SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: September 2007
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Eels imitate Alien
(Sep 6, 2007)
Researchers studying one species of moray eels have uncovered a deadly
secret that helps the snake-like fish to swallow their prey. Like
the fearsome extraterrestrial from the sci-fi horror classic Alien,
these real-life beasts have a second, extendable pair of jaws –
encrusted with sharp teeth – that thrusts forward to ensnare
hapless fish and shrimp.
Read
more. Source: Nature |
Discovered: The asteroid that killed off
the dinosaurs
(Sep 5, 2007)
The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million
years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main
asteroid belt. A joint U.S.-Czech team from Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI) and Charles University in Prague suggests that the
parent object of asteroid (298) Baptistina disrupted when it was hit
by another large asteroid, creating numerous fragments that would
later create the Chicxulub
crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent Tycho
crater found on the Moon.
Read
more. Source: Southwestern Research Institute |
New Mexico spaceport design is 'out of
this world'
(Sep 5, 2007)
The world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport
will be a "green" building rising out of the desert of New Mexico,
according to plans made public on Tuesday. The designers of Spaceport
America opted for a "low-lying, organic shape" that they say will
blend into the surrounding landscape while conveying "the thrill of
space travel".
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Voyager probes celebrate 30 years
(Sep 5, 2007)
NASA's venerable Voyager
mission is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Its two probes were launched
within weeks of each other in 1977 to make a detailed study of the
outer planets. The probes were then sent on trajectories that will
eventually take them out of the Solar System and into interstellar
space. Three decades on, they continue to return data from distances
more than three times farther away than Pluto.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Black holes in feeding frenzy
(Sep 5, 2007)
Two University of Hawaii astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope
believe they have identified what makes at least some quasars
shine: the black
hole at the center of a massive galaxy with little gas of its
own is gobbling up material from a colliding gas-rich galaxy.
Read
more. Source: Spaceflight Now / Univ. of Hawaii |
World's biggest digital camera to join
asteroid search
(Sep 4, 2007)
The world's largest digital camera has been installed on a new telescope
designed to hunt for potentially
dangerous asteroids. The camera was installed on the PS1 telescope
in Maui, Hawaii, the first of four telescopes being built as part
of a project called the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response
System (Pan-STARRS).
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
'Clearest' images taken of space
(Sep 3, 2007)
A team of astronomers from the US and the UK has obtained some of
the clearest pictures of space ever taken. They were acquired using
a new adaptive
optics system which sharpens pictures taken from the Mount
Palomar Observatory in California. The images are twice as sharp
as those from Hubble Space
Telescope.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
'Swiss cheese' universe challenges dark
energy
(Sep 1, 2007)
Dark
energy may not be needed to explain why the expansion of space
appears to be speeding up. If our universe is like Swiss cheese on
large scales – with dense regions of matter and holes with little
or no matter – it could at least partly mimic the effects of
dark energy, suggests a controversial new model of the universe.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
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