[meteorite-list] Japan beautiful fireball 17DEC2013
List, http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.jp/2013/12/japan-fireball-meteor-17dec2013.html Dirk RossTokyo __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Call for ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection
http://exploration.esa.int/mars/53462-call-for-exomars-2018-landing-site-selection/ Call for ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection European Space Agency 17 Dec 2013 The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI) [on behalf of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos)] invite the scientific community to propose candidate landing sites for the ExoMars 2018 mission. The ExoMars Landing Site Selection Working Group (LSSWG) will support ESA and Roscosmos in evaluating the proposals received, consulting with the wider scientific community, and identifying candidate site(s) for more detailed studies. The LSSWG will then formulate a recommendation to ESA and Roscosmos for the mission's landing site(s). INTRODUCTION TO THE EXOMARS 2018 MISSION The ExoMars Programme's scientific objectives are: * To search for signs of past and present life on Mars; * To investigate the water/geochemical environment as a function of depth in the shallow subsurface; * To study martian atmospheric trace gases and their sources; * To characterise the surface environment. The 2018 mission includes two science elements: a Rover and a Surface Platform. The ExoMars Rover will carry a comprehensive suite of instruments dedicated to geology and exobiology research named after Louis Pasteur. The Rover will be able to travel several kilometres searching for traces of past and present signs of life. It will do this by collecting and analysing samples from outcrops, and from the subsurface - down to 2-m depth. The very powerful combination of mobility with the ability to access locations where organic molecules can be well preserved is unique to this mission. After the Rover will have egressed, the ExoMars Surface Platform will begin its science mission to study the surface environment at the landing location. From a science point of view, a landing site satisfying the Rover mission's search-for-life requirements is expected to be also interesting for the Surface Platform. For the ExoMars Rover to achieve results regarding the possible existence of signs of life, the mission has to land in a scientifically appropriate setting: * The site must be ancient (older than 3.6 Ga) - from Mars' early, habitable period: Pre- to late-Noachian (Phyllosian), possibly extending into the Hesperian; * The site must show abundant morphological and mineralogical evidence for long-duration, or frequently reoccurring, aqueous activity; * The site must include numerous sedimentary rock outcrops; * The outcrops must be distributed over the landing ellipse to ensure that the rover can get to some of them (typical rover traverse range is a few km); * The site must have little dust coverage. PROPOSAL CONTENT The response to this Call will be in the form of a Landing Site Proposal, not longer than six pages (A4 format, 11-pt character size), which must be compiled using the ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Proposal Guide Template, following the instructions included therein. SUPPORT MATERIAL Call for ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Proposals (pdf file; 168 kB) ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Proposal Guide Template (pdf file; 840 kB)) ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection User's manual (pdf file; 2 MB) PROPOSAL SUBMISSION The proposals, in PDF format (file size limit 35 MB), shall be submitted to the following e-mail address: exomars_land...@rssd.esa.int and must be received within Friday, 28 February 2014 (12:00 CET-noon). SCOPE This Call is open to the international Mars science community. The members of the Landing Site Selection Working Group (LSSWG) cannot propose landing sites or be part of landing site proposals. This table presents a tentative schedule for the entire Landing Site Selection process. DateActivity 17 December 2013 Release of Call for Landing Site Proposals. 28 February 2014 Landing Site Proposals due. February/March 2014 Screening of candidate Landing Site proposals by LSSWG. 26-28 March 2014 First ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection (LSS) science workshop at ESTEC, the Netherlands. April / May 2014 LSSWG prioritisation of candidate Landing Sites (based on science, engineering, and Planetary Protection requirements). June 2014Up to four top landing locations identified by LSSWG for further, more detailed study. Aim to complete prior to PDR closure. ... Characterisation work continues. Other science conferences help to further refine findings. Aim to have at least a site certified by CDR (planned for September 2016). October 2017 Final LSSWG recommendation to the Director of Science Robotic Exploration and appropriate Russian authorities prior to mission's FAR. __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list
[meteorite-list] Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1, 500 Years Ago
