SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: November 2004
home > space
& science news > space & science news: November 2004: 1
| 2 | 3
Europe probe arrives at the Moon
(Nov 16, 2004)
The Smart 1 lunar probe has entered into orbit around the Moon, the
first European mission to do so. "Europe has arrived at the Moon,
we're in lunar orbit," said Professor David Southwood, director of
science for the European Space Agency (Esa). On Monday, Smart 1 began
firing its ion engine to bring it into lunar orbit.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
New claim on location of Atlantis
(Nov 15, 2004)
American researchers claim to have found convincing evidence that
locates the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis off the coast of
Cyprus. The team spent six days scanning the Mediterranean sea bed
between Cyprus and Syria using sonar technology. They believe they
found evidence of massive, manmade structures beneath the ocean floor,
including two straight, 2-km (1.25 mile) long walls on a hill. They
say their discoveries match accounts of the city written by Plato.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
NASA 'scramjet' to launch on Mach 10 flight
Monday
(Nov 15, 2004)
NASA's high-risk, high-payoff Hyper-X Program is ready to attempt
its greatest challenge yet – flying a "scramjet"-powered X-43A
research vehicle at nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Officials
have set Monday for the flight, weather permitting, which will take
place in restricted U.S. Naval airspace over the Pacific Ocean northwest
of Los Angeles. This will be the last and, by far, the fastest of
three unpiloted flight tests designed to explore an intriguing alternative
to rocket power for space access vehicles.
Read
more. Source: Spaceflight Now / NASA |
New observations help Kuiper Belt lose
weight
(Nov 14, 2004)
Objects in the Kuiper Belt – the region beyond Pluto's orbit
where many comets originate – may be much smaller than astronomers
thought, according to observations made with NASA's Spitzer infrared
telescope. The objects are so far away that even the most powerful
telescopes only see them as faint specks of light. While their existence
had been inferred decades earlier, the first one was only discovered
in 1992. More than a thousand have been found since.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
SMART-1 arrives at the Moon
(Nov 13, 2004)
It's been a long trip, but Europe's first Moon mission is finally
nearing its goal. SMART-1, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA)
way back on 27 September 2003, will go into orbit around the Moon
on 15 November. In January, the craft will begin the first comprehensive
X-ray survey of the Moon's surface, giving scientists clues about
its composition and age. This geological map will help scientists
to establish exactly how the Moon formed.
Read
more. Source: Nature |
Mars moon emerges from the dark
(Nov 12, 2004)
Europe's Mars Express spacecraft has taken its most detailed image
yet of the Red Planet's largest moon, Phobos. The photo was taken
from a distance of about 200km (124 miles) from the irregular-shaped
satellite and shows the side of the object that faces Mars. Scientists
hope to explain the origin of a network of grooves that extend from
the equator to the north pole. Phobos is slowly falling down to Mars
and is expected to crash into the planet in the next few million years.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Firms look to shuttle successor
(Nov 11, 2004)
Two US firms are in discussions on forming a team that will compete
to build spacecraft able to take humans to the Moon, Mars and possibly
beyond. Boeing and Northrop Grumman have taken the first step towards
putting together a team that will bid to build Nasa's Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV). The CEV was announced by President Bush in his "Moon
to Mars" speech this year. It is likely to be based on the module
and capsule concept used by the US space agency Apollo and Gemini
missions.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Solar sail craft gets launch date
(Nov 11, 2004)
The world's first spacecraft to use a solar sail for propulsion is
set to be launched from a submerged Russian submarine on 1 March next
year. Cosmos-1 has been built by space advocacy group The Planetary
Society and will deploy eight triangular sail blades once it is in
space. Photons from sunlight will push on the spacecraft sails to
propel it on the first controlled solar sail flight. Some hope solar
sails will one day help humans travel to the stars.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Cassini discovers music of the rings
(Nov 10, 2004)
Saturn's magnificent ring system – a huge disc resembling an
old gramophone record – turns out to share another property
with the LP: it constantly emits a melodic series of musical notes.
The surprising discovery was made by radio and plasma wave detectors
on board the Cassini spacecraft as it passed over Saturn's rings during
its arrival at the planet in July. The tones are emitted as radio
waves. Don Gurnett of the University of Iowa says his team reduced
their frequencies by a factor of five to bring them into the range
of human hearing. Gurnett says he was “completely astonished" when
he heard the musical notes.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Cassini radar sees bright flow-like feature
across Titan surface
(Nov 9, 2004)
A strikingly bright, lobate feature has turned up in one of Cassini's
first radar images of Saturn's moon Titan. "It may be something that
flowed," Cassini radar team member Ralph Lorenz of the University
of Arizona said. "Or it could be something carved by erosion. It's
too early to say. "But it looks very much like it's something that
oozed across the surface. It may be some sort of 'cryovolcanic' flow,
an analog to volcanism on Earth that is not molten rock but, at Titan's
very cold temperatures, molten ice."
Read
more. Source: University of Arizona |
1 | 2 | 3
BACK TO TOP
|
You
are here:
Home
> Space & Science news
> November 2004:
1 | 2 | 3
Other news sections
Latest science news
Archeo news
Eco news
Health news
Living world news
Paleo news
Strange news
Tech news
Also on this site:
Encyclopedia of Science
Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy
and Sustainable Living
News archive
Bookshop
Contact
|
