Phoenix lander confirms presence of water ice on Mars

In the lower left corner of the left image, a group of lumps is visible. In the right image, the lumps have disappeared, similar to the process of evaporation. Image: NASA/JPL

For the first time ever, NASA has confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars. The Phoenix lander which landed on Mars on May 25, has confirmed to scientists that the white substance it found while digging a trench on June 15, is water ice.

“It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance,” said Peter Smith, the primary investigator for Phoenix, at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” when Phoenix’s Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench days later. Though the chunks were visible on June 16, when Phoenix looked at the trench again on June 19, some of the material appeared to have evaporated, or melted.

“This tells us we’ve got water ice within reach of the arm, which means we can continue this investigation with the tools we brought with us,” said primary investigator for Phoenix’s stereo imager, Mark Lemmon. Read on» » » »

Disable Flash Plugin Temporarily to Protect Your PC

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Nearly 20,000 websites have been attacked by unknown hackers using a technique known as an SQL injection. The hackers have inserted code to install malware onto visitors’ computers. The code exploits a newly-discovered weakness in Adobe Flash Player, a very common web-browser plugin. The attacks prompted an investigation by the Taiwanese information security industry into the source of these attacks. Read on» » » »

Play Safe on Orkut: Inapproprite Comments Could Land You in Jail

Watch what you post on Orkut. Your comments on your favourite communities, if considered inappropriate, could land you in jail. Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid, a Gurgaon lad, learnt it the hard way when he was arrested for posting obscene comments about Sonia Gandhi on the community ‘I hate Sonia Gandhi’.

Vaid was arrested under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology act. He could be jailed for five years and fined one lakh rupees. Read on» » » »

Channel 4 of the UK Launches First Ever Live Advert

The letter ‘O’ being formed in the Honda advert Image: Honda.

The first ever live advert to be shown on British television was Broadcast on Channel 4. The advert, created by car manufacturer Honda, showed people jumping from the sky and forming the individual letters of the word HONDA as a group while falling. Read on» » » »

Google: Lawsuit Against Youtube Threatens Internet

Google, the owners of YouTube, claimed in a court briefing today that the one billion dollar lawsuit against the company “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information.”

Viacom Inc. is suing Google over the 150,000 videos, for which Viacom owns the copyright, that were allegedly being shown on YouTube. Google has responded by saying that they followed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prevents companies from being prosecuted if they bring down copyrighted content as soon as they are made aware of it. Read on» » » »

NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft lands safely on Mars

Artist’s impression of Phoenix landing on Mars. Image: Corby Waste (Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA).

NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has landed safely on Mars, following a ten-month flight. Landing occurred yesterday evening at around 23:38 GMT (20:38 EDT), with confirmation being received by flight controllers around fifteen minutes later at 23:53, the communications delay due to the time taken for light and radio signals to travel from Mars back to Earth.

Phoenix was launched atop a Delta II rocket last August. It is the first Mars Scout spacecraft to be sent to explore Mars. It will search for water and complex molecules at the North Pole of Mars. It is the third spacecraft currently operating on Mars, joining the Mars Expedition Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which are currently operating on the planet’s surface. Phoenix is expected to operate on the surface of Mars for 90 Martian days, about 92 Earth days.

Scientists monitoring the landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California cheered as the news was transmitted by the spacecraft, saying it had landed safely. Read on» » » »

Signs of ancient hydrothermal vents found on Mars

Silica is present in Martian soil that the Spirit Rover unintentionally turned up. Image: NASA/JPL.

The Spirit Rover, one of two planetary rovers operated by NASA on the planet Mars, has made an important, though unintentional discovery on the red planet. A wheel which has been inoperable on the rover, has been making large gouges in the soil of Mars where ever it goes.

Scientists say they can confirm that images from the planet taken in May of 2007 at Gusev Crater, show that a white substance in the soil that was turned up as the rover moved along its path is Silicon dioxide or silica. Scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York who made the discovery, have determined it to be nearly 90 percent pure. They also say the only way for the substance to be present there is if there was an abundance of water present on the planet sometime in its past. The water would have been superheated and coming up through hydrothermal vents or even hot springs which scientists say would have been similar to ones already present at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Read on» » » »

Oil price reaches new high

At USD 135 a barrel, the price of oil today reached a new high. BBC News has reported that this recent increase is due to figures showing a large decrease in the US petroleum supply.

However, as of 20:00 UTC prices have fallen nearly two percent since yesterday and are back below USD 131. Over half of oil executives believe that the price will fall to USD 100 a barrel toward the end of the year according to an Associated Press report. Read on» » » »

See the future on Google Earth

The future may not be too far. For instance, the India of 2100 and the impact of climate change in the years between now and then, can be seen through a new navigation tool on Google Earth. The tool was added to the global satellite map-based website on Monday. Read on» » » »

A Major Security Bug Discovered in the Debian Version of OpenSSL

A major security bug was announced on May 13, 2008 in the pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) of the Debian version of OpenSSL, one of the most used cryptographic programming library.

The problem affects all the Debian-based GNU/Linux distributions, like Ubuntu and Knoppix, that was used to create SSL/TLS keys since September 17, 2006. Read on» » » »