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"headTitle": "Months After its Pluto Encounter, NASA Spacecraft Still Surprises and Delights | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Seven months after its historic encounter with Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons mission is still dazzling us with discoveries: ancient frozen canyons, chains of icebergs floating in rivers of exotic slush, signs of paleo-oceans, and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a quick flyby mission that lasted mere hours, New Horizons is the gift-giver that keeps on giving as its Pluto data trickles back to Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Icebergs Floating in Nitrogen Slush?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You may have heard of Pluto’s 10,000-foot-high mountain ranges of water ice, possible cryovolcanoes, and nitrogen-ice glaciers pouring through canyons and spilling out into wide flat milky plains. What you may not know is that Pluto has \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=408\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">floating islands\u003c/a>—yes, islands. Or, maybe more correctly, icebergs, of a sort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556873\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556873\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-800x480.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto's "floating ice islands" in the plains of Sputnik Planum. \" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-800x480.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-400x240.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-768x461.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-1180x708.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-960x576.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s “floating ice islands” in the plains of Sputnik Planum. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the smooth white plains of\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/image-of-plutos-vast-icy-plain-informally-called-sputnik-planum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Sputnik Planum\u003c/a>, out among the flat expanses of frosty nitrogen and methane, protrude hills of water ice clustered in chains that almost look like flotsam washed up along the banks of a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water-ice islands, or bergs, range in size from a mile to several miles across. At first glance they appear as hills dotting the flat plain, or possibly the tops of taller formations poking above the frigid flows that surround them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the clustering pattern, along with the directional flow of the slushy glacial sheets, suggest that they are large chunks of material that have broken off nearby highlands of water ice and were carried along with the flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clustering in chains may be due to the floating bergs running aground in shallower areas and accumulating—so the impression of riverbank flotsam may be accurate!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, it helps to think of the nitrogen glaciers as rivers and the plains they flood into as seas—seas in a much more literal sense than the “mare” (seas) of Earth’s Moon, which are flat plains of solid basalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Pluto, exotic ices of nitrogen, methane, and ammonia (all of which have been detected in Sputnik Planum) are not rock-solid like their water-ice counterpart, but flow somewhat like glaciers do in Earth’s warmer climate. Glaciers on Earth are even known to carry chunks of rock and transport them from one place to another—although these usually sink to the bottom of the glacier, rock being denser than water ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Pluto, water ice is less dense than the nitrogen glaciers and so would “float” in the slush—not unlike how icebergs float in Earth’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frozen Polar Canyons\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another news flash came in more recently: “frozen” canyons exist in Pluto’s North Pole region—face it, a lot of things are frozen on Pluto. You may think, so what? Isn’t every canyon on Pluto technically frozen? What’s the fuss about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556874\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556874\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-800x986.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto's ancient frozen canyons of its North Polar region. \" width=\"800\" height=\"986\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-800x986.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-400x493.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-768x947.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-1180x1454.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-960x1183.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s ancient frozen canyons of its North Polar region. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=412\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">canyons in question\u003c/a> are a series of long, parallel furrows, the largest of them gaping 45 miles across, bracketing Pluto’s geographic North Pole. These canyons, unlike many others found elsewhere on Pluto, appear to be quite old, crumbling and degraded with age, and are possibly made of weaker material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They may be old enough to have formed when Pluto was still tectonically active, when the dwarf planet and its large moon Charon rotated relative to each other and mutually generated a lot of tidal-stress heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, each keeping the same side aimed at the other—like the faces of a figure-skating couple with gazes locked on one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the tethered grip the pair have on each other today, there is no longer any significant gravitational flexing or stretching between them to generate heat and drive tectonic activity—the figure skaters are not flexing their muscles to perform spins and throws, but simply clasp hands and no longer generate as much body heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By studying these polar canyons, scientists may gain insight into conditions in Pluto’s and Charon’s past, when the couple did work up more of a tectonic sweat than today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ancient Ocean on Charon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, turning our attention to Charon (Pluto’s big moon) there appears to be evidence of what may have been an \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=411\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ancient ocean\u003c/a> long ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evidence comes in the form of a series of long, deep chasms that give the appearance that Charon’s water ice surface has cracked. One of these “cracks” is 1,100 miles long and up to 4.5 miles deep!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One hypothesis about these epic canyons is that long ago, Charon was warmer, with heat from radioactive decay as well as its initial formation melting at least some of the water ice to form subsurface oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556875\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-800x433.jpg\" alt=\"The "cracks" in the icy crust of Pluto's moon Charon that may be evidence of a past subsurface ocean of liquid water\" width=\"800\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-800x433.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-400x217.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-768x416.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-1180x639.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-960x520.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The “cracks” in the icy crust of Pluto’s moon Charon that may be evidence of a past subsurface ocean of liquid water \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Charon cooled over time, the oceans would have frozen and expanded, pushing the crust outward and forming giant stress fractures—ostensibly the chasms New Horizons captured images of when it flew by last July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Adventure Continues\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can enjoy the fruits of New Horizons’ expedition for months to come. Due to the spacecraft’s great distance (\u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">presently\u003c/a> over 3.2 billion miles from Earth), a limited amount of electrical power, and the fact that it collected many gigabytes of data, it will take upwards of \u003ca href=\"http://gizmodo.com/why-itll-take-new-horizons-16-months-to-send-us-this-we-1717769317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">16 months to transmit\u003c/a> it all back to Earth—so the rewards should keep rolling in through the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, there’s a fresh adventure on the horizon, as the tiny nuclear robot coasts toward a 2019 encounter with the Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69. If the encounter goes as planned, it will be our first up-close look at a small, icy object in the Kuiper Belt, those vast rings of material that encircle the sun beyond the orbit of Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay tuned…\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Seven months after its historic encounter with Pluto, NASA's New Horizons mission is still dazzling us with discoveries: ancient frozen canyons, chains of icebergs floating in rivers of exotic slush, signs of paleo-oceans, and more. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Seven months after its historic encounter with Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons mission is still dazzling us with discoveries: ancient frozen canyons, chains of icebergs floating in rivers of exotic slush, signs of paleo-oceans, and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a quick flyby mission that lasted mere hours, New Horizons is the gift-giver that keeps on giving as its Pluto data trickles back to Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Icebergs Floating in Nitrogen Slush?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You may have heard of Pluto’s 10,000-foot-high mountain ranges of water ice, possible cryovolcanoes, and nitrogen-ice glaciers pouring through canyons and spilling out into wide flat milky plains. What you may not know is that Pluto has \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=408\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">floating islands\u003c/a>—yes, islands. Or, maybe more correctly, icebergs, of a sort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556873\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556873\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-800x480.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto's "floating ice islands" in the plains of Sputnik Planum. \" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-800x480.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-400x240.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-768x461.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-1180x708.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16-960x576.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_PlutosFloatingHills-Context-lables_V3-sml-02-04-16.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s “floating ice islands” in the plains of Sputnik Planum. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the smooth white plains of\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/image-of-plutos-vast-icy-plain-informally-called-sputnik-planum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Sputnik Planum\u003c/a>, out among the flat expanses of frosty nitrogen and methane, protrude hills of water ice clustered in chains that almost look like flotsam washed up along the banks of a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water-ice islands, or bergs, range in size from a mile to several miles across. At first glance they appear as hills dotting the flat plain, or possibly the tops of taller formations poking above the frigid flows that surround them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the clustering pattern, along with the directional flow of the slushy glacial sheets, suggest that they are large chunks of material that have broken off nearby highlands of water ice and were carried along with the flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The clustering in chains may be due to the floating bergs running aground in shallower areas and accumulating—so the impression of riverbank flotsam may be accurate!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, it helps to think of the nitrogen glaciers as rivers and the plains they flood into as seas—seas in a much more literal sense than the “mare” (seas) of Earth’s Moon, which are flat plains of solid basalt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Pluto, exotic ices of nitrogen, methane, and ammonia (all of which have been detected in Sputnik Planum) are not rock-solid like their water-ice counterpart, but flow somewhat like glaciers do in Earth’s warmer climate. Glaciers on Earth are even known to carry chunks of rock and transport them from one place to another—although these usually sink to the bottom of the glacier, rock being denser than water ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Pluto, water ice is less dense than the nitrogen glaciers and so would “float” in the slush—not unlike how icebergs float in Earth’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frozen Polar Canyons\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another news flash came in more recently: “frozen” canyons exist in Pluto’s North Pole region—face it, a lot of things are frozen on Pluto. You may think, so what? Isn’t every canyon on Pluto technically frozen? What’s the fuss about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556874\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556874\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-800x986.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto's ancient frozen canyons of its North Polar region. \" width=\"800\" height=\"986\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-800x986.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-400x493.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-768x947.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-1180x1454.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy-960x1183.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_NorthPoleRotatedContrastUnannotated_CLEAN-copy.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s ancient frozen canyons of its North Polar region. \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=412\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">canyons in question\u003c/a> are a series of long, parallel furrows, the largest of them gaping 45 miles across, bracketing Pluto’s geographic North Pole. These canyons, unlike many others found elsewhere on Pluto, appear to be quite old, crumbling and degraded with age, and are possibly made of weaker material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They may be old enough to have formed when Pluto was still tectonically active, when the dwarf planet and its large moon Charon rotated relative to each other and mutually generated a lot of tidal-stress heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, each keeping the same side aimed at the other—like the faces of a figure-skating couple with gazes locked on one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the tethered grip the pair have on each other today, there is no longer any significant gravitational flexing or stretching between them to generate heat and drive tectonic activity—the figure skaters are not flexing their muscles to perform spins and throws, but simply clasp hands and no longer generate as much body heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By studying these polar canyons, scientists may gain insight into conditions in Pluto’s and Charon’s past, when the couple did work up more of a tectonic sweat than today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ancient Ocean on Charon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, turning our attention to Charon (Pluto’s big moon) there appears to be evidence of what may have been an \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=411\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ancient ocean\u003c/a> long ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The evidence comes in the form of a series of long, deep chasms that give the appearance that Charon’s water ice surface has cracked. One of these “cracks” is 1,100 miles long and up to 4.5 miles deep!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One hypothesis about these epic canyons is that long ago, Charon was warmer, with heat from radioactive decay as well as its initial formation melting at least some of the water ice to form subsurface oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-556875\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-800x433.jpg\" alt=\"The "cracks" in the icy crust of Pluto's moon Charon that may be evidence of a past subsurface ocean of liquid water\" width=\"800\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-800x433.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-400x217.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-768x416.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-1180x639.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded-960x520.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/00_Charon_SerenityChasma_Context_02182016_Melded.