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POPSWater on Titan Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has captivated scientists because of its many similarities to Earth. Scientists have theorized for 20 years that Titan's cold surface hosts seas or lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, making it the only other planetary body besides Earth believed to have liquid on its surface. While data from Cassini have not indicated any vast seas, they have revealed what appeared to be large lakes near Titan's north and south poles.
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POPSWater on the moon These images show a very young lunar crater on the side of the moon that faces away from Earth, as viewed by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. On the left is an image showing brightness at shorter infrared wavelengths. On the right, the distribution of water-rich minerals (light blue) is shown around a small crater. Both water- and hydroxyl-rich materials were found to be associated with material ejected from the crater.
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POPSAutomated Music Personality The two-wheeled, dancing A.M.P. (Automated Music Personality or Ampbot) from Sega-Hasbro stands 2.4-feet tall and features a MP3 or iPod cradle on its back, stereo speakers, and the ability to follow and interact with its owner.
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POPSVoyager 2 Finds Lopsided Solar System Still transmitting, the three-decade-old craft encounters turbulence in solar wind. Hurtling through space 31 years after its launch, the Voyager 2 spacecraft has sent back the most detailed view yet of the shock wave that marks the thinning of the solar wind, the charged particles streaming from the sun. That would mean they have exited the solar system and entered the interstellar medium. NASA engineers estimate that both probes' plutonium power packs have the potential to keep them broadcasting data until 2025. If we're lucky, Jokippi says, they'll let us know what they find.
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POPS FEATURE NASA to Attempt Historic Solar Sail Deployment "Hold your hands out to the sun. What do you feel? Heat, of course. But there's pressure as well – though you've never noticed it, because it's so tiny. Over the area of your hands, it only comes to about a millionth of an ounce. But out in space, even a pressure as small as that can be important – for it's acting all the time, hour after hour, day after day. Unlike rocket fuel, it's free and unlimited. If we want to, we can use it; we can build sails to catch the radiation blowing from the sun."1 These words were spoken not by a NASA scientist but by a fictional character – John Merton – in Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Wind from the Sun. If all goes well, Merton's prophetic words are about to become fact.
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POPSSolstice Moon Illusion On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant form rising in the east. At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and seas and the face of a man, but this "moon" is strangely inflated. It's huge! There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a "solstice moon", coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion.
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POPSFlag of Earth The flag was designed by James Cadle. Prior to the US landing on the moon, there was hope a flag for humanity, rather than the American flag, would be erected on the moon. Some hoped the UN flag would fly, but that never happened. At the Flag of Earth website there are templates for printing them out or purchasing ready-to-fly sown ones.
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POPSSandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery "Spirit had to get stuck to make its next discovery," says Arvidson. As the rover tried to break free, its wheels began to churn up the soil, uncovering sulfates underneath. "Sulfates are minerals just beneath the surface that shout to us that they were formed in steam vents, since steam has sulfur in it. Steam is associated with hydrothermal activity – evidence of water-charged explosive volcanism. Such areas could have once supported life." "And most amazingly, the boundary between the sulfate-rich soil and the soil with just the generic concentration of sulfates runs right down the middle of the stranded rover. Spirit is lodged on the edge of a crater -- sitting astride the boundary!"
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POPSWater on Mars A color-enhanced image of the delta in Jezero Crater, which once held a lake. Researchers led by CRISM team member and Brown graduate student Bethany Ehlmann report that ancient rivers ferried clay-like minerals (shown in green) into the lake, forming the delta. Clays tend to trap and preserve organic matter, making the delta a good place to look for signs of ancient life.
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POPSOmega Centauri Colorful Stars Galore Inside Globular Star Cluster Omega Centauri NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars.
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