The Future Astronauts Of America Foundation

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Liftoff! Curiosity Bound for Mars   With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rides smoke and flames as it rises from the launch pad at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:02 a.m. EST Nov. 26. Courtesy: Scott Andrews/Canon Nov. 26, 2011 Asteroid Lutetia   This image of the unusual asteroid Lutetia was taken by ESA’s Rosetta probe during its closest approach in July 2010. Lutetia, which is about 100 kilometres across, seems to be a leftover fragment of the same original material that formed the Earth, Venus and Mercury. It is now part of the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but its composition suggests that it was originally much closer to the Sun.   Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA   Faraway Eris is Pluto's Twin   Dwarf planet sized up accurately as it blocks light of faint star 26 October 2011 Astronomers have accurately measured the diameter of the faraway dwarf planet Eris for the first time by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star. This event was seen at the end of 2010 by telescopes in Chile, including the Belgian TRAPPIST telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. The observations show that Eris is an almost perfect twin of Pluto in size. ESO/L. Calçada and N. Risinger

A Closeup View of the Giant Asteroid Vesta.   In this image of Vesta, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft just shortly before the beginning of high altitude mapping orbit, north is up and the upper right corner is to the northeast. The spacecraft's distance to Vesta's center is about 420 miles (680 kilometers), and the image resolution is approximately 65 meters per pixel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered by HARPS   Richest haul of planets so far includes 16 new super-Earths 12 September 2011 Astronomers using ESO’s world-leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths, one of which orbits at the edge of the habitable zone of its star. By studying the properties of all the HARPS planets found so far, the team has found that about 40% of stars similar to the Sun have at least one planet lighter than Saturn. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser Oblique View of Warm Season Flows in Newton Crater   An image combining orbital imagery with 3-D modeling shows flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton crater. Sequences of observations recording the seasonal changes at this site and a few others with similar flows might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today. Evidence for that possible interpretation is presented in a report by McEwen et al. in the Aug. 5, 2011, edition of Science.   Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

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