Sci Fi in reality

NASA in Final Preparations for Nov. 8 Asteroid Flyby
10.26.11

<img alt="Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55" title="Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55" src="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/449597main_asteroid20100429-226.jpg" align="Bottom" />
This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was generated from data taken in
April 2010 by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico. Image credit:
NASA/Cornell/Arecibo

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<img alt="Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55" title="Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55" src="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/541439main1_2005_YU55_approach-226.gif" align="Bottom" />
Animation of the trajectory for asteroid 2005 YU55 - November 8-9, 2011. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the
agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock
safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8.
Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter)
asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on
"spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.

Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will begin at 9:30 a.m.
local time (PDT) on Nov. 4, using the massive 70-meter (230-foot) Deep
Space Network antenna, and last for about two hours. The asteroid will
continue to be tracked by Goldstone for at least four hours each day
from Nov. 6 through Nov. 10. Radar observations from the Arecibo
Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico will begin on Nov. 8, the same
day the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 3:28 p.m.
PST.

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of
closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600
kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. The
gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect
on anything here on Earth, including our planet's tides or tectonic
plates. Although 2005 YU55 is in an orbit that regularly brings it to
the vicinity of Earth (and Venus and Mars), the 2011 encounter with
Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at least the last 200
years.

During tracking, scientists will use the Goldstone and Arecibo antennas
to bounce radio waves off the space rock. Radar echoes returned from
2005 YU55 will be collected and analyzed. NASA scientists hope to obtain
images of the asteroid from Goldstone as fine as about 7 feet (2
meters) per pixel. This should reveal a wealth of detail about the
asteroid's surface features, shape, dimensions and other physical
properties (see "Radar Love" - Radar Love: Asteroid Detection and Science - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

Arecibo radar observations of asteroid 2005 YU55 made in 2010 show it to
be approximately spherical in shape. It is slowly spinning, with a
rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid's surface is darker than
charcoal at optical wavelengths. Amateur astronomers who want to get a
glimpse at YU55 will need a telescope with an aperture of 6 inches (15
centimeters) or larger.

The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976,
although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next
known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing
close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The
Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard,"
discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their
orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our
planet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Near-Earth Object Program
Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

NASA's Fermi Finds Youngest Millisecond Pulsar, 100 Pulsars To-Date, 11 000 rpm ........ rofl

This image shows the on and off state
of gamma rays from pulsar J1823-3021A as seen by Fermi's Large Area
Telescope (LAT). The object pulses 183.8 times a second and has a spin
period of 5.44 milliseconds, which translates to 11,000 rpm. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration

for detail info:

NASA -
NASA's Fermi Finds Youngest Millisecond Pulsar, 100 Pulsars To-Date

edit:
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Quote from Marauder

Nah, the suiciders will just say it was gravity^^

rofl i sure for that ...

Russian Zenit-2 launches Fobos-Grunt – Battle on to save mission

A Russian Zenit-2
launch vehicle lofted Russia’s Fobos-Grunt spacecraft into orbit –
launching at 02:16 local time on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
– ahead of its sample return mission to Phobos, along with China’s
first Mars probe, Yinghuo-1. However, both of the two planned burns to
send it on its way to Mars failed, related to problems with the flight
computer. Controllers have three days to work the issue before the
mission is lost.

Phobos Mission:

The name Fobos-Grunt, “Фобос-Грунт” in Russian, means “Phobos Soil”,
although it has frequently been mistranslated as “Phobos Grunt”, even by
the Russian Space Agency, Roskosmos, itself. Yinghuo-1, “萤火” in
simplified Chinese, means “Firefly”.

Fobos-Grunt is an ambitious sample-return mission to Mars’ larger
natural satellite, Phobos. Discovered by Asaph Hall in August 1877,
Phobos has a diameter of approximately 22 kilometres, and orbits Mars
once every seven hours and forty minutes. Fobos-Grunt is the third
dedicated mission to Phobos, the previous two missions, Fobos-1 and
Fobos-2, were launched in 1988 by the Soviet Union, however both failed.

