Telescopes are perched at the tops of mountains because the air up there is thinner, drier and clearer than the view from sea level. But the best views of all are near the south pole in Antarctica, in a region called Dome C. With its high altitude, low temperatures, and crystal clear skies, Dome C boasts nearly perfect viewing conditions. A team of French astronomers are hoping to build a trio of telescopes that work together as a single, large telescope as a prototype. But they’ve got their sights set on a larger installation that could rival the capabilities of the best telescopes on Earth. It’s all about location, location, location.
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Astrophoto: M83 by Michael Sidonio
Scientists have known the universe is expanding for over eight decades. During this period, many speculated that gravity would eventually slow and halt the expansion then the universe would probably start to contract. This common view held that the universe repeatedly oscillated between Big Bang and Big Crunch. Then, in the late 1990’s, some scientists realized that the brightness of exploding stars in very remote galaxies were not following the predicted theoory. They concluded that the expansion of the universe was not decelerating. It is speeding up.
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Phoenix Lander is Coming Together
NASA’s next mission to the surface of the Red Planet is the Phoenix Mars Lander, due for launch in August 2007. This week, engineers at the Phoenix Science Operations Center at the University of Arizona began connecting science payload instruments to a mock lander to see how well the components work with each other. Phoenix will touch down onto the surface of Mars in 2008, and examine the soil for evidence of past water, and to see if the habitat has the potential to support life.
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Dione Passes in Front of Rhea
This photograph, captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, shows Saturn’s moon Dione crossing the face of Rhea. Dione is on the right, and it’s about two-thirds the size of Rhea, and it has a much smoother surface, suggesting it has been modified more recently. The image was taken on May 14, 2006 at a distance of approximately 2.7 million kilometers (1.7 million miles) from Dione.
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Fizzing Space Around the Earth
New observations from ESA’s Cluster and Double Star spacecraft have found that that space around the Earth fizzes as bubbles of superheated gas are created and popped. These bubbles are known as density holes, and they occur when gas in a region drops in density, but rises in temperature. The European spacecraft encountered these bubbles on the day-lit side of Earth at an altitude of 13-19 Earth radii. Scientists aren’t exactly sure what’s causing these bubbles, but it has something to do with the interaction between the Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind.
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NASA Announces STS-120 Crew
NASA has announced the crew of astronauts that will fly the space shuttle for mission STS-120. This mission will launch the Italian-built Node 2 connecting module to the International Space Station. The commander is Air Force Col. Pamela A. Melroy; the second woman to lead a shuttle mission. The flight mission specialists will be Scott E. Parazynski, Army Col. Douglas H. Wheelock, Navy Capt. Michael J. Foreman and Paolo A. Nespoli, a European Space Agency astronaut from Italy.
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Distant Quasars are Natural Particle Accelerators
An international team of astronomers has gathered new data that helps to explain the origins of quasar particle jets. These are enormous jets, hundreds of thousands of light-years long, emanating from the supermassive black holes at the heart of distant galaxies. They’re mysterious because the energy of particles they emit goes down across the length of the jet. This new theory proposes that the jets are emitting particles through synchrotron radiation; where the environment close to the black hole acts as a natural particle accelerator.
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Continues to Lower its Orbit
NASA’s newest visitor to the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is still in the process of shrinking its orbit, enroute to its final science orbit. When the spacecraft first arrived, its farthest point from the planet was 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles). After 11 weeks of aerobraking operations, it’s reduced this distance to about 20,000 km (12,000 miles). Controllers estimate that the spacecraft will still need to sweep through Mars atmosphere 400 more times over the next 12 weeks to complete its orbital maneuvers. Its final mapping orbit will be approximately 255 to 320 km (160 to 200 mi) above the Martian surface.
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Airship Observatories Could Give the Best View
When it comes to astronomy, large telescopes rule. But if you can get your instrument into space, you bypass the atmosphere that blurs sensitive data. Unfortunately, the cost of launching observatories into space is beyond the budget of most researchers. One possible strategy is to install powerful observatories instruments onto high altitude airships, which can float above most of obscuring atmosphere. The view from the high atmosphere is almost as good as actually being in orbit, and it can be had for a fraction of the price of flying a telescope into orbit.
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What’s Up this Week – June 19-25, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Get ready to rock as the week opens with the another stream of the Ophiuchid meteor shower and summer studies begin in the Milky Way. Venus teams with the crescent Moon and we’ll go globular as we head out to party under the stars, because….
Here’s what’s up!
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