SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: February 2005
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| Newest Saturn moons given names |
Feb 28, 2005 |
| Space yacht rides to stars on
rays of sunlight |
Feb 27, 2005 |
| Ice age bacteria brought back
to life |
Feb 26, 2005 |
| Frozen sea on Mars linked to
elevated methane |
Feb 25, 2005 |
| Martian pole reveals ice age
cycles |
Feb 25, 2005 |
| Quark soup may cause cosmic flashes |
Feb 25, 2005 |
| Astronomers find star-less galaxy |
Feb 24, 2005 |
| Ancient life thrives in the deep |
Feb 24, 2005 |
| Huygens detects geological activity
on Titan |
Feb 23, 2005 |
| Fast-spinning star could test
gravitational waves |
Feb 22, 2005 |
| Mars pictures
reveal frozen sea |
Feb 21, 2005 |
| Spying on
Enceladus |
Feb 21, 2005 |
| Moon measurements
might explain away dark energy |
Feb 20, 2005 |
| Mars Express
scuppers greenhouse hopes |
Feb 19, 2005 |
| Brain-controlled
'robo-arm' hope |
Feb 19, 2005 |
| NASA sets
May shuttle launch date |
Feb 19, 2005 |
| Huge 'star-quake'
rocks Milky Way |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Rover investigates
deep-set rock |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Earth creates
powerful gamma-ray flashes |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Martian water
clues go wider and deeper |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Star Trek
fans fight to save show |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Radar details
large Titan crater |
Feb 18, 2005 |
| Black holes
bend light the 'wrong' way |
Feb 17, 2005 |
| Age of ancient
humans reassessed |
Feb 17, 2005 |
| Space tether
to send satellites soaring |
Feb 16, 2005 |
| Key to intelligence
questioned |
Feb 15, 2005 |
| Smallest extra-solar
planet found |
Feb 14, 2005 |
| Saturn's moon
is Death Star's twin |
Feb 14, 2005 |
| Europe's super-rocket
rides high |
Feb 14, 2005 |
| Expectations
ride on super-rocket |
Feb 12, 2005 |
| Fledgling
'space federation' fears over-regulation |
Feb 11, 2005 |
| Titan winds
pummelled Huygens |
Feb 10, 2005 |
| Did stardust
trigger snowball Earth? |
Feb 10, 2005 |
| Hot shot of
Saturn's 'hot spot' |
Feb 10, 2005 |
| First stellar
outcast discovered by astronomers |
Feb 9, 2005 |
| Carbon-rich
planets may boast diamond interiors |
Feb 9, 2005 |
| Astronomers
discover beginnings of 'mini' solar system |
Feb 8, 2005 |
| NASA plans
to bring down Hubble |
Feb 8, 2005 |
| Mars Express
'divining rod' to deploy |
Feb 7, 2005 |
| Greenhouse
gases could breathe life into Mars |
Feb 6, 2005 |
| Life flourishes
at crushing depth |
Feb 5, 2005 |
| Underground
search for 'God particle' |
Feb 4, 2005 |
| Countdown
to shuttle return flight |
Feb 3, 2005 |
| Birds rise
in intellectual pecking order |
Feb 1, 2005 |
Newest Saturn moons given names
(Feb 28, 2005)
Three new moons discovered around Saturn
by the Cassini spacecraft
have been given provisional names. The discoveries were made last
year, not long after Cassini had arrived in orbit around the ringed
planet. Two moons detected in August have been given the names Methone
and Pallene, while another found in October has been provisionally
named Polydeuces. Three more candidate objects are still awaiting
confirmation as moons.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Space yacht rides to stars on rays of
sunlight
(Feb 27, 2005)
A spacecraft that flies on sunbeams is about to begin its travels
across the solar system. A group of American and Russian scientists
are preparing to launch a probe with giant, wafer-thin plastic sails
that can catch sunlight just as a yacht's sails fill with wind. Cosmos-1
has been designed to tack across space without using rockets and could
form the forerunner of a network of solar observatories that would
hover over the sun to provide early warnings of disruptive magnetic
storms, or deliver instruments to remote space stations and planetary
exploration teams.
Read
more. Source: Independent |
Ice age bacteria brought back to life
(Feb 26, 2005)
A bacterium that
sat dormant in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years has been revived
by NASA scientists. Once scientists thawed the ice, the previously
undiscovered bacteria started swimming around on the microscope slide.
