Saturn: Colorful Colossus Changes Colors

NASA's Cassini orbiter watches as winter comes to southern hemisphere.

more pictures here -abcnews

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UFO Lying On The Bottom Of The Baltic Sea?

A Swedish expedition team has found an unidentified object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, leaving some to believe it’s the remnants of an extra-terrestrial ship.

Scientists went off on a deep-water dive to debunk some theories about the underwater object, but were left with more questions than they had answers.

The divers found that the object was raised about 10 to 13 feet above the seabed, and curved in at the sides.

“First we thought this was only stone, but this is something else,” Ocean X team diver Peter Lindberg said in a press release.

The object had an egg shaped hole leading into it from the top, working like an opening. On top of the object, they found strange stone circle formations, which resembled small fireplaces. The stones were covered in something that resembled “soot.”

“During my 20-year diving career, including 6000 dives, I have never seen anything like this. Normally stones don’t burn. I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions “, Stefan Hogeborn, one of the divers at Ocean X Team, said in the press release.

Farther back from the object, the Ocean X team said that they could see a “runway” or a downhill path that is flattened at the seabed with the object at the end of it.

“As laymen we can only speculate how this is made by nature, but this is the strangest thing I have ever experienced as a professional diver“, continues Peter Lindberg, one of the founder Ocean X Team.

Scientists are currently examining samples from the circle-shaped object, and experts in sonar imaging are processing data from the “ship” to help shed more light on what exactly this underwater object is.

The outline of the ship on pictures resembles the famous Star Wars ship the “Millennium Falcon.”

Lindberg said the odd thing about the discovery is that there is no silt on the rock, which is an ordinary thing to find when lying at the bottom of the sea.

He also told Fox News that the object is “disc-shaped” and “appears to have construction lines and boxes drawn on it.”

Lindberg told the news agency that the Americans and Japanese “are much more excited” about the discovery than the local Swedish people.

source-
redOrbit (http://s.tt/1f30R)

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Curiosity closes in on Mars for high-stakes descent

The $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover is closing in on the Red Planet for a white-knuckle descent to the surface using an untried "sky crane" technique to ensure a pinpoint landing on the floor of Gale Crater.
by William Harwood

PASADENA, Calif. -- The Mars Science Laboratory rover, still attached to its drum-shaped interplanetary cruise stage, closed in on the Red Planet on Saturday, steadily accelerating under the increasing tug of the planet's gravity as it streaked toward a precisely targeted plunge into the martian atmosphere overnight Sunday for a high-stakes descent to the surface.

"The spacecraft and ground systems are all healthy and performing as expected," said MSL mission manager Arthur Amador. "The spacecraft is now in the EDL (entry, descent, and landing) approach configuration, in our final approach orientation, pointing our medium gain antenna within a degree of the Earth. We've got a strong telecom signal, receiving data at 2,000 bits per second.

"The power subsystem is healthy, our rover batteries are charged to 100 percent. The thermal and propulsion systems are nominal with stable temperatures and pressures, and the DSN (Deep Space Network) continues to perform well, tracking the spacecraft continuously and conducting two differential ranging passes per day."

As of Saturday morning, the Mars Science Laboratory was just 2.8 million miles from Mars after logging nearly 350 million miles since launch from Cape Canaveral last November. Flight controllers decided Friday the spacecraft's path toward Mars was accurate enough to forgo a preplanned trajectory correction maneuver.

"We're now right on target to fly through the eye of a needle, that is, our target at the top of the Mars atmosphere," said Amador. "The target is a box that's 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) by 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) in dimension. And we're flying right through it."

high-precision atmospheric entry is just the first step in a complex, high-speed series of events designed to get the nuclear-powered Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity safely to its landing ellipse on the floor of Gale Crater, within easy roving distance of a 3-mile-high mound of layered rock that represents a record of the Red planet's enigmatic history.

Equipped with a robot arm, a drill, sample scoop, state-of-the-art instruments, and a suite of cameras, Curiosity is the most sophisticated robotic lander ever sent to another planet. Over the course of a planned two-year mission, the rover will search for carbon compounds, one of the key building blocks of life as it is known on Earth, and assess whether habitable environments ever existed, or still exist, on the Red Planet.

"This is a very complicated vehicle; it's way more complicated than (previous Mars rovers) or other vehicles we've flown in the past, and so it's going to take us a while to first check it out and then get into the science...that everybody wants to do," said Richard Cook, MSL deputy project manager.

