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This photo of a "blood moon" lunar eclipse was captured by Ron Delvaux in Arizona on April 15, 2014 and supplied by The Virtual Telescope Project. Credit: Ron Delvaux via The Virtual Telescope Project

Water and pollution

After removing some effects generated by the local atmosphere, the researchers examined the spectrum of colors to see what molecules were visible. A few surprises popped up.

For example, they didn't see as much water vapor in the signature as observers saw in a 2009 eclipse that encompassed much of the Northern Hemisphere. (That paper, "Earth’s transmission spectrum from lunar eclipse observations," was published in the journal Nature.)

Researchers in the newer study concluded that the absence of water vapor was because the "path" of the 2011 transit in the Earth's atmosphere included the Antarctic, where much of the water is presumed to be frozen out of the atmosphere.

Another surprise was the abundance of nitrogen dioxide. Normally the nitrogen dioxide is regarded as a pollutant produced by human activities. The Antarctic, however, is quite a barren location — but it did have a volcano.

"We found that the track we observed is close to a volcano, and this volcano can potentially produce nitrogen dioxide," Yan said. [The Biggest Volcanoes on Earth]

He added that other explanations could be possible. In this case, the volcano (Mount Erabus) may not be active enough to produce large amount of nitrogen dioxide. Further investigation found that the nitrogen dioxide was a bio-product of nitrous oxide (which is produced naturally by microbes) that then lingered in the atmosphere and reacted with ozone, creating nitrogen dioxide.

"This was during the spring, and the ice melted in the spring, and according to the vulcanologists this melt releases a lot of nitrous oxide," Fosbury said.


How Viewing Earth as an Exoplanet Can Help Search for Alien Life

An extraterrestrial spacecraft lurking in a satellite's orbit near Earth would be able to see city lights and pollution in our atmosphere. But what if it searched for signs of life on Earth from afar?

This question has great pertinence to those searching for other Earths outside of our solar system. NASA's Kepler space telescope is among a fleet of telescopes and spacecraft searching for rocky planets similar to our own. Once the size and location of these worlds are plotted, the next step is examining the chemical composition of their atmospheres.

From afar, Earth-like worlds appear as tiny points of light, making it hard to imagine ever finding out much about them. The best we can do with telescope technology at the moment is to examine some atmospheric components of worlds that are larger than Jupiter. But that doesn't mean we should discount the possibility of ever finding a planet similar in size to our own, researchers say. Telescopes are only getting more powerful. [The Search for Another Earth (Video)]


"We’re trying to think about how to use observations of the Earth itself to understand the kinds of things we’ll be able to do in the future with possibly the next generation of telescopes," said Robert Fosbury, an emeritus astronomer with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) who participated in the research.

Fosbury and leading researcher Fei Yan, an astronomer with ESO and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, examined the shadow of the Earth during a lunar eclipse. While there is no facility at ESO that is dedicated to astrobiology, Fosbury said the researchers are thinking closely about the implications for life beyond Earth.

The paper, "High resolution transmission spectrum of the Earth’s atmosphere: Seeing Earth as an exoplanet using a lunar eclipse," is available on the pre-publishing site Arxiv and has been accepted in the International Journal of Astrobiology.


Shadow glance

Observations took place during a total lunar eclipse on Dec. 10, 2011. A lunar eclipse appears as the Earth moves between the moon and the sun, and is visible anywhere the sky is dark and clear with the moon above the horizon.

A lunar eclipse is easier to observe than a total solar eclipse, which appears when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun. During a solar eclipse, the moon's shadow is so small that it creates a brief few minutes of totality and a small "track" of shadow visible from the Earth's surface. [Solar Eclipses: An Observer's Guide (Infographic)]

In this study, the researchers made observations with the High Resolution Spectrograph mounted on a 2.16-meter telescope at Xinglong Station, China, and focused the telescope near the moon's Tycho Crater because that is where the moon has high reflectivity.

The researchers hoped to learn more about the Earth's spectrum, which is shown in the moon's reflection. A spectrum is the band of colors that makes up visible light, and is most readily recognized in a rainbow. Certain elements preferentially emit certain wavelengths of light, and absorb others. By using a spectrograph to examine another planet, for example, you can see what atoms or molecules are present in its atmosphere or surface.

