FROM: NASA
The Engine Burns Blue
This image shows a cutting-edge solar-electric propulsion thruster in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., that uses xenon ions for propulsion. An earlier version of this solar-electric propulsion engine has been flying on NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroid belt.
This engine is being considered as part of the Asteroid Initiative, a proposal to robotically capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it safely to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it. This image was taken through a porthole in a vacuum chamber at JPL where the ion engine is being tested.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
FROM: NASA VIDEO
Expedition 36 Crew Launches on Fast Track to Station
The Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft carrying Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and
Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano launches from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to begin an expedited 6-hour journey to the
International Space Station.
FROM: NASA
NASA Statement on Space Technology Meetings in Europe
WASHINGTON -- The following is a statement from NASA's associate administrator for space technology, Michael Gazarik, about his meetings this week in Europe to discuss potential cooperation on development of space technologies that will enable NASA's future missions. These include the asteroid initiative announced in the president's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal.
"During my meetings this week with the German Space Agency, DLR; the European Space Program, ESA; and the French Space Program, CNES, I had an opportunity to view and learn about our partner's areas of technology focus and expertise and begin the process of identifying areas of potential cooperation in space technology. Our working-level discussions proved to be informative and productive. Our meetings also allowed me to share NASA's plans for our new asteroid initiative. NASA recognizes cooperation and collaboration are critical to meet increasingly global challenges. I look forward to working with our partners as we create the new knowledge and capabilities needed to enable the space missions of the future."
Gazarik is head of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future missions
FROM: NASA
In Antarctica in January, 2013 – the summer at the South Pole – scientists released 20 balloons, each eight stories tall, into the air to help answer an enduring space weather question: when the giant radiation belts surrounding Earth lose material, where do the extra particles actually go? This NASA-funded mission is called BARREL, for Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses. Each balloon launched by the BARREL team floated for anywhere from three to 40 days, measuring X-rays produced by fast-moving electrons high up in the atmosphere.BARREL works hand in hand with another NASA mission called the Van Allen Probes, which travels directly through the Van Allen radiation belts. The belts wax and wane over time in response to incoming energy and material from the sun, sometimes intensifying the radiation through which satellites orbiting Earth must travel. Scientists need to understand this process better, and even provide forecasts of such space weather, in order to protect our spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA
FROM: NASA, HERSCHEL SPACE OBSERVATORY
Herschel Space Observatory Finds Mega Merger of Galaxies
WASHINGTON -- A massive and rare merging of two galaxies has been spotted in images taken by the Herschel space observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation.
Follow-up studies by several telescopes on the ground and in space, including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, tell a tale of two faraway galaxies intertwined and furiously making stars. Eventually, the duo will settle down to form one super-giant elliptical galaxy.
The findings help explain a mystery in astronomy. Back when our universe was 3 billion to 4 billion years old, it was populated with large reddish elliptical-shaped galaxies made up of old stars. Scientists have wondered whether those galaxies built up slowly over time through the acquisitions of smaller galaxies, or formed more rapidly through powerful collisions between two large galaxies.
The new findings suggest massive mergers are responsible for the giant elliptical galaxies.
"We're looking at a younger phase in the life of these galaxies -- an adolescent burst of activity that won't last very long," said Hai Fu of the University of California at Irvine, who is lead author of a new study describing the results. The study is published in the May 22 online issue of Nature.
"These merging galaxies are bursting with new stars and completely hidden by dust," said co-author Asantha Cooray, also of the University of California at Irvine. "Without Herschel's far-infrared detectors, we wouldn't have been able to see through the dust to the action taking place behind."
Herschel, which operated for almost four years, was designed to see the longest-wavelength infrared light. As expected, it recently ran out of the liquid coolant needed to chill its delicate infrared instruments. While its mission in space is over, astronomers still are scrutinizing the data, and further discoveries are expected.
In the new study, Herschel was used to spot the colliding galaxies, called HXMM01, located about 11 billion light-years from Earth, during a time when our universe was about 3 billion years old. At first, astronomers thought the two galaxies were just warped, mirror images of one galaxy. Such lensed galaxies are fairly common in astronomy and occur when the gravity from a foreground galaxy bends the light from a more distant object. After a thorough investigation, the team realized they were actually looking at a massive galaxy merger.
Follow-up characterization revealed the duo is churning out the equivalent of 2,000 stars a year. By comparison, our Milky Way hatches about two to three stars a year. The total number of stars in both colliding galaxies averages out to about 400 billion.
Mergers are fairly common in the cosmos, but this particular event is more unusual because of the prolific amounts of gas and star formation, and the sheer size of the merger at such a distant epoch.
The results go against the more popular model explaining how the biggest galaxies arise: through minor acquisitions of small galaxies. Instead, mega smash-ups may be doing the job.
FROM: NASA 
