TWIN SPACECRAFT ON FINAL APPROACH TO NEW YEARS DAY LUNAR RENDEZVOUS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

“PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from
crust to core are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day
main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit.

Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft
are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21
p.m. EST) for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST)
on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B.

"Our team may not get to partake in a traditional New Year's
celebration, but I expect seeing our two spacecraft safely in lunar
orbit should give us all the excitement and feeling of euphoria
anyone in this line of work would ever need," said David Lehman,
project manager for GRAIL at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
in Pasadena, Calif.

The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles
(402,336 kilometers). NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to
travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that
long and covering more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers)
to get there.

This low-energy, long-duration trajectory has given mission planners
and controllers more time to assess the spacecraft's health. The path
also allowed a vital component of the spacecraft's single science
instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be continuously powered
for several months. This will allow it to reach a stable operating
temperature long before it begins making science measurements in
lunar orbit.

"This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the
moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. "Our two
spacecraft are operating so well during their journey that we have
performed a full test of our science instrument and confirmed the
performance required to meet our science objectives."

As of Dec. 28, GRAIL-A is 65,860 miles (106,000 kilometers) from the
moon and closing at a speed of 745 mph (1,200 kph). GRAIL-B is 79,540
miles (128,000 kilometers) from the moon and closing at a speed of
763 mph (1,228 kph).

During their final approaches to the moon, both orbiters move toward
it from the south, flying nearly over the lunar south pole. The lunar
orbit insertion burn for GRAIL-A will take approximately 40 minutes
and change the spacecraft's velocity by about 427 mph (688 kph).
GRAIL-B's insertion burn 25 hours later will last about 39 minutes
and is expected to change the probe's velocity by 430 mph (691 kph).

The insertion maneuvers will place each orbiter into a near-polar,
elliptical orbit with a period of 11.5 hours. Over the following
weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each
spacecraft to reduce their orbital period from 11.5 hours down to
just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March
2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit
with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).

When science collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio
signals precisely defining the distance between them as they orbit
the moon. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity,
caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by
masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. they will move slightly
toward and away from each other. An instrument aboard each spacecraft
will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely,
and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution
map of the Moon's gravitational field. The data will allow mission
scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This
information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky
neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds
we see today.

JPL manages the GRAIL mission. MIT is home to the mission's principal
investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery
Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.”

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY TO LAUNCH NEW SPACESHIP MODEL

The following excerpt is from the European Space Agency Website:

"Europe's ambition for a spacecraft to return autonomously from low orbit is a cornerstone for a wide range of space applications, including space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure.

Part of this goal will be achieved with IXV Intermediate Experimental Vehicle planned for launch in 2014.  Launced into a suborbital trajectory on ESA's Vega rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, IXV will return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new European critical reentry technologies such as advanced ceramic and ablative thermal protection."

CRYOGENIC TESTING COMPLETE ON MIRRORS FOR HUBBLE TELESCOPE REPLACEMENT

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

Dec. 21, 2011
GREENBELT, Md. -- Cryogenic testing is complete for the final six
primary mirror segments and a secondary mirror that will fly on
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The milestone represents the
successful culmination of a process that took years and broke new
ground in manufacturing and testing large mirrors.

"The mirror completion means we can build a large, deployable
telescope for space," said Scott Willoughby, vice president and Webb
program manager at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "We have
proven real hardware will perform to the requirements of the
mission."

The Webb telescope has 21 mirrors, with 18 mirror segments working
together as a large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror. Each
individual mirror segment now has been successfully tested to operate
at 40 Kelvin (-387 Fahrenheit or -233 Celsius).

"Mirrors need to be cold so their own heat does not drown out the very
faint infrared images," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope
Element manager for the Webb telescope at the agency's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "With the completion of all mirror
cryogenic testing, the toughest challenge since the beginning of the
program is now completely behind us."

Completed at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., a ten-week test
series chilled the primary mirror segments to -379 degrees
Fahrenheit. During two test cycles, telescope engineers took
extremely detailed measurements of how each individual mirror's shape
changed as it cooled. Testing verified each mirror changed shape with
temperature as expected and each one will be the correct shape upon
reaching the extremely cold operating temperature after reaching deep
space.

"Achieving the best performance requires conditioning and testing the
mirrors in the XRCF at temperatures just as cold as will be
encountered in space," said Helen Cole, project manager for Webb
Telescope mirror activities at the XRCF. "This testing ensures the
mirrors will focus crisply in space, which will allow us to see new
wonders in our universe."

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. successfully
completed comparable testing on the secondary mirror. However,
because the secondary mirror is convex (i.e., it has a domed surface
that bulges outward instead of a concave one that dishes inward like
a bowl), it does not converge light to a focus. Testing the mirror
presented a unique challenge involving a special process and more
complex optical measurements.

The Webb telescope is the world's next-generation space observatory
and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It will be most powerful
space telescope ever built, provide images of the first galaxies ever
formed, and explore planets around distant stars. It is a joint
project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space
Agency.”

NEW MAGNETIC BACTERIA COULD LEAD TO BIOTECH AND NANOTECH APPLICATIONS

The following excerpt is from the National Science Foundation website:

“Nevada, the "Silver State," is well-known for mining precious metals.
But scientists Dennis Bazylinski and colleagues at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) do a different type of mining.
They sluice through every water body they can find, looking for new forms of microbial magnetism.
In a basin named Badwater on the edge of Death Valley National Park, Bazylinski and researcher Christopher Lefèvre hit pay dirt.