http://www.space.com/24005-halleys-comet-linked-to-ancient-famine.html Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago By Mike Wall space.com December 18, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO - The ancients had ample reason to view comets as harbingers of doom, it would appear. A piece of the famous Halley's comet likely slammed into Earth in A.D. 536, blasting so much dust into the atmosphere that the planet cooled considerably, a new study suggests. This dramatic climate shift is linked to drought and famine around the world, which may have made humanity more susceptible to Justinian's plague in A.D. 541-542 - the first recorded emergence of the Black Death in Europe. The new results come from an analysis of Greenland ice that was laid down between A.D. 533 and 540. The ice cores record large amounts of atmospheric dust during this seven-year period, not all of it originating on Earth. I have all this extraterrestrial stuff in my ice core, study leader Dallas Abbott, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told LiveScience here last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Certain characteristics, such as high levels of tin, identify a comet as the origin of the alien dust, Abbott said. And the stuff was deposited during the Northern Hemisphere spring, suggesting that it came from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower - material shed by Halley's comet that Earth plows through every April-May. The Eta Aquarid dust may be responsible for a period of mild cooling in 533, Abbott said, but it alone cannot explain the global dimming event of 536-537, during which the planet may have cooled by as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). For that, something more dramatic is required. Ice core data record evidence of a volcanic eruption in 536, but it almost certainly wasn't big enough to change the climate so dramatically, Abbott said. There was, I think, a small volcanic effect, she said. But I think the major thing is that something hit the ocean. She and her colleagues have found circumstantial evidence of such an impact. The Greenland ice cores contain fossils of tiny tropical marine organisms - specifically, certain species of diatoms and silicoflagellates. An extraterrestrial impact in the tropical ocean likely blasted these little low-latitude organisms all the way to chilly Greenland, researchers said. And Abbott believes the object responsible was once a piece of Halley's comet. Halley zooms by Earth once every 76 years or so. It appeared in Earth's skies in A.D. 530 and was astonishingly bright at the time, Abbott said. (In fact, observations of Halley's comet go way back, with research suggesting the ancient Greeks saw the comet streaking across their skies in 466 B.C.) Of the two brightest apparitions of Comet Halley, one of them is in 530, Abbott said. Comets are normally these dirty snowballs, but when they're breaking up or they're shedding lots of debris, then that outer layer of dark stuff goes away, and so the comet looks brighter. It's unclear where exactly the putative comet chunk hit Earth or how big it was, she added. However, a 2004 study estimated that a comet fragment just 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide could have caused the 536-537 cooling event if it exploded in the atmosphere and its constituent dust were spread evenly around the globe. __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] What Happens to Comet ISON's Remains?
http://www.isoncampaign.org/karl/what-happens-to-isons-remains What happens to ISON's remains? by Karl Battams NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign December 18, 2013 Apologies for going quiet on this site - it takes a while to recover from events like this! I have actually started several blog posts and then never gotten chance to finish them. That will happen eventually, and I'll post new content on here from time to time, but right now I just want to address this one issue that I'm still getting an email bombardment about: what happens now to comet ISON's remains? As we all know, comet ISON is no more. It clearly fell apart in the hours surrounding its close brush with the Sun and now exists simple as a dusty cloud and some warm fuzzy memories. But what of that dusty cloud? What if there are chunks remaining? Where are they going? Will they change course and hit Earth? Is Earth going to pass through ISON's remains? Are we doomed?!! These are all variations on several questions I've been receiving, so let me clear up some of these, and hopefully allay the concerns of a few people. As comets travel through space they leave behind themselves a huge trail of tiny dust that can be millions of miles long. Our solar system was already full of them and now, thanks to ISON, it has another one. Now, I have not actually seen any professionally made orbit simulations but, from what I understand, there's a chance that in mid-January of 2014, Earth might pass through, or close to, part of comet ISON's dust trail. So, time to panic? NO! And here are three good reasons why: * Reason #1: Any dust that was released from comet ISON will be tiny. We're talking about sand-grains here. And what happens when a sand-grain sized rock hits Earth's atmosphere? It burns up at extremely high altitude, and we get to see a shooting star in the sky! How many will we see? Well that brings me nicely to... * Reason #2: Space is B-I-G and empty, and so are comet tails. If you were a typical dust grain in a comet's tail, within a few hours of being released you would be well separated from your sibling dust grains and within a few days, you may find yourself hundreds or even thousands of miles from your nearest neighbor. When we talk about a region of space being dusty, we mean it's dusty as opposed to being a complete vacuous void. It's not dusty like an old abandoned warehouse, or one of those construction trucks that drops chunks on the highway that crack your