Potential New NASA Mission Would Reveal the Hearts of Undead Stars

Neutron stars have been called the zombies of the cosmos, shining on even though they're technically dead, and occasionally feeding on a neighboring star if it gets too close.

They are born when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity, crushing the matter in its core and blasting away its outer layers in a supernova explosion that can outshine a billion suns.

The core, compressed by gravity to inconceivable density – one teaspoon would weigh about a billion tons on Earth – lives on as a neutron star. Although the nuclear fusion fires that sustained its parent star are extinguished, it still shines with heat left over from its explosive formation, and from radiation generated by its magnetic field, which became intensely concentrated as the core collapsed, and can be over a trillion times stronger than Earth's.

Although its parent star could easily have been more than a million miles across, a neutron star is only about the size of a city. However, its intense gravity makes it the ultimate trash compactor, capable of packing in an astonishing amount of matter, more than 1.4 times the content of the Sun, or at least 460,000 Earths.

"A neutron star is right at the threshold of matter as it can exist – if it gets any denser, it becomes a black hole," says Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Arzoumanian is Deputy Principal Investigator on a proposed mission called the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) that would unveil the dark heart of a neutron star. "We have no way of creating neutron star interiors on Earth, so what happens to matter under such incredible pressure is a mystery – there are many theories about how it behaves. The closest we come to simulating these conditions is in particle accelerators that smash atoms together at almost the speed of light. However, these collisions are not an exact substitute – they only last a split second, and they generate temperatures that are much higher than what's inside neutron stars."

For more info, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/nicer-science.html

NASA's Chandra Contributes to Black Hole Birth Announcement

New details about the birth of a famous black hole that took place millions of years ago have been uncovered, thanks to a team of scientists who used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as from radio, optical and other X-ray telescopes.

Over three decades ago, Stephen Hawking placed - and eventually lost - a bet against the existence of a black hole in Cygnus X-1. Today, astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole, and with these latest studies they have remarkably precise values of its mass, spin, and distance from Earth. With these key pieces of information, the history of the black hole has been reconstructed.

"This new information gives us strong clues about how the black hole was born, what it weighed and how fast it was spinning," said author Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. "This is exciting because not much is known about the birth of black holes."

Reid led one of three papers - all appearing in the November 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal - describing these new results on Cygnus X-1. The other papers were led by Jerome Orosz from San Diego State University and Lijun Gou, also from CfA.

Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole is in close orbit with a massive, blue companion star.

Using X-ray data from Chandra, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, a team of scientists was able to determine the spin of Cygnus X-1 with unprecedented accuracy, showing that the black hole is spinning at very close to its maximum rate. Its event horizon - the point of no return for material falling towards a black hole - is spinning around more than 800 times a second.

An independent study that compared the evolutionary history of the companion star with theoretical models indicates that the black hole was born some 6 million years ago. In this relatively short time (in astronomical terms), the black hole could not have pulled in enough gas to ramp up its spin very much. The implication is that Cygnus X-1 was likely born spinning very quickly.

For more info, read http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/cygnusx1.html

Nyamuragira Volcano Erupts

Africa’s most active volcano, Nyamuragira began to erupt along a new fissure on November 6, 2011. This image, from November 12, shows a river of lava flowing away from the rift. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired the image, which combines infrared and visible light.

The hot lava glows orange. The cooler clouds are blue, while warm steam is white and orange. While very fluid, the lava is flowing over flat ground, so it is moving slowly. The lava darkens to black as it cools, and in places it is clear that the surface of the lava has cooled while hot lava flows below.

The new fissure is 10-12 kilometers from Nyamiuragira’s summit. A red glow on the peak of the nearby Nyiragongo volcano is a lava lake in the summit crater.

Supervolcanoes: Not a Threat For 2012

The geological record holds clues that throughout Earth's 4.5-billion-year lifetime massive supervolcanoes, far larger than Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo, have erupted. However, despite the claims of those who fear 2012, there’s no evidence that such a supereruption is imminent.