Lefèvre is with the French National Center of Scientific Research and University of Aix-Marseille II.
In this week's issue of the journal Science, Bazylinski, Lefèvre and others report that they identified, isolated and grew a new type of magnetic bacteria that could lead to novel biotech and nanotech uses.
Magnetotactic bacteria are simple, single-celled organisms that are found in almost all bodies of water.
As their name suggests, they orient and navigate along magnetic fields like miniature swimming compass needles.

This is due to the nano-sized crystals of the minerals magnetite or greigite they produce.
The presence of these magnetic crystals makes the bacteria and their internal crystals--called magnetosomes--useful in drug delivery and medical imaging.

The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy and the French Foundation for Medical Research.

"The finding is significant in showing that this bacterium has specific genes to synthesize magnetite and greigite, and that the proportion of these magnetosomes varies with the chemistry of the environment," said Enriqueta Barrera, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.

While many magnetite-producing bacteria can be grown and easily studied, Bazylinski and his team were the first to cultivate a greigite-producing species. Greigite is an iron sulfide mineral, the equivalent of the iron oxide magnetite.
"Because greigite-producing bacteria have never been isolated, the crystals haven't been tested for the types of biomedical and other applications that currently use magnetite," said Bazylinski.
"Greigite is an iron sulfide that may be superior to magnetite in some applications due to its slightly different physical and magnetic properties. Now we have the opportunity to find out."
Researchers found the greigite-producing bacterium, called BW-1, in water samples collected more than 280 feet below sea level in Badwater Basin. Lefèvre and Bazylinski later isolated and grew it leading to the discovery that  BW-1 produces both greigite and magnetite
.
A detailed look at its DNA revealed that BW-1 has two sets of magnetosome genes, unlike other such bacteria, which produce only one mineral and have only one set of magnetosome genes.
This suggests that the production of magnetite and greigite in BW-1 is likely controlled by separate sets of genes. That could be important in the mass production of either mineral for specific applications.
According to Bazylinski, the greigite-producing bacteria represent a new, previously unrecognized group of sulfate-reducing bacteria that "breathe" the compound sulfate rather than oxygen as most living organisms do.
"With how much is known about sulfate-reducing bacteria, it's surprising that no one has described this group," he said.

Working with Bazylinski and Lefèvre on the project are David Pignol of the French National Center of Scientific Research and University of Aix-Marseille II; Nicolas Menguy of Pierre and Marie Curie University, France; Fernanda Abreu and Ulysses Lins of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Mihaly Pósfai of the University of Pannonia, Hungary; Tanya Prozorov of Ames Laboratory, Iowa; and Richard Frankel of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.”

PULSAR FOUND IN REMAINS OF A SUPERNOVA

The following is an excerpt from the NASA website:

“With the holiday season in full swing, a new image from an assembly of telescopes has revealed an unusual cosmic ornament. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton have been combined to discover a young pulsar in the remains of a supernova located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC. This would be the first definite time a pulsar, a spinning, ultra-dense star, has been found in a supernova remnant in the SMC, a small satellite galaxy to the Milky Way.

In this composite image, X-rays from Chandra and XMM-Newton have been colored blue and optical data from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile are colored red and green. The pulsar, known as SXP 1062, is the bright white source located on the right-hand side of the image in the middle of the diffuse blue emission inside a red shell. The diffuse X-rays and optical shell are both evidence for a supernova remnant surrounding the pulsar. The optical data also displays spectacular formations of gas and dust in a star-forming region on the left side of the image. A comparison of the Chandra image with optical images shows that the pulsar has a hot, massive companion.

Astronomers are interested in SXP 1062 because the Chandra and XMM-Newton data show that it is rotating unusually slowly -- about once every 18 minutes. (In contrast, some pulsars are found to revolve multiple times per second, including most newly born pulsars.) This relatively leisurely pace of SXP 1062 makes it one of the slowest rotating X-ray pulsars in the SMC.

Two different teams of scientists have estimated that the supernova remnant around SXP 1062 is between 10,000 and 40,000 years old, as it appears in the image. This means that the pulsar is very young, from an astronomical perspective, since it was presumably formed in the same explosion that produced the supernova remnant. Therefore, assuming that it was born with rapid spin, it is a mystery why SXP 1062 has been able to slow down by so much, so quickly. Work has already begun on theoretical models to understand the evolution of this unusual object.”

24 STUDENTS SELECTED TO TEST EXPERIMENTS IN MICROGRAVITY CONDITIONS

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

Dec. 21, 2011
“WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected 24 undergraduate student teams to test
science experiments under microgravity conditions. The teams will fly
during 2012 as part of the agency's Reduced Gravity Education Flight
Program (RGEFP).

The teams will design and build their experiments at NASA's Johnson
Space Center in Houston and conduct tests aboard an aircraft modified
to mimic a reduced-gravity environment. The aircraft will fly
approximately 30 parabolas with roller-coaster-like climbs and dips
to produce periods of weightlessness and hyper-gravity ranging from 0
to 2g's.

