NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos

An image taken by the European Space Agency's OSIRIS wide-angle camera onboard the Rosetta space probe from a distance of 30 km (18.6 miles) from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Scientists have found further evidence that comets harbour the building blocks of life, and have collected the first close-up data that will help them understand how these celestial bodies evolve as they hurtle toward the sun.
Picture: AP Photo/ESA/Rosetta/OSIRIS


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Mars Rover Photo Shows 'Human Shadow,' Or Maybe It Doesn't
From rats to skulls to a disappearing doughnut, so-called "ufologists" claim to have seen in photos taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

Now they're saying that a (see below) shows the shadow of a human or human-like alien "messing with" the rover.

"The person has no helmet and their short hair is visible and in high detail," Taiwan-based ufologist Scott Waring wrote in a . "The person has on air tanks on their back and a suit that covers most of the body except the hair."


Waring goes on to wonder if the image indicates that the rover isn't on Mars at all but right here on Earth--or that humanoid aliens live on the Red Planet.

Of course, there's always the (more likely) possibility that the shadow only looks likethat of a human form. It makes sense that our brains would interpret the image this way. Humans are wired to spot patterns and even faces in images--it's a phenomenon called .

Here's the same shadow from a slightly different angle taken about 28 seconds later. Yes, it still looks vaguely like a person. But if it is, "he or she" managed to keep perfectly still, because the figure hasn't budged even slightly.


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Astronomers find oldest known star with Earth-like planets

This artist's rendering made available by Tiago Campante and Peter Devine shows the Kepler-444 star system, surrounded by at least five earth-sized planets. On Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015, an international team of astronomers announced that this extrasolar system is 11.2 billion years old. With the age of the universe pegged at 13.8 billion years, this is the oldest star with close-to-Earth-size planets ever found. (AP Photo/Tiago Campante, Peter Devine)

Miami (AFP) - International astronomers said Tuesday they have discovered the oldest known star encircled by five Earth-sized planets, signaling that planets formed throughout the history of the universe.

The system is 11.2 billion years old and was born near the dawn of the galaxy, said the report in the Astrophysical Journal.

The star has been named Kepler-444, since it was found with the help of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft which launched in 2009.

Its five planets are a bit smaller than the Earth, ranging in size from Venus to Mercury.

They circle their Sun-like star in less than 10 days, at a distance smaller than one-tenth the distance between the Earth and Sun -- making them too hot to be habitable.

But the sheer age of the star has stunned astronomers.

At a distance of 117 light-years from Earth, Kepler-444 is two and a half times older than our solar system, which is 4.5 billion years old.

"We've never seen anything like this -- it is such an old star and the large number of small planets make it very special," said co-author Daniel Huber from the University of Sydney's School of Physics.

"It is extraordinary that such an ancient system of terrestrial-sized planets formed when the universe was just starting out, at a fifth its current age," he added.

Astronomers can measure a distant planet's age using a technique called asteroseismology, which measures the oscillations of the host star caused by sound waves trapped within it.

These waves lead to small pulses in the star's brightness, which can be analyzed to measure its diameter, mass and age.

Co-author Steve Kawaler, an Iowa State University professor of physics and astronomy, said Kepler-444 is very bright and can be easily seen with binoculars.

"We now know that Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the universe's 13.8-billion-year history," said lead author Tiago Campante from the University of Birmingham.

"Which could provide scope for the existence of ancient life in the galaxy."



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This image released by European Southern Observatory and taken by ESOs Very Large Telescope shows the cometary globule CG4 glowing menacingly. Although it looks huge and bright in this image it is actually a faint nebula and not easy to observe.
Picture: AFP/Getty Images


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Space X Falcon Heavy concept.
Note All three First stages return.

Cue Bill Nye the Science Guy.

A dark, snaking line across the lower half of the sun in this images from Feb. 10, 2015, shows a filament of solar material hovering above the sun's surface.
Picture: NASA/SDO



Nasa astronaut Terry Virts tweeted this astonishingly beautiful photo of the British Isles with the aurora borealis glowing over Scotland
Picture: @astroterry



An unmanned Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket lifts off from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida. On board is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which will head toward a solar-storm lookout point a million miles away.
Picture: AP Photo/John Raoux


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The dwarf planet Ceres taken by Nasa's Dawn spacecraft from a distance of nearly 29,000 miles. It shows that the brightest spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion, which apparently lies in the same basin according to Nasa.
Picture: Reuters/Nasa

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Nasa astronauts have undertaken three spacewalks on the International Space Station (ISS). Two astronauts conducted the third spacewalk in just over a week to lay cables and install antennas on the ISS, Nasa said. Astronaut Terry Virts took this photo of his colleague Commander Barry 'Butch' Wilmore. 'Can you spot the space walker in this picture? He's very small compared to the enormous starboard truss of the ISS.'
Picture: Nasa/Rex


...The cables and antennas are part of a communication system that will be used when visiting spaceships such as Boeing's Crew Transportation System and Dragon's SpaceX dock with the ISS, the US space agency said in a blog post.
Picture: EPA/NASA


Nasa astronaut Terry Virts tweeted this shot: 'The camera doesn't do it justice - floating in space, looking down on creation, seeing new color shades'
Picture: Nasa/Rex


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New pics from ISRO's Mars orbiter mission
3D view of Arsia Mons, a huge volcano on Mars


Close-up view of a portion of the gigantic Valles Marineris Canyon of Mars.


Eos Chaos area, part of the gigantic Valles Marineris Canyon of Mars


Phobos, one of the two natural satellites of Mars silhouetted against the Martian surface

payload views the albedo of Mars

Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) payload onboard MOM intends to detect the presence of Methane and measure the column density of the same. One of the secondary objectives of this payload is to measure the reflectance of Martian surface in 1.65 micron. MSM has two channels, Methane and reference to measure the radiance from the surface of Mars.
All planets in the Solar system receive Sun’s radiation to varying degrees depending on their distance from the Sun. Observing the surface of the planet depends on how this radiation is reflected back. Reflected solar radiation from Mars is a diagnostic signal of the planet which provides lot of information about the planet’s surface as well as its atmosphere. When we measure the radiance in a specific wavelength of light (in this case, 1.65 micron), then we can generate a reflectance map.
The map presented here shows the surface reflectance of Mars as viewed at 1.65 micron from the reference channel of MSM till December 16, 2014. In the map, the blue colour indicates low albedo features and the red shows high albedo features on the Martian surface.
The map resolution is 0.5°x0.5° in Latitude-Longitude. By correcting the data for CO2 absorption, a major part of atmospheric effects is taken care of. This data along with the reflectance measured by Mars Colour Camera will be useful to study the surface properties of Mars.
(Image credit: SAC, ISRO)