LEEVENSPARK

BLACK HOLE Black hole is one of the most enigmatic and mysterious objects in the universe. It cannot be seen even with most powerful of telescopes. No object can escape once it falls into a black hole. Even light is held in its grip. Space is highly curved and time moves extremely slowly close to a black hole. Apparently, a black hole is a region of greatly distorted space [and also time]. A black hole, once create, is like a bottom precipice that cannot be filled in or ‘plugged’ with anything. They are almost perpetual holes in space time. They grow at the expense of matter falling into them. Even when no matter fall into black hole, it may stay in the same state for trillions of years. What are black holes? Have you ever had to vacuum your bed room? When you do so, watch closely because you will see dirt, and crumbs start to move towards the vacuum cleaner, cleaning up derbies left behind in outer space.  It is not suction power that makes thing fall into a black hole. Suction

Hitting the earth in ' 2036 ' Apophasis, a 1000 foots wide asteroid will pass earth on 13th April 2029, coming as close as some of our own scientists. It will be thrown off course by the earth’s gravity and, if we are very un lucky, it could swing back and hit us. It is almost certain that the asteroids which are close encounter with the earth will change its orbit. If it pass through a certain keyhole of the space only 600 meters wide, it will be deflected onto a path that will send it crashing onto the planet on its next pass on Sunday, April 13, 2036. Scientists have estimated that it has one chance in about 6,250 of hitting the earth. Such an impact would yield one of the greatest natural disasters occurring in the human life history. The impact would create a blast that the largest atomic or nuclear weapon which is thousand times much more powerful. This will kill millions of people if the impact occurred near a populated area or create a enormous Tsunami if the impac

Project Icarus is an ambitious five-year study into launching an unmanned spacecraft to an interstellar destination. Headed by the Tau Zero Foundation, a non-profit group of scientists dedicated to interstellar spaceflight, Icarus is working to develop a spacecraft that can travel to a nearby star. Dr. Robert Adams, study lead in the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and Lead Designer for the Mission Analysis and Performance Module for Project Icarus, explains the realities behind getting an interstellar spacecraft to its destination. WIDE ANGLE: Project Icarus : Reaching for Interstellar Space One critical feature of any interstellar voyage is the "mission analysis," which organizes science objectives, plots movement through space and determines abort and correction scenarios. Some refer to this effort as "trajectory analysis" or "astrodynamics" but it encompasses more than simply plotting a path through the heavens. Com

GIST OF THE STORY Researchers have long been trying to explain the origin of the ammonia that triggered the formation of the first biomolecules on Earth. Meteorites may have released compounds including hydrocarbon chains and a large amount of ammonia, which is rich in nitrogen.                                             A meteorite found in Antarctica adds extra impact to the theory that the essential building blocks of life on Earth came from outer space, say scientists. The team from the University of Arizona say they have discovered a "carbonaceous chondrite" meteorite -- found in 1995 and called "CR2 Grave Nunataks 59229" -- contains relatively high amounts of ammonia and amino acids. Carbonaceous chondrites meteorites contain abundant organic materials as they have not been melted, and much of their original chemical composition remains intact. The research, led by Professor Sandra Pizzarello, is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of S

The greatest challenge posed by trans-galactic exploration may be the re-engineering of human life spans to match the time required for travel between star systems.

Saturn's moon , Enceladus , is covered with geysers shooting plumes of water vapor, icy particles and organic compounds. Instruments aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected have carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and various hydrocarbons in the gas plumes.                                       New data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicates one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, may have a fizzy ocean capable of harboring life.                                                                           The findings could explain the vast icy plumes of water that spray into space through fissures -- known as tiger stripes -- on the moon's frozen surface. "Geophysicists expected Enceladus to be a lump of ice, cold, dead and uninteresting," lead Cassini planetary scientist Dennis Matson from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California said. Instead scientists have recently discovered the moon is covered with geysers shooting plumes of w

":" C H A N C E  TO  F I N D  A L I E N 'S  L I F E ":" "You can see here the small planets dominate the picture," he casually said while referring to a graph depicting the different exoplanet sizes and their number as of July 2010. Although he refers to these exoplanets as "candidate" Earth-like worlds, Sasselov goes on to talk about the statistical prevalence of small planets throughout the Milky Way. Before Kepler, only the larger exoplanets could be seen. This is fairly obvious; large gas giants are easier to detect over the great interstellar distances. The highly sensitive Kepler has now leveled the playing field, indicating that there are many more exoplanets twice the size of Earth and smaller. Undoubtedly, this is huge news. If officially confirmed by NASA -- and only then would it be advisable to pop the champagne corks -- the discovery of dozens of worlds of comparable size to Earth is historic. Although it has largely bee

":" E a r t h   l i k e   P l a n e t s ":" NASA's Kepler Mission has identified more than 750 possible extrasolar planets after monitoring more than 156,000 stars. But it's keeping the best data back. The Kepler space observatory looks for the data signatures of planets by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars when planets cross in front ofthem. The size of the planet can be derived from the change in the star's brightness. NASA is examining 43 days of science data on the stars, looking for subtle brightness changes to determine if orbiting planets are responsible, and has released much of it to the scientific community. But data on some of the stars is being kept back, while the team uses ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope to perform follow-up observations on a specific set of 400 objects of interest. The rest of the data will be released to the scientific community next February, afte

NASA's Kepler telescope has for the first time observed a planetary system with two planets passing in front of their star. The planets, now named named Kepler-9b and 9c, were seen transiting the sun-like star called Kepler-9. The announcement comes just days after ESO released data on a planetary system believed to have five orbiting planets, discovered with the HARP ground-based telescope. Kepler can measure the tiny drop in brightness that occurs when a planet transits a star; the size of the planet can be worked out from the scale of the dips. The time between dips gives the distance of the planet from the star, and variations in their regularity can be used to work out the planets' masses and detect other non-transiting planets in the system.   Kepler found more than 700 possible planets in its first 43 days, and has discovered five more systems that appear to have more than one transiting planet. "Kepler's high quality data and round-the-clock cov

Image via Wikipedia The Roach Stuff: Packing for Mars                                                   Author Mary Roach about her new book Packing For Mars : The Curious Science of Life in the Void. In part 1 of this 2-part… read more... Mary Roach Is Packing For Mars (scientificamerican.com) A new book from author Mary Roach is always a welcome sight, even more so when it delves into the human side of spaceflight. In Packing for Mars, Roach explores what should be familiar ground to “spaceniks” and comes up with all kinds of fresh, surprising material, delivered with her trademark wit. Trust me, you’ll want to read all about Enos the space chimp, fights between astronauts, and the icky details of various bodily functions in space. read more....

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