NASA’s MESSENGER and European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft will observe Venus together on June 6, helping the scientists to view close-up images of the brightest object after the Sun and the Moon in the sky from two vantage points.

Venus Express has been going around Venus since April 11, 2006, whereas Messenger will be flying by Venus while on its way to Mercury. Not only the planet, Venus will be seen through these two spacecraft, but also many Earth-based observatories and telescopes in orbit, around the Earth will witness the planet at the same time.

MESSENGER’s (MErcury Surface Space ENvironment GEochemistry and Ranging mission) closest approach to Venus will be when it passes just 337 kilometres (210 miles) above its surface. At that point of time Venus Express will be behind Venus, but at the same time it will also be able to view many of the same regions imaged by MESSENGER. On the basis of these images scientists will compare the data gathered by the two spacecraft.

Venus Express, ESA’s first mission to Venus, was launched on Nov. 9, 2005 whereas NASA’s Messenger was launched on Aug. 3, 2004. MESSENGER will image Venus for 30 hours and then again it will focus on its final target, Mercury. It will reach Mercury in March, 2011.

According to a team of experts at NASA, Jupiter is changing its stripes, a process which can be due to the change of seasons on this giant planet.

These dramatic changes are being captured by the aging Hubble Space Telescope. The changes are due to the change in the color of the planet’s cloud bands which are turning brown from white. Scientists at the space center have also stated that this is not the first time that the planet is changing its rings.

According to these researchers Jupiter does not stay in the same color all the time and they are lucky to witness the belts and the bands change color at the same time.

Since Jupiter’s year is twelve times that as on Earth the climatic changes are also slow. The difference in the heat of the Sun as received by the planet is the main cause of this change on the surface of Jupiter and along its rings.

Since planets orbit in an elliptical orbit their distance from the sun keeps on changing which further changes the amount of heat and light received by the planets.

NASA is aiming to build an outpost on the moon by the end of 2020. The space research organization’s plan is commendable, but have they thought of all the astronauts who will have to spend months or even years on this sole natural satellite of Earth?

According to a recent study conducted by professor Chester Spell of Rutgers School of Business, the mental health of astronauts is at risk if they have to remain in solitude or a very small company of their fellow astronauts for long durations. The problem is serious since the nearest counseling session will be millions of miles from them. If we talk about the proposed manned mission to the red planet then the things seem to be much worse as there astronauts will not be able to even talk to their family members for years.

Are space agencies really prepared to tackle this problem…? I guess no because they are already busy developing technology that can be used to take humans to moon and Mars. The mental problems with astronauts is something that they should take a bit more seriously since the low gravity, extreme isolation and cramped conditions on moon will definitely show its toll on humans and if any member of the team feels down then the whole team will feel the same.

Managers at NASA and other space agencies who are planning to send humans in space for long durations should put an emphasis on social interaction among the team members and not allow anyone to remain silent or go dark, so that the missions can be cheerfully accomplished without making anyone ‘Space Sick’.

Yesterday I told you that a massive dust storm has hit the red planet and both Opportunity and Spirit are in danger. The conditions are much worse for Opportunity since the storm was approaching it at a fast pace.

To protect the rover NASA will now try and hide it in the giant Victoria crater. Opportunity will begin the descent early next month.

The descent is risky for both NASA and Opportunity and the decision to hide it can lead to disastrous results. Some scientists even fear that the crater can become the rover’s final resting place.

NASA too is aware of this risk. They fear that the rover once in might not be able to come out of the crater or might simply fail once it is inside the crater. Still the main reason for this is that the storm is so fierce that it will not die in days or weeks but can remain there for months.

Currently the rover is at “Duck Bay”, a point on the edge of the crater. According to NASA engineers this is the gentlest approach to the 800-meter-wide crater.

The rover will make descend in the first week of the next month a tentative date for the operation has not yet been decided. The rovers which are on the red planet since January 2004 are already aging. Their expected life span was a mere 90 days. But they have shown their caliber and have been doing all the good work from the last three and a half years.

During their service time they have suffered some damages. Spirit’s right front wheel stopped moving in March 2006, since then the rover just pushes itself across the dusty surface of Mars. This pushing has resulted in some breakthroughs as well as the rover continually digs soil while it moves.

NASA has been trying all ways to find life or even traces of it on the red planet. NASA has tried to find clues of life on Mars with its twin rovers that are currently operating on Mars. But unfortunately none of them has been able to find any traces of present or past life on the planet.