"The program provides unique opportunities for students all over the
country to experience life as a scientist or engineer in the working
world," said Douglas Goforth, RGEFP manager at Johnson. "We hope the
experience of performing experiments in microgravity will help
inspire students to pursue careers in technical fields."

Ten of the teams will participate through the Systems Engineering
Education Discovery (SEED) flight week April 20-28. They will work
with NASA scientists and engineers as part of ongoing systems
engineering projects pertinent to future agency research and
missions.

The 2012 SEED teams are from Carthage College, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Northwest Nazarene University, Oklahoma State University,
University of Houston-Clear Lake, San Jacinto College, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington University in St. Louis
and Yale University.

The other teams were selected through the Microgravity University
program and will conduct their research June 8-16. Those teams are
from Arizona State University, University of Southern California,
Yale University, University of Florida, Boise State University,
Purdue University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Missouri
University of Science and Technology, Santa Ana Community College,
Lamar University, University of Texas-El Paso, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, University of Washington and West
Virginia University.

The RGEFP experience includes scientific research, experimental
design, test operations and outreach activities. The program supports
NASA's goal of strengthening the nation's future workforce.”

2011 DEVELOPMENTS IN FUTURE SPACE

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:


NASA Announces Plans for Human Exploration of Deep Space, Fosters Commercial Spaceflight and Makes Major Discoveries in 2011


WASHINGTON -- In 2011, NASA began developing a heavy-lift rocket for the human exploration of deep space, helped foster a new era of commercial spaceflight and technology breakthroughs, fully utilized a newly complete space station, and made major discoveries about the universe we live in, many of which will benefit life on Earth. 


"The year truly marks the beginning of a new era in the human exploration of our solar system," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Just as important are the ground-breaking discoveries about Earth and the universe, as well as our work to inspire a
nd educate a new generation of scientists and engineers, and our efforts to keep the agency on a firm financial footing with its first clean audit in nine years. It's been a landmark year for the entire NASA team.”


The following are some of NASA's top stories for the past calendar year:


NASA DECIDES ARCHITECTURE FOR FUTURE HUMAN DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION


NASA reached several milestones in developing a new U.S. space transportation system that will serve as the cornerstone for America's future human space exploration efforts. The first decision came in late May, when NASA Administrator Bolden selected the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle as the spacecraft that would take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. In addition to exceeding the requirements necessary for deep space travel, it was consistent with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 to retain as much of the current workforce and its critical skills as possible. In September, Bolden announced the design of a new Space Launch System -- a heavy-lift rocket that will take our astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America's future human space exploration efforts. 


In November, NASA announced it planned to add an unpiloted flight test of the Orion spacecraft in early 2014 to its contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. The Exploration Flight Test, or EFT-1, will fly two orbits to a high-apogee and make a high-energy re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. Orion will land off the California coast and be recovered using operations planned for future human exploration missions. Throughout the year, engineers conducted multiple test firings of the agency's J-2X engines at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and performed several Orion water drop tests at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. In September, NASA and ATK Space Systems successfully completed a two-minute, full-scale test of Development Motor-3, the agency's largest and most powerful solid rocket motor ever designed for flight. 

NASA DESCRIBES HOW TO MAKE A CELESTIAL SNOW ANGEL

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched "wings" of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the "wings" of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an "hourglass" shape."

NASA ANNOUNCES PROCUREMENT STRATEGY TO GET U.S. BACK INTO SPACE

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

November 15, 2011
“WASHINGTON -- NASA announced today a modified competitive procurement strategy to keep on track the agency’s plan to have U.S. companies transport American astronauts into space instead of outsourcing this work to foreign governments.

Instead of awarding contracts for the next phase of the Commercial Crew Program, the agency plans to use multiple, competitively awarded Space Act Agreements. Using competitive Space Act Agreements instead of contracts will allow NASA to maintain a larger number of partners during this phase of the program, with the flexibility to adjust technical direction, milestones and funding.

This flexibility is important during a period of high budget uncertainty when NASA is receiving less funding than President Obama requested for the agency’s commercial space program.

"NASA is committed to ensuring that U.S. companies are sending American astronauts into space," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "This new acquisition strategy will allow us to preserve competition as we maintain our momentum to provide a U.S.-based commercial crew launch capability at the earliest possible time."

This competitive Space Act solicitation is separate from the work being carried out under existing Space Act Agreements. The new competition will focus on an overall system design rather than single technology activities. Details on the new competition will be available in January.

The announcement for proposals is expected in the first quarter of 2012. These competitively awarded Space Acts will be followed by a competitively awarded contract for the certification phase. The certification phase will ensure that the designs fully meet the safety and performance requirements for NASA utilization.”

A FIRST IN SUPERNOVA OBSERVATIONS

The following is an excerpt from the NASA website:

"First Supernova Companion Star Found
In 2004, an international team of astronomers had, for the first time, observed a stellar "survivor" emerge from a double star system involving an exploded supernova.

Supernovae are some of the most significant sources of chemical elements in the universe, and they are at the heart of our understanding of the evolution of galaxies. In this artist's view, the red super-giant supernova progenitor star (left) is exploding after having transferred about 10 solar masses of hydrogen gas to the blue companion star (right).

Image Credit: NASA

NASA SAYS MINERAL VEIN FOUND ON MARS WAS DEPOSITED BY WATER

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"WASHINGTON -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars.