What exactly is a "supervolcano" or a "supereruption?" Both terms are fairly new and favored by the media more than scientists, but geologists have begun to use them in recent years to refer to explosive volcanic eruptions that eject about ten thousand times the quantity of magma and ash that Mount St. Helens, one of the most explosive eruptions in recent years, expelled.

It’s hard to comprehend an eruption of that scope, but Earth’s surface has preserved distinctive clues of many massive supereruptions. Expansive layers of ash blanket large portions of many continents. And huge hollowed-out calderas – craters that can be as big as 60 miles (100 km) across left when a volcano collapses after emptying its entire magma chamber at once – serve as visceral reminders of past supereruptions in Indonesia, New Zealand, the United States, and Chile.

The eruption of these prehistoric supervolcanoes has affected massive areas. The magma flow of Mount Toba in Sumutra, which erupted some 74,000 years ago in what was likely the largest eruption that has ever occurred, released a staggering 700 cubic miles (2,800 cubic km) of magma and left a thick layer of ash over all of South Asia. For comparison, the quantity of magma erupted from Indonesia’s Mount Krakatau in 1883, one of the largest eruptions in recorded history, was about 3 cubic miles (12 cubic km).

Haze along the Himalaya

Haze hugged the southern slopes of the Himalaya in early November 2011. At about 10:45 a.m. on November 3, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of haze stretching from Pakistan southeastward to Bangladesh.

Haze is common at this time of year when farmers in northwestern India set fires to clear their fields of excess vegetation. MODIS detects areas of high surface temperatures associated with fires, but fires burn more intensely in the afternoon, and few blazes appear as hotspots (red dots) in this morning scene. The haze may result from additional factors besides agricultural fires, including urban and industrial pollution.

Growth of Shiveluch Volcano

Fresh debris avalanches and a growing lava dome on Mount Shiveluch illustrate two of the processes that build stratovolcanoes. A stratovolcano is “built of alternating layers of lava flows, volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and bombs.” Shiveluch’s lava dome, partially obscured by a plume of gas and ash, is an example of an extremely slow lava flow.

The dome is composed of very thick lava, squeezed out of the Earth like toothpaste from a tube. As the dome rises, rocks and other debris will tumble down the sides. South of the lava dome a fresh debris flow appears dark gray, contrasting with the snow-covered slopes of the volcano. Over time, with layers of lava built on layers of debris built on layers of lava, the volcano grows.

This natural-color image was acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on November 5, 2011. The western (left) side of Shiveluch is cut off because EO-1 was targeted to acquire data for Hyperion, an instrument which allows scientists to study details of the volcano, such as rock types and the composition of the volcanic plume.

Where on Earth - Play Geographical Detective Conducted by NASA, JPL, or MISR

Welcome back to a chance to play geographical detective!

This image was taken by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), and represents an area of about 238 kilometers by 223 kilometers. North is at the top. These questions refer to a country within the image. Please answer the questions below and tell us where on Earth you think the location is. You may use any reference materials you like to answer the quiz.

A. From the statements below, please indicate which are TRUE and which are FALSE.

B. What country is shown in this image?

1. The small island off the coastal inlet in the lower left corner of the image is dominated by mangrove swamps, and considered home to protected sea bird sanctuaries. Parts of the island are off-limits for visitors.

2. Settlers were, perhaps, over-optimistic in their naming policy of this country.

3. The body of water shown on the right side of the image is considered so shallow and is situated on a single plate, that it is known for its tranquil calm waters and geologic inactivity.

4. The streams and rivers of this country used to be home to a sacred reptile, which has since gone extinct.

5. For centuries, coastal farmers used a powerful fertilizer that covered the rocks on the tip of this peninsula area during the dry season. Thus giving this area its descriptive name.

6. This animal, which can be found in the National Park located just below the bottom right corner of the image, comes down from its perch twice a day to feed its young.

Send us your answers, name (initials are acceptable if you prefer), and your hometown by the quiz deadline of Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 4 p.m. PST, using the Quiz answer form. Answers will be published on the MISR website. The names and home towns of respondents who answer all questions correctly by the deadline will also be published in the order responses were received. The first three people on this list who are not affiliated with NASA, JPL, or MISR and who have not previously won a prize will be sent a print of the image.

