Curiosity seek traces of extraterrestrial life: "We put wheels on Mars, my God!"

 

The Curiosity robot landed on Mars on Monday to make an ambitious mission to detect any traces of extraterrestrial life, said the U.S. Space Agency (NASA) in Pasadena (California).

"Arrival confirmed," said the 05H31 GMT a member of mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, triggering a burst of celebrations.

"We put wheels on Mars. My God, "he added, after receiving the first signals that the vehicle, 900 kilos, had reached the red planet after a complex operation.

A second burst of joy came shortly after when the robot sent his first picture of startling clarity, which portrays his own shadow in the martian soil.

President Barack Obama hailed the performance of a "technological feat unprecedented."

The expedition was a risky bet, which required an investment of 2,500 million dollars.

The vehicle-robot ("rover") was released on November 26, 2011 on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral 541 (Florida). In his eight months and a half flight covered 570 million kilometers.

Among its objectives, the mission includes the search for traces of past life on the fourth planet from the sun, the closest to Earth.

Some scientists wore amulets and other invoked the spirits of the nation, as a team member who dyed her hair flying in the colors of the American flag.

In fact, less than half of the attempts made by space agencies worldwide to reach Mars have been successful since 1960.

"It's a great day for the nation (U.S.), a great day for all our partners who have material (in vehicle) and a great day for the American people," said NASA administrator, Charles Bolden.

Scientists have discovered evidence of water on Mars, indicating that some form of microbial life could have developed in the past on this planet now has a thin atmosphere, extreme winter and dust storms.

The site chosen for the decline is the Gale Crater, near Mount Sharp (5,000 m). It is one of the lowest places on Mars and convergence point of several rivers that are believed flowed from upland areas, which may contain valuable information about the past in its sedimentary layers.

Curiority, equipped with six wheels and ten-space instruments including 17 cameras, a laser capable of destroying rocks and a series of laboratory tools to analyze its composition, will also seek to collect data to prepare a future manned mission.

Its operation will be secured by a nuclear generator.

Curiosity will give "a huge step in planetary exploration," said Jon Holdren, science adviser to Obama.

The decline in the Martian soil was a complex operation, because we had to reduce the momentum of 21,243 kilometers per hour, only 2.74 kilometers per hour, through the deployment of a large parachute and spatial activation of a crane to deposit slowly the robot.

Curiosity thus joins the list of successful missions in NASA Mars as Viking 1 and 2 (1976), Pathfinder (1997), Marz Exploration Rovers (2004) and Phoenix (2008).

 

Read More

Curiosity will send data from the first moment after undergoing evaluation

 

After the explosion of joy experienced by the success of the descent of Curiosity Mars, begins checking all systems in the browser, which from the outset will begin sending data daily from the red planet.
"You take things with a lot of patience because you have to be completely sure that the environment is suitable and there is no risk to the rover. Start checking after the first data taking, "said Felipe Gomez, one of Spanish scientists involved in the project.
Gomez, who is in the Propulsion Laboratory of the U.S. space agency in Pasadena (California, USA) where he stayed three months, described the landing of Curiosity "very exciting" and "surprising" by the smoothness with which the rover has landed on Mars Gale Crater.
"The deployment is fulfilled step by step, has been a resounding success," said the scientist, the Spanish Center for Astrobiology (CAB).
Spanish technology is present in the environment at the station Curiosity (REMS) which will measure daily soil temperature, air pressure, humidity, wind and ultraviolet radiation on Mars.
The station environment is one of ten high-tech instruments are there in the mobile robot. Downloading data from the Curiosity will occur once a day and then processed and interpreted the information to plan the following day.

Read More

Curiosity can take pictures, smell, taste and pierce the Martian soil

The browser Curiosity has equipment to take pictures, smell, taste and even a laser to drill the soil of Mars, where he arrived in the early hours of Monday.
 The robot explore the environment to determine if the giant crater where it fell was once a habitable environment for microbial life.

The globetrotting six nuclear-powered wheels and includes a technology far more advanced than any other device that has landed on Mars. Among the tools carrying Curiosity is a laser that can open holes in rocks from a distance of over seven meters and identify the chemical elements inside. This strategy saves time point and shoot, as if a rock is boring, the "tourist" Mars can continue long.