"We're going to spend almost the entire month of August really checking out the vehicle, getting the first images. We'll obviously be getting science data during that, but we'll also be doing engineering checkouts of the instruments, of the sampling system, changing flight software, doing other things. Hopefully by early September we'll be at the point where we can do our first drive and have the vehicle begin to move around a little bit."

But first, it has to get there.

Tipping the scales at 1 ton, Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars and it will hit the upper atmosphere at a blistering 13,200 mph. Protected by a massive insulating heat shield, the spacecraft and its computer will fire rocket thrusters to adjust the craft's lift during the hypersonic phase of the descent, dipping or climbing as required and flying through broad S-turns to bleed off speed while keeping the craft on course for a pinpoint landing.

After slowing to around 1,000 mph, the craft will deploy a huge supersonic parachute, the heat shield will be jettisoned, and a sophisticated radar altimeter will begin sounding the surface. After the craft slows to less than 200 mph, the parachute will be jettisoned and Curiosity, bolted to the belly of a rocket-powered descent stage, will fall free for the final drop to the surface.

Unlike past landers, Curiosity's jet pack doesn't have legs. Instead, it will act like a flying crane, lowering the rover directly to the surface on the end of a 25-foot-long bridle as the "sky crane" slowly descends. When the flight computer senses "weight on wheels," the bridle will be cut and Curiosity will be ready for initial tests and checkout.

Touchdown is expected at 10:17 p.m. PDT Sunday, but it will take radio signals confirming the event 13.8 minutes to cross the 154-million-mile gulf between Earth and Mars. That translates to 10:31 p.m. "Earth-received time."

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be relying on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to relay entry, descent, and landing telemetry back to Earth and to confirm a successful touchdown. If Odyssey has problems, or if any issues crop up with Curiosity's transmitter, it could take several hours for that long-awaited confirmation to arrive.

Given the complexity of the entry, descent, and landing sequence -- and the mission's $2.5 billion price tag -- NASA managers and engineers are understandably anxious.

"Like all missions, MSL started with something that was pretty scary and pretty risky and that was called launch," said Doug McCuistion, director of Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters. "Unlike most missions, we haven't finished the scary and risky stuff yet. MSL still has to put Curiosity on the surface after it goes through the atmosphere, our 'seven minutes of terror,' which you'll continue to hear about.

"So can we do this? Yeah, I think we can do this. I'm confident. The team's done an amazing job, we have the A-plus team on this. They've done everything possible to ensure success, but that risk still exists, it's going to be tough. If it's not successful, we're going to learn.... We'll pick ourselves up, we'll dust ourselves off, we'll look at this, and we'll do it again. This will not be the end."

The spacecraft's computer began executing EDL programming Monday and "our trajectory inbound to Mars has been right down the pipe, so we canceled last night's opportunity to perform our fifth trajectory correction maneuver," said Amador.

"During the hours that we have left here before the landing, the flight team will remain vigilant, monitoring and assessing the health of the spacecraft and tracking its trajectory and preparing any necessary changes to guidance and entry parameters. We have several opportunities to make final parameter updates, one today and two additional opportunities tomorrow if we need them.

"We have one more significant activity to perform with the spacecraft late tonight and that's to command the final enable and activation of the contingency software on our backup computer," Amador said. "The team's confident and thrilled to be finally arriving at Mars. We're reminding ourselves to breathe every so often."

Source: cnet

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Sally Ride remembered: Tributes to 1st American woman in space

