NASA's Curiosity rover back online after memory glitch

NASA's Curiosity rover back online after memory glitch - NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Mars since it landed to much fanfare last August, is back on active status Tuesday, after a memory glitch set the robot back.

"We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by the end of the week," said Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper in a statement.

On February 28, controllers put the rover into "minimal activity safe mode" when they switched the machine's operations to a backup computer after detecting malfunctions in the primary computer's flash memory.

 

 

 

Engineers have diagnosed the software issue that prompted the alert last month, and are prepared to prevent it from happening again, NASA said.

The once-primary "A-side" computer is now back online as a backup, it added, and engineers are testing the B-side computer, which has taken over, by commanding a preliminary free-space move of the robotic arm.

The six-wheeled vehicle, with 10 scientific instruments on board, is the most sophisticated robot ever sent to another planet.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity mission, which is set to last at least two years, aims to study the Martian environment and to hunt for evidence of water in preparation for a possible future manned mission.

Last week, NASA announced that the rover's analysis of a rock sample had found conditions once suited to life on the Red Planet.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

At the televised press conference, the NASA team said this was the first definitive proof a life-supporting environment had existed beyond Earth. ( AFP )

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Sun hurls strong geomagnetic storm toward Earth

Sun hurls strong geomagnetic storm toward Earth - The strongest geomagnetic storm in more than six years was forecast to hit Earth's magnetic field on Tuesday, and it could affect airline routes, power grids and satellites, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center said.

A coronal mass ejection - a big chunk of the Sun's atmosphere - was hurled toward Earth on Sunday, driving energized solar particles at about 5 million miles an hour (2,000 km per second), about five times faster than solar particles normally travel, the center's Terry Onsager said.

"When it hits us, it's like a big battering ram that pushes into Earth's magnetic field," Onsager said from Boulder, Colorado. "That energy causes Earth's magnetic field to fluctuate."

The Solar Dynamics Observatory captures an M8.7 class flare in a handout photo released by NASA January 23, 2012. The flare is shown here in teal as that is the color typically used to show light in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, a wavelength in which it is easy to view solar flares. The flare began at 10:38 PM ET on January 22, 2012, peaked at 10:59 PM and ended at 11:34 PM. REUTERS/NASA/SDO/AIA/Handout

This energy can interfere with high frequency radio communications used by airlines to navigate close to the North Pole in flights between North America, Europe and Asia, so some routes may need to be shifted, Onsager said.

It could also affect power grids and satellite operations, the center said in a statement. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station may be advised to shield themselves in specific parts of the spacecraft to avoid a heightened dose of solar radiation, Onsager said.

The space weather center said the geomagnetic storm's intensity would probably be moderate or strong, levels two and three on a five-level scale, five being the most extreme. ( Reuters )

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Scientists Hunt for Meteor Crash Clues in 200-Million-Year-Old Murder Mystery

Scientists Hunt for Meteor Crash Clues in 200-Million-Year-Old Murder Mystery - Mass extinctions are a relatively common theme in the history and evolution of life on Earth, and the most famous one is the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A plethora of research has been conducted to determine how the dinosaur era ended, generating theories of massive volcanic eruptions, catastrophic climate change and giant impactors from space.

However, much less is known about another remarkable extinction event that occurred roughly 135 million years earlier — an extinction that may have set the stage for the age of dinosaurs .

The mass extinction that occurred just before the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods wiped out much of the life on land and in the oceans, leaving the world ripe for dinosaurs to plunder. For astrobiologists, the causes of this extinction comprise one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time.

Now, a team of scientists is helping to reveal the secrets of the Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) extinction by studying geological formations around the world that bear evidence of a traumatic disruption in Earth's ecosystems some 200 million years ago.

Recently, their investigation brought them to the shores of Northern Ireland's Antrim coast near the seaport of Larne. Northern Ireland is famous around the world for its stunning coastal drives and the lush forests of its glens and inlets. However, many of the locals are unaware that the quiet countryside also holds a veritable "pot of gold" beneath their feet for geologists.