"This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for Opportunity. "This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it. That can't be said for other gypsum seen on Mars or for other water-related minerals Opportunity has found. It's not uncommon on Earth, but on Mars, it's the kind of thing that makes geologists jump out of their chairs."

The latest findings by Opportunity were presented Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco.

The vein examined most closely by Opportunity is about the width of a human thumb (0.4 to 0.8 inch), 16 to 20 inches long, and protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. Observations by the durable rover reveal this vein and others like it within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater. None like it were seen in the 20 miles (33 kilometers) of crater-pocked plains that Opportunity explored for 90 months before it reached Endeavour, nor in the higher ground of the rim.

Last month, researchers used the Microscopic Imager and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on the rover's arm and multiple filters of the Panoramic Camera on the rover's mast to examine the vein, which is informally named "Homestake." The spectrometer identified plentiful calcium and sulfur, in a ratio pointing to relatively pure calcium sulfate.

Calcium sulfate can exist in many forms, varying by how much water is bound into the minerals' crystalline structure. The multi-filter data from the camera suggest gypsum, a hydrated calcium sulfate. On Earth, gypsum is used for making drywall and plaster of Paris.

Observations from orbit have detected gypsum on Mars previously. A dune field of windblown gypsum on far northern Mars resembles the glistening gypsum dunes in White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.

"It is a mystery where the gypsum sand on northern Mars comes from," said Opportunity science-team member Benton Clark of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. "At Homestake, we see the mineral right where it formed. It will be important to see if there are deposits like this in other areas of Mars."

The Homestake deposit, whether gypsum or another form of calcium sulfate, likely formed from water dissolving calcium out of volcanic rocks. The minerals combined with sulfur either leached from the rocks or introduced as volcanic gas, and was deposited as calcium sulfate into an underground fracture that later became exposed at the surface.

Throughout Opportunity's long traverse across Mars' Meridiani plain, the rover has driven over bedrock composed of magnesium, iron and calcium sulfate minerals that also indicate a wet environment billions of years ago. The highly concentrated calcium sulfate at Homestake could have been produced in conditions more neutral than the harshly acidic conditions indicated by the other sulfate deposits observed by Opportunity.

"It could have formed in a different type of water environment, one more hospitable for a larger variety of living organisms," Clark said.

Homestake and similar-looking veins appear in a zone where the sulfate-rich sedimentary bedrock of the plains meets older, volcanic bedrock exposed at the rim of Endeavour. That location may offer a clue about their origin.

"We want to understand why these veins are in the apron but not out on the plains," said the mission's deputy principal investigator, Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis. "The answer may be that rising groundwater coming from the ancient crust moved through material adjacent to Cape York and deposited gypsum, because this material would be relatively insoluble compared with either magnesium or iron sulfates."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of extended missions and made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010. Opportunity continues exploring, currently heading to a sun-facing slope on the northern end of the Endeavour rim fragment called "Cape York" to keep its solar panels at a favorable angle during the mission's fifth Martian winter.

NASA launched the next-generation Mars rover, the car-sized Curiosity, on Nov. 26. It is slated for arrival at the planet's Gale Crater in August 2012.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington."

VOYAGER(V-GER IN STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE) IS NOW ON THE EDGE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"NASA's Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge WASHINGTON -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. In it, the wind of charged particles streaming out from our sun has calmed, our solar system's magnetic field piles up and higher energy particles from inside our solar system appear to be leaking out into interstellar space.

"Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out what the space between stars is really like."

Although Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space. In the latest data, the direction of the magnetic field lines has not changed, indicating Voyager is still within the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. The data do not reveal exactly when Voyager 1 will make it past the edge of the solar atmosphere into interstellar space, but suggest it will be in a few months to a few years.

The latest findings, described today at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco, come from Voyager's Low Energy Charged Particle instrument, Cosmic Ray Subsystem and Magnetometer.

Scientists previously reported the outward speed of the solar wind had diminished to zero in April 2010, marking the start of the new region. Mission managers rolled the spacecraft several times this spring and summer to help scientists discern whether the solar wind was blowing strongly in another direction. It was not. Voyager 1 is plying the celestial seas in a region similar to Earth's doldrums, where there is very little wind.

During this past year, Voyager's magnetometer also detected a doubling in the intensity of the magnetic field in the stagnation region. Like cars piling up at a clogged freeway off-ramp, the increased intensity of the magnetic field shows that inward pressure from interstellar space is compacting it.

Voyager has been measuring energetic particles that originate from inside and outside our solar system. Until mid-2010, the intensity of particles originating from inside our solar system had been holding steady. But during the past year, the intensity of these energetic particles has been declining, as though they are leaking out into interstellar space. The particles are now half as abundant as they were during the previous five years.

At the same time, Voyager has detected a 100-fold increase in the intensity of high-energy electrons from elsewhere in the galaxy diffusing into our solar system from outside, which is another indication of the approaching boundary.

"We've been using the flow of energetic charged particles at Voyager 1 as a kind of wind sock to estimate the solar wind velocity," said Rob Decker, a Voyager Low-Energy Charged Particle Instrument co-investigator at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "We've found that the wind speeds are low in this region and gust erratically. For the first time, the wind even blows back at us. We are evidently traveling in completely new territory. Scientists had suggested previously that there might be a stagnation layer, but we weren't sure it existed until now."