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The “cracks” in the icy crust of Pluto’s moon Charon that may be evidence of a past subsurface ocean of liquid water \u003ccite>(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Charon cooled over time, the oceans would have frozen and expanded, pushing the crust outward and forming giant stress fractures—ostensibly the chasms New Horizons captured images of when it flew by last July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Adventure Continues\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can enjoy the fruits of New Horizons’ expedition for months to come. Due to the spacecraft’s great distance (\u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">presently\u003c/a> over 3.2 billion miles from Earth), a limited amount of electrical power, and the fact that it collected many gigabytes of data, it will take upwards of \u003ca href=\"http://gizmodo.com/why-itll-take-new-horizons-16-months-to-send-us-this-we-1717769317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">16 months to transmit\u003c/a> it all back to Earth—so the rewards should keep rolling in through the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, there’s a fresh adventure on the horizon, as the tiny nuclear robot coasts toward a 2019 encounter with the Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69. If the encounter goes as planned, it will be our first up-close look at a small, icy object in the Kuiper Belt, those vast rings of material that encircle the sun beyond the orbit of Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay tuned…\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "WATCH: Astronauts Head Home After a Year in Space",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"http://www.ustream.tv/embed/6540154?html5ui\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: 0 none transparent;\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun fact about long-duration space flight: There’s no shower on board the International Space Station. “It’s kind of like I’ve been in the woods camping for a year,” astronaut Scott Kelly said during a news conference late last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly finally gets to come home and wash off the space funk on Tuesday night. He climbed into a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and closed the hatch around 4:40 p.m. ET. His capsule undocked at 8:02 p.m., and he’ll touch down just before 11:30 p.m. on the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While in orbit, Kelly posted hundreds of photos, and we’ve got \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/01/468628180/scott-kelly-reflects-on-his-year-off-the-planet\">a selection here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly’s 340 days in orbit shatters the U.S. record for the longest space journey. Only a handful of cosmonauts have logged more consecutive days in space. Researchers are using the mission, which Kelly conducted with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, to learn more about how prolonged spaceflight affects the body and mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study is unique partly because Kelly has an identical twin: retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who’s stayed back on Earth. Studying the Kelly brothers’ DNA \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/27/395536140/nasa-to-study-a-twin-in-space-and-his-brother-on-earth\">may provide some hints\u003c/a> about how spaceflight changes human genetics, says John Charles, the chief scientist of NASA’s human research program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_557544\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2045px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a.jpg\" alt=\"NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will ride home in a Russian Soyuz similar to this one.\" width=\"2045\" height=\"1150\" class=\"size-full wp-image-557544\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a.jpg 2045w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2045px) 100vw, 2045px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will ride home in a Russian Soyuz similar to this one. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Check back here later if you need a Super Tuesday break. We’ll have more coverage of the landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=WATCH%3A+Astronauts+Head+Home+After+A+Year+In+Space&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spent most of a year on the International Space Station. Their landing brings an epic mission to an end.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"http://www.ustream.tv/embed/6540154?html5ui\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: 0 none transparent;\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a fun fact about long-duration space flight: There’s no shower on board the International Space Station. “It’s kind of like I’ve been in the woods camping for a year,” astronaut Scott Kelly said during a news conference late last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly finally gets to come home and wash off the space funk on Tuesday night. He climbed into a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and closed the hatch around 4:40 p.m. ET. His capsule undocked at 8:02 p.m., and he’ll touch down just before 11:30 p.m. on the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While in orbit, Kelly posted hundreds of photos, and we’ve got \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/01/468628180/scott-kelly-reflects-on-his-year-off-the-planet\">a selection here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly’s 340 days in orbit shatters the U.S. record for the longest space journey. Only a handful of cosmonauts have logged more consecutive days in space. Researchers are using the mission, which Kelly conducted with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, to learn more about how prolonged spaceflight affects the body and mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study is unique partly because Kelly has an identical twin: retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who’s stayed back on Earth. Studying the Kelly brothers’ DNA \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/27/395536140/nasa-to-study-a-twin-in-space-and-his-brother-on-earth\">may provide some hints\u003c/a> about how spaceflight changes human genetics, says John Charles, the chief scientist of NASA’s human research program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_557544\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2045px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a.jpg\" alt=\"NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will ride home in a Russian Soyuz similar to this one.\" width=\"2045\" height=\"1150\" class=\"size-full wp-image-557544\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a.jpg 2045w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/soyuz-down_wide-b71236b904ecc4014510734989fe7cc94573317a-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2045px) 100vw, 2045px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will ride home in a Russian Soyuz similar to this one. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Check back here later if you need a Super Tuesday break. We’ll have more coverage of the landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=WATCH%3A+Astronauts+Head+Home+After+A+Year+In+Space&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scott Kelly Reflects on His Year Off the Planet",
"headTitle": "Scott Kelly Reflects on His Year Off the Planet | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>“I have taken a lot of pictures because I’ve been up here for a long time,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly said during \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjFpOyhWalg\">a recent press conference\u003c/a> from the International Space Station. “I’ve definitely taken some good ones and some memorable ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he returns to Earth on Tuesday evening, Kelly will have spent 340 days aboard the ISS. While that’s not quite a year, it’s still a record for an American astronaut, and one of the longest-lasting spaceflights ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly is not the only member of his family to visit the station. His twin brother, Mark Kelly, was also an astronaut, and flew multiple shuttle missions to the orbiting outpost. The twins grew up in West Orange, N.J., as the sons of police officers. “We lived a pretty exciting and adventurous life,” Scott says of his childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556598\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556598\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2.jpg\" alt=\"Kelly posted this photo of an aurora to Twitter on Aug. 15.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1878\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-800x601.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-768x577.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1440x1082.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1920x1442.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1180x886.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-960x721.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kelly posted this photo of an aurora to Twitter on Aug. 15. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556600\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth.jpg\" alt=\"(From top left, clockwise) The coast of Spain; New York City; Australia; the Himalayas. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"1873\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-768x575.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1440x1079.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1920x1438.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1180x884.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-960x719.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From top left, clockwise) The coast of Spain; New York City; Australia; the Himalayas. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scott Kelly takes his images through the windows of the Space Station’s cupola module. It might give the impression that he lives and works with the Earth constantly in view, but that’s not the case. Most of the space station’s rooms are fluorescent-lit boxes. “You don’t get real sunlight,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His photographs have captured some stunning views of Earth at all times of the day and night. The process of photography has changed his perspective on the planet. “The more I look at Earth, and certain parts of Earth, the more I feel [like] an environmentalist,” Kelly says. “It’s just a blanket of pollution in certain areas. We can fix that if we put our minds to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556601\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life.jpg\" alt=\"(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won't be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"2505\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-400x401.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-800x802.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-768x770.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1440x1443.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1920x1924.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1180x1182.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-960x962.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won’t be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Photography was one small part of Kelly’s mission. He conducted numerous experiments, some to determine how space was affecting his health, and others to test new technologies, like a dedicated greenhouse for growing plants in zero gravity. NASA hopes the knowledge gained from his extended mission will prepare the space agency for lengthy missions to places like Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-556602 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3.jpg\" alt=\"(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won't be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"1875\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On Dec. 21, Kelly and fellow astronaut Tim Kopra made an unscheduled spacewalk to move a robotic transporter that had become stalled on the side of the station. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kelly’s photographs have won the astronaut nearly a million followers \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly\">on Twitter\u003c/a>, but he says taking the pictures is only a small part of why he’s there. Kelly believes in space flight, and in humanity’s future beyond the confines of Earth. “The thing I like most about flying in space is not the view,” says Kelly. “The thing I like about it is doing something I feel very, very strongly about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scott+Kelly+Reflects+On+His+Year+Off+The+Planet&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "During his 340 days aboard the International Space Station, the astronaut documented his time there with hundreds of photos. Kelly says the perspective makes him feel \"more like an environmentalist.\"",
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"description": "During his 340 days aboard the International Space Station, the astronaut documented his time there with hundreds of photos. Kelly says the perspective makes him feel "more like an environmentalist."",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“I have taken a lot of pictures because I’ve been up here for a long time,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly said during \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjFpOyhWalg\">a recent press conference\u003c/a> from the International Space Station. “I’ve definitely taken some good ones and some memorable ones.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he returns to Earth on Tuesday evening, Kelly will have spent 340 days aboard the ISS. While that’s not quite a year, it’s still a record for an American astronaut, and one of the longest-lasting spaceflights ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelly is not the only member of his family to visit the station. His twin brother, Mark Kelly, was also an astronaut, and flew multiple shuttle missions to the orbiting outpost. The twins grew up in West Orange, N.J., as the sons of police officers. “We lived a pretty exciting and adventurous life,” Scott says of his childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556598\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556598\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2.jpg\" alt=\"Kelly posted this photo of an aurora to Twitter on Aug. 15.\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1878\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-800x601.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-768x577.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1440x1082.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1920x1442.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-1180x886.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scot-Kelly_2-960x721.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kelly posted this photo of an aurora to Twitter on Aug. 15. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556600\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth.jpg\" alt=\"(From top left, clockwise) The coast of Spain; New York City; Australia; the Himalayas. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"1873\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-768x575.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1440x1079.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1920x1438.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-1180x884.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_-earth-960x719.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(From top left, clockwise) The coast of Spain; New York City; Australia; the Himalayas. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scott Kelly takes his images through the windows of the Space Station’s cupola module. It might give the impression that he lives and works with the Earth constantly in view, but that’s not the case. Most of the space station’s rooms are fluorescent-lit boxes. “You don’t get real sunlight,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His photographs have captured some stunning views of Earth at all times of the day and night. The process of photography has changed his perspective on the planet. “The more I look at Earth, and certain parts of Earth, the more I feel [like] an environmentalist,” Kelly says. “It’s just a blanket of pollution in certain areas. We can fix that if we put our minds to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-556601\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life.jpg\" alt=\"(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won't be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"2505\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-400x401.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-800x802.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-768x770.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1440x1443.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1920x1924.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-1180x1182.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-960x962.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Scott-Kelly_daily-life-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won’t be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Photography was one small part of Kelly’s mission. He conducted numerous experiments, some to determine how space was affecting his health, and others to test new technologies, like a dedicated greenhouse for growing plants in zero gravity. NASA hopes the knowledge gained from his extended mission will prepare the space agency for lengthy missions to places like Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_556602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-556602 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3.jpg\" alt=\"(Top) Kelly corrals a supply of fresh fruit that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship on Aug. 25. (Bottom left) Kelly assisted with numerous studies to see how prolonged spaceflight affects vision and other aspects of human health. The results of those tests won't be available for another year or so. (Bottom right) The crew also grew crops in zero gravity, including these zinnias. \" width=\"2500\" height=\"1875\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3.jpg 2500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/SK_3-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On Dec. 21, Kelly and fellow astronaut Tim Kopra made an unscheduled spacewalk to move a robotic transporter that had become stalled on the side of the station. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kelly’s photographs have won the astronaut nearly a million followers \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly\">on Twitter\u003c/a>, but he says taking the pictures is only a small part of why he’s there. Kelly believes in space flight, and in humanity’s future beyond the confines of Earth. “The thing I like most about flying in space is not the view,” says Kelly. “The thing I like about it is doing something I feel very, very strongly about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scott+Kelly+Reflects+On+His+Year+Off+The+Planet&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Asteroid Flyby a Little Too Close for Comfort",