Watching the Earth's light reflected by the moon is similar to watching an exoplanet transit across the face of its parent star, the astronomers said. In both cases, finding the absorbing molecules in the atmosphere is a process of subtraction. In the case of an exoplanet, astronomers compare the molecular absorptions in the starlight during and after the transit. In the case of the moon, astronomers compared the elements found in the Earth's shadow, and when the moon was clear of the shadow.

During the eclipse, the science team took spectra when the moon was in the shadow (umbra) of the Earth. The moon turns red during this time because most of the light you see is a refraction of sunlight through the Earth's atmosphere (it's all the sunsets and sunrises on the Earth seen at once). The scientists also compared the spectrum of the moon when it was completely out of the shadow.

Stunning Photo Captures 'Wild Duck' Star Cluster in Flight

A spectacular new photo shows a cluster of stars whose brightest objects form a triangle that has been likened to a flock of ducks in flight.

The European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile captured the beautiful image of Messier 11, also known as NGC 6705 or the Wild Duck Cluster, revealing the blue stars of one of the most star-rich open clusters known. You can see a Space.com video tour of Messier 11, which we set to the song "The Leaves" by the band Super 400.

Stellar clusters are groups of loosely packed stars that formed from the same cloud of gas. As a result of their shared birth conditions, stars within a cluster tend to have similar ages and chemical compositions. Clusters are thus good testing grounds for theories of stellar evolution.

The Wild Duck Cluster lies approximately 6,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It is one of the most star-rich and compact open clusters, boasting nearly 3,000 stars within its 20-light-year diameter. Most open clusters such as Messier 11 lie within the arms of spiral galaxies, or inside the denser parts of irregular galaxies, where star formation continues.

Because the stars inside open clusters aren’t tightly packed, they only have loose gravitational ties with one another. Individual stars often find themselves ejected from the cluster when objects in their celestial neighborhood interact with them. The Wild Duck Cluster is already at least 250 million years old, so it will likely break up in the next few million years, researchers said.


The cluster was first discovered in 1681 by the German astronomer Gottfried Kirch, who saw it as merely a fuzzy blob through his telescope. It took until 1733 for the blob to be resolved into separate stars by the Reverend William Derham in England. In 1764, Charles Messier added it to his catalog as Messier 11 (M11).

The cluster is visible with binoculars and small telescopes, but remains small and faint. A 4-inch telescope should resolve it somewhat, while an 8-inch or larger telescope will reveal hundreds of diamond-like points of light within M11. But it took the Wild Field Imager on the ESO's 2.2-meter (86 inches) telescope at La Silla to capture the full beauty of the Wild Duck Cluster.

Artist's concept showing DG CVn — a binary system consisting of two red dwarf stars — unleashing a series of powerful flares seen by NASA's Swift spacecraft on April 23, 2014.

For a few minutes, the superflare's X-ray brightness outshone both stars' total luminosity in all wavelengths, researchers said. The eruption's temperature reached 360 million degrees Fahrenheit (200 million degrees Celsius) — about 13 times hotter than the sun's core.

But DG CVn wasn't done yet, firing off a number of other flares over the next 11 days, with each one being a bit weaker than the last. X-ray emission from the system finally returned to baseline levels 20 days after the April 23 event.

DG CVn's sustained activity surprised scientists.

"We used to think major flaring episodes from red dwarfs lasted no more than a day, but Swift detected at least seven powerful eruptions over a period of about two weeks," said Drake, who gave a presentation about the DG CVn superflare in August at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s High Energy Astrophysics Division. "This was a very complex event."

Both of the stars in the DG CVn system are about one-third as massive as the sun. They orbit about 3 astronomical units from each other — too close for Swift to tell which one of them was responsible for the big flares this year. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance from Earth to the sun — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers).

Powerful Megaflare from Small Star Stuns Scientists (Video, Image)

A series of megaflares unleashed earlier this year by a nearby red dwarf has astronomers rethinking just what these small, dim stars are capable of.

On April 23, NASA's Swift satellite spotted the enormous star flare coming from DG Canum Venaticorum (DG CVn), a system of two red dwarfs located about 60 light-years from Earth. The eruption put to shame anything ever seen on the sun, whose strong flares are classified into three categories, with C flares being the weakest, M of medium strength and X the most powerful.