For more information, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76315

Birth of an Iceberg

Birthing large icebergs is nothing new for the Pine Island Glacier. Among the fastest moving glaciers in Antarctica, Pine Island drains about 79 cubic kilometers (19 cubic miles) of ice per year from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The end of the glacier stretched about 48 kilometers (30 miles) past the edge of land, floating on the ocean. As more ice flows toward the water, the tongue grows longer. Eventually, a piece will break off, forming a large iceberg.

The last calving event occurred in late 2001 and resulted in an iceberg that measured 42 kilometers by 17 kilometers (26 by 11 miles). That event, too, was preceded by a large crack that was observed in satellite imagery in late 2000.

While satellites have tracked the formation of new icebergs, this is the first detailed airborne survey of such an event. “We are actually now witnessing how it happens,” said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger. “It’s part of a natural process but it’s pretty exciting to be here and actually observe it while it happens.”

IceBridge scientists were surveying the Pine Island Glacier to learn how the glacier is changing and why. In the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice, the airplanes of Operation IceBridge carry an array of instruments to measure the ice from top to bottom. The research team is gathering data about how thick the ice is (about 500 meters or 1,640 feet in the region of the crack); what the ground beneath it looks like; and how the glacier has changed over time. All of this information will help scientists understand why the Pine Island Glacier drains so much ice to the ocean and how much it could contribute to sea level rise in the future.

Heavy Snow in Northeastern United States

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on October 30, 2011. A swath of snow sweeps from West Virginia northeastward to Maine. Clouds hover east and west of the snow, blocking the satellite sensor’s view of western Pennsylvania and parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

The storm broke snowfall-total records in cities throughout the U.S. Northeast, Capital Weather Gang reported. The nor’easter was also surprisingly intense, causing wind gusts along the Massachusetts coastline of 69 miles (111 kilometers) per hour.

More than 3 million homes and businesses lacked electricity in the wake of the storm, according to news reports. Capital Weather Gang reported that this storm caused a record loss of electricity in Connecticut—worse than the power loss caused by Hurricane Irene. As residents headed back to work on October 31, closed or icy roads complicated commutes in multiple states. Fortunately, rising temperatures were expected to help melt the snow.

Fresh Lava Flows Surround Pu'u 'O'o

Since it began in 1983, the eruption of Kilauea Volcano has usually been centered at Pu’u ’O’o. Gray and brown lava flows radiate from the crater, the varying shades due to differences in weathering, composition, and the lava’s initial temperature. Photographs of Pu’u ’O’o from the United States Geological Survey reveal the remarkable variety of colors and textures in the lava. The overlapping flows form a record of the evolving eruption. The extent of change since early September is remarkable.

This natural-color satellite image (top), acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) on October 29, 2011, shows the recent lava flows. On September 21, 2011, a fissure opened in the flank of Pu’u ’O’o, draining a lava pond and spawning an ’a’a flow: thick lava that moves relatively slowly and hardens into rough blocks.

Over the next few days, the narrow ’a’a flow reached 3,400 meters (11,000 feet) from the vent, before petering out. More recently, gray pahoehoe lava (more fluid than ’a’a) covered most of the dark a’a’ flow. In a false-color image that combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (above, lower), the fresh lava is bright red, an indication that it was active at the time the satellite flew overhead.

Midwestern USA at Night with Aurora Borealis

The artificial light from human settlements appears with a characteristic yellow tinge. The green light of the aurora borealis also shines brightly in this view—even seeming to reflect off Earth’s surface in Canada. A small white patch of light is almost certainly lightning from a storm on the East coast (image top right). Part of the ISS appears across the top of the image.

This astronaut photograph highlights the Chicago metropolitan area as the largest cluster of lights, next to the dark patch of Lake Michigan. The other largest metropolitan areas include St. Louis, Minneapolis–St. Paul, and the Omaha–Council Bluffs region on the Nebraska–Iowa border. The northeastern seaboard lies just beyond the Appalachian Mountains, a dark winding zone without major cities.