Now the space agency will try to find some life with its new envoy to the red planet. This Mars Lander is called Phoenix and is due to launch sometime between August 3 and August 24 from Florida. If all goes well then the Lander will reach the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008.

The three-month long mission will mainly try and find any clues of a possible microbial life on the planet. NASA wants to land the Lander at a site which is devoid of boulders and should be at a latitude equivalent to Northern Alaska on Earth. Considering the altitude and conditions on the planet, the Lander will have to complete its missions at a temperature of about minus 148 Fahrenheit or minus 100 Celsius.

This mission will now add to the latest mission of the space agency to seek a deeper understanding of Earth’s closest planet. This mission is expected to answer some questions that have been troubling astronomers for long.

If all goes according to the plan of NASA then the Lander will reach Mars in 2008 and will then wield a robotic arm 7.7 feet long. This arm can dig up to 3 feet to get a sample of the buried soil and frozen water that is thought to be present under the surface of Mars.

The Lander will then perform some experiments to let us know whether the conditions on Mars are favorable or were favorable for microbial life. Water is one of the main elements required for life and if we are able to get some samples of frozen water beneath the surface of Mars then its can help scientists determine whether the water on the planet was fit to harbor life or not.

The critical step of the whole mission is the landing of the mission on the surface of Mars. Earlier NASA used air bags to cushion the landing of Spirit and Opportunity so that they don’t suffer any damage in the landing process. However, this time the space agency will be using a “soft landing” approach, a feat that the space agency has not used in the past three decades.

The Lander will use a heat shield to slow its entry from space and then a parachute will be deployed, this will further reduce its speed to about 135 mph. The Lander will then free itself from the parachute and then fire rocket engines in the opposite direction to further slow it down to just 5.5 mph and then it will finally land on its three legs.

Storms on Mars have created all sorts of troubles for the twin rovers on the planet. These dust storms have obscured sunlight and have kept the twin rovers hungry for some power.

NASA wanted to move Opportunity into the giant Victoria Crater, a maneuver that was thought to be risky as the rover might not have made it back from the crater and would have died in the crated itself. However, the storm there was so wild that it prevented the space agency from moving the rover into the giant crater.

In just two weeks, the dust storms have covered more than 10 million square miles of the Martian Southern Hemisphere. The storm was initially troubling Opportunity more than Spirit, but things are fast reversing and now Spirit is in danger.

Storms are not the only climatic change on Mars, it also has seasons much like those on Earth because it also has an Earth-like tilt. The planet hosts clouds of ice and carbon dioxide, tornado-like dust devils, auroras and even complex jet streams. All this happens on the planet despite an atmosphere that is just 1 percent as dense as on Earth.

Mars has the same progression of season as on Earth that is summer, fall, winter and then spring. Its summers are hotter just like the tropical regions on Earth where the temperature soars to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. But its summer nights are bone-chilling since the temperature is about minus 180 degrees Fahrenheit. The reason for this drastic change in temperature is that the atmosphere on Mars is not as thick as on Earth and once night falls on the planet all the heat from the surface of Mars escapes back into space making the planet colder.

This extreme change in the temperature is a threat for all missions as it can easily weaken or even damage the solder joints in the rovers. According to researchers southern summers are the most likely period for the dust devils to strike because during this time the temperature change is the most extreme. Sun warms the cold ground in the morning and hot air rises and pulls in surrounding air and microscopic particles along with it. This is the reason for the dust storms which whips the ultra-fine dust at around 70 mph. The reason for this is that the planet does not have rains like Earth, which can settle the dust back on the ground.

Clouds also form on the red planet; however, they are not made of water vapor like on Earth but are icy clouds of carbon dioxide. These clouds are persistent above the poles where they are fed by carbon dioxide evaporating from the surface of ice caps made of the frozen gas. These clouds move around due to the changes in pressure just like Earth.

Other than being sunny and windy there are some other climatic changes on the planet which are quite similar to the changes we see on other. The only thing is that there is no water on the planet which can make things as beautiful as that on Earth. Studies have now shown that Mars once harbored oceans. So it might be possible that the planet was once as fit for life as Earth is today. We need be more lenient towards Earth because till now it is not possible for us to leave Earth and occupy some other planet, because the conditions here are the best for life and these conditions cannot be easily replicated elsewhere.