Werner Von Braun, Ph.D., rocket physicist from Germany who lead American space development after WWII.
June 18, 2004 Ventura, California - One of the most famous names from the beginning of the American rocket and missile programs after World War II is Wernher von Braun. With the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 after the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dr. von Braun and 126 other German rocket scientists were brought to the United States under a government project called "Paperclip." They were based at Fort Bliss, Texas and their work was focused at the White Sands Missile Range north of Ft. Bliss in southern New Mexico.
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Cassini's four year tour of Saturn, its rings, moons and magnetosphere will begin on July 1, 2004. Artist's conception of Cassini, a plutonium-powered spacecraft carrying 12 science instruments and a probe, in orbit around Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL.
June 11, 2004 Pasadena, California - Three weeks from now on July 1, 2004, humanity's first spacecraft designed to reach and orbit the rings of Saturn will approach from below the ring plane. Cassini, using small jets to control its flight, will cross through the large gap between the very thin outer F Ring and G Ring.
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"The apparent Path of Venus over the face of the Father Sun (an ecliptic transit in relation to the Sun) has announced (in the past) drastic changes in the Earth, from cataclysms, wars, destruction (lack of food, plagues) to historical changes regarding the evolutionary development of both human beings and the Mother Earth (a destiny that is connected although not intertwined)."
- Carlos Barrios, Mayan Priest, May 2004
June 7, 2004, image of Venus as white dot moving toward sun as it nears June 8, 2004, solar transit. Image courtesy Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
June 7, 2004 Antigua, Guatemala - About half the people on Earth might be able to see Venus move as a small black dot across the disc of the sun on June 8, 2004. It takes about six hours and you need a sun filter to protect your eyes. Astronomers have seen the rare event only five times before in the 18th and 19th centuries. For U.S. East Coast observers, the transit is underway at sunrise and ends around 7:25 a.m. EDT. The starting and ending times are listed for major cities at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/Venus2004.pdf.
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"Speculation is that already methane is a rather strong indicator life is probably present today on Mars. Just simply based on methane. ...Formaldehyde is destroyed in the Martian atmosphere within 7.5 hours. There is no way that formaldehyde can exist and remain for a long time in the Martian atmosphere. If (formaldehyde) confirmed, possibly life on Mars today, yes."
- Vittorio Formisano, Ph.D., Physicist
The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) mounted on the Mars Express spacecraft in orbit around Mars has already confirmed a surprisingly large amount of methane in the Martian atmosphere. See 03/31/04 Earthfiles. If molecules of formaldehyde, benzene and ammonia are also confirmed, it would definitely mean biological life processes are at work on Mars. ESA 2001 Illustration by Medialab.
May 6, 2004 Rome, Italy - Back on March 31, 2004, I reported at Earthfiles.com that methane measurements in the Martian atmosphere are being analyzed by Physicist Vittorio Formisano, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) which he built and is mounted on the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express Orbiter designed to detect methane and other gaseous molecules. Dr. Formisano is based at the Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Science in Rome, Italy, and has been commuting to ESA offices in Darmstadt, Germany to gather more data from the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer in hopes that he will be able to confirm the location of one or more sources of the Martian methane. In March, he hoped he would be able to make a definitive statement at the European Geophysical Union (EGU) conference on April 26, 2004, in Nice, France.
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April 19, 2004 Xichang, Sichuan, China - China has launched "Experimental Satellite I," a mini-satellite weighing 93 pounds (204 kilograms) and "Nano-satellite I," a 55-pound (25 kilograms) "micro-satellite" in which metals are bonded at the atomic level. The two satellites are the first of ten that China plans to orbit around the Earth this year and the smallest is a miniature technology breakthrough.
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Before grinding with the abrasion tool, this approximate true-color image taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit shows the rock dubbed "Mazatzal" before the rover drilled into it with its rock abrasion tool. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell.
April 2, 2004 Pasadena, California -
Spirit Rover March 31 - April 1, 2004
NASA/JPL reports that Spirit ended sol 86 at 2:20 p.m. PST on March 31, 2004. The rover applied its flower-like 6-position rock abrasion tool brush mosaic on the rock called "Mazatzal." Below it is the ring drilled previously.
