SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: October 2005
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China astronauts blast into space
(Oct 12, 2005)
China has successfully launched its second manned spacecraft, carrying
two Chinese astronauts into orbit. The lift-off, from Jiuquan in the
Gobi desert, was shown live on state television and included views
from a camera on the outside of the craft. The mission is expected
to see the Shenzhou VI orbit the Earth for five days, during which
the astronauts will carry out experiments. It comes almost exactly
two years after China's first manned space flight.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Japan tests supersonic jet model
(Oct 10, 2005)
Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) has successfully tested
a new design for a supersonic airliner. An 11-metre (36-feet) scale
model was launched by rocket from the test site at Woomera in the
Australian desert. Officials at the aerospace agency said the test
marked a major step forward in the development of supersonic flight.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Titan's bright spot revealed by Cassini
(Oct 8, 2005)
The Cassini spacecraft has spotted the brightest area yet on Saturn's
moon, Titan - but how it formed remains a mystery. "It's the brightest
area on Titan in every wavelength we've looked at," says Jason Barnes,
at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona,
US. The bright red spot is about 400 kilometres across and lies south-east
of another bright area named Xanadu. But it is almost twice as bright
as Xanadu. "The question is why," says Barnes.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Europe ice mission lost in ocean
(Oct 8, 2005)
The European Space Agency has confirmed that its ice mission Cryosat
has been lost off the Russian coast. The satellite fell into the Arctic
Ocean minutes after lift-off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern
Russia. The £90m (135m euro) craft was designed to monitor how the
Earth's ice masses are responding to climate change. Scientists said
the crash was a "tragedy" and it would be years before they could
launch a similar mission, even if more funding were available.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Asteroid probe runs into trouble
(Oct 7, 2005)
Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft, designed to collect a sample from an
asteroid and return it to Earth, has lost the second of its three
"reaction wheels". These wheels help the probe maintain its "attitude",
or orientation, in space without needlessly expending fuel by using
thrusters to do the same job. Hayabusa has now settled in a "home
position" about 6.8km from its target, the asteroid Itokawa. It is
currently using a combination of its two chemical engines and the
last remaining reaction wheel to maintain a stable attitude.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
SpaceShipOne goes on show in US
(Oct 6, 2005)
SpaceShipOne, the only manned spacecraft to be flown by a private
company, has been hung in Washington's National Air and Space Museum.
The record-setting vehicle has been put in the museum's central gallery
next to Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis and Chuck Yeager's
Bell X-1. The donation to the famous US museum was marked by a special
ceremony.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Physicists say universe evolution favored
three and seven dimensions
(Oct 5, 2005)
Physicists who work with a concept called string theory envision our
universe as an eerie place with at least nine spatial dimensions,
six of them hidden from us, perhaps curled up in some way so they
are undetectable. The big question is why we experience the universe
in only three spatial dimensions instead of four, or six, or nine.
Two theoretical researchers from the University of Washington and
Harvard University think they might have found the answer. They believe
the way our universe started and then diluted as it expanded –
what they call the relaxation principle – favored formation
of three- and seven-dimensional realities. The one we happen to experience
has three dimensions.
Read
more. Source: University of Washington |
X-Prize man launches rocket race
(Oct 4, 2005)
Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10m X-Prize for suborbital space
travel, has brought forward his new initiative: the Rocket Racing
League. The RRL will see Grand Prix-style races between rocket planes,
flown by top pilots through a "3D trackway" just 5,000ft (1,500m)
above the ground. The first "X-Racers" will be built for the series,
but it is hoped new teams will soon enter with novel designs. Events
will be staged across the US, culminating in a final in New Mexico.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Unusual meteorite unlocks treasure trove
of secrets
(Oct 4, 2005)
An unusual meteorite that fell on a frozen lake in Canada five years
ago has led a Florida State University geochemist to a breakthrough
in understanding the origin of the chemical elements that make up
our solar system. Professor Munir Humayun of the National High Magnetic
Field Laboratory and the geological sciences department at FSU and
Alan Brandon of NASA discovered an isotopic anomaly in the rare element
osmium in primitive meteorites. The anomalous osmium was derived from
small stars with a higher neutron density than that which formed our
solar system.
Read
more. Source: Spaceflight Now/Florida State Univ. |
Moon discovered orbiting solar system's
10th planet
(Oct 3, 2005)
The newly discovered 10th planet, 2003 UB313, is looking more and
more like one of the solar system's major players. It has the heft
of a real planet (latest estimates put it at about 20 percent larger
than Pluto), a catchy code name (Xena, after the TV warrior princess),
and a Guinness Book-ish record of its own (at about 97 astronomical
units – or 9 billion miles from the sun – it is the solar
system's farthest detected object). And, astronomers from the California
Institute of Technology and their colleagues have now discovered,
it has a moon.
Read
more. Source: Spaceflight Now/CalTech |
Cosmic expansion is not to blame for expanding
waistlines
(Oct 2, 2005)
"Your waistline may be spreading but
you can't blame it on the expansion of the universe." So says Richard
Price, a physicist at the University of Texas at Brownsville, who
has worked out that while some objects are stretched by cosmological
expansion, others are not. Cosmologists have long accepted that the
universe is expanding, causing galaxies to spread apart like raisins
in a rising loaf of bread, as the space between them stretches. But
while Price was teaching a summer course, a question from a high-school
student floored him. "He asked me if, as space expands, we all get
bigger too," says Price. "I knew the standard answer was 'no', but
I couldn't explain why not."
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
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