"headTitle": "Asteroid Flyby a Little Too Close for Comfort | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Two years ago, asteroid 2013 TX68 flew by the Earth at a distance of 1.3 million miles—about five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Sometime between March 5 to March 8, this asteroid will give an encore performance, in case any \u003ca href=\"http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Near Earth Object\u003c/a> (NEO) fans missed it the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First and foremost, remember what is printed in big, friendly letters on the cover of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: Don’t Panic.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Smaller asteroids strike the Earth more often than you might think, though usually in less populated areas.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://astronomynow.com/2016/01/12/nasa-office-to-coordinate-asteroid-detection-and-hazard-mitigation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Center for NEO Studies\u003c/a> (CNEOS) has determined that there is a zero-percent chance that 2013 TX68 will hit the Earth—on this pass at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mathematical certainty of a miss aside, the exact distance of closest approach is somewhat murkier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This asteroid\u003c/a> is \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">predicted to fly by\u003c/a> at roughly 3 million miles from Earth. Thankfully, it’s not going to hit us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why the \u003ca href=\"http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2013-tx68-uncertain-trajectory-closest-earth-mar-5-2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uncertainty\u003c/a> about the exact distance? In a nutshell, we don’t know enough about this asteroid’s orbit around the sun to pin it down with any more precision. From the moment it was first detected to when it faded and became undetectable, observers had only ten days to track it—too little time to gain a clear understanding of its orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The longer we can observe and track a NEO, the better we understand its orbit and therefore the probability of a future collision with Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_535024\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-535024\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16.jpg\" alt=\"The range of possible distances of closest approach of asteroid 2013 TX68 on March 5, 2016\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The range of possible distances of closest approach of asteroid 2013 TX68 on March 5, 2016 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is a very small chance—1-in-250 million—that this asteroid could hit us on September 30, 2071. But you have a better chance of winning the Super Lotto jackpot than being crushed by this asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if 2013 TX68 were to hit the Earth, it wouldn’t wipe us out. It could easily spoil someone’s day, make no mistake: this asteroid is about 100 feet in diameter, almost twice the size of \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131106-russian-meteor-chelyabinsk-airburst-500-kilotons/\">the object that exploded\u003c/a> in the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia, three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Chelyabinsk air-burst produced a shockwave that damaged buildings and shattered windows across a wide area, and, had it struck the ground intact, would have left a significant crater. 2013 TX68 would release about twice the energy as the Chelyabinsk event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_534947\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 331px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-534947\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145.jpg\" alt='Radar image of the \"Halloween Asteroid\"--a large Near Earth Object that passed relatively close on October 31, 2015' width=\"331\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145.jpg 1041w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 331px) 100vw, 331px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radar image of the “Halloween Asteroid”–a large Near Earth Object that passed relatively close on October 31, 2015 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>2013 TX68 is a good reminder that Earth shares its space with millions of rocks—potentially hazardous asteroids ranging in size from a few feet to hundreds of feet across, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We know of about 14,000 NEOs, including practically all of the big ones. The big ones are easier to detect at greater distances, and we have a lot more orbital tracking data on them and understand their orbits best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the smaller the rock, the harder it is to see, and it is estimated that there may be over a million NEOs that have not yet been discovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The smallest NEOs that we’re concerned about aren’t detectable until they’re almost upon us. In fact, on average, between 25 and 30 NEOs pass closer to Earth than the Moon’s orbit each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Presently, there isn’t a lot we could do to avoid an impact, especially with little or no warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smaller asteroids strike the Earth more often than you might think, though usually in less populated areas. Remember, 75 percent of Earth’s surface is ocean, and some regions on Earth are uninhabited. Think of a dartboard, where the bull’s-eye represents the Earth’s highest populated areas, and the dart has no particular aim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_534946\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-534946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full.jpg\" alt=\"Census of Near Earth Asteroids, both known and estimated.\" width=\"3280\" height=\"2460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full.jpg 3280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3280px) 100vw, 3280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Census of Near Earth Asteroids, both known and estimated. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are ideas about how to protect us from large asteroid impacts. One is to send a massive robotic spacecraft to an asteroid we know will likely hit the Earth, and use the gravitational attraction between the two to “nudge” the asteroid into a safer orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s sort of like a small tugboat nudging a large ocean cargo ship to avoid striking a bridge pier, something the tug is capable of doing given enough lead time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This plan requires precise knowledge of an asteroid’s orbit and the ability to predict an impact years in advance, which is one good reason to learn as much about NEOs now as possible!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Two years ago, the asteroid 2013 TX68 flew by the Earth at a distance of 1.3 million miles—about five time farther away than the Moon. On March 5, this asteroid will give an encore performance, in case any fans of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) missed it the first time….",
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"description": "Two years ago, the asteroid 2013 TX68 flew by the Earth at a distance of 1.3 million miles—about five time farther away than the Moon. On March 5, this asteroid will give an encore performance, in case any fans of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) missed it the first time….",
"title": "Asteroid Flyby a Little Too Close for Comfort | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two years ago, asteroid 2013 TX68 flew by the Earth at a distance of 1.3 million miles—about five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Sometime between March 5 to March 8, this asteroid will give an encore performance, in case any \u003ca href=\"http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Near Earth Object\u003c/a> (NEO) fans missed it the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First and foremost, remember what is printed in big, friendly letters on the cover of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”: Don’t Panic.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Smaller asteroids strike the Earth more often than you might think, though usually in less populated areas.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://astronomynow.com/2016/01/12/nasa-office-to-coordinate-asteroid-detection-and-hazard-mitigation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Center for NEO Studies\u003c/a> (CNEOS) has determined that there is a zero-percent chance that 2013 TX68 will hit the Earth—on this pass at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mathematical certainty of a miss aside, the exact distance of closest approach is somewhat murkier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This asteroid\u003c/a> is \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">predicted to fly by\u003c/a> at roughly 3 million miles from Earth. Thankfully, it’s not going to hit us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why the \u003ca href=\"http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2013-tx68-uncertain-trajectory-closest-earth-mar-5-2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uncertainty\u003c/a> about the exact distance? In a nutshell, we don’t know enough about this asteroid’s orbit around the sun to pin it down with any more precision. From the moment it was first detected to when it faded and became undetectable, observers had only ten days to track it—too little time to gain a clear understanding of its orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The longer we can observe and track a NEO, the better we understand its orbit and therefore the probability of a future collision with Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_535024\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-535024\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16.jpg\" alt=\"The range of possible distances of closest approach of asteroid 2013 TX68 on March 5, 2016\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/asteroid20160202-16-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The range of possible distances of closest approach of asteroid 2013 TX68 on March 5, 2016 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is a very small chance—1-in-250 million—that this asteroid could hit us on September 30, 2071. But you have a better chance of winning the Super Lotto jackpot than being crushed by this asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if 2013 TX68 were to hit the Earth, it wouldn’t wipe us out. It could easily spoil someone’s day, make no mistake: this asteroid is about 100 feet in diameter, almost twice the size of \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131106-russian-meteor-chelyabinsk-airburst-500-kilotons/\">the object that exploded\u003c/a> in the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia, three years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Chelyabinsk air-burst produced a shockwave that damaged buildings and shattered windows across a wide area, and, had it struck the ground intact, would have left a significant crater. 2013 TX68 would release about twice the energy as the Chelyabinsk event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_534947\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 331px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-534947\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145.jpg\" alt='Radar image of the \"Halloween Asteroid\"--a large Near Earth Object that passed relatively close on October 31, 2015' width=\"331\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145.jpg 1041w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/skull2015-TB145-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 331px) 100vw, 331px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radar image of the “Halloween Asteroid”–a large Near Earth Object that passed relatively close on October 31, 2015 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>2013 TX68 is a good reminder that Earth shares its space with millions of rocks—potentially hazardous asteroids ranging in size from a few feet to hundreds of feet across, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We know of about 14,000 NEOs, including practically all of the big ones. The big ones are easier to detect at greater distances, and we have a lot more orbital tracking data on them and understand their orbits best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the smaller the rock, the harder it is to see, and it is estimated that there may be over a million NEOs that have not yet been discovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The smallest NEOs that we’re concerned about aren’t detectable until they’re almost upon us. In fact, on average, between 25 and 30 NEOs pass closer to Earth than the Moon’s orbit each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Presently, there isn’t a lot we could do to avoid an impact, especially with little or no warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smaller asteroids strike the Earth more often than you might think, though usually in less populated areas. Remember, 75 percent of Earth’s surface is ocean, and some regions on Earth are uninhabited. Think of a dartboard, where the bull’s-eye represents the Earth’s highest populated areas, and the dart has no particular aim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_534946\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-534946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full.jpg\" alt=\"Census of Near Earth Asteroids, both known and estimated.\" width=\"3280\" height=\"2460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full.jpg 3280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/592668main_pia14734-43_full-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3280px) 100vw, 3280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Census of Near Earth Asteroids, both known and estimated. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are ideas about how to protect us from large asteroid impacts. One is to send a massive robotic spacecraft to an asteroid we know will likely hit the Earth, and use the gravitational attraction between the two to “nudge” the asteroid into a safer orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s sort of like a small tugboat nudging a large ocean cargo ship to avoid striking a bridge pier, something the tug is capable of doing given enough lead time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This plan requires precise knowledge of an asteroid’s orbit and the ability to predict an impact years in advance, which is one good reason to learn as much about NEOs now as possible!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "In Milestone, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves As Black Holes Collide",
"headTitle": "In Milestone, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves As Black Holes Collide | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a really big event,” says \u003ca href=\"http://astro.cornell.edu/members/saul-a-teukolsky.html\">Saul Teukolsky\u003c/a>, a theoretical astrophysicist at Cornell University. “This is probably the most exciting episode of my professional career.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Einstein predicted the existence of such ripples, known officially as gravitational waves, in 1916, as part of his general theory of relativity. General relativity re-imagines the gravitational pull between heavy objects like Earth and the sun as a “warping” of space and time. When very heavy objects such as black holes are involved, the theory predicts that gravitational waves will emerge and ripple across the entire universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the idea. But in practice, seeing such gravitational waves has been nearly impossible. To make detectable waves, massive objects must be moving quickly. Researchers predicted a collision between two black holes would do the trick. But nobody knew how often that might happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, scientists built two massive detectors to take a look. Known collectively as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/\">Laser Interferometer Gravity-Wave Observatory\u003c/a> (LIGO), the detectors are located in Washington state and Louisiana. They are separated by thousands of miles in order to detect ripples coming in from deep space as they pass through Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each detector looks like a big L, made up of two tunnels 2.5 miles long. It’s designed so that if a gravitational wave passes by, it will stretch space along one direction of the tunnel and squish space along the direction of the other. The stretching and squishing changes the tunnels’ lengths by a tiny amount, and that change can be detected by lasers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although LIGO was completed in 1999, it took more than a decade for it to see anything. The detectors had to be made incredibly sensitive to pick up the tiny waves. But they were so touchy, they were set off by everything from minute shifts in Earth’s core to traffic entering the parking lot. And even after researchers got rid of all the terrestrial jiggles, LIGO still wasn’t quite good enough to see gravitational waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that changed after a major upgrade in 2014. Better vibrational isolation and upgrades to lasers and mirrors dramatically boosted the instrument’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the black hole collision was seen almost as soon as the team began observing again in the fall of 2015. On Sept. 14 at 5:51 a.m., the waves passed through both of the detectors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a paper published in the journal \u003cem>Physical Review Letters,\u003c/em> the two black holes were each roughly 30 times the mass of the sun. They merged some 1.3 billion light years from Earth. The waves were generated in the final moments before the black holes merged. The signal was brief but definitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measurements are dramatic proof that gravitational waves exist. The signal in the detector matches well with what’s predicted by Einstein’s original theory, according to Teukolsky, who was briefed on the results. It matches predictions of the ripples produced by two large black holes, in the final moments before they merge, swirling together at an enormous speed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is, arguably, the most direct observation of black holes ever made. Because black holes are (as their name implies) “black”, they can’t be seen with ordinary telescopes. Up until now, their existence has been inferred by looking at the stars and gas swirling around them. This gravitational signal comes directly from the holes, and it is virtually incontrovertible proof that the holes are out there. “If black holes didn’t really exist, you couldn’t explain these waves,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other researchers believe that the gravitational waves could tell us even more about our cosmos. “It’s like looking at the universe with new eyes — the amount of information that’s there is going to be amazing,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/people/asimina-arvanitaki\">Mina Arvanitaki\u003c/a>, a theorist at the Perimeter Institute of Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Arvanitaki will use LIGO’s data to probe for undiscovered fundamental particles that might only exist in the warped space around black holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teukolsky says the discovery shows just how extraordinary the natural world can be. “The universe is stranger than any kind of fiction we could imagine,” he says. “I mean, it’s preposterous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=In+Milestone%2C+Scientists+Detect+Gravitational+Waves+As+Black+Holes+Collide&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A U.S.-led team says it has seen waves in space-time from two black holes merging together. It is the first time humanity has directly detected such waves.",
