[X] My Assistant

[NGC3314]

Here is a set of images of Stardust/NExT nearing the Earth swingby, from our campus observatory 0.4m telescope. They are 4-minute exposures tracking the expected motion from the JPL Horizons ephemeris, from 0451-0539 UT on Jan 14. At a range of about 350,000 km, it was roughly 16th magnitude.

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[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust...amino_acid.html

How could somebody miss that?

Amino acid found on a comet!

[djellison]

Aug 11, 2003

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/18059

Glycine - CH2NH2COOH - is the simplest of all the 20 amino acids. Yi-Jehng Kuan of the National Taiwan Normal University and co-workers from the NASA Ames Research Center and the Polish Academy of Sciences searched for the molecule in the hot cores of three giant molecular clouds, which are regions of active star formation. They measured the spectral lines of the clouds - Sagittarius-B2, Orion-KL and W51 - over a four-year period using the 12-metre telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Arizona.

Courtesy of Nick posting at THZ.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Yes, it's indeed the simplest of all amino acids. We have two H- ligands attached to the C-atom - it's not a chiral centre. We can't talk about L- and D- types of glycine.

I will be interested to see more amino acids found on comets and asteroids - and to see if L- or D- prevail.

[djellison]

The date was the important thing. This isn't a revelation - Glycerine in space was found 5 years ago.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Oh, yes, I see your point. Not actually new, probably.

But let me correct you - it's glycine, not glycerine. Glycine is the amino acid. Glycerine is an alcohol with three -OH groups and forms esters with fatty acids - the result is fats.

glycine forms polypeptides and proteins.

[marsbug]

It's not world changing but it's still a first for comet studies, and exploring whether the glycine was inherited from the solar nebular or generated on the comet should be interesting.

[Paolo]

Stardust in safe mode over the last weekend

http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus09_q4.html

October 31, 2009—Special Report
At the start of Thursday’s DSN pass Stardust-NExT was acquired in safe mode. Analysis of the recorded data showed the spacecraft entered safe mode late Monday evening.The Attitude Knowledge Performance Monitor requested safe mode because the Star Camera failed to respond to commands issued by the processor. Also impacted were the CIDA instrument and the Sun Sensor. Both of these components were not able to communicate with the processor. The Sun Sensor returned to nominal operations during the safe mode execution and the Star Camera returned to nominal after it was power cycled as part of the response by the Safe Mode Executive. CIDA will be returned to nominal operations during our DSN pass on Monday, November 2. This safe mode was nearly identical to the Oct 2003 safe mode event. That entry was caused by a solar flare that caused communications problems with the Star Camera, Sun Sensor, CIDA and Navigation Camera. Interestingly, that same day in October 2003, the Genesis and Odyssey spacecrafts also entered safe mode due to the same solar flare. The investigation into the cause of the current event is continuing. The spacecraft team successfully exited safe mode during Saturday’s afternoon pass and returned spacecraft operations to normal.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I wonder if all these safe mode events have anything to do with the deepest solar minimum in a century and the associated large increases in Cosmic Rays??

[Paolo]

Stardust will perform the Tempel 1 targeting maneuver next 17 February. I think the correction takes into account the latest determinations of the spin period of the nucleus in order to catch the crater dug by Deep Impact during the flyby.
http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus10_q1.html

[Explorer1]

On a related note, is there some archive somewhere of NASA TV's control room footage from impact day? I've looked on both the NASA and Deep Impact sites and haven't found anything. I remember them putting that first picture of the impact up live, and all the cheering, and would like to relieve the moment!

[tedstryk]

I think they were "relieved" when they knew the impactor hit.

[Explorer1]

I think they were "relieved" when they knew the impactor hit.

Oops, I meant 'relive'.

Anyone know if those moments are saved anywhere? Since some documentaries have used control room footage from the MER landing and Cassini orbit insertion, I know they exist too. Are they publicly available?

[djellison]

Anyone know if those moments are saved anywhere?

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/vidcat.pdf

It there was video online, google would almost certainly find it.

[Explorer1]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/vidcat.pdf

It there was video online, google would almost certainly find it.

Thanks for the link.