New Horizons 2015 + 37 days - Video Demet Ambessa 7.15

Hi passengers !

Demet Ambessa edited this documentary in July 16, 2015 on Youtube. ''Direct from Pluto: The First Encounter'' showcases the very first images of Pluto and first-hand accounts by the NASA scientists who planned the mission to capture them; these images could spark a debate over Pluto’s planetary status.

Watch more documentaries on »»» Youtube Demet Ambessa 

Pluto - New horizons + 37 days.

Flyby Elapsed Time: 37 Days 4 Hours 29 Minutes 2 Seconds. Spacecraft is now at distance from Pluto: 44,290,525 km. Let´s have a look now on data send in August 12, 2015 by the LORRI instrument.

Scientists Study Nitrogen Provision for Pluto’s Atmosphere

The latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal diverse features on Pluto’s surface and an atmosphere dominated by nitrogen gas. However, Pluto’s small mass allows hundreds of tons of atmospheric nitrogen to escape into space each hour. 

So where does all this nitrogen come from? Kelsi Singer, a postdoctoral researcher at Southwest Research Institute, and her mentor Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator and SwRI associate vice president, outlined likely sources in a paper titled, “On the Provenance of Pluto’s Nitrogen.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters accepted the paper for publication on July 15, just a day after the spacecraft’s closest encounter with the icy dwarf planet. 

“More nitrogen has to come from somewhere to resupply both the nitrogen ice that is moving around Pluto’s surface in seasonal cycles, and the nitrogen that is escaping off the top of the atmosphere as the result of heating by ultraviolet light from the Sun,” said Singer. 

Singer and Stern looked at a number of different ways that nitrogen might be resupplied. They wondered if comets could deliver enough nitrogen to Pluto’s surface to resupply what is escaping its atmosphere. They also looked at whether craters made by the comets hitting the surface could excavate enough nitrogen – but that would require a very deep layer of nitrogen ice at the surface, which is not proven. The team also studied whether craters could expose more surface area, by punching through surface deposits that would likely be built up over time.   

“We found that all of these effects, which are the major ones from cratering, do not seem to supply enough nitrogen to supply the escaping atmosphere over time,” continued Singer. “While it’s possible that the escape rate was not as high in the past as it is now, we think geologic activity is helping out by bringing nitrogen up from Pluto’s interior.” 

And while the data weren’t in before this paper was written, the newest images of Pluto show land forms that suggest heat is rising beneath the surface, with troughs of dark matter either collecting, or bubbling up, between flat segments of crust, which could be related. 

“Our pre-flyby prediction, made when we submitted the paper, is that it’s most likely that Pluto is actively resupplying nitrogen from its interior to its surface, possibly meaning the presence of ongoing geysers or cryovolcanism,” said Stern. “As data from New Horizons comes in, we will be very interested to see if this proves true. 

” New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.

• Learn more on website »»» Pluto/JPUAL

NASA's Next Megarocket Could Launch Mission to Europa - Video Space Com 7.15

Hi passengers !

The huge rocket NASA is developing to get astronauts to an asteroid, Mars and other distant destinations should also greatly aid robotic exploration efforts, members of Congress were told Tuesday (July 28). 

The Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, scheduled to fly for the first time in 2018, will blast unmanned spacecraft toward their targets at incredible speeds, dramatically reducing interplanetary travel times, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 

"My view is that the Space Launch System will be transformative for science," Grunsfeld told members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Science, Space and Technology Committee during a hearing Tuesday entitled "Exploration of the Solar System: From Mercury to Pluto and Beyond."

• See images »»» NASA's SLS megarocket ««« 

SLS Megarocket can reach Jupiter´s moon ''Europa'' in three years ! 

As an example, Grunsfeld cited NASA's planned flyby mission to Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa, which the agency aims to launch in the early to mid-2020s. Using SLS instead of currently available rockets would slash the probe's journey to the Jupiter system from about eight years to less than three years, Grunsfeld said. (Mission team members are developing the Europa flyby craft to fit on a variety of different launch vehicles, including SLS.) 

"This is one of those rare cases where time really is money," he said. "In that extra cruise time, you know, we have to maintain an engineering team and a science team and a spacecraft while it's in cruise, even if we hibernate. And that's something that also delays the science. 

" NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which just two weeks ago performed history's first-ever flyby of Pluto, was launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. New Horizons weighed just 1,050 lbs. (480 kilograms) fully fueled, but its mission still required the most powerful variant of the Atlas V, Grunsfeld said. 

And New Horizons zoomed straight through the Pluto system at high speed for a one-time flyby. Spacecraft that linger around a celestial body — such as the Europa probe, which will perform at least 45 flybys of Europa from Jupiter orbit — cannot travel so light, said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. 

For orbiters and surface craft, "you need to carry a lot of fuel, and there's no way to lighten the fuel; you need it so you can come to a stop on that planetary surface or in orbit," Stern told committee members during today's hearing. "SLS is going to really help us enable [such] space missions, including — I hope one day — a return to the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt." 

SLS could also aid deep-space astronomy, by allowing larger and more powerful space telescopes to be launched, Grunsfeld said. 

The rocket could launch entire space observatories, or perhaps "parts that astronauts could assemble to build a telescope that could search for atmospheres around nearby [alien] worlds," Grunsfeld said. 

In its initial configuration, SLS will stand 321 feet (98 meters) tall and be capable of lofting 77 tons (70,000 kg) to low-Earth orbit. The rocket will provide about 10 percent more thrust than NASA's famous Saturn V rocket, which blasted astronauts toward the moon, agency officials say. 

But NASA also plans an "evolved" 384-foot-tall (117 m) SLS version that can launch 143 tons (130,000 kg) and generate 20 percent more thrust than the Saturn V.

SLS and the Orion capsule, which is also in development, will help get astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid and Mars, NASA officials say. 

The first launch of SLS in 2018 will send an uncrewed Orion on a journey around the moon. The rocket and capsule should fly astronauts together for the first time in 2021 or so. The current plan calls for sending these crewmembers out to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid that a robotic probe has dragged into orbit around the moon.

• Read, Watch & Listen more on »»» http://www.space.com/30082 

'Voyager 2015 : Journey to the Stars'' - Video Space Rip 4.13

Hi passengers !

Remembering today the longest mission ever made by robotised human spacecrafts : Voyager 1 & Voyager 2 have both inspired many of numeric reports on this blogger, telling stories about space missions done since the first orbit of Sputnik in April 12, 1957 and trying to understand what astrophysics explains about the Cosmos surrounding us everywhere in 2015...

 Jean gregorio presents now this interesting documentary seen on Youtube ''Voyager, journey to the stars'' produced by Space Rip. Ttitle : Cosmic Journeys edited on April 6, 2013.

Cosmic Journeys - Voyager Journey to the Stars

Cosmic Journeys examines the great promise of the Voyager mission and where it will lead us in our grand ambition to move out beyond our home planet. The two Voyager spacecraft are part of an ancient quest to push beyond our boundaries... to see what lies beyond the horizon. Now tens of billions of kilometers from Earth, two spacecraft are streaking out into the void. What will we learn about the Galaxy, the Universe, and ourselves from Voyager's epic Journey to the stars? 

December 19, 1972... the splashdown of the Apollo 17 crew capsule marked the end of the golden age of manned spaceflight. The Mercury.... Gemini... and Apollo programs had proven that we could send people into space... To orbit the Earth.... Fly out beyond our planet... Then land on the moon and walk among its ancient crater. 

The collective will to send people beyond our planet faded in times of economic uncertainty, war, and shifting priorities. And yet, just five years after Apollo ended, scientists launched a new vision that was just as profound and even more far-reaching. 

It didn't all go smoothly. Early computer problems threatened to doom Voyager 2. Then its radio receiver failed, forcing engineers to use a back up. Now, after more than three and a half decades of successful operations, the twin spacecraft are sending back information on their flight into interstellar space. Along the way, they have revealed a solar system rich beyond our imagining. 

The journey was made possible by a rare alignment of the planets, a configuration that occurs only once every 176 years. That enabled the craft to go from planet to planet, accelerating as they entered the gravitational field of one, then flying out to the next. The Voyagers carried a battery of scientific equipment to collect data on the unknown worlds in their path. That included a pair of vidicom cameras, and a data transfer rate slower than a dialup modem.

• Follow Space Rip on »»» https://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip

New Horizons 2015 +12 days - Flying over Pluto - Video Nasa News 7.15

Hi passengers !

This simulated flyover of Pluto’s Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) and Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) was created from New Horizons closest-approach images. 