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died Monday (July 23) at the age of 61.
Ride made history when she launched aboard the space shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission in 1983. She became only the third woman to ever travel in space, after Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.
Ride traveled into space once more in 1984, as a member of the STS-41G crew on the space shuttle Challenger. Over the course of her career, Ride logged a total of 343 hours in space.
Sally Ride's death came after 17 months of battling pancreatic cancer. Here are some tributes to Sally Ride from astronauts, scientists, historians, industry officials and other luminaries:
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Sally Ride. As the first American woman to travel into space, Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools. Sally’s life showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve and I have no doubt that her legacy will endure for years to come. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Sally’s family and friends.
Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator
Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism — and literally changed the face of America's space program. The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Sally's family and the many she inspired. She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly. [Sally Ride: 1st American Woman in Space (Pictures)]
Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator
Sally was a personal and professional role model to me and thousands of women around the world. Her spirit and determination will continue to be an inspiration for women everywhere.
Sally Ride Science, Company Statement
Sally lived her life to the fullest, with boundless energy, curiosity, intelligence, passion, commitment, and love. Her integrity was absolute; her spirit was immeasurable; her approach to life was fearless.
Sally was a physicist, the first American woman to fly in space, a science writer, and the President and CEO of Sally Ride Science. She had the rare ability to understand the essence of things and to inspire those around her to join her pursuits.
Steve Hawley, Former NASA astronaut, ex-husband
(married to Ride from 1982 to 1987)
Sally was a very private person who found herself a very public persona. It was a role in which she was never fully comfortable. I was privileged to be a part of her life and be in a position to support her as she became the first American woman to fly in space.
While she never enjoyed being a celebrity, she recognized that it gave her the opportunity to encourage children, particularly young girls, to reach their full potential. Sally Ride, the astronaut and the person, allowed many young girls across the world to believe they could achieve anything if they studied and worked hard. I think she would be pleased with that legacy. [Video: Sally Ride's Memories of Historic Spaceflight]
George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic
Sally was an American hero and a historic space explorer. Her legacy will be in the millions of kids that she inspired by her mission and in the educational efforts that followed. It will also be in the positive changes and insights she brought to American space policy through her continued service to the country.  She was committed, intelligent, serious about our biggest challenges, and had a wonderful sense of humor. Our nation and planet have lost an incredible human being.
John Logsdon, Professor Emeritus at George Washington University
Sally Ride's impact on the U.S. space program, and indeed on this country overall, was pervasive. From her pioneering flight as the first U.S. woman in space to her efforts in recent years to stimulate young girls to stay with the study of science, engineering, and math, she was a model citizen. Sally contributed her keen intelligence to many key studies, ranging from the Challenger and Columbia accident investigations to examinations of alternatives paths for the nation in space.
Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman/CEO, X PRIZE
I remember clearly the signs at the Cape during STS-7..."RIDE SALLY RIDE AND ALL YOU GUYS CAN GO ALONG TOO"... All of us rode with Sally on that flight. Her passion and dedication to education and to inspiring women to become scientists and engineers will be sorely missed.
Elliot Pulham, Space Foundation CEO
The space community, teachers and students around the world have lost a great friend and role model. Sally was more than a trailblazing astronaut and brilliant scientist. She was deeply concerned about the state of education in the United States, and worked tirelessly to reach students, especially at-risk young women, with programs filled with hope and inspiration -- to enable our next generation of explorers.
Whether on board a space shuttle, inside a corporate board room, or with students at one of her Sally Ride Science events, she was a motivational and inspiring leader. She was a friend to all explorers, and she will be deeply missed.
Roger Launius, Space History Curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
She was highly significant in a lot of ways. As the first American woman to fly in 1983, that's significant in and of itself. Beyond that, she was involved in both Columbia and Challenger accident investigations, and was critical to the recovery from both of those accidents.
Her report on leadership at NASA in the aftermath of Challenger was really significant. That's where she laid out, really for the first time, the idea that had been floating for a while — mission to planet Earth, which is now Earth science. It had not been a major part of NASA's efforts prior to that time, but has become incredibly significant since. She's an enormously significant voice for children's investigation in science and technology, and especially for girls. It's quite a tragedy we've lost her."
Maria Zuber, Lead Scientist for NASA's Grail Moon Mission
(Sally Ride Science operates Grail's MoonKam for students)
Sally was an icon in the history of space exploration. She realized the great honor associated with being the first American woman in space and used her notoriety to promote education. Her influence in inspiring students to pursue careers in science and technology is one of her many extraordinary achievements. In her role as an astronaut and as an educator Sally changed the lives of countless young people and that will be her legacy.
Scott Hubbard, Stanford University professor, B612 Foundation Program Architect and former NASA "Mars Czar"
Over the last 9 years I was fortunate to work with Sally on the Columbia Accident Board, as a sponsor for Sally Ride Science, and most recently as a reviewer of my book. Sally was kind-hearted, gracious, a strong role model for young women in science and a thoughtful scientist. I am profoundly grateful to have known her and had the opportunity to work with her over the years.
Lon Rains, Chairman, Coalition for Space Exploration
Today, the Coalition for Space Exploration is saddened to say goodbye to our dear friend and colleague Sally Ride - physicist, astronaut, educator and American hero.  After her trailblazing career in space, Sally dedicated her life to the mission of opening the world of science to girls, with the Sally Ride Science Academy and Camps.
She was a role model, a mentor and one of our most effective champions for STEM education.
Our sorrow in her passing is only exceeded by our deep respect and gratitude for her contributions to our nation and our future.
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