Fobos-2 did return some images, one of which formed the basis of a
conspiracy theory that the probe detected an alien spacecraft. The
theory was quickly dismissed, and has little credibility.

With
a mass of 13,500 kilograms, Fobos-Grunt is the largest planetary
spacecraft ever built in the former Soviet Union, however this mass
includes a large amount of fuel, since the spacecraft will be deployed
into low Earth orbit, and will have to perform its own injections into
heliocentric and areocentric orbits. It is the first sample return
mission to the natural satellite of another planet, and the first such
mission to be conducted by Russia.

If the mission is successful, it will be the first successful Russian
planetary exploration mission, following the loss of the Mars-96
spacecraft in a launch failure.

Fobos-Grunt is carrying 20 instruments. The Gas Analytic Package, or
GAP, will conduct gas chromatography of the soil of Phobos, and look for
organic compounds. The Manipulator Instruments Set will study the
composition if the soil through spectroscopy. A large array of other
spectrometers are also aboard the spacecraft, including a gamma-ray
spectrometer, a neutron spectrometer, an infrared spectrometer, a laser
mass spectrometer, an ionic mass spectrometer, a visible optical
spectrometer and an infrared optical spectrometer. These will study
different elements of the soil’s composition.

The
Thermal Sensor will study layers of rock, to investigate their thermal
properties. The Long Wave Penetrating Radar will be used along with a
seismometer to study the internal structure of Phobos. Two cameras are
also present, a navigation camera which will be used to aid with the
spacecraft’s landing, and for mapping, and a panoramic camera to produce
detailed images of the moon.

Six of the instruments aboard the spacecraft will be used to study
the spacecraft’s environment and Mars itself, rather than Phobos. Two
dust counters are aboard the spacecraft, with one being used to detect
micrometeoroids, and the other to study the dispersal of dust in Phobos’
orbit. The TIMM-2 spectrometer will be used to look for trace gasses in
the atmosphere of Mars, the Plasma Science Package will investigate the
effects of the Mars and Phobos and the Solar wind upon each other. The
two remaining experiments are a Solar sensor, and the Ultra-Stable
Oscillator.

Yinghuo-1 is the first Chinese mission beyond the Earth-Moon system.
It is a small spacecraft with a mass of 110 kilograms, and is expected
to operate for around a year upon reaching Mars. It carries electron and
ion analysers, a mass spectrometer, a magnetometer, a radio-occultation
sounder and two cameras. Its ionospheric experiments will be conducted
in conjunction with those aboard Fobos-Grunt.

The
cruise stage which will propel Fobos-Grunt from an initial low Earth
orbit with a perigee of 207 kilometres and an apogee of 347 kilometres
into orbit around Mars is derived from the Fregat stage. Fregat has been
used since 2000 as an upper stage for Soyuz-U, Soyuz-FG, Soyuz-2 and
Zenit rockets, and is powered by an S5.98M engine using unsymmetrical
dimethylhydrazine as propellant and nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidiser.

The launch of Fobos-Grunt is the seventy sixth launch of a Zenit
rocket, and its thirty eighth launch in a two-stage configuration.

Development of the Zenit rocket began in 1976, with a one-stage
version intended to be used as boosters on the Energia rocket, and a two
stage version, the Zenit-2, seen as a replacement for the R-7 and
Tsyklon families of rockets. After a delayed development programme due
to problems maintaining the combustion stability of the RD-170 series
engines, the Zenit-2 made its maiden flight on 13 April 1985; however
the suborbital test launch was unsuccessful.

The second launch, conducted on 21 June 1985, was successful, with
the vehicle overperforming and ending up in low Earth orbit, despite
only a suborbital flight having been planned. To date, this remains the
only recorded case of an object being accidentally placed into orbit. On
22 October 1985, the Zenit-2 made its first intentional orbital launch
carrying Kosmos 1697, a mass simulator of a Tselina-2 electronic signals
intelligence satellite.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Zenit became a
Ukrainian rocket, and as such Russia decided against mass-producing it
as a Soyuz replacement, and it was phased out of use for military
launches; however it has found some success in the commercial launch
market.