Norgay Montes have been informally named for Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest. 

Sputnik Planum is informally named for Earth’s first artificial satellite. 

The images were acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). 

Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.

• Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI »»» NASA.gov Video

12 days after the closest approach of Pluto/Charon Biplanetary system, data from the instruments installed on New Horizons spacecraft are still growing our knowledge about far distances objects out of the solar system. 

Presenting the last news from NASA with this following numeric report and a playslist of 13 videos to read, watch and listen for a better understanding of how the cosmos work ?

New Horizons Discovers Flowing Ices on Pluto...

NASA’s New Horizons mission has found evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto’s surface, at the left edge of its bright heart-shaped area. New close-up images from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) reveal signs of recent geologic activity, something scientists hoped to find but didn’t expect. “We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said mission co-investigator John Spencer of SwRI. “I'm really smiling.” The new close-up images show fascinating detail within the Texas-sized plain (informally named Sputnik Planum) that lies within the western half of Pluto’s heart-shaped region, known as Tombaugh Regio. There, a sheet of ice clearly appears to have flowed—and may still be flowing—in a manner similar to glaciers on Earth.

Meanwhile, New Horizons scientists are using enhanced color images (see below) to detect differences in the composition and texture of Pluto’s surface. When close-up images are combined with color data from the Ralph instrument, they paint a new and surprising portrait of Pluto in which a global pattern of zones vary by latitude. The darkest terrains appear at the equator, mid-tones are the norm at mid-latitudes, and a brighter icy expanse dominates the north polar region. The New Horizons science team is interpreting this pattern to be the result of seasonal transport of ices from equator to pole. This pattern is dramatically interrupted by the bright “beating heart” of Pluto.

The “heart of the heart,” Sputnik Planum, is suggestive of a reservoir of ices. The two bluish-white “lobes” that extend to the southwest and northeast of the “heart” may represent exotic ices being transported away from Sputnik Planum. Additionally, new compositional data from New Horizons’ Ralph instrument indicate that the center of Sputnik Planum is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices. “At Pluto’s temperatures of minus-390 degrees Fahrenheit, these ices can flow like a glacier,” said Bill McKinnon, of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team. In the southernmost region of the heart, adjacent to the dark equatorial region, it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain (informally named “Cthulhu Regio”) has been invaded by much newer icy deposits.

The newly-discovered range of mountains rises one mile (1.6 kilometers) above the surrounding plains, similar to the height of the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. These peaks have been informally named Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains) for Sir Edmund Hillary, who first summited Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953. “For many years, we referred to Pluto as the Everest of planetary exploration,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “It’s fitting that the two climbers who first summited Earth’s highest mountain, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, now have their names on this new Everest.” View a simulated flyover using New Horizons’ close-approach images of Sputnik Planum and Pluto’s newly-discovered mountain range – Hillary Montes, in the video below.

• Know more on »»» http://www.nasa.gov 

Plasma Cosmology VS Big Bang Theory EXPLAINED - Video Santos Cruz 6.15

Hi passengers !

@ Santos Cruz 

With the flyby of spacecraft «New Horizons» trhough the Pluto/Charon binary planet system and it four (4) moons, few new findings in Plasma Cosmology have opened thousands of questions about the real constitution of the Universe and how this knowledge is bringing us to an higher understanding of what really is surrounding us.

Documentary added on June 12, 2015 

«These guys are the real deal...they explained about real astronomy and important things happened in the universe billions of years ago by moving further than hypothesis... 

This is the only way i can promote these so called alternative science...but for me their explanations are much better than mainstream (standard) science...»

Science and Ideology

Although The BBT (Big Bang Theory) can claim to be the dominant cosmology just now, many increasingly regard it as little more than ideology. There are no lack of web resources devoted to its demise, so, rather than going over too much old ground, below is a summary of some of its more controversial claims.

The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background)

Big Bang supporters are fond of claiming CMB radiation as conclusive evidence for their theory, but these claims begin to look somewhat revisionist in the light of the following facts. 

The background temperature of space was predicted by Guillaume, Eddington, Regener, Nernst, Herzberg, Finlay-Freundlich and Max Born, based on a universe without expansion, and prior to the discovery of the CMB. 

Their predictions were far more accurate than models based on the Big Bang. In 1965, two young radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, accidentally discovered the CMB using a small horn antenna. 