The emerald coast

The team of researchers, led by Paul Olsen of Columbia University and Dennis Kent of Rutgers University, gather on a misty Irish morning in a small parking lot in Whitehead, Northern Ireland.

Here, they are able to cross the train tracks that hug the coastline and scramble down to a seawall that provides a safe route along the rocky shore. As their shoes slip along the damp stone, the small cliffs come into view ahead.

There is nothing particularly dramatic about the cliffs themselves, which are nestled below the train line and an imposing seawall topped with barbed wire. But the crumbling rocks peeking out from straw grass and brambles are a rare outcrop of material from the T-J boundary. They contain physical and fossil evidence that could help determine what happened to Earth's ecosystems before, during and after the T-J extinction.

In a time of plenty

At the time of the T-J extinction, the view from Northern Ireland's Antrim Coast may have been quite similar to the one that the research team is treated to today. In the late Triassic, Earth's landmass was smashed together as the single supercontinent Pangaea, and the British Isles were positioned relative to one another in much the same way they are now.

However, the waterways of the North Atlantic that now separate Ireland and Great Britain had much less exchange with the open ocean. In fact, this body of water was more akin to a large, inland sea. As the waves of this sea rolled in and out, the sediments they gradually deposited on the floor recorded a history of the environment that can be read like a book by geologists today as they dig down through the layers.

The late Triassic was a time of plenty for Earth, and the planet was a veritable paradise for life. Even the land now known as Antarctica was temperate, moist and supported a diverse range of flora and fauna. On the shores of the ancient Irish Sea, amphibians roamed the land alongside reptiles, some of which had some distinctly mammal-like traits.

Suddenly, disaster struck. In the geological blink of the eye (i.e., 10,000 years), life on Earth began to die. Two hundred million years ago, just before Pangaea began to break apart, half of the known species on Earth disappeared.

Many of the mammal-like reptiles were wiped out along with a vast array of single-celled and multicellular creatures on sea and land. Theories have been put forth about how this could have happened, but evidence of the true cause has eluded scientists for decades.

Modern shores and ancient lake beds

Evidence of the T-J extinction has been reported by numerous researchers working in sites throughout the world. For instance, a sharp decline in organic carbon and marine organisms was reported in samples from Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands in 2001 and St. Audrie’s Bay in England in 2002.

With their sampling efforts in the United Kingdom, Paul Olsen and his team are hoping to add their expertise to solving the T-J question. In various locations throughout the UK, scientists have identified outcrops of rock from the T-J boundary that are uniquely exposed at the Earth's surface. These sites are like natural libraries for geologists, where they can simply walk up and pick up samples that were "written" by the Earth at specific points in its history.

The researchers chose two additional sites in the British Isles to examine. The first was in western England's Somerset County. Here, the sediments that settled on the bed of the tropical sea between Great Britain and Ireland are now visible as great sheets of rock below the cliffs of the Bristol Channel. In these cliffs are visible layers of limestone and shale that contain a myriad of fossils — lasting evidence of the T-J catastrophe.

The team's second site was Lavernock beach near Barry Island, Wales. At these sites, there is a "dead zone" where few fossils can be found at the time of extinction.

At all three sites (Northern Ireland, Somerset and Wales), the cliffs reveal a unique feature that makes the British Isles of particular interest in the story of the T-J event. Near the time of extinction, the layering has been contorted. In contrast to the surrounding sediments, the layers ripple and bend as if they were shaken and pushed out of place. Could it be a clue of some specific, violent event that befell the region?

According to Paul Olsen, "The scale of the disruption is huge, and a huge cause seems likely."

This type of deformation is not rare in the geological record. Local disturbances, such as earthquakes, often disrupt the layers of rock beneath the Earth. What is unique is that it occurs all around the United Kingdom. If this deformation was caused by an earthquake, it would have been a very large one indeed.

