NASA's Curiosity Rover Checks in On Mars Using Foursquare

From the Science Daily article:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2012) — NASA's Curiosity Mars rover checked in on Mars Wednesday using the mobile application Foursquare. This marks the first check-in on another planet. Users on Foursquare can keep up with Curiosity as the rover checks in at key locations and posts photos and tips, all while exploring the Red Planet.

After landing in Gale Crater last month, Curiosity began a planned 23-month mission that includes some of Mars' most intriguing scientific destinations. Curiosity is roving toward Mount Sharp, a mountain about 3 miles (5 kilometers) tall. The rover is conducting experiments along the way, seeking clues in the rocks and soil that would indicate whether Mars ever was capable of supporting microbial life. It is taking and sharing pictures of the trip."NASA is using Foursquare as a tool to share the rover's new locations while exploring Mars," said David Weaver, associate administrator for communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This will help to involve the public with the mission and give them a sense of the rover's travels through Gale Crater."

Back here on Earth, Foursquare users will be able to earn a Curiosity-themed badge on the social media platform for check-ins at locations that generate an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Available late this year, this new badge will encourage Foursquare users to explore science centers, laboratories and museums that pique scientific curiosity.

NASA has been on Foursquare since 2010 through a strategic partnership with the platform. This partnership, launched with astronaut Doug Wheelock's first-ever check-in from the International Space Station, has allowed users to connect with NASA and enabled them to explore the universe and re-discover Earth.

The partnership launched the NASA Explorer badge for Foursquare users, encouraging them to explore NASA-related locations across the country. It also included the launch of a NASA Foursquare page, where the agency provides official tips and information about the nation's space program.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission and its Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

To find out more about Mars Curiosity and NASA on Foursquare, visit: http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosityand http://www.foursquare.com/NASA

For information about NASA's partnership with Foursquare, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html

For more information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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BLACK HOLE TWINS?

Found this article on Discovery News:

From the article:

Globular star clusters like M22, located about 10,600 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, may start out with hundreds of black holes, but gravity soon slingshots all but one of them away.

Or so scientists thought.

Newly discovered radio waves coming from M22 indicate the massive cluster has at least two -- and possibly as many as 100 -- black holes, each about 10 to 20 times the mass of the sun.

"This suggests that while some black holes might be ejected from globular clusters, this process may not be as efficient as some have thought. Globular clusters might actually turn out to be good places to look for black holes, rather than poor ones," Michigan State University astronomer Jay Strader told Discovery News.

Black holes are objects so densely packed with matter that not even photons of light can escape their gravitational grip. They are found by studying their impact on orbiting partner stars and surrounding material.

Each of M22's black holes has a companion object that is being cannibalized -- not good for the objects, but fortuitous for astronomers who were able to pick up telltale radio signals of the phenomenon.

Analysis shows there may be many more stellar-mass black holes, perhaps as many as 100, lurking inside the cluster, a spherical collection of stars orbiting around the galactic center.

"That many black holes will have an effect on the structure and evolution of M22," noted astronomer Stefan Umbreit with Northwestern University.

The black holes likely would keep the cluster's core from contracting and slow the evolution of the cluster as a whole.

M22's black holes are estimated to be about 1.6 light years from one another. Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second.

Strader and his colleagues actually were hunting for larger black holes, those with 100- to 1,000 times the mass of the sun, when they stumbled upon M22's pair.

"The stellar-mass black holes we found were a surprise," Strader wrote in an email.

The research is published in this week's Nature.

Curiosity Finds Old Streambed on Mars

From the NASA Press Release:

Sept. 27, 2012: NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence -- images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels -- is the first of its kind.

"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. "Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."