His robot arm 7 meters long is an electric drill on the end that can pierce the surface rocks as well. Like a scientist in a lab, you can transfer the dust of the ground to his desk on board to unravel the minerals and "smell" in search of organic elements, considered the chemical building blocks of life.

 

What is the goal of an extraterrestrial journey if you can not see the tourist attractions? Curiosity promises to be a keen photographer carrying around a set of color cameras that can transmit 2 megapixel panoramic Earth. With YouTube fans in mind, also "packed" a video camera that will record the last minutes of his chilling descent to Mars.

Like the previous exploratory probes that preceded it, Curiosity has a weather station to measure daily temperature, pressure readings and record seasonal changes.

Even before landing, Curiosity has been doing experiments and scoured the radiation during the eight-month journey to Mars and a half. That should help NASA assess the radiation risk for future astronauts traveling long distances.

Despite being so complex, Curiosity will not be able to tell us if life ever existed on Mars early, or if there now. The one-ton vehicle is not equipped for it and their cameras are not powerful enough to see the relics fossils, if any.

Apart from their skills, engineers also equipped them with a sense of style. It has aluminum parts of 50 cm, twice the size of the wheels of rovers Spirit and Opportunity that landed in 2004 with titanium spokes and pull nails. However, it can be very equipped, but a bit slow: a top speed of 0.16 mph.

 

Read More

How to hack Apple helped icloud account of a journalist

Mat Honan, a reporter for Wired magazine, has been involved in an unfortunate situation. A hacker entered its icloud account and from there changed the account password and the email of your Gmail and Mac Ten minutes later the attacker remotely erased iPhone content of the reporter, after all he had on your iPhone and then all of your MacBook Air. All this happened because of a blunder from Apple.

Mediated only fifteen minutes from the entrance to the hacker's account of Mat Honan icloud and the elimination of all content on their devices. A few minutes also the journalist's Twitter profile was tapped.

Hanon said in a Tumblr post of how it came to that situation, which cost him a scare and not yet known whether any of the information stored can be retrieved. Alarms jumped Friday afternoon, at 4:50 PM local time, but can not say that the journalist was really worried when suddenly show your iPhone off.

A hacker had entered its icloud and from there managed to wreak havoc on different devices and online accounts associated with the platform. How could this be done with an alphanumeric password that was not repeated anywhere else? It was not a purely virtual data theft.

The attacker called Apple technical support by posing as Hanon. Using a social-engineering software being a public figure and known-could answer all the questions of safety for the operator of the company you suggested. As a reward he was given access to icloud account of the journalist.

When the false Hanon entered the online platform Apple could change the password for it, along with Gmail - the email associated recovery - and the Mac mail In just five minutes erased the contents of the iPhone, iPad and the MacBook.

What's more, the Twitter account was also accessed Hanon. Not only that but the profile on the site Gizmodo microblogging - associated time back to the account hacked - was also involved, a story that appeared in several online media.

Read More

First Nokia Phone with Windows 8 would be presented in September

Nokia continues to seek a foothold in a market of smartphones that have been planted harsh rivalries. The focus of the Finnish corporation for Windows Phone is still standing, which is why we would soon see a new smartphone with Microsoft software. According to information published on the web, Nokia would release a phone with WP8 in September.

The event would be scheduled for Nokia World, the traditional annual conference organized by the firm. The intention of the company would be that the device hits the stores before Christmas, time of year when sales soar. Consider that the release of Windows Phone 8 would be scheduled for November.

Nokia needs a successful smartphone and need it immediately. With the introduction of Lumia 900 won rave reviews, but it ended when he reported that he could not upgrade to Windows Phone 8. This decision affected all smartphones running Microsoft's operating system and caused a negative response from the public.

What the European company needs to strengthen its popularity in the United States to build an international strategy from there. Recall that during the last quarter only sold 600 000 smartphones Lumia in American territory. This figure is too low for a company wishing to compete head to head with iPhone and Android mobile vast arsenal.

There will be attentive to what happens on the 5th and 6th of September, because Nokia World 2012 could leave us very important new Windows Phone Hand 8.

