On July 23, 2012, a huge magnetic storm propelled by two nearly simultaneous coronal mass ejections on the sun plowed through Earth's orbit. Luckily, Earth was on the other side of the sun at the time. Had the outburst hit Earth, however, it would have rivaled the largest magnetic storm to strike Earth in recorded history, possibly wreaking havoc with the electrical grid, satellites and GPS.

BAD NEWS

Methane Goes Missing on Mars
Methane gas is easy to detect and a sensitive indicator of biological activity. Based on previous observations, astronomers thought it was present in the Martian atmosphere. But a super-sensitive instrument aboard Curiosity found none at all.

NASA sent the beefy Curiosity rover to Mars to find out if the Red Planet is or ever has been a suitable place for life. Mission officials repeatedly stress that it's not looking for life, but even so some just-announced measurements have dealt a setback to the prospects for finding Martian lifeforms.

Spacewalkers Wire Up Station for Future Lab

Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin closed the Pirs docking compartment hatch officially ending their spacewalk at 6:05 p.m. EDT. The duo rigged cables for the future arrival of a Russian laboratory module and installed an experiment panel.

Clad in Russian Orlan spacesuits, the spacewalkers began their spacewalk at a revised time of 10:36 a.m. They first set up a Strela cargo boom on the Poisk mini-research module. Misurkin then used the Strela to maneuver Yurchikhin with cables to the Zarya module near the Unity node. Yurchikhin then rerouted a cable connector and installed cables on Zarya.

While Yurchikhin was working on Zarya, Misurkin installed an experiment panel on Poisk. The experiment, named Vinoslivost, exposes materials to the space environment so scientists can study the changes in their properties. He then installed two connector patch panels and gap spanners on Poisk.

After completing the Poisk work Misurkin joined Yurchikhin and assisted him with the Ethernet cable installation work on the Zarya cargo module. The duo went back and forth between Zarya and Poisk routing and installing the cable at various points and securing the cable’s slack.

The cable work outside the station’s Russian segment prepares the orbital laboratory for the arrival of the “Nauka” Multipurpose Laboratory Module. The “Nauka” is planned for a launch atop a Russian Proton rocket to replace Pirs.

For the duration of the spacewalk, station Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy were isolated to the Poisk module and their Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft while Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency moved about the U.S. segment of the complex.

The spacewalk is the 172nd in support of station assembly and maintenance, the seventh in Yurchikhin’s career and the second for Misurkin. The two will venture outside Pirs again on Aug. 22 to replace a laser communications experiment with a platform upon which a small optical telescope will be mounted during a future spacewalk.

On the Trail of Dark Energy

On the Trail of Dark Energy: Physicists Propose Higgs Boson 'Portal'

Resolving this problem, often called the cosmological constant problem, has so far eluded theorists.

Now, two physicists -- Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University and James Dent of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette -- suggest that the recently discovered Higgs boson could provide a possible "portal" to physics that could help explain some of the attributes of the enigmatic dark energy, and help resolve the cosmological constant problem.

In their paper, "Higgs Seesaw Mechanism as a Source for Dark Energy," Krauss and Dent explore how a possible small coupling between the Higgs particle, and possible new particles likely to be associated with what is conventionally called the Grand Unified Scale -- a scale perhaps 16 orders of magnitude smaller than the size of a proton, at which the three known non-gravitational forces in nature might converge into a single theory -- could result in the existence of another background field in nature in addition to the Higgs field, which would contribute an energy density to empty space of precisely the correct scale to correspond to the observed energy density.

The paper was published online, Aug. 9, in Physical Review Letters.

Current observations of the universe show it is expanding at an accelerated rate. But this acceleration cannot be accounted for on the basis of matter alone. Putting energy in empty space produces a repulsive gravitational force opposing the attractive force produced by matter, including the dark matter that is inferred to dominate the mass of essentially all galaxies, but which doesn't interact directly with light and, therefore, can only be estimated by its gravitational influence.

Because of this phenomenon and because of what is observed in the universe, it is thought that such 'dark energy' contributes up to 70 percent of the total energy density in the universe, while observable matter contributes only 2 to 5 percent, with the remaining 25 percent or so coming from dark matter.

The source of this dark energy and the reason its magnitude matches the inferred magnitude of the energy in empty space is not currently understood, making it one of the leading outstanding problems in particle physics today.

"Our paper makes progress in one aspect of this problem," said Krauss, a Foundation Professor in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics, and the director of the Origins Project at ASU. "Now that the Higgs boson has been discovered, it provides a possible 'portal' to physics at much higher energy scales through very small possible mixings and couplings to new scalar fields which may operate at these scales."

