Monday, May 12, 2014

Carnival of Space #353

Welcome to a new edition of COS, number #353, with many articles by our community. A great list of articles dealing with astronauts, stars, planets, moon, comets, asteroids, spaceship, space's history rockets and space's business. There is no way that you will not find good material reading here.


Astroswanny investigates approaching Asteroid 2014 HQ124 discovered two weeks ago by the NEOWISE survey. Currently visible to only southern telescopes in the pre-dawn sky, 2014 HQ124 will make a 3.2 Lunar Distance close approach on June 8th. This is quite close for a large newly discovered asteroid whose size is between 300-500m.

Urban Astronomer takes us to  Titan - the largest moon of Saturn, which is an enigmatic little world. It has earth-like weather, rivers and seas, yet has an average temperature more than a hundred degrees below the coldest weather ever measured on Earth. The more planetary scientists learn about it, the more questions come to light.

Two articles from Universe Today:
  •  Are we ready for contact - Nero-psychologist Gabriel G. de la Torre from the University of Cádiz is questioning whether or not astronomers, who have previously only looked for signs of extraterrestrial life, should actively send messages from Earth.
  • While no one’s yet invented a replicator that can brew a cup of tea out of thin air, scientists have taken in step in that direction by creating an amazing replica of a Martian meteorite using a 3D printer .
 Chandra also sends us two stories
 And the two items of CosmoQuest
  • Planets in the sky (All naked eye are visible) - Go out and look up! Enjoy the planetary offerings in the night sky right now as the weather gets nicer. 
  •  On the Educators' Zone, we're collecting ideas for crafty and artsy space and science projects. Have some in mind, please share! And visit our new collaborative Pinterest board to browse more ideas. 
 Don't miss Space-io9 a recently new member of CoS! Welcome!
From the Meridian Journal desk
NextBigFuture with latest breaking news
  •  The Spacex Falcon 9R rocket rose to a height of 3280 feet (1000 meters) in its latest test, posted on May 1st, 2014. The legs were in a fixed down position from launch to landing, but future tests will begin with them stowed.
  •  Planetary Resources has shifted the company's focus to a more mundane space resource: water. Water found on or near asteroids, their theory goes, could be processed into fuel to extend the useful lives of aging commercial satellites.
  •  Planetary Resources co-founders discuss the space mining companies plans and progress

That's all for this week, enjoy and don't forget to browse a bit in my own site .
Gadi