Read More

WhatsApp for Windows Phone 8 appears in pictures

The popular application for Windows Phone WhatsApp suffer a "small" change to adapt to the new features in the latest version, Windows Phone Apollo 8. This is evidenced by the images found on the page official instant messaging service.

The fact disappear Marketplace has meant that users were more attentive to developments that may occur on the official website of the application. Although the application still does not appear in the app store Microsoft platform, what's new.

These developments go through the prelude to a version change to suit the requirements of Windows Phone 8. As we saw in the presentation and demonstration of Apollo, this version will propose, among all their news, an interesting renovation of the home screen. And it will come with Windows Phone 8 aesthetic and functional changes in the interface Metro will mainly affect the notifications and customization of the "tiles" that make up the body's system.

The leaked screenshots, remember on the same page of WhatsApp, reveal changes in this respect, the interface and how to notify of new messages. However, it looks forward to the final list to provide details about all changes introduced in version, including the improvement could be to share files from the hub of images and videos.

In terms of application availability for Windows Phone, the company has said it will not be long before they reset at Marketplace, which assume that the time will come when applying the supposed upgrade.

It is important to remember that not only smartphones that are submitted subsequent to the release of Windows Phone 8 will be compatible with the new features in WhatsApp. As Microsoft said, the rest of compatible devices receive OTA called Windows Phone 7.8 will include many of the improvements to the platform, except for developments that will affect the new components such as dual core processors, higher resolution screens or NFC chip, among others.

Read More

The second day of Curiosity Mars goes perfectly

The second day on Mars went smoothly for Curiosity, vehicle NASA's robotic Mars arrived on Monday, said Wednesday the space agency, adding that all antennas, communication channels and the electric generator work well.

"We now have confirmation that all antennas and communication channels of the robot work perfectly," said Jennifer Trosper, one of the managers of the mission, in a press conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (California, West USA)

"We are confident in the fact that we now have a great capacity for transmission of data across all channels, which was one of the main objectives of this first part of the mission," he added.

The mast of Curiosity, equipped with two cameras (Mastcam) that act as two large eyes, and has been deployed, said Trosper. Thus, we can obtain high definition panoramic images of 360 degrees from Thursday, the third day of the mission of the robot.

The team was also able to solve the anomaly that prevented the proper functioning of meteorological instruments.

And another good news is that nuclear electricity generator works very well and "we have more power than expected, allowing us to operate the robot longer," said Jennifer Trosper.

The thermal data show that temperatures encountered by Curiosity are less cold than they expected, without offering specifics.

The U.S. space agency has released new images of the shadow of the robot and another robot itself, taken by the mast.

A third image partially black and white panoramic north of the crater shows a vast plain covered with sediment rather low mountains in the distance.

"What most surprised to see this picture is that, to some extent, the first impression we have is that it looks like a landscape on Earth," said John Gotzinger, one of the mission scientists.

"What we can confirm by looking at the horizon is that all these materials found in this area come from the erosion of mountains by the circulating water," he said.

Curiosity is a focal point for probably formed by debris alluvial sediments transported by water, had told NASA.

"These images also indicate that the thrust of the thrusters of the ship, a sort of wheel-crane deposited the Curiosity have dug a trench two feet to reveal the bedrock," said Götzinger.

NASA has released images of the spectacular arrival of Curiosity and the aerial photos and a video of last minutes of the precipitous decline of this rover of 900 kilos, the heaviest and most sophisticated ever sent to another planet.

Curiosity is located 12 kilometers from the slopes of Sharp Mountain, 5,000 meters high, which is situated inside the huge crater Gale.

The rover must determine, over the next two years if the Martian environment was conducive to microbial life in the past.

Read More

IPhone thickness of 7.6 mm

Everything is then ready for the presentation of the next version of Apple's smartphone, iPhone 5, apparently with an event would be held this September 12. However, rumors about the product not stop spinning in cyberspace, and is now believed that the thickness of 7.6 mm would be 18% thinner than the S4 model.

According to the known site Apple.pro, the motive for the Cupertino suffer this variation due to its new type of display technology in-cell touch, and the material of the housing developed on the basis of various metal alloy, thus producing thinner layers.

Also, the iPhone 5 include a fifth row of icons of popular applications. These images allow direct access to the tools used, in order to reduce the search time to the user.

Read More