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away from the sun.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology."

SPACE FIRM TO TEST ENGINE AT NASA SITE

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"NASA Deputy Administrator Garver Tours Blue Origin; Announces Commercial Space Firm's April Engine Testing At NASA Stennis

WASHINGTON -- NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver is visiting Blue Origin in Kent, Wash., today. The company is one of NASA's commercial partners opening a new chapter in human exploration by developing innovative systems to reach low Earth orbit as part of the Commercial Crew Development Program.

"Blue Origin is creating cutting edge technologies to take us to low Earth orbit," Garver said. "Like all of our commercial partners, they're making real progress and opening up a new job-creating segment of the economy that will allow NASA to focus on our next big challenges -- missions to asteroids and Mars."

Garver also announced Blue Origin has delivered its BE-3 engine thrust chamber assembly -- the engine's combustion chamber and nozzle -- to NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where testing will begin in April 2012. The company is developing a reusable launch vehicle, designed to take off and land vertically, and an escape system for its crewed spacecraft. Testing will take place on the center's E-1 Test Stand.

"We're delighted Blue Origin is taking advantage of Stennis, a center with a long record of propulsion testing from the dawn of the Space Age, to test the rocket engines of the future," Garver said.

"We appreciate the opportunity to work with the depth of expertise and utilize the facilities at Stennis for our engine testing, and are glad to have the test hardware onsite and ready to go," said Rob Meyerson, president and program manager at Blue Origin.

WANT TO BE AN ASTRONAUT? NASA IS NOW HIRING

The following is an excerpt from the NASA website:

“NASA Accepting Applications For Future Astronauts
HOUSTON -- Do you dream of flying in space? Now is your chance. NASA is accepting applications for the agency's next class for the Astronaut Candidate Program.

Starting today, qualified individuals can submit their applications through the federal government's USAJobs.gov website. Those selected will be among the first to pioneer a new generation of commercial launch vehicles and travel aboard a new heavy-lift rocket to distant destinations in deep space.

"For 50 years, American astronauts have led the exploration of our solar system," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Today we are getting a glimpse of why that will remain true for the next half-century. Make no mistake about it, human space flight is alive and well at NASA."

Qualifications include a bachelor's degree in engineering, science or math and three years of relevant professional experience. Successful applicants frequently have significant qualifications in engineering or science; or extensive experience flying high-performance jet aircraft. Educators teaching kindergarten through 12th grade with these minimimum degree requirements also are encouraged to apply.

NASA will accept applications through January 27, 2012. After applicant interviews and evaluations, the agency expects to announce the final selections in 2013. Training will begin that summer. “

THE NEW MOON MAP FROM NASA

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter science team released the highest resolution near-global topographic map of the moon ever created. This new topographic map shows the surface shape and features over nearly the entire moon with a pixel scale close to 328 feet.

Although the moon is Earth's closest neighbor, knowledge of its morphology is still limited. Due to the limitations of previous missions, a global map of the moon’s topography at high resolution has not existed until now. With LRO's Wide Angle Camera and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument, scientists can now accurately portray the shape of the entire moon at high resolution."

COLLAPSE OF MASSIVE STAR CREATES A STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"On the left, an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows Cygnus X-1, outlined in a red box. Cygnus X-1 is located near large active regions of star formation in the Milky Way, as seen in this image that spans some 700 light years across. An artist's illustration on the right depicts what astronomers think is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system. Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole pulls material from a massive, blue companion star toward it. This material forms a disk (shown in red and orange) that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being redirected away from the black hole in the form of powerful jets.

A trio of papers with data from radio, optical and X-ray telescopes, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, has revealed new details about the birth of this famous black hole that took place millions of years ago. Using X-ray data from Chandra, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, and the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, scientists were able to determine the spin of Cygnus X-1 with unprecedented accuracy, showing that the black hole is spinning at very close to its maximum rate. Its event horizon -- the point of no return for material falling towards a black hole -- is spinning around more than 800 times a second.

Using optical observations of the companion star and its motion around its unseen companion, the team also made the most precise determination ever for the mass of Cygnus X-1, of 14.8 times the mass of the Sun. It was likely to have been almost this massive at birth, because of lack of time for it to grow appreciably."

GALATIC ENCOUNTERS MAY CAUSE GROWTH OF HUGE BLACK HOLES

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"Astronomers have used a large survey to test a prediction that close encounters between galaxies can trigger the rapid growth of supermassive black holes. Key to this work was Chandra's unique ability to pinpoint actively growing black holes through the X-rays they generate.

The researchers looked at 562 pairs of galaxies ranging in distances from about 3 billion to 8 billion light years from Earth. They found that the galaxies in the early stages of an encounter with another were more likely than isolated, or "lonelier" galaxies to have actively growing black holes in their cores.

These two composite images show a sample of the pairs of galaxies that are undergoing close encounters in the survey. In these images, the data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple and Hubble Space Telescope data are in gold. In both images, the point-like X-ray source near the center is generated by gas that has been heated to millions of degrees as it falls toward a supermassive black hole located in the middle of its host galaxy. The other faint X-ray emission may be caused by hot gas associated with the pair of galaxies.