This discovery was quickly seized upon by Big Bang supporters and they were later awarded the Nobel Prize!

• Here is an excellent paper (PDF) that outlines the real history of The CMB

The role of Plasma in The Universe

Plasma cosmology has gone beyond hypothesis and analysis. There are problems with part three, of course, experimentation on universal scales, but the fact is that plasmas are highly scalable, and super-computing capabilities have enabled us to model plasma behaviours on galactic scales ... utilising only a few simple formulae. 

These models are consistent with reality. Big Bang cosmology, by contrast, fails to adequately account for the 'clumpiness' and filamentary structures that we observe. Plasma cosmology does NOT rely on abstract mathematical modelling or an increasing array of exotic hypotheticals like Dark Matter and Dark Energy !

•  Know more on http://www.plasmacosmology.net

New Horizons 2015 + 9 days - Flyby over Pluto - Video Nasa News 7.15

Hi passengers !

Presenting the NASA conference about the new horizons findings after the fyby over Pluto this last July 14, 2015.

Flyby Elapsed Time: 9 Days 2 Hours 46 Minutes 9 Seconds 

Beginning 14 July 2015, 11:49:57 UTC

New Horizons Finds Second Mountain Range in Pluto's 'Heart'

Pluto’s icy mountains have company. NASA’s New Horizons mission has discovered a new, apparently less lofty mountain range on the lower-left edge of Pluto’s best known feature, the bright, heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region). 

These newly-discovered frozen peaks are estimated to be one-half mile to one mile (1-1.5 kilometers) high, about the same height as the United States’ Appalachian Mountains. The Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) discovered by New Horizons on July 15 more closely approximate the height of the taller Rocky Mountains. 

The new range is just west of the region within Pluto’s heart called Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain). The peaks lie some 68 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Norgay Montes. This newest image further illustrates the remarkably well-defined topography along the western edge of Tombaugh Regio. 

“There is a pronounced difference in texture between the younger, frozen plains to the east and the dark, heavily-cratered terrain to the west,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “There’s a complex interaction going on between the bright and the dark materials that we’re still trying to understand.” While Sputnik Planum is believed to be relatively young in geological terms – perhaps less than 100 million years old — the darker region probably dates back billions of years. 

Moore notes that the bright, sediment-like material appears to be filling in old craters (for example, the bright circular feature to the lower left of center). This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and sent back to Earth on July 20. 

Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. The names of features on Pluto have all been given on an informal basis by the New Horizons team.

• Know more on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ 

Dawn 2015 -'intriguing' pyramid on dwarf planet Ceres - Video The Cosmos News 6.15

Hi Passengers !

New images taken by Nasa's Dawn spacecraft have captured an odd, pyramid-shaped peak protruding from the flat surface of Ceres. 

The craft has been observing the dwarf planet, which lies in the distant asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, from a second mapping orbit of 4,400km (2,700 miles). The latest images reveal an unusual, pointed mountain jutting from an otherwise smooth stretch of the landscape, estimated to be around 5km (3 miles) tall.

 'Intriguing' pyramid observed on dwarf planet Ceres

Although there are yet to be any explanations for the pyramid's origins, previous studies of the planet have revealed a whole host of active phenomena on its surface, from landslides and rock flows to remnants of crumbled (natural) structures. 

A series of currently inexplicable bright spots have also added to the planet's manifold mysteries. The white spots were previously seen on an earlier mapping of Ceres, but the latest view has captured eight smaller spots enigmatically scattered across the surface of a 55-mile-wide crater. 

Nasa scientists believe that the spots are caused by a highly reflective material, such as salt deposits or ice, but it's hoped that further study by Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer -- which can identify specific minerals by analysing how light is reflected -- will yield some more definitive answers. 

Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator for the Dawn mission, commented: "The surface of Ceres has revealed many interesting and unique features. For example, icy moons in the outer solar system have craters with central pits, but on Ceres central pits in large craters are much more common."

• Follow on »»» http://www.wired.co.uk 

Plasma cosmology - The universe is electric - Video Santos Cruz 4.15

Hi passengers !

Tonight i present this documentary of 63 mn about real astronophysics and explaining important things happened on earth thousands of years ago. This alternative science is not yet learned in school but gives a better explanation than the mainstream standart science over the observable universe.