"Not only is this disruption seen in the UK," Olsen said, "but it also appears to be present in at least Belgium and maybe as far away as Italy, according to the work of my UK and US colleagues."

Interestingly, at the Lavernock beach site in Wales, the deformation rests just below the dead zone where few fossils are found. This raises questions about whether or not the deformation event is tied to the loss of life at the T-J boundary.

"It's extremely unusual to have such a widespread zone of deformation," Olsen said. "The fact that it occurs very close below the extinction level suggests that there might be a causal relationship between the cause of the disruption, probably a mega-earthquake, and the extinction itself."

The culprit

Many of the typical explanations for mass extinctions have been put forth as potential culprits in the T-J event. These include dramatic climate change or the evolution of new and more competitive life forms. However, geological evidence from the British Isles provides little support for these theories.

The organic-rich shale that is widespread in the UK is evidence of a period of anoxia (no oxygen) — but these rocks were laid down seemingly later than the actual extinction event. Evidence for disruption of the carbon cycle due to global warming is also present, but again it postdates the main extinction event. In the UK, the extinction appears to time more closely to geological evidence of sea-level fall and loss of shallow marine habitats.

So what could cause a large-scale disruption in the geological record — rippling and twisting layers of rock over an area the size of the British Isles — and cause global repercussions that could change the course of life's evolution at the planetary scale? Could the dinosaur age have been ushered in by the same type of event that brought it to a close — namely, an impact from space?

Questions concerning an impact event at the time of the T-J extinction have been raised before, but there is no known impact crater from this time period that is large enough to have caused so much damage.

The surface of the Earth is an incredibly dynamic place. Processes such as weathering, erosion and shifting plate tectonics mean that physical features on Earth are constantly being born and then wiped away. Mountains grow and wither, rivers change course and ancient impact craters are washed away or covered by soil and forests.

The only known impact that is thought to have occurred around the time of the T-J extinction, and in a location near the Britsh Isles, struck the Earth near the village of Rochechouart, France. Today, the Rochechouart crater is so heavily eroded that no surface features are visible at the Earth's surface. Disruptions in the rocks surrounding the impact were discovered in the early 19th century, but it wasn't until 1969 that the French geologist François Kraut proved an actual crater existed underground.

The Rochechouart crater is relatively small, with an estimated diameter of only 13 miles (21 kilometers), although before erosion it may have been about twice that wide. Unfortunately for Paul Olsen and his team, it is unlikely that the Rochechouart impact was large enough to cause a mass extinction all on its own.

By expanding their sampling efforts, the researchers hope to gain a larger view of the events surrounding the T-J extinction. Rochechouart may not be the primary culprit, but maybe it's just one piece in a series of catastrophes, from impacts to earthquakes and the eruption of a giant pulse of lava flows, that befell the Earth at this point in history.

What's next

Back on the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland, the researchers are finishing their day of sampling. New pieces of the T-J puzzle have been pulled from the cliffs, catalogued and placed in sample bags. The supplies are packed away and the now sample-laden backpacks are slung over shoulders. As the team climbs atop the seawall to make the trek back home, the mists finally give way to brilliant sunshine.

The samples collected from Northern Ireland will now make their way back to Columbia University, where they can be carefully studied in the laboratory.

"The samples will be analyzed for platinum group elements (PGEs), the specific ratios of which can help us distinguish between causes related to impacts or volcanic eruptions," Olsen said.

On Earth, the elements referred to as PGEs (such as iridium, platinum, palladium and osmium) were concentrated in the core shortly after our planet was formed, leaving the crust depleted in these metals. This means that there is a lower proportion of iridium at the Earth's surface relative to debris objects (like asteroids and comets) left over from the formation of the solar system.

Asteroids and comets retain higher levels of PGEs and have distinct PGE signatures, generally with more iridium relative to platinum and palladium. Most lavas have very low levels of PGEs with crustal ratios of the elements (although there are some exceptions), and volcanic and magmatic processes occurring on the way to the surface can also result in distinct PGE signatures.

