jupiter

NASA launched its Juno spacecraft today from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying three intrepid astronauts toward Jupiter.

The trio embarking on this dangerous five-year mission are only 1.5 inches tall, but their courage is giant. The Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno, and astronomer Galileo, all in Lego form, left Earth aboard 2.5 million pounds of thrust coming out of an Atlas V rocket for a date with our planet's biggest brother in 2016.

"The inclusion of the three mini-statues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the Lego Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics," NASA said of the plastic pals. … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket roared to life today and launched NASA's solar-powered Juno space probe on a five-year voyage to Jupiter, the first step in a $1.1 billion mission to look for clues about the origins of the solar system in the hidden heart of its largest planet.

"What we're really going after are some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system--how Jupiter formed, how it evolved, what really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us and the terrestrial planets," said Scott Bolton, the principal investigator. "These are really basic questions: who are we, where did we come from, how did we get here?

"We're kind of going after this recipe of how planets are made. We're getting the ingredients of Jupiter, we're going to understand what the structure is like inside, how was it built, and that will give us guidance as to what happened in that early time that eventually led to us."

The towering 197-foot-tall Atlas 5, equipped with five solid-fuel strap-on boosters for extra power, ignited with a ground-shaking roar at 12:25 p.m. EDT, generating 2.5 million pounds of thrust and instantly pushing the spacecraft away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was only the second launch of a five strap-on Atlas 5, the most powerful version offered by United Launch Alliance.

Liftoff was delayed 51 minutes to resolve two technical issues and to make sure a boat that strayed into the launch danger zone cleared the area.

Climbing away atop a brilliant plume of fiery exhaust, the rocket accelerated through the sound barrier 34 seconds after liftoff, arcing away to the east and putting on a spectacular lunchtime show for tourists and area residents. The strap-on boosters burned out and peeled off about a minute later and the first stage shut down and fell away as planned four and a half minutes after launch.

The rocket's hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage then carried out a six-minute burn to boost the spacecraft into a temporary parking orbit. A second nine-minute Centaur firing 31 minutes later accelerated Juno to 25,000 mph, or 7 miles per second--interplanetary escape velocity--and three minutes later, the 4-ton spacecraft separated from the Centaur to fly on its own.… Read more

NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft, the centerpiece of a $1.1 billion mission to Jupiter, was mounted atop an Atlas 5 rocket today, setting the stage for launch August 5 on a five-year voyage to the solar system's largest planet.

Once in orbit around Jupiter's poles, Juno's instruments will precisely map the planet's gravitational and magnetic fields, probe its turbulent atmosphere and hidden interior and study the mechanisms responsible for its powerhouse auroras, the strongest in the solar system.

"Jupiter probably formed first, it's the largest of all the planets, in fact it's … Read more

SkyView lets you use your iPhone camera view to create an augmented-reality view of the sky complete with constellations, planets, and satellites. Simply launch the app and point your iPhone camera skyward to see constellations and other celestial bodies where they are in real time. You also can touch planets, stars, and constellations to get more info and history at the bottom of the screen.

While you can spend plenty of time simply pointing in different directions and viewing celestial bodies, SkyView offers a few more handy features for finding what you want. You can use the search tool to … Read more

You're going to have to listen to the show to understand the evolution of our favorite new phrase, "mucho bogo." Speaking of evolution, the HTC EVO 4G is officially available, just in time to be stomped into dust by the forthcoming iPhone. Maybe. Also, Google's going to hand over its intercepted WiFi data, to make a bad problem worse, and we're giving a big (BIG) no to the Kno.

Commodore 64 is an app that emulates the iconic '80s home computer of the same name, giving you access to some free games as well as an in-game store to buy more.

The interface looks lovely, with a nostalgia-inducing splash screen and a slick, faux-wooden shelf for your games. The app comes preloaded with several titles (although even if you owned a C64, you might not have heard of them), and by choosing the "Shop" tab, you can browse through more than 30 other games, including quite a few free ones. Each game has screenshots and a short … Read more

Radio-Jupiter Pro helps users find the best times to listen for radio noise from Jupiter. Although the publisher's description advises that the program can help users "get started in radio astronomy," those who are beginners with this sort of thing will have to be pretty ambitious if they're going to learn to use this program.

The program's interface is dated-looking and filled with numbers and graphs that will mean absolutely nothing to the uninitiated. We decided we'd better check the Help file for guidance, and we were dismayed (and annoyed) to learn that the … Read more

An unseen comet or possibly an icy asteroid apparently crashed into Jupiter's atmosphere near the giant planet's south pole sometime during the last few days, creating a "gargantuan" blemish easily visible from Earth.

The presumed impact, discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley July 19 and confirmed by NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, came almost 15 years to the day after multiple fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in 1994.

"We're not sure how large this fragment could have been," Leigh Fletcher, a researcher at the Jet … Read more

PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Utah--On May 10, 1869, the extraordinary happened here.

After crews from the Central Pacific Railroad had started in Sacramento, Calif., and laid 690 miles of track to the east, and teams from the Union Pacific Railroad had put down 1,086 miles of track to the west of Omaha, Neb., they met on that spring day at this spot just north of the Great Salt Lake.

They completed the Transcontinental Railroad.

For the first time, trains could traverse most of the United States. The huge event was celebrated on that day when the Central Pacific's Jupiter and … Read more