Plasma cosmology : 

It´s a non-standard cosmology whose central postulate is that the dynamics of ionized gases and plasmas play important, if not dominant, roles in the physics of the universe beyond the Solar System. 

This is contrary to the general consensus by cosmologists and astrophysicists which strongly supports that astronomical bodies and structures in the universe are mostly influenced by gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, and quantum mechanics.

These can be used to explain the origin, structure and evolution of the universe on cosmic scales. As of 2015, the vast majority of researchers openly reject plasma cosmology because it does not match modern observations of astrophysical phenomena or accepted cosmological theory.

The Electric Universe :

It´s a variant of Plasma Cosmology, and it is necessary to differentiate between the two. While they share more similarities than differences, it should be noted that EU ideas tend to go a step further than the generally more conservative approach of Plasma Cosmology. 

While both viewpoints permit many ideas previously excluded by Big Bang Cosmology, The Electric Universe looks at the bigger picture, and promotes more radical ideas about the role of electricity in the universe, from ancient mythology to the mind-body connection. 

Both PC and EU proponents acknowledge the fact that space is NOT electrically neutral, a fact largely denied in conventional astronomy...

• More information on »»» http://www.plasmacosmology.net/

New Horizons 2015 - Spacecraft meets Pluto in 13 days - Video Nasa News 6.15

Hi passengers !

The spacecraft New Horizons (NASA) will reach in 13 days the planet Pluto. 

Follow in this documentary the making-of and all about this mission on http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ to understand this incredible journey of nine (9) years across the solar system to visit Pluto and reach the Kuiper Belt in 2020. 

The Kuiper Belt is a gigantic zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune. This region also is known as the “third” zone of our solar system, beyond the inner rocky planets and outer gas giants where Alan Stern sends the spacecraft to explore.

Countdown to Pluto :

Closest Approach - Tuesday, 14 July 2015 11:49:57 UTC

12 Days 16 Hours 10 Minutes 37 Seconds.

Distance to Pluto : 15,094,341 km 

Mission Elapsed Time - Beginning 19 January 2006, 19:00:00 UTC

3450 Days 0 Hours 39 Minutes 23 Seconds.

• Follow mission on »»»  http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Exoplanet Atmospheric Pressure, an Indicator of Habitability for JWST in 2018 - Video CP 3.14

Hi Passengers !

Universum Observatorium presents tonight this selection of 15 videos showing different techniques to find habitable exoplanets in our near cosmos with the actual Hubble & Spitzer Space Telescope. 

But significant progress will be reached with next generation of space telescopes to be launched in 2018 with The James Webb Space Telescope.

New Technique Could Measure Exoplanet Atmospheric Pressure, an Indicator of Habitability

Measuring the atmospheric pressure of a distant exoplanet may seem like a daunting task but astronomers at the University of Washington have now developed a new technique to do just that.

When exoplanet discoveries first started rolling in, astronomers laid emphasis in finding planets within the habitable zone — the band around a star where water neither freezes nor boils. But characterizing the environment and habitability of an exoplanet doesn’t depend on the planet’s surface temperature alone. 

Atmospheric pressure is just as important in gauging whether or not the surface of an exoplanet may likely hold liquid water. Anyone familiar with camping at high-altitude should have a good understanding of how pressure affects water’s boiling point. The method developed by Amit Misra, a PhD candidate, involves isolating “dimers” — bonded pairs of molecules that tend to form at high pressures and densities in a planet’s atmosphere — not to be confused with “monomers,” which are simply free-floating molecules. 

While there are many types of dimers, the research team focused exclusively on oxygen molecules, which are temporarily bound to each other through hydrogen bonding. We may indirectly detect dimers in an exoplanet’s atmosphere when the exoplanet transits in front of its host star. As the star’s light passes through a thin layer of the planet’s atmosphere the dimers absorb certain wavelengths of it. 

Once the starlight reaches Earth it’s imprinted with the chemical fingerprints of the dimers. Dimers absorb light in a distinctive pattern, which typically has four peaks due to the rotational motion of the molecules. But the amount of absorption may change depending on the atmospheric pressure and density. This difference is much more pronounced in dimers than in monomers, allowing astronomers to gain additional information about the atmospheric pressure based on the ratio of these two signatures. 

While water dimers were detected in the Earth’s atmosphere as early as last year, powerful telescopes soon to come online may enable astronomers to use this method in observing distant exoplanets. The team analyzed the likelihood of using the James Webb Space Telescope to make such a detection and found it challenging but possible. 