Thus, generally only layers with both high levels of PGEs and high levels of iridium are candidates for an impact origin. Studying PGE concentrations and ratios has helped scientists recognize impact structures in the past, even millions of years after they were formed. A famous example is the iridium anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, which has been shown to originate from the impact of a giant dinosaur-dooming asteroid or comet.

"We have already found platinum group element evidence of an impact in eastern North America and Morocco," Olsen said, "and if we find it here in the UK, we will make a concerted effort to find more definitive evidence of an impact such as shocked quartz. But searching for that is very laborious, and we need to know which specific layer to focus on."

The Antrim coast will help the team build on previous studies from far-flung locations. Each of these locations offers a new perspective on the disaster that befell life at the boundary of the Triassic and Jurassic periods. With every new sampling effort, Paul Olsen and his team are getting closer and closer to understanding this pivotal period in life's evolution on Earth. ( space.com )

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Possible UFO in Kansas mystery solved

Possible UFO in Kansas mystery solved - Residents of Cowley County, Kansas caused a sensation last week when they captured video of the military towing a concealed object on a flatbed truck down US Highway 77. It wasn't long before a wave of speculation hit, claiming the object was a UFO.

Depending on the angle from which you spotted it, the 30 foot-wide mysterious craft appeared to be saucer-shaped. It was so large that local law enforcement had to remove roadside signage so it could pass through. But it was covered in a tightly concealed tarp, making any further examination impossible.

However, as Gizmodo points out, the craft does not technically meet the definition of UFO. For starters, even if it were an alien craft, the object was not flying. And more important, it's no longer unidentified.

The X-47B unmanned drone (NorthropGrumman.com)

Local sheriff Don Read announced that the tarp was in fact covering a flying object, but one of decidedly Earthly origins. More specifically, it was a drone aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman. After Read's disclosure, Northrop Grumman senior manager of public relations Brooks McKinney stepped forward to provide more details, telling Life's Little Mysteries that the "UFO" is a X-47B unmanned combat drone designed to operate from aircraft carriers. It was headed to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

Drone technology, or Unmanned Systems (UMS) have become so commonplace, that Northrop Grumman has a section dedicated to them on its public website. There's even a page for the X-47B itself.

"Clearly people are interested in what's going through town. It's unusual to see a shrink-wrapped aircraft, especially one with that shape," McKinney said.

"We built two for the Navy, they were being tested at Edwards Air Force Base [in California] since March. One is on its way to Maryland, and the other will remain in California."

And the reason they weren't actually flying the high-tech aircraft was even simpler. "It's difficult to fly an unmanned drone through commercial airspace," McKinney said.

Finally, the question "What's the matter with Kansas?" can be answered: A painful lack of alien spaceships. ( The Sideshow )

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Slam! Two Asteroids Suspected in Space Collision

Slam! Two Asteroids Suspected in Space Collision. A mysterious trail of debris spotted in space suggests two asteroids recently slammed into each other.

Though such space rock collisions are thought to be common, direct evidence of the cosmic smashups has never been seen before. New images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, however, have caught the suspected collision on camera.

An X-shaped debris pattern was observed by Hubble on Jan. 25 and 29. The pictures, released today, show a comet-like object, dubbed P/2010 A2, with the X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.

"This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," said study leader David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. "The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies."

The two asteroids likely smashed into each other with an average impact speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, or five times faster than a rifle bullet.

The Hubble photos show that the main nucleus of P/2010 A2 lies outside its own halo of dust. This pattern has never been seen before in a comet-like object. The nucleus is estimated to be about 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter.

Scientists think this nucleus is the surviving remnant of the collision, and the tail is the rubble left over from the crash.

"If this interpretation is correct, two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," Jewitt said.

P/2010 A2 orbits in the warm, inner regions of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. When the object was observed, it was approximately 180 million miles (290 million km) from the sun and 90 million miles (145 million km) from Earth.

