps Competition to support the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which President Barack Obama announced Tuesday. The challenge will culminate with a two-day event next year that will provide an opportunity for government to use the expertise and entrepreneurial spirit of citizen explorers to help address global challenges.

During the event, NASA representatives and officials from international space agencies will gather with scientists and citizens to use publicly-released scientific data to create solutions for issues, such as weather impact on the global economy and depletion of ocean resources. (read more)

Source: NASA News

NASA is testing an element of the sunshield that will protect the James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors and instruments during its mission to observe the most distant objects in the universe.

The sunshield will consist of five tennis court-sized layers to allow the Webb telescope to cool to its cryogenic operating temperature of minus 387.7 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Kelvin). (read more)

Source: NASA Science News

Sun at 171 Angstrom. Image credit: NASA/SDO.

NASA-supported researchers say that solar flares have been keeping a secret. The new finding, reported in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that explosions on the sun could affect Earth even more than previously thought. (read more)

Source: NASA

Artist's impression about dinossaur extinction.
Image credit: HowStuffsWork.

Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping the case open on one of Earth's greatest mysteries.

While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs and some other lifeforms on our planet, they do not know exactly where the asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth.

A 2007 study using visible-light data from ground-based telescopes first suggested the remnant of a huge asteroid, known as Baptistina, as a possible suspect. According to that theory, Baptistina crashed into another asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago. The collision sent shattered pieces as big as mountains flying. One of those pieces was believed to have impacted Earth, causing the dinosaurs' extinction.

Since this scenario was first proposed, evidence developed that the so-called Baptistina family of asteroids was not the responsible party. With the new infrared observations from WISE, astronomers say Baptistina may finally be ruled out. (read more)

Source: ESA/YouTube

Images taken by the optical and radar instruments on board ESA's Envisat Satellite orbiting 800 km above the Earth are set to relaxing music. This video was originally produced for Lufthansa inflight entertainment.