The authors of the study estimate that nearly one-fifth of all moderately active black holes are found in galaxies undergoing the early stages of an interaction. This leaves open the question of what events are responsible for fueling the remaining 80% of growing black holes. Some of these may involve the late stages of mergers between two galaxies. Less violent events such as gas falling in from the halo of the galaxy, or the disruption of small satellite galaxies are also likely to play an important role.

The survey used in this research is called the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), which covers two square degrees on the sky with observations from several major space-based observatories including Chandra and Hubble. Accurate distance information about the galaxies was also derived from optical observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The researchers compared a sample of 562 galaxies in pairs with 2726 solo galaxies to come to their conclusions.

A paper describing this work has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The study was led by John Silverman from the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) at the University of Tokyo in Japan. There are 54 co-authors from various institutions around the world.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/IPMU/J.Silverman et al; Optical: NASA/STScI/Caltech/N.Scoville et al."

DAN TANI TALKS ABOUT BEING AN ASTRONAUT

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

In Their Own Words
Dan Tani,
Astronaut

What made you want to become an astronaut?

When I was a little boy, I was not one of those astronauts, and there are some, that wanted to be an astronaut when they were four years old or six years old. But I loved, I thought aviation was incredibly exciting and I liked model rockets. I used to fly model rockets when I was in elementary school. Just making stuff go fast and high was really exciting. Of course, if you would have asked me if I wanted to be an astronaut, I would have said absolutely, but it wasn't something I carried as a goal since childhood.

And then in college I became an engineer and learned how stuff works, how to build things and I got a job in an aerospace company and we were building satellites and satellite parts and I got to meet a few astronauts and when I met them I realized, hey, it's a job and I never even thought of being an astronaut as a job. /// And then I heard they were taking applications for that job, so I thought, who doesn't want to be an astronaut? /// So, got the application, filled it in, mailed it off and almost forgot about it. I just felt like I bought the lottery ticket, stuck it in my pocket and forgot about it. I was really surprised when they gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to interview and equally surprised when I got selected for the class of '96.

What is astronaut training like?

It's fun. We sort of go back to school. For the first two years we're called astronaut candidates, or ASCANs for short and ASCAN training is learning everything you can about NASA so we go to all the centers, we learn about what they do. It's all about learning how the space station works, when I joined it was all about learning how the space shuttle works and then it's about all the skills you're going to need as an astronaut, so some robotics skills and some spacewalking skills and some fix-it skills and some speaking skills. And so it's sort of going to school for almost two years and then when you come out of it, you're an eligible astronaut for assignment and the lucky ones get picked first and the more normal ones like us have to wait a little bit and so it was five years, I guess it was four years after I joined that I got selected for my first mission.

What was adapting to space like?

It felt pretty normal pretty quickly. When we go up on the space shuttle, we don't dock until the third day and so that means we have two full days of living in the space shuttle to kind of get used to weightlessness, to get used to brushing your teeth in weightlessness, putting on your socks, which is comically difficult to do in weightlessness and so you've sort of adapted that, doing your everyday stuff in weightlessness. Now you get into the station and it's a real benefit, there's just a lot more room. There's more to, so you're not elbowing your buddy every time you want to move around, or, again, when you put on your socks or your shoes and so in that way it's a lot easier. And then we, space station is outfitted with lots of computers to provide you some entertainment, also some communication with home so you can talk to your family virtually every day and so that feels a lot more normal. So living on the space station I thought was a very fast adaptation.

Describe the view from space?

The two great things about going into space are floating and looking out the window, and they would flip-flop in priority day to day in my mind. Looking out the window is a spectacular privilege. We're two hundred something miles above the Earth, we're going 17,000 mph, we cover most of the populated land mass because of the inclination of our orbit.

To look down at the earth and see both very familiar sights like your hometown and unfamiliar sights like the middle of Australia, which is incredibly beautiful, the colors and textures of central Australia are just spectacular, that was a motivator every day for space for me. Even out the little window, it was amazing.

So now you put the helmet on, you put the spacesuit on, you get in the airlock, you close the door behind you, you open the door out into space and now your window has become a full, 180-degree mask view. And the thing about spacewalks is we're not out there for the view, we're there to do the work and I think every spacewalker would tell you, the view is great, we think, because as far as I remember, every spacewalk was stuff right here. And so my memory of the spacewalks really is what's here and I had to force myself to have moments where I would appreciate the setting, the view and take some pictures and remember it that way. It is spectacular. It's amazing to hold onto the International Space Station, you're going 17 and a half thousand miles an hour, and hold on and just sort of look down at your feet and 200 miles under your feet, there goes the coast of California and, oops, nine minutes later, there goes New York City as you're flying over and then on your way to Europe.

What was the biggest surprise of spaceflight?

The biggest surprise to me was that when you're in space, with the weightlessness, it is, I call weightlessness 75 percent enjoyable, 75 percent unbelievably fun, 25 percent just a pain in the neck. And the pain the neck aspect is you're used to, on the ground you're used to doing things without thinking, you're used to writing something down, putting the pen down. The pen stays there, the paper stays there and you can turn around and when you turn back, the pen's there, paper's there.