The Hubble images were captured by its new Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed during the May 2009 space shuttle servicing trip. The camera can spot house-sized fragments at the distance of the asteroid belt. ( space.com )

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Britain pulls the plug on its UFO hotline

Britain pulls the plug on its UFO hotline. Military officials say the UFO office has outlived its usefulness. Seen a UFO? Don't bother calling the Brits, they've stopped listening.

The British military has quietly shut down its UFO hotline as a cost-cutting measure after more than 50 years in operation. No longer will Britons who think they've seen Martian craft in the sky be able to enlist the services of Her Majesty's armed forces by reporting suspicious aerial activity to a toll-free phone number and an e-mail address.

In this image made available by Britain's National Archives Wednesday May 14, 2008, a sketch made by a police officer after a sighting of an unidentified Flying Object in England in 1984 is seen.

The Ministry of Defense said the elimination of the UFO office would save about 44,000 pounds ($73,000) a year that would be better spent helping the troops in Afghanistan, where Britain has about 9,500 soldiers.

The quiet closure of the phone hotline and deactivation of the e-mail account earlier this week has angered the many Britons who believe UFO research is vital.

"I think it's a stupid thing to do because this could create a threat to national security," said Roy Lake, founder of the London UFO Studies group. "We take this quite seriously. We know that sometimes things can be explained as natural phenomena but there could be that one thing that's not. I think the government knows damn well what's going on up there and they're covering it up."

But military officials say the UFO office has outlived its usefulness.

"None of the thousands of UFO sightings reported over the years have ever provided substantiated proof of the existence of extraterrestrials," a Defense Ministry spokesman said. "There is no defense value in investigating UFO reports."

The spokesman said closing down the UFO inquiry unit would not add to the security threats Britain faces. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy, he said no one has lost their job because of the closure of the UFO portfolio, which over the years had detailed more than 12,000 sightings, including many with fanciful illustrations about purported encounters with aliens.

The military is taking no position on the existence or nonexistence of UFOs but has concluded that in 50 years none of the many reported UFO sightings turned out to be a national security threat.

Some view the decision as a sacrifice of mystery and romance in the name of cold financial logic.

Nick Pope, who helped the British military with its UFO investigations for many years, said the decision is wrongheaded.

"It's a great shame," he said. "This is the end of over 50 years of research and investigation into one of the biggest mysteries of our time."

Pope said the decision will also hurt British national security. He said that if commercial airline pilots and other experts no longer report suspicious activity it will leave the country more vulnerable to terrorist activity and to espionage.

"That's one thing we learned in the 9/11 attacks, the threat of incoming aircraft with transponders turned off," he said.

Over the years, the British military's investigations generated thousands of pages of secret documents, many of which were recently released by the National Archives after they were declassified.

Some UFO sightings seemed credible, like a 1984 report by a number of experienced air traffic controllers who said they saw an unidentified aircraft land at a small airport, then take off at tremendous speed, while others seemed to be made after a few too many pints at a local pub, like a report of contact with aliens made in 1995.

A few people claimed to have been abducted and offered sketches of the aliens involved.

The UFO document release, which generated attention throughout the world, made clear that the British military did devote considerable resources to the question of extraterrestrial life.

The British public seems sharply divided over whether this was a good use of money and time.

Andrew MacDonald, a Manchester planning and development officer, said it makes sense to cut and run after a half century of investigation proved fruitless.

"I don't believe in them," he said of visitors from outer space. "If the hot line has been in place for 50 years and nothing has been found, and we still don't know if anything dangerous exists, then it's about time we stopped looking."

But London event organizer Rachel Keane, 25, said the hotline was important.

"Who's to say there is nothing out there?" she said. "If there is, it's a bit scary that there is no one to call to inform them of what you've seen. I think someone is out there and we've got to be given a chance to report something strange if we see it." ( Associated Press )

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