In September 1999, the first commercial launch of a Zenit rocket was
conducted, when a Zenit-2 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
carrying twelve Globalstar communications satellites. That launch was
unsuccessful, however six months later the Zenit-3SL, a three-stage
variant dedicated to commercial launches, made its maiden flight.

Operated
by Sea Launch, and launched from the Odyssey mobile platform positioned
at the equator, the Zenit-3SL consists of a Zenit-2S, a modified
version of the Zenit-2, with a modified Blok DM upper stage. To date,
thirty one Zenit-3SL launches have been made from Odyssey by Sea Launch,
the most recent occurring this September with the Atlantic Bird 7
spacecraft.

Following the initial success of Sea Launch, a subsidiary, Land
Launch, was set up to offer launches from Baikonur. The Zenit-3SLB, a
three-stage variant optimised to launch from Baikonur, made its maiden
flight in April 2008, carrying the Amos 3 satellite. Five Land Launch
missions have been conducted to date.

By 2007, the stock of original Zenit-2 rockets appeared to have been
depleted, and the last Tselina-2 satellite was launched by a new
variant, the Zenit-2M, which featured improvements developed for the Sea
Launch and Land Launch programmes, including uprated engines,
modernised guidance and computer systems, and weight reductions.

The
two-stage Zenit-2M, which is also known as the Zenit-2SB, is offered by
Land Launch as the Zenit-2SLB, however a commercial launch is yet to be
ordered or conducted. The Zenit-3F, which is also known as the
Zenit-3SLBF and the Zenit-2SB/Fregat, is an alternative three-stage
configuration which first flew in January, and incorporates a Fregat
upper stage in place of the Blok-DM used on the Zenit-3SLB. It has made
two launches so far, carrying the Elektro-L No.1 weather satellite, and
the Spektr-R astronomy satellite, into orbit.

The naming of Zenit rockets has caused some confusion, with many
configurations being known by several names, and the designations
painted on the rocket itself often not matching those used in press
releases and news articles in the leadup to the launch.

Fobos-Grunt was launched by a rocket which has been identified as a
both a Zenit-2SB and a Zenit-2FG, and which is to all intents and
purposes the second flight of the Zenit-2M configuration, albeit with a
different payload fairing and adaptor. Of the two ‘official’
designations, the former is used to identify variants of the Zenit-2S
which have been modernised and optimised for launch from Baikonur,
whilst the latter appears to refer to modifications made to the rocket
to accommodate the Fobos-Grunt spacecraft.

The Zenit which was used to launch Fobos-Grunt is the two-stage
Zenit-2SB41, with the digits ’41′ referring to the variations on the
standard Zenit-2SB configuration for this mission. The Zenit-2M
configuration with a normal payload is designated Zenit-2SB40, whilst
the configurations used as the first two stages of the three-stage
Zenit-3SLB and 3F configurations are designated the Zenit-2SB60 and
2SB80 respectively.

See Also

• LIVE: Zenit-2SB/Phobos-Grunt
• 60 Launch Vehicle Manuals (L2)
• Click here to Join L2

Based on the general flight profile for a two-stage Zenit launch to
low Earth orbit, the first stage’s single RD-171M engine ignited when
the countdown reached zero, and about 3.9 seconds later liftoff was
initiated, with the Zenit beginning its climb away from Baikonur. Ten
second after T-0, the rocket began a roll to the correct flight azimuth,
and a second later it pitched over to attain the necessary attitude for
its ascent. The roll manoeuvre was completed about 14 seconds after
ignition.

