SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: January 2005
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| NASA's mission to the edge of
the solar system, and beyond |
Jan 31, 2005 |
| Milky Way's super-massive black
hole was active |
Jan 31, 2005 |
| Pluto's moon created by cosmic
hit-and-run |
Jan 29, 2005 |
| Lunar probe's amazing new images |
Jan 28, 2005 |
| Dark matter clouds may float
through Earth |
Jan 27, 2005 |
| Turin shroud 'older than thought' |
Jan 27, 2005 |
| Spacewalkers find clue to station
air problems |
Jan 27, 2005 |
| Chimps have 'sense of fair play' |
Jan 26, 2005 |
| Search for life signal on Titan |
Jan 25, 2005 |
| Cosmic birth theory gets support |
Jan 25, 2005 |
| Sunspot cluster
ejects huge radiation storm |
Jan 24, 2005 |
| Young low-mass
objects are twice as heavy as predicted |
Jan 22, 2005 |
| Methane rivers
and rain shape Titan's surface |
Jan 21, 2005 |
| Image shows
Huygens landing site |
Jan 20, 2005 |
| Amazing hominid
haul in Ethiopia |
Jan 20, 2005 |
| Human Hubble
mission wins support |
Jan 19, 2005 |
| Hubble finds
infant stars in neighboring galaxy |
Jan 18, 2005 |
| Black hole's
particle jets trigger star births |
Jan 17, 2005 |
| Scientists
thrilled by bird's eye view of Titan |
Jan 16, 2005 |
| Sky surveys
reveal cosmic ripples |
Jan 16, 2005 |
| Why the Sun
seems to be 'dimming' |
Jan 16, 2005 |
| From 750m
miles away, a glimpse of a frozen, ancient Earth |
Jan 15, 2005 |
| Space probe
lands on Titan |
Jan 14, 2005 |
| Opportunity
spots curious object On Mars |
Jan 14, 2005 |
| Huygens set
for Titan encounter |
Jan 13, 2005 |
| Three largest
stars identified |
Jan 12, 2005 |
| Comet probe
prepares for lift-off |
Jan 11, 2005 |
| Iapetus moon
bulges at the sides |
Jan 10, 2005 |
| New study
shows that dark matter clumps in galaxies |
Jan 10, 2005 |
| Rats show
off language skills |
Jan 10, 2005 |
| Swift catches
first cosmic blasts |
Jan 9, 2005 |
| Nano-propellers
sent for a spin |
Jan 7, 2005 |
| Microbes brave
briny basins |
Jan 7, 2005 |
| Most powerful
eruption in the universe discovered |
Jan 6, 2005 |
| Probe passes
'moon of two halves' |
Jan 5, 2005 |
| Rover hits
one-year mark on Mars |
Jan 4, 2005 |
| NASA can't
wait to smash spacecraft |
Jan 2, 2005 |
NASA's mission to the edge of the solar
system, and beyond
(Jan 31, 2005)
Buzz Lightyear wanted to go to infinity and beyond, now the US National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) wants to venture almost
as far with a survey of the edge of the solar system. The mission
will involve launching a space laboratory and could answer some basic
questions about the nature of interstellar space, as well as laying
the groundwork for the first journey of exploration beyond our solar
system to the stars and their planets. NASA has given the go-ahead
for the Interstellar Boundary
Explorer – or IBEX – to be built. It will be launched
in 2008 from a Pegasus rocket, which will be dropped from the underbelly
of a high-altitude aircraft.
Read
more. Source: Independent |
Milky Way's super-massive black hole was
active
(Jan 31, 2005)
The center of our galaxy
has been known for years to host a black
hole, a 'super-massive' yet very quiet one. New observations with
INTEGRAL, the European
Space Agency's gamma-ray observatory, have now revealed that 350 years
ago the black hole was much more active, releasing a million times
more energy than at present. Scientists expect that it will become
active again in the future.