Well, since everything floats in space, you have to think about absolutely everything you touch and everything that you want to touch. When you're eating, in space, you have to, generally people will eat one thing at a time because to eat your meat and your potatoes and your drink, you have to hold down, tie down, find a fixture for each item between if you're going to pick something new. Otherwise you're just juggling stuff and it'll get out of control. So generally most people will eat one thing, all, fold it up, throw that away. Open up the next thing, eat that next thing and roll it up, throw that away. Deal with one thing at a time because it's just too complex to have more than two things, one thing in each hand, at any time. And one of the pleasures of coming back to the ground was not having to think about eating, not having to think about my utensils. I could put them down and it was magic, they just stayed right there."

NASA TO HOST A HUMAN SPACE EXPLORATION WORKSHOP IN NOVEMBER

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

“WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a three-day Human Space Exploration Community Workshop in San Diego starting on Monday, Nov. 14. The agency will introduce the International Space Exploration Coordination Group's Global Exploration Roadmap during the event.

The workshop will frame the Global Exploration Roadmap, with overviews of NASA's plans for human spaceflight, including exploration missions to an asteroid and Mars. The goal is to review the work done developing international exploration scenarios while seeking community input on the long-term scenarios represented in the roadmap.

NASA is seeking industry and academia feedback to shape strategy, assist with investment priorities and refine international exploration scenarios for human exploration and operations through the 2020's. The agency has outlined an ambitious program moving forward that relies on private industry to assume transportation of cargo and crew to the International Space Station, while NASA focuses on deep space exploration.

The workshop is part of a continuing agency effort to engage the broader space community in appropriate forums. More events will follow as part of a series of "theme focused" opportunities for human spaceflight exploration planning and engagement.”

FLOWS ON THE SLOPES OF MARS

The following is from the NASA website:

This image, which combines orbital imagery with 3-D modeling, shows flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton Crater. Sequences of observations recording the seasonal changes at this site and a few others with similar flows might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today. Evidence for that possible interpretation is presented in a report by McEwen et al. in the Aug. 5, 2011, edition of Science. This image has been reprojected to show a view of a slope as it would be seen from a helicopter inside the crater, with a synthetic Mars-like sky. The source observation was made May 30, 2011, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Color has been enhanced. The season was summer at the location, 41.6 degrees south latitude, 202.3 degrees east longitude. The flow features are narrow (one-half to five yards or meters wide), relatively dark markings on steep (25 to 40 degree) slopes at several southern hemisphere locations. Repeat imaging by HiRISE shows the features appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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NEEMO 15 AND WORK ON ASTEROID SURFACES

The following article excerpt is from the NASA website:

NEEMO 15 Commander Shannon Walker (NASA) and fellow aquanaut David Saint-Jacques (Canadian Space Agency) use a small telescoping boom as a means of translating across a simulated asteroid surface. Each end of the small boom can be anchored to the surface by either magnets or tethers and the astronauts can traverse the surface by alternating anchor points. Various translation techniques are being tested during this 13-day NEEMO mission.

NEEMO, which stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, is one facet of NASA's Analog and Field Testing Missions. As NASA plans to expand human spaceflight and robotic exploration beyond low Earth orbit, astronauts are being trained to meet these challenges. Future destinations may include the moon, near Earth asteroids and Mars and its moons.

To prepare for the challenge of exploring these destinations in space, NASA conducts missions here on Earth, in remote locations that have physical similarities to extreme space environments.

DISK OF WATER FOUND SURROUNDING FORMING STAR

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

“WASHINGTON -- Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star. The findings suggest that this disk, which is poised to develop into a solar system, contains great quantities of water, suggesting that water-covered planets like Earth may be common in the universe. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions.

Scientists previously found warm water vapor in planet-forming disks close to a central star. Evidence for vast quantities of water extending out into the cooler, far reaches of disks where comets take shape had not been seen until now. The more water available in disks for icy comets to form, the greater the chances that large amounts eventually will reach new planets through impacts.

"Our observations of this cold vapor indicate enough water exists in the disk to fill thousands of Earth oceans," said astronomer Michiel Hogerheijde of Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands. Hogerheijde is the lead author of a paper describing these findings in the Oct. 21 issue of the journal Science.

The star with this water-logged disk, called TW Hydrae, is 10 million years old and located about 175 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Hydra. The frigid watery haze detected by Hogerheijde and his team is thought to originate from ice-coated grains of dust near the disk's surface. Ultraviolet light from the star causes some water molecules to break free of this ice, creating a thin layer of gas with a light signature detected by Herschel's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared, or HIFI.

"These are the most sensitive HIFI observations to-date," said Paul Goldsmith, NASA project scientist for the Herschel Space Observatory at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It is a testament to the instrument-builders that such weak signals can be detected."

TW Hydrae is an orange dwarf star, somewhat smaller and cooler than our yellow-white sun. The giant disk of material that encircles the star has a size nearly 200 times the distance between Earth and the sun. Over the next few million years, astronomers believe matter within the disk will collide and grow into planets, asteroids and other cosmic bodies. Dust and ice particles will assemble as comets.

As the new solar system evolves, icy comets are likely to deposit much of the water they contain on freshly created worlds through impacts, giving rise to oceans. Astronomers believe TW Hydrae and its icy disk may be representative of many other young star systems, providing new insights on how planets with abundant water could form throughout the universe.

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission launched in 2009, carrying science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes. NASA's Herschel Project Office based at JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.”