windshield. Instead, think of ISON's tail like a stream of smoke. At the source it might be relatively dense, but very quickly it diffuses and becomes so thin that you can barely notice it. That's what we would have with any dust trail left behind ISON. Not only would the dust be tiny and harmless, there's very little of it! But if that isn't enough to convince you... * Reason #3: When was the last time Earth passed through the tail of a comet? A centuries years ago? A few years maybe? Nope. How about last weekend! That's right, we just had the annual Geminid meteor shower, and this year it was a pretty good show! The Geminids are believed to be the resulting trail from the asteroid comet space-rock 3200 Phaeton. If you check out Wikipedia you can find a complete list of meteor showers that Earth experiences, all of which are the result of passing through comet tails and debris trails in space. So the takeaway message here is that there's apparently a chance that in mid-January, Earth might encounter a handful of sand-grains that are substantially fewer in number than it encounters on one of a couple of dozen occasions throughout the year. Terrifying, right? OK, now on to the second part, which is much shorter. I've read concerns from folks who are worried that now ISON has fallen apart, there could be a whole load of comet chunks flying off in all directions. That's simply not true. Any larger (centimeter? meter?) chunks of rubble remaining from comet ISON will continue along in the same orbit that we knew the comet would follow - namely, harmlessly right out of the solar system. (That aforementioned dust trail I just talked about refers only to stuff that was released by ISON before it got vaporized.) We are safe, I promise! I just paid all my bills for the month. Believe me, if I thought the apocalypse was around the corner, I'd be sitting somewhere hot and sandy with a beer in my hand right now instead of blogging and reaching for another mug of mediocre coffee! __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] JPL to Test New Supersonic Decelerator Technology
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-369 JPL to Test New Supersonic Decelerator Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory December 17, 2013 A giant crane will tower above NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., shooting out of a hilly mesa like an oversized erector set, ready to help test components of NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project. The goal of the challenging technology, led by JPL, is to enable a future mission to Mars or other planetary bodies that uses heavier spacecraft and lands them at locations that were previously not achievable. The crane-test is scheduled for tomorrow, Dec. 18, weather permitting. The test will simulate the acceleration of a large parachute being pulled away from a spacecraft. The purpose of the test is to show that all of the parachute lines and bridles come out in an organized manner and do not catch on other vehicle hardware as they are deployed. Validation tests are crucial to working out the kinks before a system of this type is used for future space missions. During this test, the parachute, which has a diameter of roughly 100 feet (30.5 meters), will not open. Its size is a significant upgrade by comparison to parachutes that have come before it. For instance, last year's successful landing of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover utilized a parachute that measured only 51 feet (15.5 meters) across, about half the size. The heavier planetary landers of the future require much larger drag devices than any now in use to slow them down -- and those next-generation drag devices will need to be deployed at higher supersonic speeds to safely land a vehicle, plus crew and cargo for potential human missions. Current Mars landing techniques date back to NASA's Viking mission, which put two landers on Mars in 1976. That mission's basic parachute design has been in use ever since, with additional landing technologies, and was used again in 2012 to deliver the Curiosity rover to Mars. To conduct more massive exploration missions in the future, however, NASA must advance the technology to a new level of sophistication. Testing for the LDSD project began in 2012 at the U.S. Navy's China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California and will be conducted through 2015. In the next few years, the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator Technology Demonstration Mission will conduct full-scale, stratospheric tests of these breakthrough technologies high above Earth to prove their value for future space exploration missions. More information about LDSD is at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/ldsd/#.UqsZZGRDt9k . David Israel 818-354-4797 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. david.isr...@jpl.nasa.gov 2013-369 __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Chinese Rover NWA 5000 Sales - AD