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"headline": "In Milestone, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves As Black Holes Collide",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a really big event,” says \u003ca href=\"http://astro.cornell.edu/members/saul-a-teukolsky.html\">Saul Teukolsky\u003c/a>, a theoretical astrophysicist at Cornell University. “This is probably the most exciting episode of my professional career.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Einstein predicted the existence of such ripples, known officially as gravitational waves, in 1916, as part of his general theory of relativity. General relativity re-imagines the gravitational pull between heavy objects like Earth and the sun as a “warping” of space and time. When very heavy objects such as black holes are involved, the theory predicts that gravitational waves will emerge and ripple across the entire universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the idea. But in practice, seeing such gravitational waves has been nearly impossible. To make detectable waves, massive objects must be moving quickly. Researchers predicted a collision between two black holes would do the trick. But nobody knew how often that might happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, scientists built two massive detectors to take a look. Known collectively as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/\">Laser Interferometer Gravity-Wave Observatory\u003c/a> (LIGO), the detectors are located in Washington state and Louisiana. They are separated by thousands of miles in order to detect ripples coming in from deep space as they pass through Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each detector looks like a big L, made up of two tunnels 2.5 miles long. It’s designed so that if a gravitational wave passes by, it will stretch space along one direction of the tunnel and squish space along the direction of the other. The stretching and squishing changes the tunnels’ lengths by a tiny amount, and that change can be detected by lasers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although LIGO was completed in 1999, it took more than a decade for it to see anything. The detectors had to be made incredibly sensitive to pick up the tiny waves. But they were so touchy, they were set off by everything from minute shifts in Earth’s core to traffic entering the parking lot. And even after researchers got rid of all the terrestrial jiggles, LIGO still wasn’t quite good enough to see gravitational waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that changed after a major upgrade in 2014. Better vibrational isolation and upgrades to lasers and mirrors dramatically boosted the instrument’s power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the black hole collision was seen almost as soon as the team began observing again in the fall of 2015. On Sept. 14 at 5:51 a.m., the waves passed through both of the detectors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a paper published in the journal \u003cem>Physical Review Letters,\u003c/em> the two black holes were each roughly 30 times the mass of the sun. They merged some 1.3 billion light years from Earth. The waves were generated in the final moments before the black holes merged. The signal was brief but definitive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measurements are dramatic proof that gravitational waves exist. The signal in the detector matches well with what’s predicted by Einstein’s original theory, according to Teukolsky, who was briefed on the results. It matches predictions of the ripples produced by two large black holes, in the final moments before they merge, swirling together at an enormous speed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is, arguably, the most direct observation of black holes ever made. Because black holes are (as their name implies) “black”, they can’t be seen with ordinary telescopes. Up until now, their existence has been inferred by looking at the stars and gas swirling around them. This gravitational signal comes directly from the holes, and it is virtually incontrovertible proof that the holes are out there. “If black holes didn’t really exist, you couldn’t explain these waves,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other researchers believe that the gravitational waves could tell us even more about our cosmos. “It’s like looking at the universe with new eyes — the amount of information that’s there is going to be amazing,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/people/asimina-arvanitaki\">Mina Arvanitaki\u003c/a>, a theorist at the Perimeter Institute of Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. Arvanitaki will use LIGO’s data to probe for undiscovered fundamental particles that might only exist in the warped space around black holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teukolsky says the discovery shows just how extraordinary the natural world can be. “The universe is stranger than any kind of fiction we could imagine,” he says. “I mean, it’s preposterous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=In+Milestone%2C+Scientists+Detect+Gravitational+Waves+As+Black+Holes+Collide&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "NASA’s Record Holding Space Missions | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When it comes to space exploration, there have never been as many exciting reports from space as there are right now. And we’re not only talking about amazing celestial body discoveries, but also records of distance, time, and the sheer volume of data collected by the spacecraft themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the flashier space headlines have stolen a lot of attention: \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s New Horizons\u003c/a> flyby of Pluto, the first landing on a comet by \u003ca href=\"http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_and_Philae_one_year_since_landing_on_a_comet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Europe’s Rosetta/Philae\u003c/a> mission, the confirmation of liquid saltwater on Mars by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the list goes on and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the annals of interplanetary adventure, a few die-hard robots still hold claim to the greatest records of longevity and distance. Some have faded from public memory, having started their voyages so long ago, now as distant in the mind’s eye as they are in space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507959\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507959\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-400x493.jpg\" alt=\"The rover Opportunity's selfie taken on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor Crater\" width=\"400\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-400x493.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-800x986.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-768x947.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1440x1775.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1920x2367.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1180x1455.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-960x1183.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The rover Opportunity’s selfie taken on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor Crater \u003ccite>(Opportunity/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here is a short list of the most prestigious record-holders, and a recap of what their tireless efforts have achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opportunity\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Launched on July 8, 2003, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover\u003c/a>, Opportunity, landed on Mars on January 27, 2004. Now in operation for 12 years and 7 months, Opportunity has driven a total distance of 26.4 miles (as of last August) across a wide basin in \u003ca href=\"http://themis.asu.edu/feature/14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meridiani Planum\u003c/a>, investigating the hematite-rich bottom land of what seems to have been a shallow sea long ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cassini\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini \u003c/a>spacecraft was launched October 15, 1997 and arrived at Saturn seven years later on July 1, 2004. Today it is still in operation after more than 18 years in space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When its mission exploring Saturn and its entourage of moons ends around September 2017, it will have spent almost two decades in space—13 years in the Saturn system alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among its most notable discoveries is liquid water on at least two of Saturn’s moon. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enceladus\u003c/a> has water beneath its icy crust and \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/02jul_saltyocean/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Titan\u003c/a>, Saturn’s largest moon, has liquid water deep underground, as revealed by several close flybys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507960\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507960\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"In 2015, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took its deepest plunge through the water vapor plumes erupting from the small moon Enceladus\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w.jpg 690w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2015, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took its deepest plunge through the water vapor plumes erupting from the small moon Enceladus \u003ccite>(Cassini/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cassini also dropped the \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">European Huygens\u003c/a> probe to the surface of Titan in 2005. Together the pair of spacecraft found a frigid world with a thick nitrogen atmosphere, hydrocarbon smog, as well as a global cycle of precipitation, runoff and seas of liquid methane.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Mars Odyssey 2001\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mars has been the venue of many spaceflight firsts and records. It’s the first planet visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 4), the first planet successfully landed upon (USSR’s Mars 3), the first planet visited by a robotic rover (Pathfinder/Sojourner) and the list of firsts doesn’t end there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is fitting that the longest functioning spacecraft orbiting another world is a Mars-exploring robot. \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Mars Odyssey\u003c/a>, launched on April 7, 2001, has been orbiting Mars since October that same year,\u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/18270-mars-odyssey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> over 14 years\u003c/a>!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Odyssey serves as a communications relay for surface robots like Opportunity—another longevity and distance record holder of course!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in its exploration heyday, Odyssey mapped the chemical composition of Mars’ surface, and gave us great insight into the location of water and water-related minerals that have painted the picture of a much more Earth-like world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voyager 1\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507961\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507961\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-400x302.jpg\" alt=\"Trajectories of the four farthest-flung spacecraft in space: Pioneers 10 and 11, and Voyagers 1 and 2\" width=\"400\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-400x302.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-800x604.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-768x580.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-960x725.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2.jpg 971w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trajectories of the four farthest-flung spacecraft in space: Pioneers 10 and 11, and Voyagers 1 and 2 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Remember 1977? That’s the year Jimmy Carter took up residence in the White House. It’s also when NASA launched \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Voyager 1\u003c/a>, on September 5, on a mission to cruise by Jupiter and Saturn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, over 38 years later, Voyager 1 is still in operation! Well beyond its last port of call—Saturn in 1980—Voyager 1 has taken the prizes of longest operational space mission and most distant space explorer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now at a distance of over 12 billion miles (over three times farther than Pluto), Voyager 1 recently added another prestigious trophy to its shelf of achievements. It is now the first, and so far only, spacecraft to have officially \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/interstellarvoyager/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">entered interstellar space\u003c/a>, beyond the \u003ca href=\"http://ibex.swri.edu/students/What_is_the_heliopause.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bubble of space \u003c/a>dominated by particles from our sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The twin Voyager 2, though not as far out as its sibling, is also still in operation, and has its own unique claim to fame, being the only spacecraft to have visited the outer gas giant planets, Uranus and Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gone, But Not Completely Forgotten\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s worth noting a couple other items for the record book, although they’re missions that are no longer in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years before Voyager, \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/pioneer10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pioneer 10\u003c/a> launched on March 3, 1972 and headed to Jupiter, becoming the first spacecraft to venture into the outer solar system. Our last contact with Pioneer 10 was on January 23, 2003, after a mission that lasted almost 31 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And last, but not least, is the oldest derelict spacecraft of all, \u003ca href=\"http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1958-002B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vanguard 1\u003c/a>, the fourth artificial satellite sent into space, following Sputniks 1 and 2 and Explorer 1—back in the era when a lot of spacecraft were numbered 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though long defunct, Vanguard still orbits the Earth. Launched on March 17, 1958, it sent its last signal to Earth in May of 1964. Vanguard has been in space for 57 years and 10 months and is expected to remain in orbit until at least 2109.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other missions worthy of the record book, and many more vying for a spot on its pages. Here’s the upshot: as difficult as exploring our solar system is, our space programs have achieved remarkable results, and there’s much more adventure to come.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When it comes to space exploration, there have never been as many exciting reports from space as there are right now. And we’re not only talking about amazing celestial body discoveries, but also records of distance, time, and the sheer volume of data collected by the spacecraft themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the flashier space headlines have stolen a lot of attention: \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s New Horizons\u003c/a> flyby of Pluto, the first landing on a comet by \u003ca href=\"http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_and_Philae_one_year_since_landing_on_a_comet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Europe’s Rosetta/Philae\u003c/a> mission, the confirmation of liquid saltwater on Mars by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the list goes on and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the annals of interplanetary adventure, a few die-hard robots still hold claim to the greatest records of longevity and distance. Some have faded from public memory, having started their voyages so long ago, now as distant in the mind’s eye as they are in space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507959\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507959\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-400x493.jpg\" alt=\"The rover Opportunity's selfie taken on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor Crater\" width=\"400\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-400x493.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-800x986.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-768x947.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1440x1775.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1920x2367.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-1180x1455.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/652371main_mars_iotd_full_full-960x1183.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The rover Opportunity’s selfie taken on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor Crater \u003ccite>(Opportunity/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here is a short list of the most prestigious record-holders, and a recap of what their tireless efforts have achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opportunity\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Launched on July 8, 2003, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover\u003c/a>, Opportunity, landed on Mars on January 27, 2004. Now in operation for 12 years and 7 months, Opportunity has driven a total distance of 26.4 miles (as of last August) across a wide basin in \u003ca href=\"http://themis.asu.edu/feature/14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meridiani Planum\u003c/a>, investigating the hematite-rich bottom land of what seems to have been a shallow sea long ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cassini\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini \u003c/a>spacecraft was launched October 15, 1997 and arrived at Saturn seven years later on July 1, 2004. Today it is still in operation after more than 18 years in space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When its mission exploring Saturn and its entourage of moons ends around September 2017, it will have spent almost two decades in space—13 years in the Saturn system alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among its most notable discoveries is liquid water on at least two of Saturn’s moon. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enceladus\u003c/a> has water beneath its icy crust and \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/02jul_saltyocean/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Titan\u003c/a>, Saturn’s largest moon, has liquid water deep underground, as revealed by several close flybys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507960\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507960\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"In 2015, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took its deepest plunge through the water vapor plumes erupting from the small moon Enceladus\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/EnceladusFlyby_E-21_690w.jpg 690w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2015, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took its deepest plunge through the water vapor plumes erupting from the small moon Enceladus \u003ccite>(Cassini/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cassini also dropped the \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">European Huygens\u003c/a> probe to the surface of Titan in 2005. Together the pair of spacecraft found a frigid world with a thick nitrogen atmosphere, hydrocarbon smog, as well as a global cycle of precipitation, runoff and seas of liquid methane.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Mars Odyssey 2001\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mars has been the venue of many spaceflight firsts and records. It’s the first planet visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 4), the first planet successfully landed upon (USSR’s Mars 3), the first planet visited by a robotic rover (Pathfinder/Sojourner) and the list of firsts doesn’t end there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is fitting that the longest functioning spacecraft orbiting another world is a Mars-exploring robot. \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Mars Odyssey\u003c/a>, launched on April 7, 2001, has been orbiting Mars since October that same year,\u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/18270-mars-odyssey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> over 14 years\u003c/a>!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Odyssey serves as a communications relay for surface robots like Opportunity—another longevity and distance record holder of course!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in its exploration heyday, Odyssey mapped the chemical composition of Mars’ surface, and gave us great insight into the location of water and water-related minerals that have painted the picture of a much more Earth-like world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voyager 1\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_507961\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-507961\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-400x302.jpg\" alt=\"Trajectories of the four farthest-flung spacecraft in space: Pioneers 10 and 11, and Voyagers 1 and 2\" width=\"400\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-400x302.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-800x604.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-768x580.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2-960x725.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/739459main_acd97-0036-2.jpg 971w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trajectories of the four farthest-flung spacecraft in space: Pioneers 10 and 11, and Voyagers 1 and 2 \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Remember 1977? That’s the year Jimmy Carter took up residence in the White House. It’s also when NASA launched \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Voyager 1\u003c/a>, on September 5, on a mission to cruise by Jupiter and Saturn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now, over 38 years later, Voyager 1 is still in operation! Well beyond its last port of call—Saturn in 1980—Voyager 1 has taken the prizes of longest operational space mission and most distant space explorer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now at a distance of over 12 billion miles (over three times farther than Pluto), Voyager 1 recently added another prestigious trophy to its shelf of achievements. It is now the first, and so far only, spacecraft to have officially \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/interstellarvoyager/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">entered interstellar space\u003c/a>, beyond the \u003ca href=\"http://ibex.swri.edu/students/What_is_the_heliopause.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bubble of space \u003c/a>dominated by particles from our sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The twin Voyager 2, though not as far out as its sibling, is also still in operation, and has its own unique claim to fame, being the only spacecraft to have visited the outer gas giant planets, Uranus and Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gone, But Not Completely Forgotten\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s worth noting a couple other items for the record book, although they’re missions that are no longer in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years before Voyager, \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/pioneer10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pioneer 10\u003c/a> launched on March 3, 1972 and headed to Jupiter, becoming the first spacecraft to venture into the outer solar system. Our last contact with Pioneer 10 was on January 23, 2003, after a mission that lasted almost 31 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And last, but not least, is the oldest derelict spacecraft of all, \u003ca href=\"http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1958-002B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vanguard 1\u003c/a>, the fourth artificial satellite sent into space, following Sputniks 1 and 2 and Explorer 1—back in the era when a lot of spacecraft were numbered 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though long defunct, Vanguard still orbits the Earth. Launched on March 17, 1958, it sent its last signal to Earth in May of 1964. Vanguard has been in space for 57 years and 10 months and is expected to remain in orbit until at least 2109.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other missions worthy of the record book, and many more vying for a spot on its pages. Here’s the upshot: as difficult as exploring our solar system is, our space programs have achieved remarkable results, and there’s much more adventure to come.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Millions of Miles from the Sun, NASA Spacecraft Still Runs on Solar",
"headTitle": "Millions of Miles from the Sun, NASA Spacecraft Still Runs on Solar | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/origin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Juno\u003c/a> spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, passed a milestone on January 13 when it reached a distance of 493 million miles from the sun. That’s about five times the distance between the Earth and sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distance by itself is not the milestone, since numerous spacecraft have ventured far beyond this. The news is that Juno is powered by sunlight, a sparse commodity out in Jupiter’s realm–a sort of “twilight zone” for spacecraft that depend on sunshine!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 8,000-pound Juno was launched in 2011 on a mission to explore the planet Jupiter in greater detail than previous spacecraft, including the gas giant’s composition, gravity, global magnetic field, and in particular the magnetic field in Jupiter’s polar regions, even probing the properties of its interior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Juno, the record-holder was the European \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta \u003c/a>spacecraft. Rosetta cruised in hibernation mode through its orbital aphelion (its most distant point from the sun) back in 2012. Later it fell sunward toward its encounter with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close to the Sun, Solar-Powered Spacecraft Are the Rule\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the inner solar system, from the planet Mercury out into the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, robotic exploration is powered almost entirely by \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/solarcells/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photovoltaics\u003c/a>—solar cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482754 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg\" alt=\"Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter. \u003ccite>(Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, solar photovoltaic technology was developed for Earth-orbiting satellites. Notable exceptions include short-lived probes dropped to the surface of Venus, which were powered by chemical batteries, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Curiosity\u003c/a> rover on Mars, which requires the kick of nuclear power to drive its equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Near the sun, sunlight is intense enough to make photovoltaic power practical. At Earth’s distance, sunlight intensity amounts to over a thousand Watts per square meter. A reasonably sized array of solar panels can generate a practical amount of electrical power for a satellite or spacecraft, even though the technology is not 100 percent efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the farther a spacecraft gets from the sun, the weaker the sunlight becomes, by a factor of the square of the distance. Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, so sunlight at that distance is weaker by a factor of five-squared, or 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno’s photovoltaic system consists of three, 30-foot-long panels, which at Earth would generate up to 14,000 Watts of electrical power. At Jupiter where Juno is now approaching, that solar array generates a mere 500 Watts! But, it will be enough to power the efficiently-designed Juno as it probes Jupiter’s interior, atmosphere and magnetic field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2093px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482758 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg\" alt=\"Solar energy across the solar system.\" width=\"2093\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg 2093w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1440x943.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1920x1258.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1180x773.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2093px) 100vw, 2093px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar energy across the solar system. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators Run the Show in the Outer Solar System and Beyond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most missions sent beyond the Main Asteroid Belt are nuclear-powered. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Galileo\u003c/a>, the only other spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, was powered by two \u003ca href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/rps/rtg.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">radioisotope thermoelectric generators\u003c/a> (RTGs) that produced about 570 Watts of electrical power by converting the heat of decaying radioactive material into electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve seen the movie, “The Martian,” you may recall Matt Damon’s character digging up a device to keep the cab of his rover warm—that was an RTG.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the Galileo probe, photovoltaic technology wasn’t advanced enough to be a practical power source. The spacecraft would have needed at least 700 square feet of solar panels to function!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Jupiter, solar-powered spacecraft will likely remain impractical for a long time to come. As sunlight becomes weaker, spacecraft simply need larger collection surfaces to squeeze out energy from sparser photons. At Saturn, where \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has been operating on RTG power for about 12 years now, sunlight is 90 times weaker than at Earth—almost four times weaker than at Jupiter!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pioneers, Voyagers, and New Horizons range even farther, in the cold darkness well beyond Neptune’s orbit, where the sunlight trickles in at one-nine-hundredth the strength of Earth-side sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno will arrive at Jupiter this July, to begin the one-year science phase of its mission, after a five-year voyage to get there. At the conclusion of its mission, the spacecraft will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere, following in the fiery footsteps of its predecessor, the Galileo probe.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/origin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Juno\u003c/a> spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, passed a milestone on January 13 when it reached a distance of 493 million miles from the sun. That’s about five times the distance between the Earth and sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distance by itself is not the milestone, since numerous spacecraft have ventured far beyond this. The news is that Juno is powered by sunlight, a sparse commodity out in Jupiter’s realm–a sort of “twilight zone” for spacecraft that depend on sunshine!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 8,000-pound Juno was launched in 2011 on a mission to explore the planet Jupiter in greater detail than previous spacecraft, including the gas giant’s composition, gravity, global magnetic field, and in particular the magnetic field in Jupiter’s polar regions, even probing the properties of its interior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Juno, the record-holder was the European \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta \u003c/a>spacecraft. Rosetta cruised in hibernation mode through its orbital aphelion (its most distant point from the sun) back in 2012. Later it fell sunward toward its encounter with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close to the Sun, Solar-Powered Spacecraft Are the Rule\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the inner solar system, from the planet Mercury out into the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, robotic exploration is powered almost entirely by \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/solarcells/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photovoltaics\u003c/a>—solar cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482754 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg\" alt=\"Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/junoslocation-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Present location of the Juno spacecraft as it approaches Jupiter for a July 2016 encounter. \u003ccite>(Southwest Research Institute)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, solar photovoltaic technology was developed for Earth-orbiting satellites. Notable exceptions include short-lived probes dropped to the surface of Venus, which were powered by chemical batteries, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Curiosity\u003c/a> rover on Mars, which requires the kick of nuclear power to drive its equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Near the sun, sunlight is intense enough to make photovoltaic power practical. At Earth’s distance, sunlight intensity amounts to over a thousand Watts per square meter. A reasonably sized array of solar panels can generate a practical amount of electrical power for a satellite or spacecraft, even though the technology is not 100 percent efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the farther a spacecraft gets from the sun, the weaker the sunlight becomes, by a factor of the square of the distance. Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, so sunlight at that distance is weaker by a factor of five-squared, or 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno’s photovoltaic system consists of three, 30-foot-long panels, which at Earth would generate up to 14,000 Watts of electrical power. At Jupiter where Juno is now approaching, that solar array generates a mere 500 Watts! But, it will be enough to power the efficiently-designed Juno as it probes Jupiter’s interior, atmosphere and magnetic field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2093px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-482758 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg\" alt=\"Solar energy across the solar system.\" width=\"2093\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster.jpg 2093w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1440x943.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1920x1258.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-1180x773.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/solarpanel-poster-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2093px) 100vw, 2093px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar energy across the solar system. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators Run the Show in the Outer Solar System and Beyond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most missions sent beyond the Main Asteroid Belt are nuclear-powered. \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Galileo\u003c/a>, the only other spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, was powered by two \u003ca href=\"https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/rps/rtg.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">radioisotope thermoelectric generators\u003c/a> (RTGs) that produced about 570 Watts of electrical power by converting the heat of decaying radioactive material into electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve seen the movie, “The Martian,” you may recall Matt Damon’s character digging up a device to keep the cab of his rover warm—that was an RTG.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the Galileo probe, photovoltaic technology wasn’t advanced enough to be a practical power source. The spacecraft would have needed at least 700 square feet of solar panels to function!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond Jupiter, solar-powered spacecraft will likely remain impractical for a long time to come. As sunlight becomes weaker, spacecraft simply need larger collection surfaces to squeeze out energy from sparser photons. At Saturn, where \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has been operating on RTG power for about 12 years now, sunlight is 90 times weaker than at Earth—almost four times weaker than at Jupiter!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pioneers, Voyagers, and New Horizons range even farther, in the cold darkness well beyond Neptune’s orbit, where the sunlight trickles in at one-nine-hundredth the strength of Earth-side sunshine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juno will arrive at Jupiter this July, to begin the one-year science phase of its mission, after a five-year voyage to get there. At the conclusion of its mission, the spacecraft will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere, following in the fiery footsteps of its predecessor, the Galileo probe.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Find Hints of a Giant, Hidden Planet in Our Solar System",