City light clusters give an immediate sense of relative city size. Demographers have used nighttime satellite imagery to make estimates of city populations, especially in the developing world, where growth can be rapid.

The sense of scale changes significantly in oblique views. Des Moines is 200 kilometers from Omaha and 375 kilometers from Minneapolis, yet the distances appear roughly the same in this view

NASA Invites Students to Study the Sun During Solar Week

Nasa invited students for Solar Week Fall 2011, October 17-21 – a lively week of online activities and curriculum for students about the Sun, including games and lesson plans for the whole week. In addition, there’s a message board where your classroom can submit a question to leading solar scientists.

Every fall and spring since 2000, Solar Week has provided a weeklong series of Web-based educational classroom activities and games geared for upper elementary, middle and early high school students with a focus on our dynamic Sun and its effects on Earth. Students learn about solar eclipses, sunspots, solar flares and solar storms through a series of activities, games, and lessons.

Solar Week is ideal for students studying the solar system, the stars, or astronomy in general. It's also for kids wondering what it's like being a scientist, and pondering possible career choices. Participation makes for a fun computer lab activity as well. After doing the activities, students can interact on the bulletin board with leading scientists at the forefront of Sun-Earth research. It’s a great place for any student interested in our nearest star, the Sun!

Solar Week is a collaboration between University of California, Berkeley and Rice University.

Mid-Latitude Cyclone over the United States

At 3:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on September 26, 2011, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite observed a mid-latitude cyclone over the mid western United States. The center of the storm appeared immediately west of Lake Michigan.

Mid-latitude cyclones drive most of the stormy weather in the continental United States. Development of these cyclones often involves a warm front from the south meeting a cold front from the north. In the Northern Hemisphere, cyclones move in a counterclockwise direction. (In the Southern Hemisphere, cyclones are clockwise.) The bands of cold and warm air wrap around a center of low pressure, and air rising near the center spurs the development clouds and precipitation.

Justin Berk, a meteorologist based in Baltimore, explains that in this region, “cold air eventually wins out and wraps completely around a storm. This is called a ‘cold core’ storm and has cut itself off from the main flow of the jet stream.” This, says Berk, is why the September 26 storm appears stalled near Chicago.

Dunphy Complex Fires in Nevada

Ignited by lightning on September 30, 2011, the three fires in the Dunphy Complex raced through sagebrush and grass in northern Nevada during the first week of October. By October 6, the fires had burned 204,487 acres in a remote area between the towns of Elko and Winnemucca.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite took this image on October 3 when gusty winds pushed the fires to double their size. Active fires are outlined in red.

Dense smoke rises from the Indian Creek fire, the largest of the three in the complex. The smoke blows north into northern Idaho, before becoming too thin to be seen in the satellite image. The Chukkar Canyon and Izzenhood fires show less activity, but dark, charred land reveals where the fires burned.

On October 3, the fast-moving fires grew from a collective 88,000 acres to 160,000 acres and forced the evacuation of the community of Tuscarora. They also caused power outages at mining operations in the region, reported the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center. The Dunphy Complex became the top priority for wild land fire fighters in the United States that day. Cooler weather and rain helped suppress the fires from October 4 through October 6.

Parinacota Volcano in South America

Volcan Parinacota (“flamingo lake” in the Aymara language) is a potentially active stratovolcano located on the Altiplano, a high plateau in the Andes mountains of west-central South America. While no direct observations of eruptive activity have been recorded, surface exposure dating of lava flows suggests that activity occurred as recently as 290 AD (± 300 years). Local Aymara stories also suggest that the volcano has erupted within the past 1000 years.

This astronaut photograph from the International Space Station highlights the symmetrical cone of Parinacota, with its well-developed summit crater (elevation 6,348 meters, or 20,827 feet, above sea level). Dark brown to dark gray surfaces to the east and west of the summit include lava flows, pyroclastic deposits, and ash.