Where might one find specifications on the Chinese lunar rover (dimensions, technical details, placement of experiments, etc)? Also I am whimsically curious, when the Pathfinder rolled out on Mars, Matchbox made a nice cast-metal souvenir of it. Wonder if that will happen with the Chinese Lunar Rover? Francis Graham On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Greg Hupé gmh...@centurylink.net wrote: Hello Everyone! Chinese Moon Landing = Lunar Meteorite Sales!! Looks like the successful moon landing by the Chinese a couple days ago is good for sales of lunar meteorites… we’ve sold several nice pieces of NWA 5000 over the last couple of days on the Nature’s Vault web site! Here is a link to what we have available on Nature’s Vault: http://www.naturesvault.net/meteorites/nwa5000.html Adam have several awesome pieces in his eBay Store and on regular auction under his eBay seller name, rarmeteorites! Click here to see what he has: http://www.ebay.com/sch/raremeteorites!/m.html?_ipg=50_sop=12_rdc=1 I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!! Best Regards, Greg Greg Hupé The Hupé Collection gmh...@centurylink.net www.NaturesVault.net (Online Catalog Reference Site) www.LunarRock.com (Online Planetary Meteorite Site) NaturesVault (Facebook, Pinterest eBay) http://www.facebook.com/NaturesVault http://pinterest.com/NaturesVault IMCA 3163 Click here for my current eBay auctions: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnaturesvault __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1, 500 Years Ago
Dear listees Interesting... Mid 90s I saw a great documentary on PBS about that period of famine and the decline of the Roman Empire, with scientific evidences that the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia was the reason. Ice cores, texts from the Vatican talking about almost 30 years of dust in the atmosphere and blurred sun, (not just 2 years !) Now we hear about the Halley Comet. Maybe it was both of them... because when I read there was a small volcanic effect... Krakatoa is a major volcano on Earth and its eruption at that time was a major one: scientists identified the huge lava field in the ocean surrounding the Krakatoa. Anyway, very interesting have a great evening Michael B. -- From: Ron Baalke baa...@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2013 6:21 PM To: Meteorite Mailing List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Subject: [meteorite-list] Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago http://www.space.com/24005-halleys-comet-linked-to-ancient-famine.html Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago By Mike Wall space.com December 18, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO - The ancients had ample reason to view comets as harbingers of doom, it would appear. A piece of the famous Halley's comet likely slammed into Earth in A.D. 536, blasting so much dust into the atmosphere that the planet cooled considerably, a new study suggests. This dramatic climate shift is linked to drought and famine around the world, which may have made humanity more susceptible to Justinian's plague in A.D. 541-542 - the first recorded emergence of the Black Death in Europe. The new results come from an analysis of Greenland ice that was laid down between A.D. 533 and 540. The ice cores record large amounts of atmospheric dust during this seven-year period, not all of it originating on Earth. I have all this extraterrestrial stuff in my ice core, study leader Dallas Abbott, of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told LiveScience here last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Certain characteristics, such as high levels of tin, identify a comet as the origin of the alien dust, Abbott said. And the stuff was deposited during the Northern Hemisphere spring, suggesting that it came from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower - material shed by Halley's comet that Earth plows through every April-May. The Eta Aquarid dust may be responsible for a period of mild cooling in 533, Abbott said, but it alone cannot explain the global dimming event of 536-537, during which the planet may have cooled by as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). For that, something more dramatic is required. Ice core data record evidence of a volcanic eruption in 536, but it almost certainly wasn't big enough to change the climate so dramatically, Abbott said. There was, I think, a small volcanic effect, she said. But I think the major thing is that something hit the ocean. She and her colleagues have found circumstantial evidence of such an impact. The Greenland ice cores contain fossils of tiny tropical marine organisms - specifically, certain species of diatoms and silicoflagellates. An extraterrestrial impact in the tropical ocean likely blasted these little low-latitude organisms all the way to chilly Greenland, researchers said. And Abbott believes the object responsible was once a piece of Halley's comet. Halley zooms by Earth once every 76 years or so. It appeared in Earth's skies in A.D. 530 and was astonishingly bright at the time, Abbott said. (In fact, observations of Halley's comet go way back, with research suggesting the ancient Greeks saw the comet streaking across their skies in 466 B.C.) Of the two brightest apparitions of Comet Halley, one of them is in 530, Abbott said. Comets are normally these dirty snowballs, but when they're breaking up or they're shedding lots of debris, then that outer layer of dark stuff goes away, and so the comet looks brighter. It's unclear where exactly the putative comet chunk hit Earth or how big it was, she added. However, a 2004 study estimated that a comet fragment just 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide could have caused the 536-537 cooling event if it exploded in the atmosphere and its constituent dust were spread evenly around the globe. __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Meteorite Picture of the Day
Today's Meteorite Picture of the Day: EET 87503 Contributed by: AMN http://www.tucsonmeteorites.com/mpodmain.asp __ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
