Heavens

Direct communication between Earth and Mars can be strongly disturbed and even blocked by the Sun for weeks at a time, cutting off any future human mission to the Red Planet. An ESA engineer working with engineers in the UK may have found a solution using a new type of orbit combined with continuous-thrust ion propulsion.

In a paper published Oct. 15 in Science, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) present a new view of the region of the sun's influence, or heliosphere, and the forces that shape it. Images from one of the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument's sensors, the Ion and Neutral Camera (MIMI/INCA), on NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that the heliosphere may not have the comet-like shape predicted by existing models.

Key Laboratory of Quantum Information (CAS), University of Science and Technology of China has recently demonstrated a metropolitan Quantum Cryptography Network (QCN) for Government Administration in Wuhu, China. Because of its scientific significance and social impact, the project is reported in Volume 54, Issue 17 (September, 2009) of the Chinese Science Bulletin authored by Fang-xing Xu et al.

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX,spacecraft has made it possible for scientists to construct the firstcomprehensive sky map of our solar system and its location in theMilky Way galaxy. The new view will change the way researchers viewand study the interaction between our galaxy and sun.

The sky map was produced with data that two detectors on thespacecraft collected during six months of observations. The detectorsmeasured and counted particles scientists refer to as energeticneutral atoms.

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, October 15, 2009—The invisible structures of space are becoming less so, as scientists look out to the far edges of the solar wind bubble that separates our solar system from the interstellar cloud through which it flies. Using the High Energy Neutral Atom Imager, led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the NASA Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission has sent back data that indicates a "noodle soup" of solar material has accumulated at the outer fringes of the heliosphere bubble.

A "solar wind" of charged particles continuously travels at supersonic speeds away from the Sun in all directions. This solar wind inflates a giant bubble in interstellar space called the heliosphere — the region of space dominated by the Sun's influence in which the Earth and other planets reside. As the solar wind travels outward, it sweeps up newly formed "pickup ions," which arise from the ionization of neutral particles drifting in from interstellar space.

DURHAM, N.H. – On Thursday, October 15, scientists and engineers from the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center will celebrate the announcement of the first major results from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, which will be published online Thursday in the journal Science in conjunction with a 2 p.m. press conference held at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The Moon is a big sponge that absorbs electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. These particles interact with the oxygen present in some dust grains on the lunar surface, producing water. This discovery, made by the ESA-ISRO instrument SARA onboard the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, confirms how water is likely being created on the lunar surface.

It also gives scientists an ingenious new way to take images of the Moon and any other airless body in the Solar System.

STANFORD, Calif. — Older Americans living in nursing homes experience a significant decline in their ability to perform simple daily tasks — such as feeding themselves, getting dressed or brushing their teeth — after starting dialysis, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Starting dialysis to treat kidney failure did not help nursing home patients maintain or improve their functional capacity, said Manjula Kurella Tamura, MD, lead author of a study on the topic, which will appear in the Oct. 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

How do humans and their environment interact, and how can we use knowledge of these links to adapt to a planet undergoing radical climate and other environmental changes?

To answer these and related questions, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded 14 grants to scientists, engineers and educators across the country to study coupled natural and human systems.

In the new ESO image, Barnard's Galaxy glows beneath a sea of foreground stars in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). At the relatively close distance of about 1.6 million light-years, Barnard's Galaxy is a member of the Local Group (ESO 11/96), the archipelago of galaxies that includes our home, the Milky Way.

Tropical Storm Nepartak is now speeding in a northeasterly direction in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, where it is becoming extra-tropical and developing frontal qualities.

The last official position of Napartak from the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center was on October 13 at 6 a.m. EDT, when the storm was 605 nautical miles east-northeast of the island of Chichi Jima, Japan. That's near 31.5 North and 154.3 East. Nepartak was speeding to the northeast at 33 mph (29 knots) and it had maximum sustained winds near 46 mph (40 knots).

Tropical Storm Parma crossed over the Hainan Island, China over the weekend and is now poised for a final landfall in Vietnam around 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Not surprisingly, interacting galaxies have a dramatic effect on each other. Studies have revealed that as galaxies approach one another massive amounts of gas are pulled from each galaxy towards the centre of the other, until ultimately, the two merge into one massive galaxy. The object in the image, NGC 2623, is in the late stages of the merging process with the centres of the original galaxy pair now merged into one nucleus. However, stretching out from the centre are two tidal tails of young stars showing that a merger has taken place.

Britney E. Schmidt, a UCLA doctoral student in the department of Earth and space sciences, wasn't sure what she'd glean from images of the asteroid Pallas taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. But she hoped to settle at least one burning question: Was Pallas, the second-largest asteroid, actually in that gray area between an asteroid and a small planet?

The answer, she found, was yes. Pallas, like its sister asteroids Ceres and Vesta, was that rare thing: an intact protoplanet.