A companion volcano, Pomerape, is located across a low saddle to the north. This volcano last erupted during the Pleistocene Epoch (approximately 3 million to 12,000 years ago). Together, Parinacota and Pomerape form the Nevados de Payachata volcanic area. The summits of both volcanoes are covered by white snowpack and small glaciers.

Eruptive activity at Parinacota has directly influenced development of the local landscape, beyond the placement of volcanic deposits. Approximately 8,000 years ago, the western flank of the volcano collapsed, creating a debris avalanche that traveled 22 kilometers (14 miles) to the west. The debris blocked rivers and streams, leading to the formation of Chungará Lake to the south (lower left). The uneven, hummocky surface of the avalanche debris provides ample catchments for water, as evidenced by the numerous small ponds and Cotacotani Lake to the west.

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers - World Orbiting Two Stars

The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.

Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.

"This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler principal investigator William Borucki said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now."

NASA Awards Historic Green Aviation Prize

NASA has awarded the largest prize in aviation history, created to inspire the development of more fuel-efficient aircraft and spark the start of a new electric airplane industry. The technologies demonstrated by the CAFE Green Flight Challenge, sponsored by Google, competitors may end up in general aviation aircraft, spawning new jobs and new industries for the 21st century.

The first place prize of $1.35 million was awarded to team Pipistrel-USA.com of State College, Pa. The second place prize of $120,000 went to team eGenius, of Ramona, Calif.

Fourteen teams originally registered for the competition. Three teams successfully met all requirements and competed in the skies over the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, Calif. The competition was managed by the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation under an agreement with NASA.

"NASA congratulates Pipistrel-USA.com for proving that ultra-efficient aviation is within our grasp," said Joe Parrish, NASA's acting chief technologist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Today we've shown that electric aircraft have moved beyond science fiction and are now in the realm of practice."

Fires in Russia and China

Smoke clouds the skies across northeastern China and southeastern Russia in this image taken on October 8, 2011, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Widespread fires are marked in red.

The dry, windy weather of autumn created hazardous fire conditions in northeast China. On October 9, officials in Heilongjiang, the province shown here, raised the fire alert level to its second-highest level, said Xinhua news. Russian officials, meanwhile, reported monitoring four large wildfires in the Far Eastern Federal District, which includes the area shown here.

NASA Tests Deep Space J-2X Rocket Engine at Stennis

NASA conducted a 40-second test of the J-2X rocket engine Sept. 28, the most recent in a series of tests of the next-generation engine selected as part of the Space Launch System architecture that will once again carry humans into deep space. It was a test at the 99 percent power level to gain a better understanding of start and shutdown systems as well as modifications that had been made from previous test firing results.

The test at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi came just two weeks after the agency announced plans for the new SLS to be powered by core-stage RS-25 D/E and upper-stage J-2X engines. The liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen J-2X is being developed for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

NASA's Moon Twins Going Their Own Way

NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)-B spacecraft successfully executed its first flight path correction maneuver Wednesday, Oct. 5. The rocket burn helped refine the spacecraft's trajectory as it travels from Earth to the moon and provides separation between itself and its mirror twin, GRAIL-A. The first burn for GRAIL-A occurred on Sept. 30.

"Both spacecraft are alive and with these burns, prove that they're kicking too, as expected," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "There is a lot of time and space between now and lunar orbit insertion, but everything is looking good."

GRAIL-B's rocket burn took place on Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT). The spacecraft's main engine burned for 234 seconds and imparted a velocity change of 56.1 mph (25.1 meters per second) while expending 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of propellant. GRAIL-A's burn on Sept. 30 also took place at 11 a.m. PDT. It lasted 127 seconds and imparted a 31.3 mph (14 meters per second) velocity change on the spacecraft while expending 4 pounds (1.87 kilograms) of propellant.

These burns are designed to begin distancing GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B's arrival times at the moon by approximately one day and to insert them onto the desired lunar approach paths.

For more information about GRAIL visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grail and http://grail.nasa.gov .