"We demonstrate that the simplest small mixing, related to the ratios of the scale at which electroweak physics operates, and a possible Grand Unified Scale, produces a possible contribution to the vacuum energy today of precisely the correct order of magnitude to account for the observed dark energy," Krauss explained. "Our paper demonstrates that a very small energy scale can at least be naturally generated within the context of a very simple extension of the standard model of particle physics."

While a possible advance in understanding the origin of dark energy, Krauss said the construct is only one step in the direction of understanding its mysteries.

"The deeper problem of why the known physics of the standard model does not contribute a much larger energy to empty space is still not resolved," he said.

NASA readies Gear to launch mission to Europa soon

Nasa is all set to launch one of its most amnitious projects-to find whearht jupiter’s icy moon europa is habitable.

The world’s leading space exploration agency is certain that europa may be able to support life.Nasa has commissioned a team of experts to consider the Goals for a landed spacecraft mission to the surface of Europa and to investigate the composition and geology of its icy shell and the potencrial for life within its interior ocean.

The nasa appointed science definition team on Thurseday presented the three main objectives of a future mission designed to land robotic spacecraft o the surface of Europa and to investigate its potential to support lifre.It will investigathe the compostition and chemistry,and dyunamics of its icy shell and stydy the moon’s human scale surface geology.

“landing on europa and touching its surface is a visionary goal of planetary science.Europa is the most likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to have life to day,and a landed mission would be the best way to search for sighs of life,”says Robert Pappalardo from Nasa’s jet propulsion Laboratory.Europa is slightly smaller then the earth’s moon.Like the earth,Europa is thought to have an iron core,a rocky mantle and surface ocean of salty water.Scientists know there may be enough oxygen in the watsrs of Europa to support millions of tons worth of fish.

The findings suggenst the satellight could be capable of supposting the kinds of life familiar to us heare on earth,if only in microbial form.Europa is enveloped by a global ocean 160km deep,within an icy crust that may be only a few miles thick.

The ice obn the surface is made from hydrogen and oxygen,and the constant stream of radiation pouring in form Jupiter reacts with this ice to rorm free oxygen and other oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide.the reactivity of oxygen and other oxidants such as hedrogen peroxide.The reactivcy of exygen is key to generating the energy that helped multi-cellular life flourish on our planet.Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is phase locked just like Earth's Moon-- so that the same side of Europa faces Jupiter at all times.However,because Europa's orbit is eccentric(an oval or ellipse not a circle)when it is close to Jupiter the tide is much higher than when it is far from Jupiter.

Thus tidal forces raise and lower-the sea beneath the ice,causing constant motion and likely causing the cracks we see in images of Europa's surface from visiting robotic probes.

This tidal heating causes Europa to be warmer than it would otherwise be at its  average distance about 780000000Km form the sun,more than five times as far as the distance from the Earth

to the Sun.

The warmth of Europa's liquid ocean could prove critical to the survival of simple organism within the ocean,if they exist.

Europa was discovered on 8 January 1610 by Galileo Galilei.The discovery,along with three other Jovian moons,was the first time a moon was discovered orbiting a planet other than Earth.The discovery of the four Galilean satellites eventually led to the understanding that planets in our solar system revolving around Earth.Galileo apparently around Earth.Galileo apparently had observed Europa on 7 January 1610,but had been unable to differentiate it from Io until the next night.

Europa was originally designated Jupiter II by Galileo because it was the second satellite of Jupiter.Europa is named for the Daughter of Agenor.

KIROBO, THE TALKING BOT, BLASTS OF INTO SPACE

The first talking humanoid robot  “astronaut” has taken off in a rocket. Kirobo-derived from the Japanese words for “hope” and “robot”-was among five tones of supplies and machines on a rocked launched on Sunday for the international space station from Tanegashima,Japan,the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said.The child-like robot was designed to be a companion for astronaut Koichi Wakata,and will communicate with another robot back on earth.The challenge was making sure it could move  and talk where there was no gravity. Ahead of the launch, the 34cm Kirobo said, “one small step for me,a giant leap for robots”.“i want the robot to function as a mediator between man and machine, and even between people”  it’s designer,Tomotaka Takahashi,said.

COSMIC GRAVEYARD OF COMETS DISCOVERED

A cosmic graveyard of comets has been discovered by astronomers in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Researchers, led by Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia describe how some of these objects, inactive for millions of years, have returned to life leading them to name the group the ‘Lazarus comets’. Most observed have highly elliptical orbits, meaning that they only rarely approach the sun. Some of these so called long period comets take thousands of years to complete each orbit around our nearest star. Although uncommon events, comets also collide with Earth from time to time and may have helped bring water to our Planet. The study looked at a third and distinct region of the solar system, the main belt of asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.