"headTitle": "Scientists Find Hints of a Giant, Hidden Planet in Our Solar System | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The astronomer whose work helped kick Pluto out of the pantheon of planets says he has good reason to believe there’s an undiscovered planet bigger than Earth lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s quite a claim, because \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/\">Mike Brown\u003c/a> of Caltech is no stranger to this part of our cosmic neighborhood. After all, he discovered \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/eris\">Eris\u003c/a>, an icy world more massive than Pluto that proved our old friend wasn’t special enough to be considered a full-fledged planet. He also introduced the world to \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/\">Sedna\u003c/a>, a first-of-its-kind dwarf planet that’s so far out there, its region of space was long thought to be an empty no man’s land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Brown has teamed up with Caltech colleague \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kbatygin/Home.html\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> to do a new analysis of oddities in the orbits of small, icy bodies out beyond Neptune. In their \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22\">report published Wednesday\u003c/a> in \u003cem>The Astronomical Journal\u003c/em>, the researchers say it looks like the orbits are all being affected by the presence of an unseen planet that’s about 10 times more massive than Earth — the size astronomers refer to as a super-Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m willing to take bets on anyone who’s not a believer,” says Brown. He thinks existing telescopes have a shot at spotting this mystery planet in just a few years, since this new study points to a band of sky where astronomers should look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482752\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg\" alt='Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are \"willing to take bets\" that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune.' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1440x961.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1920x1282.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are “willing to take bets” that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune. \u003ccite>(Lance Hayashida/Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first suggestion that something big might be affecting the orbits of distant, icy bodies came in 2014. An international team of astronomers \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/26/294358647/new-dwarf-planet-found-at-the-solar-systems-outer-limits\">announced\u003c/a> that they’d discovered a new dwarf planet, nicknamed Biden, that stays even farther out than Sedna. They also noted a strange clustering in the orbits of these objects, and in the orbits of about a dozen others. Perhaps, they hypothesized, the gravity of some unseen planet was acting as a shepherd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were pointing out that there was something funny going on in the outer solar system, but nobody could really understand what it was,” says Brown. “Ever since they pointed it out we’ve been scratching our heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of a huge, hidden planet seemed kind of crazy. “No one really took it very seriously,” says Brown. “It was ignored more than you might guess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he walked a few doors down to meet with Batygin and suggested they take this on. As they studied the freaky way that these objects lined up in space, Brown says, they realized that “the only way to get these objects to line up in one direction is to have a massive planet lined up in the other direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, this planet naturally explains why the dwarf planets Sedna and Biden have weird orbits that never let them come in close to the solar system. “This wasn’t something we were setting out to explain,” says Brown. “This is something that just popped out of the theory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one moment that turned Brown into a believer. Their computer simulations predicted that if this hypothetical planet existed, it would twist the orbits of other small bodies in a certain way. So Brown looked through some old data to see if any icy bodies had been discovered with those kinds of orbits — and, lo and behold, he found five of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re objects that nobody has really explained or tried to explain before,” says Brown. “My jaw hit the floor. That just came out of the blue. Being able to make a prediction and having it come true in five minutes is about as fun as it gets in science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their work suggests how big the planet must be, and more or less where it could be found. Brown has already started looking. He hopes other scientists will too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to know what it’s like. I want to see that it’s really there,” says Brown. “It will hurt when somebody finds it and it’s not me — but I assume it’s going to happen, and I’m willing to feel that pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482769\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system. \u003ccite>(Caltech/R. Hurt/IPAC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may be hard to believe that something so big would not have been seen before now. But \u003ca href=\"http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/\">Scott Sheppard\u003c/a> of the Carnegie Institution for Science explains that for us to see it, sunlight has to travel all the way out there, bounce off the object, then travel all the way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Objects get very faint very fast,” says Sheppard. “If you do the math, if you move something twice as far away from the sun, it gets 16 times fainter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheppard is one of the researchers who, after discovering Biden and the strange orbits, suggested a large planet might be the culprit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we published was a very basic analysis of this clustering of objects in the outer solar system,” he says. “We just did some basic stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis, he says, has gone much deeper and has more rigor. “It leaves me thinking that the possibility of there being this super-Earth or mini-Neptune out there is more and more real now,” says Sheppard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he’s not completely convinced. “We really need to find more of these objects — more of these small objects that can lead us to the bigger object,” Sheppard says. “I think it’s still a tossup if it’s really out there or not. I think we just need more data. Hopefully within the next few years we’ll really be able to nail this down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dwarf planets like Sedna and Biden are not exactly household names. But Sheppard says if the solar system indeed has an honest-to-goodness ninth planet — a distant, giant planet that’s bigger than Earth — “that, I think, is something that would blow the mind of anyone here on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scientists+Find+Hints+Of+A+Giant%2C+Hidden+Planet+In+Our+Solar+System&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Something very big, out beyond Neptune, is warping the orbits of small, icy objects circling our sun. Astronomers haven't seen it yet, but say the culprit could be a planet with 10 times Earth's mass.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The astronomer whose work helped kick Pluto out of the pantheon of planets says he has good reason to believe there’s an undiscovered planet bigger than Earth lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s quite a claim, because \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/\">Mike Brown\u003c/a> of Caltech is no stranger to this part of our cosmic neighborhood. After all, he discovered \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/eris\">Eris\u003c/a>, an icy world more massive than Pluto that proved our old friend wasn’t special enough to be considered a full-fledged planet. He also introduced the world to \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/\">Sedna\u003c/a>, a first-of-its-kind dwarf planet that’s so far out there, its region of space was long thought to be an empty no man’s land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Brown has teamed up with Caltech colleague \u003ca href=\"http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~kbatygin/Home.html\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> to do a new analysis of oddities in the orbits of small, icy bodies out beyond Neptune. In their \u003ca href=\"http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22\">report published Wednesday\u003c/a> in \u003cem>The Astronomical Journal\u003c/em>, the researchers say it looks like the orbits are all being affected by the presence of an unseen planet that’s about 10 times more massive than Earth — the size astronomers refer to as a super-Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m willing to take bets on anyone who’s not a believer,” says Brown. He thinks existing telescopes have a shot at spotting this mystery planet in just a few years, since this new study points to a band of sky where astronomers should look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482752\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg\" alt='Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are \"willing to take bets\" that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune.' width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1440x961.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1920x1282.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796-960x641.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/planet-scientists_enl-03a1b33b24c556c7429edefe40090a321e27c796.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caltech astronomers Mike Brown (left) and Konstantin Batygin are “willing to take bets” that a giant ninth planet is lurking in our solar system — way, way out, beyond Neptune. \u003ccite>(Lance Hayashida/Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first suggestion that something big might be affecting the orbits of distant, icy bodies came in 2014. An international team of astronomers \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/26/294358647/new-dwarf-planet-found-at-the-solar-systems-outer-limits\">announced\u003c/a> that they’d discovered a new dwarf planet, nicknamed Biden, that stays even farther out than Sedna. They also noted a strange clustering in the orbits of these objects, and in the orbits of about a dozen others. Perhaps, they hypothesized, the gravity of some unseen planet was acting as a shepherd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were pointing out that there was something funny going on in the outer solar system, but nobody could really understand what it was,” says Brown. “Ever since they pointed it out we’ve been scratching our heads.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of a huge, hidden planet seemed kind of crazy. “No one really took it very seriously,” says Brown. “It was ignored more than you might guess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he walked a few doors down to meet with Batygin and suggested they take this on. As they studied the freaky way that these objects lined up in space, Brown says, they realized that “the only way to get these objects to line up in one direction is to have a massive planet lined up in the other direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, this planet naturally explains why the dwarf planets Sedna and Biden have weird orbits that never let them come in close to the solar system. “This wasn’t something we were setting out to explain,” says Brown. “This is something that just popped out of the theory.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was one moment that turned Brown into a believer. Their computer simulations predicted that if this hypothetical planet existed, it would twist the orbits of other small bodies in a certain way. So Brown looked through some old data to see if any icy bodies had been discovered with those kinds of orbits — and, lo and behold, he found five of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re objects that nobody has really explained or tried to explain before,” says Brown. “My jaw hit the floor. That just came out of the blue. Being able to make a prediction and having it come true in five minutes is about as fun as it gets in science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their work suggests how big the planet must be, and more or less where it could be found. Brown has already started looking. He hopes other scientists will too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to know what it’s like. I want to see that it’s really there,” says Brown. “It will hurt when somebody finds it and it’s not me — but I assume it’s going to happen, and I’m willing to feel that pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_482769\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-482769\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Planet-nine.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Moreover, when viewed in 3-D, the orbits of all these icy little objects are tilted in the same direction, away from the plane of the solar system. \u003ccite>(Caltech/R. Hurt/IPAC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It may be hard to believe that something so big would not have been seen before now. But \u003ca href=\"http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/\">Scott Sheppard\u003c/a> of the Carnegie Institution for Science explains that for us to see it, sunlight has to travel all the way out there, bounce off the object, then travel all the way back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Objects get very faint very fast,” says Sheppard. “If you do the math, if you move something twice as far away from the sun, it gets 16 times fainter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheppard is one of the researchers who, after discovering Biden and the strange orbits, suggested a large planet might be the culprit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we published was a very basic analysis of this clustering of objects in the outer solar system,” he says. “We just did some basic stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new analysis, he says, has gone much deeper and has more rigor. “It leaves me thinking that the possibility of there being this super-Earth or mini-Neptune out there is more and more real now,” says Sheppard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he’s not completely convinced. “We really need to find more of these objects — more of these small objects that can lead us to the bigger object,” Sheppard says. “I think it’s still a tossup if it’s really out there or not. I think we just need more data. Hopefully within the next few years we’ll really be able to nail this down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dwarf planets like Sedna and Biden are not exactly household names. But Sheppard says if the solar system indeed has an honest-to-goodness ninth planet — a distant, giant planet that’s bigger than Earth — “that, I think, is something that would blow the mind of anyone here on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Scientists+Find+Hints+Of+A+Giant%2C+Hidden+Planet+In+Our+Solar+System&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Southern Lights and struggling into a Gumby suit are just the beginning. The ice still lies ahead.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The second \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">in a series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the Antarctic research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mystery From the Sky\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by a shadowy figure at the door. I went out and up and onto the deck of the Polar Star, which was making its way south to Antarctica. Its mission was to break some of the ice there. Not all of it, but some.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside it was still dark, which was getting rarer by the day. Up above was the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, which are almost exactly like the better known Northern Lights, only upside-down. What they look like is space clouds curving in from somewhere distant and sifting down the way you think of fireworks sifting down.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?\u003ccite>Frankenstein\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>These were more or less cloud-colored, but in the photos, most of which turned out pretty bad, the lights took on the green color you think of, if you think of that sort of thing at all. The lights are awesome in the original sense of that word, and seeing them entirely accidentally, I understood why they were a thing people journey to see: they touch a very old urge to go out and explore in hopes — not just of understanding — but of being mystified, of finding that place where the difference between nature and magic is irrelevant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re usually a winter phenomenon, the auroras, so these were out of season, but this was New Year’s Day, and these were our fireworks in a very lonely place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460407\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1440x960.jpeg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC00351.jpeg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Lights as seen from the flybridge (the roof of the bridge), where photo ops are good, but equipment tends to get in the way. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mission of United States Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is a straightforward one: sail from home port in Seattle to McMurdo Station on \u003ca href=\"http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/18/rediscovering-ross-island-the-2012-expedition-to-understand-the-geologic-origin-of-ross-island-antarctica/\">Ross Island\u003c/a> off the coast of Antarctica. Once there, make a path for supply ships. Return home. It’s a trip that starts around Thanksgiving and ends around early April, barring any unforeseen complications such as icebound fishing boats or onboard fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm\">U.S. Antarctic Program base\u003c/a> from which scientists deploy across the continent to pursue research in everything from gravitational waves to climate change — the origins of the universe and the fates of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McMurdo is in a sound which \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49600\">ices over every year\u003c/a>. Polar Star opens the channel so supply ships can get in during the short austral summer, outfit the station for the next year’s research, and take out the trash. McMurdo is run by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">National Science Foundation\u003c/a>, which works with the Coast Guard to make sure there’s a way into and out of McMurdo. All of which would be simple enough, but for the complicating factors of entropy and politics, which will embroil the modern empires of Ebay and Russia. About which more later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470129\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg\" alt=\"PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1454\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED.jpeg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-400x568.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-800x1136.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-768x1091.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PolarStargraphic_CORRECTED-960x1363.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">For now, know this: Polar Star is designed to ride up onto the ice and let gravity do the rest. She can power through about 6 feet of ice pretty handily, or even more if she backs up and rams the ice. Cutting a channel through a dozen miles of “fast ice” (ice connected to land, “made fast” to it) will take more than a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This process is called “grooming,” which has all kinds of other zoological and sartorial connotations that are delightful to think about in the context of this \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">big orange 14,000-ton jet-powered ship\u003c/a> lurching up onto thick ice like a beaching whale and splashing gleefully down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m told that, onboard, this feels like a series of minor earthquakes going on for a week. I sleep on a top bunk that someone appears to have forgotten to attach retaining rails to, so my childhood fear of falling out of a nice dream onto the hard, hard floor of a Cold War-era icebreaker may well come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once upon a time, there were two kinds of uncharted territory. There was the “Here There Be Dragons,” “Darkest Africa” kind of stuff, the lands of dangerous unknowns, and then there was the Shangri-La, El Dorado types, mythic places that lured men over the horizon in search of lands surpassing in beauty, fertility, and riches any we had known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460409\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg\" alt=\"Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered peoples.\" width=\"800\" height=\"749\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-800x749.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-400x374.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1440x1348.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1920x1797.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-1180x1104.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR-960x899.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Antique_Map_Mercator_North_Pole_2_HR.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps as late as the mid-19th century envisioned an ice-free Arctic Sea, surrounded by temperate regions and undiscovered races of people.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People believed this about the Arctic, for whatever reason and against all available evidence (see: giant ice fields and polar bears). Explorers of the Victorian era thought that maybe somewhere in there was a paradise. Even Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story is framed around an expedition to the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shelley was making a point about the human need to discover, and the need to cut ourselves to ribbons on that dangerously sharp edge between the known and the unknown. The Arctic held great appeal to people of Shelley’s era, the promise of a land better than any other land. But in fact, there’s no land there at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the big difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic: the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land; Antarctica is a frozen land surrounded by sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the Arctic has historically been in finding ways across it, shortcuts from one empire to the next. Those shortcuts have been elusive; the search for them has led to disappointment and death by freezing and starvation. Now that it’s melting, though, some of those fabled passages are appearing, and countries with an interest in controlling the north are trying to find ways to send container ships — even cruise ships — across it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Antarctic has been largely insulated from this, in part because of its supreme isolation from anywhere anyone wanted to go, and partly because of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\">Antarctic Treaty of 1959\u003c/a>, which protects the continent from mining and commercial exploitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while 53 countries have signed on and many have planted flags and opened bases and dug around in the snow, no one’s been able to use it to turn a profit, or expand an empire. It’s been all about the science. Discovery, in other words. An unspoiled land ruled by ideals and penguins. Everyone was looking north for Shangri-La when they should’ve been looking south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_460489\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-460489\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-400x267.jpeg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-1180x786.jpeg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147-960x640.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01147.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala plots a course from McMurdo Station to points north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all stands to get screwed up, too, of course, as we’ll see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star carries some of the motley DNA of Frankenstein’s monster. She breaks down a little here, a lot there. She’s repaired from a dwindling pool of parts. She carries a lot of new stuff to talk to her old stuff (she’s mostly old stuff). \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">Her keel was laid in 1972\u003c/a>. She was commissioned in 1976. Think about a 44-year-old machine. Think about how drastically technology has changed since then. Think about the friction caused by forcing this ship to stay in the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s all we’ve got, to do this one straightforward thing in this one lonely place. That’s only really a problem when she breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which she did the very next day after the Southern Lights went away and took the night entirely with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Thar She Breaks!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary). On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Move Over Pluto, Dwarf Planet Ceres Gets an Extreme Close-Up",
"headTitle": "Move Over Pluto, Dwarf Planet Ceres Gets an Extreme Close-Up | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Dawn spacecraft\u003c/a> recently made its closest flyby of Ceres, sending back the most detailed views of its surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres is the largest object in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.universetoday.com/32856/asteroid-belt/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Main Asteroid Belt\u003c/a> located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and the only dwarf planet closer to the sun than Pluto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While news from that other dwarf planet encounter of 2015—New Horizons’ epic and brief July flyby of Pluto—has dominated attention in recent months, Dawn has been quietly and persistently scouring Ceres for information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_456654\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-456654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up picture of a region of the southern hemisphere of the dwarf planet Ceres, captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from its closest encounter to date. \" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Close-up on a region of Ceres’ southern hemisphere, captured by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from its closest encounter to date. \u003ccite>(Dawn/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Extreme Close-Up\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">December 10, \u003c/span>\u003ca style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4802\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn captured images\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\"> of Ceres’ southern hemisphere from an altitude of only 240 miles, its closest encounter to date. From this close orbit, image resolution of Ceres’ surface is about 120 feet per pixel, which is providing scientists with unprecedented details of the tiny fractured and cratered world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking of fractures and craters, Dawn has revealed a collection of “trough” features, found all over the dwarf planet’s surface. While many of these cracks appear to be associated with impact craters and formed by shattering collisions with meteorites, some appear to be \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/31469-dwarf-planet-ceres-stretched-surface-photos.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tectonic in nature\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tectonic stress fractures have been seen on other solar system bodies, including Earth and Mars. These are cracks formed by the contraction of a planet’s surface or by the weight of mountains that build up, whether by volcanic eruption or tectonic uplift. \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/9683-surface-mars-possibly-shaped-plate-tectonics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympus Mons\u003c/a>, Mars’ mega-volcano, is an example of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Ceres is very small—only about 584 miles across, on average—the evidence of internal forces and processes that have broken its crust is tantalizing. A number of small bodies in the solar system have surprised us recently by showing signs of internal activity—Ceres, \u003ca href=\"http://news.discovery.com/space/pluto-may-have-deep-seas-and-ancient-tectonic-faults-140412.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pluto\u003c/a>, and Saturn’s moon \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia11140.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enceladus\u003c/a>, to name three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detection of Salt and Clay\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s other instruments have made observations of Ceres’ chemical makeup\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that are also intriguing. Earlier in December, the composition of the mysterious “\u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4785\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bright spots\u003c/a>” was revealed as salt, possibly a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres has also been found to contain ammoniated clays, which suggests that the material it formed from may have originated in the outer solar system where ammonia is abundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether Ceres formed in the outer solar system and then migrated to its present location in the Main Asteroid Belt, or the materials it coalesced from originated out there, is not known, but either way the finding offers fascinating insights into the solar system’s past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ceres Is Unique Even Among Dwarf Planets\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are five objects in our solar system classified as dwarf planets (with potentially many more to be added). Four of them—Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake—are Kuiper Belt Objects, orbiting the sun in a vast belt of icy material extending from beyond the orbit of Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the dwarf planets, Ceres alone resides relatively close to Earth. The rewards of data mined from Pluto and Ceres by New Horizons and Dawn gives us the opportunity to compare these two very different objects, and helps to define the range of variation in properties and surface conditions of dwarf planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dawn’s Advanced Engine Technology\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_456658\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-456658\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the Dawn spacecraft firing its electrical ion propulsion engine.\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the Dawn spacecraft firing its electrical ion propulsion engine. \u003ccite>(Dawn/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before arriving at Ceres, Dawn spent a year orbiting the asteroid and protoplanet Vesta, making it the only spacecraft outside of the Earth-Moon system to orbit two different objects. One of the things that enabled Dawn to do this is its cutting-edge \u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">electrical ion propulsion system\u003c/a>, a highly efficient engine that uses low power, but constant thrust to achieve greater velocity changes than conventional chemical rocket engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So \u003ca href=\"http://www.popsci.com/whats-next-dawn-mission-keri-bean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">what’s in the future \u003c/a>for this versatile itinerant robot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, Dawn will remain in orbit as a permanent artificial satellite of Ceres even beyond the duration of its mission, currently schedule to end in June. So, we still have a few months of cool pictures and potentially awesome discoveries to look forward to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, we can shift our anticipation back to New Horizons and its 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Dawn spacecraft\u003c/a> recently made its closest flyby of Ceres, sending back the most detailed views of its surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres is the largest object in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.universetoday.com/32856/asteroid-belt/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Main Asteroid Belt\u003c/a> located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and the only dwarf planet closer to the sun than Pluto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While news from that other dwarf planet encounter of 2015—New Horizons’ epic and brief July flyby of Pluto—has dominated attention in recent months, Dawn has been quietly and persistently scouring Ceres for information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_456654\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-456654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up picture of a region of the southern hemisphere of the dwarf planet Ceres, captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from its closest encounter to date. \" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/ceres-lamo-1.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Close-up on a region of Ceres’ southern hemisphere, captured by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from its closest encounter to date. \u003ccite>(Dawn/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Extreme Close-Up\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">December 10, \u003c/span>\u003ca style=\"line-height: 1.5\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4802\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn captured images\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\"> of Ceres’ southern hemisphere from an altitude of only 240 miles, its closest encounter to date. From this close orbit, image resolution of Ceres’ surface is about 120 feet per pixel, which is providing scientists with unprecedented details of the tiny fractured and cratered world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking of fractures and craters, Dawn has revealed a collection of “trough” features, found all over the dwarf planet’s surface. While many of these cracks appear to be associated with impact craters and formed by shattering collisions with meteorites, some appear to be \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/31469-dwarf-planet-ceres-stretched-surface-photos.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tectonic in nature\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tectonic stress fractures have been seen on other solar system bodies, including Earth and Mars. These are cracks formed by the contraction of a planet’s surface or by the weight of mountains that build up, whether by volcanic eruption or tectonic uplift. \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/9683-surface-mars-possibly-shaped-plate-tectonics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympus Mons\u003c/a>, Mars’ mega-volcano, is an example of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Ceres is very small—only about 584 miles across, on average—the evidence of internal forces and processes that have broken its crust is tantalizing. A number of small bodies in the solar system have surprised us recently by showing signs of internal activity—Ceres, \u003ca href=\"http://news.discovery.com/space/pluto-may-have-deep-seas-and-ancient-tectonic-faults-140412.