SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: February 2006
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Comet dust sparks scientific intrigue
(Feb 21, 2006)
Giving a sneak peek of results to come, a top mission scientist said
flecks of material collected during the Stardust
spacecraft's seven-year journey bear the unmistakable signature of
an ancient comet, including
sulfides, crystalline silicates and probably organic compounds as
well. "We're seeing a variety of things that we know absolutely come
from a comet," University of Washington astronomer Donald Brownlee,
Stardust's principal investigator, told reporters here Monday at the
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
Read
more. Source: MSNBC |
Faint stars may supply the cosmic X-ray
fog
(Feb 21, 2006)
Millions of stars too faint to be seen are collectively responsible
for a haze of X-rays that suffuses the Milky Way galaxy, two new studies
suggest. The work avoids the problems dogging previous studies that
attributed the radiation to clouds of hot gas, but could not account
for the source of such gas. (Image: Near-infrared image of the galaxy
(color) closely matches X-ray data (contours))
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Public space travel: Building the business
case
(Feb 20, 2006)
In the last few years, personal
space travel has become a far more feasible business proposition.
But much work remains in fostering and then sustaining such an enterprise.
For one, there is need not to over-promise ticket-paying customers
about prospective space jaunts – adventure that will be costly
for the foreseeable future and far from risk-free. Meanwhile, passenger
space travel into Earth orbit may well be accelerated by a new NASA
effort to bolster the commercial orbital transportation business.
Read
more. Source: space.com |
Top stars picked in alien search
(Feb 19, 2006)
An US astronomer has drawn up a shortlist of the stars most likely
to harbour intelligent life. Scientists have been listening out for
radio signals from other solar systems in the hope of detecting civilisations
other than our own. Margaret Turnbull at the Carnegie Institution
in Washington DC looked at criteria such as the star's age and the
amount of iron in its atmosphere. Her top candidate was beta
CVn [Chara], a Sun-like star 26 light-years away.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
New fleet of private spaceships announced
(Feb 18, 2006)
The company that has already arranged for three space enthusiasts
to visit the International Space Station is building a global team
to develop a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships, dubbed Explorers.
On Friday, Space Adventures in Virginia, announced its plans to build
a $265 million spaceport in the United Arab Emirates, with prospects
for additional ports in Singapore and North America. The news comes
a day after Space Adventures announced its partnership with Prodea
and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation to create a
fleet of suborbital space vehicles for commercial purposes.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Mars rover to seek safe winter haven
(Feb 17, 2006)
While Spirit
busily studies a finely layered outcrop dubbed Home Plate, mission
planners say the rover's daily power supply is steadily dropping.
And with the Martian winter looming and dust accumulating on Spirit's
solar arrays, the team is preparing to drive Spirit to a safe haven.
The Martian winter does not officially begin until August, but Byron
Jones, rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
says the team would like to get Spirit situated on a slope called
McCool Hill, with its solar arrays tilted northward, in plenty of
time.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Iron meteorites may be solar system boomerangs
(Feb 16, 2006)
Iron meteorites thought to have originated in the asteroid
belt beyond Mars may actually have formed near Earth, a new study
reports. The work may resolve a mystery over why only a few asteroids
appear to have melted in the past and could offer researchers insights
into the composition of the Earth's interior. Iron meteorites are
made up of iron and nickel alloys and comprise about 6% of all catalogued
space rocks on Earth.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
NASA's Spitzer finds violent galaxies
smothered in 'crushed glass'
(Feb 16, 2006)
NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope has observed a rare population of colliding
galaxies whose entangled hearts are wrapped in tiny crystals resembling
crushed glass. The crystals are essentially sand, or silicate,
grains that were formed like glass, probably in the stellar equivalent
of furnaces. This is the first time silicate crystals have been detected
in a galaxy outside of our own.
Read
more. Source: NASA/JPL |
Space-elevator tether climbs a mile high
(Feb 15, 2006)
A slim cable for a space
elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling
robots to scrabble some way up and down the line. LiftPort Group,
a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April
2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the
sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced
on Monday. The company's lofty objective will sound familiar to followers
of NASA's Centennial Challenges program. The desired outcome is a
62,000-mile (99,779 km) tether that robotic lifters – powered
by laser beams from Earth – can climb, ferrying cargo, satellites
and eventually people into space.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Biggest lightning storm ever recorded
on Saturn
(Feb 15, 2006)
Scientists are tracking the strongest lighting storm ever detected
at Saturn. The storm
is larger than the continental United States, with electrical activity
1,000 times stronger than the lightning on Earth. Radio outbursts
were first detected by NASA's Cassini
spacecraft Jan. 23. The storm is about 2,175 miles wide (3,500 kilometers).
"It's really the only large storm on the whole planet," said Andrew
Ingersoll, a member of the Cassini imaging team.
Read
more. Source: space.com |
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