| Kung Fu Cyborg Trailer (Video) http://ow.ly/iHq5 #Sphere: Related ContentThe black eye that Jupiter suffered this month has sparked a host of questions for astronomers as well as for the rest of us: What exactly hit the giant planet, and why didn’t we see it coming? Why is Jupiter’s bruise expanding? How often do these things happen, and how vulnerable are we to a similar cosmic pummeling? Astronomers are closing in on the answers – and helping the public get a better sense of perspective.
The first question is a toughie: What was it that caused Jupiter’s “Great Black Spot,” which was first noticed by an amateur astronomer in Australia back on July 19? “I’m not sure we’ll ever know precisely,” said Glenn Orton, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is a member of the team studying the impact and its aftermath.
Orton addressed the “whatdunit” mystery on JPL’s Weblog and expanded upon the subject in a phone interview. The best guess is that the impactor was a comet that measured perhaps a quarter of a mile (half a kilometer) wide. Why a comet and not an asteroid? “Almost everything in that part of the solar system is icy,” Orton noted.
(read more @ msnbc cosmic log)
Sphere: Related ContentA committee reviewing NASA’s goals has outlined a scheme to send astronauts on progressively longer space trips – including dockings with asteroids and flybys of Venus – to prepare for an eventual landing on Mars.
The White House set up the committee, chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, to review NASA’s plans for human spaceflight, which are currently focused on returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.
It is examining NASA’s current plans and exploring alternative destinations and hardware that NASA could pursue.
Committee member Edward Crawley of MIT presented a short list of possible destinations for future human missions at a public meeting on Thursday in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He is the head of a subcommittee that is investigating options for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.
One of the options the team proposed is called the “flexible path”, which Crawley also described as a “deep space” or “in space” option.
(read more @ NewScientist)
Imagine taking your holidays on a hotel near the Moon and nipping off on a pre-lunch excursion around some its hills and craters
Fanciful? Well, maybe, but that’s the dream of Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic space company.
A new era in private space tourism might just have been launched this week with the first public showing of WhiteKnighttwo, Virgin Galactic’s “mothership”, which will take private tourists on their first journey into space.
(read more @ mirror.co.uk)
If Richard Branson turns up somewhere, you can be fairly certain there’ll be a photo opportunity attached. But Branson’s appearance on Monday at EAA Airventure, the world’s largest private air show, was more than a PR stunt. It also marked the first public flight of Virgin Galactic’s “Mothership” Eve, and signaled space tourism is now closer than ever.
(read more @ gizmag)
Aabar Investments’ buy-in gives British billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture a big financial kickstart at a time when many funding sources have dried up because of the global recession. It also gives the wealthy Persian Gulf sheikdom of Abu Dhabi a chance to build its own space flight industry as it broadens its economy. The Mideast investment fund that recently bet big on Mercedes-Benz said Tuesday it will pay about $280 million to buy nearly a third of commercial space travel startup Virgin Galactic.
(read more @ Sci-Tech Today)
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