Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. New images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal a Pluto mountain range and the strange moons Nix and Hydra. NASA Ames alum Pete Worden will lead a new accelerated SETI search financed by a Russian businessman. Earth lovers get a new Blue Marble to marvel. Spain, Chile to host new gamma ray observatory. A mysterious haze rises over puzzling bright spots on Ceres. Russia readies Soyuz spacecraft for launch to the International Space Station with U.S., Japanese and Russian astronauts.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Second mountain range rises from Pluto’s ‘heart’ (photo)
Space.com (7/21): New images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons mission reveal a second mountain range. Rising a mile above Pluto’s surface, the new discovery resembles the U.S. Appalachian mountain range. An earlier mountain range discovery was compared to the Rockies.
NASA unveils closer images of Pluto’s weirdly shaped moons Nix and Hydra
The Verge (7/21): Two more moons of Pluto earn prominence in imagery from NASA’s New Horizons mission.
Former NASA Center Director to chair private SETI effort
Space News (7/21): Pete Worden, recently retired from NASA as Center Director of the Ames Research Center, will manage a ramped-up search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence announced on Monday and financed by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner.
Stephen Hawking: Intelligent aliens could destroy humanity, but let’s search anyway
Space.com (7/21): Widely acknowledged for his warning that directing messages from Earth toward possible intelligent life in the distant universe could provoke an attack, British physicist Stephen Hawking believes a new SETI endeavor backed by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner should proceed anyway. Milner has pledged $100 million to SETI to step up the search.
From a million miles away, a new NASA ‘Blue Marble’ view of Earth
New York Times (7/21): The NASA, NOAA and U.S. Air Force DSCOVR mission collaboration is reviving the “Blue Marble” image of the Earth. The DSCOVR was launched in February to monitor solar activity from a vantage point one million miles from Earth. However, the spacecraft carries a NASA camera aimed at the sunlit face of the Earth. The EPIC imager will provide new images of the Earth every 12 to 36 hours by September. The original Blue Marble image of the Earth provided by the Apollo 17 astronauts in December 1972 is among the most famous space photos.
Spain and Chile will host next-generation gamma-ray observatory
Physicsworld.com (7/21): Sites in Spain and Chile will host elements of the new Cherenkov Telescope Array, a powerful new gamma ray observatory. With ten times the sensitivity of existing similar observatories, CTA will be used by scientists to observe supernova explosions, binary star systems and active galactic nuclei.
Mystery haze appears above Ceres’ bright spots
Nature News (7/21): NASA’s Dawn mission spacecraft has resumed its orbital advance toward the surface of the giant asteroid Ceres. At the same time, scientists have noticed an intriguing haze close to one of the so far unexplained bright spots on Ceres’ surface. Like Pluto, Ceres is a dwarf planet.
Low Earth Orbit
All-civilian Soyuz TMA-17M crew ready for Wednesday launch to Space Station (part 2)
America Space (7/21): Set for Wednesday at 5:02 p.m., EDT, the planned launch of Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft will start NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko on a five-month mission to the International Space Station. The launch will take place from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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