A minute into the flight, the vehicle passed through the area of
maximum dynamic pressure, and fifty three second later it reached peak
axial acceleration, at which point the RD-171M throttled down to half of
its rated thrust for nineteen seconds. Two minutes and 25 seconds after
launch, the second stage’s RD-8 vernier engine ignited. Two seconds
later, the first stage burnt out, with separation occurring a further
two seconds after that. Ignition of the RD-120 main engine of the second
stage came six seconds after staging.

Separation of the payload fairing occurred when the atmospheric
density outside the vehicle was sufficiently thin that it would not
cause damage to the spacecraft – something which varies depending upon
the payload. However, for a generic mission described in the Land Launch
Users’ Manual, separation occurs about five seconds short of five
minutes into the flight. The end of the second stage’s burn depends
entirely upon payload requirements, specifically its mass and target
orbit.

Following shutdown of the second stage main engine, the vernier may
continue to burn for some time. Once they had been shut down,
Fobos-Grunt separated, and solid rocket motors on the second stage fired
to increase the separation distance between the spent stage and the
payload.

Problem On Orbit:

Two and a half hours after launch, Fobos-Grunt was set to perform an
orbit-raising manoeuvre, prior to a second burn 126 minutes later, which
would have taken it into heliocentric orbit to begin its journey to
Mars. Both burns failed.

Believed to be related to a problem with the flight computer, which
is now understood to be in safe mode, Russian officials told Interfax
that they have three days to resolve the software issue before the
battery power on the spacecraft runs out.

If the problem is software related, controllers may be able to upload
corrective lines of code. However, if the problem is hardware related,
the mission will likely be lost.

See live coverage link for live updates.

Should The Mission Survive:

Fobos-Grunt
will take eleven months to reach Mars, performing three course
corrections along the way. Orbital insertion is planned for 9 October
next year, when the spacecraft will enter an orbit with a periareion of
about 800 kilometres, and an apoareion of around 80,000 kilometres.

Following insertion, Yinghuo-1 will separate from Fobos-Grunt and
begin its mission. By January 2013, Fobos-Grunt will be in a 10,000
kilometre circular orbit around Mars, and will enter a quasi-orbit
around Phobos in early February, before landing on the satellite later
that month. In either late February or March, the spacecraft’s return
module will lift back off from Phobos, and return to heliocentric orbit
for the journey back to Earth. It is expected to arrive at Earth in
August 2014.

The Zenit was launched from Pad 1 of Area 45 at the Baikonur
Cosmodrome. The first Zenit launch complex to be built, Pad 1 has been
used for all but two of the Zenit launches conducted from Baikonur
(excluding those launched as part of Energia rockets). The launch of
Fobos-Grunt is the forty fourth to use the pad, and the forty sixth
launch in total from Area 45, which was first used in 1985 for the
Zenit-2′s maiden flight.

Area 45 originally consisted of two pads, with the other pad, 45/2,
being first used on 22 May 1990 for the launch of Kosmos 2082, or
Tselina-2 No.9. The second and last launch from Pad 2 occurred on 4
October 1990, with Tselina-2 No.10. Following a first stage engine
failure three or five seconds after launch, the rocket fell back into
the flame trench and exploded. The explosion caused a metal structure
with a mass of 1,000 tonnes to be blown 20 metres into the air, blew
panels off the pad’s service tower, damaged lighting masts several
hundred metres away, and scattered debris within a three kilometre
radius. The pad was never rebuilt.

Wednesday’s launch is the first of two launches towards Mars during
this year’s launch window. Launch opportunities for missions to Mars
occur for about two months every 780 days, depending on the mass of the
payload and the performance of the rocket launching it. The two month
period is centred around the date at which the Earth and Mars are
positioned such that a minimum-energy transfer can be made between the
two planets. This repeats every 780 days due to the synodic period of
the two planets.

Due to construction delays, Fobos-Grunt missed the last launch
window, which occurred in late 2009, when it was expected to be
launched. The Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to launch aboard an
Atlas V rocket at the end of the month, marking the second launch of the
window.