Read
more. Source: Spaceflight Now / ESA |
Pluto's moon created by cosmic hit-and-run
(Jan 29, 2005)
Pluto's
moon, Charon, may have
been blasted off the planet in a large collision early in the solar
system's formation, new research suggests. The process is similar
to that thought to have formed the Earth's own moon. "An impact is
the simplest way to form the Pluto-Charon pair, which makes it appealing,"
says Robin Canup, at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado,
US, who conducted the study. The object that hit Pluto probably measured
between 1600 and 2000 kilometres in diameter, and struck the planet
at a speed of 1 kilometre per second. it may have come from the Kuiper
Belt – the ring of icy rocks on the fringes of the solar
system where Pluto also resides.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Lunar probe's amazing new images
(Jan 28, 2005)
The European-built SMART-1
spacecraft has sent back its first close-up images of the Moon,
showing the cratered landscape in glorious detail. Smart-1 entered
its initial lunar orbit on 15 November 2004 and has spent the two
months since spiralling ever closer to the Moon and testing instruments.
The images provided mission scientists with confirmation that the
probe's crucial Amie camera is working. The SMART-1 team plans to
build up a full map of the lunar surface.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Dark matter clouds may float through Earth
(Jan 27, 2005)
Small clouds of dark matter pass through Earth on a regular basis,
suggest new calculations. The clouds may be remnants of the first
structures to form after the big bang and could be detected by future
space missions. Dark matter
interacts gravitationally with normal matter and appears to be seven
times more abundant in the universe. But physicists do not know what
the mysterious matter is made of or exactly how it is distributed
through space. Nonetheless, they have devised a number of hypothetical
dark matter particles that were created in the Big
Bang. These particles formed the universe's first structures,
where mysterious "quantum seeds" caused matter to clump more densely
in certain spots. Dark matter slid into these spots which grew into
structures that merged to become giant clouds – or haloes –
with millions or trillions times more mass than the Sun.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Turin shroud 'older than thought'
(Jan 27, 2005)
The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating
carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed
journal. A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests
the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old. The author dismisses
1988 carbon dating tests which concluded that the linen sheet was
a medieval fake. The shroud, which bears the faint image of a blood-covered
man, is believed by some to be Christ's burial cloth.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Spacewalkers find clue to station air
problems
(Jan 27, 2005)
A spacewalk by International
Space Station astronauts on Wednesday has revealed vents encrusted
with residue on the exterior of their orbital outpost. The residue
might explain problems that the station's air systems have experienced
in recent months. Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov reported to
ground control that he saw brown and white residues covering the vents
and that the surrounding area was like a honeycomb. "What that substance
may be is not known," says Johnson Space Center spokesman Rob Navias.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Chimps have 'sense of fair play'
(Jan 26, 2005)
Chimpanzees display a similar sense of fairness to humans, one which
is shaped by social relationships, experts claim. They found that,
like humans, chimps react to unfairness in various ways depending
on their social situation. Details of the study appear in the journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. A similar
finding has been reported in capuchin monkeys, suggesting that a sense
of fairness may have a long evolutionary history in primates.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Search for life signal on Titan
(Jan 25, 2005)
Scientists will comb data sent back from Titan
by the Huygens probe
for the chemical signature of life in a bid to identify the moon's
source of methane. Methane
is constantly destroyed by UV light so there must be a source within
Titan to replenish the atmosphere. Life is a possible – though
some think unlikely – source of this hydrocarbon along with
geological processes. The surface is too cold for biology, but microbes
could survive in an ocean within Titan, a senior scientist says.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Cosmic birth theory gets support
(Jan 25, 2005)
New meteorite data
lends support to a controversial theory that the violent explosion
of a star was involved in the creation of the Sun and its planets.
The primitive space rock contains signs that a short-lived, radioactive
form of the element chlorine may have been present in the early Solar
System. A US-Chinese team claims the most likely source of this "isotope"
was a supernova – or exploding star. The findings appear in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
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