The Habitable Zone Of Three New Planets

The family of planets rotating a relatively close dwarf star has grown to six, counting a potential rocky world at least seven times more enormous than Earth that is properly placed for liquid water to exist on its surface, a provision believed to be necessary for life

NASA Scientists added three new planets to three discovered in 2008 orbiting an orange star called HD 40307, which is roughly three-quarters as enormous as the sun and located about 42 light-years missing in the constellation Pictor.

The Asteroid 2012 TC4 by NASA -Earth

The great NASA scientists have announced that an asteroid thought to be as big as a house is predictable to pass by Earth today without any risk of creation impact. The asteroid, named 2012 TC4 by NASA, will obtain as close as 59,000 miles away as of Earth when it reaches its closest space to the planet. The asteroid will be much nearer than the moon as this is only one-fourth of its path around Earth. Scientists have branded about the asteroid for over a week, but quickly determined it posed no risk for bang and would not cause any scratch.

The asteroid is predictable to be 56 feet in width. Despite being the extent of a house, according to Twitter, NASA scientists regard as the asteroid to be small. “Small asteroid 2012 TC4 will securely pass Earth Oct. 12 at just .25 the reserve to our moon’s orbit,” they supposed on Twitter this week. While the moon’s orbit is typically around 238,000 miles, 2012 TC4 will get much quicker at less than 60,000 miles present from Earth. Even though 2012 TC4 will get close, even if it hit Earth it would not be measured a main threat to the planet.

Bright Is The New Black: New York Roofs Go Cool

On the hottest day of the New York City summer in 2011, a white roof covering was measured at 42 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the traditional black roof it was being compared to, according to a study including NASA scientists that details the first scientific results from the city's unprecedented effort to brighten rooftops and reduce its "urban heat island" effect.

The dark, sunlight-absorbing surfaces of some New York City roofs reached 170 degrees Fahrenheit on July 22, 2011, a day that set a city record for electricity usage during the peak of a heat wave. But in the largest discrepancy of that day, a white roofing material was measured at about 42 degrees cooler. The white roof being tested was a low-cost covering promoted as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's effort to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030.

On average through the summer of 2011, the pilot white roof surface reduced peak rooftop temperature compared to a typical black roof by 43 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the study, which was the first long-term effort in New York to test how specific white roof materials held up and performed over several years.

Preps Continue for Launching Engine Icing Research

NASA scientists are making progress in their preparations to mount a detailed research campaign aimed at solving a modern-day aviation mystery involving the unlikely combination of fire and ice inside a running jet engine.

The investigation deals with the seemingly strange notion that ice crystals associated with warm-weather storms can be ingested into the core of a jet engine, melt and then re-freeze, potentially causing the engine to lose power or shut down altogether. Safety officials have documented more than 150 incidents of this phenomenon since 1988. Most of the incidents have occurred in the tropics.

“It doesn’t seem intuitive that ice can form in the core of a warm engine,” said Ron Colantonio, manager of the Atmospheric Environment Safety Technologies Project at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. So in order to make sense of the mystery, NASA and its research partners are planning to gather information by flying a specially-outfitted business jet in high-altitude, warm-weather conditions suspected of having a large amount of ice crystals.

NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record

The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.

"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," said GISS Director James E. Hansen. "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

NASA Releases Updated Radar Movie of Asteroid 2005 YU55

NASA Scientists working with the 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have released a second, longer, and more refined, movie clip of asteroid 2005 YU55. The images were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Nov. 7, 2011, between 11:24 a.m. and 1:35 p.m. PST (2:24 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. EST).

Each of the 28 frames required 20 minutes of data collection by the Goldstone radar. At the time of the observations, 2005 YU55 was approximately 860,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Earth. The resolution is about 13 feet (4 meters) per pixel. 2005 YU55 takes approximately 18 hours to complete one rotation, so the rotation in the movie appears much more rapid than the actual asteroid rotation speed.The Goldstone observations utilized a new system to obtain images with a resolution of 4 meters, which is five times finer than the highest resolution previously possible at Goldstone.

"The encounter with 2005 YU55 has produced an enormous amount of data that is still being processed." said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the 2005 YU55 Goldstone observations, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The sequence of images we obtained shows unprecedented fine-scale detail on this asteroid, which is comparable in size to the Empire State Building. The Goldstone images show evidence for concavities, a ridge near the asteroid's equator, and numerous features that may be large boulders."