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NASA Probe Data Show Evidence of Liquid Water on Icy Europa

Data from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of
what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North
American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa's icy
shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments
that Europa's global subsurface ocean represents a potential habitat for
life elsewhere in our solar system. The findings are published in the
scientific journal Nature.

"The data opens up some compelling possibilities," said Mary Voytek,
director of NASA's Astrobiology Program at agency headquarters in
Washington. "However, scientists worldwide will want to take a close
look at this analysis and review the data before we can fully appreciate
the implication of these results."

NASA's Galileo spacecraft, launched by the space shuttle Atlantis in
1989 to Jupiter, produced numerous discoveries and provided scientists
decades of data to analyze. Galileo studied Jupiter, which is the most
massive planet in the solar system, and some of its many moons.

Europa's "Great Lake." Scientists
speculate many more exist throughout the shallow regions of the moon's
icy shell. Image Credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel FX/Univ. of Texas at
Austin.

Thera Macula (false color) is a region
of likely active chaos production above a large liquid water lake in the
icy shell of Europa. Color indicates topographic heights relative to
background terrain. Purples and reds indicate the highest terrain. Image
Credit: Paul Schenk/NASA

Europa, as viewed from NASA’s Galileo
spacecraft. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the
horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. Image
Credit: NASA

One of the most significant discoveries was the inference of a global
salt water ocean below the surface of Europa. This ocean is deep enough
to cover the whole surface of Europa and contains more liquid water than
all of Earth's oceans combined. However, being far from the sun, the
ocean surface is completely frozen. Most scientists think this ice crust
is tens of miles thick.

"One opinion in the scientific community has been if the ice shell is
thick, that's bad for biology. That might mean the surface isn't
communicating with the underlying ocean," said Britney Schmidt, lead
author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for
Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin. "Now, we see evidence that
it's a thick ice shell that can mix vigorously and new evidence for
giant shallow lakes. That could make Europa and its ocean more
habitable."

Schmidt and her team focused on Galileo images of two roughly circular,
bumpy features on Europa's surface called chaos terrains. Based on
similar processes seen on Earth -- on ice shelves and under glaciers
overlaying volcanoes -- they developed a four-step model to explain how
the features form. The model resolves several conflicting observations.
Some seemed to suggest the ice shell is thick. Others suggest it is
thin.

This recent analysis shows the chaos features on Europa's surface may be
formed by mechanisms that involve significant exchange between the icy
shell and the underlying lake. This provides a mechanism or model for
transferring nutrients and energy between the surface and the vast
global ocean already inferred to exist below the thick ice shell. This
is thought to increase the potential for life there.

The study authors have good reason to believe their model is correct,
based on observations of Europa from Galileo and of Earth. Still,
because the inferred lakes are several miles below the surface, the only
true confirmation of their presence would come from a future spacecraft
mission designed to probe the ice shell. Such a mission was rated as
the second highest priority flagship mission by the National Research
Council's recent Planetary Science Decadal Survey and is being studied
by NASA.

"This new understanding of processes on Europa would not have been
possible without the foundation of the last 20 years of observations
over Earth's ice sheets and floating ice shelves," said Don Blankenship,
a co-author and senior research scientist at the Institute for
Geophysics, where he leads airborne radar studies of the planet's ice
sheets.

Galileo was the first spacecraft to directly measure Jupiter's
atmosphere with a probe and conduct long-term observations of the Jovian
system. The probe was the first to fly by an asteroid and discover the
moon of an asteroid. NASA extended the mission three times to take
advantage of Galileo's unique science capabilities, and it was put on a
collision course into Jupiter's atmosphere in September 2003 to
eliminate any chance of impacting Europa.

The Galileo mission was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

For images and a video animation of the findings, visit the University of Texas at Austin.

