Efforts to save Russian probe Phobos Grunt ceased!

Russia's space probe that was headed for one of Mars' moons named Phobos Grunt malfunctioned on November 8 shortly after launch. The problem was with one of the probe's engine thrusters. This caused it to be stuck in Earths orbit since then. 

Last week, a signal from Phobos-Grunt was picked up by an European tracking station in Australia and since then the European Space Agency has been trying to help Russia in salvaging the lost probe.

Now, the probe wont be able to reach Mars at all, because the window of opportunity which requires the Earth and the Red Planet to be aligned in a specific way is gone, but that doesn't mean that we can just leave a $165 million piece of metal floating in our orbit. While the ESA had been sending the probe signals to boost its atmosphere, no response was given.

Today, the ESA stated that in an agreement with the probe's mission managers, the ESA will stop trying to contact the probe. Now, the ESA stated that all efforts have not been lost and that if conditions seem to change they will offer their full support once again. What seems to be extremely interesting is that since 1960, Russia has launched 18 spacecrafts towards Mars, and Phobos Grunt was supposed to be the 19th one. Out of all those missions, none have been 100% successful. Definitely something the Russians should look into in my opinion. 

Humans to get to Mars by 2030?

Charles Bolden, a NASA administrator stated that president Obama and the congress have been constantly making ambitious plans for the space agency.

Bolden says that Obama's plan challenges NASA to accomplish very big things. First, Obama expects the space agency to rendezvous with an asteroid by 2025. Secondly, and what is one of the biggest things on the agenda, Obama wants NASA to land people on the red planet, Mars, in the 2030s.

Charles Bolden also adds that low-orbit transportation will be handed off to private companies, while NASA will be focusing on inventing new technologies that will allow for better deep-space exploration, and make quieter, cleaner, and safer planes! Kind of odd that he would add that in a statement about deep-space exploration, but the safer the better.

NASA's Curiosity to launch on November 26

NASA's new rover called Curiosity will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force station located in Florida.
Curiosity's destination and mission objective? It's supposed to land inside the Gale crater on planet Mars. There, it will look for signs on whether Mars' environment was ever suitable for microbial life.

Source: NASA

Much longer and also much heavier than its two predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity weighs in at 900kg and is 3 feet long. It boasts ten scientific tools that all together weigh 15 times more than Spirit or Opportunity's scientific tools.
Curiosity is supposed to get to Mars in August of next year, after a long and treacherous 8 month journey through our solar system. 

There Was The Fifth Giant Planet In Our Solar System?

Astronomer David Nesvorny of Southwest Research Institute from Texas believes that our solar system may have had a fifth planet once near Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. He believes that this planet was designed in the depths of our galaxy in a moment of cosmic disorder. After carefully studying the Kuiper Belt and craters from the Moon, Nesvorny concluded that about 600 millions years ago in the life of our solar system unstable orbit dynamics appeared that affected giant planets and made smaller celestial objects scatter. So, some of them moved in the Kuiper Belt and others moved on the inside of the galaxy.There also existed an impact with the Moon and other planets. If things would have been like that, then changes in the orbit of Jupiter would have had devastating effect on large and small planets like the Earth, the last one being able to collide with Mars or Venus.

So, something was wrong. "My colleagues have suggested another way to solve this problem", said Nesvory in a press conference.

It was assumed that Jupiter's orbit could change very quickly and not too slowly. But it didn't solve the problem because all the computer simulations performed have shown that sudden change of Jupiter's orbit would have made the planets Uranus and Neptune to be expelled from our solar system. So, probably in our solar system there was a fifth giant planet. Introducing another giant planet with a mass similar to that of Uranus or Neptune made perfect computer simulations that is the result of today's solar system as we know it. With Jupiter remaining in his place the inner planets remained unaffected and the outer planets remained behind.

"The possibility that our solar system had more than four giant planets in the beginning and then some of them were ejected seem to be feasible conditions because recently scientists discovered a large number of free floating planets in interstellar space indicating that the process of ejection of planets is one that is currently happening", said Nesvorny.

Therefore, is this scenario were true this fifth planet could be Planet X?

Martian 'Tree Stump' Stuns The Scientific World

A photograph made ​​by NASA scientists during the mission on Mars in 2004, that was recently published, sparked a fierce controversy and dispute among scientists. The image shows a formation that looks strikingly like a tree trunk which - yet again - brings into question the existence of past or present life on Mars.

The discovery ignited the spirits of conspiracy theorists who said they were convinced that NASA hides the truth about the Mars mission from the public. Most of them are convinced that life flourished on the Red Planet as it did on Earth and that, for unknown reasons, the U.S. space agency and the U.S. government deliberately hides such information.

Scientists from NASA said that it's just an interpretation in which specific people associate images of unknown objects with ones they have in memory. They say that the "tree" on Mars is nothing but a rock formation with a form that is unusual. Researchers have emphasized that one of the vital elements of life, water, has been discovered on Mars even if it exists exclusively in the form of ice.

"I found two elements that could support life on Mars or are likely to sustain it in the future: water and nutrients from the soil. There was, however, no evidence of the existence of any plant or other living things." said Sam Kounaves, one of the researchers involved in the latest NASA space mission to Mars.