Detecting dimers in an exoplanet’s atmosphere would not only help us evaluate the atmospheric pressure, and therefore the state of water on the surface, but other biosignature markers as well. Oxygen is directly tied to photosynthesis, and will most likely not be abundant in an exoplanet’s atmosphere unless it is regularly produced by algae or other plants. 

“So if we find a good target planet, and you could detect these dimer molecules — which might be possible within the next 10 to 15 years — that would not only tell you something about pressure, but actually tell you that there’s life on that planet,” said Misra in a press release.

• Read more on universetoday.com 

Science by Shannon Hall

Shannon Hall is an aspiring science journalist and is an editorial intern at Sky & Telescope magazine.  

She holds two bachelor's degrees from Whitman College in astrophysics and philosophy, and recently received her master's degree in astrophysics from the University of Wyoming.

2018 - The launch of James Webb Space Telescope 

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a planned space telescope optimized for observations in the infrared, and a scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. 

The main technical features are a large and very cold 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter mirror and four specialized instruments at an observing position far from Earth, orbiting the Earth–Sun L2 point.

The combination of these features will give JWST unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength visible to the mid-infrared, enabling its two main scientific goals – studying the birth and evolution of galaxies, and the formation of stars and planets. 

In planning since 1996, the project represents an international collaboration of about 17 countries led by NASA, and with significant contributions from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. It is named after James E. Webb, the second administrator of NASA, who played an integral role in the Apollo program. JWST's capabilities will enable a broad range of investigations across many subfields of astronomy. 

One particular goal involves observing some of the most distant objects in the Universe, beyond the reach of current ground and space based instruments. This includes the very first stars, the epoch of reionization, and the formation of the first galaxies. Another goal is understanding the formation of stars and planets. 

This will include imaging molecular clouds and star-forming clusters, studying the debris disks around stars, direct imaging of planets, and spectroscopic examination of planetary transits. The mission was under review for cancellation by the United States Congress in 2011 after about $3 billion had been spent, and more than 75 percent of its hardware was either in production or undergoing testing. In November 2011, Congress reversed plans to cancel the JWST and instead capped additional funding to complete the project at $8 billion.

Program status

A review of the program released in August 2011, said the cost for the telescope and 5 years of operations will be $8.7 billion with a planned launch in 2018. Of that price about $800 million is for the five years of operations. 

The Webb will be launched from Arianespace's ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. The planned launch vehicle is an Ariane 5 ECA with the cryogenic upper stage. 

Notably, this review commended the JWST project for being in excellent technical shape with most flight hardware making good progress to completion. The delay and cost overruns are due to an unrealistic original budget and insufficient program management. 

In response, NASA instituted significant management changes in the JWST project, but the need for increased funding has led to a substantial mission delay.

Partnership of 17 nations 

NASA, ESA and CSA have collaborated on the telescope since 1996. ESA's participation in construction and launch was approved by its members in 2003 and an agreement was signed between ESA and NASA in 2007. 

In exchange for full partnership, representation and access to the observatory for its astronomers, ESA is providing the NIRSpec instrument, the Optical Bench Assembly of the MIRI instrument, an Ariane-5 ECA launcher, and manpower to support operations. 

The CSA will provide the Fine Guidance Sensor and the Near-Infrared Imager Slitless Spectrograph plus manpower to support operations. 

Participating countries 

Austria Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States.

• Read more on wikipedia.org

What are stars and thunderbolts ? ''The Electric Sun'' - Video ThunderboltsProject 7.13

Hi passengers ! 

Presenting this video about Plasma cosmology added on Youtube July 3, 2013 by user ThunderboltsProject.

For many decades few scientists have challenged the standard model of the Sun. But in truth countless unresolved mysteries of the Sun continue to haunt scientists. Is the Electric Universe the key to a new and better understanding of our local star? This interview provides a general introduction to the Electric Sun and its environment.This subject will be a frequent focus of Space News in coming months as the SAFIRE experiment comes into increasing prominence.

•  Watch more videos from ThunderboltsProject on »»» YouTube Channel

What are Thunderbolts ?  

A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In ancient Hellenic and Roman religious traditions, the thunderbolt represents Zeus or Jupiter (etymologically 'Sky Father'), thence the origin and ordaining pattern of the universe, as expressed in Heraclitus' fragment describing "the Thunderbolt that steers the course of all things". 