LINK:

NASA -
NASA Probe Data Show Evidence of Liquid Water on Icy Europa

OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso

UPDATE 18 November 2011

Following the OPERA collaboration's presentation at CERN on 23
September, inviting scrutiny of their neutrino time-of-flight
measurement from the broader particle physics community, the
collaboration has rechecked many aspects of its analysis and taken into
account valuable suggestions from a wide range of sources. One key test
was to repeat the measurement with very short beam pulses from CERN.
This allowed the extraction time of the protons, that ultimately lead to
the neutrino beam, to be measured more precisely.

The beam sent from CERN consisted of pulses three nanoseconds long
separated by up to 524 nanoseconds. Some 20 clean neutrino events were
measured at the Gran Sasso Laboratory, and precisely associated with the
pulse leaving CERN. This test confirms the accuracy of OPERA's timing
measurement, ruling out one potential source of systematic error. The
new measurements do not change the initial conclusion. Nevertheless, the
observed anomaly in the neutrinos' time of flight from CERN to Gran
Sasso still needs further scrutiny and independent measurement before it
can be refuted or confirmed.

On 17 November, the collaboration submitted a paper on this
measurement to the peer reviewed Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP).
This paper is also available on the Inspire website.

Geneva, 23 September 2011. The OPERA1 experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN2
730 km away at Italy’s INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, will present new
results in a seminar at CERN this afternoon at 16:00 CEST. The seminar
will be webcast at http://webcast.cern.ch.
Journalists wishing to ask questions may do so via twitter using the
hash tag #nuquestions, or via the usual CERN press office channels.

The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15000 neutrino
events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the
neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of
light, nature’s cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching
consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed
before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. This is
why the OPERA collaboration has decided to open the result to broader
scrutiny. The collaboration’s result is available on the preprint server
arxiv.org: [1109.4897] Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detector in the CNGS
beam.

The OPERA measurement is at odds with well-established laws of
nature, though science frequently progresses by overthrowing the
established paradigms. For this reason, many searches have been made for
deviations from Einstein’s theory of relativity, so far not finding any
such evidence. The strong constraints arising from these observations
makes an interpretation of the OPERA measurement in terms of
modification of Einstein’s theory unlikely, and give further strong
reason to seek new independent measurements.

“This result comes as a complete surprise,” said OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern. “After
many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any
instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While
OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking
forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this
observation.”

“When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable
result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it,
it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly
what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If
this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but
we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations.
That will require independent measurements.”

In order to perform this study, the OPERA Collaboration teamed
up with experts in metrology from CERN and other institutions to perform
a series of high precision measurements of the distance between the
source and the detector, and of the neutrinos’ time of flight. The
distance between the origin of the neutrino beam and OPERA was measured
with an uncertainty of 20 cm over the 730 km travel path. The neutrinos’
time of flight was determined with an accuracy of less than 10
nanoseconds by using sophisticated instruments including advanced GPS
systems and atomic clocks. The time response of all elements of the CNGS
beam line and of the OPERA detector has also been measured with great
precision.

"We have established synchronization between CERN and Gran
Sasso that gives us nanosecond accuracy, and we’ve measured the distance
between the two sites to 20 centimetres,” said Dario Autiero, the CNRS researcher who will give this afternoon’s seminar.
“Although our measurements have low systematic uncertainty and high
statistical accuracy, and we place great confidence in our results,
we’re looking forward to comparing them with those from other
experiments."

“The potential impact on science is too large to draw immediate conclusions or attempt physics interpretations. My first reaction is that the neutrino is still surprising us with its mysteries.” said Ereditato. “Today’s seminar is intended to invite scrutiny from the broader particle physics community.”

The OPERA experiment was inaugurated in 2006, with the main
goal of studying the rare transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos
into tau neutrinos. One first such event was observed in 2010, proving
the unique ability of the experiment in the detection of the elusive
signal of tau neutrinos.
link:
CERN Press Release
PS
I wonder whether what we observe from these neutrinos? Can neutrinos carry information? Or take information faster than light?

For the trip we needed a thrust. As you can see from 100.00.000.000.000 neutrinos only one hits the atom.