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pluto\u003c/a>, and Saturn’s moon \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia11140.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enceladus\u003c/a>, to name three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detection of Salt and Clay\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s other instruments have made observations of Ceres’ chemical makeup\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that are also intriguing. Earlier in December, the composition of the mysterious “\u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4785\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bright spots\u003c/a>” was revealed as salt, possibly a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres has also been found to contain ammoniated clays, which suggests that the material it formed from may have originated in the outer solar system where ammonia is abundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether Ceres formed in the outer solar system and then migrated to its present location in the Main Asteroid Belt, or the materials it coalesced from originated out there, is not known, but either way the finding offers fascinating insights into the solar system’s past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ceres Is Unique Even Among Dwarf Planets\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are five objects in our solar system classified as dwarf planets (with potentially many more to be added). Four of them—Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake—are Kuiper Belt Objects, orbiting the sun in a vast belt of icy material extending from beyond the orbit of Neptune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the dwarf planets, Ceres alone resides relatively close to Earth. The rewards of data mined from Pluto and Ceres by New Horizons and Dawn gives us the opportunity to compare these two very different objects, and helps to define the range of variation in properties and surface conditions of dwarf planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dawn’s Advanced Engine Technology\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_456658\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-456658\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the Dawn spacecraft firing its electrical ion propulsion engine.\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-960x960.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires-75x75.jpg 75w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/PIA19598_hires.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the Dawn spacecraft firing its electrical ion propulsion engine. \u003ccite>(Dawn/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before arriving at Ceres, Dawn spent a year orbiting the asteroid and protoplanet Vesta, making it the only spacecraft outside of the Earth-Moon system to orbit two different objects. One of the things that enabled Dawn to do this is its cutting-edge \u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">electrical ion propulsion system\u003c/a>, a highly efficient engine that uses low power, but constant thrust to achieve greater velocity changes than conventional chemical rocket engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So \u003ca href=\"http://www.popsci.com/whats-next-dawn-mission-keri-bean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">what’s in the future \u003c/a>for this versatile itinerant robot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, Dawn will remain in orbit as a permanent artificial satellite of Ceres even beyond the duration of its mission, currently schedule to end in June. So, we still have a few months of cool pictures and potentially awesome discoveries to look forward to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, we can shift our anticipation back to New Horizons and its 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How To See The First Meteor Shower of 2016",
"headTitle": "How To See The First Meteor Shower of 2016 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The annual \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/meteors/quadrantids\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quadrantid Meteor Shower\u003c/a> is heading our way for a brief appearance in the early morning hours of Monday, January 4. But catching one of these fiery streaks requires a bit of late night fortitude, and not a small amount of luck in the case of this particular shower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to see some of these meteors, here’s what you need to do. First, find a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2007/07/06/dark-secrets/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">good place to view\u003c/a> the northern sky that is as dark as possible—as far from city lights as you can get. Now for the part that requires the fortitude: you need to go there between midnight and dawn (Monday morning, January 4)….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s In It For Me?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some added bonuses to observing Quadrantids this year. First, the Moon will be in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases_calendar.phtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">waning Crescent phase\u003c/a>, and won’t rise until after 2:00 AM. So for the first couple of hours after midnight no moonlight will contend with your enjoyment of the night sky—and even after the Moon rises, it won’t be terribly bright. In fact, it’ll look beautiful….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other bonus for the very late night meteor watcher is a string of naked-eye planets. Mars is located near the Crescent Moon all evening, and farther to the west, high in the sky, is Jupiter. Closer to 6:00 AM, the planets Venus and Saturn will rise as a pair in the southeast, and for a brief spell before dawn you can see all four planets and the Moon strung up in a long line. Plus, hopefully, some meteors! Imagine this spectacle!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s a Quadrantid?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_427433\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-427433\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014-400x213.jpg\" alt=\"A Quadrantid meteor photographed during the 2014 shower. \" width=\"400\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014-400x213.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014.jpg 466w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Quadrantid meteor photographed during the 2014 shower. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maybe you haven’t heard of the Quadrantids? Unlike the more famous Perseids in August or the Leonids in November, the Quadrantids are lesser known, but still a highly productive show of shooting stars. Part of their obscurity may have to do with the typical weather conditions that prevail in January: each year this meteor shower is more prone to being preempted by an Earthly rain shower than its showy summer and autumn counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another reason for the Quadrantids’ anonymity might be their relatively brief window of the appearance. Typically, shower activity takes place over a week or two, with the meteor rates (the activity in meteors per hour) spread out in something of a Bell curve. The peak in activity for most showers may even span a couple of days, so often you can experience similar meteor rates on two consecutive mornings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not so with the Quadrantids, whose entire period of activity is mostly confined to less than a day. It’s as if the operator in the big meteor shower control tower in the sky flips an “on” switch and then, shortly after, flips it off again. The operator of typical meteor showers is more laid back about the affair, smoothly amping up the dimmer switch over a number of days, and then fading it down again after that. This means that you can spot a meteor days before and after the shower’s peak in activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all that said, Quadrantid meteor shower activity can rival even the Perseid shower, with as many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where Do Meteor Showers Come From?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_427434\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-427434\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-400x220.png\" alt='Artist depiction of a the \"rock-comet\" 3200 Phaeton. ' width=\"400\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-400x220.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-768x422.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-672x372.png 672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of a the “rock-comet” 3200 Phaeton. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://geology.com/articles/meteor-shower.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meteor showers are caused\u003c/a> when the Earth passes through a lane of dust left behind by a comet—and in at least a couple of cases, including the Quadrantids, an asteroid. The parent body of Quadrantid meteors is called 2003 EH1, a type of small solar system object that astronomers sometimes call a “\u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/27nov_rockcomet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rock comet\u003c/a>“—basically an asteroid that periodically exudes gas and dust like a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Earth slams into the dust particles at its orbital speed of 18 miles per second, friction with Earth’s atmosphere vaporizes them in a split second, leaving incandescent trails across the sky for us to marvel at. It’s not unlike when a car on the freeway blasts through a cloud of flying insects, the windshield striking them at high speed to leave streaks across the glass…. Of course, meteor showers are more glamorous….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind that every meteor you see is the fast and fiery end of a tiny piece of the solar system that has been flying around out there for billions of years!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Names of Meteor Showers\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteor showers are named for the constellation they appear to radiate from—their “radiant point”. Perseids appear to issue forth from the constellation Perseus, Leonids from Leo, Geminids from the twins of Gemini, and so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Quadrantids are named for a constellation that is no longer counted among the ranks of the 88 constellations officially recognized in 1922. Quadrans Muralis–the “mural quadrant,” is an astronomical instrument used to measure the positions of objects in the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The radiant point for this shower is now located within the constellation Bootes, near the handle of the Big Dipper (or the tail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear). If you draw a line through the left-upper “cup” star of the Dipper and the two handle stars closest to it, these three point toward the Quadrantids radiant, about the length of the Dipper handle away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the weather is good and you choose to brave the cold, dark, and very early morning hours on January 4th, may the “ids” be with you….\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The annual \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/meteors/quadrantids\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quadrantid Meteor Shower\u003c/a> is heading our way for a brief appearance in the early morning hours of Monday, January 4. But catching one of these fiery streaks requires a bit of late night fortitude, and not a small amount of luck in the case of this particular shower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to see some of these meteors, here’s what you need to do. First, find a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2007/07/06/dark-secrets/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">good place to view\u003c/a> the northern sky that is as dark as possible—as far from city lights as you can get. Now for the part that requires the fortitude: you need to go there between midnight and dawn (Monday morning, January 4)….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s In It For Me?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some added bonuses to observing Quadrantids this year. First, the Moon will be in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases_calendar.phtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">waning Crescent phase\u003c/a>, and won’t rise until after 2:00 AM. So for the first couple of hours after midnight no moonlight will contend with your enjoyment of the night sky—and even after the Moon rises, it won’t be terribly bright. In fact, it’ll look beautiful….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other bonus for the very late night meteor watcher is a string of naked-eye planets. Mars is located near the Crescent Moon all evening, and farther to the west, high in the sky, is Jupiter. Closer to 6:00 AM, the planets Venus and Saturn will rise as a pair in the southeast, and for a brief spell before dawn you can see all four planets and the Moon strung up in a long line. Plus, hopefully, some meteors! Imagine this spectacle!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s a Quadrantid?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_427433\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-427433\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014-400x213.jpg\" alt=\"A Quadrantid meteor photographed during the 2014 shower. \" width=\"400\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014-400x213.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/quadrantid_newmexico_2014.jpg 466w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Quadrantid meteor photographed during the 2014 shower. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maybe you haven’t heard of the Quadrantids? Unlike the more famous Perseids in August or the Leonids in November, the Quadrantids are lesser known, but still a highly productive show of shooting stars. Part of their obscurity may have to do with the typical weather conditions that prevail in January: each year this meteor shower is more prone to being preempted by an Earthly rain shower than its showy summer and autumn counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another reason for the Quadrantids’ anonymity might be their relatively brief window of the appearance. Typically, shower activity takes place over a week or two, with the meteor rates (the activity in meteors per hour) spread out in something of a Bell curve. The peak in activity for most showers may even span a couple of days, so often you can experience similar meteor rates on two consecutive mornings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not so with the Quadrantids, whose entire period of activity is mostly confined to less than a day. It’s as if the operator in the big meteor shower control tower in the sky flips an “on” switch and then, shortly after, flips it off again. The operator of typical meteor showers is more laid back about the affair, smoothly amping up the dimmer switch over a number of days, and then fading it down again after that. This means that you can spot a meteor days before and after the shower’s peak in activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all that said, Quadrantid meteor shower activity can rival even the Perseid shower, with as many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where Do Meteor Showers Come From?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_427434\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-427434\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-400x220.png\" alt='Artist depiction of a the \"rock-comet\" 3200 Phaeton. ' width=\"400\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-400x220.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-768x422.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/dylhjvftbri1zoippsw3-672x372.png 672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of a the “rock-comet” 3200 Phaeton. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://geology.com/articles/meteor-shower.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meteor showers are caused\u003c/a> when the Earth passes through a lane of dust left behind by a comet—and in at least a couple of cases, including the Quadrantids, an asteroid. The parent body of Quadrantid meteors is called 2003 EH1, a type of small solar system object that astronomers sometimes call a “\u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/27nov_rockcomet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rock comet\u003c/a>“—basically an asteroid that periodically exudes gas and dust like a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Earth slams into the dust particles at its orbital speed of 18 miles per second, friction with Earth’s atmosphere vaporizes them in a split second, leaving incandescent trails across the sky for us to marvel at. It’s not unlike when a car on the freeway blasts through a cloud of flying insects, the windshield striking them at high speed to leave streaks across the glass…. Of course, meteor showers are more glamorous….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind that every meteor you see is the fast and fiery end of a tiny piece of the solar system that has been flying around out there for billions of years!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Names of Meteor Showers\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteor showers are named for the constellation they appear to radiate from—their “radiant point”. Perseids appear to issue forth from the constellation Perseus, Leonids from Leo, Geminids from the twins of Gemini, and so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Quadrantids are named for a constellation that is no longer counted among the ranks of the 88 constellations officially recognized in 1922. Quadrans Muralis–the “mural quadrant,” is an astronomical instrument used to measure the positions of objects in the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The radiant point for this shower is now located within the constellation Bootes, near the handle of the Big Dipper (or the tail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear). If you draw a line through the left-upper “cup” star of the Dipper and the two handle stars closest to it, these three point toward the Quadrantids radiant, about the length of the Dipper handle away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the weather is good and you choose to brave the cold, dark, and very early morning hours on January 4th, may the “ids” be with you….\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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