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Methane (CH4) is a colorless, odorless gas that is the main ingredient of natural gas used for fuel. Methane on Earth is produced by animals, bacteria and decaying organic matter which give off so much that methane is the primary greenhouse gas in our planet's atmosphere.
Methane detected by the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on the Mars Express spacecraft in orbit around Mars. ESA 2001 Illustration by Medialab.
March 31, 2004 Darmstadt, Germany - The amount of methane in the Martian atmosphere is estimated to be 10.5 parts per billion, which amounts to 33,000 tons of methane. Methane would be expected to survive as a gas in the Martian atmosphere for about 300 to 350 years before broken down into water and carbon dioxide by the UV radiation from the sun. On Earth, methane is a by-product of biological activity and so this discovery implies the methane source might also be biological on Mars. If there is currently 33,000 tons of methane in the Martian atmosphere, that means 100 tons per year were produced over the 300 to 350 years. That is 300 kilograms per day and implies there is one or more sources able to produce these amounts of methane for a long period of time.The methane data is being analyzed by Physicist Vittorio Formisano, Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) which is mounted on ESA's Mars Express Orbiter to detect methane. Dr. Formisano is based at the Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Science in Rome, Italy. But given the exciting discovery of methane in the Martian atmosphere, Dr. Formisano is now in Darmstadt, Germany, gathering more data from the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer in hopes that he will be able to find one or more sources of the methane by the end of April. I talked with him today in Darmstadt about possible methane sources, including biological life and volcanoes.
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Methane (CH4) is a colorless, odorless gas that is the main ingredient of natural gas used for fuel. Methane on Earth is produced by animals, bacteria and decaying organic matter which give off so much that methane is the primary greenhouse gas in our planet's atmosphere.
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“How it got there in such an eccentric orbit that comes as close as 76 astronomical units to our sun and goes all the way out to nearly 1000 astronomical units away is a complete mystery! There might still be something else out there causing this object's peculiar orbit.”
Brian Marsden, Director, Minor Planet Center,
Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
The new "icy planetoid" or comet object, is unofficially called "Sedna," the Inuit goddess who created Arctic sea creatures. It is very red in color and estimated to be 3/4 the size of Pluto. It travels in a very bizarre elliptical orbit that takes it from about 8 billion to 84 billion miles from Earth beyond the Kuiper Belt of icy objects and near the edge of the Oort Cloud, the source of comets. At those distances, the planetoid takes at least 10,500 years to complete one revolution around the sun. Image credit: Graphics courtesy of NASA and Cal Tech and Michael Brown.
March 15, 2004 Pasadena, California - The first sight of a mysterious object moving slowly like a planet at the outer edges of our solar system was on November 14, 2003. The discoverers were astronomers Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz at Yale University. They have been working together on a NASA-sponsored project, Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT). The team contacted other astronomers who began to look for the object first labeled "2003 VB12" and is now unofficially dubbed "Sedna," the name of an Inuit woman in the Arctic who was thrown from a kayak by her frightened father. Here fingers became the sea creatures. Sedna is definitely a cold place, probably the coldest object in our solar system, with temperatures never rising above MINUS 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Spirit rover brushed off dust in semi-circle, taken by Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Sub-frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 11:43:43 Mars local solar time, camera commandedto use Filter 1 (719 nm).Left photo: Reversed 180 degrees from images posted at NASA website in right photo. Taken by Spirit rover Microscopic Imager Non-linearized full frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission in Gusev Crater at approximately at approximately 11:21:10 Mars local solar time. Images credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS. To see original images, go to sol 65: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.htmlMossbauer Spectrometer target ring on each of the Spirit and Opportunity rover's instrument arms. Image source: NASA/JPL/Cornell.
March 11, 2004 Pasadena, California - As raw images from the rovers continue to be posted at the NASA/JPL website without explanation, some are provocative. It is now clear that the Sol 65 Microscopic Imager photographs of the circular object with the shadow cast downward is an optical illusion caused by the images being placed upside down at the NASA/JPL website.
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