Voyager Captures Sounds of Interstellar Space

Source - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Sep 6, 2013

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft captured these sounds of interstellar space. Voyager 1's plasma wave instrument detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas, from October to November 2012 and April to May 2013.

The graphic shows the frequency of the waves, which indicate the density of the plasma. Colors indicate the intensity of the waves, or how "loud" they are. Red indicates the loudest waves and blue indicates the weakest.

The soundtrack reproduces the amplitude and frequency of the plasma waves as "heard" by Voyager 1. The waves detected by the instrument antennas can be simply amplified and played through a speaker. These frequencies are within the range heard by human ears.

Scientists noticed that each occurrence involved a rising tone. The dashed line indicates that the rising tones follow the same slope. This means a continuously increasing density.

When scientists extrapolated this line even further back in time (not shown), they deduced that Voyager 1 first encountered interstellar plasma in August 2012.

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

For more information about Voyager, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/voyager and http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov .

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Iowa

 

License: Standard YouTube License

NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins Begin Extended Mission Science - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

"PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's twin, lunar-orbiting Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft began data collection for the start of the mission's extended operations. 

At 9:28 a.m. PDT (12:28 p.m. EDT) yesterday, while the two spacecraft were 19 miles (30 kilometers) above the moon's Ocean of Storms, the Lunar Gravity Ranging System -- the mission's sole science instrument aboard both GRAIL twins -- was energized."

Click the link below to read the rest of the article:

NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins Begin Extended Mission Science - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Artist concept of GRAIL mission. Grail will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Mars in a Minute: How Hard Is It to Land Curiosity on Mars?

Source - JPLnews: June 07, 2012

Landing the Curiosity rover on Mars is the most difficult and nail-biting part of the whole mission. See just how hard it is to land on Mars in this 60-second video.

Are We Alone for 05/03/10 - Robots Call the Shots

Are We Alone - Robots Call the Shots

ENCORE Dr. Robot, I presume? Your appendix may be removed by motor-driven, scalpel-wielding mechanical hands one day. Robots are debuting in the medical field… as well as on battlefields. And they’re increasingly making important decisions – on their own. But can we teach robots right from wrong? Find out why the onslaught of silicon intelligence has prompted a new field of robo-ethics.

Plus, robo-geologists: NASA’s vision for autonomous robots in space.

Guests:

• P.W. Singer - Director of the 21^st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
• Wendell Wallach - Chair of a technology and ethics working group for Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, and the co-author of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong
• Pablo Garcia - – Principal engineer working on medical robotics at SRI International, Menlo Park, California
• Robert Anderson - Planetary geologist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Robyn Asimov - Daughter of author Isaac Asimov

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Robots_Call_the_Shots

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.