"The biggest flare we've ever seen from the sun occurred in November 2003 and is rated as X45," Stephen Drake, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "The flare on DG CVn, if viewed from a planet the same distance as Earth is from the sun, would have been roughly 10,000 times greater than this, with a rating of about X100,000." [Biggest Solar Flares of 2014: Sun Storm Photos]

NASA Recovery Information

Overview of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act)
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. It is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Act is an extraordinary response to a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression, and includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need.

Implementing the Recovery Act at NASA
Among the key purposes of the Recovery Act are preserving and creating jobs, spurring technological advances in science and health, and promoting economic recovery. NASA has an important role to play in achieving these purposes through the program and facilities investments it will make with Recovery Act funding. As NASA develops and begins implementing its plans, this site will be one of the Agency's primary ways for communicating NASA's plans, progress, and results.

The President and Congress are committed to spending these recovery dollars with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent. Meeting these commitments will require sustained focus by all of us at NASA, particularly in planning, awarding, managing, and overseeing the contracts and grants through which the objectives of the Recovery Act will be achieved.

Recovery.gov is a website that empowers Citizens to hold the government accountable for every dollar spent. NASA, along with every other federal agency, is required to provide spending and performance data on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and as required basis.

We invite you to visit us regularly and hear about the exciting work NASA is doing to contribute to America's economic recovery.

Agency Plans and Reports
By the end of April, NASA will be working with Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to finalize its Recovery plans. As these plans are approved and they are implemented, we will be posting the latest Agency Plans and Reports here.

Learn More About Our Programs
The Administration's priorities entrust NASA with $1 billion for Recovery investments. Among the purposes for these funds indicated by Congress include:

Selection Will Return Launches to America

U.S. astronauts once again will travel to and from the International Space Station from the United States on American spacecraft under groundbreaking contracts NASA announced Tuesday. The agency unveiled its selection of Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively, with a goal of ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia in 2017.
Image Credit: NASA
U.S. astronauts once again will travel to and from the International Space Station from the United States on American spacecraft under groundbreaking contracts NASA announced Tuesday. The agency unveiled its selection of Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively, with a goal of ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia in 2017.
"From day one, the Obama Administration made clear that the greatest nation on Earth should not be dependent on other nations to get into space," NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Thanks to the leadership of President Obama, the hard work of our NASA and industry teams, and support from Congress, today we are one step closer to launching our astronauts from U.S. soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia by 2017. Turning over low-Earth orbit transportation to private industry will also allow NASA to focus on an even more ambitious mission – sending humans to Mars."
These Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts are designed to complete the NASA certification for human space transportation systems capable of carrying people into orbit. Once certification is complete, NASA plans to use these systems to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and return them safely to Earth.
The companies selected to provide this transportation capability and the maximum potential value of their FAR-based firm fixed-price contracts are:
-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $4.2 billion
-- Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Hawthorne, California, $2.6 billion
The contracts include at least one crewed flight test per company with at least one NASA astronaut aboard to verify the fully integrated rocket and spacecraft system can launch, maneuver in orbit, and dock to the space station, as well as validate all its systems perform as expected. Once each company’s test program has been completed successfully and its system achieves NASA certification, each contractor will conduct at least two, and as many as six, crewed missions to the space station. These spacecraft also will serve as a lifeboat for astronauts aboard the station.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program will implement this capability as a public-private partnership with the American aerospace companies. NASA's expert team of engineers and spaceflight specialists is facilitating and certifying the development work of industry partners to ensure new spacecraft are safe and reliable.
The U.S. missions to the International Space Station following certification will allow the station's current crew of six to grow, enabling the crew to conduct more research aboard the unique microgravity laboratory.
"We are excited to see our industry partners close in on operational flights to the International Space Station, an extraordinary feat industry and the NASA family began just four years ago," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. "This space agency has long been a technology innovator, and now we also can say we are an American business innovator, spurring job creation and opening up new markets to the private sector. The agency and our partners have many important steps to finish, but we have shown we can do the tough work required and excel in ways few would dare to hope."
The companies will own and operate the crew transportation systems and be able to sell human space transportation services to other customers in addition to NASA, thereby reducing the costs for all customers.
By encouraging private companies to handle launches to low-Earth orbit -- a region NASA's been visiting since 1962 -- the nation's space agency can focus on getting the most research and experience out of America's investment in the International Space Station. NASA also can focus on building spacecraft and rockets for deep space missions, including flights to Mars.
For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program and CCtCap, visit: