SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: March 2006
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Mystery of Saturn's vanishing 'spokes'
illuminated
(Mar 17, 2006)
The mystery of the disappearing "spokes" in Saturn's
rings may not be because they are hard to see. New research suggests
they may not be there at all when the Sun is at a certain angle. NASA's
Voyager missions in 1980 and 1981 captured detailed images of the
peculiar radial structures, some of which stretched as far as 20,000
kilometres across Saturn's B ring. The Hubble Space Telescope has
also imaged the spokes. But the features disappeared in October 1998
and were still nowhere to be seen when NASA's Cassini probe arrived
at Saturn in 2004.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Big new reservoir of water ice suspected
under Mars
(Mar 16, 2006)
A large and previously unknown reservoir of water ice may have been
found below the surface of Mars,
new radar observations suggest. Gaping canyons and river-like channels
attest to the fact that large amounts of water once flowed on Mars.
But today most of that water has disappeared, and finding out where
it went is one of the main aims of research on the Red Planet. Scientists
are using the radar antenna onboard Europe's Mars
Express spacecraft as a divining rod to scout for any water that
may have seeped underground.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Double helix nebula revealed near Milky
Way's heart
(Mar 16, 2006)
A "double helix nebula" near the Milky Way's centre has been revealed
by the Spitzer
Space Telescope's infrared vision. "The organising feature is
a magnetic field oriented along the long axis of the helix. What has
happened is something has twisted that helix." says Mark Morris of
the University of California Los Angeles, lead author of a new study
describing the feature. Morris and his colleagues say the cause of
the twist may be a huge disc of gas, known as the circumnuclear disc,
which orbits just a few light years outside the black hole at our
galaxy's centre.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Brown dwarfs weighed directly for first
time
(Mar 16, 2006)
Astronomers have made the first direct mass measurements of brown
dwarfs by following a pair of the "failed" stars in their cosmic
dance around one another. The breakthrough could allow other suspected
brown dwarfs to be positively identified. Brown dwarfs are intermediate
objects – too large to be planets, yet too small to be stars. They
are sometimes defined as having between 13 and 75 times the mass of
Jupiter.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Solar riches survive probe crash
(Mar 15, 2006)
Scientists have been able to extract precious information from the
smashed remains of the Genesis
space capsule. The capsule, carrying captured particles blown off
the Sun, crashed into the Utah desert in 2004, after its parachute
failed. Less than half the samples are useable, but researchers have
been working hard to recover what they can. They have been presenting
their first results at a major science meeting in Houston, Texas.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Supercomputer builds a virus
(Mar 15, 2006)
One of the world's most powerful supercomputers has conjured a fleeting
moment in the life of a virus.
The researchers say the simulation is the first to capture a whole
biological organism in such intricate molecular detail. The simulation
pushes today's computing power to the limit. But it is only a first
step. In future researchers hope that bigger, longer simulations will
reveal details about how viruses invade cells and cause disease.
Read
more. Source: Nature |
NASA delays space shuttle launch
(Mar 15, 2006)
US space agency NASA has postponed its next space
shuttle mission until July at the earliest because of a faulty
fuel tank sensor. NASA said replacing the sensor would take three
weeks, meaning it could not meet its scheduled May launch window.
The US space fleet has been grounded since July last year, when insulation
foam broke off the fuel tank of the shuttle Discovery as it took off.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
'Naked super-Earth' revealed by microlensing
(Mar 14, 2006)
A chilly "super-Earth" has been spotted in the outskirts of a planetary
system 9000 light years away. It is the second known planet of its
kind, and suggests these cool worlds are astonishingly common. Around
170 extrasolar planets have been discovered so far, most of them gas
giants like Jupiter circling nearby stars. The majority have been
found because their gravity makes their parent stars wobble. The new
planet was discovered by an alternative technique called microlensing
which detects planets around much more distant stars.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
NASA and Google bring Mars to PCs everywhere
(Mar 14, 2006)
With Google's help, web surfers can now navigate from the plains of
Meridiani to the Proctor Crater Dunes on Mars
as though they were two local destinations. Arizona State University's
Mars Space Flight Facility and Google teamed up last summer to produce
Google Mars (www.google.com),
a mapping tool released Monday, which allows users to view and scroll
across the surface of the Red Planet, visiting its many landmarks.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Comets 'are born of fire and ice'
(Mar 14, 2006)
Comets
are born of fire as well as ice, the first results from the US space
agency Nasa's Stardust
mission show. In January, Stardust's sample return capsule landed
in Utah, carrying over a million tiny comet grains inside. Some of
these grains contain material that formed at extremely high temperatures,
scientists have found. This is a surprise. Comets formed in the cold,
outer-reaches of the early Solar System, and were never exposed to
such extreme heating.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
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