It is the same in other Indo-European traditions, for example the Vedic Vajra. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, or, according to Victor Clube, meteors, though this is not currently the case. 

As a divine manifestation the thunderbolt has been a powerful symbol throughout history, and has appeared in many mythologies. Drawing from this powerful association, the thunderbolt is often found in military symbolism and semiotic representations of electricity...

Stars are not merely gravitationally compressed hot gas. 

What are the stars? The question might seem self-evident, since children are taught from an early age that they are intensely bright, burning balls of hydrogen gas. A star’s great size, therefore its great gravitational attraction, is what conventional theories say holds the planets in their orbits. Stellar cores of fusion fire send energy on million-year journeys before radiation is emitted, so dense are their interiors thought to be. 

How are stars formed and by what agency are they ignited? The answer, according to accepted astrophysical theories, is gravity. At some time, billions of years before any particular shining star was born, it started out as a wispy cloud a thousand times less dense than a puff of smoke. One of the questions that astronomers have been asking for many years about the process is what caused such insubstantial clouds to condense in the first place? 

Star formation is initiated according to two main theories. First, a cloud might cool down from whatever high temperature it once possessed (although what event heated the cloud is not elucidated), so thermal energy falls off, allowing gravity to assert itself on individual particles, causing the cloud collapse in on itself. 

Second, the explosion of a supernova (or intense bursts of radiation from a nearby star) might generate shock waves that pass through a proto-stellar cloud, forcing particles to collide and clump together. Gravity then takes up its familiar position, eventually pulling the cloud into a structure dense enough for fusion to take place. 

In this paper, stellar ages and the conventional viewpoints that determine them will not be discussed. Suffice to say here is that stellar diagrams that attempt to establish age according to color and temperature are missing important points. If other electrical factors are added, temperature and brightness become a matter of externally applied electric currents and not internally generated fusion energy. The difference between the two concepts is not trivial, especially when they are used to explain other observations. Electrically driven stars is an entirely new paradigm. 

Regardless of whether it is shock waves or “radiation pressure,” the energy that drives effects in conventional theories is kinetic and mechanically induced. In fact, lowering thermal activity is how the first theory suggests stellar formation begins. The second theory requires a star 20 times more massive than the Sun to irradiate a cloud from close-up for millions of years. 

In an Electric Universe, gravity, density, compression, and mechanical phenomena give way to the effects of plasma. The stars are not hot, dense balls of hydrogen being crushed into helium and electromagnetic radiation by gravitational pressure. Rather, they are balls of plasma, with all the fusion taking place on their surfaces. Since there are no superdense fusion cores, their mass estimates are most likely being seriously overstated by papers written from the consensus. 

The Electric Universe definition of “plasma” is not the conventional one of “ionized gas.” It is that confused apprehension of plasma that falls back on ideas about gas behavior and thermal ionization. “Plasma,” as contributing editor Mel Acheson wrote, “is an emergent (i.e., higher-level or statistical-level) orderliness of complex electrical forces: such properties as filamentation, long-range attraction and short-range repulsion, braiding, characteristic velocities, formation and decay of plasmoids, and identity of properties at different scales.” 

Electric stars aren’t begotten in nebular clouds, their progenitor is charge separation. Positive ions and negative electrons move within plasma in ways not governed by gravity, although gravity might cause some heavy positive ions to create a charge surplus in one volume of space over another. When that happens, a weak electric field develops. An electric field, no matter how weak, will initiate an electric current that generates a magnetic field. Those fields interact with the magnetic fields generated by other currents. 

In images from space, as well as in high-speed photographs of plasma activity in the laboratory, charge streams are seen to form twisted pairs of filaments, called Birkeland currents. Birkeland currents follow magnetic field lines and draw charged material from their surroundings. Magnetic fields pinch the ultra-fine dust and plasma into heated blobs of matter called plasmoids. 

As the effect, called a “z-pinch,” increases, the electric field intensifies, further increasing the z-pinch. The compressed blobs form spinning electrical discharges. At first they glow as dim red dwarfs, then blazing yellow stars, and finally they might become brilliant ultraviolet arcs, driven by the electric currents that generated them.

• Courtesy Stephen Smith - From »»» https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2015/04/22/what-are-stars/