Finding water on the moon, initiating a search for Earth-size planets, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and a new federal government cloud computing initiative were among the top stories for NASA Ames Research Center in 2009, which has just published its review of the year online and outlined some of its plans for 2010. (more…)

In case you don’t know it, there will be a blue moon – the first in 20 years – at 7.15pm tonight which should, cloud cover permitting, be viewable here in the Lancaster area. Not only that, there will be a partial lunar eclipse with the deepest eclipse at 7.22pm.

This eclipse of the Moon is partial, so only eight per cent of the Moon will actually be covered by Earth’s shadow. However, quite a lot of the moon will appear to change colour. (more…)

Learning how to walk again after long-duration space flights is a problem astronauts face as they readjust to Earth’s gravity. To learn how microgravity affects human space travelers, NASA scientists studied the nanomechanics of hair cells in the inner ear.

Their research may also help solve more down to Earth medical problems for ordinary people, such as motion sickness.

Using the toadfish (Opsanus tau) as their model, scientists tested whether hair cells amplify stimuli from very small head movements, and if so, can the brain regulate this enhanced sensitivity and shift this function on or off?

Test results showed that an organism’s ability to maintain equilibrium is regulated by hair cell sensory organs, including hearing organs.

“These hair cells are specialized mechanical sensors that are used to understand sound in the environment, and countermove the head for balance and coordination,” said Richard Boyle, a space bioscientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “Understanding the fundamental physiology of the hair cell in the inner ear is critical to identifying the impact of spaceflight on an organism.”

Boyle is an author of “Mechanical amplification by hair cells in the semicircular canals,” scheduled for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, this week.

The inner ear organs are designed and precisely attuned to changes in the environment: for the hearing organ, a change in the sound pressure, such as caused by a car horn, can deform the ear drum and rapidly lead to the recognition and location of the sound. For the balance organ, movement of the head, such as unexpectedly stepping off the curb, is sensed and rapidly leads to motor reflexes to maintain equilibrium. The more sensitive our ability is to detect these changes, the more acute our sensation. This remarkable tuning and amplification to detect the slightest stimuli, allows us to adjust our posture.

For large movements this amplification is not evident. It is over the very small head movements that the amplification process benefits our ability to sense movement. But this places the hair cell systems at the blink of instability.

Fortunately, the amplification process is not all-or-nothing, but actually controlled by the organism. According to the organism’s intended behaviour, this instability can be turned off through a pathway from the brain back to the inner ear organs. For example, during a large, self-generated movement of the head, as one rapidly turns to view the location of the car horn, the amplification process can be turned off.

Fossil evidence, dating from at least the Devonian Period 400 million years ago, shows that the elaborate sensory structures used to sense the organism’s movement are remarkably conserved among vertebrata. The results demonstrate an active process in the hair cells of an ancient bony fish, thus suggesting that the mechanism is ancestral, and may underlie the broad appearance of active hair cell processes in amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, including humans.

During orbital missions, organisms on board the spacecraft are exposed to microgravity. Microgravity exposure causes severe disorientation or “space adaptation syndrome” for many human travelers, a condition similar to what we on Earth experience as motion sickness. The possible cause is a miscommunication of information provided by various sensory systems.

“A change in gravity has a profound effect on how organisms maintain coordination and balance,” said Boyle. “This information is essential to understanding the human condition on Earth, and may contribute to the science that will eventually lead to improved diagnostics and treatment of disorders, such as dizziness and motion sickness,” he added.

For more information about NASA visit: www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

NASA scientists are sending three fundamental life science experiments onboard space shuttle Discovery in hopes of better understanding exactly how spaceflight affects cell growth and how cells fight off infections. Future astronauts on long-term space missions need to understand how wounds heal and cells become infected in space to prevent illnesses during space travel. (more…)

Ever wondered what we’re going to be up to in a couple of centuries time? Science fiction author extraordinaire Stephen Baxter reckons we could have colonised Mars by then, in a feature for the current issue of the BBC science magazine FOCUS which has been out for a couple of weeks but I only spotted it on my way out of the UK for a well-earned break.

In the April issue, ace science fiction author Stephen Baxter writes on how we’d terraform the Red Planet, while Stuart Clark delivers a piece called “Mining the Moon”, looking at the resources we could get – and how. Plus, there’s an interview with a man who researches warp drive and hyperspace travel and a great piece on what our alien neighbours might look like.

Focus is the BBC’s science and technology monthly magazine, described as jargon-free and accessible, so “you don’t need a PhD in particle physics to enjoy reading it”. All you need is a quizzical mind that wants to understand the world around you, and gain a fact or two to keep up your sleeve in a pub quiz emergency.

The issue is well worth picking up if you’re interested in space exploration.

An artist's rendition of Ares I being stacked in the vehicle assembly building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image: NASA

Aerospace engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center are conducting a series of wind tunnel tests to develop technology for future human space exploration – the kind of technology I like to keep my eye on as background information when writing Ex Astris (when I get the chance to write Ex Astris!)

Orion, for those of you who don’t already know, is NASA’s next generation human spacecraft, which the agency and its contractor teams are in the process of designing, building and testing. (more…)

Dan Dare fans inspired by his adventures might well be interested in Professor Colin Pillinger’s new book, My Life on Mars.

Colin gained his PhD from the University of Swansea, Wales, in the late 1960s , and became one of the lucky few Britons to work on the lunar samples brought back by the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission. Later, at Cambridge and the Open University, he developed techniques for classifying meteorites according to their chemical composition, and has worked on a NASA mission to collect a sample of the ‘solar wind’, and ESA missions to investigate how meteorites erode in space.

He’s perhaps best known for his work on the European Mars Express project and the the Mars Lander, Beagle 2 and his experiences surrounding its development are a major part of the new book.

(more…)

On February 15th sunspot 1158 exploded blasting a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) in our direction.

This huge cloud of charged particles is due to reach Earth tonight, February 16th and tomorrow, February 17th which will result in increased auroral activity.

This is the largest flare to erupt from the sun in four years and due to its size it may be possible to view spectacular displays of aurora so keep an eye out over the next two days for auroral activity towards the north or the south if you happen to be in the southern hemisphere.

(With thanks to Pascal Desmond)

As the Space Shuttle era draws to a close for NASA, with the final mission next month, Apogee Books have released Voyages of Discovery – The Missions Of The Space Shuttle Discovery, the first book to cover specifically the history of the space shuttle Discovery, the most storied orbiter in the fleet.

A very straight forward narrative history of the most storied orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet, the book is written by written by former navy man Robert A Adamcik with a minimum of technical jargon. It put the reader on Discovery‘s flight deck during some of the most important missions of the Space Shuttle era from satellite retrieval to deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, to construction of the International Space Station, and the Return to Flight after two tragic losses. (more…)