The researchers say it is the first new species of microbe found alive
in ancient ice. Now named Carnobacterium pleistocenium, it is thought
to have lived in the Pleistocene epoch, a time when woolly mammoths
still roamed the Earth. NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover, who led
the team, said the find bolsters the case for finding life elsewhere
in the universe, particularly given this week's news of frozen lakes
just beneath the surface of equatorial Mars.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Frozen sea on Mars linked to elevated
methane
(Feb 25, 2005)
The discovery of a frozen sea on Mars
has ignited a new debate on whether life existed on the Red Planet.
Most intriguing is the claim that the atmosphere above the frozen
ocean in the Elysium Planitia region may have elevated concentrations
of methane. If true, it could suggest that primitive micro-organisms
might even survive on Mars today, according to Jan-Peter Muller, at
University College London, and one of the team that found the frozen
sea. The team, which was led by John Murray at the Open University,
UK, analysed images taken by Europe's Mars
Express spacecraft. "If the ice is still there, then Elysium is
the most likely place to find past or present life on Mars," says
Murray. He presented the findings at the 1st Mars Express Science
Conference in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, on Monday. Immediately after
his talk, Vittorio Formisano, chief scientist for Mars Express's Planetary
Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) which measures the composition of gases
in the planet's atmosphere, commented: "Elysium Planitia is indeed
the region where we have seen the maximum of methane coming out of
the surface."
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Martian pole reveals ice age cycles
(Feb 25, 2005)
Pictures of Mars's north
pole have revealed a record of the planet's climate over the past
3 million years. The climate history is written in light and dark
bands exposed on the sides of ice cliffs. Scientists now say that
they can read these bands in the same way as climatologists on Earth
interpret cores drilled from deep-sea sediments. Sarah Milkovich and
James Head, geologists from Brown University in Rhode Island, used
a series of images from the Mars Orbiter Camera on board NASA's Mars
Global Surveyor craft.
Read
more. Source: Nature |
Quark soup may cause cosmic flashes
(Feb 25, 2005)
Intense flashes of gamma
rays in far-off galaxies might be produced by a bizarre kind of
star, consisting of phenomenally dense material in which the particles
that make up atomic nuclei have fallen apart. Two astrophysicists
have proposed that gamma-ray bursts, whose origins have foxed astronomers
for decades, might be the signatures of elusive 'quark
stars'. Scientists have speculated that these stars might exist,
but have never seen convincing evidence for them. (Image: putative
quark star RX J185635-375)
Read
more. Source: Nature |
Astronomers find star-less galaxy
(Feb 24, 2005)
Astronomers have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible
galaxy made almost entirely of dark
matter. The team, led by Cardiff University, UK, claims it is
the first such object to be detected. A dark galaxy is an area in
the Universe containing a large amount of mass that rotates like a
galaxy, but contains no stars. It was found 50 million light-years
away using radio telescopes in England and Puerto Rico.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Ancient life thrives in the deep
(Feb 24, 2005)
Our planet's murky deep sea sediments are a buzzing hotbed of life,
according to a report in Nature magazine. Scientists suggest between
60 to 70% of all bacteria
live deep beneath the surface of the Earth, far from the Sun's life-giving
rays. Some of the new bacteria identified are about 16 million years
old, surviving 400 metres below the sea bed. This hostile habitat
might be where life first evolved more than 3.8 billion years ago,
researchers believe.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Huygens detects geological activity on
Titan
(Feb 23, 2005)
The Huygens probe
that roared through Titan's
atmosphere has provided the strongest evidence yet to suggest Saturn's
giant moon is geologically active beneath its icy surface. The ratio
of carbon isotopes 12C and 13C in Titan's atmosphere, measured by
the probe's Gas Chromatograph and Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) instrument,
indicates that methane is being replenished on the freezing world.
Continuing geological activity beneath the surface is thought to be
the most likely source. The Cassini-Huygens mission has already produced
remarkable insight into the enigmatic and inhospitable moon, which
is unique among the planetary satellites in our solar system in having
its own atmosphere.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Fast-spinning star could test gravitational
waves
(Feb 22, 2005)
One of the fastest-spinning stars ever seen has been found by the
INTEGRAL spacecraft.
But researchers say the star's speed could be limited by gravitational
wave radiation – theoretical ripples in space-time.
The idea could be tested by upgraded detectors within the next few
years. The European Space Agency's INTEGRAL spacecraft, launched in
2002 to study high-energy phenomena in space, detected the star on
2 December 2004. Called IGR J00291+5934, the object appears to lie
about 9800 light years away and emits a periodic signal every 1.7
milliseconds. That is the telltale signature of a type of neutron
star called a "millisecond pulsar" – one that spins at least
100 times per second.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
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