TWIN SATELITES WILL EXPLORE THE MOON

It's great we are going back to the moon. The moon may be the best place to build a permanent space station from which we can explore the solar system. The followig story about the new moon mission is an excerpt from the NASA website:

NASA Moon Mission In Final Preparations For September Launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), mission to study the moon is in final launch preparations for a scheduled Sept. 8 launch onboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

GRAIL's twin spacecraft are tasked for a nine-month mission to explore Earth's nearest neighbor in unprecedented detail. They will determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"Yesterday's final encapsulation of the spacecraft is an important mission milestone," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our two spacecraft are now sitting comfortably inside the payload fairing which will protect them during ascent. Next time the GRAIL twins will see the light of day they will be about 95 miles up and accelerating."

The spacecraft twins, GRAIL A and B, will fly a circuitous route to lunar orbit taking 3.5 months and covering approximately 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) for GRAIL-A, and 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) for GRAIL-B.

In lunar orbit, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. Regional gravitational differences on the moon are expected to expand and contract that distance. GRAIL scientists will use these accurate measurements to define the moon's gravity field. The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface of our natural satellite.

"GRAIL will unlock lunar mysteries and help us understand how the moon, Earth and other rocky planets evolved as well," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate launch opportunities separated by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is 8:37 a.m. EDT; the second is 9:16 a.m.

JPL manages the GRAIL mission. It is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.”

IS NASA HAVING A MACBETH MOMENT

The picture of the three galaxies is fantastic. It reminds me of when MacBeth came across the three weird sisters. Maybe the future is in the stars. The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

"A Tale of Three Galaxies
Arp 274, also known as NGC 5679, is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (to the far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation.

Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left.

The largest component is located in the middle of the three. It appears as a spiral galaxy, which may be barred. The entire system resides at about 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was used to image Arp 274 in April 2009. Blue, visible and infrared filters were combined with a filter that isolates hydrogen emission. The colors in this image reflect the intrinsic color of the different stellar populations that make up the galaxies. Yellowish older stars can be seen in the central bulge of each galaxy. A bright central cluster of stars pinpoint each nucleus. Younger blue stars trace the spiral arms, along with pinkish nebulae that are illuminated by new star formation. Interstellar dust is silhouetted against the starry population. A pair of foreground stars inside our own Milky Way are at far right."

BLACK HOLE DEVOURS STAR: STAR FACT OR STAR TREK

The following excerpt is from the NASA website. The picture of a black hole devourig a star seems to be something right out of a Star Trek or Doctor Who episode:

NASA'S Swift Satellite Spots Black Hole Devouring A Star
WASHINGTON -- Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

"Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain bright enough for Swift to observe into next year," said David Burrows, professor of astronomy at Penn State University and lead scientist for the mission's X-Ray Telescope instrument. "It behaves unlike anything we've seen before."

Astronomers soon realized the source, known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the event approximately 3.9 billion years to reach Earth.

Burrows' study included NASA scientists. It highlights the X- and gamma-ray observations from Swift and other detectors, including the Japan-led Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) instrument aboard the International Space Station.

The second study was led by Ashley Zauderer, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. It examines the unprecedented outburst through observations from numerous ground-based radio observatories, including the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) near Socorro, N.M.

Most galaxies, including our own, possess a central supersized black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass. According to the new studies, the black hole in the galaxy hosting Swift J1644+57 may be twice the mass of the four-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. As a star falls toward a black hole, it is ripped apart by intense tides. The gas is corralled into a disk that swirls around the black hole and becomes rapidly heated to temperatures of millions of degrees.

The innermost gas in the disk spirals toward the black hole, where rapid motion and magnetism create dual, oppositely directed "funnels" through which some particles may escape. Jets driving matter at velocities greater than 90 percent the speed of light form along the black hole's spin axis. In the case of Swift J1644+57, one of these jets happened to point straight at Earth.

"The radio emission occurs when the outgoing jet slams into the interstellar environment," Zauderer explained. "By contrast, the X-rays arise much closer to the black hole, likely near the base of the jet."

Theoretical studies of tidally disrupted stars suggested they would appear as flares at optical and ultraviolet energies. The brightness and energy of a black hole's jet is greatly enhanced when viewed head-on. The phenomenon, called relativistic beaming, explains why Swift J1644+57 was seen at X-ray energies and appeared so strikingly luminous.

When first detected March 28, the flares were initially assumed to signal a gamma-ray burst, one of the nearly daily short blasts of high-energy radiation often associated with the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. But as the emission continued to brighten and flare, astronomers realized that the most plausible explanation was the tidal disruption of a sun-like star seen as beamed emission.

By March 30, EVLA observations by Zauderer's team showed a brightening radio source centered on a faint galaxy near Swift's position for the X-ray flares. These data provided the first conclusive evidence that the galaxy, the radio source and the Swift event were linked.

"Our observations show that the radio-emitting region is still expanding at more than half the speed of light," said Edo Berger, an associate professor of astrophysics at Harvard and a coauthor of the radio paper. "By tracking this expansion backward in time, we can confirm that the outflow formed at the same time as the Swift X-ray source."

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in N.M. and Orbital Sciences Corp., in Dulles, Va., with international collaborators in the U.K., Italy, Germany and Japan. MAXI is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency as an external experiment attached to the Kibo module of the space station."