Gizmorama!

Good Morning,

Today, a few updates from out of this world. There seems to
be a lot going on in space this week, so I decided to keep
you updated with this issue dedicated entirely to space ex-
ploration. I hope you enjoy.

Until Tomorrow,
Erin

NASA concludes lunar robotics tests

HOUSTON - The U.S. space agency says it has concluded two
weeks of technology development tests in the Arizona desert
for two prototype lunar rovers. The tests were conducted in
an area called the Black Point Lava Flow. They allowed NASA
scientists to analyze and refine technologies and procedures
in an extreme Earth environment that simulates conditions on
the moon. “These tests provide us with crucial information
about how our cutting edge vehicles perform in field situ-
ations approximating the moon,” said Rob Ambrose, human ro-
botic systems project leader at NASA’s Johnson Space Center
in Houston. “We learn from them, then go back home to refine
the technology and plan the next focus of our research.”
The annual studies featured an intensive, simulated 14-day
mission with two crew members — an astronaut and a geologist
– living for more than 300 hours inside NASA’s prototype
Lunar Electric Rover. The explorers scouted the area for
features of geological interest and then donned spacesuits
and conducted simulated moonwalks to collect samples, NASA
said. The crew also docked to a simulated habitat, drove the
rover across difficult terrain, performed a rescue mission
and made a four-day traverse across the lava.

Scientists study a Saturn thunderstorm

PASADENA, Calif. - An Austrian-led team of scientists says
it is tracking the longest continuously observed thunderstorm
ever seen in the solar system. The team, led by Georg Fischer
of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, says the storm has been
in progress in Saturn’s atmosphere since mid-January. Fischer
and his team have been using NASA’s Cassini spacecraft’s
radio and plasma wave science instrument to measure the power-
ful radio waves emitted by the Saturn storm. The radio waves,
the space agency said, help scientists study Saturn’s iono-
sphere — the charged layer that surrounds the planet above
the cloud tops. NASA scientists said the previous record for
solar system storms also came from Saturn, where a thunder-
storm continued for 7 1/2 months — from the end of November
2007 until mid-July 2008. Data derived from research involv-
ing the latest storm is to be presented next week in Potsdam,
Germany, during the European Planetary Science Congress.

Sky watchers get ready to observe Juno

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA is alerting Earth-bound sky watchers
to a rare event — the ability to observe the asteroid Juno
with only binoculars. “It can usually be seen by a good
amateur telescope, but the guy on the street doesn’t usually
get a chance to observe it,” said Don Yeomans, manager of
NASA’s Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. “This is going to be as bright as it gets until
2018.” Juno is about 145 miles in diameter, or about one-
fifteenth the diameter of the moon. It is the 10th largest
asteroid yet observed. “The asteroid, which orbits the sun
on a track between Mars and Jupiter, will be at its brightest
on Sept. 21, when it is zooming around the sun at about
49,000 miles per hour,” NASA said. Officials said the aster-
oid will be about 112 million miles from Earth, so there is
no danger it will fall toward our planet. “On or before
Sept. 21, look for Juno near midnight a few degrees east of
the brighter glow of Uranus and in the constellation Pisces,”
NASA said. “It will look like a gray dot in the sky, and each
night at the end of September, it will appear slightly more
southwest of its location the night before. By Sept. 25, it
will be closer to the constellation Aquarius and best seen
before midnight.”