Carnival of Space #293

Welcome back to another Carnival of Space on EverydaySpacer.com!  This week, we’re hosting CoS #293!

Every week, a different blogger hosts a variety of articles submitted by other ‘carnival’ members to bring you a symphony of voices in the spacer blogosphere.

Learn more on the ES CoS page.

Watch for those articles here over the next week as we receive them, we’ll update them.

Let the festivities begin!

Comet PanSTARRS: Beware of the Internet Hype, but Check out the Sight
Andrew Fraknoi | Exploring the Universe

Information about Comet PanSTARRS — a faint comet visible just after sunset in our skies.

That Sounds Familiar
Paul D. Spudis | Air&Space Smithsonian

Dr Paul Spudis writes “That Sounds Familiar” about the possibility of life on Mars…
“The news of the day is abuzz with the new and astounding discoveries from the Curiosity rover that Mars once had an environment conducive to life. Once it was warmer, wetter, more hospitable. Water flowed over its surface. The chemicals necessary for life’s emergence and development are present on Mars, suggesting that…”

NASA’s Swift, Chandra Explore a Youthful ‘Star Wreck’
Megan Watzke | Chandra X-Ray Observatory Blog

“While performing an extensive X-ray survey of our galaxy’s central regions, NASA’s Swift satellite has uncovered the previously unknown remains of a shattered star. Designated G306.3-0.9 after the coordinates of its sky position, the new object ranks among the youngest-known supernova remnants in our Milky Way galaxy.

“Astronomers have previously cataloged more than 300 supernova remnants in the Galaxy. The new analysis indicates that…”

Life Under a Tiny, Red, Angry Sun
Markus Hammonds | Discovery News

A recent study suggests that most of the galaxy’s terrestrial planets may orbit red dwarf stars — could there be alien life on any of these worlds?

On My Bookshelf: Understanding Variable Stars
Todd | Catholic Sensibility

A review of John Percy’s Understanding Variable Stars.

Follow us in our Astronomy Trip to Canary Islands
Stefan Lamoureux | Links Through Space

Follow Astronomy Club Toutatis in their Astronomy trip in the Canary Islands. See photos of Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife, Comet Pan-Starrs and articles on the Canarian astronomy.

Curiosity Rover Finds Ancient Mars was Suitable for Life
Paul Scott Anderson | The Meridiani Journal

“We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new ‘gray Mars’ where conditions once were favorable for life,” said John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist at the California Institute of Technology. He adds, “Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel…”

Could There be 100 Billion Potentially Habitable Planets in the Galaxy?
Nancy Atkinson | Universe Today

“As we’ve reported recently, the likelihood of findings habitable Earth-sized worlds just seems to keep getting better and better. But now the latest calculations from a new paper out this week are almost mind-bending. Using what the authors call a “very careful extrapolation” of the rate of small planets observed around M dwarf stars by the Kepler spacecraft, they estimate there could be…”

A Comet Over Time
Carolyn Collins Peterson | The Spacewriter

Watch a couple of videos on Carolyn’s site!
“Comet Pan-STARRS has been tantalizing viewers for weeks now, and we finally got our chance to see it this week. Of course, it clouded up and snowed for the first night, but for the past couple of nights we’ve been able to step out and watch it in the twilight about 40 minutes or so after sunset. It’s not huge, it’s certainly not Hale-Bopp or Hyakutake, but it’s there and even folks who have never taken a pic of a celestial object before are getting some decent snaps of it. We set up our camera and tripod and…”

Comet C/2011 PanSTARRS in STEREO, 11 March 2013
Ian Musgrave | Astroblog

“Comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS from 23:29 UT on 11 March, high resolution images from the STEREO Behind H1 imager. The image has been inverted to make the faint tails clearer. Image stretched in ImageJ after background subtraction. Contrast enhanced to make…”

Episode 7: Yuri’s Night, Curiosity Rover Update, and More!
Ray Sanders | Astroblog

“Yuri’s Night, Curiosity Updates, and live music from CRIME and the Forces of Evil, all on this month’s episode of The Cosmic Ray Show, hosted by Ray Sanders from dearastronomer.com”

The Re-Enchantment of the Solar System: A Proposed Search for Local ET’s
Adam | Crowlspace

Reposting of Greg Matloff’s provocative essay on local SETI.

Day and Night are NOT Equal on the Equinox!
Gadi Eidelheit | The Venus Transit

“The equinox is a point in the Earth orbit around the sun. It is not really a day, so even when using the strict scientific definitions, day and night will not be equal on the equinox day since it take time from the equinox point to the sunset and during this time…”

Swiss Company Announces Reuseable Suborbital Spacelane Launcher for 2017
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

Swiss Space Systems (S-3) objective is to develop, manufacture, certify and operate unmanned suborbital spaceplanes for small satellite deployment. The range of satellites we will be able to launch goes up to 250 kg small satellites. The start of the test flights is planned for 2017.

Rocket Tests Bring Us Closer to Age of Suborbital Space Tourists in 2014
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

In the January, 2013 issue of IEEE Spectrum, Richard Branson says he expects to be aboard a flight into space by the end of this year [2013]. In BBC News, pilot David Mackay, said Virgin’s tourist flights are on track to start next year. The flights will reach higher than 350,000 feet. Once Virgin Galactic’s routine flights begin, ordinary people with US $200 000 to spare—will be able to buy tickets into space. True, the company won’t take them into orbit, but it will fly them 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level to the Kármán line, which the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale defines as the edge of space. They are performing rocket tests on the ground now.

NASA Next Solar Sail Mission to Make Solar Sail Technology a Mainstream Technology Option
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

In 2014, there will be a definitive demonstration of a mission capable solar sail. This TDM aims to boost the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the L’Garde solar sail from ~6 to ~9. The four main objectives of the mission are:

* Demonstrate segmented deployment of a solar sail with ~4X the area of that vacuum tested at Plum Brook, “cookie cut” from the center of a much larger sail. It will seven times larger than any previous solar sail in space
* Demonstrate attitude control plus passive stability and trim using beam-tip vanes.
* Execute a navigation sequence with mission-capable accuracy.
* Fly to and Maintain Position at L1 and pole sitter positions

The Best View of Exoplanets Planets Yet
Chris Dann | Weirdwarp

4 Jupiter mass planets, among the most exotic ones to be known, have been seen in more detail than ever before. Project 1640 picked out these planets using the Hale telescope.An article by Chris Dann of all Weirdwarp.com.

More articles on their way!  Come back soon to see the rest.

Original image source:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/looking_to_the_east/6085986798/in/photostream