Aethon

Alright, now beat it!

A Pluto primer. http://www.universetoday.com/13872/interesting-facts-about-pluto/

Blowing up stuff- for science! NASA hopes new composite solid rocket boosters are better than those cased in steel. http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/a-composite-booster-gets-a-burst-of-energy.html#.VOS17_nF-Yd

Sorry. I tried to resist for a day or two. http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/robot-vacuum-tries-to-eat-womans-head/story-fnjwucti-1227214286350

From the ESA: On two separate occasions in March and April 2012, amateur astronomers reported definite plume-like features developing on the planet. The features developed in less than 10 hours, covering an area of up to 1000 x 500 km, and remained visible for around 10 days, changing their structure from day to day. None of the spacecraft orbiting Mars saw the features because of their viewing geometries and illumination conditions at the time. However, checking archived Hubble Space Telescope images taken between 1995 and 1999 and of databases of amateur images spanning 2001 to 2014 revealed occasional clouds at the limb of Mars, albeit usually only up to 100 km in altitude. But one set of Hubble images from 17 May 1997 revealed an abnormally high plume, similar to that spotted by the amateur astronomers in 2012. “One idea we’ve discussed is that the features are caused by a reflective cloud of water-ice, carbon dioxide-ice or dust particles, but this would require exceptional deviations from standard atmospheric circulation models to explain cloud formations at such high altitudes,†says Agustin. “Another idea is that they are related to an auroral emission, and indeed auroras have been previously observed at these locations, linked to a known region on the surface where there is a large anomaly in the crustal magnetic field,†adds Antonio Garcia Munoz, a research fellow at ESA’s ESTEC and co-author of the study. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mystery_Mars_plume_baffles_scientists/(print)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2955902/The-mysterious-giant-clouds-spotted-Mars-Scientists-left-baffled-150-mile-high-plumes-coming-red-planet.html

On February 14, Rosetta passed within 6km of Comet 67p. http://www.universetoday.com/118981/the-first-images-are-in-from-rosettas-valentines-day-comet-flyby/

Agreed. There's a lot of information there that goes by pretty fast. I would enjoy a longer version. If you haven't, follow the NASA link in that post for an article with deeper treatment.

Everything you ever wanted to know about solid rocket boosters, but were embarrassed to ask. http://www.nasa.gov/sls/space-launch-system-boosters-101.html#.VNzhTfnF-Yc

Why comets are like deep fried ice cream. http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/rosetta/why-comets-are-like-deep-fried-ice-cream/index.html#.VNzMQfnF-Yd

Nice to see it come together! Thanks for sharing.

Any pilot will tell you. If you get out there and explore enough, you'll see some straaaaaaange things.

Can't one of you computer wizards out there superimpose those colors on the new gif?

http://skrabek.com/ http://www.universetoday.com/118742/the-worlds-rockets-to-scale/

MSL ( Curiosity ) Investigates the Pahrump hills outcrop at the base of Mt. Sharp, December 13, 2014, as seen by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ( HiRISE ) on board NASAs' Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Images are returning, but since John Grotzinger moved on, days go buy without new downloads . Very disappointing. I wonder if they got tired of all the pareidoliaites who see wacky stuff that isn't there, or weren't very happy that Norra Noffke used the images to publish the very well written paper below, claiming to have found structures consistent with microbial mat fossils on Earth. Oh well. This post is mainly to show the image of the rover by MRO. Mmmm. Article, formely free is now behind a pay wall.

Here it is. http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn-gets-closer-views-of-ceres/index.html#.VNOG9Z3F-Yd

Quoting myself from the devnotes, cause it's important to me. Rowsdower! Nooooooooooooo! A good man, with a tough job, done well. Good luck mate. You can pop in and say hello once in a while can'tcha?? At least he sort of weaned us off of himself a bit, instead of tearing himself away like an old bandage.

December 9 ...........................................................................January 8 The changing comet. http://www.universetoday.com/118708/rosetta-sees-fascinating-changes-in-comet-67p/

Ok, Here's NASAs' plan. A lot of stuff to wade through here. I'll let the Planetary Society analyze it for me and get back to you then. http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html#.VM_U8mjF-Yf Audio briefing 4 pm EST. http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html The Presidents' budget proposal for 2016. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2016/assets/budget.pdf

Neil mentioned Deep Space Industries earlier. They have an interesting plan to use microbes, genetically engineered to process metals and other materials, and to live in space. This low temp mining space bug 'soup' will be launched on a mother ship containing multiple cubesats. After finding suitable candidates for mining, the mother ship dispatches a cubesat to inject the 'soup' into the fissures of the asteroid. Years later, you return to a semi processed pile of resources. http://www.space.com/28320-asteroid-mining-bacteria-microbes.html

Test of a 2% scale model of the SLS RS-25 core. http://www.nasa.gov/sls/base-heating-tests.html#.VMwf52jF-Yd

Student designs selected to be 3D printed on the ISS. http://www.nasa.gov/content/students-selected-for-winning-designs-of-3-d-printed-tools-for-astronauts/index.html#.VMwXcWjF-Yc

Fingers crossed for increased NASA funding. Here's how it all works. ( See, this is why we can't have nice things. )

And it's quite unfortunate. We get theses great new build widgets to make more streamlined vessels, and using them (offset tool) causes ships to accelerate.

Remember to join or your work doesn't count- I find it handy to keep the tutorials open in another window. Here's a new Zooniverse discovery pretty well kicked around on the Forums but hitting the press yesterday: We call them.... Yellow balls... http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/spitzer/citizen-scientists-lead-astronomers-to-mystery-objects-in-space/index.html#.VMr7v2jF-Yc